Itâs blink-and-youâll-miss-it, but the Alan Turing poster really tells us so much about Will that I consider it to be a significant piece of foreshadowing for S5.
First, letâs dissuade ourselves of the notion that Will chose Turing for his hero project for nerd reasons â Willâs preferred flavour of nerdery is escapist fantasy, not computer science. He doesnât know what an IP address is and the first thing he thinks of when he hears modem noises is a movie he likes.
No, he chose Turing because he admires him for being a gay man who accomplished so much in his short life.
On one hand, thatâs pretty heart-warming â the fact heâs willing to identify with other gay men and look up to them as role models shows us heâs making good progress in accepting his identity. On the other hand, itâs heart-breaking, because Turingâs story is not a happy one â he was caught having a sexual relationship with a man and forced to choose between jail or chemical castration. He chose castration.
I remind you: Will identifies with this guy.
Will is growing up under the twin specters of AIDS and homophobia and likely assumes heâs destined to die young too. Heâs been abused and bullied so much, I imagine heâs heard and internalized it all: that he deserves to die, that heâs disgusting, that heâll never be fulfilled in life.
So when puberty begins crawling its way inside him and implants those shameful desires that make gay men so worthy of abuse⌠he chooses castration.
For all the sad pining he does in S4, we never really see Will express desire for Mike â he never checks him out or shows signs of nervousness when they touch. He behaves with perfect platonic decorum at all timesâŚ
âŚunless we consider That One Scene With The Hose.
Sexual interpretations of this scene are controversial, and I can understand why; weâre so used to seeing Will as this innocent, immature little boy that itâs shocking to catch him fantasizing so lustfully, even though these sorts of thoughts are pretty normal for a 15 year-old. But I think thatâs the point. Weâre supposed to feel uncomfortable about this, because Will feels uncomfortable about it too.
Heâs done well in accepting his identity, but heâs an absolute repressed mess when it comes to accepting his sexuality.
So, thatâs what the Turing poster tells us about Will. Hereâs where the foreshadowing comes in: Will is not the only queer-coded character to have been metaphorically castrated.
Henryâs experience bears striking similarities to Turingâs: he too was caught engaging in a natural but forbidden behaviour and forced by his government to undergo a medical procedure to suppress that behaviour.
His villain speech to El in 4x07, which is ostensibly about his powers, also reads very strongly as a scathing criticism of heteronormativity, and itâs covered in rainbow motifs.
The metaphor here is obvious: Henryâs powers are a manifestation of his homosexuality.
Which implies that Willâs homosexuality can also manifest as powers. Theyâre repressed because heâs repressed.
Itâs not a coincidence that the sexual tension was through the fucking roof in the infamous sauna scene. Every time Willâs supernatural ability to sense the Mind Flayer triggers in S3, Mike is also nearby.
Whatâs interesting about Mike is that his queer acceptance issues mirror Willâs: Mike has a healthy relationship with his sexuality (he casually checks guys out and plasters his bedroom walls with posters of buff dudes) but he just canât bring himself to accept what this implies about his identity.
Always with the symmetry, these two. They complement each other perfectly; oneâs hang-up is the otherâs strength. They have a lot to teach each other about being queer.
And as repressed as they are, I think they want to learn from each other â Will lets himself get flustered when Mike flirts with him in his bedroom, and Mike hangs on to every word of wisdom Will shares with him in their heart-to-hearts.
Internalized homophobia is a powerful force, but their bond is so strong that it empowers them to fight back.
Henryâs powers symbolize his anger at being mistreated and his desire to take that anger out on the world⌠but Willâs powers symbolize self-acceptance and love.
So he isnât just going to defeat Vecna with his powers, and he isnât just going to get the boy: these two things are one and the same.
