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aemiron-main · 1 year

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stranger things the first shadow and jekyll and hyde and carl jung’s concept of the shadow and edward creel is vecna and i can prove it

So! This caught my eye today:

I know there’s a lot of talk regarding how the MF is also called the shadow monster, and I’m sure that plays into it somehow, but I also wanted to talk about Carl Jung’s theory of the shadow. Jung’s theory is basically as follows:

The Personal Shadow

“The personal shadow is comprised of those qualities, impulses, and emotions that we cannot bear for others to see and thus cast into the hidden domain of ourselves. It is made up of the parts of ourselves we deem unacceptable. For many people this means things like our sadness, rage, laziness, and cruelty.”

Keep this above definition in mind.

"The personal shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself and represents ‘a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared.’”

Staring directly at the fact that the art of Henry for The First Shadow parallels the poster of Will looking out a door, at the shadow monster and there’s so much door imagery in ST. Will’s even got his shadow behind him, just like Henry does.

TLDR: a personal shadow is basically everyone’s “bad” qualities but they’re not always inherently bad.

Jekyll and Hyde are considered an example of somebody vs their shadow self/personal shadow.

“If we hold certain values and recognise these consciously then the opposite values may form part of our shadow. The shadow is not just restricted to values but the example of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde illustrates the point well. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde clearly manifested different values and these were translated into differences in their behaviours. Taking this further we can also see that sharing values would lead to a ‘shared’ shadow – the opposite of these values. The group would collectively hold unconscious and opposite values with the potential for projection.” (source)

The Collective Shadow

And so, remember how I said that I think that the Shadow Monster/the MF would play into this? Well, part of the shadow theory is something called a collective shadow.

Long story short, the collective shadow is considered the dark side of humanity, the sum of all past and present atrocities and abuses.

And we know that Henry had a whole speech about the dark side of humanity.

“The collective shadow, like the personal shadow, is relative in that it will be partially culturally determined/dependent on culture. It consists of things which opposes a culture’s conscious, shared and collective values.”

I won’t be surprised if the Shadow Monster/Mindflayer is meant to be representative of a collective shadow, a representation of the shared hateful/biogted beliefs of the people of Hawkins, a representation of all of the atrocities and abuse that’s occurred, including to people like Henry (in the lab and in the Creel house, ESPECIALLY considering the stage play being in 1959/tied to the Creels moving to Hawkins and also tied to the idea of the shadow via the title). But the people of Hawkins aren’t all inherently awful, because the shadow represents the opposite of their values/beliefs, and some peoples’ values/beliefs contradict eachother’s.

The First Shadow

So- the first shadow? It’d possibly be either a.) the first Henry/the original Henry or b.) the first new, separate sort of Henry, possibly a separate consciousness or an entirely separate Henry (staring at the Henry Creel vs Edward Creel weirdness in the Creel murder newspapers, staring at Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde being the full names of Jekyll and Hyde). And keeping in mind that Edward Hyde was Henry Jekyll’s shadow- so then, Edward Creel would be Henry Creel’s shadow. And look at that art for the stage play again:

In this image, who is literally Henry’s shadow?

Vecna.

In the Henry Jekyll vs Edward Hyde and Henry Creel vs Edward Creel section, who was Henry Jekyll’s shadow?

Edward Hyde.

Which makes Edward Creel the shadow of Henry Creel. But Vecna is also Henry’s literal shadow in that image- oh wait, that makes both Vecna and Edward Henry’s shadow. Don’t people just have one personal shadow, though?

Yes. Because Vecna and Edward Creel are the same person. Henry Creel is not Vecna, Edward Creel is. Vecna and Edward are interchangeable, and they’re both Henry’s shadow, just like how Edward Hyde is the shadow of Henry Jekyll.

Edward is Vecna, not Henry. Even simply in a metaphorical sense, Henry is not the same as Vecna, Vecna is Henry’s shadow.

Conclusion

We’ve got the personal shadow, the collective shadow, and the first shadow.

And the personal shadow is considered the bridge to the collective shadow, in the sense that the collective shadow is made up of humanity’s personal shadows.

So, Henry’s shadow was likely the first one, the first shadow in that collective shadow- and what does the collective shadow represent? What is it comprised of? The atrocities and abuses of humanity and the values deemed negative by a culture. So, Henry himself being an outcast and being deemed negative as a child, and abused by the town and by the lab, and becoming the first atrocity in the collective shadow over Hawkins, the first personal shadow in that collective shadow.

Everything with the shadow sounds so extremely Vecna, with how he’s showing his S4 victims their own shadows, the parts of themselves that they refuse to acknowledge, the parts of themselves that conflict with their egos and ideals.

To confront one’s shadow is considered to be confronting the truth- and Jamie himself said that Vecna is fixated on truth.

And again, the collective shadow is made up of personal shadows. So, if you want to resolve the collective shadow/kill the shadow monsters, you need to resolve everyone’s personal shadows first.

Which is what Vecna was doing. He was literally forcing his victims to confront their personal shadows. He is attempting to kill and change the collective shadow of Hawkins because of how that shadow/those cultural beliefs have outcast and hurt him. But because he’s doing it by committing atrocities, he’s simply creating a new collective shadow/shifting those values/being a hypocrite. He think he’s destroying those hateful/harmful values, but instead, he’s just making his own twisted/still harmful version of them. I’ve talked repeatedly and constantly about characters like Vecna and Eddie being hypocrites and how for all of things Henry lists in his “eat sleep wake up,” monologue, he himself has his own twisted version of things, and this ties in perfectly with the collective shadow theory and the idea that Vecna is trying to destroy the collective shadow/bigotry/hate/abuse of Hawkins but is enforcing his own bigotry/hate/abuse in the process.

And going back to Henry not being Vecna, remember how the personal shadow is defined?

“It is made up of the parts of ourselves we deem unacceptable. For many people this means things like our sadness, rage, laziness, and cruelty.”

And so, if Vecna is Henry’s shadow (which, that’s exactly what we see on the poster), then that means that Vecna is comprised of things/traits that Henry deems unacceptable. Meaning that Henry didn’t share the same values as Vecna/Edward. Meaning that Henry is a good guy. Which, that doesn’t mean Edward is evil, especially not with the idea of Vecna being the result of Brenner merging himself with Edward, and Vecna and *Edward’s* values being different.

It’s also worth noting that Henry himself is very paralleled to Mairon (Sauron’s form before he became evil), and Annatar (his fake good form), but Vecna is the one paralleled to Sauron. Sauron, who poured his cruelty and his malice into the one ring. Sauron, who is described frequently as a shadow.

TLDR: timeline weirdness and Henry Creel vs Edward Creel and Edward is Vecna, Henry is not Vecna, and Henry is not responsible for Vecna’s actions.

Henry Creel is innocent. Any complaints can be forwarded to Henry Creel’s personal defense lawyers (@laozuspo and I, James also has great thoughts about Jekyll and Hyde vs Henry and Edward.)

