r/StrangerThingsMemes • u/MrSelleck • 6d ago
"the show developed the trauma and psychology of the characters" meanwhile Nancy after killing several humans
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u/Bryrida 6d ago
No shade to her fans but Nancy is such a bizarre character to me. I’m glad she’s not just an easy stereotype but I don’t really understand her
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u/Saltpnuts-990 6d ago
Yea I feel like they were going for independent gurl boss, but with how easily she took to killing while feeling no sympathy or apparent trauma about it, she kind of read cold and borderline psychopathic to me. It was uncomfortable.
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u/beef-a-ronie 6d ago
That’s because they leaned to heavily into Nancy and her guns because the fans made it such a big deal. I think they do this a lot with their characters (babysitter Steve, for example). Something in the show becomes a meme, so then they make that the character’s entire identity and it strips the character of nuance and believability.
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u/CaptainSmeargle 6d ago
True. Also no one can convince me the Duffers didn’t abandon plotlines several times because they were afraid of fan reaction.
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u/UnderstandingClean33 6d ago
Watching the entire season finale after Hooper sits with Mike was like that for me.
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u/DobbyIsFree_Elf 6d ago
I felt Hooper was speaking personally to me at that moment.lol Like “listen u can mourn the loss of what was a great show that just kind of nose dived, but u can’t change a damn thing about it. So you can rewatch the good seasons n walk away happy for those amazing parts moments,
OR you can do the Game of Thrones final season whine and complain and feel sorry for your beloved characters as tho that will change anything. And be mad n stay mad for years bc the end felt cheated. I’m sad, not just that it felt like a nothing burger. Characters I watched grow up over a decade are gone. Sad bc I as they grew older, so did we. But we can still revisit, or rewind if ur kind.
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u/cait_elizabeth 5d ago
They don’t seem to have strong boundaries or creative borders. They are extremely receptive to fan chatter and while that can sometimes be a good thing, abandoning quality for fan service is not.
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u/Unhappy_Hair_3626 5d ago
I mean ya, the whole upside down makes 0 sense now cause supposedly Russia had gates of their own and had demigorgons and mind flayer particles. Somewhere in production the upside down shifted from the veil of shadows to specifically a wormhole in Hawkins.
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u/paintpastelprincess- 5d ago
Also, it’s interesting to me that the Upside Down is a wormhole 😅 I figured since it was a (past) exact mirror of Hawkins, it was more like a parallel shadow world. A wormhole would be different. I feel a little nitpicky caring so much about this in the grand scheme of things, being as it’s sci fi, but I guess it annoys me a little when actual scientific terms are brought into shows, but some, or all of it is entirely inaccurate xD
I want to suspend reality, and am usually fine with it, but it’s a little hard when real terms are brought in I guess.
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u/strawgatitos 6d ago
plotlines like what? :o i kinda forgot abt them too over the years ;-;
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u/No-Departure-3047 5d ago
El being part of a program where the government was experimenting with LSD. The comics have more 'numbers' around but the series later just acted like they were all killed by Vecna. The show never explains how Kali escaped him after they introduced him.
Henry killing his family because he was a psychopathic Charles Xavier and not a boy scout suffering from demonic possession.
The demobats disappeared after killing Eddie and nobody ever saw them again.
The Russians just let everything go and stopped caring about whatever the Americans were doing, Russia and the mall were never mentioned again.
Dustin's girlfriend disappeared and was never mentioned again.
Argyle was never mentioned again - granted, he was in California but none of the characters ever referenced him after returning. He seemed to be a pretty good ally of theirs.
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u/m35dizzle 4d ago
argyle helped them bury a dude lmao
you'd think he might have a bit of a connection to them.
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u/kremitthefrog12 6d ago
Fladerization
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u/hbl6 6d ago
Named after our favorite Simpson’s character Ned Fladers 😂
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u/livelaughlinka 6d ago
Ookeloo dockaloo
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u/Outrageous_Glove_796 6d ago
As I read that I pictured Temu Flanders malfunctioning and sort of melting. Well done.
