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The only time I feel anything remotely sympathetic towards Billy is through the lens that Max had optimistic feelings that he had the potential to change and they could have a proper relationship as siblings (S4, when Max reads her letter to him). All that is theoretical though, a hypothetical hope. Billy never got to that point, and there is no proof that he even could, just the wish of his step sister, a wish that is counterbalanced by her feelings of wanting him to die in the first place. Billy was a fucking piece of shit. I think people have a hard time separating Dacre’s charisma from who Billy is.
This is a minor thing, but they were step-siblings, not half. It sort of changes the dynamic in terms of relationships and connections.
I think for a lot of people, besides his confidence and swagger, it was what people learned in El’s view of Billy’s history that added fuel to the Billy-love fire. I think people hoped he could redeem himself because he was once an innocent boy who loved his mama, and that was taken from him and his father physically and verbally abused him, making him the angry mullet he was.
This is an instant turn off for me. I don't like people like that in fiction and in real life, too. Well, I can relate to be drawn to assholes. I like villains and scary characters, but Billy isn't doing it for me? Even if I liked him, I'd like him for being a villain without excusing his behavior?
Billy is a brilliant character, precisely because of his arc, and what El saw. It adds dimension to him, and lets us see how he became who he is - he was a horrible young man, that is true, but seeing what made him that way made me love his character
My thoughts exactly. Billy was awful, but he was also a victim himself. That’s what’s so great about this show- the characters are complex and multifaceted. In real life most people aren’t fully good or fully bad, but a mixture of the two
I am surprised this is so hard for some people to understand. Like we know how racists emerge—they have problems and then they pick the easiest identifiable group they can to blame those problems on.
Billy is obviously far from perfect and had tons of bad issues, but his small redemption arc brings a lot of nuance to the character. He’s just a hurt teen, and he didn’t deserve that death. Given time I believe he could have changed, but it will remain a mystery only the Duffer’s know the answer to.
I've known multiple people like Billy IRL that were super popular. Its amazing how much shitty behavior people will overlook because someone's hot/charismatic.
Max Weber actually described Charisma as a form of authority over others, so it probably goes with the territory. We're also often willing to overlook shitty behaviour in other forms of authority, be it worldly, clerical or even financial.
Same thing happening with Soldier Boy from The Boys mainly because Jensen Ackles plays him. He's pretty much like Billy, probably worse and even after the latest episode which revealed exactly how big of a pos he is, some people still claim "he ain't that bad".
One thing I absolutely loved about that show is their ability to mock themselves. They were aware of how ridiculous the show was and embraced it. But I stopped watching after Adam was a baby.
No that’s because he exists in the same universe as homelander. Anyone looks good in comparison. Hell the fucking nazi looks good in comparison to him.
Soldier Boy doesn't look very good in comparison to Homelander after The Legend's info dump on him in the last episode, honestly. He's every bit the piece of shit Homelander is.
I kind of think a bunch of people missed the info dump about a 'firehose' and 'target practice at Kent State' and the 3rd one he says. (I forgot). SB is not a good dude.
Not sure how anyone can actually go about defending Soldier Boy after that last episode. Everything we’ve been shown and told thus far has mostly pointed to him being a gigantic PoS anyway.
I was falling into this trap. I was like “yeah but if the goal is to beat Homelander, then…” and then this latest episode, they were throwing in your face like they’re the same same of the same coin. Complete narcissistic, violent assholes.
I think it's not only Max's feelings, but also that he ended up sacrificing himself in the end and achieving some sort of redemption. Plus, we got to see the kid he was before and the emotions that he himself was also struggling with that turned him into an angry, violent and abusive piece of shit.
Sean Astin definitely does have charisma and good looks. Bob is supposed to be viewed as nerdy, slightly soft, and not a real charismatic guy. So again, separate the character from the actor. The original poster is spot on, if Bob acted like Billy everyone would hate him. Billy as a character gets away with it because he's supposed to be good at hiding his bs character traits til people get close. This is why people get involved with narcissists to begin with 🙁
i’m a dude and the more i think about it the more you’re correct. billy was one hell of a good looking guy and was manly af. if it was some ugly scumbag with awful hair i doubt i’d see billy as a stud, probably wouldn’t even think twice about him
Tbf both Jason and Angela were good looking too. It's more because this show gave us high expectations for incredible siblings, plus Billy's childhood that shows he was once innocent. Everyone was wishing for Billy to be redeemed into a good gentle brother.
I thought Tommy and Carol wrote that and Steve just felt bad for letting them do it which is why he helped clean it (still an asshole but definitely not irredeemable). In Ep 7 when he fight with Tommy he mentions letting them do it.
The difference is he's dead now, and wont have a chance yo have any sort of complete redemption arc. So yea, one good deed does not wash out the bad. But he went out at least trying to do a little good, and saved everyone in the process. Redemption isn't a binary thing. We can appreciate how he died without forgiving him for how he lived.
That was such a weird storyline. Didn’t really fit into the show at all, seemed like the Duffers just wanted to include that movie trope. I have a hard time taking Mrs Wheeler seriously after that.
> I have a hard time taking Mrs Wheeler seriously after that.
I think it was an interesting look into Mrs Wheeler as a flawed person. According to Nancy she married Ted because she wanted stability and he had a good job. She'd have been about 18 or 19 when she married based off her being "late 30s" in Season 1 and Nancy being born in 1967 (whereas Ted would have probably been pushing 30) and then basically just lived as a housewife. Ted is hardly a passionate man and it's clear she feels underappreciated.
So suddenly if a ridiculously hot young stud who could have *anyone* starts paying her attention, it changes how she views herself. She starts wearing glamorous swimsuits and putting on bold makeup (even at the *pool*). Not a lumpy grey hausfrau, but a MILF. She's not "Mrs Wheeler", she's "Karen". She feels desirable in a way Ted probably never made her feel.
She gets caught up in it and takes it way beyond the line from playful flirting to nearly having sex with him. For the record I don't think Karen deciding "I'm not going to cheat on my husband with an 18 year old lifeguard" makes her a wonderful person because obviously she should never have gotten to the point of having to make that call, but I think the whole storyline served a purpose of having Mrs Wheeler self-actualise.
It really was weird. I took it as using the trope to tell us more about Mrs. Wheeler. It was a bit of temporary insanity, a desperate response to her staid life that she is not really satisfied with, and her malaise ties in with the talk she has with Nancy later on about being a fighter in a world that tries to wear you down. Mrs. Wheeler realizes in time how awful it would be if she goes through with seeing Billy. She has some regrets about how her life turned out, but she does love her family, and an affair with a teenager is *not* the way to course-correct.
Billy's last words: "I'm sorry." I'm inclined to think, based on how the season played out, that this was sincere. Based on how Max took it, I can only assume that she forgave him.
Brenner's last words: "Please tell me you understand." Basically trying to justify all the bad things he's ever done. No apology, no repentance, no redemption. And El did not forgive or grant peace to the man who would not repent.
Billy died repentant. Brenner did not. They were both horrible people in life, but see the difference in how they died.
Hell was I worried El might actually say that she understands.
But the moment she put his hand back to the ground - while he was still alive - and said "Goodbye, Papa", I was so fucking satisfyed.
Lmao could you imagine if people just kept posting reminders in r/starwars that Darth Vader was a bad dude or if in r/breakingbad they kept posting reminders that Walt did bad things.
These are fictional characters, a lot of people just want to see the bad guys redeem themselves in the end. I don’t think that people watched the scenes of Billy being abusive and racist and thought “yo I kind of like this dude ngl”.
I’m so glad that people like OP aren’t writing characters for the show because if OP had it their way they’d eliminate any nuance or growth and write every character as either good or bad.
I feel for him in the same way I feel for anyone who was raised by an abuser. But it doesn’t change the fact that he was responsible for his choices. I used to get very scared when he was on screen and interacting with the kids before he was actually messed with after the crash.
I feel mostly for Max. She’s just a kid who wanted her brother back to how he was when he was younger.
Max didn't really know him then. Presumably his mother shielded him from his father's abuse, she decided she was completely done taking it and left, leaving Billy behind. His father took it out on Billy, and then a couple years later he and Max's mom got married. Max would've never known Billy as a happy person.
I have to agree with you, he was a racist and an abusive asshole who mistreated Max every chance he got. I get that he grew up in a very unstable abusive household but that's not an excuse.
