Thread by @viewinder

I like Sylvie, and Sophia Di Martino's portrayal of her. That she's managed within a few hours to so endearingly establish a connection with a character we've known and loved for over a decade is extraordinary.

Still, she deserves more. #Loki 1/

Given the character's stated backstory, the way Sylvie is written makes no sense. Worse, she's is a missed opportunity for exploring something more culturally ambitious than themes in 'WandaVision' and 'FATWS', perhaps combined. #Loki 2/

Since she was snatched away from her childhood, Sylvie has been othered, abject, isolated. She's been hiding out in apocalypses her entire, *harrowing* life - which is anything from decades to millenia of devastation and trauma, without respite or recuperation. #Loki 3/

Sylvie is introduced as a terrifying, destructive menace - a dark figure who literally does, as Moebius later pledges, "burn it to the ground". Given what we subsequently learn about her, this doesn't seem like something that could, or should, be tempered overnight. #Loki 4/

Sylvie should, by rights, be monstrous - a heaving, fearsome open wound. Her lived experience is far beyond what #Loki, or anyone at the TVA, can imagine. Her first words in the show could be directed at any man, any bureaucracy, any patriarchal institution:

5/

"Wherever you go," says Moebius, "it's just death, destruction, the literal ends of worlds." If that's true of #Loki, it's a thousand times truer of Sylvie. This is harrowing - Sylvie has every reason to no longer even have a mind, much less a reasoning, trusting personality. 6/

Syvlie's PTSD would be beyond the measure of any human scale - and any capacity for basic communication, much less socialisation or even romance, would have been obliterated long before #Loki, and we, meet her. 7/

#WandaVision delved into the trauma of grief and the cycle of abuse; #FalconAndWinterSoldier broached race, the PTSD of military service, and the inherent problem of policing. Neither series stuck its landing. ' #Loki' barely gives its own open wound her due primal scream. 8/

Sylvie could - should - be a primal, feral force, driven to truly, purely "burn it to the ground" - and let's be clear: "it" is the patriarchy inherent in the very bureaucratic structures '#Loki' invokes, and therefore should comment on. 9/

I undertsand that this is dark, and beyond what many consider to be the scope of Marvel entertainment. But, as with #WandaVision and #FalconAndWinterSoldier, Marvel shows insist on going there - and persist in stopping short of actually getting there. #Loki 10/11

If I were a comic book writer, this is where my pitch for a Sylvie run would begin. Alas, I'm not - but if a writer happens to see this, I hope they take something from this rant and make something really good with this exciting character. #Loki 11/11

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