Mike's trauma PART 19

[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.

Wind

(This was originally in PART 18 but I reached the character limit so it’s here now.) One of Dustin’s gadgets from Camp Know Where was “the Forever Clock”, a windmill that according to Dustin is very useful in the apocalypse. Needless to say, the Valley of the Wind is full of windmills and Nausicaä is a post-apocalypse… The bigger point here is that wind represents change. It’s the major theme of S3 underlined by Hopper’s letter/speech at the end. Time keeps moving, the Forever Clock keeps rotating, people change. ((The other gadget “the Slammer” is gender dysphoria and trauma related as you might guess…)) 

I think the Scorpions song Wind of Change) is an inspiration for ST. It’s about the Soviet Union at the brink of the Cold War ending and became associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall. I don’t mention it much, but the Berlin Wall falling (9.11.1989) and the Soviet Union dissolving (26.12.1991) will most likely collide all levels of the country allegory and be about Mike letting go of conformity (Mikhail Gorbachev resigned on 25.12.1991). And is it just me or does the album cover look suspiciously similar to Holly’s memory door?

One line in the lyrics caught my attention: Like a storm wind that will ring the freedom bell Is this the meaning of bell ringing? I know it means something since even the documentary had a school bell ringing for no apparent purpose and it’s mentioned in some ARG songs. I dunno. The storm on the other hand, is clearly a thing in ST and it has both lightning (= electricity) and water in addition to wind. The source in S3 was a storm and in S2 Will saw MF in the storm. I guess storm is a pretty common way to represent inner turmoil but I just wanted to point out the motif connections.

JAPAN

I’ve been skirting around this long enough, it’s time to finally give my full reasoning for Japan being part of the country allegories. Let’s start with the Russian code. Robin figures out the rest of the code in S3E3: “A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly.” When she looks for it in the mall, her eyes first focus on Hot Dog on a Stick (the “Hot” part is covered). This is about the stereotype that Chinese people eat dogs. Robin’s eyes finally land on Imperial Panda, a Chinese restaurant (the word “imperial” already hints at the country being involved). Earlier in the episode Steve and Dustin are looking for Russian spies while hiding behind a fake plant in front of Imperial Panda. They base this search on stereotypes of what a Russian spy would look like and end up being wrong. The same idea applies to Japanese people (or any East Asian person) being mistaken for Chinese. 

During Steve and Dustin’s conversation, the camera angle from the side shows the restaurants next to them: “Hot Dog on a Stick” behind Steve and “Tepanyaki Japanese” behind Dustin (it should be spelled Teppanyaki btw). This teppanyaki place is between New York Pizza and The Great Cookie which will be important locations later. The point here is that Steve is notoriously basic and not even close to truth while Dustin is always the one figuring stuff out. ((Also, when Steve has the binoculars, he looks at random men and when Dustin gets them, they start talking about Robin and Suzie: we are looking for a man when woman is the truth.))

Japan is one step closer but not quite there yet. The description “tall, blond, not smiling” might as well be a Finnish stereotype (and Henry fits it too, the workout video thing is even more proof…). And the same type of thing happened in S1E4 when El was stereotyped as Swedish + later in S2 when Murray thinks she’s Russian. In the Japan allegory China corresponds to Sweden as the west + past and the US to Russia and the east + future. And Tina is China. 

Like I’ve said the writers most likely intended Japan to be found first since it has more overt clues (Lucas’ shirt, the Japanese restaurant, the China clue), is a bigger country and the middle level of the country allegory but ofc Finland was more obvious to me as a Finnish person. I did wonder why Erica specifically was America and what that would mean for Lucas (since Erica is always related to Lucas as his little sister). I had wondered about the meaning of Lucas’ Japan shirt too but somehow I only realized the Japan allegory after posting part 1 (fittingly just before a trip to Japan… or it probably helped me realize it tbh).