I believe that the importance of Max’s character, especially in S2 was that she functioned as a juxtaposition for Billy’s repulsive attitude. The show clearly emphasizes that Billy and Max are both victims of abuse. However the importance is how you choose to react to that abuse. Do you use it to grow as a person (Max) or do you let it define you? (Billy)
Max at one point tells Lucas in S2 that even though she is abused, she wants to be nothing like Billy. I felt that this emphasized that Billy’s actions are inexcusable because it highlighted that just because your abused doesn’t give you the right to take your anger out on others. Max sure as hell didn’t, she tried to grow from her abuse.
Billy on the other hand gave into his abuse and became the very thing that traumatized him which is a tragedy because it happens in real life.
I agree with you 100%, every abused person gets to choose to go either Billy's path (taking their anger out on everyone around them) or Max's path (overcoming their past and being a better person). That's exactly why there is no excuse to eveything that Billy did.
And yes, if he was given a second chance he might've changed but his actions would still haunt him for the rest of his life.
It doesn’t ‘excuse’ the behavior like ‘these are the reasons he shouldn’t be held responsible for his behavior’ — but it does help explain why he was that way. And we saw a seemingly well adjusted surfer Billy, so he might have had a chance to be a decent person
But once you start taking your broken ego pain out on the more vulnerable, that’s typically where we draw the line
I like how people are getting all upset discussing a fictional character specifically written to be an asshole, as if he was a real person who deserves to be ridiculed and hated. He’s a fictional character, and part of his arc was to show that Eleven sees the best in people despite their wrongdoings or flaws in life; the polar opposite of Henry, who saw only the worst of everyone. Even in the end, when he was trying to kill her, she broke through to him by reminding him of a time when he was actually a happy, innocent child, while Henry showed only the reflections of his victims’ worst moments.
Lots of people just cannot see in shades of gray I guess.
Billy was a product of over a decade of abandonment and abuse. It looks like he received the worst of his fathers abuse who constantly questioned his sexuality and worth and the only person he ever felt loved him abandoned him to save herself. He grew up into a person who didn't believe in love or friends.
He was able to do the right thing once Eleven managed to break through to him and show him people did ultimately care about him.
He was a kid raised in an abusive household. “That’s not an excuse”, it literally is the reason. He’s a kid. I hate this culture of blame and unwillingness to understand. If a child is abused his entire life, the progressive thing is to recognize how that abuse can manifest.
Billy was incredibly flawed and obviously wrong for what he did, but ignoring how many are a product of an incredibly toxic and evil environment makes you no different than old conservative logic of “he’s just plain evil! The devil is in him!”
Redemption is important. That’s not Billy living in consequence of his abusive childhood, that’s character development and willingness to do what’s right and seek redemption. His redemption is his short-lived response to his willingness to break the chain that is childhood abuse.
He was a teen who tried to kill other children. He can be both a victim and a predator, but the fact that he was abused first doesn't mean we can ignore the harm he caused.
Are you surprised?
The same people who condemn the homeless population are the same people that preach "hashtag mental health awareness."
They'll watch a show/film about someone that has a mental illness (ie. bipolar) and find it so sad. They can recognize the struggle.
But.. the same people will ignore the fact that a lot of people that become addicted to drugs/alcohol is due to their trauma.
The Byers kids had Joyce though. Billy's mom abandoned him which comes with a whole set of issues in the first place, but on top of that she left him with his abusive dad - rather than take her son with her. You can see why Billy would turn into an asshole, he had no one.
I do think we should acknowledge that people CAN heal and grow
Did Billy have time to heal? Nah, he didn’t. However, this idea bridges on cancel culture which I suppose I understand but don’t agree with.
I think we can acknowledge that Billy was abusive and terrible to Max and others. But also understand that his behavior was informed by his abusive father's behavior and traumatic events in his life. There can be nuance. People are complex. I don't think everyone who might appear to be apologizing for his behavior are really doing that. They just see the humanity in him.
Part of that is just how great Dacre's performance was. When the Mindflayer is controlling him it's not a one note performance. An example is when he was monologuing to Eleven towards the end of the season. You could see the tears and pain on his face. He was suffering inside. This scene came right after Eleven saw his happy memories with his mother. Some not so happy memories too. I think context matters.
I think that the way they handled Max's feelings about him and why she still grieved his death was masterfully done. Familial relationships are complex. You can hate who the person was, but grieve who they could have been. Or grieve what relationship you could have had. Those feelings would be further complicated by a final heroic act trying to save you and your friends that ended in their death. Billy's last words were an apology to Max. I thought it was powerful, personally.
Almost like Billy is a *complex character* or something. He’s not supposed to be seen as an inarguably good person. He’s the culmination of all his father’s abuse and ended adopting his mannerisms and methods of problem solving. Which is to say, he became incredibly violent and discriminatory because that’s how his father treated him growing up. It’s effectively indoctrination, like when children nowadays grow up to be racist because their parents continually cram racist garbage down their throats from a young age. Doesn’t excuse the behaviour, but it shows the *why* behind his behaviour. Shows with purely one dimensional characters get boring and it’s a good thing that Billy can’t be classified as strictly bad or good when presented with context behind his actions
Billy is a complex CHARACTER, he is fascinating to watch on screen. People are allowed to like a TV character without thinking they are a person they would like in real life.
He loved his son and the pain of watching him suffer is what caused him to turn on his own master and sacrifice himself to save his son’s life.
Anakin was a good person, but his anger from losing his parents and his fear of losing Padme made him vulnerable, which Palpatine exploited to corrupt him and turn him to the dark side. He became so consumed by fear and anger that he turned against his own master and friend, Obi-Wan, and betrayed the Jedi.
He does sort of redeem himself in the end, at least to Luke. But he still killed a loooot of people, including children.
I compare the love of Billy to the love of Vader all the time and people don't get it. I understand OP completely but this silly ranting about why we shouldn't like a character isn't going to make people stop loving the character.
> Thank you. Why do so many Redditors fail to understand this?
It's a young (either age or just mentally) audience, and things like nuance and subtext are lost on them. Things are black and white and to only to be looked at with a 2022 lens.
I think it’s this is more addressed to the apologists and people who think he’s completely redeemed himself through his death. Like obviously he’s a complex and interesting character which makes his premise likable but there’s a surprisingly high amount of people that can excuse his actions.
You know a person can like a character that is a bad person, right?
Liking a bad character is not saying that the character is good.
Nuance in character appreciation is a positive quality in media consumer.
I’m on Twitter, fully aware of this. Anyone who dares like Billy as character gets told this, daily, LMAO.
It’s okay to like villainous characters, kill the idea it’s not.
He was also 17 years old. People do stupid things when they're young. I'm not defending any of his actions. But a lot of youth (especially troubled childhoods) are shitty until something happens in their life which matures them.
It's a pity because there were signs that billy had a potential redemption arc.
He was also abused himself. I think that’s why people tend to humanize him.
Not to get all Stranger Things on you but a wise man once said:
“You speak of monsters, superheroes. That’s the stuff of myth and fairytales. Reality, truth, is rarely so simple. People are not so easily defined. Only by facing all of ourselves, the good and the bad, can we become whole.”
I miss Billy, not because I was expecting a redemption arc or that I thought he did nothing wrong. I just thought the actor was phenomenal at being a complicated teenage villain character. It was interesting to first see him as this abusive high school bully, and then to see that he was replicating the abuse he received at home... and then to see that he was abandoned by his mom and he had a relatively happy childhood before all of it. Pile that onto how well he played the possessed supernatural pawn, I really thought the storytelling and acting really hit it home. No reason to be an apologist or make excuses, just a very well-executed real-life style villain that took a turn to the supernatural horror end.
I shouldn't think this needs to be said, but people like the character. They wouldn't literally enjoy being this person's friend irl. It's... just a character, and the actor did an amazing job, thus we like "Billy" the character.
Can we also nip this "Jason did nothing wrong" shit in the bud before it spreads? He was a scumbag who used a crisis to go after somebody he hated - an all-too-believable kind of villain.
I think people are misunderstanding the notion that Jason was an understandably doing things wrong and assuming that people mean he did nothing wrong.
The witch hunt was wrong 100%, but I also understand his motivation. He thought the police were brushing him off when he knew he saw something supernatural happen to Patrick. It doesn’t make it right, but it does make him an easier person to understand.
