#creelpost

among the many flaws of s5 one thing recently caught my eye. winona saying she wasn't even sure if she was in st5 made me realize how much they've butchered joyce's character in volume 2 and 3 compared to volume 1, the earlier seasons and ESPECIALLY the first shadow. (this mostly applies to how she went about the vecna situation but there are many other key flaws in her writing i'll probably talk about at some point)

the joyce byers we knew never would've swung the axe towards someone who is made of even a fraction of that weird kid she knew in highschool. the joyce byers we knew wouldn't bring harm to anyone who has been through as much as will has. and most importantly, the little joyce moldonado we knew would've remembered what henry said to her about being a good person. those words aren't something you just forget, it's the kind of thing that constantly follows you through life.

taking into consideration what the doofus brothers said about "joyce and hopper finding out off screen" and tfs apparently being canon (despite being made absolutely irrelevant by having it referenced for 3 seconds in the whole season + how unaccessible it is anyway), she would've known most of the story. in their encounter it wasn't the mind flayer speaking, it was the actual henry creel. she finds out from patty that principal newby was protected by the actual henry creel. she obviously knows what the mind flayer is, what it does, and yet the idiots STILL decided to both give henry the worst possible ending and completely strip joyce of her humanity for the duration of those eleven swings. they could've done so much with the already established plot but instead they went with just flushing all of tfs down the toilet.

we've already gotten scenes of will and jane trying to get through to henry. in the perfect ending, the one other person they needed was joyce. maybe henry could've actually been redeemed, or maybe he would've just died with more dignity, but any other ending we could've had would be the perfect wrap for joyce's character development throughout all those years. but oh well, at least she's marrying hopper after zero mentions of their past whatsoever despite there being a perfect moment to bring it up at the end of the series.