Sylvie (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Sylvie Laufeydottir (born Loki Laufeydottir) is a fictional character portrayed by Sophia Di Martino in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise, partially based on the characters Lady Loki and Sylvie Lushton's Enchantress from the Marvel Comics. She is an alternate version of Loki who helps him fight to overthrow the Time Variance Authority (TVA). She hopes to destroy the TVA and He Who Remains for stealing away her life, viewing herself as an agent of the universe itself. She is later forced to ally with a variant of Loki from 2012.

Di Martino has appeared as the character in Loki (2021–2023). Her portrayal was received positively among critics and fans despite initial confusion over her identity. For her performance as Sylvie, Di Martino received several awards and nominations.

Concept and creation
Sylvie is an original character created for the MCU with inspiration taken from Lady Loki, a female form of the original Loki who debuted in Thor Vol. 2 #80 following the Ragnarok event, and Sylvie Lushton, the second iteration of the Enchantress introduced in Dark Reign: Young Avengers #1. In the comics, Lushton is a girl from Broxton, Oklahoma who receives magical powers granted to her when Asgardians took over her home. Later, she became a temporary member of the Young Avengers and so-called "Goddess of Mischief", a moniker that the show adapted onto Sylvie. Fatherly summed up the character as: "While the comics imply that some version of Loki created Sylvie, they are not the same character. What the Loki series has done is seemingly combined the character of Sylvie and Lady Loki into a new person: a Loki Variant who uses the alias 'Sylvie.'"

Casting
Di Martino auditioned for the role with Hiddleston under the false names "Bob" and "Sarah", and it wasn't until afterwards that she was told which role she was playing. She was ultimately cast in November 2019 with reports indicating that she was playing a female version of Loki in some shape or form. According to Di Martino, it was important to make the character unique and original while retaining the important aspects of Loki's personality. Herron pitched the character as "a brand new backstory in a brand new story" with her physicality and mannerisms similar to Hiddleston's Loki. Herron wanted Di Martino cast in the role because the way she "has this fire in her and she brings this amazing vulnerability to all her characters," using her to help craft Sylvie as an alternate Loki who can hold her own without taking the attention away from her alternate counterpart. Hiddleston expressed excitement for Di Martino taking the role, commenting: "I cannot wait for audiences to see Sophia in this...she has mischief, playfulness, maybe a little bit of interior fragmentation and some broken emotions...but [she is] so committed and she made it completely her own [with] her own preparation and research and it was such a fun dynamic." Hiddleston furthered his comments by saying: "I think for Loki, it'd be quite destabilizing" at meeting an alternate version of himself.

Characterization
Creator Michael Waldron's intent with Sylvie was to have her play a role in Loki's self-actualization and redemption from the villainous depiction in previous movies with Waldron commenting that "in meeting Sylvie and having a mirror held up to him, for the first time he feels [affection] about himself...in Sylvie, he sees things to admire in himself." In the show, Sylvie is Loki's love interest, an idea formed in the earliest pitches of the show from Waldron, who wanted his reluctant relationship with her to develop his character in "the hope that maybe that it's also about him learning to forgive himself." Waldron also added: "Sophia is amazing such a tremendous actress... I guess, you know what makes her a great foil for Tom...[is seen throughout]." To misgivings about the romance between Loki and Sylvie, Hiddleston praised that character thread by explaining: "I don't think Loki's relationship with himself has been very healthy...it was satisfying to see him face aspects he's on the run from...also, Sylvie's not Loki. Sylvie is Sylvie. That's interesting, too." Herron also found her being his romantic interest to be unique: "...[there's] kind of fun thing about it. She is him, but she's not him. They've had such different life experiences. So just from an identity perspective, it was interesting to dig into that." She added: "The look that they share, that moment, [it started as] a blossoming friendship. Then for the first time, they both feel that twinge of, 'Oh, could this be something more? What is this I'm feeling?' "

Rachel Paige of Marvel.com defined Sylvie as being "incredibly guarded with tall walls built up around her to protect herself from everything—both physical fights and feelings." The character's arc sought to break down these walls while maintaining a focus on revenge against the TVA trumped all other aspects of her development. Di Martino noted the ultimate sadness of the character in the final moments of the season one finale "For All Time. Always.: "She kills him, she's just completely unfulfilled. It didn't do what she wanted to do...she doesn't feel that relief." According to Herron, Sylvie is driven by revenge, pain, and anger, a counterpart to Loki in Thor (2011). Of her arc in season one, she commented: "Loki tells her, 'You're not going to get what you want.' But she's not there yet. On her journey of self-healing, she's not where he is." Despite this, Herron stated her feelings, captured in the kiss between her and Loki, were genuine but her other feelings overtook it, leading to her betrayal and will to take down the TVA once and for all: "I think she definitely cares about him but I always interpret the kiss as a goodbye. I don't think it's necessarily a complete trick and I don't think her feelings were a trick." Di Martino, commenting on the season one finale, found that "for Sylvie, she's just on a revenge mission" due to "having her life...ruined, [taken away from her], this sort of anger. And if you want to think of it in these terms, her 'glorious purpose'" adding that she is "hell-bent" on her mission throughout the series.