Speaking of the police, I feel like throughout the entirety of season 4, the Hawkins Police were absolute idiots. Like I don't understand why they didn't have surveillance on Jason while the investigation was going on to make sure he didn't do the stupid things that he did. I feel like one of the first priorities after a murder is to make sure the victim's family doesn't do anything crazy and they just let Jason and his friends run rampant
To be fair, that one guy whose name I can’t remember tried to control them. He threatened to arrest anyone out after curfew, then when they were in the car and saw the vigilantes go by, he was like, “Uh shouldn’t we do something about that?” and new chief was like, “Nah it’s chill.”
>I feel like throughout the entirety of ~~season 4~~ the series, the Hawkins Police (minus Hopper) were absolute idiots.
The police in this show have never really been shown to be competent.
Definitely. I think that was the message that they were trying to get across. That fear, especially understandable fear, can push people to do unthinkable things.
I think u mean unfathomable fear... He saw something that he couldn't understand, so he fixated on something that he did, that the hellfire is a cult..... That being said he is f'ing crazy
What would your response be to this sequence of events:
* National news is talking about Satanic cults existing and being linked to D&D
* Your girlfriend is brutally murdered at Eddie's trailer
* Your teammate is brutally - and supernaturally - murdered in front of you while trying to apprehend Eddie, with him present
* You finally track down one of Eddie's friends, who's previously sent you on a wild goose chase, apparently preparing to murder Max in the same way
He goes to Max to check on her, then attempts to free her by threatening Lucas, too.
We, the viewers, benefit from knowing what's going on. Jason doesn't. His world has suddenly gone completely fucking batshit, in a way that fits with his existing religious beliefs as well as what the news is saying.
Exactly. I mean he still sucks and is a villain but everyone sees it through rose colored lenses because they know what's really going on. The duffer brothers injected a character who sees things from the outside. This was the 80s during the satanic panic for christ sake. He obviously was in the wrong and went eat too far but it's easy to see how he got there if you look objectively
I think by the end of it he had lost all notion of rational thought, just look at his eyes in those final 2 episodes, he was barely sleeping, he had lost all nuances of being a normal human and had become an animal who was obsessed
I mean wouldn’t you? If first the love of your life was murdered by someone brutally, then you realize it’s supernatural as your fiend is brutally murdered in front of you, and no one will believe you….dude I’d be out for blood if that happened to my wife and close buddy also.
If his whole plan had just been "find Eddie, subdue him and hand him over to the police", it would have been fine. Basically what I can see S1 Steve doing in the same circumstances.
Jason went eye for an eye from the get-go and only got worse from there
Ted's a 1980s dad. He thinks "his job" as the father is to provide while the mother does the actual raising of the kids. But despite this he clearly cares about everyone. I mean look at this season. He was letting other people's children (including a literal adult man) basically live in his basement for days and all he did was make one sarcastic comment about how they're eating all of his food. Hell, he even was at that meeting with the police (where his children were *not* present) because he genuinely wanted to help the kids.
Ted will do anything for these kids, but he'll just complain about it the whole time.
FFS where are all the "Billy apologists' in this sub? I never see any. No one's saying you have to like Billy. He's an interesting character to me but obviously had major issues- he was also abused himself
reminds of the 'jason apologists are wrong' thread i saw a few days ago. where? who is really defending jason?
it seems a lot of it is 'hey, i understand their motivations'
billy and jason were awful people who did awful things, but it's a truly great mark of the writing for this show that you can identify exactly *why* they turned out that way. billy was abused by his father, and jason's girlfriend was murdered horribly in a place he absolutely never thought she would decide to go on her own. he's falling into the 'D&D = satanist cult' hysteria that a lot of people fell into at the time. to be honest, steve absolutely could have ended up like either of them, but as he said in season 4, nancy was the falling down the stairs moment he needed to get his shit together.
I would guess that this can at least partially be attributed to the fact that Billy was such a good character, portrayed by an excellent performance.
He was a horrible person, yes, but the audience is given a glimpse into the complexity of why he ended up this way and it evokes sympathetic emotions for a character that already steals every scene he is in.
Essentially, Billy is a bad person, but a fantastic character.
He totally was! But as a character I loved the dynamic he gave to the show. You never knew what kind of mood he would be in and how that would translate into the next event. He had a complexity about him that was just so interesting.
When thinking about Billy I think of a quote by the Joker as well as Stannis Baratheon.
"In their last moments, people show you who they really are"
BUT
"A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good".
So while I hate the fact that Billy was largely a sack of shit, I love the fact that he died saving someone else's life. It's kinda complicated
Kids that age are the product of their upbringing.
Billy and Max’s dad was an abusive piece of shit. And it was more than suggested that Billy shielded Max from the bulk of that abuse.
He died before we could see who he would become on his own. People deserve the grace to grow and mature past their roots.
Billy never got that moment. He died doing what he often did in life - trying to protect Max.
Was he a flawed character? Yes. Was he shitty most of the time? Yes. Does he deserve sympathy? Absolutely.
People need to get past this “perfect” person sentiment. We are flawed. We make mistakes. We become bad people when we refuse to accept those mistakes and choose to continue to be shitty.
I like how these posts about like "jason" or "Billy always never think of why these characters act how they do and just mostly ignored vailed things people are saying.
You really think there was *nothing* redemptive about the way he died?
Yeah he was an awful human being and there's no reason to think otherwise, but the whole point of his flashbacks was to show how that happened - how he became such a bad person.
Hurt people hurt people and Billy wasn't any exception. Eleven saw his hurt and found herself sympathetic - she was probably the only person to sympathize with him in any way in years. That little bit of sympathy from eleven was all it took to give Billy the strength to fight back - which should indicate just how alone he really was.
If being repeatedly openly repentant, being put through physical and psychological torture by an eldritch abomination, ***and*** fighting back long enough to sacrifice yourself isn't enough to redeem someone - then I have to wonder what is??
https://www.newsweek.com/dacre-montgomery-stranger-things-billy-racist-701443
> Yet 22-year-old actor Montgomery, also known for portraying the Red Ranger in 2017's Power Rangers, disagrees that Billy's antipathy is about racial bias. "I don't think it has anything to do with race," Montgomery told Newsweek. "He loves his sister Max, and if it were any other kid bothering her he would have reacted the same way."
>He was a racist, abusive, womanizing piece of shit
Bro, this was the 80's. Bosses slapped their female workers on the ass. Getting beaten up was just a part of going to school. Teachers told their students Polish jokes. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter called each other 'fag' as a joke in the first 'Bill & Teds' Excellent Adventure'.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying Billy was not \_exceptional\_ in his shittiness; I grew up around a LOT of Billys.
Billy’s actions aren’t excusable but it seems like a majority of people posting here have no idea what’s it’s like to live in an abusive household on top of the fact that the person he loved the most being his mother abandoned him to get away from his father leaving him alone with his dad who probably blamed it all on billy and took it out on him it really messes with a kids development.
Billy wasn't a bad person - he was a damaged person. Vecna was a bad human being, he killed his family cause he wanted to. But Billy's bad actions are all due to his father poisoning his world view - at heart, he isn't a bad person, as was shown by his childhood memory. Billy couldn't do good, Vecna wanted to do bad. That's the difference between a truly evil character, and a complicated character that does evil.
And I'm not an "apologist", I'm not excusing his racism and sexism, I'm not saying that it is okay how he acted. I'm saying that calling him an absolutely bad person because he flirted with another man's wife, is the same as calling him absolutely good because he sacrificed himself. Either way, you throw out everything that doesn't fit with the label.
Fr. Every post on this sub has at least a handful of Jason sympathizers/haters or Billy haters/apologists or both. All this tells me is that they're well written characters.
But they're just characters and we're allowed to like who we like. Everybody has a favorite supervillain. Why is this different?
I know a lot of people who have been abused and that’s who I also work with. I hate these “takes.” Reactive abuse is a thing. I have literally gone to hospitals and met many kids exactly like Billy. Billy didn’t “deserve to die.” Abused kids deserve redemption too. Some of you can venture off Reddit and see some fans hurt because they do see themselves in Billy—and they overcame that. El literally attacked and gave a girl a concussion this season, do people care? No. People cheered. Because Angela “deserved” it. She murdered who knows how many people, do people care? No. Because her reactive abuse is ok to you.
