Let’s talk about shared trauma.
S4 is the end of reality for Hawkins
S5 is a culmination of shared trauma
And "you were just a kid...like me" is so important to save everyone.
Henry is talking about more than just himself and the Mindflayer here when he says we are one
Every person in the party contributes their trauma to the manifestation of things. The more they lie to one another, hide, repress their shame, and internalize their guilt, the worse things get. As everyone got older, they bottled and hid more. By Season 4, every single character is lying and hiding. Will lies about the painting and his feelings (and El’s feelings in the process), El lies about how bad things are going in Lenora and pretends her life is great, Jonathan lies about his acceptance letter and why he can’t come to Hawkins, Nancy lies about her relationship being "perfect", Max lies about how bad she’s handling her grief and doesn’t tell anyone when she starts to experience Vesna's calling cards. And Mike may be the worst liar of them all because he lies to himself. "I guess I just don't understand." "Why am I the bad guy?" You really can't understand anyone else if you don't understand yourself and so naturally, he is unable to help those around him.
Every single lie or omitted truth is a defense mechanism. And Mike's problem is exactly what Kali said to Hop, "just as you lie to Jane, you also lie to yourself."
As everyone's trauma's go unresolved, the manifestations build until the party has no hope of defeating them. They're collectively just too much. It's a fact that you can't help your friends if you yourself are drowning.
Will started building his closet right around the same time that Hopper was working on a pretty impressive black hole.
This is what Hawkin's felt like to a young Will as he started to realize just how different he really was...
And thus the upside down was created and he was dragged into the closet...
I've heard a lot of people say how come in S5 the UD isn't even that scary anymore and it doesn't seem that cold and everyone can just breathe in the spores? Valid. But you need to look at it as Will's evolving trauma. His identity as a gay kid has evolved a lot since he was 12 and some of that has to do with the love and support he's been given even before he came out. At Surfer Boy Jonathan tells him exactly what he needs to hear and stops short of saying he knows Will is queer. But it's implied and Will receives the message. He then meets Robin and has an even better understanding of how his life could look and suddenly things seem a little more manageable and even exciting. Love and acceptance are stripping the upside down of its effects albeit very slowly.
Hopper doesn’t have a closet, a cold, lonely place that is a version of his real life like Will does. Because Hopper is a vast black hole. He is the curse. According to him, he is responsible for Sara’s death and will be responsible for every bad thing that happens to Joyce and El.
He tells Enzo in Russia, "You don't get it. The closer I get to Joyce, the more danger she's in. I'm cursed. Since I was 18 years old."
As he continues to walk around with dynamite strapped to himself and lies every day to El's face, things get worse. This is Hop’s contribution to the group project and it's threatening to do exactly what he said it would...
So now we have an Upside Down and a Black Hole.
El's has had two primary fears since she escaped the lab. Her worst fear used to be that she was the monster. She said it first all the way back in S1 to Mike and still struggles with it after attacking Angela in S4. But when she goes to NINA she has a breakthrough. She tells Brenner, “I used to think I was the monster. But I know now. It’s you. YOU are the monster.” She finally figures out that her past wasn’t her fault.
The problem for El is that despite realizing she isn't the monster, they have shown her time and time again that no matter how free or normal she thinks she is, they will always physically find her. Every time she thinks she’s free from the government, they find her and drag her back to Brenner...
And thus her new worst fear is born: that she’ll never truly escape these people. Brenner hunted her in S1.
El manifested Dr. Kay in S5. She is one dimensional and singularly focused on El's greatest fear. Dragging El back to the lab. Kay isn't a member of the government; she is the government.
When the military hunted El in S4 to bring her to NINA, the the only way to escape was to kill people in order to be free.
Season 5 hunted by helicopter:
You'll notice in S5 that no matter how many solders the party kills or how many military plans they interfere with, they don’t get much reaction. Thats because ALL of their focus is on hunting El, to the point that she is deep in hiding and can only travel through Hawkins via the tunnels. The reason the military isn’t all that interested in anyone but El is because they’re HER manifestation.