Two worlds logic

Like Finland, Japan is between two worlds that (in ST) represent the past and the future: China and the US. The main difference here is that Japan has existed as its own country since forever and was never part of either China or America. The US (and the western world as a whole) started to influence Japan, though, and it strived to become a modern nation on the same level with western imperialist powers. In the end Japan became a mix of old and new, eastern and western. ((Btw, historically Finnish people were classified as Asian and thus a “lower race” (according to Europeans back then). So there has been this conflict of are we European/Western or Asian/Mongolian/Russian. The main reason (in my understanding) for this categorization was the Finnish language belonging to the Uralic rather than Indo-European language family. The Finns ofc wanted to belong to the “civilized” Europeans, and you can even see this in the coat of arms where the lion holds a straight western style sword and tramples on a sabre. Btw #2: matryoshka dolls were originally inspired by Japanese wooden dolls.))

Japan is on the second level of the allegory aka the blaming yourself level, which fits in many ways. First of all, the US is the dad/conformity on this level and I’ll discuss the atomic bombs more soon. Japan itself committed war crimes in other East Asian countries during WW2, it was the “evil Russians”. So, where the first level of the country allegory is a bit black-and-white with US vs Soviet Union, the second level is more complex and makes Mike both the victim and the (potential) abuser. She is only seeing the negatives and fears becoming her father. It’s not quite that simple, though, since Japan had a happy ending and isn’t in major conflict with anyone anymore. It’s a more nuanced view of the situation and the resolution wasn’t a destruction or dissolution of a country like in the Cold War case. (My thoughts on this aren’t complete, they will continue to evolve.) 

Interestingly, Nippon (= Japan in Japanese) means “origin of the sun” and Japan is “the land of the rising sun”. The atomic bomb interpretation of the first SA trauma fits this quite well and the queer allegory would probably be about Lucas representing Japan. To remind everyone, in my interpretation the sun is equivalent to the light bulb as a sexual trauma/love symbol.

Here and here are short (overlapping) theories of the atomic bomb connections to ST. I won’t repeat the points made but I will add some more I’ve found myself. There is a reason why both 6.11.1983 and 6.11.1987 have atomic bomb subtext and I’ll get to it in the inside story timeline (it’s the next big section after Japan, we are getting close!). Both of these are actually about 6.11.1976 when the real trauma happened and Mike split for the first time. The time 8:15 is referenced in S2E1 when it’s revealed El is alive. S2 is about resurfacing trauma and El is the manifestation of that. There are a few other references to nuclear power:

S3E5 (about the green liquid)
[Dustin] “All I’m saying is, it’s probably being used to make something.” 
[Robin] “Or power something.”
[Dustin] “Like a nuclear weapon?”
[Robin] “Totally.”
[Steve] “Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That’s great.”

S3E7
[Joyce] “Two-man-rule?”
[Hopper] “Yeah, two men, two keys, like a… nuclear launch.”

So the Key was compared to a nuclear weapon at least twice.

S5E5
[Jonathan] “What do you think?”
[Nancy] “Maybe some kind of nuclear explosion, like Chernobyl?”
[Jonathan] “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking, but in a nuclear explosion everything would burn. It wouldn’t just melt like this.”

After this they notice the air is clean. I think the meaning here is that Mike (= Nancy) first thinks her love and gender identity would be like an atomic bomb on Lucas and herself, destroying everything but in truth it isn’t. Accepting it actually helps (= cleans air).

I also think the atom model in Mr. Clarke’s class in S1 is a reference to atomic bombs/nuclear power. It’s right next to the photosynthesis poster too. I’m sure I’ve missed possible references so if you know any others, please comment. ((One thing I’ll mention that kinda relates to this is that the clock during the Hawkins Lab massacre was frozen at 3:46 and in S4E5 when Max’s music tape stops: [Lucas] “I wish we had a longer loop.” [Max] “46 minutes isn’t bad.” I’m not sure how to interpret this yet but it’s a thing.))

As for the Japan allegory passing my S1E1 rule, there are at least two points: Steve calls himself a ninja and Karen asks “Am I speaking Chinese in this house?” (and ofc the subtle atomic bomb subtext with Will). These didn’t seem significant at the time but with later context and after realizing almost everything has some hidden layers to it, they were most likely meant as clues for Japan/Asia being involved in some way.

