I keep seeing posts and comments about Will’s sexuality. It’s weird because that’s not what I got from that entire scene.
Will missed a year of his life. He explained this not once but twice this season. His friends got to develop, explore their thoughts and grow into themselves.
Will was just an empty shell during the last year of his childhood. He just wants to play games with his friends, whom were all just as obsessed about kid crap the year before.
During the scene, Will was frustrated because he didn’t realize when all this happened. Imagine missing key chunks in your life that were defining moments for your friends.
Edit: All the homophobic rhetoric can stop, 1.
Yes, Will’s character was described as sexually confused but that doesn’t just define his sexuality to be gay or asexual. All the foreshadowing so far were people calling him slurs. He, himself hasn’t even reached a point to discuss his sexuality.
I agree, and I believe Finn commented on this as well. It’s not saying he’s gay, he’s just not ready to grow up like Mike and Lucas are.
Noah Schnapp confirmed this too; Will’s main issue this season is that he hasn’t matured like his friends have and he wants to hold on to the old days before he became the personal chew toy of a hellish alternate dimension. Him being gay or whatever is still very much a possibility, but it really isn’t relevant to this season; he’s just a kid who doesn’t want to grow up and leave his old ways behind (also, he’s a kid who resents that his best friend is spending all his time with his girl and ignoring him in the process).
I agree , all these kids automatically think he’s gay just because of what Mike said to him
I agree with your thoughts and I also kinda hope he’s not gay because they will gloss over it. The way Steve reacted to Robin being gay was def in character with his growth but being gay in the 80s wasn’t easy and most people wouldn’t react that way, hell even when I was in HS (early 2000s) it wasn’t, and I feel like if Will is gay as well they will sugarcoat the struggle that gay men and women dealt with in that time period and I wouldn’t want that.
However i will say if they can handle it in a way that’s classy but also highlights the real struggle without distracting from the major plot I think it could be successful.
Thank you for posting this. Him being gay is not what I got at all I just thought exactly what you did
You all talking about Will not wanting any relationship or love because he was trapped a week in the Upside Down, and then possesed by the mind flayer one year later, and that his childhood got stolen since then, REMEMBER that Eleven, who never had a childood, who has been abused in all the ways possible, who has been treated like a lab rat and never had a life, was able to let all the bad go and fall in love with Mike. And that is your canon.
So why couldn’t that poor boy fall in love the same way? Maybe Will doesn’t want any relationship, i totally agree, but just like everyone else he feels love too, and i wouldn’t be surprised if he had feelings for Mike, which if you properly analyze, it would be totally normal for Will to feel that love for Mike. I know some people might disagree, but remember that originally Will was scripted as a “sweet boy with sexual identity issues”, plus we’ve been given a lot of hints. And no actor confirmed or denied anything just because they are not allowed to say anything because it would spoil the whole storyline.
Look at this example: Robin was scripted as a “alternative type of girl”. Personally when i saw that i thought that she could be lesbian, but i wasn’t sure. Now imagine if the actress Maya Hawke would have said that her character is gay, it would have ruined all the storyline with Steve from the begining, and our reaction to her coming out wouldn’t have been the same.
Same for Will, and the writers may not even know yet if they want to go all in with Will being gay, maybe they will never confirm anything, maybe due to lots of reasons might make him straight in the end, which personally for me that would be really disappointing. I think that making Will gay would open the doors to a huge storyline with a deep moral meaning. It wasn’t easy for the gay kids back then to deal with that, and it’s not easy even today, specially at that age. So that could bring a very interesting storyline.
This is exactly what I thought. And when Mike said that line about not liking girls, I think Mike meant it with an unsaid “yet,” but Will took it as a gay jab, because his dad and the bullies at school bullied him by insinuating that he’s gay. I don’t think he’s gay, personally, but if he is, this season wasn’t an indicator of it.
Very good points, and I think this actually will be of benefit to Will as a character. Out of all the younger cast he has the greatest potential for growth. He has the flaws, the trauma, the missing childhood, the interesting complexity to him to truly shine and grow.
It’ll be interesting to see if they bank on it in season 4. It’s also going to be very important who he’s grouped with when things heat up. I feel like he needs to be paired with Dustin, or a new character in season 4. Although who knows, maybe most of his coming of age will be off-screen between seasons.
