Nancy Wheeler had one of the most perfect loss of innocence & coming-of-age arcs I've ever seen.
(AND WE'RE LIKELY TO SEE SIMILAR ARCS PLAY OUT IN SEASON 5 FOR THE PARTY MEMBERS)
Flawlessly executed, loaded with symbolism and imagery, and even a little bit provocative. It's simply perfect.
It all happens in one season, too... which goes to show that it can be done.
She starts the series wearing cute little bows, stockings, and knee length skirts (soda pop wheeler realness). She looks like she's going to freaking church. She's buttoned up and described as a priss. She wants Steve and his friends to think she's cool, even though she's really an intellectual/ academic... aka nerd.
She doesn't even tell her parents about Steve because she's embarrassed or worried, even though Ted didn't care and Karen was mostly curious. I just remembered she even calls Karen "mommy" at the dinner table... baby behaviour. (Love her!)
Then she (rather impulsively) loses her virginity, and at the same time, she loses her childhood best friend. Two things associated with her innocence and childhood naïveté gone in the same instance. That is the most on-the-nose loss of innocence storyline I can possibly think of.
Barb literally calls Nancy's name before she's taken and it's the last thing she ever says – to no response. In the obvious sense it's because Nancy can't hear. Metaphorically, it's because the version of Nancy she's calling for is dead. She can't come to the phone right now – she's starting her major character arc.
Her wardrobe changes immediately after losing her virginity and losing Barb, even if it is subtle. No pretty pastels, skirts or bows of any kind. She's in muted colors, jeans and sneakers. The next day she's in jeans and sneakers again. She's wearing pastel pink, but the shirt is loose fitted with the sleeves rolled up, making it look more casual and carefree.
She's a little dressed down, almost like she stopped caring so much about putting on a cute little coordinated outfit – she has more important things to worry about than acing Kaminsky's test and impressing Steve (childish fancies).
Then she lies to the police and loses respect for the authorities altogether. A loss of trust and respect for authorities and people in power is also a loss of innocence, because it means you know you can't just inherently trust anyone. That's something a naïve child does. She takes matters into her own hands despite not really needing to – something an adult does.
When Karen presses her about her sexual relationship with Steve, Nancy says it doesn't matter, because it really doesn't. This mirrors how an adult views sex; something that only matters if you make it matter.
She feels that she's not being listened to, that she's being gaslit ("There was no car.") this is also something we do to children. Adults routinely shut children down – ignore them, lie to them, tell them what to believe.
But Nancy doesn't allow it. She's becoming an adult. You don't get to tell her what she saw, or what does and doesn't "matter."
She says "I know it!" with chilling conviction. She's trusting herself more than anyone else in the world. That takes guts.
Nancy then teams up with Jonathan the "weirdo" and "freak" even though he took those pictures of her. There's a more nuanced conversation to be had about the photographs (I think it relates a lot to the Byers' complicated relationship to boundaries and privacy thanks to Lonnie), but her reaction shows that she's not embarrassed.
To clarify, I'm not saying that an adult is never mortified of having photos taken of them without consent – but narratively, this scene serves a function. Nancy went from being fully buttoned-up and embarrassed to admit she had a boyfriend, to flirtatiously asking Jonathan what she was "saying" in her half-dressed photograph.
This scene is partially about sexual agency.
"So you saw me half naked... what did you think about that?"
Funeral Nancy doesn't say thank you when Karen tells her she looks nice because she doesn't care. She doesn't take up the offer to wear Karen's black heels. A child might jump at the opportunity to play "grown-up" by borrowing an adult's clothes. High heels in and of themselves are a kind of symbol for womanhood because children don't wear them.
Nancy rejects it because she's becoming her own woman. She doesn't need to borrow from Karen or play dress up. She doesn't need the heels.
Then we have butch Nancy™ (lol, sorry) in her flannel, fingerless gloves, and sherpa jacket. It's very tomboy-ish. She's swinging a freaking bat (phallic imagery!).
Steve asks her out and she blows him off because she has plans to kill an interdimensional monster. In my opinion, Steve even lowkey gives her the ick in this scene. She's not as easily impressed or swooned as she once was by Steve's boyish charm (because it is boyish, and she's no longer girlish).
Then we have more phallic imagery with the gun. Unlike Will, she uses it with confidence. Unlike Jonathan, she's not afraid of it. Another cue which tells us Nancy has sexual agency.
The gun also symbolizes violence and the ability to take away life. The ability to give life (menstruation or birth) and take it away (kill) is associated with adulthood and coming-of-age.
When Nancy says "I don't think my parents ever loved each other." this also shows a loss of innocence. An innocent child believes their parents to be in love, because marriage must only be about love. Just like having babies only comes about due to "love." It's the stuff of Disney movies – Jonathan even references Thumper from Bambi.
Nancy understands it's more complicated than that. She denounces the nuclear family. Could you see episode 1 Nancy saying this?
Oh, then we get even more symbolism about loss of innocence. Nancy and Jonathan come about a dying deer – right after our Bambi reference. What do you know...
What is more tragic than the death of an innocent animal? (Okay, a lot of things, to be fair...) but Bambi was a lot of children's rude awakening to themes of mortality, tragedy, and loss. After the death of her childhood best friend, Nancy is now reckoning with the death of another innocent. It's a test to see what she has learned, and how she handles difficult and upsetting situations.
She handles it well, taking matters into her own hands (something adults do). Jonathan offers to do it, but it was Nancy's idea to end its suffering.
