#they really just ignored billy being racist and abusive towards lucas and tried to make everyone love/forgive him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kurokoros · 1 year

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I hate complaining about Billy Hargrove because it gives off the impression that I don’t like the inclusion of morally ambiguous characters. And that’s not the case. I like S1 Steve because I think there’s complexity to be explored under the stereotypical 80s jock that the Duffers gave us. I like Doctor Brenner because he’s a manipulative piece of shit and the series wouldn’t function the same without him. I really enjoy Billy’s inclusion in the series in S2 and think he had a lot of potential to act as a foil to Steve and even Jonathan, to a degree.

What I don’t like is how canon really tries to overcorrect in S3 or how the fanon attempts to read into subtext that either doesn’t exist or blatantly contradicts the subtext that does exist.

“The Hargroves are poor, so the hate against Billy is classist in nature.” But there’s no evidence to suggest this. Billy drives a nice car. We’re never shown the Hargrove/Mayfield family struggling for money in S2-3 like the way the show gives us proof that the Byers are struggling financially. That’s a core part of Jonathan’s character, it’s not a part of Billy’s. Despite watching Stranger Things several times, I’ve never once gotten the impression that Billy and Max were anything less than regular middle class.

“Billy isn’t a ‘good victim’ and that’s why people dislike him.” Until S3 there was no real indication that Billy was being abused on the regular. In the scene with Neil, Billy is snarky and makes it clear that Max isn’t his responsibility. That doesn’t make what Neil does any less deplorable, but it also doesn’t give the impression that Billy is all too afraid of talking back or pressing buttons. Parenting was different in the 80s. From personal experience, I know that there are a lot of 80s kids that are very cavalier about being physically abused for being disrespectful. For all we, the audience, know, Neil hitting Billy isn’t a regular occurrence. It doesn’t make it less shitty, obviously, but I do think that fanon attempts to make Billy’s home life more tragic than it actually was. Canon also does something similar in S3 to make Billy more sympathetic before his death, but I don’t find Billy’s writing in S3 to be very good. He’s possessed the entire time. He barely, if ever, interacts with Max, Steve, or Lucas--the three characters Billy should have been interacting with--and instead all of his interactions are with Karen Wheeler and El. It’s not a bad thing to have certain characters be sympathetic, or even empathetic, towards Billy, but the show completely ignores the conflicts between Billy, Steve, Max, and Lucas in S3 in order to make people upset about his death, rather than satisfied or plain apathetic.

I have issues with the way some people try to write off Billy being racist towards Lucas. Namely, that they try to pass it off as Billy actually just being protective of Max. Billy threatens to run Lucas, Mike, and Dustin over with his car just to fuck with Max before he has any indication that they know each other more than happening to be in the same class. There are a lot of Billy-centric meta that tries to argue that actually Billy is trying to keep Lucas away because it would make Neil go after Max, but I feel this gives far too much credit to Neil while taking responsibility away from Billy. Billy probably did get his opinions from Neil. That would make sense. But we have no reason to believe that Billy doesn’t just hold the same racist beliefs and that’s why he goes after Lucas. Attributing Billy’s behavior to an attempt at protecting Max is just willfully ignoring what’s actually happening, in my opinion. Not everything is actually subtext. Sometimes people really are just shitty without having covert motives behind their actions. Personally, I think that makes Billy more of an interesting character, with potential for growth, than if he was actually just trying to protect Max. It adds a layer of complexity, as shown in S4.

I also have issues with how the Max/Billy conflict is resolved in S2. I think the Duffers leaned too far into giving Max a cool girlboss moment instead of just allowing her to be a scared child. While it was fine to have Max try to stand up to Billy, I think the sedative being there was too convenient, and I think Billy proceeding to leave Max alone after that incident was wishful thinking.

TLDR: I think Billy is an interesting character, but the fandom and canon tries too hard to make him more tragic and less shitty than he actually is.

#does this make sense? who knows. but that's my opinion #stranger things #stranger thoughts #strangerthoughts #anti billy hargrove #sort of #it's less about billy than people that try to woobify him

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the-fire-might-be-shooting-at-us · 11 months

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I'm sorry you have to deal with the billy stans. I tried once, but they wouldn't listen to a word I say.

