henry-fox-biggest-stan

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

people who think stranger things is not about weird kids, “freaks” in society, queers, outcasts and instead is about teen pregnancy marriage at 17, being borderline homophobic to your bff and using queer characters as a tool to fix het relationships need to be studied

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Added a tiny similarity between El and gollum

Lotr and stranger things: Masterpost

I also mention dnd when it’s relevant to the lotr parallels.

(You can read this with absolutely no knowledge on lotr or dnd don’t worry)

@somewiseoutthere @itwasaseven7 @beomgyubestie @thy-lovelylionheart @itachisnipplesharingan <3

The thing is that stranger things isn’t a lotr retelling, so there are many parallels to several characters. It isn’t “oh, this character parallels ONLY this lotr character”, no, many characters have several parallels with several lotr characters. Let’s get to it.

Mike, the insecure hero.

Mike “it was the best thing I’ve ever done” Wheeler and Sam “it was the bravest thing he ever did” Gamgee. Many people also see Sam as a paladin (those with joy and whimsy and gayness in their hearts) (no but srs I’ve seen several people call him a paladin), even if he’s commonly known as a cleric. And guess who’s character is a paladin. And guess who is a cleric?

(Let’s focus on mike’s sheet rn).

From Worlds Turned Upside Down, official book. It has all the party’s dnd sheets, not their dnd character’s dnd sheets, but THEIR dnd sheet, as if they were dnd characters. This is not Mike’s character, but Mike Wheeler (you can see it, played by Finn, is a DM, etc). And would you look at that, he is a cleric.

In the Hawkins Middle School Yearbook there’s the boys’ characters’ dnd sheets. Take them with a grain of salt since idk if they’re canon, but it says that mike’s race is a halfling. Yeah ok.

Sam is also not the most confident person out there, always selling himself short and calling himself names, even tho he makes very good poetry and he literally fought against shelob and won. Sure he used frodo’s (bilbo’s) sword which is a cool, sharp sword, but like, shelob is a primordial being. That’s like Mike (with his 12 year old height) having a very cool sword and using it to fight all alone a grown size demogorgon (with absolutely no fighting experience, let alone sword wielding experience) who is inmortal and has existed since the beginning of time, and then winning.

Also the Frodo “dying” scene is kinda similar to s1? Like, Sam is trying to protect Frodo even tho Shelob already has poisoned him (Mike looking for Will even tho he’s already in the upside down) and when he was done with shelob he saw Frodo “dead”, and cried and decided to go and take the ring to mount doom, and then come back for Frodo (Mike seeing Will’s “body” at the quarry, going away crying in his bike and stopping the search, also smth smth mike jumping into the quarry, same place wills “body” was found, while Sam wanted to go back to Frodo’s body after destroying the ring and then not leave him, aka dying [This is an unpopular opinion, but I always thought that this scene: “It would not be worth while to leave his master for that [vengeance]. It would not bring him back. Nothing would. They had better both be dead together. And that too would be a lonely journey. He looked on the bright point of the sword” and “Good-bye, master, my dear!’ he murmured. ‘Forgive your Sam. He’ll come back to this spot when the job’s done – if he manages it. And then he’ll not leave you again.” obviously references Sam thinking about suicide (although he dismisses the idea quickly), since it’s not like we don’t see suicide in lotr (denethor), but not everyone seems to agree with this interpretation]), but then Sam overheard the orcs mention Frodo was alive, so he went back for him (El showing Mike that Will is still alive, and Mike beginning to look for him again).

About byler and Sam and Frodo, there’s also a class difference in both relationships.

Dart parallels gollum (explained more below, where I talk about Dustin) and Mike’s behavior and opinion regarding dart is so similar to Sam’s over gollum.

Also Frodo? Mike’s parallels with Max, who ALSO parallels Frodo. Shelob wrapped frodo on her web. Mike has web imagery (amazing find by @mikesbasementbeets) (as does max and other characters that are in danger, trapped, etc. Smth smth henry and spiders, smth smth Max and Mike web imagery, smth smth falling into Henry's web, getting trapped, getting vecnad (Mike is so getting vecna’d idk what to tell you the evidence is just ABUNDANT). Shelob is female which also adds to all of mothergate, but whatever). Frodo “died”. This theory of mike temporarily dying in s5.

If we get a scene with mike getting vecnad choosing whether he should stay or he should go (s4 Dustin's voice: "get it?") and he's metaphorically dangling from the edge and the people outside vecna’s vision (specially will) are calling his name panicked and he has to chose whether to die (remember mike's horrible mental health and him stepping off the cliff in s1) or live and go forward, I'll go insane. Cause I'll be an obvious parallel to frodo literally dangling off the edge of a cliff in the return of the king movie with, on top of the cliff, Sam, offering his hand and a escape, a life. On the other, the ring, and flames, death. And he chooses life. Also the cliff scene in s1 mentioned before, also paralleled to this frodo scene, with Dustin/Sam telling him to "don't do it" (aka, "don't you let go"). But he does. He's saved, but he does. I guess it puts el (who saves him) in Sam's position aswell (it is Sam who pulls frodo forward so he doesn't fall). Having a scene like the one described before in s5 could be an awesome parallel, in s1 mike chooses death (for Dustin, but he also has some other personal reasons). In s5, mike chooses life. In s1, mike was willing to die for his friends (and cause he wants to). In s5 mike is willing to live for his friends (and because he wants to).

[poetic cinema]

Also Mike having his hero moment, probably with a sword since 1- his character is a paladin and 2- Sam kills shelob with Frodo’s sword. @aemiron-main has lots of posts on this whole concept. Also smth smth Henry/Shelob parallels, and Sam hurts Shelob…

Also his post on mike/arwen parallels

Mike himself being a cleric makes me insane. Bro wants to be a knight so bad but he’s a healer. And this isn’t something bad. In fact clerics are pretty important because of their healing abilities (“you’re the heart!”). You can perfectly play without one, but it’s encouraged to have one just in case. Clerics also fight, they’re not just healers btw.

I think it may be a way to show than the person who mike actually is vs the person who mike wants to be are two completely different people. Smth smth insecurity and wrapped perception of self, smth smth thinks low of himself because he’s comparing himself to people that don’t make sense for him to compare himself to (fictional characters, El who literally has superpowers and has been raised as a weapon, Nancy who is older than him and had more practice with guns out of necessity, and also more years spent writing than him [he’s not “an ace reporter” like Louis lane, however who is an ace reporter? Nancy], anyway “you can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree”), smth smth internalized homophobia, smth smth wants to be this cool, mature, adult guy (s3) but in order to be that he has to change himself. Whatever.

(Adding to this, Mike wants to be Lucas so bad, actually. Lucas is the opposite of Mike, he’s how heterosexuality is actually performed (genuinely and naturally), he’s the older sibling, Mike was very “we don’t wanna be popular” in s4, but it definitely bothered him that Lucas COULD be popular while knowing that if he tried he would fail, they even have that scene fighting over the same character in s2 (both wanna be venkman).

To prove this further, during the scene where Will destroys castle byers, we can see that the photo of the whole party that he stares at is inside a frame. A frame made out of ice cream sticks, so handmade. And in each stick, there's written the name of a member of the party. Will The Wise on top, on the left, Lucas the Knight, down, Dustin the Bard, and on the right, Mike the DM.

Lucas is a knight… aka a paladin…

Mike is not even a character but the DM… Why is Mike titled as a DM instead of his dnd class? Does he not play too? (Except he does because his character is a paladin. Unless he doesn't, and when he called himself a paladin in s2 while naming everyone's classes he was just naming what he thought his role in the party was - remember that one post? I can't find it but it basically said that Mike called himself a paladin and Will a cleric cause that's how he sees both of them. their relationship and role in the party)

It also makes us ask ourselves other questions like, why isn't Will "Will the Wizard" or "Will the Cleric" (since everyone else is named as their dnd role, not their characters name)? Or, why is Lucas a knight?

(Regina George's voice: so you agree, Mike is the DM and most important character and everyone else are just players? (manifestation theory). So you agree, Will is not titled with his dnd class because he DOES have powers irl? So you agree, Mike wants to be a paladin but it is Lucas who is the knight, aka, Mike wants to be Lucas?)

Anyway.

Will (with his own weight to carry).

Will is Frodo and the mind flayer is the one ring.

Frodo suffering the effects of the ring causing personality changes, thoughts that weren’t his own etc, and the same thing happening to Will while he was possessed. The movie scene where Frodo holds a sword against Sam’s throat, and Will choking Joyce. “As Will's connection with the Mind Flayer grew deeper, he started becoming more demoralized and scared” same with Frodo as the quest went on. Also if Frodo put on the ring, sauron would feel it, just like how Will was the spy. The mind flayer getting out of Will’s body thanks to heat, and the ring only being destroyed by casting it into the fires of Mordor. “I felt this evil like it was looking at me”, the eye of Sauron. Frodo getting attacked by shelob (huge immortal spider) (Sam thought he was dead), and Will getting possessed by the mind flayer (spider-shaped) (he almost died). Frodo was willing to sacrifice himself (he didn’t think he would make it to mount doom alive, and that if he did, that he wouldn’t come back. He expected to die during the quest and yet he continued), Will was willing to sacrifice himself (Morse code tapping: close gate. It’s not explained in canon, but I believe he knew it would kill him. Also, he was gonna sacrifice himself to close the gate, and the scene of El closing the gate in s2 is already paralleled to Frodo in mount doom (more below, where I talk about el), so Will (Frodo) was gonna sacrifice himself to close the gate (destroy the ring). Basically what happened in the books then).

Frodo is also an almost Christ-like figure (specially considering Tolkien’s Catholicism). Christ who died for our sins (Frodo sacrificing everything and himself to save middle earth), who carried the cross in which he would be hung (Frodo carrying the ring, a great weight, and that destroyed him), unmarried, Jesus and his disciples (Frodo and the fellowship), mercy and forgiveness, etc etc. Where am I going with this? Will’s Jesus-coding.

Frodo is also a very tragic character, however he has a hopeful ending.

We technically meet him as a teenager (the day before his 33th birthday, which for hobbits is basically their 18th birthday), and then he is thrust unwillingly into a dangerous quest and becomes irrevocably changed. There is a big contrast with the Frodo from before (happy, normal hobbit) and the Frodo from after (very traumatized, cannot go back). Kinda resembles someone’s character story… And frodo also knew tragedy before everything (the death of his parents) just like Will also knew tragedy before the upside down (his fathers abuse, bullying). Hell, they even share a birthday (on different months). Both were born on the 22th.

Frodo endured so much and sacrificed so many parts of himself to save everyone, and yet he’s called weak and boring (by the fandom) for not engaging in many physical combats, and crying. Will endured so much and sacrificed so many parts of himself to save everyone, and yet he’s called weak and boring (by the fandom) for not engaging in many physical combats (and having his fight or flight response be freeze), and crying. I find both Frodo and Will some of the most compelling and interest characters from both lotr and stranger things. Also frodo lost a finger (physical representation of how much the quest changed him and how he won’t be going back to normal ever). This theory of Will losing a hand in s5 by @pinkeoni… Beren and Maedhros (characters from the silmarillion) also lost a hand. Beren is paralleled to Frodo (and Aragorn), who’s paralleled to Will. Lúthien (Beren’s wife) is paralleled to both Arwen and Sam, who are paralleled to Mike… Maedhros killed himself, Beren died but came back… This theory of Will dying but coming back… Also Frodo got stabbed by a morgul blade, and “though the knife's blade dissolved soon afterwards, a fragment remained within Frodo's wound, working its way toward his heart and threatening to turn Frodo into a wraith. Elrond was able to remove the shard and heal the wound, but each year on the anniversary of receiving the wound Frodo became seriously ill” vs Will feeling whatever he feels on his neck ever since the possession. (Also each year on the anniversary Frodo becomes ill vs “The anniversary of an event brings back traumatic memories” vs the attention brought to birthdays in lotr (specifically Frodo’s) vs birthdaygate…)

Will lost his memories as s2 went on, as the possession from the mind flayer went on. As the quest goes on, Frodo keeps on losing memories. He loses himself and his mind to the ring, and “as I lay in prison, Sam, I tried to remember the Brandywine, and Woody End, and The Water running through the mill at Hobbiton. But I can't see them now” / “Do you remember that bit of rabbit, Mr. Frodo?” he said, “And our place under the warm bank in Captain Faramir's country, the day I saw an oliphaunt?” “No, I am afraid not, Sam,” said Frodo. “At least, I know that such things happened, but I cannot see them. No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me”. Also smth smth memorygate (x, x). It is memories that help against Vecna, not having them makes you more vulnerable, a perfect victim. One of the reasons Frodo was so depressed during the quest is because he was slowly losing the memories of his life before, only seeing the ring and Mordor and fire.

Frodo got attacked by a morgul blade. Morgul blades are also a little paralleled to the mind flayer/vecna because of its effects. The wound cause Frodo to be super cold. He likes it cold. It also left a part of the blade inside him, which he had to get removed. Just like will beginning to feel whatever he feels on his neck after being possessed.

Also, talking about Frodo, you ever wondered what Frodo’s name means?

For a little linguistic context, Tolkien was even more crazy about languages than I am (if that’s even possible), and we know that he simply translated lotr which was written by Frodo and Sam in Adûni (Westron). Frodo’s real name is Maura, which in Westron means “wise”. Tolkien translated this name into Frodo, a proto-Germanic name, which is a real name people used, and that also means “wise”. Will the Wise.

Regarding dnd, Will’s character is a wizard and/or cleric (going back to that post of Mike calling Will a cleric cause that’s how he sees Will and his role in the party). Will himself (see character sheets above) is a magic-user. This is crazy to me tbh it just confirms the Will has powers theories (talking about Will with powers, Frodo might have also used magic, even if unknowingly…).

Looking at you, s5 episode 4 called Sorcerer that contains the baby byler flashback.

Talking about sorcerers, Gandalf (although described repeatedly as a wizard in lotr), by dnd standards, is a sorcerer. Same with Saruman and with Radagast (Will is paralleled to all three of them). Sorcerers are born with their magic, wizards learn it.

Clerics focus on healing although they also fight (and have magic powers), wizards and sorcerers have yknow magic powers. A magic-user is an umbrella term for anyone who uses magic, let it be a wizard, a cleric, a mage, a warlock (if we’re assigning classes to lotr characters, Frodo is commonly associated with warlocks. Warlocks are those who “strike a deal (sometimes unwillingly) with greater powers known as 'patrons' who grant them magical abilities” like Frodo getting the power of being invisible thanks to ring. Those patrons are usually evil. Depends on how you think will got his powers, if he had them since birth or got them thanks to the lab/the upside down, etc).

Will is either a wizard or sorcerer, or a light domain cleric, since he can use fireball. Will found a way to communicate with the lights in s1… However the party are level 3 (in all the character sheets I found) and (light domain) clerics can only use fireball from level 5 and up? So it makes more sense for him to be a wizard (or a sorcerer), who can use fireball since level 3.

I also find it funny that despite Will’s character being “Will the wise” he has the lowest wisdom points out of the whole party. Will’s armor class is also 7. It was a seven.

Will The Wise.

The duffers cannot keep getting away with this.

Who is labeled as The Wise in lotr? Saruman, and Will has saruman parallels (we’ll get there) but hold your horses, cause that’s not all of it. Gandalf is also called Gandalf the Wise, at least once (“For nearly thirty years he laboured in the cause against Sauron; and he became a friend of Gandalf the Wise, from whom he gained much wisdom”, the appendix about Aragorn and Arwen’s romance). And Gandalf died and came back, like Will, but he came back changed, no longer Gandalf the grey but Gandalf the white (having adapted the title of one of the spies of sauron). Kinda like how Will died but then came back changed (and kept having visions of the mind flayer…). Coming back to this theory of Will sacrificing himself to save everyone in s5 but then coming back to life…

Radagast, password to castle byers (so it has something to do with Will), and also one of the five maias sent to middle earth to defeat sauron. “Radagast lives at Rhosgobel on the western eaves of Mirkwood”. Mirkwood reference (we’ll get there there’s SO MUCH surrounding Mirkwood). Who lives near Mirkwood? (Mirkwood as in the road in st) Will, his house is like next to it.

