So i think I must have broken my brain yesterday thinking too much about byler and the concept of "love at first sight" S4 seemed to be throwing at us with the Cali plot (Argyle and Eden, Mike and El).
First things first: I don't think Will is going to have powers. Not ones he hasn't shown before in the series at least. By which I mean: shadow walking, true sight, i.e his psychic connection to the Mind Flayer / Henry. Additionally, I think his "sensitivity" to the Upside Down means he's a compatible conduit and a natural "buff" to people who have powers that relate to the UD. but that doesn't really relate to the rest of this post ok alright let's get to it
As I linked above, my theory is that the Upside Down is a snapshot of Hawkins on November 6, 1983 because Henry willed it to be as a recreation of the day he "fell in love at first sight" with Will Byers.
Not in the romantic way I hope but in the way that Henry finally saw someone who was so like him that he didn't feel alone anymore. Behind the veil of his dramatic villain monologues, I think the one trait that speaks to the truth of Henry's humanity is his loneliness. He reached out to El in the lab as a way to manipulate her, yes, but he also did it because he saw himself in her. Just as a point of comparison: as children, Mike approached Will on the swingsets because he saw that Will -- like him -- was also alone.
When Henry arrived in the Upside Down, it didn't look anything like Hawkins or anything that could connect to Hawkins. Remember, he fell into the Upside Down from its sky when conceivably, if the place was linked to Hawkins from the start, he wouldn't have fallen so far or fallen at all from where he was in the Rightside Up.
Now, S4 has shown us that Henry shaped the Mind Flayer and that Henry has the power of illusion in the Rightside Up and in his red mindscape. We also know that it was love that enabled El to overpower Henry when she threw him to the Upside Down in 1979.
So, essentially, what I'm saying is... Henry felt so much happiness and love when he first saw Will that, like with El in 1979, it gave his powers such a boost that he was able to shape the Upside Down into a recreation of Hawkins on November 6, 1983 or at least create such a strong illusion of such. It also, alongside El opening the gate a second time, finally cemented the link between Hawkins and the Upside Down. and for an additional layer of mirroring, Henry's highest point -- his happiest memory -- is arguably Will's lowest and unhappiest.
Alongside this theory, which I also talked about in the linked post where I was losing my mind, is the speculation that everything Henry was doing in S4 was to get Will to come back to Hawkins. Some of these theories are based on Will having powers, some based on the psychic connection Will and the Mind Flayer (now Henry) have, but all founded on the fact that Will survived the Upside Down and was found in the library (the center the gates converged at) seemingly being kept on life support or at least being used for something that made his survival necessary. Plus, also how in S2 the Mind Flayer/Henry possessed him but didn't want to kill him, and in S3 where he didn't seem to be a target either.
So if Henry did enact his plan as a way to get Will to come back to Hawkins, why did he only do so at that point in time?
As I empathically emphasized in my linked post, I know this is ridiculous... but. sigh. copy pasting the relevant parts from my reblog because I truly don't want to spare any more thought into this:
We know for a fact that Henry can see into the minds of Hawkins residents and picks the ones with trauma to target. But what if he also uses it like a security camera to spy on important people or people connected to them? What if he picked up on the fact that Mike was going to Cali for a week to visit El.. and Will?
Henry waited until Mike was just about to leave to start enacting his plan. Why didn't he do it earlier? In my extremely humble, extremely ridiculous bordering on crackfic opinion... it's because Henry knew Mike Wheeler would never let Will go back to Hawkins if Mike knew exactly what was going on. So Henry had to wait. He knew El would try to stop him. And he knew that Mike with Will in tow will try to help and go back to Hawkins. And in the one week it'll take them to get there, Henry will be ready to welcome Will back home.
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