62 days to byler canon and todays theory is one word: SHELOB!! those who aren't familiar w the lord of the rings, Shelob is this giant evil spider from hell/mother of all monsters/horror of all horrors. She lives in Cirith Ungol (in Mordor) and is spider mommy to the Mirkwood spiders from the Hobbit.
(what's that? you remember "Mirkwood" and "Mordor" from when they were referenced in-show? where Mirkwood was where Will got taken and Mordor was the upside down? gold star for u ⭐️)
in the lord of the rings, Frodo and Sam go to Mordor in order to destroy the One Ring, which has a lil bit of Sauron inside it and can only be destroyed in the fire it was created in, and they have to travel through Cirith Ungol because the Black Gate is too heavily guarded.
(what's that you say? Black Gate like how the openings to the upside down are called gates? heavily guarded like how the demobats swarmed Watergate? ⭐️ ⭐️ 2 for 2 good job)
Frodo gets attacked by Shelob, who does the spider thing and injects him with Ur Dead Juice to paralyze him bc thats how spiders do. they like live prey so they paralyze them and then wrap them up in their web to get munchies whenever. Sam, who at this point has just had a massive fight with Frodo (who said he didn't need Sam anymore and told him to just go home and then was promptly betrayed by Gollum, who led him to Shelob's lair) goes back to help Frodo and discovers him unconcious and cocooned. Sam thinks Frodo is dead, crashes out, and kills the Immortal Spider Demon, previously thought un-killable by a Literal Wizard. Frodo gets captured by some Orcs, who reveal to Sam that Frodo isn't dead, and then Sam storms the fuckin tower all by his lonesome to rescue his gay lover.
i'm getting a lil off-topic but vecna has been associated with spiders one too many times for my lotr obsession to not kick in. also in an st insta post they put a giant evil spider right next to a demogorgon on a "whos the big bad" pic. it's the choose-ur-dnd-name post btw if yall wanna find it!
and we all know that samfro byler are gonna be paired up in st5. in the upside down. aka Mordor. and spiders are one of the big bads (vecna, mind flayer, VECNA). so lets replace the shelob scene with byler in our heads.
Frodo is the one carrying the One Ring. either, will is possessed and he's Frodo, or Mike is helping Holly, who has a lil bit of Sauron in her (possessed holly? please?) and is "carrying" her, meaning Mike is Frodo. They're heading into Cirith Ungol a hidden gate to the upside down while the others distract Vecna at the Black Gate, and they get into a fight over whether or not "Sam" should be there. If Sam is Mike, this plays into his desire to be needed, giving it more of the emotional impact we see in lotr. if Sam is Will, Mike prob just doesn't want him to get hurt, thinks he should sit out, plays into Will's hatred of being babied. "Sam" gets left behind, crying, and Frodo and the One Ring + Gollum (possessed Holly, who betrays them) carry on into Cirith Ungol. "Frodo" obviously nearly dies (we've had gonna die imagery from will AND mike so this ones up in the air) and "Sam" hears him scream and runs to help. Assuming "Frodo" is dead, "Sam" murders whatever is guarding the Cirith Ungol gate, but "Frodo" gets taken by Vecna and "Sam" runs to save him. Either we get a bomb-ass scene of Will losing his shit over Mike and beating the shit out of Vecna until he gets his bf back, or we get a scene where Mike finally (finally!) is able to save the person he cares about most, giving us the greatest st1 callback possible for Mike's arc.