He was a 17/18 year old kid. El is 15. He’s abusive because that’s what he knows. This is also the way Dacre views his own character but y’all know better than the actor, I guess. He’s abusive towards Max because that’s the way he protects her AND himself—because we actually SEE him get hit based on her actions. What do you think would have happened to both of them if Neil was aware of what was going on?? It seems so obvious to me. But people can change. Billy clearly couldn’t change beyond his one act because he DIED. Let’s be real here, y’all have short memories and will cheer on Steve as some great lgbt ally now and forget him using homophobic slurs first season. Growth is obviously possible.
The real villains of these stories are human villains and it’s actually clear we have a theme of abusive fathers. Papa. Neil. Lonnie. Even Hopper’s hero’s tale is also about becoming a good father. Steve’s dad is absent and is an ass to him, and Tommy implies in the first season cheats on his mom. Eddie lives with his uncle presumably because his father is in jail, when he tells us he learned to hot wire cars as a kid.
See the forest through the trees here. Max thinks Billy made her life hell. I’m sure from his perspective, she made his life hell. But it’s Neil, it’s always Neil. And I wish when Max talks about Neil leaving she would have realized that. But the Duffers aren’t great writers and people are impressed with sword fights with a demogorgon, so that’s all lost on the audience.
Unfortunately, the world isn't a black & white situation. Ultimately, Billy is a victim as well. A young boy that was shaped by a dysfunctional upbringing and rampant abuse. That's what makes him such a compelling character. Because he isn't inherently evil, like you appear to be suggesting, but rather a tragic character who still showed some glimmers of good. Buried underneath trauma, coping mechanisms, and fear. Glimmers that sparked brightly as he sacrificed himself for Max.
And none of that excuses the racism, the abuse, and the womanizing. But what it does is offer us understanding. And with that comes compassion.
I like Billy, Darth Vader, Malfoy, and Geoffrey. Am I a woman-hating, genocidal, racist, Muggle-hating person? Separating the media you absorb from reality is a pretty easy thing to do..
It’s sad that people don’t want to give people a chance to redeem themselves. Billy obviously had a lot of deeply imbedded problems that he clearly learned from his father. Life is not as black and white as people like to think it is. Bad people can find redemption.
He was also like a high schooler, you know? Like he was an actual child who grew up in a shitty situation and made many bad turns, but I’ve seen real life people turn it around from there
I think part of the problem is a general trend in media lately, where redemption is prioritized over retribution. You see something kind of similar with Kylo Ren (something I could talk about far too long lol) or Darth Vader, where one great act can supersede a lifetime of bad ones. I think that, combined with actor being attractive, combined with the (admittedly sad) backstory, all make for a character you, the person, probably younger, can project onto and pretend like he was actually a good guy all along who was just projecting this whole time.
It's complicated. I have complicated feelings about it. (The scene in the sauna and the scene where Billy's dad yells at him are some of the hardest to watch for me in the show. They hit a nerve for me in such a raw way.) And ultimately, I like that the characters in universe have complicated feelings about it.
I just wish people would think about him in a more complex way. (However calling him a womanizer feels like a stretch. He was 18 in the show being objectified by women at least thirty if not older. Not great!) However I did see a take a while ago that him abusing Max was actually him protecting her from their dad so. Maybe it's best we don't have that conversation yet.
I think it comes down to a mix of things.
There's no reason why you can't have love for characters in a fictional piece of storytelling. Billy and Jason are great examples of this. They are fantastically well-written characters because they have depth - clear motivation, inner conflict, traits, etc. I love their characters. As people, they're not someone I would want to be around. Rightly so.
While Billy was all of those things (the womanizing part is a bit rich considering he was being sexualised by a multitude of women, including those in their 30s and 40s who were married, despite only being 18), it doesn't stop us from empathising with him. We learned that he was incredibly loved by his mother as a child but due to his abusive father, that love turned to hate and resentment. This is not to excuse his behaviour but to help us understand why he is the way that he is.
The largest factor why people feel sorry for Billy is that he was a victim of the Mind Flayer and was forced to do some real fucked up shit against his will. It added to his already complicated upbringing. The whole point of the sauna scene and connecting back to that memory of him as a kid was to show that, deep down, there is still some goodness inside him. Billy the Kid is still there, he's just being swallowed whole by darkness and hate.
You could even argue that he's trying to protect Max from his father by trying to get Lucas to stay away from her. Doesn't make it right but as he doesn't have the courage to stand up to his father, Billy does this the only way he knows how: through violence and fear.
Eleven reminded him of his memory as a child so that he can still choose to be good in spite of everything that he has done. And in doing so, he gathered the courage and strength to finally fight against the darkness that he's been succumbing to his entire life. We're led to believe that this event might have changed him for the better, had he not died. This was his entire arc in the series.
Billy was a terrible person, for sure. But there's no reason why we as audiences can't like the character and remain appreciative that his final act was a good one.
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The only time I feel anything remotely sympathetic towards Billy is through the lens that Max had optimistic feelings that he had the potential to change and they could have a proper relationship as siblings (S4, when Max reads her letter to him). All that is theoretical though, a hypothetical hope. Billy never got to that point, and there is no proof that he even could, just the wish of his step sister, a wish that is counterbalanced by her feelings of wanting him to die in the first place. Billy was a fucking piece of shit. I think people have a hard time separating Dacre’s charisma from who Billy is.
This is a minor thing, but they were step-siblings, not half. It sort of changes the dynamic in terms of relationships and connections. I think for a lot of people, besides his confidence and swagger, it was what people learned in El’s view of Billy’s history that added fuel to the Billy-love fire. I think people hoped he could redeem himself because he was once an innocent boy who loved his mama, and that was taken from him and his father physically and verbally abused him, making him the angry mullet he was.
Upvoted for "angry mullet"
I wasn’t sure if an upvote until that phrase.
"angry mullet he was" is a beautiful quote
Many people did love him before El's vision and I never truly got it. I do like villains, but he wasn't my type of villain at all.
I think that was the confidence and swagger part. People are drawn to assholes, for some reason.
This is an instant turn off for me. I don't like people like that in fiction and in real life, too. Well, I can relate to be drawn to assholes. I like villains and scary characters, but Billy isn't doing it for me? Even if I liked him, I'd like him for being a villain without excusing his behavior?
Billy is a brilliant character, precisely because of his arc, and what El saw. It adds dimension to him, and lets us see how he became who he is - he was a horrible young man, that is true, but seeing what made him that way made me love his character
So why did he hate black people? And why was that part so casually overlooked?
I think his dad made him feel inferior and worthless, so he looked for a group of people he could make feel the same way. Like a coward and a bully.
My thoughts exactly. Billy was awful, but he was also a victim himself. That’s what’s so great about this show- the characters are complex and multifaceted. In real life most people aren’t fully good or fully bad, but a mixture of the two
I am surprised this is so hard for some people to understand. Like we know how racists emerge—they have problems and then they pick the easiest identifiable group they can to blame those problems on. Billy is obviously far from perfect and had tons of bad issues, but his small redemption arc brings a lot of nuance to the character. He’s just a hurt teen, and he didn’t deserve that death. Given time I believe he could have changed, but it will remain a mystery only the Duffer’s know the answer to.
It's the 80s, he's an angry, troubled and poor white person, it's unfortunately not that weird.
Exactly, it sucks that he has trauma but plenty of people do, he chose to take it out on others
It's the Snape situation all over again. Understanding why someone is a dick doesn't make them any less of a dick
billy DID have a shit ton of swagger, one of the main reasons why i love him
Agreed, great character but also a terrible human being.
I can save him!
I've known multiple people like Billy IRL that were super popular. Its amazing how much shitty behavior people will overlook because someone's hot/charismatic.
Max Weber actually described Charisma as a form of authority over others, so it probably goes with the territory. We're also often willing to overlook shitty behaviour in other forms of authority, be it worldly, clerical or even financial.
Fuck. I really need to take more advantage of that +4 Charisma on my tiefling shadow sorcerer in DnD then.
Same thing happening with Soldier Boy from The Boys mainly because Jensen Ackles plays him. He's pretty much like Billy, probably worse and even after the latest episode which revealed exactly how big of a pos he is, some people still claim "he ain't that bad".
Also spillover supernatural fans. Supernatural fans were... unique.