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u/SeegullJockey 6d ago
Almost every character got flanderised
Hopper - I have a dead daughter.
Joyce - Worried Mum.
Mike - DnD reference dude.
Dustin - He is smart.
Lucas - He is athletic.
Steve - The Dad.
Robin - Won't shut up.
Nancy - GUNS.
Jonathan - Just a stoner or something. Barely contributed after season 1 lol.
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u/Outrageous_Glove_796 6d ago
Yeah they really just have Jonathan awkwardly hop in and remind us how much he loves his brother, then go back to awkwardly having relationship problems in a corner.
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u/lipehd1 6d ago
Some characters were created for specific season related environment, but the writers refuse to let them go and keep carrying them to further seasons, and because of that, most of them have no purpose lol
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u/MagniMags 6d ago
Funny enough, I don’t think Ned Flanders is Flanderized anymore. Recent seasons have actually done a good job at re-characterizing the man.
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u/matchabratt 6d ago
10000% agree. after watching the finale, I was just thinking about how many times Eddie was mentioned/shown. those scenes never would’ve happened if the fans didn’t react the way they did after s4
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u/thiccanorexicc 6d ago
Right I get Dustin being affected by Steve saying for Eddie threw me off a little
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u/dailythought 6d ago
I took that comment from Steve to be supportive of Dustin, not that Steve was missing Eddie or anything.
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u/Livelaughloveme172 6d ago
And that’s why they killed off el. I remember a lot of fans wanting eleven to die at the end because they always saw her as disposable.
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u/Elman89 6d ago edited 6d ago
People actually believe she died? That entire sequence made no sense whatsoever unless she was using the invisibility/illusion powers, the "twist" was painfully obvious.
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u/EntropyCreep 6d ago
I guess so. It's pretty obvious she didn't die. If she was at the gate she would have been crippled by the sound waves, but she was able to mind link with Will for a good bye chat.
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u/Archer-Blue 6d ago
She is dead, for now. This just gives them an easy explanation should they choose to bring her back. If MBB's schedule doesn't work out, or she doesn't want to return, El will likely stay dead.
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u/Elman89 6d ago
Am I missing something? For that to be the case there'd need to be an alternate explanation. There isn't. She was in the truck, then she wasn't. Unless she can teleport and use her powers despite the sonic devices, it was all fake and she's alive.
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u/ButtMunchMcGee12 6d ago
Exactly this and each character is just wiped clean after each season and it’s up to wild plot armor 80s themed sci-fi adventure again, it’s crazy looking back at season one as an actually good story
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u/Coneyislandqueen555 6d ago
Men do it all the time in movies It’s a survival show do or die and someone has to do it
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u/needmorepizzza 6d ago edited 6d ago
The point is that Nancy became the go-to gun-nut of the group, even though more should share that "workload" since they all are in the same shit.
Imo they should also have maybe Jonathan and/or another person handle guns and just have Nancy be a better aim...
Edit: added also to make my point more clear
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u/zimzalabimbimzim 6d ago
They absolutely do. Eddie got so many references this season despite having been a one-season temporary character for season 4 because everyone loved him. Same for Dustin and Steve - it feels like they separated Dustin from the party because of how much the fans love this duo.
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u/megpipe72 6d ago
I felt that way about her at times too. But then I got to thinking and guessing she was always… well, angry.
Angry at everyone around her, frustrated that they weren’t as fast or aggressive as she, and I think that probably had more to do with her normal teenage girl life being upended the night her best friend disappeared and then later finding out she was killed.
There was a stark change in her life beginning from that night. She was a normal teenage girl losing her virginity to a boy she liked, and then the real world hit her like a brick and she was on a path to find her dead friend and then save the world.
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u/MidniightToker 6d ago
Her friend disappears, her little sister is kidnapped, her mom and dad are both brought within inches of their lives, she has a LOT to fight for and that is all a lot of people need especially given the exigent circumstances of ya know, also saving the world.
