20’s. she/they. (l)gbt. 🇲🇽. I like writing show & character’s analysis. Joined to talk about Will Byers, ended up analyzing Mike Wheeler’s brain under a microscope
About the Episode’s titles, here’s a few translations I found interesting and worth analyzing:
1. The Crawl is translated as “The escape” in Portuguese, but… Interestingly, for the spanish translation, it’s “The mission” which is VERY different.
2. EPISODE 4, Sorcerer, is titled as “Wizard” (male wizard) in spanish.
3. EPISODE 5, and I found this quite intriguing, Shock Jock is translated in Spanish as “Electroshock” and as “Shock Therapy” in Portuguese. THIS is the one that made me gasp: We know ST often references the homophobia during the time period, and how it’s tied to both Will and Henry. Well, shock therapy was used as conversion therapy to so men associated the pain of the shocks to their homosexuality. And Alan Turing, who appeared in Will’s school project in s4, was chemically castrated, so this is not ST’s first reference to those methods.
4. The Rightside Up is translated to spanish as “This side”.
The others are pretty much the same, or at least in the languages I know! If someone else finds any other interesting discovery, please add it:)
in honour of stranger things halfway through filming the last season and it being my masters graduation today I’m bringing back the byler . I’ve been a st fanartist and a bylerhead for 3 years and it’s been a journey!
...and come back to life. To me, it seems pretty obvious, but I'll explain why.
Will has been characterized as someone who puts others before himself since season one, even if it means costing him his life. The entire series starts off with Will casting fireball instead of protection during their Dungeons & Dragons game, putting his character in danger for the sake of the rest of the party.
This self-sacrificial nature is echoed in season two, but two a much more extreme end, when Will instructs everyone to close the gate to stop the Mind Flayer, despite knowing that doing so will kill him.
While we don't see this same self-sacrifice from Will in seasons three and four, we do see two related characters make their own sacrifices, possibly hinting at Will's future fate.
First we have the other character named William, Billy, sacrifice himself at the end of season three in order to stop the meat flayer.
Then in season four, we have Eddie sacrifice himself while the same song that played for Will after he came back to life in season one plays in the background— "When It's Cold I'd Like to Die" by Moby.
There are also little ways that we are told/shown of Will's selfless nature, such as giving a girl his tonka truck because she was sad, or giving Mike his painting under El's name. While this trait could be seen as admirable, I think it will ultimately be his undoing.
But why would Will need to sacrifice himself?
Well, we know that despite all of this time, Will still holds a connection to Vecna, and likely to the Mind Flayer and the Upside Down himself. Putting a stop to all of these things is going to be intrinsic to Will's arc next season.
I don't know how many people know about Noah's letterboxd, but he has been rewatching the Harry Potter movies.
Perhaps for personal enjoyment, or perhaps to study for his character?
The comparisons between Will/Vecna and Harry/Voldemort have been made before, and the Duffers are derivative of other sources if anything.
I think that this could be likened to a horcrux situation. At the end of season four, we saw Vecna be totally flambéd by the older teens, and yet, he's still kicking, and Will is the one to tell us this.
If the brain dies the body dies, but also, could the brain latch on to another body in order to keep it alive? Similar to how Harry had to die so that Voldemort could be defeated, I believe Will might have to die (at least temporarily) in order to take down Vecna/MF/UD.
We know that the show is bringing back "Should I Stay or Should I Go," which is going to prompt an important question that Will needs to find the answer to, should he stay or should he go? While this could also relate to his romantic endeavors for the season, I think that the song could be alluding to Will's choice to sacrifice himself in order to save everyone else.
What I think will probably happen is this: At some point in the season, Will is going to learn what has to happen, and he is going to go off to sacrifice himself without telling anyone so no one can stop him. (I'm guessing that Will can't just off himself, there's probably a specific way that it needs to be done).
Something I realized while making this post is that Mike is always the one who figures out what needs to be done, or brings up Will's sacrifice to others. My guess is that Mike is going to find out what Will is up to, and try to stop him. Emphasis on try, because I think this death is inevitable. However, bringing the show back full circle to season one (and because ST can never keep a main character dead), he will come back to life.
Oh I LOVE this post. I'm a fan of the plot-related question the song "Should I stay or should I go" prompts. I fully agree with what you said: Will is going to go off alone, probably without telling the others, and choose to sacrifice himself.
However... Once it's over and he "dies", I think it'd be nice and also a way to make his character arc come full circle: having the choice to stay dead, to "walk into the light", or to live. Knowing Will's self-sacrificial nature, it'd show his growth as a character if, after sacrificing himself several times (in the different ways you mentioned), he finally, for once, chose to live.
Similar to the talk Harry has with Dumbledore after he 'dies':
“Oh yes.” Dumbledore smiled at him.
“We are in King’s Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to . . . let’s say . . . board a train.”
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