He Who Remains

*"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[src]
**Nathaniel Richards** was a scientist from the 31st Century who came into contact with alternate universes and other versions of himself. When some of these Variants attempted to conquer other realities, a Multiversal War ensued, which he ended by weaponizing Alioth. Under the moniker of **He Who Remains**, he founded and ruled the Time Variance Authority to preserve the Sacred Timeline and prevent the return of his counterparts. Residing at the Citadel at the End of Time for eons, He Who Remains planned for Loki and Sylvie Laufeydottir to succeed him as the TVA leaders, but the latter killed him, which resulted in the fracturing of the Multiverse and the return of his Variants. His death inadvertently alerted the Council of Kangs about people interacting with the Multiverse, prompting them to take their own measures.

## Biography

### Multiversal War

#### Defeating His Variants

*"I harnessed the beast's power and began experimenting on it. I weaponized Alioth and I ended... I ended the Multiversal War."*
―He Who Remains[src]
While living on Earth in the 31st century, Nathaniel Richards, who was a scientist, discovered the existence of the Multiverse, which consisted of alternate universes and alternate versions of himself. He caused them to meet each other leading to them sharing their knowledge and technology with one another, creating a temporary peace. During this time, he also created Miss Minutes to serve as his assistant and chess partner. Knowing that Miss Minutes was capable of more, he allowed her to write her own code, though consistently denied her a body. Some of his Variants saw the alternate universes as places to rule over, thus starting the Multiversal War. During the war, Richards had a variant of Rebecca Tourminet, who he named Ravonna Renslayer, leading his army. He discovered the monster Alioth and harnessed its power to defeat his Variants, ending the war.

#### Preserving Peace

*"You are quite a marvel. I will be proud to lead with you. You made a difference in this war. Thank you for being on my team."*
―He Who Remains to Ravonna Renslayer[src]

Isolating a collection of realities who followed the same baseline, a collection later dubbed the Sacred Timeline, he established a strict script to be followed, eliminating branches that did not follow the script from the Sacred Timeline. Now operating under the moniker, He Who Remains, he created the Time Variance Authority to govern and protect it from being overrun by his surviving Variants. Under his new rule, he worked alongside Ravonna Renslayer to help run the TVA, with its employees aware that they were working for him. Richards located an asteroid at the end of time and established a castle there, dubbed the Citadel at the End of Time, from which he watched the Sacred Timeline. As the Citadel neared completion, Renslayer and He Who Remains admired it and their mission. He Who Remains complimented Renslayer's efforts in the war and declared his pride to lead alongside her.

Renslayer opened a Timedoor to the Time Variance Authority Office and noted that the organization was awaiting commands. He Who Remains said that he would catch up and let her go through the Timedoor alone. He Who Remains then summoned Miss Minutes and ordered her to erase Renslayer's memories of him, as well as those of everyone in the TVA. Miss Minutes hesitantly agreed and followed out the order, and He Who Remains silently apologized. He created the android Time-Keepers to mask his identity as the TVA's creator. He captured variants from different timelines and erased their memory in the original timelines, brainwashing them to become TVA agents, analysts and other workers, instilling a noble purpose for them to fulfill, that is, to prune rogue timelines and preserve multiversal peace. He also tasked Miss Minutes to create false history of the TVA as propaganda and created a plan for her to carry out to replace himself in the event of his death with another variant of himself.

### Attack on the Citadel

Millennia later, He Who Remains grew tired of his endless work and responsibility and wanted to find a new successor. He guided Loki from another timeline through their adventures and planned their road leading to him. When Loki and Sylvie Laufeydottir approached his castle, he invited them in to speak with him. When Sylvie called him He Who Remains, he laughed that Miss Minutes was still referring to him as that, but said that he liked the name.

He tried to speak with Loki and Sylvie in the elevator, but Sylvie was too intent on revenge and tried to kill him repeatedly. However, Richards evaded her using his TemPad and transported himself to his office.