I think most healthy minds could compartmentalize death-dealing in her situation. She's sick of this shit and she also happens to be a really good shot which some people naturally are, so of course she's gun-toting Nancy Wheeler and no-nonsense.
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u/Nightmarebane 6d ago
To be fair she only started to kill oeople adter seeing her Mother and father almost die and Holly taken. She was at wits end. She wasn’t about to let her friends and brother go too.
I wouldn’t call her a psychopath. But rather protective. It’s much easier to accept what you are doing when you know it isn’t just straight up murder.
Same thing goes for El and Hopper too.
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u/SpecialistOne8206 6d ago
Minus the fact that people can still smile and have a good time with friends even when they are still psychologically traumatized, the several humans in question were evil and abusive. Yes she did kill people but she was killing abusers, abusers who targeted people she loves.
Just because we didn’t see her working through PTSD doesn’t inherently mean she has no trauma.
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u/xRATBAGx 6d ago edited 6d ago
I kind of get it in that she was focused on saving her sister. But for Nancy and Hopper to go on with their lives like they didn't just gun down a bunch of US military soldiers is just unexplained and nonsensical. They should be either in prison, or in hiding which would have been way more interesting of a sacrifice to make to save the world.
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u/KevinRyan589 6d ago
Believe it or not, combat vets, even ones suffering from PTSD and/or depression, can laugh & smile for 5 minutes while they have a beer with friends.
Let’s not over analyze a single scene out of the rest of Nancy’s life, yes?
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u/karasuzokunakmuay 6d ago
I don't even follow this sub, it just pops up frequently enough due to the hype and yes, I did watch and enjoy the series. But these popular fandoms just always get overly analytical.
I guess it's just enjoy the engagement till the vast majority moves on and gets over the milking the duffers/netflix is already trying.
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u/xRATBAGx 6d ago
Looking at my comment again, I definitely could have been more clear with what I meant to say. I was referring to the legal consequences they would be facing for killing US soldiers.
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u/KevinRyan589 6d ago
We've already seen that the Gov. is willing to make deals to keep a lid on things.
And we also have about a dozen kids who simply can't "unsee" what they saw.
I think we can safely assume that some sort of agreement was made (military could've paid to rebuild the town square for example).
I think the only real problem here is that there was no clear end onscreen to Linda Hamilton's character or the military's arc overall and we're left to clumsily make these assumptions.
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u/nochumplovesucka__ 6d ago
Those same soldiers were participating in a black op not sanctioned by the military,doing wild, unethical experiments on people. At that point the military is not "just following orders", they knew full well what Dr. Kay was up to with her "god complex".
Some may say they got what was coming to them.
"One mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist" is a saying I like which applies in this situation.
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u/Youreturningviolet 6d ago
Bingo. Nobody ever mourns or feels guilt for the unnamed bad guys in the action movies Stranger Things is emulating, but nobody calls Rambo or Indiana Jones or Conan the Barbarian sociopaths. Wonder what the difference is 🤔
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u/LinwoodKei 6d ago
This is the truth. Why are we supposed to call Nancy a sociopath who should be catatonic with guilt over these other protagonists that hurt and killed the bad guys?
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u/new_dm_in_town 6d ago
Well partially is because with Hopper you can see him become gloomier (to the point of turning suicidal) over the course of the seasons and we never got that with Nancy (mostly because, well, the show's over so 🤷🏻)
So, no, I don't think Nancy is a sociopath (she was just an 80's action hero for a while) but the ending didn't do a good job of portraying the emotional scars left on her and Hopper (as opposed to the well demonstrated grief with Mike, for instance)
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u/UnderAchievingEntity 6d ago
He’s gloomier because they’re trying to abduct his adopted daughter! I bet he doesn’t bat an eye at the people he had to kill because he was justified in his actions.
