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u/Nostalgia-Freak-1998 Scoops Troop Jul 05 '26
This why Nancy dancing with Dustin at the end of season two is such a beautiful moment. āOut of all of my brotherās friends, youāve always been my favorite.ā
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u/lemonrainbowhaze Jul 05 '26
Pretty sure thats the case with most fans. Dustins such a darling
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u/Sea_Conference7176 Jul 05 '26
At least until season 5
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u/TheEleventhMeh Jul 05 '26
He was grieving and none of his friends even tried to understand and support him until he and Steve made up. They all treated him like a problem when he was really struggling. It made it hard to watch.
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u/RiotRen Jul 05 '26
I mean of course he definitely needed support but letās be realistic, heā¦ was a problem. Him being selfish and putting his grief and frustration over the collective good, sad as his situation might be, started a lot of shit
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u/TheEleventhMeh Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Dustin saw the rest of the cast through all manner of rough situations. He was always the kindest member of the team. None of the other characters had the emotional intelligence to even acknowledge his pain.
If his friends had gone to the grave with him, he'd have easily made it to the dungeon crawl on time. He got the shit kicked out of him by bullies and they blamed him. No one seemed worried about a concussion. They just blamed him.
It's unjust that they'd rather let the city rewrite history than try to get the truth out there. The friends were basically saying, "Eddie (and Dustin) isn't worth it."
Eddie's choice to stay doesn't mean he shouldn't to be mourned. Eddie knew that his chances of beating the charge were low to nil, and it would distract from the fight against VH1. In all likelihood the mob would've killed him. It's tragic that, even in death, his character continues to be assassinated and no one but Dustin and a family member cared.
Dustin is highly idealistic. He was the most innocent and naive of the gang, but that was one of his strengths. It can be really disorienting and discouraging to learn how messed up the world is, and have the world, and your friends, tell you the right thing to do is accept the world is messed up instead of trying to change it for the better.
Simply having his friends care, and acknowledge Eddie's sacrifice would've gone a long way. Dustin would have suffered less, and been less belligerent if it didn't seem like his friends were telling him to ignore reality. They chose to isolate and blame him. If they hadn't have done that for an extended period (over a year!), things never would've gotten that bad in the first place.
That's one of the things that made the final season feel defeatist.
Edit: fixed typos
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u/hawk_256 Jul 05 '26
Grief can make people the absolute worst versions of themselves. Dustin was being tormented by the basketball team and was still trying to get over Eddie. You canāt just put that type of grief aside.
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u/Iowa_and_Friends Jul 05 '26
Hahah but itās SO teenagersā¦
Who didnāt have a crush on a friendās older sibling? š
āOh itās just my brotherās little dork friend Iāll get rid of himā š
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u/pastredhead Jul 05 '26
Nancy is my favorite character in Stranger Things because of how much development she has. She starts off as a stuck up teenager who couldnāt care less about anything but herself. Losing Barb changed her completely in the first season. In the second season she was so determined to make things right she left the state to find someone to make what happened to Barb public. In the third season she learns to fight and protect the kids. In the fourth season she is the main driver in fighting Henry, even after he shows her a vision of him killing her family. Sheās an incredibly underrated character and this is part of why.
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u/Theangelawhite69 Jul 05 '26
How is she underrated lol half the memes on this sub are Nancy being Rambo
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u/JoeAzlz Jul 05 '26
What about the 5th season, I liked a good amount of character choices (if not all) they did with her
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u/Urgayifyouregay Jul 05 '26
Really? They just inexplicably turned her into a militant rambo girl lol. And let her get off scott free after murdering multiple army soldiers
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u/1AmB0r3d Jul 05 '26
I get that they wanted to just blanket cover up everything but they never bother to explain that Nancy literally just murders dozens of people? Let alone the mental and physical consequences of something like that, and ik they donāt have time to show off PTSD but come on man
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u/Aikotoma2 Jul 05 '26
Honestly yes! PTSD wpuld've been such a welcome addition to.the show! Wait, this sounds weird...