#stranger things #henry creel #henry creel analysis #st the first shadow #st jekyll and hyde #st creel timeline weirdness #st and jung’s shadow theory

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henrysglock · 1 year

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Ramble 10: Will, and Will Alone, Is The Key Component To Freeing Henry From Himself

Will is essential to Henry's end

Henry has never successfully broken out of a prison by himself. He tried to break out of the Creel house by himself and failed. He tried to break out of the lab and failed, just ending up in a new form of prison. He couldn't break out of the UD alone, he needed El to open that first gate. He couldn't open the rifts without the murders. He wouldn't even leave his own damn house until the older teens forced him out the window with their attack. He's been imprisoned, in various forms, his entire life. First with his mother, then with Brenner, and now with those he absorbed in his bid for freedom in 1979.

A spider in a jar cannot break the glass from the inside.

Henry has now broken his physical jar with the murders, and it was painful. It quite literally broke everything involved. Will says Henry's hurting, which connects to Hopper's "the hurt is good, the hurt means you're out of that cave". Henry has escaped his physical jar through hurt, and like a spider in smashed glass, he was heavily wounded. However, the physical jar is only one half of the equation.

What about his mental jar? What about the people he's absorbed, who are caging him in?

More hurt does not solve mental problems. More hurt does not reach people mentally, it drives them deeper into their jar. The only thing that's been shown to break someone out of their mental prison is love. Love can be painful, of course. The first step is acknowledging that you have hurt someone, and the fact that that person is now treating you with love is going to be confusing, and that combination of guilt and shame is going to sting like a bitch. But that hurt is good. That hurt means you're at the edge of the cave.

Music in ST may open the door, may lead a person to the edge of the cave, but love walks them through it. It worked with Will. It worked with Billy. It worked with Max. It's going to work with Henry. Love will save Hawkins.

Compassion is a form of love, and it's the form of love that Will is most adept at. It's blindfolding a horse to lead it out of a burning barn even though you, yourself, are susceptible to flame. It's seeing the physical manifestation of your trauma in a bathroom stall and saying "it's okay, I'm not going to hurt you", even though you, yourself, are in danger by it. It isn't synonymous with forgiveness; All it is is seeing the person on the other side of the bars and going "I see you, and I'm not going to hurt you. I'll let you out".

It's unscrewing the lid so the spider can crawl out, knowing full well that it could bite you, rather than smashing the jar and harming the creature inside.

Will can unscrew Henry's figurative lid with his two-way connection by showing Henry the truth, reminding him that he's loved (Victor is still alive, and he still very much loves Henry! Even 27 years after Henry's supposed death, Victor is still in shambles about it all), and then meeting him with the "I'm not going to hurt you" compassion to bring the whole thing home. It is, of course, up to Henry to crawl out of his jar. Will is our light source throughout all of ST4; he can guide Henry out of that mental cave, he can illuminate the edge, but Henry can only escape if he himself wants to leave.

Will will see everything that happened to Henry and essentially say "I see you, and it's time for you to be free of your suffering". He can open that door and offer compassion. Henry himself will walk through it by choice. He will choose to end his own suffering, because that is the first bit of true agency he's ever had for just him. Not Henry and Virginia, not Henry and Brenner, or Henry et. al.

Just. Henry.

It's the kind of ending that would make a room full of Netflix execs cry. It's going to be so messy. There would be so many tears involved. Raphael, Jamie, and Noah would shine. It would be a perfect ending to a story about the power of love and kindness in the face of cruelty.

#henry creel #will byers #st5 predictions #stranger things analysis #henry creel analysis #will byers analysis #stranger things #rambles

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strawberrybyers · 11 months

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nancy’s chemistry cards are either hinting at what’s happening in stranger things or i just became a science major on a random saturday for nothing

since we’re all on a science kick because of this post by @strangertheories and this post by @ven0moir .. does anyone want to take a look at nancy’s chemistry cards?? because i’m thinking they’re telling us more than nancy had a test to study for…

“what defines the density of an element?”

“what is the charge of an electron?” “jesus, how many did you make?” robin says this when this card is shown and if what we know from the “what defines the density of an element?” answer, then we know electrons move to another orbit if a shell is already at its maximum. so in stranger things terms, the upside down is now completely one with hawkins by opening up four gates therefore we go back to “jesus, how many did you make?”

btw the charge of an electron is negative. and also btw stranger things has an obsession with electricity and “electricity is the flow of electrical energy caused by the movement of tiny particles called electrons, one of the building blocks of atoms.”.

this one was kind of hard to read, but i’m pretty sure it says “electrons are smaller in size than neutrons, but have equal ___?” if a proton and electron balance each other out, then that could mean proton = hawkins and electron = upside down ?? i mean henry/vecna/001 kind of explains that there’s balance between the two.

i'm sorry, but i am a hardcore believer that byler is the center of this entire story, so of course i have to bring this back to them, BUT could the humans that disrupt this balance (the upside down and hawkins becoming one) be mike and will?? it would go back to the quantum entanglement post talking about the byler bond + will is bonded to the upside down = will/byler are the ones who are able to put an end to all this madness???

"what is another term for a dissociation reaction?" kind of crazy to think dissociation-- or also known as decomposition-- reaction is when a compound breaks into two or more components. when you think about how there's been an opening of different gates, or how there's been different creatures that have been extensions of the mindflayer such as vecna, the demogorgon, the spider monster, demodogs, and demobats... it kind of makes sense why this is one of nancy's chemistry cards.

"what is another term for an addition reaction?"

and just for fun i want to add a bonus because @strangertheories wrote about how hawkins would need to be destroyed in order to completely destroy the upside down, which led me to look up how to destory quantum entanglements. anyways, the title of the article on how to destroy them is "How Noise Can Help Quantum Entanglement". looking more into it, there have been studies done in relation to quantum physics and sound/music. knowing what kind of role music plays in stranger things, it sure makes all of this very interesting...

#byler #nancy wheeler #byler analysis #stranger things analysis #stranger things theories #stranger things theory #stranger things #vecna #henry creel analysis #001 stranger things #byler theory #nancy wheeler analysis

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booksandpaperss · 1 year

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not to be extremely nerdy but truly, I could never even get close to being as nerdy as the duffer brothers because i was today years old when I realized that Henry’s monologue to El at the end of episode 7 has a ton of similarities to Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy, to the point where I’d even argue Henry’s monologue was based on it.

I’m gonna need to look into this more bc when you’re a show that has already done multiple Shakespeare references and your villain monologue is based on something from Hamlet??? Yeah that’s pretty much the writers screaming at people to look deeper into that.

#stranger things #stranger things vol 2 #henry creel #henry creel analysis

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gayofthefae · 2 years

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Henry cannot be killed as the solution to his violence and here is why:

Killing is the last resort only if there is definitively zero other ways to stop them/in time. But that isn’t true. In fact, it has been established in the show how.

In the scene where El seeks solidarity with Henry, he refuses it. But he does so in a very specific way. For one, I noticed that he did not correct her when she called him a monster/referred to his current state as bad despite the very easily (and personally, expected) opportunity to do so and respond to her “you can change” words with “I don’t want to”. He didn’t do that. Which means that he does not definitively stand by being this way. In fact, he even puts it back on her and insults her for making him this way. He says that she is the monster. She is the monster for turning him into this. He agrees that what he has become is bad.