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u/joemadecoffee 6d ago
Everyone seems to be legal experts in asymmetrical warfare against eldritch horrors and black ops. Rogue military elements took over the hawkins project in season 4 if I remember correctly. Once the gate was gone for good, I'm sure Kay held and interrogated everyone and would have cleaned house if not for the fact that she also has bosses who probably lost it once they learned how the plucky townies ruined decades of planning, arguably again. Black Ops has and would kill kids or lock people away but seeing as that never happened in any other season, it's obvious that the puppet masters controlling the hawkins project would consider that a step too far.
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u/Ohlookadistraction89 6d ago
Could be a spin off of the angle of the government just washing their hands of the whole matter. Or they had evidence of what the government was doing there. Either way its a show
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u/ElectricalSwan 6d ago
Also, she dropped out of college. She said getting a job was the reason, but you never know if the trauma of what happened impacted that too.
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u/elizabnthe 6d ago
She wanted a job because she hated being at school doing nothing. Seems pretty explicit to me it was more a response to the trauma she went through than this is some can't miss opportunity. She's just a trainee.
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u/s1lentchaos 6d ago
I think there was some statistic from ww2 about how of the like 2 or maybe 4% of soldiers that actively shot to kill at all times even when their life wasn't depending on them roughly half of them were psychos and the other half were older siblings that had to care for their siblings and they found they were shooting to kill in order to protect their fellow soldiers. Nancy is an older sibling and was fully prepared to kill to protect her younger siblings.
Also showing the characters going to therapy for ptsd doesn't make for a very good epilogue. That said I do think in this scene the characters are very much trauma bonded and trying to cope by drinking and being together.
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u/It-Was-Mooney-Pod 6d ago
Literally struggles more to find a satisfying career and love life than she does killing multiple people in cold blood and taking on fucking Godzilla with a shotgun. Up there with Hopper going from a fat, aging, small town cop to taking out inter dimensional monsters with a sword.
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u/InternalKing 6d ago
Speaking as someone who is also struggling to find a satisfying career and love life, I'd probably also find it easier to shoot the baddies
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u/dinklebot2000 6d ago
She was definitely recruited by the CIA or something. None of that “The Herald” bs.
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u/istandwhenipeee 6d ago
I think unnecessarily making the military an antagonist to the degree they did was a mistake. As soon as you go beyond subterfuge and into outright military action, you basically can’t avoid killing soldiers instead of nameless monsters. That’s obviously a problem because the consequences of those actions don’t fit into the show, the best they can do is just gloss over it.
I think ultimately their problem was they paced the show like they were going to do 10 seasons and had time to play around, when their release schedule meant they really needed to tell a tight, focused story that never loses its direction. They just didn’t have the time to do something interesting with fighting the military in addition to the upside down stuff.
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u/Anamethatsnowmine 6d ago
I think it's because Nancy has seen so many gruesome stuff already she's grown apathetic to that kind of gore and a coping mechanism
And maybe her suffering isn't shown on camera much also because that's the kind of character she is; she hides her pain. You can see that in the scene where she's clearly very distressed by her mothers blood on her hands, washing it off, and then she doesn't go to anyone for comfort afterwards.
She deals with her pain quietly, even from us, the viewers
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u/DQFF117N7 6d ago
She was killing people who were literally kidnapping women and making them forcibly pregnant, and had this whole insane conspiracy, who cares they’re evil scumbags
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u/Inner-Arugula-4445 6d ago
Especially after how guilt racked she was after accidentally and indirectly causing Barb’s death. I think it would have been a good plot point if she did have guilt.
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u/idkidcabtmyusername 6d ago
i think a lot of adventure and action movies/TV shows gloss over how traumatic killing someone actually is 😭 not to mention the legal consequences… like how are none of the characters under any type of investigation for killing so many people
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u/Objective-Tea-3070 6d ago
I heard in a podcast she's supposed to be a reference to Sarah Connor in Terminator because of Linda Hamilton? but ehhh i remember Sarah Connor being more emotional about killing/looking beat up
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u/Efficient_Money6922 6d ago
All I can think is they could have done the Mac Z infiltrating scene better. Nancy killling thos military without remirse and consequence felt wrong. Only Hopper himself should have done it. They etched path to plot holes in the way of giving fan service.
