Operation Cycle-Break: Final Boss Three Keys – Cave Memories & Breaking the Time-Loop
this took me ages ohmygod. it's so worth it though.
Will the three MCs please stand up?
Mike: “I guess it’s up to us again.” Will: “It always is, isn’t it?”
Will: “Don’t tell the others. They wouldn’t understand.” Mike: “El would.”
Mike: “Okay, what don’t I understand?” El: “I am different.”
“If you see what he sees, if you feel what he feels, maybe we’ll know how to stop him.”
Fittingly broken up into four gates parts:
From one Lettergate to another
Cave memories & the three Birthdaygates
CW: this post will allude to CSA and CA implied within ST. Please read with care. <3
To avoid being repetitive, I will try to keep this recap as brief as possible!
Henry – 001 – Mr. Whatsit – Vecna, each moniker a representation of the internal struggle each of our three main characters has to overcome in order to resolve their respective conflicts within Stranger Things. And each representation is how our three MCs can relate to and therefore humanize Vecna.
You see, Vecna is an amalgamation of Mike’s fears (Mr. Whatsit), Will’s shame (Henry), and El’s alienation (001), and Vecna is the representation and dark reflection of what it looks like to have history repeat itself again and again.
Because, as of right now, not only do Mike, Will, and El embody the internal struggles that Vecna’s monikers suggest, they succumb to them in the finale. Mike succumbs to his fear, runs away from his feelings, shrouds himself in ignorance, and lives out a lie. Will succumbs to his shame, basically disappearing from the narrative (has just enough screentime to not make it super suspicious to a casual viewer), and in the Storyteller’s “ending” for him, Will is removed (and seemingly forgotten) from Hawkins altogether. And El succumbs to her alienation; thinking she will always be perceived as a monster and never belong anywhere, believing there will never be a stop to the cycle of abuse, ends herself. It’s truly so very sad.
The gate of Hell opens at the end of s4, marking Vecna’s official return to Hawkins. The same gate, that when it originally opens all the way back in 1x01, unlocks a certain fear in Mike, uncovers a certain wound in Will, with El at the center, a result of her experimentation, being the one to open the gate. So, just as the gate re-opens and Vecna makes his return, our three main characters are forced to make their own return to face him. Which means facing the things they hate and fear most about themselves, and ideally overcome them.
Just as there are three doors, I believe there are three keys in El, Will and Mike. Three characters that have lived their own unique Henry – 001 – Mr. Whatsit – Vecna experiences and can therefore relate to, understand and humanize him and stop the time-loop (which is the cycle of abuse/violence and history repeating itself) for good.
How do I suggest our three MCs achieve this? Well, it begins with facing Vecna. Which means Mike facing the root of his fears, Will facing the root of his shame, and El facing the root of her alienation. Which, you guessed it, you could call their cave memories. But let’s hold off on that for now.
While El and Will, from what we’ve seen, have both tried to sympathize and empathize with Vecna as they have gone through their own similar traumas as Vecna’s, Mike is the most compelled to take Vecna at face value, not seek out the truth, and insist that he is just a monster. Just as Mike, who is the representative of the party, can’t humanize Vecna, neither can El and Will believe they can be fully accepted, embraced, understood, and loved by Mike because of their respective connections to Vecna.
From one Lettergate to another
Mike needs to embrace El, just as the rest of the party has. And there’s a reason the rest of the party has been able to embrace El, when Mike has had a wall up with her. The thing is, Mike can mask his difference with his privilege, most of the rest of the party cannot. As @cara-ti-amo effectively puts it: comphet is Mike’s sword, his privilege his shield.
When El and Mike put expectations and a label to their relationship to seek a sense of normalcy, is it any wonder why Mike all of a sudden can’t seem to embrace and understand El anymore? El who represents the magic of childhood, embracing difference, queerness. All of a sudden when Mike seeks out normalcy with her, he can no longer understand her, interesting that is. Because with that, Mike seemingly is the only person of their friends that isn’t different like her.
Let’s break it down, Dustin has a rare medical condition and is from a “broken home”. Lucas is Black in smalltown America. Max is a young woman and a child of abuse. Will is queer, poor, from a broken home and a child of abuse. El is also a child of abuse and has special abilities deeming her, too, a “freak”. The other members can’t “mask” their difference like Mike has chosen to.
