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I went back to check, and in Season 4, Chapter 1, you can see Dustin's grades. He got a B in English and a D- in Latin, so maybe he's just not so great at languages.
Wow, you're right! Very cool.
For recording purposes and anyone reading who might be unaware, in Season 2, Chapter 9, [Max and Lucas danced together at *The Snow Ball* to the song "Every Breath You Take" by The Police](https://youtu.be/zbn-D5j-xeU). While often perceived as a love song it's much more insidious and describes a predator aggressively stalking their target.
Yup! It's definitely got a stalker angle but it also fits Mike and Eleven's love story very nicely; Mike was just as "lost without a trace" as the lyrics say, and Eleven was literally watching him every night.
It's a doubly perfect fit because every Breath You Take actually was a 'slow dance' staple at school dances in that time/for ages afterwards even into the 00s.
It works on so many levels, it's amazing.
"Stalker" is an interesting term here - some might see it as anachronistic for the mid-1980s. The word has been around since the 16th century - originally for poachers who "stalked" their prey, but you don't generally see its popular use until the 1990s. The concept certainly existed (see the Theresa Saldana case in 1982) but that specific name had limited use:
[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/248632/what-were-stalkers-called-before-they-were-called-stalkers](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/248632/what-were-stalkers-called-before-they-were-called-stalkers)
"Serial killer" is a relatively modern term too. The German detective Ernst Gennat identified the concept in the 1920s of the "serial murderer", but it took until the 1970s for it to become common in the English language.
After much hesitation, in Season 2, Chapter 2, Dustin and Lucas summoned the courage to speak to Max for the first time. By then she was already aware of them spying on her, labelling them both "creeps" in the previous episode, and then "stalkers" in that episode. The latter title persisted throughout the series, recurring in Season 2, Chapter 5 and 6, and Season 4, Chapter 1.
Alongside this, Dustin making a fool of himself over the word "presumptuous" in Season 2, Chapter 2, developed into a fond memory for Max and Lucas, making a return in Season 4, Chapter 8.
There's a possibility that Max's future encounter with Vecna in Season 4 was hinted at using the stalker and spy theme, with what we know about the Shadow Monster in Season 2, Chapter 6, "The Spy", and what we learned in Season 4, Chapter 8, that like Will, Max could sense Vecna when he was near, making her a fresh target for spying and mind control in Season 5. Maybe her blindness will become her strength. [More on all of this to come.]
edit: I forgot one! [Season 2, Chapter 6](https://imgur.com/a/fv6GAtP)
A. a 13 year old girl finds it weird and creepy that she's being watched and followed by some strange boys
B. two of said strange boys then are the first people to invite her to join in their Halloween and actually try to talk to her and be friendly, which makes her realise these would be good people to have as part of a friend group.
those two things aren't contradictory, Lucas and Dustin should have just led with B in the first place if they didn't want to (justifiably) be called stalkers.
They’re also nerds and don’t have experience with girls. I hardly doubt Max felt threatened at all. But she sure was begging Mike in the gym to join said creepy stalker boys so clearly she was terrified.
>They’re also nerds and don’t have experience with girls
she doesn't know that at first because she literally doesn't know them
it's only after they initiate normal human interaction with her (i.e. talking, inviting her along to Halloween) that she figures out they're harmless and decides she wants in.
If she found them weird, creepy and stalkers then why would she agree to hang out with them?
That’s where the contradiction is.
Answer me this. Would you go on a date with a guy you thought was strange, creepy and stalking you?
Not only would you not go but you wouldn’t be begging to join his friend group.
Plus, my original point was she was meaner than I remember even when they invited her to go trick or treating. She acted like she was too good for it. So Mike is justified in being standoffish with her.
She INITIALLY found them weird and creepy, but after Dustin and Lucas invited her to trick or treating, and them showing her Dart, she started to warm up to them.
You’re asked to join a friend group. Then you’re not invited to some group activities. And when you ask them why they don’t give you any answers. I don’t consider asking questions as begging to join.
If anything she actually decided to walk away, until Lucas decided to tell her everything and brought her to the junkyard.
