Mike's trauma PART 5
This is part of a series where I uncover what Stranger Things is really about. It started from trying to find out what happened in 1979 aka what all the depictions of traumatic past memories (El, Henry, Billy, Max, Holly, etc.) are truly about, but expanded to this all-encompassing theory of the whole series with crazy levels of complexity, metaphors and layers. Reading it will require commitment and patience but I promise it will be worth your time if you want to look behind the curtain (and the curtain behind that curtain) and fully understand the show. You have to read all parts in order: here is PART 1 and here all other parts I’ve posted so far + my previous theories.
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Trigger warning for child sexual abuse.
Finally we are here. The tumblr theory that was the catalyst for my massive realization is here. It’s a very short read. So, Stranger Things is about Dissociative Identity Disorder. I happen to know quite a lot about it since I had a phase years ago when I got super interested in it. There aren’t many DID theories in the ST community, I only found two others: one about Vecna on Reddit and one about Will by the same person who wrote the Lonnie theory (if you find more, let me know!). There are two parts and both are very long, but I do recommend reading them (here and here). My theory has some key differences, though, and I don’t agree with all the interpretations. Or more like, I have gone much further.
Before reading more, you should get a rough idea of what DID is. I will link some Youtube videos explaining things, and you could do your own research as well. Here’s a video explaining the basics about DID.
Most of the previous theories concluded that Will has DID and that some of the characters are his alters. My theory is that everyone is an alter and Mike is the host of the system. Will is the more obvious one on all story levels: he is more obviously gay and he has more obvious clues about having DID. And just like the queer allegory is really about Mike, so is the trauma/DID allegory. As Murray said to Nancy (= Mike) in S2E6: “You, you’re harder to read.” comparing her to Jonathan (= Will). And in S1E6 Hopper says “I mean, what if this whole time I’ve been… I’ve been looking for Will… I’ve been chasing after some other kid?”, which transitions into Nancy (= Mike) in the shower remembering the deer (= abuse). We have been looking for Will (being gay/having trauma) when really the story is about Mike. In S3E2 Hopper tells Joyce “It turns out, getting to Mike, now that was the key.” while actual keys and a big key shape are behind him. (Right before this he tells Joyce “I’m a puppet, you’re the master.” which could be about him being an alter. This also connects to Eddie playing Master of Puppets in S4.) And it’s not like the Mike we have seen is above everyone, no, he’s also an alter. But he represents the whole system (not a DID thing directly but a story thing). The abuser was Mike’s father aka everyone’s father (link to the X post in the image).
Everything we’ve seen thus far, the world, is the system’s inner world. And here’s a video explaining the inner world. I would also recommend you watch these other videos (this, this, this and this) to get a fuller picture and feel for what they can be like. But watch at least the first one. Since the body most likely looks like Mike and is called Mike, from now on I will refer to the system as Mike (system) and the Mike we see in the show as Mike (alter). Sometimes I might only use “Mike” but hopefully you’ll get what I mean from the context. It doesn’t make super much sense for the host to be in the inner world so much but I guess the writers took some creative liberties (or I’m missing something). It’s not a perfectly realistic depiction of DID, more allegorical. But as you probably saw in the inner world video, the inner world itself is very metaphorical so in most cases it works amazingly well.
To reiterate, every single character we have seen is either an alter (major characters) or an NPC (minor characters like Ted and random background people). That’s why everyone seems to represent Mike. Lonnie is the closest representation of Mike’s real dad and all the mom characters have parts of them representing the real mom (I will be calling Mike’s (system) dad and mom “the dad” and “the mom” from now on). I think Will was the first alter and Mike’s story about them meeting at the swings was probably when he split (more on this later).
Some of you might have a counterargument about the Duffer brothers not wanting it to all be in Mike’s head or “just a dream”, and it’s a valid point. But in this case all the characters are real, they aren’t Mike’s imagination. They are their own persons (or separated parts of one person). And what happened does matter, since it’s about processing trauma. Even though it’s not “real” it kind of also is, and it’s an important story to tell. S2E5 [Mike] “Maybe all of this is happening for a reason.”
