You know what the wormhole drawings reminded me of?
The heart’s toroidal field:
(Disclaimer: I’m not a scientist at all, I haven’t done a ton of research on this so I’m not making claims about this as a field of study! I’m purely interested in any possible symbolic implications.)
I have some quotes from a couple websites that prompted some thoughts (bolding in the quotes added by me for emphasis):
“The heart’s toroidal field is the three-dimensional magnetic field created by the rhythmic beating of the heart. According to research from the HeartMath Institute, the heart produces an electrical field about 60 times greater in amplitude than the brain and a magnetic field up to 5,000 times stronger.”
The wormhole as the electromagnetic field of the heart, Mike “the heart” Wheeler as the exotic matter powering it
Magnetic field—> magnets attract. Mike is attracted to Will, his heart wishes to draw them together like magnets (or like two separate worlds that seem impossible to bring together?)
According to the HMI Research Director Dr. Rollin McCarty, “Coherence is the state when the heart, mind and emotions are in energetic alignment and cooperation”
Mike’s heart, mind and emotions are not aligned because he’s in the closet. His toroidal field is weak, chaotic, unstable. His brain tells him not to feel these romantic feelings, but as we read before, the heart produces a stronger electrical and magnetic field; his heart must win, and his mind and emotions must follow and be brought into coherence.
Mike, prior to this alignment, is an INCOHERENT character. He makes no sense. Why does date El but can’t tell her he loves her? Why can he only confess his love to El after her brother gives him a painting? Only after Mike admits his feelings to himself will he become COHERENT; everything he’s done for the entirety of the show will finally make sense.
“At the microscopic level, this electromagnetic harmony depends on one key factor: voltage. Every cell in your body operates like a tiny battery, maintaining a delicate electrical potential across its membrane. Healthy cells typically hold a voltage between –20 and –25 millivolts (mV). When the body is repairing or regenerating tissue, that voltage rises to around –50 mV, providing the energy needed for healing. When voltage falls below –20 mV, cells lose their ability to repair damage, fight infection, or maintain normal function.
Physician and researcher Dr. Jerry Tennant, author of Healing Is Voltage, describes this principle simply: healing cannot occur in a body that has low voltage.”
Voltage powers the radio tower that sends signals, voltage zaps the demogorgon back to life, voltage as related to electricity—> Mike cannot heal without his electric connection to Will. He needs to send signals to/receive signals from Will that bring them together, he needs their electricity to be zap him back to life
“Restoring both the quality of energy (coherence) and the quantity of energy (voltage) helps the body re-establish balance from the macro level down to the micro level. The heart’s toroidal field organizes the flow; cellular voltage powers the action.”
Quality of energy= coming to terms with his gay love for Will
Quantity of energy= being powered by the intensity, strength, and profundity of his gay love for Will
“When we allow our conscious awareness to be in our heart center, we can begin to shift our perspective from what is to what can be and realize what is possible. When your torus field is healthy and spinning in all directions with no obstruction, this generate an infinite amount of energy, vitality and life force- creating inner balance and raising our vibration. Your torus field can also act as a form of energetic protection- operating as a “force field” that can shield and dispel any negativity.”
Mike must become CONSCIOUS of his repressed love and attraction
By becoming consciously aware of it he can begin to shift his perspective into seeing that a future for him and Will IS possible
Without the obstruction of his closeting (including his use of Jane as a shield), he can generate an infinite amount of energy (thus acting as a wormhole and bringing him and Will together, like two separate worlds that he didn’t think could be joined)
His activated heart can also act as a force field that shields their relationship and dispels any hate/discrimination the world threatens them with
“This is a new era, where we can write and live a collective, new story- much like a portal in time, where light can be blinding, healing, eye opening, and freeing all at once- and the earth seems to be rearranging itself, as we continue to awaken and reorient- called to remember who, what and where we truly are. Rediscovering the power that has been within, not outside of, ourselves all along.”
