#anniversarygate

This is one of my darker theories. It's a theory about truth, love, queerness, conformity, abuse, repressed memories, half-closed doors and curtains, and the choice between fantasy and reality.

tw: homophobia, abuse, bullying etc.

If you really wanna protect Will, he needs to know the truth, and he needs to be ready to deal with what’s waiting for him on the other side of this.

What is Anniversarygate?

If you've been following me for a while, you might know of my theory that all of Season 5 was an illusion, based on real events.

This theory, anniversarygate, is similar – except it's not just Season 5. What if the entirety of Stranger Things is an altered reality?

I believe that what we watched was an altered reality created by Mike, based on a traumatic truth, repeating over and over in different ways – starting with what really happened on November 6th.

This is the reason why Stranger Things has "ended"; because the fantasy is over.

First, I'll provide you with a quick summary of what I believe really happened. Then, I'll go into a deeper explanation with plenty of evidence.

There will be more parts to this theory, but this will be the overall explanation.

Anniversarygate Theory Summary

There are two different versions of events, which I will be calling "realities".

1) The original reality. In which Will was kidnapped by Lonnie in 1982.

2) The altered reality. A fantasy created by Mike, in which Will was kidnapped by a monster in 1983.

In the original reality, Lonnie kidnapped Will when he was 11 years old. He took him to Dr. Brenner, believing he would make Will "normal".

Terrified, Will escaped, and Mike hid him in his basement. Will was found shortly after, but this event gave both Will and Mike shared trauma and PTSD.

To recover, Will saw Dr. Owens – but it didn't help. Will didn't trust doctors anymore, and he was still being bullied by his peers.

So, Joyce planned for them move out of Hawkins for a "fresh start". This terrified Mike. He wished that he could live in a world where none of this ever happened. Will wanted the same thing. They both thought they would lose each other if Joyce went through with her plan.

So... an altered reality was formed, in which Will wasn't taken when he was eleven, and their shared trauma was erased.

Things were normal for a year.

Until, on the anniversary of Will's disappearance, he was taken by a monster. On the same day, someone took Will's place... a girl called Eleven.

You see, in this illusory world, whatever really happened is exaggerated, yet also watered-down; a real story filtered over and over through a fantasy lens.

From then on, Mike and Will's trauma continued to leak into their altered reality, on the anniversary of the day it happened.

Vecna: Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades; each life a faded, lesser copy of the one before...

This is why, throughout every season, there are continual references to kidnapping, past trauma, abusive fathers, "freaks", dreams/nightmares, and characters moving away for a "fresh start".

There is secret story "on the other side of this", that both Mike and Will must to be brave enough to face.

Mike: But... there is a story he could never tell.

The real story.

The Anniversary Effect

In Season 2, we were introduced to something called "The Anniversary Effect".

Dr. Owens: The anniversary of a certain event can bring back traumatic memories. It opens up the neurological floodgates, so to speak. Hopper (to Joyce): I think he's right about trauma.

Stranger Things follows this pattern repeatedly. The biggest and most highly-recurring example? Bad things happen on November 6th.

It's like in Season 4, when Eleven is interrupted by visions of her hands soaked in blood. Her memories bleed through "from her subconscious", affecting what she experiences in the NINA project.

In the same way, Will and Mike's shared trauma bleeds through from their subconscious, affecting what they experience in the plot of the show.

For example:

In Season 4, Hawkins split apart and all the characters were lying, distant from each other or fighting...

...Just as Mike and Will split apart the year before, after growing distant, fighting, and Will moving away. Because "Hawkins isn't the same without you," Will.

The fantasy directly reflects reality.

Therefore: when Will was kidnapped on November 6th, 1983, this was due to the anniversary effect bringing back traumatic memories from the year before.

So what really happened?

Will's kidnapping: How and Why?

Flickergate

How and why Stranger Things has set up the perfect foundations for a “fake ending” stunt. 

A passionate essay by upsidedownlurker.

NOTE: For clarity, I will be using the phrase “the illusion theory” to refer to any theory that part or all of Stranger Things isn’t fully real – this includes lovewinsgate, conformitygate, anniversarygate, and countless other theories. 

Since before Season 5 of Stranger Things, something has been building. Fans of the show were told repeatedly by the Duffers that by the end of Stranger Things, every question we had would be answered. There would be no loose threads left to unravel.

But by the end of the show, we were left with more questions than answers. 

There are countless theories about what exactly went on with Season 5 of Stranger Things, and what may happen in the future – AKA, what is happening. We can sort them into two main categories. 

