inside you there are two wolves. one desperately believes in conformity gate because the evidence is convincing and it could save the show. the other doesn't believe the duffer brothers are capable of that. you are probably a byler.
Okay look guys… I’ve been doom and gloom these past few days over season 5, but I’ve been seeing some crazy theories over on tik tok and I need more people to be talking about it here IMMEDIATELY.
-LOVE WILL DEFEAT FEAR, AND THE MIND FLAYER/ HENRY KNOWS THAT-
Now listen up class, I’m here with a BYLER THEORY! (yes im still capable of this even after volume 2)
So, we know the First Shadow plays main message right? ‘Can Love conquer Fear?’ We wouldn’t be asking this question to the audience if we wanted the answer to be ‘no, it cant’.
In the first shadow play, it shows that not accepting love, pushing people away, and running away from love is ultimately what causes Henry to be fully taken over by the mind flayer. He allowed fear to conquer him, he pushed away love and self acceptance.
If the mind flayer knows that love is what will allow others to conquer the fear they have, then of COURSE Vecna is going to instil fear and doubt into Will’s mind.
~ So, let’s first circle back to Will’s coming out scene (which I’m still… not super happy with… but lets ignore that for now)
The Duffers confirmed in an interview that Will HAD to come out and stop doubting his insecurities and his self-doubt about his sexuality. In doing this, he ‘becomes unstoppable’. But look at this quote closer:
‘- or that’s the hope.’
This verbiage Matt uses here implies that Will only HOPES this will save him, not that it will!
There’s something that a lot of Bylers have pointed out about the coming out scene that felt really off: Mike, in no way shape or form, can be Will’s Tammy.
So why was there a sudden shift from Will’s perspective?
I think that the ‘visions’ Vecna instilled over Will weren’t just simply visions of his friends and family not accepting him coming out, I think it was ALSO visions of Mike not liking him back. Will did say that these visions were filled with truth when he was talking to Joyce, but was it really the truth, or just what Vecna (or the mind flayer) wanted him to believe.
The mind flayer WANTS Will to give up on Mike, because that means Will has given up on LOVE.
Now tell me, why would the first shadow play show us the consequences of rejecting the love you have for someone to allow fear to take over if season 5 wasn’t going to prove that wrong.
~Now lets take a look at this section of an article posted by the London Theatre Direct:
‘Henry’s struggles with Patty echo Will’s potential conflicts, hinting that Vecna could exploit similar emotional vulnerabilities in the show’s present day storylines.’
Vecna is exploiting Will’s biggest emotional vulnerability; his love for Mike.
That doesn’t just magically go away in one day either, you would have to be so scared of loving someone to get over them in a day.
Will, in the same volume, had hope. He asked Robin if Vickie and her got together after she accepted herself, and Robin told him he had to come out first. He had hope that if he came out, he could still end up with Mike. He was asking for god damn signals a few days prior to know if someone wants to date!
It just doesn’t make sense, hence why the ‘he was just my Tammy’ felt like an extremely sudden realisation.
But here’s the kicker:
Will Byers wouldn’t give up after coming this far unless he wasn’t TRULY HIMSELF
Here’s where I introduce Milkshakegate~
During Will’s coming out scene, he lists a bunch of things that don’t make him ‘different’ from his friends, one of these things being:
‘We like biking to Melvald’s for malted milkshakes’
At first, I payed this scene no mind, but some keen viewers noticed that this comment Will made was strange.
‘Melvald’s’, or at least the one we know, doesn’t sell milkshakes (or at least it shouldn’t). Melvald’s is the general store Joyce works at…
But we see in the first shadow play that ‘Melvald’s’ in the 50’s used to be a DINER.
Not only does Joyce work at this diner at the end of the play, but HENRY AND PATTY GO ON A DATE HERE
Now, let’s remember what Vecna said to Will when he was trapped inside of his mindscape:
‘You are going to be my spy, one last time’
I first thought this only meant Will was spying for Vecna ONLY for that scene where he figures out where Max is in the hospital so the demodogs can find and kill her, but I now believe that WILL IS STILL A ‘SPY’ AND IS BEING INFLUENCED BY THE MIND FLAYER. HIS MEMORIES ARE BEING ALTERED!
Because of the hivemind, because of Vecna’s attempt to instil a false fear inside of Will’s mind, Will’s own memories are melding with Henry’s!
HENRY is someone who enjoyed going and getting milkshakes at Melvald’s, not Will, because that isn’t something he could even do!