Emphasis on Will’s “innate” powers = the power of heart coherence has been within all along, for both Will AND Mike
Mike is being called, not to become something new, but to REMEMBER who he is (the little boy on the swingset, unafraid to love Will openly and bravely)
A wormhole is a portal in time; Mike, as wormhole, must activate a new timeline and call in the light that shatters the darkness of his closet and thus heals/frees him
“The idea that power, or even freedom, lies outside of the self is just an illusion that we, as a collective, have made into our reality. Just. Opt. Out. Would you rather be right or have life and heal? So whenever you forget, which we all do from time to time… hey human! Let your heartbeat be your reminder.”
Mike has given into the illusion that his significance (power/freedom) lies in Jane. He’s just discount Lois Lane, only important because Superman happened to land on his doorstep
Jane also represents societally accepted heterosexuality for Mike; he can be “right” if he just stays in a romantic relationship with her. But he needs to grapple with the question, “would you rather be right or have life and heal?”
He’s forgotten who he is, his heartbeat must be the reminder: Mike is “the heart” of the party, but who gets the heart beating? Who drives him into action, inspires him to be a leader instead of making him feel like “some random nerd” with no power or consequence? — Mike is the locked heart, and Will is the key.
Understanding how the heart’s field works can help us see health and healing in a whole new light. It reminds us that we’re not just chemica
What Is The Heart's Toroidal Field?
The heart is the most powerful source of electromagnetic energy in the human body and the magnetic fiel
omg does anyone want to make wild and weightless conjectures with me?
the abyss is yellow because will, the illusionist, created it. the reason why it’s not populated with many creatures or upside down type things is because vecna keeps pushing will to make grotesque things for his friends to fight and he’s actively resisting.
the upside down is blue because it’s mike’s closet. there’s an emphasis on institutions—the government and the church—and it’s populated by medics/scientists and the army because those are all structures that are making it difficult for mike to be himself. we do not get to visit any of the locations that reminds us of the hawkins we know and love because mike does not feel at home in his closet. the new impenetrable wall is actually the shield that mike has around his inner thoughts and feelings. the exotic matter is all of the ugliness he believes exists inside himself and, after nancy shot it, it started leaking everywhere. and sometimes he does genuinely worry that he is the wormhole that is going to destroy the world.
the red lightning strikes every 7 seconds because you roll a 7 when the demogorgon gets you. to have been gotten by a demogorgon is to be trapped. mike is trapped.
there’s an emphasis on pregnant women, blood transfers, and there’s a vagina motif (lame-spectacle-flayer). powers are linked to queerness (thanks william and holly, thanks rainbow room inside the lab). they are trying to make more kids with powers using blood. everyone insists that this is a bad thing and it is but not for the reason you think. the problem is abuse and exploitation, not the powers in and of themselves. the problem is war and the desire for innovation without ethics. the problem is inhumane medical procedures and a lack of care for humanity, but no one stops to make this distinction.
(it’s the 80s and we’re at the height of an aids epidemic.)
they kill the vagina. they kill the pregnant women. they kill the blood source. they kill the upside down. mike’s bomb enables this. he’s obliterated his own closet just like the demogorgon destroyed mike’s closet using his conservative father. he thinks he’s stopping a cycle of suffering, but his tactics are steeped with conservative beliefs.
he thinks the powers are the bad thing. but he’s wrong: the institutions are the bad thing and they all got away with it. everyone who misguidedly participated in the destruction of powers enabled this to happen.
the upside down is gone, so mike pretends that the closet is gone. the closet has now become the entirety of his world.
and the magic is gone. god help us, the magic is gone. but they made a miscalculation. will’s powers are innate and he’s alive and, when he stands underneath the sunlight, he’s beautiful.
I just found an old screenshot of a TikTok comment in my camera roll that says:
“An article I read referred to authors serving as gods of the worlds they create so the obligation to the reader is not a morally pristine world but a narrative that acknowledges that a creator exists.”
And I think this perfectly puts words to the ultimate betrayal of stranger things 5. After seasons of plot and dialogue and staging and lighting that seemed to point towards a certain ending, an ending that would render everything before it meaningful, there just… wasn’t a meaningful ending. Everything that seemed carefully and artfully set up was forgotten and ignored, as if there was no creator that had set it up in the first place. A story that promised that it had a logic ultimately didn’t really have one, and so it doesn’t matter that most everyone lived and was smiling at the end; because the ending did not address and fulfill all that came before it, because there was no real pattern or framework it adhered to, it felt nihilistic. Like a meaningless world without any creator at all, let alone a good one.
