Characters / Stranger Things: Teens

aka: Stranger Things Robin Buckley

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Main Cast (The Party | Adults | Teens) | Supporting Cast | Hawkins | Hawkins National Laboratory | The Upside Down | Outsiders

The Teenagers

Nancy Wheeler

Nancy Wheeler

"I wanna finish what we started. I want to kill it."

Played By: Natalia Dyer

Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)

"My mom was young. My dad was older, but he had a cushy job, money, came from a good family. So they bought a nice house at the end of the cul-de-sac and started their nuclear family."

Mike's older sister. A straight-arrow highschooler who is starting to experiment with girlfriendhood.

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• '70s Hair: Her long, Princess Curls hair was pinned in the style of the last decade.
• '80s Hair: While she starts out the series with long Princess Curls, her hair gets shorter and permed, resembling coifs like Molly Ringwald, Jennifer Beals, and Jennifer Grey.
• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Jonathan's move to Lenora Hills in season 4 puts their relationship to the test. Nancy feels there is a lack of communication between them that she hoped could have been solved if he had come to visit Hawkins during the spring break. She becomes frustrated and skeptical about her feelings for Jonathan and vice versa, suspecting that he is hiding something essential from her. And as if that was not enough, she is teaming up with Steve again, which triggers some old feelings for him, and starts to become jealous of Steve's friendship with Robin.
• Academic Athlete: According to "Stranger Things Worlds Turned Upside Down: The Official Behind-The-Scenes Companion", when she isn't wielding a shotgun at monsters, Nancy is a cheerleader and a player on Varsity Volleyball team in addition to being a member of the National Honor Society, French Club, Student Council, Model UN, and tutoring her peers in writing. She also volunteers at Meals On Wheels and at the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship.
• Action Girl: She starts out as an Action Survivor, but later graduates to a full-on Action Girl in Season 2 — she's damn good with guns and is pretty good in a close-up fight too, as her encounters with the Flayed and Demobats show. She even keeps firearms locked away in her bedroom just in case.
• Action Survivor: She might be a high school girl coping with hormones and boys, but she has the instincts of a survivor. She can shoot a gun, is willing to face man-eating inter-dimensional monsters while barely blinking, and is perceptive and intelligent enough to figure out that the Demogorgon is drawn to blood. She later graduates to a full on Action Girl.
• All Guys Want Cheerleaders: Invoked in Season 1 and Season 2. Her main marker as a cool person is that she's a cheerleader, she dates the very popular Steve, and Jonathan is obsessed with her.
• Aloof Big Sister: At the start of the series, she's rather distant to Mike and she even admits they haven't been talking recently. She decides to drop this in episode 7 when she finds that he's in danger. By Season 3 she loses all traces of this as while they don't really hang out they are close enough that when it comes time to fight evil, Nancy is quick to team up with Mike and his friends.
• Amicable Exes: Despite breaking up with Steve, they seem to get along fine as friends.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Nancy and Jonathan's relationship is strained after both getting fired from the newspaper for the incident at Mrs. Driscoll's house, with Jonathan accusing her of looking for problems where there weren't any. After seeing Mrs. Driscoll's horrifying episode in the hospital, however, Nancy calls Jonathan on a payphone demanding to speak to Will. When told that Will wasn't there, Nancy, in a mild panic, asks if he's safe. This finally clues Jonathan in that something serious is going on.
  Nancy: And, yes, I know I'm insane, and irrational, and out of touch, but can you save your lecture, because I really don't give a shit right now. I just need you to put me on the phone with your brother.
  Jonathan: What?
  Nancy: Jonathan, please...
  Jonathan: Uh, he's not even here...
  Nancy: Where is he?! Is he safe?!
  Jonathan: Why wouldn't he be safe?
  Jonathan suddenly gets an Oh, Crap! look on his face
  Jonathan: Nancy?! Why wouldn't he be safe?!
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: In Season 4, she's hands down the most combat-proficient and experienced fighter of the Hawkins group, and thus the one calling most of the shots in the final fight.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Nancy and Mike may bicker and snark at each other, but when Mike's life gets put in danger by Brenner's men who are looking for El, Nancy is genuinely worried about her little brother's safety and hugs him in relief when Hopper manages to rescue them.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: When compared to her boyfriends.
  • Steve getting the shit beaten out of him is practically a Running Gag and Jonathan gets in an absolutely vicious fight with their possessed boss that leaves Jonathan bloody-faced and limping, yet Nancy has yet to actually be struck by any bad guy and the worst thing that happens to her is her makeup running slightly. Or her hair getting a bit of slime in it.
  • She does end up a bit grubby in Season 4 due to visiting the Upside Down and very much so during her Vecna trance experience, but that wasn't 'real' and she is cleaned up when leaving it.
• Betty and Veronica: She's the Archie to Steve's Betty and Jonathan's Veronica. The earlier seasons heavily favor her relationship with Jonathan, but when Season 4 comes around the strain of maintaining a Long-Distance Relationship with Jonathan coupled with Steve's Character Development making him appealing to Nancy again makes the entire love triangle much more unstable.
• Big Sister Instinct: In spite of her aloof nature towards Mike, she shows her protective side towards him when she realizes the danger he's in. In Season 3, she's quick to catch on to the fact that Mike and his friends could be in danger mid-way through the season rather than near the last minute. In Season 4, Vecna uses this instinct to scare her by sowing what he could do to her siblings and mother.
• Birds of a Feather: Not a lot of screen time is devoted to it, but in Season 2 Murray notes their similarities ("most people, they're not like me and you.") and Nancy never argues his point. She later starts working to become a journalist in Season 3, like Murray was before his fall from grace. And eventually, like Nancy, Murray loses a good friend in a cruel manner).
• Brainy Brunette: Has brown hair and is a studious Go-Getter Girl who learns how to shoot a gun quickly and other survival skills.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Downplayed. She does occasionally complain and lie about her whereabouts, but when things get serious, like when Barb disappeared, she does go to her mother for help. She's not as self-absorbed as the trope might suggest, however, and is in fact willing to get down and dirty in order to fight the Demogorgon. The only time she really goes all-out on the brattiness is towards her mother shortly after Barb's disappearance which is... fairly justified.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The "gentle girl" to Jonathan "brooding boy".
• Catchphrase: Frequently calling things she doesn't like or disagrees with "bullshit" seems to be her thing. Especially when drunk.
• Captured on Purpose: In an awesome moment for her, she uses this trope for great, let's-burn-that-lab-to-the-ground effect.
• Caught Coming Home Late: Nancy's mother waited on her after Nancy arrived late after Steve's party. Karen wasn't pleased.
• Character Development: Goes from a typical lovestruck teenager into a competent investigator and shotgun-toting, battle hardened leader.
• Class Princess: Shown in the early episodes of the first two seasons. Frequently called "Princess" and "Ms. Perfect" by Tommy and Carol, and Robin bluntly tells Steve that Nancy's a priss. She's not exactly popular, but at school she's just as nice as she is smart and beautiful. And while a bit of an Informed Attribute, in season 4 she's stated to be "the most desired girl in Hawkins".
• Cool Big Sis:
  • Used to be this, and resumes this role by the end of Season 1.
  Dustin: She used to be cool. Like that time she dressed as an elf for our Elder tree campaign.
  Mike: Four years ago!
  • The tie-in novel Runaway Max has Max see her as a strong and cool female role model.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Gets sloshed at a Halloween party due to the guilt she feels over Barb's death.
• Dude Magnet: Steve, the local ladykiller of their high school, falls for her. Jonathan has an unresolved romantic tension with her, until Season 2. It's heavily implied that Dustin had a crush on in Season 1. And Keith, the teen employee of the local video arcade attempted to hustle a date from her.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Like another plucky and intellectual brunette from a not-too-distant era, Nancy has to deal with men who put her and her ideas down and see her as nothing but a servant in Season 3.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Starts the series in pinned and styled long hair as a giddy teenage girl seeking popularity, later in Season 1 she puts on a Tomboyish Ponytail when working with Jonathan on finding and killing the Demogorgon; in the Season 2 she has a shorter (though still styled) hairdo that makes her look more mature, as a result of the traumas she's suffered and how much she's grown. Season 3 gives her a very curled and teased bob that would help her fit into an office environment where she hopes to start her journalism career, while retaining a sense of being hip and feminine.
• Eating the Eye Candy: In Season 4, the first sign that Nancy did not get over Steve entirely, is her longingly starring as him while he takes his clothing off to swim to the bottom of 'Lovers' Lake'.
• Everyone Can See It: In Season 4, both Robin and Eddie can see that Nancy still has some interest in Steve, with Eddie outright calling Nancy's determination to save Steve when he gets pulled into the Upside Down, "an act of true love."
• Expy: To another Nancy: Nancy Thompson, a young woman who turns out to be more than just a small town girl by hunting and destroying the monster that killed her friend.
• Fire-Forged Friends: She initially finds Robin annoying, not to mention being mildly jealous of her close but platonic relationship with Steve. After Robin's quick thinking gets them a meeting with Victor Creel and Robin's idea to use music to combat Vecna saves Max's life, the two become friends and Nancy voluntarily pairs off with Robin when the group splits to search Creel's house in the next episode.
• Freak Out: She suffers a mild breakdown in the shower after her nightmarish chase in the Upside Down with the Demogorgon, having clearly been traumatized by the encounter despite escaping unscathed (she even outright states that she cannot close her eyes without seeing the creature). Part of her reasoning for wanting to kill the creature after this encounter is not just to try and save Barb but also so she can rest easy knowing it is dead.
• Generation Xerox: Doesn't want to be like her mom, but shares several of her personality traits, including a Sugar-and-Ice Personality. And while she rags on Karen for marrying someone as dull as her father, Nancy has a fondness for the comparatively taciturn (albeit more intellectual and active) Jonathan. Season 3 fulfills the Mentor variation of this trope as well: Nancy is a determined journalist but finds that no one listens to her (even when she's right). If it sounds familiar, it's because it's nearly identical to Murray Bauman's Word of God backstory and his Season 2 plot.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Although a cheerleader who is considered very conventionally attractive, Nancy changes into more masculine clothes, is a good shot and wants into the male dominated world of journalism.
• Go-Getter Girl: Very ambitious, has a high GPA, and takes part in many school activities as an Academic Athlete.
• Guest Fighter: Appears as a playable Survivor in the Stranger Things chapter of Dead by Daylight.
• The Gunslinger: Out of the teenagers, Nancy is the only one to consistently use firearms and is the best shooter overall.
• Guns Are Useless: Zigzagged. Whilst she's the most proficient shooter of the teenagers, the problem is the targets she's usually shooting at are able to shrug off the bullets, which tend to include Eldritch Abominations and moving vehicles. However when she really unloads a gun into something, it serves as a huge distraction, like shooting the Demogorgon in season 1 to get it off Jonathan, or when she shot the Mindflayer avatar and keep it distracted long enough that the rest of the party were able to get a draw in a tug of war for Eleven until Lucas chopped off it's tentacle tongue. This is perhaps justified, since (at least in the earlier seasons) she has natural ability but a lack of field training; she's good at shooting stationary objects and large targets, but is hardly a world-class sniper or action-movie heroine.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Nancy and Jonathan bring a bat and a revolver respectively to kill the monster. Initially, they try practicing with the weapons they picked, but trade when Nancy proves to be the better shot. By Season 2, she's apparently been taking firearm lessons on the side, as she proves familiar with a rifle. In Season 3, she loots a pistol off a dead Russian and handles it with casual efficiency.
• Hell Is That Noise: Nancy is really good at observing if something is out of the ordinary including noises. She's usually the one to hear something threatening before anyone else does, such as when the Mindflayer avatar is coming for them at Hopper's cabin. This gives the group time to prepare for an imminent attack even if they don't know what they're facing.
• Intrepid Reporter: Starts interning at the local paper and tries to break stories surrounding the odd incidents around town. Unfortunately, everyone above her is incredibly sexist so she's ignored and ridiculed for being over-ambitious.
• In Vino Veritas: Nancy gets trashed at a house party early in Season 2, and while completely hammered reveals she believes that everything that's happened since Season 1 — the deal with the lab, letting Barb's parents believe she's still out there, and most importantly, her relationship with Steve — is all "bullshit."
• It's All My Fault: Nancy feels responsible for what happened to Barb because she left her alone to have sex with Steve.
• It's Personal: After confirmation that the Demogorgon killed Barb, Nancy's reaction is "I want to kill it."
• The Leader: Of the Hawkins group in Season 4, she shares this role with Dustin. Nancy is the one calling most of the shots when it comes to actually fighting Vecna.
• Master of the Mixed Message: In Season 4, with Nancy and Jonathan slowly going apart, she is shown to have some feelings for Steve, which he makes very clear he reciprocates as the season progresses. However, Nancy is less than agreeable to Steve's vision of a future with a giant family, no doubt wanting to avoid settling down early like her own mother did.
• Mirror Character: Despite their rivalry, the Wheeler kids have more in common than just getting on each other's nerves, as Nancy and Mike have very similar storylines in Season 1. Both had a close friend get abducted by the Demogorgon (Barbara and Will), both tend to be the central figure in their respective groups (Nancy with the teens, Mike with the Party), and both connect with unlikely allies (Jonathan and Eleven) following Will’s disappearance. Notably, both of these connections veer into the romantic, which both Nancy and Mike confront the other about and then subsequently deny.
• Must Make Amends: A significant part of her motivation for her involvement in Season 1 and especially Season 2 is guilt over what happened to Barbara and a desire to make some kind of restitution; the only reason Barbara was in a position to be attacked by the Demogorgon was because Nancy convinced her to come along to the party as a pretext to hook up with Steve, and abandoned her in order to do so.
• Nerves of Steel: Does not even flinch when standing between her friends and a speeding car driven at top speed by Billy, while coolly and accurately shooting an entire pistol-load of bullets at him.
• Nice Girl: She is one of the few people to be deeply concerned about Barb's disappearance and shows genuine sympathy for Jonathan when his brother goes missing. In the second season finale, she notices Dustin sitting alone, sad after several girls reject him for a dance and dances with him. She also tells him he's always been her favorite of her brother's friends.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ignores Jonathan's legitimate concern that something is wrong with the rat in Mrs. Driscoll's basement as she is more concerned about the other leads from nearby neighbors. This results in her and Jonathan leaving immediately before the rat explodes and Mrs. Driscoll soon becomes flayed herself, and it taking two extra days before Nancy realizes that the Mind Flayer is back.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Nancy is introduced lying on her bed and talking on her bedroom phone in a classic invocation of this trope.
• Practically Different Generations: Nancy appears to be at least 13 years older then her sister Holly.
• Plucky Office Girl: At her journalist summer job in Season 3.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She and Jonathan deliver these to each other: she calls him out for being a "pretentious creep" who assumes that she's being someone she's not by partying and dating Steve, and he counters by pointing out the hypocrisy of her judging her parents' normal, boring lives while simultaneously acting exactly like every other faux-rebellious suburban girl and not actually doing anything to change her life or break the status quo.
• Relationship Upgrade: With Jonathan mid-way through Season 2. Much to Murray's delight.
• Sanity Slippage: A mild case, but her second encounter with the creature, in which she is chased and nearly eaten in its dimension, is terrifying enough to leave a bad mental mark on her. She takes this trauma and channels it into determination to kill the creature.
• Sarcastic Confession: Her response to the shop's owner when she and Jonathan are checking out various equipment and tools to kill the Demogorgon.
  Shop Owner: What are you doing with all this stuff?
  Nancy: Monster hunting.
• Sherlock Scan: Nancy accurately deduces what happened to the Holloways based on their destroyed furniture and comparing notes to El and Max's findings on them.
• Sibling Team: Zig-zagged. Early episodes show that Mike and Nancy don't get along, and they're usually in separate Cast Herds, but because they've been Working the Same Case, they tend to team up whenever their adventures bring them together.
• Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy: She harbors a crush on Steve, Hawkins High School's local heartthrob.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man:
  • However, she turns into this when she chooses the more responsible and intellectual Jonathan over Steve.
  • Upon witnessing first hand how much of a Nice Guy he's become since their breakup, she starts to develop feelings for Steve again in Season 4.
• Slut-Shaming: On the receiving end of it from Steve, Carol, and Tommy who spray paint "Nancy the slut Wheeler" on a movie theater marquee. It was assumed she was two-timing Steve with Jonathan, when they were simply teaming up to find Barb and Will.
• Survivor's Guilt: It's pretty clear she feels more than a little responsible for Barb going AWOL in the first place. Not that she could have known what would happen, but she did pretty much shove Barb out the door to become the easily picked-off spare wheel. Barb wasn't wrong in her suspicions that Nancy was just using her as transport/cover for what she had been planning for days (especially since she convinced Barb to go by asking her to make sure Nancy didn't get into something she didn't want). Her guilt at Barb's parents' lack of closure drives her actions in Season 2. This gets brought up again in season 4 when Vecna possesses Nancy at the end of Volume 1 and plays on Nancy's guilt over Barb's death and her choice to go have sex with Steve that night, which led to Barb being alone when the Demogorgon attacked her.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: In Season 4, she's the Girly Girl (the "Ms. Perfect" Class Princess) to Robin's Tomboy (more uncouth and alternative).
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Dons one when she and Jonathan begin to cooperate together to find and kill the Demogorgon. Dons it again at the end of Season 2 following her Relationship Upgrade with Jonathan and keeps it until all the fighting and monster-killing is over.
• Took a Level in Badass: Nancy goes from the typical teenage archetype to a badass, gun-wielding Action Girl.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Towards Mike's friends. She goes from slamming the door in Dustin's face (first episode), to telling him that he was her favorite among Mike's friends (the second season finale).
• Two Girls and a Guy: With Steve and Robin in Season 4. Though it's not a Love Triangle, since Robin and Steve are firmly Just Friends.
• Two Guys and a Girl: With Steve and Jonathan in Season 1, and it's clear Nancy is the leader among the three of them.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension:
  • With Jonathan, given she gets back together with Steve despite her charged history with Jonathan. It gets resolved in "The Spy", but with generous - and hilarious - lampshading on Murray's part.
  Murray: So... Jonathan... how was the pull-out?
  • In Season 4, she starts to have some feelings for Steve again. Ultimately, they don't end up together, though Nancy is shown to be questioning whether there's still a spark in her relationship with Jonathan.
• Uptown Girl: For Jonathan; she is from a wealthy (or at least upper-middle class) family, very popular, and an academic athlete.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend:
  • In Season 3, she stabbed her ex boss of the Hawkins Post in the hospital to protect her boyfriend Jonathan.
  • In Season 4, while she and Steve are not together, Nancy doesn't hesitate to follow when he's been pulled into the Upside Down, and beats the shit out of a bunch of Demobats who are in the process of choking Steve to death.
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Her and Jonathan's dynamic can sometimes shift into a downplayed version of this, such as when Jonathan gets unhappy at her behavior at the newspaper jeopardizing their careers.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Subjected to this by Jonathan after they're chewed out by their boss. Nancy comes from a privileged background and upper-middle class family who may likely provide her with enough connections for her to have some clout even at her age. Jonathan meanwhile came from a broken family that teeters on the edge of poverty while he's trying to save up for college tuition. On top of which his mother is secretly fixing the house up to put on the market.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: She gets an internship at the local paper so she can report on the overlooked dramas going on in Hawkins, but to her chagrin nobody wants to give an intern credit.
• Will They or Won't They?: Season 4 teases the possibility that Nancy and Jonathan will eventually break up, with Nancy getting back with Steve. The season ends with the love triangle inconclusive.
• You, Get Me Coffee: She's basically a glorified waitress for the staff at the newspaper, running out to get everyone lunch and pouring coffee. Any attempts for her to rise above this are brutally shot down with sexist remarks and staff condescendingly calling her "Nancy Drew."

