#creel/wheeler theory
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what is UP with Alice Creel?
okay finally going into what i talked about here, what is Alice Creels deal? i'm ignoring any theories that Alice Creel is actually Karen Wheeler or any other character we know for this and just purely focus on Alice the way we see her in the flashbacks. because i've been thinking about the general oddness of Alice Creel for way too long (in a numbered list format because i like those and they're easier to keep track of *heart*)
as a quick overview:
1.) Alice is paralleled to Henry. Why though?
2.) the reason these parallels are so weird
3.) the death of Alice Creel - or more specifically WHEN does Alice Creel die? the timeline is WHACK
4.) "so... what? Alice is coming back to tell her story? she's dead."
here we go ->
1.) Alice is paralleled to Henry. Why though?
Alice has an odd amount of contrast to her brother given that we only see her in the Creel flashbacks. she has More screen time than Virginia, but still, she's a side character that seems to serve the main purpose of getting killed by Henry. they're siblings but the main relationship we know them by is murderer and murder victim, so them getting compared on a narrative level feels a bit misguided given their power and story-importance imbalance
some of the most eye caching contrasts:
1.1.) the Angel and the Demon
firstly, this was something that i thought was actually pretty straight forward on the show when Victor first mentioned it and was then surprised when they didn't make it explicit. Victor Creel begins telling his story and he's a very religious man, attributing the display of powers to a supernatural demon. and he's not wrong about something going on, he just doesn't realise it's his son doing it, so the religious imagery becomes a place holder for Henry. we know Henry is the demon. if they mention the demon? Henry!
but then it gets weird when we're suddenly introduced to a second religious figure. the Angel. the angel that saves him from the demon no less. the demon is a real person but the angel is just the radio? sure, maybe. but Victor was actually right in identifying the demon, he just put the wrong name on it, him identifying another religious entity in his house right after doesn't really give us any reason to believe he's wrong this time around. you can make the argument that the singer, Ella Fitzgerald, is the angel. but random singer vs evil superpowerd child feels much more impersonal than sister vs brother. Max let the music guide her and was ultimately saved by her friends calling out to her and her memories of them. sure, Victor's favourite 60s singer could have solely saved him from Henry by randomly playing on the radio, right place right time for once on this show i guess, but from a story writing perspective it's incredible anticlimactic
1.2.) and on this topic of music. WHY is there even music?
the radio plays right before Virginia dies and it is Victor's favourite song "Dream a little Dream" that's on. but after grabbing the children and running into the hall we can't hear the radio anymore. he tries to exit the building, falls into his vision, walks around a bit, and only THEN begins to hear the song again. so why does he even hear it in the first place? you could make the argument that not much time has passed and that the radio is just still playing, but that contradicts what we see on screen. we can't hear the radio outside the dining room. had it been the radio, why does it take a solid minute in his vision before he randomly starts hears it again? if that's not enough, Henry also messes with the radio channels right before killing Virginia so the chance of the station randomly ending back on "Dream a little Dream" is incredible small in and of itself. and on top of all of that: the music is also Gone when he snaps out of his vision. if it truly was the radio that saved him he would still be hearing it afterwards. but he doesn't
so whatever allowed Victor to hear the song that night, it was definitely not thanks to the radio that he couldn't hear and that wasn't even playing the right station anymore
and then there is also the weird connection made between Alice and Dreams in one of the few verbal lines we get from the flashbacks that aren't narrated by either Victor or Henry:
this line serves no purpose, we learn nothing new except that she likes the house which we could already tell by her attitude. the phrasing is also a bit clunky. however, she now just randomly name dropped dreams for no greater narrative purpose we know of. and she does so TWICE because this is one of the only scenes we get in full in both Henry's AND Victor's flashback
1.3.) then there's the general parallel
in fiction you'll find the trope of the paralleled siblings quite often. one is a nerd the other a jock. goth and prep. popular and loser. stereotypical girly girl and himbo guy. good twin evil twin. the list goes on. and despite Alice seemingly having no greater importance to the narrative than to die we get parallels between her and her evil superpowered brother as well:
we get lines like "sweet innocent Alice" while Henry sits in his spider attic trying to haunt her dreams
and while Henry has his dark closed off attic space we see him mostly in, we see Alice outside (playing like a normal child) in the open air playground on a slide looking like a rocket for some reason
and Alice being backlit even stronger than Will in the van scenes himself while finding the dead rabbit her brother just killed
you can definitely read these two as being opposite coded. Alice being good (not murderous) and also conforming to expectations, not standing out clothing wise like Henry, not trying to break the space-time-continuum because she's scared of societies expectations. being seen as sweet. (which okay to be fair, Victor also thought Henry was sweet so maybe he's not the best judge of character and she could have also been super mean but we'll just go with it for now) and then Henry being the "evil" sibling out to hurt people. who can't conform and then decides to break out of his role (which results in the family murder day). but all this just raises the question again why these two uneven characters even get paralleled to begin with. Alice is just the sister he kills, she's in no way on an equal level to him as far as we know so why does she get to stand as his opposite narratively?
1.4.) and the arguably most on the nose parallel of all
which actually convinced me that there was something going on on my first watch-through -> they fall mirrored behind their father. they face each other, both with their arms bracing the ground bellow. had they fallen any different (as in, had Henry just fallen straight backwards like he already did before dipping sideways for some reason) no one would think anything of it. but alas, they DID fall the same and now were here
i'm serious this is weird, we're back to them being paralleled and put on an equal level despite the fact that they couldn't be further apart in story relevance, power, and character depth, as far as we know. that's the classic, good sibling evil sibling, yin and yang imagery
(also ignore the image quality pls, i had screenshots and didn't want to go back to get a better one, so you're getting a cropped one sorry u.u)
2.) the reason these parallels are so weird
i talked about this here before. essentially, when analysing film, you obviously look at what you see on screen, that's what you're working with. but in any analysis it's almost More important to ask yourself WHY you're seeing it and didn't get any alternative imagery of the infinite possibilities that could be used to convey the scene. because this always tells you the most about the intention and focus of the writers/directors
as an example: why is the scene in the pizza freezer shot at such a weird angle? they could have done that Any other way. we could have seen the character from behind and had everyone in frame. we could have actually seen El's face. etc. Answer: we didn't get any of the alternative options because they wanted Will to be in frame, he's directly involved in the delivery of the monologue and even prompts it. we don't see Everyone, we don't see El's face. the angle is there because Will's face needs to be in frame
essentially, movie doesn't happen on it's own and parallels are hard to make, you have to pay attention when writing AND shooting AND acting AND editing, etc. they rarely happen on their own or on accident. so now let's apply this to the Creels:
why did Alice even have the weird clunky line about the house being like a dream when we already saw her be excited to move in? why did they spend screentime writing a line that tells in addition to already showing, that's incredibly unnecessary? (not even mentioning that we get the line Twice from both Victor's AND Henry's story. at this point it feels important, because no other lines get repeated like this)
why do they lie on the ground in the same way? Henry was in a prime position of landing on his back when he started falling, but somehow he ends up on his side instead? if any of them were facing in the other direction, were lying on their back, or just had their arms sprawled out wider they wouldn't mirror anymore. but as it is, even the angle their legs have is identical. why would they shoot it like this? why does Henry suddenly parallel his presumed victim? he's a murderous psychic, why is he mirrored to his normal sister here? there were endless ways for them to fall that wouldn't have made them parallel each other and yet here we are
and (almost most important of all imo) why does Henry even have a sister? as in, what narrative benefit is there? to make the Creel's fit more in the nuclear family picture with two instead of one child? maybe, but you still have to work with the characters you add, why does she have so little to do? Victor survives and becomes our narrator. Virginia is the first victim of Henry and antagonised him in life. Alice is... his sister. if they didn't have any role for her to play they could have just excluded her, only-child families existed in the 60s and would still perfectly work with the narrative. so why IS there a sister in the house? to show that Henry just became weird on his own and that his sister managed to turn out alright despite them sharing parents and living in the same house? well, yeah maybe, but now we're already back at the good vs evil sibling set up that directly pits Alice and Henry against each other in a parallel. and you could argue that she was there to make the torment and murder of his family more severe and shocking. except that the only thing we see of her is her waking up from a nightmare and finding the dead rabbit, both things we could have also gotten from the parents and didn't actually need a whole new character for. AND WE DON'T EVEN SEE HER DIE so that's completely wasted the potential of making the murder night seem more brutal or cruel
and actually about that, let's get to the big thing...
3.) the death of Alice Creel - or more specifically WHEN does Alice Creel die? the timeline is WHACK
here we go. the weird part. everything else until now was analysis about the purpose of her character, weird framing and narrative choices, and odd parallels. but now we get to the big thing that genuinely doesn't make sense
why don't we see Alice die on screen?
