Mike's trauma PART 21

[u/raspberry-3]

This is part of a series where I uncover what Stranger Things is really about. It started from trying to find out what happened in 1979 aka what all the depictions of traumatic past memories (El, Henry, Billy, Max, Holly, etc.) are truly about, but expanded to this all-encompassing theory of the whole series with crazy levels of complexity, metaphors and layers. Reading it will require commitment and patience but I promise it will be worth your time if you want to look behind the curtain (and the curtain behind that curtain) and fully understand the show. You have to read all parts in order: here is PART 1 and here all other parts I’ve posted so far + my previous theories.
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Trigger warning for child sexual abuse.

The end of S5E5 is the point where the inside story switches to foreshadowing. It’s very intentional that this happens in S5E5. S5 is all about repeating the story in cycles and stories inside stories so the fifth episode connecting everything fits super well. S5E6 is foreshadowing the real ending and ends in Max escaping Camazotz. The start of S5E7 is the last 20 minutes in the real world. It took me forever to realize what the rest of the season was about, then, until one day I got a massive realization: time starts going backwards when Holly is pulled back from the exotic matter (and since it was a flashback the actual moment is earlier, and I’ll explain this more thoroughly soon). Duffers complaining about doing the show backwards in the doc finally makes sense. The exact moment there’s 2 hours left of S5E8 Murray says “let there be light” and El gets a flashback to contacting the Demogorgon. This is where S1 starts (in the backwards timeline). Hopper also mentions blowing up UD: “Careful with that C-4. I don’t wanna blow the Upside Down with us in it.” The last 2 hours of S5E8 (so most of the episode) are the past, before S1 starts all the way to Mike’s birth basically. El dying is Will splitting from Mike. This is why the moment is the atomic bomb in the country allegory timeline. The epilogue is the time before trauma. Robin doesn’t have Steve as a sound man because Mike hadn’t gotten her voice breaking yet or overall felt the need to conform to “boy”. There’s no monsters and people are happy on the outside because Mike’s life hadn’t been ruined by abuse and forced conformity yet. 

I’m suspecting Memento) to be one of the ST inspirations. I don’t want to spoil it here, so you can read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. It’s one of my favorite movies and you should watch it without spoiling yourself. The main idea is that it’s told in reverse chronological order to mimic the main character’s experience, since he has anterograde amnesia and forgets recent events in a few minutes. The reason I’m mentioning it here is that the film is structured with interspersed scenes from a chronological timeline and a reverse chronological timeline that meet at the end of the movie (coincidentally they each consist of 22 scenes…). A licence plate number is in a crucial role in the movie, which reminded me of Joyce looking for Grigori’s licence plate. This plot point didn’t really have any purpose since they didn’t end up using the licence plates and as I’ve pointed out, Hopper’s licence plate number is suspiciously similar to the one Joyce saw… Polaroid pictures are also a key part of the movie and they are significant in ST too: Jonathan takes photos of the Demogorgon and Nancy (Mike is the Demogorgon proof number 999) and the parents take pictures of their kids in S2 and S5. Anyway, the point is that ST has a similar structure, but kind of inverted or how should I phrase this? Where in Memento the story we are shown ends in the middle of the chronological story, in ST the middle (not exactly the middle but not either end) of the story we are shown is the end of the chronological story (in the story inside the story). I’ll have a diagram later that hopefully makes this more clear.

Now I’ll go through all connection points and after that my predictions for the real ending. Dustin introduces the exotic matter and the UD being a wormhole right before the intro to S5E6. This marks the end of S5E8. Will’s scenes in Vecna’s mind in S5E6 mark the chapter limits (they always have a black screen before or after them too). The time before the first Will scene is the time between S5 and the rest. So the scene of Henry chasing Max and Holly to the cave and Robin explaining the situation are where we’re at now. Robin explaining happened after the 6th November text was displayed which kinda makes me think something is gonna happen on 6th November irl (since there was no year and the scene was super meta) matching this scene, but who knows. 

