At first glance, the Wheelers appear to be the perfect All American family. The father, Ted, appears to be the perfect father. He has a good job that has allowed him to provide for his family and buy a nice house. Nancy, at one point says that her mother married her father because he had money and came from a "good" family.
Karen *appears* to be the perfect wife and mother. Her appearance is always immaculate: She dresses nice and her hair and makeup is always perfect for the 1980s mother. She always makes the perfect meals for her family. Baby Holly is adorable and Mike and Nancy are good students. People looking at the Wheelers would call them a "good" family. Carol even refers to Nancy as "Miss Perfect."
Contrast that to the Byers family, who at first glance, would likely be looked at as the wrong type of family. Joyce is a single mother with an ex- husband who doesn't pay child support or put in any kind of effort into having a relationship with his children (though he certainly likes to put on a show of being a caring father.) Joyce's physical appearance is often disheveled and she works long hours. Her Christmas Eve dinner that she cooks doesn't exactly turn out perfect. She even has a reputation for being a little crazy as evidence by the way the people at the police station and the school secretaries talk about her. Jonathan and Will are both referred to as freaks by their peers at some point.
At first glance (the superficial glance), most people would think that Karen was a far superior mother to Joyce because of her appearance. However, after watching the show and seeing the actuality, most fans seem to agree that Joyce is the better mother (especially after the second season). What ultimately makes Joyce the better mother and the Byers family the happier family (and why shouldn't we be surprised about Karen's cavalier attitude when Nancy and Mike aren't home late Sunday night in the Gate)? Trust, empathy, and the face that they enjoy each other's company.
Karen (in the first season and the first part of the second season) is not a terrible mother. She truly seems to care about the well being of her children She is trying to connect with Mike and Nancy, but mostly fails. She comforts Mike after he see's Will's fake body pulled from the quarry and after he witnesses Eleven's apparent death. She comforts Nancy when Nancy realizes that something happened to Barb. As often as she tells her children that they can talk to her, they never really do. Why? Well it's the little things. Those little things may even foreshadow her behavior in the last part of the second season.
Two seemingly insignificant moments stick out in her interactions with Mike. The first is when she rolls her eyes when Mike says that finishing the campaign the next weekend would ruin the flow. She was right that it was a school night and it was getting late. She can't be entirely faulted for feeling the way she did about the situation. The thing is, the campaigns were something that Mike really enjoyed. He took them seriously. As adults, we often look back on things we took seriously as children and laugh at ourselves for taking those things so seriously or even shrug at things we once took seriously, but we took them seriously all the same. If we no longer take those things seriously, we do so because we came to those feelings on our own, not because our parents rolled their eyes at us.
Even as adults, we we have hobbies that we enjoy and if friends call those things stupid, we don't talk about those things with those friends. We may even hide that particular aspect of ourselves from those friends and it creates a barrier. By the way, how was Karen not aware that Mike and his friends had been on their D&D for ten hours? And why did she just send Will home in the dark when he had so far to ride his bike? She didn't call the Byers home to see if someone was there or offer him a ride home? (other than the fact that it would have completely changed the story).
Another moment that comes to mind is when Karen tells Mike that he has to pick out toys for the garage sale. She wasn't wrong in the notion that there were consequences to Mike's actions, but it's another example of her showing that she thinks the things Mike finds important are stupid. Mike says that his toys have emotional value and Karen simply scoffs at that idea. It's possible that those toys do have emotional value to Mike. They may have been gifts from his friends or connected to special memories. Those small moments plant seeds in Mike's head that his mother doesn't care about the things that are important to him. Those kinds of interactions could be why he doesn't feel like he can talk to her. She doesn't show him empathy, so he doesn't show her trust. It is likely why he feels like he's the only person in the Wheeler family who cares about the fact that Will is missing.
She wasn't wrong for being upset with Nancy after finding out that Nancy had lied about going to Steve's party (claiming she was going to the assembly to support the Byers family); but the fact that she was more concerned about what Nancy had done with Steve than she was about Barb's disappearance. That is likely why Nancy felt like her mother wasn't listening.
Contrast this to Joyce and her interactions with Will, Jonathan and Eleven (yes Eleven--it's almost certain that Jopper will happen). Joyce shows a lot of empathy toward her children and they trust her. Yes, they do keep secrets from her from time to time, but it isn't due to lack of trust. Jonathan doesn't tell her he's working with Nancy to kill the demogorgan because he thinks she's been through enough. Will doesn't always tell her about his episodes because (based on his conversation with Bob and him taking Bob's advise as well as his reaction when he sees the etching she made of the shadow monster) he's desperately hoping that it is all in his head.
Joyce only interacts with Eleven for a few hours in the first season, but makes a meaningful connection. She expresses a lot of gratitude for Eleven going into the void to find Will in the Upside Down. Joyce acknowledges that it could be a frightening experience for Eleven and in doing so shows empathy. She comforts Eleven when she's scared. It's no wonder Eleven walked right over to Joyce and hugged her after she saved the group from the Mind Flayer's army.
Joyce encourages Jonathan's photography and praises his work. She is aware that Jonathan has wanted to go to NYU since he was six years old. She encourages Will's drawing (like taking the picture of his rainbow ship to work and showing it off). There's the flashback of Will drawing a picture of his D&D character and Joyce asks him questions and takes a genuine interest in the answers. There's another flashback of Joyce taking off work early to surprise Will with movie tickets. There's even some affectionate joking and teasing in that scene. In the final scene of the first season, she listens as Will talks about the campaign and doesn't roll her eyes or scoff like Karen did with Mike. Joyce doesn't merely encourage the interests of her sons, those interests are things that she loves about Will and Jonathan.
Speaking of the last scene of the first season, the three members of the Byers family are enjoying each other's company. We don't ever really see the Wheeler family enjoying each other's company. Sure there's the dark cloud hanging over the family with Will having an early episode of his psychic connection to the Upside Down and coughing up a baby Demogorgan, but he is still enjoying the company of his mother and brother. The scene at the Wheeler House on Christmas Eve really contrasts with the Byers. The Wheelers are all in separate rooms. Ted may been in the same room as Nancy and Steve, but he's asleep.
There are a few scenes where the Wheelers have dinner together, but they are usually arguing about something or eating quietly. The same goes for breakfast. Karen wasn't wrong in wanting to keep her children inside after dark. It was common sense, but the way she said "end of discussion" when Mike was upset about his missing friend probably made it less convincing for Mike when she said she wanted him to feel like he could talk to her the next day. The actual wording "I want you to feel liked you can talk to me" seems like it's all about appearance rather than actuality.
There is actually imagery in the show that illustrates how Karen concerns about the *appearance* of a happy family while Joyce is concerned that her children are actually happy: the family photographs. There is a mantel in the Wheeler living room filled with formal, professionally taken studio pictures. They are staged and posed to give the appearance of the perfect family. Mike and Nancy both have pictures with friends in their rooms where they look a lot happier.
Joyce doesn't have a mantel filled with expensive studio portraits, she just has a box filled with pictures of her and her sons. The pictures are connected to happy memories for Joyce and her sons. They're all genuinely happy in their pictures where Mike and Nancy *appear* to be happy in the studio family portraits.
The are two moments in season two when the party members are being photographed by their parents: Halloween and the Snowball. Dustin and Lucas seem happy when their mothers are taking their pictures, but this essay is comparing the Byers to the Wheelers, so we'll take a look at Mike and Will.
Will is beaming when Jonathan (Joyce like just let him take the pictures because she understood how much he loved photography) takes his picture in his Ghostbusters outfit, despite everything he's gone through with his episodes. Mike, on the other hand is annoyed with his mother's fawning.
Mike's annoyance Halloween morning could have something to do with him not knowing where Eleven is, but he has the same annoyance when Karen is taking his picture before the Snow Ball. Will, on the other hand is learning how to dance with his mother while Jonathan videos a good memory. Will is enjoying his mother's company while Mike clearly isn't enjoying Karen's.
It is likely something more than being a moody teenager that make Mike annoyed with his mother's fawning. It could be that he simply doesn't feel like the fawning is genuine. It's like politicians who tweet about honoring mother's every Mothers Day, but vote against legislation that would make their lives easier or politicians who tweet about honoring the troops and wear yellow ribbons, but vote to cut the pay of active service members or cut medical benefits for veterans.