Like when I brought up that Max was verbally abused they twisted in a way that because she yelled at Billy and drugged him she was also an abuser who was on the same level as his dad because she used the words Neil used on Billy. However, they really close their eyes at how Billy also uses those words at Max (the Say It and Understand part). They also ignore the context. She had to watch Billy almost kill a guy. What should she have done? Talk him out of it. Drugging was her saving Steve and Billy because he would have murdered him.

Him threatening Max in the car earlier in the season was after Max expressed that she liked it here and it was Billy's fault for them to move, he then had to intimidate her by driving recklessly (putting her in danger for funsies) and wanting to run over a bunch of kids so he has control over Max again. If that isn't abused, idk what is. Or when he broke her skateboard after he found out Max hung out with Lucas at the arcade. It's implied he does this quite often, idk if this is normal sibling behavior, lol. Max even confides to Lucas that Billy takes out his anger on her, but his stans ignore it. She literally cried in front of him, which is big because Max is very closed off.

Also, the way they shit on Steve at the Byers house. Like Steve only lied because Max was terrified of getting hurt by her brother. I could even imagine Lucas begging Steve to do something because he knows about the situation, and he would have picked up on the racist undertones Billy gave him. To say Steve lied for no reason and was in the wrong idk, he didn't want Max to be hurt. Billy would have done something to her. He held in his anger the entire time waiting to explode, and Max already told us she would receive it. Billy didn't care about her he only cared to get her home so he could stay out of trouble. So Steve got Billys anger full unleashed and yeah me may have thrown the first punch (after Billy threatened Lucas and pushed him violenty in a cabinet), but after he was knocked out, Billy never stopped. Some even say Steve deserved it, which is like okay?? But then ship h*rringrove at the same time.

Also, Billy isn't even redeemed in my eyes he never made amends to Lucas and Steve. Maybe he treated Max better, but he still wasn't sorry about his behavior towards Lucas. Max had every right to have complicated feelings about his death. I think that was the thing s4 got right. Her not being able to open up to Lucas or Steve because Billy hurt them, so she retreated and pushed them away. She knew her friends hated her brother because he was awful to them. So she felt like she couldn't tell them she missed him or felt guilty for gis death. At the same time, she felt relief because he couldn't harm her anymore, which also made her feel guilty because that's still her brother.

I get why he acted the way he did, but that doesn't give him a free pass to do whatever. I have a friend who relates to Billy, like she also acted it they way he did, but she never makes excuses for him. She can recognize his faults. Billy needed help, which he sadly never got, that makes him tragic, but he also hurt people along the way, and they also have every right to critique his behavior. Same with people watching the show, they should be allowed to discuss it in a way without others coming for them and harass them (especially if you tag it accordingly).

I'm sorry this is kinda long, but you can't say this on here, or you will be hunted down and ridiculed. (Also, you can totally ignore this if you don't want to have this discourse anymore)

No bc you're so right I'm just so over Billy that I can't be bothered to add more.

Perfectly worded, I find Billy an interesting character for sure, because the abuse cycle, the patterns of trauma infliction, it gives a new perspective to how abuse affects people.

The Billy stans excusing his actions just ruins this take for me, and it also just feels like a further insult on Max and Lucas's characters.

Also the Hargrove stans are by far the most unnecessarily aggressive, toxic, and illogical, and I've seen the twitter Steve vs Jonathan discourse.

#rem does stuff and panics #stranger things #steve harrington #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #anti billy hargrove

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stranger-rants · 2 years

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Hey there, I’ve been browsing Stranger Things blogs (I’m super into the fandom now but salty about seasons 3 and 4) and stumbled upon yours.

I don’t get the Billy antis. I wonder if they even watched seasons 2 and 3. Or maybe they jumped right into season 4 and are like “Billy would abuse Steve/Eddie/whoever. He’s racist and bad because the Duffer bros say so, and they write the show so they obviously speak the truth.”

Yes, Billy slammed Lucas against the wall and shouted at him, which was a dick move. Then Jason said, “Hey Hargrove, hold my beer and let me show you how it’s done.” and turned it up to eleven.

Jason held Lucas at gunpoint, beat the shit out of him and literally tried to kill him, yet he’s not as vilified as Billy is, which just weird to me.

I’m baffled by the people who excuse canonically abusive characters (Henry, Jason, Dr.Brenner) yet Billy is a racist shit sack because he…shouted at Lucas? Makes no sense.