Virginia died in less than 5 seconds. it's quick since we didn't even see her vision, similar to Patrick. Virginia's death was the fastest we see on the show and we actually see it Twice, both from Victors And Henry's flashback. so why didn't we get a three second shot of Alice falling to the ground in either of the visions? it's a small detail but the more you actually look into it the more nonsensical it gets
we saw all 4 curse victims die. we saw Virginia die (twice). and Henry does kill fast making it a non-screen-time-eater. if they wanted to be original and not show another body hit the ground. why didn't they verbally mention it instead? Henry doesn't even say "and then after i killed my sister i tried to get my dad too". Alice is completely left out of the narrative after Henry begins his familicide mission. we see her suddenly lying unmoving on the floor at some point but we don't see OR hear how she got there - we just have to assume from context clues that it was Henry who did it. which is odd considering Henry only had 3 family members, two of which he killed, but somehow that was too much to show so we just skip it and see one of them die twice instead?
that's all already weird. but there is a bit of an explanation why we don't see it happen. it's because neither Victor OR Henry actually see it happen themselves...
let's look at what happened with Alice as far as we can follow. neither Victor's nor Henry's vision are ever shown to be incorrect. even what we see from Victor only gets backed up later, he's just lacking a literal angle to look at his son. so. what's Alice up to? and when does she end up on the ground?
well from Victor's flashback we learn that she's fine when Victor goes into his vision
this is less than a second before Victor breaks through the door and falls into the vision. (note Henry being ominously cropped because Victor is biased and we only learn how fucked up and responsible for this Henry is later on) however, we DO see Alice and she looks upset, but fine overall. standing upright, nothing broken, no blood, no possessed Vecna eyes, no levitating. and given that even Virginia's speed killing took roughly 5 seconds she is fine when Victor's vision starts a second later
but then Victor snaps out of his vision after hearing his favourite song, turns around, and both his children are on the ground now
so. we can infer, Alice died sometime during Victor's vision. she was fine less than a second before he went into it. she was dead when he came out of it. fair enough. of course we didn't see her die in Victor's version of events because he was literally in a trance when she died, makes sense so far
except now we have a problem because how did Henry actually kill her? for real this time. it's no longer just a "why didn't we see it happen"? it's a genuine "how DID this happen?"- because Henry SUCKS as multi tasking with powers! canonically!
that's what leads to him getting flambeed in s4 to begin with. Henry closes his eyes and has to focus to channel his powers. we see it when he does as little as manipulate a clock, then he grows stronger and still needs to close his eyes and zone out when he kills Virginia. he keeps getting stronger with every victim but we even see it years later when he kills as Vecna. despite seeming much stronger, he STILL can't multi task. in order to even just see into someone's mind he has to motionlessly suspend himself in his attic (like a rip off of El's sensory deprivation tanks tbh) and while he visits people he's completely tuned out of his body, making him vulnerable to attacks when the teens visit him in the UD
however, we're left with a situation here where Alice actively died DURING Victor's vision that Henry was actively inflicting on him. which means that Henry killed her while Also trying to kill his father at the same time. so. how did he do that? especially when much stronger adult Henry failed to even have basic awareness of his surroundings when he was in Max's head? and Henry is only 12 in the flashbacks canonically, he's much Much weaker, he also just straight up falls into a coma after struggling to kill his father when the song is making it harder for him. he literally almost died himself here. but he also somehow killed his sister quickly in between without Victor ever escaping the vision???
and when we finally get Henry's pov of that night we still don't see anything clearing Alice's death up. Virginia dies, we cut to the moment right before Victor snaps out of the vision, and then zoom in over Alice who's already on the ground and turn around to look at Henry who's incredibly focused with his eyes closed as he tries to kill Victor. (odd shot choice considering we learn Nothing about Alice here except an acknowledgement of the timeline that yep, she's on the ground again) moments later Henry falls into the coma
Alice was alive as Victor's vision started and on the ground at the latest very shortly before it ended. so again. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?
we already saw enough victims die. we got sped up versions like with Virginia and Patrick where we didn't even have to see the visions. so why did they deem it unnecessary to show us Alice die? did they just forget to have Henry mention he killed her? and what's up with the timeline because as it stands her death is actually impossible:
alive as Henry enters Victor's mind to induce the vision -> unclear what happens as we follow Henry and Victor into the vision -> on the ground seconds before Henry falls into a coma -> dead?
so the only natural conclusion for her death is that... Henry killed her in his first and only feet of successful multi-tasking which we didn't get to see for some reason, and he also never manages to replicate even when teenagers were shooting shotguns at him years later? the timeline makes no sense the way it's presented. Henry would have been physically incapable of killing her Virginia style while fully out of it and focused on his father the way he was. there is either something to Henry's powers we haven't seen yet that allowed him to do this or a whole aspect of that night that we haven't seen yet
but this unanswered question about the timeline that just raises more and more questions actually does answer a different question as said before:
we didn't see Alice die because neither Henry nor Victor saw it either. Victor was in his vision. Henry had his shifting eyes closed as he was in Victor's mind
this doesn't explain at ALL how Alice actually dropped dead on the floor but Does explain why we don't see it. and that's how the entire Creel flashbacks work to begin with. we see what the characters perceived to have happened. narrative bias and all. Victor gives us his account of the demon. Henry adds his attic and murder moments to it later. Henry is able to tell us his father got arrested that night despite already being in a coma because that's something he found out after the fact. Vecna knows Victor is at Pennhurst so he must have found out about his fathers arrest at some point. and with the set up of withholding perspectives from us that the Creel family has, it makes sense we don't see Alice die because everyone is preoccupied as she does so
i would genuinely not be surprised if we got a Third addition to that night (rule of three's am i right) to show us what happened in that time period of Victor's vision we missed. with the theme of unreliable narrators and the fact we're lacking a time frame where BOTH our narrators are completely occupied in which one of the 4 main characters of the scene also Dies raises alarm bells
4.) "so... what? Alice is coming back to tell her story? she's dead."
well yeah. she is. maybe.
i can certainly not blame anyone for assuming Alice is dead, it's a fair assumption because that's what's conveyed to us on screen. however, with a show that enjoys fucking with perception and perspective as much as ST... well we can certainly question if the dead body we see is actually dead or if our pov characters are just mislead. especially when there are other things standing out as odd
also just adding here: Alice being dead or not has nothing to do with the previous points listed. they all raise questions on their own. her death is just the final addition to the long list of what the fuck is up with Alice Creel? and the fact even her Death is questionable is why people think she might return to tell her side of the story (be that as Karen Wheeler, other characters we know, or just Random-WomanTM)
so Alice is dead right? we see it right here. but the thing is. why does she look nothing like ANY of the other Vecna victims we saw. and it's not like we shouldn't notice the differences since we just saw Virginia die a typical Vecna death in the scene prior
they both bleed from their eyes alright, which both appear to be dark. good. first similarity checked off
now we have the problem that nothing else matches anymore. Alice is the only dead victim that has her mouth closed for some reason. Vecna makes a big show of breaking every bone in his victim's bodies before pushing their eyes in, the limbs and JAR being the most jarring part (haha funny) Patrick, Crissy, Fred, Virginia, all have their mouths open (even in Vecna's mind dimension. the bodies' jaws remain open and broken grotesquely). the only other person we see with a still intact jaw was Max who just as a reminder wasn't dead and actually survived her encounter with Vecna. she died of her injuries right after. but she survived the Vecna'ing itself and her jaw was unbroken, just as Alice's
and as we see with Max, bleeding from your eyes itself actually doesn't kill you. it's the general trauma to the body and that kills you if you survive the initial vecna'ing
but that's not where the weird surrounding Alice Creel ends. because Alice doesn't have that severe physical trauma, she is the LEAST injured Vecna victim we see on the whole show. it's not just her jaw, that is just the most obvious body part we see still intact in the closeup. you know how Henry makes a big deal of snapping every bone in people's bodies even as a tiny child killing his mother? well he kind of forgot to do that with Alice
we spent the entire season seeing the mangled corpses of Vecna's victims including Virginia on the dinner table seconds before this, so why are Alice's bones not snapped like toothpicks?
