Creelby is the key to Byler Endgame... just not in the way you're thinking (what I'm calling #BobGate)
Part 27: "Whatever It Takes To Protect What You Love" (3/3)
PART 1 HERE | PART 2 HERE | PART 3 HERE | PART 4 HERE
PART 5 HERE | PART 6 HERE | PART 7 HERE | PART 8 HERE
PART 9 HERE | PART 10 HERE | PART 11 HERE | PART 12 HERE
PART 13 HERE | PART 14 HERE | PART 15 HERE | PART 16 HERE
PART 17 HERE | PART 18 HERE | PART 19 HERE | PART 20 HERE
PART 21 HERE | PART 22 HERE | PART 23 HERE | PART 24 HERE
PART 25 (1/3) HERE | PART 26 (2/3) HERE | PART 28 HERE
PART 29 HERE | PART 30 HERE | PART 31 HERE
Sorry for the delay y'all! I just started work again, so these posts won't be coming out as fast as they used to. But I still have a long-ass list of posts I want to write, so I hope I find the time to keep working on them because it's been so much fun getting to unpack and discuss these findings with y'all. Anywho --
Before reading, I suggest checking out Parts 24, 25, and 26 for the framework of this piece.
Although Stranger Things has always centered around the kids, we shouldn't forget that the first name that comes up in the opening credits of each episode is ✨Winona Ryder✨, who plays Joyce Byers, Will and Jonathan's devoted, but neurotic mom.
That descriptor alone feels very Shavian "nightmare mother". However, rather than playing Joyce's anxiety, restlessness, and tendency to "meddle" as comedic quirks or character flaws, they're shown to be her greatest strengths, especially in the first three seasons:
Her gut instincts that never, EVER fail her --
Her determination to connect with her children, no matter what they're going through (even if her methods are unconventional) --
Her steadfast belief in the impossible, even if it makes her look crazy --
And her refusal to give up, even when things seem completely hopeless.
But the story always reminds us (and Joyce) of the world she lives in. A world that looks down on single working moms, especially those as unconventional as she is.
Despite having grown up in Hawkins as Joyce Maldonado (per TFS at least), she is still referred to by pretty much everyone as Mrs. Byers. The title of "wife" is stuck to her identity, despite shedding the man who gave it to her long ago.
Cain to Eve: [...] "I do not know what I want, except that I want to be something higher and nobler than this stupid old digger [Adam] whom Lilith made to help you to bring me into the world, and whom you despise now that he has served your turn."
When that same man returns for his estranged son's "funeral" in S1, we see that, even though Lonnie was clearly a POS father and husband, the community rallies around him while Joyce, the mother who stayed and raised two children on her own, is given the side eye.
When Will first goes missing, we see she's already known in Hawkins as something of an odd duck... "a few steps [from falling off the edge] for a while now," per Officer Powell. She works long hours at Melvald's General Store, a heavily trafficked spot in town where she'd have been subject to public scrutiny. She dresses differently from the rest of the moms we've met in ST/TFS: When she's not in her *work* uniform, she opts for gender-neutral clothing that leans towards masculine. And not masculine as in the women's "menswear looks" that were in-vogue at the time. No chic shoulder pads or power suits -- Joyce's signature accessories are her brown corduroy or green cargo jackets. When she does dress up (ie. date night at home or for the holidays) she rocks more "bohemian" looks like printed kurtis.
Joyce is a beautiful woman (c'mon, it's Winona Ryder), but she's never shown to care about appearances or following trends -- just about what feels true to her. And it's clear she's allowed and encouraged her sons to do the same. This level of self-assuredness is a rare quality to find, even today. A quality that not everyone may appreciate -- especially in a restrictive society that expects every member to fall in line.
It also just so happens that Joyce, a woman raising two *male* children on her own, produces sons who are deemed outcasts by their peers and are *both* labelled at one point or another as "queer" specifically.
