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The Tempest also heavily explores the idea of forgiveness and its power to free us from captivity. El “forgives” Brenner (though it’s framed as more of an acceptance that he will never change, even if he “loved” her) and only then is she able to officially walk away from him and her previous life.

Everyone expects Will to kill Henry out of anger and spite, but that’s not who Will is inside. He is the light to Henry’s darkness—the goodness to his evil. His perfect foil. Making him evil drops him to Henry’s level and makes him no better than those who tried to kill him. Rather, it would make more sense, and create a stunning conclusion to the storyline, for Will to learn about Henry’s past and understand why he succumbed to the Upside Down. Will will realize, if he didn’t have his incredible support system keeping him afloat, he could have turned out just like Henry.

It’s sobering and heartbreaking and will drive Will further into the light. He understands what it’s like to be different, misunderstood, and used for someone else’s gain. Now, does that mean he excuses Henry’s behavior? No, absolutely not. Henry has permanently altered Will Byers’ life forever, and he will never be the person he was before. That being said, just like Prospero must ask the audience for forgiveness for harming those who hurt him, must also Henry do the same.

I believe the real Henry is still buried deep inside him, just like the people he possesses. They’re never truly gone, but rather trapped beneath layers of trauma and grief. Henry will overcome his own grief and finally put his victims to rest. Will will defeat Henry not with anger, malice, and darkness, but rather with compassion, understanding, and light.

Remember, Papa (and Kali) encouraged El to use her anger to defeat her enemies—to find something that angers her and channel it into her powers. It’s the only way she’s ever known. Through her experiences of friendship, understanding, and kindness, she learns to use her love instead, which proves infinitely stronger.

Papa had El look for Henry in the darkness, because he (Papa) thought Henry was evil. It’s only when Henry is brought to the light that he can finally shed the exterior of “Vecna” and release his past. The Party will defeat Vecna with the power of love—platonic, romantic, and self-compassion. Maybe you weren’t a terrible person, maybe you were just a victim of a cycle you didn’t know how to break.

****I AM IN NO WAY EXCUSING HENRY’S ACTIONS, BUT JUST LIKE THE CHARACTERS, WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT NOTHING EXISTS IN A VACUUM AND THAT EVERY ACTION HAS A REASON. I AM NOT ADVERTISING FOR “FIXING” PEOPLE!! I WANT EVERYONE TO FIND COMPASSION FOR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS, INCLUDING THEMSELVES, AND FIND THE STRNEGTH TO BREAK THE CYCLE****

Got this picture from @will80sbyers

it has a drama club poster and it says "an evening of monologues" and the date at the bottom is April 1st.

Mikes monologue was a joke 💀

Will Byers & Growing Up Gay in the Pre-Internet Era

This is a tough one, and I really wanted to make sure I did it justice. Some background on my qualifications to write this: I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Counseling, I did undergraduate and master’s level research on sexual orientation, and I personally identify as bisexual. This does not make me the ultimate authority on this topic, of course, but I like to think I have a bit more insight than the average person.

Season 3 of Stranger Things resulted in the mainstream audience asking a question that many of us had already been trying to answer: Is Will Byers gay? I’m not going to pretend that I somehow know the answer to that question, but I do believe the evidence points to yes. The most popular alternate interpretation of his character is that he is simply not as mature as his friends, and so he’s just not interested in girls yet. Here, I intend to examine what it would be like to grow up gay in the 1980s, before the internet and other means to access the larger LGBT community, and what that could mean for our little cleric.

Development of sexual orientation, or, at least, a minority sexual orientation, generally involves an on-going process that is sometimes seen as a series of steps. It begins with the recognition of a same-sex attraction. This has been reported to occur as early as age 9 in males. The following progression can be dependent on the schema, or a sort of cognitive framework, that someone has set up for homosexuality. If we look at Will, he is definitely at the age where he likely would have noticed a same-sex attraction. Based on the bullying, and the general climate of the 80s, his schema for homosexuality would be incredibly negative. This is not something he would want to acknowledge. This may be why the same research mentioned above has most males not self-identifying as gay until around age 16 despite having a same-sex attraction at 9.

