Vecna is Santa and he ruined our Christmas
This is a deep dive into the Bradley's Big Buy, Robin's role in Vecna's plan, the coming out scene, and the sedative/caffeine coding. I genuinely feel like I've reached a whole new level of conformitygate flowstate.
So I pointed out a few days ago that the Bradley's Big Buy lorry, aka Santa's sleigh, is Camazotz and the kids are the reindeer pulling it into Hawkins.
But holy shit does this have even more implications than I imagined.
This was what I covered in my previous post: Murray refers to the kids as 'reindeer.' This is odd because the reindeer are meant to pull the sleigh not ride in it. This foreshadows that the kids will use their magic to pull something into Hawkins. We're meant to think it's the Abyss but it's actually Camazotz.
Front and centre of the bench, making up the seat and covered in foam padding is that red crate that we were told by Robin is Vecna's mind. Then Murray talks about the 'sleigh' like it's Camazotz.
The foam padding is the part emphasised by Joyce. I think it's an extension of the asylum coding. The Pennhurst plot foreshadowed the Camazotz plot. Camazotz is a padded cell. A mental prison. An asylum (institution) that looks like asylum (safety). Lotta wordplay. This suggests that the kids are actually helping pull Camazotz into Hawkins.
We also have parallels between the state of Santa's Sleigh and the state of affairs in Camazotz.
The van first tips over in 5x04. The last scene we saw of the Camazotz plot was when Max brings Holly into the cave, Holly starts to believes her, and Max explains that they have a means of escape.
The next time we see the lorry, in 5x07, they connect it more explicitly to Holly's rebellion. Holly gets attacked by her friends and falls down the stairs. Her lying prone transitions into the lorry also fallen over. El then rights the lorry. Murray makes a joke about hoping for a gentler landing. This parallels Holly falling down the stairs but not with the lorry falling over. With the lorry being righted again.
Then we have the scene between El and Kali where you can hear that Murray is still having trouble with the lorry. It' appears behind their heads. By the conversation's end, when they're done "meditating", the lorry is up and running. If I go into El and Kali relate to this we'll be here for hours so we'll leave that for another day.
But what happens before we can use Santa's sleigh? Will's coming out. Which is when I think Mike is finally taken (Vecna's bishop takes the knight). I think people were being controllled before this point but everything past this scene is not actually happening. Mike being 'the storyteller' allows Camazotz 2.0 to tell a story from his and Henry's memories rather than being frozen at a single point in time.
The next scene after the coming out where is everyone? The lorry!
Yeah. And to really hammer home that they're in Vecna's mind this time it's lit up in bright red light like his mindscape.
Oh and because from now on everything is a play inside a play?
Murray tells us that it's "showtime".
I'm not sure how far it matters who exactly is inside or outside the lorry, that's maybe something to look into in the future, but this is significant nonetheless.
So to recap, what happens to lorry in 5x07?
The lorry is still tipped over (Holly is still trying to rebel) -> it's righted again (Holly gets knocked out) -> it won't start still (Henry needs Mike) -> Murray fixes it (Mike is finally taken) -> Everyone is now in the lorry (everyone is now in Camazotz).
But it's not just that the lorry is the sleigh. It's that the kids are the reindeer. It's that Vecna/Will/Murray is Santa. It's that Robin is one of his elves.
I don't think she is intentionally one of his elves but, besides Will who seems to be under the Mindflayer's control by 5x07, she is the person in the party most responsible for Mike's plan failing and Vecna's plan prevailing. Foreshadowed here:
It's not that anything Robin does is poorly intentioned or even negative for the overall story, it's just that she was the one who set up the dominoes to fall. Robin's Tammy Thompson advice has terrible repercussions.
Robin helps Will come into his powers -> Vecna was likely trying to do this himself. It also furthers Will's connection to the hivemind.
Robin tells Will he needs to come out before he can enter a romantic relationship with Mike. She's the one to tell Will about Tammy -> Both are exploited by Vecna and leads to Mike finally being sacrificed/taken during Will's coming out.
Robin tells Mike not to choose the Butthole Surfers and instead he chooses Purple Rain -> Mike didn't truly get to choose the music that might have helped wake him up. She encourages Mike to replace the gay band he was going to play with a track that symbolises his and El's relationship.
On WSQK they had a segment called Talk to Tammy. Firstly this implies Tammy is the colleague of Vance (Vecna) and Mindy (Mindflayer). The segment is like an agony aunt type situation but Tammy would give sorta terrible advice knowing what we know about the show. It was well intentioned but bad advice due to her lack of understanding. This is what Robin is doing. She keeps giving Will and Mike advice without full understanding of the situation.
When we saw Tammy in person in S4 she was singing for the Tigers. I feel like I end up saying this every post but Vecna is the Tiger stalking his victims.
The clues that Robin's advice has led to Mike being taken are pretty numerous.
Throughout the season we see our 'good guys' doing the same thing that the 'bag guys' do. This seems to have been done to explain Vecna/Mindflayer's plan and add to the subtextual reasons the heroes lose.
They sedate the Turnbows -> Vecna sedates his victims
They kidnap Derek -> Vecna has kidnapped like 13 children
They use Derek as an inside man -> Vecna uses Will as an inside man
They defeat Vecna using things that make them 'sad but also angry' -> THAT'S WHAT VECNA DOES
That's just a couple examples. The Turnbow plotline best explains Robin's role as Santa's 'elf'. She obtains the benzos. Aka the ammunition Vecna can use to sedate his victims.
She says the plan is to knock out half of Hawkins.
