Stranger Things Season Five
Apr. 11th, 2026 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraStranger Things Season Five. We finally finished watching this dang show. I actually found the finale pretty entertaining, which was a pleasant surprise. So much of this season has made so little sense or come so totally out of an uninteresting left field (why does this show star extremely minor background character Holly now? never figured that one out) but they managed to flail their way to a fun final battle and if that isn't D&D vibes what is.
Spoilers: I didn't love the choice to off El - I get that they wanted to do a Magic Has To Leave story, but, like, usually that means the heroes going off to the Summer Country, or ET making it back to his ship. There is however a different well-known trope that ends in a big sacrifice, namely A Boy And His Bot, see T2, Iron Giant, Big Hero 6. A Boy And His Bot arguably works because of a perceived difference in status between the human and the construct - an SF twist on the older Boy And His Dog, really (like Where The Red Fern Grows) - and feels like a betrayal when we didn't think there was such a difference (forever mad about the end of Star Trek X, when Data, who they spent seven years and a couple of previous films telling us was a Real Equal Person, sacrifices himself BAHB-style for Picard). I personally had thought El was a person, but J and I did argue about whether she was a PC or NPC. Still think it's kind of shitty of them to cross the "magical lab-made girlfriendbot" and "abused little girl" streams like that, but I suppose if I didn't want to see a girl get fridged so her male friends could grow up I just shouldn't have been watching mantasy or guyence fiction or brorror or whatever we're calling it now.
Spoilers: I didn't love the choice to off El - I get that they wanted to do a Magic Has To Leave story, but, like, usually that means the heroes going off to the Summer Country, or ET making it back to his ship. There is however a different well-known trope that ends in a big sacrifice, namely A Boy And His Bot, see T2, Iron Giant, Big Hero 6. A Boy And His Bot arguably works because of a perceived difference in status between the human and the construct - an SF twist on the older Boy And His Dog, really (like Where The Red Fern Grows) - and feels like a betrayal when we didn't think there was such a difference (forever mad about the end of Star Trek X, when Data, who they spent seven years and a couple of previous films telling us was a Real Equal Person, sacrifices himself BAHB-style for Picard). I personally had thought El was a person, but J and I did argue about whether she was a PC or NPC. Still think it's kind of shitty of them to cross the "magical lab-made girlfriendbot" and "abused little girl" streams like that, but I suppose if I didn't want to see a girl get fridged so her male friends could grow up I just shouldn't have been watching mantasy or guyence fiction or brorror or whatever we're calling it now.
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Date: 2026-04-12 05:07 am (UTC)And I hadn’t encountered the terms “guyence fiction” and “brorror”—hice. Looks like those are from Midnight Pals? (I haven’t been keeping up with that.)