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aemiron-main · 2 years

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reading more of the creel newspaper articles: the creels’ gardener and groundsperson, the exorcism (and The Exorcist) and martin brenner’s possible priest cosplay

SO! I’ve been digging into the articles about the Creel murders more lately, and am slowly doing my best to write down the contents of all of them/figure out what they say, and although I’m not completely finished yet, I found something very interesting: the Creel family had a gardener and a groundsperson. The two seem to be two separate people based on how the gardener is introduced in the article (as wanting to remain anonymous) and how the gardener is introduced after the groundsperson has already been referred to. Both of them have one thing in common, though: they were both interviewed by the Weekly Watcher, and both had things to say about the Creels and the murders. There’s also some interesting points about the priest that showed up to do an exorcism at the Creel house. Let’s get into it.

First of all, I know that these screenshots are going to seem extra illegible/low quality which may bring into question what they say/if I read them wrong, but just know that I’m actually basing my reading off of staring at the scene on netflix on my phone which has higher quality than google chrome, but I can’t screenshot it. So, as a result, the screenshots in this post are lower quality than what I was actually reading. Here’s the full page:

And here’s the first section that I want to focus on. the first legible section that mentions the groundsperson (theres a previous paragraph that seems to mention him, but so far, I can’t make any words out except for “groundsperson” from that section):

“But the exorcism failed, says Creel’s former groundsperson. He claims this so-called "vengeful demon" was too powerful, resisting the priest's demands to depart the home. He insists that it was this very attempt to (interfere?) which angered the spirit."

Later on in this same article, we're introduced to the Creels’ gardener:

“The family’s former gardener (who wished to remain anonymous) who was a witness at the Creel trial, testified that Victor was certain the house was haunted by a (????)”

And again, the gardener and the groundsperson seem to be separate people based on how the gardener is introduced as wanting to remain anonymous, whereas the groundsperson is already refererd to prior to this introduction (such as introduction for the groundsperson likely exists in the first two paragraphs of the article, which are illegible for me so far).

Both of them were aware of the idea that Victor believed that the house was haunted, and the groundsperson was even aware of the exorcism happening, and was likely present for it based on how he describes specifics such as the priest demanding that the demon leave the Creel house and that the failed exorcism seems to have angered the demon. The gardener wasn’t just somebody randomly interviewed by the Weekly Watcher- they clearly knew enough to be called as a witness for Victor’s trial, and although they don’t seem to mention the exorcism, they do mention that Victor was certain that the house was haunted.

Does anyone else find it extremely weird that the groundsperson was aware of the exorcism, and possibly even PRESENT for it, and yet Victor himself makes no mention of this exorcism, and Henry makes no mention of it, and it appears in neither of their flashback sequences? And it’s not that the exorcism was irrelevant and therefore Victor didn’t mention it, because the groundsperson claims that it was the exorcism that angered the spirit, and when we consider the section that Robin’s readig aloud (which we can’t see on the screen), Robin says that VICTOR HIMSELF also believed that the failed exorcism was what angered the demon AND led to the murders. So, it wasn’t just the groundsperson’s speculation/personal belief- Victor believed it too. However, the groundsperson just mentions that the exorcism angered the spirit and doesn’t directly tie it to the murders, whereas Victor outright says that the demon being angered by the exorcism is what caused the murders.

And yes, I’m basically certain that both the groundsperson AND Victor believed that the exorcism angered the demon and that it’s not just the groundsperson saying what he thinks Victor believed, because Robin is reading a different part of the article (the part that talks about what Victor believed rather than the part talking about what the groundsperson said), and the groundsperson also made no mention of the missing eyes/of the murders, whereas again, Victor makes that direct connection between the demon being angered by the exorcism vs the murders occurring.

So, the groundsperson seems to believe that the spirit was angered by the failed exorcism- what made the groundsperson believe this? Did he see the murders and think “oh yeah, that was done by the spirit, the spirit must have gotten pissed off by that failed exorcism,” or, did he see something happen the day/night of the exorcism that led him to believe that the spirit was angered? I’m leaning towards the latter, as the groundsperson doesn’t mention the murders specifically, but DOES talk about the exorcism angering the spirit- and how would the groundsperson know that the spirit was angry *as a result of the exorcism* unless something happened the night of the exorcism/during the exorcism that made it seem like a spirit was angry.

