i believe in you, mike wheeler

some of this might be stating the obvious, but here’s a summary

tiger imagery—threat of vecna

sarah has the same labyrinth poster on her wall as mike… but she ALSO has a very similar tiger poster on her wall by her vanity signifying the lingering threat despite the false sense of security in her environment. tigers have been associated with will through stranger things and appears in mike’s basement in the epilogue scene which is a likely parallel to sarah having her perception altered and being lead into her false bedroom where the tiger picture is on the wall. if our theories are correct then this also means mike is under vecna’s influence in camazotz in the epilogue, but also that vecna’s influence was still with will even in california, lending itself to the theory that joyce was indeed affected by the mindflayer and took up the phone line to block signals between mike and will.

tunnels under the labyrinth—tunnels under hawkins, hawkins has been camazotz since s2, will has been building it the entire time

looking at the use of tunnels when sarah tries to get through the labyrinth—it parallels s2 tunnels being used by the hivemind, and s5 tunnels being used by the party and co. but the tunnels have been under hawkins since s2… it is possible that camazotz has been in the works since then, that hawkins has been slowly turned into camazotz/the labyrinth. its not something that started in s5, but has only risen to explicit prominence in s5.

basement scenes, unusual smells, timeline fuckery

going back to the basement: if vecna’s influence is in the epilogue dnd scene, and that scene parallels the start and end of s1 through holly’s party repeating history and commenting about an… unusual smell (bog of stench, anyone?), then i think vecna was stalking the party/will since before the show even began, perhaps going back to will’s birthday (7th birthday? ‘it was a 7. the demogorgan. it got me.’). (btw… jonathan smoking weed meant a bad smell was always in the byers house in lenora… potentially masking the same smell as in mike’s basement). i also think we’re in a time loop.

dream states, stalking, and stolen memories—camera angles, the snowball and the wheeler basement (fear)

also, while sarah is in her addled state, she ends up in a ball which has a set that looks suspiciously like the snow ball scene of s2. if we think about the weird camera angles in the basement scenes, byler scenes and the snowball scenes, and relate that to how vecna stalked his victims, and how we literally got a vecna pov shot when max flipped the bird at him in holly’s memory, then we can assume those angles are definitely from his perspective. pov shots are EXPLICITLY important in s5, with will having true sight and access to the hivemind. just like in harry potter (a known reference for the series), if will can spy, vecna can spy back. some scenes include: s1 dnd scenes, s2 snowball scene, s4 byler scene when they’re sat on the cars, s5 literally most will scenes, but specifically mike at the hospital, will’s coming out (that weird wide shot from the corner with everyone in it, and will’s pov shots looking at those people, esp. mike; also MAX’ pov. there’s no way she’s really max) , and the finale scenes at the graduation, joyce and hopper at enzo’s, every imagined ending scene, the shot where the party comes up the basement stairs, but ESPECIALLY the angle through the bookshelf when the party puts their binders back.

if vecna is like jareth then he stalked sarah and used objects from her room and her memories to create a new, fake reality for her. this relates to the poster on mike’s s1 bedroom looking like the finale’s mindflayer. but vecna has also been stalking mike’s basement—why and for how long? recall: will’s earliest memories being with mike in that basement. the basement, before it was for the party, was for mike and will. el, a symbol of mike’s love for will, is hidden in mike’s basement. will sleeps in mike’s basement in season 5. if mike’s bedroom is used to make memories unrelated to byler, then the basement is about how mike feels about will—hidden under the house, private. it’s possible that vecna has been stalking will, and therefore mike, for a long, long time, way before the start of the series’ in-show timeline. this relates the basement’s strange smell back to vecna’s stalking and jareth’s bog of stench, where he puts the goblins that rebel as a punishment. the smell is a symbol of punishment for a lack of conformity.

its also possible that vecna stalking them at the snowball scene altered the memory/what we see in the show. it’s likely he was watching them then also. he takes max back to that scene in s4: it might be that that was when his stalking of max began (which could indicate that the targeting of billy was predetermined in order to get to her, which relates to the targetting of the wheelers in order to get to nancy and mike). if lumax and byler are parallels (which they are), then this suggests will was being stalked in that scene too. tie that in with the snowball analogies in s5, the (#bobgate) creelby parallels of creelby having milkshakes at melvald’s and the misremembered memories of it snowing outside even though it was early november… indicating that it was likely the middle school snowball with bob he was misremembering… henry conflating that false memory with will’s memories… i think we have a slam dunk here