He was the first to humanize and understand her until he started seeking out normalcy in her. So, it’s no wonder that, out of everyone, Mike has the hardest time understanding El once he starts pressuring himself to seek out normalcy in a character that is meant to represent difference. Mike can’t embrace El because he hasn’t tried to understand, embrace, and accept what makes himself different. He hasn’t embraced his queerness. There it is. Btw, I really like this post from @sunflowhoops, breaking down the party members respective relationships with El and how they have embraced her vs. Mike.
It’s no doubt that a big part in breaking the time-loop is Mike needing to confess, truly this time. It will take the first person to really humanize El to understand and embrace her once more. Which means embracing what’s different; embracing his “magic of childhood”, his queerness.
He will have to be honest and honour the first rule of friendship he ever teaches her: “friends don’t lie”. By being honest with her and admitting his own difference, he can embrace her in the way he was always meant to, before they conformed to societal pressures and sought out normalcy in each other, that is still a deep and profound love, just not a romantic one.
With that, El can let go of her insecurities and her alienation. She can feel like she belongs again, because with Mike’s honesty, she will realize it was not anything about herself that was unlovable or monstrous. It was always Mike’s heart just not belonging to her, not in the way she sought at first, but in the way that makes the most sense now.
I really see Mike’s true confession to El reminiscing a scene from s1, before Mike and El ever felt any pressure to be a couple because of what Lucas and Nancy would suggest with Mike or what a year in a cabin with nothing but old romance films to consume with El.
I see something reminiscent of this scene:
"I don't know why I didn't just tell you." "Mike. I understand."
Since there is inevitably another confession on the horizon regarding Mike and Will's feelings, just based on dialogue throughout the show, either with his confession to El or his confession to Will, I reckon Mike will use these words specifically, “I’m different, too”.
If anybody would understand the desire for “normalcy” from her life of being alienated, it would be our most empathetic El. Surely, Will would also understand what Mike is inferring since his coming out scene uses those same words.
But just as we speculate about one lettergate, I think it’s important to note there is another lettergate on the table here. A letter that’s been read by one, but was meant for two. A letter that was also meant for Mike and a letter that could very well lead Mike out of his own cave. Hopper’s letter to El and Mike.
Hopper’s letter, as far as we’re aware, was only read by El, but I think it would do a world of good if Mike also got his hands on it. By reading it, Mike would understand his own internal struggle, his own Survivor’s guilt, and why the truth is so painful but necessary to face. He would understand the dangers of being stuck in a cave for so long, after his own time in Camazotz.
Being stuck in a cave is not much different from being in the Upside Down. It is devoid of any emotion, literally the Upside Down is devoid of water (which is synonymous with feelings, vulnerability, truth, purification, and transformation). By putting walls up around you and closing yourself off because you don’t want to get hurt, you don’t get to feel anything at all really, except fear which just breeds hate and self-loathing.
When you’re so afraid to be open (“keep the door open three inches”; just enough to allow yourself to be seen) because you don’t want to get hurt, you don’t allow yourself to be open to anything, which includes feelings of connection, trust, joy, love, and pride in oneself.
Those are the lessons I think Mike could get out of reading Hop’s letter and those lessons would help him in escaping his own cave.
I think, to some extent, El has already experienced revisiting her own cave memory when she was in Nina; when she regained her Massacre at Hawkins Lab memories, albeit how suspicious and likely tampered those memories are. 001 and El share much of the same root of their alienation. Their shared experience at the lab, being used, degraded to weapons of destruction that have made them feel monstrous, like they can never escape their alienation and never belong anywhere properly.
It is the whole thematic narrative of The Lost Sister episode and much of El’s storyline in general, that El resists the cycle of violence and doesn’t give in to Kali’s insistence on revenge. No doubt, I interpret this as foreshadowing that El will indeed be one of the three keys in breaking the cycle altogether, rather the humanization of El. It is El finding reclamation in her Monster vs. Superhero conflict. It is El’s greatest superpower, realizing her difference is a gift (not a curse), and using her difference as a means to empower her humanity.
I’ll be interested to see in what ways the Nina Massacre memories were tampered with. I imagine 001 has memories from the lab he, too, feels like he can never come back from. Meaning he thinks he can never truly be humanized, normalized, or accepted after his time there. 001’s memories are as mumble-jumbled and unreliable as any.
Something that haunts Mike all throughout ST is his Survivor’s guilt. We see Mike going through this when Will originally goes missing, again when El sacrifices herself, when he almost loses Will again to the Mind Flayer. That boy is hellbent on never losing Will a second time in s2. I would imagine, to some extent, he also experiences it when El leaves for Nina, not knowing if she will ever return.