Like Loki, she is bisexual, an aspect Herron and Di Martino found to be important for representation and to honor the Norse mythology of the character. Many news outlets including the Los Angeles Times noted the way this inclusion mimics the comics, finding the detail "a big step for the MCU, which has for years been called out for its abysmal track record when it comes to LGBTQ inclusion".

Origins
Loki was born a Frost Giant and abandoned as an infant by her father Laufey. While emulating a rescue of Asgard while playing with her toys, Loki is arrested by Ravonna Renslayer on behalf of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) as a child for "crimes against the Sacred Timeline". She is brought into the TVA headquarters and into the courtroom, where she steals Renslayer's TemPad and escapes the TVA through a Timedoor. Over the following centuries, Loki learns to hide herself from the TVA, adopting the alias "Sylvie" and developing a method of body possession, dubbed 'Enchantment', to achieve her ends.

Bombing the Sacred Timeline
Sylvie kills several units of TVA Minutemen, such as in 1858 Oklahoma, and steals their reset charges.

She travels to 2050 Alabama and is tracked down by another variant of herself during a hurricane there, where, upon rejecting his offer to work together to overthrow the Time-Keepers and revealing herself to him, she executes her scheme; teleporting the charges she stole to various locations across the timelines, causing branches to form on the Sacred Timeline to distract the TVA so that she can assassinate the Time-Keepers. She teleports away to the TVA headquarters via a Time Door.

Lamentis-1 and bonding with Loki
Sylvie and Loki are confronted by Renslayer. As Sylvie threatens to kill Loki, Loki uses a TemPad to teleport them to the moon Lamentis-1 in 2077 while it is being destroyed by a falling planet. After learning the TemPad needs to be charged for them to use it, Sylvie and Loki join forces to escape the moon, masquerading as a guard and his prisoner to get onto an evacuation train, where Sylvie and Loki bond over drinks and the differences in their pasts. After being discovered and thrown off the train, Loki accidentally breaks the TemPad. Sylvie and Loki plan to instead hijack the evacuation ship, which according to the "Sacred Timeline" will be destroyed before leaving the moon, only to fail. Loki learns from Sylvie that everyone in the TVA are variants hunting other variants, to which Loki reveals to Sylvie that the majority of variants working for the TVA, including Mobius M. Mobius and Hunter B-15, are unaware that they themselves are variants.

Confronting the Time-Keepers
With the TemPad broken, Sylvie and Loki come to peace at their impending deaths. After the pair form a romantic bond which spawns a Nexus Event perpendicular to the Sacred Timeline, they are arrested by the TVA, with Hunter B-15 secretly taking Sylvie to RoxxCart in 2050 to learn the truth about herself and her life before the TVA. Loki and Sylvie are taken to the Time-Keepers, accompanied by Renslayer and a group of Minutemen. Hunter B-15 intervenes, freeing them of their collars, and in the ensuing fight, the Minutemen are killed whilst Renslayer is knocked unconscious by Sylvie. Sylvie then beheads one of the Time-Keepers, who turn out to all be androids. Renslayer regains her consciousness and prunes Loki.

The Void
Sylvie demands the truth from Renslayer, who is just as unaware of the creation of the TVA as she is. Renslayer and Miss Minutes tell her that Loki was not killed but sent to the Void at the End of Time when he was pruned, leading Sylvie to deduce that whoever is beyond the Void is the actual creator of the TVA. After Minutemen arrive to capture her, she prunes herself and reunites with Mobius, who takes her to Loki and other variants of herself in order to make a plan to escape Alioth, a monstrous cloud-like entity which consumes matter. She and Loki combine their powers to enchant Alioth while Classic Loki buys time by distracting the creature, sacrificing himself in the process. Loki and Sylvie successfully subdue Alioth and move past the Void. Noticing a citadel in the distance, the pair walk towards it.

