#billy hargrove meta
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I just realized something.
Steve Harrington is older than Billy by at least a year.
That makes the situation from season two seem so much worse.
So, his thirteen-year-old sister goes missing, snuck out of her room and no one knows where she is. He has to go from one house to another like a pinball- and at one of those houses, a woman in her forties is clearly into him, a minor, but we won't get into that now other than that probably puts him on one hell of an edge- to this house that looks abandoned in the middle of the woods. He can see his sister in the window, briefly.
And then a senior steps out. Steve is a senior in high school, older than Billy, maybe even eighteen, and he has a past of being a playboy. Then, when Billy asks if Steve has seen his sister, knowing damn well she's in the house, Steve lies. And keeps lying.
Alarm bells intensify.
All he does is put Steve on the ground before he walks in. The house is a wreck, there's no actual adult in sight (if Joyce or Jim had been there, he probably would have cooled down. Jim would still raise alarm bells, but he's an actual adult, a parent, so he's better than King Steve Harrington,) and Max, who is thirteen, is the only girl in the house.
His thirteen-year-old sister went missing and he found her- needing to look for kids he knew she hung out with- in a decrepit house- home to Jonathan Byers, who still has a reputation as a creep and Billy isn't sure how deserved that reputation is- in the middle of the woods at night with a group of guys and a man older than Billy who has a playboy rep and who lied about her being there and actively tried to keep Billy from going inside.
Billy doesn't know what's going on. That's the situation he walks into.
Can you imagine? I would have freaked out, too.
Because he's a teenager from California, he knows that this situation is all kinds of suspicious. He knows that Max is a child in a situation with a billion red flags she may not be old enough to see. But he sees them. He sees that she's been out for gods know how long and no one knows where she is. He knows that this house looks like a drug house or an abandoned house from the outside and that there's clearly something incredibly weird happening in this house. He knows that King Steve is an adult who lied to him and tried to keep him from getting inside to talk to his sister. And that his very young sister is the only girl in the house.
All upside-down context removed, that's a horrifying situation.
#billy hargrove#billy hargrove antis dni#billy hargrove meta#stranger things#stranger things season 2#steve harrington#max mayfield
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every time i look back on steve and billy’s fight, i can’t understand people who straight up will talk about it like billy was planning a murder. he was willing to get his sister back home and be done with it. that would’ve been the end of it. was he pissed? yeah, rightfully so. his little sister sneaks out and it’s doing god knows what in a new environment she and their family knows shit about. [i’m not even getting into the scene with neil because plenty of people have, and they are certainly more coherent than i am lol]
an 18-year-old lies to billy about where his little sister is and when confronted about the lie, responds with an insult (“were you dropped as a child” comment). steve offers no explanation as to why his sister is there, and has the audacity to expect that billy will just, what, leave his little sister with strangers? respond with “aw shucks, i guess you know better, harrington. you know my little sister already, even though she is a middle schooler and we’ve been in this town for a week…i suppose it’s normal for a person your age to be around 13-year-olds who aren’t related to you. i’ll just leave you to it.”
[i wonder if people who vilify billy in this moment have siblings. because if you think leaving a sibling behind in a clearly shady situation would’ve been reasonable and ok…i’m concerned for your siblings lmao i’m sorry but i am]
but anyway. the point of the post is: when it gets to the climax of the fight, he has the upper hand after being on equal footing (because hey, steve punched him first, remember? steve is not a saint in this situation, and many people [antis most of the time] talk about this fight as if steve wasn’t throwing punches).
i don’t know if anyone has ever been in a fight, i unfortunately have been in a handful, i have been where steve is, and let me tell you, this doesn’t look like someone who enjoys having the upper hand. dacre could’ve very well acted this part with billy’s ah ha ha ha laughter, maybe a hint of smug satisfaction, maybe continuous taunting.
but he didn’t for a reason. billy isn’t enjoying any of this. in this supposed triumphant moment for billy, anguish overcomes anger. this isn’t what he wanted. he didn’t go to the byers’ house looking for and planning a fight, he was looking for his god damn little sister.
i just…idk. dacre puts out this complex performance in a matter of seconds, accomplished the definition of “show don’t tell.” but i guess the audience needed to be told. (although, they love to ignore neil’s scenes. so at this point it’s just plain denial).