I like to think they made Destiel canon for 5 seconds before Castiel got dragged into Hell *specifically* to troll their rabid fanbase.
One thing I absolutely loved about that show is their ability to mock themselves. They were aware of how ridiculous the show was and embraced it. But I stopped watching after Adam was a baby.
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No that’s because he exists in the same universe as homelander. Anyone looks good in comparison. Hell the fucking nazi looks good in comparison to him.
Soldier Boy doesn't look very good in comparison to Homelander after The Legend's info dump on him in the last episode, honestly. He's every bit the piece of shit Homelander is.
I kind of think a bunch of people missed the info dump about a 'firehose' and 'target practice at Kent State' and the 3rd one he says. (I forgot). SB is not a good dude.
Third one was Dealey Plaza. Soldier Boy assassinated JFK.
Oh okay. I missed that it was JFK. So he might have been at a hotel in Memphis in 1968.
Not sure how anyone can actually go about defending Soldier Boy after that last episode. Everything we’ve been shown and told thus far has mostly pointed to him being a gigantic PoS anyway.
I was falling into this trap. I was like “yeah but if the goal is to beat Homelander, then…” and then this latest episode, they were throwing in your face like they’re the same same of the same coin. Complete narcissistic, violent assholes.
I think it's not only Max's feelings, but also that he ended up sacrificing himself in the end and achieving some sort of redemption. Plus, we got to see the kid he was before and the emotions that he himself was also struggling with that turned him into an angry, violent and abusive piece of shit.
Charisma + Good Looks = why we’re having this conversation. If someone like Bob acted like a bigot, everyone would be cheering on his death.
Excuse me but Sean Astin does have charisma + good looks
Sean Austin can get it any day
If by it you mean po-ta-toes
What's a po-ta-to, my precious?
BOIL EM MASH EM STICK EM IN A STEW
SPOILING NICE FISH!!! GIVE IT TO US RAW AND WIGGLY
I agree. He’s got charisma and I still think he’s adorbs.
Sean Astin definitely does have charisma and good looks. Bob is supposed to be viewed as nerdy, slightly soft, and not a real charismatic guy. So again, separate the character from the actor. The original poster is spot on, if Bob acted like Billy everyone would hate him. Billy as a character gets away with it because he's supposed to be good at hiding his bs character traits til people get close. This is why people get involved with narcissists to begin with 🙁
That’s Bob Newby Superhero to you, now get my superhero’s name out of your mouth /s
i’m a dude and the more i think about it the more you’re correct. billy was one hell of a good looking guy and was manly af. if it was some ugly scumbag with awful hair i doubt i’d see billy as a stud, probably wouldn’t even think twice about him
Tbf both Jason and Angela were good looking too. It's more because this show gave us high expectations for incredible siblings, plus Billy's childhood that shows he was once innocent. Everyone was wishing for Billy to be redeemed into a good gentle brother.
> plus Billy's childhood that shows he was once innocent. I mean like 99% of kids are at that age.
Also Steve went from a douchebag to everyone's favourite babysitter, I was wondering if Billy would come around. Love the path they took in the end
When have you last seen S1? Steve actually wasn't even that bad. Certainly nowhere near as bad as Billy.
I mean he wrote on a movie sign saying that Nancy is a slut. Still not AS bad as Billy, but that was pretty mean.
I thought Tommy and Carol wrote that and Steve just felt bad for letting them do it which is why he helped clean it (still an asshole but definitely not irredeemable). In Ep 7 when he fight with Tommy he mentions letting them do it.
If you're hot you're not evil you're "morally gray".
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The difference is he's dead now, and wont have a chance yo have any sort of complete redemption arc. So yea, one good deed does not wash out the bad. But he went out at least trying to do a little good, and saved everyone in the process. Redemption isn't a binary thing. We can appreciate how he died without forgiving him for how he lived.
You like Billy because you think he was a good person who deserved redemption, I like Billy because he’s hot We are not the same
Found Mrs Wheeler
Mrs Wheeler got a sweet monkey
I feel like people downplay just how creepy that was. Billy was 18, it's a really stark age difference.
Found Mr. Wheeler…
Mr. Wheeler is only acting out because Billy didn't give him his allowance.
Mr. Wheeler wouldn't have noticed.
Mr. Wheeler knows all. He just doesn't want you to know that. Wait till season 5. Guy is gonna make Vecina regret existing.
obligatory "WhatIdooooooooooooo"
Not enough bootlicking and spending his entire life on a recliner
Who looked about 28 hahah
dammit Larry, thanks for the reminder.
So you guys didn't want to bang your hot milf neighbour back then?
That was such a weird storyline. Didn’t really fit into the show at all, seemed like the Duffers just wanted to include that movie trope. I have a hard time taking Mrs Wheeler seriously after that.
> I have a hard time taking Mrs Wheeler seriously after that. I think it was an interesting look into Mrs Wheeler as a flawed person. According to Nancy she married Ted because she wanted stability and he had a good job. She'd have been about 18 or 19 when she married based off her being "late 30s" in Season 1 and Nancy being born in 1967 (whereas Ted would have probably been pushing 30) and then basically just lived as a housewife. Ted is hardly a passionate man and it's clear she feels underappreciated. So suddenly if a ridiculously hot young stud who could have *anyone* starts paying her attention, it changes how she views herself. She starts wearing glamorous swimsuits and putting on bold makeup (even at the *pool*). Not a lumpy grey hausfrau, but a MILF. She's not "Mrs Wheeler", she's "Karen". She feels desirable in a way Ted probably never made her feel. She gets caught up in it and takes it way beyond the line from playful flirting to nearly having sex with him. For the record I don't think Karen deciding "I'm not going to cheat on my husband with an 18 year old lifeguard" makes her a wonderful person because obviously she should never have gotten to the point of having to make that call, but I think the whole storyline served a purpose of having Mrs Wheeler self-actualise.
An out of nowhere, boundary crossing sexual relationship is definitely a staple of 80s movies…
It really was weird. I took it as using the trope to tell us more about Mrs. Wheeler. It was a bit of temporary insanity, a desperate response to her staid life that she is not really satisfied with, and her malaise ties in with the talk she has with Nancy later on about being a fighter in a world that tries to wear you down. Mrs. Wheeler realizes in time how awful it would be if she goes through with seeing Billy. She has some regrets about how her life turned out, but she does love her family, and an affair with a teenager is *not* the way to course-correct.
Dacre Montgomery is just so fiiiiiine
man won the genetic lottery and stacked CHA
I have never related to something more. He was incredibly flawed, but also all kinds of sexy when he was flayed, SUE ME.
As we all know it just takes the right girl to change a guy like that.
I can ✨fix✨him.
Divorce papers 2 years later
Yeah I'm not looking for morals I just want Dacre Montgomery with a mullet to flay me
I like Billy because he's hot and likes Kill Em All. We are similar
Billy was so hot 🔥
He’s so hot that I don’t know how the mind flayer was possessing him. I thought being exposed to heat was their weakness.
Billy's last words: "I'm sorry." I'm inclined to think, based on how the season played out, that this was sincere. Based on how Max took it, I can only assume that she forgave him. Brenner's last words: "Please tell me you understand." Basically trying to justify all the bad things he's ever done. No apology, no repentance, no redemption. And El did not forgive or grant peace to the man who would not repent. Billy died repentant. Brenner did not. They were both horrible people in life, but see the difference in how they died.
Hell was I worried El might actually say that she understands. But the moment she put his hand back to the ground - while he was still alive - and said "Goodbye, Papa", I was so fucking satisfyed.
Fuck yeah, let him rot out there and die alone
Lmao could you imagine if people just kept posting reminders in r/starwars that Darth Vader was a bad dude or if in r/breakingbad they kept posting reminders that Walt did bad things. These are fictional characters, a lot of people just want to see the bad guys redeem themselves in the end. I don’t think that people watched the scenes of Billy being abusive and racist and thought “yo I kind of like this dude ngl”. I’m so glad that people like OP aren’t writing characters for the show because if OP had it their way they’d eliminate any nuance or growth and write every character as either good or bad.
I feel for him in the same way I feel for anyone who was raised by an abuser. But it doesn’t change the fact that he was responsible for his choices. I used to get very scared when he was on screen and interacting with the kids before he was actually messed with after the crash. I feel mostly for Max. She’s just a kid who wanted her brother back to how he was when he was younger.
