#also steve... kept cramping the vibe of their scenes lmao

[immobiliter]

META: robin & nancy’s dynamic in st4

okay so the first thing i really want to delve into in terms of season 4 is the dynamic that develops between robin and nancy because i love it very much and it tells us so much about robin’s character. out of everything that i’ve been given for robin this season, her friendship with nancy is easily my favourite ( even though i have blatant favouritism for robin & steve’s dynamic and loved that too in st4, the truth is that st3 was their season ) because it’s nice to finally see robin interact with a girl her own age ( bear in mind that steve was the only character her own age that she interacted with in st3 ). i also didn’t expect these two to get along at the start and i loved how their relationship developed from that.

full disclosure, this is not a shipping manifesto. i’m not really here to talk romantically about robin & nancy, this is mainly a deep dive and character analysis of how they work as a duo rather than inferring any romantic subtext.

so firstly, the most important point is that the friendship that these two develop is so incredibly important for both characters. i don’t have to write nancy to tell you that robin is the first female friend we’ve seen for her on screen since barb and that’s a big deal for her ( and probably explains a lot about how stand-offish she is in the beginning ), especially as robin/barb parallels are everywhere and the duffers are cowards for not doing more with it. then there’s robin, a closeted lesbian in the 1980s who i think has always struggled with making close friends but particularly with other girls because she is always holding a part of herself back. even if she doesn’t have a crush on a girl that she is friends with, a part of her will always be wondering what that friend would make of her if the truth about her sexuality came out, and whether it would change their friendship ( this is also why I believe that robin gets along better with boys in general ). so seeing her become friends with another girl her own age is extremely important both to her and to me tbh.

it’s also the most significant interaction we see for her outside of the steve / dustin triad. she interacts with max a little in the first couple of episodes of st4 ( and i really wish they’d done more with those two ), but it’s clear those two are at the very least acquaintances, whereas with nancy robin is starting completely from scratch. they meet briefly at the end of st3 but it’s very clear they haven’t really interacted since then and definitely don’t move in the same circles at school nor have the same interests.

they are both very different, and at their core their partnership this season fits the classic narrative trope of putting the quirky character ( robin ) up against the ‘straight man’ ( nancy ) for comedic and narrative value, and i find this so interesting and refreshing with robin & nancy because you rarely see this happen with two female characters. i just think it’s neat tbh.

they are both very smart ( no matter how neurodivergent coded robin is, she demonstrates in both st3 & 4 that she is both very perceptive and very intelligent ), but very different sorts of thinkers ---- I don’t write nancy but she strikes me as someone who approaches problems very rationally. she’s the reporter: she looks at the facts, creates a very clear plan of action and then tends to not deviate much from it. she’s stubborn and driven and is less likely to bend or capitulate in the face of resistance. robin, meanwhile, is more of a lateral thinker --- she also looks at logic and facts but she is much more likely to think outside of the box and come up with a creative and unorthodox solution to a problem. there’s a reason sherlock scan is one of her tv tropes and is essentially what happens in the scene where she cracks the russian code: she can create connections that other characters might not have thought about because she looks at things from a different angle to most people. same with the way she comes up with the idea to use customers’ rental history at family video to narrow down the list of eddie’s contacts. i know everyone equates dustin to sherlock holmes but robin is right there okay.

with nancy, this is demonstrated when robin is the one to suggest looking through the weekly watcher conspiracy theory-esque articles, and unlike nancy who dismisses the idea as soon as she sees the elvis article, robin is openminded and patient enough to stick with it until it gets them the result they’re looking for.

robin also strikes me as the better improviser of the two of them, and better at ad-libbing on the spot, as she does when it’s clear that nancy’s tactics to win over anthony at pennhurst aren’t going to work. from the beginning, their trip to pennhurst is absolutely nancy’s plan. she comes up with the aliases, she puts robin in clothes from her wardrobe, she takes the lead ---- right up until the moment that robin intervenes, and that’s also when their dynamic finally shifts into a much more equal partnership. as i said, robin is extremely perceptive when she’s focused and is very good at reading the people around her. she realises that things aren’t going well and quickly formulates a plan on the spot to try and counter it. she even uses her own discomfort with her clothing and playing a role that doesn’t suit her to her advantage by turning it around and using it to appeal to him. everything she says is grounded in truth to help make it more convincing --- even when she talks about victor creel and the ‘forgive me if i want to learn a little bit more about how his twisted, but let’s face it, totally fascinating mind works’ part. i think that is 100% the honest truth. human nature fascinates robin and she loves having the chance to put her mind at work figuring people out. cough cough sherlock holmes steve should have totally tried quoting him to robin instead.

it’s that moment that establishes robin & nancy as equals going forward, and this is where i think about how differently the pennhurst trip would have played out if robin had gone with steve instead. robin and steve are already equals, they have a very natural rapport and their minds work in a very similar way. with nancy, it gave both of them a chance to develop: for nancy, it proved that she needn’t be an independent lone wolf the entire time ( contrast nancy dragging jonathan into her investigations in st3 vs. with robin in st4 ), that she can rely on others and be more open-minded to different perspectives on the same problem. to robin, it was a chance to prove to herself to nancy and to herself tbh. she hasn’t been a core member of the party since the beginning: the only reason she’s involved at all is because she worked a summer job with steve and dustin brought a coded russian message into her place of work lmao. this season was the first season where she was paired up with the entire party ( or at least everyone still in hawkins at this point ) and i think in the face of nancy wheeler’s determination and ambition, and the way she often takes the lead role in the group, robin felt the need to prove that she was just as capable. just as smart. and just as valuable to the hawkins group as a whole.