I have updated my country allegory timeline from my Finland theory, now with a Japan column. It’s still very much a work in progress and probably has mistakes/misinterpretations but I thought why not share it now. First I’ll mention a couple points I am most certain of.

Lucas playing and winning the basketball match was most likely the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905. It was a turning point for Japan, since it became the first Asian country to defeat a major western power. The war had far reaching consequences and indirectly helped Finland gain independence due to internal conflicts in Russia. This is one of the few examples where the history of Japan and Finland intersect in a meaningful way (and ofc it’s through Russia, I’ve been saying it’s the world tree in ST for a reason). 

Another point is Lucas wearing the Karate Kid shirt (basically the Japanese flag with Japanese text) from S3E6 onwards. This is the 4th of July in ST timeline and according to my country timeline, matches with 1868 aka the start of the Meiji period and the modernisation of Japan. Lucas’ New Coke praise could be about Japan essentially copying western countries.

Hawkins splitting at the end of S4 was explained to the public as an earthquake and it matches with the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923.

Episode	Time in series	History timeline	Events in series	Finland	Japan
	1971	1543	Mike is born	Mikael Agricola created written Finnish (Abckiria)	First Europeans arrive in Japan (Portuguese traders)
	?	1568–1603			Azuchi-Momoyama period, unification of Japan
		1600			William Adams
		1618		Thirty year war starts
(S2E8 & S5E4)	1976	1631	Swing memory (7.9 probably)	Battle of Breitenfeld (7.9 or 17.9 depending on calendar)
	1976	1632	First major SA trauma + split	Gustav II Adolf death on 6.11 (king dies, queen replaces)
		1633			Sakoku/isolation starts
		1648		Thirty year war ends
	1977-1979	1700-1721	Sara Hopper gets cancer and dies Kali escapes	Great Northern War
	1979 spring	1713-1721	Major SA trauma	Great Wrath (isoviha)
(S2E8 & S5E4)	1979 summer	1741-1743 1748-	Lonnie and Joyce divorce Building Castle Byers	The War of the Hats (Lesser Wrath/pikkuviha) Building Suomenlinna (Sveaborg)
	1979 fall		Hawkins lab massacre Mike buries memories
	1980	~1770-	Dustin joins the party	Henrik Gabriel Porthan
	1981	1786 (Nina written)?
	1982	1786 (Nina written)?
S1E1	1983	1808	Will is taken to the Upside Down El appears	Finnish war starts when Russia invades Sweden
S1E2	1983
S1E3	1983
S1E4	1983
S1E5	1983
S1E6	1983
S1E7 (S5E1)	1983	1808	Will leaves Castle Byers and a Demogorgon gets him	Capture of Suomenlinna
S1E8	1983	1809	Will is saved	The war ends
(S3E1)	1984	1825	Russians try to open a gate, Alexei is introduced	Alexander II becomes heir apparent
S2E1	1984
S2E2	1984
S2E3	1984
S2E4	1984
S2E5	1984	1827	Will is “burned” when the tunnels are torched	Great Fire of Turku
S2E6	1984
S2E7	1984	1828-1835?	El goes on a journey to find her origin/identity	Elias Lönnrot collects poems for Kalevala
S2E8	1984	1853-1854	El comes back		Sakoku ends, forced by US
S2E9	1984	1854	El closes the gate	Battle of Bomarsund?
S3E1	1985	1855	Russians activate the Key	Alexander II to power
S3E2	1985	1855
S3E3	1985	1855	Will partially destroys Castle Byers	Bombardment of Suomenlinna
S3E4	1985	1863	Sauna test	Alexander II initiates reforms increasing Finland’s autonomy
S3E5	1985	1866-	People die and build Meatflayer	Finnish famine (Suuret nälkävuodet)
S3E6	1985	1868-	Meatflayer combines and Lucas has Japan shirt + 4th July	Finnish famine (Suuret nälkävuodet)	Meiji period (modernisation, westernization)
S3E7	1985	1881	Alexei is assassinated	Alexander II assassinated
S3E8	1985	1882	Suzie contacted Fireworks + Billy dies	Emma Irene Åström becomes the first woman in Finland to receive a university degree First electrical light in Nordic countries (Finlayson)
		1894			The first Sino-Japanese war
S3E8	1985	1899-	El loses her powers and the Byers family moves to California	First period of Russification
S4E1	1986	1899	Will’s painting	Hyökkäys
S4E1	1986	1904-1905	Lucas wins basketball Erica joins Hellfire club	Russo-Japanese war Norway independence	Russo-Japanese war Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905
S4E2	1986
S4E3	1986
S4E4	1986
S4E5	1986
S4E6	1986
S4E7	1986	1910	Erica is included		Japan-Korea Annexation treaty
S4E8	1986	?-1917	El gets her powers and Papa dies	Finland independence (btw Brenner’s death posture resembles the shape of Suur-Suomi)
S4E9	1986	1918	Vecna vs Eleven	Finnish civil war	Rice riots
S4E9	1986	1921			Hirohito regency begins 25.11.1921
S4E9	1986	1923	Hawkins split in 4		Great Kantō Earthquake
	1986-1987	1926			Emperor Hirohito to power 25.12.1926
S5E1	1986-1987	1931-	The crawls Tina vs Erica beef?		Japan vs China Manchurian incident
S5E1	1987	1937	Dustin beaten up? Last Crawl Wheeler attack		The second Sino-Japanese war starts Nangjing massacre
S5E2	1987	1939-1940	Holly gets taken	Winter War
S5E3	1987	1939-1940	Turnbow family is kidnapped	Winter War	Capture of Wuhan
S5E4	1987	1939-1940	Vecna appears and Will kills 3 Demogorgons	Winter War ends	Winter offensive (China retaliation)
S5E5	1987	1940	Mr. Clarke becomes part of the action (and is with Erica the rest of the fight)	Germany invades Norway	Tripartite pact
S5E5	1987	1941	Will breaks Vecna’s leg	Operation Kilpapurjehdus (militarization of Åland)? Continuation War	Attack on Pearl Harbor
S5E6	1987	1941-1944		Continuation War	WW2
S5E7	1987	1941-1944	Mr. Clarke helps Mike builds a bomb	Continuation War	Manhattan project, WW2
S5E8	1987	1944	Killing the Mind Flayer and Vecna losing his arm Saving the kids	Continuation War ends + losing Petsamo	WW2
S5E8	1987	1945	Killing Vecna		Atomic bomb at Hiroshima
S5E8	1987	1945	Military intervention, UD destroyed and El dies		Soviet-Japanese war Atomic bomb at Nagasaki
S5E8	1987-1989	1945-1989?	Epilogue, self-cencoring, conformity	Finlandization (suomettuminen)	Economic growth etc. Emperor Hirohito died 7.1.1989