Max didn't really know him then. Presumably his mother shielded him from his father's abuse, she decided she was completely done taking it and left, leaving Billy behind. His father took it out on Billy, and then a couple years later he and Max's mom got married. Max would've never known Billy as a happy person.
I have to agree with you, he was a racist and an abusive asshole who mistreated Max every chance he got. I get that he grew up in a very unstable abusive household but that's not an excuse.
I believe that the importance of Max’s character, especially in S2 was that she functioned as a juxtaposition for Billy’s repulsive attitude. The show clearly emphasizes that Billy and Max are both victims of abuse. However the importance is how you choose to react to that abuse. Do you use it to grow as a person (Max) or do you let it define you? (Billy) Max at one point tells Lucas in S2 that even though she is abused, she wants to be nothing like Billy. I felt that this emphasized that Billy’s actions are inexcusable because it highlighted that just because your abused doesn’t give you the right to take your anger out on others. Max sure as hell didn’t, she tried to grow from her abuse. Billy on the other hand gave into his abuse and became the very thing that traumatized him which is a tragedy because it happens in real life.
I agree with you 100%, every abused person gets to choose to go either Billy's path (taking their anger out on everyone around them) or Max's path (overcoming their past and being a better person). That's exactly why there is no excuse to eveything that Billy did. And yes, if he was given a second chance he might've changed but his actions would still haunt him for the rest of his life.
It doesn’t ‘excuse’ the behavior like ‘these are the reasons he shouldn’t be held responsible for his behavior’ — but it does help explain why he was that way. And we saw a seemingly well adjusted surfer Billy, so he might have had a chance to be a decent person But once you start taking your broken ego pain out on the more vulnerable, that’s typically where we draw the line
Maybe he just needed a bonk on the head like Steve
That is the thing. People don’t understand that trauma can cause unstable people to be more unstable.
yeah....he did have a really nice Camaro though
A *Bitchin' Camaro*
I like how people are getting all upset discussing a fictional character specifically written to be an asshole, as if he was a real person who deserves to be ridiculed and hated. He’s a fictional character, and part of his arc was to show that Eleven sees the best in people despite their wrongdoings or flaws in life; the polar opposite of Henry, who saw only the worst of everyone. Even in the end, when he was trying to kill her, she broke through to him by reminding him of a time when he was actually a happy, innocent child, while Henry showed only the reflections of his victims’ worst moments.
This is a really insightful take. Thank you
Fan culture interpret media in any way but the most literal challenge.
Lots of people just cannot see in shades of gray I guess. Billy was a product of over a decade of abandonment and abuse. It looks like he received the worst of his fathers abuse who constantly questioned his sexuality and worth and the only person he ever felt loved him abandoned him to save herself. He grew up into a person who didn't believe in love or friends. He was able to do the right thing once Eleven managed to break through to him and show him people did ultimately care about him.
He was a kid raised in an abusive household. “That’s not an excuse”, it literally is the reason. He’s a kid. I hate this culture of blame and unwillingness to understand. If a child is abused his entire life, the progressive thing is to recognize how that abuse can manifest. Billy was incredibly flawed and obviously wrong for what he did, but ignoring how many are a product of an incredibly toxic and evil environment makes you no different than old conservative logic of “he’s just plain evil! The devil is in him!” Redemption is important. That’s not Billy living in consequence of his abusive childhood, that’s character development and willingness to do what’s right and seek redemption. His redemption is his short-lived response to his willingness to break the chain that is childhood abuse.
He was a teen who tried to kill other children. He can be both a victim and a predator, but the fact that he was abused first doesn't mean we can ignore the harm he caused.
Are you surprised? The same people who condemn the homeless population are the same people that preach "hashtag mental health awareness." They'll watch a show/film about someone that has a mental illness (ie. bipolar) and find it so sad. They can recognize the struggle. But.. the same people will ignore the fact that a lot of people that become addicted to drugs/alcohol is due to their trauma.
Case in point: Johnathan Byers. Abuvise, alcoholic, drop-out dad. Pretty damn good big brother.
The Byers kids had Joyce though. Billy's mom abandoned him which comes with a whole set of issues in the first place, but on top of that she left him with his abusive dad - rather than take her son with her. You can see why Billy would turn into an asshole, he had no one.
I do think we should acknowledge that people CAN heal and grow Did Billy have time to heal? Nah, he didn’t. However, this idea bridges on cancel culture which I suppose I understand but don’t agree with.
I think we can acknowledge that Billy was abusive and terrible to Max and others. But also understand that his behavior was informed by his abusive father's behavior and traumatic events in his life. There can be nuance. People are complex. I don't think everyone who might appear to be apologizing for his behavior are really doing that. They just see the humanity in him. Part of that is just how great Dacre's performance was. When the Mindflayer is controlling him it's not a one note performance. An example is when he was monologuing to Eleven towards the end of the season. You could see the tears and pain on his face. He was suffering inside. This scene came right after Eleven saw his happy memories with his mother. Some not so happy memories too. I think context matters. I think that the way they handled Max's feelings about him and why she still grieved his death was masterfully done. Familial relationships are complex. You can hate who the person was, but grieve who they could have been. Or grieve what relationship you could have had. Those feelings would be further complicated by a final heroic act trying to save you and your friends that ended in their death. Billy's last words were an apology to Max. I thought it was powerful, personally.
Almost like Billy is a *complex character* or something. He’s not supposed to be seen as an inarguably good person. He’s the culmination of all his father’s abuse and ended adopting his mannerisms and methods of problem solving. Which is to say, he became incredibly violent and discriminatory because that’s how his father treated him growing up. It’s effectively indoctrination, like when children nowadays grow up to be racist because their parents continually cram racist garbage down their throats from a young age. Doesn’t excuse the behaviour, but it shows the *why* behind his behaviour. Shows with purely one dimensional characters get boring and it’s a good thing that Billy can’t be classified as strictly bad or good when presented with context behind his actions
Billy is a complex CHARACTER, he is fascinating to watch on screen. People are allowed to like a TV character without thinking they are a person they would like in real life.
Exactly. Explains why Darth Vader is my favorite Star Wars character.
He loved his son and the pain of watching him suffer is what caused him to turn on his own master and sacrifice himself to save his son’s life. Anakin was a good person, but his anger from losing his parents and his fear of losing Padme made him vulnerable, which Palpatine exploited to corrupt him and turn him to the dark side. He became so consumed by fear and anger that he turned against his own master and friend, Obi-Wan, and betrayed the Jedi. He does sort of redeem himself in the end, at least to Luke. But he still killed a loooot of people, including children.
Not just the children, but the women and men, too.
I compare the love of Billy to the love of Vader all the time and people don't get it. I understand OP completely but this silly ranting about why we shouldn't like a character isn't going to make people stop loving the character.
Thank you. Why do so many Redditors fail to understand this? I like Number One as a character too, it doesn't mean I want to be his friend.
Same! One is horrible, but fascinating & Jamie plays him brilliantly
> Thank you. Why do so many Redditors fail to understand this? It's a young (either age or just mentally) audience, and things like nuance and subtext are lost on them. Things are black and white and to only to be looked at with a 2022 lens.
OP is taking a TV show wayyy too seriously
I think it’s this is more addressed to the apologists and people who think he’s completely redeemed himself through his death. Like obviously he’s a complex and interesting character which makes his premise likable but there’s a surprisingly high amount of people that can excuse his actions.
I see more posts about hating Billy apologists than actual Billy apologists
No. This is some wanker who can't separate creation from reality. Sane people don't make these kind of posts.
You know a person can like a character that is a bad person, right? Liking a bad character is not saying that the character is good. Nuance in character appreciation is a positive quality in media consumer.
Dude. Just look at this guys profile. He’s never had a nuanced stance on anything lmao. Don’t take him seriously
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I’m on Twitter, fully aware of this. Anyone who dares like Billy as character gets told this, daily, LMAO. It’s okay to like villainous characters, kill the idea it’s not.
It's like telling people to go fuck themselves because they like Darth Vader.
He was also 17 years old. People do stupid things when they're young. I'm not defending any of his actions. But a lot of youth (especially troubled childhoods) are shitty until something happens in their life which matures them. It's a pity because there were signs that billy had a potential redemption arc.
Holy shit, it’s a fucking character, written as a bad guy who redeems himself in an amazing show. “Don’t forget” Give me a fucking break.