her left arm is clearly broken, bent behind her back. but that's it. her right arm is completely fine which we can see even better than her left arm because it's laid out on the floor. both her legs have a natural angle (Henry was literally laying just like her until Victor picked him up so those are definitely all good) and again, her jaw is fine too. so. why is Alice not horribly disfigured? she's lying still, that's infinitely easier to CGI than the falling and floating corpses of all the other victims that DO get their bones snapped. so why didn't they animate her other arm to be broken for example or even just used practical effects since she isn't moving to begin with. it's not like they forgot since her left arm IS broken, they just didn't go all the way here for some reason
again, look at her and compare her to every other Vecna victim we saw. these are SURVIVABLE injuries. she's bleeding from her eyes and her left arm is broken. Max died from the shock and culmination of her injuries. Alice would not die from a broken arm. the only possibility for Alice to die here is if Henry straight up stopped her heart and did so BEFORE breaking any bones. which would also be something we haven't seen him do before
taking all this into account. let's make up a scenario where Alice could have actually gotten injured and died during that night:
Henry was busy killing his father. Alice asked him what the fuck he was doing being a little weirdo standing around with his eyes closed and shifting all over the place, right after their mother died and their father was standing around like a statue. and then Henry killed her quickly without exiting his father's vision, which he somehow managed to do but which was still hard for him so he couldn't break any of her bones. but he still managed to take her life by injuring her heart or brain instead of any physical body parts for once. and then Henry fell into a coma when he tried to fully focus on his father again
and this is actually the only way this night could have gone down when taking all we know into account. Alice had to have died during Victor's vision. Henry was busy focusing on the vision. Alice presumably dies with little injuries and for no reason we're told or shown
but then why didn't we see it? it does sound straight forward, so why not show it? well as of now we're literally lacking a perspective of someone who Wasn't mentally hanging out in Victor's vision
"but how would Alice return, she'd at least be blind" well yeah? maybe? but also, again, this is stranger things. they fuck with the narrative all the time. we're missing a full season before we have the full story. we saw Hopper standing in a collapsing room only to learn he didn't die in there the next season. we see Henry lie on the ground with his sister, Eddie's uncle and the newspaper all tell us he died, only to then find out he was very much still alive at the end of the season. could Alice be blind if she survived? yes. could her eyes have recovered? potentially? we don't even know how severely she got hurt in the first place so Anything could be revealed about her in the next season
"but the papers said she died" that one is actually a fully invalid point. they also wrote Henry died. they didn't even know Henry was in a coma, we learn that from Victor. the papers also thought Will died And was found by Hopper in a cabin which were both incorrect. (the paper in Hawkins generally doesn't have the best track record to be honest) so the paper saying Alice died in the same breath they claim Henry died isn't really the most convincing thing
"but Victor only said Henry fell into a coma, that means Alice had to have been dead" well, again, maybe. or he just thought she had died. the Creel narrative we see with Victor and Henry is literally about unreliable narrators and perspectives. Victor for sure thought she was dead, but if she actually was... well we can at least question it with the odd details the show includes
if you want to believe that what we're shown on screen is the truth and Alice is dead that's fair enough. however, with the track record the show has it's not an out there assumption to slightly question how correct the characters are in assuming her death
"but everyone said the demon/Victor took his families eyes, you can't survive that" yeah but that's also wrong. back to the Hawkins-newspaper slander. everyone talks about the whole family's eyes being taken when we Know that's not what happened. Henry's eyes are more than fine. Alice's eyes don't look to good but it doesn't look deadly on it's own honestly. Max was still able to communicate clearly with both her eyes injured by Vecna, even El is constantly shown bleeding from her eyes when using her powers. whether Alice's eyes are gone or just injured, it does not appear to be a deadly injury on it's own
so TLDR as it stands now:
Alice Creel is Weird. straight up. her entire purpose in the narrative is questionable. it seems like she's just there to be the cute innocent girl that dies to make it more tragic at first but then we don't even see her die. to top it off, her lack of a death scene actually happens because it's off screen in a gap in the timeline. so she dies in an unlikely circumstance, in an unknown situation, and with the least injuries we've ever seen on one of Henry's victims.
assuming she is dead because of her bleeding dark eyes is fair. but there's enough discrepancies to seriously question what we're looking at
could she be dead? sure. but could she be alive? well, i'm going to say yes. ST loves subverting expectations and misleads. s4 was all about misleads. the Creel story, the story of the lab. all stories that give the viewer a false perception of reality, not by showing lies, but simply by withholding information. and the idea that Alice could have survived her minimal injuries is not unlikely with what we're used to by now
#there's some other things to be said about Alice but this is generally a good overview of what the fuck is going on with her character#there's so much that's just Interesting about her#i've talked a bit about the theories regarding the Creels and Wheelers now lmao#i'll go to the other two angles later on too and go into detail about the 'What is up with Karen Wheeler' part of the theory people bring u#and also the 'What the is up with the narrative connection of the Wheelers and Creels' things but that's a whole can of worms#since i'm not a die hard believer of the theory at all it's kind of funny to go over because there Are some really odd and wild details#that support it but also details that should absolutely disprove it. it's fun#and the Alice thing really just stands on it's own regardless. even if she has absolutely nothing to do with Karen Wheeler#SOMETHING is sure up with her#alice creel#virginia creel#victor creel#henry creel#stranger things#st analysis#creel/wheeler theory
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crazy theory time!
In this scene Mrs. Driscoll was already possessed by Vecna and she put toxic stuff in that glass of Lemonade, but Nancy didn't drink that! She puts it down, and we hear the sound of her putting down the glass.
and maybe one little hint about this was the fact that previously she said that she liked the quiet, but then she told Nancy that she enjoyed the company of people in the other scene!
In the first scene she was herself
so what if it was Henry saying to Nancy
'' You're quite a regular little detective, aren't ya?''
because she was messing with his plan and he was pissed about that, and that's also why he sends the monster to kill her first because she's the first to disturb his plan in season 3
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Ok so I think I may be losing my mind over some plastic wrap lmao
But PLEASE look at this and tell me I'm not crazy and this is actually weird:
Karen I'm begging you to explain to me why the fuck do you have 2 plastic wrap packages from different brands UPSIDE DOWN in your kitchen cabinet. PLS.
Is it just me?? Is this completely normal and I'm losing my mind over nothing??? I mean probably but WHY ARE THEY THE ONLY THING THAT'S UPSIDE DOWN AND PLUS THEY'RE COMPLETELY LEGIBLE
So since I've spent the last 3 hours looking at fucking plastic wrap let me share some thoughts:
First of all, to structure this mess in some way, let's look at the dates. First, at the Reynolds Wrap invention date. Bc PLS LOOK AT THIS
Oh. Looks like it was created in 1947. Do you guys wanna know who was also born in 1947??
I. Uh. What the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK.
"It could be a coincidence" Dude I KNOW I'm just doing this bc I've spent hours researching about plastic wrap and I NEED to tell someone ok y'all are my therapists ksjdalkj
Now the Glad Wrap was founded in 1963, and some pages say that Kali was born in 1963, others in 1964, and others that in s2 she's 16/17 so there's no way she was born back then; so idk about this date.
Now let's go with the ads, starting with Glad Wrap bc it's by far the most interesting one.
I've seen multiple commercials but none of them seemed to have anything meaningful EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE WHICH IS MAKING ME ABSOLUTELY LOSE MY MIND:
youtube
Am I crazy. Do I seriously need to sleep. Or does that look an awful lot like Karen Wheeler??? Especially here in s4????
I mean, the hairstyle and the blond hair, but much more importantly, the outfit.
Like?????? I mean I get that it's 80's white wealthy woman fashion, fine, but that's a whole load of coincidences???
Now for the rest of the ad, the plastic wrap thingy that attacks the woman is pretty interesting, as well as the clock in the background for Vecna reasons. Regarding similarities with the Wheeler's kitchen, I could only catch due to the low quality the bowl with apples and the phone on the wall (you can't see it on the screenshot but there's a phone behind Mike). I couldn't really find anything about the strawberries, but if y'all know something pls tell me
As a bonus, the ad is from 1987, which as far as I know is when everyone guesses s5 is gonna take place in
Now there's no much to see in the Reynolds Wrap ads, except maybe this one:
youtube
(Ignore the yt bar lmao) Although not as much as the previous one, the woman's outfit in that frame does remind me of this Karen s4 look, the same look she has on that scene the damn plastic wrap came from.
Ik this is all probably meaningless, buuuut do you guys want more meaningless shit??
Let's go back to the Glad Wrap ad. The slogan for that specific ad is "Don't get mad. Get glad." Welp, Vecna's a fan of this last word bc out of 9 times it's said in s5, 4 are said by him.
Let's take a quick look at the most interesting time he says that word. We're in Vecna's monologue in chp 7, and in the same scene just some minutes before, he says this:
"I could not do that. I could not close off my mind and join in the madness. I could not pretend. And I realized, I didn't have to."
Let's remember the slogan: "Don't get mad. Get glad."
Then, a couple minutes later, in the same scene:
"And soon, others were born. You were born. And I am so glad you were, Eleven. So very glad."
Now literally two seconds before this last line, this shot was happening:
And. Um. Do you. Do you guys know what's used for tattoos. Um.
Plastic wrap???
Do y'all get why I said I've a hundred percent lost my mind sjdfisdjfil
Ok so. That was it. Anyways I couldn't find anything else important about the rest of items in the kitchen shelve. If y'all have a better explanation as to WHY TF are those plastic wrap packages upside down and perfectly legible, PLS TELL ME. This said, goodbye
#giving a kiss on the forehead to everyone who read this whole thing muac muac ily#dude i was making an actual interesting post till i noticed the fucking plastic wrap and now i can't even remember what i was doing lol#byler#<<<target audience#stranger things theory#stranger things#henry creel#vecna#martin brenner#stranger things analysis#stranger things set design#set design#mike wheeler#karen wheeler#henry creel theory#karen wheeler theory#001
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El's Superhero/Monster Dichotomy
El's monster conflict starts in season one, when she blames herself for the gate opening and for Will's disappearance.
This conflict seems to be "resolved" when she kills the actual monster, the demogorgon, making herself a hero and not a monster. This is even suggested earlier by Mike, who innocently tells El that she isn't the monster because she saved him.
Although this "resolve" is actually quite tragic. She proves herself to be a hero which does offer a conclusion to this conflict within this season, but she sacrifices everything for this.
This conflict comes back in full for El in season four. She no longer has her powers, and she's in a new environment where she's alienated and bullied. On top of everything, her boyfriend can't even say "I love you" to her. It's not a stretch to say that she feels monstrous.
This is only reaffirmed for El after her incident with Angela. Now, obviously this wasn't a good thing for her to do, but El also completely disregards all of the pain that Angela made her feel, perceiving herself as this violent monster who attacks innocent girls unprovoked. We know this is what she's thinking when she says as much to the cops.
