The end of Disney+'s Loki Season 2 left Jonathan Majors' He Who Remains' true fate up in the air, leaving many fans to wonder if the Kang the Conqueror Variant is dead, or if he will return to the MCU in the future.
Season 2 of Loki took the concept of time and the Multiverse and ran with it, featuring time loops and paradoxes throughout its six episodes, but the ending seemed to ultimately raise some questions regarding what happened to He Who Remains.
Is He Who Remains Dead?
The Season 1 finale of Loki showcased Sylvie killing He Who Remains in the Citadel at the End of Time, which caused different timelines to branch and begin to undo all of the work that He Who Remains dedicated his life to for so long.
However, He Who Remains did appear in Season 2 of Loki, despite being killed in Season 1.
In the Season 2 finale, Loki time-slipped to the point in time where Sylvie was trying to kill He Who Remains at the End of Time.
Every time that Loki would try to stop her from killing him, she would tell him that the only way that could happen would be if he killed her instead. He couldn't bring himself to do it, so she would end up killing He Who Remains.
This caused Loki to continuously travel back in time over and over again to try to figure out a way to keep He Who Remains alive without killing Sylvie.
However, during one attempt, He Who Remains paused time and sat down and talked with Loki.
During this conversation, He Who Remains explained the Temporal Loom was "a failsafe" to protect the Sacred Timeline and that the destruction of the TVA was just "collateral damage."
He Who Remains then gave Loki an ultimatum. He could either kill Sylvie which would spare He Who Remains and thus the Multiverse would be kept in check and the TVA would remain intact, or he could let the events play out as they did, destroy the Temporal Loom, and watch as everything, including the Sacred Timeline, is destroyed.
However, Loki vowed to find a different way, and by the end of the episode he did just that, ultimately becoming God Loki.
That being said, Loki never actually stopped Sylvie from killing He Who Remains (which is what the Kang Variant wanted), which means that the character, is in fact, truly dead at the end of Season 2.
It is important to remember that even though He Who Remains appeared in Season 2, it was because Loki went back in time.
If Loki had killed Sylvie when he time-slipped back to that moment, then He Who Remains would be alive in the present timeline, but since he didn't kill her, there's no way for him to be alive.
What About Victor Timely?
At one point in Loki Season 2, it was revealed that Ravonna Renslayer gave a TVA Guidebook to Victor Timely in the 1860s, which ultimately led to him creating prototypes of the Temporal Loom.
However, after Loki essentially freed the Multiverse in the Season 2 finale, an extremely short scene featured a young Victor Timely working on his candles back in the 1800s.
Although the sequence was just a few seconds long, it was rather important, as it confirmed that that version of Timely never received a TVA Guidebook, meaning that the series of events that transpired because he was given one will never happen.
However, there is still the version of Timely that is still at the TVA at the end of Season 2. It was ultimately shown that Timely worked closely with OB to create a new second edition of the TVA Guidebook.
This teased that Timely will no longer be a threat moving forward to become He Who Remains. Because of everything that happened at the end of Season 2 and Loki taking He Who Remains' place, it is safe to assume that Timely will never actually become He Who Remains and take his throne back from Loki.
Are There Other Versions of He Who Remains?
There is a theory in the real world that an infinite number of universes exist which ultimately means there are an infinite number of versions of every single person that has ever lived.
The theory even goes as far as to say that, since there are an endless number, there are some versions of people out there that are identical in every single way. Multiple versions of the same person do the same things down to every eye movement, every twitch, and every thought.
If that theory were to be applied to the MCU, then it is a guarantee that there are an infinite number of Kang the Conqueror Variants that act as a He Who Remains, just as there are an infinite number of Kang Variants that are the same as Victor Timely and every other Variant of the character.
Since the Multiverse is, in fact, infinite in the MCU, then there has to be other versions of He Who Remains out there somewhere. Likely, none of them will ever be seen in the MCU, but it is worth noting that they are likely out there.
So, while the version of He Who Remains in Loki does seem to be truly dead, it is fun to think about there being an infinite number of He Who Remains out there at different points in the universe, and even more fun to think about how some versions of Loki made different decisions than the MCU Loki did and are likely beside their respective versions of He Who Remains.
Loki is available to stream on Disney+.
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