More importantly, though, is the glimpse of how he thinks about the situation. He says about Papa, “He was no monster. He was just a man.” He blames El because she has powers. He blames her because she hurt him - but more importantly, he blames her because he refuses to give Papa and other regular people the power of being able to hurt or affect him. He refuses the idea that Papa affected him because that would mean admitting weakness to someone without powers - admitting pain. Even in shifting the blame to her, he doesn’t talk about vengeance or pain. He merely tells her that she provided his means. But not his motive. That is what she was referring to. Not that he had slugs on his body and was surrounded by red smoke, but that he was someone who was willing to kill so many.

I would also like to note that we have no proof that he enjoys the killing. If he doesn’t, that’s self explanatory for him to be neutral/coping. If he does, that creates its own ideas about things he’s said that have yet to be fully explained. He said that he keeps them “in here” while tapping his temple, representing his mind. He ‘keeps them with him’. He also says he remembers everyone he kills. He does not specify whether it is remorseful or not, but it does show that they are not insignificant to him. We know and even see him looking through to pick the perfect target when he first picks Patrick. And we have no confirmation that he means he truly means he absorbs them, but it would make sense given the nature of his powers and attacks - taking over their minds before “keeping them with him”. This is also supported by his repeated statement, “join me”.

Another yet to be explained line of his is the repeated, “Your suffering will end” comments. We primarily see him target guilt, but as Max puts it, he targets people with something in their life that’s hurting them and the final killing as mercy. He hurts them for 5 days before he overtakes their psyche to hurt them the most - then tells them that it’s okay. He will make the pain stop. One fascinating thing about him is that we know his motivating traumas and mindset but not precisely how they motivated him. Because he expresses contempt for humans - specifically his traumatizers - but he also says that “everyone is just waiting. waiting for it all to be over”. And his manner of killing and the things he says directly as he actually kills them are somewhat contradictory.

It makes me wonder, too, about his preference of victims and their trauma. We see him choose, as I said. Is it based in who he wants to absorb? I’m getting off-track in my fascination with his mind. The point is, though: he is an abuse victim who unfortunately has not become a cycle breaker due to his refusal to process his trauma. And this is how he is framed - specifically by El. He has common experience with El in the lab and Will outside. El doesn’t understand his initial motives based in his family because she was born in the lab. Will does not have the lab trauma that exacerbated Henry’s harmful ideas but he does have the same trauma basis (though he responds to it differently than Henry did). But there is also the factor of Henry’s traumatization of Will directly. El does not blame Henry, she blames Papa. And Will has a very complex relationship with him because he has no relationship to Brenner. He only has his trauma from Henry in combination with his commonalities to him. He even states, though, that his view of Henry doesn’t change knowing that he’s from their world.

This all to say, killing is not the only way of stopping Henry. We know what the issue is even if we don’t fully understand his motives. He refuses to process his trauma. If El and Will specifically can help him to do that - maybe a focus on Will since El has tried already - they can convert him. I’m curious to see how Will’s view of Henry develops and maybe changes, not necessarily in terms of forgiveness but still a change in perception and perhaps some humanization, especially given Jamie’s comments on finding more out about their “history” in season 5 - a phrasing which, to me, implies mutual events and not just why Henry targeted Will.

In conclusion, killing Henry cannot be justified by our characters as anything celebratory or minimized because it not only villainizes them for their willingness to kill an already humanized character but it justifies violence as a solution under the condition that you view your opponent as black and white rather than acknowledging what the situation is: abuse survivors in solidarity who took different paths to an extreme extent that now conflicts with one another. And that is entirely different from the idea of “evilness” (especially when we have some of these abusers like Brenner as established characters as well).

#henry creel #henry creel analysis #stranger things #dehumanizing is what builds people like henry willing to kill like he does

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pareido1ias-7 · 1 year

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TW: mentions of SA and death

i dont think people understand how fucked up henry actually is. like i see SO many posts like "oh i can fix him" "he was just in a goofy mood" and yes i understand most are just joking and i might be a little too upset about this but when people try to twist the actual canon of the show to defend henry? like what the fuck. the amount of symbolism hinting at SA and real pervy shit is insane.

even in s1, henry targetting will and then stuffing a vine down his throat and impregnating him with a demodog? look me in the eye and tell me that isnt creepy as fuck.

him only targetting teens and pre-teens? like some of the max being vecna'd scenes were shot in a way that feels like its designed to make you uncomfortable. like him groaning and rolling his eyes back when he puts his hand over their face? the cheek stroking? he did that to el too (who was like nine at the time) he like stroked her cheek while she was crying and told her not to worry as they stood in a room filled with childrens dead bodies.

the will getting possessed scene? will said it himself: he felt it everywhere. i know there was one quote that really had alarm bells ringing in my mind and i dont remember it exactly but when will was possessed he said that henry (the mindflayer) was making him do it (aka making him do things he did not want to do)

its all creepy.

and even if we arent talking about that kind of thing, he is just a literal psychopath and you cant change that. he murdered a room full of children. he murdered his mom and sister. he murdered chrissy, fred, patrick, and max (although el started her heart back up, she still died)

he tricked el into thinking she had an ally and then traumatized her so much that she blocked it out of her brain and had to relive it to get the memories back. he gave her an entire speech about how life was pointless, cruel, and repetitive when she was nine.

to add to this, the stuff that happenedI when billy gets possessed. the visuals of him kidnapping hannah (im pretty sure it was hannah, please correct me if im wrong) were definitely NOT subtle. he tied her up, gagged her, laid her down on the ground, and knelt over her while whispering "be quiet, it will all be over soon" which is also said by henry when he targets his victims, usually right before he kills them. but yeah, the whole thing with billy wasnt subtle at all, and that wasnt actually billy, it was henry using billy's body.

i also wanted to talk about brenner, because thinking about all the el shit has me thinking about him too.

there is so much that creeps me out about brenner. like not just creepy things but like things we have seen him do to el on the show. like he tried to make her kill a cat and when she refused he locked her in a small, dark room while she screamed for him to let her out because she was terrified, and it scared her so much that when mike got her into the closet she had flashbacks. and then the scene after she kills the guards (which also severely traumatized her) brenner carried her away after saying "incredible."

like, he doesnt see her as human. at all. she is a lab experiment to him.

another thing that bothers me is the "papa" shit, for obvious reasons. i dont know if he is trying to get her to trust him more and see him as a father figure or if there is more to it, but it creeps me the fuck out. she was kidnapped as a newborn by this man who works at a lab, and he forces her to call him papa while he basically tells her that everything he is doing to her (abusing, experimenting, using her like a tool) is okay. he gives her the illusion that she can back out at any time ("is that okay with you, eleven?") but when she does back out she is punished severely and cruely. which is a very common tactic to make women feel like they are safe and they are okay while being raped or assaulted.

there is also the fact that one of the only women that isnt a number we see at the lab when el is with all of the other numbers (before henry kills them) is the nurse. and yes, women can be creepy too, but it gives me really bad vibes thinking about all of those children in the hands of men who didnt see them as human and didnt care about them at all, and the children thought that anything the men did to them was okay.

that is scary.

there are also a few shots that are just creepy, like a specific one i can think of is a shot in s1 ep8:

(sorry for the ass quality)

yeah. interesting shot. and its lingered on for a LONG time.

but yeah. brenner and henry give me terrible vibes, besides the whole psychopath thing. i just feel like not everyone is really thinking about how weird some of the situations these kids are being put in.

