Surfer Boy plays a massive role in season 4, and I believe that it's all about authenticity. As we see with Argyle and Argyle 2.0, surfer boys are unique individuals. They dress how they want to and they don't try to be anyone they're not. We're also told that everything is made fresh at Surfer Boy (except for the pineapple that comes from a can… lol), nothing is artificial or fake. When Mike shows up in California in his iconic outfit, it’s clear that he’s trying to be someone else. He’s being phoney. His shirt says “Surf,” and it’s got little surf boards and hang loose symbols, the whole works, but he’s more of a boy surfer than a true “Surfer Boy”. More Pacific Ocean than authentic “Ocean Pacific,” if you know what I’m saying. Mike is trying to convince everyone that he’s someone that he’s not, that this is who he truly is. See, his shirt says surf. That makes him a surfer boy right?
Wrong.
You can’t just say you’re a surfer boy, you gotta act like one. You gotta be authentic. That’s why Argyle, who is a real surfer boy, calls him out immediately for being a “shitty knock off”. He’s being a knock off surfer boy. He’s not being himself AT ALL. This is also shown through the color of his clothing. Orange and purple is definitely not his normal color palette, which is confirmed by the costume designer.
His outfit also lacks any of the fun and originality of a true Surfer Boy outfit. Just look at his outfit compared to Argyle’s.
Argyle's is bright and unique. It's a reflection of how authentic and unapologetically himself he is. It makes the blandness of Mike's outfit all the more obvious. Just like Mike, his outfit is toned down - muted. It's void of any spunk or originality. His internal struggle to suppress who is is bleeding into his clothing choices.
2 days after the airport fiasco, El is gone and Mike is dressing a lot more like himself. He’s also BEING more himself. He starts to open up to Will again in Jonathan’s room and it becomes clear that these two are rapidly finding their way back to each other. Right after this conversation, Mike and Will ask the agents to order them pizza so they can get a cheap ride back to Hawkins. Mike and Will go downstairs together, of course, and Will holds up the surfer boy pizza flyer that boldly (and kinda hilariously) states “Delivered… HOT to your door” and “30 minutes or less”.
And guess who shows up at Will's door a little under 30 minutes later? Mike lol. And he delivers Will exactly what he wants as he recreates the best thing he’s ever done and reaffirms to Will that he is still very much committed to their relationship and wants to be back by his side moving forward, no matter what happens.
We're even reminded that this is all connected to surfer boy pizza when they get interrupted and Mike says "That was fast," to which Will responds, "30 minutes or less."
Through the next few episodes, there are several scenes, shots, and details that further associate Mike with surfer boy. The most obvious is probably the fact that Mike is often placed in front of the “Surfer” written on the back window of the pizza van, as well as the “Surfer Boy” that’s on the doors. I've added just a few examples below.
We also have the frog riding a surfboard on the van’s dash, which is probably a reference to Mike’s unfortunate nickname “frog face” (☹️).
Finally, and this might be delusional, Mike almost looks like he’s surfing when he closes the van doors, which we’re shown him doing twice. I could only find a clip of the first time, which is unfortunate cause the second time at the gas station, you also see that Mike switches places with Will so that he can get in the van first. Just a cute detail. It also looks a lot more like surfing than in the example that I've attached below but oh well.
They finally make it to Surfer Boy Pizza in episode 9 and Argyle interrupts El and Mike's conversation, dropping the pizza in front of them and telling Mike, “Surf's up, Romeo”. Once again referring to him as a surfer boy. We then get the incredible fruity pizza scene and the iconic “try before you deny” line. In order for Mike to finally be a true surfer boy, he needs to ride the waves, and for Mike, those waves are fruity. Argyle and El just want Mike to be himself. It’s time for him to be authentic and accept himself for who he is. We know that he wants this as well given what he says after trying the pineapple pizza.
"No, you're right. It's good."
Of course, Will kinda goes and makes this a bit challenging when he unknowingly tries to force Mike in the complete opposite direction, but it’s clear by the end of the season that Mike is way more himself. He’s finally got the “good threads” as Argyle says. He's no longer trying to hide behind some elaborate facade. He's a lot less of a boy surfer, and a lot more of a surfer boy.