“Radagast was unwittingly used by Saruman to lure Gandalf to his tower of Orthanc, where Gandalf was captured. Fortuitously, Radagast also helped rescue him by sending Gwaihir the eagle to Orthanc with news of the movements of Sauron's forces.” vs “Hopper becomes trapped in the tunnels and passes out. […] Will has a vision of Hopper, leading Joyce to recruit Bob's help to determine its meaning. Bob identifies Will's drawings as a map of Hawkins and the pumpkin field as the place Hopper was going. […] Joyce, Bob, Will, and Mike rescue Hopper,” so the same thing then. Will/Radagast saving Hopper/Gandalf.

“Radagast is "the friend of all birds and beasts,” Will *couldn’t bring himself to shot at a literal monster* *kindness personified* Byers.

Later, he get possessed, becoming the spy.

The spy. Saruman.

Saruman became a spy of Sauron. He used a palantir, a sphere used for communication, to communicate with Sauron (although the palantir does not transmit sound, only images and thoughts). Not unlike Will being able to “communicate” with the mind flayer, having vision of what it was doing and thoughts of what it was thinking.

“The master stones of north and south were able to 'eavesdrop' on such external conversations”, unlike Saruman who was a willing spy, Will wasn’t, the mind flayer was just spying back. “Eavesdropping” you could say, but it also saw what Will saw.

Saruman also called himself “Saruman of Many Colours” at one point. Saruman of Many Colours vs Will’s rainbow spaceship, in which he used all the colours he had.

All of these are wizards/sorcerers/whatever. We get it, duffers, Will has powers.

+ By the way, what about Rosie? Sam’s wife? Who is she? Well, certainly not El. Rosie is Sam’s childhood friend, a string of normalcy after all his adventures. Rosie represents home, and safety, and comfort, and the life he left behind (remember that for Tolkien adventures weren’t something to strive for, after all he lived during wwi, Frodo is irrevocably changed by his adventures, “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend”). Rosie fell in love with him before knowing that he helped save middle-earth, aka, she fell in love with him when he was “nobody”, without knowing he was a hero. Reminds me of someone who doesn’t feel like a hero and is very insecure. Reminds me of their childhood best friend who is a string of normalcy, of the life they had before, who loved him before he was a hero and before he fought monsters, and fell in love with him, just him. I don’t know who, tho. Mike asking Will to be his friend was “the best thing I ever did”. Sam asking Rosie to be his wife was “the bravest thing he ever did”. Huh. Reminds me of “mike wants to be a hero like el / will wants to be a love interest like el”.

Also, this really caught my eye. “and it is not a dissimilar notion to hold Rosie and Frodo up as the anima and animus aspects of the same character”. I’ve read a theory about el as an anima of Will so when I saw this I was like no way. Do I believe that theory? Tbh no, just like I don’t believe Tolkien wrote Rosie and Frodo as the same character, but the fact that both characters can be interpreted in the same way, in different fandoms as a pure coincidence is so curious.

But despite all the character he parallels, he’s Frodo. He’s so frodo it hurts. If I had to assign a single lotr character to each st character, Will would be frodo.

El, the “mage”.

I see El as Gandalf. Sure they’re very different, but they’re also very similar. Gandalf, while helping the fellowship (and thorin’s company in the hobbit) in everything, also has his own adventures, goes away for a while to do something and then comes back. That’s something El does constantly. El is also described as a “mage” by Mike (who then describes Will as a cleric even tho his dnd character is a wizard but his class is magic user. But well). Gandalf is also the one who comes to get them out of trouble, for example, Gandalf kinda sacrifices himself (but then comes back) to defeat the Balrog, Gandalf is also who the hobbits and tbh everyone relies on to solve problems, Gandalf seems to always have the answer even if not always. Kinda like how El is the one doing the physical job (aka, closing the gate, fighting the monsters) and saving everyone, being a superhero. You can specially see this in s1 and s2, where in s1 El appears in the woods to help them find Will, then she leaves, and then comes back just in time to rescue Mike (who jumped of a cliff) and break troy’s arm (also how El never uses her powers against anyone who doesn’t deserve it but is able to use them for harm, while Gandalf never uses his powers against anyone who doesn’t deserve it but does threaten people with turning them into animals), and where in s2 she’s off doing her own thing, until she comes back just in time to close the gate. Same thing in s3 and s4, her off with max, and then her off in NINA.

Gandalf "died" while fighting the balrog to protect the fellowship. El also "died" while fighting the demogorgon to protect the party. They both came back, after everyone had already mourned them.

Gandalf is also of unsure origins. Very old, older that time itself, doesn’t really know where he came from etc. idk what you want me to say but Jane is NOT El those are two completely different girls (even Terry says so, “no”), so where exactly does El come from? There are many theories about that, but let’s leave it aside. Also, when Gandalf appears you know the characters are gonna get involved on an adventure (whether they want to or not), just like el’s appearance made the party get involved with the supernatural.

Gandalf ended up going to the grey havens after the destruction of sauron since he was only sent to middle earth to protect it from him. Many many theories regarding el’s potential ending… (some here, here, here and here)

Now to the silmarillion (i actually haven’t read it😔 I have a physical copy and I’ve started it but I can’t get into it😔)

Someone named Annatar arrived to a place called Eregion. In Eregion lives Celebrimbor, among other elves. Annatar seemed like an elf, and claimed to have been sent by the Valar (gods, basically) to share his wisdom and skill, specially on ring craft and jewelry. Not suspicious at all. Celebrimbor says “cool” and him and the smiths of Eregion followed Annatar’s guidance and instructions, and they created the rings of powers (which were like, a massive deal). Turns out that, surprise, Annatar was Sauron in disguise, who then went home and created the one ring to control all of middle earth. Yay.

Kinda like Henry tricking El, not telling her he was 001, being evil, and all that.

“Later Sauron reassumed his role as the Dark Lord and placed the One Ring on his finger, claiming dominion over all the Rings of Power and their bearers. Before this, Celebrimbor believed Sauron to be what he had claimed to be, but realising the truth he and the Elves of Eregion defied Sauron by withholding the other rings from him.”

When El notices the Henry is, well, evil and murdering everyone, vanishes him off to dimension x.

Celebrimbor died. He was killed by Sauron with many arrows. Ouch.

“far from joining Fëanor's rebellion, she opposed him in nearly everything.” Fëanor is a rebel, Galadriel opposed him in nearly everything. Fëanor and Henry parallels…

“And that she wished to leave Valinor and go to the vast world of Middle-earth, to give free rein there to her talents. She went for a time to live with her mother's relatives in Alqualondë.” El escaping the lab, going to visit her “mom” and Kali in s2. (You could even say her living with Mike on s1. Lukeandleiagate…)

Cool similarity I’ve seen, even if it wasn’t intentional. Éowyn, strong, badass, and complex female character, was supposed to die but Tolkien changed his mind. El, strong, badass, and complex female character, was supposed to die but the duffers changed their minds.

In the og script for ep1, El, instead of stealing fries from Benny’s, she sees the fries frying in the oil, the oil sputters, she is a bit scared and leave and finds a freezer. Opens it, it’s packed with fish (it wasn’t Benny’s burgers originally, but Benny’s fish ‘n fry). “She snatches up a DEEPWATER COD. So big that she can hardly hold it in her tiny hands. She turns it over onto its side, studies it, smells it. Has she never seen fish before? She bites its fat glistening belly and freezes again. Listening.” She hears someone coming, so she grabs as many fish as she can and runs.

Reminds me of gollum, and his affinity for fishes (and how he eats fishes just like el, by biting directly)

You have frodo getting stabbed by a morgul blade, and this leaving a shard of the blade inside his shoulder, which he needs to have removed. El being attacked by the flesh mind flayer in s3 and it leaving a piece of it inside her, which she needs to remove.

Also, “In order to provide a distraction so Eleven and Hopper could safely reach the Gate, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Max, and Steve went into the tunnels to burn them” (s2) reminds me of Aragorn and everyone distracting Sauron so that Frodo and Sam could destroy the ring.

Max (and life).

I can definitely see (s4) Max as Éowyn. Éowyn who was depressed and suicidal at the start of the story and takes part (willingly) in a war, wants to die in battle, killed the witch king, and then she collapsed for some time. Éomer finds her and thinks she’s dead but after she’s been brought to the houses of healing and is unconscious for some time, she wakes. She also chooses life, she becomes a healer rather than a warrior. “I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren." Max wanting to die until she’s face to face with death, and suddenly she doesn’t want to anymore, she’s not ready. Max holding on to happy memories. Éowyn disguises herself as a man, Owens thinks that Max is a boy.

Éowyn was believed to be dead but then she wasn’t. Max died until El brought her back. Her brother Éomer has a scene in the movies hugging her body and crying and screaming cause he thinks she’s dead. So does Lucas.

Also reminds me a bit of sam and frodo, since the pose is the same (seriously, look at the position of Lucas’s arms vs Sam’s arms. Literally same pose). Talking about Sam and Frodo,

“Death” scene parallels. Except Frodo wasn’t dead, just completely paralyzed to the point that in the book it says Sam couldn’t even feel a heartbeat, but he was alive and woke up hours later. And then there’s Max who died but El brought her back (made her have a heartbeat again). Lucas thought she was dead during this, Sam thought Frodo was dead during this. Frodo in return of the king eventually woke up and they have a lovely reunion. Max in s5…

Max also has web imagery, just like frodo got wrapped in a web (smth smth henry and spiders, the mind flayer being spider-shaped, shelob, etc). And, during the fellowship of the ring, when they are at Weathertop, Frodo gets stabbed by a Morgul blade, causing temporal blindness.

As I mentioned before with Mike, the scene of her getting vecna’d (at the cemetery) and seeing a escape (a kind of metaphorical portal, her seeing her friends) and then having choose between death or life, and choosing life, feels so much like Frodo dangling from the cliff at mount doom in the movies, having to choose between let Sam pull him up (life) or follow the ring (death). It shows he’s not 100% corrupted by the ring, and that he still has people who care about him (that unlike gollum, he’s not too far gone), and that he cares about (just like Max’s memories are about her love for others, not the love others have for her. Frodo offers Sam his hand not because Sam wants him to live, but because he wants to live, and he loves Sam more than he loves the ring).

Also during the Frodo “death” scene, in the book, Sam is there and tries to save him but he’s too late, just like Lucas not saving Max in time because of Jason.

We also see that memories help against Vecna. Like Max’s running up that hill montage, it’s her memories of her love for others and good times that saved her. Without these memories, she would have died. Similar thing happens to Sam, in Mordor, he remembered old memories. “and now as once more the night of Mordor closed over them, through all his thoughts there came the memory of water; and every brook or stream or fount that he had ever seen, under green willow-shades or twinkling in the sun, danced and rippled for his torment behind the blindness of his eyes. He felt the cool mud about his toes as he paddled in the Pool at Bywater with Jolly Cotton and Tom and Nibs, and their sister Rosie”.

“Oh but she’s paralleled to Frodo, not Sam. And Frodo loses his memories” yeah and so might max in s5… However Frodo loses them because he’s so affected by the ring. The moment the ring is destroyed, he can see clearly again. I think same will happen to Max (and Will). If Vecna has their memories, when Vecna is defeated where will they go? Back to their rightful owners.

Théoden dies, and so does Billy, and we have a scene with both Éowyn and Max crying for them. This parallel I’m not so sure about, but worth mentioning.

Also a bit of Thorin? I mention later the Bilbo/Lucas parallels, and this makes Max Thorin. Thorin dies (actually dies), unlike max who is not really dead, but thorin starts The Hobbit not really knowing Bilbo and not being particularly close with him (like max at the beginning of s2 with Lucas), but over time they become friends and get closer (s2/s3 lumax), until thorin gets upset about Bilbo giving up the arkenstone because he was dealing with gold sickness and this makes them drift apart (max breaking up with Lucas because of her own mental health and them drifting apart in between s3-s4 and beginnings of s4), except that before Thorin dies, they make up, but it’s too late (lumax making up and Max beginning to let Lucas in again, except that before they can make their movie date happen, Vecna gets her).

Lucas, (the ranger)

I see a bit of Bilbo in Lucas. Not really any explanation for this one just vibes. Like, a character living a life away from adventure and danger and freaking out when this life is disturbed (the dwarfs arriving to bilbos house, them finding El in the woods), who is also very realistic and has common sense (telling mike to tell his mom about el and rightfully freaking out), has good strategy, and is very sarcastic. Also maybe Lucas’ s5 personal arc? Like, Bilbo was all nice and respectable before the adventure and fit in with the other hobbits (s4 Lucas “conformity” Sinclair), then during his adventure he saw horrors and someone he loved die (Thorin, whether you see it as romantic or platonic), and then when he came back he was just like who cares and was as a strange as he wanted to be, didn’t care about criticism and proudly called himself odd.

Lucas’ character is also a ranger. Rangers are inspired by Aragorn, who is literally referred to as “ranger” in the books several times. Aragorn is a man who loves his friends and those he cares about and kisses them on the forehead and has been in love with the same woman all his life and isn’t like aggressive or feels the need to be the leader/hero (despite being the one leading the group once Gandalf is gone). This does not mean he doesn’t know how to get his hands dirty, he knows, but he knows when to do it and when not to. Plus it’s not like he relies on violence every time, violence is like the last option, but he can defend himself and those he cares about perfectly well. Lucas is pretty much exactly like this, and he’s also the most traditionally masculine out of the party.

Idc if it’s not on the books, Arwen fighting at helm’s deep in the movie’s deleted scene is real in my heart, so you also have Aragorn as this typically masculine guy, strong and capable, with a wife who will absolutely kick your ass and his ego does not feel threatened by this in the slightest.

Elrond (Arwen’s dad) didn’t want his daughter to be with Aragorn because he was a mortal (not out of any prejudice against mortals, but because mortals, well, died, and elves didn’t, so Aragorn’s death would cause Arwen a lot of pain, and Arwen might also make the choice to turn mortal to be with him, which she did, and Elrond didn’t want this cause it would mean he would lose his daughter someday), but Aragorn married Arwen anyway. Billy (Max’s step-brother) didn’t want Max to date Lucas because he was black (out of racism). Aragorn and Arwen’s relationship was a bit complicated at first, cause of difference in species (?), and Lumax’s relationship was a bit complicated at first, cause of racism.

Dustin, (never change)

I also see a bit of Bilbo in Dustin, a character who’s actually very smart and gets everyone out of trouble / figures stuff out, seriously very good plans (idc what you say the thing with the arkenstone was genius he almost stopped a war), very good talker (talking to Smaug, talking to gollum) (remember Dustin’s character is a bard), knows niche stuff?? Like Dustin being really into science and maths, probably knowing obscure dnd rules by heart, and then Bilbo knowing several languages and elvish poetry and all these things.

Also Dustin is a thief (see character sheets above). Not his character (who is a bard), but him. Bilbo is the designated burglar of the group. Also Bilbo is very himself yknow. After coming back from his adventure he’s just as strange as he pleases and doesn’t care what the rest of the shire thinks. Similar to Dustin who doesn’t conform to the rest of the world and is unapologetically himself. Bilbo has been called “queer” (meaning strange), “cracked”, etc for being himself without hiding. Just like Dustin is bullied.

