Avengers: Endgame - Everything That Changes If The Heroes Steal The Infinity Stones From The Past

10. Frigga Isn't Killed, Loki Is A Worse Villain

The most sensible time for the Avengers to take the Reality Stone would be when it first reappeared back in 2013 when Jane Foster unwittingly discovered it and was infected. That would stop her having to go to Asgard with Thor, where Odin would discover the Aether within her and where Malekith would sense its activity once more.

Without the Aether falling into the hands of Malekith, the events of The Dark World wouldn't have been possible. The most crucial of those events was the death of Frigga, which fundamentally changed Loki as a character. Up to that point, and especially after his exile, Loki was a fully-fledged villain (hence his attempted dominion of Earth) thanks in part to what he'd seen and faced while travelling through the darker reaches of the universe.

When Malekith ordered Frigga's murder, something changed in the God Of Mischief and it marked his more complex character arc that saw him ultimately develop into an anti-hero and then a hero by the time he died in Infinity War. Without that murder, he would probably have remained the irredeemable figure capable of murdering Agent Coulson in cold blood.