PinksMonkey

The scene above has Mike sitting in front of a Jaws poster btw and I’m not going to lie this is all I thought of when I watched that clip.

The writers said that the best (and their favorite) plot twists are the ones that you should've seen coming, and I agree.

So, there's something that I keep thinking about. Hopper's curse and what they told us about it.

The effects of Agent Orange remind of how Vecna kills his victims.

In S5, a big surprise. The doctors thought that Sara was gonna make it.

That makes the scene in S1, when Sara's heart stops and Hopper restarts Will's, even more interesting.

Hopper says that he saw and heard his daughter, but thought that it was all in his mind, and the next morning, Joyce sees Will.

Hopper cries for his dying daughter, and in the same place he tells Owens that El is alive.

But we see another person there, Bob. With a gun. Imo, an important detail.

If you follow my blog, you know that one of my theories is that in the past someone was shot, Hopper was involved, and that's part of his real "curse".

I think it's all connected. Terry shoots a guard in the lab (hospital, says Brenner), and before they drug (and "kidnap") Will, Bob says this

Then in S5, we see in Henry's memory that he was shot, and Will feels it, as though he was shot, and in a vision, Sara tells Hop that he will kill El just like he killed her, and Vecna makes him believe that shot El.

There are other hints, like Will holding a shotgun before he vanishes, Jon saying that his father made him shoot a rabbit the day of his 10th birthday, Alexei being shot after they show a girl who resembles Sara, or Nancy saying that she knows where she hides her guns because there's a six year old child in the house.

All this makes me wonder if Hopper's curse is really about him being responsible for the death of a daughter that we've only seen in flashbacks and visions, a tragic death that has no connection to the lab and everything that happened since the experiments started, or if whatever this father did, it changed the lives of many people, and what we see in the show is all part of Hopper's curse.

I have many questions.

If memories have been manipulated, if there are "missing tapes" that we haven't seen yet, can we be sure that Hopper's memories haven't been altered? Is the girl in the flashbacks really his daughter, or maybe he remembers someone else's past, for example Terry's?

Is his kid still alive? And is the daughter actually a son? There are hints for that plot twist too.

I love Hopper being El's adoptive father, but the theory of him being the father of one of the kids, and the story being about the consequences of the actions or mistakes of a parent (or parents), is one of my favorites.

Another subtle but, imo, important clue. When Henry says that the Mind Flayer showed him that the world is broken and we see the vision of the baby dying, we actually hear two babies: the one in the vision, screaming, and the baby crying in the memory of Jane's birth.

A child dies, another lives, Hopper choosing to sell El to save Will... Maybe these are hints that something similar happened in the past. And maybe other kids' lives were changed too (the Wheelers).

I think that in the past a choice was made, maybe to find or protect a child, maybe to save their lives, but whatever happened, it's haunting these families.

Here another hint

At this point, Hop and El believe that Dr Kay has Vecna, but they actually have Number Eight, the illusionist

Hello, Byler Files enthusiasts... I know it's been taking me forever to get this fic done, so thank you so much to everyone who is still reading. And good news! Chapter 16 has finally been posted. (Yay!) 💛💚💙

Here's a sneak preview excerpt and link to the latest chapter of...

The Byler Files, volume 3, ch. 16 - "Revelations, part 2":

DO NOT WATCH TALES FROM BS ON NETFLIX!!!!!!!

one of el's little catchphrases in s2 is "not stupid." el ALWAYS says that she's NOT STUPID. even mike says el "isn't stupid." if stupid = love, and el isnt stupid, el is not in love. she doesnt love mike, she is NOT STUPID.

meanwhile, in s3, will breaks down at castle byler, and repeats that he's "stupid. so, so stupid." its HEARTBREAKING. will calls himself stupid because will is hopelessly in love with mike.

Jack is not a natural leader. He can think on the fly and he's good at getting people to listen to him, but he's not good at control, or at being objective. He's a natural second in command, he's a soldier. He was brought up to do what other people told him to, and to improvise if he had to (Time Agency, etc). But I really don't think he wants to be the leader of Torchwood. Unfortunately, everything about him means that he has to be. He knows from experience that others having control over him is dangerous, others knowing about his immortality while he's a subordinate to them is dangerous, and he also knows that his own immortality gives him an advantage as a leader. But I don't think he's good at leading. He tries to be. But he's fumbling along, in a time period he's not native to and a planet he's not native to and an unfathomable lifespan, and as charming as he is I think he's often not good with people. He's detached where he should be personal and emotional where he should be detached (or at least more level-headed). He's often too extreme or not harsh enough when it comes to things like discipline or dealing with the problems/traumas/mistakes of his employees or even civilians. He can't handle his employees seeing him uncertain/vulnerable and it makes for huge problems over and over again.

But all of this does make sense because I think in the back of Jack's mind there's always this wheel spinning, these gears turning and turning and calculating the impact and trauma each of his actions or decisions or the events around him are going to have on his own emotions for far longer than normal humans tend to consider. Because the catalyst for any part of the life we see him leading is survivor's guilt. He lost his father and his brother on the same day, joined the military and lost his best friend, joined the Time Agency and lost his memories (and maybe thinks he did something terrible). Then he died, and when Rose brought him back, he was all alone on the satellite with nothing but the corpses of the people who had fought beside him and zero explanation as to why he survived, and he had lost Rose and the Doctor besides. And then all his life on earth since, he has lost coworkers and lovers and civilians he tried and failed to save and probably also aliens he tried and failed to save. And I think by the time he becomes reluctant leader of Torchwood, every action is, whether conscious or subconscious, taken with the intent of minimizing that kind of trauma and the impact of loss.

Except that I think that the survivor's guilt has another layer to it, which is that feeling of needing to sacrifice or absolve himself in some way. No one else is willing to make the difficult decisions, no one else will move forward with the painful and unpleasant actions, even if there's no other way, even though they will someday perish and no longer see the ripples of their actions. But Jack - who cannot die, who must live with the guilt or the pain or the trauma of those actions and decisions for the rest of his very very very long life - is the one who realizes that he must take on those painful responsibilities and must do certain things even though they're terrible, because it ends up being the sacrifice of one over the whole world. And every single time, he's guilty about it, and that makes him want even more to sacrifice his own hurt for the grief and loss of others.

So it's this strange cycle of wanting to protect himself from hurt and from loss and from the survivor's guilt, but being driven by guilt towards painful and/or self-sacrificing actions. Which then makes him fear being seen as vulnerable or uncertain, and he struggles to do things on a smaller scale or in a more level-headed way, because he's not supposed to be leading like this, it's not something that comes naturally, and if he makes emotional connections by being a leader, he'll end up trapped in survivor's guilt yet again each time one of his employees or friends or lovers dies.

It's just a terrible cycle and he's trapped in it for the rest of his existence. Although if he really is the Face Of Boe, then I imagine at some point he eventually finds peace with it all or something, but I think so long as he has a human-form he's stuck with this cycle of leadership and loss and sacrifice and mistakes.