#dr brenner #henry creel #st analysis #henry creel analysis #dr brenner analysis

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therainscene · 1 year

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It’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, but the Alan Turing poster really tells us so much about Will that I consider it to be a significant piece of foreshadowing for S5.

First, let’s dissuade ourselves of the notion that Will chose Turing for his hero project for nerd reasons -- Will’s preferred flavour of nerdery is escapist fantasy, not computer science. He doesn’t know what an IP address is and the first thing he thinks of when he hears modem noises is a movie he likes.

No, he chose Turing because he admires him for being a gay man who accomplished so much in his short life.

On one hand, that’s pretty heart-warming -- the fact he’s willing to identify with other gay men and look up to them as role models shows us he’s making good progress in accepting his identity. On the other hand, it’s heart-breaking, because Turing’s story is not a happy one -- he was caught having a sexual relationship with a man and forced to choose between jail or chemical castration. He chose castration.

I remind you: Will identifies with this guy.

Will is growing up under the twin specters of AIDS and homophobia and likely assumes he’s destined to die young too. He’s been abused and bullied so much, I imagine he’s heard and internalized it all: that he deserves to die, that he’s disgusting, that he’ll never be fulfilled in life.

So when puberty begins crawling its way inside him and implants those shameful desires that make gay men so worthy of abuse... he chooses castration.

For all the sad pining he does in S4, we never really see Will express desire for Mike -- he never checks him out or shows signs of nervousness when they touch. He behaves with perfect platonic decorum at all times...

...unless we consider That One Scene With The Hose.

Sexual interpretations of this scene are controversial, and I can understand why; we’re so used to seeing Will as this innocent, immature little boy that it's shocking to catch him fantasizing so lustfully, even though these sorts of thoughts are pretty normal for a 15 year-old. But I think that’s the point. We’re supposed to feel uncomfortable about this, because Will feels uncomfortable about it too.

He’s done well in accepting his identity, but he’s an absolute repressed mess when it comes to accepting his sexuality.

So, that’s what the Turing poster tells us about Will. Here’s where the foreshadowing comes in: Will is not the only queer-coded character to have been metaphorically castrated.

Henry’s experience bears striking similarities to Turing’s: he too was caught engaging in a natural but forbidden behaviour and forced by his government to undergo a medical procedure to suppress that behaviour.

His villain speech to El in 4x07, which is ostensibly about his powers, also reads very strongly as a scathing criticism of heteronormativity, and it’s covered in rainbow motifs.

The metaphor here is obvious: Henry’s powers are a manifestation of his homosexuality.

Which implies that Will’s homosexuality can also manifest as powers. They’re repressed because he’s repressed.

It’s not a coincidence that the sexual tension was through the fucking roof in the infamous sauna scene. Every time Will’s supernatural ability to sense the Mind Flayer triggers in S3, Mike is also nearby.

What’s interesting about Mike is that his queer acceptance issues mirror Will’s: Mike has a healthy relationship with his sexuality (he casually checks guys out and plasters his bedroom walls with posters of buff dudes) but he just can’t bring himself to accept what this implies about his identity.

Always with the symmetry, these two. They complement each other perfectly; one’s hang-up is the other’s strength. They have a lot to teach each other about being queer.

And as repressed as they are, I think they want to learn from each other -- Will lets himself get flustered when Mike flirts with him in his bedroom, and Mike hangs on to every word of wisdom Will shares with him in their heart-to-hearts.

Internalized homophobia is a powerful force, but their bond is so strong that it empowers them to fight back.

Henry’s powers symbolize his anger at being mistreated and his desire to take that anger out on the world... but Will’s powers symbolize self-acceptance and love.

So he isn’t just going to defeat Vecna with his powers, and he isn’t just going to get the boy: these two things are one and the same.

#stranger things #will has powers #byler #will byers #mike wheeler #henry creel #my analysis

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heartsgettingwiser62 · 1 year

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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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michaelinprogress · 25 days

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St5 THEORY: VECNA/001/HENRY AND WILL

I think Vecna is going to present himself as Henry to Will for the first time they interact/talk face to face.

From this point, Vecna hasn’t even really spoken to Will. Not in a way that actually revealed himself to Will, anyway. He manifested as thoughts in Will’s mind, but Will had no way to know that it was a person who stalked and hunted him down. He thought he was being possessed by creatures, but all this time, it was a man.

Someone just like him.

We already know that El and Will are extremely similar and have insane parallels, and Henry tried to appeal to El with his similarity to her

So I think Henry is going to present himself to Will as human in a vision of some sorts, and force Will to realize just how similar they are. Their empathy, their sensitivity, their jealousy and inner sense of Justice. They just have so much in common. He will try to make Will falter and join his side.

I cannot wait to see them finally meet!!! And have a big show down!!!!

Anyone else have any thoughts on the Will and Vecna meeting scene!?

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erikiara80 · 1 month

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About Will

Last year the Duffers said that in S5 Will takes center stage again, and now they're even telling us how the season starts, with the flashback of Will in the UD. That's why I think the reveals about him should be huge, like the ones about Henry and El in S4.

This makes me happy. Will and his story are my favorite thing, and I have so many questions.

Was Will really just in the wrong place at the wrong time, a random victim who later became the brother of Vecna's actual target, Eleven?

Maybe. But I'll be honest, I think this would be disappointing. Most of the audience already believes that. All these years, all the mystery surrounding Will, and in the end it was just to hide Vecna, who was introduced in S4, so when we see S5 it's not even a plot twist anymore? Hm.

There could be an interesting parallel with Henry winding up in Dimension X tho. Wrong place at the wrong time. But Henry developed powers. What about Will, who ended up in the UD? Also, if he was just in the wrong place, why did they make his abduction so different from all the other attacks? It's just because it was the first one and they wanted it to be cool? Again, disappointing, imo. And if the reason was just "make the scene cool", I don't know why in other seasons they kept making parallels between the Demogorgon opening the Byers' door, something it only does in 1x01, and El opening a LOT of doors with telekinesis.

I think it's more likely that Will's flashbacks in S5 will be like El's flashbacks in S4. They made us believe that Eleven killed all the other numbers, only to reveal later that it's not what really happened. I expect something like that for Will too. Maybe at first, everything seems to confirm that he was just a random victim, and then we find out that it's not true. Or he was a random victim, but then, like Henry, he developed psychic abilities.

Speaking of that

Does Will have powers or not?

