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11byers · 3 years

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Talk to us girl! What else do you have to say about El's arcs through the seasons and motherly love? I want to hear THIS content, f*ck all the ship wars!!

i’m so sorry this took actual months to reply to, i’m not gonna get into why just.... hi anon, ty for your patience 😭 tbh i'm not sure if i'm saying anything new, but this is almost 3k words long so hopefully i'm offering something

a few things to note before i delve into everything, bc this is a gendered topic:

el identifies w femininity, even after being raised in a lab w just a number as a name, essentially raised w/o any real gender constructs set in place, or at least not enough to understand gender fundamentally. but she identifies w femininity, as seen in the way she gravitates to feminine symbols in her surroundings. and it's interesting how her relationships w female characters are always given a bit of attention

the way fathers are portrayed on this show is... notable. we've got el's father figure brenner, as well as kali's relationship w brenner, steve's dad is apparently an asshole, ted is ted (not the worst but isn't much anyways), billy's dad been abusive his whole stay, lonnie is a danger to society, and hopper, although arguably redeemable and has been given more attention since he's a central character…… hasn't been the best all the way through. lucas' dad was p alright and dustin……… doesn't have one 🙃

meanwhile we got joyce who's the best parent in this entire show PERIOD absolutely beautiful amazing talented show-stopping etc etc, there's karen who almost slept w a minor but made a last minute decision not to (karen is a work in progress and i have a lot of thoughts about her i'm not gonna get into), dustin's mom is cute (a bit dopey but cute), lucas' mom is also cute, billy's mom is practically portrayed as an angel, and terry……… poor poor terry.

anyways there's a very clear difference.

st1

the topic of el and motherhood doesn’t really get tackled until st2, but i'm gonna go through this season by season. bc, spoiler alert, i'm fairly certain joyce will be el's mother/mother figure once the show's wrapped up. we can even say that's already happened after st3's ending, but ofc we're still in need of more personal relationship development.

basically, i believe el's relationship w motherhood, and her idea of mothers has a lot to do w joyce.

joyce is essentially el's "standard" (for lack of a better term) for what a mother is supposed to be.

someone might have to correct me on this, but i like to think that joyce is the first example of motherly love that el truly experiences (other than briefly seeing terry in the lab). not even when they first meet tho, but when the boys sneak el into the school and she "channels" will through the p.a. system.

when she hears joyce trying to comfort will and tell him to hide (which in itself messes me up bc depending on your take on the demogorgon, that shit is heart wrenching), i can only imagine what el might be thinking. what will has in joyce is completely different from what el has in brenner 😭

el's (as well as the show's tbh) view of fathers are very different from her view of mothers. fathers are demanding, ruthless, and cold. but she sees joyce, and she thinks mothers are passionate, caring, and protective, and all of that translates through a p.a. system when el hears joyce's desperation. i'm sure el sees a lot of herself in will - his fear and desperation, his terror of being in the upside down, describing it as cold and dark, just like the chamber brenner locks her in, or even the void, the water tank, her own room even - which only makes joyce's impression on her so much stronger.

and in ep7 'the bathtub' when el gets to have a one-on-one w joyce, there are certain points in that scene that parallel her and brenner, and i think that only hammers home el's idea of what mothers are and what they should be.

joyce promises her a presence. joyce is able to be there for her, comfort her, even when el is in a place like the void, that's just emptiness and darkness all around. she hears joyce's voice, and for once she's not alone. and it's nice to think she's w joyce and will in these moments, when she's in castle byers and she can act as a connection to will and joyce (a-and jonathan, sorry i don't really mention him throughout this piece, i didn't even expect to mention will this much, but jon's important too, we love a parental big brother).

it's shown how scared el can be moment to moment. the second will fades from her, she cries for him and curls up into a ball, and once she's out of the upside she latches onto joyce - and gosh the dependability!! joyce is there for her just like she promised.

this makes el meeting her own mother fuking heartbreaking.

st2

this idea of a mother sticks w el this whole time, and her idea of fathers doesn't get any better. i don't think el even pictures hopper as any kind of father figure, definitely not yet, but as a "friend," hence her shouting at him "friends don't lie". it's not until they're fighting and she shouts "you are like papa!" that it all comes full fuking circle!!

