Rick and morty He has spent five seasons playing with interdimensional portals, time and high-caliber philosophical concepts. Loki, Disney plus, has only been five chapters into the matter. But both seem to coincide on some important points. Especially in the form of analyze the purpose of existence, guilt, hope, the need for identity and fear.
In one way or another, both programs seem to follow some lines so common that they come to bear a curious resemblance. And not only, in the approach of the temporal and the substance of reality as a parallel of intellectual and spiritual transformations. Both Rick’s adventures and those of the god of lies traverse the nuanced terrain of the search for individuality.
While the scientist in the white coat deliriously and cruelly transgresses every moral line, Disney Plus character claims redemption arc. However, and although it may seem strange, both characters have a varied repertoire of points in common. Including the good work and talent of the writer Michael Waldron to give personality and density to the respective stories to Loki and Rick and Morty.
Waldron, who was one of the writers of Adult Swim, has been decisive in the success of Loki. The creator managed to endow the Disney plus series with dilemmas very similar to the animated hit. And although there are lines that Loki can’t cross, both shows are focused on the same thing: a singular journey through the deconstruction of the traditional hero and villain.
Beyond that, there is also a very strange journey through the pains and hardships of fallible characters. Y Waldron has made both stories retain a sense of error, the fall into disaster and fear flawlessly. In fact, Loki and Rick’s approach to life, death, and transcendence is pretty much the same. Or at least, they coincided at some point in their evolution.
Waldron managed to evolve both one and the other enough to show different dimensions and nuances about their complicated personalities. And both the god of lies and the most deceptive grandfather on television have become symbols of a new kind of existentialism.
There is nothing simple in the way how Loki slowly walked a path that led him to love, the recognition of their mistakes and a peculiar maturity. In the same way, Rick managed to express interest, love and a curious connection with his family. Two seemingly villainous characters who found in a chaotic search a completely new sense of right and wrong.
Loki and the Tales of the Citadel
On LokiMarvel Studios’ fickle villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) reprises his role as the God of Deception in a new series that takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Kate Herron is directing it and Michael Waldron is the main screenwriter.
In chapter five of Loki, the god of lies must face a handful of his variants. Each of them with a particular story. From Classic Loki to Kid Loki, all versions of the god of lies seem stuck on one exact line of ideas.
In fact, in one of the most disconcerting scenes of the episode, several Lokis betray each other. That in the middle of a picturesque and frenzied chaos, which is nothing other than the reflection of its essential nature.
But beyond an anthological scene loaded with references to comics and science fiction, Michael Waldron did something else. He brought up the seemingly simple argument of Loki one of the most powerful rants in the series Rick and morty. And in fact, the whole plot seems to refer to one of the most famous Adult Swim plots.
In chapter 7 of the third season of Rick and morty, the plot returns to the Citadel. All the interdimensional versions and variants of the central characters coexist in the place. But beyond a chaotic curiosity, too it is a microuniverse based on speculation About greed and hopes
Become a classic, The Tales of the Citadel delve into the main concerns of the argument of Rick and morty. They also take them to a new level and give them a new meaning. It is a very harsh discourse on guilt, moral responsibility, social order and cultural hypocrisy that is surprising for its harshness.
For the fifth chapter of Loki, Michael Waldron tries something similar, although without all the ambition and power of the animated series. But even so, the variants of Loki manage to dialogue with similar approaches.
After a collective brawl between all versions of Loki, Kid Loki, Old Loki, and the central Loki, they come to the obvious conclusion. The TVA system bets on the fact that each creature under its rule accepts its role in the history of time. And when it doesn’t, it is isolated in a timeless void from which it cannot escape. As if mere personality were an affront to a greedy and voracious power.
Both Rick and morty What Loki they share a central axis. A slightly bitter pessimism about the impossibility of escaping who we are. A predetermined destiny that is carried along like a suffocating destiny. But so much so Adult Swim and Disney Plus series found a way to free their characters from the yoke. Rick found The Citadel to be an imitation of life, a cosmic trap with infinite ramifications that he must destroy.
On the other hand, Loki He managed to endow his character with such a broad three-dimensionality as to understand the behavior of his versions. And oddly enough, that dual, fragmented and increasingly human quality acts like a citadel. A world apart in which all versions of Loki survive because they don’t know how to do anything else.
Until an event arrives to completely change the look on the emptiness and the inevitability of existence. If for Rick it was accepting his family (and the love he feels for them), in Loki was to understand its shadows and darkness. A tiny hero’s path that creates a new way of storytelling for complex characters in pop culture.
Loki and Rick to the Apocalypse
In the third chapter of the fifth season of Rick and morty, Summer accompanies her grandfather on an interplanetary journey. The reason? Enjoy the last moments of planets about to explode and disappear. “Life on the edge,” declares Summer in Spencer Grammer’s voice. If the plot twist seems familiar to you, you can’t imagine it.
In the second chapter of Loki, the character played by Tom Hiddleston discovers how his variant has evaded TVA. To avoid detection by the agency, Sylvie goes from Apocalypse to Apocalypse. And as Loki shouts to anyone who wants to listen in Pompeii while Vesuvius is about to explode: “Nothing matters, everything does not matter”. Almost unintentionally, or perhaps because both arguments analyze similar points of view, they coincide at the end of time.
In order to Rick and morty, time and interdimensional variations are of considerable importance to the story. They are to the extent that their characters can explore themselves and their environment through them. And in Loki, the condition of change and transformation is also. In practically different ways, both programs have reached the same conclusion.
In the end, the reflection on the flow of space and matter as the main power led the series to a very similar look at reality. At the end of it all, the void is a kind of grand conclusion in the midst of something bigger, amazing, and unnerving.
But while Rick and morty transgresses something essential and transform your message into something more gloomy, Loki still hopeful. Indeed, Waldron seems to have found, in the much more subtle and familiar tone of Disney Plus, a way to bring up more emotional ideas. And while season five of Rick and morty shows again multiple variants being killed, Loki it is contemplated from redemption.
‘Loky’ and ‘Rick and Morty’, a big reveal?
Hand in hand, Sylvie crosses the last obstacle towards facing the definitive enemy that the TVA hides. They have overcome their variants, their mutual distrust and a predetermined history. In the second chapter of the fifth season of Rick and morty, Rick holds hands with his family.
He does it on a deserted beach, while everyone waits to be killed in the middle of a pitched battle between duplicates. But before that happens, there is a moment to imagine the best of their lives or what they wish to obtain. A moment to observe themselves beyond everything that the program’s journey has led them to be.
Both arguments seem separated by time, references and the emphasis on existentialism. But both lead to the same ultimate idea. Who are we beyond what the world around them is supposed to dictate? Rick and his grandson Morty are perhaps about to discover in the next chapters another revelation portentous about themselves. On the other hand, Loki is very close to proving that he is much more than what TVA wants him to be.
Whatever question you ask Rick and Morty and Loki, the answers are in under the same glass of existential wonder. Perhaps one of the boldest bets of any show in recent years.