That’s the sort of detail that Victor SHOULD have brought up when speaking to Nancy and Robin, because it’s a key detail in terms of “why the murders happened,” (at least from Victor’s POV), and would also therefore be a key detail in preventing more murders, which is EXACTLY what Robin and Nancy were asking about. And yet, Victor does not mention it verbally, nor do we see it in the 1959 flashback scenes that play during his retelling. Henry also nevers mentions it verbally during his 1979 retelling to El, and no such scene plays during the 1959 flashback scenes with Nancy in Henry’s mindscape.

And I have to wonder- Henry talks about Martin Brenner as if he’s seen him before, he hasn’t just HEARD of him, it’s set up so that we see Henry waking up and recognizing Brenner before Brenner says anything. What if the “priest,” was Brenner, trying to take Henry away? Or, at the very least, coming to try and see Henry and try to study him/see if he actually had powers, especially since Henry would likely resist if Virginia tried to take him to any sort of doctor, hence the need for a.) for Brenner to come to them and b.) for Brenner to be disguised as something other than a doctor. Especially since Victor WAS a caring father, and Henry trying to resist when Virginia was taking him to the doctor would have gotten his attention. It wouldn’t be the first time that a Hawkins Lab employee pretended to be someone they’re not- Connie Frazier pretended to be both a social services worker AND a science teacher, complete with fake pamphlets, I don’t think it would be a stretch to slap Brenner into a robe and have him yell at the air/stare creepily at Henry.

Like, cmon, they made fake pamphlets SOLELY for the purpose of locating Mike, Lucas, and Dustin (and El, as a result of finding those three), so when it comes to actually getting their hands on someone like Henry? The first kid with powers? Putting Brenner into a priest costume is NOT a stretch at all, imo.

So, Brenner shows up, says something weird to Henry/Henry realizes that Brenner isn’t who he says he is (isn’t a priest)/that Brenner knows about his powers, Henry panics, messes with the lights, which, to Victor and the groundsperson, would seem like the work of a demon. Was Brenner trying to “fix,” Henry under the guise of an exorcism? Trying to provoke Henry so that he could witness Henry’s powers/”exorcise” him?

And in terms of why Victor would believe that Henry was possessed, that’s something I’m working on another post about that should be up today, but long story short, I think that he would have valid reason to believe this based on Henry’s drawing of the “shadow monster,” which could easily be mistaken for a demon. And even if Victor didn’t think Henry was fully possessed, which he very well may not have, he definitely knew that Henry knew something was wrong/up with the house (”Henry, my boy, he was a sensitive child, and I could see he felt something was wrong.”), and so, I would bet that Henry’s demon drawing was still what triggered the call to the exorcist, even if Victor didn’t think Henry was fully possessed, he likely thought that the demon was bothering Henry in some way, as he knew that Henry felt something was wrong. It’s also worth keeping in mind that Robin namedrops “The Exorcist” during the scene where Robin and Nancy are at the library reading this exact Weekly Watcher article.

There’s a lot more that I want to dig into regarding the ST-Exorcist parallels, specifically with the Creels, but for now, take a look at the similarities between Brenner and Father Lankester Merrin- hell, “FATHER,” vs “PAPA”??

I know Brenner would have looked younger in 1959, but just in terms of inspiration for his older look, the parallels are definitely there imo. And interestingly enough, the actor who plays Father Lankester Merrin, Max von Sydow, was ALSO younger than he appears (43 at the time of filming), and makeup/prosthetics were used to age him. I don’t think the lab necessarily put prosthetics on Brenner, but it tracks with how Brenner’s older version is paralleled to Father Merrin despite Brenner being younger in 1959.

I really don’t think it’s a stretch for the “weird older guy who later makes children call him “papa,” and preaches at them” to agree/plan to show up to a house and be called “father,” and preach at people.

There’s also a second priest in The Exorcist- Father Damien Karras, and the duo of Father Lankester Merrin and Father Damien Karras is rather similar to the duo of “Papa” Martin Brenner and Doctor Sam Owens.

Brenner being the priest and trying to possibly take Henry away would also explain a.) how Henry knew that Virginia was trying to have him taken away by Brenner, and b.) why Victor believes that the murders were connected to the failed exorcism- because Henry talks about how he had to “break free,” after he realized that Virginia was going to have him sent away, and if he realized that she was trying to have him sent away on the day of the exorcism (because Brenner showed up and either tried to subtly take him or was examining him and knew he had powers etc), then that ties the exorcism to being the reason for the murders, which is what Victor asserts.