Will would not have any reason to want to be gay. He has no access to any resources that would help him counter the schema that his dad, Troy, and the general attitude towards gays of the time would have constructed for him. He has no community or peers to give him support, and he doesn’t have the internet to allow him to see how not alone he really is. He may have been able to acknowledge an attraction for Mike (or others), but he would not ascribe that to his being gay. Such feelings could be rationalized as friendship, admiration, or even envy. 

This is a difficult road to walk when your peers are taking notice of the opposite sex. It can become very conspicuous, and one can only imagine that the taunting Will receives would only have gotten worse. We don’t get to see any of this though, as it is now summer. Some people theorize that Will isn’t ready to grow up, and I do agree, but for another reason: Will is scared.

Assuming he is gay, Will has caught on that something isn’t quite right with him by now. He sees his friends obsessed with girls, but it’s something he doesn’t share. He has nothing against girls, and doesn’t mind Dustin and Lucas being interested in them, but he has no interest in them himself. He also doesn’t like that Mike does. He may not understand why yet. These feelings would be conflicting heavily with his internal schemas, resulting in a cognitive dissonance. His feelings and what he believes to be normal are in conflict.

When Mike yells that it’s not his fault Will doesn’t like girls, it may well be the first time he’s ever been made to consciously confront those feelings. The insults of his asshole father and the school bullies he can ignore, but he can’t ignore Mike. Mike may or may not have meant it that way, and Mike may or may not suspect that Will really is different. Regardless, Will would be stunned and afraid at being forced into acknowledging the possibility, and this is exactly how he is shown to react to that statement. He was happy to stick with his childhood activities, because all of that is from a time when it didn’t matter if he liked girls or not. He can play D&D all day, every day, and never have to worry about something like girls. 

It’s reasonable to conclude that Will doesn’t want to grow up because that means facing something he doesn’t want to. This monster could possibly scare him more than the Upside Down. Now that he’s made to confront it, he lashes out at everything he found refuge in. He can’t hide in Castle Byers, which represents his childhood, anymore. He berates himself for thinking he could hide in his childhood forever. He hears Mike narrating a campaign as he looks around, and it cuts him to the core that his best friend, and perhaps his everything, is actually the source of his anguish. He’s realizing, at least on a basic level, just how important Mike really is to him, how important he wants to be to Mike, and how he can’t go back to when they could be that for each other.

This is why he wants nothing to do with D&D unless Mike is involved. It’s not possible for him to find another party. He’s not even fully ready to consider himself gay yet, but he’s getting there. He’s telling Mike, in the only way he dares, that Mike is it for him. 

This is my take anyway. I don’t know where Season 4 will take us. It may just give us even more subtext that isn’t acted on.

Sooo I was still watching the van scene when I noticed THIS thing I've never seen before...

and it really scares me😶

Do you also see the eyes up there??

Like

I’m going crazy.

Nancy's storyline is S3 was not about sexism/misogyny

Just to be clear, I'm not insulting Nancy anywhere in here calling her a kid/child I'm just trying to explain the story and the characters takes on everything to explain it. I'm sorry about rambling a bit at the end I may have repeated some things but I was trying to make sure I got everything. But please read everything because it may cover any questions you have.

The men that are making fun of her never make it about her being a woman, its always about her being a child/intern. They laugh at her suggestions because shes an intern who has only worked there for 4 weeks at the most and is trying to make suggestions about how to run the paper, when they spent over 20+ years working there [as Tom says] to get a spot in that room.

Nancy herself never even says or implies that its about her being a woman necessarily. In fact, theres points that contradict that the storyline is about sexism. Like this next subject.

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Nancy's conversation with her mother is what gives it away. If this was about sexism, this is the part where Nancy is with another woman and can speak freely about men/sexism. She doesn't talk about sexism/being a woman ext though. Doesn't even imply it. I always thought this scene was odd because its about her being a kid, not a woman. I thought what a weird way to address the sexism/misogyny topic.

This is the part in the story where Nancy or her mother should be giving a speech about being a woman and how they're just as good as men and overcoming sexism, but that isn't the message being put out. Its all about Nancy being a kid. The advice Karen gives her and helps Nancy overcome her issue is also not about being a woman or fighting misogyny. Its about Nancy being a kid.

"I wanted to be right so badly." "And were you?" "I thought so. But maybe I just…don't want to admit that I'm wrong, because if I'm wrong, then…" "You're what everyone thinks you are." "Just a kid who has no idea what she's doing."

