My recent analysis made it just click for me while watching why Nancy is jealous over Steve in early season 4 too.
She feels like nobody wants her anymore. Even further supported by her telling reaction to Fred calling her "the most desired girl in Hawkins"
She doesn't feel like it right now.
Already worried that her boyfriend is gonna leave her, she runs into her ex to find - to her belief - that he, too, has completely moved on.
Previously seemed unable to get over her, and he's fine. It seems like he even found somebody new.
It's a symbol for her. A forming pattern. That people meet someone new and they move on from her, that's already what she thinks happened with Jonathan, and while in the throes of that there's another one?
It's proof to her. Similar to El's belief in the same episode in some ways, really. She thinks it is reflective of something in her.
It isn't about wanting him. It's about not feeling wanted by him. And it isn't about not feeling wanted by him, it's about not feeling wanted by Jonathan.
But to her, Steve moving on is just more proof that Jonathan has. Look how possible, look how easy, it is for someone to move on from me. Using it as universally applicable principle.
So it also makes sense that when she finds out he didn't move on...she clings to that.
She's not clinging to Steve. She's clinging to proof.
If Steve moving on with Robin can be proof that Jonathan doesn't love her anymore, Steve not being over her can be proof that Jonathan still does.
Steve is a figure, a representation. She doesn't want Steve to want her. She wants the idea "someone could. It's not easy to get over me, even with distance or time apart."
At the end of the day, he's a projection of Jonathan. It's also why there's follow through for her in the end. She doesn't actually want him. She was never actually gonna cheat.
But every time he flirted with her, it was proof to her that maybe Jonathan agrees with Steve. That she's hard to get over, that she's wantable. And any time she flirts with him, it's her seeking that validation.
There's an unspoken addendum to every interaction with or about Steve for her in this season.
Steve thinks I'm easy to get over? Maybe Jonathan thinks so too...
Steve thinks I'm desirable and hard to fall out of love with? Maybe Jonathan thinks so too.
She says herself, she wants to get answers from Jonathan. But she can't.
"And now, I can't even figure out what's wrong because he's like blown up his family's house phone or something"
Steve isn't because she's seeking someone else. It's because she's seeking answers. She did try Jonathan first.
Steve is a stand-in.
Jonathan can't tell her how she feels? Well, then, she'll go after it - well, like a journalist, at the end of the day.
Try and find patterns in others. Do more research, corroborate.
This isn't a pursuit. It's a survey.
She doesn't want Steve's love, she wants his unput.
In her flirting, she's silently asking:
"Am I lovable? If you were Jonathan, would you leave me? Even if we were apart for a while...you wouldn't, right?"
I’m thinking about Vecna’d Nancy and what damage it could do to the Party
Nancy is one of the most important characters. She’s smart, she’s a leader and has a strong respect and authority among the party members, she plans the crawls and attacks and she has access to guns
Hopper’s possession in S5 completely changed Holly’s rescue trajectory, so imagine what could have happened if Vecna had really targeted Nancy?
I think Vecna could use Nancy to fake a crawl plan, giving him the opportunity to attack the group and gain access to Will and El. He could also use Nancy’s guilt over Barb, Fred, Max, Holly, and her injured parents (my poor girl, let her rest)
The potential for character study and (ronance) angst is HUGE, please please I need someone to write something with traitor!Nancy
Like in chess, you have to protect your strongest pieces. But Nancy isn’t someone who will stand in the back. Nancy is a protector, but who will protect her?
hi cosmo my best friend is freaking out about the st trailer.. please give your opinions on why Nancy was crying 😭 who died.. (i have no idea what's happening i was just listening to them ranting about the fandom being annoying)
HEY BABYYY <33 with this ask i have the opportunity to finally debunk the theory that the blood is Jonathan/Steve's and to talk about my gf Nancy YAYY
edit: this turned out to be mostly about Nancy i'm so sorry
edit2: I'M SO SORRY I REPLIED THIS LATE. REALLY.
okay, so, let's start by saying that Nancy's gonna be SOO vulnerable this season. she's accumulated so much stress (and trauma) over the past few seasons that she's never been able to face, or process out loud. the same thing keeps happening to her every season, and she can never get out of it, as if she were being tormented. that's Nancy's main problem.