Jonathan Byers

Jonathan Byers

"You shouldn't like things because people tell you you're supposed to."

Played By: Charlie Heaton

Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)

"Sometimes, people don't really say what they're really thinking. When you capture the right moment, it says more."

Joyce's older son and Will's brother. An adolescent loner who balances between his duties at school and contributing at home by working due to their father's abandonment. A classmate of Nancy and Steve.

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• Badass Bookworm: A photographer, amateur journalist, and member of the Yearbook Club, he's also as courageous as they come and doesn't let anything come between him and his loved ones.
• Badass Driver: In Season 3, when he and the party are driving away from the avatar of the Mindflayer.
• Badass Normal: He's not an athletic jock like Steve or Billy, a cop like Hopper, or a psychic like Eleven, yet Jonathan probably takes more damage in fights than anyone not named Steve and absolutely none of it keeps him down.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Whatever you do, don't taunt, nor make fun about, Will. Steve's bloodied, bruised face is Jonathan's response to it.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Jonathan is quite possibly the sweetest and least egotistical guy on the whole show, but when you manage to piss him off, watch out.
  • It takes two full-grown police officers to drag him away from Steve after the latter mocked Will's apparent death, and apparently broke Callahan's nose with a casual backwards elbow in the process.
  • Even after a brutal fight with his possessed boss Tom, Jonathan does not stay down and finally stabs Tom in the fucking throat with a pair of scissors.
• Be Yourself: He told Will that he shouldn't do what society does just to make their father like him.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Protects Will from bullies, comforts him during his parents' arguments, and turns him on to punk and new wave music. And, goes ballistic if people try bad-mouthing his brother when he's not in sight. Isn't that right, Steve?
  • In the second season finale, he has to turn away and hold Nancy just so he wouldn't give in as the monster infecting Will screams for him to be let go when Joyce turn up the temperature. He ends up not being able to hold out as he unties one of his hands.
  • In Season 3, when Nancy realizes that Will might not be safe, that's all the incentive Jonathan needs to go look for him and realize something is horribly wrong.
  • Similarly, Season 4 has him openly declare that Eleven is his stepsister, and he goes absolutely mental when she's arrested.
  • After Jonathan realizes that Will is in love with Mike and struggling with his sexuality, he apologizes for being distant, tells Will that he can always talk to him, and lets Will know that he will always love him and nothing can ever change that.
• Blue Collar Hero: An aspiring photographer and journalist who's good with cars and setting up booby traps for monster hunting. He even calls attention to this in Season 3, when in a rare spat of anger towards someone he loves, he points out that Nancy comes from a middle-class family and has enough connections to find a good job, while Jonathan is a social outcast from a Friendless Background, so the newspaper job is all he has.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The "brooding boy" to Nancy's "gentle girl".
• Camera Fiend: Has an interest in photography, which he uses to make missing person posters for Will. According to "Stranger Things Worlds Turned Upside Down: The Official Behind-The-Scenes Companion", he is a member of the Photography Club, the School Newspaper, and the Yearbook Club.
• Chekhov's Gun: The nail-spiked bat Jonathan prepares to fight the Demogorgon turns out to be the only true deterrent they have against the monster... when Steve picks it up and takes some well-placed swings at it.
• Commitment Issues: Jonathan has this in spades since he fears ending up like his abusive father and is trying to "break the cycle." It's so blatantly obvious that Murray calls him out on it after only knowing him and Nancy for a few hours. It causes a lot of awkwardness in his relationship with Nancy, especially in Season 4 when their Long-Distance Relationship lets him stew on it on his own for too long.
• The Confidant: He tries to be this to Will, although he sometimes gets preoccupied by his own issues. In Season 4, he acknowledges that he and Will don't talk as much as they used to and apologizes for not being there for him while Will has been struggling with his sexuality and apparent unrequited feelings for Mike.
• Cool Big Bro: To Will. Jonathan looks after his brother and gives him good advice, like how it's important to stay true to yourself instead of acting a certain way because someone thinks you should. There are more than a few other hints that he's shielded and deflected Will not just from the abuse of bullies, but from their own father many times before.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: An almost literal example in Season 1, when he knocks Steve down and spends the next five minutes punching him in the face as hard as possible. It takes two fully-grown cops to drag him away from Steve.
• Determinator: He'll stop at nothing to look after and protect his family. Even after getting tossed around more than once by the creatures of the Upside Down, he always gets right back up again to keep up the fight.
• Dogged Nice Guy: A fairly uncritical example towards Nancy, including taking secret pictures of her at a party, and they eventually get together.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: More subtle than Nancy, but still present. In season 1, his hair is on the longer side with shaggy bangs that fall in his eyes, representing his loner personality, but after he's gained some confidence and a friend in Nancy, it's pushed back off his face more in season 2. In season 3 it's cut shorter and neater, to help fit in at the professional environment of the Hawkins Post, while season 4 has it longer and shaggier than ever to reflect his evolution into an aimless, burned-out stoner.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Steve and Nancy following the fight with the Demogorgon.
• Friendless Background:
  • Unlike his little brother, he doesn't seem to have any friends. Till the end of the series, after which him, Nancy, and Steve become Fire-Forged Friends.
  • At the start of Season 2, he's back to avoiding hanging out with the two. Mostly implied to be to give them space due to his and Nancy's UST. However, when she chooses him over Steve, they hang out together all the time...and then we don't see any of Nancy or Steve's other friends, while Steve becomes friends with Robin and stops hanging out with Nancy, or so it seems.
• Genre Savvy: Eventually. Once he gets it, he goes all in on the whole "I'm in a creature feature" thing.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He seems jealous of Steve and Nancy's relationship, due to having a crush on Nancy. By the end of the season, however, Steve's change in attitude and their mutual fight against the Demogorgon has turned them into friends.
• Guest Fighter: Appears as a playable Survivor in Dead by Daylight, as an alternate costume for Steve.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Nancy and he bring a bat and a revolver respectively to kill the monster. Initially, they try practicing with the weapons they picked, but trade when Nancy proves to be the better shot.
• It's All My Fault: He's terribly remorseful for not being at home when Will was being chased by the monster. Though what he could have done to prevent Will's abduction is debatable.
• Jump Scare: Supplies one in the second act as we get an abrupt and loud Smash Cut to him trying to improve his aim with a revolver.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Like Joyce, Jonathan is a quiet person who doesn't get along with most other people, but his bond with his family is stronger than steel, and he quietly sacrifices his own comforts to provide for them, especially Will. He can take a lot of abuse hurled his way, but, just like his mother, the moment you threaten or insult his family, you will regret and deserve the ferocity that he unleashes on you.
• Loners Are Freaks: What most of the other high school kids think of him, given that he apparently has no (or very few) friends. He occasionally doesn't help his case.
• Loser Son of Loser Dad: Steve calls him this almost verbatim before their fight in Season 1.
• Love Cannot Overcome: After his family moves out of town at the end of Season 3, he and Nancy try a long-distance relationship. However, Season 4 quickly shows that the time apart and their lives seeming to head in very different directions has caused a lot of strain, leading to Jonathan - as Argyle puts it - to be "slow motion" breaking up with Nancy.
• Made of Iron: During the hospital fight, Jonathan is strangled, thrown into several walls, hit with a metal stool, and slammed into the ground. He still manages to get up in time to stab his possessed boss to death with scissors.
• Meatgrinder Surgery: In Season 3, when he has to improvise a not-medically-compliant surgical setup to cut a piece of the Mindflayer out of El's leg. While she's still conscious. Yuck.
• Nice Guy: He's very kind and loving to his family (aside from his POS father) and to Nancy. He's rarely outwardly rude or antagonistic, unless you threaten or make fun of Will. Steve learned that the hard way towards the end of Season 1.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Gives one to Steve after the latter taunts him about Will's death. It takes three people to pull him away.
• No Social Skills: He's rather shy and socially awkward, and clearly prefers interacting with the world through a camera lens rather than in person. This contributes to the perception people have of him as a bit of a creep.
• Out of Focus: He ends up suffering from this in Season 4. Outside of his long-distance relationship troubles with Nancy, Jonathan spends most of the time getting high with Argyle or otherwise just hanging out in the background while contributing very little to what's happening.
• Parent with New Paramour: Downplayed. In Season 2, he has some hostility towards Joyce's new boyfriend, Bob — he freezes out Bob's attempts to befriend the boys and complains that he doesn't understand what his mother sees in him. However, he never really seems to dislike Bob, he just finds him a bit of a clueless dork. He turns out to be wrong about Bob.
• The Peeping Tom: Played with. Steve and his friends think that he's just simply a pervert, though Jonathan says that this is not the case. He argues to Nancy that he takes pictures of people while hiding because he wants to assess their demeanor during open conversation. Jonathan's fight with Nancy at the woods confirms this notion, as he pretty much nails down Nancy with remarkable accuracy, to which she has no retort. However, Jonathan turns out to be wrong about his assessment of Steve as a petty jock (though in this case a certain amount of jealousy and resentment can be assumed to be coloring his perceptions). And he admits he should not have taken the pictures of Nancy in her bra, that was the hormones talking, and it was wrong.
• Promotion to Parent: Thanks to Joyce being overworked, and Lonnie being a terrible person, he's pretty much taken up the 'Dad' role for Will.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: His dad forcing this trope on him using those hunting expeditions when he was younger pretty much convinced him to step in to prevent Lonnie doing similar macho-making things to Will.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He and Nancy deliver these to each other. See Nancy's folder for details.
• Relationship Upgrade: With Nancy, midway through Season 2.
• The Reliable One: Jonathan is a bottomless well of competence amidst a cast of (understandably) emotionally damaged people. Need someone to comfort a frightened sibling? Keep the kids out of trouble? Drive the party where they need to go and fix the car once it breaks? Remove a piece of the monster from somebody's leg without proper surgical equipment? Jonathan's your man. One can make a strong argument that in three whole seasons of television, Jonathan has not made a single really bad decision.
• Revolvers Are for Amateurs: In Season 1, he arms himself with a revolver when he starts planning to go after the Demogorgon.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Especially in Season 1, he's the serious and responsible Sensitive Guy to Steve's Jerk Jock Manly Man.
• Sibling Team: Like Mike and Nancy, Will and Jonathan tend to team up when the groups come together, but they play it straighter during Season 4 when, for the first time in the show, two siblings are in the same ongoing Cast Herd, the group trekking its way across the country.
• Stalker with a Crush: He accidentally ends up spying on Nancy's and Steve's party, and not-so-accidentally ends up taking creepy pictures of her. This trope is invoked by Steve, Tommy, and Carol after they find out about the photos.
• The Stoner: In Season 4 he has become this. Despite a few comedic scenes together with the resident pothead, new character Argyle, this trait is not actually Played for Laughs and instead shows how Jonathan is slowly losing control of his life, and how everything that happened is starting to take a toll on him.
• Two Guys and a Girl: With Steve and Nancy, though it's debatable whether any of them fit the 'leader' role between the two guys.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: His reaction after, unlike Joyce, actually believing and horrified that the body that was uncovered was indeed Will's.
• The Unfavorite: Downplayed given the circumstances, but during Joyce's obsession over finding Will in Season 1, Jonathan states that it's like she forgot that she still has a son that is alive.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Nancy at the end of Season 1; she gets back together with Steve but the tension between her and Jonathan is obvious. They get a Relationship Upgrade in Season 2.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Due to his mother's Sanity Slippage and the fact that his dad is a prime douche, he has to step up to take care of a lot of things. Like his little brother's funeral. He also has to deal with the worry that his mother is going through another anxiety episode on top of everything else, yet still keeps it together enough to work out that she's not wrong when Nancy hands him the proof.

