#in the end of s1 will coughs up that slug + will just generally has a sense about upside down creatures | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bugsbenefit · 3 months

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i'm mmmmh still thinking thoughts (it's about the poster, of course it is, been fascinated by that since s4)

the last few minutes of every season always drop some major hints for the next season that are pretty explicit in hindsight. some examples

s1 shows the baby slugs Will coughs up that come back in s2, hints El might still be alive when Hopper leaves Eggo waffles out in the forest, and gives Nancy a sweet moment with Jonathan despite still dating Steve, s2 has El living with Hopper and J/ancy going canon

s2 shows the mindflayer looming over the school -> meatflayer is the main threat of s3 (as well as s2 having lumax and mleven dancing who will both be established couples by the start of s3)

s3 ends with the Byers moving away and Max sitting alone in Billy's room, s4 then has the Byers living in California be a major plotpoint as well as Max's trauma around Billy's death almost killing her

and so on you get it. in hindsight there will obviously be some pretty major hints in the last 10 minutes of s4

and some already seem pretty straight forward. obviously the gates opening is the big thing, the UD will be a focus in s5. the camera lingering on the church and Jason's bible quote outside also seems like it's a pretty solid nudge at the vibe in town next season. also things like the hill scene in general with the coupled grouping (doesn't even have to be about "endgames" necessarily, would also make sense as main groups of s5, since they're split into adults, teens (now young adults), and kids (teens) again)

but the whole blood thing going on in the last 10 minutes that comes out of nowhere? i want to know where that is going

we already had a ton of blood in s4, with the lab massacre and nose bleeds for the Vecna victims. so why does the donating blood theme come up after all that, what happens in s5 that makes it warrant the blood teaser (that sounds horrible) when s4 already had so much of it? and it's not just blood in general, there's a very specific focus on "giving" blood, however you want to interpret that

the poster in the hospital room already feels extremely foreshadowy in s4 given how bold it's written, how it's the only legible text on screen, and how it's in the negative space of the blocking the whole time so your eyes are drawn to it

but it's not even just that one poster either. in case you missed that one or didn't bother reading it in the hospital they also give you the blood donations promo table that the shot lingers on, that has so many posters begging for your blood it's not even funny anymore. and hey, even for those not reading background posters, there's 4 separate blood drop graphics so you definitely know they want blood, the show seems to really really want people to acknowledge it

and now they use the same exact poster from these last 10 minutes again? in another location? that's more focus on it than even i expected what are we going for here

be a hero give blood you say? on the show with the constant allusions to being a hero? "heroes" by david bowie, superheroes and powers, "don't try to be heroes" only for Eddie to die when he breaks his own advice? all of s4 was about how you shouldn't try to be a hero and that running away is okay. Max also almost dies when she stops running to distract Vecna. girl you know someone is fucked with that poster, that's a set up screaming for disaster (it's also not lost on me how even the stage show has a focus on blood and !TFS SPOILER! as far as i know Brenner senior even dies after not being able to receive blood donations due to his now abnormal blood type anymore. so there's some weird focus on blood going on even outside of the in show canon now, even specifically about giving blood, or well, not being able to give blood in this case. no one was a hero and gave blood in tfs i guess lmao. what are they cooking here)

the poster is also so vague there's so many ways this can be horrible for the characters. in the actual blood donation to save someone way? would be kind of tame but who knows what lore/plot s5 will deliver. in the sacrifice yourself/get injured to save someone way? or a secret third thing we don't have enough context to guess yet?

be a hero give blood my ass. who's giving blood for what tell me now. also how bad will "giving blood" be for them

#that poster had me kicking my feet for months and now it's coming back? oh i'm so (ab)normal about that #no but the constant mentions of blood coming up right at the end when the show enters the 'tease the next season' timeslot #concerning as hell #it's giving sacrifice of some kind #or at least bad injury #but who knows well see #also thinking of that poster always makes the stav post about it and the whole dead and missing broadcast and mike come back to me #it's windows screensavering in my brain again #st5 speculation #st s5 #st5 leaks

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jackie-says-stuff · 7 years

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Stranger Things s1 TheoryRant

SPOILERS below:.....

THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING - ...SPOILERS BELOW:......

This is the first time in a long time that I've had a show/movie theory - they don't usually have the same depth as books do - so I hope this show continues with the mindf*ck theory thing as the seasons progress.

So, here goes:

I think El is the monster. Literally: she *is* the Demogorgon. Whenever she goes into the Upside Down, it's a clear room with black reflective/watery floor - nothing in it except what she's looking for. But after the gateway opens, something that she is responsible for doing, suddenly it's the magic decay world - for everyone except El.

Lucas says she's the monster, and she doesn't deny it. When she's with Mike, she tells him, "I am the monster." When she and Lucas make up, she still doesn't deny it, and only says, "friends don't lie". After a beat she says that she created the gate, and the two could be taken together, but I think they're separate sentences/ideas.

As El becomes more "human", the monster becomes stronger, kills and kidnaps more people, and opens more mini gateways of its own. It could be her growing more socialized, but it's probably that she's been unconsciously feeding it her anger/hate/etc., making it stronger, until it starts acting of its own accord. I seriously doubt it's a coincidence that the day she creates the gate, creeper Papa gives her a potted plant, and the Demogorgon has a plant head.

