A Deep Dive into (some of) Stranger Things' Bear Imagery
Goldilocks, Return of the Jedi, Hawkins Horrors, and what they might imply for the Byers children and Sara.
It was actually the bear imagery in the show that brought me over to tumblr. From my understanding there's two takes: El = the bear or Will = the bear. In the past I found it difficult to wrestle with which is true because there's good evidence for both.
When I really thought about it, it seemed that whenever bears are spoken about in the show it's very often plural rather than singular.
On the Byers fridge they have three bears on magnets.
There's a parent, a baby bear, and a third teddy bear in a shopping bag. If we think El and Will are two of them then this might match up with the three Byers siblings. Jonathan is the parent and the baby is Will, reflecting their dynamic after Lonnie left.
So, that would mean El is the teddy bear in the shopping bag. I think this is word play in two different ways. She has been 'bagged, as in to secure something precious, and she is "born to shop" a play on the word BUYERS and BYERS. "Born to" suggests more to El's parentage.
I also think that the biggest bear could be Joyce, I actually think it probably fits more than Jonathan but I think it's a little difficult to distinguish between the two of them.
If the Byers children are bears then that makes some of the other bear scenes more interesting. For example, when Joyce and Murray first meet Yuri, Yuri pretends to be someone else and claims that the real Yuri was killed by polar bears. This conversation PERFECTLY describes the fight in 5x08.
He claims that the bears came on to his plane (pun because the Abyss and Camazotz are a different kind of plane), ripped him from his cockpit and killed him.
He then says "And he loved bears," which seems to be a sort of tongue in cheek, sarcastic allusion to Vecna wanting to recruit Will and El, and the attention he has devoted to... well... tormenting them.
He goes on to say that they broke his heart (the shrivelled heart of the hub), or rather punctured it (Vecna's actual heart).
And he says they did it with their bears claws, doing an approximation that looks a lot like the El and Will hand positions.
I am now forever gonna think of El and Will using their powers as 'using their bear claws'. That's both adorable and horrifying.
However, Yuri is just tricking Joyce and Murray and goes on to reveal that, 'Surprise!' he is actually alive. I don't think that's referring to Vecna being alive post 5x08. Yuri goes on to act overly familiar with Joyce and she shuts it down which reads to me like what happened in the axe scene.
HOWEVER! Yuri being equated to Vecna? Yeah that feels like pretty big proof of more to me. I will die on the hill that the Russia plotline is a proxy for Mike's future plotline. Kamchatka is Camazotz. That is why Hopper and Mike are so often equated, that's why Hopper has a paladin moment, that's why flight features so prominently in this plot-line.
I have a couple theories that goes fairly in depth into aviation and flight as a metaphor for queer freedom that I've attached at the end, but this post by @greenfiend has a really good summary of the broad strokes of the flying symbolism that I would recommend.
In the S4 finale Dmitri and Yuri have a conversation where he convinces Yuri to stop being a coward. If Yuri=Henry all season I think that's pretty interesting. Yuri's name means 'earth-worker' as in a farmer but I think this could also be an allusion towards Henry's 'moving of worlds'. Dmitri's name means 'earth-lover'. I think this could be interpreted as someone fighting to save Earth as we know it (so literally any of our main characters) by bringing Henry out of his possession.
Hawkins Horrors is a collection of spooky stories all told by the characters during a blackout. It came out just before season 4 and each story the character tells seems to have a lot of references to their season 4 plot-line. It's really rich in theory fodder, though it's sort of odd because in some places it seems like the author has a deep knowledge of the show's symbols and in other places the references are a little shallow. I've found this with the Stranger Things books in general.
The story Mike tells though is really detailed and doesn't seem to be about his season 4 plot-line. It's about a boy, Shane, grieving his little sister, Shawna, who recently died of cancer.
These siblings also have the same initial letter which immediately made me think of Jane and Jonathan. The whole Byers-Hopper family have J names bar Will. Jane/Shane and Jon/Shawna sound pretty similar just swapped, right? Turns out that's because Jane, Sean, Shane and Shawna are all the same name. They're all variations of John and mean "God is gracious."