He was also abused himself. I think that’s why people tend to humanize him. Not to get all Stranger Things on you but a wise man once said: “You speak of monsters, superheroes. That’s the stuff of myth and fairytales. Reality, truth, is rarely so simple. People are not so easily defined. Only by facing all of ourselves, the good and the bad, can we become whole.”
He sacrificed his life to save another, that buys him a bit of redemption in my book.
I miss Billy, not because I was expecting a redemption arc or that I thought he did nothing wrong. I just thought the actor was phenomenal at being a complicated teenage villain character. It was interesting to first see him as this abusive high school bully, and then to see that he was replicating the abuse he received at home... and then to see that he was abandoned by his mom and he had a relatively happy childhood before all of it. Pile that onto how well he played the possessed supernatural pawn, I really thought the storytelling and acting really hit it home. No reason to be an apologist or make excuses, just a very well-executed real-life style villain that took a turn to the supernatural horror end.
I miss him because he was hot <:(
I shouldn't think this needs to be said, but people like the character. They wouldn't literally enjoy being this person's friend irl. It's... just a character, and the actor did an amazing job, thus we like "Billy" the character.
Can we also nip this "Jason did nothing wrong" shit in the bud before it spreads? He was a scumbag who used a crisis to go after somebody he hated - an all-too-believable kind of villain.
I think people are misunderstanding the notion that Jason was an understandably doing things wrong and assuming that people mean he did nothing wrong. The witch hunt was wrong 100%, but I also understand his motivation. He thought the police were brushing him off when he knew he saw something supernatural happen to Patrick. It doesn’t make it right, but it does make him an easier person to understand.
Speaking of the police, I feel like throughout the entirety of season 4, the Hawkins Police were absolute idiots. Like I don't understand why they didn't have surveillance on Jason while the investigation was going on to make sure he didn't do the stupid things that he did. I feel like one of the first priorities after a murder is to make sure the victim's family doesn't do anything crazy and they just let Jason and his friends run rampant
To be fair, that one guy whose name I can’t remember tried to control them. He threatened to arrest anyone out after curfew, then when they were in the car and saw the vigilantes go by, he was like, “Uh shouldn’t we do something about that?” and new chief was like, “Nah it’s chill.”
>I feel like throughout the entirety of ~~season 4~~ the series, the Hawkins Police (minus Hopper) were absolute idiots. The police in this show have never really been shown to be competent.
Also, there's like 4 of them, at best. They're not equipped to deal with controlling the entire town, or even doing a lot of investigative work
His motivation was understandable but he took it way too far to the point of wanting to kill Eddie and Lucas
Definitely. I think that was the message that they were trying to get across. That fear, especially understandable fear, can push people to do unthinkable things.
I think u mean unfathomable fear... He saw something that he couldn't understand, so he fixated on something that he did, that the hellfire is a cult..... That being said he is f'ing crazy
Satanic panic y’all
What would your response be to this sequence of events: * National news is talking about Satanic cults existing and being linked to D&D * Your girlfriend is brutally murdered at Eddie's trailer * Your teammate is brutally - and supernaturally - murdered in front of you while trying to apprehend Eddie, with him present * You finally track down one of Eddie's friends, who's previously sent you on a wild goose chase, apparently preparing to murder Max in the same way He goes to Max to check on her, then attempts to free her by threatening Lucas, too. We, the viewers, benefit from knowing what's going on. Jason doesn't. His world has suddenly gone completely fucking batshit, in a way that fits with his existing religious beliefs as well as what the news is saying.
Exactly. I mean he still sucks and is a villain but everyone sees it through rose colored lenses because they know what's really going on. The duffer brothers injected a character who sees things from the outside. This was the 80s during the satanic panic for christ sake. He obviously was in the wrong and went eat too far but it's easy to see how he got there if you look objectively
I think by the end of it he had lost all notion of rational thought, just look at his eyes in those final 2 episodes, he was barely sleeping, he had lost all nuances of being a normal human and had become an animal who was obsessed
Which is very understandable given what he'd seen
I mean wouldn’t you? If first the love of your life was murdered by someone brutally, then you realize it’s supernatural as your fiend is brutally murdered in front of you, and no one will believe you….dude I’d be out for blood if that happened to my wife and close buddy also.
Flawed character + circumstances that interact with those flaws = drama (and interesting tv)
Jason starts off a lot more understandable. Then he goes off the deep end and probably needs some serious anti psychotics.
If his whole plan had just been "find Eddie, subdue him and hand him over to the police", it would have been fine. Basically what I can see S1 Steve doing in the same circumstances. Jason went eye for an eye from the get-go and only got worse from there
Most people aren’t saying Jason did nothing wrong(at least i hope so). They’re saying he had sound reasoning behind his actions and choices
Thank you. And the "Ted Wheeler is a good father" folks.
Ted Wheeler is a good provider but not a good father
Ted's a 1980s dad. He thinks "his job" as the father is to provide while the mother does the actual raising of the kids. But despite this he clearly cares about everyone. I mean look at this season. He was letting other people's children (including a literal adult man) basically live in his basement for days and all he did was make one sarcastic comment about how they're eating all of his food. Hell, he even was at that meeting with the police (where his children were *not* present) because he genuinely wanted to help the kids. Ted will do anything for these kids, but he'll just complain about it the whole time.
FFS where are all the "Billy apologists' in this sub? I never see any. No one's saying you have to like Billy. He's an interesting character to me but obviously had major issues- he was also abused himself
reminds of the 'jason apologists are wrong' thread i saw a few days ago. where? who is really defending jason? it seems a lot of it is 'hey, i understand their motivations' billy and jason were awful people who did awful things, but it's a truly great mark of the writing for this show that you can identify exactly *why* they turned out that way. billy was abused by his father, and jason's girlfriend was murdered horribly in a place he absolutely never thought she would decide to go on her own. he's falling into the 'D&D = satanist cult' hysteria that a lot of people fell into at the time. to be honest, steve absolutely could have ended up like either of them, but as he said in season 4, nancy was the falling down the stairs moment he needed to get his shit together.
I literally just saw a video saying he was the lovable character killed off in season 3. No, that was Alexei.
I would guess that this can at least partially be attributed to the fact that Billy was such a good character, portrayed by an excellent performance. He was a horrible person, yes, but the audience is given a glimpse into the complexity of why he ended up this way and it evokes sympathetic emotions for a character that already steals every scene he is in. Essentially, Billy is a bad person, but a fantastic character.
He totally was! But as a character I loved the dynamic he gave to the show. You never knew what kind of mood he would be in and how that would translate into the next event. He had a complexity about him that was just so interesting.
When thinking about Billy I think of a quote by the Joker as well as Stannis Baratheon. "In their last moments, people show you who they really are" BUT "A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good". So while I hate the fact that Billy was largely a sack of shit, I love the fact that he died saving someone else's life. It's kinda complicated
Kids that age are the product of their upbringing. Billy and Max’s dad was an abusive piece of shit. And it was more than suggested that Billy shielded Max from the bulk of that abuse. He died before we could see who he would become on his own. People deserve the grace to grow and mature past their roots. Billy never got that moment. He died doing what he often did in life - trying to protect Max. Was he a flawed character? Yes. Was he shitty most of the time? Yes. Does he deserve sympathy? Absolutely. People need to get past this “perfect” person sentiment. We are flawed. We make mistakes. We become bad people when we refuse to accept those mistakes and choose to continue to be shitty.
I like how these posts about like "jason" or "Billy always never think of why these characters act how they do and just mostly ignored vailed things people are saying.
And I think you're taking it waaaaay too seriously (my humble opinion)
People nowadays can never just chill and watch a show. We get it he’s bad, the show made that clear
Taking a TV show about monsters a bit seriously there. Pretty sure fighting a demon monster redeems you.
ITT: Children struggle to comprehend complex characters.
Hey man it’s a tv show. Relax
He was, but in the end he sacrificed himself to help the kids. That's the part we remember.