While Jonathan has been in a romantic relationship with a woman (though that means nothing on this show #Stonathan), we know Will actually is gay. Both of them are more reserved in public (whether by nature or due to their ostracization), and also artistic rather than athletically inclined. At first glance, it seems that the Byers are exactly what the conservative American patriarchy feared when they started condemning "Momism" in the 50s, and again in the 80s.
However, can Joyce really be blamed for how Jonathan and Will "turned out"?
While we know what Shaw thinks about the imbalance between the sexes re: child-rearing, we know that when Lonnie was around, he did everything to force his boys into the ideal masculine mold -- taking them to sports games, teaching them to shoot, making them hunt (and kill) to prove their "manliness". But we see Jonathan and Will have no appetite for those things (even though they will pick up a gun or throw a punch when forced). When Lonnie saw Will specifically behaving in ways he deemed "queer" and therefore unacceptable, we know he resorted to calling him slurs -- and it's implied he was physically violent as well. But none of Lonnie's behavior made Will straight. So by that same logic, why would Joyce's parenting be to blame for Will being gay?
Of all the moms in ST, Joyce receives the brunt of mother blaming (hell, even Bob does it, when he thinks she's incorrectly feeding into Will's "delusions" in S2). We see this start, of course, with Will's disappearance.
Ironically, the mother blaming begins with a comment from Lonnie when Jonathan comes to see if Lonnie kidnapped and/or killed Will (and he has the nerve to think Joyce is the worse parent?): "I just assumed she forgot where he was."
It only gets worse from there, with Lonnie making his distant relationship with his sons Joyce's fault and pointing the finger when Jonathan calls bullshit ("See, that's your mother talkin' right there"). Then, Lonnie finally catches onto the fact his teenage son has skipped school to find him, and has the audacity to say the following:
"So one kid goes missing, the other one runs wild? Some real fine parenting right there. Look, all I'm saying is, maybe I'm not the asshole, alright?"
Lonnie masterfully deflects the blame from himself and redirects it toward Joyce. Mind you, he makes no effort to either look for one son, or make sure the other makes it back home safely.
Although you can see Jonathan's hesitation over Lonnie's words (and we'll get to Jonathan's relationship with Joyce in a bit), he still thrusts Will's missing poster into their father's hands: "In case you forgot what he looks like."
Jonathan and Joyce may not always be on the same page, but he and Lonnie are on entirely different books.
The mother blaming continues on Lonnie's end after Joyce sniffs out his plan to make money off of Will's death:
Lonnie: "You need me here, Joyce."
Joyce: "Oh, I have not needed you for a long time!"
Lonnie: "Oh no? Look what happened."
Joyce: "Don't you dare. At least I was here!"
Lonnie: "Oh come on, Joyce! Just look around this place. All your Christmas lights. The hell am I supposed to think? You're such a great mom? You're a mess!"
This scene of course, leads to what I think is one of the most iconic scenes in the show --
Here, Joyce is not only responding to Lonnie, but to all the men who are quick to dismiss the women in their lives with the "crazy" label -- who often only do so because they make no effort to understand or seek the truth unless it suits their own worldview (as touched on in Parts 25 and 26).
In this case, you have Lonnie who literally put in no effort to look for his own child, and is happy to believe he's dead if it means making a quick buck. While Lonnie makes grand promises to Jonathan that he's going to come home and make things better for "all of us" (mind you, it's after his "problem" child Will is seemingly out of the way), here we see a mother keeping the candle burning (or Christmas lights as it were) with faith that Will is alive and will return home.
In the scene quoted above, Lonnie again projects blame onto Joyce and props himself up as the authoritative "man of the house", despite having bailed on the position long ago. It's another clear example of the absent father - nightmare mother paradigm Shaw aimed to critique and subvert in his plays. As was discussed in Part 26, this same dynamic exists between Victor and Virginia Creel.
Eve: "But why did [Lilith] divide into two, and make us different?"
The Serpent: "I tell you the labor is too much for one. Two must share it."