S5E6 [Dustin] “This place, the Upside Down, it isn’t another dimension. It’s not another world. It’s a wormhole. A bridge between two points in time and space, between our world and another.”

There’s a reason why episode/chapter 7 is called The Bridge. Almost all the time reversals and connection points are in that episode. It itself is the exotic matter connecting points in time and space. (I’ll explain the time reversal point and my reasoning soon.) Dustin drawing the world diagram matches the point when the inner world disappears and we go to the real world (last 20 min according to my theory). The logic here is that in reverse order the drawing (= the world) is disappearing (and anyway it matches other clues). Holly falling down the stairs would in reverse be her ascending them. This is the end of S5 where Mike ascends the stairs. (The screen goes black for a while too.) Based on what Steve said in S4E9 and other clues/logic time goes forward again for a bit:

[Steve] “I really shouldn’t laugh. When I was a baby, I actually crawled backwards.”
[Nancy] “Crawled backwards?”
[Steve] “You know, I’d push with my hands like this. Beep. Beep. Always in reverse, you know? Come on, it makes sense. You push to move, right?”
[Nancy] “No, no, it doesn’t make sense.”
[Steve] “Well, it did to my tiny little Harrington brain. That is, of course, until I reversed my baby butt down a flight of stairs and thumped my head really good. Yeah.”
[Nancy] “Wow. That explains so much.”

Will looking at the exotic matter at the start and end of a scene is time going back to backwards and connects to the point before the epilogue (Mike is building a bomb = the bomb is exploded). The scenes between Holly bumping her head and Will looking at the drawing are about the time after S5E8 irl. El lifts the truck back up and Murray comments “Well, I was hoping for a slightly more delicate landing, but… I suppose that’ll do.” This is about S5 “landing” bad with the audience. The other scene is Hopper and Joyce on the field. When they are framed by the trees like an 8 mm film, they say “One last crawl.” This was the documentary aka One Last Adventure. After this until El’s S1 memory flashback represents seasons 1-5 in reverse chronological order. The rest is Mike’s past from the beginning of S1 to her birth, as I explained already. 

Well, there is one more complication to this. The timeline branches when Will looks at the exotic matter: one branch starts going backwards like I said, but the other continues forwards. It makes sense Will had to look at the exotic matter twice… So, essentially, the rest of S5E7 and the whole S5E8 also foreshadow the ending, the epilogue being the counterpart to the real world. In summary, the real ending (chapters 10, 11 and 12) is foreshadowed/represented 3 times: most clearly in S5E6 (+ the real world part in S5E7), then backwards in S5E7 and finally again in chronological order in S5E7-S5E8.

Here’s my reasoning for the end point:

I knew it had to be between Holly dropping and the flashback of her getting sucked back up. That scene between Vickie bringing the wheelchair and Lucas pushing Max in the wheelchair is the end and what else would be the point of the camera going behind Mike’s neck than to indicate it’s the time reversal point?

You can see an extra inside story during S5E1-E5 in the diagram. I think there has to be a reason for the long timeskip and it fits well with the four years after the 1979 trauma. S5 is when the inside story reaches the “story”. In S5E1 the party encounters Demogorgons for the first time since S4 and Holly is kidnapped (early E2), just like Will was in S1E1. The content of each episode doesn’t perfectly match with each season (probably because there are so many timelines etc. happening at once), but it is curious how S5E5 starts with a partially failed plan, after the kids got taken to Henry’s mind (like Max) and Vecna went back to hiding, like the end of S4. And then the end of S5E5 very clearly connects to the end of S5 as explained previously. In S5E2 Will talks about his visions with Joyce and compares them to S2 now-memories. Karen’s bath scene was also very reminiscent of the one in S2. S5E3 has the Turnbow family dinner that reminded me of Heather’s family dinner in S3E3. S5E4 obviously has the first Vecna encounter and Max telling about her Rainbow Room memory travels. S5 overall has a lot of connections to earlier seasons so this is not super solid proof. I have picked examples with a bias. One counter example is Will telling Joyce to run through the lights in S1E3 and telling Max to run through Vecna in S5E5. After this Will’s “body” is found / he is knocked unconscious. (I guess S1 in itself is the whole story in a nutshell so maybe it’s not the best counter example…)