I don’t think El wanted to kill Angela, which is why she says “I don’t know,” but she’s unsure because she’s unable to trust her own judgement. At this point she sees herself as a killing machine, so she must have wanted to kill Angela, even if that goes against her true reasoning.
Now, of course we the audience know that El isn't the monster, and everyone close to her knows this as well. But what matters isn't how others perceive her, it matters how El perceives herself.
Her argument with Mike doesn't absolve any of her feelings either, which is of no fault to either Mike nor El. El was too in her head and it wasn't something anyone could talk her out of, and she also wasn't aware of Mike's own internal conflict which was informing all of his responses. Mike can't say "I love you" to El because of his own issues, but to El, he can't say "I love you" because she is an unlovable monster.
Mike really means well when he says "You're a superhero," but it makes things much worse in El's mind. Instead, it creates an unreasonable expectation—
El believes that if she can't save the world, then she must be a monster. She doesn't allow herself to be neither— a human being.
NINA doesn't do much to alleviate El's dichotomous thinking, if anything it only encourages it. She only shifts the monster label on to someone else, that being Papa, and since she wasn't responsible for the massacre like she, and even the audience was led to initially believe, she's able to cleanly reclaim her superhero status. She was the one who defeated the perpetrator, in a moment that visually echoes the end of season one. She's the hero again!
She marches into her battle with Henry with a new sense of high confidence. And she loses.
This isn't El's fault, but she blames herself for Max's condition anyway. Will points out that Max wouldn't even be alive if not for El, but it doesn't matter for her.
To El, getting her powers back doesn't make her a superhero. And if she's not a superhero, well, then she must be the one who destroyed the world.
The resolve of El's conflict wasn't to get her powers back, she just believed that it would fix her problems. But the core conflict is still there— her black and white way of thinking.
So what does this mean moving forward?
Ironically, I think that El can actually learn something from Henry:
I don't think that El's arc in the coming season is going to be about becoming the hero again, but rather unlearning this train of thought. The world isn't made of monsters and superheroes, the world is made up of human beings who all make choices, her being one of them. She isn't responsible for the decisions of others, and it isn't her responsibility to take care of the mess that others create. She's a brave girl who decided to use her powers to try and save her friends, and her failure doesn't make her guilty for the fallout.
I wouldn't be surprised if El pushes herself to be the superhero who saves the world once again, although, the show has already revealed to us what happens when she does— it destroys her.
#stranger things#stranger things analysis#my analysis#el hopper#eleven stranger things#henry creel#mike wheeler#jane hopper#will byers#ive had this thought for a while but i finally found a way to articulate it#excited avout this one#byler#<- target audience#stranger things theory#my theory
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Stranger Things Theory:
This is primarily going off the titles that were dropped recently: The Vanishing of ***** Wheeler and Escape from Camazotz.
I took note yesterday that Camazotz is the name of a planet in the novel A Wrinkle in Time. It's a world controlled by the main antagonist IT, a malicious brain that subjugates the inhabitants to its will, similar to how Vecna/The Mind Flayer uses the hive mind to control the monsters of the Upside Down.
In the novel, Meg Murray (the protagonist) has her father go missing while working on a scientific concept called a tesseract. It's later revealed he's being held prisoner on Camazotz, and (with the help of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Witch) Meg undertakes a journey with her brother Charles Wallace and her love interest Calvin to rescue her father.
Now, in regards to the title referring to a Wheeler vanishing, there is a possibility it could refer to Nancy or Holly, or even Karen, just based on the number of asterisks. However, this number could also be misleading, and it might actually be referring to Mike (I seriously doubt it's Ted).
What if Vecna somehow takes Mike prisoner to a Camazotz-like location (either in the Upside Down, or a different location that will be revealed in S5 as Camazotz) as a means of luring both Will and El into a trap to either kill them or enslave them? The journey both characters could undertake to rescue Mike could have parallels to the journey Meg undertakes to rescue her dad (and later to rescue Charles Wallace when he falls under ITs influence).
Maybe the Duffer Brothers plan to use parts of the novel as a blueprint for S5's story? It's always a possibility.
#stranger things#st5 spoilers#st5 theories#stranger things 5#stranger things season 5#mike wheeler#will byers#el hopper#vecna#henry creel#number 1#a wrinkle in time#camazotz#tgh opinions#the duffer brothers#the mind flayer
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ok looking at the new pic of will, i was looking at the drawing that was behind him, so i googled for a clearer image. it’s interesting to me how the drawing will has in castle byers is the party going up against some sort of dog?? which in season 2 there were demo dogs. in the next picture it’s a bear and it looks like people around it?? maybe the party?? but the bear could represent a demogorgon as it’s the big beast after them. but it had me thinking about the painting will gave mike…
i know there’s theories about dragons being in season 5, but i’m thinking that the dragon is symbolic. i feel like each head represents something. maybe one head is the mindflayer, the other vecna, and who is the 3rd?? will we find out who the 3rd head is in season 5?? or maybe the dragon symbolizes just the mindflayer to say that the mindflayer has multiple sources for its wrath?? or is it like ASOIAF and it represents a prophecy and will is a part of fulling that prophecy 👀 anyways, i decided to google the symbolism of a 3-headed dragon and look what i found…
the “shazki/byliny” being referred to as a human-like character with dragon-like traits… idk so maybe like vecna? dragons are described differently in each culture, but the most popular one is that dragons are intelligent, can communicate, and are evil.
in russia, dragons are represented as masters of weather or water source! very interesting about the water considering the questioning of where is water in the upside down… also, they are able to be romantically involved with humans!! hmm much to think about there in regards to henry and the creation of the other children at the lab (could the third head represent the lab??)… AND in russia, dragons are sometimes represented with 3 heads and is a man-like dragon who appears in russian. idk much to think about… i know dragons are a part of dungeons and dragons lore, but it is possible for the dragon in the painting to be symbolic of something more
#i hope this post makes sense#i made it in a rush lol#byler#will byers#mike wheeler#henry creel#vecna#strangers things#stranger things theory#stranger things analysis
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Why does Angela have two watches?!
(Possible connection with the game in 4x01)
The whole Rink-o-mania scene gets more sus every time I rewatch it.
1. The parallels many people noticed with the snow ball in S2 (hello Mind Flayer) and Max’s memory in 4x09.
But someone pointed out that there’s also a disco ball at the Arcade in S2! And we see it for the first time when Will has the first vision of the storm.��At 8:15 pm
Yeah, the kids are definitely in trouble, and I wonder if the whole scene is just foreshadowing of some Vecna vision in S5, like this pic of Noah in his season finale clothes suggests
or they’re already somehow influenced while they’re there (on March 22nd, of all days!)
Like, a guy in a blue shirt (Mike?) fighting with a wrestler that kinda looks like Vecna? A battle of mind to save Will? Or himself?
Angela with two watches? What does it means? Two timelines?
2. I also noticed something strange before and right after El attacks Angela. She seems confused... It’s almost like she wasn’t completely herself. Hm, but maybe I’m wrong.
3. When Mike parallels Brenner and asks her What did you do? we hear again the clock ticking, like in the lab in 4x01, in Max’s Vecna nightmare in 4x02 and other lab scenes (here)
4. And one more thing that imo is absolutely clear and intentional when you rewatch this scene. We see Angela’s two watches, El remembering the massacre, and then Finn slowly moving on Millie’s right, to leave the frame, and Noah doing the opposite, so in the last shot, it’s only El and Will.
Imo, the Wonder Twins who are connected to Vecna and the lab.
#byler#will byers#mike wheeler#willel#willel twins#el hopper#willel wonder twins#st vecna#henry creel#st theory#st analysis#st parallels#stranger things
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I have so many questions
How did El recognize Will in the picture when she had literally never met him?
Why is it that Vecna absolutely does not want to kill Will, when Barb is in the UD, she immediately dies, whilst Will survives for a full 2 weeks
And we know the demogorgan is 'hungry for blood', but Will was not bleeding, even Hopper says to Joyce that there was no blood on his bike
Will says to Owens that 'the evil' wants to 'kill', not him, but everybody else
also, how the hell did Will know to sing his favourite song, and how the hell did he know how to communicate through Joyce with the lights? (*cough* flickergate)
why is Mike late for something in the opening of every season? it's almost as if time is running out (for him)
and how the hell did Will manage to talk to Joyce through the wall, we haven't seen anyone do that besides El lmao, the Hawkins crew had to go to through one of the gates in order to go to the upside down, Will didn't go through any gate lol??
also, we know that something took Will, suspiciously, it cuts to the light shining instead of letting us see what actually happens
but how did Will manage to hide?
we know Will is good at hiding, but nobody can outrun a demogorgan, they immediately kill
it's just a bit strange, ykwim?
it's a bit weird because when upside down, they're just taken there and killed, but something different happened with Will, was it Vecna who like, gently coerced him into hiding in castle byers? lmao, that doesn't sound like something that would happen
and ALSO ALSO
Yk how I said it's suspicious that the camera just zooms into the light, and then the next shot we see that Will is just, gone
he just disappeared into thin air
well
the same thing happens to Barb!! except, well Barb immediately dies
yk what I'm talking about right? when Jonathan is taking pictures, we see Barb, we see the blood droplets in the pool, and then we see Jonathan get distracted, and when he looks back into the direction of the pool, she's just not there
we've never, never seen someone just disappear like that, as far as I know
the only way we see people physically in the UD is when they actually go through the gate, otherwise their body is still in the real world, like Chrissy and Max, and even Will in season 2
it's just weird to me that this happens twice, except the fact that Will doesn't die and Barb does almost immediately
anyway this is sooooo random but thoughts were just running through my brain and I needed to write them down lol
#byler#byler is canon#byler is endgame#byler is real#mike wheeler#byler nation#mike wheeler is a boy kisser#mike wheeler is gay#will byers#mike wheeler is in love with will byers#flickergate#stranger things analysis#stranger things theory#stranger things#eleven jane hopper#eleven hopper#vecna#henry creel#edward creel#jonathan byers#jim hopper#joyce byers
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Jeremiah 16 Foreshadowing
After seeing @starmanbyler 's post about this Murray moment in reference to birthdaygate, I looked up the 16th book of Jeremiah in scripture and it seems to be quite relevant to 001's plan for the world in s5. 001/vecna being the LORD in this context. Jeremiah 16 is also referred to as the "Day of Disaster".
