Of Course It’s Will

Did you have to be born in the 80’s to see it?

I didn’t realize so many of us were watching a different show. It’s been years, but this is how I remember it. The quiet kid of the bunch gets lost in the upside down. He comes back and of course he doesn’t tell anyone what happened. It’s obviously PTSD, but that doesn’t make a kid run to the bathroom and cough up upside down worms. He was always connected to Vecna.

The era, the themes of the kids being outcasts, I saw the upside down as a series-long theme for Will coming out. Since season 2, I just didn’t want the show to end with him self-sacrificing to save Mike. It’s 1987 on the show, but it’s 2025, let the kid get his happy ending.

Eleven is a weapon, not the protagonist. She’s the warrior that helps move things along, but from the beginning I’ve been watching a reluctant hero come into his own.

I felt bad for him in season 2 when they all wanted to go to the mall, but he just wanted to continue playing D&D. Only Mike’s jabs hurt him. He hated Eleven on site. I think the Duffer Brothers realized the audience was lost. They gave us that heart-wrenching van scene last season where he basically confesses to Mike that he loves him and Mike is clueless. It went over so many people’s heads that they had to have the character of Robin hit us over the head with it and people were posting “shook” on social media during turkey day.

I enjoyed the subtleties that they took with Will throughout the seasons, but there was always something happening to Will when something was happening to Eleven. That he taps into his powers with his self-actualization was cool.

I actually didn’t think it would be a mid-season reveal, I thought it would the climactic end which makes me excited because I’m up in the air about how it will end, but this kid can’t die.

1987 was a great year for me and a great year for music. I knew they were coming back on this year and what I have been bracing myself for for two years was that Will would sacrifice his life to save Mike, therefore saving the world, and that Netflix would shell out the money for U2’s “With or Without You” to blast in the background as he died. Then the next half decade would be the Alpha generation introducing us fossils to a song we had running in our bone marrow.

Vecna gave away a big clue in his speech. Whatever power Vecna and Eleven have, they were chosen for it because of their personality traits. Look at them, lone wolf types that scorch the earth. Will is sensitive and quietly observes everyone, his powers I think will be stronger because of this.

I’m rooting for the team to make it, but I just can’t accept if Will dies for a lazy trope.

Is Linda Hamilton’s character meta? In this timeline, she’s harnessing the powers of telepathy and the supernatural because she understands it’s the only way we’ll be stronger than the robots in the future?

I have to rewatch a few episodes that go into detail about Vecna, but the belief is that the upside down is simply his creation and doesn’t exist if he doesn’t rather than an alternate universe he tapped into? If that’s the story now I find it highly unlikely that that’s the way the story started.

Vecna is a great character study; and I’m always intrigued when creators choose the most pretty boy actors to play the grotesque-looking creatures in their films. Thats a topic for another day. Until then, team Will contain yourselves. Yes, I binged the latest season until 5am.