'Loki' Episode 6 theory solves one major finale mystery

With only one episode left in its first season, Marvel’s Loki still has major questions to answer.

Few mysteries feel quite as pressing, heading into the show’s Season 1 finale, as the one involving that strange castle introduced at the end of Loki Episode 5.

Hidden away behind Alioth, the castle in question sits atop a giant cosmic asteroid, and may or may not be where the Time Variance Authority’s secret leader has been hiding out this whole time. Loki’s fifth episode concluded with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) uncovering the castle and beginning a journey towards it, with the promise that its finale will reveal who awaits inside.

Now, just ahead of the Loki finale’s Wednesday premiere, one fan theory may have already revealed the truth about the show’s strange new location.

The Other Side of Alioth — There have been a lot of fan theories about the castle shown at the end of Loki Episode 5. Some leading theories argue it could be Castle Doom or Castle Limbo, while others speculate it could be an original creation.

Assuming that latter option is wrong and the castle is based on a pre-existing Marvel comics location, there’s the chance that Loki Episode 5’s castle could even be a place that Loki himself has visited in the comics.

What if it’s the House of Ideas?

Welcome to the House of Ideas — In the comics, the House of Ideas is essentially the birthplace of the multiverse. It functions as the core of all reality and is where the One-Above-All — the creator of everything — resides. It contains a library with countless books archiving the actions and adventures of every hero to have ever existed in the multiverse, which is managed by two abstract entities known as Now and Then.

The pair have a history of personally striking deals with various Marvel heroes to ensure that their collection continues growing — granting them longer and more eventful lifetimes, which in turn results in more pages and books being created in the library. This very kind of interaction happened once with Loki.

Sensing the God of Mischief’s boredom and desire for adventure, the twins brought Loki to the House of Ideas and made a deal. They rewrote the “Books of Loki” to give him a hero’s life (and hero’s death), simultaneously creating more books in the archive. Meanwhile, a different story involving the House of Ideas saw none other than Vision and Scarlet Witch fighting to ensure that Nyx, the Olympian goddess of the night, didn’t take over the House and claim it for herself.

That latter fact is notable considering it’s already been said that Loki will, in some way, connect to next year’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, in which Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) will star in a major role. With that in mind, could the Loki Season 1 finale introduce the House of Ideas, only for the location to be revisited in Multiverse of Madness? It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

The Inverse Analysis — Until Loki Episode 6 is released, there’s no way of knowing for sure what the castle seen at the end of last week’s episode really is. That said, it would make sense for the House of Ideas to be depicted as a castle on the side of an asteroid; it would make even more sense for this location to serve as the homebase for whoever’s running the TVA. After all, what better place to lord over the timestream than from the multivere’s very origin point?

As for how the House of Ideas could work within the context of Loki’s narrative, that’s hard to say. It feels unlikely that Marvel will introduce a deity like the One-Above-All anytime soon, but there’s no reason to believe that writers won’t tweak the location’s backstory so it can fit into the series. It wouldn’t be the first time that Marvel has remixed its own comics to serve the greater vision of its cinematic universe.

Loki is streaming now on Disney+.