OPTION A: Stranger Things isn’t over, and at least part of the show was an illusion. 

OPTION B: Stranger Things is over, and ending of the show was bad. 

Therefore, we also have two main reasons for why it happened. 

OPTION A: This is a deliberate stunt intended to mimic patterns in popular culture, highlighting the problems with the modern media industry. 

OPTION B: This is a perfect example of the problems with the modern media industry. 

I'll be exploring Option A today.

So – we have the what, and the why of Stranger Things not being over. Along with that, I am here to explore the how. How the Duffer brothers have already laid the perfect foundations to achieve this exact type of stunt, how it fits into the show, and... well, the answer to the question in the title, too.

THE BEGINNING: BIRTHDAYGATE

As mentioned prior: for several seasons of the show, something had been building. 

A large and still unexplained example of this is birthdaygate.

Throughout Season 4 in particular, important information seemed to have been forgotten by the characters in the show, including Will Byers' own birthday on March 22nd – one of the only birthdays ever mentioned in the show.

There were many theories as to why. Was it altered memories, timelines or something else? Regardless, fans dubbed this idea “birthdaygate”. It gained some traction – but the Duffers claimed it was just a “mistake”, a lapse in their memory, that they were sorry, and that they would edit it out of the show. 

It was never edited out. 

After this, many people in the theory space seemed to agree that Stranger Things was building up to something big. Especially considering the Duffer brothers' love of well-written plot twists, like "Sixth Sense" by M. Night Shamalan. Twists that change the way viewers understood the show upon rewatching it.

Fan theories ranged from alternate dimensions to altered memories to time travel… but by the “final” episode, these theories coalesced into one collective belief: the show was not over, and at least part of it was not real. An illusion.

But a week went by, then a month, and most people had given up on this idea. The show was simply bad. Unsatisfying for the audience.

Like Max at the start of ST5, (and arguably, like Mike at the end of that same season), we accepted our fate.

That’s the point. 

For those who chose Option B, Stranger Things is done. They got their complaints out, and they’ve now moved on to the next thing. Found another TV show to binge. Another thing to consume for the purpose of escapism.

For the fans who chose Option A, who still believe the show isn’t over – well, we don't have any confirmation that we're right. We're stuck in limbo, either rewatching the show to find clues, or escaping our limbo with something else.

Stranger Things has forced us to live in fantasy. 

Whether you theorise that the current story is a “fantasy”, or whether you believe that what theorists call the “fantasy” is the real, but poorly-written story… regardless, the result is the same. We are repeating the cycle, participating in the patterns of the modern media landscape and more importantly: we are accepting that the fantasy is "real". 

I believe.

If this is an intentional stunt, then our expectations as an audience, and our idea of reality are being played with on a massive scale. It's like we're all acting our part in a play. Very meta.

Considering the themes of the show, this is far from unbelievable. 

ESCAPISM AND TV

The illusion theory thrives on a particular duality; two important themes that Stranger Things has established across multiple seasons…

Reality vs. fantasy. 

You know what else thrives on the idea of reality vs. fantasy? All of TV! (featuring characters/people, anyway…)

It’s most visible in what we call relatability; the idea that you can stare through the pixels of a glowing rectangle, see the person those pixels represent, and think, “You’re just like me”.

You can feel what the character onscreen is feeling, think what they are thinking, and live the life they are living – if only for a moment. 

Mike and Will are relatable. They are just like us. Forty years after their story takes place, we are all repeating what they do; escaping our reality through fantasy. For them, it’s D&D. For us, it’s TV. 

If intentionally written, the illusion concept only strengthens this relatability. Not only are they escaping their reality through fantasy, but they are living it. So much so that they have forgotten what real life is like; they have become the fantasy. They are the characters in what is essentially one big game of D&D. 

Meanwhile, for us, the audience, the thin line between reality and fantasy has been totally dissolved. 

Fans of the show have asked, 

“If this is all on purpose, why would they do this to us?” “Why would they make us wait not just weeks, but months to confirm our favourite show didn’t end like… that?!” 

This is why. 

Post-finale, the majority of Stranger Things viewers are living the fantasy, just like the characters. It’s like escapism on steroids.

Let's set the scene for a moment.

You're watching the final episode of Stranger Things, Season 5. It just ended. It was... surprisingly short. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t satisfying, either. It was somehow nothing like what you expected to see, and... something you've already seen before.

