Warning: The following contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season 4.With its extra-long Season 4, Stranger Things is barreling toward a Season 5 conclusion. Though audiences likely won’t see that conclusion until at least 2024, many are speculating as to just what it could entail. With all the main players in the story finally back in Hawkins, they can unite to fight against Vecna taking over the world.

Much of the series to this point has relied on Eleven being the only one able to battle the creatures from the Upside Down, and in Season 4, Henry-Creel-turned-Vecna. That may not be entirely true though. Stranger Things, after all, has kept a lot of Will Byers’ potential hidden. Some fans have complained that since his return from going missing in the first season, the character has largely been sidelined. When following his character arc throughout the first four seasons, however, it looks like Will is going to be very important in Season 5. He might even be instrumental in helping Eleven to defeat Vecna once and for all.

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Will Survives A Week In The Upside Down

Stranger Things Season 1 Will, Lucas and Dustin

One of the most interesting thing about Will that other characters have glossed over is that he managed to survive a week in the Upside Down on his own, and find a way to communicate with his mother while doing it. Initially, the audience is led to believe that human beings can’t last long in the Upside Down, that the environment itself is hazardous. While that’s not entirely the case, it still appears difficult to survive there as the creatures that inhabit the Upside Down have a hive mind.

Will managed to avoid being attacked by creatures, avoid alerting vines to his presence, and stay out of Vecna’s clutches. It could be argued that Vecna was simply toying with Will while he was in the Upside Down, using Will to test his own abilities, but it appeared he was already doing that with the scientists exploring the gate.

How Will survives a week in the Upside Down when Eddie, Robin, Steve, and Nancy have to work together and be armed to the teeth to survive a few hours is a mystery.

Will The Wise Is The Party’s Wizard

Stranger Things

The original Dungeons & Dragons Party consists of Will, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas. When they add Eleven to their group, Mike designates her their “mage” because of her supernatural abilities. The Party members all have D&D designations that correspond to how they function in the friend group as well. Will is their wizard. Specifically, his character is Will the Wise, and as he explains to his mom in one scene, his magical weapon of choice is fireballs.

All of the D&D usage in the show has ended up foreshadowing the show’s events except for where Will’s character is concerned. Outside of the demogorgon getting him, Will the Wise hasn’t been someone with a lot of firepower to help save the Party. That clue could finally pay off in Season 5 if it turns out that Will has more power than he knows, or if he proves himself the key to finding Vecna’s weakness since Vecna has already been in his head.

Will Byers And Henry Creel Have Similar Drawings

A split image features Henry Creel and Will Byers drawing in Stranger Things

Season 4 provides a lot of parallels between Will Byers and Henry Creel. Henry’s father talks about him as a “sensitive child,” which is exactly how Joyce describes Will in the first season. They also both have a love for drawing when they’re feeling especially like an outsider.

Henry is seen in flashbacks drawing images of large spider-like figures. It’s the same figure that the mind-flayer takes on when Henry, as One, first encounters the particles that create it in the Upside Down. It does leave the idea ambiguous as to whether Henry was influenced by the mind-flayer to begin with, or if Henry simply created the mind-flayer from an existing hive-like creature. Either way, once Will has been to the Upside Down, he’s also drawing the giant spider-like figure of the mind-flayer.

That figure remains Will’s link to the Upside Down, even after the friends seemingly destroy it in Season 3. The audience assumed that Will being able to feel the darkness of the Upside Down was the mind-flayer every time he talked about “him,” but Season 4 allows the audience to see that dark presence is actually Vecna.

Will Has Already Resisted Vecna

Stranger Things Will Byers faces The Vines jpg

It seems that once Vecna gets inside someone’s head, there’s no escaping him. Even Max isn’t safe, despite her listening to Kate Bush on a loop and her friends forming a plan to save her. Will, however, has proven that resisting Vecna is possible, which might be where his power really lies.

Headaches, nightmares, and hallucinations are all part of the way Vecna calls to his victims. Those are all things Will experiences when he returns to Hawkins from the Upside Down. His nightmares and hallucinations just happen to be of the Upside Down itself instead of a trauma experienced in the “real world” like the other teens.

Will’s friends think he has True Sight, able to see between Hawkins and the Upside Down, but Will is never the one in control of it, and he always seems to be in something of a sleepwalking state when does it. His eyes even go blank, and he stares straight ahead, just as the audience sees Vecna’s victims in Season 4. Will even has The Clash to help get through to him. The only difference is Will never sees the clock, that the audience knows of, and he’s never levitated off the ground.

Just What Is Will’s Role In Season 5?

Stranger Things Season 4 Mysteries Will and Mike Season 4

Season 4 already gave fans a peak into the tough time Will is going through in the real world without the added danger of Vecna. He’s clearly struggling to come to terms with his own sexuality as his speeches to Mike about Eleven are thinly veiled confessions of his own. That character development was much needed for the character after Will has been sidelined so much, but the Season 4 finale also revealed that once returning to Hawkins, Will can feel the darkness of Vecna all over again.

While some fans have theorized that Will might actually turn out to be a villain, it’s also possible that as one of the only people to survive Vecna being in his mind, Will might have the key to stopping him in Stranger Things Season 5. It takes a lot of intervention from his friends and family for him to no longer “host” the presence inside him in the earlier seasons. Will never had the experience of being tested for latent psychic abilities like Eleven and her numbered siblings did. Will’s ability to resist, even before he was fully aware of what was happening to him, could be a hint that there’s more power to him than the audience knows.

It seems unlikely that this late in the game Will is going to suddenly develop telekinetic abilities or anything like that. His own mental defense, however, could possibly be piggybacked on by Eleven. She’s learned to walk in many people’s minds, and she’s had to search for Will’s mind before. He might be just the boost of strength she needs to give the group an edge.

Stranger Things is currently available to stream on Netflix.

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