Steve Harrington

Steve Harrington

"Turns out I'm a pretty damn good babysitter!"

Played By: Joe Keery

Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)

"It just baffles me. Everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it's all just… bullshit. But I guess you gotta mess up to figure things out, right?"

A popular jock at Hawkins High with a crush on Nancy and some skewed priorities.

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• '80s Hair: The best example in the show — it's very tall, with a single curl looping over his forehead from under his quiff. In Season 2 it gets longer and more mullet-y, and he admits he actually uses women's shampoo and hairspray to get the look, specifically designed to emulate Farrah Fawcett's feathery locks.
  Steve: [to Dustin] Faberge Organics. Use the shampoo and the conditioner and when your hair is damp - not wet, but damp - you do four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett spray.
• Action Survivor: The most pronounced example in the series since Steve absolutely sucks in a fistfight. Though he is effective at fighting with his nail-spiked baseball bat.
• Alone Among the Couples: He's this among the older teens at the end of Season 4, since Nancy and Jonathan are still together and Robin is implied to start a relationship with Vickie.
• Always Someone Better: He turns out to be on the receiving end quite frequently: Jonathan kicks his ass in a fight, and it's indicated he has no chance taking on Tommy, either. And Billy is pretty much this all around: the girls swoon over him the second he turns up, he's better on the basketball courts, and he laughs off Steve's punches before subjecting him to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Amicable Exes: Despite breaking up with Nancy, they seem to get along fine as friends.
• Ascended Meme: For the entirety of Season 4, Steve is constantly forced into situations where he has to watch over the children to the point of being a Running Gag, and complains about being "always the goddamn babysitter". Even one of the official Netflix YouTube accounts made a video specially called Steve is always the parent.
• The Atoner: After the fight with Jonathan, he starts realizing what an ass he's been. He tells Tommy and Carol off, helps clean up their vandalism, and goes to apologize to Jonathan. This puts him right in the thick of the monster hunt so he can further prove his remorse by returning to save Jonathan and Nancy in a Big Damn Heroes moment.
• Babysitter Friendship: He forms an Odd Friendship with Dustin while helping him find Dart. He soon comes to look after the rest of the kids, even taking a fierce beating while defending them from the violent and sadistic Billy.
• Badass Normal: Lacking Eleven's psychic powers or Hopper's veteran combat skills, he's the third most capable character on the show against the threats from the Upside Down, only using a spiked baseball bat, when heavily armed soldiers are shown to fail at the same task.
• Bad Job, Worse Uniform: The Scoops Ahoy uniform in Season 3, complete with a sailor hat. Sorry Steve, company policy.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Unofficially the party's babysitter by the final episodes of Season 2. He declares himself responsible for their safety, but gets concussed by Billy and hauled into a car driven by an underage girl en route to the Upside-Down by the kids in short order. He goes with it, though, and still has their well-being as his top priority.
• Bastard Boyfriend: Though it's partly due to the toxic influence of his "friends" Tommy and Carol, he publicly slut-shames Nancy by writing "Nancy Wheeler is a Slut" on the marquee of the local movie theater.
• Batter Up!: Despite basketball supposedly being his specialty, he proves very effective with a baseball bat when fighting alongside Nancy and Jonathan against the Demogorgon. Season 2 reveals that he kept it and actually has become legendary among the other protagonists.
• Being Good Sucks: He probably wouldn't have so many black eyes if he'd remained a Jerkass, albeit that's probably because he got braver on top of becoming nicer. He got most of those black eyes trying to protect his friends, especially the younger kids.
• Big Brother Instinct: In Season 2 he grows very protective of the kids under his care, particularly Dustin. He even lampshades that he's a shockingly good babysitter, and on the fan side of things, there's no shortage of Mom!Steve memes.
• Big Brother Mentor: In Season 2, to Dustin of all people. He advises the kid on hairstyling, how to attract girls, and even gives him a ride to the Snow Ball.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In Season 1, he promptly comes to Jonathan and Nancy's aid against the Demogorgon.
  • In Season 3, he arrives just in time to crash a car into the car Billy is driving towards the other characters, saving them at the last second.
• The Big Guy: Yes, despite his history, Steve is still a former high school athlete and thus one of the most physically capable members of the cast.
• Big Man on Campus: Steve is a star jock and a Casanova with the ladies, making him the most popular guy in school. In Season 2, however, Billy rather easily unseats him.
• Boisterous Weakling: Steve is a jock and the Big Man on Campus, so he's pretty confident in his brawling skills. In practice, however, he's a pretty terrible fist fighter (without a baseball bat in his hands).
  • He at first holds his own before he gets soundly beaten by Jonathan (in an Unstoppable Rage) in Season 1, not providing much of a fight back afterwards.
  • In Season 1 he threatens but ultimately backs down from fighting Tommy, who reminds him that if he couldn't beat Jonathan on his own, he doesn't stand a chance against Tommy.
  • In Season 2 whilst he gets in a few decent punches this time against the Ax-Crazy Billy, Billy literally laughs them off, and when he really fights back, Steve goes down hard and gets knocked unconscious.
  • Dustin lampshades the trope in Season 3, pointing out the previous two fights and gives him somewhat condescending congratulations when he finally wins a fight. Against a heavily trained Soviet soldier, mind.
• Book Dumb: He's not a very good student and tends to struggle with his grades. He's ostensibly the dumbest member of the main cast, and nearly half of said cast are children barely into their teens, and one of those children didn't even have a basic education.
• Breakout Character: Starts as a typical 80's Jerk Jock in Season 1, even bullying Jonathan and Nancy. However, Joe Keery's charismatic portrayal and his Heel–Face Turn in the season finale earned him a leading role in the following seasons while downplaying his jerkish qualities and giving him a more caring and comedic big brother persona. From Season 2 forward, his dynamic with Dustin and his underdog status turned him into one of the most popular characters in the series.
• Break the Haughty: Much of his Character Development involves him being humbled and realizing how little things like popularity matter in the world outside of high school.
• Bully Turned Buddy: In "The Upside Down" Steve drives to Jonathan's house to apologize for making fun of him and his brother. While the two never exactly become close, they're still on much better terms than before.
• Burger Fool: King Steve, former ruler of Hawkins High, is the newest sailor on deck at Scoops Ahoy in Season 3.
• Butt-Monkey: By and large things just really don't go his way. He gets humiliated and injured more than any of the other characters, and after being known as the school heartthrob, his love life has been practically non-existent since (some could even say during) Nancy.
  • He gets slapped by Nancy before getting his ass kicked by Jonathan in Season 1. Tommy and Carol mock him for this, and Steve is simply not able to do anything about it because, as Tommy points out, if he can't take Jonathan Byers, he has no chance against him.
  • Later gets dumped by a drunk Nancy and officially loses her to Jonathan in Season 2, though to his credit he's very mature about it and remains friends with both of them.
  • In Season 2, Billy shows up fully intending to "dethrone" "King Steve". He frequently belittles Steve along with Tommy, beats him at basketball, all the girls swoon over him, and then he utterly massacres Steve's ass during their fight in "The Gate", with a notable amount of glee no less. He only stops battering Steve's face in when Max drugs him.
  • In Season 3, in contrast to Billy now being a lifeguard, Steve's reduced to working part-time at the mall's campy ice cream parlor, Scoops Ahoy, after failing to get into college. Here, his appeal with girls has taken a major dip and his co-worker and former classmate Robin doesn't hesitate to mock and ridicule him every waking moment. After slowly bonding and becoming friends with her, he falls for and eventually pours out his heart to Robin... and gets rejected, but only as the result of Incompatible Orientation. To Steve's credit, he once again handles the rejection maturely and remains very close friends with Robin.
  • Season 3 continues with the tradition of him getting a serious beating, this time courtesy of the Soviets. He would almost qualify as a Chew Toy if the situations he finds himself in wouldn't get progressively more dangerous.
  • In Season 4, Steve literally gets dragged into the Upside Down with no shoes or shirt on and is immediately attacked by rabid demobats, which almost kill him.
• Car Fu: During the Season 3 finale, he arrives as The Cavalry and saves Nancy from being crushed by Billy.
• Carpet of Virility: He's a ladies' man with a hairy chest. Dustin advises him to shave it, but he insists that the ladies love it. And he's not wrong, if Nancy and Max's reactions are any indication.
• The Casanova:
  • In spades in Season 1 (minus his relationship with Nancy, where he's genuinely committed to her), and Robin refers to him as one when she describes at the movies how girls will come to see Steve alone.
  • Downplayed in Season 4. While he does go on multiple (unsuccessful) dates, it's implied his motivation is about trying to find the right woman he can have a happy relationship with.
• Casanova Wannabe: In Season 3, his pulling skills have diminished due to his Future Loser and Burger Fool status, there is still some hope for him after the finale however.
• Celeb Crush: Like many of the era, he considers Phoebe Cates to be the epitome of '80s hotness.
• Character Development: He has one of the more distinct character arcs in the series, starting out as fun but somewhat pushy about his relationship with Nancy, becoming a jealous jerk when it comes to Jonathan's friendship with Nancy (due in no small part to his poisonous friends), and finally realizing what a jerk he was and genuinely trying to make things right. Season 2 develops him further, with him becoming something of a big brother figure to Dustin and helping out the kids throughout the season.
• The Charmer: He's the local heartthrob of Hawkins and supposedly had an impressive track record prior to falling for Nancy.
• The Chew Toy: Even though the punishment he goes through in every season isn't exactly funny in itself, his reaction afterwards is, like him being completely dazed after Billy's beating, or being drugged by the Russians.
• Chick Magnet: Besides Nancy, Steve is often noted to be a local heartthrob around Hawkins High. His star has fallen by Season 3, see Future Loser.
• Cool Car: It's not featured as prominently as Billy's Camaro, but Steve has a pretty nice BMW 733i. Steve also joyously commandeered "The Toddfather" and was its "daddy" while it lasted.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Zigzagged and deconstructed. While dismissive of Nancy's feelings, Steve isn’t in any way an abusive boyfriend. He does, however, become very unpleasant when he sees Jonathan in Nancy’s bedroom and doesn’t stop his Jerkass friends from Slut-Shaming Nancy with graffiti. Upon being confronted by Nancy and Jonathan, he provokes a fight with the latter (even mocking Jonathan’s little brother Will’s apparent death) at which point Jonathan beats the shit out of him. Afterwards, Steve is deeply remorseful, breaking it off with his poisonous friends, he helps wipe away the graffiti and even aids Jonathan and Nancy in the finale. In Season 2 his relationship with Nancy disintegrates further despite Steve’s best efforts to make amends, by the end of the second series Steve accepts Nancy moving on to be with Jonathan. In Season 4 Steve makes it clear to Nancy that he wished he hadn’t reacted as he did and that they were still together, something she may or may not want herself.
• Crazy-Prepared: He holds onto the spiked bat after fighting the Demogorgon, keeping it in his car trunk. Though when Dustin asks if he still has it in Season 2, there's no denying the dawning realization and fear in his eyes as he realizes what Dustin is implying.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Steve can, for the lack of a better term, be considered an expert monster-slayer. In a world where professionally trained soldiers are regularly eaten alive by the horrors of the Upside Down, Steve's track record puts him right below Eleven and Hopper in terms of being a badass. And yet... he absolutely sucks when up against regular, ordinary people. Jonathan is considerably scrawnier, and still beats him in a fight. Billy is noticeably more built and utterly beats his ass in.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: What Steve may lack in book smarts, he more than makes up for in his ability to fight off the monsters of the Upside Down.
  • In Season 1, despite of being scared out of his mind when the Demogorgon shows up to kill Nancy and Jonathan, he comes to their aid and uses the spiked bat to beat it into Jonathan's bear-trap so they can light it on fire.
  • In Season 2, he manages to fend off the demodogs with the same bat while protecting Max, Lucas, and Dustin. He also steps up as Team Dad when the kids attempt to light the tunnels on fire to distract the Mind Flayer, and makes their safety his priority. He even gets a few good hits on Billy before Billy turns the tables.
  • In Season 3, he manages to win his first human fight against a trained Soviet soldier, and later saves Nancy from Flayed Billy by ramming his car into Billy's.
