Will you include Henry/vecna in your rewrite or is he completely gone? It’s not like the character is bad but his origin story was not constructed properly and it was filled with plot holes. Also I didn’t like that his blood give the other children their powers in Hawkins lab. I was okay with the idea of experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs given to patients which gave them this powers
He's not completely gone no, but I will say his inclusion has been the subject of 'debate' for a while with my writing buddy.
It's like, he's an interesting concept... but the Mind Flayer is the actual star of the show. How does one wrestle with this character being sandwiched between the good guys and the big bad?
So, in my rewrite, the backstory the show gave him is majorly changed. He has powers, but he was born with them and awakened them one day -haven't decided how-. He did end up killing his family and was captured by the government and placed in the "care" of Brenner.
But he never actually lived in Hawkins outside that lab. He has nothing to do with Hawkins. He never met anyone in Hawkins. He had no contact with the Upside Down/Mind Flayer until he ends up stuck in there -for reasons-.
Another change, there's no blood transfusions going on. Henry was the first subject yes. The model subject until -insert something happening that I will keep to myself. Unless I already said it before I don't remember-.
But at his stay at the lab, there weren't any other children yet. He was the golden goose until he 'disappeared'. That's when Brenner starts gathering other children. But the children weren't easy to find and inevitably met terrible fates or were "put down" so he'd have to go find a new subject over and over. none overlapping due to said difficulty. The final and most promising one after Henry was El.
So again, Henry never met any other subjects, they didn't exist yet. El never met or knew about Henry or any of the other children. All the kids spawned powers of their own in various ways, be they naturally ala Henry or medical intervention like Terry and El.
Henry still has connections to El because of their experiences in the lab and Brenner. Every painful test he went through, she went through. Every limit they forced him to break, she had to break. In the most twisted way, he is still her 'older brother' and has somehow helped shaped her life without even being present.
Henry will also have connections to Will. Maybe some of the stuff that happened in his life prior to him killing his family, but also his experience in the Upside Down and whatever he went through, which I won't go too much into detail here.
But I will say, the 'Abyss' as the show write it doesn't exist. There's the real world and there's the Upside Down. Ordinary, the Upside doesn't look like Hawkins, but SOMETHING happened in 1983 that caused a small bubble in the Upside Down to look like that. (you'll know what that is if you're ready my past theories. lol) But the Upside Down isn't a worm hole. It can't just be destroyed with some C4.
But anyway, all that said, I feel like I've done well enough to keep the similarities with Will and El intact, but I'm still in the heat of discussing what exactly his role is in the story in relation to the Mind Flayer.
The "five star general" idea isn't that far off, but I also don't want to make it seem like he is the one in control or who came up with everything or is the source of all their suffering.
I want it more to be like he is the first one to suffer everything Will and El have gone through. He is their "future", he is what they will someday become. He's the perfect puppet and a perfect piece of bait to trap them and drag them into hell so to speak. If that makes sense? Like an angular fish.
But then I wonder, am I supposed to be writing him somewhat sympathetically? If he's the original Will and El, then should there be something there that makes the reader go "Well damn, that sucks for him." or should he be a flat one dimensional dude that deserved everything he got?
I'm not interested in redemption, just to make that clear. But I am interested in driving home the concept of him once upon a time being an innocent kid like Will and El, and what their future could've been had it not been for family, friends, and a positive outlook on life in general. I don't think the show did a good job with that at all, and I don't want to fall into the same trap.
Like, one change I think could happen is, when/if El and Will discover Henry's true origins, I'm not sure they would directly reach out to him like they did. (El in season 4 and Will in season 5).
I guess, I want it to be more retrospective on their parts. Like,
"We are the same. I'm becoming him. I did this thing just like he did. I'm a monster."
"You're not the same, look at how you did this this and this differently. You are different."
Maybe. Something like that.
Another issue with this is, I don't know how much of "him" will even be left for what I have in mind. Theoretically, if you turn someone's brain to soup and then reconstruct it to how you want it to be with the same memories and all, are they even the same person? What if this Henry isn't even capable of thinking like a human anymore or being rational or discussing anything and he's just a puppet? Like sure, he might speak and act as he did before, but there's no way there's any human emotion or thought left to be able to actually relate to any of our protagonists....
Anyway. This is where I am right now!