I think the whole idea of surfer boy is especially cute cause it’s a bit of a callback to Lucas and Max in season 2. On Halloween, Lucas and Dustin are doing surfer impressions to make Max laugh. Lucas then brings this back later when he tells Max that she’s “cool and different” and “totally tubular” when they have their heart to heart on the bus. It’s a sweet moment and connects also to the whole idea of being different, and how that is not something that is inherently negative. Just Like Lucas and Max, Mike loves Will because he’s different, not in spite of it. The return of surfing references could be a coincidence, but the fact that they used the same song ("On the Bus") that played during that Max and Lucas scene for Mike and Will’s season 4 bedroom conversation, makes me think that all of this is connected.
Overall, the Surfer Boy motif is all about Mike's journey towards self-acceptance and being his true, authentic self, and he's definitely making progress!
Yes, noise of the thousands of people that were supposed to be YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE! But all they saw was more people to sell merch to. Wouldn’t want to mention the impossibility when you could sell a few more bags and funko pops.
as someone with a degree in television and a background in cinematography and narrative analysis, i genuinely cannot understand what the duffers were doing with mike and will. the sheer amount of intentional groundwork poured into their dynamic wasn’t accidental, and wasn’t something you can dismiss as audience projection. it was craft. it was design. it was the kind of layered visual storytelling you only build when you’re setting up a payoff.
the costuming alone charted an emotional arc, colour palettes shifting in tandem, mirroring, contrasting, signalling internal states long before the characters verbalised anything. the blocking and framing consistently positioned them in ways that highlighted intimacy, tension, longing, and narrative centrality. the camera lingered on them with a specificity that, in television language, means something. you don’t shoot two characters like that unless you’re building toward a reveal or a culmination.
and then there’s the emotional architecture: years of subtext, coded longing, parallel arcs, mirrored traumas, narrative foreshadowing. every tool in the tv writer’s and cinematographer’s kit was pointing toward byler as a deliberate, slow burn queer storyline. it wasn’t just possible, it was textually supported by the show’s own visual grammar. even the pink sky in the field scene, that gorgeous, deliberate wash of colour, was doing thematic heavy lifting.
which is why the lack of follow through feels so jarring. from a craft perspective, it’s almost nonsensical. you don’t invest that much visual and emotional capital into a relationship you plan to abandon. from a storytelling perspective, it’s a structural rupture, a setup without a payoff, a thematic thread left dangling. and from a queer audience perspective, it’s heartbreaking, because this could have been monumental. byler had the potential to be an epic queer narrative with genuine depth, history, and emotional resonance. it could have been groundbreaking.
instead, it feels like all that potential was discarded at the last minute. years of careful build up rendered pointless. a beautifully constructed arc left unresolved. and i can’t make sense of it, not academically, not narratively, not emotionally. it just feels like such a waste of what could have been one of the most compelling queer storylines in mainstream genre television.
HEAR ME OUT! Mike/eleven and Robin/Tammy are the only cases of “love at first sight” in stranger things.
“It was right then and there that I knew she was the one”- Robin
“I knew right then and there, in that moment, that I loved you” -Mike
Robin’s self worth hinged on Tammy loving her back (says she was scared Tammy wouldn’t love her)
Mike’s self worth hinged on El needing him back (says he was scared El wouldn’t need him)
Ultimately, Robin moving on from her desire for an impossible/doomed romance with Tammy allowed her to conquer her feelings of unworthiness, accept her sexuality and discover a truer love with Vickie.
This foreshadows Mike moving on from his desire for an impossible romance with El, allowing him to conquer her feelings of unworthiness, accept HIS sexuality and discover true love with Will.
Mike's basement has been one of the most consistently important locations in Stranger Things. It’s one of the few locations that appears in every season, even the one where Mike spends much of the time out of town. And until recently, it’s been a place of comfort and stability.
But Season 4 changes that. When you place this change in the context of Mike’s behavior and his own words from earlier seasons, it becomes part of a larger picture, a quiet portrait of detachment, withdrawal, and depression.
1. Mike’s Relationship to the Basement
What really set my mind on this track was Mike’s conversation with El in Season 2, when he tells her she can have his room since he’s “hardly ever in there anyway.” On the surface, it plays like a sweet, selfless gesture. Mike making space for someone he cares about. But when you look closer, that line opens up a much sadder layer of his character.
