Dr Owens, Barb/Nancy and two tapes-memories in one: Jonathan and Nancy were not together in the Lab
(the Shutter Island, The Truman Show and Fight Club)
Do you remember a theory that Hawkins got flayed in the end of season 2? I believe we have corrupted memories earlier (most likely from the very beginning of the show, but that’s story for another time). Let’s check this one out.
The first thing that stood out to me was this shot:
Dr Owens opens the door, and the scientist starts “working” immediately. He was not working, when the door opened, he started at the same moment. This jumped out at me as if it was staged, and no one was indeed working there until Nancy and Jonathan entered the room. It gave The Truman Show immediately, and I rewatched the whole sequence… a dozen times.
The sequence starts with this shot:
Here we see just Jonathan, and it would be fine, if only I didn’t feel weird by the way the next shot separates Jonathan from Nancy: we see just him in the mirror, which is okay for thing angle, but something still feels off… For example, the fact that Jonathan in the mirror is not Jonathan in the room. The mirror is fake!
You can see this clearly if you compare the way the chair is seen and Jonathan’s posture.
Then, this shot is followed by (what would you think) the surveillance camera shot 🙂↕️ where everything goes even wilder right away:
as much as I could dismiss Jonathan’s hands (the right one is on the left one, while in the shot before the left one was above) or Nancy’s bag (and its shoulder strap) changing position, we still have Jonathan’s posture on the left where he sits with his back against his backrest, while in the mirror it’s different again, but also!!!!
NANCY IS TRANSPARENT!
It looks like her image was put above Jonathan’s. There’s literally no explanation for this table to be seen at the same time we see Nancy. And besides, her image clearly differs from the whole shot. Meanwhile, the shot with Jonathan looks like he is alone there silently looking right into the camera.
My first theory was that Nancy is non-existent in this sequence whatsoever and this is only Jon’s memory, but some dialogues after made me reconsider this.
Anyways, then Owens suggest a walk, and Jonathan again doesn’t match his reflection: staying right in front of the chair on this side, he stands very far in the mirror, and also close to the end of the table (although he moves synchronically).
They start walking, and here I caught The Truman Show vibes, when several people were turning around (as if they were curious actors), and The Shutter Island vibes bc, even though Owens addresses them both a couple of times, it still can be seen as if he was talking to only one of them for whom this spectacle is played. (+ Fight Club)
(fyi, George Sargon died on March 22nd, 1956)
Here I had a theory that Jonathan lost his mind after Will’s death, and Owens plays along to his fantasy that he investigates something with Nancy Wheeler, and everyone knows what’s happening and that’s why they turn around.
But is the corridor walk Jonathan’s memory?
The wording “your brother and Ms. Holland”… Whose brother? Did anything happened to Mike? Why does it sound like he speaks to just one person? And this person is Nancy… Imagine, that she’s alone: he speaks of Mike, or Barbara, then:
“You guys been together long?” “We (we)re not together.” “Wanna see what really killed your friend?”
It could be about Jonathan and Will, but then Barb stands out and I barely see Jonathan and Barb as a possibility… but who knows atp. My bet is Bancy though, with the hunch that here we witness two separate tapes and memories combined. Firstly, Jonathan’s, then Nancy’s. Corrupted memories by Brenner’s tapes?
Enjoy!
I’ll finish the post with this:
Consider the possibility that Jonathan in the mirror is Jonathan on the tape, the hands actually match… the fact that tape!Jon’s and real!John’s hands do not match can be just a production error (moreover, on the tape we can see a mirror too in the “correct” place, not mirrored, so I might be wrong), but the idea of the mirrored reality seems curious.
[ corruptiongate main posts, other corruptiongate key posts ]
___________________________________________ tagging honey buns who were waiting for the post: @warmglowhc @wrathfulstarlightcavern @sorafyr3 @gritstartar @worldofsouthernwind @itswhatyougive ; @bbghostbones I meant the very last panel, but also I recommend you to check out George Sargon, I didn’t find anything for my theories, briefly reading his biography, but it might be useful for you!
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A lot of people who worked on ST5 come up on my insta feed a lot. And, um.
They’ve been FEEDING conformitygate. Like, subtly, but clearly.
Remember how Barbs actor said that her body was going to be shown in ST5 and it never was?
Well,
This is a pic a member of the staff posted. Mind you, she wasn’t working on Stranger Things in season 1.