To write a story, you have to have a worldview. That’s what a story inherently is, an expression of a worldview. The Duffers claimed to have a worldview about individuality, celebrating outcasts, and defying conformity, but it seems like they didn’t actually know what their worldview was or at least didn’t know how to convey it. Forget the overt failures of their claimed ideology for a minute (like writing a marginalized gay character only to make his love into a bandaid for the problems of a straight couple, for example); worldview is manifested in the literal WORLD you create. But tell us, Duffer Brothers:
- What would it have looked like for Vecna to succeed in his plans? For example, he hates Time; would he have somehow been able to tamper with Reality to undo or redesign the nature of Time?
- If the wormhole had brought the worlds together, what exactly would have happened? Would Earth have immediately just become an extension of Dimension X? Would the planets have crashed and both of them would have been destroyed? Or was the wormhole just a glorified elevator for the Mind Flayer to reach Earth? (For that matter, how did Vecna travel between Dimension X and the Upside Down, can he fly?!) Some of this might come down to me not knowing wormhole science, but I’m probably akin to the average viewer; don’t rely on us understanding complicated physics and paint us a picture. What EXACTLY are we afraid of happening here?
- Speaking of the Mind Flayer, what would it have done if it got to Earth? Would it have killed everyone or would it have possessed everyone to do its bidding? And what would its bidding have actually been? How does the Mind Flayer operate, does it feed on human flesh or human soul energy (hence plugging in the kids to its ribcage?), is it made of spores or flesh or WHAT? If the Mind Flayer can just possess people, then why didn’t it just possess the crew during the finale to make them stop fighting? If it can take spore form, why didn’t it get out of the physical spider body before the body was destroyed, and why did it need a physical body in the first place?
These and a thousand more questions needed to be answered, not just for an interesting and developed plot, but because that’s where the worldview is, where the MEANING is!! If the Mind Flayer is a physical representation of the Conformity that’s “killing the kids,” you have to USE your metaphor to tell us about the nature and dangers of Conformity!!
For instance, some ideas (not trying to answer all the questions but just get it started):
- The Mind Flayer could be a spider specifically because spiders weave webs and the Mind Flayer wants to weave a new Fate for the world (à la the Fates of mythology with their cosmic thread.) This shows us that Conformity is also spider, weaving the web that traps humans into its prey and feeds on their life force. (This also evokes weaving a web of lies, and we see that Vecna/the Mind Flayer often lie to people to get them to despair.) But for this to work, we need to see the Mind Flayer weaving, maybe spinning a web out of the Upside Down vines; if it's just going to loom or crawl around, it could have been a monster of any shape. If they weren’t going to lean into spider symbolism, the should have just gone for the Thessalhydra which was more related to the D&D world-building already established and could also symbolize Conformity (a creature that has multiple heads but the same hive mind force animating it, a la people conforming and technically being individuals with their own heads but having no unique purpose or agency). No matter the shape of the monster, they should also have leaned into the gaping mouth imagery (Conformity as a gaping mouth that will CONSUME you, perhaps especially if you CONSUME too much of the culture that is trying to brainwash you.) We saw the spider’s mouth for like two seconds in the finale and no one was in danger of being swallowed as El jumped straight for its heart instead. Missed opportunity.
- If Dimension X’s reality would have somehow overlayed on top of Earth and thus erased it, this annihilatory merging could symbolize how Conformity erases the individual’s mind when it is merged with the mass mentality. But then, if this was to be explored, Will’s individuality needed to be destroyed (or at least under threat) by his connection to the hive mind; the microcosm of the merging of Will with Vecna’s mind mirrors and plays out the macrocosm of the merging of Earth with Dimension X, and thus Will’s connection to Vecna should have had way more drastic implications in vol 2/the finale. Drilling down into this metaphor would have explored Conformity as a kind of union that causes erasure (as opposed to the kind of union which allows the individual to blossom, as in true love and community).