Mike’s “real” space is the basement. It’s not just a place to hang out, it’s where he spends all his time. This tells us two things: first, that he’s already distanced himself from the part of the house where family life happens; and second, that this isolation is so complete he’s ready to surrender his bedroom without a second thought. A bedroom is a deeply personal, private space. Giving it away so easily suggests that he doesn’t see it as an essential part of his life anymore. That’s not generosity that’s detachment.
The basement itself becomes symbolic. It’s underground, cut off from natural light, and crucially out of his parents’ line of sight. If Mike is hurting, avoiding family conflict, or just feeling unseen, this location reinforces that disconnect. Nobody goes down there to check on him. The Byers’ shed, Will’s fort, Hopper’s cabin, all of these private spaces are tied to emotional states, and Mike’s basement fits the same pattern. It’s not just a clubhouse, it’s a hideaway for a boy processing heavier emotions entirely on his own.
When Mike says he’s “always” in the basement, it’s easy to imagine that’s not just because it’s where the party meets, it’s because it’s safe from scrutiny. His parents aren’t coming down to talk. He’s free to avoid, to shut out the world, to live in a bubble where the hard things upstairs can’t touch him.
So when he offers El his bedroom, he’s not just being nice, he’s subconsciously reinforcing this pattern. He’s choosing, once again, to stay in the shadows while someone else takes the brighter, more visible place upstairs.
2. The Mess throughout the seasons
In Seasons 1 through 3, Mike’s basement is neat, organized, and cozy. Even when it’s full of snacks and games, everything is placed in an orderly way. The space feels warm, open, and welcoming.
Season 4 is a stark contrast. The curtains are closed. The lighting is washed-out where it used to be golden and warm. There’s been a slight change in furniture arrangement that, combined with the sheer amount of clutter, makes the once-open space feel almost claustrophobic. Games are scattered across the table and the floor. Toys and figures lie next to the table rather than on their shelves. The desk Max uses is so covered in papers and junk that she can barely find space for her notebook.
Food wrappers are everywhere. mostly sweets with a full box of Apple Jacks and Pop-Tarts on the floor. There’s even “real food” evidence in the form of an empty plate with cutlery next to the couch. Blankets and pillows are thrown around. A ton of games are piled up. Dishes and cutlery sit on the side. This isn’t the tidy basement we’ve seen before. This is a room someone has been living in day in and day out. eating here, sleeping here, existing here
And that’s where the depression theme comes in. A lot of people dealing with depression create what’s sometimes called a “depression cave”. a safe, enclosed space where they retreat from the outside world, often letting chores, tidiness, and organization fall apart. It becomes easier to live in one contained, messy area than to face the rest of the house, the rest of the world, or other people.
The time skip between Seasons 3 and 4 makes this even more telling. Max is distant. Lucas has joined a new club. Hellfire has replaced basement D&D. The party isn’t congregating here anymore. This mess isn’t shared. it’s Mike’s, and Mike’s alone.
From the show’s own logic, this matters. Season 4 explicitly establishes the importance of comparing current behavior to past behavior to spot change. The Mike of earlier seasons kept the basement clean and open. The Mike of Season 4 keeps it shut off, cluttered, and isolated. That’s not just a set dressing choice, it’s a deliberate, visual cue that something in Mike’s internal world has shifted.
3. Signs He’s Sleeping Down There
In earlier seasons, a folded blanket sits in the basement, unused. By Season 4, that blanket is replaced by a heavier, actual bed blanket, and a bed pillow sits on the couch, so large it restricts Lucas’ movement. Lucas even keeps bumping into it, which feels intentional from a set design standpoint. I honestly feel like Mike has been sleeping down there at least occasionally. This also connects back to his line to El in Season 2, if he’s hardly in his bedroom anyway, maybe it’s because he’s already moved his living space, and even his sleeping space, into the basement.
Mike’s bedroom reflects a similar shift. It used to be immaculate. Now there are dirty clothes all over the floor and spilling out of the open wardrobe, random bits of paper everywhere (including El's letter, which he crumpled up and threw on the floor), and what looks like a guitar left out instead of being put away. Overall, it’s very uncharacteristic of him.
4. The Loss of Light and Warmth
The lighting shift is is something that is barely noticeable but when you put the two images side by side it feels very intentional. In earlier seasons, the basement feels open and airy. Even though it’s underground, it has multiple windows, a windowed door, and warm brown walls. Natural light streams in during daytime scenes. Lamps cast soft, warm shadows. You can see every corner of the room, and the space feels welcoming.