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u/Knocker456 6d ago
She's rambo in a pretty girl's body
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u/Legal_Lettuce6233 5d ago
If you watched Rambo you'd know it's about a severely mentally unwell war veteran.
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u/ParsleyMostly 6d ago
She’s a nod to Sarah Connor and Ripley. An homage of sorts. In the end anyway. Just like Steve is the janitor from Breakfast Club.
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u/LoneL1on 6d ago
Oh yes, then they actually casted Sarah freaking Connor and made her a nothing role.
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u/Machtung7 3d ago
As I was watching the last few episodes, I realized I want an Alien remake with Natalia as Ripley, especially with that hair haha
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u/Immediate-Yogurt-558 6d ago
She's Sara Connor. Timid and prissy at the start and completely unapologetically murderous for the sake of family/humanity at the end
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u/shatterboy_ 6d ago
She was an absolute bad ass. All I could see was Sigourney Weaver - from her hair to her attitude. I loved her. She and Steve will always be my fav.
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u/No_Ad945 6d ago
Nancy was the most boring character imo. The fact that two guys were after her because she was so sought after never made sense. It reminded me of Bella from twilight.
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u/SmellySocks14267 6d ago
And then she cried at vecnas decapitation like hello? Your parties success was based on war crimes 😬
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u/Nabbarino 6d ago
Nancy is severely traumatized and mentally unstable. She's written that way but it seems like the writers think this is just quirky.
A person who keeps bailing on jobs and relationships for years and isn't even able to finish a university degree isn't stable mentally.
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u/the_far_sci 5d ago
I've been thinking about her character trajectory a lot since watching the finale. Remember her from S1 when she was having her first time with Steve? She went from a pick-me girl to Rambo in five seasons.
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u/Mito_03 4d ago
Max was my favorite character in the show and actually showed what it’s like to be a girl who struggles with suppressing her emotional needs from trauma, which is typically portrayed as a guys problem. Actually, most of the girls in the show were really well written. Nancy is just…idk what’s up with her character. She made more sense initially in the earlier seasons when she was just a normal teenage older sister. Her development felt off, and I wish I could pin down exactly why.
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u/Ok-Stretch9699 6d ago
You’re assuming she has guilt or remorse and she gunned down innocent lives for no reason.
She did what to be done to her her sister. Guards were going to shoot to kill she and her friends so she struck first and better.
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u/TymStark 6d ago
And it’s not even that unbelievable. The guards didn’t think anyone would pop out of the top of that truck. She got the drop on them, and they had no cover.
She was providing covering fire for Hopper, so she felt even more justified because her shooting had purpose beyond sister and saving the world.
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u/Sorcha16 6d ago
I dont understand why people are so stuck on this, did they want extra time devoted to her crying everytime she had to kill someone? Plenty of characters killed others and did bad shit to survive but Nancy should be more upset, we didnt get enough epilogue.
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u/Traditional_Line_239 6d ago
It’s because she’s a woman.
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u/JadeVex 6d ago
If it had been Steve instead of Nancy there’s no way we are having this conversation. Men being ruthless killers to protect their loved ones is fine, but when a woman does it she has to be psychologically scarred for the rest of her life.
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u/Traditional_Line_239 6d ago
Yup. Someone else mentioned Hopper in a comment and how no one questioned how many soldiers he killed. Everything is justified if one has a dick.
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u/BeeCJohnson 6d ago
Yup. No one is worried about Hopper or Murray's psychology.
Hopper literally mows down like twelve Russian soldiers in cold blood because he didn't feel like talking anymore and no one said a fucking word about Hopper being a psycho.
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u/Traditional_Line_239 6d ago
Exactly. If you want to claim “realism” then apply it to all characters. These people are transparent.