By failing to flesh out their world, the Duffer brothers failed to present their worldview, and thus failed to convey meaning. And a story without meaning is just an itinerary, events happening in a sequence without a true soul driving its trajectory. If storytelling is weaving, there are two kinds; you can take threads of character, plot, and setting to weave a tapestry of meaning that sets people free, or like Vecna (like a spider) you can use threads to weave stories that trap people and drain their life force. I think people aren’t wrong in aligning the writers of this show with Vecna via conformity gate; of course the ending could have been a lot worse or a lot more sinister, but in the end, they weren’t really able to make meaning, and instead even reinforced the kind of messages that Vecna might use to prey upon the minds of vulnerable characters (e.g., El as an abused girl must disappear or even die to end the cycle of abuse, Will as a gay boy in the 80s was delusional to think his friend could love him and must uproot his life and leave town to have even a chance at acceptance, etc.) Being a world builder is a big responsibility, because, as we see with the world of Dimension X, worlds have power and they can change and shape the mind; the Duffers asked millions of people to step into the world they created and they failed, in the end, to make it a good one. A potent reminder that writers=weavers=worldbuilders=powerful!! Use your power for good, friends!!
I don’t want to say that it’s easy to write a respectful queer storyline because obviously writing any good story takes skill, but it’s really easy not to be this BLATANTLY disrespectful.
So you want Will to have a self-acceptance arc without having his love reciprocated by Mike, fine:
Don’t make Will’s love-letter-painting the key to unlocking the part of Mike’s heart that lets him say “I love you.” Just have Will give him the painting and then let Mike realize what it means and gently let him down in s4— or, let Mike not realize it, but at least don’t make Mike FALL IN LOVE WITH THE PAINTING/THE FEELINGS BEHIND THE PAINTING. And for that matter, don’t direct Finn Wolfhard to gaze at Noah Schnapp like he’s the single most beautiful creature on the entire planet during the van scene (or if he’s doing that on his own, then direct him to save that energy for Mike’s scenes with his beloved and beautiful girlfriend JANE who he apparently has loved from the first second he saw her.)
Next step, don’t set up the “avalanche” expectation in s5; don’t identify Mike’s behaviors (shared looks, elbow bumps, etc), behaviors that both the audience and WILL HIMSELF notice, as flirtation. Don’t make Will have a realization that Mike might be flirting with him in that scene with Robin only for… Mike to not be flirting with him? If you are going to write a gay boy experiencing unrequited love for his best friend, he can love his best friend without thinking his best friend might reciprocate; in implying Will thinks Mike might reciprocate, you characterize him (and every lucid viewer who agrees with him) as DELUSIONAL for thinking he could be loved in return. So simply — don’t do that?
Next step, put all of Will’s friends in his mental movie and don’t put the swing-set scene first so that Mike isn’t singled out as, oh, I don’t know, the love of his life? Whose love is the key to unlocking powers within Will he didn’t know he had? Just make it about ALL of the love in Will’s life that inspires him to be free. If you’re going to go on to call Mike his Tammy and his crush, do not give us evidence that reinforces that Mike is in fact EVERYTHING to Will and has been from the moment they met.
And then of course, final steps: give Will more than a few hours to get over his deep and lifelong “crush” (bombastic side eye) and some actually meaningful coming out scenes with a few people that he actually trusts, not an excruciating town hall meeting where he comes out due to visions we don’t see or understand.
Why is all of this easy? Because most of it involves NOT doing things. Doing LESS. Meaning they WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY to tee up a ball only to not swing and then laugh at us for noticing that we’re on a baseball field. (I know this is why people believe in conformity gate, because it’s just too insane, and hey if it happened I might change my tune, but until then… I’m actually gobsmacked. Forget the necessary due diligence of consulting actual queer peoples’ opinions to write a queer storyline like this— this is just some writing 101 shit. Chekhov from your Intro to fiction syllabus says hi. I can’t believe that the people in the writers room thought ANY of this made ANY sense at ANY point I can’t wrap my head around it I’m going CRAZY.)
