Stranger Things ended its first season with the Byers celebrating Christmas dinner, and Will coughing up a slug and briefly seeing the Upside Down. That scene left more questions than answers, and we’ll just have to wait until Netflix releases the second season (no confirmation yet).
One of the show’s biggest question is, what is the monster and where it did it come from?
According to this theory by Uproxx, Eleven is the monster. And it makes a really strong case.
The theory is presented in a video where it explains that the monster is actually Eleven’s dark side. It argues that the dark place Eleven first meets the monster in is actually her consciousness.
The theory adds that the concept of duality is present in the series, from the Upside Down, a dark and gloomy version of the real world, and the X-Men comic mentioned in the series, which deals with Jean Grey’s duality as the Phoenix and the Dark Phoenix. Byers’ friends name the monster the Demogorgon, a Dungeons & Dragons demon prince that also struggles with dual personalities. In Stranger Things‘ final episode, when Eleven eliminates the monster, it mirrors her exact move and they both turn to ash.
As the video concludes, “She couldn’t destroy the beast without destroying herself, because it is part of her.”
Stranger Things follows a group of young boys whose friend goes missing, not knowing that his disappearance is tied to a top-secret government experiment that involves monsters and a creepy parallel universe. Since it premiered last month (all eight episodes were released simultaneously, as is Netflix’s tradition), Rotten Tomatoes gave the series a 94%, saying, “Exciting, heartbreaking, and sometimes scary, Stranger Things acts as an addictive homage to Spielberg films and vintage 1980s television.”
Watch Uproxx explain the theory in detail below:
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