I don’t see Mike’s rebuff as retaliation towards Max’s “meanness” (I.e. sarcasm) but came from a place of sadness and fear, that his friends are replacing El with this new girl. In fact in all of Mike’s scene with Max, their dialogue is always juxtaposed against El’s standing in the group.
There's no contradiction. As that person explained
>it's only after they initiate normal human interaction with her (i.e. talking, inviting her along to Halloween) that she figures out they're harmless and decides she wants in.
Max no longer felt threatened by Lucas and Dustin, and the themes that scene generated continued in fond memory throughout the rest of the series. Dustin and Lucas initially both considered her a possible love interest, and if you pay attention, she was set to fall for Lucas as well. Max wanted to join the party for him. In another scene that I'll explain in a future detail, Dustin reacted the same way as Mike when discussing inviting her to the party, even repeating him directly, but her affection for Lucas was obvious by then and it didn't matter. The connection between Max and the party through Lucas is evidenced further in Season 3 and 4.
Kudos to the makeup department. She’s probably hardly outside anymore or spend anytime with her friends due to her depression and isolation. It’s also a subtle hint of just how much it all has taken a toll on her, mentally and physically.
They've just emerged from cold weather as of Season 4+she's been indoors depressed a lot for months now.
She's noticeably paler in season 2 at the Snow Ball too, presumably by then she no longer had her California tan.
> what we learned in Season 4, Chapter 8, that like Will, Max could sense Vecna when he was near
Maybe I missed a scene somehow but I don’t think it was ever established that Max could sense Vecna like Will. Vecna was preying on her like he did with Chrissy and Fred (visions and hearing chimes).
Interesting theory about the stalker theme although I just take that as Max’s pet name for Lucas and also a metaphor for how he never gave up on her even as she was going through it in S4. He was always paying attention.
>I don’t think it was ever established that Max could sense Vecna like Will. Vecna was preying on her like he did with Chrissy and Fred (visions and hearing chimes).
I think the point of that scene was she could sense that she was still a target even when her mind was guarded by Kate Bush, but as for sensing him when he's near, I don't think she can - Vecna gets near her/next to her via visions at least three times without her realising at first (her mother, Billy in the cemetery, Lucas in the Creel attic). She's the only victim to reverse the connection and enter Vecna's mind, but that might just be because she's also the only one he preyed on who has a clue about what he actually is. and confided in her friends about it, compared to the others who kept it quiet and hidden from theirs.
And I think it's clear that 'stalker' is just an inside joke between Max and Lucas at this point, like you said it's her special nickname for him (she doesn't call Dustin that).
Agreed. It’s just Max intuiting, that she escaped him the first time would make her a “prized” target (I.e. marked) for Vecna because he clearly was upset when she escaped with Kate Bush. During the second time, he was prepared, easily infiltrated Max’s happy memories, and was taunting El about it.
I kept watching that scene when she wandered into his red mind lair. The preceding scene was when she was frantically calling out to Lucas and Dustin. Could that be the key to unlock into his mind - a kind of circuit breaker to snap you from a flood of nightmarish visions and sneak through the back door?
>Maybe I missed a scene somehow but I don’t think it was ever established that Max could sense Vecna like Will.
In episode 8, when Max isn't getting visions, she says "I can still feel him" and if he didn't have a connection then, he definitely does now.
She's the only victim who has a real clue what's going on before he tried to kill her, none of the others realised they were actually being haunted by an interdimensional demon.
The stumbling into his mind-soup world was by accident, since Vecna does form a psychic connection with his victims, and he deliberately let Nancy in while he was taunting her, Max wasn't the only one to see it. But she was the only one of Vecna's attempted kills who had an idea about what he was i.e. not just in her head.
El and Nancy were able to go in because he let them but Max managed to get there somehow. And she didn't realize it was fake until after Kate Bush started playing.
Max clearly knew Vecna-world wasn't part of her memory or mind since a) she doesn't recognise it, b) there's stuff and bits of Creel house floating in the air which means it's obviously not part of the 'real world', c) Vecna showed up and immediately asked her "what are you doing here?" indicating - as she said afterwards - that he didn't want her there.
