The Bizarre Love Triangle playlist is finally here!
📝 ☎️ 🎨 🛼 🌈⏮️ 🫀 💡
I've been working on this playlist for almost a year now, sharing piece by piece slowly with gifs accompanied by lyrics, which are meant to encapsulate what I think each of these characters were feeling at the time. This playlist goes in order narratively, so if you want the full experience, be sure to click start below to see where it all begins!
START ▶️
Tracklist
You're the Inspiration
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
This Is the Day
The Great Pretender
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
Who Can It Be Now?
I Need You
Bizarre Love Triangle
You've Really Got a Hold of Me
I'm Not In Love
Words
Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
Dust in the Wind
I've Been Losing You
I Want to Break Free
Enjoy the Silence
Secret
Always on My Mind
The Chain
It's Too Late
How Can I Be Sure?
Alone Again (Naturally)
Alone
Just the Two of Us
The Promise
Never My Love
At Your Best (You Are Love)
Landslide
Wouldn't It Be Nice
The Flame
Is This Love
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've?) - BONUS TRACK
Going back to s1, Mike has always worn his watch on his right arm, while Will has always worn his on his left.
However, this changes in s5, with Will now wearing his watch on his right arm, while Mike wears his on his left.
Now could this just be a plot inconsistency, among the many in s5? Absolutely! And when it comes to coincidences, I'm not one to say that every single thing is intentional, because personally, I do think coincidences do exist.
However, this specific instance would be a pretty odd one considering none of the other characters followed suit in this wardrobe change. Sure, some of them have changed the type of watch they wear over the seasons, but they've never changed which arm they wear it on. Even in the case the Duffers or the crew forgot, Finn and Noah themselves would have remembered which arm they've been wearing their watch on for the last 10 years.
In fact, if you’ll recall the leak for the biking sequence with Mike, Holly and Will in s5, we see on video someone in the crew tasked with collecting their watches one by one the moment that the shoot ended, meaning it wasn't some prop the cast just threw on in their dressing room, it was something the production was making an effort to keep tabs on throughout shooting. Hell, s5 opened with a flashback of Will in s1, where we see him wearing it on his left arm like he always has, only to switch up when we jump forward to the current timeline.
So there has been a consistency across all characters when it comes to watches, up until s5 and with these two characters only.
They filmed the epilogue in the fall which is why all the trees in downtown have red leaves. They were just too lazy to edit them in post-production to match the spring setting.
My dude… they also filmed Mike, Will and Holly biking to school during the summer despite the show being set in the fall, and made a point to put leaves all over the yard and road in front of the Wheelers house. In fact, all of s5 is filled with fall-like surroundings bc of the time the story is set, despite it not actually be fall while most of it was filmed. They put in the effort to make everything match with the setting as much as they could. So for the epilogue to open to downtown Hawkins in spring 1989, with strikingly red trees all over downtown, is something I don’t think they would miss bc they weren’t paying attention or were just feeling lazy…
Just remembered something in the s4 epilogue that made me insane in the context of Mike losing door 3/Hopper not offering the 3rd road. As they’re driving through downtown, past the library, we get road closed signs from Mike’s pov 😭
so another thing ive noticed about the epilogue - the third door choice disappeared once again
During their graduation in 5x8, Dustin was saying there are two types of chaos classes of characters (in dnd), the good and the bad,.
where's the neutral?
we know it exist - it's in the literal credits of the show!
so why wouldn't Dustin mention it? Was the neutral (the center) erased? Was that the point ( as in, Vecna's plan)?
what are these alignments?
The original version of D&D (1974) allowed players to choose among three alignments when creating a character: lawful, implying honor and respect for society's rules; chaotic, implying rebelliousness and individualism; and neutral, seeking a balance between the extremes
(...) introduced a second axis of good, implying altruism and respect for life, versus evil, implying selfishness and no respect for life (...) As with the law-versus-chaos axis, a neutral position exists between the extremes.
Characters and creatures could be lawful and evil at the same time (such as a tyrant), or chaotic but good (such as Robin Hood).
so the neutral between these two extremes have been introduced in the dnd from the beginning. although the good and evil axis hasn't been in every version since, the neutral part still remained, or in later editions has been adapted as 'unaligned' and in 5th edition back to this structure.
law vs chaos
Originally the law/chaos axis was defined as the distinction between "the belief that everything should follow an order, and that obeying rules is the natural way of life", as opposed to "the belief that life is random, and that chance and luck rule the world"
good vs evil
According to Greg Littmann, the predetermined assignment of an alignment to monsters means that they are good or evil by nature. Nevertheless, the rules do allow for individual variances, permitting "a red dragon looking to defect to the side of good"—even though Littmann acknowledges the rarity of such situations.