The following will be quite speculative based on extensive readings I have done focused on Will’s trauma and Mike’s adeptness of caring for Will and El, who he recognizes are both traumatized children of abuse [here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here]. I suspect Mike likely witnessed something happen to Will (and this ties in with birthdaygate) which is the root of his Survivor’s guilt.
I believe this could reveal to us why Mr. Whatsit, who is a reflection of Mike, desperately wants to save the children from the monsters in Hawkins, even if it requires concealing the ugly truth of what that really means. With that, I do believe Mike and Mr. Whatsit share the same root of their fear when it comes to facing their feelings and their truth.
By that I mean, there is evidence to suggest that Henry witnessed something happen to his own childhood best friend. If you subscribe to Bobgate, let’s say his “childhood best friend” is Bob Newby. It’s no mystery that Bob’s recounting of Mr. Baldo alludes to his own ca. Mr. Baldo would “come to [Bob] every night in his sleep” and Bob would need his mother to stay with him until he fell asleep to evade Mr. Baldo.
Prior to the events of The First Shadow, Bob’s mother left and ran away with another man. @cara-ti-amo theorizes that Bob could have been experiencing abuse by his father and my own take is Henry was, to some extent, witness to this at some point. That would explain why, in The First Shadow, Henry specifically targets Bob’s father, attempting to kill him. I don’t know what other explanation there would be to this (in the “I don’t believe in coincidences” show) besides Henry using his abilities to "play god" for the greater good.
I do believe Mike shares the same root of his fear which is the root of his Survivor’s guilt. Mike just wants to be a hero and his greatest fear is feeling useless, being unneeded and unable to protect the ones he loves most. This is why the show makes it a point to depict Mike always “at the scene of the crime”. It’s why bad things seem to always happen around him, affecting his loved ones, but never him directly, and why Will is often perceived as the victim and Mike the helpless bystander. It’s his worst fear coming to life again and again.
From one Birthdaygate to another
Finally, with Will’s cave memory, there is a shared root of Will’s shame and Henry’s. I would imagine this would be the same event of Mike’s cave origins. And, yes, I think this has to do with the clown cake, Will’s fear of clowns, the clown and Big Top references and imagery in s2 and s3, the Big Top circus tent as a supposed leaked s5 set. (The Big Top in s3 was a house of mirrors, mind you. It begs the question, what kind of self-reflection and transformation could one face inside?). And why from Will’s perspective the Demogorgon and Vecna are depicted as especially predatory, they are a reflection of his worst shame and repressed trauma coming to the surface.
As @nightnut pointed out, birthdaygate is coming.
This shame and trauma are undoubtedly rooted in Lonnie’s abuse, whose actor was at the table read for s4 and Noah said in s5 press will have a big influence on Will’s arc in the final season. I can only theorize based on context clues that, like Henry, Will had something especially traumatic happen to him on/around his 8th birthday. Both of Will and Henry’s “first shadow”.
This would be the same root of their shame that then allows them to be revisited by the shadow four years later. If my suspicions are true and something happens on/around Will’s 8th birthday, that would just so happen to be the same year that Henry gets banished to the Abyss and the first gate opens in Hawkins, 1979. As established, when a gate opens, it largely represents a wound being opened, revealed, uncovered.
What’s more, Henry gets revisited by the shadow four years from his original encounter with it, November 6, 1959, when he is twelve. And wouldn’t you know it; Will gets reminded of his own shadow on that fateful November 6, 1983 night when he shares a look with Mike, four years from 1979, when he is also twelve years old. The gate re-opens. Bobgate part fifteen for more on Henry's cave memory.
As I said in the last part, in terms of Stranger Things lore, the time-loop goes as far back as the Silent Generation and the G.I. Generation, which includes Martin Brenner and Henry Creel’s parents. Which leads me to, we don’t just have one birthdaygate (Will), we don’t just have two birthdaygates (Henry), we have three birthdaygates!
Even, ever the antagonist, Brenner had an especially traumatic event happen on a birthday of his. I’m compelled to believe this only reiterates the emphasis the show has put on Generational trauma, the cycles of abuse, and history repeating itself and what this means for breaking the time-loop.
The idea of generational trauma, history repeating itself and children of the new generation feeling defenseless against abuse and therefore helpless in breaking cycles, is something that is ingrained in the imagery and dialogue of the show since its inception.