He also parallels Éowyn a bit. He’s Éowyn while Eddie is Théoden during Eddie’s death (see image below where I talk about Eddie), and you could also say that Éowyn having a little crush / admiration on Aragorn (who ended up married to Arwen) that didn’t go anywhere and they remained friends and then she married someone else (faramir) is similar to the whole Dustin/Lucas/max thing in s2. Dustin as Éowyn, Lucas as Arwen, and Max as Aragorn (+ éowyn developed a crush on aragorn after seeing him from the first time at rohan's castle. This is a man she hasn't seen before —so immediate attraction and curiosity, like s2 Dustin and Lucas towards max— and who is from the outside world and a fighter, just like how max is from California).

Dustin also lacks a romance plot. “He’s dating suzie” correct, but their relationship is entirely off-screen. They got together off-screen, and the only moments with them are the never ending story scene and Dustin calling Suzie at the start of s4, both of these long-distance. They mention each other, but they hardly have scenes together. Dustin’s plots are unrelated to romance, unlike the rest of the party’s. Mike’s almost constant romance plot (either with el or with will), Will’s s3 and s4 romance plot, lucas’ s2, s3, and s4 romance plot. With romance plot I mean than it’s important and related to their characters. They have other things going on, of course, but the romance takes plot time, it’s there, you can’t exactly take it away. With Mike, if you take away ALL romance there’s many scenes with him that disappear and lots of things about him we no longer know. Same with Will, and same with Lucas (but to a smaller degree). With Dustin, this doesn’t happen. Reminds me of Bilbo “confirmed bachelor” Baggins. And also Frodo (despite the fact that Frodo is gay asf). Good post about Dustin and romance here.

Bilbo and Frodo are extremely paralleled which makes Dustin have things in common with Frodo aswell (lack of a romance plot, takes pride in being odd, feeling pity for gollum).

Frodo barely has friends his own age. In the book, Sam is younger than him, and so are pippin and merry and fatty. He’s also friends with Gandalf, much older. He doesn’t have any friends his own age. Dustin has the party, but he’s also friends with Erica (younger) or Steve and Eddie (older).

Frodo doesn’t have a father (or mother) since his parents died. Dustin is the son of a single mom. Bilbo and Gandalf fill the role of Frodo’s paternal figure. Dustin being friends with so many older guys + the relationship the party (where everyone has absent dads except Lucas) had with mr Clarke might show a lack of father figure, and searching for one.

But if this doesn’t prove the Dustin/Frodo parallels (makes sense, these are a bit of a stretch), I realized they might be there with dart.

Dart

Dart is gollum. Only difference, dart saves Dustin & co and gollum betrays Frodo and Sam. But that’s because Dart had Dustin (took care of him) while gollum had Frodo (took care of him) + Sam (wanted to kill him). I’m not blaming Sam, but there’s a scene in the book where, after coming back from talking to shelob, gollum is super close to repenting and not betraying them, until Sam insults him after hurriedly waking up and unknowingly makes gollum go on with his plan. Smth smth kindness is rewarded. And we know stranger things is a show about friendship and kindness and nerds.

Let’s look at all the dart / lotr parallels.

Dustin grabbing dart while having no idea what dart is or where he came from. Bilbo grabbing a random ring he found while having no idea what it truly was. Dart being a demogorgon. That ring being the one ring. One difference though, Dart ends up saving them, and the one ring needs to be destroyed.

Dustin finds dart and decides to not kill him or throw him out, but take him in and take care of him, despite having no idea what he is. Bilbo finds gollum and, although he has the chance to kill him, decides to spare his life and run away. Will realizes dart looks like the slug he threw up but doesn’t tell anyone at first (“Why didn't you tell us before?” “I wasn't sure”). Frodo realizes gollum is following them but doesn’t tell anyone at first. When Mike finds out dart is from the upside down (which has hurt Will in the past, which has hurt them in the past) he wants to kill dart. When Sam finds out gollum is after the ring and wants to kill them, he’s 100% on board with killing him.

Frodo offers gollum his protection, and gollum begins trusting Frodo and being good and nice. Sam still doesn’t buy it and doesn’t understand the relationship Frodo has with gollum. Look at this exchange between Dustin and Mike in s2.

M: “Maybe he [dart] should be dead”

D: “how can you say that?”

M: “how can you not? He’s from the upside down!”

D: “Maybe, but even if he is, it doesn’t automatically mean that he’s bad”

M: “That’s like saying just because someone’s from the Death Star doesn’t make them bad”

D: “We have a bond”

M: “A bond? Just because he likes nougats?”

D: “No, because he trusts me!”

L: “He trusts you?”

D: “Yes! I promised I would take care of him”

Don’t tell me it’s not exactly what I explained above. Dustin is so extremely Frodo-coded in this scene. Also Dustin telling Mike to not hurt Dart, like the many times Frodo told Sam to be nice and not hurt Gollum. Mike’s “where'd you go, you little bastard?” while looking for Dart is so Sam aswell.

When Will finds Dart in the bathroom, he is gentle and tries to reassure him (but it doesn’t work out). Frodo keeps on talking with gollum and protecting him.

The scene in the tunnels where Dustin goes to talk to Dart is also similar to the scene in the books where the men find gollum and Frodo convinces them to not kill him, and to let him go talk to him, since he’ll listen to Frodo.

Dart allowes them to escape and basically saves their life. Gollum ends up being crucial to the destruction of the ring and basically saves Frodo. You see it. When they closed the gate, dart died. After the ring was destroyed, gollum died.

Nancy, who grew up too fast

(Look at this cute fanart of Nancy as Frodo and Robin as Sam)

Superficially, Nancy can be seen as Éowyn. Strong female characters who handles a weapon (sword / gun), and who are remembered by their scenes using said weapon, but who are actually much more complex that people give them credit for. Éowyn is depressed, and she feels stuck. She doesn’t want to be stuck in her life, doesn’t want to die without fighting, stuck in a castle, she wants to make her choice, and have autonomy. She doesn’t want to be like the women that came before her (which is not to say she doesn’t want to be a woman, she just wants to have the same freedom as a man). Nancy is also depressed, and she doesn’t want to be stuck in a loveless picket fence marriage, like her mother. Éowyn suffers from misogyny, so does Nancy. Éowyn ends up with mr nice guy Faramir. Nancy ends up with mr nice guy Jonathan.

Nancy is also similar to Frodo, but in a different way that will or max are. Theirs are more obvious parallels, while Nancy’s are a little more abstract. Frodo decided to take the ring to Mordor, was willing to face the challenge to do the right thing. That’s something Nancy would definitely do.

Nancy goes from normal carefree teenage girl to a traumatized woman with the burden of saving the world, a survivors guilt bigger than herself and the need to save everyone, no longer the same girl she was before. Same with Frodo!! He goes from a normal carefree hobbit to a traumatized hobbit with the burden of saving the world and guilt over claiming the ring at the last minute, no longer the hobbit he was before.

Nancy is also the leader, taking care of the kids, making the plans, shooting with her guns. Frodo is not the leader, but yknow what he is? Scared, normal, average, and also vital. Nancy is the same. Scared, normal, average, and very important. Nancy doesn’t have superpowers nor any kind of experience in battle or fights (like for example Hopper who is a war vet). And yet everyone turns to her. Just like how everyone counts on Frodo to destroy the ring so they can succeed in saving middle earth, everyone is always counting on Nancy, although neither Frodo nor Nancy have any kind of special ability or experience that makes them different to the others.

Nancy is also paralleled to Sam, believe it or not, specially since mike is Frodo. “What are you talking about? Their relationship is nothing like Sam and Frodo’s, the wheeler siblings are famously dysfunctional!” 100% agree, the wheeler siblings have everything but a perfect relationship, however there do is one singular scene (one. Seriously just one) that sets this parallel.

Vecna showing Nancy the future. What does that remind you of? Because I know what it reminds me of, and that is Galadriel showing Sam and Frodo the future through her mirror. Vecna showed Nancy glimpses, not the full picture, not the full scene, just tiny moments without context. Same thing Galadriel did to Sam and Frodo.

“Oh but why Sam? Nancy is already paralleled to Frodo” true again, except what did Frodo see in the mirror? The sea. That was his future, no one else’s, and it was a good future. He didn’t understand it yet, but Galadriel’s mirror showed him finding peace in the future (Frodo goes to Valinor at the end of rotk to find peace and healing).

What did the mirror show SAM, though? The scourning of the shire (Hawkins after Vecna won), his father being forced to leave the shire (whatever he saw happening to Karen and Holly), Frodo “dead” after being attacked by shelob (Mike — except Frodo wasn’t dead, and Sam didn’t interpret this vision correctly at first since he had no context. He thought Frodo was sleeping, and then when Frodo got attacked though “this is what the vision meant! He’s dead not asleep!” but both times he was wrong. I think the same will happen to Nancy, she might have seen mike “dead” but it will be something else), and him running to save Frodo (didn’t understand this one at first aswell). All the visions become true though, although they were different to what the characters guessed. Interested on the “creature with a gaping mouth”, will it be another incorrectly guessed vision, or will it be truly a creature with a gaping mouth?

When it comes to Nancy, saying “oh she’s similar to this character” is complicated, at least to me. Because Nancy is such a “her” character, she’s so herself, she’s one of her best female characters I’ve seen in media, super complex and interesting, despite the fandoms obsession with reducing her to a boring love triangle. The duffers said that they got inspired by the breakfast club for the creation of Nancy’s, Jonathan’s, and Steve’s characters, so it’s not like her lotr parallels are huge. In fact, maybe the duffers weren’t thinking about any of this and I’m overthinking. But anyway I just love Nancy.

Robin, “I cracked the code”

Robin gives me so so so many merry vibes. They are both even misinterpreted in the same way! People think merry is just haha dumb comedic relief, same with robin, but they are both super interesting characters!

Merry is so smart, like, genuinely, he knew about the ring (which Bilbo kept a secret to everyone but Frodo and Gandalf for YEARS AND YEARS) before anyone else, just by observing him. He’s the mastermind behind it all, he grabs pippin, Sam, and fatty and gets them to gather information about Frodo (who HE noticed was acting strange and might be about to leave the shire). He does all the planning to let them leave the shire as quickly and silently as they could. Merry focuses on the “speak friend and enter” part written above the doors of Moira. It is Gandalf who figures it out, but from the first second it’s merry who notices it above the rest of the text, and finds it weird. It’s thanks to merry pointing it out, that Gandalf begins thinking about it. Merry is super observant!! Just like Robin being the one to figure out music helps against Vecna, or cracking the Russian code or almost always being right.

Merry doesn’t want to be left behind in Rohan while his friends are fighting the war (steve and nancy going to the mothergate and leaving robin and Eddie alone on the boat) so he just sneaks with éowyn to the war even tho he’s super scared (robin diving right after nancy).

Strategy. Organized genius.

Rambling about the same topic for paragraphs. It’s literally canon that all that could be discovered about pipe-weed in antiquity was put together by him. Same with robin rambling. Both into “weird” things (like, robin knows several languages and is very into old films and old books and merry is into maps and boats, which hobbits aren’t usually interested in). Also both can be seen as neurodivergent (by those with eyes to see it). (Same with Frodo and Bilbo)

They have funny scenes, of course, but they have much more to them!

Erica, child soldier

I think erica might be similar pippin. “Erica would absolutely destroy pippin wdym” I mean yeah but think about it. This character who originally doesn’t really have much of a role and is just the family of one of our main characters (s2 Erica, pippin at the beginning of the fellowship) and who you could say is just there for laughs cause they’re funny, but who slowly gets a bigger role and becomes a member of the team and an important member too, helping to save the world. Also pippin is the youngest out of the fellowship, he’s not even an adult yet. Erica can amuse the viewer like pippin does (but in completely different ways, pippin by being “dumb” (again, he’s a literal teenager thrown into horrors he literally couldn’t imagine), erica by her amazing comebacks) but she’s also an important member of the team, just like pippin.

She’s not aware of the real danger until s4. I mean, in s3 she basically risked her life and her only condition was “free ice cream forever”. While stuck in the elevator, she says her mom will be mad at Steve and Robin for endangering her and making her miss her uncle’s birthday. It’s steve who brings her to reality, telling her that if they are killed in a Russian elevator, her mom wouldn’t find them anyway. Erica is taken aback by this, and for the first time, she’s beginning to see the actual danger.

She also has “dumb” funny moments that sound like something pippin could perfectly well say (like when she said they should drink the weird green liquid they found. Like obviously not erica wtf. Reminds me of movie!Pippin eating three lembas breads without even knowing what they were before eating them). But we also see later in the season her calculating maths in her head super fast and well, and Dustin lovingly calls her a nerd. We see that’s she’s smart! Pippin is also smart, people just don’t acknowledge it. Good pippin post.

Eddie, the hero

(Cute fanart of Eddie and Dustin as lotr characters)

Now, I’m not really into Eddie’s character, so if there are any more similarities that I’ve missed and a diehard fan noticed, please let me know. Eddie’s lotr parallels are so easy to see. Movie!Aragorn saying “for Frodo” and Eddie saying “this is for you, Chrissy” (which then puts Chrissy on Frodo’s position, Chrissy who got vecna’d. Mike/Chrissy parallels here, here, and here. Also Will/Chrissy parallels here).

Also the fact that all the characters paralleled to Frodo in one way or another (Chrissy, Max, Nancy, El) got vecna’d (about El, does mike’s monologue scene count as getting vecna’d? Even if not, she has scenes talking to him and such so I would add her aswell) makes me scared and excited for the other characters paralleled to Frodo (Will, Mike, and Dustin. Mike is so getting vecna’d, Will might already be in a trance by the end of s4, and Dustin is so getting vecna’d aswell).

Eddie saying “I say you’re asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I’m totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea… but the shire, the shire is burning. So Mordor it is” vs Aragorn saying “I would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the end” (or the movie version, “I would have gone with you to the end, into the very fires of Mordor”).

Eddie is also boromir. Boromir who died a hero, protecting pippin and merry (“the little ones”. While merry was an adult, pippin was a teenager, and they were technically more little (stature) than Boromir. Just like Dustin, max, Lucas etc being younger than Eddie, and him dying to save them [and all of Hawkins]). Also the scene with Dustin and Eddie playing/training in a field, parallel to the movie scenes with boromir playing/training with merry and pippin in a field. Which puts Dustin in their roles. I can see Dustin as merry, great plans, smart, scared, funny, definitely neurodivergent, etc. This is also tied to this other parallel. Théoden’s death scene.

(In the book, it is merry the one hearing Théoden’s last words and last seeing him alive, in the movie it’s changed to Éowyn. But not to worry, cause Dustin fits both of these roles).

On The Two Towers movie, there’s a scene with king Théoden crying because his son died. At the end of s4, when Dustin confirms to Wayne that Eddie died, he cries in a scene that is shot more or less the same way.

Théodred (Théoden’s son) died in battle, and lived only long enough to say his last words. Eddie died n battle, and lived only long enough to say his last words.

“I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed.” (Théoden) vs “Boromir, you fought bravely. You have kept your honor.” (Aragorn @ Boromir) vs “I didn’t run away this time, right?” (Eddie)

Henry (001)

Also not necessarily into Henry’s character. I mean, the creels murders are super interesting (there’s def more that meets the eye) and so are the things we learn about him through NINA (which Brenner definitely manipulated. You cannot tell me Brenner is not making Henry look extra bad there. Which is not to say I defend him, but like c’mon Brenner would obviously do that), but I don’t know much about him aside from the obvious.

(When he found the mind flayer) “I found the most extraordinary thing of all. Something that would change everything. I saw a means to realize my potential.”

Remember this line, it’s important. Like, seriously.

Henry is gollum but he’s also sauron. The mind flayer is the one ring but it’s also Melkor (Morgoth).

Henry/Sauron created the one ring but Henry/Gollum is also consumed by it. The mind flayer/melkor is stronger that Henry/sauron, and existed before Henry/sauron, but the mind flayer/one ring was also created by Henry/sauron.

