Stranger Things

[Dogg Thang]

Apparently what Dustin said is that...

->Open Spoiler<-

Vecna is the Mind Flayer's "five-star general".

[Lebowski]

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I think it was out the gate that we clicked he was number One, he had too much prominence and the character was too undocumented, but we didn't really piece him as being the same character as the season villain till sometime in the final ep itself.

It's definitely a puzzler as to why Vecna wasn't used in prior seasons to break through the Upside Down but, no idea if it'll be true, I've seen it speculated whether it will be revealed that

->Open Spoiler<-

Vecna is actually the main villain and he controls the Mind Flayer so has spent each season building his powers from being cast there through the victims in each season. I guess that would tie in with the MF's ability to understand English, the frozen in time element of the upside down and the main bond being between Vecna and the large spider-like Mind Flayer

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the mind flayer is not dead from the wiki

Eleven interfered by closing the interdimensional gate she had previously opened at Hawkins Lab, severing the psychic connection between the worlds and killing the Demodogs in the process. As Eleven closed the Gate, Will's friends and family worked to force a piece of the Mind Flayer out of his body, which in turn became dormant after the Gate's closure.

The isolated piece of the Mind Flayer remained dormant at Brimborn Steel Works until 1985, when a newly opened Gate reestablished the psychic link. Via this proxy form, the Mind Flayer began kidnapping and possessing multiple humans and rats, feeding them chemicals, and melting their bodies into puddles of biomass; this biomass was then combined to create a new physical form. However, this new form became lifeless and inert after the new Gate was shut, and the psychic link disabled once again, causing The Mind Flayer to be stranded in The Upside Down

The Mindflayer needs gates and a host to be able to control things in our world, according to the above he never left the upside down, he was physically controlling the flesh monster thing from the upside down. Dustin calls veknor a genral and i think that's what he is when hes cast into the upside down the mind flayer attacks and almost kills him instantly, what we don't know is why the mindflayer stopped striking him with lightning could it be because he reached out to him telepathically? Veknor helps explain why the mindflayer knows about our world and how he can communicate with us too. From the very start of this he's had someone who knows all about our world.


Veknor's power seems to be limited too, it shows as a child he was able to kill a limited amount before his power runs out. The ticking clock and the time between appearing to people and killing the person seems to be 24 hours as evidenced in the show by Max. Nightmares and past trauma seem to be his way of breaking people down, which points towards him only being able to reach out from the upside down and kill under a very specific set of circumstances and only once every 24 hours.

Veknor using his power to open multiple gates would tie in with a full scale invasion from the upside down making him more of a catalyst not the actual threat as if he was all powerful why doesn't he come through now? He has 4 active portals across Hawkins where the 4 where killed yet he's wasting time invading Nancy where a portal already exists. This makes me think he is weaker than 11 he was beaten by a very young version of her and the only thing thats changed is hes been half flayed alive and spent a long time in an alien world.

[Dogg Thang]

Twitter seems to have changed how it works recently in order to make sure it spoils every show I ever want to watch, regardless of whether I follow anyone watching the show or not. So I felt like I had to watch the end of Stranger Things right away or I’d see the entire thing in jpeg form there. Even then, watching it on day one didn’t prevent twitter spoiling something.

Anyway, the end of season 4. I felt it a bit drawn out. Like they had too much time to play with. The second last episode could have been cut right down, for example - it was a talky one really just getting the characters into position for the final episode without much actually happening. And even the final episode had some odd decisions that made things feel slower than they should.

Nevertheless, I felt it really came together and became an incredibly strong finish to a good season. Maybe because it had so much time and setup, I felt the characters got more relevance and heart at the end and so almost all of them had a role. The epilogue again was surprisingly long but I actually really liked it, allowing that ending to breathe and showing us how it all finished up. To the point where, even though there is somewhere to go still, it felt paced like a full series finish rather than just a season ending.

It was good.

Oh and I know the world seems to think Running Up That Hill is the star and, fair enough, it’s one of the best songs ever but that Journey song from Tron was the real star for me here.

[dataDave]

I almost shed a tear at Vangelis' Fields of Coral, but then that's a song from a 1996 album, so all immersion was broken.

[Dogg Thang]

I almost shed a tear at Vangelis' Fields of Coral, but then that's a song from a 1996 album, so all immersion was broken.