Like TFS proved then, when the burden of raising children is placed all on one person, it's bound to cause dysfunction in the home, no matter how well meaning the main caregiver is.
In Joyce's case, we see there is quite a bit of dysfunction in the Byers household: Joyce is the lone parental figure (till Bob comes along), working long, exhausting hours at a blue collar job. And clearly it's not enough to sustain the family of three as we see Jonathan, her elder son, picking up late shifts to financially provide for the family while also having to bear the load of childcare when it comes to his younger brother, Will.
Tell me, does this picture look like a typical mother-child dynamic? Or a domestic partnership?
With the many thoughtful "Parentified Jonathan" analyses out there, there's no doubt of its validity (and how much it breaks audiences' hearts). Interestingly, looking at this scene through a "Shavian" lens, we see a *double* role-reversal, with Jonathan not only taking on the role of parent, but also the traditionally feminine parental role: Taking over domestic duties while Joyce is the breadwinner.
That's a stark contrast to the more "conventional" Wheelers, who we see in that same scene eating breakfast prepared solely by Karen. Admittedly, Shaw might laud Jonathan in this scenario for being a self-sufficient individual rather than another man reliant on a woman's care. However, consider that Jonathan is not a "man", but a child having to compensate for the lack of a parental figure in the home (mainly due to economic necessity rather than deliberate neglect).
In a way, we veer back toward Oedipal discourse (oh joy): Jonathan clearly loathes (and is ready to get violent with) his father and is more of an equal partner to his mother. However rather than there being a sexual friction between them, we see Jonathan and Joyce are often at odds with each other, especially in the first two seasons.
The GIFs I included at the beginning of the post kind of prove that -- half of them are of Jonathan either disagreeing with his mother, or thinking she's out of her mind (ironically, he's a lot like his father in that way).
In Season 1, Jonathan also seems to think, like the rest of the town, that Joyce is at risk of going over the edge. He doesn't believe her when she initially tells him about the UD fuckery, and is straight up antagonistic when Joyce refuses to believe Will is dead. At one point, they're yelling at each other in the middle of Main Street, with Jonathan shouting after her that he'll be organizing Will's funeral with or without her (placing the burden of responsibility on himself yet again). It's not until Nancy gives the same description of the demogorgon that Jonathan gives any credence to Joyce's story.
Meanwhile in Season 2, we see Joyce and Jonathan butting heads over how best to de-possess Will. While Joyce has faith that more extreme measures will work in exorcising the Mind Flayer, Jonathan is scared she's gonna kill him. In the end, Joyce is right again (for the most part).
Again, it really seems like Jonathan is like every other man in this series -- shutting down the concerns of women who are in fact correct! (let's not forget dismissive he is of Nancy's investigation in S3). But, when it comes to Jonathan's doubts, you have to feel for him. In Season 1, he has no reason to believe in the supernatural and every reason to believe his baby brother is dead. In Season 2, he's only trying to spare said baby brother from more suffering.
But what it really comes down to is that Jonathan has always been more of a pessimist, likely on account of his early upbringing: "I guess [my father] and my mother loved each other at some point, but, I wasn't around for that part."
We LOVE Joyce Byers in this house, but you have to admit, she's always given *Will* wayyy more support and attention (see GIFs above), while Jonathan is rarely extended the same, again to the frustration of ST fans everywhere. Of course, the imbalance is understandable to a degree, given everything Will has gone through over the course of the show. But still, it highlights the following idea by Dr. Gabor Maté: “No two kids are raised in the same family. No two children have the same parents.”
Through Joyce's memories in S1 and Will's in S5, we see they had a very tender relationship centered around his creative interests. She's always treated him "like a baby" (to his own frustration), but that's because he is the baby of the family. Meanwhile Jonathan, as the elder brother, was an only child for several years before Will came into the picture, and by the time Lonnie left, was certainly old enough to remember the blowouts between his parents (which were intense, if what we saw in S1 is any indicator). And afterward, Jonathan had to bear a heavy amount of responsibility for both his mother and brother, even more so when Will disappeared and Joyce was "a mess". Again, I quote Lagretta Tallent Lenker in "Pre-Oedipal Shaw": "the angel of the house can also be the nightmare mother lurking in the closet."
