Hey guys! Welcome back to another episode of the Avengers Theories. As always, this post will contain spoilers, so read at your own risk!

This theory talks about Loki’s death, and I must say: I wholeheartedly agree with it. Here is the link to the theory itself, and my quote from it is in italics.

In the film, some of the Avengers travel back in time, stealing the Tesseract from Marvel’s The Avengers. The Infinity Stone is dropped and picked up by Loki — who at that point had already been defeated by the Avengers and was in custody. He uses it to teleport away.

From that point on, it is not exactly clear what happened. In-story, it is explained that removing an Infinity Stone from a universe will cause irreparable harm, leaving the universe defenseless against certain kinds of attacks and fundamentally changing reality itself. The desire to avoid creating a tangent reality is a big part of why, at the end of the film, the borrowed stones all have to be returned to the exact moment they were taken. From this perspective, it is likely that Loki created an alternate timeline by absconding with the Stone, and that he may have left the timeline he abandoned in bad shape.

Eman, though, thinks that a character as ancient and clever as Loki would likely see the danger inherent in that, and would have done essentially what the Avengers did: used the stones to accomplish a specific end and then returned them to where he got them. The theory here says that he likely would have used a Naruto-style “shadow clone” of himself to send back with the Tesseract so that he could go on about his life unmolested while everyone believed him to be in custody. In this theory, it would be Loki’s double who appeared to die at the hands of the Dark Elves, and the real Loki who reemerged to take on Odin’s visage and rule Asgard. That gives him five years, from 2013 until 2018, to rule Asgard while having unlimited access to the Tesseract. That alone could serve as a pretty solid jumping-off point for his series.

The theory further holds that Loki would have done the same thing again in the moments before Thanos attacked in Avengers: Infinity War, faking his death to avoid the consequences for failing Thanos. The argument here is bolstered somewhat by Loki’s extremely feeble attempt to attack Thanos in Infinity War; in this case, he wanted people to believe him dead — especially Thanos — and so he might have essentially “thrown the fight.” This would allow him to re-emerge again now that Thanos is gone.

This theory is very simple. During Avengers: Endgame, when Loki picks up the Tesseract during a period he never should have had it, a few people theorized that Loki essentially destroyed the timeline he was in, but in teleporting away, created a new timeline in which he had the Tesseract and was never captured by the Avengers. The author, however, believes that Loki would have foreseen the dire consequences of his actions, and would have returned the stone to the exact point he took it, thus restoring the timeline and destruction he may have caused. He would have sent the Tesseract with one of his clones, which would have pretended to later be in custody while the real Loki still lurked. It also would have been this double to die at the hands of the dark elves in Thor: The Dark World, while the actual  Loki would have had five years to rule Asgard in the place of Odin.

This theory also gives birth to another theory, one that I like much more. Loki, upon seeing the Hulk’s defeat in Avengers: Infinity War would have known that Thanos would not allow the Asgardians to live. Because of this, he would have faked his death (for the first actual time in the movies), while the real Loki hitched a ride with an unconscious Hulk, who had been sent back to Earth by Heimdal. This would have explained Loki’s absolutely pitiful attempt on the Titan’s life. Essentially, he threw the fight. Thus, after the events of Avengers: Endgame, Loki would have been free to come out of hiding.

What do you think? Is Loki really dead? Or do you agree with the theory above?