Woah, what a headache. Let’s go slowly.

Henry’s sauron-coding

Sauron’s original name was Mairon. Vecna’s original name was Henry.

“Mairon saw in Melkor the will and power that would help him achieve his personal ends quicker than if he pursued them alone.” So Henry finding the mind flayer?

Melkor is an Ainur, basically a god, an “eternal spirit”. Not the highest god (that’s Ilúvatar) but one of his “children” (listen the silmarillion is complicated ok). He turns evil unlike his siblings, destroys what they create, etc. And he has other beings that work for him and support his evil deeds, one of them being Sauron/Mairon.

I don’t think it is Henry who works for the mind flayer, I think he controls the mind flayer. However in the last shadow (correct me if wrong, I haven’t seen the play, just read summaries) it says that Henry was possessed with the mind flayer as a kid and that’s how he developed his powers (more on that later). So you could say Henry begins by “working” for the mind flayer (who, for example, made him kill animals) but then after arriving at dimension x as an adult, decided he could use the mind flayer for his own gain.

Sauron began by working for Melkor, and then time later, created the one ring. Henry begins possessed by the mind flayer, but years laters decides to mold him into something useful for him, a mean to realize “his potential”.

The mindflayer is the ring but also Melkor apparently. Duffers explain yourselves.

About sauron, he is also described as a sorcerer once (remember s5 ep4 “Sorcerer”) in the fellowship, and the number one is repeatedly mentioned regarding him. He created the one ring, he has been called the “black one”, the “one enemy”, the “nameless one”. Also “the shadow” (the first shadow)

Sauron also used to be blonde.

“Sauron's physical manifestation was destroyed in the ruin of Númenor. As a Maia, his spirit returned to Middle-earth, though he was no longer able to take the fair form he had once had.”

Henry’s gollum-coding

“One of Brenner's fellow scientists defected and stole key technology and transported it to a Nevadan cave. At this time, a very young Henry and the Creels lived nearby, in Rachel, Nevada. While exploring the Nevadan caves and playing with a spyglass, Henry stumbled across the stolen technology when it unexpectedly activated, transporting him and the defecting scientist to Dimension X.”

“In Dimension X, Henry was exposed to the influence of the shadowy entity. Though Henry returned home after 12 hours, he now possessed a unique blood type and had a changed personality. Brenner was later able to track Henry down thanks to Henry dropping his spyglass in the caves.”

Henry got possessed in a cave. Gollum lived on a cave, and Bilbo finds the ring (and steals it from gollum) on a cave. Technically bilbo-coding, for a tiny second.

“Henry stumbled across pieces of scientific equipment stolen from the Nevada Experiment. The equipment unexpectedly activated; Henry and the scientist who stole the equipment were temporarily transported to Dimension X, killing the scientist in the process.” Henry and someone else being there while the equipment activated, Gollum (Sméagol) and Déagol stumbling across the ring. Déagol stealing the ring, the scientist having been to one to steal the equipment. Déagol got almost inmediately murdered by Sméagol (for the ring). The equipment killed the scientist in the process. Sméagol ended up with the ring, Henry ended up possessed.

“I found the most extraordinary thing of all. Something that would change everything. I saw a means to realize my potential” is SO like if he just found the one ring. The ring tempts you, tells you that if you use it you will be powerful and will accomplish your desires, no matter if they are to save the world or destroy it. It says that it’ll give you the power to manage it, corrupts you, but it’s all a lie.

Henry has been fully corrupted, even his physical body changing (I mean, because of the burns but like, still a similarity) and cannot be saved. He’s gollum but he’s the ring (since the mind flayer is the ring, and he controls the mind flayer) at the same time, makes me a bit crazy.

The ring gave gollum, Bilbo, and Frodo the power to turn invisible. The mind flayer’s possession made Henry have powers, all the Will has powers theories…

Henry being 001 and the ring being the one ring is just so (x)

Also the many parallels between Will and Henry, how they’re so similar. Because Frodo and Gollum are extremely paralleled and similar!! Except Frodo fears becoming Gollum just like how Will fears becoming the abuser, the predator. But also Frodo having sympathy for Gollum cause he understands, + my theory of Will having a tiny bit of sympathy for Vecna in s5, cause he can literally feel what he feels, and he’ll probably get a Vecna vision like “oh Will we’re alike you and I join me blah blah blah make them pay and let’s get our vengeance blah blah blah”. Will won’t listen to him obviously that’s the difference between Gollum (who had no one) falling fully corrupted to the ring vs Frodo (who had Sam) only falling corrupted at the very end. Smth smth Will has a support system and doesn’t choose violence and all that.

Also

“Fëanor was possessed of exceptional oratory skill, and could persuade virtually anyone through speechcraft. He also was known to have been restless, exploring as much of Aman as he could and constantly crafting new works. One of these works was believed to have been the palantíri.”

“Fëanor quickly became the most prominent of the rebellious Ñoldor” (a group of elves)

“Despite Melkor having been the true root of the Ñoldor's unrest, Fëanor's crime had been of his own making, and for this the Valar exiled him for twelve years time from Tirion.”

Reminds me a bit of everything going on with Henry…

“Melkor stole away to Avathar in the south of Aman. There he discovered the evil spider-like creature Ungoliant and secured her as an ally, promising to sate her unrelenting hunger in return for her aid.”

Some things happened and they fought, and Ungoliant tried to strangle him. She didn’t get to, and after Balrogs came, had to run away. Some say she died from starvation. Maybe the mind flayer turning against Vecna in s5?

Thorin? I mean, Thorin sets to destroy Smaug, but ends up turning just like him because he’s affected by gold-sickness. Kinda like how Henry is super mad at Brenner and everyone and plans to “reshape” the world so that the “mindless play” stops (I think? I never really got his intentions), so like, technically in his head he probably thinks he’s doing good (??) but like, obviously he isn’t, he’s murdering teenagers and kids for no reason. Substitutes one villain for another.

Henry/Aragorn?? But we can see the contrast between both characters. I mean, Aragorn was on some kind of self-imposed exile, Henry was exiled from earth (El vanished him into dimension x), Aragorn became king (ruler) of Gondor, Henry became some kind of ruler of the upside down. Aragorn is good and noble and rightful heir, Henry is, well, evil.

I feel like Henry stans are gonna come yell at me I’m terrified

Hopper, who died and came back

Hopper is also a lot like Gandalf. Adult (male) who while technically is not a parent to any of the characters but he do is a paternal figure (him adopting el, him dating Joyce so becoming a kind of paternal figure to Jonathan and Will). I wouldn’t necessarily call Gandalf a paternal figure, but he do is this older “man” that the characters go to for help and who always helps the characters, and who has known Bilbo and Frodo since they were young (very basic description of Gandalf, I know). Also yknow Gandalf died but then came back, turns out he didn’t actually die. Hopper did the same. Gandalf “died” while saving the fellowship. Hopper “died” while saving everyone.

The scene of him meeting with el again in s4 is similar to Gandalf meeting with Frodo again in return of the king.

Bob Newby, superhero

Bob is played by Sean Astin, who played Sam in the lotr movies.

Bob Newby, superhero vs Samwise the stouthearted (or Samwise the brave in the movies)

I see him as Radagast tbh

“Radagast has a strong affinity for—and relationship with—wild animals.” You know what my first thought was? Lonnie (“he made me kill a rabbit”). Who’s basically Lonnie’s opposite? Bob. (Sure, Joyce could also be, having been the parent who stuck around and who loves her kids deeply and actually cares and isn’t abusive, but when talking about dads, it’s Bob. Could also be hopper, but I think radagast is Bob). I’ll explain.

“His role in Tolkien's writings is so slight that it has been described as a plot device.” Bob, I mean, he appears in just one season to kinda further the plot and then dies. He was also supposed to die in the third episode of s2, originally.

“Radagast was unwittingly used by Saruman to lure Gandalf to his tower of Orthanc, where Gandalf was captured”. Bob telling Will to fight the mind flayer and that causing Will to get possessed. “Fortuitously, Radagast also helped rescue him by sending Gwaihir the eagle to Orthanc with news of the movements of Sauron's forces.” Bob eventually saving Will and everyone.

“Radagast is "the friend of all birds and beasts,” Bob basically being the perfect stepdad, being super nice and caring. “He innocently helps Saruman to assemble "a great host of spies”, again, unknowingly and unwillingly causing Will to get possessed, which made Will the spy.

Mirkwood, (where Cornwallis and Kerley meet)

Oh boy talk to me about Mirkwood in stranger things.

Mirkwood is a real road, named by the party as “Mirkwood”. Mirkwood is a forest that appears in the hobbit, and from where Legolas (member of the fellowship of the ring in lotr) comes from (he’s the prince of Mirkwood). What’s interesting about Mirkwood regarding stranger things, you might ask. I ask a better question. What is not interesting about Mirkwood regarding stranger things.

That road is the road where Will was on when he was going home in s1, where he saw whatever it is that took him. “It is in close proximity to both the Byers house and the Harrington house, with only the forest separating them”, oh ok, not suspicious at all. Will got taken at his house (which is close to Mirkwood) and Barb got taken at Steve’s house (which is close to Mirkwood). Nothing to see here, just a normal ass road. Mirkwood is also where they found El, where Nancy found her tree gate (I think, not super sure on this one), where the police found Will’s bike, and also, oh right, it’s next to the lab. Can’t add a map here (curse tumblr’s image limit) but look it up. I think you can see it in ep1, right? Like when will is on his bike and passes a sign that says smth about the lab.

Next to Mirkwood are the woods, where castle byers is, and where lots of things happened over the series in general. The woods are pretty connected to the upside down, the gates are either in the woods or on places next to the woods, lots of characters spend time in the woods since they live next to them, for some reason, etc.

Before beginning to talk about Mirkwood (lotr), what do we know about the upside down (st)?

Well, we know it wasn’t always supposed to look like that, rather it’s original design was very green and even with light. Eventually the duffers decided for the upside down we know now. We also know that before it was the upside down, it was dimension x, a place WIDLY different to the upside down we know now. We know the upside down isn’t necessarily evil (as seen by dart, a creature from it who shows the difference between nature and nurture), that it’s just a neutral dimension, simply controlled by an evil man (but it hasn’t been like this always). Ok, now that that’s clear, what about Mirkwood (lotr)?

“The area had been called Greenwood the Great until around the year TA 1050, when the shadow of the Dark Lord Sauron fell upon it, and Men began to call it Mirkwood, or Taur-nu-Fuin and Taur-e. Ndaedelos in the Sindarin tongue. From then on, The southern part of Mirkwood became a haunted place inhabited by many dark and savage things. Sauron, or the 'Necromancer' as he disguised himself. established himself at the hill-fortress of Dol Guldur, an old Elven fortress in the forest's southern region, and drove Thranduil and his people ever northward.”

Oh okay, so the upside down is Mirkwood fr. Alright. There’s also the fact that Mirkwood is the home of the children of Ungoliant (aka, huge spiders that tried to eat thorin’s company) and we know everything going on with spiders and Vecna and the mind flayer etc.

Also this s5 theory, probably my favorite theory ever.

Suspicious Minds, (Terry and Andrew)

Suspicious Minds is a half-canon book (some say it’s canon, others that it isn’t), focusing on Terry (Jane’s mom) and her time at the lab. Andrew Rich is her boyfriend at the time, and father of Jane.

I really need to reread Suspicious Minds if I’m gonna talk about it cause I read it back in 2019 during summer holidays and barely remember anything. However you know what I found out? The many lotr references in the book. It was like a wonderful lake appeared in front of my while I was at the desert. Couldn’t believe my eyes. Oh duffers why me.

Andrew was a big lotr fan and, like any nerd, forced Terry into reading the books. Let’s get to it. Some of the lotr references in the book:

“Andrew had fallen in love with The Lord of the Rings on the van ride to New York and back, and then presented her with his battered copy of the first book when he returned. The cover featured a wizard in flowing yellow robes with a long white beard on a mountaintop”. A wizard with yellow robes. William Byers what are you doing here??

-

"It would've been a lot easier for the hobbits to stay in the Shire," she told him when he opened the door. "But they don't, do they? Frodo ends up with the ring and they leave with it."

"I knew you'd like it," he said, beaming at her and dropping a kiss on her cheek. "Let me know when you're ready for the next one. Where are you?"

"Still early. The hobbits may be the ones without magic, but I can feel how it's going.”

"You can skip the Tom Bombadil/Goldberry section if you want. It's a little much.”

"Now there's no way I'm skipping it." She paused. "But did you just admit this book isn't perfect in every way?"

And what’s funnier and insane is that they are Sam and Frodo shippers. They constantly compare themselves to Sam and Frodo. They are dating. They are a heterosexual couple who saw 2 gay hobbits and went: “they’re just like us fr”. Honestly, stan.

“Terry had bare feet with brown fur glued on, and wore rolled-up trousers and an old shirt. Her hair was arranged in tight curls, pulled aside to reveal pointy wax ears.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Alice asked, puzzled.

Andrew slid up to Terry's side, good looks muted only slightly by his own ridiculous curls and similar costume. He had fur glued to the top of his hand.

"She's Frodo, and I'm Samwise Gamgee. From my favorite books. I let Terry pick, and she made me the sidekick. But I don't mind being her sidekick.”

Terry shrugged. "I like Sam."

"And I like Frodo. Let me get you a drink."

-

"Don't do that," Andrew said, sitting up against the headboard. "Sometimes even Frodo and Sam have to have tough conversations.”

-

“I want you to live your life while I'm gone—think of me sometimes. I'll be dreaming of you and settling down in the Shire. No Grey Havens for us.”

UGHHH

Specially the last paragraph. It’s from a postcard Andrew sent Terry.

I cannot tell you ANYTHING about their relationship, again, desperately need to reread.

However Sam and Frodo are depicted as a romantic relationship. They are compared to a canon romantic relationship. Literally. Not by parallels like lumax, no, genuinely, literally, explicitly compared.

While there are characters who are compared to Sam and Frodo during some moments (Dustin and mike over dart, Nancy seeing the future vision of mike) and who’s relationship is definitely not romantic, it’s interesting to see how two canon couples have been compared to them. And then we have byler, who while not canon yet parallel both their relationship and the characters separately more than any other characters do…

That last paragraph? The postcard? When I read it I didn’t understand if he was saying “I’ll be dreaming of you while I settle down in the shire” or “I’ll be dreaming of you and of settling down in the shire (with you)” so I went to my copy, which is the spanish translation, and it’s the second one. Sam and Frodo settling down in the shire together… no mention of Rosie… No grey havens for us… All that combined with the duffers love for trope subversion and making things not be how they seem and so on, they are basically saying that Sam and Frodo have a happy ending together in the shire in stranger things (which basically tells us lumax endgame and byler endgame).

+ (some extra stuff)

“The transformation of the Shire from rural idyll to industrial wasteland heavily parallels Tolkien's own views of the destruction of the English countryside by the steady creep of industrialisation” + Smaug (the dragon they are set to kill in the hobbit) has lots and lots of money for the sake of having money. Doesn’t spend it, just hoards it because he’s greedy + Thorin dealing with gold-sickness, aka, wanting hoard as all the gold he took from Smaug, and not spend it or share it (just like Smaug did, so he sets to destroy Smaug just to turn just like him) (Smth smth, the mind flayer as capitalism)

-

Quoting Eddie, the shire is burning. The upside down arrived at Hawkins. At first, the upside down and the supernatural was located in the lab and in the upside down. It didn’t touch Hawkins. Except now it did, and things get dirty, the scourning of the shire, the shire is burning. So Mordor it is. Also, birthdaygate. March 22, Will’s birthday. Yknow what else is March 22? The day Sam and Frodo left the road and headed towards mount doom.