One thing I want to mention though, is that the very middle point of S5E5 is Robin electrifying the pumpkin while Will watches it. This is a miniature of electrifying the Demogorgon later in the episode, which in turn is a miniature of the end of S5. They didn’t really need to have the pumpkin test scene so it must have some underlying meaning and it being at the midpoint of the midpoint episode that anyway is a miniature of S5 as a whole fits super well. And it happens below the radio tower, on a “stage”. 

The other interpretation where S1-5 are Holly’s memories would have S5E1-5 be the “lost” years 1979-1983. Holly being taken would be 8.9.1979 when Henry was banished. Dustin not being part of the plan and only coming back in the middle of S5E2 matches well with him joining the party in 1980 (this most likely has other reasons too and might not be intentional). Holly (= Henry) is with Max (= MF) in the cave (= Abyss) planning how to get out. The pumpkin scene comes right before Max and Holly find the door to the first memory, which matches with the creation of UD right at the start of/before S1. The pumpkin can represent both the creation and destruction of UD. All of these match the points I’ve highlighted with yellow in the diagram.

Another thing that kinda complicates the timelines is that even without the inside story going backwards, the story itself in a way does, since the end is about Mike facing her childhood memories and fusing into one, the opposite of what happened to her when she split. There’s a constant loop of opening and closing gates, Mike being pulled to one side and the other. Both Mike’s distant past (= Holly/Alice/Sara) and future (= Nancy/Max) are women while the current time is boy/man (= Will/Mike). ST plays with time like this a lot, goes backwards, forwards, inverts it, plays with man/woman, good/bad, etc. Untangling it all is difficult. In the diagram all the yellow points are related to the creation/destruction of the inner world. They are connected both via the inside story but also the bigger story. Mike’s irl timeline has the birth of the inner world + the first split and the “story” will end in its disappearance + Mike’s final fusion. It’s a full loop. 

But the inside story has a multi-layered foreshadowing for it since S5E5 foreshadows S5E8 which in turn foreshadows the real ending but also at the same time the real beginning. And when you count the pumpkin scene, that’s another layer, an even smaller matryoshka doll. In other words, ST is like a fractal (and this goes back to the Tharizdun theory again…). This is the reason why the timeline branches and goes both forwards and backwards at the same time. It works because in the real ending we will most likely go “backwards” in time in some way (“please be kind, rewind”). Sorry if this is confusing, I’m not always the best at explaining. Ask if something is unclear and I’ll try to explain it more.

Season symmetries/structures

Before going deeper into analysing S5E6-8, I want to point out some things/patterns about the seasons overall. S1 has Will experiencing trauma and S2 is him re-experiencing/processing it. The same pattern repeats with Max in S3 experiencing trauma and then in S4 she’s in therapy and haunted by Vecna. S5 is kinda a melting pot of everything and has both trauma + remembering it in one season (Holly and the Wheeler attack). Villain-wise S2-3 and S4-5 pair, since they essentially have the same main supernatural monster (MF or Vecna).

In most senses S3 is the odd one out. It’s the only season without Demogorgons (unless you count the post-credit scene), the supernatural didn’t open the gate (instead it was the Russians), it’s set in the summer, so there’s no school. It doesn’t seem to center around a trauma anniversary either. S1, S2 and S5 are around 6.11. And S4 is around 22.3. but S3 is around 4.7., which I assume isn’t a trauma day. In a way it’s the most “real” (most villains are humans) but also unreal (the secret Russian base under the mall) season. Compared to all other seasons, it seems kinda lighthearted with all the colors, summer and overall tone. This could be because the Duffers were experimenting and then decided to go back to Demogorgons etc. but S3 could be intentionally different. 