You know what? I actually don’t think Mike Wheeler ends Stranger Things turning into his dad. I think he ends the show as one of us—a fanfiction writer. We watch him literally write fanfiction headcanons of where his and his friends’ lives are headed. And I think that being a fanfiction writer is actually a profoundly hopeful thing to be. Even if he’s not great at it right now, it could lead him somewhere healthier, help him explore his own feelings in a way he wasn’t able to before in the midst of all the trauma and pain. The scene of him writing sadly in a basement is his vision of his future self in that particular moment at age 18 when he’s depressed and grieving; he can’t imagine a brighter looking future yet, so he writes a bad story for himself. But if he actually starts writing then he’ll get better at it, and then he might get better at writing his own story too. Writing about his past might help him work through it (maybe realize who the painting on his wall is really from?) and flexing that muscle of imagination might help him imagine a better life for himself, maybe one where he’s the heart again instead of isolated from his friends. (Maybe even one where he realizes that sorcerer character had meant a lot more to the paladin character than he’d ever allowed himself to acknowledge before).
I don’t know, I just know that writing fanfiction has been a healing experience for me and I’ve learned a lot from it. Mike writing fanfiction about his own life gives me hope for him; his hollowness in the last seasons of the show maybe reflects his lack of an ability to process what was happening in the moment both externally and internally. So now he has a chance to process, and in returning to the past, he might even stumble upon a young version of himself who loved every part of himself and reminds him that he has all the answers, and maybe then Mike can stop being so fucking scared and break out of the conformity that keeps him from flying.
The show ends playing out the headcanons of a high schooler who is lost and hurting and who is turning to fanfiction for hope. I think he might find more hope there than he can even imagine. I know I’ve been there.
(It’s also a reminder that our fan fiction/headcanons are just as legitimate as the stories Mike told to the group. He’s like the equivalent of one AO3 account; we can appreciate his imagination/version of things AND also click on other stories if we choose. All the different stories are valid, and we decide which ones to focus on because they nourish us the most.)
They could have told the most beautiful story. I know it really hurts right now but in some ways I feel like it’s really their loss, not ours. We know what beauty looks like and they don’t. We can tell beautiful stories on ao3 with no budget and they had ten years and millions of dollars and they failed to. I feel kinda sad for them.
Why did the date November 6th matter? Why did Vecna choose Will in the first place? What did he even do to Will in the Upside Down, what did he really accomplish in that week? Why did Vecna wait four years to bring down Dimension X? What did the high school play that Henry was in have to do with anything? What is the difference between the spore mind flayer and the physical one? How did the kids actually function inside the body of the monster, why did he need kids specifically, why did he need 12 specifically? Why have Vecna appear to Hopper but not MIKE?!
It would have made so much sense for there to be some question of whether Will would die because of his connection to the hive mind, but we get NO resolution or even acknowledgement with that. We don’t even see black spores come out of him the way they come out of the kids once they’re freed. Like “neither can live while the other survives” would have been such low hanging fruit here and they refused to do ANYTHING interesting?!
Did anyone else think there was going to be some sort of parallel between the heart of the spider monster and Mike “the heart” Wheeler? Both hearts seemed pretty forgotten and I thought both were gonna be very important lol
Also, why have that shot in vol 2 where Will looks up at Dustin’s drawing and his head is aligned with the exotic matter. Like that was this ominous death flag that meant ABSOLUTELY NOTHING?! Why do things for no reason?!
If Mike saw the “true El” then he would know El would never commission a DnD themed painting that she wasn’t even in and that she never even acknowledged…
S4 ended with Will having given up on Mike. He gave him the painting, lied about his feelings, pushed him towards El, and let him go.
SO WHY BRING HIS HOPE BACK?! Why imply that Will has noticed signs of Mike flirting with him when Robin described what flirting looked like?! Why set up Checkov’s avalanche only to just plum forget about it? Why the dick jokes, why have Mike and Will have a shared look when Robin says “I like dick”?! And if you’re going to draw out Will’s “crush” like this ‘cause you think it’s important, then why have Will get over it in two seconds flat due to evil/false visions that we never even get to see?
Why not just let him have a gay acceptance arc in s5 without bringing Mike into it? Why not have Will stumble on Robin and Vickie in the hospital and realize he’s not alone, and focus his arc purely on his own identity since Will was already prepared to leave his feelings for Mike in the past 18 months ago?
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