"You may hate the dictator, but something... far worse is gonna fill that void if you depose of him. I've lived a million lifetimes. I've gone through every, every scenario. This is the only way."
Victor Timely was a scientist from the 31st Century who came into contact with alternate universes and other versions of himself. When some of these Variants attempted to conquer other realities, a Multiversal War ensued, which he ended by weaponizing Alioth. Under the moniker of He Who Remains, he founded and ruled the Time Variance Authority to preserve the Sacred Timeline and prevent the return of his counterparts. Residing at the Citadel at the End of Time for eons, He Who Remains planned for Loki and Sylvie Laufeydottir to succeed him as the TVA leaders, but the latter killed him, which resulted in the fracturing of the Multiverse and the return of his Variants.
While living on Earth in the 31st century, Victor Timely, who was a scientist, discovered the existence of the Multiverse, which consisted of alternate universes and alternate versions of himself. He caused them to meet each other leading to them sharing their knowledge and technology with one another, creating a temporary peace. During this time, he also created an AI he named Miss Minutes to serve as his assistant[2] and chess partner. Knowing that Miss Minutes was capable of more, he allowed her to write her own code, though consistently denied her a body.[1] Some of his Variants, such as Kang the Conqueror, saw the alternate universes as places to rule over, thus starting the Multiversal War.[2] During the war, Timely had a Variant of Rebecca Tourminet, who he named Ravonna Renslayer, leading his army.[4] He discovered a monster created from the rifts of space-time, whom he dubbed Alioth, and harnessed its power to defeat his Variants, ending the war.[2]
Isolating a collection of timelines that followed the same baseline, which he titled the Sacred Timeline,[5] he wrote a strict script to be followed, eliminating branches that did not follow his script for the Sacred Timeline.[2] He Who Remains also created the Temporal Loom, a device created to manage and eventually delete branched timelines if they had not been pruned in time as a failsafe to ensure the Sacred Timeline's existence.[3] Now operating under the moniker He Who Remains, he created the Time Variance Authority to govern and protect it from being overrun by his surviving Variants. He captured Variants from branched timelines and erased their memories of their lives, brainwashing them to serve as employees of the TVA, including positions such as field agents and analysts, and instilling in them the desire to prune rogue timelines and preserve multiversal peace.[2]
Under his new rule, he worked alongside Ravonna Renslayer to help run the TVA,[4] with its employees aware that they were working for him.[6] He Who Remains located an asteroid at the end of time and established a castle there, called the Citadel at the End of Time, from which he watched over the Sacred Timeline.[2] As the Citadel neared completion, Renslayer and He Who Remains admired it and their mission. He Who Remains complimented Renslayer's efforts in the war and declared his pride to lead alongside her.
Renslayer opened a Timedoor to the Time Variance Authority Office and noted that the organization was awaiting commands. He Who Remains said that he would catch up and let her go through the Timedoor alone. He Who Remains then summoned Miss Minutes and ordered her to initiate one of his protocols, which would erase all memories and traces of him from the TVA and its employees. Miss Minutes hesitantly agreed and followed out the order, and He Who Remains silently apologized to Renslayer.[4] He then created the three android Time-Keepers to publicly serve as the TVA founders. He also tasked Miss Minutes to create false history of the TVA as propaganda.[2]
"I'm tired. And I'm older. I'm older than I look. This game is for the young, the hungry. I've gone through a lot of scenarios... trying to find the right person to take this spot. It turns out that person came in two."
Millennia later,[7] He Who Remains grew tired of his endless work and responsibility and wanted to find a new successor. He guided a LokiVariant that he allowed to exist as well as a female Loki Variant named Sylvie Laufeydottir through their adventures and paved their road leading to him.[2] However, knowing what Laufeydottir had planned for him, He Who Remains created a contingency plan, a portion of which included having Miss Minutes create a Victor Timely Variant in 1868, which he informed her about.[3] When Loki and Laufeydottir approached his castle, he invited them in to speak with him. When Laufeydottir called him He Who Remains, he laughed that Miss Minutes was still referring to him as that, but said that he liked the name.
He Who Remains evades Laufeydottir's attacks repeatedly
He tried to speak with Loki and Laufeydottir in the elevator, but Laufeydottir was too intent on revenge and tried to kill him repeatedly. However, he evaded her using his TemPad, and transported himself to his office. He invited Loki and Laufeydottir into his office to sit down in chairs in front of his table and offered them drinks.
Eventually, the duo sat down, and he told them that he knew everything that would happen, showing them a printed transcript of the very dialogue they had just uttered. He then told them about the history about his Variants, the Multiversal War, Alioth, and why he created the Time Variance Authority. He informed the pair that not all of his Variants were like him, with some being evil and bent on conquering realities.