"die of deadly diseases"-- possibly in line with radiationgate? 2st sentence makes me think of Barb & Eddie who don't get a proper burial, and Wayne who was the only one mourning Eddie at the end. 3nd sentence sounds like foreshadowing for how the dead will be treated in s5 due to mass deaths.
Last part of 6 is a throwback to Nancy and Jonathan cutting their hands to lure the demogorgan, and both El and Hopper having their heads shaved in contexts where death was either involved or at stake. 7 references the end of s4 when everyone is gathered at the school being offered food and water when grieving the loss and destruction.
Jeremiah 16:16 happens to describe The Crawl. The crawl of all of the monsters that Vecna will send up through the crevices that the gates formed, into the world to hunt down all of humanity. The crew is going to be hunted, and they will be caught. Also fisherman further hinting at something happening at lovers lake.
Vecna knows what Mike is, confirmed??
11- speaks to Henrys bitterness over how he was treated by "your ancestors" meaning his family, the lab, etc. 12- speaks to his rage over how others live, and how they stew in their thoughts of guilt and shame instead of living like him and joining him. 13- is his plan to FORCE humanity into a land like his. A land where nobody gets shown mercy, and where people won't have choice over the gods they serve.
Every detail, guys... every damn detail of this show was thought out. This scripture SCREAMS season 5.
#st5#stranger things#stranger things 5#stranger things theories#st5 theory#radiationgate#vecna#henry creel#001#henward#byler#mike wheeler#i know what you are#jeremiah 16#murray bauman
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people waking up in the UD and coughing up water as if they've nearly drowned something something Henry bathtub
ps Will "drowned"
ps Henry chose for the leader of his flayed army: a guy employed as a lifeguard and whose happiest memory is of having a nice mother who doesn't want him to drown
@aemiron-main is this anything
#ok so virginia tried to drown henry in the bathtub and also killed that great uncle got it#henry creel#ps when he got flayed billy was on his way to give 'swimming lessons' to karen wheeler#who he met for the first time when she got out of her bathtub to answer the door#this is not a strong case but i'm limber#st theory#mine#analysis
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the major thing why the Wheeler and Creel theories are so prevalent is essentially because there's two fuckeries going on at the same time and people are connecting them (not unjustifiably)
there's 1.) what the fuck is Karen Wheeler's deal? and boy there is a lot that even dates back as far as s1. with the way s4 ended we can also infer that her weird supporting-cast-but-also-main-girlie arc will not be over anytime soon so we'll hopefully get some insight into her. i could make multiple posts about what's so weird about her narratively alone (might actually get to that soon)
and then there's 2.) what the Fuck is Up with Alice Creel? which is it's whole other can of worms. there are SO many weird choices made here. her entire presence in the show is odd to say the least. implications get made but don't have narrative pay off yet. and even the timeline of her actual death doesn't fully add up with the other events of the family massacre night. there's a lot going on here (actually posting on that in a teeny tiny bit)
and having Two characters in the viewers eye who have no congruent answer to their purpose in the story and who both bring up more and more questions the harder you try to think about it... we'll no wonder people started to connect them. and that's not even mentioning 3.) yet of what the fuck do the Wheelers and Creels have to do with each other? because they really shouldn't have Anything to do with each other. these two families parallel each other to an extremely unusual amount and keep interacting, which is odd given that they should have no narrative connection. Henry is a parallel and antithesis to Will, wouldn't it make more sense to show a narrative connection/parallel between the Creels and Byers? why do the Wheelers get dragged into this and why are the Wheelers even Presented as such a central and questionable family in the first place? - which is a treatment no other family gets anywhere close to their level
so to get into what i mean by there's a LOT going on and the general questions of What The Fuck Is This? you can split the Creel/Wheeler theory down into three independent parts. the Karen and Alice parts stand on their own separately and are both 100% correct in my mind. there is something narratively questionable going on with both of these characters, no matter if you want to believe they are the same person or not, and we'll likely see this get addressed in s5. but that could also happen without them being the same person. the part that connects them is the 3rd aspect. the instances that actually make people think that the parallel of the Wheeler and Creel family isn't just a tool to compare these two families that have no prior connection for thematic purposes, but actually implies a familiar connection that would simultaneously also give an answer to the questions raised in both points 1 and 2
#i'll actually start going over the 3 points now i need to procrastinate an essay again#i'll do the What the fuck is up with Alice Creel? part first because i don't see enough people talking about is and it drives me Nuts#because there's things that clearly raise questions about her character we don't see resolved in s4#and i'm honestly more shocked it Isn't accepted fandom wide that there IS something going on with Alice Creel#the Karen thing is it's own rabbit hole and the connections between the families the icing on the cake#but you can fully ignore both these things when looking at Alice. she manages to raise questions fully on her own#starting with Alice and just talking about her independently is probably the best starting point#creel/wheeler theory
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Soooo the finale of the Dark Crystal is real interesting to me....
the plot twist of this film is that the two races that were fighting each other in reality were just trying to become whole again... And becoming whole made them become good again
« and now the prophecy is fulfilled, we are again... One»
And the dark crystal becomes the light crystal now...
So they explain that shattering the crystal made it possible for them to be shattered and this is VERY interesting considering the theory that the Mindflayer is the shadow of Henry/One/Vecna and it's in reality the darkest part of his soul that shattered from him and then possessed him completely from when he was a child
And then there's this scene because the love interest/friend sacrificed herself so that the protagonist could win....
but then she comes back to life!!!
Yeah I'm going to apply this to byler and say something similar is gonna happen in the finale
#will byers#byler#mike wheeler#stranger things#st5 speculation#st the first shadow#st shadow theory#henry creel#vecna#The shadow theory
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The First Shadow, Timelines, Alice Creel, and Swapping Family Members: New Thoughts On Alice Creel vs Karen Wheeler Regarding the Edward Timeline
(Karen Wheeler Might Be Alice, Just Not In The Way Anyone (Including Me) Thought She Was)
So, to start this off on an insane foot (bear with me).
I think that this is Alice Creel:
But before you go “oh, Em, you’re just rehashing an old Alice theory, everyone knows this theory”- I DON’T think that this is Alice Creel:
I a.) don’t think that they’re the same person and b.) I don’t think that the second girl is actually Alice Creel.
Most Alice is Karen theories claim that these two are the same person, and that Karen uses contact lenses or something to have brown eyes, something that I disagreed with.
And I thought that Karen was actually Daughter Virginia until today, and that that little blonde girl was Alice, and that they’re two separate people. I talked about it posts such as this post. Now, I'm not letting go of that theory entirely, I think there's still a chance that it might be true, especially since some of the TFS stuff is still being revealed/might be changed regarding contacts etc etc.
But now, I offer a new idea: that little blonde girl is not Alice Creel.
She’s also probably not Karen Wheeler either (at least, not the brown-eyed karen that we see in the show. I'm still undecided about the blue-eyed karen childress in all of this)
I think that little blonde girl is Virginia Creel/Daughter Virginia, and that Karen Wheeler IS Alice Creel, but is NOT that little blonde girl that we see. I don't think we've ever seen Henry's sister, Alice Creel, as a child on-screen.
Now, setting that aside, let’s start at the beginning of what I think is going on here, and we’ll circle back to that, and I'll explain why I think this is the case, and why I also believe that the brown-eyed "Virginia" Creel that we see is actually Mother Alice.
SECTION 1: Did Victor Get Peter'd? What The Hell Happened to Victor Creel?
So, I'm wondering if one of these is true:
A.) The Victor in Pennhurst is actually the Edward Timeline Victor, who has been brought into the Henry timeline.
BUT, he's had his memories messed with by the lab and believes himself to be the Henry Timeline Victor (the father of Henry and Alice and the husband of Virginia) but is actually the father of Edward and Virginia and the husband of Alice)/.
They likely left the visual part of his memories alone, but messed with the name part of his brain
OR
B.) The Victor in Pennhurst is the Henry Timeline Victor (the father of Henry and Alice and the husband of Virginia), and never crossed timelines, BUT he's had his memories messed with by the lab.
He doesn't believe himself to be the Edward Timeline Victor the way that the previous Edward Timeline Victor in option A.) believes himself to be the Henry Timeline Victor, BUT he DOES believe that the people he's seeing in his memories are his family when they're not.