I would also like you to watch this video about alter roles for better context. According to my theory, Will was created to protect Mike by taking the trauma in his place. That’s why Mike “saw” Will get assaulted. He was “watching” it happening to someone else, when in reality it happened to his body. Will has since then split many times and doesn’t hold most of the trauma memories anymore (he’s more like a co-host now), but they are in the system and in other alters. That’s why the trauma seems to manifest everywhere through various characters. @kaypeace21’s DID theory had the genius idea that Will the Wise was Will’s protector alter who ended up holding most of his trauma and turned into a persecutor, now known as the Mind Flayer. I found even more proof for this and will go over it later.
At this point it’s very important for you to understand that Stranger Things isn’t a story about good vs evil. There are no “villains”. It’s about processing trauma and accepting yourself, it’s an internal “fight”. All the villains, like the Mind Flayer and Vecna, are persecutors who hold a lot of trauma and are just trying to keep the system safe. So it’s pointless to try to find “who is the final boss”. To learn more about persecutors, you can watch this video.
I will go briefly over some of the characters and their roles in the system, to give an overview. El is a gatekeeper, she can literally open and close “gates” to the UD aka a trauma dimension (remember how Owens described Will’s episodes as opening up the neurological floodgates?). She can also look at people’s memories and connect to them telepathically. The power to control access to memories is very critical for a DID system and thus the reason she is in such a central role in the story. Every main faction (the party, Brenner, the government/military, Henry and the Mind Flayer) has something they want from her. (Here’s a video about gatekeeper alters for more context.)
I believe Brenner is an internal self helper. Here’s a short description I found:
An internal self helper is an alter that holds vast amounts of knowledge about the system, alters, trauma, and/or internal workings. For those who believe in cores, internal self helpers are often viewed as the first alter to be created or as the normally pseudo-separate internal voice of logic and reason that all people possess. Within the theory of structural dissociation, internal self helpers are often viewed as observing parts or hidden observers, both less than distinct states. Internal self helpers may or may not also serve as a gatekeeper.
Have you ever felt like Brenner knows things no one else does? He seems to know why El lost her memory and what is really going on but he doesn't share this knowledge.
S4E5
[El] “How?”
[Brenner] “Never mind how.”
and
[El] “I don’t understand.”
[Brenner] “I do.”
I think he is at least partially emotionless which helps him do his job but makes it harder to empathize with El. Owens is also an internal self helper who takes the role of a therapist/doctor with Will in S2.
Hopper, Joyce and Jonathan are all protectors. Hopper mainly for El after season 1, Joyce and Jonathan for Will. Joyce has a more caretaker role while Hopper and Jonathan probably dealt with violence and physical abuse in the past. I think Hopper trying to prevent Mike and El dating in S3 and hiding her in S2 is related to El holding trauma memories and Mike being too close to her endangering the system (and in the queer allegory he tries to protect Mike from his gay feelings I guess). Notice how it’s a dad preventing them (= the trauma from dad makes sexual/romantic things harder or seem dangerous). Holly is a child alter experiencing the happy childhood Mike never had or possibly holding only the positive childhood memories.
Mike is the host who you could say is the closest to a “main alter”. The host is in control of the body the most and doesn’t (at first) know about the trauma. It’s a survival mechanism to keep the system functional in day-to-day life. I think Mike’s role as the host is the clearest in the final episode where many noticed the parallels to the Truman show (e.g. this and this). Will calls him “the heart” and “without a heart, we’d all fall apart”. ((The heart could symbolize love, in which case “especially El” needing Mike “the heart” makes a lot of sense. I think there is more to it than that, though. In the S3E8 epilogue TV program Hawkins is called the Heartland (= Mike’s land) and in S5 Vecna is connected to a giant heart in the Mind Flayer body (I think there is a heart=brain connection here, “if the brain dies, the body dies” and all that. It would be too obvious if Will told Mike he was “the brain” + heart sounds nicer and they can mean the same thing (like soul or mind). It was also implied the heart was Vecna’s powers/giving him powers or controlling him.).)) He is the leader of the group, the DM and the storyteller/writer. A supposed leader of the Russian base was named Mikhail (S3E8 [Russian soldier] “Did Mikhail send for you?”), as was Antonov’s son (S4E6 [Antonov] “I have a son, Mikhail.”). Mike is rarely directly harmed in the show. Many other characters (especially Will) have to go through much worse. He doesn’t even go to the UD until S5. Additionally, Finn hosted SNL and there was this WSQK sync hinting at Mike being a host.