And at the end of the day, whether Brenner was playing priest or not, one thing is for certain: we are missing SO MUCH with the Creels. We are absolutely not getting the full story here. It’s extremely strange that neither Victor nor Henry makes any mention of the failed exorcism, and that Henry never mentions how he knew that Virginia was planning to have him sent away. It’s also worth keeping in mind that it’s very VERY likely that both Victor and Henry’s memories have been altered. Victor’s memories being messed with is confirmed in another newspaper article, and Henry’s memories are full of an absolute ton of holes and inconsistencies. Here’s the parts from the Indianapolis Gazette article that confirms that Victor’s memories have been messed with (something I also partially talked about in this post).

“The bodies were discovered early Sunday morning after Creel was found wandering aimlessly along the side of Highway 49, south of Hawkins.”

Not only is the lab in the south part of Hawkins, but drugging/electrocuting people and messing with their memory and then dropping them off is exactly what the lab does- they did it with Hopper in season 1, although they dropped him off at his trailer, not on the side of the road. I talked about this in the post that I linked too, but it seems like they likely took Victor to the lab (when he was arrested by the state troopers, the same state troopers who were working with the lab in S1 regaring Will’s fake body), messed with his mind, and let him loose OR he escaped, one of the two. Again, as mentioned by that linked post, the bodies were found by local cops (not state troopers) Sunday morning when they picked Victor up and returned him to his home. As well:

“Creel at first told authorities he knew nothing about the things found at his home. He is described as 5 feet (?) inches tall, weight about (?) pounds, with light skin, light brown hair, and “appearing slight and unable to perform basic motor functions”- a condition likely brought upon as a result of psychological consequences of committing the murders, says head psychiatrist at Pennhurst Asylum, Alexis McMurray.”

That sounds extremely similar to Terry, although more like a temporary version of what happened to her (which would make sense, because Brenner seemed to be dialling the electric shocks up extra high for Terry, so perhaps, doing the same thing at a lower voltage for Victor would cause the same effects but only termporarily.), the lack of basic motor functions, the missing memories, and like I’m going to talk about in this next part, Victor is also described as “breaking his silence,” which sounds quite a lot like how Terry is generally silent except for a few phrases.

We also have this part:

“Roane County Disct. Atty Parker Jones said today that Creel had broken his silence that he “might of,” killed the victims, and admitted to being present when the victims died.”

So, Victor initially had no memory of what happened. He later seems to have regained parts of his memory, as he later says that he WAS present when his family died (when we see him holding Henry’s body), but is still confused, as he also says that he “might” have killed them, despite the general certainness that a demon killed them that he shows in all other scenes/interviews. This indicates to me, that Victor was genuinely confused, saying that he “might,” have killed them, and seems to have even forgotten about the demon briefly- which would track with him forgetting about the exorcism, and getting some of his memories/demon-related memories back (the ones he mentions when talking to Robin and Nancy), but not all of them (the exorcism). It really does sound like his memories were messed with by the lab. Why not fry Victor’s brain entirely, though? Why would the lab let him loose without doing what they did to Terry? Because they needed him to take the blame, they needed him to seem insane, they needed his story to be confusing and patchy, if he had NO memories at all, that would be more difficult/more difficult to convict him as being insane. But patchy, confused memories, where his story changes repeatedly and he starts slowly talking about demons? That’s exactly the sort of thing needed to deem him insane and hand down his sentence, which would have been EXACTLY what the lab wanted in order to keep suspicion away from them, and manipulate the public’s perception of the murders, just like what Murray talks about the government and lab doing in S2.

Long story short: we are definitely missing parts of the Creel story, and this all, once again, has Hawkins Lab written all over it- I won’t be surprised if we get a flashback to Brenner in a priest outfit in S5.

#stranger things #henry creel #creel family #st analysis #st newspapers #creel newspapers #creel murders #martin brenner ref #victor creel #st hawkins lab

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aemiron-main · 1 year

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you don’t wanna hurt me: an analysis of the “nancy in the tattoo chair” scene

Not loving the Implications of the fact that we just saw young Henry strapped down in the tattoo chair and Vecna pretending to be Brenner and then we got Nancy in Young Henry’s place and Vecna coming towards her.

Long story short, I think there’s subtext in this scene that indicates Brenner sexually assaulting Henry in the lab, specifically regarding oral sexual assault.

Especially considering the theme of “swapping places,” that’s present in S4- and the fact that Nancy literally swapped places with Young Henry and Vecna Henry swapped places with Brenner.

So basically in this whole tattoo chair scene with Nancy, it seems like Young Henry = Nancy and Brenner = Vecna Henry. So, try and picture Nancy as Young Henry throughout this analysis and Vecna as Brenner.