I personally think that people have a right to be upset by what Billy did, but their reactions to it really are disproportionate to other antagonists on the show doing far worse including what Jason did to Lucas. They legitimately act like Billy would have killed Lucas, but then downplay the real danger Lucas was in last season. They completely ignore the implications of Jason leading a lynch mob with Lucas and his sister being on his list of targets. So, the Duffers can argue that Billy is racist because they originally wanted him to be despite Dacre having issues with the way they were going to go about it but we’re not supposed to feel the same way about Jason? Worse, we’re supposed to be sympathetic towards Brenner and Creel despite the fact that they systematically abused children in very horrific and intimate ways… but Billy who acts out because he’s been abused deserves to die at 18 for the way he was acting? It simply does not make sense.

#asks

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beggingforain · 5 years

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i'm really tired of people who see things as only black or white; i'm tired of billy being painted as a villain and judged by the worst thing he has done (which if we're being fucking real here does not make him a monster y'all make him out to be)

if you look really really close, every sharp line turns out to be blurry

do you really think a person like billy would mince words and avoid using slurs if he were truly racist? sure, it does appear that way and it was intended to be read as such, but if you bother to stop and think about it for a moment you'll see the ambivalent nature of the conflict

either it was racially-charged, and if that's the case you need to think about how it came to that because racism, violence, abuse, are all learned behaviors and people tend to ignore this — no one is simply born /bad/ or racist in this case, it is an attitude and a way of thinking that people are brought up with; so what is most likely the case here is that it's neil's attitude, and billy, knowing how he would react, is just trying to save himself the beating as it will eventually be blamed on him if max is seen hanging out with lucas...

or, the other interpretation is that what he meant by a certain type of people you stay away from is simply the people who mistreat you — he saw them having an argument, shouting, max being visibly upset, and that was it; he tried in his own fucked-up way to warn her, as he has seen first-hand what that turns out to be later in life

violence begets violence

i'm in no way trying to excuse nor justify his actions, however, you can't simply believe, after seeing everything from his backstory, that he's just a bad guy for the sake of being bad

his character development was non-existent as they chose to offer no insight into what had happened in-between seasons and whatever he did do throughout the rest of the show was hardly his choice (except the final act), what he DIDN'T do actually tells a bigger story but there was enough talk about his struggle to resist the urges of the MF

and yes, i do believe he did redeem himself purely for making the ultimate sacrifice in doing a selfless act at the cost of his own life [more on this here: “The entire point of a redemption arc is that the villain doesn't deserve it, and that the villain understands and accepts that. Proper redemption arcs are those in which the villain does good not because they’re trying to gain anything for themselves but because they realize it’s the right fucking thing to do and they don’t care if it’s the death of them as long as it saves someone else.”]

i do think he deserved to escape his abuser, to be given a chance to change and grow

he deserved better

i do mourn the person he could have been and the person he was deep down

it's so easy to write him off as an antagonist, a one-dimensional plot device, and i blame the writers for this

to stumble upon such a devoted actor and be able to properly deal with an intriguing character was just too much for them i guess

and while we’re at it, look up what compassion, sympathy, and empathy mean and stop jumping down people’s throats for having and expressing their feelings towards a fictional character

grow up

#thank you and goodnight #come at me though #and if i see one more person compare him to bryce or monty is2g................#bh #x

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benziiiin · 6 years

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I tried not to do this.

I tried to just ignore the negativity coming from all the Billy haters, really. I’ve been avoiding any kind of fight on here because I am a peaceful person first and foremost, and of course anyone is entitled to their own opinion. And yet, here I am now posting this long ass rant, because do you know what us Leos have plenty of? Pride.

So what happens when you literally insult me and my intelligence for liking a certain character and/or ship, is that I roar back. I’ve held my tongue for weeks now, and I'll be silent no longer when it comes down to getting bullied and called names. Brace yourself because this is about 1k words…

I like Billy Hargrove, so much that I slammed the ‘adopt this character’ button a few days after finishing s2. I also ship Harringrove with the strength of a thousand suns, and I’m not ashamed of doing so. You know why? Because I am confident in who I am as a person. None of you people know me or the other Harringrove shippers personally so that you can say we’re bad, disgusting, stupid, or ugly (what does that even mean?), or that we romanticize abuse and condone racism.

