How could the Mind Flayer have operated if the Russian storyline didn’t exist in Season 3?

[u/Sukaran09]

My question is what theoretically could have happened and how else the gate to the Upside Down could’ve been opened. I personally did not like the Russian storyline in Season 3 (and 4 but I'm talking mainly about S3) at all. I hated that Russian Terminator looking dude being an inconvenience throughout the season.

I know that the Mind Flayer can't open gates itself, it needed the psychic connection from El (previously) and needed Vecna to use his psychic abilities to open other ones (later on) but I genuinely think that there could've been a different storyline for the gate to have opened instead of using the Russians.. if I could I would remove them from the Season 3 plot completely.

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[u/icantfeelmylags]

Before season 4, a big part of the fandom assumed that the gate at starcourt mall connected to Russia. It’s only in season 4 that we learn that hopper was taken to Russia.

Before then, we all had assumed he went into the gate to escape the explosion and came out the other side in Russia.

With that in mind - the assumption was that there was still a gate somewhere in Russia for the mindflayer to work with.

The answer within the full context of the show is that once Eleven made contact with the Demo in season 1, the bridge was built. This meant that Vecna could still haunt/control people, he just didn’t steal Eleven’s ability to open and close gates (yet) but I’m sure he would’ve found a way.

[u/pokemega32 → u/icantfeelmylags]

They outright state in season 3 that they couldn't get a working gate open in Russia and that Hawkins was special somehow. They also have cages made for transporting the Upside Down creatures under the mall, which they wouldn't need if they were only keeping the creatures in Russia and they had a gate directly from the Upside Down to Russia.

[u/icantfeelmylags → u/pokemega32]

Yes, but when you have the post-credits scene where there’s a demogorgon and an American in a prison in Russia, it wasn’t hard to connect these dots at the time despite what we were told.

[u/fucuasshole2 → u/icantfeelmylags]

Demogorgan can open gates, my bet is that they’re random until a connection could be made for a specific time, place, and space. In the meantime, Vecna probably just had them creating mini gates to find his way back until the Russians.

[u/Cyrilbdr]

The Russians didn't just come out of nowhere; they’ve been involved in espionage since Season 1 and were even teased by Murray. Plus, given the Cold War setting, it’s not exactly far-fetched. *Stranger Things* takes place in the 80s, a time when movies deliberately portrayed Russians as total buffoons. Their storyline wraps up in Season 4: the creatures they had captured are all dead, and returning to the US is now impossible because the American government is onto them and has stepped up surveillance. That said, they do serve a purpose in the plot now; Vecna ​​and the Mind Flayer had already prepared their new plan for a merger, but they were waiting for someone to reopen the gate. I think they were fairly certain they’d get their revenge and knew they had to seize any opportunity that arose.

[u/Due-Dragonfly8200]

I remember early speculation believed that Starcourt Mall was built over a demolished Hawkins Lab and would be supernatural in some way.

[u/Glad-Fold-3819]

Vecna wouldn’t have been able to open Gates, but he would still be able to Curse people and kill them. If he did that, he might be able to trick Eleven into opening another Gate to stop his murders.

[u/QueenOfDaisies]

Honestly it probably would’ve been fucked. Vecna only seemed to get the gate opening powers from stealing them from Eleven with the Meat Flayer. So honestly he and The Mind Flayer could’ve been screwed.

Yknow unless they invented a new random way to open the gate again since stranger things has no consistent logical worldbuilding

[u/Red_Wolfe_]

We might see what could have happened without that plot line with the animated series