I do wanna point out that Jon and John have different etymology. This doesn't really bother me because in Hopper's book Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town they explicitly use John to mean Jonathan, and the plot of that book heavily relates to this one. Plus they do name swapping stuff like this all the time. You might feel differently, hence why I'm pointing it out.
The S names also connects these siblings to Sara. The choice of Shawna as a name for the sister seems to give it the same meaning as Jane but with the same rhythm and initials that Sara has.
Shawna had this teddy bear called Teddy Talkback. After her death Shane realises that Teddy can talk to him without the batteries in. Classic horror twist. The scene is very similar to the scene where Joyce hears Should I Stay or Should I Go? coming from Will's room.
Teddy lures Shane in with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a homemade cassette tape in its chest. Just like Jonathan's own homemade mixtape he made Will.
The light in Teddy's chest is also glowing, alluding to Joyce's lights. Plus its light is a red heart. The bright red heart = Will's heart.
The entity inside Teddy pretends to be Shawna, which really makes it seem like this story is about Will's possession. Will is both Teddy, and Shawna who died from cancer. Everything I read lately just makes me more convinced that Hopper's memory of Sara's death is of Will.
Shane believes Teddy really is Shawna and, despite his growing unease, tells this to his parents. They believe Shane is just grieving and try to put a stop to it in various ways. In one scene Shane's father gets angry and stuffs the teddy in a blender to which Shane says:
It reminds me a lot of Jonathan telling Joyce that she was killing Will when she tried to exorcise him in S2.
Afterwards Teddy finds Shane and urges him to escape. His parents are going to get rid of Teddy and send Shane away to live with his grandmother.
Teddy lures Shane to a church. He directs him to it via the old Hawkins Bridge. At the church he attempts to sacrifice him using the metal from the blender. This is the star Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was referring to.
Shane fights back and presses a candlestick to Teddy, setting him on fire. Reminds me of Will's exorcisim, Henry's own 'demonic possession' and like literally every time they've used fire to kill something. The story emphasises that Shane ends up with a scar on his hand, like Jonathan and Nancy.
The final scene takes place post the confrontation where Shane, in a pizza restaurant, witnesses more Teddies being bought and figures out evil is spreading across the town and maybe even the country. If the entity in Teddy is meant to reflect the Mindflayer then this seems to add credence to the theory that the spores at the end of season 4 were released to flay the whole town.
This also all takes place in the lead up to Christmas (S5, Vol 2), which is implied to be when this evil will take over. Lots of children will receive Teddy as gifts (here's my theory about getting flayed being our Christmas gift). There's a load of Christmas references in the show, and in Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town.
When Shane is biking towards Hawkins Bridge Teddy sings London Bridge is Falling Down. Alice Bertha Gomme theorised that the song is inspired by legends that sacrifice before building (of a child) was what kept the London Bridge strengthened despite the cycle of repair and disrepair.
Regardless if that was truly the inspiration behind the song that does seem to be the implication in this story. In the context it doesn't make a lot of sense. Why does Teddy Talkback care about whether Hawkins Bridge stands? (We shouldn't be surprised, Mike seems to leave a lot of loose ends in his stories.) But we do have another bridge.
And a Byers-Hopper sibling sacrificed to it.
London Bridge is Falling Down is also called London Bridge or My Fair Lady. Here's a few verses:
'London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down,
Falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady!
Take the key and lock her up,
And lock her up.
And lock her up.
Take the key and lock her up,
My fair lady!
How will we then build it up?,
Build it up,
Build it up.
How we will then build it up?,
My fair lady!'
My Fair Lady in the show already seems to refer to El. My Fair Lady is one of movies on the Byers' tv stand in S4. It follows Eliza Doolittle (Eliza, Eleanor, Elsa, etc all usually refer to El) who is taught how to speak 'proper English' by Henry Higgins. Despite the name, I think the point is to refer to Mike and Hopper teaching El English and social rules.