I believe that Vecna knows that if Will were to truly believe in the love he has for Mike, that hope and that love would overcome the fear the mind flayer is trying to use against him. By taking over Will again and instilling this fear, similarly to what happened in season 2, Vecna is trying to take away the possibility for love to save him.
~So what… or who, the answer to all of this?…
Mike The Goddamn Beating Heart’ Wheeler
‘But skeeto!’ I hear you cry; ‘Mike’s heart must be in cardiac arrest, because he hasn’t seemed to care about anything in volume two at all, especially Will!’
I agree with that, no doubt 100% Mike has been acting extremely off, especially after we see him praise Will so much at the beginning of volume 2 and in all of volume 1… so what happened?
I think we can pinpoint the shift in Mike’s behaviour EXACTLY in episode 5, and it’s after Will passes out when infiltrating Vecna’s mind.
Mike runs over to Will, reaches out for his hand, but suddenly jerks it away and sits a foot away from him to wait for Joyce and Lucas to touch Will first? It’s such an odd choice, especially since in the SAME EPISODE, mike was able to hug Will just fine at the Mac-Z.
What I think has happened is that somehow, Vecna is influencing Mike’s actions to seperate himself from Will, instilling even more doubt in Will’s mind.
And Vecna is doing this because he KNOWS the power of Mike’s influence on Will, just look at the boy after he saw his best friend get powers to save his damn life!
There’s so much more to this theory, such as how a lot of the characters keep talking about ‘pieces feeling like they’re missing’ and how that alludes that Vecna is actually altering everyone’s memories, but it’s 3 AM so I have GOT to get to sleep. I hope this made any sense at all, but to summarise:
WILL BYERS HAD HOPE, AND THAT HOPE, THAT LOVE, WILL CONQUER FEAR
We all know that the party and the government use fire to fight anything from the UD (the vines, demogorgons, and Vecna), but it never really defeats them. The vines grow back, and the demogorgons and Vecna live to fight on.
I subscribe to the theory that the UD symbolically represents the closest, which is where we gay folks hide to avoid facing the hate that others may show us if our queerness is discovered.
Since the UD represents something that's based around hate, it can't be fought with fire because FIRE ALSO REPRESENTS HATE in art. As the old saying goes, "you can't fight fire with fire." But you CAN fight fire (hate) with water (love).
In ST, we've already seen four instances of Vecna/Henry/001 and the demogorgons being severely harmed by someone who is covered in water (literally or mentally, more on that later) to some extent, and water was also visually prominent both times someone broke through being possessed by the Mind Flayer. I think the ultimate end of the show will involve a lot of water (love) as well.
Water and fire as symbols of love and hate
Water/love and fire/hate symbolism is used very often in media. Fire is destructive while water is nurturing and protective.
On a literal level, all living organisms need water to survive. As Dustin says at the end of S4:
But metaphorically, everything, and everyone, needs to be nurtured and cared for. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, actual water is part of the base level of physiological needs (we can only live a few days without it). After that, the most important things people need are safety/security and love/belonging, which are all concepts that are symbolically associated with water.
Water and the UD
Even though everything looks kind of wet in the UD, it's really just slimy. There's no actual water (love) there. When Barb gets pulled in at Steve's pool in S1, it's completely empty, and Lovers Lake is totally dry when the older teens go through watergate in S4.
There are also tons of clouds in the UD that produce remarkably consistent thunder and lightning (more on that later), but it never actually rains.
If the UD represents the closet, it's a place where there's no love. When you're in there, you feel like you're all alone and you'll never find love, acceptance, or happiness because of who you are.
We also see in S5 that things from the UD don't like interacting with water, which leads me to suspect that WATER IS HARMFUL TO THEM.
When Akers peed on the wall, it looked like it kind of sizzled. We're meant to notice this because El brings it up to Hopper multiple times.
And I find it strange that the demogorgon that came after Holly just smashed through the closet and the shower without hesitation but approached the bathtub full of hot water very warily.
It walked up very slowly and tried to look into the tub, but it didn't reach in. When it turned around after hearing Ted, its arms were still by its sides. It wasn't anywhere close to actually interacting with the water. Why was it so hesitant when it had no issue checking other possible hiding places? (You can say for increased tension in the scene, but then why not have the demo raising its arm like it's going to reach in right as Ted distracts it?)
Water is always present when Vecna or demogorgons are harmed
We've seen real damage being done to something from/associated with the UD four times in the show so far (as of S5E4) where the person inflicting the harm was covered in water to some degree.
Karen fighting the demogorgon
Right after the bathtub scene shown above, Karen tries to fight off the demogorgon that's come for Holly.