You wonder what it was all for. Having now watched all five Seasons of the show, there was no greater message that you now understand – you just feel hollow. Empty. 

To take your mind off of this disappointing reality, you decide to find a better fantasy. You watch another show, scroll through social media, read some fanfiction.

Reality isn't empty anymore, because it's filled with fantasy.

If this is an intentional stunt? It’s that emptiness between our escapes, the quiet, that they want us to notice.

In a moment, WSQK will fall silent. But uh, Hawkins, that doesn’t mean it’s gone, just that it’s somewhere else. [...] So when WSQK disappears, don’t be afraid of the quiet. Sit with it. Listen to it. It knows you better than you think.  (The above is a quote from the final moments of the final broadcast on WSQK, the official Stranger Things radio station – the day of the "finale".)

When the show disappears, and our screens fall silent...

We can be afraid of the quiet; we can fill the quiet with sound and move onto another show. 

Alternatively, we can sit with the quiet, just long enough to hear our thoughts – or even to remember the ticking of time. 

[Clock ticking] The clock is counting down to 11…

Personally, after I thought the show was over, and I wasn't aware that the WSQK broadcast had continued, I sat with the quiet for a good long while. I laid on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Felt my feelings, thought my thoughts. It was a quiet moment with my own experience before I would be inevitably flooded with the opinions of others. 

It seemed, for a few hours, like my favourite show had ended in a way that was totally antithetical to everything that made it my favourite show to begin with. As though the show’s creators had done exactly what they said they wouldn’t do – abandoned the premise of the show, thereby disappointing their audience.

Yes. The Duffers did a lot of things that they explicitly stated they would not do. 

Let’s talk about that. 

BETRAYING YOUR AUDIENCE <3

In their documentary, and in several interviews pre and post finale, the Duffers talked repeatedly about shows that have betrayed their fans in how they ended, versus shows that ended well – “landed the plane”.

Ross: “I think when we were looking at the various finales of long-running shows that landed the plane, the ones that did it the best really just stayed true to what they were. [...] We need to be true to what Stranger Things is and always was from Season 1 on.”

Within the first few minutes of the One Last Adventure documentary, the Duffers had said this:

You see these shows that people love and adore, and the ending falters. And they just discard the rest of the show.

The Duffers talked repeatedly about how every question would be answered; no loose ends. 

You can’t leave anything dangling. You have to wrap everything up.

Notably, they also discussed how early-on in their career, they went AGAINST the norms of TV at the time and by doing that, they created something extraordinary. About how, when conceptualising the show, they wanted to create something they hadn’t seen on TV before. 

Shawn Levy: The rules of the TV and movie industry back then said you can’t make a show about kids that isn’t for kids; you can’t combine horror genre and coming of age. The Duffers: Eventually we realised we just needed to listen to our gut, and wrote for ourselves [...] it came so easily. Shawn Levy: It was that transgression that made [Stranger Things] feel so fresh.

They said all of that.

They know what makes Stranger Things good. They know what makes the finale of most shows good.

So why is Episode 8 of Stranger Things a betrayal of EVERY SINGLE ONE of these ideas?

I mean... just read this line from an interview.

Matt: We could’ve definitely killed some people; it’s just not what we want to do, and it’s not, to me, what the show is, or what the show is about.

And yet, in the documentary… 

“The whole episode has to be building towards ‘Eleven is going to k*ll herself’.”

Huh?!

WHAT?!

By the final season, the show seems to totally forget what and who brought it here. It’s a Marvel movie, a spectacle, “bigger” than its previous season yet again – following the rules of the TV and movie industry. It left question after question dangling, loose end after loose end, with an ending that most fans agreed felt like a disappointment. It’s a copy of what’s already been done before, not only outside of the show, but within it, too.

Here's what I think.

So, the Duffer brothers have claimed that they researched the endings of shows, both good and bad, in order to make sure theirs was good – that it “landed the plane”.

Additionally, Shawn Levy has said that he watched the “final version of the final episode”, and that not only did they land the plane, but that the Duffers have created a “masterpiece”. 

I think this is all true – but I also believe that they did this research in order to REPLICATE the most hated endings and media tropes of all time, before revealing their “masterpiece”. Their own version of the "Sixth Sense" twist, which both Duffers cite as a big inspiration.

So, which common, hated tropes has Stranger Things participated in during their final season?

Here is a non-exhaustive list, from memory:

TELL, DON’T SHOW: Instead of SHOWING the audience what is happening, the audience is TOLD what is happening, often through lengthy, repetitive, boring conversations – exposition able to be understood by a baby sitting in front of an iPad. 