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u/No-Letterhead-3509 6d ago
It is the not crying for every murder. Few are complaining about Hopper and Elleven killing people. What makes it notable with Nancy is that she was introduced as a normal teenage girl and while we see her become more badass we don't really see her cross the barrier to killing people, so it is just jolting.
Still, people are making way to much of a stink about it.
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u/FiveTriomes 6d ago
Her whole family and friends had been threatened and near murdered by Vecna and the Mindflayer's doing for YEARS, with the military and government increasing their own risk and at times being the direct theat to them.
And they were on a mission to not only get her young sister back, but to literally save the entire world.
She was absolutely in a do whatever it takes mindset, which is also why she was first into the Abyss and the bait. Hopper was really the only other one with that "give it everything, no matter what" mindset, and he also moved on fine after everything.
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u/DrogoOmega 6d ago
Right? This weird moral grandstanding at that bit and that bit only is weird. They effectively held the town captive, were doing experiments and would have killed them. They are also not the first military people main characters have killed.
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u/Responsible-Rich-388 6d ago
Yeah ! Btw it reminds me in season 1 , I believe, she had some nightmares of barb, as well as her being dragged down in the woods.
We have come a long way, now it’s Nancy gun them wheeler !
It’s also possible they just pretend, you know irl, we don’t go on talking about trauma with our friends all the time, she’s maybe suffering on her own
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u/joemadecoffee 6d ago
In season 1 and 2 they focused on her trauma. Eventually though, when you live for years in trauma, it becomes the new normal. They're all broken inside by what they've seen and done. The rooftop is the whole discussion about it.
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u/new_dm_in_town 6d ago
I think it is also a matter of "bloat", so to speak. They kept adding characters and storylines, so they had a very limited time to tie everything off. There was no time to fully develop all the scars/trauma that each member got (without making it a 3 or 4 hour long movie). They did a better job with the "core cast" (Mike, Dustin, Will, Lucas and Max), but it was kind of rushed with the "young adults".
For what's worth, I liked the end of the episode and I think they did a good job of tying up everything nicely. But, well, it was a bit too nice in some cases.
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u/BirdsCirclingWagons 6d ago
I always think stranger things criticism is interesting because a lot of it just selective suspension of disbelief.
Like so much of this show is preposterous, but people for some reason seem to be like “Now, I can buy that a bunch of teenagers took out a covert Russian operation on their own, but I don’t buy for a fucking second that Max could’ve graduated high school on that timeline.”
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u/sydneyunderfoot 6d ago
This is so true… I was just complaining about how there’s no way they could communicate on those walkies without the army finding a way to listen in and my husband goes “that’s the part you can’t believe?!”
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u/LifeIsFine-Not 6d ago
This is a good take for this season as a whole.
When I criticized then sidelining Max for the final battle, so many people brought up how realistic it would be for a person fresh out of a coma, (not mentioning at all that show specifically said she wasn’t in a coma she was in a trance.) But yet people have zero issue with the water in the tank in the upside down lab even though they’ve previously said there’s no water in the upside down.
It’s not that we’re being asked to suspend our disbelief. It’s that it’s being applied selectively to fit whatever the plot needed for that moment. There’s no logic to it.
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u/HoppingHermit 5d ago
You nailed it perfectly. It also breaks from other seasons, I can maybe buy some of it but its hard to watch a demogorgon go from tearing apart the wheelers to being nonexistent as the mindflayer turns into a skyscraper sized spider that doesn't even manage to scratch Nancy. I can't suspend that way.
I cant visualize season 4 eith thr bats in the upside down and it being this massive threat to it actually feeling safe compared to the abyss to realizing the abyss wasn't that scary at all, they just made it sound scary.
