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aemiron-main · 2 years ago

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Lord Henry and Lady Patty- Does This Mean That They’re a Romantic Couple? How Does Stranger Things Treat The Type of Relationship That Exists Between a Lord and a Lady?

So, like I said before, I’m definitely still not convinced that George is Henry, and I think it’s far more likely that George is Lonnie Byers or Allen Munson.

However, setting that aside/regardless of George’s identity, it’s clear that Patty and Henry are likely going to interact at some point (which we already knew based on their parallels in the animated trailer).

So, today, I want to talk about the supposed meanings of Patty and Henry’s names, as I saw a post awhile back talking about how “Henry means Lord of the House and Patty means Lady of The House so they MUST be a reciprocated romantic couple,” and there’s a few things I want to dismantle there.

Setting aside the obvious stuff that goes against a Patty-Henry romance, such as the age-gap & the inability to age Henry up because the play is canon material and Henry WAS 12 in 1959 in canon, and also setting aside the fact that the crush has been described as one-sided on Patty’s part, for this post, I want to focus on specifically why the “meanings of Henry and Patty’s names,” thing does NOT point towards a reciprocated romance.

Alright!

So, BEFORE we get to "how do we explain these names even in a seemingly romantic way" thing considering the whole age gap, if Henry and Patty aren't coded as romantic at all in any way, then what's up with the names?

Well, we know that the shot of Henry at the Creel house window in the animated TFS trailer seems to parallel the shot of Patty in the church:

So- is the “lord/lady of the house” thing being used more literally here? As in the literal, physical house?

Did Patty live in the Creel house before the Creels moved in? Did Victor buy the house from the Newby family?

However, even setting all of that speculation about the house aside, let’s assume that the meanings of the names are as they seem on the surface/have seemingly romantic connotations re: lord and lady.

I think that these name meanings are actually some strong evidence that Henry and Patty aren’t going to be romantic.

This is because these names are basically the equivalent of naming them Heteronormativity 1 and Heteronormativity 2- they may as well have named them Romeo and Juliet (and we all know that ST loves to poke fun at Romeo and Juliet/them not being “true love”).

Lords and Ladies are probably one of the furthest things from genuine romantic love/a genuine romantic relationship.

When it comes to lords and ladies, marriages were basically always arranged marriages- alliances between noble families, where the participants getting married had no choice in the matter. The people getting married were basically treated as property, as bargaining chips, like pawns in chess. There’s nothing actually romantic about the titles, quite the opposite.

Lords and ladies would also frequently take lovers outside of the marriage, including queer lovers (often using their marriage to conceal their homosexuality). Which, that would make sense with Henry’s constant queercoding.

And speaking of nobles and queerness, if we want to talk about the name “Henry,” re: nobility, then let’s talk about Henry III of France (which, there’s also the whole multiple Henries during NINA thing and rhe fact that Henry II was involved in the War of the Three Henrys, but that’s for another time), who had a wife, but has been frequently depicted as being gay.

And specifically/most notably, he was depicted as being gay in the 1954 film, La Reine Margot.

So, we’ve got a noble named Henry who has a famous gay portrayal from the 50s and we’ve also got a guy named Henry in a play from the 50s. I won’t be surprised at all if there’s a connection there regarding Henry’s queercoding.

But setting that aside entirely and going back to Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet were both nobles, from rival noble families, who “fell in love.” My point is, the whole “romantic nobility titles” thing that’s seemingly present with Henry and Patty is also present with Romeo and Juliet, and is an idea that ST has mocked repeatedly.

Like, ST pokes fun at the idea of pushing two people people into marriage (which is EXACTLY what happens with lords and ladies)- for example, in S1, Lucas makes fun of Mike and El, with his comment about Mike marrying El:

ST itself is poking fun at Mileven’s relationship, and leaving those early breadcrumbs to tell us that Mileven isn’t endgame. Lucas is pressuring Mike into heteronormativity/into a relationship (as a result of those same pressures having been put on Lucas himself), like a smaller-scale version of how lords and ladies were pressured (and more often, forced) into marriages.

Karen and Ted Wheeler’s relationship is also similar to an arranged marriage, as while it’s not an actual arranged marriage, Karen seems to have married Ted for money, and not for love, just like how the arranged marriages between lords and ladies were about money and status, and has nothing to do with love:

Like, Nancy specifically talks not only about Ted having money, but also coming from a “good family,” something that was a key part of the arranged relationships between lords and ladies.

Again, my point is- the relationship that exists between a lord and a lady is the EXACT type of relationship that ST frequently mocks and frequently pulls apart and subverts. It would make no sense and be completely contradictory to everything that ST has done and shown us so far for Patty and Henry to have genuine reciprocated romantic feelings for eachother while ALSO literally being named Lord and Lady. They may as well have named them Karen and Ted lmao, and even then, naming them Karen and Ted would still be MORE romantic than naming them Lord and Lady.

