*Spoilers.*
Loki has always been an interesting character, and a big part of that has always been how he interacts with other characters. Naturally, as the god of mischief, he’s a master manipulator, and so he’s long displayed a talent for getting under people’s skin and/or betraying them, but that’s what makes it so compelling when a character comes along who gets past his defenses.
When Loki is picked up by the TVA, Judge Renslayer is ready to prune him then and there, but Mobius steps in to offer a potential stay of execution. The agency is already dealing with another rogue Loki variant that’s causing a lot more trouble for them than this one, and he figures, who better to hunt a Loki than a Loki? He persuades Renslayer to let him take a crack at “our” Loki, to see if he can get the trickster aligned to their cause, at least temporarily to neutralize the other variant.
Part of this is practical, but it’s personal too. Mobius is something of a connoisseur of Lokis – he’s studied the Jotun-Asgardian extensively and has dealt with multiple variants before, and as this one is delivered to the time theater, Mobius enjoys flaunting his knowledge of Loki’s timeline, showing this Loki events of his past and what’s meant to be his future (ergo, the reason this Loki is there in the first place: if he strays from his path on the Sacred Timeline, he can’t fulfill his ultimate destiny.)
The two are well-matched because they both variously taunt, underestimate, and are intrigued by one another. While Loki is freshly-acquired prisoner of the TVA, it’s easy for Mobius to have the upper hand, showing Loki images of his fate as he chuckles over Loki’s “glorious purpose.” But as time goes on, the shoe switches feet multiple times. On Loki’s first supervised “hunt the variant” outing, he makes a mockery of the endeavor by stalling until it’s too late for the branching timeline to tell them anything of use. Refusing to be Mobius’s pet variant to do his bidding, Loki makes the TVA chase their own tails simply because he can.
But while they can be contentious together, each is more invested in the other than they’re at first willing to admit. When Loki follows Sylvie through a tempad door, seemingly switching sides from the TVA to join forces with her, Mobius isn’t just upset at the new complication to their variant problem or angry that his asset has been burned. He’s hurt. He thought he was getting through to Loki, and he’s both upset at how easily Loki threw him over and annoyed at himself for having trusted Loki, even a little. Meanwhile, when the TVA recaptures Loki and Sylvie, Loki immediately starts spinning lies and plays it cavalier, but he can’t disguise the hurt in his eyes when he realizes Mobius feels let down by him. After Mobius calls him a bad friend, you can see his confident façade wobble.
As they say, hate is too strong an emotion to waste on someone you don’t like, and so Mobius and Loki could never really be full-on enemies. They’re still invested in each other (interpret that however you like,) or they wouldn’t be so bothered when each thinks the other doesn’t care. So Loki tells Mobius the truth, that Mobius and the rest of the TVA agents are all variants who’ve had their memories of their original lives blocked – not to shatter Mobius’s world, like Loki’s was when he discovered he was Jotun, and not to taunt Mobius for being the very thing he’s spent all of time hunting. No, he tells Mobius because he thinks Mobius has a right to know, about himself and about the agency he works for. And later, after Mobius and Loki have both been pruned and Sylvie follows them to the dumping ground of time, Mobius teams up with her to help her find Loki. Although they soon part ways again, it’s to set two parts of the same mission in motion, and they hug before they go, with Loki calling Mobius his friend.
On a final note, they just make for such an entertaining odd-couple pairing together, but not in the way we usually see. Yes, Mobius is the straitlaced bureaucrat and Loki is the mischievous agent of chaos, but it’s not just that. What I really love about their dynamic together is how even-keeled Mobius is in the face of Loki’s drama and grandstanding. While Loki is all flourish and monologues, Mobius remains frequently unimpressed and lightly amused. Which, honestly, is just what Loki needs, someone to bring him back down to earth a bit as he plays to the rafters.
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