There are the aforementioned moments of Karen showing that she thinks the things he enjoys are stupid and not worth her time. That attitude likely led to Mike's annoyance with Karen taking his picture more than him being a moody teenager. We see Dustin's mother asking him how the "greatest night of the year" went when he got home from trick-or-treating. Lucas's parents are the only parents that we, as an audience, see enjoying each other's company. Lucas asks his father for advice with his mother in the room, showing that he feels comfortable talking to them and expressing his concerns.
There is the flashback Joyce thinks about while she's at Will's funeral. Will is drawing a picture and Joyce asks him questions about the drawing and encourages his creativity and imagination. She is beaming as she listens to his answers. She shows interest in something her son enjoys. There are also the memories Joyce talks about when Will is tied to the chair in the shed and tapping out some Morse code. She remembers a rainbow ship he drew on his eighth birthday (as well as giving his Tonka truck to a sad little girl). She took that picture to work to so it off because she was "so proud." Moments like that are likely why Will was happy when Joyce and Jonathan were taking pictures Halloween morning and the night of the Snow Ball.
There are no moments like that between Karen and Mike or Karen and Nancy- none that the Duffer Brothers wrote into their scripts at least. We see that she loves her children, but not that she's proud of them. The closest moments that we see of Karen engaging her children (well, just Nancy) when they aren't under a lot of distress as a result of having missing friends come when she says hello to Jonathan as he and Nancy are about to call Barb's mother in order to trick the people at Hawkins lab into giving them a tour; and the next morning when Nancy tells Karen that she's going to have a girl's night with "Stacy" (if there even is a Stacy, I doubt Nancy was talking about the girl who didn't dance with Dustin-and the next day, Karen thought that Nancy was at Alley's house. Was she even really paying attention to Nancy?) In both instances, Nancy is lying to her and she doesn't even notice the change in demeanor (Nancy acts the same way when she claims so going to Barb's to study or going to Will's assembly when she is really planning to meet up with Steve. She likely doesn't notice the change because she hasn't taken the time to really get to know her children as unique individuals.
Contrast that to Joyce. Early in season one, she expresses regret for not really knowing what is going on with Jonathan because he has had to work so much. She is aware early in the second season that Will is lying to her about the drawing of the Shadow Monster.
Mike and Nancy seem to put more trust in Joyce than they do in Karen. At the end of season two, when Karen is completely unconcerned about seeing either Mike or Nancy in almost three days, they are both at the Byers home. By the end of season two, Karen is almost as oblivious to her children as Ted. It has to be at least 10 o'clock at night by the time Billy knocks on the door looking for Max (though it was possibly after midnight). Nancy had told her mother she'd be home for dinner. It was well past dinner time and Karen was sitting in a bubble bath reading a trashy romance novel (nothing wrong with having a guilty pleasure, but women who read those novels are in no position to roll their eyes at their children playing D&D). Same goes for Mike. She likely hadn't heard from him since he went to Will's house Friday afternoon because he was probably too occupied with everything going on to call. At that moment, it seemed like her desire for personal comfort was more of a priority than the whereabouts of her children.
Karen has a comfortable, but not happy life. Her marriage is comfortable, but not happy. She is flirting with a mulleted teenager when she hasn't seen her kids all weekend. Her family is comfortable. Nancy and Mike are both good students, but they aren't happy with their family life. They are closer to their friends, especially the Byers. Their parents aren't terrible people, they are simply oblivious.
Joyce has an uncomfortable (putting it mildly), but happy life. She is divorced. She seems to resent Lonnie for the way he treated their children more than anything else. This is evident when she finds out that Lonnie had come to Will's funeral to make money. She calls him out for never caring about Will and not knowing where Jonathan had wanted to go to college since he was six years old. The reason for Joyce and Lonnie's divorce is never explicitly stated, but him being an uncaring father likely had something to do with it.
Hopper and Bob have become father figures to Will and Jonathan. While dating Bob, Joyce starts having movie nights with her sons and her boyfriend. Bob knows how important Joyce's son's are to her and makes an effort to get to know them. Will even says that Bob at least doesn't treat him like a helpless baby. Hopper has also earned the trust of both Will and Jonathan by the second season, hinting that he has been an active part of their lives.
Joyce got out of her unhappy and unhealthy marriage. Since doing so, she has had healthy relationships. Her relationship with Bob is healthy and happy until Bob gets eaten by a demogorgan. She and Hopper have a healthy friendship, that looks like it Will be a healthy romance in the near future. Karen, on the other hand, has remained in her unhappy marriage because it is comfortable and allows her to project the image of having the perfect family. If she has an affair with Billy, it certainly won't be a healthy relationship.
Mike, Will, Nancy, and Jonathan are all intelligent kids who are most likely college bound. Will and Jonathan will likely regularly call their mother to see how she is doing. They might even visit regularly or invite Joyce to visit them. Karen on the other hand might not hear from her children at all once they leave for school. Joyce will probably be happy with her life, while Karen will wonder what went wrong when they are old and gray.
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Stranger Things (really out there) Eleven and Will Theory that I don't actually believe
I'm going to start out by stating that I don't actually believe that this is true, there are just some things I noticed and I'm having fun. I also think that I can't be the only person with this theory (that I don't actually believe is true). It's one of the most common theories people have regarding fiction. I'm probably missing where other people have posted this as other thoughts I've had haven't exactly been unique/ Examples: when I saw the demodogs attacking the Hawkins lab episode 7, I thought "this reminds me of the monster purge scene in "Cabin in the Woods," I think it was Foundflix on youtube that made that same observation. I also at one point thought that the first season reminded me on one of my favorite 2015 films "The Martian," where a member of the group only interacts with the others at the beginning and the end. The rest of the group is trying to rescue that member the entire time, and you can really feel the genuine friendship despite very little direct interaction. I saw someone else say this somewhere else as well.
So here's my theory, that other people likely have (and again, I don't actually believe): Will and Eleven-the most physically and mentally tormented characters in the show- are actually twins. We have yet to see these two characters interact when they are both in the same dimension and Will is conscious, but they are linked. There are people with theories that Eleven is not actually Jane Ives. This theory comes from the fact that when Eleven is talking to Terry in the void and says, "It's Jane, mama, I'm home," Terry replies "No!" before showing Eleven her circle vision. I Youtuber named The Fangirl has an in depth theory on that.
The first part of my theory is pure speculation. This is about Joyce. Her fragile mental state (or at least reputation for having a fragile mental state) is referenced several times during the first season- and quietly in the second. Hopper's deputies talk about her being close to the edge for a long time. Jonathan mentions past troubles, as does Lonnie (though, I won't consider Lonnie a reliable source). Her troubles could simply be the result of being married to a jerk like Lonnie (who doesn't seem to have treated either of their children is a particularly loving manner), then trying to support her children on a cashier's meager salary.
Here's my speculation: she was pregnant with twins (in the case of the pilot, Eleven is two years younger than Will and his friends, so she wouldn't be a twin, but a younger sister. This is about the actual produced series though). Somehow Hawkins Lab (perhaps through medical tests) learned that her children had abilities and decided to take only one as to avoid detection. (I have another theory that the upside down and the Demogorgan from season one and the Shadow Monster from season two were somehow created by Brenner- which is why the monster didn't kill him). He approached Lonnie and Lonnie decided to give them the girl. They somehow scrambled Joyce's mind to make her forget (again, while I'm not talking about the pilot, there is mention that Eleven's abilities were the result of her mother's drug use- Joyce may have been heavily drugged- again, speculation. Lonnie seems to be trying really hard to convince Joyce (and everyone else) that things are all in her head when he shows up for Will's funeral. He also tries to convince Jonathan that she is sick. This felt like he'd been doing this for years.) , causing later anxiety issued. Lonnie, of course, resented the fact that Will didn't fit his narrow notion of masculinity. Joyce mentioned the names Lonnie called their son (Will could always turn out to be gay as the pilot script describes him as being confused about his identity, but I wouldn't consider males who embody toxic masculinity like Lonnie or Troy calling him homophobic slurs as evidence). Something as traumatic as having a child stolen, then being heavily drugged or perhaps, put through something very traumatic to manipulate her memory could have easily caused serious anxiety issues.