(red dragon you say?)
and this is why i think it's interesting that in the 5x8 credits we see the alightnment only for Vecna - lawful evil
and also for Will - neutral good!
It really puts these two against each other, even more so with the connection and importance of how Henry and Will are depicted similar (and same birthday!), yet very different, opposing each other even.
We haven't seen any of the other's alignment classes, but i want to guess Mike would have been lawful good, while El would have been chaotic good. Which is two other mirrors/ reflections against Vecna's lawful evil:
Especially with Mike it's so subtle, yet as I've started putting this together, its louder and louder how they're a little similar, yet very different on the other axis of good and bad. They kind of follow the same code of honor and rules, while still acting against the forces that's been restricting them.
Joyce and Will's talking about Vecna in 5x7: Vecna doesn't lie.
While Mike's motto has been the same since s1: Friends don't lie.
(and something about paladins having a spell called 'protection from evil and good' where the target on a successful roll cannot be charmed, frightened or possessed...)
Mike as the leader, following his code of honesty:
Law implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closed-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should.
A lawful good character typically acts with compassion and always with honor and a sense of duty. However, lawful good characters will often regret taking any action they fear would violate their code, even if they recognize such action as being good.
El as the chaos, the reckless type that still needs to figure out herself
Chaos implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility. Those who promote chaotic behavior say that only unfettered personal freedom allows people to express themselves fully and lets society benefit from the potential that its individuals have within them.
A chaotic good character does whatever is necessary to bring about change for the better, disdains bureaucratic organizations that get in the way of social improvement, and places a high value on personal freedom, not only for oneself but for others as well. Chaotic good characters usually intend to do the right thing, but their methods are generally disorganized and often out of sync with the rest of society.
and Will, as neutral, something in between.. the one who keeps it all in fragile balance
Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to follow rules nor a compulsion to rebel. They are honest but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others if it suits them.
A neutral good character typically acts altruistically, without regard for or against lawful precepts such as rules or tradition. A neutral good character has no problems with cooperating with lawful officials, but does not feel beholden to them. In the event that doing the right thing requires the bending or breaking of rules, they do not suffer the same inner conflict that a lawful good character would.
(all small text from wikipedia about Alignments)
So what happens when the Neutral path disappears?
You're left with three two choices
"The way I see it, you got two roads ahead of you."
because there's nothing else between it, right? not anymore, not if Vecna won.
---
If the Will -> exotic matter connection is gone, the thing that was keeping UD stabilized is gone, then only chaos or law remains. Something that Henry/Vecna kept telling us about in s4 mostly, how restricted he felt by the order of the world, the hours, days, repetition, all for nothing.
Would this mean the world was in chaos now, and only the good or the bad side of it existed? Or is that a new lawful world Vecna created in the way he always planned? Making them the lesser versions of themselves, taking away the other choice to choose the third option, to find that door to escape?
Bad chaos brings anarchy.. (saying Dustin in orange robe on a graduation day that doesn't seem real)
If they wrote Will (neutral good) out of the narrative and/or forgotten, and El (chaotic good) sacrificing herself, it means only the chaotic evil stays - no change, but stagnancy. Conformity.
You know I didn’t think about it until today, but the craziest fucking thing about the finale, out of all the plot holes and inconsistencies and bad writing, is that we never got a Jane/El funeral, we never saw anyone (other than Mike kinda) grieve. Like it’s absolutely fucking mental to kill off one of your main characters and there’s not a single funeral/group mourning scene. Wdym we didn’t get the party absolutely breaking down? Or at least visiting her grave with flowers after graduation??? All we got was half hearted kiss and a bit of survivor’s guilt from her gay boyfriend that’s literally so devastating. Like this can’t be it…
This is even crazier when considering the Duffers always defended them not killing off characters because they don’t want to do it solely for shock value, and that they believe it’s important to show how much a characters death effects all the other characters. They used Mike as an example like no that’s too sad. But like, I would argue El’s death was significantly more sad, given that we didn’t get any proper grieving outside of the characters reaction shots of her death and a game of make believe at the end.