Watch him appear in season 4 wearing a leather jacket and heavily into rock n roll after listening to more music with Jonathan in the City.
I think it’s both!
While this whole thing IMO is indeed about him being behind on development compared to his friends, Will has been called queer, fag and fairy by bullies, and, IIRC, even his dad. Whether he is gay or not, those insults hurt, and to have your best friend say “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” would be extra hurtful considering the bullying Will’s endured in the past.
Can’t it be both? I don’t know why him being gay needs to be exclusive of his feeling of alienation
Same. He’s just the friend that’s not into girls yet, there’s always one out of the group. The people that automatically took it as gay don’t know how to understand tv and took it at face value. I think it’s mostly younger kids that didn’t get it
Wait, what? Seriously? Is the notion that the theme was sexuality that prevalent when it came to Will’s outbreaks? Holy shit, the kid is suffering from freakin’ PTSD, of course he wants to relive a time before that.
I mean, he missed only, like, 3 or 4 weeks of his childhood at maximum, and it was probably less, how would he have “lost his childhood” if he was awaken, well and living his childhood with his friends on the rest of those years?
I’m also upset he seemed to play a minor roll this season. It seems everyone else in the gang contributed more. But this could be because he feels so behind.
Whether he’s gay or not:
– Will feeling out of place and weird predates his encounter with the Upside Down as seen in a flashback with Jonathan and the iconic “Don’t like things because other people want you to” or something similar
– Being gay does not mean he can’t feel left out, frustrated, or like he’s missed a huge chunk of his childhood. ALL these things can be true and more even if he’s gay. They aren’t exclusive or separate.
– Being gay would only be a PART of his story line, not the point of it. Not even the main point of it. It’s a small piece in a giant ass puzzle.
His real story line has to do with his never ending connection to the Upside Down and all the supernatural shit. It’s about how the Upside Down has changed him forever and made him different from all his peers. He wants something he can’t have, a normal life chilling out with his friends in the basement playing games. But he can’t have that.
The ultimate point of Will’s arc is accepting his new normal, accepting that his hobbies don’t like up with the others, and that it’s ok to be a freak. All three seasons circle around these points over and over again for Will. He still hasn’t accepted it. All he’s done is destroyed Castle Byers (his childhood), gave up fixing his conflict with Mike and Lucas (because he says he doesn’t care anymore), and given up dnd with some half-hearted “I’ll just use yours when I come back to play” response to Mike.
His arc is still in progress. He hasn’t accepted himself yet. Based on the simple fact that they made this scene vague on purpose and Noah Schnapp, Will’s actor, said the scene is up to the audience to interpret, this conversation isn’t an accident. They want people to second guess what else is going on under the surface in Will’s character.
There’s the obvious stuff, the Upside Down, the trauma, etc etc. But all those things does not mean it’s impossible for him to be gay (or whatever else under the LGBT rainbow) too.
Robin’s coming out scene was pretty well done. She didn’t even need to explicitly state she’s a lesbian. She didn’t need to be in a relationship. She didn’t need to run down the street waving a rainbow flag declaring she’s gay. All she did was quietly come out to Steve in the bathroom after their near death experience and life went on with no one else the wiser.
It’s so easy to imagine a similar situation for Will if he is in fact gay. He’s finally coming to terms with accepting everything about himself, including his ties with the Upside Down and all the terrible life altering things he’s dealt with. And as a final straw, he finally deals with something he’s clearly been dealing with before all this Upside Down shit started, his sexuality. A final knot in his character arc.
But anyway, I admit some shippers and uh…. REALLY passionate people take it too far and make this whole “Will is gay” story arc too far. As in, they make it his entire character arc instead of just a piece of it. At the end of the day, the Upside Down and trauma stuff trumps his sexuality issues. As we saw in season 3, Will will put his ‘normal’ life aside to deal with the supernatural, but the ‘normal’ stuff still cuts really deep for him and provides really beautiful emotional scenes.
I doubt anyone has read this far, but my conclusions is: It’s entirely possible Will is gay. No, his entire story line is not about being gay. It’s a small piece that existed before his Upside Down trauma adventures. Of course his Upside Down story takes more importance than his sexuality, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be gay. Will’s arc is not yet resolved, and no, he’s not out yet.
I can’t even begin to grasp or understand how a 12 year old kid mentioning “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” means he’s gay.
