Personal ST Characters Ranking
This is just my honest opinion based on how I feel about each of them.
u/Fabulous-Role4120 — 7 hours ago
r/StrangerThingsRoom
▲ 13 r/StrangerThingsRoom
Rank every Dustin hat from best to worst each season
1 best: season 1-2 (classic red white and blue baby Dustin hat.)
2: season 4 (I like the way it says “thinking cap” and design)
3: season 3 it’s okay but I feel like green and yellow don’t really fit Dustin.
4 worst: season 5 same reason for season 3 yellow doesn’t fit him and the black makes it even worse in my opinion.
u/Careful_Software_822 — 2 days ago
Anyone else getting hit by major delayed post-series grief right now?
Hey everyone,
I needed to vent. So here I go...
When the finale dropped a few months ago, I watched it, loved it, and felt pretty content just having the story wrap up. I thought I was fine.
But lately, the Stranger Things nostalgia has been hitting me absolutely like a train. It’s a bizarre feeling because the show has been over for months, but the weight of it actually being gone is only sinking in for me now.
I think I’m realizing that we didn't just say goodbye to a show, we said goodbye to a massive chunk of our own lives. It's been nearly a decade since Season 1. Everyone literally watched the characters grow up while we grew up and changed right alongside them. Hawkins felt like a comforting routine, and now that the collective hype and theorizing have completely quieted down, there’s this weird, permanent void.
Even listening to the soundtrack or seeing clips from it makes me incredibly homesick for a universe I never actually lived in.
Did anyone else experience this kind of "delayed" sadness? How are you guys coping with the Hawkins withdrawal now that the dust has completely settled?
P.S. And yes, before anyone tells me to go touch grass—I know it’s just a TV show! 😅 It’s just wild how a piece of media can become such a fixture of your routine over a decade. Just wanted to see if anyone else was feeling that post-series void!
(Also, to clarify: when I say I was happy with the "closure," I just mean I was glad the series finally got a proper, definitive conclusion instead of being canceled or left on a cliffhanger. I'm not trying to start a war about the actual storyline choices or plot holes! Please don't fight in the comments haha.
u/Chemical_Bet4960 — 3 days ago
▲ 14 r/StrangerThingsRoom
Why do some subs seem to be more mileven and some more byler?
I genuinely think that there's a division, even in spaces that are supposed to be neutral, like the main st sub.
u/totesnotmikewheeler — 3 days ago
Help me understand whose transport is where? 5х8
I can't find a post about this, in case anyone has already asked. In the final scene on the roof (wiping away a tear), we can see three cars and a motorcycle parked outside the building. I can't figure out who arrived in what vehicle?
u/IntelligentReward927 — 4 days ago
Which characters in stranger things 5 did you Like and not like?
Who i liked:
-Holly
-Will
-max
-Lucas
-Dustin
-Robin
-Murray
-Erica
-Nancy
-Karen
Who i didn’t like as much:
-Joyce
-hopper
-Jonathan
-Mike
-Eleven (i really hate saying this but i feel like she didn’t have enough personality this season.)
-Steve
-Ted (obviously)
Now it’s your Turn. Which character arcs did you like and which did you think got sidelined?
u/Careful_Software_822 — 4 days ago
LGBT sub
Hi!
I was thinking, since it's pride month and all, why don't we create a subreddit to share about LGBT content/fancontent?
I think it would be a good space so all queer shippers or ppl who just enjoy queer media could join and talk about fanfics, hc, canon queer characters,...
What do you think about this?
u/Sure-Bicycle-8809 — 4 days ago
Which tattoo should I she get? (TW mention of suicide)
For context, Sasha is my Stranger Things demogorgon fan character, and she was raised within a USSR military operation to be a Russian super soldier. She did lots of bad things and lots of bad stuff happened to her.
I’m not sure which one of these to go with, because the Laika one has an overall negative and abysmal vibe, and it could be something that invokes negative feelings whenever looked at. On the other hand the flowers could be seen as kind of generic and aren’t as unique as the Laika one.
u/sashenka_demogorgon — 5 days ago
Mike's trauma PART 4
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.
/
/
/
Trigger warning for child sexual abuse.
Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger and A Nightmare on Elm Street were a huge inspiration for ST and especially S4. He is a child killer who was burned to death by his victims’ parents. As you probably guessed already, I think this child killing is really about CSA in ST. After being killed, Freddy became a spirit killing children in their dreams (= the traumatic memories keep haunting Mike and Will, manifesting as supernatural monsters). The most obvious visual reference to Freddy Krueger is the cardboard cutout in S4E2 at Family Video. It is only shown next to Max, foreshadowing Vecna cursing her (it is also very very briefly seen earlier in the episode when Robin runs past it after saying “Ooh, I think I found our morning movie.”). They purposefully block it in other scenes/moments.
Freddy Krueger influenced both Victor Creel and Vecna: Freddy Krueger’s actor (Robert Englund) plays old Victor Creel and Victor scratches the table like Freddy famously does to a chalkboard. The party also first suspects Victor of the murders, thinking he is Vecna. Vecna, like Freddy, “kills you in your dreams” and in S4E5 Dustin compares Vecna’s Mindscape to Freddy’s boiler room (+ a boiler room is mentioned again in S5 epilogue by Jonathan “You know, where she traps all the men and then burns their bodies. The Consumer.”). Robin’s description of Vecna in S4E8 would match Freddy Krueger pretty well: “He’s a number like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin.” Furthermore, his big left hand resembles Freddy Krueger’s razor fingers and he was burned alive but didn’t really die.
Holly learns about Freddy Kruger from Dustin in S4E5: [Holly] “Freddy Krueger?” [Dustin] “He’s a super burned-up dude with razors for fingers. And he kills you in your dreams.” and she watches A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Warriors with Mary on Halloween 1987 (memory shown in S5E5). This is when Henry (= Freddy Krueger) started following her. The “razors for fingers” might connect to bear claws. In S4E4 Yuri tells a story about polar bears: “You see damage to this hull? Yuri was on sightseeing trip to see polar bears. And then bears got into plane and pull him out of cockpit and kill Yuri. And he loved bears. They broke his heart. Or rather punctured it with their bear claws.” He imitates the bear shaking its victim (does it kinda look like sex maybe?). Anyway, this is another connection between bears and the abuser and possibly Freddy Krueger. The bears (= abuser) in this story prevented Yuri from flying (= freedom and love) and damaged the plane. The bears probably represent homosexuality too, which is why Teddy Bears are associated with Will and El, and why Yuri “loved bears”. It could also be because Will initially loved his dad. Additionally, Billy was literally punctured in the heart by the Mind Flayer. ((Btw, a syrup bottle was prominently in frame when Dustin talked about Freddy Krueger to Holly. I’m not sure how to interpret that yet but thought I should point it out.))
We also have Fred Benson in S4 (Fred = Freddy). Fred’s second vision is spliced with Wayne Munson telling about Victor Creel to Nancy, suggesting Fred is Victor or related to him somehow. The same happens when Dustin and others explain the supernatural stuff to Eddie and name the new monster Vecna. (Ofc both times Fred is getting cursed by Vecna who the narration is more obviously about, but it’s interesting they chose specifically Fred for this, not any of the other victims.) Fred’s trauma is about him blaming himself for a kid’s death in a car accident. The car is burning, similar to the burning baby stroller in Victor’s vision. Many characters representing the abuser have this guilt, thinking they did something wrong (they didn’t, but the actual abuser did so in a weird way they bear the fault from that, also adding to the blaming yourself motif). ((Mike thinks he is the monster: he had the same scar as Fred in S3E8, Henry gets a similar scar in S5E6, Eddie (the DM with dark long hair like Mike) is suspected of the murders and Wayne compares Victor to Michael Myers (more on him later).)) So, in the same episode (S4E2 “Vecna’s curse”) Fred’s trauma is shown, Victor Creel and the Creel murders are introduced, the party decides to call the murderer Vecna and we get the first obvious reference to Freddy Krueger (+ it’s the infamous 22nd of March). This effectively connects all the Freddy Krueger reference people in one episode.