You're what everyone says you are /just a kid who has no idea whats she doing [Confirming the bosses at Hawkins post were making fun of her for that, it had nothing to do with sexism/her being a woman.

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Their insults towards her are never about her being a female, its always about her being a child/an intern. They call her Nancy Drew who is a "TEEN" detective. Nancy Drew often runs into trouble because she doesn't fully know whats doing. Shes very smart, but inexperienced. Again they are commenting about her inexperience. Not about her being a woman.

Bruce says about her forgetting mustard on his sandwich after she makes a suggestion for what to put in the paper. This isn't him being sexist, he is saying about how she can't even manage being an intern and getting that right, so why should they take her suggestions about how to run the paper seriously when shes only worked there for 4 weeks and can't even handle the menial tasks.

We never actually see the men being sexist apart from Bruce. Bruce makes a comment about a womans bust that is clearly sexist, but Bruce is never sexist towards her, nor are the other men. Their issues with her are always about her being a kid/an intern.

Tom clearly wasn't showing favoritism towards the men because he fired both of them even though Jonathan didn't 'cause as much trouble' as Nancy. Nancy did more, but Jonathan was given the same punishment as her.

Nancy was an intern and she was mad that she had to do interns job like get coffee. Men and women interns have to do this. It's not sexism. Interns jobs are to do menial tasks to help the higher ups [like get coffee ext] and learn as they go so they can advance to a higher level within the company.

The only reason Jonathan's job was different is because he had a skill no one else had there. Photography at a newspaper is also a menial task in itself. He was doing a menial task already, it was just different than Nancy's task because he had that skill, she didn't.

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"Can you have one of the other girls get the coffee today." "They're needed at their desks." It is Nancy who makes the suggestion for another girl to do it [not Tom] even though she is the intern working there. Even Tom protests this. Hes not being sexist and is not the one who made the suggestion for another female to do it in the first place. If anything Nancy was being sexist saying have one of the other girls do it. It's not that women get the coffee, its that interns get the coffee and she may have been the only female intern working there. They're a small paper I don't see them having a lot of interns at one time, but if there was maybe shes saying have one of the other interns get it and the other two interns are women. She just refers to them as 'the girls'. I can't see Nancy saying something sexist like that making the suggestion for another woman to get it. I think she is talking specifically about the few interns who work there.

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The "They like you no matter what you do." The bosses like Jonathan [not because hes a man] but because Jonathan comes in, keeps his head low, and does what hes told. Nancy is the opposite she is constantly making suggestions to the bosses how they should be running the paper.

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Even Nancy herself never says its about sexism or implies it. She never says about how she is being treated differently because shes a woman except that one time already covered above. If this was about sexism or her being a woman she would have addressed that, but she never does. In fact, she makes it about her being a child, not a woman as shown above. The bosses also might value Jonathan because he has a skill while Nancy doesn't.

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It's not sexism to expect an intern to do an interns job. Rachel on Friends has to do menial tasks like this as well when shes starting out in fashion. Her bosses weren't sexist, they give you menial tasks like that because you just started the job. You have to work your way to the top starting at the very bottom. This isn't a sexist thing. Its a people thing. Men have to do it too. Everyone, men included need to start out at the bottom and work their way to the top and gain skill and knowledge about the work before they can become a higher up. You can't just rush into the 'managers' office like Nancy did and start making suggestions about how to run the company when you only worked there for 3 weeks.

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Maybe Nancy *thought* that the men were being sexist when they weren't, but even that doesn't add up. Because of what I went over above. Nancy never makes it about her being a woman at all. She understands its about her being a kid and that shes inexperienced and has no skills like Jonathan to give her a leg up. Shes smart, but she doesn't have any particular skills that set her apart from the rest.

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The men never say anything towards her that is about her being a woman/they never say anything sexist. The only reason they're laughing at her suggestions and making fun of her is because shes a child and making suggestions to them the bosses when she just started working there. If Nancy was a man she would have been treated the exact same way. I'll make an example if I were a man and I started working at Walmart as a cashier and only worked there for 3 weeks and I went into a meeting that was meant for the managers and I started making suggestions about how to run the company when I knew nothing about it, they would laugh at me too. It had nothing to do with sexism.

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Im not sure where the fans got this maybe reading too much into certain lines, but Nancy herself doesn't even feel that she was being made fun of for being a woman. She says its about being a kid not a woman.