And then, what also haunts me is the parallels between this scene vs Billy and Heather’s s3 scene.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” versus “Don’t be afraid.” This scene between Billy and Heather is extremely sexual-assault coded, to the point where even the GA kept pointing it out. And the writers went out of their way to make sure that the “nothing to be afraid of,” was directed at Young Henry, and not Nancy, as Brenner then turns to Nancy and says “is there, Nancy?”

Brenner wasn’t talking to Nancy when he said the “nothing to be afraid of,” line, he was talking to Henry, that sexual assault coded line is directed at Young Henry.

We have Billy-Heather parallels that not only occur between Brenner and Young Henry, but also Vecna and Nancy- but the Vecna and Nancy ones are still between Brenner and Young Henry in a way, as like mentioned previously, Nancy and Young Henry have swapped places and Brenner and Vecna have swapped places.

Nancy struggles against the tentacles in an extremely similar way to how Heather struggled against the ropes.

And now, there’s also the fact that Henry’s Vecna hand very much resembles a facehugger- which in and of itself is 100% confirmed to be intended to represent homosexual oral rape (source). I’ve posted before about the resemblance between Henry’s clawed hand and a facehugger but here’s some examples:

And let’s also look at some Alien vs Predator scenes and some Prometheus scenes- granted, these two creatures aren’t technically facehuggers, but they’re from the Alien franchise, they’re related to facehuggers, and they’ve got the exact same sort of oral sexual assault imagery.

And continuing on with the “Henry’s hand vs facehugger parallels,” the facehugger literally has fingers and resembles a pair of hands. And Henry’s clawed hand literally latched onto a victims face and then tilts their head upward, exactly like a facehugger. Henry doesn’t just grab his victims’ faces or set his face on top of their face- he whips his hand forward, latches onto their face, and tilts their head back, all exactly like a facehugger. Look at these gifs as an example the similarities between the motions:

Now that we’ve established that Henry’s clawed hand is definitely intended to resemble a facehugger, let’s go back to that lab vision scene between Vecna and Nancy and the idea of Nancy representing Young Henry and Vecna representing Brenner.

So, hypothetically, Young Henry was in the position of being attacked by a facehugger, and Brenner was in Vecna Henry’s position- but wait, Brenner doesn’t have a clawed hand.

But let’s remember what the facehugger represents- homosexual oral rape, which is something that, unfortunately, Brenner is most definitely capable of.

And we also have shots like this lingering shot of Brenner with a suspiciously phallic coat fold pointed directly at Joyce’s face.

Also, Vecna’s other victims don’t tend to speak once he had his hand above their heads/sunk into their heads- but Nancy? Nancy continues to shout “no,” repeatedly- why make that choice? Why add that dialogue for Nancy when it’s not there for other characters? Well, Nancy’s scene has one thing that the other scenes don’t- she’s meant to represent Young Henry. This choice is made to emphasize the nonconsensual aspect of it and tie it back to Young Henry being sexually assaulted by Brenner.

And going back to swapping places yet again, look at the lyrics of “Running Up That Hill”: Do you wanna feel how it feels? Do you wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me? Do you wanna hear about the deal that I'm makin'? And now look at Henry’s dialogue with El:

“You can’t hurt me more than they already have” And then going back to the lyrics of “Running Up That Hill”: You don't wanna hurt me But see how deep the bullet lies

Look at how deep the bullet lies- bullet, like the bullet-shaped soteria that’s buried deep beneath Henry’s skin? In the scene where El is afraid of hurting him?

And the wording of the lyrics with “you don’t wanna hurt me, but see how deep the bullet lies”- the use of the word “but,” implies that due to the bullet being deep, the person is question is going to be forced to hurt the other person- just like how El was forced to hurt Henry because of how deeply embedded Soteria was.

Like, Henry doesn’t say that it won’t hurt/El isn’t going to hurt him- he says that no matter how much she hurts him, she can’t hurt him more than the lab has. These scenes tying in to “Running Up That Hill,” reinforce the idea that the theme of “swapping places,” also applies to characters like Henry and Brenner, which reinforces the idea of the “swapping places,” that occurs during the tattoo scene, where Nancy swaps places with Young Henry and Vecna swaps places with Brenner, implying that what’s going on between Nancy and Vecna has subtext regarding things that have already happened between Young Henry and Brennner (the oral sexual assault subtext).

