‘Loki’ Fans Are Desperately Trying to Fix Their Biggest Show Complaint With Subtitles
Loki’s first season has concluded. Now that it’s over, Marvel fans can look back on the series as a whole so far. They can talk about what worked, what didn’t work, and what they’d like to see in Loki season two.
There was one element of the show that surprisingly didn’t work for some fans. It wasn’t a character or a plotline per se, but instead a more technical problem with the production that slightly hampered the viewing experience. Let’s take a closer look at what it was and what fans did to fix it.
(Warning: if you haven’t yet seen the entire season, beware: this post has spoilers for the season one finale).
Who was the real villain on ‘Loki?’
The series focuses on Loki after he escapes from an altered timeline. He’s quickly picked up by a body known as the Time Variance Authority (TVA). The TVA agents tell Loki they report to a mystical group of beings known as the Timekeepers. They are a group of alien beings who are thought to control the flow of time.
Eventually, Loki and one of his variants (named Sylvie) reveal that the Timekeepers are a ruse – they’re robots covering for the person who is really in charge of the TVA. In the season finale, Loki and Sylvie confront a mysterious man at the end of time known as He Who Remains. It’s strongly implied that he is a variant of a famous Marvel supervillain known as Kang the Conqueror.
The Timekeepers loomed large over the show, but they only featured prominently in one scene. It was in that scene that some fans of the show pointed out a major flaw.
The Timekeepers were difficult for viewers to understand
Marvel fans discussed the show on Reddit. The original poster pointed out an issue they had with the show’s audio:
“My wife and I were watching together, and neither of us could understand what they were saying. We’re both native English speakers, and the TV was nice and loud, but after rewinding it several times, we had to resort to putting the subtitles on.
Even with the subtitles on, it was difficult to marry up what they were supposed to be saying with the noises that were coming out of their mouths. It was really bad.”
Another poster chimed in to add that this wasn’t an intentional obfuscation based on the way other characters reacted to the Timekeepers:
“It’s also worth noting that the other characters had no difficulty at all in understanding what they were saying, so it doesn’t really make any sense to have everyone understand them apart from the audience.”
It’s frustrating when you watch a show and can’t understand what the characters are saying. It could lead to missing important plot points. Luckily, fans of the show had a clever fix for the problem.
How subtitles can improve the viewing experience of ‘Loki’ significantly
Several posters in the thread commented that while they couldn’t understand the dialogue, they used subtitles to get around the problem:
“Oh thank goodness. My husband and I couldn’t understand either. We had to turn the subtitles on to get it.”
Others agreed that this was the best solution.
It’s never ideal to not be able to hear characters, but in this case, it might have worked from a stylistic standpoint. The Timekeepers were meant to be mysterious and covering for someone. Being unable to hear them, while an unintentional flourish, does fit in line with what they’re supposed to accomplish as part of the narrative.
The season finale revealed He Who Remains as the puppetmaster behind the Timekeepers, so fans can look at their unclear dialogue as a momentary blip. One thing is for sure: no one had any problem making out Jonathan Majors’ compelling monologues in the finale.