He invited Loki and Sylvie into his office to sit down in chairs in front of his table and offer them drinks. Eventually, the two sat down, and he told them that he knew everything that would happen, showing them a script for the future. He then told them about the history of his Variants, the Multiversal War, Alioth, and why he created the Time Variance Authority. He then went on to say that not all of his Variants were like him, with some being evil versions of himself.

He then told Loki and Sylvie that he had put everything in place for them to get to him, stating that he had let them go to Lamentis-1 and the Void and that he wanted to be sure that it was them who could take his place. Stating that he was much older than he looked and was tired, he asked them to take his place to be in charge of the TVA and the timeline. He offered them two choices: kill him and let the Sacred Timeline expand into the Multiverse, thereby letting his Variants wreak havoc, or become his disciples and ultimately the leaders of the TVA. However, Sylvie believed he was lying.

After thunder crackled above, he told Loki and Sylvie that they had just crossed the threshold, and lied to the pair by telling them that he was longer was able to determine the future.

He Who Remains then witnessed Laufeydottir and Loki duel each other, as Loki was trying to stop her from immediately killing, He Who Remains. He witnessed as the two Loki Variants kissed before Laufeydottir used He Who Remains' TemPad to throw Loki out of the Citadel through a Timedoor. Unbeknownst to Laufeydottir, He Who Remains had arranged for her to commit this very action, as it granted Loki the ability to time slip, with in conjunction with his order to have Miss Minutes create a Victor Timely Variant served as his contingency plan to be resurrected, and if that were to fail, he had planned for his consciousness to be transferred to a Variant of His. He Who Remains then told Laufeydottir that he was impressed, before she threw his table aside and stabbed him in the chest. He winked at her, however, and cryptically told her that he would see her soon, before laughing and dying.

### Legacy

#### The Return of the Kang Dynasty

*"Someone is coming. Countless different versions of a very dangerous person. And they're all set on war. We need to prepare."*
―Loki[src]
With He Who Remains' death, the Sacred Timeline ceased to be intact and the numerous branching realities were rapidly created, which allowed the Council of Kangs to return from exile. Loki found himself in the past Time Variance Authority, which only sped up the creation of branching timelines. Loki's experience with He Who Remains left a big impact on him, as he went on to describe He Who Remains as a dangerous and terrifying figure. As he and Mobius M. Mobius traveled to a timeline where Victor Timely resided, Loki claimed that he was just as dangerous as his alternate self, despite Mobius' disbelief.

#### Council of Kangs' Meeting

*"None of us killed him. They did. They’re beginning to touch the Multiverse. And if we let them, they will take… everything we’ve built."*
―Immortus[src]
Meanwhile, Centurion called Rama-Tut to tell him that the exiled Kang had died. Immortus soon arrived and revealed that the fallen Kang was defeated by Sylvie Laufeydottir. Concerned that people were slowly discovering the existence of the Multiverse and would destroy everything they had built, Immortus decided to call upon the Council of Kangs to handle the issue.

#### Dethroned by Loki

Understanding that the Temporal Loom had to be destroyed to protect his friends, Loki decided to go and destroy the Loom, unleashing an infinite amount of dying timelines. However, Loki discovered that he could enchant them, bringing them back to life. Making his way to He Who Remains' throne, Loki began enchanting dying timelines and effectively took his seat on the chair, dethroning He Who Remains and taking his place as the Multiverse's new ruler. With the Multiverse stabilized, the TVA dedicated itself to finding and hunting down He Who Remains' variants.

