Why Should We Want to Be Alive? Stranger Things 4 Has An Answer
Stranger Things teaches us to fight off suicidal thoughts
Stranger Things teaches us to fight off suicidal thoughts
Most TV shows get worse as the seasons progress, right? Well, Stranger Things 4 is an exception, being the best season so far. We get a very powerful villain, whose twisted philosophy invites us to think about why we want to be alive anyway. And Stranger Things gives us a beautiful answer to that. Read more to find out what it is.
Disclaimer: The following content discusses suicide and might be triggering for some people. This is personal and not professional mental health advice. And spoilers ahead for Stranger Things 4.
My main idea here is that Vecna, the new main villain in Stranger Things, is a metaphorical representation of depression. And our heroes find ways to escape his cycle of negativity by employing strategies that mirror our real life mental health strategies. Let’s dig deeper into it.
Vecna’s whole deal is to latch onto depressive thoughts and “save” people who have them by killing them. His philosophy revolves around the idea that people have meaningless lives and are just waiting to die. And those who are suffering the most through depression and possibly inviting the thought of death deserve to be saved from life first.
Although it is never explicitly mentioned in the show that the characters targeted by Vecna had suicidal thoughts, they all suffered from depression and it is heavily implied that they wanted to get away from it all. For example, the character in the scene below wanted to take drugs in hopes of escaping her reality.
What I find especially interesting is that all these depressed characters are still afraid of Vecna and they do not want to give in when he attacks them, even though we could have imagined they would welcome death. This mirrors very closely many accounts of suicide attempts, where people regret it as soon as they realize that there is no turning point after that (see this touching story from MedCircle).
Unfortunately, as we see in the scene above, some of the characters in the show succumb to Vecna’s curse, but Max, one of our beloved heroes, makes it out alive. Max is suffering from depression after her brother’s tragic death and she’s been having a hard time opening up to her friends about it. Instead, she shut herself away from friends and family trying to help her. While she is in trance induced by Vecna’s curse, her friends find out that hearing her favorite song could offer a way out. Here is the full scene:
What saves Max is that she chooses friendship, love, music, and a future where she is alive. This future holds the key to all the situations in which she is yet to be happy, either spending time with people who care about her or listening to her favorite song, or something else she cannot even foresee. She chooses all those future moments where she is yet to be happy, even if there is a possibility that they will be fewer than sad moments. She decides that those instances of happiness with the people she loves are worth it.
In any case, this is my interpretation of this scene, but you can probably see in it what you consider to be a reason to stay alive.
I love how Max has to hear “Running Up That Hill”, her favorite song, to remember that her friends love her and want to spend time with her, a fact which might seem obvious to them, but is not obvious to her because she is suffering from depression. Music as a vehicle to communicate this to Max is also spot on, as I think we all can relate to music evoking memories and strong emotions.
The extent of the mental illness metaphor doesn’t end here. In the continuation of this series, Max has to be constantly listening to “Running Up That Hill” to protect herself from Vecna. This is pretty much identical to how depression is always lurking somewhere behind you and you need to be putting in the effort, either in form of medication or other mental health treatments, to keep it away at all times.
Season 4 is not yet over, so I don’t know if we will see Max using any other interesting strategies against Vecna, but I would say we already hit jackpot with this scene above, so please go back and watch it any time depression hits you (and ask for help). There is always a reason to follow your favorite song.
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