I think the reason Fred is paired with Nancy is that Nancy Thompson was a central recurring character in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. That’s also another connection to Mike, because Nancy represents him more obviously than most characters. When a Hawkins resident is being interviewed on TV and says “that this town is cursed, that the devil lives here in Hawkins” the camera circling Nancy reveals Fred behind her, implying that he is the devil. The camera is still focused on Nancy, though, and I think it’s about both of them (= Mike, who thinks he is the monster/Freddy or will be in the future). Alice is another recurring A Nightmare on Elm Street character who appears in the 4th movie, kinda like Alice Creel appears in S4. She is Henry’s sister, like Nancy is Mike’s sister and obviously connected to Freddy Krueger by being Vecna’s victim.
Fathers
Victor Creel is Henry’s father, he feels guilty about killing a baby and is in jail. Hopper is Sara’s and El’s father, he feels guilty about his daughter’s death (“I am the curse”) and is put in jail. While being imprisoned (S4E7), Hopper and Antonov discuss their fatherhood and relationship to their kids. [Hopper] “I think it must be hardwired into us to reject our fathers. So we can grow and move on.” In S5E4 Holly tells Max that Meg’s dad was a prisoner in Camazotz. There’s also a subtle “Dad can’t get out now.” by Karen in S3E7, where Ted rides a ferris wheel with Karen and Holly. A lot of fathers in jail, right? That’s where Mike and Will think Lonnie should be.
Brenner never ends up in prison but he is blamed in other ways. S1E8 [Joyce] “Stop. I know who you are. I know what you’ve done. You took my boy away from me! You left him in that place to die! You faked his death! We had a funeral. We buried him. And now you’re asking for my help? Go to hell.” Faking a death and burying the body probably mean hiding the memory of what happened. Lonnie tried to hide the proof of his abuse by preventing Will telling about it (explained in other theories), and similarly Papa, who represents Lonnie/dad, is hiding what really happened to Will.
In S4E9 El tells Henry that Papa is the monster, not Henry (= homosexuality). Henry answers: “You’re right. You, and I, we are different. And Papa did hurt me. But he was no monster. He was just a man. An ordinary, mediocre man. That is why he sought greatness in others. In you. And me. But in the end… he could not control us. He could not shape us. He could not change us. Do you not see, Eleven? He did not make me into this. You did.” I think some of this is about Brenner but some is also subtextually about the dad. He “was just a man”, which makes it all the more scary. Abusers might seem totally normal people on the outside but still do awful things. I think that’s part of the message in Stranger Things. Something like this can and does happen in a normal town, at home, to a regular kid and nobody notices. The same goes for the queer allegory: queer people don’t only exist in big cities and they aren’t always noticeably different/queer (e.g. many viewers didn’t think Will could be gay). Both queer people and victims of sexual abuse are silenced and hidden, especially in a small town like Hawkins in the 80s.
Why Eleven made Henry into a monster is a bit unclear to me still. Either it means Mike made him into a monster by thinking queerness was bad (El would represent Mike) or love did because Mike was worried his queerness would hurt the person he loves (El would represent love, making it more specific to her) or maybe queer love appearing/getting stronger made queerness seem worse because now there is a target of attraction, it’s more concrete, a reality (El would be queer love, the most specific to her). Regardless of the specifics, I think the point here is that the dad didn’t directly make queerness bad but Mike did by associating it with the abuse.
Cars
Fred’s trauma was about a car crash, which made me look deeper into cars in ST. ((I only started researching the cars when writing this part so I’ve probably missed some stuff.)) Even his first vision happens when he’s in a car. Lonnie’s car is very prominent in one of the Lonnie scenes (S1E2) and Jonathan looks in the trunk (checking if Will was there). In S1E1 Will tells Mike the Demogorgon got him in front of a car and soon after Dustin and Will cycle past a car when Dustin shouts “I’m gonna kill you!” The framing and camera movements seem to focus on cars on the side of the road. Billy is also strongly associated with a car and he almost runs over the boys in S2E2. Hopper calls Alexei a child murderer in S3E5 when he is in the TODFTHR car. Cars or the drivers of the cars seem to be associated with the abuser (probably not all cars, though). ((Steve is the designated driver and he kinda represents Lonnie in some ways (bat, dad coded, conformity, both like nice cars), but he isn’t literally the abuser or bad. Max is also known for driving cars and there’s a reason for that but I’ll get to it later. She isn’t a bad person either.)) It makes a lot of sense for a car to be in the rain fight scene, since the abuse is a big reason why Mike can’t accept his homosexuality.
If the car driver represents the abuser, the car crashing is the abuse and that’s why it’s Fred’s trauma. I guess the car itself would be the abused child, then. ((Steve and Lonnie both like cars and we know Steve likes kids (in a healthy way) and Lonnie “likes” them too or at least Mike/Will think so. He may or may not actually be attracted to children.)) In S3E1 Billy is about to meet Karen when his car crashes and he encounters the Mind Flayer. Agewise Karen could be Billy’s mother. A parent-like figure about to have sex with a much younger person leads to Billy getting flayed, which represents acquiring lost memories of the abuse (kinda like Will’s now-memories in S2). Billy’s car crash is extra important since El sees the car first when she looks for Billy in the void. In S4E9 Max tells Vecna she used to imagine Billy crashing and “dying in that stupid car” (in a way he does, since the Mind Flayer kills him and the car originally lead him to it). S3E7 El throws a car at Russians in the Starcourt Mall, crashing it into a pizzeria (pizza definitely means something, but I’m not sure what yet). El notices her powers have been lost when she tries to lift the car upright again. Essentially, her crashing the car removed her powers (= love and connection to trauma). Maybe the trauma was too much, El got too close to it with the car crash. Mike’s love is suppressed by fear and no more traumatic memories can be uncovered by El, or something like that.
When Jonathan looks for the ignition cable in the car (S3E8), the meatflayer appears (= car is the way to traumatic memories). Later in the episode Billy tries to crash into the party’s car but Steve crashes into Billy’s car, saving Nancy, Jonathan, Will and Lucas. Steve drives the Toddfather car whose new “daddy” he claimed to be earlier in the episode. This might function in the same way as Steve saving Nancy and Jonathan from the Demogorgon with the bat in S1 (= using Lonnie’s weapons against him aka temporarily protecting yourself by conforming). A similar thing happens in S5E4 when Steve bumps into the Demogorgon saving Joyce and everyone else.
In S5E1 the military car crashes into a big tree due to a Demogorgon killing the driver. Now we have two trauma motifs colliding (literally) and directly connecting to Demogorgons (= Lonnie). This makes Will faint and the WSQK power fuses melt.
In S5E6 Steve crashes his car into the UD wall next to a cemetery. The car and the cemetery get sucked into oblivion, and as I previously explained, this indicates forgetting/suppressing the memories. Nancy damaging the exotic matter damaged the connection to traumatic memories (the bridge to the supernatural world).
There are some “car graveyards” in ST. The first one is in S1E5, where El hurts Lucas. In S1E7 the boys + El hide from the government there and Mike, Lucas and El forgive each other. Another example is in S4E2, when Jonathan and Argyle hit golf balls into a pit of abandoned cars. In S4E5 they bury the body of Unknown Hero Agent Man there. Both times something truthful and personal gets shared (Jonathan sharing his fears about his relationship with Nancy and Will telling Mike how opening up to people you care about can be scary). The truths are about fears and maybe that’s the way the cars connect to this. The cars/trauma is the truth and it’s scary. You can talk about it when the cars are dead, less real but still there (or something like that maybe). El trains in the middle of another car graveyard in S5E1. It probably works as desensitization and prepares her for the real fight with Vecna. She also drinks green juice, indicating growth.
Vines
At the start of S5 we have the most direct depiction of the trauma in the whole series. It started a lot of discussion around the SA allegory in ST and made many people uncomfortable. The vine in Will’s mouth was shown already in S1E8, but we didn’t see how it got there and what was done with it. In S5 we got that context and many more children (and only children) ended up having vines in their mouths too.
Vines are used to depict sexual assault in ST (not a new idea). They drag, strangle and trap people, surrounding them from all sides. They are part of the supernatural, the hive mind and Vecna can control them. He seems to get power from them but he is also covered in them, maybe suggesting he is a victim too. (In the documentary they describe his vines as a disease.) Owens compares the vines to truth in S2E4: “You see why I have to stop the truth from spreading, too. Just, same as those weeds there.” In a way they are, they show what was done to Will. Also in that episode, Hopper thinks Will’s drawings of the tunnels are vines. Both are spreading, come from the UD and connect things (tunnels places on the map, vines the hive mind). They are buried memories slowly breaking free.