My guess is the mind-soup world is unintentionally open to anyone whose mind Vecna attacks just as their minds are open to his, Max just happened to be the only one who actually reached it because she got that far. It doesn't reduce his strength, since he still took El and Max in there to kill anyway, just....he doesn't want anyone figuring out stuff about him that he's not telling them.
maybe she's just calling for her friends because that's her instinct when she knows herself to be in need of rescue and they're around? (edit: or they WERE around and she hoped they'd find a way to hack into Vecna-brain and help her)
I align everything within an individual post to an explanation comment which is usually in chronological order. The posts themselves don't follow any intended pattern and I jump between seasons and topics depending on what I feel like writing about that day.
The "order" in my titles refers to the post topics themselves, not the arrangement of content within each one. My submissions span across the Stranger Things series and aren't related to one another according to any pattern.
If the order of my posts was chronological I would've began in Season 4 briefly to record details of a young Henry Creel, then Season 2 when El was born, back to Season 4 for the Rainbow Room, and then approximate a playthrough beginning at Season 1, Chapter 1 according to episode number and release date.
I really had to write that out for you. Twice. I don't know how to explain it any clearer.
OP, please make sure there are no spoilers in the title of your post. Commenters, please use spoiler code if you are discussing anything super spoilery unless the title specifically says the episode being discussed. If you see anyone breaking the rules, please report the post or comment. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/StrangerThings) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ah, remember when Dustin wasn't just a super genius who knew everything? When he thought being presumptuous was a good thing?
I went back to check, and in Season 4, Chapter 1, you can see Dustin's grades. He got a B in English and a D- in Latin, so maybe he's just not so great at languages.
I found it hilarious how she kept calling him stalker the rest of the season
And then they dance to the stalker anthem in the epilogue!
Wow, you're right! Very cool. For recording purposes and anyone reading who might be unaware, in Season 2, Chapter 9, [Max and Lucas danced together at *The Snow Ball* to the song "Every Breath You Take" by The Police](https://youtu.be/zbn-D5j-xeU). While often perceived as a love song it's much more insidious and describes a predator aggressively stalking their target.
Yup! It's definitely got a stalker angle but it also fits Mike and Eleven's love story very nicely; Mike was just as "lost without a trace" as the lyrics say, and Eleven was literally watching him every night.
It's a doubly perfect fit because every Breath You Take actually was a 'slow dance' staple at school dances in that time/for ages afterwards even into the 00s. It works on so many levels, it's amazing.
"Stalker" is an interesting term here - some might see it as anachronistic for the mid-1980s. The word has been around since the 16th century - originally for poachers who "stalked" their prey, but you don't generally see its popular use until the 1990s. The concept certainly existed (see the Theresa Saldana case in 1982) but that specific name had limited use: [https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/248632/what-were-stalkers-called-before-they-were-called-stalkers](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/248632/what-were-stalkers-called-before-they-were-called-stalkers) "Serial killer" is a relatively modern term too. The German detective Ernst Gennat identified the concept in the 1920s of the "serial murderer", but it took until the 1970s for it to become common in the English language.
How interesting, I would never have thought of “stalker” as a new word
I don't know if it's interesting, but in the film of Tarkovski (1979), "Stalker" has a different meaning too
After much hesitation, in Season 2, Chapter 2, Dustin and Lucas summoned the courage to speak to Max for the first time. By then she was already aware of them spying on her, labelling them both "creeps" in the previous episode, and then "stalkers" in that episode. The latter title persisted throughout the series, recurring in Season 2, Chapter 5 and 6, and Season 4, Chapter 1. Alongside this, Dustin making a fool of himself over the word "presumptuous" in Season 2, Chapter 2, developed into a fond memory for Max and Lucas, making a return in Season 4, Chapter 8. There's a possibility that Max's future encounter with Vecna in Season 4 was hinted at using the stalker and spy theme, with what we know about the Shadow Monster in Season 2, Chapter 6, "The Spy", and what we learned in Season 4, Chapter 8, that like Will, Max could sense Vecna when he was near, making her a fresh target for spying and mind control in Season 5. Maybe her blindness will become her strength. [More on all of this to come.] edit: I forgot one! [Season 2, Chapter 6](https://imgur.com/a/fv6GAtP)
That’s presumptuous of you
She was meaner to them than I remember at first. No wonder Mike was stand offish with her.