Fictional characters just have the power to strike us all in different ways, especially when the way they’re written leaves so much open to interpretation. When it comes to Billy, you haters choose not to consider the context he’s grown in, resorting once again to that toxic black and white thinking you enjoy so much and that I’d like to cancel until the end of times instead.

Billy’s actions are undoubtedly messed up, and no one is denying that. Point me toward one single Harringrove shipper who’s ever done it. I’m pretty sure you actually can’t.

But dismissing the reasons behind Billy’s behavior shows a lack of empathy and basic understanding of how human beings work, too. And when I say ‘reasons’ I’m not talking exclusively about Neil, but also the way society and education in general were structured back then in the 80s (and earlier).

Here’s my two cents about the issues at hand, namely racism and abuse.

I’m still not buying into the whole “Billy is racist” discourse, because I don’t think he is. Or better, I don’t think he is by conscious choice. He probs realistically relies on what he’s been taught by society (and his father?) about POCs, without putting too much effort in it. Which is a situation that leaves room for real education and improvement, especially considering how young Billy still is. He really doesn’t seem like he’s beyond the possibility to become accepting and open-minded later, because his racism clearly doesn’t come from rooted personal beliefs, but rather from common society beliefs.

After all, the Duffer brothers themselves didn’t take a final position on Billy’s racism. They tried to explain why they’ve realistically written Billy that way, and it all points back to what I just said about what we might call “default racism”, plus Billy’s own anger issues.

What Lucas got to experience at the hands of Billy is horrible and unfair, of course. The fact that I sympathize with Billy’s character doesn’t mean I don’t do the same with Lucas. I care about Lucas and I feel for his struggles as a black child in the 80s. I’m not the monster you think I am, haters. If ST gave me a redemption arc where Billy works his ass off to gain Lucas’ forgiveness (and maybe even friendship), I would be the happiest girl on this planet. Because that would send out a beautiful and positive message to the audience all over the world, that you can always grow and better yourself as a person.

For what concerns the abuse discourse instead, it gets even simpler. Whatever the Duffer brothers decide to do with Billy in the future, we need to take a good look at the facts we have now and see what we can infer from them.

Billy is a teen suffering from verbal and physical abuse coming from such a key figure as a biological parent, which leads him to develop anger issues and abusive behavior of his own. This kind of reaction, sadly, often occurs in real life abuse victims, it’s been studied and proved because there’s plenty of them out there.

I feel like it’s necessary to quote an article from webmd.com, since you haters love acting like you’re so enlightened about everything; whereas, truthfully, you should learn to get off your high horse from time to time, and go educate yourselves before going around harassing people online.

The longest continuing study of child abuse and neglect in the country has reached a conclusion -- one which is hardly surprising. School-age children who experience severe discipline, or abuse, are more likely to display aggressive, destructive behavior. […] Do abused children become abusive adults? Sometimes. "If you look at the larger literature, from between 40% to 60% of parents who are abusers were abused themselves," Herrenkohl says. "There is a link, but it's not a foregone conclusion." One possible reason is the intervention of another, nurturing adult while the child is growing up, and/or the idea that some children are more resilient than others.

"We did a paper years ago on resilient children," Herrenkohl says. "Children abused, but not heading down the pathway to aggressive behavior. We didn't find many of them. In those we did find, a number of them said that as teenagers they decided, 'I'm not going to be the way my parents are.'"

It’s clearly very possible that Billy’s biological mother died at a young age, so he’s been lacking that nurturing adult figure for a while now. It is also very possible that Billy is not one of those children that are more resilient than others. It is consequently very possible the abuse he experienced has affected and turned him into a quick-tempered teen, because unfortunately you don’t control the way it does. What we can hope for is that he gets there, to the turning point where he recognizes his own behavior as a reflection of his father’s and actively tries to distance himself from it.

To conclude, abused kids should be offered a helping hand always. They should be led by example, not ostracized some more. Even the ones showing these bad “symptoms”, because when it comes to abuse victims you don’t get to pick who deserves help and who doesn’t. You know, doing that would kinda make you a grade A asshole...

And most importantly, you don’t fight hate with hate, anger with anger. Not in fiction and sure as hell not in real life.

You don’t like Billy Hargrove? Fine.

You don’t like Harringrove as a romantic pairing? Also fine.

You think your blindsided opinion is the one and only Supreme Truth and that gives you the right to bully others? Nah, son. Don’t even try.

#billy hargrove #harringrove #f speaks

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