## Personality

*"I understand your moral objections to what the TVA does. And my methods are deceptive. But the mission, it never was. Without the me, without the TVA... everything burns."*
―He Who Remains to Loki and Sylvie Laufeydottir[src]
Nathaniel Richards had a playful but almost unhinged personality. But beneath the guise of a carefree being, he was a scientist who had lived over a million lifetimes and had seen so much hardship, explaining his flippancy. This led him to develop a "lesser of two evils" and "ends justice by means" view, believing that eliminating people’s free will was, though evil, necessary to prevent uprisings by other Kangs. As such, he was honest about the amoral nature of his actions yet remained convinced that his actions were the least possible evil out of all potential outcomes and that his control of the Multiverse preserved stability in a single timeline in order to prevent the uprise of an even greater evil.

Despite having the greatest power in all of the Multiverse, Richards was humble enough to accept that he controlled too much power and that such a position of authority was tired after eons of planning and exacting his "Sacred Timeline", pruning timelines he deemed going off track. Therefore, he was willing to give up his position and power to Loki and Sylvie.

## Attributes

### Powers

* **Battle Armor Capabilities** - To be added.

### Former Powers

* **Nigh-Immortality** - He Who Remains was considered immortal, having lived for tens of millions of years due to the fact that he resided at the end of time. He did not age at all and would have lived forever if he had not been killed by Sylvie Laufeydottir.
* **Nigh-Omniscience** - Up until "the threshold," He Who Remains knew everything in the Sacred Timeline. In fact, He Who Remains planned everything that has ever happened in the Multiverse and even scripted the story. Before Loki spoke, his words were already printed in He Who Remains' script, showing that everything they had done was designed and anticipated by He before.

### Abilities

* **Genius-Level Intellect** - He Who Remains had the intellect and foresight to create the Time Variance Authority, a sprawling bureaucratic organization of enormous size and complexity. He also developed the protocols that the TVA used to pinpoint "Nexus Events" and prevent them from causing new timelines to branch off. He was successful at maintaining a single "Sacred Timeline" for millions of subjective years and only failed in the end because he allowed himself to be found and defeated. He also had the intellect to tame and successfully weaponize Alioth, a being made of all the tears in time, and make it the guardian of his castle.
* **Master Tactician** - He Who Remains was a mastermind capable of setting up incredibly complex and elaborate plans and carrying them out flawlessly. He established an entire false history of the TVA for propaganda purposes, claiming that it was created by a trio of alien Time-Keepers and concealing the fact that its employees were Variants themselves. He also orchestrated Loki and Sylvie's rebellion against the TVA and led them to his castle, all while allowing them to think they were acting on their own initiative.
* **Master Scientist** - He Who Remains was able to successfully configure both Alioth and Miss Minutes with his scientific ability.
* **Master Engineer** - He Who Remains created lifelike androids designed to resemble the mythical Time-Keepers of his false history, using them as proxies to control the TVA from the shadows. He was also one of very few people to successfully develop Time Travel, and invented the highly advanced technology that the TVA uses to control the timestream.

## Equipment

### Other Equipment

* **TemPad** - He Who Remains had an advanced TemPad that include many functions of the Time Variance Authority regular equipment. He used a function to produce a substance which could be morphed into various shapes such as figures of himself, his Variants, Alioth, and the Multiverse when telling Loki and Sylvie Laufeydottir about the Multiversal War. He Who Remains used the Time Twister function to evade Sylvie's attacks and to transport himself out of the elevator to his office.
* **Battle Armor** - During the Multiversal War, He Who Remains wore a battle armor to fight his other variants. A statue of himself wore that armor.

## Facilities

* **Citadel at the End of Time** - After the Multiversal War, He Who Remains settled in a castle, dubbed the Citadel at the End of Time, located on an asteroid. For eons, he took up residence at the castle and watched the sacred timeline.

## Relationships

* Time Variance Authority - Subordinates
	+ Miss Minutes - Creation
	+ Ravonna Renslayer
	+ Mobius M. Mobius
	+ Hunter B-15
	+ Casey
	+ Time-Keepers - Creations
* Council of Kangs - Alternate Selves
	+ Immortus
	+ Centurion
	+ Rama-Tut
* Loki
* Sylvie Laufeydottir - Killer
* Cherry Voss - Killer