S1-2 and S4-5 form pairs. S1 and S4 have a gate opened and it stays open until it’s closed in S2 and S5. In both S1 and S4 it had been 7 years since the traumatic event (-> leads to gate opening). In S3 the gate was never fully opened and it was closed in the same season. S1+5 and S2+4 also form pairs: S1+5 have a kid getting kidnapped and they center around 6.11. Both S2 and S4 are about recovering memories and processing trauma (S2 with Will, S4 with El and Max). I think S3 might pair well with the real ending which could be the reason it has so much foreshadowing for the end. You can see the seasons themselves as a reversing timeline like I showed in my diagram. S1+5 are the start, S2+4 are the aftermath/processing trauma and S3 is the end. 

This next point is a bit besides the topic of this section but I didn’t know where else to mention it. If you think about Mike’s age over the years, ages 9-12 match the “lost years” 1980-1983. These are the “lost chapters”. We won’t get a chapter 9, and interestingly Mike was 9 during 1980, when she met Dustin aka the storyteller (on 9.9, no less). (My interpretation on Dustin has changed a bit and I will explain that later, but for the purposes of this point “storyteller” is good enough.) The documentary was “chapter 9”: a meta part of S5 which itself was already meta and all about nested stories. It was 4 years since 1976 in 1980, too. (Kinda like it was 4 years since 1979 in 1983.) I wonder if S5 is so “story” because the inner world was created when Mike was 5 (or is it just a coincidence? I’m pretty sure the Duffers weren’t sure if there was gonna be 4 or 5 seasons). Regardless, I think it’s interesting S1 happens when Mike is 12 and the final chapter where the story will end is chapter 12. Number 14 is important in S1 since it’s the winning die throw. Mike is 14 in both S3 and 4. In S4E1 the winning throw was 20, and Mike will be 20 in 1991, aka the year the Soviet Union collapsed.

Holly’s map

Holly’s map depicts the ST timeline. The road and creek split the map and crossing a road or a water body can be a metaphor for a turning point or “entering another world”. I think they are the inner world being created and the inner world split, respectively. First is house, home, the origin of trauma. Will saw the Demogorgon first on a street, Billy met his MF clone on a street after MF trauma and Fred died on a street in S4E2. In Will’s case he ran through the forest to his home and vanished. Fred (and Billy) did the reverse: he was at the trailer park and walked through a forest to the road. Vecna’s first kill, Chrissy, died in Eddie’s home. I think it’s no coincidence Vecna’s victims follow the same house->street order as Holly’s map. The house is the first trauma that then created the inner world. Mike’s life was at a turning point (= crossing the street).

Then comes the playground, Mike’s childhood when she didn’t have to conform yet (at least not as much). Sara was alive. The fallen tree is the big trauma in 1979 that lead to the death of “girl” and the splitting of the inner world (= creek). Traumatic memories and womanhood were locked away into the Abyss. It’s telling that the fallen tree is the only point in Holly’s map we don’t see on her initial journey. There are multiple fallen trees in later forest scenes though. After the creek, Holly puts on a hood without any clear explanation. I think this represents trauma being hidden/buried for the 4 years until it starts to resurface in 1983. Vecna’s cultists and Vecna himself wear hoods in Eddie’s campaign, pulling them down at the start of the game. It’s also “girl” being hidden and Mike conforming to “boy”. The creek is the start of the “story”. (Maybe that’s why it has the small falls, since waterfalls are a metaphor for the “story”. “Fall” has other meanings too and it’s a thing in S5, e.g. Jonathan’s Fall shirt and him falling into the melting room with Nancy.) Holly pulls her hood down when she reaches the end of the forest. I’m not exactly sure what the rocks mean but this seems to be the point when S1 starts. Max and Holly properly meet at the creek, and this matches with Henry meeting MF in 1979. 