  • In Season 4, with some help from Nancy, Robin, and Eddie, he manages to escape the grip of a demobat, and then proceeds to beat the shit out of it by repeatedly slamming it into the ground before tearing it in half. He also manages to take on Vecna, the Big Bad of Season 4, by burning him alive with a molotov cocktail.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Although Billy demolishes him in a fist fight, Steve is actually able to get a few good hits in, breaking Billy's nose and dodging one of Billy's wild swings before getting knocked out.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Ever sat through an 80s film and yelled at the chick-magnet Jerk Jock for being a stereotypical Card-Carrying Villain for no good reason beyond "we need a jerk character in this spot for you to hate"? Well, here we have one who refreshingly wises up to, and actively faces down, his False Friend and slight Inferiority Superiority Complex problems. He also goes quite a long way towards mending busted fences like a human being with a semi-functional social intelligence quotient should. Season 2 continues this as he grows closer to the kids and becomes protective to them, even turning into a Big Brother Mentor for Dustin.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: A positive example. Keep in mind, this is The '80s; homophobia was a nasty beast back then, but when Robin reveals that she's a lesbian, Steve immediately accepts it, and proceeds to playfully roast her about her taste in women. A 1980s Jerk Jock would be disgusted by a lesbian, but it's pretty clear by now that Steve Harrington *isn't* your average 1980s Jerk Jock.
• Did Not Get the Girl:
  • Ultimately breaks up with Nancy in Season 2.
  • In Season 3, he takes an interest in Robin and they seem like an ideal couple... but Robin isn't into Steve like that, or any guy for that matter.
  • Played with in Season 4: When Steve works with Nancy to stop Vecna, it causes their feelings for one another to resurface. Steve expresses regret about the way their relationship went previously, and Nancy is shown taking an interest in him again, especially as she's still hurt over Jonathan's absence. While she ultimately goes back to Jonathan at the end of the season, it's made clear that their relationship is currently on the rocks, and that her feelings for Steve haven't gone away yet.
• Dork Knight: Has plenty of dorky moments around Nancy and ultimately subverts the Jerk Jock trope by showing he genuinely cares for her.
• The Driver: Usually the one tasked with driving the kids from place to place on their adventures. He also takes Robin to school for the better part of a year, apparently unaware that she doesn't have a license.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first appearance has him successfully woo Nancy in true 1980s king-of-the-school fashion, but arguably his real establishing moment comes later, when he's trying to sneak into Nancy's house courtesy of a garbage can, a garage roof and a drain pipe... and is making an utter hash of it, to the point where Mike, who notices him, can only roll his eyes. For all his surface cool and charm, he's a lot more hapless and klutzy than he first seems. His true character is further established when, after finally making into Nancy's room, he begins to help her prepare for her test, makes a move to seduce her... and then, when she reveals she's not comfortable doing so, willingly goes back to helping her prepare for the test. He's also a lot nicer and more decent than he first seems.
• Everyone Can See It: In Season 4, Robin, Dustin, and Eddie can all tell there's still a spark between Steve and Nancy.
• Fire-Forged Friends:
  • While the entire protagonist main cast qualifies, the best example is Steve and Dustin, with whom he has had shared story arcs in Season 2 and Season 3. Also doubles as his Big Brother Mentor, at least in Season 2.
  • He also becomes this with Robin in the third season; they start out as reluctant co-workers who can barely tolerate each other's presence, and end up being practically best friends with each other.
  • He starts to develop this with Eddie in Season 4. While Steve's initially dismissive towards Eddie, their time in the Upside Down, as well as their close friendship with Dustin, helps them become friendly with one another.
• First Guy Wins: Played with. While Nancy and Jonathan grow closer throughout the season, the finale shows she's chosen to stay with Steve after his Heel–Face Turn. The pair are a cute couple supposedly very in love... up until Nancy gets drunk, the pair fight, and Nancy hooks up with Jonathan in Season 2.
• Flanderization: In a show that boasts some pretty extensive Character Development for the main cast, Steve seems to have been hit by this, at least partially: he starts out as a somewhat lazy jock in Season 1, but gets progressively more Book Dumb until, in Season 3, he not only knows literally nothing brainy (which fits his characterization) but is also pretty oblivious about pop culture (like movies) as well. On top of that, he has become more than just a bit clumsy. Lampshaded in Season 4 when Steve admits that on the surface, he's super confident, but also acknowledges that he can be an idiot.
• Freak Out: Has a minor one when he finally sees the Demogorgon. Cue screaming, cursing and an impressively high leap over an open bear trap in Jonathan's hallway. He takes it quite well, all things considered.
• Freudian Excuse: His shitty behavior in Season 1 can be chalked up to a combination of self-esteem issues, Parental Neglect, and having terrible friends.
• Future Loser:
  • It's subtle, but early in Season 2, it's implied that Steve is fearful that this is the direction that his life is veering. He's struggling with his essay for his college admission application, Billy starts to show him up as the Big Man on Campus, and then Nancy winds up dumping him while she's drunk.
  • Season 3 shows Steve well on his way to loser-hood. He admits he was unable to get into any college and his $3-an-hour Scoops Ahoy job becomes a terrible taste of things to come. It even degrades his romantic skills; as Robin gleefully notes, he is 0/7 hitting on cute female customers, due primarily to the overpowering Future Loser signals he's sending out now. By the end of the season, there's some hope for him, as Robin is helping him get a job.
  • His attempts to input on the group's plan-making usually end with him making himself look a little dumb. He means well, but he's not especially book-smart.
    Steve: What's that?
    Literally everyone else present: Morse code.
  • Downplayed in Season 4. Steve still works a minimum wage job at the video rental store, but it's at least a step-up from his previous humiliating job at Scoop's Ahoy. He has started dating again, although most of these dates appear to be unsuccessful, and it's all but stated that his reasons for dating are about him trying to find the right woman. And while he hasn't completely figured out what he wants to do with his life, he has admitted to having dreams he wants to fulfill, such as wanting to have 6 kids he can travel with in a trailer across the country.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: He becomes a part of one in Season 3, the group investigating the Russians' secret base, which includes two boys (Steve and Dustin) and two girls (Robin and Erica).
• Give Geeks a Chance: He develops a crush on Robin, a self-proclaimed band dork to whom he would have never given the time of day in high school. Though Steve is a bit let down when Robin reveals she isn't into him like that, he very quickly rebounds and makes her feel accepted, since he'd grown to like her enough as a person that he's perfectly happy just being her friend.
• Glass Cannon: Steve is a strong fighter when he goes on the offensive. However, his lack of defensive skills earned him his reputation as a fist magnet when it comes to the likes of Jonathan and Billy.
• Graceful Loser: He takes being beaten to a pulp by Billy and Robin's announcement that she is a lesbian very well.
• Guest Fighter: He's one of the two playable Survivors in the Stranger Things chapter of Dead by Daylight, along with Nancy. He also has Jonathan as an alternate costume.
• Has a Type: Both of his major Love Interests (Nancy and Robin) are tough, independent-minded Brainy Brunettes who see Steve's good side but aren't afraid to call out his flaws. The similarities between the two girls make his insistence to Dustin that Robin is not his type all the more dubious.
• Heel–Face Turn: Goes from bullying Jerk Jock to one of the main protectors of the group and a big brother mentor to the kids.
• Heroes' Frontier Step: The first truly noble thing he does is go to Jonathan's house to apologize for picking a fight and mocking his family. Steve had no reason to believe Nancy was there, nor that Jonathan would speak on his behalf to help patch things up between them. He did it because he genuinely felt bad about what happened and expected no payment from it other than to make things right with Jonathan.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He is more caring and brave than he shows at first, finally revealing the person Nancy sees in him.
  • In Season 2, following a fight in which he wasn't even in the wrong, he shows up at Nancy's house with flowers, practicing an "I'm sorry and I love you" speech. He's interrupted by Dustin, who has bigger and grimmer concerns, however.
  • In Season 3, he shows a very considerate and accepting attitude towards the reveal that Robin is gay, especially given the time period he's living in and the fact he just got rejected over it.
  • He tells Nancy in Season 4 that his dream is to have a big family and drive the country with them.
• Iconic Outfit: The Scoops Ahoy sailor uniform he wears for most of Season 3. Ridiculous-looking, sure, but memorable, and thus, the outfit most closely associated with Steve.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Ironically, despite his reputation as a ladies' man, a big part of Steve's arc is his thus-far unlucky search for love. In Season 2, he becomes the Romantic Runner-Up to Jonathan and Nancy breaks up with him. In Season 3, he catches feelings for Robin but discovers she's a lesbian (though he gains an amazing friendship out of it). In Season 4, he goes through a string of bad dates and starts to crush on Nancy again. While this time she's clearly a bit interested, they don't end up together due to her still being with Jonathan.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: Most of his worst behavior against Nancy and Jonathan is born out of a misunderstanding: he observes them in what appears to be a tender moment, and believes that Nancy is cheating on him. He realizes that his behavior was out of line and strives to make up for it even before finding out that his impression was wrong. Though Season 2 shows that his early suspicions were in fact correct, and this time he reacts to it with more maturity.
• Incompatible Orientation: He falls for Robin, only for her to reveal that she's gay. Though Steve is completely accepting of her, even encouraging her to date other girls, Season 4 implies that he still has a bit of a lingering crush when he admits to Nancy that he would still date Robin if he could.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: It's pretty that clear he's set out to become what he and most of his peers think a "real" man should be... and, to do that, constantly tries to shore that up by using the worst sounding-board "friends" imaginable to bounce off. It's not that successful, as it's clearly costing him emotionally, even at the start of the series.
• Intergenerational Friendship: He and Dustin form a tight bond starting in Season 2.
  • Steve joins Dustin to search for the latter's escaped pet demodog, and quickly hit off a friendship as they talk about picking up girls.
  • In Season 3, Steve ecstatically greets Dustin upon the latter's return from summer camp. And Steve is the first person Dustin confides in over the Russian infiltration subplot.
• Insult of Endearment: Even after becoming friends, Robin regularly refers to Steve as "dingus".
• It's All About Me: He could be rather self-centered before changing. His first reaction when he realized that Barb was missing that how much trouble he was going to get in when his parents found out about the party.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • In Season 2, when he realizes that Nancy loves Jonathan, he's completely supportive of her. The pair of them are friendly with no hint of lingering bitterness, though it's clear at the end of Season 2 and in Season 4 that he still has feelings for her.
  • In Season 3, after he admits he's starting to fall for Robin, but she comes out to him as a lesbian, he decides he still wants to be her supportive friend.
• Jerkass Realization: His better qualities are clear from the start, such as when he genuinely helps Nancy study for a test, but he was nevertheless something of a smug bully. He becomes nicer and reorders his priorities when Jonathan delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to him after being taunted by him about his dead brother. He regrets his actions toward Nancy and realizes that his so-called friends, Carol and Tommy, are jerkasses.
• Jerk Jock: At first, he was a rude and arrogant basketball player.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For most of Season 1, he was a total prick to Jonathan, which along with his cautious dismissal of Barb's disappearance, soured his relationship with Nancy. He may seem insulting, but it's all just gentle ribbing and even early in Season 1 he really does prove to be a decent person beneath; he genuinely cares for Nancy, later Dustin and the other kids, stepping up to bat for his friends. He even has to tell Tommy and Carol to lay off the harsh remarks about thinking Jonathan killed Will and Barb's disappearance before finally standing up to them. Though he's still not above (jokingly) using insults like "dipshit" to his dear friends as well as the occasional snark, by Season 3, aside from past reflections by Robin and Keith, you'd never guess how much of a prick he used to be.
• Kick the Dog: Calling Jonathan a homophobic slur and taunting him about his brother's disappearance is definitely crossing the line, and Jonathan gives him a well-deserved beatdown for it. This turns out to be just the wake-up call Steve needed, and he mellows significantly afterwards.
• Ladykiller in Love:
  • Lampshaded by Tommy who teases Steve, local heartthrob of Hawkins High, for having fallen for Nancy. Also lampshaded by Steve himself in Season 2, when giving girl advice to Dustin, he warns the younger boy not to fall in love, as "she'll only break your heart, and you're too young for that", giving insight into his own feelings about Nancy and perhaps a slight bitterness about how it didn't go so well. To his credit, he doesn't obsess over it and behaves very maturely.
