i know you all have heard this before but apparently it doesnât get through your thick skulls so you will hear it again
This actually, for once, has almost nothing to do with the actual writing of the series. Kali Prasad was presented as Elâs lost sister, one of the only people in the world who could understand her and relate to her experiences and trauma. When El finally meets her, here is what we are presented with:
Kali was kidnapped from another country when she was very young- iâd say 5-7Â
She was experimented on the same way El was (and we all saw the s1 flashbacks)- after her introduction we see a flashback of her getting shocked with a cattleprodÂ
As a runaway child from the American government and a brown girl in the racist-ass time period to boot, there is no way she could get home. Even with pre-9/11 airport security, thereâs no way sheâd be able to make it to an airport going to England, find one going to a near enough spot in England to where she lived (and thatâs if she remembered her address at all) and then gotten on the plane, gotten to the uk safely, and found her family. And even if she did? Thereâs no guarantee they couldnât kidnap her again. They found her the first time, after allÂ
She has gathered a gang of her own who are all very protective of each other, and only one is openly hostile towards El, and only when he finds out she knows who Kali is and could present a threatÂ
Kaliâs introduction to El is when she literally saves her, and is pissed at her friend for threatening her, all without knowing who this kid even isÂ
Throughout the rest of the episode, we are also presented with:Â
Kaliâs gang is all made of misfits who were discarded by society, with one of them being mentioned as broken out of an asylum, likely suffering from medical abuse. She is literally described as âsaving them.â This is something she brushes off as âmushâ but everyone else expresses, which means this isnât something sheâs told them to try and make them loyal to her, this is something they firmly believe.Â
We also find out that she had a found family much like Elâs friends in Hawkins, but that âthey couldnât protect her.â From how upset she seems and how she was not able to return, it is likely they either were killed/captured by the lab, or betrayed her to themÂ
When we find out that she is indeed tracking down and killing people, it is made incredibly clear that she is only hurting her abusers (and possibly her gangmatesâ abusers as well) and goes out of her way not to harm innocents. When a shopkeeper points a gun at them, instead of attacking (when there are several gangmates who could easily shoot him before he could let out a shot, as well as the fact Kali could easily manipulate his vision again), Kali steps out, arms raised, and tries to talk him down. When they enter the apartment of the lab worker, upon finding two children there, not once does anyone in her gang consider hurting them, even though theyâre currently calling the police and thus present a threat. From what we see, Axel and Dottie realize theyâre in the apartment and immediately leave them alone to tell Kali they have to go
I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THE ABOVE POINT ENOUGH. Kaliâs team is not a âmurder cult.â Thereâs even a line showing this early on- when El admits sheâs killed people, Kali gets very hesitant and asks if they deserved it, and only calms when El says that the people she killed had hurt herÂ
Though Kali does use Elâs tracking powers, she is shown to be very loving and protective of her even when El is not there- having Kali say that El âneeds thisâ and getting upset when her gang makes fun of her, and crying when she leaves, are intentional film cues that her happiness around El and love for her are not a front to get El to do what she wants but instead genuine connection
Speaking of which: when we know that Kali does love El, her scenes bonding with her do show her vulnerable side; she expresses that el makes her feel whole, that she wants to protect her, plays with her, and fully believes in her capabilitiesÂ
Which leads me to the main talking points of people who are Anti-Kali, saying sheâs encouraging El to use her anger instead of moving past it- which is the point. Kali believes thatâs a good coping mechanism because itâs the one sheâs using. She is not telling El to focus on her trauma because she wants to hurt her, she genuinely thinks she is helping. And for a while she is! El says that using her fury to push the train felt âgood,â and itâs not until El realizes she may inadvertently hurt the children of a lab worker that she starts to feel bad about anything thatâs happening. And even after that, Kaliâs advice is the reason she was able to close the Gate in the finale.Â