This is a bit of speculating, but what if Will's abilities are what allowed him to effect the lights while he was in the Upside down? What if those abilities happen to be in his DNA? The DNA from his mother's side of the family. The lights blink in a very distinct manner when Will is touching them from when the demogorgan is making an entrance. It is possible that any person making contact with the lights in the Upside Down would cause them to blink. Joyce happens to be with Hopper when Jonathan sees the lights blinking and knows that it is his mother. When he says "Mom?" Joyce is able to hear him, just as Will could hear Joyce when he was trapped in the dark dimension. I could be a connection unique to their family that allowed them to hear and sense each other. Hopper does not appear to hear Jonathan. There is also the fact Will actually answers back when Eleven finds him with her mind. Mike certainly thinks that he can here her a couple of times, and Terry Ives says "No!" when Eleven says "It's Jane," so that could be a coincidence.
The Demogorgan (s) violently kills most people it comes into contact with: Barb, Bob, the scientist that enters the Upside Down connected to a cable, and the scientist in the first scene of the first episode. Will is found without any blood on him. Joyce is able to make a fairly easy escape. When The Demogorgan traps Jonathan on the floor in the last episode of season one, it doesn't leave a scratch on him. It just sniffs him and drools on him. Jonathan had actually been trying to attack it. The demogorgan also leaves Eleven and Brenner (if the new information in season 2 is accurate) unharmed. Could it sense the DNA of Eleven, Will, Joyce and Jonathan, and want to use them? Could it sense that Brenner was the counterpart of the Shadow Monster in our dimension (If my theory is correct)? Those are a couple of things to consider...
While I'm talking about Joyce, I'll say that something that really connects Will and Eleven is the affect they have on certain characters. Joyce, is of course very motherly and affectionate toward both of them. She even addresses them with the same term of endearment. When she interacts with each of them for the first time after they leave the Upside Down, her first words are a joyful "Hey, Sweetheart!" When Eleven is in the sensory deprivation tank to try to contact Will and Barb, Joyce shows just as much protectiveness toward her as she shows toward Will. This could simply attest to Joyce being a caring and compassionate person. She clearly cares about Mike and Nancy's safety, but never shows the kind of outright affection for them that she shows for Eleven. While she clearly has a loving relationship with her older son Jonathan (plenty of mothers often blame the older siblings when something happens to a younger sibling); that relationship is distinct from her relationship with Will.
Mike is another character of whom Will and Eleven have a similar effect. During the first season, Mike is determined to find the missing Will, while taking the time to care for a traumatized Eleven. This arc is inverted in the second season when Mike is determined to find a missing Eleven while taking the time to care for a traumatized Will. He also has an identical reaction to both of their apparent deaths. When Will's fake body is pulled from the water, Mike takes it much harder than Lucas or Dustin. He runs home and cries in his mother's arms. When Eleven apparently dies from her defeat of the Demogorgan, Mike cries in his mother's arms. Now, I have no doubt that Mike would be devastated if something happened to Dustin or Lucas. He was pretty upset when Eleven knocked Lucas out despite the fact that the two boys had been having an intense fight and he jumped off a cliff (to certain death) to prevent Troy from cutting out Dustin's teeth. The Duffer Brothers didn't put in fake death scenes for Dustin and Lucas, though, did they?
Mike is also brought to tears twice in the the penultimate episode of season two. Which two characters bring him to tears? Yep, the tormented dual themselves. Mike has tears literally rolling down his cheeks as he recounts the day they met. It is a memory that started out sad and ended up happy. The tears make a quick return when Eleven makes her grand entrance at the end of the episode. It's not a huge leap to see that both Will and Eleven are incredibly important to Mike and he is important to each of them.
In addition to the images of Mike crying tears of joy and grief over his two friends, there are other images of Mike connecting the (theoretical) twins. The image of Mike starring at the empty tent where Eleven slept while Dustin and Lucas were play fighting (Season 1, Episode 8) bears a striking resemblance to him staring at Will's empty desk while Dustin and Lucas listen intently to Mr. Clarke's lecture (Season 2, Episode 4).
Eleven and Will are both clearly traumatized and suffer episodes: Eleven with her memories from the time in Hawkins Lab under Brenner's control and Will with his "now memories." Both characters have episodes triggered by startling moments. They are pulled out of their episodes by Mike. There is a moment (in Season 1, Episode 2) when Eleven is hiding in Mike's closet. She is reliving the memories of Brenner locking her in a solitary room when she refuses to kill a cat. (Good for Eleven, stand up for the kitties). This flashback plays exactly the way Hopper describes the PTSD he believes Will is suffering in Season Two. Eleven is trapped in the memory, reliving it until Mike snaps her out of it. This is similar to Will's episode (in Season 2, Episode 2). When bullies startle him, he is trapped in a "now memory." He runs behind a house to hide from the Shadow Monster. He is sitting in the same defensive position Eleven had in the aforementioned scene. Who brings him out of it? Mike!
One more question: who do we see each of the theoretical twins calling out to (in the second season) when they are trapped in the Upside Down? Mike! At the beginning of "Trick or Treat, Freak" there is a flashback to Eleven trapped in the Upside Down after defeating the Demogorgan. She is frightened and calls out to Mike, just like a frightened Will calls out to Mike when he is startled into the Upside Down later in the episode. When Will confides in Mike about his episodes and asks him not to tell the others because they wouldn't understand; Mike's replies the Eleven would. He even confides in Will about how he thinks he can sometimes see and hear Eleven. This is because Will can understand Mike's more personal issues, just as Eleven can. He certainly trusts Lucas and Dustin with his life, just like Harry Potter always trusted Ron and Hermione with his life. There were more person things that he only confided in with Ginny or Luna, just as Mike only confides in Will and Eleven when there are more deeply personal issues.
Just one more Mike related connection before I move on to Hopper. Mike is the person who make life saving decisions for both Will and Eleven in the season two finale. When Eleven volunteers to close the gate, Mike is the one who realizes that closing the gate would kill Will, and that they need to free him the the Shadow Monster's possession before closing the gate. He even throws in the idea of doing in a place Will doesn't know after Joyce figures out that they need to turn up the heat. Mike later comes up with the plan to distract the demodogs so Eleven can close the gate. The editing makes it appear as though the action was the final jolt needed to free Will as the Shadow Monster leaves his body the moment Mike and the other light the tentacles in the tunnel on fire. Mike's actions made the difference between life and death for Will and Eleven. The Shadow Monster fighting so violently to keep control of Will may have killed him if it went on much longer. Considering how the demodogs had been able to decimate so many Hawkins lab employees including several heavily armed military personnel in the previous episode, they would have easily taken out Hopper and Eleven. Even if Eleven has survived the demodog attack, the energy drain may have caused her to die while trying to close the gate. In the end, both characters are drained (but alive) after their respective experiences. Eleven embracing Hopper, mirrors Will embracing Joyce.
The final major character I'll discuss in a mirror relationship with Will and Eleven is Hopper. He does what Lonnie (who is Eleven's actual father if this theory that I don't actually believe turns out to be true) and Brenner should have been doing for they hypothetical twins. While Lonnie fails to so much as return Joyce's calls until he thinks he can profit off of Will's "death," Hopper takes and personal interest and goes above and beyond normal police work to find Will. The Hawkins police chief even risks his own life more than once. When Will goes in for a check up at Hawkins Lab in the second season, Hopper is right there with them (Will and Joyce). Doctor Owens even calls Hopper "pops," possible mistaking him as Will's father. At the very least, Owens recognizes that Hopper is a father figure. The fact that Hopper literally adopts Eleven and gives her the bracelet made of Sarah's old hair tie at the end of season two, speaks for itself as far as him being a father figure to her. He treats Eleven with kindness rather that the manipulation she knew from Dr. Brenner.