(it's the way hopper leaves her alone for hours, like how brenner isolates her in a dark chamber. it’s how in both instances, she’s still isolated from society. it's the way hopper sets rules for her that don’t allow to act instinctively on her own. it's him telling her "you wanna go back in the lab? i can make that happen." it's damaging shit. it's triggering.)

then el finds out that hopper lies to her again, but this time it's about her mother, which……..

that scene of her breaking down, crying for her mama, is so sad. idk what else to say, everything that happens from this point on is sad!!!!!!!

fast forward to el reaching terry and becky's house. i can't even imagine what el feels when she meets her mom for the first time……… and terry is in the state that she's in. barely responsive.

but i can say how el's guilt is continuously brought up time and time again, bc when she sees terry's memories and sees how determined terry was to get her back, the lengths she went through - it's all just like joyce. her expectations of a mother stays intact.

only, unlike joyce and will, things don't work out in the end for el and terry. terry suffers for trying to get el back. and it wouldn’t be surprising if that fed into el’s guilt.

(also, this has bothered me ever since first watch, but terry is portrayed w a bit of hostility when el returns. when el meets her in the void, and she's says she's home, terry tells her "no" and grabs her arm, triggering terry's memories. it's lead me to ask myself if terry holds resentment for el, and for the price terry had to pay....... or maybe it was just for dramatic scary horror, i’m not entirely sure.)

there's this moment right after el comes out of the void and back into reality, and becky tries to comfort her. bc of terry's unavailability, it's a possibility that becky could've been the mother figure that el needed. but the awkwardness in this moment - in how terry tries to comfort el, but el is still visibly shook and doesn't hug back, unlike her moment w joyce in st1, when el practically clings to her - kinda foreshadows how things just aren't gonna work out so ideally.

this next bit regarding el avenging terry may or may not be a lil "out there" but i think it's interesting to think about.

el views finding kali as something terry wants her to do. and kali echoes that sentiment. kali essentially acts as this one last tether el has to terry, which may be why she thinks of kail as a sister.

i have a lot of thoughts about el's self worth, her morality, her means of protecting others no matter what she suffers. i’m not about to go on a tangent, but just to get the main idea out there: el straddles a line between viewing herself as a monster and viewing herself as a protector, and anything outside of that feels is out of her reach.

what kali gives her is a chance to sorta explore that monstrous side of herself - the side that is willing to hurt others, even when there's no one in immediate danger to protect.

but kali is her last tether to her mother. and what kali is asking her to do clashes w what she pictures a mother is meant to do. i'm not saying kali is some kind of mother figure, nor is that really the bigger picture. but finding kali is something terry "told" her to do. it all plays a part in the scene when they confront the man that followed brenner's orders, ray carrell.

would terry actually want this for el?

el sees a photo of that ray and his daughters, and reminds herself of what she wants, what she yearns for, and what she's been deprived of. the reason why she feels so much pain, and is having so much trouble healing. and she chooses to protect the children - to prioritize the children - instead of giving in to the monster inside of her planted by brenner.

kali has different values. she's chosen a different path for herself. we're never really sure what kali knows about her own past, who she's met in her life, but we do know that she's lost people, and she doesn't have much of a connection to terry despite el considering her a sister.

and that comes full circle when kali makes el see brenner.

the words brenner uses here are technically just kali's words, since she told el the same things and brenner in this scene is just an image created by kali. but that's what makes this scene so brilliant. this scene is kali talking to el, but she’s masked as brenner.

brenner tells people they're sick. kali still believes she's sick. kali hasn't healed despite claiming to - instead she's become a mirror to brenner.