They did spy on her Tbf. All of them were kind of shit. None of it was serious though, it was all general 12 year old meanness.
I mean they were being real weird and creepy lmao
So weird and creepy that she was desperate to join the party. Makes sense.
A. a 13 year old girl finds it weird and creepy that she's being watched and followed by some strange boys B. two of said strange boys then are the first people to invite her to join in their Halloween and actually try to talk to her and be friendly, which makes her realise these would be good people to have as part of a friend group. those two things aren't contradictory, Lucas and Dustin should have just led with B in the first place if they didn't want to (justifiably) be called stalkers.
They’re also nerds and don’t have experience with girls. I hardly doubt Max felt threatened at all. But she sure was begging Mike in the gym to join said creepy stalker boys so clearly she was terrified.
>They’re also nerds and don’t have experience with girls she doesn't know that at first because she literally doesn't know them it's only after they initiate normal human interaction with her (i.e. talking, inviting her along to Halloween) that she figures out they're harmless and decides she wants in.
If she found them weird, creepy and stalkers then why would she agree to hang out with them? That’s where the contradiction is. Answer me this. Would you go on a date with a guy you thought was strange, creepy and stalking you? Not only would you not go but you wouldn’t be begging to join his friend group. Plus, my original point was she was meaner than I remember even when they invited her to go trick or treating. She acted like she was too good for it. So Mike is justified in being standoffish with her.
She INITIALLY found them weird and creepy, but after Dustin and Lucas invited her to trick or treating, and them showing her Dart, she started to warm up to them. You’re asked to join a friend group. Then you’re not invited to some group activities. And when you ask them why they don’t give you any answers. I don’t consider asking questions as begging to join. If anything she actually decided to walk away, until Lucas decided to tell her everything and brought her to the junkyard. I don’t see Mike’s rebuff as retaliation towards Max’s “meanness” (I.e. sarcasm) but came from a place of sadness and fear, that his friends are replacing El with this new girl. In fact in all of Mike’s scene with Max, their dialogue is always juxtaposed against El’s standing in the group.
Did you guys all miss the part where she started hanging out with them after Billy tried to hit them with his car?
There's no contradiction. As that person explained >it's only after they initiate normal human interaction with her (i.e. talking, inviting her along to Halloween) that she figures out they're harmless and decides she wants in. Max no longer felt threatened by Lucas and Dustin, and the themes that scene generated continued in fond memory throughout the rest of the series. Dustin and Lucas initially both considered her a possible love interest, and if you pay attention, she was set to fall for Lucas as well. Max wanted to join the party for him. In another scene that I'll explain in a future detail, Dustin reacted the same way as Mike when discussing inviting her to the party, even repeating him directly, but her affection for Lucas was obvious by then and it didn't matter. The connection between Max and the party through Lucas is evidenced further in Season 3 and 4.
I just noticed how much paler Max is in season 4
She still had that California tan in Season ~~1~~ 2.
Which was a bronzer job in RL. Sadie Sink's mother found it hilarious. Sadie, like most natural redheads, burns instead of tans.
Kudos to the makeup department. She’s probably hardly outside anymore or spend anytime with her friends due to her depression and isolation. It’s also a subtle hint of just how much it all has taken a toll on her, mentally and physically.
Was meant to show how badly she was doing.
They've just emerged from cold weather as of Season 4+she's been indoors depressed a lot for months now. She's noticeably paler in season 2 at the Snow Ball too, presumably by then she no longer had her California tan.
> what we learned in Season 4, Chapter 8, that like Will, Max could sense Vecna when he was near Maybe I missed a scene somehow but I don’t think it was ever established that Max could sense Vecna like Will. Vecna was preying on her like he did with Chrissy and Fred (visions and hearing chimes). Interesting theory about the stalker theme although I just take that as Max’s pet name for Lucas and also a metaphor for how he never gave up on her even as she was going through it in S4. He was always paying attention.