I am a Will-has-powers truther, this is not a mystery lol. But does it make sense in the story? (some thoughts here) Does he have powers like Harry Potter, or the Turtle (here), or Bastian, or he's like Peter Bishop, Marty McFly and Frodo Baggins? Noah said that Will's superpower is his heart, but you know, you can have that and also powers. Plus, in S4 they connect the concept of time travel to emotions, so if there's a timeloop or something like that, and Will's name is on the grandfather clock...

Maybe his abilities are different from anything we've seen. Maybe something more connected to the UD. I'm just saying, why making him a wizard/cleric, if he's just a normal kid?

For example, they never really explained why he's still so connected to Vecna and, I suspect, the UD (because he is also like Radagast, and the kid in Poltergeist, who gets kidnapped because of her powers) Yes, Max seems to have answered that question: when Vecna makes a psychic connection, you are marked. In fact, at some point she even says that she can still feel him. But when she's in his mind lair, she doesn't feel his thoughts. She says that he was surprised and didn't want her there... but he actually says that. Also, they would really answer the questions about the big mystery of Will's connection to Vecna like that, when he's not even the focus of the scene?

That's why I think the answer is more complex for him. Max can't feel Vecna's thoughts or feelings, Will can, like Harry can feel Voldemort. Could the reason be that he was connected to the hive mind? We can't be sure, he's the only one who survived a possession. There are no particles left in his body (as far as we know) or he would've died in S2. So, why is the connection still there and so strong, that the moment he's back in Hawkins, he can feel that Vecna is hurting and wants to destroy everything?

Why in S2 Will knows that the evil wants to kill everyone but him? And why would Vecna/Mind Flayer want to kill everyone but a random kid with no powers, whose only ability was to hide from a monster for a week? Henry Creel considered all the lab kids, people with powers, inferior to himself and Eleven, but for some reason he wanted a sensitive child who's just good at hiding? It doesn't make sense to me.

In the game, they seem to give us the answer. Well, they don't explain if Will was just in the wrong place at the wrong time on Nov 6, but they say that the reason he is the key and Vecna wants him, is that he wants to use him to find Eleven.

If this is true... Henry/Vecna needed Eleven to open a door, so he makes her make a psychic contact with a Demogorgon. When the gate opens, he lets the creature kidnap/kill random people. Then realizes that he can find Eleven, if he uses the only victim he is letting hide in the UD because, reasons. But when she finally is in the void with Will, instead of killing her, he interrupts the contact with Will, goes to Castle Byers, takes him to the library, and impregnates him with a little Demogorgon. And then? What would've happened if Joyce hadn't found Will? We still don't know if the tendril was killing him or giving him oxigen, like the facehugger does in Alien (the parallel with Sarah could be a hint tho), because we don't know what happened to Barb. If she died in the pool and then was taken to the library, or if it's the tendril that killed her.

If Will was actually dying, then the answer in the game doesn't make sense. If Vecna just wants to use him to find and kill Eleven, he wouldn't have tried to kill him. Unless that whole process was supposed to turn Will into Zombie Boy, a creature of the UD, similar to Vecna, who could find Eleven. That's a bit complicated, tho.

Not to mention the whole possession in S2. Again, let's say that Vecna didn't want to kill Will in the library, but just turn him into a monster. He failed. So, when Will is home, he makes him have visions, then possesses him, with the intent of killing everyone but him. Because he wants him to find and spy Eleven. But in the 1959 flashback, in TFS, and in the game, we see that Henry can read any mind. So, sorry but why does he need Will, specifically, to find Eleven?

Also, if the particles can just possess you in a vision and then appear in our world, why didn't they possess more people? Easier to find El, and even if you lose Will, you still have the others. It's what the Mind Flayer does in S3. The big difference? In S3 the particles are already in our world.

So I wonder if Will is the only one Vecna/Mind Flayer can possess like that, because they were already connected before the possession

Ok, in S3, the Mind Flayer takes a guy named William because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then he uses him to build a monster that finds Eleven and takes her powers. So, maybe the 'wrong place, wrong time' is true, but the rest... is interesting. Jonathan says that they built Castle Byers the way Will drew it, and MindFlayer!Billy tells Billy to build what he sees. Also interesting that there are two Billies. It reminds me of If I go there will be trouble, and if I stay it will be double (different timelines, twin imagery, Henry and Edward, Richard and Martin. And Will and Eleven?)

So, my theory is that Will and El are more connected than it seems, and that's why Vecna needs Will. And maybe he is also using him to "build" his army, and make the UD spread? I don't know.

But for all these reasons, I think it would make more sense if Will wasn't just a random victim, or at least he's developed some ability.

Will has parallels with Cerebro (here) and Nancy says that the lights came to life when he was in the UD, a parallel to what Steve says in S3, (Let there be light) after Will senses the Mind Flayer for the first time at the mall. When he's watching a zombie movie. There's also that beautiful theory (I don't remember who posted it, sorry) about Will being connected to the light particles and using them to destroy the black particles of the Mind Flayer.

Light particles that look like fairy dust -> Will being called fairy. Lights that come to life -> a battery

I think I've found some big hint that this theory might be correct. Anyway, it seems that Will is connected to the very existence of the UD. Not saying he created it, but if lights came to life when he was there, maybe if they interrupt the connection, that place, whatever it is, will cease to exist.

#st s5 spoilers #st s5 #will byers #will has powers #el hopper #henry creel #the first shadow spoilers #st: tfs #st s5 theory #st vecna #st analysis #st parallels #stranger things

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aemiron-main · 1 year

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every day i become more and more convinced that brenner was pushing henry towards committing the massacre. there’s so many scenes where brenner not only sees but reacts to henry interacting with el, and yet he doesn’t do anything about it. and i have a ton more evidence for this too, but that’ll all be explained in the electrocution scene/skull fracture analysis that im trying to finish rn.

like. why keep henry employed in the lab with access to a keycard? why not just keep him locked away and isolated until he complied? because brenner likely tried that and it didn’t work- henry, unlike el, is not afraid of isolation, and is used to it. we see him sitting in the dark in the attic all the time. so, the isolation room tactic wouldn’t have worked on henry. it wouldn’t have made him kill the way that it made el kill. so, brenner needed to push him towards killing in a different way, needed to let henry think that he had a chance at escape, and he knew that henry would need to kill in the process. brenner likely didn’t anticipate two things though: a.) that el would send henry to superhell and b.) just how violent henry would become/the exact extent of how his absorption works (which is part of what lead to him becoming so extra-violent because the violence only ramps up after he’s killed and absorbed one of the guards)/that henry would blast the doors open and injure brenner and kill ten.

like. there’s no way brenner didn’t know about henry’s plot. he sees and hears him talking to el repeatedly, they give us a scene where they make sure that we know that the camera is picking up everything henry is saying.

brenner wanted henry to kill. just like how he wanted el to kill the cat in s1 & later praised her for killing the guards. i really think we’re going to get a similar scene of henry refusing to kill/brenner realizing he cant control henry/can’t force him to kill (likely realizing this, ironically, when henry tries to kill one specifically person- himself, bc im pretty certain we’re going to get a flashback to henry in the lab trying to commit suicide via his own powers and making his eyes bleed by squeezing his brain like what el did to the lab agents in the school in s1, in a parallel to victor’s bloody eyes) and then henry getting soteria’d after brenner realizes he cant control henry/after henry becomes a danger to himself.

this doesn’t excuse the massacre and im trying to finish the electrocution scene analysis with more explanation, so dont mistake this for baseless apologism. this is “brenner is the Worst” posting not “henry did nothing wrong ever and its all fine” posting.