Will got the angel, and Jonathan got the nightmare (in his POV): an "absent" and "ineffectual, bewildered burden on [her] competent children." (43)
I know all that sounds harsh. Obviously Jonathan doesn't hate Joyce; he loves her very much. But it doesn't change the fact that their circumstances (which were influenced to a degree by Joyce's choices) made it so that Jonathan could never grow up as a "regular" kid.
[Side note: Halfway through writing this (so here), I found this article, "The Borderline Mother in Netflix’s Stranger Things" by Amanda Vail, that also clocked Joyce's falling into the "hysterical mother" stereotype in S1 and discussed it through the lens of mental illness. The quotes included from reviews at the time really hammer home the Shavian mother comparisons, but again, Shaw (and I) would argue Joyce's "hysteria" stems not from BPD, but from living in a society where not many options were available for women in her socioeconomic position, and that the resulting pressures and expectations would make nervous wrecks of anyone, especially people with Joyce's raw intelligence and sense of individuality.]
Whatever disagreements and resentments Joyce and Jonathan may or may not have though, they've always been able to present a united front for Will's sake.
With Mike as backup, ofc.
Here is where I start to circle back to Back to Methuselah. As I'm sure you've gathered from this post and the last post, I see both Virginia Creel and Joyce Byers falling into the "Eve" archetype from the play.
The earthly proto-woman, who starts off as an innocent, but naive girl full of hope in Act I.
Eve: "What is the life?"
The Serpent: "That which makes the difference between the dead fawn and the live one."
Eve: "What a beautiful word! And what a wonderful thing! Life is the loveliest of all the new words."
While we don't know what Virginia was like before marriage, we get to see young Joyce in TFS --
A rebellious girl with a powerful vision (to start a revolution) and dreams of attaining a scholarship that will get her out of Hawkins and on the path toward a better life.
Joyce does as the Serpent instructed Eve to do: She desires more for herself, she imagines a way out through the play and scholarship, she wills a cast and crew into being, and creates a bold production of Dark of the Moon -- a surprise play that questions whether love can defeat fear.
Unfortunately, it turns out the scholarship was a scam, the play ends in tragedy, and a love is torn asunder with Patty Newby thrown from the rafters. Fear beats love.
We see in the play's epilogue that Joyce has gotten a job at Melvald's (where she'd keep working long after it was no longer a diner) and it's implied she'll settle with Lonnie, rather than running away to Mexico with Hopper like they'd talked about (even if it was a fantasy).
Like Eve discovering the secret of conception from the Serpent and losing her Edenic innocence, Joyce sheds any illusions of leaving Hawkins and *accepts her fate*: Becoming a wife to Lonnie and a mother to Will and Jonathan.
Catching up to the present of the show (Season 5), we see Joyce truly turn into Shaw's suffocating nightmare mother -- not just for Jonathan, but for Will now as well.
There's no narrative reason given for the sharp turn toward overprotectiveness. At least in S2, Joyce's insistence on her and Jonathan driving/chaperoning Will everywhere made sense, given it was so soon after Will's disappearance and near-death experience in the UD. But in S3 and 4, Joyce leaves Will to his own devices for the most part, while she's deep in the Russia plot with Hopper and Murray. She's protective of Will and aware of his connection to the hive mind, but doesn't keep him away from the action.
But that all changes in ST5. She is practically glued to Will's side for the whole season (that's Mike's job, Joyce!!) and refuses to let him out of her sight.
The only clue as to why she's suddenly so helicopter-y is a heart-to-heart between Will and Joyce in "The Turnbow Trap":
Joyce: "I think about that night all the time. The night it came for you. The night all this started. I wasn't even home. My shift ran late. When I finally do get home, what do I do? I smoke cigarettes, drink cheap wine, and watch Cheers re-runs until I pass out. I didn't know you were missing for eight hours."