This would be because they messed with the visual part of his memories, but left the names alone. And therefore, his actual daughter IS named "Alice," but the little girl in the visuals/his memories is NOT Alice Creel, and instead, is Edward Timeline Daughter Virginia Creel.
Either way, I think his memories got messed with, and either way, both options lead to that little blonde girl not being Alice Creel.
Let's go through option A.) first.
This would be the option where Victor got "Peter'd"- aka, being pulled into another timeline like Peter Bishop was in Fringe (and Fringe is confirmed inspo for ST, the ST writers have tweeted about watching it). You can also see this post for more proof of that.
In Fringe, it's the son (Peter), who is taken to another timeline. But, if ST wanted to subvert this/flip it, as they often do with their sources of inspiration, then it would make sense for the father (Victor) to be the one who is taken to another timeline. We'll talk about Fringe more later, though.
And you might be thinking "didn't Victor straight up say that Henry was his boy, Alice was his daughter, and then said "Virginia" in reference to his wife? Doesn't that imply that he's Henry Timeline Victor?
And YES, he did, but, like I said earlier, if the names were swapped around for him/if he believes that he's Henry Timeline Victor, then it tracks perfectly for him to believe that those are the names of his children and the name of his wife, even if they're not. His memories would still be the same visually, he would still be picturing His Kids in his mind, he would just have their names wrong/believe them to be someone they're not (much like Hopper talking about the "wrong kid," back in S1).
And I'm also wondering if The First Shadow is going to be the first time that we see Henry Creel and his family, rather than Edward Creel and his family.
Why am I wondering if TFS is going to be the first time that we actually see Henry Creel's family/see Henry Timeline Victor? Well, it's partially because, like I talked about here, Mike Jibson, who's going to be playing Victor in The First Shadow, resembles Owens WAY more than he resembles Kevin L Johnson/the guy who plays Young Victor.
So, I'm wondering if this guy/Pennhurst Victor:
IS this guy and IS Edward's father:
But is NOT this guy/is not actually Henry Creel's father:
But that This Guy is Henry's father, and possibly a young Owens/if we're seeing Henry's Creel's Father In The 50s for the first time & if Kevin L Johnson solely played Edward's father:
I know that previously, I said that Owens might be Edward Timeline Victor, but NOW, I'm wondering if he's Henry Timeline Victor, an idea I'll come back to soon in this section when I talk about WHY Victor might have been pulled from the Edward Timeline to the Henry Timeline.
And regarding the idea of us not having seen Henry's family before, there's also the matter of the wallpaper. I talked about the colour-changing wallpaper in the Creel house and how it connects to multiple timelines in this post, however, I want to talk about it again, because I want to talk about what we DON'T see in this regard, rather than what we DO see.
And what we DON'T see is the red wallpaper in the family room in any of the 1950s flashbacks. This is relevant because as I talked about in that post, the red wallpaper seems to be from the Creel house in the Henry timeline, whereas the green wallpaper seems to be from the Creel house in the Edward timeline- and the green wallpaper is the only wallpaper that we see in that room in any of the 1950s flashbacks.
This would mean that we're only seeing the Edward timeline when we're seeing 1950s flashbacks.
However, it's also hard to tell/hard to say Definitively if we're only seeing the Edward timeline because in many of the flashback scenes, the door to that room is shut/simple not visible, so we COULD be seeing shots of the red wallpaper Creel house/of the Henry timeline, but we would have no idea because we can't see that room.
BUT, if we ARE seeing solely the Edward timeline in those 50s, scenes, then it would track with the little blonde girl NOT being Daughter Alice/Alice Creel, because Daughter Alice doesn't exist in the Edward timeline- but Daughter Virginia does, and therefore, that little blonde girl is actually Virginia Creel. It would also mean that the mother "Virginia" Creel is actually Alice Creel/Mother Alice.
This would explain why Virginia Creel in TFS has blue eyes whereas Victor's "virginia" in his pennhurst sequence has brown eyes but is never referred to as Virginia by name in the 50s (it only happens when Victor says her name in pennhurst but that tracks with him having his brain messed with)- because she's not Virginia.
It would also explain why in the Dear Billy script, it has Virginia and Alice's names swapped in that moving-in scene: because that's exactly what it would have been for Edward Timeline Victor. He would have been standing beside his wife, Alice, which is what's birefly in the script (the line where they put thier arm around eachother):
And now here's the big question: WHY?
WHY bring Edward Timeline Victor into Henry's timeline???
WELL! I mentioned the idea of Owens being Henry Timeline Victor. And I think that's exactly WHY the lab might pull Edward Timeline Victor into the Henry Timeline.
I've talked repeatedly about how it's extremely likely that a.) the lab was involved with the Creel murders/present on the night of the murders but also b.) the lab was setting up the murders/planning things right from the day that the Creels stepped foot into Hawkins.
And we know that the Creel Murders in Edward's timeline happened a few days before the Creel Murders in Henry's timeline. So, if the lab was basically using Edward's timeline as a test run for pulling off the Creel murders in Henry's timeline, but if Henry Timeline Victor is Owens, then they need a fall guy to take the blame for the murders.
Because let's say that Jibson and Owens are the same guy, and that that Jibson-Owens is Henry's father from the Henry timeline.
But if Owens is the father, and if the lab needs to pull off the Creel murders in henry's timeline too (after all, they happened in edward's timeline FIRST/a few days BEFORE they happened in henry's timeline it's lowkey giving inter-timeline lab fuckery and a trial run), then who takes the blame???? After all, in Edward's timeline, Victor got arrested and then was dumped on the side of the road and taken in for questioning and sentenced, but we don't hear anything about what happens to Edward Timeline victor after his sentencing. He could have killed himself in prison, he could have escaped etc etc.
He could have dyed his hair pink with smuggled dye for all we know, point is, we don't have a damn clue at ALL what happened to edward timeline victor after his trial/after being sentenced to pennhurst. I'm not saying that he actually killed himself or escaped, but i AM saying that if the lab was to grab edward-timeline victor and bring him over to henry's timeline, we, as the audience, would have no idea based on the papers because the papers don't tell us what happened to him. We hear nothing whatsoever about Edward Timeline victor creeel after his sentence.
The weekly watcher is different because it gives us an INTERVIEW with pennhurst victor while he's in pennhurst, after his trial, indicating that in the Henry timeline, there is, in fact, a Victor in prison in pennhurst. But the Edward timeline doesn't have this, the indianapolis gazette article solely focuses on the day of Victor’s trial, we don't get anything about any interviews later on.
TLDRif jibson and owens are the same guy/are henry's father, and Kevin is Pennhurst Victor but from the Edward timeline, brought over into the Henry timeline. And would still track with what I said about how we dont see that red wallpaper room in the 50s/if that red wallpaper indicates henry timeline & we arent seeing it during the 50s, then that implies that we arent seeing the Henry timeline in the 50s.
But why would Owens want to kill his own family? Well, he didn't. Going back to Fringe, James talked about the fact that the lab in Fringe staged a murder to try and activate Olivia's powers as a child- and while this may have also been done in HNL with El in 1979/during NINA, I'm also wondering if that's what happened with Henward and if the lab was trying to activate their powers.
But if they're staging the murders, and if they want things to be believable, they want the public to think that the Creels are dead, then they need somebody to take the blame- and it can't be Owens/Henry Timeline Victor, because he's researching/part of the project. So, who do you grab? You grab his almost-clone, his alternate timeline self to take the blame.
This would, weirdly enough, also make Owens the father of Karen Wheeler, as if Owens if Henry Timeline Victor. It would also mean that Alice Creel didn't die (but Daughter Virginia did/that blue eyed girl we saw bleeding on the ground) did die, and that Virginia Creel (the blue eyed TFS lady) didn't die either. Which, she may have gone on to become Connie Frazier, but that's another matter entirely.
However, I'm not fully convinced that Owens is any form of alternate timeline Victor, so just keep in mind that I'm not saying any of this as if it's going to be firm fact. A solid chunk of this is just me swishing thoughts around and speculating.
And with that bit of doubt regarding option A in mind:
Let's now go through option B.)
Options B does not involve Owens being an alternate timeline Victor, nor does it involve Victor crossing timelines at all.
As mentioned earlier, Option B involves Victor remembering the names of his family, but the visuals being messed with/the names being associated with the wrong people.
How would those visuals be transferred? Well, from the other Victor's memories.
And going back to Fringe briefly, it may seem like a stretch for Victor to have somebody else's memories, but keeping in mind that Fringe is confirmed inspiration for ST, in Fringe, one person's memories are transferred into another person's mind REPEATEDLY, often against their will, and often without them even realizing it. Olivia, for example, has memories that belong to Fauxlivia (her alternate timeline counterpart's nickname) implanted into her brain by a Brenner-Owens paralleled scientist to try and convince her that she's actually Fauxlivia (and it WORKS for awhile/absolutely had the potential to work permanently). It's abslutely within the realm of possibility for the lab to have done this to Victor.
And continuing on with Fringe, Victor is EXTREMELY paralleled to Walter Bishop (like, the shot of Victor turning around in Pennhurst is taken basically frame for frame of Walter turning around in St Claire's mental institution), and Walter Bishop had part of his brain removed, and lost a bunch of memories, especially memories of of his now-dead son's childhood as a result.