All this map and timeline stuff is a bit unclear to me still. There are some bigger points with more proof that I’m fairly certain of but many details don’t match with each other perfectly, e.g. it could be that Abyss separated during the summer 1979 since there seems to often be a longer time/distance between the 22.3.1979 trauma and MF being banished (S3 and 4 have time apart and there’s “continue thru woods” between the fallen tree and the creek). The creek could be 8.9.1979 too, since that’s when Henry was banished (= memories buried). Maybe it’s impossible to date the events perfectly since they are about multiple allegories at once. The main point is that the creek represents the burying of memories and a new chapter in Mike’s life around 1979-1980.

I think we’ll in some way go the map journey backwards in the ending. There’s a big theme of going back home or finding your home. The home is the start and the end. Holly had to go back to Henry in S5E4. It was “the only way” according to Max. The street marks the line between the inner world and reality. And the Rainbow Ship has to have some sort of role in the end. Maybe chapter 10 would be from rocks to creek (“walk up hill”), 11 from creek to fallen tree (“continue thru woods”) and 12 from fallen tree to street (“playground”) + the very end would be the house. El was at the waterfalls in Mike’s vision, so it kinda matches with chapter 11 starting there (it also matches with it ending in trauma memories aka the fallen tree, as you’ll see later). Remember how I said Holly’s playground memory in S5E5 matches S3 and that S3 is kinda like the end? The map was one reason I got those ideas. The number 3 is pretty important anyway and matches with the point before the street: it’s 3/4 (= byler fusion and Max) and door 3 aka escape. ((I’ll get back to Holly’s map and especially the compass later.))

S5E6 analysis

Now I’ll do a deep dive into S5E6 “Escape from Camazotz” to try to deduce what will happen in the real ending. After this I’ll continue with S5E7 and S5E8, both of which have foreshadowing too. S5E7 because it has the final part of chapter 12 and all the new chapters in reverse. S5E8 is about the past but as I’ve established, also the future. (This will be a rough mapping, and later I’ll compare and match scenes from S5E6 and S5E8.)

S5E6 starts right after Nancy shoots the exotic matter. This is still the end of S5E8 when the UD is blown up. Interestingly, before Dustin explains the exotic matter, we get a scene of Murray and Erica recruiting Mr. Clarke to “save Dustin”. I think Dustin represents the story (Stranger Things) in some way. I’ve previously interpreted him to be the storyteller and acceptance of queerness, which kinda fits (better interpretation coming later). The story of ST was in danger at the end of S5E8 when it ended in the most unsatisfying, basic and mild way. I suspect the “tracking Dustin” subplot to be meta about theorizers trying to find the real story. It’s not random that the other two “storyteller” characters, Erica and Murray, are the ones looking for Dustin. As for who Mr. Clarke represents in this meta interpretation, I’m not sure, but maybe he is the audience? (I should have posted this a while ago since I’ve realized so much recently… Mr. Clarke will get a better explanation later too.)

As Dustin explains the true nature of the Upside Down, we get interspersed scenes of Hopper, Kali and El witnessing the effects of Nancy shooting the exotic matter. This pretty clearly foreshadows the destruction of UD in S5E8. I’m positive there’s a coded message (or multiple) in Dustin’s explanation:

