#s1 jonathan byers is an interesting case on good person vs protaganist

[bigmanfrog]

i like your take and i hope you dont mind me replying, just wanted to respond to some points because i think what you said is interesting.

you're right when you said he isnt manipulative, i think i was combining his ability to make people (specifically max) afraid of him and his ability to 'charm' people but yeah hes not manipulative, that was the wrong word to use.

i agree with you on your second point as well, because i dont think billy has murderous intent, the same as i dont think jonathan did in s1. however, i do think its interesting to think about where either situation wouldve ended without intervention. obviously steves death couldnt have been done like that, so it would never be written in but i think its interesting that in both situations steve was down but neither jonathan nor billy showed any sign of stopping. in general i also think people brush over this a lot more than they maybe should, i guess its because steve 'provoked' jonathan (though you could argue he provoked billy too) or because billy actually knocked steve out before anyone intervened. but i guess we'll never know because thats not how the show went, and im aware i didnt make it clear in my post but i was more trying to highlight the fact that billys temper caused him to be violent to a dangerous extent.

the lucas situation kind of blurs the line i think, as again, i dont think billy actually wants to murder lucas, but the fact that he says he does and very clearly wants to hurt him leads me to believe that lucas would probably end up seriously injured and potentially dead if billy got his way. again we'll never know because thats not how it went, but given how the fight with steve (whos much bigger and stronger than lucas) went, i think that what billy intended to do wouldve had a high likelihood of ending in (accidental) manslaughter. thats not to say that billy wouldnt regret it, or that billy is murderous or unfazed by killing people, just that he is dangerously violent and also, in this situation, very clearly racist.

while he isnt physically abusive to max, he is extremely controlling to the point where i think it does cross the line into abuse. before hawkins i can see them being just regular siblings not getting along, as you can almost see some of this in the way they interact, but during season 2 you can see on multiple occasions that max is actually scared of billy and that he tries to take control over her which, to me at least, is more than just siblings being siblings. i think it would fall more under psychological abuse, but a few examples are things like threatening to run over the boys (which, for the record, i dont think he wouldve done, but the fact that she thought he would says a lot), being implied to break her skateboard and talking a few times about her 'disobeying' him in reference to lucas. i do absolutely agree that max's actions caused billy to be physically punished by neil, and that probably fed into his dislike towards her, but i dont think you can blame that on max. neils behaviour is inexcusable and cannot be blamed on anyone but him. and while billy might blame max, i dont think hes correct to do so, in a similar way that i dont think its correct to excuse billys behaviour because of neil (not that im saying youre doing that, just coming back to my point). while i am aware he picked up those behaviours from his father, it doesnt make it any less bad for him act like that, it just provides context and a way of understanding that if billy had lived, he could be redeemed, because we see that he wasnt always like this.

i also saw somewhere on your profile that while billy isnt a good person, he is a complex and well written character and i agree with that too, which is mainly why i replied, because i find his character, motivations and situations surrounding him very interesting to discuss and think about. overall i see billys story in two ways; in one, you have a violent and dangerous guy who picked up the abuse tactics used on him to try and gain control elsewhere, and in the other you have a sort of tragic character, who died before he had the chance to get out of an abusive household and change for the better. i think the problem comes when people choose one side and ignore the other, because the whole point of his character (imo at least) is the balance between both sides. because he did suck as a person, but he was a kid and while i dont think he should be viewed as redeemed, and we dont know whether he even would change in the future, the fact that he doesnt even have that chance is a genuine tragedy.

billy hargrove’s sacrifice wasn’t a redemption.

max mayfield is still allowed to grieve.

if anything his death reminds me almost of shadow weaver from she-ra (though it’s obviously not deliberate or to that extent)

billy is a violent, abusive and racist person. yes, he had it hard and yes they were probably learned behaviours, but that gives a reason for those behaviours, not an excuse.

he is manipulative and dangerous and max is terrified of him, he’s physically violent on multiple occasions, targets lucas because he’s black and tries to kill lucas and steve. he is not a good person. that doesn’t just get brushed away because billy had an abusive childhood.

and while billys death does save elevens (and probably the rest of the kids) life, it means that he is immortalised as a shitty, abusive person. he dies as the person he was before he got taken over by the mind flayer, at the end of season two, and has no opportunity to grow and work past that (which wasn’t something he showed any signs of even wanting to do anyways)

however! max’s grief is justified and honestly understandable. she watched him die. this person who, even though they hated each other, has been a constant in her life for years. for the first time since they met, he wasn’t tormenting her (after the end of s2), and they weren’t getting along exactly but she’s not scared of him for once. then she has to watch this incredibly traumatic scene that’s not only someone getting brutally murdered by a monster, but having it be someone she knows and lives with? that’s gonna affect anyone long term, never mind a 14 year old. (i also feel like we all brush over the fact that vecna in billy form tells us that max was suicidal)

not only does she watch him die but she has to deal with the fallout, has to deal with their parents arguing, her moving house, her mum drinking, all on top of being unable to talk to most people about what actually happened. she pushes people away, because she’s max and she’s a kid and she’s traumatised, and refuses to even talk to the people who were there because she feels guilty, like she could’ve prevented his death even though rationally she knows she couldn’t. she also knows that his death meant he couldn’t redeem himself, we hear it in her letter in dear billy - she’s not only mourning him, but the person he could’ve been, because now hes gone and so he doesn’t even have the chance to become a good brother and a good person in general. he might not have done anyways, but if he was alive at least there was that chance.

and let’s not forget that he was a kid. it’s easy to forget because dacre montgomery is very much not a teenager but billy was the same age as nancy and jonathan, only 4 years older than the kids and a year younger than steve. he was a piece of shit but he was 18, he still had time to grow, and he might’ve done, but he died before that so unfortunately he didn’t get the chance, and remains a racist abuser forever.