Kinda glad they had (Spoilers) - Stranger Things (2016) Discussion

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The season came out last week, lots of people binge-watched and are discussing it now.

If you don't want spoilers, you shouldn't be on this board until you are done watching.

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[–] LTUM (969) 5 years ago

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[–] Mister Babadook (2621) 5 years ago

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[–] LTUM (969) 5 years ago

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[–] Mister Babadook (2621) 5 years ago

Sorry i fixed it, wasn't aware of the page where you can see topics posted. If it makes you feel any better its not some huge spoiler, shes likely gonna get them back anyways its just a mental block most likely.

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[–] LTUM (969) 5 years ago

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[–] Mister Babadook (2621) 5 years ago

No problem, thank you for bringing this to my attention, in the future i'll always put up spoilers tags in the topic title.

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[–] Master (1494) 5 years ago

I thought she strained herself pulling the thing out of her leg

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[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

She's only human. Her body is no more resilient than anyone else's, and we've seen no indication of fast healing. She's going to limp around for a while after a wound like that bite. They'll have to clean it and keep it that way, to keep it from getting infected. If El didn't see it coming or she drained herself doing other things one bullet would kill her just as easily as the next person.

She hurled a car through the air even after being bitten and knocked around, so I think it's just a mental block keeping her from using her powers. The only other possibility is, they didn't get all the blood contaminated with Mind Flayer goo out of her leg in time. I don't think it could actually take away her abilities but it might be able to sabotage her anytime she tries to focus and use them. In that case the opening of a new gate might turn her instantly into one of the Flayed. We already know parts of it can stay dormant when they're cut off, just waiting to reconnect.

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[–] Master (1494) 5 years ago

no i meant that her Power lost weren't because of a mental block
it was because the thing put more of a strain on her powers because it was fighting back more than a car does

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[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

There's a difference between what she calls "dead batteries" and what's happening to her now. The remote viewing stuff doesn't seem to strain her that much (if at all). She can do it all day long. It's the telekinesis that really drains her energy. When she uses that too strenuously for too long, it exhausts her physically and leaves her unable to access her abilities for hours while she rests and recovers.

Three months later she still couldn't move a small object off a shelf. If she strained herself like she did at the end of season 2 closing the gate, and pushed past her limit, it's possible she might have a seizure, suffer brain damage and lose her abilities entirely. Or maybe they'd just shut off and she'd be fine. We don't really know. But when she did that her eyes were bloodshot, she was bleeding out both nostrils, she looked like hell. No such thing happened this time so this is probably not it. If it isn't a psychological issue then like I said maybe they didn't get all the Mind Flayer crud out of her fast enough to keep it from entering her blood stream.

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[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

I didn't see it that way. She was still in some danger fighting Billy at the sauna. Mike had to draw him off for a minute. The Mind Flayer was taken by surprise when it first encountered her, but it's adapting its tactics - and she does tire. She might be able to take ten demogorgons now, maybe even twenty, but forty or fifty? No way. She'd exhaust herself and become vulnerable. They were smart to limit her that way. She can stop almost any attack ... for a short while. But Eleven's powers can't be the solution to every problem.

I'm sure she'll get her abilities back. But the enemy has been observing her limits and learning from each failure. In the end the Mind Flayer is too big and too strong once it gets a secure foothold. To destroy it they'll have to outwit it, not overpower it. Eleven is only going to be one part of a bigger plan.

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[–] Wint3rFir3 (6907) 5 years ago

I agree. She needed to be down-powered from how she was in season 2 because otherwise she's basically unstoppable.

But to add to that, I like it because I feel like it leaves room open for what I've been suspecting was going to happen since season 1 - which is that Will has untrained powers, and Eleven is going to teach him how to use them. We still don't know how Will was able to survive so long in the Upside Down or communicate via the lights, which is something no other character except maybe El's mom is able to do (turn lights on and off). Now that Eleven is de-powered and lives with the Byers, it's time to mentor Will to fight back.

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[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

El almost got killed several times this season. She's nearly unstoppable for brief periods of time but she can't keep it up for long before she's drained and needs a few hours to recover. I'm sure she'll get her abilities back at some point next season.

The children from Hawkins Lab were all born to mothers who went through a whole array of who knows what kind of drugs and experiments whose purpose they didn't know. It changed them a little but if they were pregnant it changed their babies a lot. One suspects the first pregnancy was an accident. After Brenner's team saw the results more pregnancies among their test subjects were arranged in some way. The experimentation is what gave El and the other kids their abilities. I don't see how an ordinary kid like Will could have them. Unless you introduce a new story element involving experiments being secretly done on the whole town - and then the entire teenage population of Hawkins would be like Charles Xavier's School for the Gifted.