Nancy has the survivor's guilt.
and that's kinda obvious, i know. just they way she loses Barb is straight-up cruel, but it also follows Nancy's choice to conform. Barb's death scene is heartbreaking (at least imo), it causes discomfort and even an aftertaste of disgust. whether it's towards Nancy, the sex scene, or the brutal death itself, that's for you to figure out. for me the most disturbing part is the thought that this is the direct consequence of Nancy's choice not to face what she really wants and instead hide in Steve's arms (literally and physically) instead. it's the same forced conformity that kills Max, too.
it's not Nancy's fault, but she thinks it is. she thinks it is for four whole seasons, even though she physically manages to take down what actually killed Barb. Nancy's wound has never healed, and it certainly hasn't healed yet in this scene. here, perhaps, it's more open than ever.
but it's given that Nancy couldn't have known what was about to happen to Barb, and she was just a teenager. She still is, in season four. she's 17/18, in s4.
i firmly believe this scene is not about Jonathan, or either Steve. i'm going to delve into this scene in some minutes. cause i wanna yap about Nancy more since i have free rein 😛.
to arrive at this point, i want to start by talking about season 4 Nancy and her regression. cause i don't see many people talking about this, but yeah, in season 4 Nancy regresses for a certain period. of course she does, tbh.
Nancy still hasn't healed from Barb. she's doing a little better because she has as distractions the things she likes or want to do (the Hawkins Post thing in season 3, and the school journal in season 4). but as soon as the news of Chrissy's death gets spread, Nancy gets consumed with worry and immediately springs into action to investigate with Fred, which is basically one of the two Barb "wannabe", this season. as @/gayofthefae said, he exists to retraumatize Nancy.
Fred looks vaguely similar to Barb. he and Nancy share a little bond, since Nancy can talk about him about her problems with Jonathan being in Cali (and mind that Jonathan is not with her this season. it's likely the first time after the start of season 2 that they get separated).
the way Fred gets left alone and then taken by Vecna is the same way Barb gets left behind and taken by the Demogorgon.
Nancy makes the same mistake twice, deciding to do her own thing and leaving the other to their own devices. Nancy's wound reopens, inevitably.
but i've said, however, that this season is composed by two Barb "wannabe". the first is Fred, while the second is...
Robin. the first female friend Nancy ever makes after Barb's death. who is similar to Barb, too. obviously Barb and Robin are not the same person, but they're both sarcastic, both "team" with Nancy (we don't see Barb actively "teaming" with Nancy with the supernatural. however, she "teams" with her by going to Steve's party with her), both are nerds, both are unpopular, both are queer. in the Rebel Robin podcast (which is not considered 100% canon, but either way Barb is queercoded as hell) we find out that Robin and Barb were once friends, and got distant when "Nancy took Barb away from her". Robin knew Barb.
Nancy is stiff and hesitant at first, she's scared to get close to Robin. the fact that she thinks Robin's dating Steve is also a reason, but i think it's very secondary to this. anyway, they eventually get close to the point Nancy can even find comfort from Robin.
(sweetest ronance scene ever if you ask me)
Robin is not a replacement to Barb, but the fondness and closeness start to hit in Nancy's mind. so much so that for the "Pennhurst mission", Nancy dresses Robin up as Barb. like, literally.
as i said, this is not to imply that Robin (or Fred) are Barb's replacements. this is, more than anything, a sign that Nancy hasn't moved on yet, and still sees Barb everywhere she goes, unconsciously looking for her. we have the confirmation in episode 7, in Vecna's vision. she still believes she killed Barb and that she's a slut.
now, remember when i said that Nancy hid in the safety of Steve's (forced conformity) arms while Barb got killed? in season 4 she almost does that again. she becomes vulnerable, she misses Jonathan's support and Steve starts becoming... protective(?) of her. Steve is probably the only person that gives her a sense of normalcy in all of this, right now. and she almost gives in.
but coincidentally, every time they share a tense moment (be it sexual or whatever), they always, ALWAYS, get interrupted. by Robin. by Barb's alter ego. this is like Nancy's reminder that "hey, remember what happened the last time you fell for him? do you remember that time you hid from me and had sex with him and i died? do you remember, Nancy?". that's why i think she regresses with Steve, she becomes stuck. both for Barb and because the things Steve demands from her are not the things Nancy wants for herself. you can see the resentment Nancy has in her eyes while she's with Steve. the cringy "six little nuggets" speech he gives to her later, is the moment where Nancy lets him go. because she doesn't want to get married. she doesn't want to be a housewife. she doesn't want to have thousands of children when she wants to be free and be a journalist. Steve (unintentionally) stands in her way, and it's here that perhaps Nancy rejects the forced conformity that pressures her throughout the series.