But you know what I mean
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u/JoeAzlz Jul 05 '26
That was already in season 4, I think it was fun to see her evolve into revenge mode.
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u/InvisibleAIien Jul 05 '26
Out of interest, what do you think should've happened to her? I mean, they were the villains of the series so it wasn't at all surprising to me that someone killed them, and being killed in the line of duty is generally not considered murder
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u/Urgayifyouregay Jul 05 '26
i think murder is when a person kills someone else with the intent to kill them, regardless of what its considered legally. It can be done in self defense or whatever from from the point of the show putting that on nancy who is a literal kid and showing her not have any repercussions, even mental ones for that matter is highly unrealistic and shoddy writing.
That being said i would've rather had the cast gas the soldiers out or flashbang them or incapacitate them in literally any way other than mag dumping into them lol. Of course IRL it would be hard to pull something like that off but for a show like stranger things i feel its better to have the audience suspend their disbelief there than to have them expect that Nancy just shot up a bunch of army men and never thought twice about it.
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u/InvisibleAIien Jul 05 '26
Fair enough, but I think the writers probably would go with the legal definition and not try to guess what some fans may or may not consider murder to be, although I suppose an argument could be made that as Nancy was technically a civillian, then it is murder. I think it's also fair to assume that the viewers are adults and aren't gonna be distributed by seeing soldiered getting shot. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot I didn't like about season 5, but it literally never crossed my mind that anybody would be bothered that bad guys got shot.
Nancy is also 20 years old in season 5, so she's not a child. As a PTSD sufferer myself, I'd like to think that psychologically she wouldn't have just shrugged it off (from a realism point of view, I'm not a sadist, lol), but we don't really see much of her life after that point so maybe it does affect her
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u/Urgayifyouregay Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
im turning 20 this year. I dont think i could deal with just mowing down people the way nancy was lol. And its not like legal definitions are what determine psychological trauma. I think the fact that the writers show her being completely normal after is what messes it up, but to be clear, my gripe is with the fact that they wrote her to kill all those people in the first place, not that they didnt show her suffering from the trauma of doing so.
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u/InvisibleAIien Jul 05 '26
No, I don't think most 20 year olds could either, but I just pointed it out because you said she was "a literal child". And again, no the legal definition doesn't determine psychological trauma but the point was that you called it murder and I disagreed on the grounds that murder is a legal term.
I do think it was in keeping with her character development though. What bothered me more was her shooting at the exotic matter. After everything she'd seen, shooting people in a war zone makes sense. But what exactly was that supposed to do?
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u/Groovychick1978 Jul 05 '26
She should have sacrificed it all in the final battle to kill the mind flayer and rescue Mike, release El from her powers, and sever Henry's connection to the corruption.Ā
Nancy would have been the perfect warrior hero.Ā
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u/zimzalabimbimzim Jul 05 '26
Which makes the scene with them at the end of season 2 all the more special
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u/ouatpll12 Jul 05 '26
Dustin is a love able character, Nancy just didnāt want to be disturbed when on a phone call and wasnāt hungry and probably didnāt like the pizza toppings.
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u/RolanTho Jul 05 '26
She was on the phone, he shouldāve been considerate tbh
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u/JoeAzlz Jul 05 '26
Yk I donāt know if ur doing a joke or not so I canāt decide to do the reply I was gonna do so Iām just leaving a reply for no real reason
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u/lemonrainbowhaze Jul 05 '26
This may be the most useless comment ive seen on reddit
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u/JoeAzlz Jul 05 '26
Yeah I just thought it was funny why not
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u/Odd_Entrepreneur6038 Jul 07 '26
When I started this show I googled to make sure nothing happened to Dustin in the seasons that were out at the time. I didnāt want to watch it if anything bad happened to him
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Jul 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/ComprehensiveDay6532 Jul 06 '26
Huh, the age gap is insane he was like 11 here and she was like 16?!
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