let’s talk about the Wheelers and the Creels. spoilers and leaks for st5 and the first shadow ahead!!! proceed with caution:
For this to make the most sense, it’s important to know that I believe Henry is possessed by a Big Bad. I’ll differentiate by using Henry and the Mind Flayer respectively. You can read that full post HERE
also relevant is Henry being El’s father which I get into HERE (and yes, that makes her related to Mike)
Henry has been obsessed with the Wheelers from day one let’s get into it—
from the beginning she’s been framed as SO important despite not being super relevant to the plot. she’s been a good mom to her kids and offering them advice/comfort to them throughout their journeys but she’s not Involved like Joyce so the focus was always a little odd to me. there’s a collection of Karen centered moments that stand out to me—
-Karen picking a lock to get into Nancy’s room. extremely uncool that she invaded her daughter’s privacy like that but she was worried about her and the lock picking thing implies an interesting past. that’s not something everyone knows how to do
-Karen is the one to find a lock of BLONDE hair in the basement in season one (from el’s wig)
-Karen states that Brenner ‘gives her the creeps’ which could just be good intuition, or her being force ‘sensitive’ or maybe, just maybe, she remembers him from when she was a kid
-Karen being SPARED by Billy when he’s possessed by the Mind Flayer (also Billy being possessed in the first place while on the way to go have an affair with Karen so Henry steps in to stop it because that’s his sister which you could take as protective big brother vibes or incestuous jealousy take your pick)
-it also explains why Billy is able to resist hurting Karen. you could easily say that it’s because Karen was nice to/interested in him and it’s still the beginning stages so Billy is resisting but I like the idea that the Mind Flayer tried to make him hurt/kill/possess Karen to get rid of her but Henry is the one who resists
—she also says to him “I have a family. And I can’t do anything that will hurt them. You can understand that, right?” which would really cut Henry deep if he’s listening because he does understand and he is trying not to hurt his family, especially in that moment
-Nancy’s “I get it from you” when Karen talks about her being strong is super sweet but also a bit…hollow. because we haven’t actually seen Karen do much. I think it’s much stronger if it’s tied (even unknowingly, on Nancy’s part) to how she survived such a traumatic childhood
-Karen’s maiden name in the First Shadow is Childress
“The Anglo-Saxon name Childress comes from when the family resided in or near an orphanage; the location of the specific orphanage that gave rise to the surname Childress is not known in modern times. The surname Childress may have also been a nickname for an orphan, or an occupational name applied to someone who ran an orphanage”—after her whole family dies/is locked up, Alice would’ve essentially been an orphan, which could explain her new surname post adoption/witsec situation
The etymology of Karen is still debated, a diminutive of Katherine with several possible Greek origins including:
“each of the two” (two Creel siblings, her and Henry)
a derivative of the goddess Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, crossroads, demons, and the underworld (the Wheelers being force sensitive because of their mom, her associated with Henry being demons, the underworld meaning the upside down in this case, the crossroads part actually scares me to think about)
or it could mean “torture” which is exactly what Henry/The Mind Flayer did to her as a kid and what is going to happen to her in st5
later on it becomes associated with a Greek work meaning “pure” which could be how Henry views his sister even if that wasn’t her name at the time
or it could be from a Coptic name meaning “my consecration of your name” and consecration means: the transfer of a person or a thing to the sacred sphere for a special purpose or service. The word consecration literally means "association with the sacred”. not only is Karen sacred to Henry if she really is his sister, but her new name also represents her ‘special purpose’ in the show and why she’s been important since the very beginning
(Katherine is also the name of a saint that was tortured with a spiked wheel. just want to put that out there in case that’s how she’s wounded in season 5)
is targeted by Henry/The Mind Flayer in season four for the vision which could easily be explained by her being the de facto leader but it’s very pointed and personal. he shows her visions of her mom, Holly, and Mike and Nancy can’t even bring herself to speak what it was out loud. if it’s the Mind Flayer, it could be targeting her because she’s Henry’s family and the Wheelers are being specially targeted for the same reason
the vision is also incredibly vulnerable, some of the worst moments of his life. Nancy sees more of Henry’s past than any other character on the show and there’s really no reason for him to show her that unless there’s something he wants her to know/see specifically. if it was solely to scare her then he could’ve just shown her the vision of the future, which obviously does rattle her later on.
Robin then asks what they’re calling him now and there’s some go around and Nancy specifically says Henry. but just before that she calls him Vecna. implying that she is already differentiating between the two perhaps?(as per my Henry is possessed theory) even on a subconscious level (as per my Nancy is force sensitive theory)
when Will is possessed in season two, he still recognizes Mike, which I totally can attribute to their deep bond but he eventually forgets his own mom (I know that it’s later on so the possession is stronger but still). Will never forgets Mike and that could be because of the connection Henry has with Mike as well. that’s his nephew !!!