1979
When El was recovering her powers in S4, she had to go back to the traumatic events in 1979. When Max ends up in Henry’s mind, she finds herself in the Hawkins lab massacre and later refers to this as “the beginning” (S5E4). ((In S2E2 Mike was told to “go back to the beginning” by the government lady and in S5E5 Max tells Holly “Walk me through everything again, from the beginning.” reiterating this point of going back to where it all started.))
The actual date 8th September probably isn’t when the actual trauma happened, but it is the international literacy day (+ Brenner fills a crossword puzzle in the flashback from that day). Stranger Things is full of intertextual references and decoding what the Hawkins lab massacre was actually depicting/about requires some media literacy. It is also pretty overtly metaphorical, e.g. with the big rainbows and the mirror with a seemingly pointless room behind it. I’m positive it’s about breaking the fourth wall (remember the Zenith TV I mentioned in PART 3?) and revealing the story was about homosexuality (= rainbows) and childhood trauma (= dead kids + blood) all along. Gaten Matarazzo’s birthday happens to be 8.9 (sorry for the Americans, I’m gonna use the European way to mark dates), and the cast celebrated it at Medieval Times after the final table read. That whole “final table read” was fake and part of the meta/ARG/story. I think it’s not accidental that 22nd March is Matthew Modine’s birthday and 8th September is Gaten’s, but I’ll come back to the birthday stuff later. ((Additionally, in the Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons comic book, Mike finds DnD on 8.9.1980. They befriend Dustin the day after. I have many thoughts about this, but they’ll come later.))
Despite the specific date being different, the year 1979 is a recurring element and it fulfills my “has to be in S1 and preferentially E1” -rule. The year is indirectly mentioned pretty early in S1E1, right when the boys are leaving Mike’s house: [Dustin] “Like that time she dressed up as an elf for our Elder tree campaign.” [Mike] “Four years ago!” This is followed by the famous “It was a seven.” and “The Demogorgon, it got me.” In hindsight, this suggests something that happened four years ago is related to the Demogorgon “getting” Will. Curiously, Dustin wasn’t even in Hawkins four years ago aka in 1979…
They are discussing Nancy becoming a jerk because of Steve and according to Dustin “she used to be cool” 4 years ago (1979). I interpret this as Mike’s future looking good but then the trauma ruining it. Steve would be conformity and Nancy dates him because he provides a safety and normalcy to her. Mike can run away from his trauma and queerness by conforming to society, or something like that. The elf might be a connection to Eleven, and Nancy dressing up as her might be El in the lab massacre memory representing Mike (= Mike “dresses up” as El), which would give more weight to interpretation 1 of El banishing Henry to the Abyss (= Mike made him into a monster by thinking queerness was bad).
But the more important part here is the campaign itself. It’s about an Elder tree so there’s the association to Lonnie. It is described like this: “This powerful being is positioned in between the dark and light sides of the fey world. He is connected to everything and everyone.” The trauma ultimately caused all the supernatural and is connected to everything and everyone in this story. The first gate the party (Nancy) goes through is on a tree. I think this is the true reason why Lonnie/the trauma is associated with trees. Trees can be big, old and have roots everywhere. Many mythologies have a version of a world tree, the center of everything. The woods play an important role too, and I will explain that in a future part of this theory.
In S1E1 Hopper reveals he has been working in Hawkins for 4 years, again connecting to 1979 (and there’s keys in the background, maybe indicating the scene is a key to unlocking the mysteries of the show). Sara died and Kali escaped the lab in 1978 (at least according to the wiki). I think the abuse had been happening for a while but it got worse in 1979 and then ended when Lonnie moved away (most likely in 1979). ((It might have not ended completely, since Lonnie still visited the family.)) Castle Byers is built and Hopper becomes Chief of Police, maybe signifying protection from traumatic memories. Now that immediate danger is over, the memories are hidden/forgotten. I think the story starts in 1983 because that’s when the processing of those memories started. The actual trauma happened in the past and in 1983 the memories of it come back to haunt Mike and Will.
The big trauma happened when Mike and Will were around 7-8. It was Will’s 8th birthday when he drew the rainbow ship. El was 8 in her traumatic memory. Henry was also 8 in his. This is one reason why I think the cave memory is really about the same trauma as El’s memory and all the other instances I’ve mentioned in this theory, e.g. Billy’s death. We see the memory first in S5E6:
[Holly] “Why did that man try to hurt Henry? Hurt Henry? He was only trying to help.”
[Max] “I don’t know.”
[Holly] “Is this what made Henry bad?”
There was a man who hurt Henry and this led to Henry’s connection with the Mind Flayer, making him “bad”. Both El and Henry’s memories are about Henry (queerness) becoming bad and the ultimate cause of that being the scientist man, Mind Flayer or Brenner, aka the dad. Henry’s cave memory has a comparable significance to El’s lab massacre memory, it is the way out of Camazotz and “the precise moment” Henry “stole his own mind”.
Holly was canonically 6 in S4, but 9-10 in S5. This is believed to be a retcon, but I don’t think it is. Holly very conveniently skipped the ages 7-8 when the worst of the trauma happened. Additionally, she was probably born around 1980, after the trauma (or before it around 1977). I think she is Mike’s way of retaining a happy childhood, free of trauma.
As I mentioned in my Finland theory, I strongly suspect the 1979 trauma is the Great Wrath (isoviha) in the Finland allegory. It was a Russian occupation at the end (1713-1721) of the Great Northern War (1700-1721). Finland was still part of Sweden and was separated for good only in 1808-1809 (corresponds to S1). I was reading the Wikipedia page for the Great Wrath and there were a LOT of awful torture etc. mentioned, even more on the Finnish Wikipedia page. The atrocities were minimised and claimed to be exaggerations during Finlandization (after the war with the Soviet Union, corresponds to the epilogue in ST). This was because of self-censorship and efforts to avoid conflict with the Soviet Union. Later many of the atrocities were found to be as horrible as previously claimed. All this matches so well with Stranger Things: the supernatural was erased so quickly and simply, like they are just pretending the trauma doesn’t exist. The Soviet Union will eventually crumble down along with the Berlin Wall, and so will the dam holding Mike’s memories and feelings.
((After writing the first version of this, my understanding of the timeline has progressed considerably. I now think there were two major trauma events, one in 1976 and the other in 1979. Some of the previously mentioned trauma depictions refer to the earlier and others to the later one. I will go deeper into all the timeline shenanigans much later, since I have to explain many central concepts of my theory first. Figuring out the timelines has been by far the most time-consuming and difficult part of all this and it gets crazy complex.))
Questions
We are now at the end of the beginning in this massive theory. You might have noticed I left some pretty important points unaddressed, like:
- Why is Mike so important when it’s Will’s trauma?
- Why was Mike there? Like, was he at a sleepover? Why didn’t Lonnie do anything to him or did he?
- If Mike is the storyteller/can affect the story, did Will tell him all about his trauma, or was Mike always there witnessing it or can Will affect the story too? How much?
- Basically all characters represent either Mike or Will or both (Henry, Max, etc.) and even Will represents Mike so everyone represents Mike. Why do so many characters represent both? E.g. in Max’s letter her situation seems like Will’s (poor and divorced parents) but then Billy = Will and Max = Mike in Max’s trauma about Billy’s death.
The solution came in the form of a tumblr theory (once again) and it blew my mind. Some of you might not like it and it will change the way you see Stranger Things forever (if you believe it, that is), but I’m convinced it’s the truth. There is just so so so much evidence for it and everything started unraveling after my realization. The real theory begins in the next part…
Continues in PART 5.
u/raspberry-3 — 4 days ago
I found the original "Hellscape" red-ish color
So i have the original episode that aired when ST4 Vol 1 aired, with tha Hellscape with the OG color correction. It was red and then changed to yellow
I put a picture of the actual one that you can find on Netflix
It's a shame that they never released episode 9 with the Byss in it's red color, that would have been cool to see.