#billy hargrove#billy hargrove meta#billy hargrove analysis#harringrove#dacre montgomery#stranger things billy#st billy#look i know basically everyone that likes billy made these points#but i still feel like a lot of people interpret billy as someone who is constantly looking for fights#like headcanon what you want! i’ll never stop anyone from doing so because i read some good meta and fanfic in which he does look for it#but i think given what max says about him#the ‘he was always a dick but now he’s just angry’#implies he wasn’t resorting to violence before hawkins#that he was more of a little shit#lmao#but anyway#i think this moment is just pure self loathing#because he knows what it’s like to be in that position#he knows what it’s like to be powerless#from both the abuse his mom went through and his#so yeah
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Oh also just realized Neil called Billy f slur right after he said he has a date. And y'all had the audacity to say he's not queer he's "homophobic"
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The way Billy acts in the Holloway house mirrors how he acted when he was around Karen in that same season.
We don't ever see teen Billy's real smile, except for when he's on the court.
This smile is relaxed and carefree.
For example, his smiles here are all fake. Forced. There's an overly polite expression he wears, and it's shown in how he talks, too.
In both cases:
his facial expressions are controlled, except they're caused by different things.
he's been put in a position where he has his autonomy stripped from him.
his eyes look like they're screaming for help.
His job and car are two things that grant him what he cannot get at his house (which would be some freedom and control of his environment/himself). Karen takes that away from him, and so does the Mind Flayer. She shows up at his work with her friends and preys on him. He drives to meet her and gets caught in another predator's web.
And after, when he's driving his car, he's no longer behind the wheel. It's his car, and he has to sit there while he's being taken control of.
#billy hargrove#tw karen wheeler#billy hargrove meta#it just makes me so sad#angry too#jfc#cant let billy have anything huh#not a safe place to go#not his car#hes isolated even before his possession#you could have a scene with the holloways getting killed but... not neil?#most of the time hes taken advantage of abused in pain objectified preyed on and/or triggered#of course hes angry!!!#whenever he gets a sliver of control its snatched from him and used against him in some way#even in s2 hes being ordered to search for max and take her places#tbh thats probably the only reason neil allowed him to have a car
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The “nobody tells me what to do” from Billy right after having being told what to do by his father hurts.
He hates so much that he submits to him and his abuse, but he can’t do a fucking thing at home, so he refuses to take any insult or implication of weakness from anyone else. Outside of Neil, nobody can tell him what to do because they will submit to him, not the other way round. Billy refuses to be the bitch, so he makes himself stronger, tougher, rougher.
That line isn’t just a warning. It’s a fact Billy is forcing himself to believe or else he’ll crumble.
But then Max tells him what to do; and we never see him bother her (or her friends) again. He’s met his fucking match, and it’s another person in that god forsaken shit hole he calls a home.
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I really want to talk about the S3 ~pool scene~ with Billy and Karen Wheeler
With how very clear the Duffers have made their opinions on Billy, it’s obvious that scene was written to villainize him. “How could he?” we’re supposed to ask. “How dare he flirt with a married woman like that?”
But even the first time I watched the show, before I was really a fan of Billy, the scene made my skin crawl. Yeah, Billy knows she’s married, knows she has a family, but he’s not the one in the wrong for the entire exchange (up to and including them almost meeting up at a motel). Billy’s a horny 18 year-old with major mommy issues, of course he’s going to latch onto any kind of attention from an attractive older woman. He has several women preening and showing off for him in obviously sexual ways; Adjusting their bathing suits, fixing their makeup… the moment Billy walks outside it’s suddenly “showtime.”
And you know what? Billy’s a rat bastard who’s shown some questionable judgment and actions throughout the show but in this?? I don’t blame him for this at all. Finding older, more mature people attractive is normal. When I was 14/15 I was thirsting over (often unattainable) older people like celebs, younger teachers, whatever. That’s normal and fine and almost expected, that teens’ tastes mature faster than they do.
But this^^ is NOT how a middle-aged woman should be looking at a barely-legal teenager. Period. Cheating aside, the fact that she can look at a kid who’s the same age as her daughter with that expression is deeply concerning.
One thing that allows the Duffers to get away with making Billy out as the villain in this scene is Dacre’s age. We know, objectively, that Billy is a high schooler, but it’s an easy thing to conveniently forget when the actor’s closer to 30 than 18.
Idk about y’all, but the 18 year-olds at MY high school sure as shit didn’t look like this. If that was an actual 17/18 year-old age-appropriate actor playing Billy, it would seem so much more predatory, and Karen Wheeler would be the newest series villain. Even if we just flip the gender roles here, with a married older man looking at a teenage girl like that…
Sounds creepy as fuck, doesn’t it?
