OG Loki is actually behind the TVA and basically everything we've seen unfold. His heroic sacrifice, story about surviving and wanting to change, etc. are all BS. He's working some grand plan and needs Loki and Sylvie for whatever reason. He telegraphs talking about being able to create illusions so real they fooled even Thanos. His "death" wasn't real, and he was possibly controlling Alioth and needed the other Loki variants to stick around for some reason (maybe trying to find the rights one, which end up being Loki and Sylvie) which is why despite Alioth devouring everything, the only people we see running around are Loki variants. Like the whole scheme was designed to get variant Lokis all dumped to this specific place for whatever reason. Everything else is just collateral damage.

When he says "We're broken. Every version of us. Forever." it wasn't a lamentation, but an admission.

And then on a meta level, arguably you don't bring in Richard E. Grant for a total of like 25 minutes of screen time.

On the one hand, I kind of don't want this to be the case because I loved that big moment and would like for it to have been genuine. On the other hand, it would be absolute Lokiest move possible.