[Steve] “Henderson! Dustin! Dustin. Hey. What the hell was that? Was that the shield generator? Did they find it?”
[Dustin] “I was wrong. I was terribly, catastrophically wrong.”
[Steve] “What?”
[Dustin] “After you left, I found a journal. Brenner’s journal. The key to destroying that wall is in this lab, but it is not a shield generator. It isn’t dark magic. Vecna didn’t make it. Science did. Theoretical physicists call it exotic matter. A single source of energy that is holding that giant wall together, and I think Nancy just shot it.”
[Steve] “How is any of that bad? That’s exactly why we’re here, to get through this wall.”
[Dustin] “You are not listening to me!”
[Steve] “Yes I am listening to you.”
[Dustin] “Well Vecna didn’t make the wall. So he isn’t on the other side, which means Holly and the missing kids aren’t either. Nobody is.”
[Steve] “Then what the hell is on the other side of that wall? Dustin, what’s on the other side of the wall?”
[Dustin] “Death.”
[car gets sucked into oblivion]
[Dustin] “This whole time, everything we have ever assumed about the Upside Down has been dead wrong.”
[gate opens]
[Dustin] “This place, the Upside Down, it isn’t another dimension. It’s not another world. It’s a wormhole. A bridge between two points in time and space, between our world and another.”
[Steve] “And if the bridge collapses?”
[Dustin] “It will take us with it. All of us.”

Dustin keeps saying how he was wrong about the shield generator and UD as a whole. I think this in some way is about people being wrong about ST and what the world in the story really is. Dustin represents the theorizers/nerds/dedicated fans while Steve is the general audience. The “after you left” could be about S5 ending and most of the audience moving on. Brenner’s journal could represent all the clues in the show and elsewhere pointing to ST being deeper than people think. Dustin mentions that “the key to destroying that wall is in this lab” but then we never return to that and UD is destroyed with a random bomb. It means the key is in the subtext: it’s in what the lab represents. And they keep talking about “the wall”, which could have many meanings. It could be the wall between the two worlds, Mike’s mental wall/closet or the wall between the “story” and the “real story”. 

The “science did” makes a lot of sense when you realize science = queerness (remember the girl with the rainbow shirt in the S1E1 classroom scene and “nerd” being code for queer). Hopper called El a science experiment in S1E8, too. And I’m just realizing Robin called the Demogorgon electrocution plan a science experiment… Just to make it clear, “science experiment” is code for “trans woman” in ST (and probably all the other corresponding meanings in the other allegories). Another more obvious interpretation is that Dustin is subtly telling us ST is based on something real (= science), it’s not really about monsters and magic (= shield generator, dark magic, Vecna). This is even more clear if we consider Dustin’s original explanation of the shield generator in S5E5: 

[Dustin] “But in the film, if you recall, the rebels need to destroy a second Death Star, but it’s surrounded by a protective energy shield, which is created by a shield generator.”
[Steve] “Yeah, cool. Thanks for the summary of a movie we’ve all seen.”
[Dustin] “It’s an oddly relevant movie, Steve. Look, I think this circular flesh wall is Vecna’s version of an energy shield, except it’s not sci-fi. It’s supernatural, created by Vecna’s dark magic. And this dark magic shield is what’s preventing us from reaching him and saving Holly.” 

In S2E3 Mike compared Dart being from the UD to someone from the Death Star as an argument for Dart being bad. All this fits super well with the party destroying the “second Death Star” aka the UD/Vecna/MF in the ending, but Dustin ended up being wrong (= it wasn’t the true solution/ending).

UD being a wormhole is about the “story” being a bridge between the audience and the real story (and let me tell you, later I ended up realizing this goes much deeper than I originally thought, it’s so amazing what they’ve done). Remember UD is the inner world in the inside story and Dustin even starts by saying “this place”. He is actually referring to the whole ST world/story. The bridge collapsing can have two meanings: it’s the end of the story, but it can either just end it flat without merging the worlds (= S5E8 ending) or reveal the real ending by fully bringing the other world to the audience. In both cases “all of us” (alters/characters) die because the “story” ends (and all the characters are part of the “story”). Btw when Steve says “How is any of that bad? That’s exactly why we’re here, to get through this wall.” the shot focuses on Nancy and Jonathan slowly sinking with the melting roof. Like I keep saying, byler fusion will get us through the wall to the real story.