I have the OG file of episode 9 from the day it was released and it was always yellow.
Thought it was a cute discovery that some fans might appreciate
u/Dosangeles1998 — 5 days ago
[Script] Alternative Version of STRANGER THINGS S5: Cosmic Horror (Why did Will live and Barb didn't?)
An alternative version of STRANGER THINGS S5 that fixes the script, expands the LORE, and builds a cosmic horror mythology. Featuring a total rewrite, including a spin-off set in Japan.
THE START: It begins right after the S4 finale. Argyle is evacuating the wounded in his van amidst the chaos. Hopper joins his old buddies to organize a resistance. Hawkins faces real danger; it’s not just the Upside Down anymore.
Government forces step in immediately, but not to save people. They set up barricades, lock down the area, and use lethal force if necessary. Their actual goal is to contain the situation and silence all witnesses.
SURVIVAL HORROR: Hawkins is completely cut off from the world. Suzie becomes the only radio link to the outside. The trapped town turns into a legit survival horror scenario where the locals fight day to day just to get by.
THE LOGISTICS: Joyce Byers takes charge of the school shelter, organizing families and rationing food alongside Karen Wheeler. Max is still in a coma, her mind trapped inside Vecna, and her mom is there looking after her. This gives real, much-needed weight to the Hawkins parents in the face of the dimensional crisis.
Murray Bauman reaches out to his old conspiracy theorist contacts via shortwave radio. Thanks to Suzie, he intercepts lab communications, discovering that the official order is to wipe out the town if the hive mind advances.
COVERT OPERATIONS: Dmitri and Yuri, trapped in the country as fugitives, put their old skills to use. Together with Hopper, they handle smuggling past containment lines to bring in meds, weapons, and hazmat suits.
THE RESISTANCE: Dustin, Lucas, Jonathan, Steve, and Mr. Scott Clarke lead the field research. They study the anatomy of the Demogorgons and the vines. Meanwhile, Hopper cuts a deal with the military for medical supplies in exchange for intel on the Upside Down's wildlife.
Eleven, Mike, and Will stay hidden to train on the front lines. The original trio goes head-to-head with the creatures at the edges of the invaded zones, learning how the hive ecosystem behaves and its weak points.
LORE REVEAL: Why did Vecna take Will and kill Barb in S1? They were captured as a biological experiment to measure organic compatibility between both dimensions. The plane needed a "blank canvas" to assimilate human chemistry.
Barb, having fixed teenage brain chemistry, rejected the dimension, which caused her death. Will, being younger, had a more adaptable brain that managed to adjust and absorb the environment. That’s why Vecna used him as the perfect anchor for his network.
THE ENDGAME: The final climax masterfully splits the action into three fronts:
• Military/Civilian Front: Hopper, Dmitri, and the militia defend the barricades against massive hordes of Demodogs. At the shelter, Joyce and Murray use fire to protect the kids.
• Scientific Front: Based on the biological studies, they develop a drug that breaks Vecna’s psychic bond with the hive. Mr. Clarke heroically sacrifices himself to inject the serum right into the core of the vines.
• Psychic Front: Will, Mike, and Eleven fight Vecna. Will holds off his attacks using his connection, Mike weakens Vecna’s physical body with the serum, and Eleven destroys him for good in the astral plane. The main goal is to rescue Max’s consciousness from inside Henry’s collapsed mind, letting her wake up in the hospital and wrapping up their character arcs.
THE END OF HAWKINS: The dimensional overload collapses the area. Hawkins vanishes completely, leaving a giant crater. The government enforces absolute secrecy: survivors get new identities, splitting up the group forever.
POST-CREDITS 1: We cut to the future (the actors' actual current age). We see Mike and Eleven from behind, walking into a room. It could be a mental plane Eleven created to keep them together in the astral world, or a secret reunion years later, defying the government. We hear the laughs of the rest of the original group playing D&D. Pure nostalgia.
POST-CREDITS 2 (The Spin-off): A forest in Tokyo, Japan, late '80s. Between the roots of an ancient tree, a small red crack opens up, spitting out Upside Down spores. A voiceover whispers: "Vecna failed. I need a new puppet... and to start from scratch."
Spin-off: In the late '80s, Japan is at the peak of its tech bubble. Unlike the messy, improvised military response in the US, the Japanese government tackles the anomaly with a surgical, scientific approach, using high-tech suits.
RESEARCH RESULTS: They discover the wildlife has a 3-stage evolutionary cycle: Demodogs (juvenile), Demogorgons (adult), and the "Alphas" (the final, massive, and intelligent stage). Vecna stunted their growth because their own intellect interfered with his mind control.
GLOBAL GEOGRAPHY: Japan discovers that reality is ripped all over the globe. There are "micro-rifts" (tiny peepholes) that explain historical ghost myths, and colossal "macro-rifts" in the deep oceans.
PRIMORDIAL KINGS: The biggest discovery is geopolitical: there’s more than one ruler. The Upside Down is as big as the entire Earth, and Henry Creel (Vecna) was only controlling one sector on orders from a local entity.
There are actually 3 Gods:
• The Mind Flayer: A young, insecure king trying to conquer Earth out of fear.
• The Elder of the Abyss: A giant marine Leviathan.
• The Heart of the Forest: A benevolent, native consciousness.
In the space between the Upside Down and our world lives The Shadow Weaver, who uses the Mind Flayer's ambition to weaken dimensional borders and collapse both realities into the absolute void.
Conclusion: The plot shifts from teen drama to worldwide cosmic horror.
u/Marinerodelamanecer — 4 days ago
In Tales from 85 season 2 I really hope that Jonathan and hop have more screen time.
I know it’s focused on the kids and Nikki but heck, even Steve AND Nancy had their own episode of some importance. Jonathan and hopper felt like actual NPC’s with a few seconds of screen time at most.
At least Nancy and Steve had about 4-5 minutes which isn’t saying much but it’s something.
And I really don’t like Nikki.
u/Careful_Software_822 — 6 days ago
STRANGER THINGS “Classic Poster” fanart.
Done in Procreate and Adobe Photoshop.
u/Subject-Dot8757 — 8 days ago
Mike's trauma PART 3
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.
/
/
/
Trigger warnings for child sexual abuse and mention of suicide.
Besides baths, there are other similar water containers in ST. Barb gets taken into the Upside Down through Steve’s pool and the community pool in S3 is a central location where Billy and Heather (the first people to get flayed) work at. Steve and Nancy end up having sex after getting wet in the pool and Billy uses “swimming lessons” as code for sex when he tells Karen “there is a good pool out at a Motel 6 on Cornwallis” (S3E1), pool probably referring to the motel room or bed. Cornwallis is an important street since Driscoll and Dustin live there and Mirkwood is where Cornwallis and Kerley meet (I found this information in the Stranger Things wiki, it has been very useful for making theories and connecting the dots). It was the street where Will encountered the Demogorgon. So, in both seasons 1 and 3 a pool is related to sex and the supernatural monsters. As a side note, notice how Billy’s dressing at the pool gets progressively more covering? I feel like it could be related to sexual trauma since Billy’s increasing connection with the Mind Flayer is like Will in S2 where he started to remember the trauma. Billy is the most sexualised character in the series and almost has an affair with a much older person, both of which connect to Will’s trauma.
I think the most in-your-face connection between (romantic) feelings and water is Lover’s lake – it’s literally in the name and shape of the lake. The real reason one of the gates was formed at the bottom of that lake is that it is a body of water. Like with Barb, the deepness of Mike’s feelings scare him and open the “neurological floodgates” (as Owens puts it in S2) to the trauma. Brenner uses a similar analogy for Henry’s gate opening in S4E8: “Imagine, if you will, the barrier between our worlds is a… concrete dam. Henry is putting cracks in this dam. Cracks in dams create pressure. Left unchecked, the pressure will build. And build. And eventually, it will reach a breaking point. And the dam will burst. And when that happens, Hawkins will fall.” The water (= feelings/memories) will flood Mike and Will’s minds. (This will be explained better later.)