Season 4 strips all that away. Daytime scenes look like night. The windowed door is never shown. Curtains are drawn tight. The plant once on the windowsill is gone. Corners vanish into shadow. The bathroom and under-stairs areas are so dark they’re barely visible. The warm color palette is muted, replaced with cooler, heavier tones. The clutter closes the space in even further.
The basement now feels smaller, heavier, and more suffocating. It’s no longer an open meeting space, it’s a cave.
5. Dialogue
Season 4 also includes subtle verbal cues highlighting these changes. Max refers to the basement as an “armpit,”
and later, Nancy jabs at Mike’s messy room, saying that it’s looked worse than the wrecked cabin, which is saying a lot. Both his basement and his bedroom are now messier than ever. Also, the basement is specifically called Mike’s basement rather than the Wheelers’ basement, directly tying him to the mess even when he isn’t physically present.
6) campaigns aren't held in mike's basement anymore
This is actually pointed out in the first episode. The conflict with D&D and Lucas’ game wouldn’t have been an issue if it had just been up to Mike and Dustin, since they clearly wanted to support Lucas. If Mike were still DMing at home, Karen wouldn’t have needed to impose a curfew; she could have simply planned to kick the others out when it got late, as she did in the first season.
From knowing Mike’s behavior, we know he needs to feel needed, and he currently doesn’t feel that way. The fact that the party is now hanging out at the Hellfire Club instead of his basement likely contributes to that feeling.
Karen’s pleasant surprise at seeing the group over further reinforces this. She never used to feel the need to encourage them to come by, even when Ted was grouchy about it.
Mike has always been the one with a large friend group, and his house traditionally serves as the default hangout spot, even when he was gone as in Season 4. Karen’s reaction subtly implies that Mike hasn’t been bringing his friends over as much as he used to, if at all.
7. Depression, Isolation, and Avoidance
When you put all of the mess, the bedding, the lighting, the drawn curtains, the absence of visitors together, the basement stops looking like a clubhouse and starts looking like an emotional bunker. People struggling with depression often isolate themselves from others, retreating into a “depression cave” where they feel shielded from the world’s demands but also cut off from its care.
For Mike, the basement fulfills that role. It’s a self-imposed exile from the brighter, more visible parts of the house and from the people who might notice if something was wrong. It’s where he can avoid scrutiny, avoid conversation, and simply be alone. But the safety of that space comes at a cost. nobody checks on him, nobody pulls him out, and his emotional world stays underground, just like the room itself.
Basically
The basement’s transformation between Seasons 3 and 4 is a masterclass in quiet visual storytelling. Without a single direct line of dialogue about Mike’s mental state, the set design, lighting, and subtle behavioral shifts paint a clear picture. Mike has been pulling away. His space is darker, messier, and more closed off than ever before. The same place that once symbolized friendship and adventure now mirrors a state of isolation and emotional heaviness.
Will the Wise, El, hiding and fireballs: Is Will's arc him becoming his DnD character?
So this post is about to be.. A lot. Some of it is plot, some of it is character analysis, some of it is insane, as usual. Beware. It's also my day 7 @bylerween2023 contribution 💖 Now let's start with some basic stuff, taking season 1 as our source of information, about Will the wise.
What we learn about Will the Wise
One of the first things we see on the screen is the boys playing dnd, how much they love it and all that. However, even though Mike does talk about the party and El to Max in terms of their DnD characters, Will is the only person that has a very prominent DnD persona with a name and costume. @pinkeoni Robin has talked a lot about what this could mean when it comes to Will's abusive childhood, but it's besides the point here. The first subtextual internal character conflict we see starts very early : Should Will (the Wise) cast protection or should he fireball the demogorgon? Should he try and protect himself, or attack the threat head-on? Should he stay or should he go? He ends up taking the risk, but it fails. A little after, he doesn't get to use his gun either. Lucas lays the thesis of 80s ideals for masculinity that hurt Will as a gnc and gay kid out for us :
Will the Wise turns out to be a violent character. He uses his destructive powers to exterminate evil when his wisdom isn't enough. This, aka using violence throughout the show, is proven to be something that real life Will never does. In fact, it's the exact opposite from what he does. But there's a character that matches this description very well : El.
