The issue with Will Byers
Before you pick up your pitchforks and hunt me down, I know this feels a lot like hate, but it’s honestly just honest criticism I promise.
Will Byers is one of those untouchable characters, those types that you for some reason are not allowed to criticize without being jumped online, and that’s kinda weird. He is given a lot more leeway than any other character in the show and that annoys me. So I’ve decided to criticize him and point out the double standards in the way he’s treated compared to other characters.
Firstly, the idea that Will is the heart and soul of the show or the main character is absurd and entirely false to me. Before season 5, he has less screen time than Steve.
Let’s review, in season one Will is the catalyst to the plot, a plot device or “the goal” if you may. The entire point is that he’s missing. We never cut to Wills time in the upside down, we are entirely focused on the other characters.
We see Will through the eyes of Joyce and Jonathan, we see them cry and grieve over him. We see Mike, Lucas and Dustin desperately trying to get him back. We are not attached to Will as a character in his own right, we just want to see his family and friends happy.
You know we are attached to? El!
We learn about her backstory, her lack of human connection, we watch her learn the meaning of friendship, try out eggos and make promises, we see her become friends with Dustin and Lucas and fall in love with Mike. We see her show empathy, selflessness and bravery throughout the season.
And by the end of it, we are just as gutted as Mike when she disappears. El’s character was so impactful that it made eggos a thing again. People dressed as her for Halloween and wrote fics about her survival. She was clearly the main character.
But then season 2 comes around, and Will gets his moment in the spotlight. We watch him get possessed by the mindflayer as well as get bullied and feel sorry for the poor kid. That is where it starts.
The poor baby Will epidemic has begun
It gets worse in season 3 as Mike catches all the heat for their argument while Will gets away with being entirely unsympathetic to their plight, when people point it out, you get this back in return.
Will is traumatized, therefore he is no longer obligated to show empathy to his best friend 👍He should only focus on himself and whine like a five year old over a board game instead of putting himself in Mike’s shoes.
He can wake them up at the crack of dawn, and then start weaponizing Dustin, who he didn’t care about a minute ago, to win the argument, mock the intelligence of a girl who saved his life twice, and ignore Mike’s feelings.
Afterwards, he gets to cry and have his friends come and apologize to him. Mikes feelings are ignored because traumatized baby Will is much more important.
Look, I understand why Will feels the way he does, honestly, but it’s not an excuse. Think about it, does the narrative justify El messing with the compasses out of trauma? No! I mean, we know why she did it, but she still apologizes in the end. The narrative doesn’t tell you that Lucas was the big bad guy for calling her out and poor baby El did nothing wrong 🥺. They both apologize to one another and accept their mistakes.
This poor baby Will thing continues, even into season 4, where Will does nothing as El is being bullied,
I have seen many excuses, but I still don’t think that they are sufficient, especially since this has been going on for seven months. She is actively being spat on in that classroom and he doesn’t say a thing. Look, if he couldn’t do anything, why not tell someone who could? But Joyce would embarrass her! Better than having her be treated like dogshit in that school?
What’s even funnier is how this plotline has also taken place with other characters. In the first shadow, Bob Newby doesn’t do much when his stepsister Patty Newby is bullied, but we see him apologize for being so passive in the face of the bullying even though he never bullied her. In season one, although Steve didn’t vandalize the movie theater, he is held responsible for letting it happen (“I should’ve shoved that spray paint down your throat”)
Bottom line, once again here come the Will boy mom crew 😒
What does the AIDs epidemic have to do with anything? He was not being bullied! Lord forbid I call him out for standing like a statue while El was being tripped and having her project destroyed (which Will knew the emotional value of), I don’t care about the AIDs epidemic. Will wasn’t gonna catch AIDs if he told Jonathan or Joyce, and these are the same hypocrites who will then victim blame El for not wanting anyone to know, and treat Mike like satan for a saying things while in a state of shock
Even worse, while they’re at the rink o mania he tells El that Mike would be angry at her, no wonder she was so defensive about it later? Why is Will talking about his crush like this anyway? Isn’t this the best friend who was there for you while you were literally fighting demons? Why are you doing this? To scare El into confessing to Mike? You’ve been bullied yourself? Would you like to hear someone tell you that your friends would be mad at you about lying about being bullied?
Absolutely zero empathy I guess 🤷♂️
And then in season 5 we are fed the Will Byers propaganda. Where Will does things that El has already done
Kill demogorgons (El has already done this)
Be Max’s bestie (El has already done this)
Attempt to reason with Vecna (El already did this)
To be fair, it was kinda cool, but I feel like they just forgot about the hive mind concept, because it really just seemed like he was just there to be the backup El. They could’ve given him something unique
And then onto the other issue, the fact that characters, particularly women were brought down to pull him up, think about it, you got
• El- Who gets to be the hanging around the upside down while Will attempts to steal her boyfriend and copy pastes her.
• Max- Who for some reason has become Will’s bestie and personal cheerleader while her other friendships are ignored. Nancy? Steve? Dustin? El? Characters who had an onscreen relationship with Max are ignored, never getting an onscreen reunion while Max sings Will’s praises and ignores the fact that El saved her first. Or the fact that Will is at her bedside instead of Dustin, who actually was her friend onscreen. Poor Dustin, he didn’t even get to hang out with his friends.
• Joyce- Joyce does have a close relationship with Will, I understand but the fact that she does barely anything but be Will’s mom is annoying. She went from having interesting character arcs in season 1, 2, 3 and 4 only to become nothing but Will’s personal babysitter, never getting to have moments with El and Jonathan, her other children or Hopper, her boyfriend making one of my favorite ships so empty compared to previous seasons.
• Robin- Old wise miss mentor- At least she did do a lot of things this season, but the fact that we never see her have issues kind of bothers me. The fact that Steve and Robins lives are barely talked about in the show, like why is she here? Where are her parents? How is she affected by everything? It just feels like the rebelwise friendship was only for Wills benefit as we never get to see Robin have an emotional reaction to anything really?
Why not just strengthen the friendships Will already had instead of using fan favorites to service his arc?
At the end of the season, Will with the power of plot armor (hive mind what’s that?) Will gets to live in El’s cabin, and probably sleeps in her bed now. That puts a bad taste in my mouth, why couldn’t they have just moved? I can’t find him that interesting because he really isn’t . He is a compelling character in season 2, but for the rest of the seasons they rely on pity to make you like him.
With other characters such as Max, El or Dustin, you don’t like them because they’re traumatized or sad, you like them because they’re compelling outside of that trauma. All of the characters are traumatized but usually the narrative and the fanbase aren’t always shoving it in your face the way that they do with Will.
Their attitudes are called out, they grow and learn, but Will is never called out, he remains pitied by the fan base in spite of his hatred for pity and that just sucks honestly.
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