#i'll do the What the fuck is up with Alice Creel? part first because i don't see enough people talking about is and it drives me Nuts

[bugsbenefit]

the major thing why the Wheeler and Creel theories are so prevalent is essentially because there's two fuckeries going on at the same time and people are connecting them (not unjustifiably)

there's 1.) what the fuck is Karen Wheeler's deal? and boy there is a lot that even dates back as far as s1. with the way s4 ended we can also infer that her weird supporting-cast-but-also-main-girlie arc will not be over anytime soon so we'll hopefully get some insight into her. i could make multiple posts about what's so weird about her narratively alone (might actually get to that soon)

and then there's 2.) what the Fuck is Up with Alice Creel? which is it's whole other can of worms. there are SO many weird choices made here. her entire presence in the show is odd to say the least. implications get made but don't have narrative pay off yet. and even the timeline of her actual death doesn't fully add up with the other events of the family massacre night. there's a lot going on here (actually posting on that in a teeny tiny bit)

and having Two characters in the viewers eye who have no congruent answer to their purpose in the story and who both bring up more and more questions the harder you try to think about it... we'll no wonder people started to connect them. and that's not even mentioning 3.) yet of what the fuck do the Wheelers and Creels have to do with each other? because they really shouldn't have Anything to do with each other. these two families parallel each other to an extremely unusual amount and keep interacting, which is odd given that they should have no narrative connection. Henry is a parallel and antithesis to Will, wouldn't it make more sense to show a narrative connection/parallel between the Creels and Byers? why do the Wheelers get dragged into this and why are the Wheelers even Presented as such a central and questionable family in the first place? - which is a treatment no other family gets anywhere close to their level

so to get into what i mean by there's a LOT going on and the general questions of What The Fuck Is This? you can split the Creel/Wheeler theory down into three independent parts. the Karen and Alice parts stand on their own separately and are both 100% correct in my mind. there is something narratively questionable going on with both of these characters, no matter if you want to believe they are the same person or not, and we'll likely see this get addressed in s5. but that could also happen without them being the same person. the part that connects them is the 3rd aspect. the instances that actually make people think that the parallel of the Wheeler and Creel family isn't just a tool to compare these two families that have no prior connection for thematic purposes, but actually implies a familiar connection that would simultaneously also give an answer to the questions raised in both points 1 and 2