So yeah, Billy’s grimy and mean and angry and violent. But Karen Wheeler was a predator and I’m not forgetting that little fact any time soon, no matter what happens in the next few eps of S4.
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Is Billy An Abuser?
This may seem like an obvious answer to some, regardless of whether your answer is “yes” or “no.” One of the first accusations that antis will throw at Billy is “he’s Max’s abuser.” I would like to examine this claim in a little more depth.
I will not claim that Max and Billy are the paragon of a healthy sibling relationship. If we are to take season two at face value, Max doesn’t like that Billy is always in charge of her, and Billy doesn’t like being Max’s 24/7 babysitter. Thus, Max rebels against Billy, and the punishment for that rebellion falls on Billy’s head. In return, Billy resents Max for indirectly causing him pain and lashes out at her.
The most important thing to remember about Max and Billy’s relationship is that they are pitted against each other by Neil. Neil makes Billy Max’s keeper, and each sibling resents this loss of freedom. His favoring one child over the other breeds further resentment. Billy, ever the scapegoat and family fuck-up, is fully aware of how Max, the golden child, is given preferential treatment in everything. Billy has next to no control over anything in his life. Thanks to the hierarchy created in the family, Billy cannot find the control he lacks over Susan or Neil. The only family member he has any power over is Max.
I understand that abuse is not always physical, and I am not claiming that Billy never damaged Max emotionally. However, I would like to point out that the most physical Billy ever gets toward Max is grabbing her wrist. It is implied he broke her skateboard, but this is never explicitly stated. Given Neil’s physical abuse of Billy, I think it’s worth noting that Billy never hurts Max. His tactics include intimidation, shouting, threats, and warning Max away from Lucas (why this is does not change my opinion of Billy, I’ve been over this). Max is the one who gets physical with Billy, when she stabs him in the neck with a needle and threatens to put the nail bat through his balls if he doesn’t obey her.
I am not claiming that Max is the abuser in this situation. The point I hope to get across is that Max has picked up on Neil’s treatment of Billy, whether this is because she overheard the abuse or through Billy’s behavior. TL;DR: It is inaccurate to call either Billy or Max the sole abuser, since both are children trapped with an abusive father whose behavior pits them against each other and makes strife inevitable while they live under the same roof.
#stranger things#stranger things analysis#billy hargrove#max mayfield#billy hargrove meta#billy hargrove is not an abuser#my posts#I proofread this like once
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tw abuse
been thinking about why Billy lifts weights
to be stronger. no one will want to push him around if he’s got biceps bigger than theirs - no one except his dad, of course.
to get food on a regular basis. he can’t grow muscle if he isn’t eating a balanced diet, right, dad? (Neil still sometimes withholds meals as punishment though)
the sex appeal. he gets attention from his muscles, from a lot of people. they squeeze his arms and eye him like a piece of meat. treat him like one, too. but at least he’s wanted.
it’s an outlet. whenever his cheek stings from a smack or after he’s berated in front of Max and Susan by his father, he’ll pick up his weights and do enough reps until his muscles are screaming and it hurts more than the embarrassment of feeling so weak.
he only ‘works out like a maniac’ (as Max puts it) so he doesn’t lose his mind.
#billy hargrove#billy hargrove headcanon#billy hargrove meta#it just makes me sad#tw abuse#tw neil hargrove
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was talking to a co-worker today about anxiety and how much she hates surprises. long story short: her family was acting sus and she was trying to figure out if they were trying to pull a birthday surprise on her and how much she didn’t want them to. and she said, “it’s out of love. but i like to be loved quietly.”
and like we were joking but it’s also such a profound sentiment? and me being me i have to turn it on characters because…that’s billy.
think about it! billy hargrove is not used to being loved on. he’d likely feel very uncomfortable and out of place if someone made grand, sweeping gestures toward him. he wouldn’t know how to respond and would probably feel anxious, that need to run and escape the situation prevailing any gratitude because he’d be far too overwhelmed. but small gestures? quiet gestures? a hand to hold, a head on his shoulder, someone putting their arms around him? those little things are what make him melt.
