I Cant Sleep Because I Just Have So Many Thoughts Rolling Around In My Head. The More And More Stuff

I can’t sleep because I just have so many thoughts rolling around in my head. The more and more stuff we get about S5 the closer I can get to being able to ‘predict’ where they’re going with it, not with hard facts about plots and locations but the thematic aspects as well.

The way children and childhood seem to be highly symbolic for this last season is very juicy. The random children in the mansion. The Derek kid at the farm. The supposed leak about Robin with all of those kids. The disappearance of Holly Wheeler. The rest of the kids in the Creel House / Playground scenes. The kids on the military school bus. The multiple flashbacks to our characters as their younger selves. Taking inspiration from children’s novels such as a Wrinkle in Time.

I said before I think this show is actually presenting lots of commentary on childhood nostalgia, meanwhile almost the entire media and general audience dismisses it for being un-self aware. But it’s very aware.

as much as I WANT to believe the casting calls, I don’t think they’re real

how did they even get that information? we didn’t have something like this for 12 y/o will

It says on the page that their source is Carmen Cuba and to contact her for more information; she’s the casting director for Stranger Things.

Finally reading the book and Mike Wheeler is clearly inspired by Calvin from a Wrinkle in Time (which is a known major inspiration for the show as a whole and Season 5). Walk with me.

The "I hate myself" part makes me go a bit nuts here because. Wow! The alleged Scriptgate line.

Calvin is one of the three child protagonists from a Wrinkle in Time, and Meg's (somewhat) love interest. He is the inverse of Meg, a popular guy at school and star of the basketball team who achieves academically. But his home life is fraught and cold, and his needs are neglected by his parents. I have a bit more analysis on the Wheelers/Byers dynamics and a Wrinkle in Time here. He is 'different' like Meg and Charles; but he hides his true self in order to fit in at school. It's only through meeting the two throughout the novel that he embraces his 'different' status.

He is also gifted in communication, much like how Mike is known for delivering his rallying speeches Both Charles and Meg express disbelief at his assertions that he is odd at first because of how he appears to them, in a similar way to how El does in Episode Three. They face a lot of bullying at school because their differences are overt, and they don't attempt to hide them.

I really believe the Duffers' use of the word "different" is in direct reference to aWiT - it appears thirty times within the novel and Being Different is such an important motif that it got an OST (that I expect to return soon for Mike) in Season Four.

The framing for the two times Will and El mention their differences is almost exactly the same - both characters on the left, with Mike left obscured in the background, his expression hidden and left out of the conversation. It's such great foreshadowing that this will get brought up again; the context and meaning of the shots will change when we finally learn that Mike is different after all. He was just incredibly good at pretending not to be.

Bonus:

Hey uh..... why does Calvin's outfit in the 2003 Disney adaptation looks so familiar? I mean remove the green sweater and...

brenner 04x07: "you speak of monsters & superheroes. that's the stuff of myth & fairy tales."

mike 04x09: "you're my superhero."

okay so do i even need to explain this one

Prev tags;

Oh for sure. I’m going to get into that in an actual dedicated post, but it’s going to be such a monstrosity of a thing to talk about that I don’t know how I’m going to do it.

I’m very familiar with Peter Pan from other shows that have used it as inspiration and already made me deep dive into the subject twice. I was already going to make a post about PP before, but I didn’t know if I was inserting my own interests into Stranger Things because the evidence wasn’t enough for a connection. But now it is.

Here’s a fun fact:

Peter Pan is considered by scholars to be inspired by the writer’s older brother, who tragically died at the age of thirteen and thus forever remained a child in the eyes of his family. In particular, their mother never got over his death. Contrasted to Will, who was of course ‘saved’ from this fate but therefore not spared from the equally terrible fate (in the eyes of the author) of having to grow up.

I can’t sleep because I just have so many thoughts rolling around in my head. The more and more stuff we get about S5 the closer I can get to being able to ‘predict’ where they’re going with it, not with hard facts about plots and locations but the thematic aspects as well.

The way children and childhood seem to be highly symbolic for this last season is very juicy. The random children in the mansion. The Derek kid at the farm. The supposed leak about Robin with all of those kids. The disappearance of Holly Wheeler. The rest of the kids in the Creel House / Playground scenes. The kids on the military school bus. The multiple flashbacks to our characters as their younger selves. Taking inspiration from children’s novels such as a Wrinkle in Time.

I said before I think this show is actually presenting lots of commentary on childhood nostalgia, meanwhile almost the entire media and general audience dismisses it for being un-self aware. But it’s very aware.