this is el's view of fatherhood: demanding, ruthless, and cold. brenner hurt el, and bc of all that hardship, el is in danger of becoming a mirror to brenner. and unfortunately, this is what kali has succumbed to. kali has failed to realize the monster she's so convinced that she is, is a concept completely fabricated by brenner.

this is what leads el back to her friends. just like how terry did everything in her power to save el and suffered devastating consequences, el returns to her friends to wholeheartedly put herself in that very position.

it's so touching to see el and joyce hug. although, joyce is still "will's mom" to el (she even refers to her as such in st3). but she still holds that connection to the byers family. el still prioritizes will's safety, just as she prioritized the kids back in chicago.

now to briefly cover what el and hopper's reconciliation means for this topic - it's a very vulnerable scene. one of the most vulnerable scenes in the entire show. el and hopper allow themselves to understand and relate to each other, through guilt and trauma and emotion, and bc of the profound impact of this conversation, hopper is…… enough. it’s still uncertain that el considers hopper as a father figure, but at this point she lost her mother, and she lost kali, and hopper lost sarah. they have each other though. and it gives both of them the chance to finally begin to heal.

el channels the anger she feels being deprived of a mother to close the gate. but the gate's essentially a scar still struggling to heal.

st3

it may be a mystery to no one that i'm not a big fan of st3, and there's not a lot to talk about in terms of el and joyce. couple notes about them tho, before we get into the real shit that happened this season

hopper asks if joyce could talk to el and mike for him, which she turns down, so they're deliberately being kept apart by the writers (i also feel like we have v limited knowledge of what joyce thinks of el, so she might be keeping her distance for reasons i'm not really sure of yet).

it's cute to think about how hopper's letter isn't just hopper's letter, but it's joyce's letter to el as well. el just doesn't know it.

let's talk about billy's mom.

el's relationships w female characters on this show always seem to be given a lil extra layer. and el's immediate draw towards billy's mom is so charming to watch. she calls her "pretty" and feels as if she's is looking at her, all before she even finds out who the woman is.

once again, the standard for motherhood on this show is enforced by billy's mom and her literal angel-like presence. she's good to billy, she allows him the freedom of doing what he loves, but not before warning him that dad might get mad!! great!!

billy goes through very similar phases that el went through

his father is abusive, and hurts both billy and the mother

billy loses his mom

the lack of proximity to his mom eventually leads him to mirror the toxicity of his father

the moments that el seems to recognize rather quickly are when billy's dad is being abusive, billy desperately wanting his mom to come home, and billy quickly succumbing to toxicity.

we've explored this pattern in previous seasons, so it's pretty easy to piece together, even within a quick montage.

so when el has her moment w billy, reminding him of his mom, it's so incredibly powerful. when you think about how much this moment upon, after everything that happened in the previous 2 seasons, it just hits.

just as we've discussed how motherhood throughout the show has meant prioritizing the safety of the ones you care about and protecting them against all odds, billy protects el from the mind flayer to the point of self sacrifice.

(and while i may not agree that it completely works just bc of how i feel about billy as a character, it works to tie in all these themes really well. also i'm sure there's other kinds of readings you can do on this scene, i even thought about this scene completely differently a couple months back but ANYWAYS-)

honestly, the way el comforts max in this scene...... feels kinda motherly. there's definitely something to be said about how el's not always treated as just a child - despite still learning speech, she's still been forced to grow up in other aspects of herself, and she constantly puts herself in a position to protect others. but this scene w el and max is sweet, and it's nice that max has el for that moment before el eventually moves away w the byers.

and ofc, el loses hopper this season, which in her mind leaves her parentless. joyce is there regardless (tho joyce taking over for hopper and watching over el does kinda happen in a "no explanation needed" kinda way, and i'm not really sure how i feel about that).

joyce and el have still quite a ways to go before really developing the mother-daughter relationship that feels inevitable at this point. and after hopper's death, the way this season ended, and the way joyce and el interact, there's a bit of uncertainty as to how their relationship will develop. even after the 3 month jump, they come off as rather distant from each other.