He just wants to play games and have fun. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. There is no hidden meaning, there is no subtext.
He missed out on a huge chunk of his life and just wants to resume where they left off. In the basement, with his best friends, playing d&d, fighting Trolls and Illithids.
I resonate with that on a spiritual level.
but also if he’s gay that would be valid
Honestly as soon as I watched that scene I knew people were going to make it about his sexuality, but that’s the farthest from the truth.
It stung when Mike said that because he had to face the reality that he’s still damage, and has no life, and maybe because he can’t get a girlfriend. And it hurts to see his friends becoming a little more mature, seeing his friends have a girlfriend.
Everyone is having long thoughts and discussions about this topic and I’m over here like, “Does it matter?”.
I was abused with my mother by my father for years. Windows bolted shut so we wouldn’t try to run type shit. I lost nearly all of my high school years from that and am finally kinda of healing from it all mentally. All my friends now are younger (21/22ish, I’m 27) and I’ve realized it’s because I want to experience those years that I didn’t. The “fun” years.
It’s very obviously both lol. There’s a reason why the duffer brothers went with “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” instead of “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls yet”. It’s supposed to be a hint towards the audience. And Will’s reaction was very telling.
The majority of this sub is so against will being gay that at this point I really hope he comes out next season.
Yeah, I never read that scene as gay, it was Will wanting things to stay the same, wanting to have his friends do the things that brought them joy in the past, disliking that things are different now for a number of reasons.
It’s him coming to grips with having to grow up.
~why not both~
but seriously, ive legit seen more people bitching and complaining about the mere *idea* that he may be gay than i have people actually posing the theory. people have thought of will as gay from the beginning and a LOT of lgbt people have seen their experiences reflected in what will goes through in this season. just because on the surface level his feelings are about what has happened to him with the upside down and whatnot doesnt mean that it cant or does not parallel common lgbt emotions at that age. its like none of you can look past whats literally on your screens.
His sexual orientation was such a nonissue for him. Maybe Mike perceived his lack of interest in girls as him being gay, but he wasn’t exactly interested in boys either. Maybe he’s just a late bloomer and he’s trying to get back some of what he lost when he was in the upside down and everything he went through in the second season, or maybe he’s asexual and he doesn’t desire to make romantic connections with anyone of any gender?
That is an excellent, and I think accurate, observation.
I totally agree, I also feel like it might be a bad move to make him gay because if the only character in the show who has been allowed to be not interested in relationships (besides Murray and Alexei ig) turns out to be gay then I’ll find that kinda frustrating because I’m losing my patience with the over saturation of relationship stuff in shows (the relationships in Stranger Things tend to be really well written but even still it’s just unnatural to me to give every single character an arc of that nature). I like this interpretation a lot more because it feels more meaningful to let Will be defined by his past experiences and internal conflicts rather than just making it about sexuality
Will, Hopper, Dustin, and Mike all deal with difficulty in changing relationships, it seems to be a theme for the season. Will’s friends have grown up faster than him and it leads to him feeling alone. Hopper loses his time with Eleven as he outlines in his letter and she’s growing and is in love. Mike wants Eleven all to himself but she needs to have a girlfriend to do girl things with. Dustin returns from camp and feels like nobody really missed him. Great writing and character advancement by the Duffer Brothers.
I couldn’t help but have some liquid coming out of my eyes hearing Hopper narrate his letter to Eleven. The whole “stuck in the cave” analogy is so heart wrenching , it seems he’s had a lot of trauma with women in the past hence the pills and booze. Watching Eleven cry reading it made me get misty eyed, MBB is already an incredible actress and seeing kids with this level of acting talent brings me right back to the 80s with Goonies and the Coreys or Stand by me. Just like those kid actors went on to have long careers,I can see this cast being centered around in film for the foreseeable future especially Finn Wolfhard, MBB, and Joe Keery.
Yeah, looking on Twitter it really feels like people are clutching at straws
Ugh he’s just third wheelin’
All season he was the third Will…
It’s very easy to label him as gay from what Mike said as that’s the nature of how that line was written. Just because he doesn’t like girls that doesn’t mean he likes boys. Given the context it was clearly meant as him still being trapped behind mentally as a kid, wanting to play kids games and not having girlfriend desires, having not had the chance to develop into his age like the others.
I certainly agree that the scene is about being left behind and feeling like he doesn’t belong, but I think there’s more to it than just feeling like he missed out on his childhood and that his friends have different interests now.