El's vs Will's bravery
El appeared in the story as a force to be reckoned with, a threat, a weapon. Meanwhile , from the get go , we see a disconnect between the Will the Wise we learn about and the Will we see in s1.
In juxtaposition with this, we have a season of Jonathan reminding us of how well Will can hide, him running from the demogorgon, hiding in the UD, and in general clearly engaging in a passive way of dealing with allathat.
Will's bravery and his strength as a character isn't based on attacking, or any sort of violence. He can't use the gun even though he loads it. Will's bravery is persevering through all the hardships he's been through, remaining kind and still seeing the good in the world even though he's never really known a world that's kind to him ; Lonnie's abuse was a constant of his early childhood , and even when that stopped (in exchange for being actually abandoned and deemed worthless by his own father), the homophobic bullying and the alienation caused by his experiences that no one relates to started.
Will is the character we see prove that needing support, protecting yourself, running away from the threats, hiding , sometimes is the best approach. It is never condemned in the narrative : he needed to run, and when he stopped, the demogorgon AND the shadow got him. While he needs to learn how to confront the threats and not hide from them, there's still no indication that what he needs to do is fight back, or be tougher, or change himself so that he can be the attacker for once as a gotcha. Because that's El. The foil. El matches the descriptions of Will the Wise MUCH better than Will does. El is the weapon and Will, even though perfectly capable of loading a gun , can't actually go through with it... And that could be foreshadowing of how their powers will be developed.
While Will does later offer to sacrifice himself by asking them to close the gate in s2, saving everyone but leading to his death, El kind of beats him to it. She did everything Mike says here, before Will ever could. El keeps replacing Will in his own narratives. She is Will the Wise , in every way that Will can't be: she has actual powers (Will doesnt know about his own), her powers are destructive (proven time and time again), she is brave in an active way, she put herself in danger by attacking the demogorgon leaving what appears to be burn marks in the wall behind it :
Through no fault of her own, El just takes and takes from Will, she is his foil, her mere presence is an accidental but constant reminder of what he can't do. He can't actually do all the things Will the Wise does, he can't confront the bad guys, he can't be the person that Mike loves , he can't ever take back the space he left open for her to take in the day of his disappearance (which we get reminded of in the monologue, as , to him , El's appearance replaced meeting Will as the most important thing to happen to Mike). If this kid had a buzzcut, could it be Lonnie's kid? But Will doesn't have a buzzcut, he isn't a lab kid the way El was. He isn't a vicious attacker or a weapon like her. They go pretty hard reminding us how things don't really align with El and Will, antithesis is always present. Their arcs take them to a place where they get to grow and incorporate some characteristics of the other, but not become each other.
Will the Wise's weapon of choice being fire, and fire throughout the show
Will's powers have been a point of great speculation in the fandom. When it comes to Will as a person, we know he has true sight and a robust yet vague connection to the supernatural. It's pretty much guaranteed that he has some powers (time and electricity, as well as world building have all been hinted at) but for Will the Wise it's mainly fireballs. And dragons. Lots and lots of dragons imagery.
Fire has been deemed the UD's and its creatures "weakness" ever since the first season. Alongside it, firearms as well (pun intended..by them lol). And it is always, always tied to someone else other than Will. And it seems to work. A little. Let's see:
Season 1
Notably, the first time we see fire be used against the UD, it's when Jancy burn the Demogorgon. This works very well to banish it (?) to the UD, buying them a little time. The creature goes back to the UD to regenerate and comes back like nothing happened. This is the first of many violent attacks against the UD creatures. Nancy, with her love for guns, and Jonathan, doing what is necessary, even though he resents violence as well, by pouring the gasoline and throwing his lighter. He is our Will the Wise for the scene, with his fireball-like attack. Jonathan, who shot the rabbit but then cried, and Will, that couldn't even fire the gun. Jonathan will do whatever necessary, and is definitely not as averse to violence as Will is, which we already know from the Stonathan fight in s1. Finally El's attack "burns" the Demogorgon and ""kills it"". 3 characters fill in for Will the Wise.
