On Nancy Wheeler's Character Arc, Relationships, and Show vs Tell.
One piece of writing advice often repeated around writers' circles is "show, don't tell". The concept is simple: The audience will be more engaged and emotionally invested in your writing if they can experience what's happening first hand, rather than just being informed of it. Don't just tell us a character is scared. Show us they're trembling.
In its earlier seasons, Stranger Things appears to prefer to tell us Nancy's character arc. The most egregious example of this comes from Murray Bauman, who spells it out to both us and Nancy. According to him, Nancy is "afraid of what would happen if [she] accepted [herself] for who [she] really [is] and retreated back to the safety of…Steve", who she doesn't love, and should date Jonathan instead because they have shared trauma. This is treated as a narrative truth by a lot of viewers, which is why so many feel the Nancy/Steve reconciliation has come out of nowhere and is damaging to Nancy's character development. But there are plenty of reasons to doubt Murray's interpretation. Firstly, he admits that he finds Nancy difficult to read and is only assuming that she's retreating to safety because that’s what everyone does. Secondly, the narrative shows us that Murray’s conclusions are often wrong, especially when he's dealing with incomplete information. In the very first scene he's in, he is convinced that Eleven is a Russian spy.
Barb tells Nancy "this isn’t you" when Nancy is following Steve up to his room. These are Barb's last words to Nancy. But it is important to consider the context in which Barb is saying this. Up until this point, Nancy has been consistently downplaying her relationship with Steve when discussing it with Barb. Steve is clearly smitten with Nancy, but this isn't how Nancy has presented their dynamic to Barb. She says it's "just a one-time...two-time thing" and that Steve likes her "but not like that". From Barb's perspective, Nancy is acting out of character by sleeping with someone who "just wants to get in [her] pants". But from Nancy's perspective, she and Steve have a meaningful relationship, which is why, earlier, Nancy is visibly upset at the idea that Steve only wants to "get another notch on [his] belt" before Steve reassures her this isn’t the case.
Since the beginning, the writers have been telling us one thing, but showing us another. Nancy doesn't need to learn to accept herself by dating Jonathan instead of Steve. Nancy needs to learn to overcome her fear of emotional vulnerability, of being imperfect and having others see those imperfections. She wants people close to her and supporting her, but she doesn't want to open herself up and let them in. Her walls are so high, she can't even be honest with her best friend about her feelings towards her boyfriend. This also explains Nancy's first interaction with Dustin; she is on the phone with Barb when he goes to her room, talking about Steve, and she clearly doesn’t want other people to know. And Nancy's fear of emotional vulnerability goes beyond how she interacts with others. She also refuses to let herself confront any painful emotions, preferring to throw herself into action, to do instead of feel. A good example of this occurs when Nancy learns Barb is dead. Rather than grieve her friend, Nancy immediately wants to try to kill the Demogorgon.
The night Nancy sleeps with Steve, Jonathan takes a photo of Nancy undressing through the window. When later asked about it, Jonathan says he saw "this girl…trying to be someone else, but for that moment, it was like you were alone, or you thought you were, and you could just be yourself." Like Barb though, Jonathan doesn't have all the information. Nancy isn't alone when she undresses in that bedroom. Steve is there. What’s more, she invites Steve to look at her as she does so. Which means Nancy can be herself when she’s with Steve. She can let her walls down with him.
Or rather, she could, because unfortunately, this backfires horribly for Nancy. The first time she allows herself to really be vulnerable with someone, her best friend is killed. And Steve's behaviour in the aftermath doesn't help matters. Though Nancy is still dating Steve at the end of season 1, by this point, so much damage has been done, and her walls are back up with him. This leads to their messy breakup in season 2, where she drunkenly calls their relationship bullshit and can't tell him she loves him when he confronts her about it. In a sense, she's right about their relationship, but it's not because she doesn't love Steve. She does, but she also associates their relationship with Barb's death and resents him for how he acted afterwards. She no longer feels she can trust him with her heart.
This brings us back to Nancy's relationship with Jonathan and their shared trauma. The allure of shared trauma is the feeling that another person understands you and your pain on a level that no one else possibly could. It's easy to see why a relationship based on shared trauma would appeal to Nancy. If Jonathan already understands her, there’s no need to open herself up and risk getting hurt. But this is counterproductive for her character growth, as she's no longer being challenged to overcome her fear. She’s also accepting other people's interpretations of her rather than sitting with her emotions and self-reflecting. The point of Murray's speech isn't just to misdirect the audience. It's to misdirect Nancy.
Nancy and Jonathan's shared trauma only creates the illusion that they understand each other, but the cracks have been showing for a long time and their relationship is about to reach its breaking point. In season 2, Jonathan can relate to having to pretend everything is normal, but he has no idea how much pain and guilt she is carrying. Which is why he doesn't say what she actually needs to hear: that what happened to Barb wasn't her fault. In season 3, both are too absorbed in their own feelings, making them dismissive of the other's. And in season 4, Jonathan is keeping secrets from Nancy and slow motion breaking up with her while she's been burying herself in her newspaper job. More importantly, Nancy is reconnecting with Steve, who she's been hiding herself away from all this time, while facing off against a villain who preys on people's feelings of trauma and guilt. The narrative is finally going to force Nancy to confront her fear of emotional vulnerability, and it's created the perfect storm for her to do so.
Nancy's character arc is much more compelling and elegantly written than most people think.