As people have already pointed out, Will was in the Upside Down for about a week in season one, and possessed by the mind flayer for about two days in season two. Yes, the effect this would have is far longer than just the time spent in captivity (to put it loosely), and considering his dreams he had in the year between season one and two it’ll have had an effect on his development. But as others have also pointed out, El had a much more fucked up childhood and it didn’t take long for her to develop her feelings for Mike. Nevertheless, it is certainly conceivable that Will just hasn’t gotten to the stage of caring about relationships, and I’m actually pretty much on board here, I don’t think that’s something that’s on his mind. Nothing to back up that view, just the feeling I get from watching the show.
But as for the topic of whether or not he’s gay, I’ll say that I very much believe he is, or at least that he’s been written that way so far, but leaving wiggle room so they can get out of it if they decide against following through with the idea. I think the key thing here is that people are thinking about things like as if it were real life, where, for example, someone using a homophobic slur against someone doesn’t mean that that person is actually gay, it’s just a basic insult from that time. But like how in movies/shows a cough isn’t just a cough, it has more meaning, the fact that Will alone is addressed with homophobic slurs and taunts, from more than just the bullies but also his shitty dad, not refuted by his mom, and also somewhat by Mike, that is in no way unintended. Add to that, that in past seasons when this was brought up (it’s been a point of discussion since after season one) that all the other kids have shown interest in the opposite sex. Mike and Eleven are together, Max and Lucas are together, Dustin had a big crush on Nancy at first and then ended up getting a girlfriend at camp. So even back in season two he wasn’t “too young for that,” as I heard people claim at the time, but rather all his peers showed interest and he didn’t. In fact, in the Snow Ball, when a girl came up to him to ask him to dance he seemed rather uncomfortable about it, and continued to look uncomfortable while dancing (which is pretty understandable tbh, middle school dances are inherently uncomfortable).
So back to the scene, he tries to recapture the old glory of D&D with his friends, but their minds are elsewhere, and Dustin isn’t even with them. Then when he angrily goes to leave Mike says the whole “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” thing and that clearly hurts Will. So he goes home and destroys his safe place from his childhood and rips up a picture of them all together. This makes sense but be a bit of an overreaction for the little fight they just had. If he were also gay though, it would make more sense. It’s not just that he feels left behind because they don’t want to play D&D anymore and are more interested in girls, I think it’s that he doesn’t feel like he belongs anymore, since he’ll never like girls and that distance they have between them now will never disappear. This is far more hard to accept, and would explain his outburst even more.
On a personal note, as a gay guy myself I definitely understand Will’s reaction. When I was growing up and my friends all started to want to hang out with girls I was annoyed because I’d rather we were gaming or playing football (soccer) and not bothering talking to girls. If they didn’t start flirting/exploring their sexuality then I wouldn’t be expected to either, and that meant that we could maintain our relationships as they’d always been. But if they did then I’d be expected to flirt with girls too, and I didn’t want to lie or hurt someone else, but I sure as shit wasn’t ready to come out either. And that was like 2006 or so, nowhere near as bad as 1985.
If they do have the balls to go through with what is to me almost certainly the plan for Will’s development, then I fully expect some people to complain that the writers have been influenced by the LGBT community or some bullshit. But it’s clear to me that this has been an idea since day one, not even considering things like the character descriptions for Montauk and the script for the season 2 finale.
Tl;dr – he’s probably gay and it influences the scene, but that’s not what the scene is about specifically.
I think everyone is free to interpret it in their own way, and that’s what’s cool about it being left open-ended in the show. My initial and current interpretation of that scene was that Mike’s comment was about Will’s sexuality or questioning sexuality. But I also do think his missed childhood played into it as well.
It’s pretty obvious that is the explicit meaning. The question is whether or not it’s hiding a double-meaning. I think it does, and if you go back through the seasons I think there’s more than enough evidence to support it. At this point if someone don’t see it, they’re just hand waving it away for their own personal reasons. This reminds me a lot of people who didn’t see *that moment* coming in The Last of Us DLC because they outright refused pick up on the obvious undertones throughout the DLC’s narrative.
There are quite a lot of exchanges foreshadowing this. Emily Carmichael chronicles these very well in a [YT video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101xD_K1vUM) highlighting Will Byers, but I’ll write out a few of them here.
