Join us in Live Chat for the premiere of #BylerGate video this Friday 4pm Pacific (GMT -8)!
An hour-long video on BylerGate! (The theory that the Stranger Things writing team, including the Duffer Brothers, planned Byler to happen, but abandoned it during the production of Season 5.)
I also talk about what we probably LOST in terms of a stronger season, because removing Byler and decentering Will had profound ripple effects on the 2nd half of Season 5.
0:00 Intro 4:54 Differences from other theories 8:05 Buildup of Byler and its disappearance mid-Season 5 22:07 Evidence of missing Byler and Will scenes, plot threads 58:18 Why did it happen? 1:04:43 Conclusion
-teambyler
This was an amazing video, Ronald.
I'd like to point out something that supports the theory that Byler was initially planned and later abandoned: the unwarranted vitriol that the Duffer Brothers showed toward Bylers and all of the other fans who had been analyzing the show as soon as the finale dropped.
Over the course of the last decade, the Duffers and individuals heavily involved with the making of Stranger Things have made numerous comments encouraging active involvement with the media. They've stated that the show was meant to be analyzed, there are very few mistakes in the show, and that everything has a deeper meaning. Their marketing even included messages telling the audience to pay attention, and even within the show there are bits of dialogue encouraging a deeper reading of the text (such as Lucas's line "I don't believe in coincidences anymore" during season 5 volume 1.)
However, as soon as the finale aired, the Duffers completely changed their tune. They called the fans who were analyzing the show "noise," said that people were reading too much into things, and made it seem as though they had just set out to make a surface level sci-fi show to entertain people of all ages, education levels, and media comprehension abilities. Although in the Byler community we saw this as a direct attack, the Duffers also used this as a way to discredit the film buffs who were analyzing the show based on the movie references the Duffers used, and the hardcore sci-fi and horror fans who were heavily analyzing the supernatural plot and horror elements.
This set off instant alarm bells for me. There was no reason to become so angry and defensive toward the fans who were critically engaging with the media .. unless they were trying to cover something up. They knew that people who were analyzing the show were the people most likely to not only call them out on their quality issues, plot holes, and numerous story inconsistences (which we did via cutgate and conformitygate,) but we also were the people most likely to uncover and share any foul play: such as them cutting crucial elements of their story, which caused the entire narrative to fall apart.
Their attack on fans was a strategy designed to silence the people who had the ability to expose them. They acted as though we were all crazy and gave the fans who complied and accepted everything they said carte blanche to harass and attack us, and force us to stay silent. Unfortunately, the Duffers didn't realize that queer people, allies, film buffs, and educated genre fans are used to being harassed and we've all been told to shut up by people opposed to critical thinking for the past decade, so this was nothing new.
Good point! My first take on the "noise" commentary about Bylers was that they wanted to try to marginalize and silence once and for all the Byler community (we won't shut up of course! and yay us!), and to shut down any theorizing that Byler was once planned (and that there are missing scenes)
But you're right: there's a point to be made on why the sudden about-face when it comes to reading their show closely? What changed? And why did the quality of the show go off a cliff?
There's so much that's different about Season 5 that there have to be answers! BylerGate, DivorceGate... something's rotten!
-teambyler