This motif is reinforced repeatedly through the course of the show. As recently as s5, when, in one instance, Holly, Mike’s stand-in mind you, feels guilty when she is unable to defend or save her mother and Max, using the words “I just stood there". I reckon this is something that will be revisited with Mike.
Again, in s5, when Will tries to empathize with Henry in the final battle, “you were just a kid. A kid like me, and it used you”.
We see another instance of this motif when El also tries to empathize with Vecna in 4x09 in the final battle of that season. “I know what he did to you”. Certainly, El has some idea of the extent of Brenner’s abuse with Henry, but that would be only one out of the three keys.
We get a lot of imagery around adults/parents destroying childhood innocence, as early as s1. When El is seeking out the supernatural in the lab and encounters the Demogorgon, she sees the creature eating its own eggs, consuming its babies.
In s3, Will destroys his symbolic “magic of childhood”, Castle Byers, with a baseball bat. A baseball bat, as we know is a symbol of conformity, but it’s also the sport Lonnie tried to force on Will. Therefore, essentially Will’s “childhood innocence” is destroyed by something associated with Lonnie’s abuse. If anyone is guilty of ruining childhood innocence, it’s absolutely Lonnie.
Just like Billy and his father, Neil. When El is seeking out literally “The Source” of the Mind Flayer in s3, she must go through memories of Billy’s childhood innocence being broken down by his father’s abuse. Which also includes imagery that associates baseball with Billy’s abuse.
It’s not lost on me too, that the teased episodes titles for s3 were meant to be 3x05 “The Source” followed by 3x06 “The Birthday”. Which is just an insane thing to overlook. But yes, with that, I think “The Source” of the Mind Flayer is quite obviously child abuse/trauma. Which, in Will and Henry’s case, is most likely associated with “The Birthday”.
We see three instances of scenes with Victor Creel that are juxtaposed with imagery of a burning baby. And my suspicions wouldn’t be raised around Victor Creel, if it weren’t for the burning baby imagery and these other few images surrounding him.
There’s a reason why a lot of father figures in the show are veterans or participants in wars. It’s not just an easy way to build character background. It is, in and of itself, a reference to history and cycles of violence repeating themselves. It is a direct commentary on each generations’ repeated obsession with power, control, and conquest.
We have Captain Brenner, conducting his own endeavors with the Philadelphia Experiment and U.S.S. Eldridge during WWII, resulting in his obsession being passed on to Martin Brenner. It’s Victor Creel’s inability or refusal to process his own PTSD from WWII, becoming an alcoholic, and I suspect abusive, father to Henry. It’s Virginia’s own ca effecting the way she raises Henry. It’s Hopper’s belief that his time in the Vietnam War cursed him and he passed on that curse to his daughter, killing her.
It is abuse and violence continuously bleeding from one generation to another, from parent to child.
Victor and Virginia to Henry (burning baby).
Neil to Billy (the scene of El encountering the Demogorgon in the void eating its young is so, so similar to the scene in which El finds Billy in the void when he sacrifices Heather to the Mind Flayer. see below).
Lonnie to Will (destroying Castle Byers with a baseball bat, for one).
It’s an innocent child losing a parent to violence (El and Terry).
It’s a child being trapped in a closet because the generation in power says it's not safe for you otherwise (Mike).
So, this is what I mean when I say the resolution of this story is absolutely dependent on the three keys' (El, Mike, and Will) ability to break the time-loop, break the cycle. Breaking the time-loop is "defeating" Vecna because Vecna, at his core, is history, the cycle of violence, repeating itself.
To defeat Vecna is to take time to understand and humanize him. Remember, Vecna is an amalgamation of our three MCs greatest fear, shame, alienation; an amalgamation of what El, Mike, and Will are most afraid of in themselves. "It's like he only sees the darkness in us" [4x09].
Since Vecna is an amalgamation of all of these things, again I ask, what could be the thing to defeat that? It's revisiting their own cave memories with care, understanding what makes them so afraid and why that is, it's not giving into the darkness and instead embracing their "magic of childhood" once more. It is truth defeating lies (Mike); it is superhero defeating monster (El), and it is love defeating fear (Will); it is humanity over cruelty.
Are our three MCs doomed to make the same mistakes as the generations before them, thus repeating the time-loop?
I, for one, believe there is always still time to re-write history.
Operation Cycle-Break parts: [one, two, three, four]