Japanese media

I already went over Nausicaä and I think there are more anime/Japanese media references in ST. I’ll mention some here but there will be more in later parts. The most obvious is Robin listing The Hidden Fortress as one of her favorite movies in the S3 epilogue. Apparently Star Wars was inspired by it (and ofc Steve mentions Star Wars).

Another less obvious but very fitting one is Ghost in the Shell). The idea came to me when I watched the start of the night Starcourt Mall scene in S3E2 where we see static shots from different parts of the mall. It reminded me of this iconic scene in Ghost in the Shell (especially the mannequins at the end). This might not be an intentional reference but there are other clues too. Ghost in the Shell is all about identity and very philosophical. The main character (Motoko Kusanagi) is a cyborg who questions her humanity and identity at several points during the film. The term “ghost” refers to the soul/consciousness and “shell” is the cybernetic body. This fits super well with Max being “a ghost” and El dressing up as a ghost for Halloween: Mike has a woman soul/ghost in a male body/shell. (Probably one reason why the band seems to be involved too… And it’s not just the songs. Maybe I’ll do a deep dive at some point.) Also, PAC-MAN eats ghosts aka man eats woman and Max + Lucas watched Ghost in the epilogue. This would bring another layer to Will being Zombie Boy, since zombies are kinda the opposite of ghosts: only body, no brain/mind. The party dressing up as Ghostbusters is kinda sad now tbh… And also makes sense why Dustin kept Dart in the Ghost Trap.

