#stranger things 008

Kali's arc is half baked, which I'll never shut up about. We established her morals, she was sad to see El leave, neither of them gets ANY type of closure, and Kali doesn't go through any change despite having an entire episode dedicated to her. The fact there's business left with her is the reason we need her back. She ALSO has alot of backstory the show hasn't covered- so I'm here with my little tinfoil hat theory of Kali's real role at the lab.

Let's start of with some of the facts:

Kali's canon age in S2 is 20, El at the time is 12. They are 8 years apart. (I think a lot of people don't know this, but it's a universal answer wherever I checked)

in the flashback of s2, Kali and El have long hair, regular clothes, and are in a different rainbow room which is not in a hospital- like area.

in the same flashback, Kali and El appear the same age. They are playing together, unlike in the other version of the facility. We don't see any other kids near El or Kali.

since Henry/Vecna/001 uses "while 008 was still here" as a marker of time in S4, it's reasonable to assume the policies on hair and clothes, as well as the building's layout changed in response to Kali's disappearance.

Kali doesn't have telekinesis, telepathy, or electromanipulaton like ALL the other kids do(as we see those are all important to their training) she was born with pets in London, and presumably chosen and kidnapped (and targeted twice) because of her own power of illusion, something of V/H/1's that we don't see replicated in any other number.

Which is where my theory comes in:

Kali was twelve while El was 4(the age they both appear imo in the flashback) this could mean that she was "telling" El to see her as a 4yo as well as anyone around at the time.

I think one possible reason for this is that Brenner wanted her to. Brenner is scared of the telekinetic, but he's also studying them. Two teekinetics in the same room as eachother would be dangerous, so using Kali would be a way to see the kids interact while at ease around someone "their age" who was similar and friendly, but who wouldn't both be able to punch out the eyes of two security guardseach.

Kali is even seen to be held at a clearly higher standard than El bc she was electrocuted, a punishment we only see shared by V/H/1, an employee who interfered with Brenner's plan, and 002, someone who at the time had failed to do Brenner a service (killing El). While it's possible that this was generally common in the Hawkins Lab Facility, these are when we see it, so it is reasonable to draw the conclusion that they're similar. V/H/1, 002, and Kali were punished the same way for the same reason: they were meant to carry out a purpose. Not only as test subjects, but they each had a task as well.

After Kali left for good, that's when it seems the policies changed. Brenner needed a new way to keep the kids seperate now that they couldn't always be physically seperate. That's why in the newer rainbow room, kids are never playing together (the exception being competitive games, which also seemed less popular imo, not to mention we see Brenner pitting them against eachother). These weren't the kids specifically chosen to watch others like Kali and 002 were, so they weren't acting like friends. Brenner didn't want someone back who would refuse her job or kill him or convince a kid to. Kali's job was important enough to seek her out from London, but it's(her job's) goal could be achieved in other ways

Kali was sought out specifically for her illusion powers in order to keep watch on the other kids and show them to interact with other kids but not eachother. Her absence was the reason for the policy changes that we see by the time El is 8yo.

Kali/008 was not born in the united states, she was born in England and was kidnapped by Hawkins lab. She isn’t a product of 001, thats why she has different powers! She is like 001 in that she was born with her abilities though. I never realized that but now it makes much more sense, even if she was related to him in some way it wouldn’t have made sense for her to be the only one with just illusion powers.