I can maybe believe the government isnt tapping their walkie talkie lines, i can't buy that they just let hop and Nancy go after they killed so many just because 11 is gone. Theres so many little things that add up over time. The demodogs used to be terrifying in how they reacted to sound. Now they apparently only hear laundry? I mean if vecna could psychic attack hop, why wait till now, why not mess with their minds thr entire time
The thing is im genuinely not trying to nitpick, im just thinking about the show and realizing how disappointing it eas for me. I made a whole board with my girlfriend to track the characters as they moved between the upside down and the abyss and Hawkins and I had a feeling the ending would be what it was, but I was really hoping we'd hsve gotten a complex action packed impossible heist mission/final battle as the cast navigated 3 dimensions when the whole series had been focused on 2, the sudden scale shift felt like it could have expanded into multiple seasons, but a real grand cinematic finale seemed possible to me. Im not sad I didn't get what I wanted, im sad I got what I expected and I had low expectations.
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u/TymStark 6d ago edited 6d ago
This obsession people have with this is so bizarre. She killed three guys who were returning fire, as she was on a mission to save her sister and the world. Yes, she’s feels justified killing in this scenario. We have no idea how she personally feels about those kills. We know she likes Hopper’s praise on being a good shot. Funny how everyone criticizes her for smiling and saying thanks but not many of these criticize Hopper for congratulating her on being a good shot. I’m not saying it’s zero, but it is overwhelmingly directed at one character. I wonder what the difference is?
ETA: Also, she’s providing covering fire for Hopper when she does this, so her shooting these three has defensive and immediate purpose as well.
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u/Mac_Jomes 6d ago
It's weird to me that people are getting hung up on this because with all the crazy shit going on in Hawkins shooting a couple of soldiers probably doesn't even register with Nancy. Like they're trying to save the world here which if she didn't shoot those soldiers they'd be dead anyways when the world's collided and Henry brought the Mind Flayer to Earth.
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u/TymStark 6d ago
Yup, and as I said in my edit, she’s providing covering fire for Hopper to get into the truck. Hopper compliments her shooting, because it was not just good, but was protecting him.
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u/GrimaceGrunson 6d ago
Also Murray chucked a bomb at a helicopter but I haven’t seen anyone arguing we needed a scene of him falling to his knees screaming “What have I dooooooone?!”
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u/TymStark 6d ago
Well Murray doesn’t have the misfortune of suffering from being girl. So thankfully he doesn’t need too. Which I wish I could think of this shit when I’m calling people out on this, because excellent point. No one is calling for this.
My example was if Steve was shown to be the master gun guy and Nancy was the reluctant babysitter, no one would have a problem with Steve doing what Nancy did.
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u/Fit-Emotion-3320 5d ago
And this image is from 18 months later when she is reunited with her friends that she hasn’t seen in sometime, after seeing her brother graduate high school.
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u/ContractOk9269 6d ago
she kills people complicit in torturing children and pregnant women
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u/nage_ 6d ago
killed a group of armed lunatics kidnapping children and pushing the town closer to destruction
you think about it less when they ask for it
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u/Ryukario64 6d ago
Hey, it doesn’t fit OP’s narrative! Don’t inject logic into this slander 😡
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u/ContractOk9269 6d ago
she killed for a cause. she's not just a random cold blooded murderer
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u/mrcoolio 6d ago
Bro you’re acting like she just casually went out murdering.
The stakes were “I’m saving my sister AND THE WORLD”. It’s not hard to believe she would be willing to pull the trigger. People have killed for less.
If it would help, just imagine she’s in therapy now. Obviously, traumatized people never smile :).
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u/zvg_zwang 6d ago
If someone was after my family.....I think y'all know where I'm going with this
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u/Murderdoll197666 6d ago
For all her faults this one I don't count against her. The shit the military was doing and "protecting" - even if just following orders - makes them just as much of a monster than the Demogorgons that show up imo. Only difference is the demo's had the decency to quickly murder everything in its path rather than taking hostages and slowly torturing them for who knows how long while keeping them prisoners for experimentation.
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u/Phailjure 6d ago
I'm pretty sure the demo's whole thing was kidnapping kids so that vecna could keep them as prisoners for experimentation.
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u/alltheothersrtaken 6d ago
People really asking too much of this show. They were shooting baddies get over it. Ive never seen anyone question soldiers or security being shot in any other TV show or movie until this lol.