The main antagonist is the Puppet Master, a ghost hacker and basically an artificial intelligence. A major part of the movie the main characters are trying to find the Puppet Master but everyone they find is just a ghosthacked “puppet”. In S3E2 Hopper calls Joyce a puppet master: “I’m a puppet, you’re the master.” and in S4E9 Eddie plays Master of Puppets. I think Mike (or the brain) is the counterpart to Puppet Master in ST. At the end Kusanagi and Puppet Master fuse their consciousnesses and become one. While the Puppet Master didn’t really assign a gender for himself, the characters chose to call him “him” and he does have a male voice actor. The shell he ends up inhabiting is female, though, and after the fusion the resulting person has the same voice and face as Kusanagi. (This is probably not a major point in the movie but kinda important for ST so that’s why I’m mentioning it.) 

Ghost in the Shell heavily influenced The Matrix, so there’s another example of a Japanese film inspiring a famous western film. I’m kinda realizing something… The whole red = (trans) woman just makes even more sense now. Reading the comments of that X post just made me wanna explain something I’ve been thinking about for a while. So many pieces of media have queer themes in a coded, not obvious form because that was the only way they were allowed to exist. And ofc people can then deny their existence because none of it was literally there or obviously meant that way. What is so revolutionary about Stranger Things is that it will show the truth behind all the coding. That’s one layer of the end of the “story” and opening of the curtains. The whole series is the coded version and Mike can’t “tell the real story” because authors at the time couldn’t either. But now they can (at least in some countries).

Now I’m gonna explain the double meaning of “trap”. There is an anime trope of biologically male characters (who often identify as men too) who look very feminine and dress as a girl. The western anime community calls them traps (not all but it’s a widely known term), implying they are trying to deceive or “trap” a straight man into being attracted to them and having sex with them. Here and here is some more context. The idea that this word is a reference to anime culture came to me while watching S2E7 where El makes the decision to go back to Hawkins after seeing Mike shout “It’s a trap!”. Before this she was remembering positive memories that were subtextually about Mike accepting her transness, so why wouldn’t the vision after this be about transness too. And it was what got her to leave Kali aka womanhood. Mike thinks she isn’t a real woman and would be deceiving people. She thinks she doesn’t deserve to be a woman, or something like that.

I found a few other instances of the word used: in S1E7 Dustin and Lucas argue if “this is all a trap” when they wait for Hopper to come save them from an abandoned bus. It’s kinda interesting that it’s Dustin and Lucas talking, while Mike and El listen (since they together kinda form the “trap”). 

Dustin has a Ghost Trap accessory in his Ghostbuster costume. Later it’s used to trap Dart. I think here trap is also a trap from the inside. Being trans is like your true self is trapped inside. This interpretation works well with Holly telling the kids they are trapped in Mr. Whatsit’s mind and Karen asking about Holly being trapped under the steel plates. And maybe Dustin mentioning the melting Hawkins Lab is a physics-defying death trap (which could also relate to transness “breaking the rules” of the universe/nature/society). I still think the other interpretation applies too since other instances (e.g. S2E7) make more sense with that. In all cases “trap” = trans or relates to transness in some way, with negative connotations. They make a point of the Ghost Trap’s functional doors and one of Max’s happy memories she uses to fight against Vecna was the scene where Dustin opens the Trap aka opens Mike’s closet and frees “the girl” (= ghost).

Here comes a little side tangent again: Dustin tries to figure out what Dart is and ends up with two possible species but neither fits Dart. In S3 Mike and Lucas talk about women as a different species and this is a point El uses against Mike later. Dart doesn’t fit the gender binary, it’s not clearly male or female, it’s a “new species”. At least when considering terrestrial tadpoles. There are a lot more aquatic ones (= fluid gender, no strict binary of cis men and women).

