In Stranger Things Season 4, especially Season 4 Part 2, Will Byers appears to be experiencing several emotional outbursts prompted by inner turmoil. Since Season 1, Will has always been deemed a more sensitive character, especially following his kidnapping into the Upside Down and his possession by the Mind Flayer.
"Stranger Things" creators Matt and Ross Duffer recently spoke with Variety about the show's fourth season, which sees Will in a sad state, perhaps because of his unrequited love for his friend Mike (Finn Wolfhard).
Now that Stranger Things season 4 has confirmed not only Will's queerness, but also his unrequited love for Mike, it's certainly interesting to look at their relationship in retrospect.
Putting his feelings behind him, he joined his friends in once again fighting the Mind Flayer. Three months later, Will tearfully said goodbye to his friends before he and his family moved out of Hawkins, taking Eleven with them. Dr. Owens relocated the Byers and Eleven to Lenora Hills, California.
In the Duffer brothers' original show bible for the series—back when it was called Montauk instead of Stranger Things—Will is described as a “sweet, sensitive kid with sexual identity issues. He only recently came to the realization that he does not fit into 1980's definition of 'normal.
In Stranger Things Season 4, especially Season 4 Part 2, Will Byers appears to be experiencing several emotional outbursts prompted by inner turmoil. Since Season 1, Will has always been deemed a more sensitive character, especially following his kidnapping into the Upside Down and his possession by the Mind Flayer.
Noah Schnapp CONFIRMS his Stranger Things character Will Byers 'is gay and he does love Mike Wheeler' | PINKVILLA.
They are connected because Will was the first victim. That's it. Eleven is Vecna's true foil, an anti-Vecna, if you will. We learned a lot about Eleven's connection to Vecna and how their brutal fight in Hawkins Lab manifested the Upside Down.
Vecna was the one who originally kidnapped Will in season 1.
Re-watching the episode where Will Byers goes missing, there is a lot of evidence suggesting that it was Vecna who abducted Will and trapped him in the upside down. Many Stranger Things fans who re-watched the scene pointed out that they could hear the chimes of the grandfather clock.
In season four, a new aspect of Will emerged more fully; the teenager from Hawkins appeared to have a crush on his friend Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), and now Noah is confirming that Will is indeed gay and in love with Mike.
However, Janice flirts with Will. Phillip finds out that...
Will was indirectly telling Mike that he was gay and it was actually him who felt like the "mistake" for being different. Fans took to Twitter to share their heartbreak at this emotional moment.
Mike is deeply concerned for Eleven's safety at that juncture, making his brain laser-focused on nothing else. With that in mind, his non-reaction to Will's crying is fairly understandable.
Other manifestations of PTSD in Stranger Things
PTSD can appear in many forms. Will Byers, the main victim in the series, suffers the most from PTSD compared to anyone else in the series.
He's one of the only characters on the show to never have a love interest and, unlike his best friends Mike, Dustin and Lucas, Will has never had a girlfriend.
While intending to get his revenge on Eleven and Brenner, Vecna also goes after victims who have dealt with traumatizing experiences in the past (reminiscent of his childhood and his time at the Hawkins lab).
Ultimately, it is revealed in Stranger Things season 4's finale that the reason why Vecna was killing Hawkins teenagers was to create a massive gate that merges the Right Side Up with the Upside Down - and he specifically needed four bodies to do so.
The theory predicts that Vecna wants to regain his human form, and he will use Will to do so in Season 5. Knowing that Vecna singled out Will in Season 1, it's a reasonable theory, but it might go too far. After all, Vecna already has a human form, and he has vowed to eliminate humanity.
This is because his trusted accomplice, Kas the Bloody-Handed, betrayed him and used the sword Vecna created himself to chop off his left hand and remove his left eye. This ultimately destroyed Vecna. Though they're clouded with cataracts, Vecna in Stranger Things has both of his eyes.
More like this. After previously having tricked Eleven into destroying the chip, Peter goes on a killing spree in the lab until a confrontation with Eleven ended in her casting him into the Upside Down - where after falling through various dimensions and sustaining various injuries, Peter was transformed into Vecna.
Despite Max (Sadie Sink) being left in a coma at the end of season 4, she will be returning for season 5. The actress appeared on Today with Hoda and Jenna, where she opened up about the last season of the show. She told them why it was going to be 'sad and scary' explaining: "It's going to be awful.
And in season 4, it became apparent to many that Will was struggling with a secret. Now actor Noah Schnapp, who plays Will, revealed to Variety that his character is indeed gay, and secretly has feelings for his best friend, Mike, who's in a relationship with Eleven.
“It was always kind of there, but you never really knew, is it just him growing up slower than his friends?” Schnapp said in a new interview with Variety. “Now that he's gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing. Now it's 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike. But before, it was a slow arc.
Lonnie Byers is a minor antagonist in the first season of the Netflix original series Stranger Things. He is Joyce Byers' ex-husband, as well as the estranged and neglectful father of their two sons, Jonathan and Will.