S4 Victims: Story by Proxy?
Okay so. In spitballing with Em...something stuck in my head.
So we all know how serial killers leave crumbs because deep down they want to be caught/want the truth to be revealed? Well what if the Duffers, or even current Henry, are doing the same thing. That is, leaving breadcrumbs.
This mainly has to do with the S4 victims, their stories, and the order in which they're chosen.
So, it goes like this:
Chrissy: Abusive mother who resembles Virginia
Fred: Eaten alive by the guilt of being responsible for the accidental death of an innocent.
Max: Suicidal over guilt about Billy's death and her response to it. Billy, who died saving her/while she was saving herself from the Fleshflayer, a regenerated form of the Mindflayer.
Patrick: Abusive father, not much else told.
Max (again): Suicidal Ideation, dies, soul taken, but was revived by El. She's now in some limbo-state, where her body lives but her identity/mind is elsewhere. She will likely be brought back entirely by El in S5.
It almost feels like a story by proxy if we piece it together.
So, let's piece it together:
Person with an abusive mother...feels responsible for the death of an innocent...a sibling who was killed while this person was trying to save themselves from a monster which came from Hawkins lab, which leaves them suicidal...and this person lives in a situation with an abusive father figure. This person becomes suicidal, and their suicide attempt was not entirely successful. They were revived by El, and end up in a limbo state. They may or may not be brought back by El later.
Now, let's collect details about our serial killer:
Abusive mother? Check. (No matter how we frame it, Virginia was not a good mother.)
Innocent died? Check. (Henry has nothing bad to say about Alice, which we know he would if she were not innocent, since he does this with every other victim.)
Sibling died as a result of saving oneself? Check. (The Creel massacre was a situation where Henry was, with whatever intentions we may assign for the other family members' deaths, trying to save himself from Virginia and by extension the lab.)
Ended up with an abusive father figure? Check. (Well...an abusive Papa, one might say.)
Brought back by El multiple times? Check. (El was the one who took Soteria out and brought Henry back from being powerless. El was the one who put Henry in the UD/limbo state. El was the one who opened the gate for his return to the RSU.)
IT ALL ALIGNS. So let's put it together with all the feelings involved:
Citations (I guess? Explanations?) are in the tags listed by number!
Henry had an abusive mother who was at least trying to have him shipped off to the lab, if not actually trying to kill him outright. This situation builds and builds, him wanting to be left alone (1), putting out subconscious and conscious cries for help (2), and her targeting him about it, until March 25th, 1959.
Virginia starts it, attacks, and this time she's out for blood (3). Henry defends himself (4). Virginia, being the parent with powers (5), doesn't actually die (6). Victor, Alice, and Henry go for the door (7). Virginia's on the stairs (8). She's got to finish what she started, since her original plan was botched (9). Henry puts his energy into trancing Victor (10), protecting him from Virginia, since logically two people can't occupy one person's mind.
This leaves good, innocent Alice to fend for herself, standing directly in front of the staircase. She's a loose end (11). Virginia kills her, but can't kill Henry or Victor while the trance is occurring. She figures Henry's going to run himself into the ground (12). She figures she can call Brenner in to collect Henry, like they planned (13). If she disappears, she figures it'll go into the news something like this:
"World War II veteran kills entire family in deranged fit of insanity. Wife missing, presumed dead. Son dies in hospital."
And on both counts, she's essentially right. It does basically go into the papers that way. Victor is taken in for murder, and Henry is taken by Brenner, but not before he sees that Alice was caught in the crossfire (14).
Henry ends up with Brenner, the abusive Papa. He's got the guilt about Alice's death, something that makes him sad and angry. Brenner, maybe, decides to push this in order to increase Henry's powers, but it backfires. Henry's powers increase, but he does...something. He lashes out, he snaps, maybe he even tries to kill himself. He's Brenner's prized pet, though, so Brenner can't let that happen. He seals Henry's powers away with Soteria. It's a death for Henry's entire identity, so far as to have him under the name Peter Ballard. Then comes along 011. She removes Soteria from Peter Ballard...and revives Henry Creel. She then exiles him to the Upside Down in 1979, only to eventually bring him back in 1983 when she opens the Mothergate.
All this to say: It could be his own story, told through the stories of his victims.
Breadcrumbs, or maybe...obvious things, which nobody by any chance ever observes.