  • He develops an attachment to Robin after getting to know her better. Unfortunately Robin doesn't feel the same way, not just because she's a lesbian, but because his popularity with the girls meant she had to give up on a crush.
• Lez Bro: He's one for Robin, being that he's a straight lady-killer and she's only one of those things. He regularly encourages her to get over her shyness around other girls. Notably, as of Season 4, he hasn't told anybody, even Dustin, that she's a lesbian, since Dustin is still calling him out on not dating her.
• Limited Wardrobe: During Season 3 he's stuck in his Scoops Ahoy uniform until his last scene in the season finale.
• Locked Out of the Loop: He suspects that Nancy is cheating on him with Jonathan and later gets in a fight with him. Little does he know that Nancy and Jonathan are actually joining forces to fight a monster of unspeakable horror. He enters the loop late in the Season 1 the hard way, as Nancy and Jonathan bait the Demogorgon in the Byers home.
• Love Confession: Gives one to Robin in late Season 3 after escaping the Soviets' base. It doesn't go the way he had hoped, as she's gay, but he nevertheless takes it in stride.
• Made of Iron: His unimpressive offense skills are in stark contrast to his ability to call attention to himself in dangerous group situations and take massive and sometimes unusual levels of punishment. Whether its putting himself on the front line to protect the Party against Demodogs, getting pummeled into hamburger by Billy or Russians, or providing a safe emotional space for Robin to come out after rejecting his advances, Steve is a classic "meat shield" for other characters. In Season 4, he gets several chunks bitten out of his torso and is still able to run and cycle around the Upside Down, climb through the window of an RV and throw molotovs at Vecna.
• Mistaken for Romance: His close friendship with Robin is interpreted as romantic by Dustin and Nancy. Steve corrects them both but stops short of telling them the true reason why due to it being the 80s.
• Mr. Fanservice: Gets a shirtless shower scene alongside Billy in Season 2, and then in Season 4 he strips down to jump into a lake, which brings him to the Upside Down. Eddie offers Steve his denim vest out of annoyance.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He reaches a new low after he taunts Jonathan over Will's "death". After he calms down and his conscience breaks through the red anger, he both regrets it completely and mans-up to head to the Byers' home to do the harder thing: genuinely apologize. Considering his face is still covered in blood from the beating Jonathan gave him it's especially admirable.
• Nice Guy: After getting rid of his Jerkass friends and becoming a better boyfriend to Nancy, he becomes one of the friendliest members of the cast in Season 2, which only increases with each subsequent season.
• Odd Friendship:
  • In Season 2, he becomes a Big Brother Mentor to Dustin, of all people. The two have a hilarious yet heartwarming dynamic.
  • In Season 3 with Robin. After developing a crush on her and finding out she's gay, he becomes one of her closest friends, if not her best friend. The pair even get a job together at the local video store.
• Once a Season: Steve getting curb stomped into a bloody mess. Lampshaded by Dustin in Season 3 who brings up Steve's asswhoopings from Billy in Season 2 and Jonathan in Season 1. Doubly subverted when he wins his first fistfight against a Russian guard, but is subsequently captured and beaten bloody during interrogation.
• Parental Neglect: Steve claims that his father is an asshole and from what little we hear of them, both of his parents appear to be rather emotionally checked-out where he's concerned, seemingly spending long periods away from the family home leaving him to his own devices. This is probably a key contributing factor for many of his issues.
• Peer-Pressured Bully: His Jerkass behavior in Season 1 is implied to be in large part due to the company of his so-called friends, Tommy and Carol.
• Platonic Life-Partners: By Season 4, Steve and Robin have become this, after any chance at romance between them was sunk near the end of Season 3 by Robin revealing she's gay. They are best friends with a close bond that is often Mistaken for Romance, but they are quick to disavow this misconception each time, specifically using the term "platonic" to do so without giving away the actual reason why.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Well, bully, but in Season 1, he tells Jonathan he always took him for a "queer" while trying to rile him up. He grows out of this afterward, to the point of having a lesbian as his best friend by the end of Season 3.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Being one of the "cool kids", whenever he's interacting with outcast Eddie (a metalhead and D&D aficionado) he does not understand what he's referencing, for example when he's mentioning The Lord of the Rings or Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off of a bat.
• Positive Friend Influence: His friendship with Robin allows her to grow more comfortable with her sexuality. He also encourages her to pursue Vickie, and is delighted when he sees the two of them hitting it off in the Season 4 finale.
• Pretty Boy: A popular jock with a slender build, boyish good-looks and well-groomed '80s Hair.
• Punny Name: Most likely unintentional while the character was conceptualized, but the more prominently his coiffure is featured as a character trait, the harder it is to ignore that his last name is Harrington. Lampshaded in Season 3, when Robin refers to him as "Steve 'The Hair' Harrington".
• Really Gets Around: Between Seasons 3 and 4, he goes on many dates and has casual relationships with a number of girls who Robin considers interchangeable.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He reveals to Dustin that he styles his hair with Farrah Fawcett hairspray and with Faberge Organics shampoo.
• Red Baron: Nicknamed "The Hair" by Robin in Season 3.
• Romantic Runner-Up: To Jonathan for Nancy in Season 2. By this point, he's a perfectly nice, supportive boyfriend, but Nancy's feelings for him just aren't there anymore. In Murray's words, "We like Steve, but we don't love Steve."
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: In Season 4, this is his dynamic with Robin, who has come out of her shell and become much more talkative and outgoing.
• Secret-Keeper: For Robin in Season 4. She hasn't come out of the closet yet, and it's clear Steve is one of, if not the only person that she's told about her sexuality.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • In Season 1, he's the Jerk Jock Manly Man to Jonathan's serious and responsible Sensitive Guy.
  • In Season 2, he flips into the Sensitive Guy in contrast to Billy's Manly Man.
  • In his Odd Friendship with Dustin, he's the confident and jockish Manly Man to Dustin's nerdy Sensitive Guy.
  • In Season 4, he's the combat-experienced Manly Man to Eddie's Cowardly Lion Sensitive Guy.
• Shipper on Deck: In Season 2, he gives Dustin advice on how to get Max to like him. Also, in Season 4, he encourages Robin to pursue Vickie despite her fears about revealing her sexuality.
• Shirtless Scene: He gets one in Season 4 when he takes off his shirt to dive into the lake to look for the gate to the Upside Down. Amusingly, Dustin, Lucas, and Max comment on this.
  Lucas: When'd Steve get so hairy?
  Dustin: Right? I keep telling him he needs to tame that jungle, but he claims the ladies dig it.
  Max: Let me see. (Grabs the binoculars from Lucas to look at Steve.)
• Sixth Ranger: He starts out as Dustin's partner-in-crime, but by the end of Season 2, has more or less joined the Party as their unofficial guardian/babysitter.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • He is more worried about being caught for drinking than for the disappearance of either Will or Barb. He snaps out of it when he realizes what a complete douche he's being to people he actually likes. Cue a massive refocus as he actively tries to make amends.
  • He never really comes to grips with the Barb thing, but by Season 2 it looks more like he's deflecting the fear and guilt of her death as a coping mechanism, particularly when he attends a dinner with Nancy at Barb's parents' house.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Later in Season 4, he wears Eddie's jean jacket without sleeves, which makes him look more badass.
• So Proud of You: Steve looks like a proud parent watching Robin mingle with her crush in the Season 4 finale.
• Strong, but Unskilled: Steve is lampshadedly bad at fighting despite being the school's star athlete. Even Jonathan, by all standards a pretty average guy, is able to beat him to a bloody pulp. The one time he does manage to win a fight, he uses an improvised weapon while the other guy doesn't.
• Stupid Sexy Friend: Subtly implied in regards to Robin, who becomes Steve's best friend after politely rejecting him by admitting she's a lesbian. In Season 4, while awkwardly trying to explain to Nancy how he and Robin are just friends, Steve backtracks and says, "I mean, I would date her, but...", stopping himself before he can reveal that them not dating is the result of their Incompatible Orientation and not necessarily from a lack of feelings on his part.
• Surrounded by Smart People: A lot of the heroes in the show are nerds or geniuses, while Steve is a Book Dumb jock. This is most apparent in Season 3 when he's grouped with three of the smartest characters: resident science nerd Dustin, Cunning Linguist Robin, and math and politics prodigy Erica.
• Team Dad: Hilariously, with Dustin, Lucas, and Max - less so to Mike. While he takes on the role somewhat begrudgingly, he does genuinely care about them and does his best to protect them from harm. When the Demodogs attack the kids, he's the first to either get between them and the dogs or in the finale of Season 2, to push them up the rope to get them out of the tunnels with the Demodogs chasing them and shields Dustin when he can't get him up in time.
• Team Mom: Although he fits the trope of Team Dad, too, Steve refers to himself as the mom.
• The Tell: The show doesn't draw much attention to it, but he repeatedly pinches the bridge of his nose when he's upset, likely trying to push down tears.
• Token Good Teammate: In Season 1, he isn't exactly a nice person but still has a conscience, while his friends Tommy and Carol are clearly bad people and a Toxic Friend Influence to him. Thankfully, he stops hanging out with them towards the end of the first season.
• Took a Level in Badass: Goes from barely having the courage to face the Demogorgon to being ready to face down an army of Demodogs.
• Took a Level in Kindness: While he does some pretty awful, self-absorbed things, Steve eventually proves to be a decent guy. He clearly has Nancy's best interests in mind, and makes up for smashing Jonathan's camera by buying him a new one for Christmas.
  • By Season 2, he's developed a Big Brother Instinct for the kids. It's implied that Nancy began to really soften him and Tommy and Carol were bad influences on an otherwise good kid going through a confusing adolescence, since in Season 2 Tommy only speaks to Steve once to insult him and Carol is rarely seen at all (and never anywhere near Steve), and Steve has become an all-round nice guy.
  • Taken to legendary levels in Season 3 when Steve reveals enough of his good nature to Robin during their adventures that she eventually feels safe enough to out herself as lesbian to him, which was a huge personal risk in the 80s with the AIDS epidemic and queer acceptance not in the mainstream yet. Steve responds by making Robin laugh with an impression of her unrequited girl crush's awful singing voice and gently reaffirming their friendship.
• Trademark Favorite Food: According to Robin, Steve's breakfast of choice in high school was bacon, egg, and cheese on a sesame bagel.
• Two Girls and a Guy: With Nancy and Robin in Season 4. Nancy is the The Leader of the trio while Steve is The Lancer. True to trope, Steve had feelings for both of them at different points: in Robin's case, it wouldn't have worked out, while Nancy is his ex who he still hasn't completely gotten over.
• Two Guys and a Girl: With Jonathan and Nancy, though it's debatable whether any of them fit the 'leader' role between the two guys.
• Unknown Rival: For Robin; the object of her affections, Tammy Thompson, had a massive crush on Steve, who barely paid attention to her, driving Robin mad with heartbreak and jealousy.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: What he becomes with Dustin and eventually Robin. They will all sling brutally honest remarks and snide comments at each other all day but ultimately have the other's back when the chips are down.
• Weapon Twirling: He tends to twirl his baseball bat when gearing up to go into battle.
• What You Are in the Dark: Immediately after his first (terrifying) encounter with the creature, Jonathan and Nancy tell Steve to leave for his own safety, Nancy going so far as to point a loaded gun at his head. With this in mind it's no surprise he leaves the house. He gets as far as his car, then sees the flickering lights that indicate the monster has returned... and goes back into the house to help.
• Will They or Won't They?: Season 4 teases the possibility of Nancy getting back with Steve and it's ultimately left up in the air for now.
• Working with the Ex: Steve and Nancy break up in Season 2, but work together in Season 4 as part of the group in Hawkins investigating Vecna. Lingering glances and comments by other characters indicate that there are still some unresolved feelings between them, which Steve eventually admits to.
• Worf Had the Flu: Steve gets a lot of grief for not winning any fights, but in all fairness there were a lot of extenuating circumstances.
  • In Season 1, his beatdown from Jonathan comes from Steve severely underestimating how grief stricken he was over Will's disappearance. The beating even causes Steve to realize how much Jonathan was hurting.
  • In Season 2, his fight with Billy comes down to the fact that Steve greatly underestimated how much of a violent brute he actually was. He's holding his own until Billy breaks a plate over his head and is heavily implied to have given him a concussion.
  • Come Season 3, Steve actually wins his first fight... with a highly trained Russian soldier, no less.