Will: "Mom. What happened to me -- it's not your fault --"
Joyce: "Eight. Hours. What kind of mother doesn't check on their 11-year-old boy?"
As much as people love to point the finger at her, no one blames Joyce more than herself. Her own guilt* over what happened to Will and his resulting trauma have put Joyce in her own prison of torment ever since.
*Not to mention feeling guilty over not always being there for Jonathan.
That being said, Joyce getting Will's age wrong was a big MFing red flag that something was off in Hawkins.
However, what truly set off my spidey senses in a ~bad way~ was when Will volunteered to take Dustin's place during the Crawl and Joyce deemed it too risky for Will, sending her other son, Jonathan, in his place.
Peep Mike staring at Will in the BG.
It's a moment that not only disempowers Will, but puts the brothers in an incredibly awkward position. Because the message their mother seemingly sends is that she values one son's life more than the other.
What's worse is that Joyce's previously flawless instincts fail her time and time again over the course of the season. On top of forbidding Will from participating in the Crawls, she gets disproportionately upset when he sneaks away from the Squawk so he can investigate with Robin, and then 180s and starts making her own half-baked plans about how Will can use his newfound powers to "end this nightmare", which also happens to lead Will to getting taken by Vecna once more. For the first time IMO, Joyce really does read as the true Shavian "ineffectual, bewildered burden" of a mother, rather than her sharper Back to Methuselah parallel, Eve.
It's close to enough her usual frazzled characterization, but she still reads as OOC -- something that may seem like lazy writing on the surface, but might hint that even Joyce is unknowingly playing a role in the "bad play" that is S5 (so far).
The only exceptions to her helplessness this season are her two "hero" moments, with her signature weapon in hand, her trusty axe.
Amid the chaos backstage.
Joyce: "Why am I holding an axe?!"
The title of this post is taken from the words Henry Creel tells Joyce (then Maldonado) toward the end of The First Shadow when they encounter each other backstage. An unexpectedly cordial cross made even more eerie in hindsight given this happened in the S5 "finale" --
Henry: "Joyce, what are you going to do? Rewrite the ending? Don't you see? I do. It used to be I could just hear the voices, but now they make me see. Now I can see everything."
[...]
Henry: "You're a nice person, Joyce. That is how they will bring you down. You need to learn to do whatever it takes to protect what you love."
Joyce: "I don't understand."
Henry: "You will [...]"
"Do whatever it takes to protect what you love"... And boy, does she.
But, if this play was indeed orchestrated by Vecna like we all suspect, that means he put the axe in Joyce's hands on purpose.
He made her strike the killing blow that would convince everyone -- including the show's audience -- that he was actually dead. But #conformitygate believers know the truth --
I did wonder why he picked Joyce of all people and the theory I'm about to posit is the biggest stretch in this post (and this theory is full of stretches already), but I started up looking up famous women axe murderers -- you know, a normal thing to Google -- and came across Candy Montgomery -- the subject of two pretty recent series, Candy and Love and Death.
Montgomery, née Wheeler fyi, gained notoriety in the 80s for the axe murder of Betty Gore, her former lover's wife. She was later acquitted based on her claim of self-defense.
Former lover's wife, eh? So Joyce killed Henry, her former lover Bob's.... rightttt.
See how it all comes back to Bob?
While I'm still not 100% sure about my theory, I did go looking to see if there were any ST characters named Candace, and lo and behold there was Candice, introduced in S3 -- pictured here with Joyce.
Reminder: Candice is Mayor Kline's secretary and mistress. 🤯
Damn, Henry really is a messy bitch with a flair for the dramatic. He really was like, "I'm Bob's wife. He was mine first. You're just the crazy skank who stole my man and KILLED ME."
Gag of the century aside, now is where I hit a more troubling note: "Do whatever it takes to protect what you love"... Just as much as warning as it is a piece of advice.
