willbyershaspowerswarrior

[marcellbaumann]

Narratively, it would have been much better if Will's powers with the Hive Mind had been introduced in season 3 and developed during seasons 4 and 5. It would have made much more sense, since the focus of season 3 was remote control through the Hive Mind; instead, they just left him with the chills. He could have helped with the Flayed and the Meatflayer.

[kidovna]

AU where paladin!mike gets dragged into the canon verse when will’s powers awaken

[kidovna]

AU where paladin!mike gets dragged into the canon verse when will’s powers awaken

[marcellbaumann]

[marcellbaumann]

they just reheating sorcerer nachos 💀💀

[kidovna]

the paladin and the sorcerer

for @andiwriteordie’s birthday!!

go read and comment on an andi fic to make her birthday special!! here’s the link to her ao3 where she has over a hundred byler fics. this one’s one of my personal favourites

[andiwriteordie]

i couldn’t resist tbh

[marcellbaumann]

This first trailer features the voice of the mind flyer.

[marcellbaumann]

They took everything from us

“The monster ROARS in anger at Will”

“Will pulls apart the inner workings of the mind flayer”

“Will drops to the found at the same time, exhausted and bleeding out”

[marcellbaumann]

we could've had it all

[marcellbaumann]

That final battle would have been much better if the Mind Flayer had maintained its smoke form and only Will and Eleven had fought against it. Will would have taken complete control of the Hive Mind, controlling the particles, and Eleven would have repelled them with telekinesis. And perhaps, to finish it off, they would have launched the particles entirely into space while destroying the wormhole.

[marcellbaumann]

By the way, that little backstory of Henry's was clearly taken from that Will comic.

[marcellbaumann]

That battle could have been much better if, after Vecna's death, the Mind Flayer had gone to his next vessel, Will, and they would have had to fight Will, with all the emotional weight of not wanting to hurt him.

[marcellbaumann]

I think Will will at some point enter Henry's mind and see the complete cave memory. Max mentioning the cave memory to him wasn't just random dialogue, and it also allows for a parallel to be drawn with him being possessed in season 2 and the traumas of that possession.

[marcellbaumann]

They're retconning and pulling the idea out of thin air that the Upside Down was stuck in '83; clearly that wasn't the initial idea, and at the end of season 2 you can see the decorations.

[marcellbaumann]

the plot of the UD being a wormhole

[marcellbaumann]

Things they didn't explain and won't explain, or if they did explain it, it was the dumbest thing possible:

1. ⁠Why did Vecna ​​choose Will? He went to all the trouble of watching him at the Wheelers' house and then opening the door with telekinesis.(This probably falls under the category of the dumbest explanation possible)

2. ⁠Everything that happened to Will in season 2 has basically no explanation so far. He has "true sight" and can move between planes, the mind flayer is captured by the camera while Will is in one of these "true sights," and the series implies that it's not a trance because he can move normally

3. ⁠The mind flayer entering him in one of those "true sight" moments and then physically exiting through him—we could even say that the particles were already in him when Vecna ​​put the tube in his mouth, but even then it wouldn't make any sense for the mind flayer to enter him twice.

4. ⁠What is the purpose of the library? Why are the portals located precisely there? There's no reason for it at all.

I'm not even going to get into the parallels of TFS.

[dontshoothemessenger]

On The Origin of Will’s Powers

As I alluded to in my previous post, I consider Will and Henry’s shared history and assault at the hands of the Mindflayer to be their most crucial tether. Additionally, I speculated that Vecna is likely subservient to the Mindflayer as a continuation of his history of victimisation, both in debt to the Mindflayer for his supernatural abilities but also taken advantage of to facilitate the Mindflayer’s personal goals.

What I find most striking about the Mindflayer is the recurrent imagery of assault associated with it with the obvious example of Will’s encounter on the field in season two and his graphic recounting of the event, emphasising the physical sensation of the attack.

Considering that the utilisation of subtext is intrinsic to the show’s methodology of conveying its darker themes, this direct correlation between assault and the imbuing of supernatural powers seems important, potentially in regard to deciphering the origins of Will’s powers.