#and i feel like it would be a learning curve for steve who is used to showing off his affection#ANYWAY#yes i do make everything about billy#billy hargrove#billy hargrove headcanon#billy hargrove meta
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i see fellow billy stans contemplating billy’s violence and i bring you: intermittent explosive disorder.
this isn’t the first time i’ve headcanoned a character with IED but it is the first time that i’ve been serious about it. honestly, if any of the stranger things showrunners or book writers treated billy and his trauma with any sort of sensitivity or seriousness, i would say that this is probably canon.
okay so for those who do not know what IED is, it is an impulse and emotional disorder in which people suffering from it often experience episodes of incredible anger and violence in response to triggers. the key aspect of this disorder is that the anger is completely uncontrolled, it is not planned, and the episode doesn’t often last more than 30 minutes at a time.
usually (but not always), the people in question are young male children. however, the symptoms can persist from childhood to adulthood if they are not treated properly.
how do i think this relates to billy? uh.
okay jokes aside, i think the entire fight at the byers house is a pretty good example. the way that it intersects with what i believe is his PTSD makes it even more interesting. we already know that billy is in an unstable state when he’s coming to the byers’, what with being fresh off of an incredibly unsafe and upsetting situation with his father berating and hitting him in front of a witness.
so the proverbial gun is cocked and ready to fire, in this situation. and, in all honesty, none of what physically happened in the byers house is a proper trigger for how severely billy beats steve. he’s not in immediate danger, he’s obviously physically stronger than steve, and he already was winning the fight by the time it got bad. there’s no reason why he couldn’t have left steve and taken max home, but we can clearly see that while nothing physically has happened, billy has clearly been psychologically triggered.
you could really come up with any reason as to why he was psychologically triggered during this event. the most common of which is that he was just in a situation (with his dad) in which he was in danger but was not allowed to defend himself, and he’s redirecting what he wants to do to his dad (which actually gets referenced in the runaway max novel**) to steve.
there is also one that has been coming up more recently, which is that when steve hits him, billy reacts as if steve were actually neil himself. the entire fight, he’s not even seeing steve. the trigger that i like the most, which is the most tinfoil hat but can easily be explained with context clues, is that steve has become neil in billy’s mind, and billy has become his mother. the outfit, the punch, the plate smash—it all says, to me, that he’s recreating his mother’s abuse. but, in his mind, his mother is winning. he’s winning for her.
(short sleeved red shirt unbuttoned, blue jeans and a belt, their hair, etc)
so yes, his trigger itself could be any number of things, but whatever that thing is to you, it triggers an episode. we don’t actually know where billy would have stopped in this situation. had max not drugged him, i can’t confidently say that billy would’ve stopped himself before it was too late. it’s not intentional effort on his part, he is not in control of himself in that situation. an episode has been triggered and he cannot stop himself until the episode is done, which could have been well after steve was dead.
this is an example of a high intensity-low frequency episode. episodes of this intensity do not occur often, and are rather rare in comparison to the frequency of low intensity episodes. i think max tends to be a trigger for a lot of the low intensity episodes we see. (DO NOT!!!!!!!!! take this as me blaming her, i am not blaming her for his episodes occurring!)
**i saw this a lot more when i got the chance to look at the runaway max book the other day. i don’t necessarily consider that book to be canon (there are obvious timeline issues, plus the fact that if it were canon, it would introduce a whole host of disturbing implications about max and billy’s relationship), but i do think more of his symptoms can be observed there simply due to the fact that more importance is placed on him in that book as opposed to the show.
violence against animals (although already dead), violence against people, etc etc. i honestly wonder if that author (and even the show, honestly) was trying to portray billy as being a ‘psychopath’ which, as much as i’d love to talk about that and how much i hate it, it would need to be an entirely different post.
it also makes sense how billy might have acquired these symptoms. for starters, most disorders tend to be passed down genetically, and though i don’t know enough about neil to say anything about his anger (and i don’t particularly care to), i think it’s safe to say that billy could have inherited it from him. additionally, trauma, abuse, and exposure to violence as a child are also environmental causes of this disorder, which
self explanatory.
to me, this makes a lot of things about billy’s character make sense. it also makes me really sad because, once again, this disorder can be treated and mitigated with proper help and intervention.
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Billy, like Jesus, was surrounded by Judases. Traitors. Every adult in his life betrayed him in some way. Whether they abused him, ignored him, abandoned him, or preyed on him, they all let him down. Their choices all played a part in leading him to his death. They betrayed their own roles as parents and as people.