I, like most people I'm sure, thought of Will immediately when Henry said that. After all, they are the characters most tethered to each other. Not to mention Will is Joyce's son. Who could she love more?
Well, Will isn't Joyce's only son, is he?
Eve: Wife to Adam and mother to the first brothers -- Cain and Abel.
The first murderer and the first to be murdered.
Jonathan Byers: Always his brother's keeper. The most faithful of sons and devoted of brothers, having sacrificed so much of his youth for the sake of Joyce and Will.
The elder -- a natural fit for Cain. Or is he?
Cain: [to Adam] Still digging? Always dig, dig, dig. Sticking in the old furrow. No progress! no advanced ideas! no adventures! What should I be if I had stuck to the digging you taught me?
Who do we learn dug the tunnels under Hawkins? Will Byers.
Cain, like his father before him, was raised a farmer. He grew jealous of his brother Abel -- a shepherd -- who gained God's favor by sacrificing one of his animals.
Cain: "Whose fault was it that I killed Abel? Who invented killing? Did I? No: he invented it himself. I followed your teaching. I dug and dug and dug. I cleared away the thistles and briars. I ate the fruits of the earth. I lived in the sweat of my brow, as you do. I was a fool."
@maytheoddsbeinmyfavor recently informed me of the existence of the official ST tarot deck*.
Guess who's featured on The Fool card? Will Byers.
*Bob Newby is the next major arcana card fyi -- The Magician (1), followed by his love child El as the High Priestess (2). Henry/Vecna does not have a card.
And if that weren't enough --
Cain: "[...] It said that my deed was as a mark on me, a burnt-in mark such as Abel put on his sheep, that no man should slay me. And here I stand unslain, whilst the cowards who have never slain, the men who are content to be their brothers' keepers instead of their masters are despised and rejected, and slain like rabbits. He who bears the brand of Cain shall rule the earth."
In Part 26, I'd compared Henry to Cain. If Will is his tether --
Is it possible Will might, under the influence of Vecna/the MF, kill his beloved brother?
Or will Joyce be forced to make a Sophie's Choice?
Might she have to choose which son will be saved and which one is slaughtered?
We've seen Joyce choose Will over Jonathan time and time again. Will she do it again? Or will she, like Virginia, come to believe Will is past saving? Worse -- will she have to take him out herself?
Or will she be kept from making the choice at all?
I've been making my way through all the ST comics I can get my hands on, thanks to comments from folks who have noticed connections to S5.
One in particular pointed out that ST's Winter Special One-Shot comic, released in 2021, featured the Ghosts of Christmas looking exactly like the witches from Joyce's production of Dark of the Moon (as soon as I track down the comment, I'm tagging the person in question).
The comic is about El's first real Christmas with the Party. They celebrate at the Byers' house where the group gather to watch holiday specials.
GUYS -- there's so much S5 foreshadowing it's insane. [I may get around to making a post dedicated to it one day, but if someone else wants to take a crack at it first and tag me (bc I want to read it!), be my guest!!] Every line/reference is laden with clues, such as --
First of all, time travel references galore in this comic. Obviously, Hop is referencing It's a Wonderful Life here, but what if this is another bit of foreshadowing for ST5 Vol. 4?
Is it possible Henry's mission with the kids was to time travel to the past and prevent Will's (and Jonathan's) birth entirely?
Might young Joyce be a parallel to Terminator's Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton, our Agent Kay)?
Or, can we read Joyce's disdain and comment re: IAWL as a sign that Will might choose to "kill" himself of his own volition?
Or could this not be referring to Will at all, but rather Henry, who decides in a moment of clarity to avoid this path of pain and destruction all together by making it so he was never born and therefore setting off a chain of events that hurts all our characters anyway?
Whatever it is will have to be speculation for another day, because this post is ultimately about Joyce as a Shavian mother, as Shaw's Eve, and what that might mean for Vol. 4.
Shaw wrote Back to Methuselah with Creative Evolution in mind, questioning whether there was any hope for human improvement or if humanity was doomed to being endlessly shit (for lack of a better phrase).