Billy Hargrove

Billy Hargrove

"No one tells me what to do!"

Played By: Dacre Montgomery

Debut: "Chapter One: MADMAX" (2x01)

"I'm older than you and something you learn is that there's certain people in this world that you stay away from... and that kid, Max... that kid is one of them."

Hawkins High School's new transfer student and Max's stepbrother.

---

• '80s Hair: Sports a fairly raggedy rocker's mullet, which contrasts Steve's perfectly coiffed, though still mulleted 'do. Billy does take care to style it when he's going out on a date.
• Abusive Parents: Billy's father never misses an opportunity to talk down to his son, and even hit him when Billy disobeys him. It's also revealed in season 3 that Neil abused Billy's mom too, and as a result she ended up running away and leaving Billy with Neil.
• Agent Peacock: Downplayed but more present in Season 3. Billy is vain, preening, and very popular with the ladies (in fact, the only reason the Mind Flayer gets him is because he checks his hair in the mirror) but he's also a terrifying fighter.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite his nonstop bullying and abuse of Max before this, Max collapses in hysterical tears when he dies.
• Aloof Big Brother: He's a mix of this and Big Brother Bully to Max. He either bullies or just ignores her existence without a care in the world.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Kind of a given, being a human high school bully in a Lovecraftian horror story.
• AM/FM Characterization: Billy is a fan of early Heavy Metal. His room has posters of Metallica and Mötley Crüe's early works and he listens to music videos while he works out.
• And I Must Scream: While he's possessed by the Mind-Flayer, Billy is fully conscious and forced to witness himself doing things even he'd draw the line at doing, indicated from his pleading to Max while momentarily not possessed, and when he sheds a tear from his eye while the Mind-Flayer tells Eleven of its plans to exterminate humanity.
• Anti-Role Model: Max states she hates Billy, and she refuses to be anything like him. Her deciding to hang out with Mike and the rest seems to be explicitly based on Billy's telling her to stay away from Lucas, his attempt to run them down, and remembering how she blew them off earlier.
• Anti-Villain: Billy is a sociopathic, sexist, racist Big Brother Bully but he was forcibly controlled by the Mind Flayer and was genuinely horrified at the actions he was forced to commit.
• Arch-Enemy: For Max (who he acts as a Big Brother Bully towards), Lucas (who he is implied to hate for reasons other than him hanging around his sister, later confirmed by his actor and the Duffer bros to be because of his race), and Steve (who he tries to usurp as Hawkins High's resident Big Man on Campus).
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: For all the abuse Billy put her through in Season 2, Season 3 shows that he holds some care for her. His final words, after sacrificing himself to save El and the rest of her friends, including Max herself, are an apology for everything he had done.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • One of the biggest in the series. He's an absolutely frightening Mood-Swinger with a genuinely animalistic temper. He tried to run over three kids, snapped a 13-year-old's arm like a twig and for bonus points, he laughs maniacally when Steve punches him in the face before giving him a brutal beatdown. He's not well-adjusted in the head.
  • Runaway Max has him snap a 13-year-old's arm with no remorse or regret.
  • This gets taken up to eleven in Season 3 after he gets possessed by the Mind Flayer (who is even more Ax-Crazy than Billy is).
• Bait the Dog: Twice in a row, even!
  • During basketball practice, Billy knocks Steve to the floor and offers him an outstretched hand to help him up. Steve accepts, and Billy gives Steve good advice on keeping a stable stance in basketball — before violently shoving him to the floor.
  • Later, in the showers, Billy seems to initially be sympathetic towards Steve breaking up with Nancy. He then says that "there are plenty of bitches in the sea", and says he'll "save [Steve] some" as he leaves.
• Barbarian Longhair: Sports '80s Hair and is extremely capable in a fight. During his final confrontation with Steve in Season 2, Billy is practically unstoppable. This makes sense, as Billy's favorite exercise is weight training and it's implied that pain doesn't bother him as much in part because of his father's physical abuse. Invoked near the end of Season 2; shortly before Karen Wheeler meets him, she's shown reading a bodice-ripper with a dead ringer for Billy on the cover.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Dies protecting El from the Mindflayer after she empathizes with him and shows him compassion.
• Becoming the Mask: Despite being charming to Mrs. Wheeler for the sole purpose of finding Max, Season 3 gives him a Pet the Dog moment when he resists the urge to kill/assault her while possessed by the Mind Flayer. Either he did this, or he never had anything bad against her.
• Berserk Button: Referring to Max as his sister will set him off.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He's a constant antagonistic presence throughout the second season, but is ultimately a footnote compared to the Mind Flayer and is Demoted to Dragon by it come Season 3.
• Big Brother Bully: A major one to Max, at times being emotionally and physically abusive to her.
• Big Brother Instinct: He finally gets pressed into this when Eleven makes him realize just how terrible he's become. It's enough that he goes on a suicide mission to protect the kids from the Mind Flayer.
• Big Man on Campus: He tells Steve that he's taking his place as the ruler of the school.
• Blood Knight: He really likes to fight, especially when he knows his quarry is weaker than him.
• Broken Ace: Athletic, well-dressed, Cool Car, popular with the ladies... also a very messed up and disturbed person underneath it all.
• The Bully: He always treats Steve like crap, frequently teasing him, talking trash and seeing him as inferior culminating in beating Steve to a pulp towards the end of the second season. Season 3 shows that he gradually became this as a result of his father's abuse, even turning Neil's insults and aggression on others, when a younger Billy is shown beating up another kid.
• Bully Brutality: Nothing more brutal than thinking about running over three students without a hint of guilt.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: He refers to Neil by name to Max at one point in Runaway Max.
• The Cameo: Dacre Montgomery returns as Billy in Season 4 as an avatar used by Vecna to torment Max.
• The Casanova: He makes it clear that he plans of dating Hawkins's female population and even had a date only a few days after moving to Hawkins.
• The Chain of Harm: He takes out his anger on Max because his father takes out his anger on him.
• The Charmer: He's pretty much taken over Steve's old position of local asshole heartthrob. While his scenes with Max make him unambiguously despicable, the girls at the school swoon over him and he's seen charming Mrs. Wheeler in another scene.
• Chick Magnet: On his first day of school, three girls, one of them being Carol, instantly become entranced by his ass. Karen (Nancy and Mike's mother) is attracted to him and nearly has an affair with him. In Season 3 there's even an entourage of older women who regularly turn up to the pool where he works as a lifeguard to check him out.
• Child Prodigy: Was likely one in surfing, as he was able to ride seven foot waves at what appears to be a single digit age. Unfortunately, Neil didn't see his talent.
• Combat Pragmatist: Billy has no trouble bashing Steve's head in with a plate to daze and distract him so he can turn the tables in their fight.
• Control Freak: Towards Max, especially; he's driven by violent rage at the thought that she is even hanging out with Lucas.
• Cool Car: Speeds around in a vintage Camaro.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His mother left him with his physically abusive father who would punish him for doing "unmanly" hobbies.
• Death by Irony: Alpha male wanna-be, prone to violent outbursts, seeks to dominate others, etc. At the beginning of Season 3 he is physically brutalized and possessed by the Mindflayer and remains completely under its influence for the rest of the season. And then dies as himself screaming at the Mind Flayer while resisting it in the latter's attempt to regain control.
• Defiant to the End: Billy's final moments? Screaming in defiant rage against the Mind Flayer, even as he knows the end is coming.
• Demoted to Dragon: Due to spending much of Season 3 as the Mind Flayer's puppet.
• Dirty Coward: For all his talk and bravado, Billy will completely fold whenever someone gets the upper hand against him, such as when his father pins him against a wall or when Max threatens him at the end of Season 2.
• Distracted by My Own Sexy: Billy loves admiring himself whenever he can.
• The Dragon: To the Mind Flayer in Season 3. Since the latter is otherwise confined to the Upside Down, the corrupted Billy does the legwork when it comes to both menacing the Party and kidnapping people to be Flayed.
• The Dreaded: And for a very good reason. During his final confrontation with Steve in Season 2, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas are clearly disturbed by his presence.
• Driven to Villainy:
  • By his father, whose abusive and toxic behavior warped Billy into becoming a sadistic bully just like him.
  • Taken up to eleven by the Mind Flayer possessing him and forcing him to kidnap and murder people in season 3.
• Dying as Yourself: Billy is possessed by the Mind Flayer for almost the entirety of Season 3, and only briefly manages a few lucid moments. However in the climax he manages to throw off its influence, and chooses to go down swinging by delaying the Mind Flayer long enough for Joyce to close the Gate even though it costs him his life.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Goes out stopping the Mind Flayer from attacking Eleven. It's easily the most noble thing Billy's done in his life.
• Elemental Motifs: Water. Billy's passion as a child was surfing and he gets a job as a lifeguard in Season 3, likely clinging to his dreams any way he can and he despises having to live in a rural town. After getting flayed he starts to experience pain when exposed to sunlight and heat and while the Mind Flayer uses him to threaten Eleven, Billy's hint of consciousness is expressed in with tears.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Billy was already tough as nails, as far as teenagers go, but just a shard of the Mind Flayer's power made him into the first real physical threat Eleven ever faced. In their first confrontation outside the sauna room, he tanked almost everything thrown at him and came damn near close to killing her several times over.
• Establishing Character Moment: His moment comes when he drives Max home. He's indifferent to her, blames her for them being stuck in Hawkins in an extremely violent manner, calls the girls at his school sluts and scares Max by trying to run down Lucas, Dustin and Mike.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He dearly loved his mother, but when she left his abusive father he took out his angst on other kids. When Eleven probed his mind, the first thing she saw was Billy's mother, hinting that he still misses her.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In a very short period of lucidity, Billy is genuinely horrified and even distraught at the deaths he's caused under the Mind Flayer's influence, even tearfully telling Max that he was forced to do those things. He does manage to stop himself attacking Karen Wheeler, which very likely saves the Wheelers the same fate as the other unfortunate souls he can't stop himself abducting.
• Evil Counterpart: For several characters.
  • For Steve — they were both the teen heartthrob and something of a Jerk Jock. But while Steve learned the error of his ways and makes changes for the better by himself, Billy never learns anything unless outright forced to and when it's far, far too late to save himself. Also, they are both forced into position of responsibilities over children. Billy turns out to be a huge bully to Max, forget simply what he did to the main group of protagonists early on in Season 2; Steve becomes protective of the whole gaggle of misfits, even becoming a Big Brother Mentor to Dustin.
  • For Jonathan — they both have horrible fathers and a younger sibling that shapes their characters. But, while Jonathan is a great big brother and the school's freak, Billy is abusive towards Max and the new big man on campus. The comparison does Billy no favors, as he's slowly turning into a Lonnie Byers in front of our eyes, while Jonathan quite carefully isn't.
  • For Eleven in Season 3 — both had shitty childhoods with terrible fathers (or father figure in El's case), both were in some way manipulated and experimented on (Eleven by Brenner, Billy by the Mind Flayer), and both are the heavy-hitters for their respective sides.
• Evil Is Petty: Threatens to run over Max's new friends because she angered him.
• Expy:
  • A pretty blatant one of Henry Bowers from Stephen King's IT, most specifically the 2017 film version: an obnoxious, violent older bully with a mullet and an implied racist streak, who treats the local "losers" like shit, and ultimately proves himself to be an unhinged and sadistic maniac... but who is also the product of his own violently abusive father who influenced his horrible behavior, and who ends up being manipulated by the supernatural Big Bad and used as a pawn in their schemes.
  • Season 3 makes him one for Lucas "Dodge" Caravaggio, a popular teenager who gets possessed by an eldritch demon from a dimension of evil, then proceeds to spread the sickness so he can end the world, and after getting foiled, is able to die as himself. A key difference is that Dodge is a genuinely good person before getting mind-flayed, while Billy is not.
• Face Death with Dignity: After being released from the Mind Flayer's control, he manages to gather whatever dignity he has left and symbolically tells the creature where to stick it by holding it back long enough for Joyce to close the Gate.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Downplayed. When the Party locks him in a sauna, he brokenly spills the beans about what he's been doing and seems to have been freed from his possession. Then he collapses on his side, where the Mind Flayer recollects its power over him and makes him grab a shard of floor tile without drawing suspicion before attacking everyone.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's quite suave when he wants to be, almost literally charming the pants off Karen Wheeler, but it's a façade that hides an extremely callous and cruel interior.
• Foil: Billy has an antagonistic Sensitive Guy and Manly Man dynamic with Steve through the second season. By this point, Steve has dropped a lot of his posturing from the first season and has mellowed out enough to understand that wearing a bit of pink now and again won't kill him, while Billy more or less has all of Steve's former negative traits cranked up to an ugly eleven. What Steve has lost in terms of Jockdom, he's gained more through happiness being a better, more capable brother figure (and bona fide monster hunter) than Billy can even imagine being. In many ways, it shows that, although still highly unsympathetic, Billy is quite the Tragic Villain on a very shallow lifestyle trajectory.
• Fighting from the Inside: He tries to resist the Mind Flayer's vicious influence, but only manages to do it twice successfully: He stops himself from brutally killing Karen, and saves El from the Flayer's attacks in his last moments.
• Freudian Excuse: Being taken from his loving mother and abused by his monster of a father didn't exactly do wonders for Billy's psyche. Eleven confirmed this when she scanned his memories. It's clear that him shouting, "No one tells me what to do!" as he pummels the snot out of Steve is his way of taking out of his frustration at his abusive father for pinning him against a wall and berating him with slurs and insults earlier that evening (as well as his other abuse in general). Dacre Montgomery also confirmed that Billy's final moments facing down the Mind Flayer were him imagining that he was finally standing up to his father, hence his last powerful roar of defiance.
• From New York to Nowhere: Implied to be the case with him and his step sister. While it's never stated which part of California they moved from, Billy is clearly disgusted by how small and rural Hawkins is.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: His backstory in full swing. As a child, he had practically no cares in the world, as well as a loving, supportive mother and a bright future as a surfer ahead of him. But then his horribly abusive, toxically masculine^note We use this term advisedly. The elder Hargrove doesn't just hate the idea of having a gay son, but even the appearance of one. As things turn out, Billy is very clearly heterosexual father ended up undoing all of this by driving his wife away and forcing Billy to take on more "manly" interests. With his dad treating him like trash his whole life combined with bullying in his childhood, he grew up to be the psychopathic jackass he is today - and in Season 3 he's the Mind Flayer's fearsome right-hand man as well as one of its most tenacious and powerful minions.
• Gym Bunny: When he's not sleeping around, bullying Max, or being a jerk in general, he's seen working out to maintain his physique.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Billy's temperament is a powder-keg that can literally blow at any second.