#stranger things #byler #st analysis #henry creel #henry creel analysis #hawkins lab #martin brenner analysis

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henrysglock · 1 year

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We Really Need To Talk About Henry Creel and the "Psychopath" Label.

I'm putting the word "psychopath" on a high shelf and out of reach until further notice because we as a whole clearly a) does not understand what psychopathy is, b) does not know what it actually looks like in people, and c) is more than happy feeding into the already existing stigma around the disorder by using the term to describe someone who is a villain, but who's also very much not a psychopath if you look at his actual mannerisms and beliefs.

That is to say: If we completely ignore any timeline fuckery and treat Vecna/Henry like one singular guy...The terms you all are looking for are "pathological altruism", "superiority complex", cPTSD, and/or autism.

Y'know, things that can stem from intense, prolonged childhood trauma and are characterized by a) believing oneself to have the power, authority, and duty to fix others' problems for them, b) fluctuations in sensitivity/reactivity to triggering situations, and c) reactive judgmental behavior.

"Psychopath" is not a catch-all for villains, and it does not equate to "violent man disorder".

Let's do a little psychoanalysis of what Henry actually does, working chronologically.

Little Henry (age 12)

He's described as "sensitive". This is code for many things throughout the show, some of which being artistic tendencies, quiet personality, increased vulnerability to emotional harm, queerness, neurodivergence, and connection to the supernatural.

He's shown gently collecting spiders in furnished jars. Henry identifies with the spiders, identifies that they both have been cast aside, and uses that connection to reach the conclusion that the spiders need love and care. He then handles them gently and spends time making homes for them. This alone is a display of empathy, sympathy, and compassion.

He's lonely, rejected by his mother and his peers. This rejection hurts him, and he later bitterly internalizes/recontextualizes the experience to avoid that hurt.

He's called "broken", but later realizes that he isn't broken at all. This indicates that he believed he was broken for some span of time, and his later anger surrounding the topic indicates that that experience hurt him.

He displays a variety of emotions. Henry openly displays sadness, fear, anger, enjoyment, fascination, and excitement.

He is unable to hide his social "wrongness". He couldn't hide the fact that he was different from the other children, indicating that a) he tried and failed, and b) he wanted to fit in at one point.

His father seemed to have liked him as a person. Whatever was "wrong" with Henry, whatever it was that he couldn't hide, it wasn't something that made Victor dislike him.

He recognizes cruelty in society and openly condemns it. Yes, I recognize the later irony in that. That's part of the narrative structure of his villain arc. This isn't about Vecna, it's about preteen Henry.

He hates dishonesty. Whether it be dishonesty with others or with the self, Henry has a specific and powerful hatred of lying.

Now, if anyone tries to tell you about diagnosed "child psychopaths", they're lying to you.

Psychopathy is clinically knowns as Anti-Social Personality Disorder, and it cannot be diagnosed until ages 18+, since children tend to grow out of any "psychopathy markers" they might display in childhood. Children displaying these markers might be flagged as having "conduct disorder", but not psychopathy.

However, lets look at the markers anyway:

GM: Grandiose-Manipulative, DI: Daring-Impulsive, CU: Callous-Unemotional Source

Conduct disorder: Generally characterized by aggression towards others/destruction of property, lying, theft, and limited prosocial emotions. GM: Superficial charm, glibness, suave behavior. Megalomania and narcissism. Lying. DI: Fearlessness, impulsivity, recklessness, lack of responsibility. Risk taking behaviors. CU: Lack of remorse, empathy, sympathy, or compassion. Shallow emotional affect.

Let's tally him up.

Psychopathy:

Grandiose-Manipulative: ❌ Henry does not fit in, and it's clear to everyone that he does not fit in. He can't hide this, no matter how hard he tries. He is not charming or suave. He also internalizes the "broken" label and recognizes that he's rejected for a reason, and it hurts him. It's only later in his childhood that he realizes being different=/=being broken. He has a specific hatred of lying. If we compare him to Billy, the narrative anti-hero who acts as both parallel and foil to him, we can see artificial charm in action. Billy lies and uses acting to get his way. Repeatedly (see: his interactions with Karen). Billy represents GM behaviors in action. Little Henry is, then, in direct conflict with GM traits.

Daring-Impulsive: ❌ Henry only lashes out with violence when he perceives himself as being in imminent danger. He is shown as and later described as being afraid. The only fearlessness we see is in regard to spiders, and that fearlessness can be traced back to his empathy for the spiders as disliked/socially rejected creatures. Again, Billy. Billy and his erratic driving with Max in ST2 and his attempted fling with Karen are both classic displays of DI traits. Little Henry, in contrast, does not display DI traits.

Callous-Unemotional: ❌ Henry displays a range of genuine emotions. He also displays empathy, sympathy, and compassion. He's described as a sensitive child, for heaven's sake. Billy, as a contrast, does not display empathy, sympathy, or compassion. He's unnecessarily cruel and violent for his own entertainment (the car scene) or to maintain control (Max), and he does not display remorse for it. Little Henry does not meet the criteria for CU traits.

Conduct Disorder:

Aggression/Destruction: ❌ Henry is often hiding, he's reclusive, his father describes him as "sensitive", and he's gentle with the spiders. Even his later visions aren't particularly aggressive. It's spiders crawling out of a drain, a cradle in a fireplace. Disturbing, yes, but not aggressive. Henry is shown killing a rabbit, but his reaction is distinctly unhappy and we're only conclusively shown him doing so once. Due to differences in killing style between his singular kill and the other dead animals his family finds on the property and the fact that there are animals that show up mutilated on the Creel property which Henry wouldn't reasonably have access to (see: chickens)...It's not a concrete pattern of behavior. He's not an aggressive child, especially if compared to Billy. Billy is openly violent and aggressive, and he seeks out opportunities to physically hurt others. Henry does not do this. He only lashes out when cornered, which is what happened in 1959 (if we take canon at face value).

Theft: ❌ We are not shown any instances of or inclination towards theft.

Low guilt/remorse: Inconclusive Henry is shown (supposedly) practicing his powers on a rabbit, but he looks distinctly disturbed while doing so. Henry lashes out at his mother with his powers and displays little remorse, but that was self-defense, which muddies the remorse waters. Compare him to Billy, who is clearly enjoying tormenting kids whenever he can (see: the fatshaming at the pool, Max in the car, Lucas at the Byers house). Generally, Henry doesn't meet this criterion, but it remains inconclusive.

Low Empathy: ❌ Henry visibly and verbally displays empathy for the spiders (A similar trait in autism: more empathy for creatures than humans)

Low Affiliative Behaviors: Inconclusive He has issues with regulating eye-contact (it seems like he tends to stare), and he doesn't seem to seek people out. He's reclusive and quiet. However, these are also shared traits with autism...or just being an introvert, and we do see him display warmth/happiness on multiple occasions. We also know he has interest in connection with others due to his later bitterness over the lack of connection he experienced as a child.