Hopper's motivation in helping the tormented twins comes from the memory of his daughter, Sarah. There are visual connections. Eleven and Will own identical stuffed lions. The stuffed lion in Will's "Castle Byers" causes Hopper flashback to his daughter's stuffed tiger. This visual shows that Will and Eleven have a symbolic (visual) connection to Sarah, but an identical (visual) connection to each other. They also each have their own unique visual connection to Sarah. The first shot of Hopper's introduction scene is a stick figure drawing done by Sarah. The first thing that Hopper sees in Eleven's cell at Hawkins lab is a stick figure drawing. There scene where Hopper and Joyce rescue Will is intercut with flashbacks to Sarah's death. The loss of his daughter motivates his actions when it comes to the tormented twins.
There are a couple of minor characters who have mirror reactions to Will and Eleven. Troy uses homophobic slurs when referring to Will, even after his supposed death. Why? Will doesn't fit Troy's narrow definition of masculinity. When he's at the police station after Eleven breaks his arm, he states that Even doesn't even look like a girl. With her shaved head, she doesn't fit his narrow definition of femininity.
Finally, there's Dr. Brenner. He takes away their individuality when they go missing, simply describing them as "the boy" and "the girl." Brenner also practices deception in order to get people to stop looking for Will and prevent them from looking for Eleven in the first place. He fakes Will's death and (one of his agents) murders Benny and makes it look like a suicide.
Just a general note: Will is short for William, and El is short for Eleven. When people who care about them call out their names, it kind of sounds alike.
Now that I've discussed the Mirror effect on certain characters, I'll talk about their journeys. Both Will and Eleven go missing in season one. They spend the season hiding from a malicious force. Will is hiding from the demogorgan and Eleven is hiding from the evil scientists at Hawkins Lab. I have a theory that the Upside Down and it's creatures are creations of Brenner and his team, but that's another post.
Mike, Dustin, and Lucas found Eleven when they were looking for Will. The demogorgan found Will, when it was looking for Eleven after she opened the gate. I think that the creature specifically targeted Will (for the sake of this theory that I don't really believe) because it sensed the same DNA that was in the girl (Eleven) who made contact with it and opened the gate. First of all, the light on Mike's front porch flickers just as Will is leaving. Yes, the news reports the next day said that there were power outages all over the county, but why that light at that moment? The light on Will's bike wasn't connected to the power lines. His is the only light that flickers as the demogorgan approaches and it flickers in the same pattern as the light on Mike's house and the lights in the Byers home just before demogorgan attacks. There is also one very significant difference between Will and the other victims that were taken or killed by the demogorgan: prior to the attack, he wasn't bleeding. Barb bled into the Harrington pool. The Hawkins employee that Brenner sent through the gate wasn't bleeding, but was entering the Demogorgan's territory. It's pretty obvious that he was bleeding when the Demogorgan finished with him. Eleven caused the brains of the Benny killing agents to explode. Nancy and Jonathan cut their hands to lure it into a trap. Two other people who disappeared had been hunting, so there was likely some blood around. The demogorgan normally seems interested in feeding, but it doesn't touch Chester, Will's dog. When Will disappeared into the Upside Down, he was trapped in a closed shed, yet he didn't seem to have so much as a scratch from the Demogorgan. Maybe he was able to disable it long enough by shooting it point blank with the shotgun he was holding. For one reason or another, Will didn't suffer the same fate as many of people who came into contact with it. The other victims, including Barb all appeared to have suffered injuries before incubating demodogs. Will wasn't even bleeding when Hopper and Joyce found him, despite the fact that the Demogorgan violently destroyed Castle Byers to get to him. The same goes for Eleven. She isn't bleeding when Benny finds her. She was the closest to the Demogorgan and stuck under water when the gate opened, but the monster goes after the employees in the lab.
Just as Mike, Lucas, and Dustin find Will when they are looking for Will, Hopper ends up tracking Eleven and the monsters (Brenner and the goons at Hawkins Lab) when he is looking for Will. While interviewing Earl about Benny's death, Earl gives a physical description that could describe Will when he is describing Eleven. Although Earl doesn't think that Eleven is Will, he becomes less certain when Hopper presses. Could this hint at the theory that I have and don't actually believe?
I think that the monster wanted the tormented twins alive because they have (innate in Will's case) powers. The Shadow Monster could use those powers to create stronger minions (demodogs) and more fully open the gate to fully take over our dimension. The Shadow monster and the Upside Down are both creations of Brenner's and reflections of his most evil desires. That is why the Demogorgan didn't actually kill him at the end of season 1.
Throughout the first season, Will mostly hides from the Demogorgan in the (Upside Down version) of the woods in Hawkins. Eleven hides from the monster that is the government until Hopper takes her in. Even then, she's still secluded hiding in a cabin in the woods, just as Will hid in the secluded Castle Byers in the woods. Both of the tormented twins has to use some good survival instincts.
Back to the tormented twins. There are other visuals beyond their stuffed lions that connect them. During the first season, they are both hiding from monsters. Eleven is hiding from Brenner and the others from Hawkins lab while Will is hiding from the demogorgan. Where do they hide? In forts. Eleven hides in the fort that Mike built in his basement, while Will hides in Castle Byers, a fort that he and Jonathan built. Eleven spends her first night at the Wheeler home curled in a fetal position in the fort. When Eleven contacts Will, he's in the same fetal position while hiding in his fort. Both forts are destroyed by the monsters. The Hawkins lab employees take down the fort and carry it away in boxes, while the demogorgan destroys Castle Byers when it takes Will. The pillow fort is rebuilt by Mike and Castle Byers may or may not still stand in our dimension.
Eleven appears to experience the same kind of "now memories" in the first season that Will experiences in the second season. It seems like her contact with the demogorgan that resulted in the gate being open gave her the ability to "just know things" about the Upside Down. She knows that Will and Barb were taken when she sees their pictures. She knows that Will is hiding at his own home. She just lacks the vocabulary to explain it verbally, so she uses visuals. She flips the Dungeons and Dragons board upside down and shows Mike, Lucas, and Dustin Will's game character on it. The image of Eleven concentrating on the board then the zoom in as she calls up the image of Will in her mind is nearly identical to the way Will calls up the image of Hopper trapped in the tunnel under the pumpkin patch in season two.
There is the moment in episode four when Will is able to make visual contact with Joyce through a portal that doesn't completely open. He may with unknowingly created the portal with abilities he isn't aware he possesses. The emotional desperation the make contact with his mother could have created the same manifestation that Brenner's emotional abuse (locking in in a closet, for example) created in Eleven (like when she kills the orderlies trying to lock her in). We see Eleven opening the portal with her telekinetic abilities in a season two flashback. Maybe if he had been aware of his own abilities and not severely weakened from hunger, thirst and cold, he may have been able to escape at the moment. As it happens, channeling Will in that moments caused Eleven to collapse. It is the last time that Will is able to make any kind of contact with his mother before he is rescued. Joyce even said that she couldn't feel him like she could before. We see Chester the dog go out to Castle Byres and lay down in the spot we see Will in a couple episodes later. So, opening a portal probably caused Will to expend what little strength he had and he spent the rest of his time in the Upside Down collapsed in his fort.
The audience get visuals of Will's 'now memories" showing the infestation spreading under Hawkins. Like Eleven in season one, Will is unable to explain this concept verbally as he only sees several brief flashes rather than the whole picture. Like Eleven, he has to use visuals to communicate to Joyce and Hopper what he sees (his drawings that ended up covering the Byers home. Will got these "now memories" or "true sight" just like Eleven did-direct contact with an entity of the Upside Down. In this theory that I don't actually believe, that Will and Eleven are twins, they likely already had this ability, but it took traumatic experiences for this "true sight" to manifest.
There is also the mirror in the Byers bathroom. In episode 7 of the first season, Eleven is at the sink with the water running looking at her reflection after she is unable to see into the Upside Down to contact Will and Barb. In the final moments of the first season when Will coughs up the demogorgan larva, he is looking into the same mirror with the same expression. The two characters are reflections of one another.
