I can’t promise that this will be my last post on stranger things but for the sake of convenience I’m going to split it into two topics: Robin and Animals
I saw someone say that calling Robin lobotomized this season was insensitive because she finally became comfortable enough to stop masking in front of her friends. I completely understand wanting to hc a character as neurodivergent because you relate to them but let’s not pretend Robin is canonically neurodivergent.
Even if she was, there was never any hint that Robin could be masking even in the 3rd season. Robin was mean, she was unashamed, she was intelegent and she knew it, she was loud, she was not normal and she was not afraid of that. All things that don’t happen when someone is masking. And if she was, why did it take until the last season for her to unmask? Even when it was just her and Steve. She came out to him but she doesn’t feel comfortable enough to show him her true personality?
It doesn’t make sense because the issue isn’t that she’s neurodivergent. The issue is that she’s a woman. The writers disregard her. They throw away her intelligence because they don’t care to remember.
That’s the problem with these year long gaps between seasons: the writers forget who they’re writing. Robin in season 3 was so smart. She was a dynamic character with real fears and real emotions. That’s not to say that she isn’t that anymore, because I think her homosexuality is the most real thing about her, but her intelligence and her agency are gone. She should be helping Nancy not standing around like a piece of furniture.
But this is leyered topic and I would genuinely love to hear other peoples opinions on it.
I don’t like Henry and I don’t like the upside down. Not because “it’s scary and he’s a bad guy,” I mean I don’t like what it’s become.
The upside down, the mind fleyer, demogorgons and demo dogs were all so much scarier when it was just an animal rather than a man. And there is a real reason behind that.
When animals kill it’s for food, for defense, to mate. When humans do it, it can be for all those reasons but also for fun. The thing that makes the upside down scary is the idea of an animal killing for a human reason.
Serial killers and murderers are all scary to think about because it’s close to home, anyone can kill you for no other reason than to satisfy an instinct. But that fear immediately disappears in an unrealistic situation.
The upside down would never happen, so Henry would never exist, so I don’t need to be afraid of him. And while I could not be afraid of the animals in the upside down, there is a fear behind senseless killing in creatures that can’t conceptualize senseless violence.
Animals always have a reason, so to imagine them not feeling anything, humanizing them, makes the violence so much more terrifying.
Take a second and imagine you are with the mind fleyer. Some kind of creature that cannot communicate past invading and eliminating. A creature that has an undying fixation on you and you alone. To me, that’s much more scary than some man wanting me dead. Because I can understand why a man would want me dead, he’s a man. But why would an animal want to kill someone that has done nothing to them. If Henry didn’t exist, doesn’t the idea of will being taken and hunted seem more scary than some guy wanting him (creep)?
With mystery there is more fear. They should’ve kept Henry out of it. At least there would be less plot holes.