The Sattler Quarry is another important body of water, relevant in S1. Will’s body was found there and it was thought he had fallen down and drowned. Mike jumps into the quarry but El saves him in S1E6. Hopper describes the water like this (S1E2): “You make that jump from this height, that water turns into cement. Hits you like a ton of bricks. Break every damn bone in your body.” (I wonder if this could be related to Vecna’s curse breaking bones.) When we combine the “water is love” with the quarry, we get “falling in the quarry/love will kill you” and more specifically it will kill Will and Mike. In the queer allegory the events of S1 happen because Mike falls in love or at least has a crush (light bulb and Will taken into the UD/closet), so this interpretation of the quarry makes a lot of sense. It is deadly and jumping there is a “suicide” because Mike’s love is homosexual and thus not accepted in society. ((Interestingly, the news reporter in S1E4 tells that someone drowned in the quarry 7 years ago (Stranger Things wiki coming to the rescue once again). This was in 1976, when Mike and Will first met on the first day of kindergarten.))
Lonnie blames the Sattler Company for Will’s death, saying there were no warning signs or fences at the quarry. So, the company that owns this body of water (= feelings), is the problem. Based on Lonnie’s previous behavior and the allegory, I think this is him blaming Will’s homosexuality. He might have used that as an excuse in some way during the abuse too, maybe telling Will he deserves it or trying to make him not gay or maybe Will even thinks the abuse made him gay. I’m not sure about the details but homosexuality and the abuse are connected in Mike and Will’s mind. The first time Will is indicated to be queer (S1E1) is Joyce telling Hopper Lonnie called Will queer and the slur, connecting Lonnie with Will’s queerness right from the get go. This causes Hopper to suspect Lonnie despite Joyce insisting he has nothing to do with Will’s disappearance.
In the trauma allegory the water in the quarry represents the traumatic memories. Will gets hit with them like bricks and drowns in them. His “death” could be Mike repressing/burying the traumatic memories (about Will) and Will ending up in the UD is separating him (the memories) from Mike. (Sorry if this is confusing, I promise to explain better later.)
An interesting point about water in ST is that it doesn’t exist in the UD (and the tunnels avoid bodies of water). You would think something associated with trauma would exist in the UD, since it seems to be where the trauma is (metaphorically) stored. The bath and water as a whole are often the way into the UD (El contacting the Demogorgon from the bath, Barb in the pool, Lover’s lake gate, etc.) but not in there. The Abyss is a desert, so no water there either. Maybe the water isn’t exactly the trauma itself, but a way to it. Mike’s gay feelings open the way to his trauma (or memories lead to re-experiencing the trauma). And there is no water because there is no love, it’s a cold and lonely place.
Well, there is one place in the UD with water: the sensory deprivation tank in Hawkins Lab. I bet that tank is right in the middle of the lab, underneath the exotic matter deep underground. Maybe it, too, is “the bridge”. This would work really well with everything I’ve analyzed before, since El contacting the Demogorgon from that bath started everything. The memory is shown as a flashback when El sees the tank again in S5E8 and right after it (when there’s exactly 2 hours left in the episode), Murray turns on the lights saying “And let there be light.” which is a reference to the creation of the world from the Bible (I guess everyone knew that already but it just reinforces the idea that El touching the Demogorgon started everything). And yeah, after El gets in the (love) bath, the next scene is the infamous byler tower “rejection”, where they share water.
While the UD and Abyss are devoid of water, El’s void has nothing else. It is a completely dark and empty place with a water floor. Vecna’s Mind Lair also has water puddles. In S1E1 the boys found El in the rain, byler had their famous fight in the rain and there’s the waterfalls and the irrigation system on the Wheeler front yard (S1E1, S5E1, S5E8 + some other times), the ocean/beach, etc. This water metaphor definitely needs more analysis and maybe I’ll come back to it at some point.
Back to Lonnie analysis (again)
So we were at Lonnie showering in S1E5. The next scene is a sandwich scene where Nancy tries to swing the bat. She is interrupted by Steve who apologises for his past actions. The bat (conformity and Lonnie) is between them during the conversation and Nancy mentions how the situation has been really hard on Mike (bringing up Mike might suggest the scene has something to do with him). Steve sings these two lines from the song Old Time Rock and Roll: Just take those old records off the shelf / I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself (old records = trauma memories from years ago, maybe). After the scene Joyce argues with Lonnie and tells him to get out. This is the last time we see him.
The scene transitions to Jonathan shooting a gun towards the direction Lonnie was in the last shot. This is also the scene where Nancy’s role as the designated gun user begins. More importantly, Jonathan shares the story of Lonnie making him kill a rabbit on his tenth birthday. I could have mentioned this earlier but I saved it for this. As you know by now, this was really about sexual abuse. Like with El, an abusive father forces their child to kill an animal. The fact it was Jonathan’s birthday is meaningful, there is definitely something going on with the birthdays. I think some of the trauma happened on Will’s birthday (22nd March) and that’s why it is so important. But more on this later…
Lonnie is never named after S1 (except for The First Shadow where he was suspected to be the animal killer and admits stealing a baby Jesus (= Will ofc) from a nativity scene), but just referred to as Jonathan and Will’s dad. He isn’t mentioned much and I think his disappearance is very purposeful. El disintegrating the Demogorgon in S1 was the memory of the abuse getting back to the subconscious, forgotten. ((Notice how the animal statue previously looking towards the Demogorgon has “fallen” in the next shot. There was nothing physical doing that, it’s showing how Mike can’t see El or the Demogorgon anymore. Something changed in the world when they disappeared. There’s surprisingly many intentional inconsistencies like this in the show and I’ve only recently started to notice them. S5 made this more obvious but they have been there since S1.)) The scene is very similar to El banishing Henry to the Abyss, the memory of which El buried. ((Which also has intentional inconsistencies. We see El on the floor twice in S4E8: first time there are red triangle shapes, the second time they have disappeared and the arrangements of clutter etc. are different. This is most likely El forgetting about the trauma (= red).)) So the memory of Lonnie was essentially buried and while new versions of him appear (e.g. Billy’s dad Neil), we never see the real Lonnie again. We also never see him in the same scene with Will, and their whole history is displayed through other characters like Jonathan and indirectly via metaphors. Lonnie comes and goes inside the time window Will is trapped in the UD. We have the UD with its supernatural representation of the trauma + Will, and the real world with the real abuser + Jonathan (representing Will). Putting all the puzzle pieces together gives you the truth of what happened (= real abuser + Will). ((Well, it’s not the full truth but we’ll get to that later.))
In summary, of all the scenes before and after a Lonnie scene, 8 were of Hopper investigating. Lonnie is the criminal at fault here, so this makes perfect sense. All the sandwich scenes (4 in total) had Mike in some way (shown or at least mentioned). The rest were Will drawing the fireballs and Jonathan practicing shooting, both of which are about killing/hurting the bad guy (Lonnie) with projectiles and Will/Jonathan not being able to (Will doesn’t have a red crayon and Jonathan misses the target).
Bob
Finally, moving onto season 2 and Bob. His death is the first time we see Demogorgons eating a human on screen. Previously it was only implied or they were eating animals. The trauma depictions keep getting closer to reality. Bob seems to represent both Mike and Will depending on the context. I guess when he dies Bob = Will and Joyce+Hopper = Mike. Moreover, Mike relates Bob’s death and El’s disappearance to “that thing” taking them (S2E8): “Until that thing took her. Just like it took Bob.” Will was also “taken” by the Demogorgon.
As I mentioned in my Orange vs Green theory, it’s established already in Bob’s introduction that he doesn’t like orange. In the same scene we also learn that he hates scary movies. Spooky Movies plays through the entire scene, starting from the orange haired Max walking to her desk and ending with Merril’s Farm pumpkin sign. I’ll explain Max’s role in all this way way later (my previous theory was onto something but not quite there yet). Hopper finds out about rotting pumpkins and later it’s revealed that the UD tunnels infesting the normal world caused the rot. If the orange pumpkins are childhood then the rot is the abuse, ruining good pumpkins. In S5E1, El practices her powers by exploding pumpkins (= dealing with childhood trauma). T85 has sentient pumpkins in episode 2, where Max and Lucas defeat them with a green combine harvester. ((Btw, when Hopper interviews the pumpkin farmer Eugene McCorkle at the police station (S2E2), Powell calls the situation a pumpkin conspiracy. Callahan comments: “Hawkins’ very own Chinatown.” I haven’t seen the movie but I read the plot synopsis and… yeah, it works.))