i think that vecna specifically targets moments/ places/ or events that are personal to him and his fears before targetting individuals. for example, if we take bobgate’s analysis on clowns to be literal, as in henry or bob was literally afraid of clowns, he might’ve been prompted to linger in the circus environment of will’s (seventh?) birthday and perhaps that is where he attaches to will? or even to mike, who would’ve been at the party. henry stalking the snowball scene subconsciously relates to a hidden memory of him and bob, and there he latches onto max as a second target, max who was afraid of billy and neil because of her interracial relationship… (patty and henry, versus bob and henry, anyone?) the theme of fear being a source/cause for hatred and violence is significant in stranger things so vecna gravitating towards places that he fears to choose targets that also share the same fear… well, it’s not unlikely.

Jareth wants a jareth junior—vecna wanted el, then he wanted will… is mike what he got?

jareth took that baby and wanted to name him jareth, wanting an heir to his goblin kingdom. we all know that henry wanted el on his side, but then he later wanted will instead because el rejected him. neither of them could be manipulated by the mindflayer like he was, although the mindflayer could possess will, will could still break through, which is why vecna couldn’t just possess will in s5, he had to replace him (yellow to orange, fake memories, etc.). mike is neither, and mike is more susceptible to this manipulation (creel and wheeler family parallels) due to his upbringing. i dont think mike parallels the stolen baby, toby, but i think he is a version of sarah still stuck in her fake room.

i wonder that mike isn’t henry’s successor, what with the visual parallels in the epilogue scene and that snl sketch with finn as a scifi dictator that looks exactly like jareth the goblin king in labyrinth. its also a sketch on feederism—recall: sarah eating the fruit hoggle gave her and falling into the false world/dream state. sarah can have ‘everything she wants’ if she just lets jareth rule her and have tobias, and she must navigate the labyrinth and recite a speech to defeat him, and literally take a leap of faith in the labyrinth to get toby back. i think that’s what we’re waiting on mike to do. and he will, even if he always is late to the game.

jareth is also portrayed by david bowie, singer of heroes, and mike’s idol, as mike even wanted a hot orange mohawk just like bowie. you can’t tell me that the duffers arent waving this plotline in our faces.

consumerism—the mindflayer and metafiction

part of the labyrinth is a commentary on consumerism. sarah is lulled to stay in the false room as that goblin piles on objects that are supposed to have worth to her. jareth tries to get her to quit by promising her everything shes ever wanted, but she refuses because she wants toby, not meaningless objects. recall: jonathan’s supposed movie on consumerism and capitalism—the female monster that devours: the more she eats, the hungrier she gets, obviously relating to the mindflayer. the duffers make this commentary meta through the false ending/real ending ARG, and as an attack on the GA’s understanding of media.

dream states vs waking reality —the montauk experiments

you guys don’t even wanna hear me start on my bullshit again… the summary of the montauk experiments is this: psychics kidnapped (typically young, male psychics) and kept in camp hero, in montauk, to test the limits of their abilities. they tried to use machines to manifest their psychic visions into reality using frequencies…. blending the supernatural and science fiction genres together, just like stranger things. what manifested were creatures that were embodiments of the victims’ fears…. vecna/pennywise the clown, anybody?

relating this to labyrinth: it’s likely that sarah dreamt it all up from a book’s plotline (the book she reads from on her vanity) to cope with her life. now, i don’t like the idea that the series was all in mike’s head as a psychological metaphor, but i think the metaphor is allegorical/didactic in nature. mike is the storyteller/a stand in for the duffers. the stories we tell ourselves are the way we cope. if we get even more philosophical and meta, storytelling is the only way human beings know how to express themselves, to process things, to communicate and function. jung gets into it with the hero’s journey and the archetypes. going back to the in-world story, mike’s fears about being queer, about forced conformity and about losing will forever are validated through vecna (an entity representing forced heteronormativity and conformity out of fear, representing generational queer trauma and fears, destructive behaviors, being passed down out of fear) lashing out and taking will away from him time and time again. we’ve seen the timeline where fear wins, and generational curses dominate. it’s now time to see the alternate timeline, where mike breaks the curse and gets will back.

guys nobody is planning to kill themselves over this theory, nobody is dying or getting hurt over this, this is for fun jfc what’s not to get?

i dont think anybody using that term is understanding what actual psychosis is. the commodification of mental health terms to pursue the assertion of your opinions as truth is so rife online.

i hate those mfs now icl