I think many of you will have the following question: What does this mean for byler and all other ships? Well, alters can and do have romantic relationships (see these Reddit posts and their comments here and here). They are quite common, actually, and can reflect a healthy self-love and/or the alters in question getting closer. Alter relationships are real and valid, although there are differences to typical relationships. In a way relationships between alters can go even deeper than is normally physically possible between people. The reason shared trauma is such a key part of Nancy and Jonathan’s relationship is that byler was literally born from (shared) trauma. They can understand each other better than anyone (referring to people irl) because they share the same brain.
S5E6 [Jonathan] “You know, with… with what we’ve been through, it just…”
[Nancy] “You mean our shared trauma?”
[Jonathan] “Yeah. How could anyone else possibly understand? It’s like this… this thing that… ties us together forever. You know? It made me feel safe. But also… I don’t know.”
[Nancy] “It can be suffocating.”
S2E2 [Will] “Just please don’t tell the others, okay? They won’t understand.”
Here’s a video of two alters telling their story of finding each other in the inner world and falling in love. They also bring up an interesting detail, that in their inner world alters don’t know they are alters but do when fronting. Something like this might be what’s going on in ST too.
Brain
There have been clues to the brain being important since season 1, but especially in season 2. El’s memories in S1 show that Brenner recorded her brain activity while she was using her powers, suggesting they have something to do with her brain. The surface reading is that it’s about her powers being psychic and thus related to the mind and the brain. S2 kind of recontextualizes this by linking Will’s brain scan results to his past trauma (now brain inspection is associated with both psychic abilities and trauma). Trauma and the Upside Down are very clearly connected in S2, since Will’s episodes are first suspected to be an anniversary effect and compared to PTSD in war veterans. His visions turn out to be “real” because the world presented to us is the inner world where trauma and memories come to life.
The supernatural powers come from the brain and they are strongly linked to memories: El, Kali and Henry get powers from their memories. They can use their powers to look at other people’s memories and El gets her powers back by remembering buried memories. Like I have previously implied, the powers aren’t just random superpowers but represent important themes and ideas in the show. In the Hawkins Lab massacre fight El and Henry represent two sides of queerness (love and fear), they mirror each other and are framed with rainbows (Henry’s is upside down to indicate he represents the UD/shadow/bad side) and while their powers are very similar, Henry gets his powers from sad and angry memories while El defeats him with a memory of her mother’s love.
Similarly, in the DID allegory, the powers are related to important functions like alter communication and obviously memories. El’s ability to find people and share her mind with them is a way for the brain to conceptualize communication between alters. El’s psychokinetic abilities make a lot of sense when you realize that the “real world” is also inside a brain and thus can be manipulated with only the power of thought. El’s role as the gatekeeper gives her access to all these powers, conceptualized as super powers (not surprising given Mike’s interest in superheroes). Another reason for the powers is that El (who holds trauma) is someone strong, a superhero who could save Mike from the abuse. If only Mike was like her or had someone like her protecting him, everything would be fine. Mike quite literally tells this to Holly using Mike the Brave and El’s role as a superhero seems to be the most important aspect of her for Mike.
In S3E5 Max and El have this conversation after El was choked by Billy:
[Max] “Does it still hurt?”
[El] “Only when I talk.”
[Max] “Well, it’s a good thing you’re not Mike, then. ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ And you’d be in constant pain.”
Mike needs El and the other alters to handle situations and traumatic memories because otherwise he would be “in constant pain”.
Similarly, Will’s original role as a protector is made more obvious in S5E4 and reinforced in T85 (he saves the party and Mike tells Nikki “Will’s the bravest person I know.”). Even the name William basically means protector or the will/desire to protect. In the DnD games, Will the Wise is always saving the party. Will might seem “weak” but in truth he is very brave and strong. His agreeable nature is a survival mechanism. A kid can't really fight against the abuser so being “good” might help avoid worse abuse (also called the fawn response + this is what I meant with the green cabbages). Will is described as good at hiding and one of his primary trauma responses seems to be freezing. S2E1 [Will] “I felt… frozen. [...] No. Like how you feel when you’re scared, and you can’t breathe or talk or do anything. I felt… felt this evil, like it was looking at me.” (Here’s a video about different trauma responses, you might recognise that some ST characters clearly display one or more of these.) He protected the system by avoiding the abuse as best he could and when that wasn’t possible, taking the abuse in Mike’s place (I have a feeling the “Don’t be afraid. It’ll be over soon. Just try and stay very still.” is about the freeze response).