Also, the picture of the vines looks a lot like a reference picture, used to RECREATE. Which means this was refreated for S5. BUT WE NEVER SAW IT.
So….
Another member posted this
THEY DID FILM IN THE CHURCH THEN
When?
Why?
In which secret episode is this going to be in?
You could have just confirmed it at this point.
And something is deffo happening in front / on the altar based on the lighting. And considering the sign outside the church which is heavily queer-coded I can confidently guess what.
Karen Wheeler supports everyone in season 1 and I really like it
She definitely feels that something is going on. She asks Mike not to hide anything from her (at this moment he is hiding El in the closet and he is actively looking for Will), asks to tell Nancy if something has happened (and something really damn happened!! between her and Steve; and something else happened - Barb died, but Nancy doesn't know about it yet; and that will lead to the situation with Jonathan). She also comes to Joyce and offers her help - "if you need anything, Ted and I are here for you." And right now she really needs help, she's looking for her son, and she won't be able to catch him alone - Hopper will come to the rescue, but it's going to be a tough road for them until they get to the collaboration.
Karengate, what if they had told her everything, then maybe nothing would have happened??
My dear has just predicted all the ships between her closest people for the coming seasons. Very good.
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Corruptiongate p.4: The vanishing never-existing of Jonathan Byers, Suzie Bingham, Barbara Holland — and the drama of the real finale + doppelgangergate
[ p.1, p.2, p.3 + visual erasure of Will in s2 ]
Jonathan seems to be a character created by the Lab to give Will a brother. Jonathan could be visually based on David Bowie and performing tasks of supporting him and also introducing Will to music, which would keep Will in the simulation.
(although I’m not sure that he as Jonathan acknowledges it, and probably is genuinely living in Nina and loves his ‘brother’)
But Jonathan isn’t just an empty hologram.
(meanwhile, notice how the colour palette of Jonathan’s room, including the Bowie shot, duplicates in Will’s t-shirt)
…Have you ever wondered why we love Robin so much?.. Why she is such a good friend to Will? Why she has basically substituted Jonathan for him? Why is she so good in music and even knows what Will would like, barely being acquainted to him?
(we’ve known for a long while that Holly is Mike, and who knows who’s Max atp, but Ig, this door also has a lock on it)
Robin is good at music like Jonathan, Robin likes Nancy like Jonathan, Robin is Will’s support like Jonathan. Robin knows the kids. Bc Rockin fucking Robin IS Jonathan.
And it’s Robin who plays Jonathan, not vice versa, bc👇 Steve and Robin are Brenner’s numbers 👇
(It can also explain the absence of their parents)
The way I see it is that Robin was placed in the hologram when, let’s say, Will needed a brother figure; as soon as he’d grown up, he got a queer friend who helped me where Jonathan could’ve but he wouldn’t understand Will that much. All this time it was one character, who was originally a girl, but changed their gender to fit in Will’s life.
Jonathan yarning for Nancy while she’s in Stancy, anyone? (now I even see Steve in this Dan. And El)
this also explains why the characters keep quoting each other: sometimes it can be literally just one character, or it can be switching-arcs- s5 (like in @warmglowhc example of Mike as Dustin), or repeating storylines, mixing with each other.
(do we still remember that Priah wasn’t that satisfied with Erica’s ending? could that be bc Erica is not real either?)
What fascinates me is the tendency of switching genders of the characters, depending on what was needed for Nina tv-season:
At this point I believe that Dustin is in the lab, same as Henry is 001; but Suzie and Barb are their versions needed for other characters for the plot.
❗️Along with this there’s a pretty solid evidence for stonathan endgame by @strange-anni which also matches Will’s erasure from the narrative; so far I’m not exactly sure how it aligns, but as there are also shots of Robin and Jonathan together, I believe in the simulation they can be duplicated (doppelgangergate, anyone?): like, here’s a nurse looking like Nancy, aside from Vickie being Nancy:
and as for this gang, I’ve always felt like they are a crew here, so I even assumed that they might be just the “agent smiths”, however, as we’ve just seen, I still believe that just partly —
I think it’s gonna be the drama of the real finale:
some of our characters are just a program, but they’re attached to each other, they have feelings, and they might be not ready for this to end.