• Hate Sink: He's this for most of Season 2, being an abrasive racist who acts like a jackass towards Steve and Max and considers running over three pre-teens just to torment his little sister. The penultimate episode finally gives him some much-needed depth via a Freudian Excuse, and for most of Season 3 he's purely in Alas, Poor Villain territory.
• Hates Their Parent: He despises his abusive father, Neil, and is implied to be apathetic at best towards his stepmother, Susan. This was most definitely not the case with his biological mother, whom he adored.
• The Heavy: In Season 3, he is top muscle to the Mind Flayer. Billy ultimately has no control over his actions, but the Flayer regardless keeps him around instead of assimilating him due to the emotional connection he has with the Party.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Regains himself during the Final Battle at Starcourt after Eleven reminds him of the person he used to be, unfortunately doing so means making a Heroic Sacrifice to protect the Party from the Mind Flayer until the Gate can be closed.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He falls against the Mind Flayer for the sake of the others, even though he knows it will mean his end.
• Heroic Willpower: Turns out to have this buried deep within his Hidden Depths. He was the only one of the Flayed to show any resistance to its will, notably refusing to convert either his own family—which despite their antipathy towards him he could have done easily—and managed to resist long enough to warn Karen away from himself, and after finally succumbing and carrying out the Mind Flayer's will, he still wound up eventually overcoming its control when Eleven successfully found the right way to approach the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, finally pulling off a Heroic Sacrifice and managing to hold its attention long enough for the gate to be closed again.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Billy is the product of an abusive and unpleasable parent who stamped out his kindness, forced him to abandon hobbies like surfing and fostered a resentment towards Max. Yet he does care for her beneath all his vitriol and despite his penchant for violence is deeply disturbed by the things he's forced to do in Season 3. We also learn that a major turning point in his life was when his mother left him and this was the final nail in the coffin of the nice boy he once was in the past.
  • According to Karen, he's in charge of teaching small children how to swim. It's implied that he's rather skilled at it.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The beginning of the end for him comes about during a failed attempt to get Nancy and Mike's mom, Karen Wheeler, to cheat on her husband. It's all downhill from there.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Makes his debut in the first episode of Season 2.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: When he was a child he showed a passion and talent for surfing. His father (who is a violent homophobe) discouraged him from it because it didn't meet his standard of manliness.
• Jerkass: He is aggressive, easily-angered, physically violent, confrontational, possessive and controlling.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • The basketball advice he gives Steve is actually fairly helpful... too bad he then shoves him back onto the ground immediately afterwards.
  • Billy is being apathetic about Max going missing but he's not wrong that it's not his whole job to look after her.
  • While he was being an asshole about it, he wasn't wrong to scold a child from running around a pool, as people do get injured that way.
  • Even though he's a jerk about it and doesn't really seem to care about Max at all, he does have a point when he tells Steve that it looks a bit suspicious that his 13-year-old sister goes missing and is then found in a secluded house with an older teenage boy who then lies to his face about it.
• Jerk Jock: He's muscular, good at basketball, and a major jerk to everyone around him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mostly when he's Fighting from the Inside while possessed by the Mind Flayer. He stops himself from seriously hurting Karen Wheeler, saves Eleven's life, and ultimately admits he's sorry about treating Max horribly.
• Kick the Dog: Threatens to run over the Party after Max talks back to him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Season 2, he's finally stopped by Max, the person he picked on the most, when she gives him a drug that makes him faint and threatens a Crippling Castration with Steve's bat if he doesn't leave her and her friends alone while he's incapacitated.
• Laughably Evil: His constant Large Ham tendencies occasionally crosses the line into hilarious.
• Laughing Mad: He laughs like a madman as he beats the shit out of Steve.
• Like Father, Like Son: Deconstructed. A sad Truth in Television example. Billy is just as violent, abusive, and bigoted as his father because children of abusive parents unfortunately adopt said parents' behavior.
• Likes Older Women: If his flirtations interactions with the older women of Hawkins at the pool (Karen Wheeler in particular) is an indicator, older women are also included in the slew of females he likes to woo. Could dip into Mommy Issues considering his close relationship with his mother when he was a child.
• Locked Out of the Loop: He's unaware of the Upside Down and its dangers. Until Season 3, where he gets an up close and personal look at this other side of Hawkins, much to his horror.
• Men Are Tough: A textbook example of machismo; constantly brags about the amount of girls he sleeps with, makes it his mission on the basketball court to try and one-up Steve, spends all of his free time when he's not dating trying to maintain his physique, and also has a Hair-Trigger Temper and prone to violent mood-swings. Naturally, this is all brutal overcompensation for how much his father demeans and bullies him at home. And fittingly enough, it takes Max threatening him in a very specific way for him to finally back off.
• Metalhead: In the scenes where he's listening to music it's clear he has a preference for Heavy Metal, and we hear Metallica and Iron Maiden respectively.
• Momma's Boy: He loved his mother dearly, having happy memories of being on the beach with her in California. His abusive father driving her away was the cause of his Start of Darkness.
• Mood-Swinger: His outbursts of anger are incredibly spontaneous.
• Mouth of Sauron: To the Mind-Flayer in Season 3.
• Mr. Fanservice: He and Steve get a shirtless shower scene together, revealing that both have very toned chests. He is also seen playing basketball with his shirt off more than once; though that's a product of the old tradition of "shirts and skins", Billy is so arrogant and proud of his looks he might have chosen to be on the shirtless team. Then when he leaves high school he gets a job as a lifeguard. In fact, the main clue that drives The Party to realize he's possessed by the Mind Flayed is the fact he started to wear shirts.
• Mundanger: In a world filled with monsters, psychic children, and unseen horrors from other dimensions, Billy's unstable psyche, and willingness to harm any of the kids makes him one of the most dangerous human threats to the Party.
• Muscle Beach Bum: A variant in Season 3, which reveals that he's working as a lifeguard. He's a jerk who provides eye candy for the local women.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When the Mind-Flayer is intimidating Eleven by talking to her through Billy, he weeps openly, implying that all the horrific things he's done over the past few days were too much even for him.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Implied that because of how abusive his father is to him, Billy is in turn controlling of Max to compensate for that, and he seems to particularly loathe Max's crush, Lucas, who is black, which indicates that there might be another reason for his possessiveness, rather than any actual desire to protect her.
• Narcissist: Very much so. He spends plenty of time on his appearance, blames his stepsister for them moving to Hawkins when she had nothing to do with it, becomes murderous if she talks back to him, and when Max disappears he is more concerned about his date than her safety. He also has the gall to pretend to care about her in front of Karen.
• New Transfer Student: He transfers to Hawkins High from California at the start of Season 2.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: During his final confrontation with Steve in Season 2, Billy gives him a very brutal and violent beatdown with a sadistic glee after smashing a plate over Steve's head to turn the tables of the fight.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The Party suspects Billy is possessed by the Mind Flayer after they observe him covered head-to-toe while working his lifeguard job, when he normally never misses a chance to show off his physique.
• One-Winged Angel: Downplayed. Billy as a regular human alone is physically intimidating enough. He is significantly more terrifying when the Mind Flayer turns him into Flayed Billy, who can easily smash through steel doors, shrug off attacks with blunt objects, and even proves a match for Eleven's psychic powers.
• Parental Abandonment: Part of what turned him into what he is today. Although his mother was much more loving towards him than his father, she left the family because of her husband's constant abuse and never bothered to take Billy with her or even have much contact with him after.
• Pet the Dog:
  • After getting possessed by the Mind Flayer, Billy experiences the urge to kill Karen, but resists just long enough to tell her to get away from him. Given how wired he is for violence, that's pretty impressive. For that matter, he doesn't seem to have anything against her at all.
  • After being reminded of his happier memories with his mother by Eleven, Billy holds off against the Mind Flayer's influence and stands in front of her to stop the monster from getting to her, which is actually sweet considering that up until he met her at Heather's house he'd apparently never even met El, and then she had only been important to the Mind Flayer.
  • His last words to Max, although they count as a Tear Jerker moment as well - "I'm sorry."
  • In Runaway Max, he's initially nicer to Max, giving her the nickname of "Mad Max" when they first meet, letting her hang out with his friends and trying to warn her about Neil. Unfortunately, it doesn't last.
• Poke the Poodle: Along with all his other douchey actions, when searching for Max, he tells Karen that she "goes by Maxine" despite her detesting that name.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He's a racist who dislikes Lucas just because he's black (Word of God confirms it ) and the way he talks about the girls at school would today be recognized as highly misogynistic.
• Precision F-Strike: In "The Sauna Test", a possessed Billy threatens to "fucking gut" Max if she doesn't let him out.
• Proud Beauty: Billy is well aware of his good looks, and puts them to use to get Karen to tell him where Max is.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Certainly isn't very adult in manner, especially when he's angry or euphoric.
• Really Gets Around: He's a lady-killer who's implied to have quite the budding sex life, if Max's comments about him frequently bringing girls home are any indication.
• Redemption Equals Death: After being antagonistic for most of the series, he dies sacrificing himself to save Max and her friends.
• The Renfield: He becomes one to the Mind Flayer in Season 3.
• Replacement Flat Character: He's introduced to replace Steve as the Jerkass bully of the show, albeit a far more deranged and sadistic one than Steve ever was. Over time, Billy's Freudian Excuse allows him to grow into a far more rounded, three-dimensional character.
• Sadist: Once he throws Steve to the ground, he manages to give him an extremely brutal beating and derives great pleasure from it. He was clearly enjoying it.
• Serious Business: When he becomes a lifeguard, he shows a surprising degree of responsibility. He stops kids from running around the pool and shows up for his shift on the dot, even when he'd just been in a car accident the night before. It's possibly because the job lets him flirt with local women and he's not going to throw away such an opportunity. Less admirably, it also gives him a socially-acceptable reason to pick on his chosen targets; notice how, of all the possible people he could have made an example of, he chose to humiliate an overweight child. At the same time, however, it's a connection, however distant, to the beach life he had as a child in California.
• Shirtless Scene: He has more than a few scenes that show off his muscles.
• Sissy Villain: Yes, despite being a thug Billy manages to occasionally swing in the opposite direction. He preens himself so much that his father calls him a "faggot" and when he's locked in a sauna and left to dehydrate he begs Max to let him out in a very undignified manner.
• Spanner in the Works: Yes, to the Mind Flayer itself. Had Billy not driven away Karen, the now-flayed Billy would have gotten to Mike via Karen, and then to Eleven, its chief goal in the season. Also directly in the finale, Billy resists the Flayer's control long enough for Hopper and Joyce to close the Gate, even pulling off a Heroic Sacrifice against the unaware Mind Flayer.
• Super-Strength: When he becomes Brainwashed and Crazy by the Mind Flayer, he is strong enough to break through a sealed sauna room, toss a heavy weighted barbell, resist Eleven's Mind over Matter powers and even holds back the Mind Flayer itself before getting killed.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Troy, who is absent from Season 2. Both are bullies, and borderline homicidal, with both Billy and Troy confirmed to be racist ... although Billy is, if anything, even more Ax-Crazy than Troy! Eventually however, Billy is capable of kindness, and his last acts are to repent for everything he did in the last 2 seasons while Troy never redeems himself.
• Teens Are Monsters: Billy's only eighteen, but he's violent, unstable, and brutish, with a serious bigoted streak and a strained relationship with his younger sister, Max.
• Too Dumb to Live: Everything that happens to him in Season 3 all came about because he decided to check his hair in his rear-view mirror while driving at night.
• Tragic Villain: First hinted at in season 2, before becoming a focal point for his character in season 3:
  • Billy was once a genuinely nice and innocent kid with a loving mother who was passionate about surfing. However, his abusive father, Neil, ended up driving his mother away, ripping his most personal relationship away from him. Neil then shamed Billy for his surfing hobby, viewing it as not manly enough. Neil then beat and emotionally abused Billy for years, instilling a toxically masculine attitude out of his own frustrations over his wife, causing Billy to become increasingly arrogant and misogynistic. Neil marries Susan Mayfield and Billy meets his new stepsister Max, with Billy becoming increasingly abusive and controlling over her to compensate for how abusive and controlling Neil is towards him. Neil then forces them to move away from California, robbing Billy of his last connection to his happier days, solidifying Billy as the sadistic and misogynistic bully we meet in season 2.
  • In Season 3, He's possessed by the Mind Flayer and forced to commit atrocities that even ''he'' can't stomach. As the season progresses and his actions become worse, Billy starts to feel genuine remorse for the first time. Eventually, Eleven enters his mind and reminds him of his mother and younger self, causing Billy to realize what a monster he'd become. He then proceeds to sacrifice himself to protect Eleven, the first person to show him genuine kindness since his mother, before using his final moments to apologize to Max for how he'd treated her.
  • Season 4 has Max grapple with Billy's death, wondering if they could've been friends, if not true siblings, had he survived the events of season 3. It's made clear that as awful as he became, Billy was ultimately an emotionally disturbed kid lashing out because of all the horrible things that happened to him.
• Troubled Abuser: His psychotic behavior and mistreatment of Max is rooted in his own father's violent treatment of him and his original mother.
• Troubled, but Cute: He's got the rebel look down. Most, if not all scenes with women actively lusting after someone from afar, the attention is on him. He's also a psychopathic man child in Season 2, and in Season 3 it's even worse.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Very much so. It's all but explicitly stated that had he been raised to maturity by his loving mother rather than his abusive prick of a father, he would have been a good person as a young adult rather than the jackass bully that he turned out to be.
• Villainous Breakdown: Several times, especially at the end of Season 2 when he discovers Max's relationship with Lucas and then throughout the whole of Season 3 when he becomes possessed by the Mind Flayer.
• Villain's Dying Grace: Upon being reminded of a happier time in his life by Eleven, Billy finally realizes that he's turned out like his father and decides to fight the Mind Flayer, all to protect the others and knowing full well it would easily kill him.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He gets taken over by the Mind Flayer in Season 3, and starts turning other townspeople, but he had an abusive father. The only time he was truly happy was when he was with his biological mother.
• Would Hurt a Child: He nearly murdered Mike, Lucas, and Dustin (three children, no less!) by trying to run them over with his car, just because Max talked back to him. He even pins Lucas against a wall, threatening to physically harm him. It's also implied he abuses Max physically and in Runaway Max, snaps a 13 year old's arm like a twig.