Eleven and Will both approach Hawkins lab with a similar sense of apprehension. The shut down. Eleven's reaction to the towering facility at the end of season two (as she is about to re-enter for the first time since her escape) mirrors Will's reaction at the beginning of the season when he is about to go in for his check up. When they are inside the facility, both are wearing hospital gowns and have electrodes on their heads measuring their brain waves. There are scientists observing them and recording everything on video, essentially reducing them to lab rats. While the scientists observing Will are much less sinister than they scientists observing Eleven, it is still an invasive process.
Will and Eleven are arguably the most innocent and vulnerable characters in the show. It may have even been a deliberate choice to cast actors who are two years younger than the other kid actors (haven't seen the Duffer brothers comment on that that, but Noah and Millie are about two years younger than Finn, Gaten and Caleb). Both Will and Eleven are introduced as vulnerable, but not without a touch of mischief. Although there is a bit of peer pressure from Lucas and Dustin to not tell Mike that he only rolled a 7, Will does tell Mike the truth. He hangs back and tells him when Lucas and Dustin are out of earshot-possibly because he has insecurities about his place in their party. Will is even quiet during their discussion about Nancy and Steve. Will shows a touch of mischief when he races ahead of Dustin to win an X-Men comic and in season two when Jonathan allows him to trick or treat on his own and he tries to push the curfew a bit. The story establishes his vulnerability when he has to ride his bike beyond the safety of the nice neighborhood that his friends live in. There's quite a bit of empty road he has to travel on to get home. When Joyce reports him as missing, she tells Hopper about how Will was bullied by other children at school and even his own father (who called him derogatory and homophobic slurs because he didn't fit into Lonnie's narrow definition of masculinity).
Eleven is introduced after escaping Hawkins Lab wearing nothing but a hospital gown. She doesn't even have shoes. She was raised in a lab, isolated from decent, caring human beings. She was kept in a dark room with minimal lighting and furnishings. Brenner even bullied her by locking her in a dark closet when she refused to do things like killing a cat. He even limited her vocabulary-probably in order to limit her ability to communicate with others.
Plenty of super villain origin stories begin with them being bullied as children. Neither Will nor Eleven have shown malicious intent. When Eleven harmed or killed people, it was more of a reactionary or self defense thing. She never set out to actually cause anyone harm. Even when she broke Troy's arm, Troy was literally threatening the lives of Dustin and Mike. Her instincts are not to be aggressive or harm people. The fact that she refused to kill the cat demonstrates that. She also understands that the people at Hawkins lab are bad people. Why? Well, they lack of value for human life seems to clue her in (like when they kill Benny). Despite being raised and bullied by evil people, Eleven does have a sense of right and wrong. The idea that Brenner and his group want to use her as a weapon frightens her, just like the idea that the shadow monster wants to use Will as a spy frightens him.
Many people have theorized that Will may turn evil at some point. I don't see this happening. When he is in control, he never shows any desire to harm anyone. The most negative emotion he ever shows is frustration. When he finally admits to his mother that his drawing of the shadow monster was based on what he saw in his episodes, he breaks down emotionally as he tells her that it got him. Saying something out loud makes it real. That causes an emotional breakdown. This notion comes from personal experience. I remember a friend dying several years ago. I found out about his death when I saw it in a newspaper the night before the funeral. I didn't really have an emotional reaction until I went into work the next day and asked my manager if I could leave for a few hours to go to the funeral. I've also experienced a couple of personal traumas that I didn't react emotionally to until I told other people what had happened. Those things were difficult to talk about, but I had a breakdown similar to Will's. The fact that he takes Bob's advice and tells the Shadow Monster to "go away" shows that he at least hoped that it was all psychosomatic, and that he wasn't keeping the truth of the episodes to himself for malicious reasons. The memory loss, brain scans and facial expressions are all evidence that Will is not the one in control once he wakes up from the vine burning incident. There are moments when he seems to be able to break through and communicate, but the shadow monster is able to immediately re-take control. The morse code likely works because the shadow monster doesn't recognize it as a form of communication. Earlier in the scene, when the shadow monster has control of Will and he's screaming to be let go, the lights in the Byers home blink rapidly: exactly the way the demogorgan made them blink. This demonstrates that the Shadow Monster, not Will was demanding to be let go. The lights had a much more gentle blinking when Will interacted with them in the first season. So, no, I don't buy into the theory that Will himself will turn evil at some point.
Eleven similarly keeps the location of the gate to the Upside Down to herself during most of season one. She accidentally opening it when she made contact with the Demogorgan. Like Will, Eleven breaks down into tears when she tells Mike about it. Brenner doesn't want to kill Eleven, but he wants to manipulate and use her as a weapon to harm others. Brenner and his people have also been willing to kill others. This frightens her. The Shadow Monster doesn't want to actually kill Will, but it wants to manipulate and use him as a weapon to kill the people in Hawkins. This frightens Will (note the look on his face whenever he sees the Shadow Monster). That's another reason why I believe the shadow monster is an extension of Brenner. This is pure speculation, but it's entirely possible that the people at Hawkins Lab faked Will's death so they could retrieve him from the Upside Down and use him for their own devices. There is the scene where one of the scientists goes through the gate, only to be eaten by the Demogorgan. Maybe he was going to find Will. They had entered to Byers home and discovered evidence that he had been taken to the Upside Down in the shed.
Both of the tormented twins had "deaths" as discussed earlier in Mike's identical reaction to them and rebirth's through a portal from the Upside Down. Will had to be revived by Joyce and Hopper when they found him with a parasite (umbilical chord, perhaps? totally reaching here, I know) attached to him. They presumably carried him back through the gate when they brought him back to our dimension. Eleven was at least briefly unconscious after her apparent death. She literally crawled back through a placenta like portal into Hawkins Middle School.
Both Eleven and Will demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice their own lives to save the people they care about. Eleven saying goodbye to Mike before vanquishing the Demogorgan indicates that she believed she was about to die (that was the intention when it was just going to be a mini series). This next part is speculation, but Mike realized that closing the gate would kill Will if he was still connected to the hive mind. If Mike figured that out, Will must have known that as well. Once the Shadow Monster infected him, he did "just know things." It's not a stretch to conclude that Will knew closing the gate would be fatal for him. The D and D game in the first episode may have predicted this. Mike even tells Lucas that Will put himself at risk to save the party. Both acted very E.T. Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, Jean Grey, Leia, or original trilogy Luke Skywalker like in their actions. All of those characters took actions that they knew could cost them their lives to save the people they cared about.
If this theory that I have, that I don't actually believe turns out to be true, it would make Will and Eleven the Luke and Leia of Stranger Things. It makes the theory seem to fall on some very cliched tropes. But hey: it's not like Stranger things would ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever in a million years reference Star Wars (or X-Men or Lord of the Rings), right? Whatever happens, I do think that there's a team up coming soon between Eleven and Will soon. Mike did get caught by one on the tendrils in the tunnel, so maybe they'll have to work together to save him (Mike is the Sam to Will's Frodo and the Steve to Will's Bucky as well as the Scott to Eleven's Jean or the Han to Eleven's Leia). Dustin and Hopper both inhaled Upside Down dandruff, so they may start spouting the spores describe in the Montauk pilot.
So here's my theory, that other people likely have (and again, I don't actually believe): Will and Eleven-the most physically and mentally tormented characters in the show- are actually twins. We have yet to see these two characters interact when they are both in the same dimension and Will is conscious, but they are linked. There are people with theories that Eleven is not actually Jane Ives. This theory comes from the fact that when Eleven is talking to Terry in the void and says, "It's Jane, mama, I'm home," Terry replies "No!" before showing Eleven her circle vision. I Youtuber named The Fangirl has an in depth theory on that.
Joyce
The first part of my theory is pure speculation. This is about Joyce. Her fragile mental state (or at least reputation for having a fragile mental state) is referenced several times during the first season- and quietly in the second. Hopper's deputies talk about her being close to the edge for a long time. Jonathan mentions past troubles, as does Lonnie (though, I won't consider Lonnie a reliable source). Her troubles could simply be the result of being married to a jerk like Lonnie (who doesn't seem to have treated either of their children is a particularly loving manner), then trying to support her children on a cashier's meager salary.