Stonathan might be endgame inside Nina, if Steve chooses to stay. Ronance will become endgame irl. Max’s been sus too long not to be a program, so does it speak in Lucas staying in Nina? (We’ve had theories that Lucas could’ve stayed with her version wherever she is, and somehow we’re back there?) If Steve stays for Jonathan, Dustin might stay for Steve. It also means that Eddie might get back into the picture, but generally we need to lock in sfm with doppelgängers, as it’s a huge hint at who’s real.
The ticket from Tales quite truly foreshadowed:
[ main corruptiongate posts ] [ other key theory posts ]
p.s. here’s one more genderbend and self-insert from this post by @lesikm
Just recently we have discussed that we don’t know why El was looking at the camera in Nina as if Brenner could see her: my assumption to that is that he also visits his holo-worlds.
tagging those who might be interested, if you don’t wanna be tagged, lmk 🫶🏻: @gritstartar @worldofsouthernwind @daeshikoba @rgwriter @alexiswrite @thisbarbieisineffable @ten-universe @sherlockbyers @iwakeupslowly @dawnschild @misspracticallydelulu @mike-wakes-up @bbghostbones @persistentmimicgrail @youaremess @sorafyr3 @slavless @cypher-heart-no-key @sidoniemoon @demogorgirl7 @beautifulsoulsaretaken @honeymandarin @hayesdraws @wrathfulstarlightcavern @artiandthebeat @lavenderlatte222
You know how Barb is being considered queer bc the UD is a metaphor of internalised homophobia where Will’s taken, and then Will and Billy are the MF’s hosts, and Billy represents Will, and then Holly is taken too, and Holly is Mike, and Mike is queer; and even Henry is probably queer if bobgate is real, and so on? (Does it mean that all 12 kids are also queer !!?? at least we had Derek representing byler, and Holly x Mary doing the same and and… but I digress)
And now when we had the connection that Barb could be Vecna’d, I’ve also started thinking about the shame she had experienced. Which is the same, internalised homophobia, right? Ig, I won’t be the first to assume that she had a crush on Nancy. And this is where I’ve just had an epiphany.
That as Nancy’s queer coding starts here, Barb’s possible influence on s5 can fr develop Nancy’s journey to her sexuality. We had wsqksync nodding at ronance, (which ngl made me doubt how trusted all the sync part can be as I’m not sure whether they’d go with multiple gay ships in the finale, but anyway the sync is there, take it or leave it), we had apparently (and for Camazotz suddenly) queercoded Nancy, and Robin had more vibes with her in that one scene than in all the episodes (s5) before. And as Nancy had this infinite guilt about Barb, and Barb will get back one way or another, ig it mb reconsidered somehow. Maybe Nancy never noticed or, better, ignored some hints from Barb, and Barb never went for it to clarify things with her, so Nancy was playing the good girl card and behaved the way she should’ve behaved from s1 perspective of her.
But as you know, s4 ronance vibed a lot, and if it all comes together after 5x08, there can happen hell of a twist. And I’m saying “twist” bc I’m still not sure if they’d go for it making at least two Wheelers openly queer (and there’s also Holly, right…): dgmw I would be all for it, it’s just I’m not sure that plot-wise it can happen, for me it looked like a good chemistry but maybe not a real endgame; I’d be happy to be wrong tho! (Same for Holly and Mary, if we’d get them in a spin-off or smth, they’re certainly a shipping material, but how possible it is that all three Wheeler siblings will be confirmed openly queer? Honestly, idk)
However, now when Nancy is single and definitely done with Steve, some opportunities might open:
if Nancy will acknowledge that “it isn’t her”:
So you’ll probably ask me: what was the epiphany if we all already knew that Barb was queer and we apparently saw Nancy’s queer-coding?
It was this all being connected through Barb not only bc she was taken to the UD the way queers are taken there, but also being Vecna’d for shame, and we’ve never known Barb enough to assume anything else aside from her relationship with Nancy and the apparent parallel with Will. And here’s where Nancy’s queer-coding takes place along with s4 ronance to complete the picture.
It’d be especially fruitful (the pun is not intended) to explore all that through the perspective of Mike’s queer journey (in which, I hope, Nancy will play her supportive sister role) but also maybe it’ll turn out ironically somehow the way I drafted my little Queerler siblings’ headcanon. Nevertheless, I expect Barb to play her part in anything upcoming whether she’d be just a ghost of Nancy’s past through stumbling on her in the UD, or mb she’ll even get back to life in another timeline. We’ll see.