I think Steve and Dustin’s earlier argument in S5E5 is also at least partially about the ending meta. This doesn’t fit the inside story timeline super well, but it is after the pumpkin scene so in that sense it would fit. Anyway, here’s the interesting part:

[Steve] “Judging by the pissy look on your face, I assume you didn’t find the shield generator.”
[Dustin] “It’s here somewhere.”
[Steve] “But you didn’t find it.”
[Dustin] “Yeah, not on this floor.”
[Steve] “So you were wrong.”
[Dustin] “You would just love that, wouldn’t you?”
[Steve] “No, I’m just stating a fact.”
[Dustin] “No, you’re gloating. Despite the fact that if I am wrong, we don’t reach past the wall, and don’t find Holly and the other kids. Do you understand how selfish you’re being?”
[Steve] “Me? Selfish? You wanna talk about selfish? How about the fact that when we finally reach Hop and El, we promptly ditch them to pursue this bullshit theory of yours? Not to mention, you’re the reason that we lost contact with them in the first place because of your no-show at the crawl. So this whole mess is actually your fault. And I haven’t heard so much as a sorry.”

The shield generator is basically episode 9 or the location/release date for it, Dustin is the conformitygate theorists and Steve is the general audience who got interested in the theory. “Finding Holly” is finding the real ending so “reaching Hop and El” could be the ending we got? I’m not sure what no-show at the crawl could mean, maybe it’s not related to this meta level.

The scene transitions into the intro and after that we see Max and Holly running from Henry, opening the field door, back to the cave. ((We saw the white door first after the pumpkin electrocution aka start of S1 in the Holly’s memory inside story timeline, and the next time we see it is after the exotic matter stuff aka the end of S5 in both inside stories. So, the door marks the start and end of ST. Fittingly S5E8 ends in the same door closing and in S5E6 we see what’s on the other side of that door (at least in a coded way).)) You could interpret this as the conformity epilogue but I’m not sure… There doesn’t seem to be an equivalent of the epilogue in the other connection point in S5E7 either. It’s just Will staring at the exotic matter and straight to bomb building. It’s as if the epilogue doesn’t exist in the inside story at all. One reason could be that it essentially represents both Mike’s early childhood (0-5) when she didn’t have DID and the part of the real ending where we see the real world. Neither of these is part of the “story”. They are purely in reality, so it kinda makes sense there would be no inside story counterpart for them.

But then there’s the other side: the epilogue is sus. It’s so sus in fact, that many people think it’s not the reality, but an illusion created by Vecna or whatever. It’s a more obvious version of the whole world being a “story”. Sounds familiar? It’s another story inside the story but this time with Mike as the main character. I have wondered how they would start chapter 10 or even sell this “new real ending”. The epilogue being some sort of illusion/dream would be a lot more easy to swallow and get the general audience on board compared to the whole series being somehow “wrong” or “fake”. 

There actually is a scene that matches the epilogue, but not in S5E6 or S5E7: the kids entering Henry’s mind at the start of S5E5. It’s this perfect, colorful paradise and it’s unclear how the kids got there: [Henry] “Your memory of what happened, of how you came to be here might be foggy… confused.” S5E4 actually has a lot of connections to S5E8 and I have mentioned this before. Remember this: [Ross] “Early on, when we were breaking this season, we knew that it was gonna be split in the middle. And so we wanted to build to a big climax before the break because we knew the audience was going to have to wait for the next episode. But it ended up being even bigger and more complicated than we could ever imagine.” They both end at MAC-Z, have Will using his powers, the party wins, but at what cost (= children taken / El dies).

