It’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, but the Alan Turing poster really tells us so much about Will that I consider it to be a significant piece of foreshadowing for S5.
First, let’s dissuade ourselves of the notion that Will chose Turing for his hero project for nerd reasons – Will’s preferred flavour of nerdery is escapist fantasy, not computer science. He doesn’t know what an IP address is and the first thing he thinks of when he hears modem noises is a movie he likes.
No, he chose Turing because he admires him for being a gay man who accomplished so much in his short life.
On one hand, that’s pretty heart-warming – the fact he’s willing to identify with other gay men and look up to them as role models shows us he’s making good progress in accepting his identity. On the other hand, it’s heart-breaking, because Turing’s story is not a happy one – he was caught having a sexual relationship with a man and forced to choose between jail or chemical castration. He chose castration.
I remind you: Will identifies with this guy.
Will is growing up under the twin specters of AIDS and homophobia and likely assumes he’s destined to die young too. He’s been abused and bullied so much, I imagine he’s heard and internalized it all: that he deserves to die, that he’s disgusting, that he’ll never be fulfilled in life.
So when puberty begins crawling its way inside him and implants those shameful desires that make gay men so worthy of abuse… he chooses castration.
For all the sad pining he does in S4, we never really see Will express desire for Mike – he never checks him out or shows signs of nervousness when they touch. He behaves with perfect platonic decorum at all times…
…unless we consider That One Scene With The Hose.
Sexual interpretations of this scene are controversial, and I can understand why; we’re so used to seeing Will as this innocent, immature little boy that it’s shocking to catch him fantasizing so lustfully, even though these sorts of thoughts are pretty normal for a 15 year-old. But I think that’s the point. We’re supposed to feel uncomfortable about this, because Will feels uncomfortable about it too.
He’s done well in accepting his identity, but he’s an absolute repressed mess when it comes to accepting his sexuality.
So, that’s what the Turing poster tells us about Will. Here’s where the foreshadowing comes in: Will is not the only queer-coded character to have been metaphorically castrated.
Henry’s experience bears striking similarities to Turing’s: he too was caught engaging in a natural but forbidden behaviour and forced by his government to undergo a medical procedure to suppress that behaviour.
His villain speech to El in 4x07, which is ostensibly about his powers, also reads very strongly as a scathing criticism of heteronormativity, and it’s covered in rainbow motifs.
The metaphor here is obvious: Henry’s powers are a manifestation of his homosexuality.
Which implies that Will’s homosexuality can also manifest as powers. They’re repressed because he’s repressed.
It’s not a coincidence that the sexual tension was through the fucking roof in the infamous sauna scene. Every time Will’s supernatural ability to sense the Mind Flayer triggers in S3, Mike is also nearby.
What’s interesting about Mike is that his queer acceptance issues mirror Will’s: Mike has a healthy relationship with his sexuality (he casually checks guys out and plasters his bedroom walls with posters of buff dudes) but he just can’t bring himself to accept what this implies about his identity.
Always with the symmetry, these two. They complement each other perfectly; one’s hang-up is the other’s strength. They have a lot to teach each other about being queer.
And as repressed as they are, I think they want to learn from each other – Will lets himself get flustered when Mike flirts with him in his bedroom, and Mike hangs on to every word of wisdom Will shares with him in their heart-to-hearts.
Internalized homophobia is a powerful force, but their bond is so strong that it empowers them to fight back.
Henry’s powers symbolize his anger at being mistreated and his desire to take that anger out on the world… but Will’s powers symbolize self-acceptance and love.
So he isn’t just going to defeat Vecna with his powers, and he isn’t just going to get the boy: these two things are one and the same.