You could say all this orange is just because the season is Halloween themed, but I think Halloween is actually a big, intentional part of this. Halloween is a yearly event strongly tied to horror and Will has PTSD symptoms because he is starting to remember the horrors that occurred years ago. Meanwhile, the UD (= trauma) is physically spreading into Hawkins. Owens explains Will’s episodes are caused by the anniversary effect, proving that the time of year (Halloween) is important. All this “Halloween” orange represents previously forgotten childhood memories that are now resurfacing (and maybe Halloween was the reason they chose orange to represent childhood and non-conformity). Halloween originally comes from or was influenced by Samhain, a Gaelic harvest festival. From the Wikipedia page: According to Irish mythology, Samhain (like Bealtaine) was a time when the 'doorways' to the Otherworld opened, allowing supernatural beings and the souls of the dead to come into our world; while Bealtaine was a summer festival for the living, Samhain "was essentially a festival for the dead". In Stranger Things “the dead” would be buried memories, and the Abyss or UD the Otherworld. Zombies are these memories coming alive and haunting the normal world, and Will (the “Zombie Boy”) functions as a connection to the UD/Abyss. In summary, the color orange and a gate opening between worlds letting traumatic memories (aka “the dead”) / supernatural creatures into the normal world are intertwined in Halloween and Stranger Things. I’ll go more into the idea of buried memories soon, but let’s continue with Bob first.
Bob likes the green pumpkin, which is immediately followed by him telling about hating scary movies. This implies green is the opposite of scary. I think Bob is closely tied to what green represents, minus the negatives: he is an adult, the normal and safe option for Joyce (similar to Steve with Nancy), likes “normal” things, is nice and doesn’t fight back. ((That’s also why he dresses as a vampire for Halloween; he represents conformity just like the vampire villain Strahd von Zarovich in the last DnD game.)) [Bob] S2E3 “I was never really one to put up a fight. I struggled a lot like Will when I was a kid. With bullies. It’s the ones like us, that don’t punch back, that people really take advantage of, you know? They rub your nose in it, just a little bit more. I don’t know why they do that. Maybe it makes them feel powerful.” Bob is like Will in the green cabbage sense.
He was also afraid of Mr. Baldo, a clown, who is another representation of the abuser. (Clowns were already discussed in the other theories, so I won’t re-explain here.) Bob makes it seem pretty easy to get rid of his Mr. Baldo nightmares, which doesn’t end up working well for Will. Because Bob wants to avoid the orange pumpkin and the scary movie aka face the real trauma, he can’t truly help Will. According to David Harbour, that innocence is the reason he dies: “I think there is going to be somewhat of a morality — or at least responsible storytelling — to what the Duffers are doing. There’s a reason in Season 2 why Bob dies. He’s too innocent. You can’t go up to that monster and say, like, ‘Get away from me, get away!’ You just can’t be that person in this world. That person dies.” Will’s trauma is much bigger than a scary clown and I think Bob’s way of thinking represents the dismissal of mental health in the 80s (and today’s) society. It’s just in your head so it isn’t real/doesn’t matter. “Normal people” can get rid of these traumas “easy-peasy”. Bob isn’t intentionally harmful, of course, and neither is the average person affirming social norms and structures.
Buried underground
I keep mentioning memories being buried, so here is a more thorough exploration of that. There are multiple underground locations in ST and many, I think, connect to hidden/forgotten/buried memories. Same goes for graveyards, where people are literally buried.
First of all, the Upside Down is “underground”. At the start of every episode the audience is pulled underground, to the UD, and it’s made pretty clear through visuals and how the characters talk about it that it is (at least metaphorically) underground. All the monsters, aka manifestations of the trauma, come from the UD.
In S2 the UD spreads through underground tunnels, and the characters have to dig to get to them. In S2E5 (“Dig Dug”) Hopper struggling in the tunnels transitions into Dustin shoveling dirt to bury Mews, connecting the tunnels, the underground and burying something dead. Later in the same episode Hopper is surrounded by the vines and the camera moves to the surface, Hopper’s muffled screams still audible. Before cutting to the next scene, we hear Lucas end his explanation to Max: “And that was the last we ever saw of her. After that, she was just gone.” El’s disappearance (into the UD aka underground) is linked to Hopper being trapped in the tunnels (= disappearing from the pov of people on the surface). I think this is about the SA memories being gone, forgotten, buried underground. You know, season 2 is all about “digging” these buried memories up; that’s why they play Dig Dug in episode 1 and Will gets his “now-memories”. The tunnel hub, where Will says the Mind Flayer doesn’t want him to see, has bones etc. on the floor and Hopper calls it a graveyard in S2E6 (another connection between trauma, now-memories, underground and graves). Also in S2, Dustin keeps Dart in an underground storm cellar and obviously the big gate is underground.
In S3, the secret Russian base and the Steelworks are both underground. The gate is being opened in the Russian base and Billy comes into contact with the Mind Flayer in the Steelworks.
In S4 El retrieves her lost traumatic memories in the Nina project, which is, you guessed it, underground. The same goes for Henry’s cave memory. Additionally, the rainbow room itself is deep underground, which we learn in S5E5 when Steve and Dustin find it. [Steve] “Okay, that was too many stairs.” [Dustin] “Treasures are always hidden in the deepest depths of the dungeon.” When Mike describes dungeon crawls to Holly in S5E1, he says Mike the Brave “explores these underground worlds, where he fights monsters, evil wizards, sorcerers and stuff”. The party explores the UD via “crawls” in S5, again parallelling the UD and the underground but this time also dungeons from DnD. These dungeons have monsters in them and the deeper you go, the stronger the monsters will get. But, as Dustin said, there’s also treasure in the dungeon. Digging up and processing the trauma will have a positive outcome in the end. ((There is also this SNL clip where Finn says “The only way out is to go deeper. Interesting.” + Max and Holly escape Camazotz by going deeper underground into Henry’s memory. There’s the additional meta level to all this, since S5 is going “deeper” into conformity and the false facade of a “totally heterosexual and conforming mainstream show”. As I explained in my cave theory, the M cave is Mike’s emotional repression, so Max and Holly going deeper into the cave would be Mike going deeper into repression (as he does in the epilogue) + on the meta level the TV show literally ending in a super conforming way. The reason they do this is because it showcases how bad a conforming ending would be and contrasting it to the real ending forces people to confront their own values/biases. + I wouldn’t have started making my own theories if it weren’t for conformitygate.))
S4E4 Max is at a graveyard reading her letter to Billy, aka contacting the dead and the source of her trauma. This leads her to Vecna’s Mind Lair for the first time. The Lover’s lake gate is surrounded by fish bones, similarly to the tunnel hub in S2 (= graveyard). In S5E4 Steve, Dustin, Nancy and Jonathan are following a Demogorgon to the cemetery, but crash into the wall surrounding the Upside Down. Dustin tells Steve that “death” is on the other side of the wall. Nancy shooting the exotic matter in S5E5 causes a rift to form into the wall, sucking the cemetery with it. So, exotic matter aka the connection to the Abyss (= the storage of trauma memories or something like that) getting harmed leads to a cemetery (= a connection to the dead) being destroyed and sucked into emptiness/death/oblivion. (Notice the tree that’s also sucked into the emptiness, probably memories of Lonnie.) This is foreshadowing the whole UD getting destroyed in S5E8, and the supernatural (= manifestation of trauma) disappearing from the world. Mike and Will have repressed the memories so hard they are seemingly gone, “dead” (like El). But, like Dustin tells Eddie in S4E2 while Fred has a vision of being in an open grave, “These monsters from this other world… we thought they were gone. But they’ve come back before.” Fred then meets Vecna, who appears from an underground tunnel. The memories are never truly gone.
Across all seasons, Mike’s basement is an important location. That’s where most DnD games are held, El is hidden in S1 and where the party hangs out a lot. There are other basements too, like the one in the hospital (S5E6) where Vickie directs Robin: [Robin] “Do you know another way out?” [Vickie] “The basement. The basement! It leads to staff parking.” Indeed, Max gets out of Camazotz while her body is in the basement. Hopper and the rest of the Russia gang escape the prison via an underground tunnel in S4E8 and the S2 tunnels are used to get the kids out of MAC-Z in S5. All this seems to indicate that the underground is also the way out. Mike and Will processing their trauma will be the ultimate solution and free everyone of the real Camazotz, kinda (will be explained later).