Here's my speculation: she was pregnant with twins (in the case of the pilot, Eleven is two years younger than Will and his friends, so she wouldn't be a twin, but a younger sister. This is about the actual produced series though). Somehow Hawkins Lab (perhaps through medical tests) learned that her children had abilities and decided to take only one as to avoid detection. (I have another theory that the upside down and the Demogorgan from season one and the Shadow Monster from season two were somehow created by Brenner- which is why the monster didn't kill him). He approached Lonnie and Lonnie decided to give them the girl. They somehow scrambled Joyce's mind to make her forget (again, while I'm not talking about the pilot, there is mention that Eleven's abilities were the result of her mother's drug use- Joyce may have been heavily drugged- again, speculation. Lonnie seems to be trying really hard to convince Joyce (and everyone else) that things are all in her head when he shows up for Will's funeral. He also tries to convince Jonathan that she is sick. This felt like he'd been doing this for years.) , causing later anxiety issued. Lonnie, of course, resented the fact that Will didn't fit his narrow notion of masculinity. Joyce mentioned the names Lonnie called their son (Will could always turn out to be gay as the pilot script describes him as being confused about his identity, but I wouldn't consider males who embody toxic masculinity like Lonnie or Troy calling him homophobic slurs as evidence). Something as traumatic as having a child stolen, then being heavily drugged or perhaps, put through something very traumatic to manipulate her memory could have easily caused serious anxiety issues.
This is a bit of speculating, but what if Will's abilities are what allowed him to effect the lights while he was in the Upside down? What if those abilities happen to be in his DNA? The DNA from his mother's side of the family. The lights blink in a very distinct manner when Will is touching them from when the demogorgan is making an entrance. It is possible that any person making contact with the lights in the Upside Down would cause them to blink. Joyce happens to be with Hopper when Jonathan sees the lights blinking and knows that it is his mother. When he says "Mom?" Joyce is able to hear him, just as Will could hear Joyce when he was trapped in the dark dimension. I could be a connection unique to their family that allowed them to hear and sense each other. Hopper does not appear to hear Jonathan. There is also the fact Will actually answers back when Eleven finds him with her mind. Mike certainly thinks that he can here her a couple of times, and Terry Ives says "No!" when Eleven says "It's Jane," so that could be a coincidence.
The Demogorgan (s) violently kills most people it comes into contact with: Barb, Bob, the scientist that enters the Upside Down connected to a cable, and the scientist in the first scene of the first episode. Will is found without any blood on him. Joyce is able to make a fairly easy escape. When The Demogorgan traps Jonathan on the floor in the last episode of season one, it doesn't leave a scratch on him. It just sniffs him and drools on him. Jonathan had actually been trying to attack it. The demogorgan also leaves Eleven and Brenner (if the new information in season 2 is accurate) unharmed. Could it sense the DNA of Eleven, Will, Joyce and Jonathan, and want to use them? Could it sense that Brenner was the counterpart of the Shadow Monster in our dimension (If my theory is correct)? Those are a couple of things to consider...
While I'm talking about Joyce, I'll say that something that really connects Will and Eleven is the affect they have on certain characters. Joyce, is of course very motherly and affectionate toward both of them. She even addresses them with the same term of endearment. When she interacts with each of them for the first time after they leave the Upside Down, her first words are a joyful "Hey, Sweetheart!" When Eleven is in the sensory deprivation tank to try to contact Will and Barb, Joyce shows just as much protectiveness toward her as she shows toward Will. This could simply attest to Joyce being a caring and compassionate person. She clearly cares about Mike and Nancy's safety, but never shows the kind of outright affection for them that she shows for Eleven. While she clearly has a loving relationship with her older son Jonathan (plenty of mothers often blame the older siblings when something happens to a younger sibling); that relationship is distinct from her relationship with Will.
Mike
Mike is another character of whom Will and Eleven have a similar effect. During the first season, Mike is determined to find the missing Will, while taking the time to care for a traumatized Eleven. This arc is inverted in the second season when Mike is determined to find a missing Eleven while taking the time to care for a traumatized Will. He also has an identical reaction to both of their apparent deaths. When Will's fake body is pulled from the water, Mike takes it much harder than Lucas or Dustin. He runs home and cries in his mother's arms. When Eleven apparently dies from her defeat of the Demogorgan, Mike cries in his mother's arms. Now, I have no doubt that Mike would be devastated if something happened to Dustin or Lucas. He was pretty upset when Eleven knocked Lucas out despite the fact that the two boys had been having an intense fight and he jumped off a cliff (to certain death) to prevent Troy from cutting out Dustin's teeth. The Duffer Brothers didn't put in fake death scenes for Dustin and Lucas, though, did they?
Mike is also brought to tears twice in the the penultimate episode of season two. Which two characters bring him to tears? Yep, the tormented dual themselves. Mike has tears literally rolling down his cheeks as he recounts the day they met. It is a memory that started out sad and ended up happy. The tears make a quick return when Eleven makes her grand entrance at the end of the episode. It's not a huge leap to see that both Will and Eleven are incredibly important to Mike and he is important to each of them.
In addition to the images of Mike crying tears of joy and grief over his two friends, there are other images of Mike connecting the (theoretical) twins. The image of Mike starring at the empty tent where Eleven slept while Dustin and Lucas were play fighting (Season 1, Episode 8) bears a striking resemblance to him staring at Will's empty desk while Dustin and Lucas listen intently to Mr. Clarke's lecture (Season 2, Episode 4).
Eleven and Will are both clearly traumatized and suffer episodes: Eleven with her memories from the time in Hawkins Lab under Brenner's control and Will with his "now memories." Both characters have episodes triggered by startling moments. They are pulled out of their episodes by Mike. There is a moment (in Season 1, Episode 2) when Eleven is hiding in Mike's closet. She is reliving the memories of Brenner locking her in a solitary room when she refuses to kill a cat. (Good for Eleven, stand up for the kitties). This flashback plays exactly the way Hopper describes the PTSD he believes Will is suffering in Season Two. Eleven is trapped in the memory, reliving it until Mike snaps her out of it. This is similar to Will's episode (in Season 2, Episode 2). When bullies startle him, he is trapped in a "now memory." He runs behind a house to hide from the Shadow Monster. He is sitting in the same defensive position Eleven had in the aforementioned scene. Who brings him out of it? Mike!
One more question: who do we see each of the theoretical twins calling out to (in the second season) when they are trapped in the Upside Down? Mike! At the beginning of "Trick or Treat, Freak" there is a flashback to Eleven trapped in the Upside Down after defeating the Demogorgan. She is frightened and calls out to Mike, just like a frightened Will calls out to Mike when he is startled into the Upside Down later in the episode. When Will confides in Mike about his episodes and asks him not to tell the others because they wouldn't understand; Mike's replies the Eleven would. He even confides in Will about how he thinks he can sometimes see and hear Eleven. This is because Will can understand Mike's more personal issues, just as Eleven can. He certainly trusts Lucas and Dustin with his life, just like Harry Potter always trusted Ron and Hermione with his life. There were more person things that he only confided in with Ginny or Luna, just as Mike only confides in Will and Eleven when there are more deeply personal issues.
Just one more Mike related connection before I move on to Hopper. Mike is the person who make life saving decisions for both Will and Eleven in the season two finale. When Eleven volunteers to close the gate, Mike is the one who realizes that closing the gate would kill Will, and that they need to free him the the Shadow Monster's possession before closing the gate. He even throws in the idea of doing in a place Will doesn't know after Joyce figures out that they need to turn up the heat. Mike later comes up with the plan to distract the demodogs so Eleven can close the gate. The editing makes it appear as though the action was the final jolt needed to free Will as the Shadow Monster leaves his body the moment Mike and the other light the tentacles in the tunnel on fire. Mike's actions made the difference between life and death for Will and Eleven. The Shadow Monster fighting so violently to keep control of Will may have killed him if it went on much longer. Considering how the demodogs had been able to decimate so many Hawkins lab employees including several heavily armed military personnel in the previous episode, they would have easily taken out Hopper and Eleven. Even if Eleven has survived the demodog attack, the energy drain may have caused her to die while trying to close the gate. In the end, both characters are drained (but alive) after their respective experiences. Eleven embracing Hopper, mirrors Will embracing Joyce.