He informed Loki and Laufeydottir that their recent actions leading to him had been designed by him, including their adventures on Lamentis-1 and in the Void and that he wanted to be sure that it was them who could take his place. Claiming that he was much older than he looked and was tired, he asked them to take his place to be in charge of the TVA and to oversee the protection of the Sacred Timeline. He offered them two choices: kill him and let the Sacred Timeline expand into the Multiverse, thereby letting his Variants wreak havoc before he eventually returned in some form; or become his successors and ultimately the leaders of the TVA.[2] However, not truly intending to die at Laufeydottir's hand, He Who Remains enacted his secret contingency plan.[3]
He Who Remains learns they crossed the threshold
As thunder crackled above, he told Loki and Laufeydottir that they had just crossed the threshold,[2] and lied to the pair[3] by telling them that he was no longer able to determine the future. He Who Remains then witnessed Laufeydottir and Loki duel each other, as Loki was trying to stop her from immediately killing He Who Remains. He witnessed as the two Loki Variants kissed before Laufeydottir used He Who Remains' TemPad to throw Loki out of the Citadel through a Timedoor.[2]
Unbeknownst to Laufeydottir, He Who Remains had arranged for her to commit this very action, as it granted Loki the ability to time slip, with in conjunction with his order to have Miss Minutes create a Victor Timely Variant served as his contingency plan to be resurrected.[3] He Who Remains then told Laufeydottir that he was impressed, before she threw his table aside and stabbed him in the chest. He winked at her, however, and cryptically told her that he would see her soon, before laughing and dying.[2]
Legacy[]
The Return of the Kang Dynasty[]
"Someone is coming. Countless different versions of a very dangerous person. And they're all set on war. We need to prepare."
With He Who Remains' death, the Sacred Timeline was reconnected to the greater Multiverse and numerous branching realities were rapidly created, which allowed the Council of Kangs to gain access to the Sacred Timeline. When Kang the Conqueror was killed during a fight with Ant-Man, the Council concluded that the heroes of Earth were getting too close to destroying the Multiversal dynasty they had built and summoned every Variant of theirs in existence to assemble in order to stop them.[8]
Loki found himself in the past of the Time Variance Authority, which only sped up the creation of branching timelines.[2][9] Loki's experience with He Who Remains left a big impact on him, as he went on to describe He Who Remains as a dangerous and terrifying figure. As he and Mobius M. Mobius traveled to the branched timeline where the Victor Timely Variant resided, Loki became fearful at the prospect of Timely being as dangerous as He Who Remains was.[8]
Posthumous Plans[]
Victor Timely's Role[]
He Who Remains' corpse
"Tell me, how is Victor T-T-Timely?" "Of course you know about your..." "Wait. Don't tell me. You're, you're having some, some, some problems with the Temporal Loom."
As He Who Remains' body began to decompose in his chair,[1] the Time Variance Authority stopped pruning branched timelines, causing the Temporal Loom to overload. At the same time, Loki began time slipping, an affliction granted to him by He Who Remains that had the trickster god uncontrollably transported across various points in time,[6] while Miss Minutes set out to enact her role in He Who Remains' contingency plan. Amassing a file on Victor Timely's whereabouts, she arranged for Ravonna Renslayer to meet with her in 1868 in Chicago, where Timely, who was He Who Remains' Sacred Timeline counterpart, resided. He Who Remains' orders consisted of the pair giving the Time Variance Authority Official Handbook to Timely as a child, thereby creating a branched timeline and rendering the version of Timely who received the book as a Variant who would study the science of the TVA.
Miss Minutes and Renslayer believed that He Who Remains' intent was to have this Timely Variant become his successor; however, when Timely rejected Miss Minutes' romantic advances, she decided not to honor He Who Remains' wishes and chose to turn on Timely.[1] Additionally, Miss Minutes showed Renslayer a video of He Who Remains ordering her memories to be wiped, which resulted in Renslayer joining Miss Minutes in the belief that He Who Remains did not deserve to have his Variant succeed him. These actions caused the pair to go against the supposed contingency plan by deciding to rule over the TVA themselves.[4]
Unbeknownst to them, He Who Remains had arranged for this very scenario, as his true intent for the creation of the Timely Variant was not for Timely to work with Renslayer and Miss Minutes to become his successor; instead, the true plan was for Timely to be recruited by Loki and the TVA as a means to fix the Temporal Loom, knowing full well that Timely would not succeed and that the destruction of several realities would prompt Loki to time slip before Sylvie Laufeydottir killed He Who Remains, thereby undoing his death and essentially resurrecting him.[3]
"Kiddo, did you really think I was just gonna sit back and let her kill me? And that'd be it? Zip? Nada? RIP HWR? No, I told you. Reincarnation, baby."