nut yeah, i'm excited for st4. after engaging in all the ship wars, and having my own gripes w how the duffers write romance, i think i'm starting to fall back in love w this show. writing this has definitely made me feel happier about the show, and made me feel excited about certain aspects of the show that might've been in the back of my mind, but now it's all at the forefront.

i really do love el as a character, and joyce might be a very close second, if not at the same level as el. their stories have been leading towards each other since the beginning and i can't wait until we get the payoff.

i hope someone reads this lol. again i’m sorry this took months......... depression uh anon, i hope this is what you wanted 😂 and if anyone feels compelled to add on feel free to do so 😊………. hopefully it's positive lol

#hopefully this ends up in the tags bc wow this is long and i wanna know other peoples thoughts!!#stranger things #st meta #el hopper #joyce byers #kali #op tag #anonymous

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arr-jim-lad · 4 years

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Can you go into how you think Dios insane and how his mind works. I have trouble putting my thoughts into words but reading other people's opinions helps and not a lot of people talk about dios insanity even tho i find it very interesting

Sure thing!!! You know I love to talk about DIO lmao(NOTE: This will include spoilers for Stone Ocean later on)

In part 1, human Dio’s goal appears to be proving a point to his dead father as well as himself. He always wants more, to achieve more, to prove he’s capable of more. He does that by pursuing superiority in many fields; he proves academic excellence by finishing law school at the top of his class, he proves he’s a talented sportsman by being one of his school’s star rugby players, and he actively, since the moment he joined the Joestar family, wants to prove that he’s superior to Jonathan and therefore a better heir and a better son.

It’s also important to mention the flaws he sees in himself here; his anger. I went into this before here but to summarize it; Dio has an anger problem and he not only knows it - it’s his most despised thing about himself.

That’s all simple stuff at the start, as it’s just trying to prove he’s better than others, and that’s easy to understand.

Then he becomes a vampire and a power trip REALLY hits him. Now he doesn’t have to pretend that he’s a gentleman anymore because literally no one can do shit to him. That law he studied? Fuck that, he can break it now all he wants, because it doesn’t apply to him anymore. The law is written for mere humans, and he’s not one of them anymore. He can do whatever he wants and he will do that - as flamboyantly and dramatically as possible. The Joestar fortune he was after in his earlier days? Fuck that too, he’s an immortal vampire with superpowers now, he can just take whatever money he wants.

Now Dio is free to be himself in every sense, and he stops pursuing power in a sneaky, deceitful way, but just. Straight up terrorizing anyone who steps in his path. Now EVERYONE gets to know about his wish for power, not just Jonathan.

And what’s even better - NO ONE is a problem anymore. NO ONE can hurt him. You know what this means for Dio? That he doesn’t have to get angry and frustrated anymore, because no one is able to push him that far.

….Except for Jonathan Joestar, who just won’t leave him alone

Jonathan keeps coming back and it low key pisses Dio off, but on the other hand, he also has major respect for him because of that. In his life of power and bliss, Jonathan manages to be the ONLY thing to disturb him

So Phantom Blood ending happens, Dio is bodyless, and in a mixture of necessity and respect, he takes Jonathan’s body. I notice people often seem to think that he took his body because he wanted it from the get go or something, but that’s not accurate. Initially it was for revenge, because Jonathan was the one who caused him to have to behead himself, and in SDC DIO even clearly says he NEEDED to take that body in order to survive - it was originally revenge and survivalism, but seeing Jonathan’s final actions also added immense respect to that. That body means a lot of different things to DIO.

Anyway now we get to the good part.So Dio is underwater all alone with a corpse for about 100 years. I went into more into this once before but to TL;DR that post; that kind of situation Does Bad Shit To You.

By the time DIO arose from that coffin, the insanity REALLY took hold of him. Because, in that coffin, he got to THINK. He got to do a LOT of thinking. All alone. He got to think about what matters to him.

And once he did all that thinking, he found his goal.It was not riches or power, but lack of anger: Inner peace.