Billy
Billy’s death in S3E8 is one of the clearest depictions of the trauma and has a lasting effect in the story. Its importance is made clear through Max’s storyline in S4 and her letter was one of the main reasons I thought Mike witnessed something happening to Will. [Max] “And sometimes I imagine myself running to you, pulling you away. I imagine that if I had, that you would still be here. And everything would be… everything would be right again. [...] But that’s not what happened. I just… I stood there and I watched. For a while, I tried to be happy. Normal. But I… I think that maybe a part of me died that day too. And I haven’t told anyone this. I… I just can’t.” There’s just so many parallels between Max-Billy and Mike-Will (ofc not everything but a lot): Mike also tries to be normal (Finn has literally said this in many interviews (here, here and here)) and feels useless/powerless (e.g. painting scene conversation S4E8 and lack of real weapons (candlestick and flaregun)), Will and Billy are both William, both have an abusive homophobic dad, both queercoded (Will more but still), etc.
There are two instances of Max talking to Ms. Kelley, both of which lead to a short flashback of her trauma. In S4E1 Ms. Kelley asks if Max has nightmares, and Max remembers Billy getting punctured in the chest->Max screaming “Billy!”->Billy falling to the floor. In S4E3 Ms. Kelley asks Max “Do you think you’re ready to talk more about that night?” and she remembers herself and Mike arriving at the scene->Billy getting lifted by the meat tentacles->Max screaming “Billy!”. This time the memories keep flashing back to Max in Ms. Kelley’s office. The key difference here is that Mike is only in the later flashback. No one else is visible in the flashbacks (well, you can also briefly see El in the S4E3 version, but Mike is very clearly visible). The memory is supposed to be about Max and Billy, so why is Mike there? He is there because this memory is really about him (like literally everything in this show, tbh) and he is only visible in the E3 version because that’s the “more about that night”, at least subtextually. We keep getting closer to the truth.
The scenes are chronologically earlier in the E3 version, which might indicate that “more” means going back in time, giving context or something like that. In S4E9 El views Max’s memories in reverse chronological order to get to a childhood memory which finally leads her to Max in Vecna’s mind. I’m convinced that the real ending will have a lot of “going back in time”/memories to see what happened in Mike and Will’s childhood. (Here’s some more proof for that. I originally found this from a Reddit post.)
Now I finally understand why S3E8 aligns with 1882 in the Finland allegory timeline and where the Finlayson electric lights being lit connects in that episode! The allegorical light bulb was lit when Billy got assaulted by the meatflayer, since, as you know, a lit light bulb represents the trauma. So there was no literal light bulb in the episode, but there was in the Finland allegory and they connect through the hidden meaning of the light bulb. Why such an important moment happens in S3 specifically I will explain in the distant future (I have so much to cover before that…).
((Btw, I think Dustin finally contacting Suzie is Emma Irene Åström becoming the first woman in Finland to receive a university degree, which also happened in 1882. If I’m right that Dustin represents the University of Helsinki/Finnish universities as a whole, this makes quite a lot of sense. No one believed Suzie actually existed and Will was surprised a girl would go to science camp (= women didn’t exist in academia and people thought women couldn’t get Master’s degrees). Suzie might represent something else too, but I’m not sure what yet.))
Alien
In S3 the meatflayer attacks by attaching to the victim’s face, just like the alien (facehugger) in Alien. The movie is obviously a huge inspiration for Stranger Things, there are numerous references in the show and the creators have confirmed it. There are no literal aliens in ST, but they have a strong presence in the show, mainly living in set design, references to other media and conspiracy theories. Some examples were mentioned in the Lonnie theory, connecting aliens to Lonnie. This is once again a way to distance the trauma from reality, it was an alien/predator/clown/monster, not your dad. The Demogorgon kinda looks like an alien, and in S1E8 it was framed next to “outer space traveler”. When Murray was introduced in S2E1, we learn that in addition to his new “Russian spies in Hawkins” -theory, he used to have a theory about “butt-probin’ aliens”. His Russian spy theory turned out to be true in S3, but his alien theory is never mentioned again.
Tales from ‘85 brings back alien conspiracy theories and reinforces the connections especially to the movie Alien. The new monster attacks the kids on their face similarly to the meatflayer in S3 and the facehuggers in Alien. The movie is literally mentioned by Max and a key analogy to help the kids understand the new monsters (T85E3). Mrs. Baxter describes the life cycle of the alien, which pretty clearly parallels the Demogorgon. It also started as a parasite inside Will and used him as its host. [Mrs. Baxter] “Until finally, bursting from his chest, ending the cycle by turning into a terrifying adult.” This would be Mike turning into a terrifying adult, the final form of the Demogorgon (as I explained earlier). Mrs. Baxter’s ketchup finale to her explanation is likely a reference to Zootopia, where the corresponding scene was about a predator killing its prey (in a children’s play). Alien = Demogorgon = predator.
If you think about it a bit, the alien is homosexuality, “infecting” Will in S1. I think this ties into Will thinking the abuse made him gay. Vecna’s vine appendage impregnated him (= SA) and created this monster (Dart/homosexuality) inside Will, that after its release grew (Dustin aka curiosity fed it) and started killing innocent animals. Basically Will kind of represents Mike’s homosexuality, which was already explained in the blog post, for example. That’s not exactly it, but pretty close and I will explain this better later.
Moon
This is what Billy says at the end of S3E4. He is flayed, so in a way it’s the Mind Flayer speaking. This is one piece of evidence that the moon represents/symbolises the abuser. (As with everything else, it’s probably also gay love or something like that.) Lonnie’s girlfriend’s name is Cynthia, which is associated with the moon and the Greek goddess of hunting: Artemis. Wikipedia: Cynthia was originally an epithet of the Greek goddess Artemis, who according to legend was born on Mount Cynthus on Delos. Selene, the Greek personification of the moon, and the Roman Diana were also sometimes called "Cynthia" due to their association with Artemis. This is a connection between hunting (= what predators do) and the moon. Then there’s the play in The First Shadow: Dark of the Moon. I haven’t seen TFS yet, so I won’t comment on any details (I have read the wiki page ofc but it won’t give me the full picture), but I think it’s important to note that the only part of the play we see in S5 is a scene where the moon is central.
Mr. Clarke has a big moon poster (with an animal statue in front of it) and Saturn V (a famous moon rocket) poster in his classroom in S5. As you’ll see later on, the posters and what Mr. Clarke teaches each season is very important. Murray has a moon poster as well, indicating it has something to do with his conspiracy theories. In S4E8 Yuri tells Hopper and Joyce that “Yuri will fly you to moon”. I read a tumblr theory explaining the meaning of flying and would have linked it here, but it’s been removed. In summary, it’s about freedom and love, and I will come back to it later.
The real reason I started to think the moon was somehow important didn’t even come from the show. I think now is a good time to introduce my craziest theory, because I’m so done not being able to use it for clues in my theories. I keep flip-flopping between being convinced it has to be right and being like “it can’t possibly be true”. I have actually had this theory for very long, longer than any of the theories I list as my main theories, and I posted an early version of it months ago (read it if you want more details). So basically, I think there are actual real songs out there that are part of the Stranger Things ARG. So they were made or their lyrics were somehow influenced by the ST creators. In the first version of my theory I only found/looked at songs titled “Zenith” but since then I’ve found more, so many more…
((In S2E5 Murray points at the stacked TVs when ranting about “them” aka normal people who don’t care/want to know the truth (look behind the curtain). There is an unexplained broken TV with a bullet hole at the start of the Lonnie scene where he tells Joyce it’s all in her head in S1E5. And this TV is of the brand Zenith, proving it’s been a thing SINCE SEASON 1. I think the cracked TV screen is supposed to symbolize the fourth wall breaking or something like that.))