And it's also worth noting that Walter is Peter's father- however, Walter's original Peter died, and Walter pulled the Peter from another timeline into his timeline instead. But the memories that Walter lost of his son's childhood were of his original Peter's childhood- he didn't lose ALL of those memories, but he lost quite a few. Which has me staring at Henry vs Edward and Pennhurst Victor losing his memories of Henry & having memories of Edward instead, not even realizing that they're memories of Edward.
Long story short, either way, whether it's Option A or Option B, or something else entirely, it's EXTREMELY EXTREMELY likely that Victor had his memories messed with, because like I talked about in this post, the Indianapolis Gazette talks about Victor not remembering anything from the night of the murders, and being picked up on the side of the road.
And, like I talked about in this post, Victor and El's arrests are paralleled- and who was El later taken by as a result of being arrested? THE LAB!!!
And also, like I talked about in this post, Victor's flashback scenes have multiple direct NINA paralells- which would make sense if the lab was messing with Victor's memories the same way they messed with El's memories via NINA.
So, there's substantial evidence to support the idea that Victor's memories aren't reliable, and likely have been intentionally scrambled/messed with.
SECTION 2: Back To Alice
So, circling back to Alice, let's go through why I think that this little blonde girl:
Is NOT Alice Creel. And later on, I'm also going to tie this to why Alice Creel is missing from The First Shadow.
You might be thinking “oh, Em, you’re so neck deep in insane theories that you forgot to actually look at the show! They call that little blonde girl “Alice” TWICE! You fool! You buffoon! I banish thee to The Beyond for One Trillion Years for your ignorance and tomfoolery!”
However, as indicated by my lovingly labelled screenshots of those exact scenes, I did NOT forget, and thankfully, do not need to be banished to The Beyond:
And interestingly enough, even though in those two versions of the Creels' moving-in-day scene have Alice being referred to by name, there is one version that doesn't- the Creel Family Trailer:
And what's especially interesting abou those two versions of that scene where "Alice" is referred to by name is that they're both intentionally set up as being unreliable.
They CHOSE to a.) have Victor seemignly be missing chunks of his memory (for example, he completely leaves out things like the exorcism at the Creel house and a ton of other details that are present in the papers)/be unreliable due to very, very likely having had his brain/messed with by the lab and they also chose to b.) have Nancy be in Vecna's memories, which, again, unreliable due to the HUGE chance of the lab fucking with them. Hell, in his monologue, 001 doesn't even give us the name of his mother or his sister- he seems to forget his sister even existed until the end of his monologue, and even THEN, he still doesn't give us her name! And he also directly contradicts himself when talking about how it was "planned" vs having JUST talked about how it was spur of the moment earlier, like I talked about in this post. He's not reliable, and neither is Victor.
They could've just given us a scene of that girl being called "Alice" that wasn't through the memories of somebody unreliable who's very very likely had their brain messed with in a million different ways by the lab. But they didn't.
The Creel Family Trailer is the only version that isn't set up as being somebody's memories- and especially not the memories of someone who's been messed with by the lab, and it's also the only version where "Alice's" name isn't used/the only version where that little blonde, blue-eyed girl isn't referred to as Alice.
Is it not a little suspicious that the most reliable version of these events (the Creel family trailer) is also the version where, conveniently, that girl isn't referred to as Alice?
And I wondered, initially, if this was to conceal Alice's identity/name in the trailer. However, when I dug into it, that doesn't make any sense for these key reasons.
1.) Alice's name had already been revealed in the Netflix Tudum Creel Newspaper trailer. Alice's name was not a secret when the Creel Family Trailer came out. Why conceal her name AFTER having shown it right on-screen?
2.) The name isnt the only change in these scenes. I've talked about this before, but the trailer has quite a few differences from the scenes in the show, especially with the scene of Alice finding the dead rabbit being COMPLETELY different.
But focusing on that "coming in the door," scene SPECIFICALLY, there's multiple differences.
The light fixture is missing in the trailer:
But it's there in both the Dear Billly Creel sequence and the Massacre at HNL sequence:
"Henry" zooms into the house and runs up the stairs immediately instead of standing there all sad:
"Henry" runs in FIRST, before "Alice", whereas in the show, "Alice" gets into the house before "Henry":
"Virginia's" line is rewritten- if they simply wanted to conceal Alice's identity, it would have been VERY easy to take the in-show scene, put it in the trailer, and edit Virginia's dialogue to just say "No running," instead of "Alice, no running". But instead, they rewrote the line to say "children, no running":
So, if this was just a case of concealing Alice's identity/name (a name they'd already revealed, no less), why change SO many core parts of the scene (such as "Henry" zooming inside instead of standing at the door), and why rewrite "Virginia's" line? Why not just literally remove the word "Alice" from her line? LIke, it would have been a million times easier. I could do a quick job of it in capcut on my phone! It would take SUCH a small amount of time for them to do compared to all of the weird changes they made for the trailer & instead of recording a whole new line of dialogue for "Virginia".
And speaking of "Virginia," I mentioned this earlier, but I don't think that's Virginia Creel at all. I think that's Mother Alice Creel, from the Edward timeline.
Let's look at the papers- specifically, the Weekly Watcher. The Weekly Watcher says that Alice Creel is 15 years old:
But this girl, clearly, is not 15:
And Virginia Creel's daughter, Alice Creel, should be 15 years old. But if that little blue-eyed girl is not 15, then she's not Virginia Creel's daughter. Which makes sense if she's Alice Creel's daughter, Daughter Virginia, and if the brown-eyed mother in those scenes is actually Mother Alice Creel.
Like, setting aside production error allegations because I'm not dealing with those anymore, how can "this little girl who is Not 15 is Alice Creel" and "Alice Creel is 15" coexist? Frankly, I actually think there's more evidence to support the fact that the memories/scenes of that little girl being called "Alice," are unreliable than there is to debunk the newspaper saying that Alice was 15.
Why Is Alice Creel Missing From TFS?
If Karen Childress is NOT a Creel in the henry timeline/in TFS, but has blue eyes and is NOT the karen wheeler that we see in the show, as that karen has brown eyes/does NOT go on to become That Karen Wheeler Who Is Mike Wheeler's Mother
And if Daughter Virginia Creel is the blue-eyed little girl that we see in the show, and who Might be karen childress in some way.
And if Daughter Alice Creel is a.) supposed to be 15 in 1959 and b.) mysteriously missing from TFS but is also the brown-eyed Karen Wheeler that we see in the show.
Then, it might explain why Alice is missing in The First Shadow- we're seeing the backstory for another Karen Wheeler/Karen Childress ( whose actress has blue eyes and is likely NOT the Karen we see in the show), and we're also missing an Alice who later goes on to BECOME Brown Eyed Karen- which, Karen Childress and Alice Creel being together in the same timeline causes issues because if Alice Creel actually has brown eyes and goes on to become Karen Wheeler, then WHY THE HELL is she in the same timeline as the other Karen/the blue-eyed Karen??
That would be TWO KARENS IN THE SAME TIMELINE, which might explain why Alice Creel isnt there/might be tied to it. I don't know fully how it works, yet, but we don't really know the ramifications of the same person from two different timelines ending up in the same timeline together.
So, if Karen Childress/Blue Eyed Karen somehow got into Alice Creel/Brown Eyed Karen's timeline, then there's a chance that Brown Eyed Karen/Alice Crel was removed from her original timeline, and is therefore now absent from TFS- she's likely still alive, as we see Brown Eyed Karen in the show, but that would still work completely if she simply ended up in another timeline/if Brown Eyed Karen/Alice Creel vanished from the Henry Timeline because Blue Eyed Karen/Karen Childress ended up in that timeline instead.
And bringing up Fringe AGAIN, in Fringe, when one person or item is taken to another timeline, something of an equivalent mass must be swapped to the other timeline (like the Indiana Jones sandbag thing- with exceptions to this rule being limited to people with Specific Powers, such as Main Timeline Olivia), and this DOES include people.
So, if Karen Childress/Blue Eyed Karen was chilld in a timeline that isn't the TFS timeline, and suddenly got pulled into the TFS timeline, and if Brown Eyed Karen/Alice Creel was the same mass (which makeas sense if they're timeline counterparts of eachother) as her, Brown Eyed Karen/Alice Creel would be pulled into the non-TFS timeline at the same time as when Blue Eyed Karen was pulled into the TFS timeline.
Hell, there doesn't even have to be a reason for this happening/it doesn't even have to be the lab planning it! Because in Fringe, things end up pulled into another timeline/swapped simply because of the bridge/dam/veil/wall between timelines getting thinner and the swap happening accidentally.
If the blue-eyed Karen Childress is NOT a Creel, and was born outside of the Creel family and coexisted alongside Daughter Virginia in the same timeline originally (before getting yoinked to another timeline), then we have three girls (as mentioned earlier)- Karen Childress, Daughter Alice Creel, and Daughter Virgniia Creel
And if Karen Childress was from Timeline A (Edward Timeline)
And if Daughter Alice Creel was from Timeline B (Henry Timeline/TFS Timeline)
And if Daughter Virginia Creel is also from Timeline A (Edward Timeline)
And if Karen Childress got pulled into Timeline B (Henry Timeline), and Daughter Alice Creel got pulled into Timeline A (Edward Timeline), that would mean that Daughter Alice Creel and Daughter Virginia Creel are co-existing in the same timeline (The Edward Timeline). Which would explain why Brown Eyed Karen/the Karen we know in the show is just chilling and living her life
I'll come back to this later, but Brown Eyed Karen/Alice Creel may very well have simply adopted the life of Karen Childress in the Edward Timeline, while Alice Creel stayed missing in the Henry Timeline/Karen Childress was present instead, but Karen Childress chose to keep using her original name, whereas Alice/Brown Eyed Karen adopted the name and life of Karen Childress in the other timeline.
