Conformity Gate Didn’t Happen, but It Still Improved the Ending of Stranger Things

     As a Stranger Things fan, I adored the finale. There were certain aspects of it that felt a little bit off, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from being thoroughly satiated with the way they wrapped things up. However, as a Stranger Things fan, I also started getting excited by the intensive collective thought process behind the various Conformity Gate theories. 

     For those of you who haven’t fully been keeping up with this, the Conformity Gate was based around the idea that the ending of the show was an illusion that Vecna was showing the audience, and that none of the characters we saw get happy endings were actually living through those experiences, but instead are either dead or under the control of Vecna and the Mind Flayer. Here is a quick rundown of the evidence that supports this idea: 

1. During Will’s coming out of the closet scene, he mentions that he likes going out into the woods, which is a bit odd considering how much childhood trauma he had in the woods from season one. He also mentioned getting milkshakes at Melvald’s—which was a hardware store that certainly didn’t appear to sell milkshakes in his lifetime, but which originated as a diner. In Henry Creel/Vecna’s childhood, it would definitely sell milkshakes. These two statements seem like something Vecna may put in Will's head if he was under the influence of mind control.

2. In the graduation scene, as it pans across the audience, everyone in the crowd has their hands neatly folded in their laps. This not only echoes a couple of poses we have seen from Henry Creel, but also directly reflects the posture Billy had when he was under Vecna’s control. Several of them also have on glasses that closely resemble Henry Creel’s.12 of those people have sunglasses on, the same as the number of children Vecna needed to form the bridge between worlds. 

3. Other oddities from the audience at graduation include: The fact that they are all in orange caps and gowns while their school colors are green and yellow (and an excerpt from the canon Nancy Wheeler novel confirms they should be green), a woman holding up a sign that doesn’t have anything written on it, a cameraman wearing a shirt that says “Duffers” on it while pointing his camera directly at the screen, several other members of the audience (including the popular girls who come up to Dustin at the end) look directly into the camera—giving some viewers the idea that the focus has shifted from the characters to us. Not only that, but Dustin’s Hellfire Club shirt is grey, when all previous iterations of the article of clothing have been white, black, and red. 

4. Speaking of color changes, they are already notably important in the world of Vecna’s illusions. Max and Holly use incorrectly colored aspects of the dreamscape he is controlling them in to escape back to the real world. The center of the merry-go-round at Holly’s school playground was grey instead of yellow, and this is similar to a few color inconsistencies in the finale. Most notably, the switch Robin uses to electrocute the demogorgon goes from being grey to red in a very similar manner to the merry-go-round. There are also small inconsistencies like the Wheeler’s basement doorknob switchitn sides and a couple non-working watches which would play into this aspect of the theory.  

5. At their final Dungeons & Dragons game, they call Mike “Storyteller” instead of “Dungeon Master” as they have throughout the show. There is also an instance where Finn Wolfhard posted all their character folders in a photo on Instagram and it was organized in an order that made their names spell out “X A LIE” but it was changed to “X AILE” in the finale. The thought here is that the Mind Flayer’s Dimension X is a lie, but that Vecna then hides that from the audience in the end. 

6. Also in the background at that final game is the board game WHATZIT, a potential allusion to Vecna’s Mr. Whatsit. This game shows up multiple times in the backgrounds of scenes throughout the finale, too often and in too many places to be a mere coincidence. 

7. Throughout graduation and the conclusion, the whole Wheeler family is shown rocking haircuts that are similar to Henry Creel’s. This might be easier to overlook if it weren’t for the very final scene of Mike typing, where he has seemingly sculpted every aspect of his look in the interest of resembling Henry as meticulously as possible. 

8. The most noticeable possible inconsistency in the conclusion of the show is the utter lack or consequences for anyone involved. Sure, if this was the only aspect of the finale that felt off, it would be easy to brush off as just the US government sweeping secret operations that went wrong under the rug—that certainly isn’t a stretch. Still, when presented alongside all of this other evidence, it gets quite a bit more conspicuous. 

9. The two DJs who take over WSQK are named Vance and Mindy Flair—which are anagrams of Vecna and Mind Flayer. In the scene where we get to see Robin step in for a guest spot at the station, she makes a vague reference to Vickie who—much like Dustin’s girlfriend Suzie—is strangely absent from this series’ final act. Is this an oversight, or are they intentionally excluded because they are the only characters Vecna does not possess an intimate knowledge of.

10. Finally, there are a variety of borderline fourth wall breaks, such as Lucas Sinclair saying “I don’t believe in coincidences” right when all these above listed “coincidences” start piling up to the point that it challenges suspension of belief. Also, in the epilogue, a stack of cassette tapes is laid out to spell “U DID NOT STOP ME” in Morse code. 

     It really all adds up to the inescapable conclusion that this was no accident. There is too much here for the Duffers to not be trying to tell us SOMETHING with all of it. What I am trying to help you all see is that these weren’t clues to an extra episode, they ARE the extra episode. 

     What this show has presented us with is much grander than I thought it was upon my initial viewing. They managed to give us a face value ending, an ambiguous ending, and an ending that was so much more ambiguous that it managed to transform the initial ambiguous ending into the face value ending. I know there was a part of most of us that really wanted that extra episode, but don’t let it blind you to what they actually did accomplish here, because it is an outstanding series finale that only improves upon further reflection. 

     Hellfire Lives!

     Hellfire Lives?

Cheers,

Jared B. Halstead

Pirate Captain

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