Confronting He Who Remains
Upon entering the Citadel at the End of Time, Loki and Sylvie encounter Miss Minutes, who was directly created by the TVA's creator. She offers them a chance to escape by arranging a deal that would allow them to be placed back on the timeline and live a life where all their desires are fulfilled. They decline her offer, realizing that is destiny that brought them to the end of time. They meet the real creator of the TVA, a man named "He Who Remains" who cannot be killed by Sylvie's efforts because he knows everything that will happen in the future. He reveals the true history of the TVA and it ended the multiversal war waged by his infinite variants. Sylvie tries to kill him but is stopped by Loki, who pleads with her to reason, but she cannot trust what either says and fights Loki. However, she kisses him and acknowledges their romantic connection, but takes He Who Remains' TemPad and pushes Loki through a Timedoor. In order to enact vengeance for all the suffering the TVA brought upon her and believing He Who Remains to be feinting them, Sylvie kills him, who tells her that he would "see her soon". Realizing that He Who Remains was not lying about what he warned, she watches in anguish as the timeline branches and a multiverse is formed.

Retreating to Broxton
Sylvie walks through a Timedoor into a branched timeline in 1982 Broxton, Oklahoma and decides to visit a McDonald's restaurant.

Sylvie begins working at the McDonald's and makes a life for herself on the branched timeline. Working at the cashier one day, she is met by Loki, Mobius, and Brad Wolfe who arrive to speak with her. Loki tells Sylvie that the TVA is in danger and that he saw her in the TVA's future, asking for her help to figure out what happened, but Sylvie is happy with her new life and wants nothing to do with the TVA. Wolfe proclaims that they are all in mortal danger, so Sylvie enchants him, revealing TVA General Dox's actual plan to simultaneously bomb and prune all the branched timelines. Loki, Mobius, and Sylvie travel to Dox's location and launch an attack to stop her ongoing operation, but most of the branched timelines were destroyed by then, via reset charges and modified TemPads. Sylvie follows Loki through a Timedoor into TVA headquarters and declares that the TVA is rotten for failing to defend the branched timelines. She leaves through a Timedoor back to Broxton.

Returning to Loki
Sylvie uses He Who Remains' TemPad to locate Loki and goes to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. She confronts He Who Remains' variant, Victor Timely and prepares to kill him on the Ferris wheel, but is again stopped by Loki. Sylvie uses her magic to blast Loki and Timely away as Miss Minutes enlarges herself to scare off the crowds creating chaos. Sylvie finds Loki, Mobius, Renslayer, and Timely at Timely's Wisconsin laboratory. Sylvie blasts them all back and prepares to kill Timely, but is talked out of it after realizing she would be hypocritical of her own self for not allowing free will. She confronts Renslayer and kicks her into a Timedoor to the Citadel.

Sylvie returns to TVA headquarters and meets with Loki, Mobius, B-15, Casey, and Ouroboros "O. B." as the Temporal Loom reaches critical. In the midst of the group's attempts to fix the Loom, Miss Minutes blocks their efforts, causing Sylvie to get trapped in an elevator. When she gets it open, she encounters a past version of Loki who gets pruned by Loki, to her confusion. After O. B. takes Miss Minutes off-line, Sylvie is able to enchant Wolfe and prunes Renslayer. Sylvie and the others watch Timely as he goes to put the Multiplier in, but the temporal radiation spaghettifies him instantly. The Loom explodes sending a blast wave towards the TVA.

Will to Fight
Sylvie went back to Broxton and continued her work at McDonald's. After she was done with her shift, she went to her truck and found Loki, who asked if she remembered him, and seeing him time-slipping for the first time. She takes him to a bar and gets Loki to admit that his true motivation in saving the TVA is fear of losing his friends and being alone. Sylvie encourages Loki to write his own story like everyone else. Later, Sylvie goes to a music record store where she greets the employee and sits to listen to music, but soon sees that her universe is dissolving and spaghettifying. She evacuates through a Timedoor and locates Loki in O.B.'s variant A.D. Doug's universe, telling him that they need the TVA because everything is falling apart. She and the variants of Mobius, B-15, O.B, and Casey then spaghettify away as that universe dies.

Through Loki's time-slipping, Sylvie returns several times and gets confused at how he is acting. At the TVA control room, she realizes that she was to blame as her actions in killing He Who Remains is causing the multiverse to die. Back in Doug's universe, she tells Loki everything is falling apart again, but he pauses time and tells her that Temporal Loom is a failsafe designed to protect the Sacred Timeline and she states that everything is her fault since she killed He Who Remains. She realizes that she has to be killed in order to prevent what is happening, but Loki refuses. She states that despite the looming multiversal war coming, she believes that she, along with everyone else should have a chance and be able to fight in the war.