After all, Daugher Alice Creel doesn't exist in the Edward Timeline, and because Daughter Virginia Creel would've still been present in the Edward Timeline, Daughter Alice Creel/Brown Eyed Karen couldn't simply pick up her life, and instead, resumed the life of Karen Childress. And it's hard to figure out what Karen Childress may have done in her new timeline/if she had a family/if her parents were present in this timeline or WHAT, but a lot of this section is just Me Speculating And Trying To Figure Things Out.
However, things also get tricky here, because if Alice Creel/Brown Eyed Karen never returned to her original timeline, then why does the Weekly Watcher report on her death?
However, even witih all my theorizing aside, this is an issue that remains even simply with the fact that Alice doesn't seem to be present in TFS- so if she's not around for the murders, how did she die/why are papers reporting about her death? I think there's room there for lab fuckery faking things/covering things up etc etc, but it's still something to chew on.
(and there's ALSO the chance of more than 2 timelines which throws a whole NEW wrench into things)
And you might also be wondering "well, though, how is Daugher Alice Creel Karen Childress' timeline counterpart? Shouldn't Daughter Virginia Creel be Daughter Alice's timeline counterpart?
To which I say: no! Not necessariily.
There's a LOT of weirdness here, but it's worth noting that ST has chosen a very interesting way to go about the timeline counterpart business, because there's quite a bit of variation.
For example, Victor Creel's name stays the same in both the Henry timeline and the Edward timeline AND his position in the family stays the same (the father/husband), but he's younger by 5 years in the Edward timeline compared to the Henry timeline.
Edward and Henry's position in the family (son/brother) stays the same, but his name changes to something entirely new, and we don't know Edward's age, so we don't know if that changes.
Virginia Creel and Alice Creel are where things get REALLY messy, because they swap names and positions in the family depending on the timeline. Instead of just keeping the same name and position the way that Victor does, OR getting a totally brand new, not used in the family before name but keeping the same position in the family the way that Henry and Edward do, Virginia and Alice instead, swap names and positions in the family with eachother.
Virginia Creel is Victor's wife and Henry and Alice's mother in the Henry timeline.
However, Virginia Creel is Victor's daughter and Edward's sister and Alice's daughter in the Edward timeline.
Alice Creel is Victor's daughter and Henry's sister in the Henry Timeline.
However, Alice Creel is Victor's wife and Edward and Virginia's mother in the Edward timeline.
And also, in Fringe, timeline counterparts are often messy too/not exactly equal/not always born at the same time- for example Henry Bishop was born and didn't have a timeline counterpart at ALL because there's only one version of his father (Peter Bishop), as the other timeline Peter died as a child. But then Henry Bishop is later erased from the timeline and Peter has a child named Henrietta (born in the opposite timeline from Henry/is Olivia's daughter born in the main timeline rather than Henry who was Fauxlivia's son born in the alternate timeline), but again, because there is only ONE Peter, he fathered both of them and then Henry ceased to exist, and it's all complicated etc.
So, point is, timeline counterpart stuff is not cut and dry or particularly simple or easy here. Which means that there's absolutely stilll room for a.) certain people not HAVING co-existing timeline counterparts the way that Henry and Henrietta don't actually have one because in order for Henrietta to exist, Henry can't exist, and vice versa because there's only one Peter and b.) timeline counterparts just generally being weird/ Karen Childress being Alice Creel's timeline counterpart.
The idea of Brown Eyed Karen/Alice Creel swapping timeline with Karen Childress/wondering why Karen Childress and Alice Creel were timeline counterparts/got swapped instead of Daughter Virginia and Daugher Alice would also tie into Daugher Alice Creel being listed as 15 years old in 1959 in the Weekly Watcher- if Alice Creel was 15 years old but Daugher Virginia (the blonde little girl we see in the show that we think is Alice) is CLEARLY not 15, they're not going to have equal mass- but Karen Childress, could totally be 15, hence why those two would be more likely to swap that Daughter Virginia and Daughter Alice, as Daughter Virginia and Daughter Alice seem to be two different ages/that little blonde girl is not 15, but Karen Childress and Daugher Alice/Bornw Eyed Karen could definitely have both been 15 and therefore far closer to being the same mass.
And also, if Alice Creel/Brown Eyed Karen simply adopted the name and life of Karen Childress after their timelines got swapped (and possibly even gained Karen's memories over time, which as mentioned before, happens in Fringe), then Brown Eyed Karen Wheeler may very well, at this point, believe herself to have always been Karen Childress. As mentioned before, somebody believing themselves to be their alternate timeline counterpart after swapping timelines HAS happened in Fringe.
This may also be why Ted and Karen's relationship is so unhappy- Brown Eyed Karen isn't the Karen that Ted originally knew. And this Ted isn't the Ted that Brown Eyed Karen originally knew. And Ted might know deep down that something isn't right (again, this happens in Fringe with people whose loved ones get timeline swapped. Sometimes they notice, sometimes they dont, sometimes they say something about it, sometimes they don't.)
Anyway! Lots to think about.
SECTION 3: THE CONNIE PROBLEM
So, this all also leaves us with the question of Connie, though. Why does she have so much Alice Creel coding? Like, the name alice plays on screen twice with her & her body's posed the same way as alice's dead body.
However, I made that post about how TFS blue eyed Virginia resembles Connie. And we don't know what happens to that blue eyed virginia, we only saw a brown eyed "virginia" die. And that blonde little girl with blue eyes is presented to us as being alice creel, but a.) alice creel should be 15 and b.) the whole thing w her name being removed from the trailer.
And so im like. Connie. Are you blue-eyed TFS virginia a few years down the line? Which would be weird if that tfs mother is virginia and not alice, but there's so much name swap fuckery that the association with the name alice could still fit somehow/I just need to dig more. Anyway, things are making me insane as usual.
SECTION 4: CONCLUSION
My conclusion summed up?
And before you come into my inbox calling me insane, please know that a.) I know and I'm having fun and b.) lots of this is speculation. There's parts with firmer evidence, and there's parts with less firm evidence/parts where I'm just trying to fill in the gaps.
My main point is that it doesn't make any damn sense for that little blonde girl to be Alice Creel if Alice Creel is supposed to be 15, and ALSO that there's plausible evidence (such as the trailer removing her name) that she isn't Alice Creel, and that her not being Alice Creel may explain why Alice Creel is missing from TFS. This post is less evidence-focused than most of my posts because a.) so much is still up in the air with TFS and b.) I am very very tired today LMAO, but there's still some solid chunks of evidence in here that I think are worth considering.
#stranger things#alice creel#edward creel#timeline theory#henry creel#st creel timeline weirdness#karen wheeler#the creelers
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Me when Mike ends up actually having some kind of innate powers, and that’s how they reveal that Karen is the alternate timeline Creel sister (Virginia). Mike, being her son, would then technically be Henry/Edward’s nephew.
Me when it’s also revealed that El is Henry/Edward’s daughter via the lab, given that Terry was “unaware she was pregnant”…Which would make her technically Karen’s niece.
Me when…El with the wavy blonde hair…being Mike’s cousin…
Me when miIeven is so bones that it’s ashes.
#crack theory but also not because it actually ties up a lot of weird loose ends#me when this world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes#timeline theory#mike has powers#mike and el as cousins#mike wheeler#el hopper#karen being sister virginia from edward’s timeline#creel family#stranger things#anti mileven#byler#<- target audience
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Stranger Things Spoilers on X: "BREAKING: According to Jeff Sneider, these are the episode titles of the next 6 episodes of #StrangerThings5: Episode 1 - The Crawl Episode 2 - The Vanishing of ***** Wheeler Episode 3 - The Turbow Trap Episode 4 - Sorcerer Episode 5 - Shock Jock Episode 6 - Escape From Camazotz…" / X
So.........which Wheeler? Mike or Nancy? Or even Holly (as both @skellybonesandtrees and @stillhidden have noted in the replies)?
I could see Vecna coming after Mike as a way of hurting both Will and El, and even using Mike as bait to lure them into a trap.
However, I could also see Vecna coming after Nancy as revenge for how her plan to take him down in the season 4 finale nearly resulted in him being killed.
Or he could also target Holly as a means of hurting both Mike and Nancy.
Also, isn't Camazotz the planet IT controls in the novel A Wrinkle in Time? 🤔
EDIT: Camazotz could also refer to the Mayan "bat spirit" who served the Lords of the Underworld. Maybe a reference to either the demobats in service to Vecna in the Upside Down, or the progenitor of the demobats that the Party will have to inevitably fight?
#stranger things#stranger things 5#stranger things season 5#st5 spoilers#st5 theories#tgh opinions#mike wheeler#nancy wheeler#will byers#el hopper#vecna#henry creel#number 1#holly wheeler#demobats#camazotz
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