Season 2
With the knowledge that fire is a powerful ally, s2 follows a similar path. The soldiers use fire against the tunnels; the first one we see doing it is called Teddy (hi @wheelercore) lol. Once again, used just for "stopping it from spreading". "It" can't be stopped with fire. (my thoughts on how insane this scene is at another time)
Then, fire again. The soldiers use fire, and Will falls to the ground in agonizing pain. He feels burns all over his body, and then fire is once again used as a test to see if Will is connected to the hivemind. Fire is used repeatedly, and the only person that is hurt by it is Will. The supernatural threat is not phased in the longterm. Even when the extreme heat is used at last, it still doesn't kill the particles, just expel them.
Season 3
Ok so season 3 is a mess like we love her but she's a mess so there's not too much to say here but. First we have the whole thing covered up as a mall fire so fire again, the works. Oh and you can't forget Mike and Lucas setting fire to the chambers in DnD but still dying. But we also have the use of. You'd never guess. Fireworks!!! The fireworks kill the flesh monster but since the dark particles are still intact, in Russia, and Vecna and every demothing are still alive, all that really died there is the zombie hawkins residents and rats who were dead already. Not good. Once again fire may buy time by killing the lesser threats, but the supernatural evil perseveres. (+ Lucas's iconic line and fire being a threat to the heroes again)
Season 4
Again!!!!! So much fire! Nancy fires her gun and Robin throws her fireball-molotof SIMULTANEOUSLY and Vecna literally catches fire and all his tentacles burn and he still. doesn't. fucking. die. Murray uses his flamethrower to kill the demodogs, and it works, but the demogorgon had to be decapitated, as fire doesn't do the trick. The open rifts make everything else catch fire and we see Hawkins, in Vecna's words, "burn and fall" so it can be "remade into something beautiful". Fire as a cleansing destructive power from the God like character. Very old Testament.
So we got firearms, fireworks, fire in the form of gasoline and a lighter, the flamethrowers of the soldiers and fire in the form of a molotof. And they are all just...ineffective. That's a lot of fire things missing the goal, right? Could Will's fireballs really be literal if fire just...doesn't work? What could differentiate them from all the other fires? Is Will's fire the superfire or something? Even if Will's fire has some Magic Powers Slay Juice in it, that STILL didn't help before, aka El even after her nina-powers-steroids power level couldn't win. It's...not what I think is gonna happen.
(Also. And i know like i know that is (probably) not intentional like even when my heart tells me otherwise. Isn't it so funny that "cabbage shoot"
has these properties:
i fucking yelled when i saw this like ok radiationgate cancer metaphor cancer cell regenairation slay!! lmaoooo ok this section is for em and james let's move on)
Will the Wise as a presence tied to Will's "hiding" motif
If we are to believe that Will the wise is something that Will should aspire to become, then why would they tie the character so irrevocably with the very same thing that Will needs to overcome in his coming of age? Let's see when Will the Wise appears (not just will playing dnd, but will the wise as a persona) :
Flasback of Joyce going into castle byers and calling him sir at the very subtext heavy conversation of Will not getting scared anymore, clowns (more in Robin's @pinkeoni clown imagery posts chef's fucking kiss) and with the knowledge that castle byers is where Will goes to hide (which he's also good at).
Conversation about outsmarting the bad guys to not get hurt and your normal self and "human" nature/intellect not being enough to defend yourself.
Will trying to use DnD escapism to cling to a bygone past where his friends didn't mistreat him in favor of their relationships and he was the person Mike loved the most. In DnD , when he's Will the Wise, nothing has changed from that time of his life and he can be powerful again (and he doesn't have to face the reality of the entrance of Max and El in his life and how that changed everything, something we also see in season 4: see below)
The drawing of Will the Wise prominently appearing during the mental anguish right before the destruction of castle byers, the defining moment when Will's trauma and loss of childhood, his difference from others, queerness, growing pains, and his utopian-yet-almost-attainable-until-recently future of being with Mike being ripped out of him come to a head. The drawing is torn apart, the Will the Wise costume is forcefully removed as well. Will the Wise is not compatible with the harsh reality.
The most overt Will hiding moment we see in the whole show, the painting. Will literally hides his true feelings by presenting them as El's and by showing himself in his Will the Wise costume, and all the other members of the party in their dnd characters, because in that world the girls don't exist and can't take his friends away nor do any changes in their dynamic occur (e.g. Dustin being left behind). Time can stop in a better place for him. (I know that the common fandom angle is that DnD is a love language between Will and Mike , and I don't exactly disagree , but to me the very fact that DnD is used as code between them means that the real situation isn't dealt with yet; Will using a) the entire friendgroup b) their dnd personas c) El in order to convey his truth is still him using barriers. When the real talk between them happens, there will be no dnd characters in sight. This doesn't negate the place DnD has in their love, but its use as a literature device is a double edged sword,since its very existence signifies censorhip and false selves that can live what Will perceives to be unattainable.)