This is also really sweet to me because Doctor Dolittle is above My Fair Lady and gives El and Will matching last names.
I also noticed while working on my post about Roane County Fair that one of the children is holding a Mr Snuffleupagus plush. She has the same hair accessory as El did in the mall (and she's standing next to a Sara lookalike, hi Sara lookalike).
Mr Snuffleupagus is a character from Sesame Street. He was Big Bird's friend but because he would always disappear when people were around, none of the adults believed he existed and just thought he was Big Bird's imaginary friend. The children all saw him though. This is interpreted as an allegory for abuse, and the necessity of adults listening to children. Just like Mr Whatsit. Oh and Snuffy lives in a cave and has a little sister called Alice.
According to Wikipedia the signs Snuffy existed included leaving a giant teddy bear behind, and playing London Bridge with the children. 👀 I know he played London Bridge but I haven't verified the first example and there's no episode sources.
If you're not familiar with the game two people pretend to be the bridge and everyone walks underneath them while singing the song. On the 'My fair lady' the players drop their arms and catches the person underneath them. They are out. You could say the bridge falls down on the 'fair lady'.
The idea of El as a 'fair lady' is interesting because El is associated by juxtaposition (like Eliza Doolittle), but Sara fits the bill perfectly. For starters she is quite literally fair, as in pale and blonde. Her name also means princess, lady or some other kind of noblewoman. Like El tells Hopper, she's not Sara.
This parallel even points out the contrast between Sara and El's literacy. One of the few things we know about Sara is that she won a spelling bee and that Hopper used to read Anne of Green Gables to her.
Then their deaths are paralleled. The black hole took them both. El is caught by the bridge falling. On one side of the WSQK (B, I believe) this plays during the purple rain scene:
"And say hi to Jennifer, with the awesome scrunchie, who I got to talking to in the town square. Hey girl, you know who you are. She's been studying for a spelling bee next week and she has a very fancy word for toothache locked and loaded."
Do you guys know what Jennifer means? The fair one. As in pale fair. Oh, and Jennifer shares the nickname 'Jenny' with Jane if you wanna be on the look out for any Jennys.
Off the top of my head though we do have one Jennifer. Jennifer Hayes. The blonde girl that cried at Will's funeral. The fair lady associated with death for Sara, El, and Will. Sara is also heavily associated with Roane County Fair, making Sara the 'fair' 'lady'.
In Flight of Icarus (the Eddie book written by Caitlin Schneiderhan) Tommy H's last name is Hayes, despite being Hagan in the show. Do you guys know what Tommy means? Twin.
Also, do you guys know what Anne of Green Gables is about? An orphan girl who, due to a mix up, gets adopted instead of a boy. The story shares thematic similarities with My Fair Lady.
I find it interesting that in this blended family we potentially have three bears and a little girl whose blonde hair is emphasised. Goldilocks and the three bears. Goldilocks who eats the bears' food and breaks their chairs and sleeps in their bed? Who basically 'takes' baby bears' place.
I firmly believe there's more to Hopper's memories. Remember Hopper didn't see El's time so we should 'blame Diana' (Diane).
If we backtrack to the tv stand the Byers also have the film Woman in Red. Woman in Red is about a man called Teddy who goes to great length to try and cheat on his wife. A 'lady in red' refers to an affair partner or a seductive woman.
When Joyce and Hopper arrive at the fair Hopper brings up Murray's comments about how they just need to have sex as they walk past this Elephant Ears stand.
The elephant, and specifically a yellow one, is associated with Sara. It first appears on her hospital gown in Hopper's memories of her.
Joyce deflects and says she just wants to find the kids. Hopper says "Yeah, yeah, yeah." and Larry (who is a stand in for Lonnie) says he'll "Give it his best shot."
Then we see him win a bear and give it away to a woman wearing red next to a woman wearing a dress that looks quite a bit like a wedding dress.