**Joyce reporting to Hopper**
Joyce: *”Look, he’s not like you, Hopper. He’s not like me. He’s not like… most. He has a couple of friends, but you know, the kids, they’re mean. They make fun of him. They call him names. They laugh at him, his clothes–“*
Hopper: *”His clothes? What’s wrong with his clothes?”*
Joyce: *”I don’t know. Does that matter? Look, he’s… he’s a sensitive kid. Lonnie… Lonnie used to say he was queer. Called him a ‘fag’.”*
Hopper: *”Is he?”*
Joyce: *”He’s MISSING is what he is!”*
**Bullies make the same allusions**
Bully: *”I hate to break it to you, Toothless, but he’s not in danger. He’s dead. That’s what my dad says. He said he was probably killed by some other queer.”*
and in another exchange later
Bully: *”Besides, what’s there to be sad about, anyway? Will’s in fairyland now right? Flying around with all the other little fairies. All happy and GAY!”*
Obviously, “fag” was a slur used by and toward just about anyone you wanted to get a rile out of in the 80s, but no other character has received the sort of tunnel vision of accusations in the way Will has, both sincerely speculated by family and crudely thrust upon him by bullies. Even by the parents of bullies during his presumed death, suggesting they’re sincere in their accusations and bigotry.
**Joyce reveals another observation**
When Will was tied up to the chair, and they were trying to connect him back with who he “really is,” here’s an anecdote Joyce gave him.
Joyce: *”When you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that? All your friends, they got you Star Wars toys. All you wanted to do was draw. With all your new colors. And you drew this big spaceship, but it wasn’t from a movie. It was your spaceship. A ‘rainbow ship,’ is what you called it…”*
She would go on to say he was embarrassed when she showed everyone, but she was proud of him for it. Again, this takes on a much more significant meaning if you adopt the idea Will is gay and fits perfectly with the context of the conversation, where they’re trying to get to the heart of the real Will.
**Will accepts a dance at the Snow Ball, but it’s not how you think.**
At the Snow Ball, a girl comes up and asks Will if he wants to dance. Will stutters for a moment, “I don’t… I don’t.. uhh..” before accepting seemingly at Mike’s behest. This could be read either way, but what’s more interesting is that his dance partner can be seen wearing an LGBT-rainbowed hair braid. Perhaps implying she was asking him to dance so they could both avoid being a wallflower at the event.
In the script, it’s made clear Will’s focus is not on the girl while they’re dancing, but instead on Mike (though in the final scene it’s not that explicit).
**Will Byers’ sexuality was in his pitch for the show**
In the original pitch for the show to Netflix, Will Byers was pitched as a *”sweet, sensitive kid with sexual identity issues. He only recently came to the realization that he does not fit into the 1980s definition of “normal.” His innocent choices, such as his colorful clothes, prove a constant source of bullying. Like Mike, Will escapes through fantasy gaming, where he can be himself, uninhibited…”* That’s a quote from the pitch, verbatim.
Things could have changed, of course. But it seems consistent with the current speculations.
The point here being that Will’s resistance to grow out of the group’s fantasy gaming is rooted in far more than just him not being willing to grow up. It’s him losing his escape, his sense of belonging in a world that doesn’t accept him. It holds a much deeper meaning to him, and in that way, tells a much better story than *only* a kid being left behind by maturity.
Frankly, when you go through past seasons and look at all the ways this was foreshadowed, it strains credibility to believe it isn’t the case that Will is gay. And no, actor comments denying any of this about Will don’t mean anything. Nobody expects anyone involved with the show to spoil plot points.
I thought it was obvious since will was always trying to play dungeons and dragons while the others didn’t want to
Lol. Anyone think it’s about him being gay?
Its common for people at his age not caring about girls.
Smirnoff doesn’t have anything to do with maturity
I find it odd that adults on the internet feel the need to know whether a fictional 14 year boy is gay or not.
Storyline is a bit of a stretch. He was on screen a few times.
I figured it was either that or Will was asexual but seeing as he destroyed Castle Byers and there was no further exploration of his sexuality I think your theory as right.
I think that’s valid and also part of what’s going on, but they are also queer coding the shit out of him.
This seemed obvious to me, it was a surprise to see people who actually thought it meant he was gay. It’s not set in the modern day, people smoked and gay kids stayed in the closet. That alone made it clear.