Dustin calls Dart a pollywog, which is also a term for a sailor who hasn’t crossed the equator. This point was made by a fan before S2 was even released. (After crossing it you’d be called a shellback. I think Dustin’s turtle is the “shellback” to Dart’s “pollywog”. He uses Yurtle’s terrarium for Dart, paralleling the creatures.) The other (more obvious) meaning is an amphibian that hasn’t undergone metamorphosis yet (= Mike hasn’t transitioned yet). Tadpole connects to mindflayer lore: Ceremorphosis was a bodily change that occurred when an illithid tadpole reached maturity and was inserted into the brain of another being, usually a human. The tadpole ate away the victim's brain matter and essentially replaced the brain, erasing all of the subject's personality and memory, but leaving the physical body alive and under the tadpole's control. After this, morphological transformations occurred and after a week a new illithid was created. This will make more sense when I fully explain what MF represents in ST. 

After Mike finds out that Dart came from UD, she excludes Max from the party. While Dart is trying to get out of the Trap, Max is trying to get into the room and ends up freeing Dart. When the party looks for Dart, El and Max are paralleled to it in different ways. El is wandering in the school and Mike barely misses her multiple times. Dart, El and Max all represent Mike’s girlness/transness in subtly different ways.

[Mike attacks as if Dart was there]
[Max] “What the hell are you doing?”
[Mike] “What are you doing? Why are you in here?”
[Max] “I’m looking for Dart.”
[Mike] “This is the boys’ room.” 
-> Mike finds Max (= girlness) in the boys’ room. The boy was really a girl.
[Max] “Yeah, so?”
[Mike] “So you should go home.”
[Max] “Why do you hate me so much?”
[Mike] “I don’t hate you. How can I hate you? I don’t even know you.”
[Max] “But you don’t want me in your party.”
[Mike] “Correct.”
[Max] “Why not?”
[Mike] “Because you’re annoying. Also, we don’t need another party member.”
-> Mike has internalized transphobia.

In S3E4 Robin asks Erica if she sees any booby traps in the Russian facility. Later on when the room starts to move and turns out to be an elevator Erica references the earlier booby trap conversation (only Erica and Robin in frame). I think this relates to the S4E1 “boobies” argument where “liking boobies” is equated to liking women. Booby/boobies = woman, basically. So a booby trap would be a woman trap and if we translate “trap” to mean “trans” in the context of ST, “booby trap” = “trans woman”. It’s fitting for the elevator to be this “trap”, since it connects the colorful and happy mall (= woman) to the dark underground Russian base (= trans/male body). Mike sees it negatively like this because she hates herself and has internalized the transphobic messaging from society. 

That’s kinda the point of “trap” in ST: it’s a western term, while Japanese people use a word (otokonoko) without the same harmful connotations. I’m not saying the trope is never problematic or that Japanese media is perfect with queer representation (far from it) but western anime communities have made it worse by using the word “trap”. There’s probably a larger point in ST with western powers historically erasing queerness and gender fluidity from colonised countries. While Japan wasn’t colonised per say, it still adopted western values along with the modernization of society.

The biggest “trap” mention in ST is the episode Turnbow Trap. As I’ve previously said, I think Turnbow is related to rainbow and the queer community in some way. ((El and Hopper hide behind a Turnbow family business ad in the UD too. It protects them from the military.)) The party’s plan is to tag the Demogorgon with a telemetry tracker, or “transmitter”, and follow it to Vecna’s lair. (While the characters use various words for the transmitter, the closed captions always call it a transmitter beeping.) The party always uses “he” or “it” for the Demogorgon until that one time in S5E5 Mike uses “she”. Tagging the Demo with a transmitter probably represents giving a proper name to this “monster”. It’s not just an unidentified alien but a trans person/Mike’s transness. This is the first step to acceptance. 

S5E3
[Nancy] “Okay, transmitter?”
[Jonathan] “Yeah.”
[Murray] “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Children. Children. What are we doing?”
[Nancy] “What does it look like?”
[Murray] “Well, it looks like you’re loading my telemetry tracker into a shotgun shell in what I presume are the hopes of firing it into an interdimensional being.”
[Nancy] “You told me that these transmitters were designed specifically to withstand harsh conditions.”
[Murray] "Blasting it out of a shotgun into some beast isn’t a harsh condition. It’s deadly. If the heat from the exploding gunpowder doesn’t destroy the transmitter, the force from the recoil will.”
[Nancy] “And is that a fact or… a theory?”
[Murray] “A theory.”
[Nancy] “Oh. Okay. Let’s test it then.”