That was a little side tangent but let’s get back on track with brains. Especially Henry and Brenner talk about things like powers being “in here” while pointing at the head. Henry goes as far as to say that the dead lab kids are in his head and that Will belongs there too (Henry is a goldmine for DID clues and I will go over them in a later part). Brenner tells El that “This place is not a prison. This is.” referring to her brain. Do you remember when I mentioned the real Camazotz? That’s what Mike's inner world is. The stuff happening in Henry's mind in S5 is a miniature for what’s actually happening in the whole inner world (but more on this later).
All this is showing us that the story is really about something mental. It isn't unusual for monsters etc. to metaphorically represent something more real like “inner demons” but in this case it won't stay as a mere metaphor. In the final chapter (episode/movie/whatever) it will be revealed that everything happened in Mike’s head and we will finally see the real world (= escape Camazotz).
As I mentioned earlier, S2 has a LOT of brain-related stuff. First of all, Mr. Clarke’s classes are: about the brain (E1), Phineas Cage, whose brain was damaged leading to an altered personality (E3) and biological defense mechanisms and the fear response (E4). In S2E1 he places a model brain on the table in front of him and it stays there for all the classes. [Mr. Clarke] “There are a hundred billion cells inside this miracle of evolution. All working as one.” When he says “cells” the camera cuts to the boys looking at each other (= they are the cells). The cell metaphor/analogy started already in S1 and I’ll come back to it later. All I’ll say for now is that the mitosis depicted on the classroom wall is about alters splitting. When Mr. Clarke says “all working as one” we see random students passing a note (= the kids aka cells are working as one brain/system). Yeah, “One” has a pretty significant meaning, it’s not just a number.
The Phineas Cage lesson has been covered before but I’ll do it again. It is heavily implied that Will is in some way like Phineas Cage. This is because he has split, kinda like the rod pierced Phineas’ head (on the projector, the line splits his skull in two, and this imagery is repeated in S4E9 with Will). It’s also because Phineas had a “nightmarish accident” while Will had nightmarish trauma. Then the camera focus changes from Will to Max while Mr. Clarke explains “But his injury resulted in a complete change to his personality.” implying that Max was split from Will and is this “new personality”. Will even looks at Max and the camera focus keeps flipping on them, reiterating the point. There’s more to Max than meets the eye and she actually represents something bigger but I’ll explain that later (it gets complicated). For now, you can think of this as a clue to Will splitting due to trauma.
At its core, DID is a survival/defense mechanism against extreme trauma. [Mr. Clarke] “All living things, from complex mammals to single-celled organisms, instinctively respond to danger. Expose a bacterium to a toxic chemical, and it will flee. Or deploy some other defense mechanism. [Will’s empty desk shown -> Will going to bath] We’re very much the same. When we encounter danger, our hearts start pounding. Our palms start to sweat. These are signs of the physical and emotional state we call… fear. [Will’s neck -> tunnels]”
Mr. Clarke’s lesson is quite obviously referring to Will. Of course, on the surface level it’s about this Mind Flayer monster that fears the hot bath because “it likes it cold” but that’s just the excuse the writers came up with to make it make sense in the surface level story (like so so many things in ST). The real reason is that the bath is metaphorically or possibly literally associated with the trauma, like I explained previously, and Will with his now-memories has a strong reaction to it. The tunnels are shot as if we are travelling through them very quickly. I think they are supposed to represent the electrical signals travelling through the nervous system, driving the trauma response. When Mr. Clarke says “Or deploy some other defense mechanism.” Mike looks at Will’s empty desk; Will and amnesia walls (= Will missing) are Mike’s “other defense mechanism”. In S2E6 Owens tells Hopper “All living organisms develop defense mechanisms against attack. They adapt. They find some way to survive.” This point about adapting to survive is also reinforced in T85. The brain adapted to deal with the trauma by splitting the mind into several identities holding different memories.
The party liken the Shadow monster to a brain (S2E8):
[Mike] “Yeah. It’s like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind.”