There's so many teddy bears and elephants at the fair so I won't go into every example but there is also this shot of Alexei where we have two bears (I think with a frog (Mike)) between them and Sara's elephant on the other side. I expand more about the fair and parallels to TF85 here.
I don't know how far it matters which colour bear is which person? For example, the one Larry holds is super similar to Will's grey teddy bear that appears again at the end of S3. El is also shown to have a brown teddy in S2 and then a similar one is placed in Jane's crib.
Once again, here, bears are about discovering parentage and looking for a family that you can belong to.
I think you could interpret the bear in Jane's crib as both evidence for and against Terry being El's mother. You could see the bear as a substitution for the real Jane, or as representing her. I think the themes are the biggest takeaway.
Return of the Jedi Parallel
I'm sure if you've been in the byler depths you're probably familiar with the fact the Mike and El S3 epilogue scene is a parallel to Return of the Jedi that then diverges.
Earlier in the epilogue Steve had referred to Return of the Jedi as the Star Wars film with the teddy bears. (He does so again when talking about it in S5).
Then we have Mike/El recreating the Han/Leia kiss but with two very different outcomes. Complete with 'teddy bears' in between them.
Oh, and they're paralleling Larry and the woman at the Roane County Fair. Not only here, but in Tales From '85 when Mike wins El a plushie as well?
That Ewok isn't just any old Ewok either, that's Wicket. He's the main character of the Ewoks TV show.
Wicket is the second oldest of four children: Weechee, Wicket, Widdle 'Willy', and Winda. Winda even has a blue hairtie.
People have only really talked about this parallel in terms of its romantic implications. Mike and El are contrasted with Han and Leia -> they have an item of Will's in between them -> therefore byler.
And, like... yes I agree... but also... do you guys remember what Han and Leia were talking about that led directly to the kiss? He'd just found out that Luke was really Leia's brother. Leia who is a princess through adoption.
Also in this scene the first thing Will says is:
Then the police 👀 turn up. Has Joyce forgotten a policeman?
They ask if Jane Hopper lives there. Has Joyce forgotten Jane Hopper?
In the WSQK sync Hopper and Joyce seem to get referred to as "Police frontman Sting and his girlfriend Trudie" who are expecting a "bundle of noise".
Loads of affair imagery, Joyce has forgotten something, and Hopper didn't see so we should blame Diana (Diane)?
I don't really have a conclusion to this post. I just feel pretty sure that the bear imagery has to do with the Byers-Hopper children, at the very least both El and Will, as well as their parentage.
It's so hard to talk about this symbol without talking in detail about literally everything it's connected to. I wanna be like "and this connects back to x scene at the Roane County Fair"; and "Roane means red hair like Anne from Anne of Green Gables"; and "El and Mike talk about Christmas presents while holding the bear"; and "Hopper tells El the truth about his past on Christmas in his book partially because he felt he'd given her a bad gift"; and "Lonnie stole a baby from the nativity in TFS"; and "Mr Newby stole Patty as a baby to save his marriage"; and "El wears a baby mask when she's with Kali and her friends"; and "in the Ewoks comics they have to cure the princess by crossing a rainbow bridge"; and "Will has a drawing of a bear being attacked by the party which might symbolise his possession"; and "in S1 they mention that bears are always alone when El and Will were both lost"; and "did you know in DOTEOT Sara basically has a rock that sounds like it's supposed to be the mindflayer rock".
Like we could genuinely be here for hours so I'll leave that for another day. I also wanted to keep the suggestions that Hopper's memories of Sara might really be of Will to its own post. So, basically I already cut a bunch out of this post that hopefully I can post soon.
Posts I referenced or referred to:
Landing vs flying by @greenfiend.
El as Shardik the bear by @erikiara80.
ROTJ parallels by @/reo-bylerwagon with additions by @cypher-heart-no-key.
my own post about Sara and Princess Diana.
my own post about the TF85 parallels.
my own post about the Christmas metaphor.
my own post about flying symbolism.
my own post about mike and flying symbolism.
