#tybtm vibes

[henrysglock]

Okay so what exactly happened in the scene with Henry and El? (Tfs). Was it similar to the scene where they sat down and talked in the show?

Their scene is actually super interesting. Henry supposedly meets her fresh out of being released from his ball gag chair, and he kind of approaches her with wary-cat vibes? almost like he's not quite sure how to approach her. his lines at the end are particularly interesting. "I'm here to help" is the same thing Brenner says at the end of Act 1 when he is being introduced to Henry while Virginia sings TYBTM...and then Henry also sings TYBTM to El. Just all around shrimpy "both mother and father" vibes!

Here's the scene so you can see for yourself:

#asks #henry creel #el hopper #st: tfs #stranger things: the first shadow #stranger things

[henrysglock]

Alice/El parallels??? PLEASE elaborate

Oh girl they are SO heavy-handed with the Alice-El parallels in this show, both in the plot and in the casting...This is gonna be a long one because I have so much to say.

You see. They have three whole actresses to play Alice, all of them around age 10. They are not averse to hiring child actors for bit parts. And yet when we get to Henry and El's closing lab scene? They just re-use Alice's actress. Every time. Henry sings TYBTM at Alice after the attic scene with Virginia, and then the next time we hear it sung is Henry to...Alice in a different outfit. Insane 2 me. Do I understand it from a practical standpoint? Sure. Still insane to me.

They also both seem to fill the same role in Henry's life, just in wildly different scenarios. Virginia claims Victor was never the same after the war, and we see him drinking to cope...a lot. We see a scene of him arguing with Virginia about Henry, she's clearly having a Moment about whatever's "wrong" with him/trying to tell Victor it's too soon for Henry to be back in school after he "put that boy in a wheelchair" back in Nevada. Victor basically dismisses her outright, and does so continually throughout the rest of the first half of TFS. Virginia's definitely not getting what she needs from him as a partner.

Thus, Henry seems to have stepped into (read: been forced into) that role of "partner/male caregiver", definitely for Virginia in the vein of attention/affection/emotional regulation...but also possibly for Alice, since Victor seems to be drunk all the time. I can't say more about that aspect with full certainty because we don't see much of Henry and Alice alone together.

However, Henry ends up in a very similar position with Brenner. Brenner initially claims that he and Henry will be like "father and son"...smash cut to the end of the play, wherein Brenner tells Henry he's "as much of a father to this family as [he is]", only to then tell Henry he thinks he's ready to meet his "siblings" (read: the lab children).

Exactly like it was in the Creel household, Henry's put in this parentified sibling/caregiver position...just a touch more literally this time. Thus El is to Henry as Alice was to Henry: A younger sister, but also a daughter in many regards.

This is exemplified through the use of TYBTM (the dead parent song), with Henry singing that to Alice while coming off his "Are you jealous [of Patty]?" fight with Virginia, only to have Henry sing it again, this time to El in the lab with Brenner...Brenner who is notably possessive of Henry and behaves like a jealous husband irt: Patty.

I had said way, way back in the day (late 2022) that El and Alice filled similar roles in Henry's life, and that Henry's motivations for helping El escape HNL stem not only from his care for her as an individual/a family member irt the lab itself, but also from having a second chance at saving his baby sister. "Making up for" Alice being caught in the crossfire in 1959, if you will.

There's also a more tenuous bit that I've touched on before irt the HNL escape and the massacre monologue in 4.07...one that comes up in TFS with both Patty and Alice irt Henry that I'll stick under the cut.

There's a point in the 4.07 monologue where El's reaction to the whole thing completely switches...like she's had a realization about "Henry". It specifically happens when "Henry" requests that El "join him". She goes from terrified and grieving to closed off/resistant like a switch flipped in her brain...like he said something, specifically, that made her go "You're not him".

Alice says that, verbatim, when she runs up to the attic to see what the commotion is irt Henry and Virginia. The dialogue between Alice and Possessed Henry in the doorway of the attic goes:

"Where's Henry?" (scared) "He's...right here." "You're not Henry. You're not him." (closed off/resistant) "...Run."

Which is almost exactly the vibe the massacre monologue scene has, just minus the "he's right here" dead giveaway. An edited version of Alice's lines fit perfectly over El's reaction to to the 4.07 monologue.

Where this becomes especially interesting is the way Henry and El's previous chess scene conversation has direct dialogue parallels to Henry and Patty just before the attic attack:

In which Henry tries to lay down some ground rules in anticipation of things going wrong irt the Shadow. Henry's warning Patty that he'll help her, but it's dangerous. He goes on to try to tell her about Nevada, about the Shadow, but he's cut off by a Vecna clock chime.

I'm thinking Alice, by virtue of just being around Henry all the time, can tell when he's not himself, and she knows to do exactly as he says when things go wrong: Run. "Run", coincidentally, being exactly what Henry tells Patty to do when the Shadow attacks in the attic.

I'm wondering if, in the missing scene where Henry tells El to meet him in the boiler room, Henry gave El some kind of trigger, an "If I ask you to join me, it's not me anymore" type deal, without any added explanation, much the same as he did with Patty.

On a tangential note: Henry's response to the Shadow attacks is very much giving "Run, Hide, Fight" (the active shooter mantra in US schools)...particularly so in 4.07. Run: Leave HNL via the tunnel. Hide: Stay put in the store room/closet until the attack is over. Fight: The Rainbow Room fight. It also shows up in TFS, though, with Henry trying repeatedly to make people leave when an attack is coming on. "Go to bed, Virginia", "Run", "Patty! You have to run!", "Get her out of here!", etc. And it never progresses past running in TFS, since things tend to spiral out of control far more quickly and in much more confined spaces.

#st: tfs #tfs spoilers #asks #henry creel #el hopper #alice creel #creel family dynamics