All these moments are points of regression for Will. When his true confident and assertive self can come out, he does not use barriers between him and the others, be it his talks with Jonathan, fighting with Mike, not hearing Lucas's apology, all these moments of Will progressing are his and his alone.
Will and the cycle of violence in the show
I have talked about it before but in ST in general, people who go on to invoke harm on others that was inflicted upon them are condemned in the narrative. Will's not a violent person. He doesn't hate his dad, he doesn't want to use a fucking gun, and his character development is not meant for him to grow out of his sensitive loving nature. This can not coincide with the Will the Wise powers we have seen, which align perfectly with the violence around him, and with El's destructive powers. It's like, what, Will can't use a gun because it goes against his characterisation, but he'll start shooting the equivalent of a firey cluster of bullets and it's cool because it's wizard stuff? Hm. And even if he does end up using whatever powers he has against minor threats, it just doesn't make sense to use them against the real opponent, because Will is not the macho man that kills the monster and gets the girl, and Vecna isn't part of the hive mind; he is the hive mind.
Will's extreme Christine coding (everyone say thank you James for the amazing og POTO post) and his immense ability to sympathise, love, understand, and see the good and human in everyone means he is bound to be the key to understanding Vecna's humanity and see behind the facade, which is not the same as forgiving him. But unless they Mary Sue Will to death, they can't just be like oh yeah Will is just more powerful than El so in HIS battle with Vecna he's going to kick some ass!!!! Will's approach has to be different and be true to his character and that can only happen if that ISN'T the way things go. Besides, Vecna already has Can't Be Killed ™ coding, and Will's only scene where he expresses violent intent is paralleled to a scene where the dialogue between Byler ends up not being true.
Will knows what and how Vecna thinks, but there's a lot he doesn't know. The very existence of this foreshadowed-to-fail line in a scene bathed by light and Mike's love for Will is all i need to know ; in the most sappy and corny way possible, love will conquer. Just not in the way Will thinks is the only way.
Will is a creator, an artist, a sensitive soul that never wanted to harm anyone, he just wanted "this to be over". But "this" can never truly be over; there are some wounds that time can not mend. Personally I think that Vecna's immortal coding is a super good writing choice, since he signifies darkness and trauma and all that. You can't really erase these things even if you do defeat them. Anyway.
Adding to all this the weight of needing to turn into what the abusive bullies and Lonnie always wanted to in order to survive, win and "grow" ? Yeah, no.
And let's not forget the highly symbolic-yet-also-magically-realistic nature of the show and its DnD foreshadowing...If the shadow monster was nothing like the dnd mindflayer, the demogorgon nothing like the DnD demogorgon, and Vecna n o t h i n g like DnD Vecna, why predict s5 Will by DnD Will? Judging from the pattern so far, with DnD being just a manual, I can see the whole party's roles being referenced in a much less straightforward way.
Besides, the party keeps on using superheroes as a way to frame and comprehend El's very existence, even though she's actually nothing like any of them. The ST real world always proves itself to be much less impressive and polished, and more gloomy and underwhelming, compared to the fantasy equivalents the party adore as nerds. Enough things are similar for the comparison to have merit, but that's it.
But miss heroesbyler, is it possible they gave Will all this imagery for no reason? They went pretty heavy on Will's fireballs thing. I wanna see that.
So while I'm conflicted about how fire will inevitably play a role in this season as it always does, and there is always the matter of the dragon ™ imagery going on that simply needs to lead to something. So even if we do see Will manipulating fire to participate in a battle with a dragon (?) I still don't think that it's going to have much if at all with the confrontation between Vecna, Will and what happened with HNL. What I do believe is going to happen resides... Below the cut because it's super speculatory 💖
Imo, the Will the Wise fireball thing can very well have to do with "the light". Will found a way, through the lights, is what Nancy says when they touch the light particles. Beware, this whole discussion stems from my beloved Denise @bylertruther and her genius posts on Will using the light particles that changed me as a person.