Hopper
The final major character I'll discuss in a mirror relationship with Will and Eleven is Hopper. He does what Lonnie (who is Eleven's actual father if this theory that I don't actually believe turns out to be true) and Brenner should have been doing for they hypothetical twins. While Lonnie fails to so much as return Joyce's calls until he thinks he can profit off of Will's "death," Hopper takes and personal interest and goes above and beyond normal police work to find Will. The Hawkins police chief even risks his own life more than once. When Will goes in for a check up at Hawkins Lab in the second season, Hopper is right there with them (Will and Joyce). Doctor Owens even calls Hopper "pops," possible mistaking him as Will's father. At the very least, Owens recognizes that Hopper is a father figure. The fact that Hopper literally adopts Eleven and gives her the bracelet made of Sarah's old hair tie at the end of season two, speaks for itself as far as him being a father figure to her. He treats Eleven with kindness rather that the manipulation she knew from Dr. Brenner.
Hopper's motivation in helping the tormented twins comes from the memory of his daughter, Sarah. There are visual connections. Eleven and Will own identical stuffed lions. The stuffed lion in Will's "Castle Byers" causes Hopper flashback to his daughter's stuffed tiger. This visual shows that Will and Eleven have a symbolic (visual) connection to Sarah, but an identical (visual) connection to each other. They also each have their own unique visual connection to Sarah. The first shot of Hopper's introduction scene is a stick figure drawing done by Sarah. The first thing that Hopper sees in Eleven's cell at Hawkins lab is a stick figure drawing. There scene where Hopper and Joyce rescue Will is intercut with flashbacks to Sarah's death. The loss of his daughter motivates his actions when it comes to the tormented twins.
Minor Characters
There are a couple of minor characters who have mirror reactions to Will and Eleven. Troy uses homophobic slurs when referring to Will, even after his supposed death. Why? Will doesn't fit Troy's narrow definition of masculinity. When he's at the police station after Eleven breaks his arm, he states that Even doesn't even look like a girl. With her shaved head, she doesn't fit his narrow definition of femininity.
Finally, there's Dr. Brenner. He takes away their individuality when they go missing, simply describing them as "the boy" and "the girl." Brenner also practices deception in order to get people to stop looking for Will and prevent them from looking for Eleven in the first place. He fakes Will's death and (one of his agents) murders Benny and makes it look like a suicide.
Just a general note: Will is short for William, and El is short for Eleven. When people who care about them call out their names, it kind of sounds alike.
Twin Journeys
Now that I've discussed the Mirror effect on certain characters, I'll talk about their journeys. Both Will and Eleven go missing in season one. They spend the season hiding from a malicious force. Will is hiding from the demogorgan and Eleven is hiding from the evil scientists at Hawkins Lab. I have a theory that the Upside Down and it's creatures are creations of Brenner and his team, but that's another post.
Mike, Dustin, and Lucas found Eleven when they were looking for Will. The demogorgan found Will, when it was looking for Eleven after she opened the gate. I think that the creature specifically targeted Will (for the sake of this theory that I don't really believe) because it sensed the same DNA that was in the girl (Eleven) who made contact with it and opened the gate. First of all, the light on Mike's front porch flickers just as Will is leaving. Yes, the news reports the next day said that there were power outages all over the county, but why that light at that moment? The light on Will's bike wasn't connected to the power lines. His is the only light that flickers as the demogorgan approaches and it flickers in the same pattern as the light on Mike's house and the lights in the Byers home just before demogorgan attacks. There is also one very significant difference between Will and the other victims that were taken or killed by the demogorgan: prior to the attack, he wasn't bleeding. Barb bled into the Harrington pool. The Hawkins employee that Brenner sent through the gate wasn't bleeding, but was entering the Demogorgan's territory. It's pretty obvious that he was bleeding when the Demogorgan finished with him. Eleven caused the brains of the Benny killing agents to explode. Nancy and Jonathan cut their hands to lure it into a trap. Two other people who disappeared had been hunting, so there was likely some blood around. The demogorgan normally seems interested in feeding, but it doesn't touch Chester, Will's dog. When Will disappeared into the Upside Down, he was trapped in a closed shed, yet he didn't seem to have so much as a scratch from the Demogorgan. Maybe he was able to disable it long enough by shooting it point blank with the shotgun he was holding. For one reason or another, Will didn't suffer the same fate as many of people who came into contact with it. The other victims, including Barb all appeared to have suffered injuries before incubating demodogs. Will wasn't even bleeding when Hopper and Joyce found him, despite the fact that the Demogorgan violently destroyed Castle Byers to get to him. The same goes for Eleven. She isn't bleeding when Benny finds her. She was the closest to the Demogorgan and stuck under water when the gate opened, but the monster goes after the employees in the lab.
Just as Mike, Lucas, and Dustin find Will when they are looking for Will, Hopper ends up tracking Eleven and the monsters (Brenner and the goons at Hawkins Lab) when he is looking for Will. While interviewing Earl about Benny's death, Earl gives a physical description that could describe Will when he is describing Eleven. Although Earl doesn't think that Eleven is Will, he becomes less certain when Hopper presses. Could this hint at the theory that I have and don't actually believe?
I think that the monster wanted the tormented twins alive because they have (innate in Will's case) powers. The Shadow Monster could use those powers to create stronger minions (demodogs) and more fully open the gate to fully take over our dimension. The Shadow monster and the Upside Down are both creations of Brenner's and reflections of his most evil desires. That is why the Demogorgan didn't actually kill him at the end of season 1.
Throughout the first season, Will mostly hides from the Demogorgan in the (Upside Down version) of the woods in Hawkins. Eleven hides from the monster that is the government until Hopper takes her in. Even then, she's still secluded hiding in a cabin in the woods, just as Will hid in the secluded Castle Byers in the woods. Both of the tormented twins has to use some good survival instincts.
Visuals
Back to the tormented twins. There are other visuals beyond their stuffed lions that connect them. During the first season, they are both hiding from monsters. Eleven is hiding from Brenner and the others from Hawkins lab while Will is hiding from the demogorgan. Where do they hide? In forts. Eleven hides in the fort that Mike built in his basement, while Will hides in Castle Byers, a fort that he and Jonathan built. Eleven spends her first night at the Wheeler home curled in a fetal position in the fort. When Eleven contacts Will, he's in the same fetal position while hiding in his fort. Both forts are destroyed by the monsters. The Hawkins lab employees take down the fort and carry it away in boxes, while the demogorgan destroys Castle Byers when it takes Will. The pillow fort is rebuilt by Mike and Castle Byers may or may not still stand in our dimension.
Eleven appears to experience the same kind of "now memories" in the first season that Will experiences in the second season. It seems like her contact with the demogorgan that resulted in the gate being open gave her the ability to "just know things" about the Upside Down. She knows that Will and Barb were taken when she sees their pictures. She knows that Will is hiding at his own home. She just lacks the vocabulary to explain it verbally, so she uses visuals. She flips the Dungeons and Dragons board upside down and shows Mike, Lucas, and Dustin Will's game character on it. The image of Eleven concentrating on the board then the zoom in as she calls up the image of Will in her mind is nearly identical to the way Will calls up the image of Hopper trapped in the tunnel under the pumpkin patch in season two.
There is the moment in episode four when Will is able to make visual contact with Joyce through a portal that doesn't completely open. He may with unknowingly created the portal with abilities he isn't aware he possesses. The emotional desperation the make contact with his mother could have created the same manifestation that Brenner's emotional abuse (locking in in a closet, for example) created in Eleven (like when she kills the orderlies trying to lock her in). We see Eleven opening the portal with her telekinetic abilities in a season two flashback. Maybe if he had been aware of his own abilities and not severely weakened from hunger, thirst and cold, he may have been able to escape at the moment. As it happens, channeling Will in that moments caused Eleven to collapse. It is the last time that Will is able to make any kind of contact with his mother before he is rescued. Joyce even said that she couldn't feel him like she could before. We see Chester the dog go out to Castle Byres and lay down in the spot we see Will in a couple episodes later. So, opening a portal probably caused Will to expend what little strength he had and he spent the rest of his time in the Upside Down collapsed in his fort.
