I Like To Think That The Parallel Between Mike Destroying The Pillow Fort El Slept In And Will Destroying

i like to think that the parallel between mike destroying the pillow fort el slept in and will destroying castle byers is actually very meaningful -

i like to think that the choice of a pillow fort was deliberate for hiding el. it's a childish object in the same way castle byers is, and the destruction of it symbolises a loss of a kind of softness and innocence that will never come back.

when will destroys castle byers, it's after trying to make things go back to how they were before he went missing. it's the emotional culmination of all of his angst that the things that have happened to him have happened, and that he's stunted in place when everyone else is moving on and managing to be straight. especially because castle byers was something he & johnathan had built to cope with their father leaving.

when mike destroys the pillow fort it's because he's lost el, and with her any hope of finding will.

it's notable that in the scene, he first stares at the door as if waiting for el, or even for will, to come back. he cares for el at this point as her own person, but i think in this scene he is angry because he feels stupid for ever letting himself hope that he could find will again, and that things could go back to normal - just as will felt trying to get the party to play D&D with him.

for both of them it is a deep embarrassment holding frustration and grief of losing their childhoods, and of losing each other, as two people who were boys together.

the fact that mike has this development so much earlier than will in the show is testament to how the trauma changed the both of them - mike grew up too fast, and will didn't get to finish growing up.

i think mike's actions in the show all follow on from here. his grief of losing will - first when he went missing, then when he came back and was wounded - was so much that he shut it out in favour of being angsty about eleven. and then once she came back, he couldn't understand why everything still felt wrong, and instead he rejected childish notions and preferred to think of his woundedness as maturity, getting obsessed with eleven in order to avoid doing things that reminded him of how things used to feel when they were still kids. this is why he is so mocking and cold to will, because he hasn't really processed how much will going missing shook the security of his world at such a young age, and he never acknowledges that it did. he also hasn't been able to grow up, he's just trying to hide it from himself.

It’s now becoming possible that this really was the disappearance of Ted Wheeler the entire time 🤡

The way I see it, there’s three to four distinct possibilities for this flashback if it’s related to a plot point and not just a tiny snapshot of the past.

1. Will had his eighth birthday specifically mentioned in the shed scene, where he got a box of coloured pencils and drew the famous rainbow ship. This is interesting because of birthdaygate and rainbowshipgate both being big theories; specifically the whole birthday thing needing to be resolved in Season 5.

It was mentioned that Lonnie left around 4 years prior to Season 1, which matches with this timeline as well. Therefore:

2. This is a snapshot of Lonnie’s abuse of the boys witnessed when Mike was there. This could serve as a great callback to Lonnie’s mentioned homophobic abuse of Will, and I’ve theorized for a while that Mike was witness to this and only added to his repression of his own sexuality.

3. This was when Lonnie left and they built Castle Byers - with the additional information that this supposedly is apart of Episode 4, this seems possible. I have an entire theory that Mike and Will visit Castle Byers in the Upside Down during that episode for a while now. It was mentioned only Jon and Will built the fort, but this could be Mike’s first witness of it and a snapshot of he and Will playing.

Then the next possibility because the boys would have been eight years old in 1979:

4. The flashback is connected to Henry’s banishment to Dimension X in 1979. I know of a few people who have theorized that this date is important in Will’s life to (from him being involved in the creation of the UD to this being the split point of a timeline). It could also be tied to any of the previously mentioned scenarios as well, except Will’s birthday. The one reason I do think this is unlikely is that there are only scripted lines for Mike, and having some massive reveal here feels like it calls for a larger scene with actual dialogues than the casting call implies.

Wow, so the Duffers are really really going all in for the Wrinkle in Time inspiration for Season 5

I made a few posts about two months ago that are good supplemental reading material about how 'being different' in itself is a reference to a Wrinkle in Time, and how Escape from Camazotz is not about Eddie but another reference to the novel that symbolizes forced conformity.

We have (hopefully) photos coming later today of Mike, Holly, and Will riding on bicycles. Now this is so so interesting because the writers have already confirmed a Wrinkle in Time will be an inspiration for the season multiple times. Not to mention that it has already been written into the show since Season 1:

The 'A Wrinkle in Time' plot goes as follows: "Combining theology, fantasy, and science, it is the story of travel through space and time to battle a cosmic evil. With their neighbour Calvin O’Keefe, young Meg Murry and her brother Charles Wallace embark on a cosmic journey to find their lost father, a scientist studying time travel. Assisted by three eccentric women—Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which—the children travel to the planet Camazotz, where they encounter a repressed society controlled by IT, a disembodied brain that represents evil. Among the themes of the work are the dangers of unthinking conformity and scientific irresponsibility and the saving power of love." - Encyclopedia Britannica.

At a point in their journey, Charles Wallace becomes willingly hypnotized by The Man with the Red Eyes (a vessel for the IT). He tries to put up a fight but eventually succumbs to the hypnotism and is also kidnapped onto the planet / realm Camazotz.

Meg and Charles are siblings. Calvin is a boy from school who befriends Meg and then becomes her love interest. In the original movie adaptation, and at the beginning of the 2018 adaptation, he sports a distinctive green and beige varsity jacket layered with a red and orange plaid shirt.

I've talked about the themes in the novel in those two posts about, but I'll briefly emphasize that the main theme is nonconformity and how being different is good. Calvin and Meg in particular bond over their shared experience of 'being different', and Calvin is finally able to *cough* come out of the closet and start 'being different' openly.

And there is no world in which is this not intentional. :)

Will and Mike are such girl dads. They would definitely have a girl if they had kids, this has confirmed it to me.