True Heroes Battle Their Own Demons First
A Stranger Things Commentary
“Here comes the world/ With the look in its eye/ Future uncertain but certainly slight/Look at the faces, listen to the bells/ It’s hard to believe we need a place called hell.”
— “Devil Inside,” INXS
(Reader take note: Season 4 spoilers)
If the allusion wasn’t clear to all of you 80’s babies out there (whose parents traumatized them with The Neverending Story) the final scene of Season 4 is yet another homage to the 1984 mindtrip of a film by Wolfgang Peterson (along with Will’s haircut and Dustin and Suzie’s harmonic rendition of the theme song). The Nothing is coming to Hawkins! And what does the Nothing represent? Well according to the original story, the dark storm consuming the land of Fantasia is caused by people’s lack of imagination and inability to believe in magic–basically a storm of dull minds and hopelessness. It will leave behind a world in which all people are driven by fear and greed and anger–people like Henry, Papa, and Jason the letterman jacket-wearing jock.
But the writers of Stranger Things are much more interested in the storm raging inside each character. Every person in this story is its own little universe, with demons and gods and shadows and light. They demonstrate this by dramatizing the inner workings of characters such as Max. We get to see how each character responds to his or her “devil inside.”
INXS released a song with this title in 1988, and so it’s fun to imagine that in the 1980’s fantasy world of Stranger Things there is a lead singer named Michael Hutchence who is now composing this song with Eleven’s epic battle in mind. After all, popular music plays a big role in the plot and mood of this beloved television story, and the devil inside is what fuels this season’s compelling dynamic.
More broadly, the entire series grapples with the notion that on some level we all suspect maybe we are fighting a losing battle with our inner demons. Just maybe…we are on the wrong side of history, maybe we are the villains. Contrary to popular American belief these days, it’s only healthy to question one’s righteousness now and again. And in modern fiction, it almost always distinguishes the good guys from the bad guys.
The season finale highlights this distinction between a villain and a hero. Antagonists are not bothered by their monster inside–they do not take responsibility for it. They are not in the business of self-doubt or fixing themselves.The protagonists, on the other hand, are all tending to their inner battles, keeping their demons at bay.
Max, for instance, lays out a clear plan to overcome her darkness. She tells Lucas that she will simply run toward the light when Vecna comes for her. She points out that Vecna exploits everyone’s weakest spots. His previous victims fell prey when they were wallowing in destructive thoughts and regrets.
Lucas fights his own battle and wins by choosing bravery, hope, and true friendship over the lettermen jacket posse who are consumed by fear and vengeance. Nancy continues to struggle with her past by fighting for her friends in the present while facing off her own guilty conscience about Barb’s death. Meanwhile, Hopper’s self-doubt takes him to a very dark place where his entire life’s purpose is in question. He begins to think that everyone he loves was endangered by getting too close to him. He begins to think that he is all monster. But he overcomes this idea (with the help of his new Russian buddy) by realizing that he is still alive for good reason. He is there to fight and protect his people, to stay alive for Joyce, and to help battle the Upside Down and save El.
Eleven, of course, is the most vivid example of that struggle with the inner monster. This whole time she (and the viewers) suspected that she was the perpetrator of the Hawkins Lab massacre. When she brutally attacks Angela with the roller skate at Rink-O-Mania she is simply affirming her fear that she is nothing more than an instrument of wrath and destruction. All along, she’s been trying to piece these broken memories together to determine her character. And now here she is at age 14, still shaping her core identity, and feeling very real emotions–shame, rage, regret, etc. This scene is especially touching because it feels familiar in a way. Who among us hasn’t felt we might as well give in to our darkest self? Maybe I am the monster they say I am, or the monster I think they think I am. It’s easier to fall than it is to rise back up. Whether it was a deliberate punch to an enemy or a cowardly backhanded insult to a friend, or a mishandled breakup resulting in someone else’s broken heart, we all do things that create an illusion of evil inside of us. The mirror of self-image can sometimes appear so dark and distorted that we truly lose ourselves in it.
But the key to becoming a hero (in storytelling, at least) is the character’s ability to recover from self-loathing and have the courage to forge a battle with the demons. Notice that the moment Henry regains his power, he fully unleashes his monster within. Any soul-searching he may have done during his time under Papa’s thumb did not conclude in fixing himself. Instead he turned it outward. And that is where he and Eleven differ–she doesn’t allow the evil to consume the good, no matter how bad it seems.
And then there’s Papa. Eleven directly addresses the issue of his monster-self, and yet he still chooses to disregard it. She says to him, “did you make good choices?” as she holds his feet to the fire by providing specific examples. “Was it a good choice to keep Henry in the lab?”she asks, and then reminds him of all the deaths he’s responsible for. She finally concludes with what the audience was thinking all along: “you are the monster!” This is an epic moment in which the exploration of her past pays off, and she can reclaim her power. Despite her angry outbursts in the past, she has been fighting her inner demons, and she is winning. She is not an inherently evil person. No one is inherently good or bad. It is the effort one makes to get know herself, plus the will to overcome shadows and destructive tendencies that truly makes for a hero.
Papa studies and analyzes everyone else, but never investigates the labyrinth of his own heart or acknowledges the sins of his past. He does not turn inward, and even when faced with the obvious truth, he still does not acknowledge it. He continues to embrace this monster inside by imprisoning Dr. Owens and dampening El’s powers with medication and a shock collar. If this doesn’t reek of our own real-life bad guys, those who wield political and psychological power over the masses (and those narcissists we know personally), I don’t know how much more clearly these writers could illustrate it.
So according to our definition here, Dr. Owens can be categorized as a good guy because, although he doesn’t have the fortitude to stand up to Papa earlier in the show, at least he is battling his own demons and grappling with self-doubt. He finally makes a case for the ends not justifying the means, if far too late. Jason, on the other hand, could not be labeled a good guy because he has fallen under the spell of fear and darkness. The Devil Inside is now his master. As Eddie sings in his “most metal concert in the history of the world,” master of puppets, I’m pulling your strings/ Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams.
So what does this all mean for us, and for our favorite heroes and villains? The most heroic men and women look inward and are honest about what they see there. They have the wisdom to tame their own monster first before doing battle in foreign lands. If you believe there is no monster within yourself, a little soul searching might be in order. Are you really the good guy you think you are?