It is also made very clear that she is not holding El hostage; she says more than once that El can leave whenever she wants, and sheâs only upset at Elâs departure because it was a sudden run in the middle of a police shootout. Kali is a woman who has had all of her choices taken away from her, and as such takes back her freedom in any way she can, and wants her friends and chosen family to have the same choices.Â
Kali isnât even upset at El for not wanting to kill, but for taking the gun away from her and taking away her choice in the matter. Once again, we have been shown that this is pretty much the only thing Kali can do- she was unable to return home, unable to find a family on her own, so all she can do is hit her abusers before they can hit her. She angrily informs El, in the bus, âIf you wanted to show mercy, that is your choice. But donât you ever take away mine. Ever.âÂ
When we get to the infamous Brenner scene, we start with Kali in a vulnerable position, expressing that she simply doesnât want El to get hurt like she did - âI see in you my past mistakes.âÂ
And, yes, she does fuck up in retraumatizing El with a vision of Brenner. It was an incredibly fucked up thing to do. But I think we all need to realize that she did not intend to hurt El in this action. She was shown throughout the episode to believe that directly facing her trauma and letting her anger power her is how she copes with her situation. She isnât doing this to âpunishâ El or make her feel worse, she believes she is helping El to get past her insecurities and fears and start to heal. She literally says that when she let her anger go, she âbegan to heal.âÂ
Normally I wouldnât be so pissy over people being upset at her for this, but in comparison with how the fandom at large treats the white characters who have done similar or even worse things, it becomes clear why Kali isnât a popular character. I wonât even go into the âeveryone woobified Billy so much he got a redemption in s3,â letâs instead talk about another chosen family of Elâs- Hopper.Â
Hopper is Elâs father figure. He genuinely loves her, wants to protect her, does his best, and also makes mistakes and fucks up. However, because he is a white male, not only are these mistakes glossed over, a lot of the time theyâre taken as âquirkyâ instead of problems he needs to grow past. In Season Two, the same season as Kali, during an argument with El he literally threatens to call the Lab and tell them where she is. Whether or not he meant it is not the point; telling El that he will give her back to the people who treat her as a subhuman experiment and torture her is a fucked up thing to do. In Season Three, we all joke about âoverprotective dadâ Hopper, but we also need to realize that what is happening is that he is:
Threatening the boyfriend of his daughter into lying to her, when they both know how seriously she takes lies, instead of actually communicating effectively with them.Â
Is super happy when his daughter is upset by this.Â
Never apologizes or owns up to this; when Mike finally admits that Hopper threatened him, El takes this as him trying to avoid responsibilityÂ
This is all after Season Two, in which Hopper forcibly isolated El from literally everyone, including Mike, for a year- so, yeah, theyâre gonna be a little clingy!
Do these all make Hopper a horrible abuser? No! But theyâre serious problems that go unaddressed before his lil vacation to Russia, and probably wonât be brought up again, which youâd think people would be a little more upset about. Except, no, heâs the perfect Dad for El, and weâll never talk about this at all except to joke about his feud with Mike.Â
These actions are just as bad, if not worse in some cases, than what Kali did- especially because his S2 action of threatening her was done with the express intention to upset her, whereas Kali at least had good intentions. His S3 actions are arguable, but can we even really say it was âgood intentionsâ when it was, again, threatening a 14yo into upsetting his daughter instead of just growing the fuck up and talking it out?Â
And yet we all know why everyone skips over Hopperâs little issues and either fixates on Kaliâs or ignore her character entirely. It does not escape my notice that Hopper is a white male character, while Kali is a brown woman. Both are traumatized characters who find a family with El and do their best to take care of her, even though they make mistakes along the way. Only one of them is a fan favorite.Â
tl;dr? Kali is a traumatized brown woman who uses her anger (and kickass superpowers) to hurt her abusers ONLY, never intentionally harming innocents and doing her best to protect her chosen family. But because sheâs a brown woman, nobody cared, or they all outright hated her, and so she didnât even show up in the next season and god only knows if theyâll ever bring her back.Â
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