[Steve] “Hive mind?”
[Dustin] “A collective consciousness. It’s a super organism.”
[Mike] “And this is the thing that controls everything. It’s the brain.”
[Dustin] “Like the mind flayer.”
This isn't the only time a villain is compared to a brain: S5E4 [Holly] “Camazotz is like this dark planet that’s under the control of IT, which is this giant, disembodied, evil brain.”
They are right, the brain controls everything, but it isn't evil (even though it might seem that way to a severely traumatized person). The Upside Down is a mirror of the normal world. It’s not just the Mind Flayer who is a hive mind – everyone is part of the same brain, the same “hivemind”. (Apparently Dacre Montgomery researched DID to portray Billy’s possession in S3, proving the Mind Flayer is supposed to be DID-related.) The decision to use a mind flayer as the big monster was very deliberate. I did some reading on the DnD species and they are all about brains and mind control. Most of them live in colonies controlled by an Elder brain (formed from dead mind flayers’ consciousnesses). So, again, a brain is what controls everything and everyone. In a metaphorical sense the Mind Flayer (in ST) represents trauma, and trauma does often “control” people with DID or other disorders born from severe trauma.
Honestly, I should have researched DnD lore way earlier since it actually reveals a lot. The Demogorgon in DnD has two heads, which is its defining trait. Like, the literal main iconic monster in ST is about a split personality! Even the DnD figurine the boys use has two heads, although the actual monster in the series doesn’t. The Demogorgon is a tanar’ri: “all tanar'ri were embodiments of vice, depraved inner demons spawned from the darkest corners of mortal minds“ and that’s what it is in ST too: an inner demon. Another thing that was already pointed out in the Lonnie theory is that the Demogorgon is called “Leemooggoogoon the Deep Father” (among other names), connecting it to father.
The Phineas Cage lesson wasn't the only time a physical brain injury has been used as a metaphor/analogy for psychological trauma/DID. In S4E6 Brenner compares El’s memory loss to a stroke:
[Brenner] “Do you know what happens when someone has a stroke? The blood supply to the brain is cut off. It scrambles the signals in the brain to the point where the mind can forget how to do things. To eat. To speak. To walk. When you were attacked last year, I believe your signals were scrambled in much the same way. But just as a stroke victim can learn to walk again, I believe you, too, can return to your full power. Your abilities are still in here. [El’s head] You just need to remember. Everything that took place in my lab was captured on videotape. Every success and every failure. It’s important for you to not just see your past, but to fully re-experience it. In doing so, I believe we can repair your broken signals. As we saw tonight, that process has already begun.”
[El] “If this all happened, why don’t I remember?”
[Brenner] “Because you do not want to. Our brains have a defense mechanism in place to protect it from bad memories. From trauma. You buried these memories long ago.”
[El] “Papa. When I was in there, I saw something. There was blood. So much blood.”
[Papa] “That was another memory, a… a more powerful one, invading from your subconscious. You have demons, Eleven. You have demons in your past. That is why we must proceed carefully. One step at a time, one memory at a time. If we go too fast, I’m afraid you could become lost in the darkness. And if you are lost… so are we all.”
The defense mechanism Brenner talks about is dissociative amnesia. I think he has some gatekeeper qualities as well since he keeps El’s memories literally filed as video tapes and can show them to her. You should really focus on what Brenner says in S4. He’s basically revealing the truth of the world through El. ((Btw, a similar video cassette room was used in S2E8. Mike etc. hid there while Bob went to turn the electricity back on. My interpretation is that Bob’s mission was a metaphorical way to show remembering and processing traumatic memories. Owens guides Bob through the lab, avoiding the Demodogs (= he helps an alter to face trauma in a controlled way). In S4 the same thing was shown more literally with El.))
For more brain references, Bob is called Bob the Brain. He’s also called a superhero which is interesting considering the Mind Flayer was called a brain too. There seems to be this dichotomy between monster and superhero (which is also the name of S4E3). In a sense the brain is both the monster and the superhero but also neither. Like Brenner said in S4E7, “You speak of monsters, superheroes. That’s the stuff of myth and fairy tales. Reality, truth, is rarely so simple. People are not so easily defined.”