Now the show does not do cartoon villains, it's not an epic tale of The Evil Evilest Child Turned Man vs pure perfect angels (be it el, will or the rest of the party) because it bothers to humanise its characters, whether by giving them flaws or sympathetic conditions. What it does very much do though, is deal with heroes vs villains, and as has been very heavy handedly clear in s4, light vs dark = good vs evil.
Max informs us that Vecna only sees the darkness in his victims but she'll run to the light, which she literally does in his mindscape (the hole in the crimson mindscape is very bright in contrast, in a sunny day etc).
Vecna is darkness. The dark particles, the sky immediately darkening in Vecna vision, the shadow monster etc are all dark. Will is constantly bathed in light and we get pointedly reminded that Will very probably did what the teens are doing in s4, but in a bigger scale, most probably because he wasn't just using his hands to touch the particles but his powers to manipulate them. This could explain what Will was doing with the lights since he seems to not remember that week in the UD.
The sappy mfs that the writers are, I wouldn't be surprised if the fireball imagery ended up being about the light particles, and Will's powers to be all about creating and love. Can love defeat fear seems like a question carved out for a final girl like Will and his coming of age. But unless the only way they show him resort to violence only in self defense, and against the democreatures at that, it doesn't work the same way. But... I'm waiting to see.
Thank you for sticking through this epic of Gilgamesh with me teehee 💖💖
I DID SOMETHING AND IM SUPER PROUD OF IT, I had this idea for months but didn’t feel capable of pulling it off so it was waiting all this time to jump out of my brain
WHY IS JACK'S (Jack McPhee, aka gay guy from Dawson's Creek who is heavily paralleled to Mike Wheeler) FIRST TIME AT A GAY BAR SCENE LITERALLY RINK 'O MANIA???? WTF
I know the duffers LOVE to parallel Mike to Jack, but idk if those were just a common combination of lights or if this means something lol, I know that the rink 'o mania scene is EXTREMELY queercoded with all the music and queer imagry in the background so I think the Duffers did this on purpose
Thinking about how both Mike and Max observe their other half from a far and come to mistakenly believe that they’re doing fine without them as a result of what a third party says. Both El and the radio announcer were wrong though. Lucas wasn’t feeling on top of the world and there was never a girl that Will was painting for. In reality, Will and Lucas were busy thinking about and missing them just as much as they were.
I’m obsessed with the fact that You’ve Got Mail is on the list of movies that inspired S4. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the whole premise is that the main character is torn between two men, one that she knows in real life and initially hated but grows to love, and one that she met online who she doesn’t know the true identity of. She rejects the guy she knows in real life for the anonymous online man, but when she goes to finally meet him for the first time, she learns that they’re the same person.
Most importantly, she tells him “I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly.”
There’s no way that this movie wasn’t the inspiration for the painting lie and I would bet any money that Mike is going to say something similar to Will when he finds out that the painting and those words in the van were all from Will and not El.
Also did I mention that the reveal scene in You’ve Got Mail is set to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”? 🥲
The perception of time expressed by El, Mike, and Will reveal where their respective focus lies:
El expresses how time can speed up or slow down based on emotions, but then goes on to say that for her, time is going by fast this week: the same week at the end of which Mike is supposed to arrive. Which had initially seemed odd to me because if you’ve ever waited for a burrito to heat up in the microwave, you know that anticipation notoriously slows time down. Yet for El, time is speeding along.
So what can tend to make time speed by? Exactly what El proceeds to talk about: completion of a goal.
"Not only does time pass by fast when I enjoy an activity, but it moves even faster when I am also focused on reaching a goal. I may be excited about the result, which makes me focused on the activities that will achieve my goal."
In the case of El, she is focused on completing her diorama for her school project. And sure enough her words are supported by what we see on screen, our establishing shot is of El painting the figure of Hopper.
That is her focus. Commemorating her dad. Not Mike. For her, time moves regardless of his presence or absence.
Meanwhile, both Mike and Will—well, we both know this one:
“You knew she was having trouble for like a year and you didn’t tell me.”
“It’s been a year, Mike”
“The past year has been weird”
They both refer to the time they’ve spent away SPECIFICALLY from each other as a year. Even while referencing El, Mike is referring to Will and his [in]actions in the context of the “year”.
And as Taylor Swift (as well as common knowledge) says, “When you are missing someone, time seems to move slower”.
Random ST @mostlylurkinbarelypostin - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