RETCONS: Nancy’s “Mike, Holly and Karen” vision is suddenly changed into a “Ted, Holly and Karen” vision with no explanation. The Mindflayer is retconned into being able to be killed with guns and fire, instead of being an unkillable ancient entity. The Upside Down is revealed to be a wormhole, despite never functioning like a wormhole, and using information that is only introduced in Season 5 (the wall).

BAD SCIENCE: The “wormhole” defies the science of wormholes, science which is clearly explained IN THE SHOW ITSELF. It has solid walls, and characters are able to travel within it as they please. It is kept stable by “exotic matter”, which doesn't answer our questions, only brings up more.

“BAD” SFX: The CGI effects for the void and Henry’s mind are notably less realistic than in previous seasons, looking more like a play than a TV show.

GRATUITOUS/OFFSCREEN DEATHS: An entire lab full of pregnant women is introduced, only to be never acknowledged, and presumably blown up offscreen in the finale. Oops.

FORCED LOVE TRIANGLES: Steve, Nancy and Jonathan. Mike, Will and Eleven. Notice how neither of these love triangles had satisfying endings for the characters or the audience? Shit.

NO SPARKS: Mike and El appear to have zero romantic tension throughout most of ST5, to the extent that many people thought they had broken up offscreen. They continue to have zero romantic tension during their final kiss – in which Mike does not tell her he loves her back.

FRIDGING: El, a female protagonist, dies when she genuinely could've chosen to live. This is a catalyst for Hopper to move on from the death of his daughter, and for Mike to… um… uh...

QUEERBAITING: Mike and Will’s relationship was explored carefully over several seasons, Will’s love for Mike was revealed, and their ship was referenced in promo/marketing multiple times – only for Will’s love to be reduced to a “crush”, and Mike replaced with a random dude in a bar who looks just like him. Meanwhile, Mike ended up ALONE, with all his friends moving away without him, and El dead. Jesus. Anything but Byler.

NOT TOO GAY: After getting together offscreen, kissing once, arguing, then promising to go on a date to Enzo’s together, Robin and Vickie are never seen as a couple ever again. While Lumax go on a movie date and Jopper LITERALLY GO TO ENZO'S... Rovickie never do. Vickie isn’t even in the Epilogue, and Robin half-implies they broke up offscreen.

JUMPING THE SHARK: Rather than narrowly evading the unkillable Mindflayer through love and memories, or spending twenty to thirty minutes of runtime fighting for their lives, the characters apparently won by killing a ridiculously huge, spiky meat monster with guns and fire – in eight minutes of runtime.

PLOT ARMOUR: During the battle with the aforementioned ridiculously huge, spiky meat monster (with incredibly sharp teeth and multiple sharp, stabby limbs), not a single character dies or is even injured. To put this in perspective, let's go back to Season 1. Jonathan injured Steve more with a couple punches than the RIDICULOUSLY HUGE, MULTI-LIMBED, SPIKY MEAT MONSTER injured anyone.

It's not usually like this. There's been the occasional retcon or plot armour moment, but... damn. It really is a copy and paste of people's least favourite TV tropes.

A copy of a copy....

Vecna: Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades! Each life a faded, lesser copy of the one before. [...] 

…designed to distract us...

Vecna: Everyone… is just waiting… waiting… for it all to be over, all while performing in a silly, terrible play, day after day.

...from the emptiness of reality. Consume, consume, consume.

WE, THE CONSUMERS

Many of us watched the finale in theatres, a viewing method which did what the streaming industry cannot do: it brought attention to the fact that we may be individuals with auto-renewable streaming subscriptions, but we are also an audience; a group of people who are collectively making the choice to spend our limited money and time on this earth consuming this show.

And once it’s over, we crave more. 

Jonathan: The Consumer. It's a metaphor; the more she eats, the hungrier she gets.

Despite the individualistic nature of streaming, we were never alone in our experience of this show, nor others.

You aren't listening alone. You never were. [...] Spreading, connecting, becoming something larger. A quote from the final WSQK broadcast

Regardless of whether we are in the same room, we will always be an audience, a collective – all sharing the same experience through a subjective lens. 

They’ve shown the play in theatres, and soon, they’ll be showing episodes of Tales of ‘85 in theatres too. Keeping the spectacle going. If this is deliberate, it's all a part of the experience.

“At the end of the day, the audience cares most about the characters, and not the spectacle... but the ultimate goal is to collide the two.”