-

Also Nell Fisher who will play Holly in s5 acted alongside Elijah Wood (Frodo’s actor) in a movie (bookworm). (This is a complete coincidence, I know, but wanted to mention it)

-

Frodo’s birthday (and Bilbo’s) is also the 22th. 22th of September, not March, but the 22th. Also there’s 7 months between March and September (March - April - May - June - July - August - September) and (September- October- November - December- January - February- March). It was a seven.

-

Soteria is paralleled to the one ring, which is strange because soteria inhibits powers, while the ring gives you powers (hobbits turns invisible, extended lifespan, etc). Henry also said that soteria tracks your movements, and if he was right about that, it’s a similarity with the one ring, which when put on, allowed sauron to know someone had it.

-

The one ring was a physical object, you could put it on, touch it, destroy it. The mind flayer is not a physical object, and Vecna is a person (?). Not so easy to destroy. You could destroy the one ring by throwing it into the fire of Mordor, and you could take the mind flayer out of Will with heat (he likes it cold). So, can you kill the mind flayer by burning it? Following this thought pattern, yes.

At the end of s4 Nancy and robin burned Vecna and it probably hurt but he’s not dead. So either it doesn’t work or they need a much bigger fire. Well, not all fire worked with the one ring, it had to be the fire of Mordor. Now the question is, what is Mordor in stranger things? Because the upside down is Mirkwood. Maybe vecna’s weird red dimension (like where max was during the running up that hill sequence). Is that the upside down too or is it different? It looks different, cause it’s mental. The upside down is somewhere you can physically enter and leave, vecna’s red dimension is mental. Maybe Vecna/the mind flayer whatever can only be burned there. Or maybe the upside down is both Mirkwood and Mordor.

Idk it’s all so confusing. All I know is that a certain someone who has already cast fireball twice on dnd might be “the cure”…

-

-

If you made it here you deserve an applause cause DAMN this got long.

-

Conclusion:

The duffers are sam/frodo shippers. They’re also insane and I desperately need to hear them infodump

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

i collect images with powerful ot3/third wheel energies so you don’t have to. i am releasing them to you, the public, so you may share in my bounty

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Mentally I’m here

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Category 5 vanishing of will byers @aemiron-main moment

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Obsessed with this!! Specially with the byers having gone through wills disappearance a hundred times. I will be thinking about it for some time

You can't expect people to take you seriously if you're not providing any proof? If Will and El are twins and Joyce and Hopper are their bio parents, why don't any of them know about it and why haven't there been any hints about it? I'm not even trying to be rude here I just haven't seen any evidence. Let alone strong evidence

I've gotten a few confused asks about this theory and how it just doesn't make any sense..?

I'm not saying that I completely understand the ins and outs of how it works, in fact I'm still completely immersed in theorizing and not being certain of anything! Quite frankly, I don't understand it (how time works/the rules of the game), though I think that's necessary because otherwise everyone and their mother would have guessed this surprise by now if it was any more obvious than it already is.

I also just feel kind of bad about spoiling what could possibly be going down, especially bc this would clearly be a series long surprise.

I've been theorizing for months now with @shippingfangirl013 about this. It started with us sharing thoughts about Twelvegate and just sort of piecing together s4 lab scenes and then eventually going back to the beginning to see what we might have missed from this new lens, that being the possibility that Will is Twelve. And that's when we realized A LOT of stuff has been overlooked from the very beginning, which provides not only answers to certain questions we had, but also brings forth even more questions that we wouldn't have come up with, had we not looked back further into the details in the first place.

She has a bunch of posts that are severely underrated in regards to this whole theory, so I urge you all to check those out:

Twelvegate Theory: Drowning in the Quarry and Will & El (Part 1)

Twelve Actor Resemblance to Young Will Byers

Stranger Things S5 Conglomerate Twelvegate Theory (Part 1)

Conglomerate ST S5 Theory Parallels

Also be sure to keep an eye out because she has some really big brain analysis in the works that you dont want to miss. I can honestly say she plays a big role in why I feel fairly confident about this theory, because I myself didn't really believe it at first. But now, after everything I've seen, it's kind of hard not to.

Even if you don't like this the idea of this theory or just simply don't believe the evidence presented that you've seen thus far, at the very least looking at this could expand your ability to look further at other details on the show and even pick up on evidence of your own. I find that more often than not, knowing about the existence of certain overlooked details allows you to find even more overlooked details that others missed.

For the sake of your doubtful ask, and for anyone else who isn't even considering this theory because it seems too far fetched, I'm going to share some of my favorite unhinged evidence for whatever the hell gate we're calling this...

But first, here is some basic context for the chaos that follows.

Something important to note, is that we don't meet Hopper, El or the Byers the night that Will went missing. We only met Will and the party. Instead they saved the rest of the main character's introductions (his family, mind you) for the following day, after Will had gone missing. This also means they saved their introductions for AFTER the big power outage that happened that night right before he disappeared.

I find this interesting because this choice allowed them to make those introductions feel arguably 'starting point'/reset-like (like in a video game).

You'll also note there is a 'Pizza One' box in that first scene when the party is in Mike's basement playing their campaign, moments before that power outage. This could have been a hint that the very start of the pilot episode at the Wheelers may very well be the OG timeline, that we've been straying from ever since. And so let's say hypothetically, if we had met Hopper, El and the Byers BEFORE that power outage, whose to say their lives wouldn't have looked slightly different...?

The first time we are introduced to Hopper is in the scene directly after the opening credits, which was right after the scene of Will disappearing in the shed. Hopper is sleeping on the couch in his trailer, wearing both his daughter's blue bracelet and his watch. We also get 3 references to keys in this scene (a 2 ft long key decal in the literal opening shot). And if that's not enough, what follows is Hopper getting ready for work, putting a yellow pen in his pocket near a painting of an owl, before grabbing his keys and walking out the door.

The first time we are introduced to Joyce (the Byers), follows directly after the scene with Hopper, where Joyce just so happens to be looking everywhere for her keys, Where the hell are they?, followed by finding them on the couch, despite already looking there previously with no luck (interesting Hopper was sleeping on the couch with Willel symbols on his wrists only moments before this hmm). We then get a shot of Joyce showing concern over Will not eating breakfast, followed by scolding Jonathan for forgetting to wake Will up, adding I've told you this a thousand times, before she walks past an owl on the wall in the hallway and opens the door to another owl on the wall in Will's (unoccupied) room...

Let me just say, for the sake of this fictional family, I hope to god they haven't been through this thousands of times. Though I fear they might have. At least more than once...

There are a lot, A LOT of scenes that go down like this. As the show progresses, we get a lot of references to time passing and confusion and impatience and it almost feels like they themselves know deep down this isn't their first rodeo, and yet they're still playing along bc how exactly can one question their reality?.

The problem right now for me, is that I don't understand the rules of the game. How does time work? What even is the goal of the game (to win, I presume?)? Maybe Vecna's having to keep reseting the time loop, to get the results he wants, and over time he's getting closer and closer to the results he wants, but it will ultimately (predictably) lead to him failing once and for all in the final season, when all is inevitably revealed?

Hypothetically, if this is all some game/pocket universe Vecna has thrown our core characters into, essentially surrounding them with 'fakers', then how do we know what is/isn't real? Or I guess whether or not we're in a timeline/loop either closest to, or furthest away from the original timeline? That's why it's hard for me to go further in terms of definitively piecing everything together time wise. Not only that, but we also don't even know for sure what Vecna wants from Will and El, truly.

But I do think that a lot of the answers to the truth are hidden in plain sight.

If you're genuinely curious, I encourage you to rewatch the show for yourself to see if you can pick up on things! Be sure to keep an eye out for keys and owls in particular. Also, El's flashbacks of Mama/the rainbow room might prove to be important... like, literally slowing down and pausing and screenshooting every single frame level important...

Who knows, you might even stumble upon a completely different undiscovered theory in the process!

On that note, here is just a slice of my favorite evidence in regards to this theory, that will hopefully open your mind to the possibility:

When Hopper asks about Lonnie's whereabouts, Joyce insists TRUST ME HE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. They made sure to keep the keys on the wall OUT of the frame in those shots referencing Lonnie by name specifically. However, when the conversation circles back to Will, and then follows after with Joyce telling Hopper to find her son, the keys are once again visible in both of their shots.

This scene right here is pretty epic. We all interpret Hopper's investigative skills throughout the series as him just being good at his job. But I would argue this scene in particular gives off very intense deja vu. It's as if Hopper knows where to look, because he's done this before. It's as if he's getting a gut feeling in certain areas that actually could be close to the truth, because this is his thousandth time doing this (Jesus, for their sake, I hope that's not the case).

Still, Hopper showcases a lot of unbelievable detective work throughout the show, and I think it could very well be hinting at him drifting in and out of awareness over the fact that he has done this before, which allows him to make such incredible guesses that lead him to the answer sooner than he would have in any normal situation (and yet, never too close...)

Has this always been here? That's what Hopper asks about a dent in the wall. We interpret it as maybe Hopper trying to figure out if this could be connected to Will's disappearance. But what if it's more than that? What if it hasn't always been there? What if this is a glitch in the matrix of sorts, and he noticed that glitch, bc this isn't his first time doing this? (Also peep the owl that shows up at the very last second in the shot directly below, with Joyce and Hopper in the frame, just as he gets the urge to check the backyard...)

This scene... This fucking scene ya'll. It just doesn't make any sense. This is one of several scenes throughout the show that have so many unanswered questions. I think it's because something else is going on that weren't not supposed to understand yet. That shot with Hopper encased in a rainbow is cool and probably means something... Hopper intensely walking into the frame as he steps towards the shed, with the upside down horseshoe above the door also probably means something...

Hopper literally walks up straight to where Will was in the shed the night previous, bc he's just that good of a detective. Yeah, okay... Suddenly the light overhead is blinking dramatically, only to switch off completely, which leads Hopper's eyes to catch this makeshift fort in the corner of the shed. Before he even gets a good look at what he's seeing, he's interrupted by Callahan, pulling him out of his deja vu state, followed by the light switching back on instantly, as if the occurrence was all in his head.

This also happens a lot, where our main characters are being interrupted by other characters, only seconds before they were close to solving something. And I just find that interesting...

This one is kind of peak comedy because, all it's doing on the surface is implying that Joyce and Hopper have a romantic history, but it also sneakily involves Will in the joke, as evidence that they have been intimate... The Chief and her, they've screwed before huh? ...WILL! That a 'yeah' or did they...

To be honest, I was really doubtful about Joyce and Hopper being El and Will's biological parents at first, even despite believing twelvegate and the possibility of them being twins. And this doubt mostly came from the scenes we get with Terry aka El's 'Mama'.

Initially, I had convinced myself it would be too sad, considering how much backstory we got about Terry. But @shippingfangirl013 made me realize that there is something very off about these scenes with Terry, that I think kind of went over all of our heads.

First of all, Mama is essentially the equivalent to the name Papa, and so we should start by unpacking that. Why didn't the writers have El distance herself from that exact association she links to Brenner, by just having her call Terry 'mom' like most kids call their mother? It doesn't seem that serious on the surface, but again this is a choice the writers made... Maybe it's because they wanted the audience to subconsciously associate those two with each other (Papa/Mama)? Also peep Jim giving Will Byers vibes, all lit up by the sun like Jesus (or I guess... God?) below!

The main thing I want to talk about though, is that despite Terry's vegetative state, she's still managing to give us hints about how she feels and what she thinks, with very subtle micro-expressions.

When she meets Hopper and Joyce in s1, Terry looks completely unsurprised. You could say she looks the same all of the time, because of her vegetative state, and while I mostly agree, there are some outliers in the mix.

When Joyce mentions El being her daughter, what we get is a reaction shot of Terry dramatically closing her eyes for an extended period of time, almost like she's experiencing frustration over them woefully misunderstanding the truth behind what's going on.

And I think that's kind of the whole point of the vegetative state here, that perhaps if Terry could say what she wanted to say, it would give away the truth that has been hidden all along, AKA Joyce and Hopper are El and Will's true parents. When Joyce then mentions her missing son, showing Terry a picture of him, this woman LITERALLY turns her head to the right, looking straight up annoyed... Why? Why would she do that unless this is her ?/? time meeting them, hearing this same old silly charade?..

But then here... THIS moment when Hopper asks about Brenner and Terry's relationship with him, that's when it gets interesting. Terry doesn't look exhausted over their ignorance anymore like she seemed to be in the moments previous. Now, she's back to her stare of nothing, and yet seeing this in contrast to her micro-expressions, almost adds a new layer to what this could possibly mean... Perhaps this could be hinting that Hopper is a lot closer to the truth than he realizes, warranting a knowing look from Terry, with her almost impressed, thinking Damn Jim, maybe you'll figure it out this time and I can finally be released from this hell...

This might seem like a reach to assume Brenner and Terry had any sort of relation beyond her being a lab volunteer, but something I think you might be interested in knowing, is that Terry has a little collection of Bonsai tree books beside her chair... Bonsai... does that remind you of anyone...? (If you check out those posts by @shippingfangirl013, you might know what i'm referring to...)

The fact that Hopper even mentions Brenner and Terry's presumed connection to him is just one other example of Hopper subconsciously picking up on things he discovered in previous loops that are close to the TRUE truth, allowing him to narrow things down quicker this time around, without needing to take all the steps to get to that point.

An owl behind both Joyce and Hopper here, while they talk about what allegedly happened to Terry and her daughter Jane.

And there you have it folks, the acknowledgment that the truth could have been covered up, the moment Hopper stands in front of the owl artwork (literally covering it up). Owls, which have been tied more than anyone else to Hopper, Joyce, Will and El (tying them together?).? Also the crib between them... Nothing to see here.

This one is pretty self explanatory. We even get a parallel to this in s4 with El AND Will, though next time they'll confirm Hopper's role in the equation. So, be ready for that...

These scenes are so important to this theory because despite them all being separated (who knows how many times now), they have this epic finale of coming together. We get these really heartfelt scenes with El and Joyce and Hopper, Will and El, and then Will and Joyce and Hopper, and it's all very emotional and just so much deeper knowing that the truth could be that they're all tied to each other more than we (or even them) realize.

11 & 12 between the two hands on the clock, in a moment that parallels X-Men and also the lab massacre (which presumably had both 11 and 12 in attendance...). Mike calling out to El emotionally the moment that Joyce and Hopper are reunited with Will. My heart can't take it!!!

Someone actually noticed this shot of Hopper recently, I can't remember who! But it made me want to go back to see what shot is right before it. And low and behold, it follows directly after a shot of the Byers family reuniting. Kind of interesting they made the choice to have this shot right afterwards, of Hopper sitting next to Ted (aka a dad), while looking lost in thought as he stressfully bites his nails, with his arm sporting his daughter's blue bracelet...

Not suspicious at all. That creepy shadow behind Owens as he makes an almost knowing comment about Joyce and Hopper being 'Mom and Pop', followed by Hopper looking like he's missing something...

And for this scene to follow shortly after? Hopper literally acknowledging Owens whose waving at him politely, and yet choosing to not wave back at him?... He KNOWS something is off, but he just can't quite put his finger on it...

As you probably know, most of the scenes with the birthday mug in Mike's basement involve either El (in s1) or Will (in s2-3), which is interesting considering the other few notable birthday references we get in the show, including this really cryptic sequence above, involve Joyce and Hopper...

Now, if you still didn't believe me about Terry's behavior being off, I think this piece of evidence might help support our claims a little bit more for you to consider. Because, why, WHY when El approaches Terry in the void and says I'm home, is Terry's response No..? Why would that even make any sense? Why would El's biological mom say No to her missing daughter implying that she is her family? Unless, she's not of course...?