During this fight, Karen and Holly are both completely COVERED IN BATH WATER, which symbolizes their mother-daughter love for each other. And look and how much damage she does to the demogorgon! Blood is going everywhere! There's black blood all over the Wheeler's kitchen, and it's still bleeding badly enough after it goes back into the UD that El can track it all the way to the wall.
We've seen guns (FIREarms) barely slow these things down, like in the big fight in the MAC-Z.
There aren't any big pools of black blood on the ground here even though the demo's been shot probably at least a hundred times. We don't even really see many bullet holes in its body. It seems more annoyed that it's being shot at than actually hurt.
Why was Karen (who was tipsy and had no idea what she was even fighting) able to do more damage to the demo with a broken wine bottle than dozens of trained soldiers did with guns?
It was because she was acting out of love for Holly. The fact that she and Holly were both covered in the water from the bath at the time is a visual symbol that love for her daughter was the driving force behind her fight, and that's why she was able to accomplish so much there (even though she didn't actually win that fight).
Will killing the demogorgons
Will first channeled his powers and killed the demogorgons while SOAKED WITH WATER FROM THE BURST PIPE that symbolizes his and Mike's love for each other (I think it's specifically the pipe that represents Mike's love for Will).
While covered in this water, he remembered the loving memories that Mike, Joyce, and Jonathan had used to break through his S2 possession, including the memory of Mike asking Will to be friends, which Mike said was THE BEST THING HE'D EVER DONE.
Knowing that he's loved by others and finally coming to love himself is what helped him realize his potential and use his connection to the hivemind to kill three demogorgons before they could hurt his friends (specifically Mike, who was also covered in water in this scene, indicating that the love between them is what helped Will access his powers).
El disintegrating the demogorgon in S1
We see El cause damage twice in the show (as of S5E4), but it's a little bit different from the examples above. She's not actually wet either time, but I think that's because El is a personification of love in the show. Since she already represents love just by being herself, she doesn't need to be wet to show that her actions are based in love.
But there's still water associated with her and the person her love is directed towards both times she hurts the UD.
At the end of S1, El disintegrates a demogorgon to protect the party, specifically Mike, shortly after using the salt-water bath to find Will and Barb in the UD, while wearing the same dress that she wore in the tub.
Mike has been paralleled to both of El's father figures in the show, and they have a very clear affection for each other. Note that Mike was crying in this scene. He was the only one crying, and he was the only one El said goodbye to.
The connection of El being dressed in clothing that looks pretty dry but is still holding salt from her salt-water "bath" (which is probably also in her hair and on her skin) and Mike being the one crying (also salt-water) is what symbolically indicates that El was doing this to protect Mike specifically.
Even though I believe their love for each other has always been more familial than romantic (see this post about how salt-water baths represent a type of parent-child relationship), that love is still clearly there on both sides and is what drove El to act here.
El/Jane sending 001 into the UD/Dimension X
When El fought 001 in the lab, she first tried following his advice about using an angry memory to fuel her powers, but it didn't work. 001 was able to overpower her.
But then we get this very interesting memory:
This is a memory of El/Jane's birth. We can hear a baby (Jane) crying, and her mother has clearly just been through labor and is covered in sweat. All of her other memories looked very clear, but this one looks like she's passing through a tunnel.
This was El/Jane visualizing the full experience of her birth. The movement through that tunnel is her passage through Terry's "birth canal" (water-related imagery), and when a baby is born, it's covered in amniotic fluid, which is the "water" that "breaks" when someone goes into labor.
In her mind, El/Jane was remembering/visualizing her mother telling her she loved her while she was covered in the "water" from her mother's womb. Her mother was also very wet from sweating during the delivery in this memory. As in the other scenes, both Jane and her mother being wet in this memory connects them and symbolizes their shared love for each other.
Even though it wasn't physical (El's dry in the lab), this love/water-related memory is what gave her the power she needed to finally fight off 001.
Water is always visually prominent when people break out of possession
There have been two instances of people being possessed by the Mind Flayer but breaking out of it long enough to help the party. Each time, water was a prominent visual element of the scene.
Billy fighting back against the flesh monster
Even though Bill wasn't actually able to hurt the flesh monster in The Battle of Starcourt, a water-based memory of his mother is what helped him break through the possession and save El.
El helped him remember this scene from the beach where we see Billy as a child soaking wet from being in the ocean. His mother was also there with him, and this memory reminded him of a time when he was loved by his mother and loved her in return. This love helped him regain enough of his autonomy to fight back.
