Does Strange Things Have A Horcrux Problem?

Like many, I’ve been watching the final season of Stranger Things, avidly keeping up with the gang of tweens-turned-teenage nerds ever since they discovered the mysterious Eleven in the woods. But, unlike the previous four 80s pining seasons where a “big-bad” has appeared, threatening the cast and their Americana dull hometown of Hawkins, whether it’s the Demogorgon, the Mind Flayer, or the Russians, season 5 is unique not only in bringing back a previous antagonist from season 4, Vecna, but also heavily retconning the series to make it appear as though they have always been the series antagonist from the start.

What was once a Monster-of-The-Season type of affair, where a new creature from the Upside-Down was introduced, ultimately defeated by the end, including Vecna, now suffers from a Horcrux Problem.

A Horcrux is an object from the Harry Potter series that contains pieces of a soul, making the user immortal, explaining Voldemort’s near invincibility. Introduced only in the closing chapters of the penultimate book, with them only becoming a plot device in the final book, the Horcruxes are not only used to paper over major plot-holes in the series, but to retcon the episodic structure up until then into a more continuous and orchestrated story. They retcon minor points into having more significance than they were given in the original context, even if they were relatively important to their respective books already (e.g. the diary in Chamber of Secrets, Voldemort’s snake, Nagini).

What’s really infuriating is if Horcruxes were a factor from the very beginning, they would have greatly elevated the plot (there’s a Horcrux for each book, finding them would have been great plot devices for the series, it would have given characters greater motivation and urgency especially with the twist in the finale of what the finale Horcrux is,) but the late and clumsy introduction only draws attentions to just how much of an afterthought they were.

Vecna is Stranger Things’ Horcrux problem; a late retcon that tries to gaslight the audience into thinking the clues were always there. The Horcrux Problem is endemic with modern storytelling.

Game of Thrones seemed like a pretty cut and dry story about everyone obsessing over power while a real threat, the White Walkers, were making their way across the kingdoms. However, Daenerys, Mother of Dragons, who spends the whole series as a passionate liberator of slaves, at the last minute decides to become a dictator with a rather pale allusion to repeating the reign of The Mad King. Perhaps if you squint, you can mistake passion for mania, but ultimately a show about how politics is all deceit and back-stabbing tries to make a plea for some deceit and back-stabbing.

The TV show Lost is prime example of this rug-pulling form of storytelling, following J. J. Abrams’ “Mystery Box” style of storytelling, which would later reappear in the Star Wars films with the infamous line “Somehow… Palpatine returned.”

And with the TV adaptation of Harry Potter coming soon, with behind-the-scene shots hinting at a more expansive and ensemble focused look at the series, we can be sure that this time minor objects and elements that got seconds on screen in the films will have long lingering close-ups, as though you can just here Robert Galbraith herself whisper in your ear “see… I’m clever. You’re stupid because you didn’t know the first time.”

Why does this matter? What’s the harm in a little housekeeping from writers?

It creates a false sense of importance and purpose. Yes, the show is exciting and excellent, a milestone in TV and entertainment. But the unfocused, even sensationalist beginnings of these stories betray a reality for writers and creatives; unpredictability.

Game of Thrones was nearly cancelled after the pilot tested badly. The show became a victim of its own reputation for shocking twists, so much so the writers, Benioff and Weiss, spoke about the pressure trying to be constantly surprising. It’s fair to say no one saw the ending coming.

Abrams suffered from the same success. Lost was huge! So much so, in the end, the popular fan-theory, “They’re All Dead”, was impossible not to land on, especially when it came time to finally give an answer. And while Robert Galbraith (okay, I’m just being bitchy now, J. K. Rowling) insists she had the series planned years before the first book was published, her writing style reads like a peddle-dashed toilet bowl, with her own publisher telling her not to give up the day job.

No one wants to admit they’re caught off-guard by success. No one wants to admit this huge sensation of a franchise was written by the seat of their pants. No one wants to admit they don’t know what they’re doing. But with the show ending, and no clear successor for Netflix, especially with Squid Game having ended this year, it can be very tempting to want to convince people something was more structured and orderly than it was.

We are living in a deeply insecure time where everything from tech, governments, and even the arts feels the need to convince themselves, and us, that it had more meaning than just a good time. Unfortunately, it can, and does, come across as though the good time we had just enjoying ourselves was wrong.

The thing about the Horcrux is in order to preserve part of your soul you have to tear it; you have to destroy your spirit. It’s a way of avoiding death. I don’t think having a Horcrux Problem kills the show, but I think it does tear its soul a little out of desperation to avoid its inevitable end.

Happy New Year.

#HI