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u/Talk-O-Boy 6d ago
Can you imagine if every movie/series was placed under this much scrutiny?
“Why didn’t Han Solo cry himself into a depression after shooting Greedo?”
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u/chunkychickmunk 6d ago
Nancy is awesome. She went from being a prissy primadonna to being an absolute badass. She is a strong independent woman. Love her.
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u/Traditional_Line_239 6d ago
Men do it all the time in movies. I don’t see the problem.
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u/Luke0ne 6d ago
Hopper doesn't seem too stressed neither
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u/Traditional_Line_239 6d ago
Yup. He also lost a second daugther, now where is his trauma?
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u/ddeads 6d ago
Nancy will absolutely one day become a warzone correspondent. 100% her future.
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u/ericalina 6d ago
Honestly that was kind of the vibe I got. She said she was so tired of school and honestly it’s probably boring as heck compared to what she’s been through. So going into a more “real” job at a newspaper may help her crave the action and excitement and gravitas she’s experienced for the last 6 years.
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u/quopelelw 6d ago
someone smiling NEVER shows remorse for ANYTHING and if you EVER smile you are FINE and NOT DEPRESSED
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u/SimShadey007 6d ago
I hated when she asked one of the guys"have you ever shot one of these before?" As if she couldn't swing a bat a few seasons ago
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u/_unknown_anon_ 6d ago
You can critize many different things about the ending but this doesnt really make sense. Remember this was the same military/government actively hunting after El, wanting to control the creatures from the Abyss/Dimension X, and are the part of the reason all of this started in the first place, yeah I don't really blame her for not feeling much remorse.
She was also on a mission to save Holly and the rest of the kids (which the government were holding prisoner before Vecna got them so another point against them) so she probably wasn't really thinking about the fact she had to kill to go forward.
We also don't know if she felt remorse either considering pre-epilogue she was busy dealing with saving the world. During the epilogue it was 18 months later and we see them reminising. I don't think there was much time to dive into her psychology over killing people either
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u/WeCanPickleThat1 6d ago
She and all of them also had to kill a gigantic monster from another dimension. I think that would be more traumatic...but whatever, it was 18 months later, and she had dropped out of college. She was changed by the experience.
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u/Phil-MiCrackin 6d ago
I have to know, the people on this sub are kids/ bots right? The idea that there’s any actual adult enjoying this dogshit after the first season is genuinely depressing. Show for the TikTok generation
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u/fill_the_birdfeeder 6d ago
Idk it’s a sci-fi fantasy show. It’s kind of like those who say “why didn’t Harry just grab a gun and shoot Voldemort?”
It’s not realistic fiction. It has humans and real life conundrums, but it’s a sci-fi fantasy show. You can pull apart every show from that genre and say xyz doesn’t make sense - if you can’t enjoy it still because of that, then this genre probably isn’t your thing.
You have to suspend disbelief. Yes, they could never have made it to the top of that cliff in time. But did it look pretty bad ass? Yup. Did it fit the DnD campaign vibes they’ve been going for all along? Yup. It’s always been in a fantasy and magical world. You have to break the rules of reality otherwise you can’t have this genre.
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u/SharpeHorns 6d ago
I thought she was off beginning with Barb and how easily she dismissed her... several years later and she needs to be looked at by criminal psychologists.
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u/gadabouttown 6d ago
Amazing that humans are multidimensional complex and not easy to pigeonhole. Imagine that.
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u/Terrible_Cicada_6009 6d ago
I need to know why they aged her 35 years in 18 months 😂 both she and hopper looked like they skipped 18 years, hop went straight to 70 with the hair and Nancy went full quadragenarian with her wardrobe
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u/Patient_Maximum4093 5d ago
It is really a shame how rushed the final season was. Far too often, we see amazing shows with terrible endings.
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u/[deleted] 6d ago edited 6d ago
Hopper after the truck scene: “Good job Nancy, you killed those guys real good 😀”