Kang the Conqueror is set to be the next big villain in the MCU! For those of you waiting to see this on the big screen, this is a great time to be alive. This article is not a review of Loki. These are just some thoughts about the final episode and the concept of necessary evil. The article does contain spoilers.
Kang the Conqueror and Necessary Evil
Let’s wax philosophical for a moment about something He Who Remains, who is a variant of Kang the Conqueror, said in the finale of the first season of Loki.
“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.”― He Who Remains to Loki and Sylvie Laufeydottir
What does this mean? Well, in layman’s terms, if you do your best to get rid of someone who is, for lack of a better term, bad, what next? A lot of times in the media we consume, we’ll see a story where good triumphs over evil via taking down the evil empire, and then everyone assumes when the credits roll everything is great right after that. However, in the real world, things are not that simple.
When watching Loki and paying attention to everything that He Who Remains is saying, he is basically warning Sylvie and Loki about the imminent danger that his variant, Kang the Conqueror, presents should he be given the opportunity to rise. He was presenting himself as a very necessary evil in order to keep a very much greater evil at bay. You see, when you think about the ocean and the danger that it presents, a very large part of the ocean is uncharted. We know very little about the ocean when you really look into how deep it actually goes. That unknown is very dangerous and there is always, ALWAYS a bigger fish. Kang the Conqueror is the bigger, more dangerous fish.
So, what is the deal with necessary evil? Well, it’s necessary to let some evil prevail in order to keep something even more trying at bay. For those of you who have played PS4’s Spider-Man, you may remember that the first level is to take out the Kingpin and finally send him to jail, away from his criminal enterprise. However, that act actually causes MORE crime to ravage Manhattan. This is because the Kingpin kept other criminals in check and, with him gone, other groups were sure to fill the power vacuum. That’s the gambit! Once Sylvie killed He Who Remains, she sets off a chain reaction that kicks off the Multiverse War and leads to the rise of Kang the Conqueror. With how time works at the edge of time, once Loki goes back in time, the work has already been done.
So why, in a world with heroes, is evil necessary? Like I said previously in my ocean analogy, there’s always a bigger fish. Sometimes you need to simply maintain the fish tank you have before a huge fish screws everything up. This is why, in the real world, we still have criminal informants. These are people who provide law enforcement with information on larger dangers in exchange for a small stipend and the police looking the other way from their own illicit activities. He Who Remains kidnapped and manipulated people to maintain the timeline in order to keep Kang the Conqueror out. Yes, this is a terrible thing, but he said very clearly that his variants can be much worse, and we’re about to see how much worse we’re talking.
In your real lives though, think long and hard before making decisions that may very well change your life. You may think that getting rid of what you perceive as evil to be a good thing, but you should always ask yourself, “What next?” and “Then what?” So, the next time you make a choice, think about the consequences of that choice. Those consequences may be more than what you bargained for. Doctor Strange chose to text while driving, now he has to fix all of this!!
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