Something interesting about the flashbacks that Terry shows El, is that they're very sporadic and hard to understand. Not only that, but we STILL get callbacks to these memories heavily even in s4, which tells me there is still something there that has yet to be picked up on, by both the audience and El herself, which is why they keep resurfacing in different forms. My favorite moment out of the s2 flashbacks though is probably this moment where it looks like a baby is born, only for Brenner to look back, like there's more to come (another baby?? TWINS?). But this type of twin imagery, only gets stronger in s3-4...

After 2 seasons of building up this meeting of these two characters who have been mirroring each other since the very beginning, here we are... Also, why even hold back for so long in introducing them? Maybe because them finally interacting properly is going to cause some things to resurface... And you definitely don't want to overlook these shots of Hopper and Joyce in Melvald's with two baby's in between them, followed by a shot of keys... Hmmmm.

Remember when I said to pay attention to the Terry/Lab flashbacks El experiences over the seasons?

Well this particular flashback below comes from 3x06: E Plurbius Unum aka the episode that was originally titled The Birthday, might prove to be important...

Jonathan and Will in a scene prior to El's flashback, has them situated interestingly between this Lucky Charms box and this Spill & Spell game, which is then followed by this scene with El experiencing flashbacks... And...

Rainbow? Lucky (Upside down horse shoe...) Enter flashback

I'm not going to be able to show each frame of this flashback, because in total there are over 30 different quick images shown and repeated...

And so, If you want to find out why this is the strongest piece of evidence for Willel twins in my opinion (brought to you by @shippingfangirl013's big brain), go back and rewatch to see how many times they show the image of baby El and young El in the rainbow room... Also take note of how shots of Kali (008) are interspersed consistently within this flashback, aka a character that is known for having powers to make people invisible, and to also make people see things that aren't actually happening...

Here's that parallel I mentioned earlier making a return, but instead tying El (and arguably Will) to Hopper being their biological father. Also peep El's bracelet and Will's watch being prominent in a lot of their shots together throughout s4, now that they share the screen a lot more.

The Wright Bros...

No, but seriously, Willel's bracelet and watch mirroring each other often in their scenes together, and by association also paralleling Hopper wearing one of each, dramatically showcased in his introduction to the series, can be something so personal to me...

THEY'RE TWINS YOUR HONOR!

This one really goes off. A car passes by a couple times during this flashback El has (IN S4), causing a shadow to cast behind Will, almost creating this duplicate-like effect... This is literally happening while El is having a flashback to her 'birth mother', while staring at a family (with their faces warn out/blurred) on a billboard, with an arrow pointing towards where Will, aka her twin, is standing to the right of her...

This one below has gotta be my favorite though. And it's because I literally remember watching this scene the first time and being confused?

Tbh, that's when you know something is more complex than it appears. Whenever something feels off within the context provided in the moment, it's probably because there's something deeper going on and there are multiple meanings at play. This means they're using this small moment as an opportunity to provide dual meaning in plain sight, that we wont understand the dual meaning of until later on down the line.

Are you ready..

Hmmm. I wonder what this could possibly be alluding to? Could it perhaps be the writers hinting at Hopper unintentionally projecting his own situation onto Dmitri? Is it possible who Hopper believes to be his child (daughter... son(s?)?) and his (ex)wife, are not actually who he and everyone thinks they are...?

Well. There you have it! These are just some of the many, many hints hiding in the details that point to the possibility of the Byers actually all being, Hoppers...?

For now, this is just a theory! So even though it's cool and there is a serious amount of evidence pointing to it, it will most definitely continue to transform and look different over time, the more we look deeper and discover more. Nothing is set in stone, for now it's all just theories and speculation.

Again, if you're curious about what else there is out there in regards to this theory and other possibilities surrounding it, please follow and check out @shippingfangirl013 posts! She was way more on board with this theory than me in the beginning and arguably still is, because I do still experience occasional doubt about it, for sure.! And so without her I would not have come to half of these conclusions! I look forward to you guys seeing other stuff she's discovered bc seriously... Her poor storage ya'll.

And also, if you're interested in the time-loop aspect specifically in regards to this, I encourage you to check out two recent posts I did about this. Part I actually starts with those first scenes introducing Hopper and the Byers and how other scenes later in the show parallel it. VERY VERY cool stuff, and tbh if you've made it this far, I think you'll be intrigued...

Time Loop Fuckery in Stranger Things Part I

Time Loop Fuckery in Stranger Things Part II

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Regarding people thinking Will died by being pushed into the quarry cause he's gay. Same thing happened to my buddy Adrian in IT. And the duffers love their Stephen King references. Except, the scene of his death parallels Mike on the cliff, not Will. Huh.

(2/3) Stranger Things/Labyrinth Theory: MC Escher's Relativity Prediction (LONG)

PART TWO IS REAL?! (sorry for the wait, i got busy). As I was saying in part one, I think there's a chance that the climax of Mike's arc in Stranger Things will parallel Sarah's from the movie Labyrinth.

In the movie Labyrinth, Sarah had exactly thirteen hours to rescue her baby brother Toby after accidentally wishing for him to be taken away. In the climax of the movie, she finally spots him crawling up (and down) a trippy ass staircase.

As one of Sarah's last challenges within the Labyrinth, she runs throughout this maze trying to catch up to her little brother. The laws of gravity and physics do not apply here. At one moment, little Toby might be crawling across the ceiling, in the next he might be catching a crystal bouncing up a flight of steps.- fandom wiki

In Labyrinth, the setting of the “endless stairs” scene is based on M.C Escher’s ‘Relativity’.

Which is foreshadowed earlier in the movie, by a poster hanging on Sarah’s bedroom wall:

And as you know from my earlier post, I think this MC Escher poster hanging in Mike's room, was a reference to Sarah's from Labyrinth.

Because it could potentially foreshadow a Snowball/GoblinBall parallel going down in season 5. (read theory: here)

I ended part one on a cliffhanger (cue uncontrollable laughter), by hinting that Sarah's "Relativity" poster might ALSO relate to a potential s5 Mike scene (the cliff). Because, based off of pure unadulterated vibes, the "endless staircase scene" from Labyrinth seemed like the perfect opportunity to visually parallel Mike's Cliff Jump to Sarah's Staircase Jump...

AND GUESS WHAT, THE VIBES WHERE PROPHETIC OR SOME SHIT, BECAUSE IT TURNS OUT THAT A POSTER OF RELATIVITY IS ALSO HANGING IN MIKE'S ROOM?!😱WHICH MAKES THIS THEORY (SLIGHTLY) LESS RANDOM?!

(thank you to @strangerchicka for telling me this, because when i originally paused to screenshot Mike's room, he was covering it LMAOOO)

Not only that, but it's hung directly underneath the notorious One Way Sign pointing directly into Mike's closet. The one way sign isn’t just pointing into his closet, though, it's also pointing at a mirror. Maybe this is because the upside-down is a mirrored version of the other side? In any case, its Suspicious as hell. So, hear me out:

What if the scene of Mike jumping off the cliff comes full circle in s5.

because it’s the only way (?)

Which leads me back to Labyrinth:

The Climax:

the final confrontation between Sarah and Jareth happens in the Relativity-themed room. When she finally reaches the top of the staircase, she looks down and spots sweet lil baby Toby.

but lil homie is contemplating life, staring into the abyss. He's looking over the edge of what appears to be a pretty steep drop.

When Sarah looks down and sees Toby...she JUMPS.

which successfully breaks her out of the spell!

According to multiple credible academic sources (LitCharts and Reddit) Toby the physical embodiment of Sarah's own childhood innocence👼

Which got me thinking: What if the baby is the physical embodiment of Mike’s childhood as well? In other words, what if the baby parallels s1 Mike, and Sarah parallels s5 Mike

(Disclaimer: If you think I sound like a crazy person rn....you're absolutely right. I'm fully aware of my own confirmation bias, and I recognize that, while it's fun to speculate, we really shouldn't expect any of this to actually happen. It's impossible to accur-

YOU THOUGHT BITCH, the voices are back and louder then ever! :D Before escaping from their basement, the Duffers told me (in cryptic riddles ofc) that the cliff scene WILL be brought back in s5, and that they will do it through either time travel or memories. Working backwards from this (highly classified) information, I came up with a few potential scenarios which could be used to write this in:

SPECIFIC S5 CLIFF SCENE PREDICTIONS:

1: MEMORY/ILLUSION: The baby is s1 Mike, and Sarah is s5 Mike. When Mike sees his s1 self on the cliff within a memory/illusion, he has to jump off the cliff again in s5, as it's the ONE WAY to break out of the illusion.

2: TIME TRAVEL TOMFOOLERY: Somehow, going back in time causes Mike to die on the cliff in s1. For example, if El never escaped from the lab in the first place, she wouldn't have been there to save Mike on the cliff in s1 (although he prob wouldn't have in that situation in the first place, but just ignore that for now). If changing the past is THE ONE WAY to stop Vecna, this might mean in s5, Mike is forced to watch s1 Mike jump off the cliff with no one there to save him. (This scenario doesn't seem very likely to me atm,idk why)

MY FAVORITE IDEA?!:

3: TIME TRAVEL TOMFOOLERY: This one is kinda edgy, but the writers almost made El mercy kill her mom in s2, so how crazy is it REALLY?

OKAY. So what if the ONE WAY to stop the end of the world, is go back in time and change things, but Mike unexpectedly dies as a result of this?

What if in s1, Mike still jumps off the cliff despite the bullies never threatening Dustin's teeth in the first place?

Let me explain: if time travel tomfoolery DOES have to go down in s5, then that means they might never meet El or get involved in any supernatural antics.

Meaning that in s1, Mike would't learn the truth about what actually happened to Will after his body was found in the quarry.

The Cliff overlooking The Quarry is the key to all of this.

Why? because if Will's "body" was found in the quarry, then the leading theory as to the cause of his death would probably be this:

Police would suspect that Will was either:

A: hate-crimed/pushed off of the cliff

B. committed sewerslide via jumping

In this altered timeline, Mike might still watch Will's body get pulled out of the quarry. Only this time, he would falsely believe that the cause of will's death was his sexuality.

Police would probably tell him that Will died as a result of the town's homophobia:

and this isn't a crazy assumption to make in the 80’s, which is why Hopper kept pressing Joyce about Will's perceived sexuality. It is a significant factor to consider, if being gay caused his death.

Ted knows this same thing, which is why he subtly implied to Mike that Will's disappearance wasn't shocking to him:

This implication wasn't lost on Mike either, who was understandably upset by it. One can only image how he'd react if it turned out to be true...oh wait,

What if after he finds out that Will "jumped" into the quarry, Mike jumps too

I think Mike's decision to jump will remain unchanged in this timeline, despite Dustin's baby teeth never being threatened. This reveal would reframe the s1 cliff scene, by giving his choice a more profound underlying cause

Only this time when Mike jumps, El won't there to save him:

Which might be why Mike was paralleled to Romeo in s4. Because just like Romeo, what if Mike tragically dies by his own hand after finding out about Will's fake "death" and seeing the body

(someone send me the Montegue image to inset here, i'm feeling lazy)

This scenario would conveniently add a whole new layer of meaning to this joke made by Ted in s2:

“So if your friend jumps off a cliff, you’re going to jump too?”

Might this line be yet another classic case of reverse story telling antics within Stranger Things???

no, cause hear me out! Reverse Storytelling is literally how they constructed Mike and Will's entire relationship! Which suggests that reframing prior seasons and Mike himself will be a pretty major focus of the final season.

If this joke is only supposed to be fully understood in reverse it would make a lot of sense because, as of now, it’s a pretty mid joke. Considering that Mike jumped off of the cliff to save Dustin's baby teeth, the dramatic irony only applies to the fact that Mike also "jumped off a cliff". The implication that he jumped "because his friend did" doesn't even apply to the s1 cliff scene!( I’m the comedy police, and your under arrest!😡👮‍♀️)

UNLESS this joke is actually in reference to the season 5 cliff scene😨Because in s5, Mike jumps off the cliff after finding out that his friend Will did!

Side note: If they can't figure out why Mike dies when they go back in time, maybe the ONE WAY to prevent his own death will be to realize WHY he still jumps (bc he loves will+his internalized homophobia). And so the one way to survive might actually be to admit his true feelings by coming out of the closet to the party/himself! GODDAMNNNN that would be such a cool freaking twist! (Not the unaliving himself part. actually, no yeah that part. I just mean the idea would be creative, but don’t get your hopes up. IF this does actually happen, I doubt Mike would actually stay dead. The duffers are WAY too pussy to kill him off fr, so don’t worry!👍)

Who do I need to bribe in order to get the writers to see this??? because NOT using Ted’s throw-away line to set up the most legendary case of foreshadowing and time travel fuckshit in the history of the universe would be SUCH a missed opportunity!!!! It would simultaneously shed a light on Mike’s internalized homophobia, PLUS demonstrate his love for Will since s1?! just a humble suggestion! 🤷‍♀️(i'm dead fucking serious).

4. Mike has powers: Mike was the one to freeze time in the upside down and/or make it look like Hawkins, not Will. He's the "babe with the power". I'll explain why I think this could be a possible in Labyrinthgate part 3. If the ONE WAY to resolve everything, is to take control of his powers by accepting himself/and coming out of the closet, ig the cliff scene could play into somehow by visually symbolizing Mike's internal struggle ? (link to theory here later)

5. ALTERNATE DIMENSION ANTICS: The baby is s1 Mike, and Sarah is s5 Mike. THE ONE WAY to get back to the other side/upside-down, is to jump off the cliff again, because the water becomes a portal (Bc of Donnie Darco LMAOSK I’ll explain later💀it doesn't make much sense, but i'm still gonna write a theory about it just for funzies . I'll link it here at some point)

Mark my words, something VAGUELY close to at least ONE of these scenarios WILL happen in s5. And that's a connect-dots7 promise🫵. (i'm talking out of my booty hole rn)

Also-

Reframing to the cliff scene in the final season makes sense from a writing perspective:

I mean, Mike jumped off A CLIFF. He was ready to DIE over some baby teeth?! Get real🥱Even if this was the original intent of the scene back when it was first written, there's definitely potential for the writers to reframe it now. Considering the direction Mike's arc is taking, it's a wee bit suspicious how after season one, this event is never brought up again (aside from Ted's cheeky lil joke). Almost like the writers are leaving the door open to potentially revisit it later perhaps??🤨🤨

The GA still needs to be convinced that there was evidence of Mike's internal struggle from the very beginning, which the cliff scene could be utilized to do. Considering that his POV has become increasingly hidden from the audience, it leaves the door open for Mike's character motivations to be "rewritten" in s5. To me, reframing the s1 cliff scene seems like THE PERFECT opportunity to also reframe his character’s perspective. The cliff scene is one of his most memorable scenes in general, and a key moment of characterization for Mike in s1. Also: him readily jumping off a cliff is lowkey sewerslide coded?🤨and if he’s struggling mentally that’s a lil suspicious. just sayingggg🤷‍♀️ btw, that isn’t to say necessarily that Mike jumped off the cliff in s1 bc he was actually just sewerslidal (unless option 3 ends up happening lol). It could also (pretty easily) just be re-framed, or paralleled with s5 Mike, in order to visually allude to/symbolically represent his internalized homophobia. I don’t know how exactly, but (for example) I could see Vecna spelling out for the audience Mike's internal struggle, and info dumping Mike’s secret feelings while a memory of the cliff scene happens, kind of like when Vecna exposed Max for her conflicted feelings about Billy. (this would be kinda bad writing tho imo, so I hope not. I kinda just really want option 3 to happen tbh😗)

More Potential Foreshadowing (Mike/Water)(watergate?!?)

I already thought another cliff scene was a possibility (before all this Labyrinth delusion started), based off of the water imagery surrounding Mike throughout s4:

link to that here

idk guuuuys...something something about all that water symbolism around Mike really makes me of the quarry, since it’s one of the only significant bodies of water in the show. It's also literally the setting where both Mike and Will briefly "died" in s1, cementing it as a pretty significant water themed setting for both of them, but especially for Mike. Of course, the water symbolism might also foreshadow him drowning in Lover's Lake. (more on that later maybe?)