We also have these quotes from T85E3 [Mike] “Where’d you get all that stuff?” [Nikki] “From my brain.” and T85E8 [Dustin] “It’s like you can see into my brain and make my dreams real!” All Nikki’s stuff literally comes from the brain and she can see in Dustin’s brain because they share the same brain.
Communication
The inner world exists for alters to communicate with each other. It just so “happens” that communication/problems in communication is an omnipresent motif in Stranger Things. It’s everywhere in every season in every imaginable way (well, almost). I won’t do a detailed deep-dive like with the light bulbs since that would be an endless rabbit hole. I think you will remember many examples from the show without me pointing them out.
Let’s start with the walkie-talkies (and radio signals overall). They are an iconic part of ST, used in every season and them not working/someone not answering is often an important plot point hindering the party. Sometimes the reason for the signal not working is unexplained, other times there is an explanation like low battery, out of range or supernatural reasons. Radio signals get increasingly important in S5 with WSQK and interestingly Dustin finds out that the UD wall causes signal interference (= the figurative walls between alters cause communication issues + this could work without the DID framework too, since people having a metaphorical wall between them prevents good communication). In the same episode Dustin and Steve’s fight breaks the antenna and prevents them from contacting Nancy and Jonathan in time (= fighting/problems in communication between people leads to problems in communication devices (because radio is also about people/alters communicating, just conceptualized as electronic)).
Radio signals are also used for spying and El can interact with radio signals via her powers, connecting to the Soviet Union or even alternate dimensions (UD). She can use the static from radios or tv to access the void space, similar to using the shower noise in S3E3 (= white noise is just the surface level reason, and the source of the sound is actually the meaningful part). Btw, her powers have a “battery” (= food) making an analogy to the walkies (El = radio). The walkie battery running out or El not eating (= filling her battery) prevents communication between alters. Will is also compared to a radio in S5 when Robin says he is like a signal receiver. Furthermore, El and Will are the party’s main connection to the UD/supernatural. “Signals” connects literally everything in S5: it’s the romantic signals, the supernatural monster signals and the communication radio signals the party uses. All of these are really about the same thing: alter communication.
Then there’s of course all the phones that ring/break at inconvenient times or connect people. The first time Joyce connected with Will was through her phone. Like the radio, the phones interact with the supernatural too and are used for spying. Finding out a phone number was crucial in S4 California plot.
Morse code was a key plot point in S2 (Will tapping while “possessed”) and S4 (through the lights). Will and Joyce used the lights to communicate in S1. It was revealed in S4 that sound reaches the UD and electrical lights can be activated from the UD in the normal world. Radio signals go both ways if they are close enough, which the party utilizes in their S5 crawls. Drawings are used to communicate in many instances (tunnels S2, Vecna’s house and Will’s painting S4, etc.), also letters (S4E2 [Will] “You’ve called maybe a couple times. It’s been a year, Mike. Meanwhile, El has like a book of letters from you.” + Max’s letters to Billy and others), notes (S5E3 [Robin] “But, as I said, in the future, we will try to leave a note.”), etc.
TVs are malfunctioning (like all other electrical stuff) and give important info (news, teach El about the world). Different newspapers are pretty central not only because multiple main characters are journalists (Nancy and Murray) but because they provide system wide information. Mail boxes seem to be one of the motifs in the series as well. The “I’m gonna kill you” from S1E1 has a mail box in frame, when El looks for Heather in the void in S3E3 she initially sees a mail box and a red door materializes only after she touches the box, Holly gets a radio + music and the map from the mail box, which is also drawn on the map (= important). S4 literally opens with a boy throwing mail at people’s doorsteps. Things everyone should get informed about can be transmitted through radio, TV and newspapers.
Talking is a typical way of communication, but that would happen a lot in any show. What’s interesting in ST is that the characters are often somewhat separated during the season and at the end come together (S1E7, S2E8, S3E7-8, S4E9 and S5E7-8). ((S3 also had the talking-related issue of language barriers. Murray was needed for translation; he was essentially Hopper’s connection to Russians. This was repeated in S4.)) They acknowledge how everyone is ignorant of what everyone else has been doing and join their information.
This was made super obvious and basically a joke in S3E7:
[Dustin] “You flung that thing like a Hot Wheel!”
[Erica] “Lucas?”
[Lucas] “What are you doing here?”
[Erica] “Ask them. It’s their fault.”