This cycle keeps repeating...
Mike: After all this time it comes for Holly? Holly?? Who has nothing to do with any of this? It makes no goddamn sense.
Nancy: It makes perfect goddamn sense!
This - is not a coincidence....
She's right. After barb went missing, Nancy was pretty vocal about blaming herself. She felt like it was her fault she made her go to the party, left her alone outside, etc. She dealt with the guilt of that throughout the entire series. In fact, Barb's death is how Nancy became a designated fighter of the party. In her search for truth, she discovered she's a crack shot. She wanted to find a way to protect the people she loved because she felt so responsible for Barb's death that she ended up becoming the weapons expert of the group. Some of the most important people she wanted to protect were her family.
After S4 when Vecna shows her family being attacked, she becomes obsessed with finding him. She is the manager of the party come S5, she is in charge of the logistics of all crawls, they all look to her as the leader. While Nancy is a great leader, she put herself in this position out of a sense of responsibility to the others. When they are in the abyss and decide they need someone to be bait, she says it will be her with zero hesitation as if it's the most obvious choice. She has grown a lot but she still very much hasn't forgiven herself for Barb. So due to her fears, Nancy's contribution to the group project of trauma isn't an alternate dimension or a black hole, it's her own little sister being taken by a Demogorgon. Nancy manifested Holly's kidnapping, her worst fear.
Another important part of the most traumatic experience for Nancy losing Barb was that during all of S1, Steve and Jonathan are being competitive over her. Jonathan less so because he's dealing with Will but the fact remains that Nancy gets very frustrated at how they could be thinking about bullshit like that when she is focused on finding her missing friend. S5 the exact same dynamic emerges. She gets to the point where is snapping at them because she's in disbelief that they think she cares about their little pissing contests when Holly is out there somewhere.
Mike has a myriad of traumatic experiences and self-reflections that he simply cannot process. In order to compartmentalize and repress things in a way that allows him to function, he creates a wall in his mind.
A wall behind which he can shove everything he's not ready to look at or think about. Some of those things are events, like losing Will at 12, losing El to the Demogorgon, and about a hundred other near-death experiences of himself and his loved ones.
Other things that exist behind that wall are more complicated feelings he isn't ready to process or he's actively running away from....
Henry has also contributed to the shared trauma in a major way. The Abyss is a manifestation from him. This is why the Abyss is a desert. Specifically, it's an arid desert in Nevada. There were lots of complaints that this made no sense because the MF likes it cold. Will's closet and Henry's cave (their shared traumas) are two different climates. It makes perfect sense. Just like Max and Holly climb through doors and windows to navigate memories, the party traverses through traumas to reach other traumas.
Henry has held onto the anger and the feelings that he was innately bad since he was a child in that cave. That experience created those thoughts and they stayed with him so long they invited the Mindflayer in. But Will recognized something in Henry that no one had told him before...
Henry is a scared little boy who looks like a man. He has never grown up beyond that day in the cave and the only way he can feel powerful is by becoming Vecna because being Henry was terrifying.
Someone is going to have to save Henry to destroy Vecna. This doesn't mean that Henry will live. It means he needs to finally let go so he can stop letting his fears and anger pull everyone into the void.
According to Dustin, "The key to destroying that wall is in the lab. It isn't dark magic; Vecna didn't make it. Science did. It's exotic matter."
Dustin also told us that the Upside Down is a bridge, meaning Will is the bridge. And the exotic matter at the heart of the bridge is right here...
So this stands to reason that the key to destroying Mike's wall of trauma and shame is accessing his heart. It's Mike's heart, but it belongs to Will.
The whole party can save themselves by being open and honest with themselves and each other even if it's scary, especially if it's scary. They have to rid themselves of the shame, guilt, and fear that come with growing up.
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