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It’s funny how the Billy Hargrove fandom is carried by BIPOC and marginalized fan creators and stranger things is carried by Netflix. But people want to attack us like we’re the big problem couldn’t be me. Performative
#sad but true and A little hilarious#billy hargrove#harringrove#mungrove#harringroveson#stilldie#stranger things#meta#billy hargrove meta#tw fandom discourse#fuck netflix#we just enjoying fiction in this corner#my corner of the Internet
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i obviously get that billy being violent towards the preteens was bad, but like, you ever wonder why he didn’t have any qualms with it? he grew up in a violent environment, and after his mother left he became neil’s punching bag. so…i assume at some point he thought violence is the way to keep kids in line. it’s either you behave or you get beaten, no in between.
and this may be totally obvious, given his upbringing and shit. but i often see people talk about his way of treating The Party as if he was aware of the ramifications that result from being violent with children. i don’t think he was. neil never had to face consequences for beating billy’s mother and billy. so like…
i don’t even know what i’m trying to say. i just feel like he doesn’t have that switch in his brain to tell him “hey man, these are children, maybe take it down a notch.” because, well, his father didn’t have that for his own son. y’know, the “maybe don’t beat your child” switch. like, in his head, if his own father, his blood, doesn’t care, why should he?
as always, i’m not excusing his behavior. but it’s just…he had no blueprint as to how he could handle the situation another way, a peaceful way.
#billy hargrove#billy hargrove discourse#billy hargrove meta#barely#but meh#st billy#billy stranger things#billy and max#well#billy and the party#harringrove
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Maybe that's a reach but...
Can we talk about how Dacre improvesed the cookie eating scene?
He said Billy had anxiety and we know some people eat when they feel anxious (like me). He was feeling anxious while "flirting" with Karen. So much so he stops acting for a split second and try to suppress his anxiety. Look at his eyes.
Also we know he was stressed after all this act. Look at him leaving the house. He's holding up the hand he holds the cookie. Why? My guess is him holding his pendant for a relief. Because I have my own comfort items too.
Look at his face. He can't stand this shit anymore.
Also the worse part is they literally put a song "I'm falling in love" behind this scenes. This was underage Billy trying to find his sister and flirting with an adult woman to do so. Because Mrs Wheeler ma'am didn't tell him where Maxine is in the first place. She literally waits there and watch him flirt and then give him the address. What an adult.
#billy hargrove#stranger things#pro billy hargrove#billy hargrove meta#character analysis#billy hargrove deserved better#billy hargrove needs a hug#billy hagrove has an anxiety#fuck#anti karen wheeler#dacre montgomery#dude deserves an award
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Neil's level of control varies with Susan, Max, and Billy:
Susan sees what Neil is doing to Billy, but she doesn't do anything.
Max sees what Neil wants her to see, which is Billy fucking up her life and trying to control her.
Billy sees Neil for what he truly is, but Neil controls how Billy sees himself. I think Neil redirects whatever hatred billy has for him and pits that against Billy himself. For Billy to believe he deserves this, and worse. For him to believe that he's the problem, not his father. Neil doesn't have to hide who he is from his son. He hides who Billy really is from himself. Because who Billy really is, his individuality, scares Neil.
Who is the real Billy Hargrove? We met him in his memories, when he pushed back at his first monster. He's bigger now, but at this point the best push he can manage is talking back, as we see when Neil enters Billy's room. Now the thing is, he knows no matter what he does, Neil will hit him. He doesn't know when, but the slap is inevitable. Billy gains a tiny bit of control by talking back. Even if he stayed quiet, he'd still get hit. Neil shows him that no matter what he does, he will be punished. This proves to Billy that any attempt to fight back will not change the outcome. He is ultimately forced into a corner, powerless.
#billy hargrove#billy hargrove meta#billy hargrove defense#billy hargrove deserved to be saved#billy hargrove deserved better#neil hargrove#tw abuse#dammit my phone put sews instead of sees#fuck
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every time i think about s4, i get pissed at how well billy would've fit in as one of vecna's victims. he easily could've been max. instead of s3 being about him, s4 could've been about him and we would've gotten more background info of his childhood. it could've been like a legit character redemption rather than killing him off and wasting his potential. we were robbed of his interactions with max and the rest of the kids, as well as the older teens. s4 could've been so interesting with billy i'm so sad... anyways time to write this au to make me feel better
#billy wearing headphones and looking all depressed 😭 WE WERE ROBBED#s3 could've easily been neil tbh#billy's guilt in s4 would've been about feeling bad for wanting his father dead#but also being glad he is#and vecna uses this info + his abuse to use him#stancy would not have happened if billy were alive 😔#robbed of so many billy and max cute/annoying siblings scenes *shakes fists*#billy hargrove#billy hargrove deserved better#billy hargrove meta
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