Will sending messages using Morse code
In the shed scene in S2, Mike, Jonathan, and Joyce recounting loving memories of Will was what finally got through to him and helped him break through the possession enough to send them the message about closing the gate.
Joyce started by talking about the rainbow ship drawing, and then Jonathan recalled building Castle Byers. While Jonathan was taking, he was crying just a little bit. It's hard to see, but there's a small tear under his right eye.
After seeing this, Will's hand started trembling as he was trying to fight through the possession.
Mike spoke next, describing the first day they met. During Mike's monologue to Will, we see him crying, and the tear is very prominent in the shot. It's impossible to miss.
This speech, and the tears that accompany it, are what help Will finally break through and start sending messages through Morse code.
Tears aren't nearly as big a source of water as in the other scenes we've seen above where people are fully covered in water, but I believe that this tear from Mike was the proverbial snowball that turned into an avalanche in the pipegate scene in S5 (where they're both totally drenched in water). It was the first metaphorical sign that Will saw that Mike loved him, and his love for Mike helped him push through here.
Prediction for the end of S5
In all of the examples above, the person fighting against something from the UD was able to use love (water) to pull from a deep source of power that they didn't know they had to do serious damage to demos or Vecna/001 or to break out of possession.
If the UD represents the closest and homophobia, adding more hate to the situation won't work. It might hurt, but it won't actually solve the problem. You can't fight hate with more hate.
The only way to break out of that place is by loving yourself and knowing that you're worthy of love from others (like we've seen happen with Will in S5E4).
I think that Vecna is ultimately going to be DEFEATED BY THE POWER OF LOVE and that it's going to involve A LOT OF WATER.
I found it very interesting that the thunder and lightning in the UD go off exactly EVERY 7 SECONDS. We know that 7 is the Byler number, and that has to mean something.
The number 7 is associated with the concepts of love and victory. We've already had Dustin's mention of the number 7 in the graveyard fight foreshadow Will's victory over the demogorgons this season. I'm betting that this other 7 reference will be important in the final battle against Vecna/the Mind Flayer as well.
I'm hoping that the clouds in the UD finally start actually raining and dissolve everything, kind of like what happens to the wicked witch when she gets wet in The Wizard of Oz.
We've already seen the wall sizzle when Akers peed on it, and the shot of Lucas holding a piece of popcorn in the Vol 2 trailer seems relevant since popcorn also dissolves in water.
I'm betting that the whole thing gets destroyed when a larger source of water comes into the UD. I can't imagine what else that could be besides the clouds actually raining, and I think it'll have something to do with Mike and Will finally making their love clear to each other.
I'm not sure how else the 7 second thunder/lightning cycle would play into things, but it feels like they can't have just put that in there for no reason. I guess we'll see soon!
I might be reaching, BUT notice how this picture is off the ground with the sunset behind them. They’re in the sky, talking about fantasies. Because that’s all their relationship is, a fantasy neither of them could make solid and true.
Whereas this picture (which is meant to visually parallel is btw)
is 1# WAY more visually appealing if you ask me. But also they’re grounded. The radio tower’s behind them (again) representing energy and power. It’s a very real moment.
And might I add that mike and el were about to come down to the ground again, surface level. But mike and will were about to go into the tunnels, deeper, because their relationship is deeper.
Byler doubt doesn't exist anymore. if mike and will play a "central role" in the rest of season 5 yet are barely shown together in the trailer then that means byler is endgame and they're trying not to spoil it being so honest like actually we won
"eyes on me" "eyes on me remember" and suddenly he's 13 years old watching men with guns get torn apart by demodogs and he doesnt want these kids to see that. he doesnt want these kids to remember that the way he does. holy shit. mike wheeler.
absolutely flabbergasted that i’ve seen NO ONE bring up the most important callback of the season
THE ENIGMA?? ALAN TURING???
oh my god i just know she made will feel so safe with that one line like. comparing will to a gay historial hero that he made a whole presentation about 🥺
that’s the subtle importance of queer community right there
IF WILLS WHOLE ARC THIS SEASON WAS ABOUT SELF ACCEPTANCE AND GETTING OVER MIKE HE WOULD HAVE HAD HIS SELF ACCEPTANCE MOMENT IN EPISODE 8 BUT HE DIDNT HE HAD IT IN EPISODE 4 WHICH MEANS THAT ARC IS ALREADY OVER SO HE HAS A DIFFERENT ARC IN VOL 2 AND THAT ARC IS KISSING MIKE ON THE MOUTHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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