Also, there’s constant references to Brenner “hurting,” Henry, and it’s interesting to me that El mentions the fact that Brenner “hurt,” Henry when she’s talking to Vecna Henry in the mind lair:

Why is this interesting? Because Henry already knows that El knows that Brenner hurt him, at least in the context of Brenner hurting Henry by electrocuting him. They had a whole conversation about it in 1979 after El saw Henry being electrocuted:

And even if El didn’t initially remember the 1979 conversation, she JUST relived it via nina, so she absolutely remembers it by the time that the conversation in the mind lair happens. So, why does El act as if she’s aware of something that the audience isn’t aware of? Why does she act as if there’s some other “hurt,” that she’s referring to? Because there is. Because “hurt,” in this context is referring to sexual assault. At some point, I’m going to do a deep dive into the use of the word “hurt,” in ST in general, but considering that during the mind lair conversation, El is referring to some sort of “hurt,” beyond the electrocution scene, some sort of “hurt,” that wasn’t shown to the audience onscreen, I think it’s likely that there’s sexual assault subtext here when it comes to the word “hurt,” especially considering how often that word is used specifically regarding the lab, and how frequently Kali talks about being “hurt,” by lab staff and how she was “just a child,” and all of the “loss of innocence,” themes that surround Kali. So, so far, we have a scene between Brenner and Young Henry that references a deeply sexual assault coded scene between Billy and Heather, and then we have the scene between Nancy and Vecna with tons of “Alien,” imagery that canonically represents homosexual oral rape. And we have Nancy literally swapping places with Young Henry, and Vecna swapping places with Brenner, while homosexual oral rape imagery is literally shoved in her face as she yells “no”. And next, look at this excerpt about Freddy Krueger’s clawed hand (keeping in mind that Vecna’s clawed hand is confirmed to have been inspired by Freddy Krueger’s hand):

And the scene that Englund’s referring to? The one that he ties to being an oral sex innuendo?

I don’t know about you guys, but that scene looks pretty familar to me:

So, that’s yet ANOTHER piece of oral sexual assault imagery that’s present in this scene- a scene where Nancy has literally swapped places with Young Henry, and a scene where Vecna has swapped places with Brenner- hell, not only has Henry literally swapped places with Brenner by discarding the Brenner illusion and appearing in its place within the tattoo scene, but the scene of Vecna walking up to Nancy is a direct parallel to Brenner walking up to Henry’s bed when Henry first wakes up in the lab. And like I talked about in this post, even just that brief scene of Brenner walking up to Henry in the bed has SA parallels, so for ST to then parallel that bed scene in the tattoo scene in ADDITION to all of the oral SA imagery that’s present in the tattoo scene? It paints a pretty horrifying picture.

Like, going back briefly to that screenshot of the tentacles around Nancy’s arms and legs, it’s interesting that the tentacles have replaced the leather restraints that were previously being used on Young Henry.

Why is this interesting? Because there’s SO much sexual assault imagery tied to those tentacles, and specifically oral sexual assault imagery when we look at scenes like Will being rescued from the UD:

So, when to comes to Nancy in the chair, even the restraints in the tattoo chair have been replaced with something that’s tied to oral SA imagery in ST. And the fact that Henry had to be restrained and wasn’t just sitting willingly adds to the subtext regarding nonconsent here. And this gets into more speclation territory, but the way that Nancy fights against the restraints (something that we don’t see Henry do) is interesting, because it brings up the question- why WASN’T Henry fighting? He was clearly in pain, so why wasn’t he fighting? Well, he was possibly drugged. We don’t know what all they had him hooked up to when he woke up, and he seems generally out of it and disoriented during the tattoo scene, and he doesn’t seem to fight back physically, or with his powers, and it seems pretty early for him to have gotten soteria’d (and even if he was soteria’d that early, he still isn’t fighting back physically or even verbally). I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nancy scene wasn’t just showing us what happened between Brenner and Young Henry, but specifically was showing us what happened between Brenner and Young Henry prior to the tattoo scene- Henry likely woke up in the tattoo chair after being drugged, struggled and panicked, was sexually assaulted, and “cooperated,” out of fear of being assaulted again and because the drugs hadn’t fully worn off.

Long story short: the tattoo scene uses Vecna-Brenner parallels and the theme of swapping places (and literally swapping Young Henry with Nancy and Brenner with Vecna) to convey subtext of what happened to Young Henry when he was in the lab with Brenner (oral sexual assault).

#stranger things #Henry creel #Martin brenner #Nancy wheeler ref #st analysis #TW csa #TW sa #martin brenner analysis #Henry creel analysis #st soundtrack #st music #st running up that hill #st hawkins lab

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