Henry doesn't show her only Barb, but also her family dying in front of her. in order: Karen, Holly and Mike. Ted gets no mention, casually.
and this is where the scene in the teaser is leading to. we can safely say that that blood is not Jonathan or Steve's, because Nancy's wearing her episode 1-2 outfit. if they were about to die she would've worn something else, since they probably wouldn't let anyone important die until episode 7 or 8. this scene in the specific is in episode 2, probably at the beginning, even.
Karen gets injured by a demogorgon and Holly probably has already vanished at that point. Nancy's visions are slowly turning true, one after the other. and she's remembering everyone she lost until that moment. in episode one she's even dressed up like Barb. she is still, yet again, haunting her.
now she's washing her hands from the blood, which could be Karen's but also someone else's in the hospital. it's unclear if she actively works as a volunteer or just borrowed the candy striper outfit, later in the episode. her sweater sleeves are soaked in blood, so both assumptions could be correct. i'm more convinced about the highlined one.
and this, ladies and gentlemen and folks, is the new entry to the "not-so-rare shot of Nancy Wheeler trying to wash the guilt away" collection.
this is Nancy not taking it anymore and having a major breakdown. we've never seen her this devastated. this is not only about her mom and her sister. it's about her not being able to save the ones she loves while they all get taken away from her.
wait, you thought i was talking about Mike Wheeler for a second? well, you're right. i am winning so bad this season.
P.S. here we can see she's already wearing the candy striper outfit, and this shot is probably in episode 2, somewhere near to the breakdown scene.
this doesn't have a proper conclusion. this was mostly for Lui, i'm sorry it took me so long. it was originally meant to be longer than this, but whatever ⚰️.
i hope you enjoyed my little rant about my second favorite character of the show <3
nancy wheeler’s s1 arc & how I built my interpretation around it
i came up with the concept for my fic based on the show’s themes — especially nancy’s characterization in s1 — but this post explains her arc and everything i already thought about her in such a ridiculously smart, detailed way. so if you haven’t read it yet, please go do that first and then come back. it’s honestly the best breakdown of her s1 coming-of-age i’ve ever seen.
ok. so here’s my take — not about shipping, not about endgame couples — just nancy, her grief, her agency, and why her arc works better when you take the romance lens off. my thesis
barb’s death is nancy’s emotional nucleus. not steve. not jonathan.
everything spirals from there: the guilt, the anger, the disillusionment, the loss of faith in authority, the “i know what i saw” moment, the acceptance of mortality, the decision to act.
her arc is about processing grief while being denied the space to be a grieving girl. her shift doesn’t start with jonathan — it starts with her worldview breaking.
it starts the second: barb disappears, adults don’t listen, she realizes safety was an illusion, and she steps into responsibility because no one else will.
episode 1 nancy is bow-tied, pastel-pink, and painfully polite. she is a kid trying to be taken seriously.
adults gaslight her. peers slut-shame her. she’s ridiculed for being scared, then ridiculed for being brave.
episode 8 nancy is kicking open locks, carrying weapons, confronting mortality, and rejecting the idea that adults know best.
she’s an adult because she forced herself to become one — without anyone’s approval.
that’s the story s1 actually tells. jonathan doesn’t make her grow up — the world does. his presence in her arc matters, but not because he “awakens” anything romantically. what he offers is recognition. respect. trust. he treats her like someone who is capable, and nancy responds to that — not to him. that’s why her shift is so powerful. the transformation was already happening internally. jonathan simply became the one person who didn’t shut it down. he is important to her story, yes — but he’s not the catalyst. he’s the person who recognizes the catalyst.
jonathan’s role as support, not salvation.