They never really told us what Will was doing in the Upside Down while the lights were blinking on and off. His mother was speaking to him out loud, it's possible he could hear her but instead of his voice carrying back across his responses lit up lights on the alphabet board. Somehow his answers were "translated" into another form. I don't think they've ever gone into that. I wondered about it at the time though. And why Hopper and Joyce walking around her house in the Upside Down were causing Christmas lights to turn on in our world, showing their position.

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[–] Wint3rFir3 (6907) 5 years ago

El needing a few hours to recover almost unstoppable powers is still pretty much a sign of her being unstoppable. If all she needs is a nap from time to time to defeat the greatest forces of darkness, that's pretty close to god-hood.

Also, I tend to think that the drugs aided in awakening powers that were latent in the unborn children, but not that they were solely responsible for the powers being present in the kids in the first place. You have to know that kids can have powers in order to know what to give the mothers so that their children are born a certain way. And in order to know, you'd have had to have seen kids with powers beforehand. Sure, the lab was definitely breeding and training children to harness their gifts, but as far as we know, after birth, none of these kids have received further, continued drugging. So whatever they were giving pre-birth was, to my mind, an enhancer, but not a creator. So I still think it's possible and likely that there are kids with latent powers that have yet to unlock them.

For example, Mike's little sister, Holly, seems like a potential candidate for that. She was there when Will began communicating through the lights and she appears really in tune to the Upside Down, while being unafraid of it. And if I know anything about little blonde girls in the 80s (ahem, Firestarter, ahem Poltergeist), they usually end up having powers. Also, their walking through the world accidentally turning on lights and Will purposefully using the lights to communicate - as well as Joyce knowing that he could do such a thing - suggests powers to me. But maybe I just have an overactive imagination.

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[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

They haven't really described what the experiments were, and what they were designed to do. If we see Brenner again (and the producers have confirmed his character is not dead so we almost certainly will) maybe we'll get some more backstory.

The actual MKUltra program seems to have been focused on mind control techniques, including interrogation methods, and designer toxins that could mimic natural illnesses or induce amnesia. You should read about it sometime. It's a sobering thought that our own government did some of these things and that most of the records were deliberately destroyed to avoid a Congressional probe. There are known deaths associated with the program but there could have been many more - if you're going to destroy files, those would be the first ones on the fire. So who knows how many people were killed or screwed up for life.

You get to El by wearing her down. Make her keep using her powers until she's drained. Or, say, shoot her from a distance. I don't think she can stop an attack she doesn't see coming. The Mind Flayer has been observing her and learning her weaknesses, it knows she can be fatigued which is why it created that big monster. Even after she drains herself tearing it to pieces the part that remains will still be big enough to kill her. Taking several hours to regain your strength is too damn long if you don't GET those hours.

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[–] Wint3rFir3 (6907) 5 years ago

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm pretty into MKUltra conspiracy theories as it is lol. Especially MKUltra programming and symbolism as it pertains to the entertainment industry.

I'm not saying El is invincible, but when she was knocked out at the end of season 1 and was in the Upside Down, nothing happened to her for who knows how long. So again, I would say her being drained of her power doesn't seem to be a key factor in the Upside Down creatures' fear of her.

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[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

People can survive in the Upside Down for a while. Will was there almost a week. Hopper and Joyce spent a few hours on the other side, whereas El just woke up and ran around the school until she found the hole the demogorgon made coming through the wall (which hadn't closed yet) and used it to return. The unfortunate soldier Shepard from season 1 had shit luck. That's all. Wrong place wrong time.

I imagine the Mind Flayer as being something like the Borg. If you're not making trouble one of its soldiers may encounter you and decide you'd make a nice dinner, but you're not a priority to hunt down and eliminate - even though it's aware of your presence on some peripheral level.

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[–] leader (1682) 5 years ago

Agreed. They need to come up with another way to harm the demogorgon because bullets and fire do not do it. Maybe acid or electricity could actually kill them? Or just getting a bunch of swords and literally cutting off it's head and limbs? There has to be a way to stop it.

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[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

Larger caliber bullets would probably be more effective. Small arms were able to kill the immature ones, remember? Full grown demogorgons are just too well armored. Explosives like RPG rounds or claymores would probably kill them too. But you know (being a hive) that the Mind Flayer would send thousands of them to attack a target. You'd be dealing with a big swarm. Even at full strength Eleven couldn't put a dent in that. When you have so much trouble killing individual soldiers how do you beat the army?

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[–] leader (1682) 5 years ago

Well that is just it. If there are a lot of monsters coming at them, El won't be able to deal with all of them. That is why the humans need to figure out a way to harm the demogorgon. If large caliber bullets worked, that would be great since that is a relatively easy solution plus they are a ranged weapon and the demogorgon is not the fastest so they could be dealt with relatively easily.

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