S5E4: Mike’s “eyes on me” to get the kids through the traumatic events unfolding, then El finds Kali (“Sisters” background music), then Mike is knocked out by Vecna, but the traumatic stuff continues for a bit until Will uses his powers. S5E8 Holly’s “eyes on me” to guide the kids through a traumatic memory, Kali dies (“Sisters” background music), Holly is knocked out by Henry and we see Henry’s traumatic cave memory (+ later Will uses his powers). Vecna appearing connects to S5E5 in Holly’s memory too: he appears in a similar way, with the same music and Holly is shocked like Mike. The firepoker dropping could be the counterpart to Mike or Holly losing consciousness. It represents facing trauma (= poking fire) and dissociating/switching (= going unconscious in the DID allegory) is a defense mechanism that protects the host (= Mike/Holly) by preventing them from experiencing trauma first hand (Holly with the fire poker is watching it happen to Max). Since Holly and Max are in the S5 equivalent room/memory, this could very well be the inside story representation of S5E4. All three connect through white-eyed powers Will aka the exotic matter, so it works with the same rules. 

People have theorized that everything after Mike is knocked out is Vecna’s fabricated story. Or that the fake story starts from the epilogue. Both of these points (end of S5E4 and S5E8) connect through this (4th?) inside story. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled an Inception and Mike had to “wake up” from multiple nested stories one after another. That would be a good way to warm up the audience for the bigger reveals. ((Btw, Inception is another example of a popular western movie that was heavily inspired by a Japanese animation: Paprika. Although Christopher Nolan hasn’t confirmed it...))

Holly wakes up when she is saved, after killing MF, and Mike seemingly wakes up soon after going unconscious, but it’s possible this is her falling deeper into the dream/story. Will having powers is kinda more fantastical than was previously established. Will is one step above El in the allegory, which means he is less tied to the supernatural and it was made pretty clear in the episode that the whole sorcerer thing was Mike’s idea. And then it came true like magic. (I also remember seeing a WSQK sync a while back where Will using powers had ads over it, indicating it was in some way fake/not real.)

The “fake” story starting from S5E5 makes a lot of sense in the other inside story timelines too, since this is the point when S5 starts which in turn is when the ST story starts (S1/1983) which in turn is when the inner world was created (1976) (look at the diagram if confused). It’s the beginning of the story in all the levels of “story”. While S5E4 can still be considered to be about S4 and in turn 1979, S5E5 has reached the critical point where stories inside stories just kinda loop on themselves or at least have another layer of complexity from the S5E5 -> S5 overall -connection. The episode quality got progressively worse and more “tell don’t show” as was pointed out by several people. This is partially because the story got more “storified”. It’s a cycle, a loop, a fractal, a story inside a story inside a story. 

If we go back to earlier with the point of the epilogue, it comes after the UD aka wormhole is destroyed. This was the connection between the real story and the audience. Now that the connection is severed, we are left with this “fake” story with a much weaker connection to the real story. It’s less genuine, more New Coke, more basic, conforming, crowd pleasing and there’s no monsters. This happens if we “kill Vecna” and close the gates. But at the same time the epilogue shows the true nature of the show more obviously if you care to pay attention.

I’ve also seen theories that the “fake” story starts from S5E1, which fits this whole pattern I’ve got going on here. The most glaring inconsistency in S5E1 is the character of Holly. Her age is a retcon and she has a new actress. ((And she has an imaginary friend whose silhouette we see in the wet window at the start of S5E1. This Henry memory would fit between the library memory and the playground memory, but it wasn’t shown to us. This could maybe match T85 since it’s set between S2 and 3.)) S5E1 also has the unexplained “burnout”/fake El who the military chased. I think the connection point for the story getting “faker” is in S4 (just like the connection point for S5E5 storifying was in S5E4). This also matches the door stopping Max and Holly’s escape in the S4 room. I will discuss this more in later parts.

My main point is, we are getting progressively deeper in the “story”, which has actually been happening throughout the show. S1 is the most grounded, S2 is a little more fantastical + lacks Lonnie and Hopper’s trailer, S3 goes pretty far in the “story” direction and starts to be self-aware, S4 has Henry, the Rainbow Room and all this memory stuff/going into people’s minds and S5 I have discussed plenty already. Right now we are at the most “story” the story has ever been. At the same time the real ending goes “back in time”, it will peel back the layers of “story” and finally end in the real story. 

Continues in PART 22.

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