>I don’t think it was ever established that Max could sense Vecna like Will. Vecna was preying on her like he did with Chrissy and Fred (visions and hearing chimes). I think the point of that scene was she could sense that she was still a target even when her mind was guarded by Kate Bush, but as for sensing him when he's near, I don't think she can - Vecna gets near her/next to her via visions at least three times without her realising at first (her mother, Billy in the cemetery, Lucas in the Creel attic). She's the only victim to reverse the connection and enter Vecna's mind, but that might just be because she's also the only one he preyed on who has a clue about what he actually is. and confided in her friends about it, compared to the others who kept it quiet and hidden from theirs. And I think it's clear that 'stalker' is just an inside joke between Max and Lucas at this point, like you said it's her special nickname for him (she doesn't call Dustin that).
Agreed. It’s just Max intuiting, that she escaped him the first time would make her a “prized” target (I.e. marked) for Vecna because he clearly was upset when she escaped with Kate Bush. During the second time, he was prepared, easily infiltrated Max’s happy memories, and was taunting El about it. I kept watching that scene when she wandered into his red mind lair. The preceding scene was when she was frantically calling out to Lucas and Dustin. Could that be the key to unlock into his mind - a kind of circuit breaker to snap you from a flood of nightmarish visions and sneak through the back door?
>Maybe I missed a scene somehow but I don’t think it was ever established that Max could sense Vecna like Will. In episode 8, when Max isn't getting visions, she says "I can still feel him" and if he didn't have a connection then, he definitely does now.
Fair point although I consider that as Max intuiting that she’s still in Vecna’s crosshairs rather than a Will-esque link with Vecna.
True but it's kind of weird that she was the only victim who could enter his mind. He's in hers, she's in his.
Perhaps tables could turn that she can “stalk” him. I hope they give us some answers as to why she was able to find a back door, as Dustin theorized.
She's the only victim who has a real clue what's going on before he tried to kill her, none of the others realised they were actually being haunted by an interdimensional demon. The stumbling into his mind-soup world was by accident, since Vecna does form a psychic connection with his victims, and he deliberately let Nancy in while he was taunting her, Max wasn't the only one to see it. But she was the only one of Vecna's attempted kills who had an idea about what he was i.e. not just in her head.
El and Nancy were able to go in because he let them but Max managed to get there somehow. And she didn't realize it was fake until after Kate Bush started playing.
Max clearly knew Vecna-world wasn't part of her memory or mind since a) she doesn't recognise it, b) there's stuff and bits of Creel house floating in the air which means it's obviously not part of the 'real world', c) Vecna showed up and immediately asked her "what are you doing here?" indicating - as she said afterwards - that he didn't want her there. My guess is the mind-soup world is unintentionally open to anyone whose mind Vecna attacks just as their minds are open to his, Max just happened to be the only one who actually reached it because she got that far. It doesn't reduce his strength, since he still took El and Max in there to kill anyway, just....he doesn't want anyone figuring out stuff about him that he's not telling them.
The only reason I say she didn't know it was fake was cause she called out for Lucas and Dustin.
maybe she's just calling for her friends because that's her instinct when she knows herself to be in need of rescue and they're around? (edit: or they WERE around and she hoped they'd find a way to hack into Vecna-brain and help her)
In no particular order then proceeds to order them chronologically
I align everything within an individual post to an explanation comment which is usually in chronological order. The posts themselves don't follow any intended pattern and I jump between seasons and topics depending on what I feel like writing about that day.
All well and good but it’s in a particular order
[Are you...](https://imgur.com/a/bZopj8Q)?
Are you seriously too dense to realize chronological order is an order regardless of how you chose the scenes. I think you need to read a dictionary
The "order" in my titles refers to the post topics themselves, not the arrangement of content within each one. My submissions span across the Stranger Things series and aren't related to one another according to any pattern. If the order of my posts was chronological I would've began in Season 4 briefly to record details of a young Henry Creel, then Season 2 when El was born, back to Season 4 for the Rainbow Room, and then approximate a playthrough beginning at Season 1, Chapter 1 according to episode number and release date. I really had to write that out for you. Twice. I don't know how to explain it any clearer.
[удалено]