They have been mixing and matching music from the beginning. This season also featured a track from Dance With the Dead that is likely only a couple of years old.

[Asura]

I almost shed a tear at Vangelis' Fields of Coral, but then that's a song from a 1996 album, so all immersion was broken.

Blobcat noticed that the army guys are using Hummvees, which didn't come until use until the 90s. But I'm not sure if the US military had a prior very similar vehicle.

[Neon Ignition]

The Journey song was one even we noted when it came on, way better than the overrated Bush song... but then every Kate Bush song is overrated.


So, the final eps... I agree that with some very small tweaks it could easily have been the shows finale and would have stood well for that too. The first of the two eps kind of wasted a bit of time trying to set things up but the finale ep was incredibly strong for the most part.

The biggest irks I'd say we had were probably:

-Max: Not the character, just, as soon as she made her decision a lot of impact was lost as it felt a given things would go against her

-Russia: This simply never paid off. Much like the weaker second season, it was a plot device used to keep characters separated and to weaken the show. They could have wrapped this up in 2-3 episodes and nothing of value would have been lost.

-Timing: Just the whole coming together of three groups at the same critical time by pretty much coincidence. It highlighted the issue of keeping the characters apart, the final run really needs to either use the characters as a group or start killing them off if they can't.

So yep, solid season even if I feel S1 and S3 remain much stronger overall. Sets things up for a great final season but it's 100% the right move to make Stranger Things 5 the finale.

[Dogg Thang]

-Russia: This simply never paid off. Much like the weaker second season, it was a plot device used to keep characters separated and to weaken the show. They could have wrapped this up in 2-3 episodes and nothing of value would have been lost.

Yeah, I'm totally with you on this. It always felt like a bit of a distraction to me and I was never really invested in this entire plot thread.

[Neon Ignition]

I think it was the sloppiest section too, things like Hoppers miracle foot etc and lots of stuff like Yuri's betrayals, the escape attempts etc all having zero consequence. They're hoops the characters jump through just to end up where they started each time and so the particle bit just felt thrown in to justify the arc but in doing so it feels like an overstretch for relevance at the end coupled with everything else.

[dataDave]

They have been mixing and matching music from the beginning. This season also featured a track from Dance With the Dead that is likely only a couple of years old.

The new DwtD album is pretty nice, btw.

[Dogg Thang]

The new DwtD album is pretty nice, btw.

Yep, it's good!

[Lebowski]

The Russia arc felt like what needed to happen, the Russians messing with the upside down as a big part of the last season that needed resolving, the massacre in the prison ties off this arc, and it felt like everyone was doing their part to weaken Vecna's, the russina arc is weeking vecna 11 is fighting the mental battle and steve and co are attacking him physicaly.

That Kate bush song could of been written for this story too

The lyrics
Do you wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you wanna hear about the deal that I'm making?
You
It's you and me
And if I only could
I'd make a deal with God
And I'd get him to swap our places

The lyrics above mirror what Vecna is doing he makes a deal with the mind flayer (that worlds god) to escape that world and take over ours and bring Eleven into the Hell hes been living in.

what im not seeing a lot of people talking about is that Max is gone, Eleven went into her mind at the hospital and she wasn't their its said when Vecna kills he doesn't just kill he traps the souls of those he kills, which makes me think part of the series will be Eleven trying to rescue Maxs soul.

[Neon Ignition]

I might have read the episode wrong but wasn't it shown that the Mind Flayer effectively doesn't exist? That it was formed from the particles by Vecna into that huge spider-eque form and that's why when El is pinned to the door and he's explaining what happened to him she says 'it was always you'?

[Dogg Thang]

I might have read the episode wrong but wasn't it shown that the Mind Flayer effectively doesn't exist? That it was formed from the particles by Vecna into that huge spider-eque form and that's why when El is pinned to the door and he's explaining what happened to him she says 'it was always you'?

Yep, that seemed to be the implication.

[Asura]

I might have read the episode wrong but wasn't it shown that the Mind Flayer effectively doesn't exist? That it was formed from the particles by Vecna into that huge spider-eque form and that's why when El is pinned to the door and he's explaining what happened to him she says 'it was always you'?

I'm really hoping that's not the case. I always liked The Mindflayer as this massive, unfathomably ancient cosmic horror.