The biggest reason I’m still hesitant with this is because some of the songs were released before ST season 1 even aired, and since no one knew it would get so big, I can’t see how they would get these secret collaborations with many artists. On the other hand, I’m quite certain the ARG/fake finale was planned since S1 (e.g. the S1 DnD game length matching with S5 length and the boys complaining how short and unfinished it was) and people keep finding solid evidence for more and more big shows, companies etc. being involved (e.g. here). I am actually convinced that an AI artist Ashborn Records is part of the ARG. Just listen to their songs and go check out their Instagram posts and you’ll see. I don’t think it’s a coincidence their first IG post is from 26th Nov. I won’t tell you every band and song I’m suspecting right now, or all the evidence I have because that’s a rabbit hole I’m not willing to dive into yet. I will give you some examples and mention songs along the way, when appropriate. If you think this theory is delusional, don’t worry, I haven’t based any of my theories on songs alone. They are more like additional proof or give me ideas.
I have some examples here that have lyrics about the moon. The first is “Zenith” by Kavinsky, Morgan Phalen and Olivia Merilahti. Fading memories, a final scene (play/meta), running out of time (S5E2 [Lucas] “If my theory is right, we’re running out of time.”). Though I remember / When the moon was shining down on you and me could be something romantic and nostalgic, but if I’m right about the meaning of moon and that this song is part of the ARG, it could be the memories of the abuse, too.
Another one of them is “Hunter’s Moon” by Ghost (and you should go listen to all their music, especially the newer albums and you’ll hopefully see where I’m coming from with this theory). Here the moon is associated with hunting, just like with Cynthia. A big reason why I think this song might be part of the ARG is the whole thing about faded memories that come to haunt the narrator (and the context of it being a Ghost song).
Another moon-related song is from a band called ELFENSJóN and according to them “The German word “Elf” means “eleven” (10+1, “the last one”), and Sjón means “vision”. Together it forms ELFENSJóN: “The last and another vision”.” Sjón comes from Old Norse, btw. These are the lyrics to their song, “Zenith” translated from Japanese to English with ChatGPT:
When the bell that heralds dawn
Rings out in the distance,
Now the illusion (world) peels away
And is dyed white.
/
Continuing to believe in deception,
Those eyes lose their light.
/
Upon hazy innocence, corruption is carved.
There is no need to fear
Those false rulers.
/
O you who are falling, with your torn wings,
Fly through the woven fate (destiny).
If the hymn offered to the mad god never ceases,
Then cut through the darkness.
Ah, shatter this twisted illusion (world)
And swallow your weakness.
/
The more one accepts the creeping shadows,
The more they turn to ash.
At the bottom of the soul (heart),
Doubt begins to sprout.
Is there no way to awaken?
/
Watching the struggles of foolish humans (beings),
The hollow moon laughs.
/
O companion who walks beside me, cast away your fear.
Break the chained fate (destiny).
If the distant bell of oath still continues to ring,
Then pierce through hesitation.
/
Now the illusion (world) has peeled away.
With your own hands, paint it over in black.
/
O innocent bird that sought the answer — go forth.
/
O you who are falling, with your plucked wings,
Fly through the woven fate (destiny).
Even if the towering darkness
Consumes the soul (heart) again and again,
It will not end.
/
The raised voice illuminated the dark night.
The song of dawn continues to play.
Seeking the truth that circles beneath the twin moons,
The soul descends into cursed darkness.
/
Ah, shatter this twisted world
And swallow your fear.
Leaving behind the echoing bell
In the dawn glow staining the indigo sky.
I think you can see why I think this song might be connected to ST. I put some extra stuff that didn't fit into the post in the comments, but other than that:
Continues in PART 4.
u/raspberry-3 — 8 days ago
▲ 15 r/StrangerThingsRoom
(Spoilers) Who had the best character development in stranger things season 5? Here’s my opinion
Will Byers. Best development. I feel like it’s self explanatory. The sorcerer scene, fighting Vecna, just perfectly executed. I’m tired of seeing people say his coming out scene was Bad. It was just one scene.
Holly wheeler. She really went from having 20 seconds of screen time each season to having more than most of the main characters. Her relationship with Max was sweet, her fight with the kids was cool, and leading the kids on the last episode like max did was cool. “Eyes on me.”
Derek turnbow. This guy is a new character with not much screen time I know but he carried season 5 with the scenes he had. He’s hilarious, got good survival instincts, and even Saved Holly’s life.
Nancy wheeler. This might be a hot take, but I really Liked her Rambo thing going on and the shooting scenes were awesome, and her being bait for Vecna.
Lucas Sinclair. Most underrated character I can think of. He did his part in the turnbow trap, tried fighting a demogorgen to save the kids, kicked a demodog that tried jumping in the elevator, saved Max, Saved Dustin, and helped take down the mindflayer. I wish he had more screen time though.
Jim hopper. There isn’t one season where he isn’t good but I’m not gonna sugarcoat that this wasn’t his best season. Some scenes of him are just him being grumpy, arguing with el, and arguing with kali number 008 or whatever her name was. However Him fighting Dr. Kay and her men was sick to see and his acting during the Eleven sacrifice was good.
Jonathan Byers. Look, I really didn’t like his macho competition with Steve over Nancy in episode 1-5 but after that he actually improved. The scene in episode 6 with Nancy was actually really good to me I don’t understand why some people don’t Like it. He supported Will when he came out, and he Saved STEVE HARRINGTONS life when he almost fell. huge W for that.
Dustin Henderson. I couldn’t stand his attitude his attitude in vol 1. I know that he’s grieving Over Eddie but it’s been like a year and a half and he’s still calling Steve stupid and not admitting his mistakes. He even argues with Murray at one point. BUT, he got way better in the later Episodes the ladder scene when he cries in Steve’s arms was incredible acting, him explaining everything about Dr. Brennen’s journal, the bridge. And the abyss was great. The graduation scene of his speech was amazing too.
Steve Harrington. I am going to get downvoted so bad for this. Same as Dustin, he sucked in Vol 1. Wanting to Bring Nancy flowers instead of focusing on the task ahead is just stupidity, arguing with Jonathan, arguing with a Kid who just got beat up, and his peanut butter bopper jokes. Vol 2 and 3 is where things Slowly start to change. I knew he wasn’t wrong but It wasn’t cool at all to tell a teenage boy at all that Eddie’s death was Pointless. That didn’t help the situation at all it just made Dustin lash out and Charge. I’m glad he makes up with Dustin in episode 7 though that’s where things turn around and we start Getting the Steve we Love again.
Joyce Byers. I feel like I don’t have to explain this one. The only useful thing she did was cut Vecna’s head off. The rest? Comforting will, worrying about will, not giving a crap About Jonathan. It doesn’t change the fact that she’s still a character and in my Top 5, season 5 just did her dirty.
u/Careful_Software_822 — 8 days ago
Give me a realistic crossover between the boys and stranger things that would make sense for both TV shows
u/ImaginaryTwist7454 — 7 days ago
▲ 20 r/StrangerThingsRoom
25% of scenes were omitted from 'The Rightside Up'
In case anyone wasn't aware, Deadline recently shared the script of 'The Rightside Up'.
And I noticed some... interesting things? Let's say!
First, I'd like to draw attention to the fact that 73 out of the 283 scenes in this script have been omitted, which is approximately 25% of the script!
Now, scenes can be omitted for any number of reasons, and some of these could have been real short, but this still seems to be on the excessive end of omissions to me. Especially when put in comparison with S4's finale script, which was also written by the Duffers- there, they only omitted 11 out of 291 scenes.
I further find it striking that, with 73 scenes being omitted, the original draft of the script was likely much closer to the 3 hour runtime that 'leaked' back in July. At the time, Ross Duffer took to Instagram to debunk this.
But idk... is it not strange that a Production Draft for episode 8 wasn't available until Sept. 10th, and has enough omitted scenes to put the runtime AT the 3 hours suggested by an anonymous source several weeks prior?
I also find the draft dates on the script really weird as well:
Gaten Matarazzo shared that they did the final script reading on his birthday, which is Sept. 8th. Yet- the production draft (which I'd think would be the one used for the table read) was made 2 days later.
Finally- 'The Final Shooting Script' is just about the last day of filming. How the heck does that work?
#ibelieve there's a bit more to this whole thing and I'm genuinely baffled that others don't agree. This is a show about conspiracy theories!!
u/Ok-Secretary-28 — 11 days ago