one thing I love about s1 is how careful the writing is: nancy does not run to jonathan because she’s in love with him. she gravitates toward him because he listens, believes her, respects her judgment, and doesn’t try to contain her. that’s it. that’s the whole magic of their partnership that season. in my fic, I take a step further on that version of him — the one who’s supportive because he understands being dismissed, not because she’s his love interest.
jonathan’s internal conflict reframes their dynamic — and that matters for nancy’s arc.
one angle i was really interested in (and that i’m exploring in my fic) is jonathan dealing with his own version of internalized homophobia (just like will) — something he’s carried for years.
jonathan grows up under lonnie’s shame and toxic masculinity. shame for his interests. shame for being “soft.” shame for not fitting the mold he was supposed to. he spends years trying not to pass that shame onto will — teaching his brother the opposite lesson — but that doesn’t mean he’s escaped it himself. so he ends up in this strange place of:
wanting steve,
sabotaging his own happiness,
convincing himself he shouldn’t want what he wants,
and quietly drowning in self-denial.
which means he’s not available romantically. not because he doesn’t care about nancy — but because he can barely access what he wants for himself. a scared, closeted teenager in smalltown hawkins’ who can barely admit his own wants — but still finds a way to show up for nancy in the moments where it matters. that’s a victory.
taking the romance lens off actually sharpens nancy’s arc.
he’s not her reward. he’s not a romantic destination. he’s not the “sensitive boy who fixes her.” just a kid fighting a private war she knows nothing about, and nancy sees that. this is the part of her arc I loved exploring where her s1 coming-of-age arc isn’t about “getting the boy.”
it’s about understanding nuance — the kind you only learn when the world stops being simple. sometimes you gravitate toward someone. sometimes they don’t — or can’t — gravitate back. and that doesn’t make the connection less real. what nancy learns is that trust is not a transaction. real love (romantic or otherwise) isn’t ownership or inevitability. it’s recognition. respect. shared ground. the willingness to stand beside someone even when the story doesn’t line up the way you thought it would. her arc isn’t about losing a boy or gaining one — it’s about losing the expectation that affection must resolve into possession. it’s a quieter, more adult realization — and it fits perfectly into the “loss of innocence” lens that s1 builds around her.
so if you’ve ever wanted nancy’s arc to be read on its own terms…
…that’s basically what I wrote in caught on film (100k words now and counting!). when you stop reading nancy’s story as “who will she choose,” the entire first season rearranges itself around the real emotional stakes:
confronting mortality,
redefining adulthood,
accepting reality without sugarcoating,
moving through guilt into agency,
trusting herself over authority.
her scenes with jonathan work because they’re not romantic fixes. they’re moments where she is allowed to be taken seriously — maybe for the first time. caught on film follows that thread all the way through: nancy learning who she is without needing a relationship to define it, and jonathan struggling with who he is, too — not in opposition and not as a love story, but as parallel journeys that intersect in a very human way.
let's talk about nancy's side of the love triangle in s4
unsurprisingly, murray's analysis still applies (as it does for several other relationships in the show)
or in this case, nancy's not accepting that her and jonathan are going through a rough patch. long distance is hard on them, and she's particularly worried that jonathan might've met someone new (which couldn't be farther from the truth.
so what does nance do?
a litte glance or two, a little harmless flirting... but then steve makes it real.
and suddenly this isn't the "retreat" she'd thought it'd be. it's not "safe" or easy anymore.
How Nancy went from being a good example of a “strong” female character to mimicking the reactionary 80s action hero.
In the first season, Nancy is the stereotypical good student from a good family, dating the most popular boy in school, with a future already mapped out and waiting for her, as long as she does not step out of line.
Everything changes when her best friend is brutally killed by the Demogorgon, as a result of a corrupt and violent system that hides its filth under the rug of the citizens of Hawkins, leaving them alone to deal with the consequences. Nancy therefore becomes a victim of the system as a well-behaved, upper-middle-class woman from whom a very specific role is expected once she reaches full maturity (both sexual and social). In this sense, Barb’s death has a symbolic function as well as a narrative one: the rot of the system violently surfaces, revealing itself openly, and it changes Nancy forever. Her relationship with Steve falls apart, because the trauma forces Nancy to realize how empty and superficial that relationship really was, especially when compared to the bond she forms with Jonathan, the only person who can truly understand her at that moment, as he too is a victim of the system due to his brother’s disappearance.