Along with this, I also think that Mike's death will end up referencing Artax's in the Never-ending Story. If Will is Bastian, and El is Ateyu...then who's Mike?

HE'S THE DAMN HORSE. Arguably the most iconic scenes in the Neverending Story is when that depressed horse Artax drowns. (just tryna think outside the box guys, idfk)

the end! hope you liked it!

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

"dead" vs "gone"

the relentless UD/Henry-coding of the word "gone" (+ a bonus implication for Max)

chewing on how often El says the word "gone" where you would expect "dead":

where could she have gotten that?

I promise the length of this post is mainly due to screenshots

so did El just not learn the word for death til she got older? no, because this predates the Henry "gone" line:

so she knew "dead" in '79. and those lab kids are obviously super dead, so she must understand Henry's "gone" to mean something other than deceased.

having no memory of this, El goes on to use almost exclusively "gone" in the first couple seasons. but she says "dead" too, especially later on. as if they're a tight venn diagram, but not a circle.

we've got "Mama is dead" and two "Papa is dead"s, which is pretty neato. the first two are false and the third one is true in that she's referring to Brenner but... what do you want to bet that it's also false in the sense that her biological papa is alive and closer than we th[gunshot]

other times I can find her speaking any form of the word:

love the combo in the Papa one. Henry's not dead but if only Papa would've let him go he would be gone!

so chronologically:

mama is dead

barb is gone

mother is gone

sara is gone

papa is gone

papa is dead

so many dead

they are going to die

papa is dead

once she switches from "Papa is gone" to "Papa is dead" in season 2, she's never said gone again, so far, but we have a season left. I would put money on somebody, probably her, saying that Henry is "dead and gone" by the end of 5.

I also want to talk about the way literally everybody else uses the word "gone"

SO MANY of the times the word is "gone" is used on ST, especially as an adjective, we know that person's circumstances to have something to do with the lab/the UD/Henry - even when the speaker doesn't, and is merely using it to mean "dead" or "away".

an example? I can find you one or two:

and with that in mind, let's look again at Max's final words:

if you needed proof that "dead" and "gone" are two different things, they had Max say both "I don't wanna die" AND "I don't wanna go."

Lucas, with her in the natural, spoke to the dying. El, with her in the supernatural, spoke to the going.

El's line isn't referring to stopping Max from dying, which we already know she did. El promised she's not going. as a separate thing. :)

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

The void sees into (the) alternate universe(s) aka there's no way these are coincidences aka I was right

You guys didn't think we were done with the void right. Walter white voice we're done when I say we're done. Would you happen to have a moment to talk about how everything we see through the void is slightly altered because it belongs to another universe? I know I do. Prerequisite reading : this and this post<3

So guys do you remember this very touching scene we got with Hopper trying to get to El when she was missing? Let's see it together.

Love that scene for real. So nice. It's also great to know that El was listening to it too, because she sees it in the void. Right?

(El hearing this abruptly stops because Kali wakes her up/grabs her in the void, like Terry). Oh wait I'm sorry I meant El heard a completely, compleeeeeetely different thing. Literally, check, screenshot to screenshot, how different these 2 recordings are, by the writing alone (especially if you listen the tonality too though). This isn't a theory. This is cold, hard fact. But hey at least the only prop we're seeing in the void is accurate to its real-life existence right? It's the same desk right? WROOOONG.

Different lamp position. The little notepad in front of the clock is missing in the void and instead the papers that are in front of the lamp irl are in front of the clock now. The little silver thing is on the left of the lamp instead of slightly on the right in front of it, and there's no other picture in front of Sara's photo; instead theres something orange (?) Sara's picture is tilted differently. You can also see that the almost empty space in front of the picture frame in the void is full of papers irl. Do I even need to go on?

And well, this isn't the only scene we get from El in the void:

(I didn't look very hard so if any of you can find this scene irl please tell me because i skimmed through 2.06 and it didn't seem to be there at the point where they show the bones in the ud, so....It seems like it didn't happen? Again, not very sure but like, 95%)

And of course:

Damn void!Mike you are not a man of few words are you? Your irl counterpart did a somewhat more concise job, is all I'm saying. (Also dk why it says Hopper because that's clearly not Hopper saying it but yeah)

Again, completely, completely different. They dont even give the benefit of the doubt by at least using the same phrase sequence. Brutal,dude. We get it.

And talking about void scenes. I need to talk about Terry's scenes. You will have to excuse the lack of screenshots here because unfortunately, the Netflix subtitles team isn't as crazy as me and they have not included some things Terry mumbles, or things we see she mouths but doesn't say out loud, so I had to transcribe. (I know what you're thinking....fucking amateurs right?! 🙄 do they hate me...do they think this is a joke)

Anyway there's something weird about it. First thing we see Terry , when El sees her in the void before she visits her, we get this series of words from her (3-4 is 3 to the right 4 to the left) :

Sunflower Rainbow 3-4 450 Rainbow Sunflower 3-4 Rainbow Sunflower Rainbow 3-4 Rainbow 3-4 450 (here she says 'Jane' and disappears)

As you can see there's no pattern/circle with which she says it at this point. Also, and this is my hypothesis because it's VERY hard to listen to listen at some points, but i don't hear the word breathe here. Not once. I'll check again, but putting a pin on it.

Then the next scene we see Terry, it's when El goes to visit her. This is what we get before Becky starts explaining :

Rainbow 3-4 Breathe Sunflower Rainbow 3-4 450 Breathe Sunflower Rainbow (Sees El) Breathe Sunflower Rainbow 450 Breathe Sunflower Rainbow 450

Do you see it? Do you see the pattern? There isn't one, until she sees El, and then she does 2 perfect repetitions of the same 4-word pattern, where 3 to the right, 4 to the left is missing. Interesting. The first rendition (which, following the others, should be the alternate universe) doesn't have the word associated with the blood/almost miscarriage in it. And then the second she sees El, she ditches the phrase about getting the gun? Weird. Then the lights flicker and El realises Terry wants to talk to her , and we can see her / hear her mumble/mouth these, parentheses for mouthing:

3-4 450 (Breathe) Sunflower rainbow 3-4 450 (Breathe sunflower rainbow)

This must already ring a bell; it's the famous circle with which most are familiar with the phrases, because they're actually in an order now. Fucks with me SEVERELY that 'Rainbow' and '3-4' should be, supposedly, in a reverse order for the way we're supposed to believe things happened but maybe....They just didn't happen this way. In fact, I bet this is a hint about the 'rainbow' coming before the 'gun' part but anyway.

Then we get into the void again, and this time Terry again has the distinct pattern / circle ; the one that's stuck as the most memorable, specifically because it's actually repeated as such. We get:

Before the void appears : breathe sunflower rainbow 3-4 450 (echoing, while El opens her eyes in the void breathe (right on schedule))

In the void this time:

breathe sunflower rainbow 3-4 450

breathe sunflower rainbow 3-4 450

breathe sunflower (I'm here now) 450 (I can't tell why she misses some here. Maybe to let El talk? idk/ she clearly senses her)

breathe sunflower rainbow (El : I'm home -Terry: NO)

After the void:

Sunflower rainbow 3-4 450 Breathe Sunflower (loop stays consistent, we just started from a middle spot)

So....Yeah. Idk what the fuck is up with that lol but there's DEFINITELY something there about how Terry was propably trying to communicate something to El by skipping the gun phrase, and how 1 Universe Terry didn't get the 'breathe' , which would mean that she had a normal birth, and they couldnt tell her she miscarried, which would mean......

?????????????? Lmao

And one last thing. If we're supposed to believe that getting her brain zapped in '450' was what made her go into her dream circle catatonic state, then how the fuck did she tell Becky all that about how 'Jane was special, born with abilities' like she tells Jopper in s1? How would she know that at all between the birth and her breaking in, if she had no contact with her? And also, why doesn't she repeat the circle in season 1? Could go doylist and say that oh, they didn't think of this plotline in season 1, but i'm choosing to believe there's something more to it.

Anyway, I'm insane. Timeline TRUTH is real. Bye

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Your recent post about electromagnetism was great, but I want to know your theories on how time travel will play into the plot of season 5. I hope they won't use time travel to "fix the past" and rewrite the timeline (although I doubt that will happen).

Oh man I have so many thoughts. This is a whole can of worms to open up (which I will be doing eventually). But yes I agree with you 100%, I don’t think it will end in them rewriting the timeline. Or if they do, it will be through a creation of a new one and all of the characters will still be able to retain their previous memories. There still needs to be lasting consequences for every action, and the impacts of each characters’ decisions plus the entire story should stay with them.

Right now the main pet project that I’ve been working on gradually is something I’ve been calling the “play theory” (kind of a shit title); basically that Melvin is what’s dooming the narrative and causing the main characters to be trapped inside of a time loop. I’ll explain it condensed here but the post I have cooking is already 6 pages at least.

It first came from that whole Melvin “star-crossed lovers” “Romeo and Juliet” thing, and lines within the TFS play that is… also inspired itself by another “star-crossed doomed” lovers play. There are so many weird meta layers to it all.

There’s multiple 4th wall breaks in TFS where Henry tries to escape the theatre and seems to be aware he is performing on a stage. There’s also a very pointed dialogue which is where I finally started making this into a fully fledged theory:

“It’s a sad song, I like the gay ones best”.

“It doesn’t have to be sad, you never know the ending until it’s sung all the way through”.

“Then let’s make it a gay one”.

“Sing your own ending”.

And what a weird theme to choose, because the answer “in the play” is actually no, it can’t. TFS is a sad song, a continuation of the time loop. A play. But that surely won’t be the case for Stranger Things, because we’ve been told that Will’s superpower is his heart and he gets a happy ending.

As Mike performs his “love” for the audience, the name Montague (for Romeo Montague) appears behind him.

Basically, the characters are conforming to the pre-written roles they have already been assigned to (by society) and are forced to enact, and re-enact, a tragedy of two doomed lovers. The curtain on a play closes but the next night the story begins all over again, to a new audience, always with the same ending. Like a time loop. Like a never ending story.

Mike’s decision to keep playing the role of Romeo to El’s Juliet will result in Will beginning the time loop. So Will starts the time loop, and I expect Mike will be the one to finally break them out of it.

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

i just read your time travel theory and all i keep thinking about is how in back to the future 2 marty and doc travel to the future and biff finds the time machine and works it in his favor so when marty and doc travel back to present time everything is wrong and they have to travel all the way to the beginning. have you had any thoughts on such a twist? (by the way i love all your theories and you blow my mind with every single one)

Short answer: a big huge YES!!!!!!

I actually allude to this idea in this post!

I believe that we have already seen aspects of the show inspired by Back to the Future Part II.

For example: newspapers indicating different timelines. Just one example is the differences between the Will articles… the Henry-Edward Creel articles are another major example of this. -> click here for info on that. Credit to @aemiron-main for these amazing finds.

Another one is the Dustin and Mike walkie-talkie scene- it’s a reference to the first sequel of BttF (since it was the only one of the movies where they used walkie-talkies!).

Now for some stuff I think we WILL see referenced from the movie…

Now, I believe it’s very telling that they put “William” rather than “Billy” on the gravestone and that they played the song “Dear Willy” in the background of this scene. They are obviously alluding to the other William here as well, and possibly to a separate timeline where he died on November 6th, 1983. Not unlike how George Mcfly was murdered in the alternate 1985 in Back to the Future part II.

If true, then I’m even more inclined to believe that Lonnie is the #1 suspect. Lonnie being our Biff… and possible step father to Will…

Look at their similarities… “[He] always did have a way with women.” 🤢

Then, of course, we must have a scene like this one.

The alternate timeline!!! There’s absolutely at least one of these, possibly more. For this scene, I like to envision Dustin being the one to explain this to everyone.

Now for my favourite idea…

Our characters travelling back to a previous moment within the show! Ah… movie magic. I cannot tell you how much I love this concept. Blew my mind as a child. Look at how the events of the first Back to the Future movie were occurring as a second Marty was on a separate mission desperately avoiding detection from his past self. Time travel can be confusing as heck but damn it’s fun.

I will say that I do not think time travel within Stranger Things will occur in the same way as it does in Back to the Future. It’ll be different somehow. I mention a pretty *wild* idea here.

Now. Here are some things I’m nearly confident about:

Will will (or has) travelled to the past. SO much evidence of this, it’s nearly undeniable.

Mike *somehow* is their “ride” back in time. This is heavily implied when Dustin calls up Mike for a “ride” while the DeLorean is shown on the big screen.

Multiple timelines exist, and we will likely see them or at least learn about them.

Vecna, Mike, and Will are the characters most associated with time and time travel.

Ahhh I love time travel and Back to the Future. The Duffers clearly do too! Back to the Future has been referenced since episode one when we first saw Will in that classic red “life preserver”. The references go deeper than most people realize too. I gotta say too, the whole play being set in the 50s, with the parents as teens, is very reminiscent of Back to the Future as well!

I would not be surprised at all if they referenced this classic sequel a fair bit in the final season!

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Deducing what may have actually happened to Will Byers on Nov 6, 1983 using evidence from the show.

Trigger warning: M*rder, s*icide.

Before I begin, I just want to remind everyone that this show has many layers to it. What I mean is, if you watch carefully, a piece of dialogue can actually mean two (or more) things. The dialogue can be meaningful for the specific scene (surface level) and it can be a sneaky way to foreshadow something else entirely (subtext).

From this specific moment, we can assume that moving forward: any and all mentions of JFK’s assassination will actually be about Will’s disappearance (subtext).

So when the writers gifted us with these mentions, they are actually referring to the conspiracy surrounding Will’s disappearance. So let’s investigate, shall we?

Here’s the briefest overview of the JFK assassination: Oswald was convicted of assassinating JFK. Oswald denied his involvement stating that he was “a patsy”. Many conspiracy theories believe that Johnson was actually the one responsible.

Both Mrs. Driscoll and Dustin do not believe that Oswald assassinated JFK. Mrs. Driscoll is an outcast; she’s an older woman with schizophrenia. The guys who work at the newspaper are quick to dismiss her for these reasons. Now remember, this is Stranger Things, the show about outcasts being right and those fitting the norm being wrong. Then there’s our beloved Dustin, who states that “Oswald was a patsy”. Thus we can conclude: Johnson assassinated JFK, and Oswald was a patsy.

So… who if Will is JFK in this equation, who are our “Johnson” and “Oswald” counterparts?

Well right now, I assume most people believe Vecna is responsible for Will’s disappearance. He is our “bad guy”. So my guess is that he is our “Oswald”.

Who is our “Johnson”? Now remember, Johnson was someone close to JFK, he was the vice-president. He had something to gain in this. I believe Lonnie fits the bill the most for our Johnson.

So many clues surround Lonnie that tell us he was actually responsible. Plus, remember, he has something to gain from Will’s death: life insurance.

Though to be far, I am definitely not ruling out Brenner and Hawkins lab being involved in this too.

So… what happened exactly then? I’m not certain but this is my theory:

Lonnie was prepared to kill Will that night, but his plans were thwarted by our “Oswald”. Vecna swooped in and saved Will from his fate. His “come with me if you want to live” moment.

Moving further into the theory territory… here is a prediction:

- Our characters believe that the only way to defeat Vecna is to travel back in time and “stop him”.

- They travel back, stop him, then return finding out that the alternate present is much worse. By this I mean: Will was murdered, Mike ended his life by suicide, Joyce got admitted to Pennhurst Asylum, Jonathan was struggling with addiction, Lonnie got his payout, etc.

- Thus realizing that “killing” Vecna is and never was the solution here.