Mike is also the one that gets through to Will in the shed (again, not taking away from any byler connections). Joyce and Jonathan are both there and we know Will loves them both so much, the song Jonathan showed him in season one became his favorite and helped keep him safe in the Upside Down! Will communicated with Joyce through the lights in season one! not Mike. but Mike is the one who succeeds in this instance because of the double connection. he gets through to both Will and Henry and they’re able to throw off the Mind Flayer just long enough to get the message through
I looked up what the name Michael means (because Karen EXCLUSIVELY calls him Michael in season one, never Mike) and I knew there was an obvious archangel reference and the English meaning is “who is like God?” Or “one who is like God” but in Hebrew, the word for God is EL. ITS FUCKING EL. THE NICKNAME HE GIVES TO ELEVEN (which can also fit with my Mike has precognition powers, especially because Mike is the one who first calls them cousins in season one) he is like El because he is related to El
she’s been targeted since season one, in episode three (titled Holly, Jolly like, c’mon), when a hand not a demogorgon claw comes out of the wall in Will’s room (full post HERE)
we know that Holly is specifically targeted in season 5 and while everything is speculation at this point, I think the strongest argument as to why is because she has a direct connection to Henry, ie being his niece and currently the most force ‘sensitive’ Wheeler with whom he can establish a connection
the events we get from Victor Creel are highly subjective because they are HIS version of events and we know the newspapers have conflicting accounts of what happened as well. and since everyone believed he was the one who did it, then it makes sense that no one would tell him that Alice was alive so he wouldn’t try to target her again. he’s also blind which means he can’t see Nancy and any resemblance she may or may not bear to his children
in flashbacks, we see Victor Creel sitting on a porch with a shotgun, which looks to me to be a Winchester Model 12. later in the season we see Nancy buying a shotgun and that is a Winchester Model 1200, which was made as a newer, less expensive version of the Model 12. like grandfather like granddaughter?
when he’s telling them about the ‘waking nightmares’ his family began to have, we see the spiders in the bathtub for Virginia and we see the burning cradle for Victor but all we see for Alice is her screaming. she’s also in bed at night, so it was more of a regular nightmare? Victor calls her ‘poor, innocent Alice’ and since she is a child herself, I don’t think that Henry/The Mind Flayer would have very much to torment her with? everything is connected back to trauma when he gives his victims visions, even Nancy who he first taunts with Barb’s death before showing her the rest of the vision. so it’s very strange to me that Alice received any nightmare visions at all and that we don’t see what it was on screen. I think this may have been Victor falsely attributing a regular scary dream to something bigger
we see Victor going through the attic and there is special focus on an empty cradle, which at first I thought had to do with Victor’s own trauma (and still might) but there is a pristine white gown next to it. it could even be a wedding dress. and those two things could represent “becoming a woman”, which could point to Alice. and if this theory is correct and Alice is Karen then it adds another layer because Karen loves her children more than anything else but she is defined and famously unhappy in her marriage. it could also visually represent the jump we see from Alice as a child (the cradle) to Alice as an adult (Karen with her marriage, because she is the only married character with any sort of focus)
Victor gets his vision and comes out of it (we are made to think), to see Alice ‘dead’ on the ground with blood coming out of her eyes and a broken arm. we don’t actually see it happen (which would’ve been brutal but also there was a whole massacre in this same season so they’re not going to shy away from brutality imo). and Henry is already passed out from the exertion.
not only that, but the fact that Alice isn’t horribly disfigured in Victor’s memory either. she has the blood coming out of her eyes and what appears to be a broken arm, but it is nowhere near the same level of damage done to the other victims, including their mother only moments before. if Alice is alive (and I believe she is) then Henry no doubt exhausted himself trying to save his sister from the Mind Flayer too. El revived Max, it stands to reason that Henry could do the same for Alice
about Henry, Victor says, “A week later he died” because Brenner and the lab have a history of faking the deaths of children and I think this may have been their first. so Brenner could wholly control Henry. Victor never actually says Alice dies. just that the demon ‘took’ his children.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND IMAGERY
first and foremost, Henry’s sister is named ALICE and Alice and Wonderland imagery is freaking everywhere in this show. this section actually turned out so long that it’s going to have to be its own post
the tldr of this is that the Wheeler kids are all heavily associated with Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass imagery
Victor also lists serval animals that were found dead and mutilated around their house but the one we see Alice find in a flashback is specifically a rabbit
then @gothmikewheeler pointed out that Brenner could have also helped fake Alice’s death (and the lab has a history of faking children’s deaths) to further isolate Henry which I totally believe he would do because he decided Patty needed to die because Henry’s love for her was holding him back BUT Alice is too valuable to kill outright because she’s probably force ‘sensitive’ like Henry and she could be used as leverage against him later
another possible explanation is that Alice’s consciousness was transferred INTO Karen. like possession, which we have seen evidence of throughout the show, thought not on a scale like this. just throwing anything and everything out there
this could’ve happened when Henry was possessed and the Mind Flayer was killing his family. he saved his father with the song and pulled Alice into the mindscape/Dimension X and then put her mind/soul into Karen’s body
I really do think Karen might be Alice though, oh and Henry is El’s biological father (I talk about that HERE)
also in the climax of season four, during the earthquake scene, we see an urn fall off the Wheeler’s mantle. Grandma Virginia? Is that you?