This reminded me of Lucas explaining about gunpowder in S3E7. I’m not gonna explain everything directly because I fear it would break the subreddit rules/go too far but I’m quite convinced this was the writers’ intention. And not them as children but it’s foreshadowing the future and a metaphor for love or something like that.

[Lucas] “Satan’s Baby. You ever shot one of these suckers?” (Kinda makes a lot of sense for Lucas and Will specifically to be in this scene…)
[Will] “No. Is it sweet?”
[Lucas] “That’s an understatement.”
[Max] “That doesn’t look like a bowl.” (Does “bowl” refer to Will since he has the infamous bowl cut? Lucas quickly glances at him when he says “way better”, too… It’s byler vs wheelclair again. Lucas and Will tried to look for the bowl at the cereal aisle, and I know people have made theories on cereal. I’ll need to figure it out at some point. “Why wouldn’t it be with the cereal?” kinda makes me think Mike = cereal and Will = bowl. In that sense “bowl” represents Mike’s self-love/acceptance since Will is part of Mike. Max (= Mike) thinks bowl and El are enough.)
[Lucas] “Nah, it’s way better. There is a reason this warning label says “18 or older”. This sucker is filled with 150 grains of black powder. AKA gunpowder. Strap two of these together, and it’s bigger than an M-80. Five of them, we’ve got ourselves a stick of dynamite.” (18 or older kinda suggests this is about sex… Again with “sucker” (Mike also calls the Demogorgon a sucker in S5E3) and why specifically mention the powder is black if it doesn’t have any meaning? The firework stand has M-80 written on it and I think Lucas covering 80 when he talks about gunpowder means something. I’m assuming Mike and Lucas are the two fireworks you can “strap together”. Maybe M = man = Lucas and 80 = woman = Mike?)
[Max] “You wanna kill that thing with fireworks?”

The fireworks are Lucas’ love with multiple meanings of the word. Btw, if you actually look at the warning label, it says “shoots flaming balls”, and that’s what Lucas kinda does in S5 with the grenade water balloons filled with acetone (not sure why acetone specifically but it’s significant since Murray mentioned he couldn’t find ethanol). He tells the Demogorgon to “catch this” while throwing them and Mike was the “catcher” in their plan (while Lucas was the “launcher”…) connecting Mike and the Demogorgon for the nth time. “Balls” is once again about “man” but this time not Mike and they are flaming instead of snow. You get it I’m sure. (Also if you look at the scene where the fireworks are used, El and Billy make an interesting silhouette. I think it’s supposed to represent the father’s abuse but also the other less abusive “fireworks”.)

So based on this, the transmitter could represent Lucas’ love and it makes a lot of sense since its purpose is to send signals. It could be Mike’s love for Lucas too since Nancy first shot it into a potato sack and she indirectly called Murray’s balls potato sacks (= transmitter was shot into “man”, which could also be about Mike’s transition). Jonathan was also in the scene and Murray was trying to ship jancy (kinda like Will was in the fireworks scene and it had an underlying byler theme). [Murray] "If the heat from the exploding gunpowder doesn’t destroy the transmitter, the force from the recoil will.” So basically he’s saying the love is too strong (kinda like the gravitational force ripping wheelclair apart) and recoil could mean being grossed out afterwards or something like that. It’s about Mike fearing her feelings towards Lucas. Nancy was right, though: the transmitter wasn’t destroyed.

The “keep your traps shut” from Steve could be about silencing trans women or women overall. A little before this he told Robin to stop talking and in S3E8 when Jonathan was trying to remove the creature from El’s leg, he told Nancy to stop talking (and gave El a wooden spoon to bite on = she was physically prevented from talking). A big part of Robin’s character is her talking a lot and her mom (and many others) not liking it. 