With Victor Timely unable to scale the Temporal Loom to handle infinite branches, despite Loki having lived through centuries and having rewound time multiple times, Loki came to the conclusion that the only way to protect reality was to prevent Sylvie Laufeydottir from killing He Who Remains. Loki then time slipped back to the Citadel at the End of Time before Laufeydottir could kill him, thereby resurrecting He Who Remains in the temporal sense and fulfilling He Who Remains' true contingency plan. Loki attempted to convince Laufeydottir not to kill He Who Remains, although she refused to listen and stabbed He Who Remains. Loki then rewound time and unsuccessfully failed to convince Laufeydottir again, and continued to rewind time after each failed attempt in order to resurrect He Who Remains.
Loki eventually asked He Who Remains why he sat by and watched Laufeydottir try to kill him without bothering to defend himself. He Who Remains then used his TemPad to freeze Laufeydottir in time and asked Loki how many times he had rewound time trying to save him. When Loki expressed shock at Laufeydottir being frozen, He Who Remains replied that he was surprised that Loki hadn't gained that ability yet. He Who Remains then divulged that he had paved the road for Loki to gain his time slipping ability for the sole purpose of resurrecting him, disclosing that he never intended for Laufeydottir to permanently kill him and adding that everything that Loki had gone through of late was part of the contingency plan that he had created to ensure his return. Noting Loki's lack of retort, He Who Remains told Loki that since this was too much for the trickster god to process, he would restore Laufeydottir's agency and that perhaps after a couple thousand more loops, Loki would be ready to have a conversation.
However, Loki then paused Laufeydottir in time, not only revealing that he indeed had that ability, but that they had already had this conversation. Impressed, He Who Remains smiled and claimed that Loki was his favorite of the two Variants in front of him. As Loki took a seat, He Who Remains informed Loki that he was well aware of Victor Timely's inability to fix the Temporal Loom. He Who Remains explained that the Temporal Loom was never intended to handle all the branched timelines but a failsafe that would delete all of the branches, the TVA included, in order to save the Sacred Timeline. He Who Remains then added that his Variants were already out there in the Multiverse.
Loki declared that he would destroy the Loom before it could delete the branches and destroy the TVA, although He Who Remains reminded him that the Loom prevented a brutal war from breaking out, where all realities, including the Sacred Timeline, would be destroyed. He Who Remains implored Loki to see reason, claiming that Loki had known peace in his life because He Who Remains had presided at the End of Time, and that he got to rule over the timeline because he was capable of making the tough choices.
He Who Remains tells Loki they have to protect what they can
When Loki once again declared that he would find another way, He Who Remains informed Loki that he would have to make one of two tough choices: allow Laufeydottir to kill him, thereby leading to the scenario where the Loom overloads and allows for a Multiversal War in which they would all die; or kill Laufeydottir so that he and Loki could work together to protect the Sacred Timeline. However, Loki chose to time slip away from the Citadel, eventually returning to the point in time before the Loom exploded. In doing so, Loki restored history to the version where Laufeydottir had killed He Who Remains, thereby undoing He Who Remains' resurrection.[3]
Dethroned by Loki[]
Having returned to the Time Variance Authority Office right before the Temporal Loom exploded, Loki decided to forge a third option for himself, where he would destroy the Loom itself, releasing the infinite branches of the Multiverse from its grip. As the branches began to die, Loki used his magic to revive them before transporting them, along with himself, to the Citadel at the End of Time. Loki then sat upon He Who Remains' throne and chose to hold the branches of the Multiverse himself for all time, allowing both the Sacred Timeline and the branched timelines to co-exist while giving the Time Variance Authority a chance to defend themselves against the Variants of He Who Remains who would one day arrive.[3]
Personality[]
"I understand your moral objections to what the TVA does. And my methods are deceptive. But the mission, it never was. Without the me, without the TVA... everything burns."
He Who Remains had a cheerful, playful, but almost unhinged personality. Initially he presented as quick witted and genial, but beneath the guise of a carefree being, he was a scientist who had lived over a million lifetimes and had seen so much hardship, explaining his flippancy. This led him to develop a "lesser of two evils" and "the ends justify the means" view, believing that eliminating branching timelines was, athough evil, necessary to prevent uprising of other Kangs. As such, he was honest about the amoral nature of his actions, yet remained convinced that his actions were the least possible evil out of all potential outcomes, and that his control of the Multiverse preserved stability in a single timeline in order to prevent the uprise of an even greater evil. This lead to him actually being quite weary and worn, becoming exhausted with his long life.