I think for now Will’s sexual orientation is a bit irrelevant, since his problem doesn’t seem to be about liking girls or boys, but about wanting to be just with his friends, without any romantic interest drama. Every time you and your friends used to play around and then you move along to just talking social life, some of the kids feel they would still want to play.
What i thought of him this season was him being a demogorgon/mind flayer detector.
Wait. How could anyone think it was anything but this?
He wore *wizard* costume and begged them to play D&D with them again!
I’m glad someone agrees; people say Will is gay and in love with Mike, but during S2, Dustin and Lucas were busy pursuing Max, and El was gone, so Mike didn’t really have anything to do. Therefore Will confided in him about the mind flayer and whatnot, and they grew closer, not love.
I thought this was quite obvious and the fact that a lot of people were screaming about him being gay was frustrating. Really if he is or not, really doesn’t matter. It was clearly about the events of the last 2 seasons robbing him of childhood moments and the chance to develop in a way his friends were able to. He was annoyed that his friends didn’t want to sit and play D and D anymore because he missed out on that time with them.
I agree, but I also think sexuality does *in part* correlate to this.
It’s obviously not the full answer, I definitely think a lot of Will’s characterization is that he’s afraid to let go of his life before he was taken by the Mind Flayer. The rest of the kids seem to grow into the roles of middle / high school kids and the concerns you have at that age (school, hormones / relationships, popularity, etc), which in hindsight, can feel more trivial than not.
Will, somewhat stunted (or aged?) by the trauma of the last 2 years, likely feels robbed of that triviality, so he’s off kilter from the rest of the group and longs to have that triviality back in his life again. Part of that is that he’s emotionally and maybe even hormonally stunted, so he really lacks interest in anyone the way the rest of the gang does.
I wish they took the time to explore that a little more outside of the couple scenes he had with Mike, I think that’s my biggest and frankly only gripe about the season.
My one friend suggested that had Billy not died, in the next season he could’ve been a cool counter to Will a’la Steve and Dustin, while also setting up a redemption arc for Billy. I think what they did with Billy was solid, but I would’ve been fascinated to see both of those arcs take shape had he not died.
I know I’m late to the game but I’d like to add my two cents. The only confusion I have about the idea that Will lost part of his childhood is that they’re basically still children!!! It is totally reasonable to want to play DnD with your best friends without distractions for an afternoon! I think Will is for sure agonizing over missing a year with the people he loves. But I don’t think he is somehow stuck in the past/hasn’t matured enough. In fact, he’s arguably the most mature out of all the kids. He just wants to play games with his friends, that’s like the most normal thing a thirteen years old could want.
I was the Will of my group of friends and clearly remember the emotions that arose when I realized my childhood was slipping away and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I saw the fort destruction as a symbolic realization and frustration of what was happening to his youth.
Because the woke folk must gay up everything.
It’s in their charter.
Asexual person checking in, here. Just because he doesn’t like girls (the quote) doesn’t mean he likes boys. Thank you, good night.
I thought that was obvious, I don’t know why people try to make so much stuff about sexuality
Couldn’t agree more! The one line that made me think he might be gay was when Mike said something like “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” And Will looked really hurt and then Mike apologized. But after I thought about it some more, I think Will was just hurt by that line because his father and others have been calling him gay for a long time. Mike realized that it sounded like he was calling Will gay and then he immediately took it back.
My little brother was a late bloomer, much like Will. He also enjoyed some things that were considered to be “girly”. My dad isn’t homophobic, per se, but he never liked when my brother would play with dolls and whatnot. This led to my brother feeling some shame about his more feminine interests. Then when he got to middle school and didn’t start “dating” right away, I think some of the kids would also make fun of him. Meanwhile, my mom and I were fairly certain he was not gay because he would spend time drawing “boobs” in Victoria’s Secret catalogues. Anyways, he ended up becoming very sensitive to being falsely accused of being gay. And he did eventually start dating girls when he began college.
Sorry that got a little long and a little personal but I just wanted to illustrate where I’m forming my opinion from. I see a lot of my brother in Will. And, I mean, you never know, Will could come out as gay in a future season but I just don’t think we are getting any kind of indication as to his sexuality at the moment (besides him being “late”.)
