#at this point i figure I'm restating things that everyone has known but. it is my blog and I get to write my silly little thoughts in it

[marypsue]

Third (I think? Maybe fourth?) watch of Stranger Things season one completed in one four-episode sitting tonight, and some things clicked that hadn't come together for me on previous watches, primarily character motivations.

I have struggled with the general canon portrayal of Hopper as A Guy We're Supposed To Be Sympathetic To juxtaposed against his decision to sell El out. I got close to figuring it out after the last watchthrough - in season one, it's not about El metaphorically standing in for his daughter, it's about saving Joyce from the pain of losing a child - but I really think I've cracked it this time. Between episode 3's “Please don’t be my kid", and the parallel in episode 7(? 6 and 7?) where Brenner tells Karen Wheeler that he wants to help her find her son but she has to trust him and almost the exact same words come out of Hopper's mouth in the same situation to Joyce, and the way David Harbour plays the moment Hopper cuts open Will's fake body and everything that comes after that - like cutting into what might be a child's corpse is The Line, and he knows it, and once he's crossed it, well, he's already done that, he's capable of anything - and how he initially tries to keep Joyce from coming with him to the lab and how he doesn't even seem to be trying to come up with a plan other than 'break in, wing it'?

I'm pretty sure now that he was planning to sell El out from the moment he walked out of the gym. It's all about saving Will, it's all about Will metaphorically standing in for the child he couldn't save, and do you know what he'd do for that? For a chance?

Anyway. Apparently I was wrong when I said that trying to engender sympathy for Brenner was undermining season one, since apparently 'feel bad for the guy who does abhorrent things to children because he was sad for unrelated reasons!' has been baked into the show from episode one and I was just too busy concentrating on the abused child who escaped captivity and discovered the world and found friends and a family for the first time and gave up everything to protect them, who is the real heart and soul of this show, ask literally anyone who's watched it, you fucking walnuts to see it.

I'm good. I'm good. I'm so normal about this television show you guys.

Speaking of Brenner, the other thing that struck me this go-round was just how much his primary motivation seems to be curiosity. I really struggled with this, too, especially when I was working on the road goes ever on (yes I'm going to link to it every time I mention it on here, it's still the thing I'm proudest of writing), and I don't think I'd quite nailed his character down by the time it got posted. Like I don't think what's in that fic is implausible for his character, necessarily, but I really leaned on pride and a desire for control (and a certain arrogant sense of invincibility) as motivating factors for his character in that fic. And while they're all definitely built into him, I think now that they actually come second to the curiosity.

The Gate gets opened in the first place because he immediately and without question gives up on spying on Russia (theoretically the whole point of this exercise) to go off on a wild goose chase for a scary noise that spooked his psychic spy. He 'dies' onscreen because the Demogorgon comes out of a wall and while everyone else is shooting at it (and getting murdered for their trouble), he just wanders on up, unarmed, unafraid, slightly awed, for a closer look! I'm quite sure that's why he actually lets Hopper and Joyce go after Will - he's not expecting them to come back out, but if they do, think what they could tell him about what's on the other side! He just wants to poke things and see what happens! Sometimes what happens is that whatever he's poking bites his finger off! Science is neat, but I'm afraid it's not very forgiving! Man I wish I'd figured this out before posting the monster longfic because I could have made his entire arc so much better and more convincing with this in mind!

I don't know if that's consistent with how they show him in season four, and frankly, given the degree of character drift (or outright assassination) everyone else is showing in season four, I don't particularly care.

Also, importantly, his primary power - and weapon - is trust. He wields authority to command trust, which he absolutely does not deserve, and it's notable that in the finale he asks Joyce for her trust and she refuses to give it to him. And she's the first and only person to refuse to give it to him. She's been lied to, mistreated, disbelieved, written off as crazy, and she is the only person on the entire show who can see right through him.

And yet, then there's that parallel drawn between Brenner asking for Karen's trust and Hopper asking for Joyce's, and she does place her trust in this man who ultimately gets her what she was looking for all along - and she never asks what the price was that was paid for it. I have to ask myself, now, does she ever wonder? Is that part of the distance between them in season two, the reason why neither of them acted on what was clearly supposed to be attraction between them? Because choosing to trust is not the same as trusting?

Season one really did have levels, and lots to chew over, and new things to find in each watch. When this show is good, man, it is good.