[Steve] “True, yeah. Totally true. It’s absolutely our fault.”
[Robin] “I don’t understand what happened to that car.”
[Dustin] “El has superpowers.”
[Robin] “I’m sorry?”
[Steve] “Superpowers. She threw it with her mind. C’mon, catch up.”
[Erica] “That’s El?”
[Robin] “Who’s El?”
[Nancy] “I’m sorry, who are you?”
[Robin] “I’m Robin. I work with Steve.”
[Dustin] “She cracked the top secret code.”
[Steve] “Yeah, which is how we found out about the Russians in the first place.”
[Jonathan] “Russians? Wait, what Russians?”
[Steve] “The Russians!”
[Max] “Those were Russians?”
[Erica] “Some of them.”
[Lucas] What are you talking about?”
[Dustin] “Didn’t you hear our code red?”
[Mike] “Yeah. But I couldn’t understand what you were saying.”
[Dustin] “Goddamn low battery.”
[Steve] “How many times do I have to tell you with the low battery?”
[Dustin] “Well, everything worked out, didn’t it, Steve?”
[Erica] “Worked out? We almost died.”
[Dustin] “Yeah, but we didn’t, did we?”
[Steve] “It was pretty damn close.
[Lucas] “Okay, Russians? As in, they’re working for the Russian government?”
[Dustin] “What is it that you’re not comprehending? Am I not speaking English? We have a full-blown Red Dawn situation.”
[Max] “So this has nothing to do with the gate?”
[Dustin] “It has everything to do with the gate…”
The separation is clearest in S4 where most groups aren’t even in Hawkins. This time they don’t get physically together for the final fight, which might be a subtextual reason for their non-win. In S5 everyone is literally quarantined in Hawkins and the communication is better than ever. This time the separation comes mainly from the supernatural dimensions, which of course have been used before, but now there’s the UD, the Abyss, all the different memories/areas in Vecna’s mind and El’s void. Anyway, the take away here is that the plot arc for each season is built around this separation -> coming together and sharing information -> defeating the villain -structure. Communication is important on every level of the story from small details to bigger story arcs.
Getting from place to place is often a hindrance and an important plot point and in a way it is also part of communication. It’s more difficult to contact people from far away. The alters are (metaphorically) more separated and far away from each other. How many times has a car not worked properly, a plane, ship or helicopter crashed, the characters lacking a proper vehicle or someone to drive it or stealing one? Mike and Will are basically on a road trip for most of S4. Then there’s ofc the iconic bicycles, and the one Will falls from in S1E1.
The most obvious DID clue when it comes to communication is all the supernatural telepathy and mind spaces. El can contact people remotely, go into their minds and sometimes even talk to them there. It was a psychic connection that created the gates (S4E7):
[Dustin] “This is the answer.”
[stuff in the background about Coke]
[Dustin] “How did El open the Mothergate?”
[Lucas] “She contacted the Demogorgon.”
[Dustin] “With psychic contact [taps his head]. Just like…”
[Lucas] “Vecna when he casts his spells.”
[Dustin] “Exactly. So, what if, with each kill, he’s not simply killing them, he’s making a powerful psychic connection with his victims? A connection powerful enough to rip a hole in the fabric of time and space.”
[Lucas] “He’s opening more gates.”
My theory is that the Abyss is a separated space for persecutors and other trauma holders. El making a psychic contact with one of them opened the gate because a connection between these alters allows the other alters to communicate better too. So the gate is a metaphorical representation of a connection between alters. Same with the UD and the exotic matter and Will, basically. All of them are a connection between the trauma dimension and the less traumatized dimension. I also suspect Vecna’s victims in S4 (except Max) were fragments, who carried a specific piece of trauma. (A fragment is a less developed/fully fledged identity state compared to an alter.) He was able to contact them because they were already closer to the trauma dimension due to their trauma.
With S4 and 5 the fights start to be more obviously mental, since Vecna targets people in their minds and a big portion of S5 plot takes place in Vecna’s mind. El’s void has existed since S1 but only in S4 does she use it to properly communicate with someone (it has happened in earlier seasons but less clearly, e.g. with Mike, Terry and Billy). In S5 she shares her mind with Kali, which I think is a representation of being co-conscious (something that can happen in DID).
Continues in PART 6.