Agree 100%
I really don’t like the push of sexuality for a 14 year old kid in a storyline. The kids are growing up together as pals. It doesn’t mean one can’t be gay, but i really like the storyline as four best friends fighting monsters. Plus, i perceived the not liking girls line as the way a kid things girls are gross. Will hasn’t began to really like anybody beyond his friends in that way, so of course he wouldn’t like anyone romantically. Also, when saying “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls”, the line didn’t really seem to be focused on not liking girls, it was more that he hadn’t grown past the point of not liking anyone.
That may be tons of mumbo jumbo but i’m terrible at conveying points over the internet so.
Yeah, that’s how I saw it. Poor kid missed out on enjoying his childhood, and he’s desperately trying to hold on to what little of it he has left. Him destroying Castle Byers just made it all the more heartbreaking 🙁
Yeh i felt really upset when he kept wanting to play D&D, but the other guys had moved on☹️
All of his friends missed the same year as they were it trying to find him. Its not
Like there were playing games the whole time.
It can be both, though. Like, those two storylines aren’t mutually exclusive at all and it’s weird to me that people are treating them like they are.
One thing i’d like to point out, as a gay guy, is that being queer in a lot of people’s cases removes a huge chunk of your childhood as well. I never dated, never talked about having crushes, and was too uncomfortable with my own mind and heart to trust anyone fully so I never really had friends, all because subconsciously I knew I was a big homo.
So I dunno! I know that in the original pitch for the show Will is described as having issues questioning his sexuality, so I think of him loosing his childhood to the Upside Down as sort of metaphorical for how horrible it is to be a gay kid in a heterosexual culture.
Never once in all 3 seasons did I think his story was about sexuality.
Anyone thinking it is is in some sort of fantasy land. It was barely mentioned.
not to mention its weird to speculate so heavily into a childs sexuality
Thank you! I wholeheartedly agree. Honestly, I was baffled when seeing the many discussions about Will’s sexuality this season.
All I saw was a poor kid who missed out on his childhood and just wanted to do the things he loves with the friends he’s missed. Needless to say, the Castle Byers scene made me cry so damn much.
Noah is a very talented actor.
Trapped in a hell dimension in season 1, infected and used as a puppet in season 2.
Is it that hard to imagine the kid would want things to go back to how they were before all that shit went down?
Nah, must be gay.
While I’d like a sexually confused storyline (they’re important for young audiences to have something to relate to if they’re going through the same thing) I dont think that’s what they were going for at all. Will was showing severe signs of PTSD and what he went through was so so much for a kid his age, I believe it was more everyone around him was growing up while his trauma was leaving him stuck and looking for familiar comforts that his friends had grown out of. In a sense, he can’t relate to anyone in his life anymore because none of them have gone through anything close to what he went through. I imagine that feels infinitely lonely.
i agree
will is a 13 or 14 year old boy who is uncomfortable with girls.
not every boy at that age is girl obsessed and that doesnt make them gay.
if will does turn out to be gay it wont be because he was uncomfortable with his friends having girlfriends.
i mean there are alot of 13 year kids who are not comfotable with the other sex yet, no one should use that to judge thier sexuality.
and your right about will missing key chunks of his life.
will feels left out because his friends all care about thier girlfriends and its like they’ve forgotten him. so much is changing and he’s not ready for it.
but i havent said anything because im sure if i did i would be called homophobic.
You know both these things can be true right, it’s not one or the other.
In Season 1 there are like seven different references to Will being gay, yes it could technically be a coincidence but it’s probably not..
I completely agree with you. He’s traumatized from being taken into the Upside Down in Season 1. Season 2, he’s poked and prodded while dealing with PTSD, so he probably feels like he can’t move on. And he seems to reset when the Mind Flayer possesses him in S2 – he can remember his friends but not Hopper or Dr. Owens. Did he ever get that time back when they exorcised him, or is he basically missing almost a years’ worth of memories, growth, etc? The poor kid just wants to feel safe and hang out with his friends. He may physically be 13 or 14, but mentally after this trauma probably closer to 10 or 11. This kid needs therapy – NOT government scientists pretending to be therapists. Joyce made a good decision moving them away so they can start over somewhere that doesn’t know him as Zombie Boy.
Also isn’t Will the youngest of the group? Everyone is at the age where they are liking girls, and Will has not only missed out on those experiences but he hasn’t gotten to that point in growing up yet either.
r/agedlikemilk