The audience get visuals of Will's 'now memories" showing the infestation spreading under Hawkins. Like Eleven in season one, Will is unable to explain this concept verbally as he only sees several brief flashes rather than the whole picture. Like Eleven, he has to use visuals to communicate to Joyce and Hopper what he sees (his drawings that ended up covering the Byers home. Will got these "now memories" or "true sight" just like Eleven did-direct contact with an entity of the Upside Down. In this theory that I don't actually believe, that Will and Eleven are twins, they likely already had this ability, but it took traumatic experiences for this "true sight" to manifest.
There is also the mirror in the Byers bathroom. In episode 7 of the first season, Eleven is at the sink with the water running looking at her reflection after she is unable to see into the Upside Down to contact Will and Barb. In the final moments of the first season when Will coughs up the demogorgan larva, he is looking into the same mirror with the same expression. The two characters are reflections of one another.
Eleven and Will both approach Hawkins lab with a similar sense of apprehension. The shut down. Eleven's reaction to the towering facility at the end of season two (as she is about to re-enter for the first time since her escape) mirrors Will's reaction at the beginning of the season when he is about to go in for his check up. When they are inside the facility, both are wearing hospital gowns and have electrodes on their heads measuring their brain waves. There are scientists observing them and recording everything on video, essentially reducing them to lab rats. While the scientists observing Will are much less sinister than they scientists observing Eleven, it is still an invasive process.
Innocence and Vulnerability
Will and Eleven are arguably the most innocent and vulnerable characters in the show. It may have even been a deliberate choice to cast actors who are two years younger than the other kid actors (haven't seen the Duffer brothers comment on that that, but Noah and Millie are about two years younger than Finn, Gaten and Caleb). Both Will and Eleven are introduced as vulnerable, but not without a touch of mischief. Although there is a bit of peer pressure from Lucas and Dustin to not tell Mike that he only rolled a 7, Will does tell Mike the truth. He hangs back and tells him when Lucas and Dustin are out of earshot-possibly because he has insecurities about his place in their party. Will is even quiet during their discussion about Nancy and Steve. Will shows a touch of mischief when he races ahead of Dustin to win an X-Men comic and in season two when Jonathan allows him to trick or treat on his own and he tries to push the curfew a bit. The story establishes his vulnerability when he has to ride his bike beyond the safety of the nice neighborhood that his friends live in. There's quite a bit of empty road he has to travel on to get home. When Joyce reports him as missing, she tells Hopper about how Will was bullied by other children at school and even his own father (who called him derogatory and homophobic slurs because he didn't fit into Lonnie's narrow definition of masculinity).
Eleven is introduced after escaping Hawkins Lab wearing nothing but a hospital gown. She doesn't even have shoes. She was raised in a lab, isolated from decent, caring human beings. She was kept in a dark room with minimal lighting and furnishings. Brenner even bullied her by locking her in a dark closet when she refused to do things like killing a cat. He even limited her vocabulary-probably in order to limit her ability to communicate with others.
Plenty of super villain origin stories begin with them being bullied as children. Neither Will nor Eleven have shown malicious intent. When Eleven harmed or killed people, it was more of a reactionary or self defense thing. She never set out to actually cause anyone harm. Even when she broke Troy's arm, Troy was literally threatening the lives of Dustin and Mike. Her instincts are not to be aggressive or harm people. The fact that she refused to kill the cat demonstrates that. She also understands that the people at Hawkins lab are bad people. Why? Well, they lack of value for human life seems to clue her in (like when they kill Benny). Despite being raised and bullied by evil people, Eleven does have a sense of right and wrong. The idea that Brenner and his group want to use her as a weapon frightens her, just like the idea that the shadow monster wants to use Will as a spy frightens him.
Many people have theorized that Will may turn evil at some point. I don't see this happening. When he is in control, he never shows any desire to harm anyone. The most negative emotion he ever shows is frustration. When he finally admits to his mother that his drawing of the shadow monster was based on what he saw in his episodes, he breaks down emotionally as he tells her that it got him. Saying something out loud makes it real. That causes an emotional breakdown. This notion comes from personal experience. I remember a friend dying several years ago. I found out about his death when I saw it in a newspaper the night before the funeral. I didn't really have an emotional reaction until I went into work the next day and asked my manager if I could leave for a few hours to go to the funeral. I've also experienced a couple of personal traumas that I didn't react emotionally to until I told other people what had happened. Those things were difficult to talk about, but I had a breakdown similar to Will's. The fact that he takes Bob's advice and tells the Shadow Monster to "go away" shows that he at least hoped that it was all psychosomatic, and that he wasn't keeping the truth of the episodes to himself for malicious reasons. The memory loss, brain scans and facial expressions are all evidence that Will is not the one in control once he wakes up from the vine burning incident. There are moments when he seems to be able to break through and communicate, but the shadow monster is able to immediately re-take control. The morse code likely works because the shadow monster doesn't recognize it as a form of communication. Earlier in the scene, when the shadow monster has control of Will and he's screaming to be let go, the lights in the Byers home blink rapidly: exactly the way the demogorgan made them blink. This demonstrates that the Shadow Monster, not Will was demanding to be let go. The lights had a much more gentle blinking when Will interacted with them in the first season. So, no, I don't buy into the theory that Will himself will turn evil at some point.
Eleven similarly keeps the location of the gate to the Upside Down to herself during most of season one. She accidentally opening it when she made contact with the Demogorgan. Like Will, Eleven breaks down into tears when she tells Mike about it. Brenner doesn't want to kill Eleven, but he wants to manipulate and use her as a weapon to harm others. Brenner and his people have also been willing to kill others. This frightens her. The Shadow Monster doesn't want to actually kill Will, but it wants to manipulate and use him as a weapon to kill the people in Hawkins. This frightens Will (note the look on his face whenever he sees the Shadow Monster). That's another reason why I believe the shadow monster is an extension of Brenner. This is pure speculation, but it's entirely possible that the people at Hawkins Lab faked Will's death so they could retrieve him from the Upside Down and use him for their own devices. There is the scene where one of the scientists goes through the gate, only to be eaten by the Demogorgan. Maybe he was going to find Will. They had entered to Byers home and discovered evidence that he had been taken to the Upside Down in the shed.
Archetype Hero's Journey
Both of the tormented twins had "deaths" as discussed earlier in Mike's identical reaction to them and rebirth's through a portal from the Upside Down. Will had to be revived by Joyce and Hopper when they found him with a parasite (umbilical chord, perhaps? totally reaching here, I know) attached to him. They presumably carried him back through the gate when they brought him back to our dimension. Eleven was at least briefly unconscious after her apparent death. She literally crawled back through a placenta like portal into Hawkins Middle School.
Both Eleven and Will demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice their own lives to save the people they care about. Eleven saying goodbye to Mike before vanquishing the Demogorgan indicates that she believed she was about to die (that was the intention when it was just going to be a mini series). This next part is speculation, but Mike realized that closing the gate would kill Will if he was still connected to the hive mind. If Mike figured that out, Will must have known that as well. Once the Shadow Monster infected him, he did "just know things." It's not a stretch to conclude that Will knew closing the gate would be fatal for him. The D and D game in the first episode may have predicted this. Mike even tells Lucas that Will put himself at risk to save the party. Both acted very E.T. Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, Jean Grey, Leia, or original trilogy Luke Skywalker like in their actions. All of those characters took actions that they knew could cost them their lives to save the people they cared about.
If this theory that I have, that I don't actually believe turns out to be true, it would make Will and Eleven the Luke and Leia of Stranger Things. It makes the theory seem to fall on some very cliched tropes. But hey: it's not like Stranger things would ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever in a million years reference Star Wars (or X-Men or Lord of the Rings), right? Whatever happens, I do think that there's a team up coming soon between Eleven and Will soon. Mike did get caught by one on the tendrils in the tunnel, so maybe they'll have to work together to save him (Mike is the Sam to Will's Frodo and the Steve to Will's Bucky as well as the Scott to Eleven's Jean or the Han to Eleven's Leia). Dustin and Hopper both inhaled Upside Down dandruff, so they may start spouting the spores describe in the Montauk pilot.
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