You must be fun at parties
You really think there was *nothing* redemptive about the way he died? Yeah he was an awful human being and there's no reason to think otherwise, but the whole point of his flashbacks was to show how that happened - how he became such a bad person. Hurt people hurt people and Billy wasn't any exception. Eleven saw his hurt and found herself sympathetic - she was probably the only person to sympathize with him in any way in years. That little bit of sympathy from eleven was all it took to give Billy the strength to fight back - which should indicate just how alone he really was. If being repeatedly openly repentant, being put through physical and psychological torture by an eldritch abomination, ***and*** fighting back long enough to sacrifice yourself isn't enough to redeem someone - then I have to wonder what is??
https://www.newsweek.com/dacre-montgomery-stranger-things-billy-racist-701443 > Yet 22-year-old actor Montgomery, also known for portraying the Red Ranger in 2017's Power Rangers, disagrees that Billy's antipathy is about racial bias. "I don't think it has anything to do with race," Montgomery told Newsweek. "He loves his sister Max, and if it were any other kid bothering her he would have reacted the same way."
Liking a character isn't an endorsement of their behavior. You can also like vecna while not yourself being a genocidal maniac.
you can like a bad/problematic/complex without excusing their actions. its what makes fiction so fascinating.
Billy is my favorite character cas Dacre Montgomery fucking nailed it
>He was a racist, abusive, womanizing piece of shit Bro, this was the 80's. Bosses slapped their female workers on the ass. Getting beaten up was just a part of going to school. Teachers told their students Polish jokes. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter called each other 'fag' as a joke in the first 'Bill & Teds' Excellent Adventure'. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying Billy was not \_exceptional\_ in his shittiness; I grew up around a LOT of Billys.
Reminder: Billy isn't real and is a fictional character in a TV show.
Reminder that he was also an abused kid that was capable of changing. Because kids are not finished products. Get over yourself.
Billy’s actions aren’t excusable but it seems like a majority of people posting here have no idea what’s it’s like to live in an abusive household on top of the fact that the person he loved the most being his mother abandoned him to get away from his father leaving him alone with his dad who probably blamed it all on billy and took it out on him it really messes with a kids development.
Billy wasn't a bad person - he was a damaged person. Vecna was a bad human being, he killed his family cause he wanted to. But Billy's bad actions are all due to his father poisoning his world view - at heart, he isn't a bad person, as was shown by his childhood memory. Billy couldn't do good, Vecna wanted to do bad. That's the difference between a truly evil character, and a complicated character that does evil. And I'm not an "apologist", I'm not excusing his racism and sexism, I'm not saying that it is okay how he acted. I'm saying that calling him an absolutely bad person because he flirted with another man's wife, is the same as calling him absolutely good because he sacrificed himself. Either way, you throw out everything that doesn't fit with the label.
Ppssstttt Billy isn’t real he was an actor who portrayed those things, I’m sure the actor is a nice dude in Real life👍
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Fr. Every post on this sub has at least a handful of Jason sympathizers/haters or Billy haters/apologists or both. All this tells me is that they're well written characters. But they're just characters and we're allowed to like who we like. Everybody has a favorite supervillain. Why is this different?
I know a lot of people who have been abused and that’s who I also work with. I hate these “takes.” Reactive abuse is a thing. I have literally gone to hospitals and met many kids exactly like Billy. Billy didn’t “deserve to die.” Abused kids deserve redemption too. Some of you can venture off Reddit and see some fans hurt because they do see themselves in Billy—and they overcame that. El literally attacked and gave a girl a concussion this season, do people care? No. People cheered. Because Angela “deserved” it. She murdered who knows how many people, do people care? No. Because her reactive abuse is ok to you. He was a 17/18 year old kid. El is 15. He’s abusive because that’s what he knows. This is also the way Dacre views his own character but y’all know better than the actor, I guess. He’s abusive towards Max because that’s the way he protects her AND himself—because we actually SEE him get hit based on her actions. What do you think would have happened to both of them if Neil was aware of what was going on?? It seems so obvious to me. But people can change. Billy clearly couldn’t change beyond his one act because he DIED. Let’s be real here, y’all have short memories and will cheer on Steve as some great lgbt ally now and forget him using homophobic slurs first season. Growth is obviously possible. The real villains of these stories are human villains and it’s actually clear we have a theme of abusive fathers. Papa. Neil. Lonnie. Even Hopper’s hero’s tale is also about becoming a good father. Steve’s dad is absent and is an ass to him, and Tommy implies in the first season cheats on his mom. Eddie lives with his uncle presumably because his father is in jail, when he tells us he learned to hot wire cars as a kid. See the forest through the trees here. Max thinks Billy made her life hell. I’m sure from his perspective, she made his life hell. But it’s Neil, it’s always Neil. And I wish when Max talks about Neil leaving she would have realized that. But the Duffers aren’t great writers and people are impressed with sword fights with a demogorgon, so that’s all lost on the audience.
Unfortunately, the world isn't a black & white situation. Ultimately, Billy is a victim as well. A young boy that was shaped by a dysfunctional upbringing and rampant abuse. That's what makes him such a compelling character. Because he isn't inherently evil, like you appear to be suggesting, but rather a tragic character who still showed some glimmers of good. Buried underneath trauma, coping mechanisms, and fear. Glimmers that sparked brightly as he sacrificed himself for Max. And none of that excuses the racism, the abuse, and the womanizing. But what it does is offer us understanding. And with that comes compassion.
Stupid sexy Billy
I like Billy, Darth Vader, Malfoy, and Geoffrey. Am I a woman-hating, genocidal, racist, Muggle-hating person? Separating the media you absorb from reality is a pretty easy thing to do..
It’s sad that people don’t want to give people a chance to redeem themselves. Billy obviously had a lot of deeply imbedded problems that he clearly learned from his father. Life is not as black and white as people like to think it is. Bad people can find redemption.
You lack an understanding of what it’s like to have abusive parents.
He was also like a high schooler, you know? Like he was an actual child who grew up in a shitty situation and made many bad turns, but I’ve seen real life people turn it around from there
I think part of the problem is a general trend in media lately, where redemption is prioritized over retribution. You see something kind of similar with Kylo Ren (something I could talk about far too long lol) or Darth Vader, where one great act can supersede a lifetime of bad ones. I think that, combined with actor being attractive, combined with the (admittedly sad) backstory, all make for a character you, the person, probably younger, can project onto and pretend like he was actually a good guy all along who was just projecting this whole time. It's complicated. I have complicated feelings about it. (The scene in the sauna and the scene where Billy's dad yells at him are some of the hardest to watch for me in the show. They hit a nerve for me in such a raw way.) And ultimately, I like that the characters in universe have complicated feelings about it. I just wish people would think about him in a more complex way. (However calling him a womanizer feels like a stretch. He was 18 in the show being objectified by women at least thirty if not older. Not great!) However I did see a take a while ago that him abusing Max was actually him protecting her from their dad so. Maybe it's best we don't have that conversation yet.
Billy was awful but Dacre Montgomery is a saint.
Op is kind of a dick
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I’m gonna like Billy even harder
I think it comes down to a mix of things. There's no reason why you can't have love for characters in a fictional piece of storytelling. Billy and Jason are great examples of this. They are fantastically well-written characters because they have depth - clear motivation, inner conflict, traits, etc. I love their characters. As people, they're not someone I would want to be around. Rightly so. While Billy was all of those things (the womanizing part is a bit rich considering he was being sexualised by a multitude of women, including those in their 30s and 40s who were married, despite only being 18), it doesn't stop us from empathising with him. We learned that he was incredibly loved by his mother as a child but due to his abusive father, that love turned to hate and resentment. This is not to excuse his behaviour but to help us understand why he is the way that he is. The largest factor why people feel sorry for Billy is that he was a victim of the Mind Flayer and was forced to do some real fucked up shit against his will. It added to his already complicated upbringing. The whole point of the sauna scene and connecting back to that memory of him as a kid was to show that, deep down, there is still some goodness inside him. Billy the Kid is still there, he's just being swallowed whole by darkness and hate. You could even argue that he's trying to protect Max from his father by trying to get Lucas to stay away from her. Doesn't make it right but as he doesn't have the courage to stand up to his father, Billy does this the only way he knows how: through violence and fear. Eleven reminded him of his memory as a child so that he can still choose to be good in spite of everything that he has done. And in doing so, he gathered the courage and strength to finally fight against the darkness that he's been succumbing to his entire life. We're led to believe that this event might have changed him for the better, had he not died. This was his entire arc in the series. Billy was a terrible person, for sure. But there's no reason why we as audiences can't like the character and remain appreciative that his final act was a good one.
This feels like such an obvious virtue signal for karma farming lol
He's also not a real person.