There's an awful lot we don't know about the rules of the Multiverse in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Judge Renslayer mentioning that The Avengers were meant to travel back in time did explain why they weren't pruned by the Time Variance Authority for daring to make changes to the Sacred Timeline.
That still leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions, including why it was okay for Steve Rogers to create a new branching timeline when he decided to remain in the past with Peggy Carter. Well, unless he was supposed to do that in order to return to the present and make Sam Wilson the new Captain America - time travel is confusing!
During a recent interview, Loki director Kate Herron shared her thoughts on whether Steve created a Nexus event when he travelled back in time for that dance with Peggy in Avengers: Endgame.
"My theory is this: It comes down to if you’re an optimist or a pessimist," she explained. "If you’re an optimist, maybe it was okay [for] them living that way, and the branch wasn’t so severe that it didn’t need to be pruned, and that meant that they could stay together. Maybe the romantics can say somehow that managed to exist. And then the pessimists [think], ‘They probably got pruned.'"
"Generally branches have to be pruned and then maintained, right? But it depends. Like if it’s alternate, it would imply that it’s running alongside our main timeline, so yeah. I don’t want to definitively say that they were pruned, but by our logic in the TVA, probably. But maybe where there’s a will there’s a way, and they weren’t too disruptive and managed to live happily ever after."
We have a feeling this will be addressed at some point, especially as Chris Evans is expected to reprise the role of Captain America in the not too distant future. Fans also remain hopeful that his trip through time will be explored in some way, and the TVA are bound to factor into that.
We'll have to wait and see, but Herron definitely makes a lot of compelling points here, don't you think?