In the van before they drug the Turnbows we have this exchange:
We see 'what they had for lunch' and 'alcohol intake' become immediately relevant. Both of the adults were drinking alcohol and Tina says she's on a diet. This means the sedation was more effective. We can infer that this is the reason Derek is the only one to wake up.
When Mary asks Holly why she's acting weird in Camazotz she says,
Holly can resist the 'sedation' because she 'ate too much cake'. This is another "what they had for lunch" example.
And why was Mike the last to go under and likely the first to wake up? Because of his caffeine intake.
We see Mike pouring himself coffee at breakfast. Other people have mugs as well as orange juice glasses but it's not emphasised and we don't see whether there's coffee in them. Nancy argues with Mike about the coffee. She says he doesn't need it because he's crazy.
Mike is crazy? As in crazy together? As in in love? He doesn't need caffeine to escape because he's in love?
Caffeine is just a clue that indicates someone can escape Camazotz. It's a stand in for everything that actually can help you escape (like love).
We then see Mike actually drink coffee in the hospital in episode 2. He also gets Nancy a cup but she never drinks it.
Sorta gross but the scene of the coffee is a parallel to the soldier peeing on the wall. Cemented by Mike immediately walking by the toilet with his coffee and him previously saying he was going to pee on the floor in episode 1. The wall is Mike's mental wall. It can subtextually be destroyed by his love for Will (coffee) and potentially literally be destroyed by water (memories/emotions). It's when Mike takes a sip of his coffee that he looks through the window at the A Wrinkle in Time book and the Rainbow Brite puzzle.
The only other two people associated with anything caffeinated pre-epilogue (as far as I can remember) are Will and Lucas.
Will has a can of Coke but we never see him drink it because they get interrupted by Robin's broadcast. We do see Lucas drinking his Dr Pepper (which fun fact has more caffeine than Coke but not as much as coffee).
Then at the hospital Will implies that he's going to need something caffeinated. Lucas doesn't need anything; he had Dr Pepper earlier. Then Max is revealed. She's the real reason Lucas doesn't need something caffeinated. She makes Lucas crazy.
But Will? Will still doesn't get his Coke. He drops it in surprise when he sees Robin and Vickie together. This scene is a parallel to Mike getting coffee earlier.
So Will tries twice and twice he never actually gets it. Both times who is accidentally the cause of Will not getting any caffeine? Robin once again. I feel the need to reemphasise that Robin's role is making the 'gifts' that Vecna then gives out. She helps empower him but Vecna exploits her advice to make Will think his love is unrequited.
I think this caffeine and alcohol thing implies that Lucas will probably be second to wake up. On the opposite end of the spectrum we were told that both Karen and Nancy have drinking problems. But its not just them who are affected by alcohol, both Joyce and Hopper drink wine and the teens are all drinking beer in the epilogue. It's just the kids who we see have been drinking coke.
If this means we could get more of the party working together that would be amazing.
In Mike's imagined future for Will Will is implied to be drinking alcohol. Mike imagines a Will who isn't crazy/caffeinated/in love with him.
But let's rewind back to the scene in the WSQK van where they talk about the drugs. Robin asks, "what could go wrong?"
Robin and Mike look at each other. Foreshadowing that Robin will be the cause of what goes wrong for the party, that it'll have something to do with Mike, and that Mike will be the cause of what goes wrong for Vecna.
In 5x05 Mike tries to reach for skittles from the pile of snacks and Robin pulls them away from him and towards Will.
In 5x06 Vickie thinks Robin is stealing drugs to get her and her friends high. This misdiagnosis is right in the sense that Robin is the cause of her friends being 'sedated'.
In 5x07 Robin walks behind Mike when she says "Another kidnapping plot! Love it!"
If we go back to Bradley's Big Buy again they mention the store in the very first episode in a very suspicious way.
Mike says that they should stick to the plan but it immediately goes tits up. Would following their original plan have led them to Vecna or is this just more coding that Big Buy = Vecna's mindscape? Does this mean it'll be Mike's plan that can defeat Vecna? A plan that likely involves kissing Will Byers on the mouth.
Dustin sarcastically asks if they're going to find Vecna shopping for Lucky Charms but... when Will is possessed in 5x07 he says that he likes Lucky Charms. If Will = Vecna then yeah, you just might find Vecna shopping for Lucky Charms.
The mention of the Circuit City is also interesting. They're known for 'red tower' entrances. A red tower/pyramid also features on Will's poster of Boys Don't Cry. We have our very own red tower: the WSQK tower. We saw the Mindflayer particles go up it in 5x05. Vecna might actually be right under their noses at the WSQK. It has a red tower and a Big Buys lorry. Mindy and Vance are radio hosts. But it might also just be yet another thing that points to the coming out scene which happens at the radio station while the lorry is outside.
Pretty much everything in Will's coming out speech is suspect but there's a couple things that fit into the drug/Christmas coding. He mentions Steve Martin who played the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors (more about the film here). He suffocates on nitrous oxide and is fed to Audrey. Nitrous oxide is yet. another. sedative.
Will's coming out is also a parallel to Love, Simon (more here) and in that movie two things happen on Christmas: Simon gets outed, and he comes out to his family out of fear that it'll otherwise come back to them. Depending on how much control Will has in 5x07, either scenario could be the case.
EVERYTHING connects together. This isn't even all the clues you could cite it's just that I need to stop somewhere.
TLDR: Vecna is Santa, Robin is his elf, the kids are his reindeer, Camazotz is the sleigh, and our horrible horrible Christmas gift was our characters being sedated and that coming out scene.