Then, where were the characters in all this? What about all their unfinished arcs, unmet goals and unanswered questions?

“Every year it gets bigger, and every year there’s more expectation.” “How do you meet those expectations but surprise the audience still?”

I’ll tell you how. 

You do it by making the show “bigger” one last time, claiming it’s done – and then, when everyone has moved on, hitting them with the reveal that there is more to the story. 

Something that is character-focussed. Grounded in what the show has been about since Season 1. A “masterpiece”, which “lands the plane”, and reveals a plot twist that changes the way the audience views the series – just like the Duffers’ biggest inspirations.

Which, intriguingly, is exactly what the illusion reveal would do*. 

*Given, of course, that it's not done just for the shock factor – but a plot point which contributes to the overall themes and message of the show.

THE "BLIP" OF IT ALL

Now… I am a firm believer that the illusion theories are believable, with or without new content – because the foundations of these theories already lay entirely within the foundations of the show. The subtext, themes, and overall narrative of Stranger Things. Because it's there already, we don't need new content to interpret the show this way.

However, I would argue it is for this exact reason that it is more likely for the illusion interpretation to have been intentionally written into the show. The idea that two showrunners could set up the perfect foundations for a very specific plot twist for years, which would achieve everything they aimed to achieve… ACCIDENTALLY? 

I find that difficult to believe.

How do we know it's real? We don't. But I choose to believe it is.

If this subtext became text – if it was revealed to the wider audience through new content, thereby becoming part of the show’s official canon, Stranger Things would achieve exactly what the Duffers have aimed to for years.

It would create a well-written ending that is satisfying for the audience, yet is also unexpected. It has the potential to spark a cultural shift in the way that audiences view media, and the way that those in charge create media intended for an audience. 

Rather than being remembered as a “blip” in the grand scheme of things, this stunt would give the show a legacy, cementing Stranger Things as an iconic, well-written TV show with a crazy twist, that pushed back against the status quo of the TV/streaming industry – by temporarily assimilating into it. 

THE ANSWER

So, why would Netflix spend millions of dollars on a fake show?

Well, the question itself is flawed. If intentionally written, then Stranger Things isn't a "fake show" at all – it's written with a surprising, creative and iconic twist, which plays with our suspension of disbelief as an audience. It's a show that will have managed to do the "it was all a dream" twist, and actually do it well.

If you were a giant corporation, wouldn't you wanna the only platform available to watch a massively popular show, guaranteed to become even more popular after a huge stunt reveals its surprise finale?

Wouldn't you want the publicity? The subscriptions? The millions of people who would REWATCH the show after finally finishing all 5 Seasons and discovering said twist? The fans of the show who would buy copious amounts of merch from your official store?

Wouldn't you want all that money to go into your giant, corporate pockets?

If Stranger Things is a good show with rewatch value, then funding it is a good business strategy. Simple as that.

...

(And on that note... if Stranger Things doesn’t end up doing this twist, then it’s only a matter of time before someone else does. The clock is ticking…)

Thanks for reading my passionate rambling. Now, back to your irregularly scheduled programming!

With love,

upsidedownlurker

#lovewinsgate #anniversarygate

...

Also, if you're that one person who writes rude comments on everyone's theory posts – you know who you are – you better have read all ~3,432 words of my essay before asking me the same exact question in the title. I'm watching you :P

...

Anniversarygate links:

Part 1 (The altered reality), Part 2 (Why write this twist?)

Here are all my theories, in semi-chronological order, from most recent to oldest. Enjoy :)

CURRENT THEORIES:

Anniversarygate 🤕🧠🌈

The entirety of Stranger Things is an altered reality; a fantasy re-telling of traumatic, real-life events which Mike and Will experienced.

They wished they could live in a world where these events never happened – so, that world was created. But as Dr. Owens explained in Season 2, "The Anniversary Effect" brings back traumatic memories on the date they originally occurred. Except in this world, they come back bigger and more fantastical.

November 6th, March 22nd... the trauma is leaking back into this reality with every new cycle of their "never-ending story", and their fantasy is getting out of hand. They need to accept the truth.

Mike and Will's real memories will be the key to escaping this altered reality; the real story, including Mike and Will's love and their shared trauma, will be revealed through these memories.

Part 1: Mike and Will have been trapped in an altered reality since Season 1... Part 2 How the "illusion" plot twist has already been set up...

Rightsideupgate 😵‍💫⏰🌈

During Season 5 of Stranger Things, Mike is trapped in a fake world called "The Rightside Up", created by Vecna.

