This post contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has arrived, and it takes us to the vast, trippy landscape known as the Quantum Realm. With its myriad connections to the Disney+ series Loki, an old fan theory is now resurfacing: that the Quantum Realm is home to Marvel’s Time Variance Authority.
The TVA, first introduced in Loki season 1, is the organization that controls the flow of time. Formed in order to prevent the creation of a multiverse, the TVA decides which events are “supposed” to happen, and then deletes all divergent timelines. Although it appears to be ruled by a trio of space lizards called the Time Keepers, we find out in the season 1 finale of Loki that it’s actually controlled by a Kang variant called He Who Remains.
But what’s the connection between the TVA and the Quantum Realm? How likely is it that the TVA is located there?
What we know about the TVA and the Quantum Realm
Although we never get a full rundown of the science behind the TVA in Loki, we do get several hints about its physics (or lack thereof). “Time works differently here,” Mobius tells Loki in one early scene. Humans like Mobius and Ravonna Renslayer can live for thousands of years in the TVA without aging. Even Loki realizes, after awhile, that he can’t tell if he’s been at the TVA for days or months.
The physical space of the TVA defies reality, too. In one scene, Loki looks out a window to see a seemingly infinite bureaucracy, stretching into infinity.
Compare that to the Quantum Realm. After they’re sucked in, Janet Van Dyne tells Hope and Hank that the Quantum Realm contains “universes within universes,” all layered around each other like a Russian nesting doll. The Quantum Realm is essentially infinite, so one of its layers could hold the TVA.
Even more tellingly, time seems to work differently in the Quantum Realm. When Scott is trapped there at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, five hours pass for him. Meanwhile, outside, five years pass. These time distortions could be a variation of the same phenomenon that people in the TVA experience.
Both the TVA and the Quantum Realm exist outside of normal space and time—but there’s an even bigger connection between the two locations.
Kangs know their way around the Quantum Realm
In Quantumania, we find out that Kang has been exiled to the Quantum Realm by his own variants, who are fighting a war for supremacy over the multiverse. His variants send him to the Quantum Realm, showing that at least some of them know how to access it. That makes it even more likely that when He Who Remains decides to set up the TVA, the Quantum Realm is a natural destination for him.
So, is the TVA in the Quantum Realm? We don’t know for sure yet, but it seems pretty likely. Plus, the Quantum Realm is so vast that even if Marvel never confirms it at all, it can stay in our headcanons forever.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