Deceitfulness: ❌ Henry hates lying and dishonesty. That's his whole thing.

Fearlessness: ❌ Henry visibly and verbally displays fear on many occasions.

Henry Creel, age 12, is not meeting the markers for conduct disorder/precursors for psychopathy.

Next time point.

Henry Creel, age 32: Orderly

He's good with kids. He soothes El's anxiety, calmly engages with her anger surrounding her mother, sits on the floor beside her to be on her level, takes her concerns seriously, and tries to help her succeed against her struggles in the lab.

He's relatively social. He's the only orderly who interacts with the children willingly/actively seeks out social connection with the children. He's shown wandering around the room observing them, and he seeks El out as company (this will come back later).

He's not harsh with the children. In ST1, we see El being carries around by her arms and thrown around by orderlies. We see Henry being dragged by his arms by orderlies after his electrocution scene. Henry, even when given the authority of an orderly, doesn't engage in this kind of disregard for a) personal space, b) autonomy, and c) wellbeing. The worst we see from him is his reprimand of 002 when 002 is bullying El, and even that's just a quick verbal reprimand.

He empathizes and sympathizes with the children. Henry is openly disturbed by 002's electrocution, even when no one is watching him except the audience. El isn't watching, Brenner isn't watching. Henry empathizes with 002, given that his own electrocution scene just happened in the previous episode. We're being shown genuine empathy and sympathy coming from Henry.

He's still quiet, gentle, and reclusive. He often hunches in on himself when he's not being watched by Brenner. He's consistently soft-spoken and unassuming. His likability comes from his lack of stereotypical superficial charm/suaveness. He comes off as the guy who was bullied to hell and back as a kid, not like a politician (which is what psychopathic charm is most likened to).

When he isn't being like that, it's an act...and an unconvincing one at that. Henry looks distinctly uncomfortable and out of place when he's trying to play the straight-backed, unfeeling orderly. We get tons of side-eye from him directed at Brenner. He doesn't enjoy being on display like that.

Henry tries to help El and then acknowledges that it didn't work/made things worse.

Henry tries to help El escape with no request for anything in return. Her escape was not transactional. Soteria's removal only happened when El reached out about Henry not coming with her, and even then he never asks her to remove it. He gives her information, and then he lets her make her own choices. She wants him to come with, he did not ask her to set him free. All this, despite the fact that he easily could have asked her to remove it as repayment for letting her loose without any red flags being raised on El's part.

Henry displays concern for El's wellbeing He takes her with him when the guards come running after Soteria, even though it would have been a good distraction/would have given him a head start if he'd left her. He defends her and himself from the guards who clearly want to hurt them. He hides her in the store room and tells her he's going to find them a way out.

Let's tally him up.

Grandiose-Manipulative: ❌ Henry still lacks the "classic" psychopathic charm. He's still a bit kooky, definitely not suave. A touch of narcissism might come into play with his desire to "save" El, but that's leaning into pathological altruism. He doesn't display himself as powerful, even after Soteria is removed. He's still soft-spoken and curled in on himself. Of course, we could argue that he's doing all this to manipulate El. Sure...but he never asks for anything in return even when it would be logical and understandable to do so. Getting El to remove Soteria would be like taking candy from a baby. All he'd have to do is say "If you take Soteria out, then I can help you escape. I can only help you if you take it out, though", and she'd do it. She's a lab-raised 8 year old. It would be a far safer gamble for him to flex his authority than to...what? Not mention it and hope she says something? Hope she chooses to do something? Okay. Hell, if we take the show at face value, no timelines or anything...Henry has already leveraged his authority with El before. "If you want to escape, you must do exactly as I say", he tells her in the chess scene...and then he just straight up never mentions Soteria. No matter how you slice it...that wasn't manipulation. It was altruism.

Daring-Impulsive: ❌ Henry does display risk-taking behaviors, but we need to apply context. He's been locked and abused in this lab for 20 years, El's been there for 8 years under similar conditions...there's no chance at escape for either of them unless someone takes a risk. Even so, it's not the type of risk that's associated with thrill-seeking. He's not doing it for the thrill, he's doing it to get out.

Callous-Unfeeling: ❌ It's a bit more difficult to say that it's not an act here because he's usually being watched by El, however...in the times when he's not being watched, he displays empathy, sympathy, and compassion, and those displays are paired with distinction emotional expressions. This is where the escape scene comes into play. Henry once again only attacks once he's cornered and in danger (not to mention that this time he has a dependent to worry about). His plan is to run. He's not inclined towards violence until he's left with no other choice, and when he does lash out he doesn't actually use his powers to kill until that final guard (who seemed to take great pleasure in the prospect of getting to shocked both him and El). He throws the other soldiers around, but he doesn't give them that menacing, sadistic look. That's reserved for that specific guard. It's sadism borne of a personal grudge due to prolonged mistreatment. It's revenge, not sadism for the sake of sadism.

Orderly Henry Creel, age 32, definitely has something going on up there (likely a whopping dose of cPTSD). He sure is a Guy in a Situation. However, he does not meet the criteria for psychopathy.

And now, my favorite and most controversial section:

Vecna-Henry (ages 32-38)

First and foremost: I need you all to read this with the understanding that I am explaining behaviors, not excusing them. Nothing that happened was right or justified, based on a normal person's frame of mind. However, in order to even come close to psychoanalyzing someone, you have to get inside their head. It's their thoughts and motivations that matter here, not what outsiders judge them to be. That's why it takes months of talking and testing to pin down diagnoses.

We need to be able to look at things from Henry's point of view and piece it together in his frame of mind. You feel me? Good.

I'm abandoning the checklist format for this section because it requires more nuance than just "yes" or "no", but I'm still going to list off some key traits about Vecna:

He chooses his victims carefully. Our 4 victims are not chosen willy-nilly. This isn't "I want to kill for fun", or we'd have Art the Clown instead. He personally kills exactly as many as he needs to open the Rifts, no more. He doesn't kill for killing's sake.

Each victim is chosen with a specific backstory in mind. I've spoken about this before, but if you know anything about serial killers it's that they're almost always going after victims that tie into their own trauma (i.e. killers with mommy issues going after women who look like their mothers, etc). Stranger Things, of course, is a touch more intricate. The order and specific stories of the victims tells a meta narrative. Chrissy and her horrible mother with the rotting food that's a direct link to the custom-made painting in the Creel dining room during the dinner scene. Fred and being a murderer, even though it was a negligent accident. Max and Billy, whose story is so complex and so inverse of Henry's that it fits perfectly with a song about swapping places to feel how the other feels. Again, a death outside of the victim's control, but this time tinged with the relief that an abuser had died after years of wishing for it to happen. Patrick and his abusive father, his abusive Papa, if you will. They tell us a story, just like almost every other serial killer. We know Virginia was a bad mother based on the situation Henry finds himself in at age 12, but we're never shown the extent of that conflict because we never see them interact. It wasn't physically possible for Henry to have killed Alice. How could Henry, who was near-fainting after having "killed" Virginia, find the strength to trance Victor and kill Alice? How could he do that, when we don't even see Vecna do that, when he's so much more powerful? He's not capable of multitasking. ST4 made that very clear. Thus, negligent death. Billy and Max vs the Creel murders are essentially just an inverse situation. Older abuser dies, the young victim wished for it to happen and is now Feeling Things about the situation. Lost a sibling in the process. And last but not least, Patrick, who shares a name with a lab guard in ST1 and has an abusive father. That's a Brenner link. It's a story by proxy. Vecna uses that shared trauma to connect with his victims. (That's the real deal: Shared Trauma). It's weaponized empathy.

