#posting does not equal endorsements Thais is just a masterpiece of interacting with a show

[tiktaalic]

Genuinely suspect they’ll kill one fan favorite main character in like the last season though and I doubt it will be a minority (I think the duffers realize that’s be a bad look) so Lucas, Erica, Will, Robin, and probably Dustin (idk if when writing him they consider him a disabled character or not especially since he’s not actively getting bullied about it now) are safe. Max and hopper already “died” recently so they’re safe. Nancy’s good because if she dies who will date boy? If they were going to kill jonathan I think they would have done it already bc no one would have cared.

I’m pretty sure that leaves Joyce, Steve, and El…

I can’t see it being Joyce for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because she is the biggest name actress in the show she is the 80s and her and hopper are the “best” couple on the show (uncontroversial, no rivals, adults so they have the best chance of going the distance) and killing her would really only make her kids sad, which yes now includes El who is Stranger Things but like. Lucas, Dustin, Steve etc will just be like “wow that sucks guys sorry about your mom”. Hopper mourning Joyce would just be a rehash of her mourning him which would kind of blow but stranger things CAN BE repetitive.

Steve would be a good bet because he’s tied to all the kids more or less, it’s resolve the love triangle they just re stressed so it’d impact all the older teens (except Jonathan maybe I’m unclear if they’re friends) and the adults would feel bad since he’s a young guy even if they don’t have much of a dynamic. But then the two biggest characters they’ve killed so far are “Steve but if he was truly an asshole” and “guy we wrote to have the same emotional impact as Steve dying” so killing him would be the same old, same old. Stranger things is a bad enough show that I suspect they might do it, but I’m not convinced it’ll definitely happen.

El though. El is the stranger thing. El was supposed to die in season one to wrap things up in a nice little bow before they decided to drag the show on to milk it dry. I can 100% see the show ending with her death because “it was always the plan” and/or “with her gone things can finally be normal” and it’d be the ultimate sacrifice narratively since she’s the main character, she’s connected to everyone (except maybe Robin, Steve, and Erica) so big emotional impact! And how else can she kill villains that she already failed to defeat? Not that I ascribe to these thoughts necessarily but I’m sure this would be the reasoning behind it. And somehow I feel like killing her would be less controversial, obsessed fandom wise, than Steve. He’s just some guy by stans love some guys. But there’s also no reason they can’t both die but like you said. Allergic to killing main characters

All of this is because they kill people for emotional impact as opposed to plot necessity

So I think there’s like. A 50% chance el literally dies midway through the last ep or whatever and in that case (and ONLY that case) byler happens and it’s the worst canonization of a gay relationship. Ever I think

Nothing to add to this I think it stands on its own.