Throughout SDC and Stone Ocean, that’s his ultimate goal.Now, how he goes about to obtain that is… hm.

In Stone Ocean, we are introduced to DIO’s diary, in which he essentially wrote down a highly complex, highly convoluted ritual of obtaining peace of mind, or as he likes to call it like the dramatic bitch that he is: Heaven.

I’ve seen people say that he apparently doesn’t show any philosophical interest in that kinda thing in SDC to which I say, do you even pay attention?

Think about DIO throughout SDC - what do we actually see him do before the final battle? He’s reading, he’s studying, he’s relaxing, he DOESN’T WANT TO BE BOTHERED.

He isn’t even the one sending out his assassins at first - the Tarot enemies are all Enya’s employees, she dragged those homicidal maniacs together. It’s only after all of them are defeated that DIO sends out HIS followers, the Glory Gods.

DIO wants his minions to take care of this because it’s low key stressing him out and he Doesn’t Need This Shit Right Now. He’s SO CLOSE to doing his ritual, Pucci is waiting for himin America, they have PLANS, and now these Joestar bastards are in Egypt?? What the fuck??? Can they like, not??? Is there any respect left for the ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs you hang on the door handles??

Basically, SDC catches DIO at a really bad time because he’s just in the middle of something big and it all just comes in to crash his plans, but there’s a lot about him that can be discerned from the final battle, and that is one of my favourite aspects of him, which is also very closely tied to his idea of Heaven; KNOWLEDGE.

DIO was really REALLY confident at the start of the battle, because he was convinced he had more knowledge about the Joestar group than they did about him, and knowledge was supposed to be his greatest weapon.

You can tell how paranoid and stressed out he becomes once Jotaro breaks that idea of him Knowing More and starts moving in stopped time. One of my favourite scenes in the final battle has got to be the ‘Is Jotaro Really Dead?’ scene, in which DIO acts like a paranoid wild animal, he acts like a cat who has his sights on something, but is not 100% sure if it’s safe to come close.

This paranoia is a HUGE factor of why he wants Heaven, aka Peace of Mind, and he is fully aware that he has this issue.

Another one of my favourite moments happens to revolve around his paranoia, that being the moment in Stone Ocean which shows us that it’s preventing him from fully trusting even those who are the most devoted to him, such as Pucci;

What we’re looking at here is DIO speaking to someone who is essentially the closest thing he EVER had to a friend, someone he admits he feels truly relaxed with, and yet even with this man he’s unable to shake off the paranoia he feels.

DIO really doesn’t know true inner peace, even in a situation that he himself described as being one that’s making him feel at ease.

Now we finally get into some bigger Stone Ocean spoilers regarding the stand of the main enemy of that part, Pucci - the same stand that DIO tried to obtain.

Here’s basically what the ritual-obtained stand, Made in Heaven, does;

It speeds up the time of entire universe to bring it back to a point where it started the spin, with everyone still alive just as they were (except the people who the stand user kills), but this time everyone has a vague idea/knowledge of what will happen next, because everyone essentially witnessed the future.

Now, assuming that DIO’s Made in Heaven would do the same thing as Pucci’s did, here’s what this tells us about DIO:

He is SO PARANOID that the thing that gives him the most anxiety and unrest, the thing he wants to get rid of, is the same that all of us take for granted:Not knowing what will happen next.

DIO wants to obtain peace of mind by getting rid of that ‘problem’ of an unknown future and making EVERYONE know what’s inevitably coming next, but he’d be the only one who would be able to change it. That’s his ideal world.

DIO’s insanity was born from his wish to achieve peace of mind.He wants to get rid of his anger and paranoia, but his idea of the solution to those feelings is absolutely demented and unfathomably convoluted.

Basically… it’s something that only be thought up by a megalomaniac vampire who was left deep underwater for 100 years in a claustrophobic coffin with only the corpse of the only man he ever respected to keep him company.

#jjba meta #dio brando #jojo meta #jojo's bizarre adventure #stardust crusaders #stone ocean #jjba #jojo #Anonymous

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