I also don't think it's a coincidence that Will survived when the "monster" first showed up. He's a kid, her age, when the Demogorgon is still mostly her. It connects to the most outcast/lonely kid nearby, who likes drawing and lives a lot more in his imagination than others, and it doesn't kill him. She (as the monster) just brings him in, and we see her shortly thereafter. It's only after it grows further apart from her personality that it starts killing people... or does it?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, as I'm trying to remember for certain, but I *think* the only time we ever actually see the Demogorgon _kill_ anything, it's when it's killing her "Papa" at the end. All of the other times, it chases people, or drags people into the Upside Down where people may die there on their own (i.e., Barb), but I don't think we actually see it kill -anyone- else.

We see it feeding on a deer, which Nancy says looks like it was hit by a car - not that it was attacked by an animal. Barb probably tripped over a root or succumbed to the toxic air. Will had the "breather tube" in, which could just as easily have been trying to revive him (see: Demonreach/Dresden) or acclimate him to the toxic air so he could survive on his own, especially since Will looks more plump/healthy/warm when Joyce and Hopper find him than when he was laying in Castle Byers by himself.

Since "Papa" basically created who El became - killing machine and all - through at least one generation back of LSD science experiments, it would stand to reason that the Demogorgon would want to kill the one person that caused it (El) so much pain. All of the others seem to be attacking in self-defense or to protect its food, which seems to already have been killed before the monster ever got there.

Back to the duality -

When El is "killing" the monster, she's reaching her right hand towards it. Mirroring her, it's reaching its right hand towards her - even though it technically shouldn't be able to move at all - in the exact same motion/position that her hand is using.

When it "dies", it's the decay that starts evaporating off of it, to reveal the same type of material and texture as the mini gate. Then, instead of it just evaporating away, Voldemort style, she's sucked into it, with a cloud of disappearing decay... and instead of her collapsing on the floor, she vanishes into it.

I think it split off from her personality/consciousness while she had her "wizard powers" growing, and started taking on a life of its own. To "kill" it, I think she had to reconcile it with her personality and that she's currently doing that in the Upside Down right now.

I think the box in the woods where Hopper leaves the Eggos in the end is the same place in the real world where he found the Aliens-style hatched egg in the Upside Down. (And, yes, I've noted the similarity between Eggos and The Egg.) Speaking of...

Hopper, he's way too smart to be sucked in by Evil Big Government and to just be complacently working for them, whether or not he gave his word to do so. I think he's working to destroy them from the inside and to close the gateway for good.

And, in regards to (the number) Eleven, at first I figured that there were ten other mind control kids running around there somewhere, but now I'm seriously doubting it.

Symbolism: eleven has the significance of being a doubly strong number - it's the prime number one, doubled, doubling the vibration power of the number one. Therefore 11 is twice as strong as 1, as far as numbers go.

El regularly bleeds from her nose when she's doing her "jedi magic", bleeds from her ears when she does more, and bleeds from her eyes when she does even more than that. If any other kid with similar powers had tried doing half the things she did while at the facility, keeping in mind the symbolism of 11 and it meaning that she's probably twice as strong as they were, they probably would have died by now.

Will's mysterious slug cough - I'm torn here on whether or not he's infected by the Upside Down, (and may potentially be next season's Bad?), or if that was the way "the monster" was acclimating his lungs to the air/environment (see: Hitchhiker/translation fish). I think I'll have to watch it again before I can make a decision on this, and that probably won't happen for at least a few months. I did some googling on this to see if anyone else had the same theory. There was one reddit post briefly touching on it, but the internet (from my quick search this morning) has otherwise been very quiet on the idea of El literally being the Demogorgon/monster.

Terry: I did see a suggestion that El's mother, Terry Ives, is the monster. That's possible, since she's basically a vegetable right now, but I think the symbolism of mother/child is even stronger than that.

I am still convinced that El is the Demogorgon for all the reasons shown above - there's far more evidence that way than there is for it to be Terry. But I think her mom's mental/life force is what is giving life to the environment in the Upside Down.

In other words, she's _literally_ the vegetable. Paralleling Terry carrying/feeding and giving birth to "Jane" (El), her mind is helping feed the Upside Down, which gave birth (via egg) to the Demogorgon.

And, all of that being said, if I'm wrong, I'm going to be really disappointed because it could have been so much cooler.

Thoughts during rewatch:

Just restarted Season One to refresh my memory before Season Two drops, and I'd completely forgotten about the part at the beginning where Will admits the Demogorgon gets him.

In the beginning, they're all playing a campaign that *Mike* spent two weeks creating. And the Demogorgon gets *Will*. The Upside-Down seems focused on Will, but did he get taken there by his own bad roll - possibly literally? Eleven does get very close to the group via Mike. Maybe all of this isn't a coincidence due to where Will lives, and maybe it's created directly from Mike somehow?

Final thoughts after rewatch:

Said by the boys during their D&D session at the end of the last episode:

"The campaign was way too short." "It was ten hours!" "But it doesn't make any sense." "It makes sense.." "Uh, no, what about the lost knight?" "And the proud princess?" "And those weird flowers in the cave?" "I don't know..."

Anyone else think this is referencing the loose threads at the end of Season One? Will is the Lost Knight. Eleven is the Proud Princess? And the "weird flowers" is all the weird organic growth in The Upside-Down? Part two here.

#stranger things #stranger things theories #stranger things spoilers

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