‘Loki’ Season 2: Who the Heck Is Ravonna Renslayer?

At long last, everyone’s favorite God of Mischief has returned to the small screen in Loki season 2. The action-packed Marvel spinoff follows Thor’s adoptive brother as he finds himself becoming a more empathetic and compassionate individual while protecting the multiverse from utter destruction.

As the first episode of season 2 just dropped on Disney+, plenty of fans are wondering who exactly Ravonna Renslayer is in the greater context of Loki, and what happened to her after season 1.

Who is Ravonna Renslayer in Loki?

Judge Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is an agent with the Time Variance Authority, or TVA, which is the organization in charge of maintaining the proper flow of time within the Sacred Timeline. When we first meet her in season 1, Ravonna is an incredibly no-nonsense woman who has no problem pruning people (i.e., eradicating them) from the timeline.

Ravonna is the one who targets Loki to be pruned permanently and tries to keep Mobius on the path set forth by the the Time Keepers. Though she seems to be on the side of good and believes in the mission of keeping the timeline safe, it’s revealed through flashbacks that Ravonna is actually more callous than audiences originally thought; she ruthlessly collects any and all variants, even children like Sylvie.

In the comics, Ravonna has a powerful link to Kang the Conqueror, who is set to be the big bad in Marvel’s Phase 5 and Phase 6 titles. In the comics, Ravonna is actually known as Kang’s greatest love and biggest enemy as she sacrificed herself for him in battle, but sought revenge and killed him when she realized she would always come second in his quest against the Avengers.

Ravonna’s full history with Kang is something that might be explored in Loki season 2, as trailers have shown her trying to track down a variant of Kang who might help Ravonna restore her version of balance to the universe.

Much like everyone else in Loki, Ravonna is an incredibly complicated character whose motives aren’t always black and white. It’ll be interesting to see how Loki season 2 handles her ongoing arc and if she will turn out to be the real villain of the series.

(featured image: Disney+)