Although the Duffers have described Will’s powers as originating from Vecna, ‘siphoning’ his abilities and channeling them through his connection to the hive mind. However, this directly contradicts the words of Mike who repeatedly describes Will’s powers as ‘innate’. Although there is wiggle room for potential meaning that doesn’t suggest that Will’s powers are ‘natural’ in the manner that El or Vecna’s are, if this was indeed their intention, to so heavily emphasise such a specific word seems like a misstep if you want to convey to your audience that Will’s abilities are not akin to the lab kids. Why couldn’t they have used different terminology? A different word?

(This isn’t even mentioning the implications of the classification of sorcerer in DnD, indicating an ‘innate’ magical ability typically derived from an external force but is regardless a natural ability which does not require extensive training for one master, something which is eerily similar to the likely nature of Will’s abilities. I don’t play DnD myself so I’d rather not go off the deep end into a topic I know very little about, not to mention the mindfuck of different editions of DnD and the specifics of how sorcerors functioned in the 1980s in comparison to modern editions such as DnD 5e, but it’s still something to keep in mind.)

Furthermore, their explanation doesn’t appear to align with the established mythology of how one gains powers in this show. As established in season four, Brenner used blood transfusion to extract Henry’s mutated DNA and transferred it to the mothers of the lab kids, thus reproducing Henry’s psychic abilities.

This is obviously not how Will how unlocked his abilities, instead tapping into an already established psychic connection with the hive mind, directly clashing with the established lore of the show and now introducing an additional method of gaining supernatural abilities, completing upending the audience’s previous expectations. Although the Duffers do love their plot twists, the lack of internal continuity is striking and I’ve already made clear that I am doubtful of their claims that Will’s powers are supposedly not innate.

I explain all of this as to suggest that the origin of Will’s abilities may not be so cut and dry and that there may be further revelations to come.

Returning to the Mindflayer, it is clear that it is the true origin of supernatural abilities in the show’s universe (at least as it pertains to our main cast) with the Mindflayer gifting Henry his powers which he then passed down to El and the other lab kids. The Mindflayer is the source. But unlike El or Kali, it is only Will and Henry who have had direct contact with (or rather assaulted by) the Mindflayer and been irrevocably changed as a result. This leads me to posit that their connection may not end with this shared trauma but also a shared mutated genetic code - all thanks to the Mindflayer. However! I do not believe that Will gained his abilities during the events of season two as Vecna took interest in him long before this. Rather, I believe that just as Henry’s first encounter with the Mindflayer wasn’t when he was banished to the Upside Down in 1979, Will’s first encounter with the Mindflayer wasn’t during his assault on the field.

Notably however, I do disagree with the notion that the cold open of season five is the moment in which Will gained his supernatural abilities as if this reveal was intended as a twist, would it not have made more sense for this scene to have been kept for a later episode? Furthermore, if this was indeed the moment he gained supernatural abilities it would frankly leave a sour taste in my mouth considering that trend of powers being used as a metaphor for one’s sexuality, thus making an uncomfortable correlation between Will’s queerness and his assault by Vecna. This scene will most definitely be re-contextualised but potentially for very different reasons. Alternatively, this may have been when Vecna established his psychic connection with Will and thus to the hive mind (something which is distinct from the Mindflayer and its particles as I specified in my previous post.)

The theme of blood and injury has become more than prevalent in season five but was also foreshadowed in the previous season.

For this reason, I suspect that this theme will intertwine with Will’s story eventually, likely in a reveal of his mutated blood type. Potentially in an investigation of Hawkins Lab as per Dustin’s devastation at how everything they’ve ever assumed about the Upside Down has been -

Why I opt for this explanation over others such as twelvegate or the possibility of Will being born with supernatural abilities (without influence of blood transfusion during gestation) is due to how much they dramatically threaten the cohesion of the show’s already established lore, which is the exact reason I am dubious of the Duffer’s explanation of Will’s powers. Will having a yet to be revealed initial encounter with the Mindflayer explains the true origin of his powers, maintains the internal logic of the show, and further strengthens the parallels between Will and Henry.

As Will says himself:

Personally, the only logical conclusion to the relentless paralleling between Will and Vecna is that they’re more than just eerily similar: they’re two sides of the same coin. Their histories are direct mirrors of one another’s and that is precisely why Vecna took such a liking to Will - the identical trajectories of their lives.

The ultimate twist of Will’s story may be that he was marked by the Mindflayer long before his disappearance, a vulnerable and sensitive child taken advantage of by an eldritch force looking for a new puppet to execute its plans. However, he may be able to use such a revelation to his advantage in defeating Vecna.