#mothergate

And when that birth scene plays, look at what we get- that looks VERY similar to the gash/vaginal imagery associated with Henward and gates:

I think Henward absolutely got Eddie Glunskin’d and did not have a choice in the matter. Rather than transfem vibes, I’m totally getting “gender weirdness/cis guy who was forcibly operated on/guy who doesnt have a dick now” vibes. The vaginal imagery, especially with Henward, is always tied to force and pain and a lack of consent, and not to a longing to swap genders.

And this is also supported by the other gate/vaginal imagery scenes- when gates are opened, always by force. It’s always tearing/ripping/destruction. Look at the scenes from the end of S1 and beginning of S2:

The demogorgon rips through the wall and creates a tear via force. El widens the tear via force and then rips her way through it.

And look at the S3 gate opening- again, it’s by force. Force from Russian lab equipment- lab equipment creating a tear like that…

And look at the mothergate opening/mothergatae in general- again, it's torn open by force, and it happens in the lab:

And it parallels Henward being sent to the yellow UD- it's a gate opened by El, in the lab, and the cracks in the wall parallel eachother too, in addition to the gates paralleling of course:

So, we've got imagery associated with motherhood/mothergate that's tied/paralleled to Henward's body being torn through in the lab, where surgeries on Henward would have occurred.

And the mothergate gets this phallic imagery with the shadow coming out of it too- it’s definitely giving intersex vibes (and staring at the phallic imagery being forced back in and vaginoplasty surgeries and things being turned inside out/put in):

And look at Jason’s death- a guy, who is REPEATEDLY paralleled to Henward, is yet again ripped in half by vaginal imagery:

Jason’s death also occurred in the attic of the Creel house- the one place that represents Henward the most is being torn in half by vaginal imagery. And look at what exact part of the attic the gate starts tearing at- the part exactly where Henward was:

(these two shots are one after another as the camera pans down, just showing that the tear does open in that EXACT spot where vecna was):

And going back to Jason, Jason’s arms are also pinned down in a way that’s eerily similar to a.) Henward when being sent to superhell/being torn through, b.) Will during his S2 cabin “exorcism” and c.) the demodog that’s strapped to the table in the Russian lab, which parallels Henward, which I talked about here.

And that gash on the strapped down demodog is a very similar shape to the gash that rips through Henward (staring at Henward strapped down to an operating table much like the demodog):

And not only does it tear through the attic, but it also tears through Eddie’s house- Eddie, who serves to deliver subtext about Edward Creel. Edward Creel, who very much seems to have been operated on by Brenner:

Hell, look at the ST pilot and “the tear”- again, we get that ripping and tearing imagery:

And I have to say it- the spirals in Vecna’s mind lair?

Phallic shaped. His mind lair is full of his broken home and phallic imagery. Full of things he lost.

And we also don't know what Henward's sad but also angry memory is- but we DO know that both times it's brought up (when he first mentions it to her when playing plinko and when El remembers that scene when fighting him), it's tied to the concept of El's mother and to birth imagery. I'm wondering if Henward's sad but also angry memory is tied to castration/forced surgery and thereby later tied to the mother imagery/El's birth.