Then, like any true hero on a hero's journey, Nancy crosses the threshold between worlds. She enters the Upside Down.
She didn't know she was entering another dimension, but there's something to be said about the fact that she chose to enter.
Mind you, the gates in Stranger Things are yonic imagery. To be perfectly blunt, they closely resemble vaginas – often red and fleshy, with viscera strecthing between them like a hymen, and coated in fluid.
Nancy enters through the yonic gate into the Upside Down, faces and escapes death, and returns reborn.
She's been becoming a woman this entire time, but THIS is the moment she truly becomes one once and for all.
She washes away her guilt for what happened to Barb in the shower. She faced and survived the very thing that felled her best friend.
Water is about cleansing. She's terrified and upset and afraid... but she's born again. Whether she realizes it or not.
She takes initiative and asks Jonathan to sleep next to her. It's not sexual, but it still shows sexual agency. She's not embarrassed or uncomfortable to share a bed with a man.
When Jonathan tries to comfort Nancy by telling her the demogorgon can't reach them inside, she responds, "We don't know that." It's not pessimism. It's acceptance of reality and mortality.
Then she's buying hunting gear, weapons and lighter fluid. It's something that would be insane for episode 1 Nancy, but makes complete sense for her now. She's changed so much.
Oh, and she gets slut-shamed. This was an amazing way to follow up Nancy's loss of virginity arc: actually addressing the workings of misogyny and sex negativity.
I've seen younger fans criticize the writers' choice to have Nancy and Steve have sex in s1 (seriously...) calling it "weird." This sentiment is following us into s5, with people getting squeamish and holier than thou at the mere possibility that of any of the party members may have their own loss of virginity arcs. I think those fans need to rewatch s1 and pay more attention to Nancy's arc.
Then we have the build up of the season's climax. The puzzle pieces are coming together. Nancy and Jonathan reunite with Hopper and Joyce, and the party.
Hopper and Joyce trust them to continue taking matters into their own hands as they have been. They're one of the adults, now. Like them.
Nancy notices El wearing her old, pastel pink dress with a frilled collar. It's a passing of the torch: welcome to girlhood, El – Nancy doesn't need it anymore.
Nancy shocks Mike with her show of strength in breaking the lock. It's something episode 1 Nancy wouldn't have done. Her womanhood is manifesting physically now, too. She's stronger and more capable than she looks.
There's also an irony to Nancy's "no more secrets" line because it matches with her arc earlier in the season, in which Nancy was sick and tired of being gaslit, dismissed, and lied to. She tells Mike they'll "tell each other eveything" but that's not the case.
What did I say earlier? Adults lie to children. Nancy is now an adult, and Mike is still a child. Now she gets to lie to him.
It's its own rite-of-passage, albeit a funny one.
Then we have El in the void. This entire time, Nancy has held a torch for Barb, hoping against hope that she's still alive.
The manner in which she learns Barb is truly dead is swift and brutal. There's no fanfare, gentleness, or reverence. El simply says, "gone." It's over.
This is how adulthood feels – reality hits you in the face without apology, and doesn't wrap it up in a pretty bow for you.
And then we circle back to the ability to take a life. Nancy and Jonathan never got to shoot the deer, because the demogorgon got to it first. Nancy can give life (she doesn't need to get pregnant and prove it), but can she take one?
As a matter of fact, yes. She can. She's also stood beside two men (who tower over her) as an equal in strength, bravery, and fortitude.
And there you have it. Nancy's perfectly executed loss of innocence and coming-of-age arc, which wrapped up in one season. The rest of her storyline is more about navigating adulthood, despite still being a teenager.
All of this happened when Nancy was about 15-16. A sophomore, and younger than the party is going to be in season 5 (16-17).
Taking from the Nancy Wheeler's Guide to Coming-of-age Book, I've made a list of things we can expect:
Who's going to enter the Upside Down for the first time? (Probably Mike and Lucas…)
Who's going to scream about not being listened to?
Who's going to lose their virginity?
Who's going to have a metaphorical rebirth? (Possibly Will, with water imagery…)
Who's going to kill for the first time?
Who's going to become disenchanted with their lover? (My bet is on El…)
Who's going to wield a phallic weapon? (Looks like it'll also be Mike with the shovel…)
And most devastatingly, who's going to lose a childhood friend?
I feel compelled to bring back the s1 Jancy and s5 Byler costume parallels. This is our first hint at what to expect.
Let's notice the signs and note the patterns...
Mike will lose his younger sibling Holly (like Jonathan losing Will), and Will is on his journey of "coming into his own as a man" and taking ownership of his sexuality (like Nancy).
We can even split Nancy's s1 arc into two major themes:
Reckoning with death and mortality, facilitating new beginnings (hence the loss of Barb)
Ownership of sexuality and sexual agency, facilitating self-confidence (hence the loss of her virginity)
In my opinion, Mike is going to mirror Nancy's arc concerning death and mortality: He's going to lose someone important to him, reckon with his own mortality by coming close to death, and cross the threshold into the Upside Down for the first time.
Will on the other hand is going to mirror Nancy's sexuality arc: He's going to confront his sex and sexuality-based trauma, own his queerness, and yeah – I think he may lose his virginity, too. It just makes sense.
So, thank you Nancy. You demonstrated a seamless – yet extremely messy and difficult – transition into adulthood that our teens can emulate in season 5.
I'm looking forward to the chaos.
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