Now you may be thinking: but Vecna is 100% evil, why are you trying to redeem him? Well, the thing is, he’s not. Vecna is a villain but he’s not 100% evil. The show isn’t that simple friends. Plus, remember, nothing is exactly as it seems in this show.

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

I’m still swishing the time travel theories around in my head – we Bylers enjoy letting ourselves get distracted by the beautiful queer coming-of-age romance, but the sci-fi plot is important too! – but I do want to address some common misconceptions I’ve seen floating about in the wake of the Stranger Writers’ A Wrinkle in Time tweet.

(Disclaimer: This post is NOT a criticism of anyone who’s using A Wrinkle in Time as a springboard for S5 speculation; it’s just an explanation of how extra-dimensionality works as a general concept, divorced from any work of fiction that’s employing it as a metaphor or plot device. That said, I’m not a mathematician or a physicist, so take this all with a grain of salt.)

We sometimes refer to extra-dimensional realms such as the Upside Down as “dimensions”, but strictly speaking, dimensions are not themselves alternate realms (or universes, as I’m henceforth going to be calling them for the sake of brevity) – they’re a property of universes.

A dimension can be thought of as a line, or a single axis on a graph.

Our universe consists of three spacial dimensions (up/down, left/right, back/forth), and one temporal dimension (past/future).

Imagine a universe with two spacial dimensions that exists upon the surface of a piece of paper:

The arrows indicate the freedom of movement our 2D friend has: they can move in the green directions of left, right, back, and forth, but they can’t travel in the red directions of up and down. Indeed, up and down are utterly alien concepts to them: they can’t see or even imagine the reverse side of the page, the table upon which it sits, or you looming ominously above them.

If you were to place a cube on the page, all they would see is a square magically popping into existence.

A square can be thought of as a 2-dimensional cube. 4-dimensional cubes exist too; they’re called tesseracts. If a 4-dimensional alien were to place a tesseract atop our 3-dimensional universe, we would see a normal cube magically pop into existence. Tesseracts are great illustrations of extra-dimensionality, which is probably why A Wrinkle in Time and other stories tend to use them as metaphors for extra-dimensional travel – but objectively, they’re just ordinary shapes like squares and cubes.

Now imagine you have an entire stack of papers, each of which contains a 2-dimensional universe. Again, our 2D friend has no way of perceiving any of the other pages.

But while our friend may not be able to perceive these other universes or travel to them under ordinary circumstances, they can cheat by creating a hole or bridge that enables them to make a 2D journey through the third dimension:

Likewise, the gates in Stranger Things enable the characters to make a 3D journey through the fourth dimension in order to access the Upside Down.

So far these examples have only dealt with spacial dimensions, but the same principle can theoretically also apply to travel across time – time is just another dimension, after all. In the below illustration, each page represents not a different universe, but the same universe at different points in time:

There are lots of ways to model time travel in fiction, and this is only one of them.

Here’s an interesting alternative: let’s say another universe is identical to ours in every way, but which is positioned such that its time dimension isn’t perfectly aligned with ours.

Travel to that universe would thus take the appearance of time travel without inheriting any of the usual causality problems that tend to come with time travel – once you’re done fucking with the past in universe B, just jump back through the portal and return to universe A and its pristine history:

This isn’t too dissimilar to what we saw Nancy figure out about the Upside Down in S4. Could this be what Henry (or even Will?) has been doing? Hm, maybe… but that’s for another analysis.

There’s no guarantee that any of this is actually how extra-dimensional travel works in Stranger Things – it’s a work of fiction and the writers can make up whatever rules they like. But Mr. Clarke’s flea and acrobat explanation does seem consistent with what I’ve described, so I think this is a solid starting point for S5 speculation.

Regardless, I hope this made sense and helped clear things up for anyone who’s been struggling to wrap their mind around this concept!

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Them talking about combining and having one person between them specifically during the shot they mention combining... The orange background on both Steve and robin, seeming as if whatever it is broke and from there came the tiny person. Yeah ok.

Creation Powers, Memories, & Time Travel

Will has creation powers and he's the main component in time travel, the Montauk book (confirmed inspiration for ST) proves it. This is yet another addition to the memory time travel theory.

Important posts to read before this one:

The Upside Down is stuck on multiple days

Will traveled into the Wheeler house memory when he was kidnapped

In "The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time," a man named Duncan Cameron has a set of powers, one of which is the ability to create things out of thin air. He would create objects, even buildings, using his mind. Later on, they discovered that time travel was possible because of the creation powers. Duncan would think of a time period, his creation powers would activate, and a portal to that time period would appear. As long as he concentrated, the time tunnel would stay open and stable.

Ring any bells? This is just like Max's memory travel. She focused on a memory and was able to make her mind look like that memory. When she was distracted by Vecna, her memory travel couldn't be achieved. This is likely how time travel will occur in the show.

Max thought she made El. She's making things. Not thinking, making. Max made the Snow Ball a real, physical location somewhere...

Shadowfell, the DnD dimension that's the inspiration for the Upside Down, is described as a timeless dimension. Like Shadowfell, time doesn't function in the Upside Down and this is why it seems stuck in 1983. It's just a transitional plane between the real world and Dimension X. This plane can be tapped into using the mind. This is why El and Vecna can open gates to the Upside Down using psychic connection.

The Montauk book describes one of the time periods they traveled to as: "Everything was stationary, not unlike a dream state. There were no signs of life." If you told me that this was a canon description of the Upside Down, I wouldn't doubt it for a second. A lifeless place stuck in time.

When Max traveled into her memory, her mind connected with the Upside Down and replicated her memory there, creating the Snow Ball decorations we see in the UD at the end of s2 (read this post).

El said that they're all time travelers. Yeah, they definitely are. Max was able to time travel through her memories despite her lack of powers. Emotions impact time. Why would that be? Because time travel is linked to their brains, their emotions.

Max's memory time travel was possible because of her emotions. She wanted to be somewhere happy, to hide in the light. But when Vecna interrupted her with upsetting images, it no longer worked. Emotions change time!

So how does Will factor into this? As I've theorized before, he tried to travel into a happy memory (the Wheeler house) when he got kidnapped and this changed the appearance of the Upside Down. He then continued to memory hop to hide. How? Creation powers.

The inspiration for Will's look in s1 says all I need to say. His outfit is based on Marty McFly, a time traveler, and Bastian Bux, a kid who created a world using his imagination. Back to the Future and The Neverending Story are huge influences on the show and they're directly referencing them through Will for a reason. Will is time traveling through imagination. And his imagination is becoming real... creation powers.

The longer Bastian stayed in the imagination world, the less he would remember about his real self. Sounds similar to what happened to Will in s2, doesn't it? As Will is caught between the two worlds, he loses himself. He loses his memories.

The first thing that really clues Nancy into the state of the UD is her study cards. Cards that she had to memorize. These cards instantly send her into a memory of her and Steve. Before we even know what's happening, we are being shown memories. Then she looks at the journal, where she emphasizes Will's disappearance before relating it to the gate. Memories -> stuck in time -> Will.

In an interview with Chris Trujillo, the production designer for ST, he says that the UD is stuck in time because El created a snapshot of Hawkins when she opened the first gate. This would be a pretty crazy thing to reveal before it's directly discussed in the show. That's why I think he's lying. People who work on ST have a history of lying to cover up plot points (cough cough "Will isn't gay"), so I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case! Ross Duffer himself said that the reason why the UD is stuck when Will went missing has yet to be answered.

So that pretty much rules out the UD just being stuck because El opened a gate there. They wouldn't just give that away. But we have yet another mention of Will's disappearance being related to the reason for the freeze. Thank you, Ross Duffer.

Anyways, Nancy runs downstairs and she can't get her mind off of Will. They hear Dustin on the other side and Nancy says "Will found a way" to speak through the lights. It's really just Will, Will, Will once they find out that the UD is stuck in time! He is the reason!

Ok back to the Montauk book. The book mentions time tunnels. They would take samples from the environment of these tunnels to experiment on, just like the lab did in s2. It's a reference! The tunnels that extend from the main UD gate have something to do with time travel. They're portals. This is why Hopper loses track of time after investigating the tunnel-related rot at the farm.

The tunnels in the Montauk book were also related to "Seeing Eye" experiments done on Duncan Cameron. The discovery of his creation powers led to experiments where he would try to see through the eyes of other people. In these time tunnels, people would feel an intense energy related to a higher intelligence. They wanted to harness this energy so Duncan could practice mind control.

Who was able to see through the eyes of the Upside Down tunnels because of mind control again? Will.

Will's tunnel connection is a reference to Duncan Cameron. The Mind Flayer was seeing through Will's eyes, but Will was also able to see through the Mind Flayer's eyes.

His power is literally called "now-memories." The UD tunnels not only relate to time travel, but also memories! This is telling us that memories will unlock time travel. Will was using some sort of creation power like Duncan to make his memories become physical locations in the Upside Down in s1. This creation power would be impacted by emotions like the other powers are, linking this back to the "emotions change time" sentiment El mentions.

The time travelers in Montauk would be recorded, much like how the lab was recording and tracking stuff within the UD. Will's Halloween video also recorded UD weirdness. The time on the camera starts at 8:15 even though the original recording said it was 8:03. Will's Mind Flayer vision was him actually traveling into the UD, making this different from Vecna's visions. It was real.

Will's visions in s2 do have something in common with Vecna visions, though. They're related to memories! Vecna would take the memories of his victims and alter them to fit his agenda. Will was both physically traveling into the UD and experiencing a memory because the UD is both. That's why the camera changed times. He was time traveling through a memory.

If it's true that Max's mind connected with Will's during the piggyback (read here), then that may be why Max was able to change the UD with her memory travel. Will has the creation powers to change the UD and when her mind tapped into his, he accidentally made her memory come true in that dimension too.

But how can this time travel be used? The UD is just a snapshot of the memories, not the actual time period.

When El went into Max and Billy's memories, she was just a spectator. She couldn't be seen by anyone there or interact with them because this is basically a recording of the time. This memory travel is different from the one Max experienced and the one that is changing the UD's appearance.

So what if they... combine? This conversation feels like code to me. Robin found the girl of her dreams (El found Max in her memory) while Steve goes on a million dates (Will memory traveled to a bunch of different dates in s1) without achieving what they want. And to really hammer in that this is secretly about Will: the movie they're standing in front of came out on March 22nd... Will's birthday. So Will and El need to combine in order for the time travel to actually take them into a new time.

El can travel into memories that include people. Will can create memories into real locations without people. If they combine their powers, they may be able to create people in these memories too, making the time travel substantial enough to matter. I believe this was foreshadowed when El used happy memories to bring Max back to life.

This also gives the Mind Flayer/Vecna a motive. He said that when he kills people, they aren't really dead, they're still with him in his mind. The more minds he collects, the more memories he has. He just needs Will by his side to make these memories a reality, allowing him to travel to as many time periods and locations as he wants. Memory time travel could very well be the reason why birthdaygate exists. If Will has no powerful memories to travel to, he can't harness time travel. Vecna may be interfering with his memories to keep that power at bay.

I recommend reading @conflictofthemind’s post about Montauk’s time loop as well. Will already has a memory of the USS Eldridge and this could be how he travels there in the future. He uses that memory (or is forced to by Vecna) to both start and end the time loop. Will’s memory of the ship being because of a memory really ties in the time loop implications.

So there you have it. Memories and emotions are heavily linked to time travel throughout the show and this time travel has already been unlocked before. Will Byers is one of many characters inspired by Duncan Cameron, so he is likely the owner of creation powers. The constant mention of memories surrounding Will (birthdaygate) is another hint for memory time travel occurring thanks to Will!

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

El's Quadruple Piggyback

El piggybacked into four minds in the finale. But who is the fourth?

This is the sign that created El's piggybacking plan. There are four people. The little girl represents El, the mom represents Max, and the little boy is Henry/Vecna. Who does the other person represent? Everyone else on this sign is facing forwards while the man is facing the back, but his face is scratched out. His identity is being omitted, yet he stands out from the others. He's important.

He's Will.

The man on the sign is in a striped shirt and brown pants. Every single outfit Will wore in s4 had some kind of striped shirt, whether it be normal stripes or plaid. His pants for the majority of the season were brown too! The physical features of the other people on the sign hint at their mind counterparts. The girl has a white dress with a pattern like El's finale shirt, the woman has red hair like Max, and the boy has blonde hair like older Henry. I don't think it would be crazy to say Will's stripes and pants hint at him being the fourth person.

When El first draws Max and Vecna, the mind bubble goes directly above Will. Worth noting that El is right-handed, so her hand would naturally draw the bubble on her right (our left), which would place the bubble above Argyle, but they had her draw it above Will. This was intentional!

As I said in the previous post about this drawing, this means that Max and Vecna were in Will's mind at some point during the finale, but El was there too. Will is the fourth person El piggybacked to, as the road sign hinted.

The sign says the scenic route is at the next right. In s2, Will senses Hopper with his hive mind powers and tells Joyce to turn right. In the other scenes where someone tells someone else to make an abrupt turn, they always say to turn left. Will’s is the only right turn.

Will is constantly on the right of the shot when El is piggybacking. Even after she finishes piggybacking, Will is still always on the right. He is the scenic route on the next right!

Well that's... interesting. El said the exact same thing to Max that she said to Will in s1. Max was already inside of her own mind thanks to Vecna here, so what if Will was too? After El says this to Will, his eyes shut and he moves his eyes under his eyelids just like he does when he's possessed by the Mind Flayer. Will is in his mind... but he's awake in the Upside Down? Almost as if the UD is his mind.

When El actually starts entering Max's skatepark memory and in turn entering her mind, we see the group as the lights flicker. Then they cut to Will. Will is the only one who gets an individual shot at this point. Why is he important? Why would he be the focus as El is entering Max's mind? Maybe because she's entering his too...

From this point on, Will generally starts acting a little weird. He's just quietly sitting there, but they keep focusing on him for no reason.

Will is the one to ask El if she sees anything weird in Max's memory. Funny because right after Will asks this, Max's Snow Ball memory starts to rot and spores from the UD come out of nowhere. Are you causing the weirdness Will? Hm?

By the way, the spores are NOT a characteristic of Vecna's mindscape. They aren't in his red mind world at all. They also aren’t from Dimension X (the yellow dimension). So that rules out the spores being a Vecna mind thing. It's 100% from the UD and it’s unique to the UD. Not a dimension thing, not a Mind Flayer thing, not a Vecna thing. An Upside Down thing.

This is Will's reaction right after Argyle says "A memory within a memory?" Why does Will start to look sad and contemplative after a double memory mention? Are Max's memories also within Will's memories? I think so. I've said this a million times before, but the Snow Ball decorations in the Upside Down are from Max's memory! Max's mind is combining with the UD. Why? The UD is the fourth piggyback person's mindscape.

What was the point of the freezer line? To be silly goosey funny? Maybe. Or maybe we are meant to feel... cold. Cold like the UD. El is in a freezer, she's technically in the UD. Because? The UD is Will's mindscape.

Right as Mike starts to say this line, they cut to Will. Yeah they're really hammering in Will's involvement with the whole piggyback thing. He's in there too!

But wouldn't Will feel everyone in his mind if this were the case? Nope! Max had no clue El was in her mind until she was flinging Vecna across the room. Safe to say Will didn’t feel them during the fight either. Or maybe he did and his quiet, off-putting behavior this entire episode is related to that...

And so El's fourth piggyback partner mystery is solved! El wasn't just in Max and Vecna's minds, she was in Will's too.

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

something about Terry's mind being on a loop and the Upside Down is stuck in the past... it’s stuck in Will’s mind loop

another solution for 3 to the right 4 to the left would be -1 (not on a safe but on a number line) so an upside down 1? One in the UD?

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Save me, time travel in stranger things… time travel in stranger things… save me…