Due to the nature of the multiversal threat of Kangs, He Who Remains held the firm belief that only the Sacred Timeline was worth preserving and others should all be destroyed in a rigid manner. To this end, He did everything to ensure that he held the ultimate power, reflecting that despite his goals for peace were different with his variants' plans to conquer, He Who Remains was as power-hungry as his other Variants. Not only did He establish the TVA to prune all timelines that he deemed going off track, He also developed the Temporal Loom as a failsafe device which would ensure that whatever happened, only the Sacred Timeline remained. He even planned after his death, so that another variant of his would take his place. He also decided to betray his subordinate Ravonna Renslayer and wipe the memories of all TVA employees while hiding at the End of Time himself to preserve power. All of these measures indicates He Who Remains' firm belief in retaining power for the greater good.
Nigh-Immortality: He Who Remains was considered immortal, having lived for tens of millions of years due to the fact that he resided at the end of time. He did not age at all, and would have lived forever if he had not been killed by Sylvie Laufeydottir.
"He's terrifying. He planned everything. He's seen everything. He knows everything."
Nigh-Omniscience: Up until "the threshold," He Who Remains knew everything in the Sacred Timeline. In fact, He Who Remains planned everything that has ever happened in the Multiverse, and even scripted the story. Before Loki spoke, his words were already printed in He Who Remains' script, showing that everything they had done was designed and anticipated by He before.
Abilities[]
"And who do you think paved that road? Any guesses? Survey says..." "He Who Remains." "Bingo!"
Genius-Level Intellect: He Who Remains had the intellect and foresight to create the Time Variance Authority, a sprawling bureaucratic organization of enormous size and complexity. He also developed the protocols that the TVA used to pinpoint "Nexus Events" and prevent them from causing new timelines to branch off. He was successful at maintaining a single "Sacred Timeline" for millions of subjective years, and only failed in the end because he allowed himself to be found and defeated. He also had the intellect to tame and successfully weaponize Alioth, a being made of all the tears in time, and make it the guardian of his castle.
"Every step you took to get here, Lamentis, The Void, I paved the road. You... You just walked down it."
He Who Remains was a mastermind capable of setting up incredibly complex and elaborate plans and carrying them out flawlessly. He established an entire false history of the TVA for propaganda purposes, claiming that it was created by a trio of alien Time-Keepers and concealing the fact that its employees were Variants themselves. He also orchestrated an entire contingency plan to have himself resurrected should he be killed, involving guiding several individuals' actions posthumously to achieve this feat.
"Eons ago, before the TVA, a Variant of myself lived on Earth in the 31st century. He was a scientist and he discovered that there were universes stacked on top of his own. At the same time, other versions of us were learning the same thing."
He Who Remains was able to successfully configure both Alioth and Miss Minutes with his scientific ability.
Master Engineer: He Who Remains created the Temporal Loom to manage branched timelines as well as delete them when necessary as a means to preserve the Sacred Timeline. He also created lifelike androids dubbed the Time-Keepers, using them as proxies to control the TVA from the shadows. He was also one of very few people to successfully develop time travel, and invented the highly advanced technology that the TVA uses to control the timestream.
Equipment[]
TemPad: He Who Remains had an advanced TemPad that include many functions of the Time Variance Authority regular equipment. He used a function to produce a substance which could be morphed into various shapes such as figures of himself, his Variants, Alioth, and the Multiverse when telling Loki and Sylvie Laufeydottir about the Multiversal War. He Who Remains used the Time Twister function to evade Laufeydottir's attacks and to transport himself out of the elevator to his office.
Citadel at the End of Time: After the Multiversal War, He Who Remains settled in a castle, dubbed the Citadel at the End of Time, located on an asteroid. For eons, he took up residence at the castle and watched the sacred timeline.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the character was described by Kate Herron to be "closer to Immortus" than to He Who Remains from the comics, who is not an alternate version of Kang. She likened the situation to Sylvie's in which he is an original character that is inspired by different comic characters.[10] Immortus later debuted in the MCU with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
According to Michael Waldron, he pushed the idea to combine He Who Remains with "a little bit of Immortus mythology" very early on. He also confirmed that He Who Remains was always the endgame for Loki Season One.[5]
A piece of concept art drawn for He Who Remains has him in an outfit that resembles Immortus.[11]
Eric Martin revealed that in one version of the For All Time. Always. episode, there would be a vast display room where He Who Remains kept artifacts from the timeline, like a massive version of the one belonging to Ravonna Renslayer.[12]
Martin also described He Who Remains as "Almost like a young tech CEO. As much a genius as they are charlatan."
In the original ending of Lokiseason one, the statue towering over the TVA was actually another Kang rather than He Who Remains. This was retconned in season two.[9]
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