He talks over and over again about honesty and ending suffering. Those are his two huge Things in his kills. He holds up a mirror to what the victim perceives to be the worst part of them, and then he turns around and all but tells them he'll make it end. After all...everyone is just waiting, waiting for it all to be over. He's got a fixation on making sure his victim knows that a) this was their fault, and b) he's being the Good Guy by relieving their suffering.

He has no reason left to pretend to have a Good Moral Justification for his kills, and yet he still talks to his victims like he's justifying their deaths.

That's...a lot, but let's dive right in.

Henry and his funky morality complex is endlessly fascinating to me, because what he seems to be doing is self-soothing about it all. Psychopaths, in contrast, are aware of moral compasses, of good and bad, but they aren't typically beholden to the concept. A psychopath likely wouldn't feel the need to self-soothe about their actions by telling themselves and others that they're doing what they're doing to relieve suffering...which is coincidentally exactly what Henry, as Vecna, does the whole time.

At this stage in the story, Henry would have no reason to keep up that kind of savior charade when his audience is just himself and his victim. There's no one there to manipulate by falsifying morality. The only other person listening is going to die imminently. The interesting part comes in when we understand that Henry doesn't have to play the angel at all in ST4. He's certain he's already succeeded by the time we realize what he's up to. He doesn't have anything to gain by lying about his perceived morality. Psychopaths, generally speaking, don't care enough to put the effort into lying if it isn't useful. That means that the last time he would have actually needed to play the angel was during his 1979 monologue. However, we see the same phrases about suffering and the associated release that we hear in 1979 continuing to return as far in as 1986, when Henry no longer has any reason to lie, even if he were okay with lying in the first place (which he's not)! They're all genuine lines. They're a core part of his character.

Vecna wants to be in the right, in the clear, morally. He can't accept that what he's doing is abusive; he has to frame it specifically so that he is doing what's right, that he's freeing people and solving problems.

He's doing his damndest to actualize his "predator, but for good" line from 1979.

This does not smack of psychopathy.

This smells like a savior complex.

Even as far back as 1979, Henry has been obsessed with saving things from their problems ("Tricked you? No. I saved you"). He "saves" spiders from the vents of his house and gives them new homes, he "saves" El from the lab's brainwashing, he "saves" the ST4 victims from their suffering...and dare I say it...he "saves" the lab children in 1979 from their suffering as part of Brenner's lab, the only true escape from which is death (And if it was a 2-birds-1-stone situation with absorbing abilities...well. That's just a bonus).

Granted, the morality surrounding the manifestation of Henry's savior complex has been warped by massive psychic alteration and 20 years of unimaginable abuse with no feasible escape, so yeah. It's a little fucked up. He's a little fucked up. Obviously.

However, at it's core: Everything Henry has ever done has (in his mind) been Right, Good, and Necessary, despite the fact that he's now actively doing more harm than good.

This reeks of pathological altruism.

Here's what that can look like, clinically:

Source

Well damn, doesn't that sound familiar? (I'm staring directly at Henry's spider hoarding versus the above image)

"Saving" spiders, but condemning them to death in jars after his kidnapping. "Saving" El from the lab, but traumatizing her and ultimately condemning her to his own fate: being the sole focus of Brenner's attention. "Saving" the ST4 victims from their suffering, but hurting them in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone: free himself, and eliminate their suffering as a nice morality bonus.

Pathological Altruism. Savior Complex.

Jamie himself has said that, based on what has been shown to us, Henry truly believes that what he's doing is right and beneficial (which fits with his Catholic-God coding (here) so well).

All this to say, and I cannot stress this enough: This is not psychopathy. What Henry displays is not psychopathy. This is pathological altruism. Psychopaths, particularly those who go on to commit violent crimes, largely do not have savior complexes. A psychopathic serial killer would not care, and would not hide that they don't care if there isn't anything to gain from it.

Henry also has this incredible fixation on truth and right vs wrong, and yes, he weaponizes that, but again he does so while self-soothing with padded morality phrasing. He monologues for ages about how terrible it is that everyone is lying to themselves and others, and how everyone is suffering but no one wants to admit it. His main goal is remaking the world with a "better" version of society that's less oppressive (which happens to be one where a rule-bound society is entirely done away with). Henry then swings way past "Good, Right, Necessary" into villain territory but going so far as to force his victims into facing the truth of what's going on inside their heads, forcing them to stop lying about their own mental states, only to then use the "worst" thing about themselves to judge them. He's quite literally playing God based on his use of right and wrong to maintain control/power while holding a moral high ground. (He's doing a pretty good job, too. He sounds just like the Catholic God.)

This is not psychopathic behavior.

His behavior seems more like black/white judgmental thinking:

A misguided and overwhelmingly strong sense of justice:

Source

and a killer superiority complex fueled by chronically low self-esteem:

Source

A psychopathic serial killer would have little attachment to truth or right and wrong.

A psychopathic serial killer would not care.

Source

The thing is: Henry's whole issue is that he cares entirely too much. His problem is that everything matters, everything can and should be sorted into good and evil, right and wrong (and obviously he is in the right here), save and destroy. It's judgement and warped justice and the need to believe he's special, that it all happened for a reason, that the world deserves to burn for what it did to people like him, that he can fix the world if he destroys it first.

This also happens to be why Henry cannot be considered a nihilist, which is another term I'm putting up on a shelf. Henry sees the world as inherently having value, that life has value, that there's something worth rebuilding (so long as he gets to dictate what the rules are...so long as he never gets hurt again). If he didn't care so much, he wouldn't be so damn upset about it all. He's a mess. He legitimately cares too much, the hurt is too deep.

That, in combination with the perspective warping from not only his absorptive quality but also 20 years of MKULTRA/Hawkins National Lab Fuckery, has created the mentality we see in ST4 and the actions it has manifested in (again, ignoring timelines).

Vecna is a violent, lab-made hypocrite with a touch of trauma-borne misanthropy, for sure, but he's not a psychopath.

tl; dr: Psychopathy is not synonymous with "villainous man disorder". Henry Creel is not a psychopath, though as it stands he is technically our villain.

#breaking: media fans told that psychopathy is NOT just ''evil man'' disorder #[squirts fans with a water bottle] AHT. AHT. PUT THE LABEL DOWN.#henry was a good kid. a good young man even. and i'm standing by it #henry creel analysis #henry/vecna/001 #psychoanalyzing henry creel #st character analysis #stranger things

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