Below the cut is where I speculate into motivations for his actions after Soteria's removal, so...not required reading for this particular analysis.
Years of MKUltra torture warp Henry's guilt about the situation into a bastardized, violent, brutal, unethical savior complex based in the notion that he's a predator by nature, but a predator for good. He "saves" the lab kids from a future like his own, filled with nothing but torture. He "saves" El from her ignorance about the lab and intended to have her join him, thereby attempting to "save" her, technically his little sister, from the lab entirely.
He "saves" his s4 victims from their guilt and suffering, which so closely mirror his own, which no one saved him from. I could even go so far as to say he was "saving" Will, who is set up to be so much like him, from a world of horrible people who (from Henry's viewpoint based on his lived experiences) would only serve to abuse and betray him.
This of course isn't to say any of it is right. None of it is right or good...but it makes sense. It follows a pattern. It coheres. The math...maths.
81 notes
·
View notes
This is a question related to the mtt hobbies answer that you wrote, the murder trio go around the multiverse and live in a place together, then what happend to horrortale au and horrortale papyrus? If the murder trio got to meet horrortale papyrus how would it go? (The meeting propably wouldnt end well with more canon mtt haha)
aaaaa i dont think it through to be honest when i talk about that concept. they just do. maybe horrortale's issues are already solved and aliza's already gone through horrortale and somehow fixed the hellhole (ALIZA MY GOAT PLEASE SAVE HORRORTALE I DON'T CARE IF IT TAKES 10 YEARS‼️‼️‼️) by the time that horror somehow meets dust and killer (since i dont see a feasible way that horrortale could be fixed outside of aliza or outside intervention.) or maybe he just visits from time to time. and by time to time i mean probably quarterly weekly. idk sorry i cant be bothered to think about it,,, they just do. anyways bad answer i KNOW I KNOW put the tomatoes down pls PLS
if the mtt met horror paps? horror would obviously do his little bantering thing with paps (he's probably revealing every single one of horror's embarrassing moments to them as they speak and horror's desperately trying to get him to shut up because he can tell. dust and killer are piiiiiiissed.) dust is probably like eerily calm during the whole thing. he manages to hold up a conversation pretty well with horror paps and gets along with him good enough without mentioning that theres a ghost version of him screaming asking why dust is ignoring phantom paps. meanwhile killer is mostly silent during it too probably only responding when he's spoken too. i mean like killer already doesn't like being around papyruses (papyri? papyri is so shitty i dont like it we will be saying papyruses) and then seeing horror's papyrus??? what the FUCK happened to horror paps??? sunken in eyes and cracks in his bones and those jagged teeth AND THEN THE FUCKING CROOKED SPAGHETTI????
needless to say once horror paps is gone all of them get into a biiiiig fight. dust drops the cool act because he's not gonna lose his cool around a papyrus but also he's absolutely fuming. he can tell that the changes that phantom papyrus has gone through have something to do with horror with the way that he's acting. killer is also incredibly irritated too (surpringly. being around papyruses just gets him like that) and seeing papyrus like that just gets him upset and angry. like wtf horror did you even TRY with keeping your papyrus safe??? at least killer reset his au and now papyrus is living an unharmed life (with minor concerns about killer's whereabouts but he'll ignore that for now) but horror paps looks so fucked up that there is no WAY that horror tried to prevent him from getting to that point
obviously they fight and many many many many MANY words are said about eachother's characters and the state they left their respective papyruses in. horror knows damn well that horrortale paps's state is because of him but he regretted telling paps to eat humans and neither dust nor killer knew the struggle of living with that guilt and how much he regrets it so they dont get to drag him for not trying hard enough to keep papyrus safe. dust is definitely getting some low blows here and there (but he's getting fucking assisted by phantom paps so he's got some of the deepest hitting insults) and he's definitely getting ganged up on for killing his papyrus and like. not even attempting to leave him alive in someway shape and form aside from the absolute insult that is phantom paps. surprisingly killer is winning this fight because he left his papyrus in a relatively good state. even though he's in a more emotional state than he normally is and would've absolutely OBLITERATED dust and horror in the fight in stage 2 he's actually doing pretty well. probably because hororr and dust dont really have anything to drag him on. they might bring up how something new papyrus is searching for killer but like,,,, is that really that bad compared to how they left their papyruses
5 notes
·
View notes