Back in the TVA control room, Sylvie and the others watch on as Loki breaks the Loom and uses his magic to save the branched universes, while a rift opens taking him to the remains of the Citadel at the End of Time. They watch as he rearranges the multiverse into Yggdrasil. Sylvie states that he gave them all a chance. Sometime later, she goes to Earth-616's 2022 Cleveland and finds Mobius there looking at his main counterpart's life, before stating she did not know what she would do.

Appearance
Di Martino, Herron, costume designer Christine Wada and hair designer Amy Wood designed her look to be as practical as possible while acknowledging the character's life being a "dirty job" so as to stray away from stereotypical feminine costumes in film such as high heels. The look was meant to reflect that "this character [being] on the run... [is] not a comfortable existence" according to Di Martino and exhibited that through her initial disheveled appearance. Her helmet's broken horn, inspired by Lady Loki's headpiece in the comics, illustrated how rough her life had been and how she is practically "broken" inside. Because Di Martino had recently given birth, her costume was given hidden zippers so she could nurse her baby between takes. Of this, Martino said: "Little (big) things like this that made it possible for me to do my job & be a parent...[I'm] forever grateful" and that '...it was just the little things and it's just saved a lot of time. Practically, it was a godsend."

Di Martino said she and Hiddleston found ways to incorporate her native accent to contrast with Loki's while keeping the Asgardian accent. She said, "Little things like keeping more of my regional accent, and not trying to sound too posh or too well spoken [were incorporated] because it just wouldn't suit the experience that Sylvie's had."

Critical response
The character was received positively among critics and fans despite initial misgivings due to confusion over her identity. In a review of "Lamentis", Nola Pfau took note of how "Sylvie has given up a lot on this path...her insistence on not being called a Loki is interesting", adding that it paints "the picture of a person who knows herself, despite what or who others may think she is...she has had to fight just to live as herself" and called her tragic but also likable. Writing for IGN, Simon Cardy wrote that Di Martino "play[ed the role] beautifully, bringing a touching sense of humanity" in a scene between her and Hiddleston in "Journey into Mystery". Lauren Puckett-Pope of Elle wrote, "Sylvie, like the love for which she waxes poetic, is complicated." Empire wrote that the character was "an instant new favourite". Time's Eliana Dockterman deemed Sylvie a "nuanced and compelling" character, adding that "it will be a real bummer if everything that goes wrong in the MCU for the next decade will be 'Sylvie's fault'" because of her actions in the Loki episode "For All Time. Always.". Simon Cardy of IGN wrote that Sylvie's choice in the episode "makes complete sense for her character development," while Rolling Stone wrote that she was driven by revenge. Brady Langmann of Esquire opined that Di Martino's turn as Sylvie "has already blown far past many of Marvel's depictions of women."

The character was also popular among fans, with Di Martino being number one on IMDb's "STARmeter" during season one's airing. Screen Rant wrote that this was "a real testament to how Marvel can cast a relatively unknown actor and launch them into immediate stardom by way of the MCU". Deseret News wrote that Sylvie was the "MVP" of the show because she "did more than any other character in this show" and "drove most of the story. She was the one who wanted to bring down the Time Variance Authority and end the Sacred Timeline. She wanted to create free will. And she got all of that done."

Relationship with Loki
Critics were intrigued by Sylvie's relationship with Loki. Waldron wrote that it was necessary to further their character development and self-love. BBC Culture critic Stephen Kelly called the relationship "some of the most perverse fan fiction the internet has ever seen" when speculating on the future of the show in a review of "The Variant". Christian P. Haines, a philosopher and assistant English professor at Penn State University, discussed with Gizmodo the implications of the romance, saying that "the question is less, 'does this count as incest', and more 'what would happen if this really basic social rule were loosened?...Would chaos roil the multiverse? Or, would things be pretty much the same, except we wouldn't take for granted even the most basic social and cultural rules? That strikes me as a very Loki proposition: not revolution, really, more an acerbic irony that undermines self-serious assumptions about human nature or what it means to be 'civilized.' " Haines said people "get excited by the transgression this represents" but heaped praise on the exploration of self. Andi Ortiz of TheWrap wrote that the relationship would be "a little hard to make it work long term" but praised it and Hiddleston and Di Martino's performances: "Loki and Sylvie have...been through a lot... they shared secrets and bared their souls to one another. And clearly, Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino have the right chemistry as actors."

Video games

 * Sylvie Laufeydottir appears as a playable character in Marvel: Future Fight (2015) and Marvel Strike Force (2018).

Merchandise

 * In 2022, Hasbro released a Sylvie Laufeydottir action figure based on Loki as part of the Marvel Legends action figure line.