All scenes until the Epilogue are altered versions of real events, based mainly on Mike's own memories.

Vecna is keeping Mike trapped in this fake world through his trauma, guilt and shame; a story with an ending of "comfort and happiness", that Mike wishes was true.

His real memories will be the key to escaping this fake world; the real story, including Mike and Will's love, will be revealed through these memories.

I would recommend reading Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 9

ORDER OF EVENTS:

Part 1 Mike is the "Storyteller" of Season 5 Part 3 Season 5 will have 12 episodes (turning back the clock) Part 4 Why MWTFDYDgate = conformitygate Part 9 A timeline of the Wheeler house attack -> Mike's kidnapping

SCENE ANALYSIS:

Part 2 Will's coming out scene was actually Robin's Part 5 Rainbows are a symbol of forgotten/altered memories (which means Holly's kidnapping was misremembered) Part 6 Mike's roof talk with El was also a talk with Will Part 7 Dustin fought with Mike, not Steve Part 8 El went missing on June 6th Part 10 Byler had a missed date, not Rovickie Part 11 What if Vecna disguised himself to Holly as Will Byers? Part 12 Byler saw Rovickie kiss Part 13 Will's painting is crucial to Mike escaping his fake reality

OLDER ANALYSES:

Precursors for Rightsideupgate and/or Anniversarygate 👶🥚🐣

Click here – Memories relating to Will are being altered Click here – Things have been weird since before Will moved away Click here – Will/El parallels, Eddie's D&D game, and why Will is going to defeat Vecna Click here – "The Rightside Up" is a PLACE (origin of rightsideupgate) Click here – They played "Heroes" in Episode 8 of Stranger Things, because Mike lost Will again Click here – Analysing Will's frame in the Episode 8 credits... Will is an illusionist?!

Early conformitygate posts 🤔⁉️🤯

Click here – Conformitygate is a deliberate stunt, and the One Last Adventure documentary gives us the evidence Click here – Conformitygate hints in Finn's SNL episode (half-ironic) Click here – [Old theory] What if the Upside Down's atmosphere is having an effect on characters' mental state? Click here – [Old theory] The illusion started at the end of Season 4, when the Upside Down's atmosphere seeped into Hawkins Click here – Stranger Things will have a "bad ending" and a "good ending" Click here – I believe... (the fifth ever conformitygate post on tumblr. wow what an incredible achievement. truly amazing. #sarcasm)

i don’t think it’s the most likely option for what’s going to happen with conformitygate (ex i’m not sure entirely erasing el as her own independent character and making her a part of will would go over well with the majority of watchers) but the gears in my brain are turning

i remember watching s2 and being very worried by the parallels drawn between terry ives and will byers. especially with the lab hospital. terry was “stuck” between dreams and the real world and will was “stuck” between the slides. i also thought that the scenes where terry and will were being rolled into the hospital were kinda frighteningly similar? i was so scared the whole time that the hospital staff were going to do something to will the way they fucked over terry, but nothing really ended up coming out of that.

even in s1, with people constantly confusing el’s escape from the lab w/ will being missing n stuff.

i’m scared 😭💔

Okay, I don't wanna scare you any more, but... there are huge parallels between Joyce Byers, Terry Ives, and Victor Creel 😭😭

Joyce Byers: The parent of a son who is "different"; he has special abilities. The people of Hawkins think she's "crazy" – especially when she claims her son was kidnapped by a monster, and that he's still alive.

Terry Ives: The parent of a daughter who is "different"; she has special abilities. The people of Hawkins think she's "crazy" – especially when she claims her daughter was kidnapped by a doctor, and that she's still alive.

Victor Creel: The parent of a son who is "different"; he has special abilities. The people of Hawkins think he's "crazy" – especially when he claims his family was killed by a monster.

But anyway, the similarities you mentioned between Terry and Will are so interesting! They do remind me of something...

The lab used electric shock rods on Henry (which El saw), they put a shock collar on El, and they electrocuted Terry Ives. This pattern implies that, Will may have at least witnessed someone in the lab getting electric shocks – enough that he remembered it.

So, there's good news and bad news.

Bad news – Will probably witnessed some bad stuff in the lab, and Joyce may still have been treated as "crazy" by the people of Hawkins (for claiming that Will was kidnapped, not simply lost in the woods).

Good news – Since El's escape represents Will's, this means that he escaped the lab within 24 hours... so he probably wasn't hurt too badly, not to the extent that Terry was. 😭😭