The storytelling of Stranger Things fundamentally relies on synchronicity
First of all, let me credit my predecessors that have contributed to our understanding of the relevance of Synchronicity by The Police in Stranger Things (lmk if there are more, I could only find these):
SYNCHRONICITY: The philosophical concept by Carl Jung, the album by The Police, and its importance to the narrative of Stranger Things by @nineteen-ninety-late
Synchronicity & More Snow Ball Shenanigans by @lavenderlatte222
One of Stranger Things' most noticeable tracks, Every Breath You Take, is from the record Synchronicity by The Police. Stranger Things further leaned into the album aesthetics in their visuals and promotion (see the two posts above for more details).
There are two tracks explicitly exploring the concept on the Synchronicity record:
Synchronicity I gives us a summary of the concept of synchronicity by Carl Jung, defined as "events that coincide in time and appear meaningfully related, yet lack a discoverable causal connection" (source).
Synchronicity II serves as an application of this very concept: The stress and anxiety of a father in his personal and professional life are paralleled to a monster crawling out of a lake. The events happen at the same time, even though they are not causally linked. But they are symbolically linked by what a monster crawling to the surface represents and how that relates to the emotional experience of the father.
Mother chants her litany
Of boredom and frustration
But we know all her suicides are fake
Daddy only stares into the distance
There's only so much more that he can take
[…]
Many miles away
Something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish loch
In case you can’t tell, we have basically been pointing out synchronicity in Stranger Things; events of the show that are not causally or logically related but instead symbolically. Think of all the symbols we’ve been analyzing, e.g. the meaning of colors — blue/yellow for Mike and Will, orange/green for (non-)conformity — and how those symbols connect different storylines and events. We’re looking at what feels like ‘meaningful coincidences’.
And it was the Duffers who introduced this concept to us by featuring Every Breath You Take so prominently on the show. That track, in and of itself, exemplifies synchronicity in Stranger Things: It’s played at the snow ball as a supposed ‘love’ song for the kids to dance to. At the same time, we see the Mind Flayer looming over Hawkins High. There is no indication of those two events — the snow ball happening and the MF stalking our characters — being causally related. But they are symbolically linked through a song that is about obsession and stalking.
But I think there’s more to it: Because how the Duffers tell their story fundamentally relies on synchronicity. They are telling us a story inside of a story, constituting the subtext of the show. And that subtext consistently accompanies the text. The two are synchronized.
Take, for example, Mike hiding El in his closet in season 1: We see Mrs Wheeler sit Mike down for a heart-to-heart, telling him that she understands how he must feel with Will gone and that he can always talk to her. At the same time, El is experiencing flashbacks to the lab. These two events are not causally linked (aside from the fact that Mike shoved El in the closet), yet they are symbolically linked: Both a mother being concerned for her son, specifically his grief over his missing best friend, and the imagery of El hurting in the closet point us to the symbolic connection between the two events: Mike's feelings for Will.
If you follow the subtext throughout the show you will see this pattern time and time again. There are so many scenes that tell us the textual and subtextual story at the same time; in synchronicity. Some examples:
Will breaks down after his fight with Mike and destroys Castle Byers. This is when he feels the Mind Flayer returning.
Vecna winning at the end of season 4 and splitting the earth in four coincides with Mike’s (failed) love confession to El.
When Jonathan and Nancy are trapped in the melting room, the room stops melting right after being honest with each other and their mutual love confession.
While these are obviously causally related to the extent that they were written by the same writers and for a good reason, to the characters these events are not causally or logically related, yet they are symbolically, reflecting the emotional beats and logic of the show:
Will's feelings of alienation
Mike (and everyone else) being penalized for lying
Nancy and Jonathan being rewarded for their honesty
The WSQK works in the same way: We figured out that we can synchronize the broadcast to the episodes airing at the respective times, and that this creates a soundtrack for the show that aligns with what’s happening on screen. The songs and the episodes are not causally or logically related; the songs were not written for the show specifically (unlike the ST soundtrack itself). But we find commonalities in what those songs and scenes symbolize.
The way we have uncovered the subtext is largely by using this synchronicity to identify the common thread of meaning/symbolism; we're basically abstracting the symbolic meaning through the synchronicity of events to carve out the metanarrative.
Obviously, some of the subtext breaks this pattern. For example, any foreshadowing per definition can't use the principle of synchronicity, so there are narrative devices the writers use that go beyond the principle of synchronicity. Examples are D&D campaigns foreshadowing their respective season, Hopper's letter about being stuck in a cave in season 3 foreshadowing seasons 4 and 5 both textually and subtextually, or the Russian code foreshadowing season 4 (and potentially more).
Nonetheless, after stumbling across Synchronicity again and looking into the concept a bit more, I don't think it's a coincidence (haha) that the Duffers pointed us towards it.
