Thinking a lot about the fact that Max repeatedly begs Billy to get up (minus one instance where she asks him to wake up).
Get up, because Billy Hargrove doesn't get knocked down. Not permanently. Get up, because Max thinks this will be just like any other time-- that even if he's hurt, he'll just get back up. Because that's what Billy does. He's dying in front of her, but even with the facts laid out right in front of her, Max can't fathom that he's dying. She's not begging him not to go. She's not begging him to stay with her. Because she doesn't think he's going to die. She thinks it's going to be the same. That even if Billy is beaten and bruised and bleeding, he's still just going to get up. Because Billy doesn't get knocked down.
And the implications of that within the context of what just transpired is that, somewhere deep within Max, regardless of how shielded and sheltered she was from the abuse (read more here), she still intrinsically knows that Billy's been standing up and holding the bad things back. And she knows he's been doing that for a long time. And their relationship is messy and complicated and even filled with a moment where Max knocks Billy down herself by drugging him (read more here and here). But it doesn't change the fact that Max knows, somewhere within her, that Billy's been the only constant in her life once their parents got married. That he's always been the standing force.
And this idea doesn't just reside with Max, though I think it ultimately comes to a head with Max and Billy in the end. It's threaded everywhere in Billy's characterization. It's there in the advice he gives to Steve, telling him: "You were moving your feet. Plant them next time. Draw a charge." Why does Billy say this? Because he's been abused by his father since he was a child and learned that he had to keep standing. He had to plant his feet. Because if he didn't keep his feet planted- if he didn't keep standing- if he didn't remain strong, he'd get hurt and also verbally degraded for being weak- for being a "pussy" and a "faggot" as Neil calls him.
He had to be strong. He had to keep standing. For himself. To survive. It's this concept of, "Yeah, I can take it. Give it to me, I can take it." And when I say that, I mean everything. Billy takes the abuse. Billy takes the sexual predatory behavior inflicted onto him. He takes the sexualization from his peers. He takes the abandonment. He takes the image everyone wants to see out of him-- that the loud persona (because people WANT Billy but they don't CHOOSE Billy). He takes it all, every hit (both literal and metaphorical) because he has to shoulder it. He has to be strong enough to take it all. He doesn't have a choice, even if he's afraid.
Billy taking on the bad things has been going on long before he ever takes on the Mind Flayer. It's just that it took Billy holding back the Mind Flayer and getting so violently attacked for an entire town that hated him for it to become so visually clear that he's been doing this all his life.
And then there's something else to consider about this, too. Billy has been taking on the bad things all his life because no one else had ever stayed around or helped. He's been a victim of abuse since he was a child, and no one had ever helped or given him safety. He was a child when his mother left him with an abusive father, he suffered abuse from his father, he was constantly sexualized and objectified by his peers, he was sexually preyed upon by adult women, and was assaulted and possessed by the Mind Flayer. As a result, he was left with a gaping hole of abandonment, and Billy filled it by taking on the pain. And I do think he carried thoughts that perhaps he deserved this. I do think that he believed that perhaps he is unloveable. That perhaps the only way he can ever get a shred of attention, or a moment when people look at him instead of abandoning him, is through giving his body away and enduring this violence. So he'll get up and stand and endure it.
And then, his last moment on earth was standing up to a monster just to hold it back a little bit longer for everyone else. It was his last outpouring of self that ultimately took his life. And what that says about Billy... about how much he was willing to endure and willing to give himself away, just because one person showed him kindness in the end. Because the only way Billy has ever been able to show how much he emotionally could give to others was to get up and endure it, even at the expense of his body and his life.
