#visual metaphors

As we all know, yesterday Stranger Things released the first five minutes of 5x01, and we were all pretty much already expecting it to be a flashback of Will in the Upside Down.

What I was not expecting, was for them to go into this level of detail about it.

It starts with Will singing Should I Stay or Should I Go inside Castle Byers, which in my opinion likely ties back to how music can reach parts of the mind that words can’t, meaning that Will’s humming is probably part of what kept him safe for most of the 6 days that he was there.

After that, there’s the scene of Will shooting the Demogorgan and managing to escape it for a bit by climbing up the tree, however, ultimately failing to get away after the failed attempt to jump onto another tree because he was still being chased.

Honestly, this is where I thought they’d stop the preview, because it’s pretty easy to connect the dots. He was taken by the Demogorgan and then likely implanted with the vine that we see Hopper pull out of his mouth at the end of season 1.

But that is not what happened. Instead we got an in depth scene of Vecna personally coming to ‘greet’ Will, and also to gain control over him with the vine, so let’s talk about what the scene very clearly implies.

This is the most blatant SA imagery that we have gotten since season 2-3.

Will is restrained, and barely conscious. He is in absolutely no shape to try to resist or fight back, and Vecna has full knowledge of this when he forces the vine into Will’s mouth. If this wasn’t enough, there are also the added, disturbing clips of Vecna groaning, or his eyes rolling up, or the way we can literally see the alien substance pump through the vine and into Will’s body.

Not to mention the way Vecna touches (I refuse to say ‘caress,’ it’s too disturbing) Will’s face with his human hand as this is happening, the hand in question not even as distorted and twisted and monster-like as we see it in season 4 because in 1983 it had only been a few years since Vecna was sent to Dimension X. It’s disgustingly human.

I’m astounded by the Duffers’ choice to make the metaphor so clear, yet somehow I’m even more astounded by this fandom’s stupidity, lack of decorum, lack of empathy, lack of media literacy, and lack of any willingness to be open minded to something they don’t agree with.

Of course, an allegory means that the scene is supposed to represent the other meaning, rather than actually being it. However, would it really be that much of a stretch to say that this scene was more than just a metaphor?

This is the legal definition of rape (in the US I believe);

It has been long established that rape is not just limited to penetration of a the victim’s genitalia, and it also includes forceful oral penetration. Keeping this in mind, let’s once again look at what happens to Will in this scene.

He is restrained

He is being held against his will

A foreign appendage is forcefully inserted into his mouth while he is barely conscious

The appendage then inserts likely what was the substance that formed into the demodogs a year later

All while a strange predatory man/creature stands above him touching his face

To put it even more simply, the vine is the representation of ‘a sex organ’ as stated in the definition I linked, further backed by how it forced Will to ‘carry’ and ‘produce’ the demodogs later on.

Furthermore, it is important to mention and remember that everything in the Upside Down is a hive mind, everything is connected to each other. It is not a stretch to assume that the vines can be said to be an extension of Vecna himself, which is what ultimately makes this scene even more violent, disturbing, and absolutely fucking disgusting.

This completely changes how we are supposed to view Will’s storylines in seasons 2 and 3, with s2 encompassing the trauma that was still fresh in his mind and him being forced to relive it through flashbacks and what happened with the Mind Flayer, and s3 depicting how he is desperately trying to cling to the comforting innocence of childhood that was forcefully taken away from him when he was only 12 years old. This is even further backed by society’s attitude towards male SA victims back then and even today.

It adds another layer to the shame he experienced during season 2 (if he even remembers what happened), and why he always seemed to refrain from talking about it, which is similar to what a lot of victims of SA go through.

^ Link to the third article here since the title isn’t visible. It’s specifically talking about how male SA victims were treated in the 80s, before their experience was officially recognised as assault in the 90s. This one is about the situation in England, however, I’m sure a lot of it can be applied to a conservative small town like Hawkins, and I am almost certain that even in real life America male victims were likely treated similarly because to this date they are still treated in a very invalidating manner.

Of course, the above definitions are cookie-cutter examples, and not everyone who has faced such trauma will react in the same way. It might not even be a stretch to say that Will might not even fully remember what Vecna did to him as a defence mechanism, which would explain why at the end of season 4 he says “It’s weird knowing now who it was this whole time.”

And it goes without saying that even if Will didn’t experience what he did, his behaviour and trauma response throughout the seasons would still be 100% valid.

People also question whether this is sexual assault or ‘just’ assault, making the argument that Vecna was never sexually attracted to Will. However, I’d like to counter, and many people on Twitter have said this as well, that SA is not just about sex and pleasure, it is also about the feeling of power that the perpetrator receives after violating another person in that manner. Vecna may have never desired Will sexually, but everything he did was still premeditated. He made it so that Will would be used like this, would become a vessel for him by carrying his influence into the real world. He wanted that control and that power that came from breaking a young, easily-manipulated child and stealing his innocence forever. Not to mention that from the start Vecna had been praying on young, impressionable, and traumatised children like El and Will (and later on all the season 4 victims).

I’d like to add, and you may skip to the next paragraph if this makes you uncomfortable as it’s a more personal note, but I myself have experienced sexual trauma from an adult man when I wasn’t even a teenager. While the assault was never penetrative, I still distinctly remember things that happened. So much so that I honestly completely blocked it out and only recently recalled those years of my life which had been a blur for so long, realising that what I experienced was still SA. After remembering everything there was a solid amount of time where I was questioning every personal decision I had ever made about myself, wondering if it was influenced by what he did. But the man has been dead for years now, and I have moved on in my life.

I wrote the above paragraph because I don’t want some insensitive jerk coming here and telling me that we’re just forcing this rhetoric onto Will despite never actually experiencing assault. This is why Will’s experience and the representation of this topic is so important to me and many, many other people who have experienced things much worse than I have.

And it makes me sad and so frustrated to see people making jokes about the scene, spreading harmful ideas like “Is this why Will turned gay,” or saying that we are downplaying real victims’ trauma and experience. I’m not providing screenshots because I don’t want that shit in my gallery. One search on Twitter or tiktok should be enough to prove what I’m saying.

No one is saying that what Will experienced is worse than a real person’s trauma, he is fictional therefore that is simply not possible, but if anything his experience is being used to validate and reassure what victims have been through, and it breaks my heart to see people still being so ignorant and dismissive of this. In no way am I trying to speak on behalf of every victim of SA, but I genuinely think that this scene deserves to be handled and spoken about with so much more care and respect than it currently has.

You don’t have to agree with this, but saying things like “not that deep btw,” “now yall just dragging it,” “yall really are delusional,” “this is such a weird take” etc etc. especially to victims of SA who are talking about the scene is only showing that you lack basic empathy and are small minded. It’s not that hard to be respectful.