Eve: [shaking him] "Adam: you must not brood. You think too much."
Adam: [angrily] "How can I help brooding when the future has become uncertain? Anything is better than uncertainty. Life has become uncertain. Love is uncertain. Have you a word for this new misery?"
The Serpent: "Fear. Fear. Fear."
Adam: "Have you a remedy for it?"
The Serpent: "Yes. Hope. Hope. Hope."
Adam: "What is hope?"
The Serpent: "As long as you do not know the future you do not know that it will not be happier than the past. That is hope."
Adam: "It does not console me. Fear is stronger in me than hope. I must have certainty."
While Eve (woman) loves the idea of hope sustaining love, Adam (man) rebukes it.
He continues to question the Serpent for how he can acquire the certainty he craves. The Serpent proceeds to teach him the following words: Vows. Years. Marriage. Husband. Wife.
Constructs that Eve fears will "destroy hope" and that the Serpent warns will "strangle" creation.
Adam invents the word "wicked" to describe hope. Eve invents the word "fool" to describe Adam.
Despite Adam's wariness of the Serpent, Eve continues to keep the snake's friendship and confidence throughout her long life.
That is, until Cain begins his campaign of killing and war in Act II of the play. It is because of him, Eve says, that she can no longer find her.
"You have made the serpent our enemy."
And here is where I give my hot take -- is the Mind Flayer, the Serpent Spider, the villain we've been making her out to be? Is she as "wicked" as Adam says? Or is she, like every other gal in this GD franchise, just misunderstood?
I won't lie, I was so damn nervous when I first started writing Bobgate because I knew how beloved Patty and Straight!Creelby are in the fandom. Once I saw TFS for myself, I completely understood why -- Patty is sweet, funny, and charming as hell. Yes, she can be nosy, and mischievous at times, but she ultimately means well* (maybe that's the biggest sign that the MF has a good side).
*Now, this doesn't negate the absolute horrors™️ the MF has put Will and Henry through. I wonder how these sides of the MF will be reconciled in the finale.
While most of her peers view her as "mystery meat" to be bullied or avoided, Joyce sees something in Patty and Henry when they audition for Dark of the Moon. She shows them kindness when the rest treat them like outcasts. That's why Henry chooses to give Joyce that advice at the end of TFS.
Cain: "Poor mother! You see, life is too long. One tires of everything. There is nothing new under the sun."
Adam: [to Eve, grumpily] "Why do you live on, if you can find nothing better to do than complain?"
Eve: "Because there is still hope."
Cain: "Of what?"
Eve: "Of the coming true of your dreams and mine. Of newly created things. Of better things. My sons and my son's sons are not all diggers and fighters [...] They can remember their dreams. They can dream without sleeping. They have not will enough to create instead of dreaming; but the serpent said that every dream could be willed into creation by those strong enough to believe in it."
Maybe it's not the swift violence of the axe or certainty in the status quo that will give Joyce her "gay" ending.
Rather, it may be that same *hope* she had when she was a young, naive as it was -- that love can defeat fear -- that Joyce needs to use again in order to protect what she loves: Both of her boys.
Since the very beginning of Stranger Things, Joyce has been the model for undying faith and maternal love. Even when presented with one son's "dead body", she never gave up hope that he was still out there, alive, waiting to come home. And not only did she wait for him, she followed him to hell to bring him back.
Who's to say Joyce won't end the series that way too?
Whew! That's a wrap for the "Nightmare Mother" section of #Bobgate, but the Shavian analysis is nowhere near done.
Disclaimer: I'm going to break my evidence for this theory into different posts under #BobGate (also #PuzzleGate), but if possible, let's keep this contained to Tumblr because I think there are folks who might care about being spoiled for what I think is going to be an amazing twist (if #conformitygate is in fact real.)
**I haven't come across a theory/analysis like this yet, but if there is one that exists that I missed, please let me know in the comments!