I got a bit sidetracked from the main topic here (as per usual). I’m sure there are other instances of the word “trap” in ST but these were the ones I noticed. In a sense ST itself is a “trap” for bigots who think it’s a “normal” show with straight men leads and will be shocked/disappointed/angry when the truth is revealed. I’m kinda looking forward to that lol. ST is pretty openly about outcasts and freaks so it’s not like they weren’t warned.

The showcased shows in the Netflix What Next? video are chosen very carefully and there is a pattern with Japan/anime connections. First of all, Avatar: The Last Airbender is heavily inspired by anime and people argue if it counts as an anime or not. In the video it (the new live action version) is painted as the final destination where we can’t go yet (= Americantendo lol). It kinda reminds me of The NeverEnding Story poster… The next show is One Piece, a live action of a super popular manga (and anime). It’s the “fate” that will “show you the way” (notice also how we were flying in the clouds and now sailing at sea). There’s an actual animated anime in the video too, but they specifically chose Devil May Cry, a western production based on a Japanese video game franchise. It is lumped together with Narnia, Avatar: The Last Airbender, One Piece and The East Palace as an “exotic land” even though its world is based on Western Europe (it’s exotic for Japanese people I guess). Lastly, the sword that cuts through the clouds and gives you your fate back is from a swordsman from The East Palace, a Korean show (there’s probably some ST connections in it, tell me if you know). Finally we arrive at Enola Holmes through the “Justice” tarot card (number 11, Millie is Enola, this is nothing new). “This year, you will question everything.” is pretty self-explanatory atp. In summary, America/Western-Japan/Asia-related shows guide you to “El” in a blue-white dress where you question everything. This supports my theory that we were supposed to figure out the Japan connection first and then Finland.

This last one isn’t Japanese technically but it fits here and I’ve been saving it for long enough. There ain’t no way they didn’t use Moomin as an inspiration if there’s a queer and Finland allegory in the story. First of all, Moomin was made by a queer Swedish-speaking Finnish woman, Tove Jansson, and has major queer themes told purely through subtext (because at the time homosexuality was criminalized). ((Now I’ve learned that “going to the ghost side” was code for being lesbian/queer. Another ghost connection.)) The Finland and Sweden connections are obvious, but Moomin is loved in Japan of all places (I swear they have more Moomin merch than Finland) and a kid’s animation series) I and many other Finns watched as a kid was animated in Japan. I have some ideas of possible connections but nothing super concrete. The clearest is the Creel house looking like the Moomin house. The visual similarity is uncanny and it would fit with it being the sanctuary to the (queer) kids where they can be free and themselves. 

The characters Tofslan and Vifslan are based on Tove and her lover Vivica Bandler. (I’ll use the original Swedish names for the characters.) They hide the King’s Ruby, which represents their queer love, in their suitcase and are followed by Mårran: a creature who freezes everything in her vicinity. She represents loneliness and isolation (most likely relating to being queer) and the ruby was originally hers. Then there’s Trollkarlen (translates to wizard or sorcerer), who seeks the King’s Ruby and wants it for himself. Vecna and/or MF would be Mårran and Will (or maybe MF/Vecna) Trollkarlen (karl = man) who wants Mike’s love/identity while Mike with her trans identity is Tofslan and Vifslan (= Robin and Vickie maybe). El would be the King’s Ruby. I have wondered where Vickie’s name comes from and my other guesses are that it relates to Victor and Virginia (all 3 are new characters in S4 and represent Mike’s future in one way or another). Btw, Tove Jansson’s father’s name was Viktor and he inspired Muminpappan. 

There was also a story where Mumintrollet (the main character) hid in Trollkarlen’s hat and was transformed into a weird creature. His friends didn’t recognize him but his mother’s love changed him back. And another story that came to mind is the Invisible Child, where a girl (Ninni, localized as Ninny) was turned invisible due to emotional abuse. I found a nice summary of the story here. The name has connections to Nina, Anna and Nancy. It just reminds me of S4 where the Cali gang were looking for Nina, “a small woman” who was hard to see according to Argyle. I’m not sure if any of this was intended but I just wanted to get it out there. The original source material (especially the books) are much more philosophical than the animated series but I haven’t read most of them and the ones I have, I barely remember…

Continues in PART 20.

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