They could have named Henry and Patty anything- and yet they chose names that are specifically tied to societal pressure and class expectations, and NOT to genuine romantic feelings. Again, they may as well have named them Heteronormativity 1 and Heteronormativity 2.

I know a lot of Byler enthusiasts aren’t particularly interested in Henry and his queercoding, which is fair, but since we’ve spent the past god knows how long using these same examples (see: Romeo and Juliet) to demonstrate that Mileven isn’t endgame and likely was never actually a genuine romantic relationship with mutual attraction, why should it be any different for Henry and Patty? Hell, Patty, from what we’ve already seen of her audition tapes, seems to have multiple El parallels regarding how both seem to have similar relationships with their mother and a bunch of other dialogue parallels. I won’t be surprised if Henry and Patty not being romantic is being used to prep the GA for Byler endgame and Mileven not being a couple/not being romantic/gay Mike, etc.

Patty and Henry both also come from “noble” families in Hawkins- Patty is the daughter of Father Newby/she’s the preacher’s daughter in a religious town, and Henry, as we know, is the son of the wealthy Creel family who literally owns a mansion. It would make sense for somebody like Father Newby to try and set the two up (especially if he was running low on cash)/push them towards eachother, and Virginia would likely be happy to see her gay outcast son interacting with a girl- a religious girl, the preacher’s daughter no less.

Long story short, so far, all of the evidence points towards Henry and Patty not having a romantic relationship/not having reciprocated romantic feelings for eachother. Lord and lady are titles of obligation and class, not of love or romance or anything of the sort. And that’s not even counting the obvious age discrepancies that I mentioned before, something that TFS can’t just change or handwave away, because it’s been confirmed to be canon material, and Henry’s canon age is 12 in 1959.

And I also just still, genuinely, don’t think that Henry is George- the kid from the audition tape for George looks NOTHING like Henry, and even beyond that, the dialogue and behaviour in that George audition is NOTHING whatsoever like Henry- that snarky George line about “prom queen,” is leagues away from being anything like what we’ve seen of Henry’s personality, especially as a child.

I won’t be surprised if George is Lonnie or Allen, both of which seem to have “bad boy”/outcast/moody loner personalities, which is exactly what’s described for George, and if Patty fall in love with Lonnie or Allen, but is being pushed towards Henry by Father Newby because Henry’s from a wealthy, religious family. Especially since neither Lonnie’s family nor Allen’s family seem to be wealthy or particularly religious, and we all know that priests are often greedy bastards, which would align perfectly with Father Newby being interested in the Creels’ money.

Especially since Victor was described in the papers as being “generous” in a paragraph that talks about the church:

“Creel was known around town for his generosity, and the Creel Family was regularly seen at Sunday Mass at St. Philip’s Catholic Church on Sundays.”

So, if Victor was known for donating to the church, it makes sense that Father Newby would know that the Creels have money, and may either a.) be playing the long game trying to get Henry and to get married eventually or b.) hoping that Victor’s donations might increase if he has even more of a personal connection to the church via his son dating the prescher’s daughter, especially as Victor clearly loves his son, and Father Newby likely knows this.

And with Henry being gay/having so much gay queercoding, he obviously wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with Patty, so again, I really do think the angle for Henry and Patty’s relationship is more likely to be “people are trying to push Henry and Patty together, but Patty’s in love with somebody that’s ‘below’ her class-wise, and Henry is gay”.

Now, going more into speculation territory, I want to talk about LOTR.

I’ve talked about this briefly before, but while Will definitely has some Frodo parallels, Henry is also definitely, intentionally paralleled to Frodo- hell, Victor has constant Bilbo parallels, and the Creel house has constant Bag End parallels. Will also has some Sam parallels, especially when it comes to class and wealth and family, so Will’s LOTR parallels aren’t as simple as saying He’s Only Frodo/He’s The Only Frodo Coded Character.

And so, keeping the idea of Henry-Frodo parallels in mind:

In LOTR, Sam is of a lower class than Frodo. Frodo is basically Hobbit nobility, whereas Sam is a commoner. And Sam’s dad is the Baggins’ gardener.

And I talked in this post about how the Creels had a gardener and a groundsperson.

And, I’m wondering if Scott’s dad may have been the Creels’ gardener or groundsperson, just like how Sam’s dad was Bilbo’s gardener/groundsperson (which, again, Victor has constant Bilbo parallels). And this would further connect Henry and Patty in a platonic sense/something that parallels them, with both of them being in love with somebody that’s “below” their class- George/Lonnie/Allen in Patty’s case, and Scott in Henry’s case.

And this Henry-Scott idea might not even be part of TFS, because we still have all of S5 to go.

Anyway! There’s some thoughts.

#the first shadow #henry creel #patty newby #creelarke #also beloved tumblr user watchmenanon- this is not a vague at ur post abt the name meanings at all #i had this post drafted back when i saw another person’s post about the name meanings & they were snarkily claiming that it was irrefutable #proof that henry and patty were romantic and that anyone who thought otherwise is an idiot #so this is re: that post not ur post <<33 ur post just reminded me that i had this draft LMAO

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