In the latest episode of Loki, we followed the God of Mischief and Mobius as they travelled to 1893 and encountered Kang Variant Victor Timely
While searching for the inventor, they stumbled across a tribute to Asgardian deities which included Odin, Thor, and Balder. Loki wasn't happy to have been excluded and points out that no one has heard of Balder...an argument that Mobius is quick to refute.
A supporting character first introduced in 1962's Journey Into Mystery #85, Balder later became a crucial part of J. Michael Straczynski's Thor run when it was revealed that he was actually the God of Thunder's half-brother.
We very nearly met one of the Asgardian's Variants in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as part of Earth-838's Illuminati. Rumour has it he was originally played by Bruce Campbell until No Time to Die star Daniel Craig was enlisted. Unfortunately, he had to pass due to his James Bond commitments, meaning we never got to see the hero impaled on his own sword by the Scarlet Witch (concept art was, however, created).
Talking to Screen Rant, Loki episode 3 director Kasra Farahani revealed whether the Balder mention was meant to tie into what we almost saw in theaters last year.
"No, it was not. First of all, it's about the joke that you would expect that if you got Odin and Thor, that you would expect a third statue would be Loki, but it isn't. But it's also about using this as an opportunity to remind Loki and the audience that Loki's not just somebody who works with the TVA, but that he's a God. That he comes from that stock and that he has that power within him."
"And then finally, also, I would be remiss if I didn't say that the midway of the Chicago Worlds Fair was basically they brought all these different cultures from around the world, and they created pavilions for them. And the truth of the matter is they're pretty reductive and downright racist at times. So I wanted to kind of acknowledge this notion that we have Loki say that, 'You can't distill an entire culture down to a diorama.' So I wanted to acknowledge that in there."
In the same interview, Farahani was asked about the apparent plot hole created by those branching timelines growing back after they were destroyed by Agent Dox and her fellow TVA agents.
As we suspected, they're simply growing back faster than anyone can prune them, reiterating the sheer scale of the Multiverse. "It's that Dox did cut, prune, those timelines end all those lives tragically," Farahani says, "but the Multiverse or the timeline rather, is fracturing at such a rate that they're being replaced almost quicker than they were pruned in the first place."
A new episode of Loki will arrive on Disney+ this Thursday.