WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Loki Episode 6, "For All Time. Always," the finale of Season 1, streaming now on Disney+.
An animation artist and character designer took to Instagram following the finale of Loki's first season to view the events of the finale through the lens of the popular Anakin/Padme "red flags" meme that captured the attention of the internet recently. The end result was pretty much perfect.
Kathryn Hudson, a Character Lead at Warner Bros. Animation, also does awesome drawings on Instagram in her spare time and following the Loki finale, she debuted what she referred to as, "This is up there with the dumbest thing I’ve ever drawn." Instead of actually being dumb, though, her Sylvie and Loki/Anakin and Padme mash-up was brilliant.
The Anakin/Padme "red flags" meme is based on a sequence in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones where Anakin and Padme have a picnic and try to get to know each other a little better. Padme makes a comment about politicians and Anakin notes that he dislikes almost all politicians, with Padme being one of the few that he trusts (he jokes that even with her, he's still making up her mind). After he adds that he doesn't think that the system works, Padme asks him what kind of government he thinks would work best and Anakin says that some wise people should decide what's best and just do that. When Padme points out that that sounds like a dictatorship, Anakin replies, "Well, if it works." Padme assumes he's joking, but he has a straight face, so she goes from smiling to being pensive, thinking, "Wait...huh?" until he finally laughs and then she laughs, glad that he is joking.
Of course, in reality, Anakin was throwing red flags like crazy to Padme and she just chose to ignore them, as it turns out that Anakin very much is into dictatorships, so her initial concern was justified in the end.
It is now a popular meme based around the basic format of their picnic talk...
Meanwhile, in the Season 1 finale of Loki, Loki and his variant, Sylvie, have a chance to eliminate He Who Remains, who has been controlling the timeline for ages and ruining the lives of people like Sylvie, or allow him to live and take over his work, thereby avoiding a Multiversal War. Sylvie just wants to kill him, but Loki briefly fights with her because he thinks they have to consider their options more strongly before taking action. In the end, Sylvie tricks Loki and gets rid of him and kills He Who Remains and unleashes the Multiversal War.
Hudson puts the two scenes together and it works just brilliantly.
Source: Instagram