Across the seasons, an adult Nancy emerges: a determined woman with a strong sense of justice, who challenges the corrupt system she is a victim of with her head held high. Despite her courage, she is not afraid to show vulnerability; on the contrary, her sensitivity becomes one of the driving forces that pushes her forward, as she fights for justice in a world where women are mocked, humiliated (season three), not taken seriously and surrounded by men who try to crush them because of their intelligence. This aspect of her character also leads to conflict with Jonathan, who can never fully understand her situation. There is deep misunderstanding between them because they are both victims of the system in different ways: Nancy as a woman, Jonathan as someone who is economically disadvantaged. I found their argument in season three extremely realistic and mature, because it reflects a common situation among marginalized groups, who often fail to recognize that they are both experiencing systemic discrimination, albeit for different reasons. It is clear that Nancy and Jonathan love each other, but entering the “adult world,” with all its structural inequalities, destabilizes their relationship, because they still do not know how to deal with these issues.
Season four presents Nancy as a character who now thinks and moves like a reporter. Here she takes on her first real “warrior” role in terms of action as well. The show pushes hard on the image of the woman-warrior, similar to characters like Furiosa (Mad Max) or Ripley (Alien). It is a clear homage and celebration of the strength of women, who can be just as strong as (if not stronger than) men.
Then season five arrives. Despite some touching and emotionally powerful moments, I found Nancy’s character overly caricatured, almost like a parody of the Nancy we had known up to that point.
The accelerator on the “woman-warrior” archetype is pushed too far, creating a hybrid between the Nancy we know and Rambo, the reactionary hero so beloved by militarists. For example, she shoots at the exotic matter without thinking twice, as if decisiveness must necessarily pass through pulling a trigger. I understand the intention of showing her insecurity, born from everything she has recently experienced (her parents in the hospital, Holly in Vecna’s grip, the instability of her relationship with Jonathan) but that does not excuse the idiotic act of firing at an unknown force.
Another issue is the fact that this season turns her into a flawless sniper, capable of taking down multiple trained soldiers without being hit once. It feels as though, for the writers, female empowerment now has to pass through a traditional, reactionary heroic model (male and militarized) much closer to Rambo than to feminist icons like Ripley or Furiosa, because it adopts the codes of the Reagan-era male action hero. These codes include near-superhuman endurance, expert use of firearms, and a desire for control following personal or global trauma.
What linked Nancy to feminist characters like Ripley was the fact that both were victims of a corrupt system (the u.s. government / the corporation funding the Nostromo mission), and both chose to react not through brute force, but through determination, intelligence, and a strong sense of justice. It is a kind of strength rooted in moral responsibility.
In this final season, I saw a great deal of anger in Nancy (certainly justified by what she suffered at Vecna’s hands) but I also saw a level of militarism in her character that I deeply disliked, as if she were acting more out of revenge than liberation. The way she is dressed for the final battle, covered in guns and ammunition, as if going to war to violently reclaim what was taken from her, reminded me far more of Rambo than of the Nancy from previous seasons. What we are left with is a form of strength that draws its moral legitimacy from rage.
The fact that the Mind Flayer is defeated by a group of heavily armed kids only reinforces this interpretation, making the final confrontation feel more like a revenge mission than a rescue. We should remember that in coming-of-age stories, evil is meant to be defeated by its opposite—love—in order to show younger audiences (and remind adults) of the salvific power of love and empathy (as in A Wrinkle in Time). Defeating the Mind Flayer through the power of firearms is therefore deeply problematic, because it sends the message that violence must be answered with violence, turning it into a supposedly effective and legitimate language.
i think mike's most self-destructive trait is his impulsivity. that guy will physically tackle someone or mouth off the instant he perceives the shadow of a threat or an insult thrown his loved ones' way and he'll bare his teeth at the consequences. he might lie to deflect when he's called out, but he's shit at supressing his emotions. much like nancy. they're both so shit at hiding what they feel (though nancy's better at it than mike). it just explodes out of them because they can't help but even subconsciously rebel at their parents' quiet and convenient way of life in their own ways. literally they're like wolves. pack-minded. salivating for a fight because they want a do-over of the last time they couldn't help their friends. so desperate for a second chance, a third chance, a fourth to prove themselves. god i love them.