Robin Buckley

Robin Buckley

"Hey dingus, your children are here!"

Played By: Maya Hawke ^{Foreign voice actors} Emmylou Homs (French)

Debut: "Chapter One: Suzie, Do You Copy?" (3x01)

"I don't really have a filter or a strong grasp of social cues. If I say something that upsets you, just know that I know it's a flaw. Believe me, my mother reminds me daily."

Steve's coworker at Scoops Ahoy and former classmate. Although the two start off on shaky terms, they become close friends as they're forced to work together to investigate some strange goings-on at the Starcourt Mall. During this time, Robin proves herself as a valuable ally of the Party thanks to her unwavering loyalty and brilliant mind.

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• '80s Hair: Her hair, even at work, looks slightly punked up. It gets even more eighties when she wears it in a messy French Twist in the Season 3 finale.
• Academic Athlete: A bright young woman who mentions being on the soccer team in Season 3.
• A Day in the Limelight: The novel Rebel Robin spotlights her backstory.
• Action Girl: She's more than competent in a fight, as shown by her performance fighting the Demobats alongside Eddie, Nancy, and Steve when they get pulled into the Upside Down.
• Affirmative Action Girl: The second of the older female teens to join the main cast.
• Allergic to Routine: She's bored out of her mind at work and seeks every opportunity to do more engaging things like keep score of Steve's pickup failures. She lucks out when Dustin arrives with a Russian radio transmission to decipher.
• All There in the Manual: Her last name, Buckley, was only revealed by the show's writers in a series of Twitter posts after the airing of the third season. It's only been mentioned once in the show itself, during Season 4.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: When Nancy says she and Robin have to go undercover as academic scholars, Robin is too busy playing with the music box on Nancy's dresser to listen.
  Robin: Holy shit, you guys. There's a little ballerina in here.
• Audience Surrogate: After half a season of watching Lucas and Max's strained relationship, it's nothing short of satisfying to both Robin and the viewers when the two start getting closer:
  Robin: Oh my God, they're so adorable. I just wanna squeeze 'em, you know? If I'm permitted to see a silver lining in this end-of-the-world doom and gloom, it would be the rekindling of some old flames that, frankly, never should've been snuffed out.
• Badass Bookworm: A Brainy Brunette who can speak four languages and decipher Russian codes.
• Bad Job, Worse Uniform: She's stuck in her Scoops Ahoy uniform while infiltrating a top-secret Russian base.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Subverted. She and Steve squabble with each other throughout the early parts of Season 3, while Dustin keeps telling Steve to hook up with Robin, to Steve's disgust. Ultimately they become Fire-Forged Friends, and Steve expresses his feelings for Robin, only for Robin to reveal that she's gay. They remain platonic friends in the end.
• Big Sister Instinct: She's subtly protective of the younger Dustin and Erica when they infiltrate the Russians' base in Season 3.
• Birds of a Feather: Her Season 4 love interest, Vickie, turns out to be every bit as awkward and talkative as she is.
• Brainy Brunette: Brunette and revealed to be highly intelligent, a speaker of several languages, and able to crack a Russian code within hours without even speaking Russian.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Revealed she peed her pants "just a little bit" when the Russian interrogator grabbed a bonesaw.
• Bully Turned Buddy: Robin starts out roasting Steve over his failure to get girls and generally mocking how much of a loser he's become, no doubt due to her poor memories of him from high school. They eventually become Fire-Forged Friends and Robin even gets Steve a job at the video store at the end of the season.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: While she can be a neurotic Motor Mouth, she's still very intelligent — the only one of the older kids who rivals her in terms of smarts is Nancy — and a capable fighter when the chips are down.
• Burger Fool: Serves ice cream and frequently has to deal with Erica's blatant abuse of their free samples.
• Bust-Contrast Duo: She's tall and buxom compared to the shorter, waifish Nancy. When Nancy loans Robin one of her bras she spends half the time complaining about how it's pinching her boobs.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: According to Rebel Robin, she used to call her parents by their names Richard and Melissa until she was five or six and realized it was not common for other children to do so.
• Cannot Spit It Out: She has difficulty expressing her feelings for her bandmate Vickie. Her fears aren't exactly unfounded considering the time period.
  Robin: [to Steve] You ask out a girl and she says no. Big deal. Nothing happens. Maybe your ego's a little bruised. I ask out the wrong girl, and bam, I'm a town pariah.
• Celeb Crush: Seems to have a thing for Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago, calling her "b-b-bonkers hot" and "the most beautiful creature I have seen in my life".
  • The Rebel Robin podcast implies that she also has a crush on Annie Lennox; she dressed up as her for Halloween (while her friend dressed up as Boy George), but she doesn’t know who Dave Stewart, the other half of the band, is; when questioned, she simply answers “Annie’s the one worth knowing, I guess” (it would definitely make sense for her, considering Lennox was known for her androgynous public image which gave her a significant presence among LGBTQ+ fans).
• Character Development: Becomes more talkative and outgoing after befriending Steve. She also becomes more comfortable with her sexuality, enough to make the first move on her crush in the Season 4 finale.
• Characterization Marches On: In Season 3, Robin was initially a cool, collected Deadpan Snarker who enjoyed playing soccer and putting down Steve to amuse herself whenever things weren't dire. Come Season 4, and Robin's snarkiness has almost completely faded in favor of giving her a more anxious and hyperactive personality, as well as being much more clumsy and uncoordinated. Possibly justified, given that she's been friends with Steve for a while at this point and has started to come out of her shell.
• Closet Gay: Revealed in "The Bite" to be a closeted lesbian; this is justified by the time period. As of the Season 4 finale, she has officially only come out to Steve, while also subtly hinting her feelings to her crush, Vickie.
• Cloudcuckoolander: As a side effect of her Motor Mouth, she can go off on some weird tangents. She uses it to her advantage to seamlessly blend complaints with her outfit and frustration with the hospital administrator into a totally fictional story about how the Victor Creel massacre inspired her to go into investigative journalism.
• Coming-Out Story: She's revealed to be a lesbian in the penultimate episode of Season 3, and slowly becomes more comfortable with her sexuality in Season 4, up to potentially getting a girlfriend in the season finale.
• Conspiracy Theorist: She believes in UFOs and is "on the fence" about Bigfoot. When Nancy scoffs at a tabloid about Elvis being cloned by aliens, Robin quips, "You never know."
• Cowardly Lion: She spends much of Season 4 on edge about the various dangers the party encounters, from rabies to earthquakes to her own incoordination. However, she does not at any point shy away from said danger. When Steve is pulled underwater by a Tentacle Rope she doesn't hesitate to follow Nancy in going to rescue him. She's also an active participant in the fight against Vecna in the finale, even lighting him ablaze with a well-thrown Molotov cocktail.
• Cunning Linguist: Fluent in four languages, and is able to translate a Russian coded message just by listening to it for hours on end despite Russian not being one of the languages she speaks. She does not, however, understand Morse code, being just as lost as the other teens save Eddie, who knows how to send SOS.
• Deadpan Snarker: Around Steve, she has an endless supply of snark.
• Defiant Captive: Shows no fear in the face of the Russians' threats. She only caves when they're about to cut off one of Steve's fingernails.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: She goes from being Steve's snide and sarcastic co-worker to his supportive best friend and a sweeter, more openly caring ally to the entire Party.
• Demoted to Comic Relief: In Season 3, due to being with a smaller group for much of the season, she is given more of a chance to show off her role as The Smart Guy. While she does play a pivotal in the role of the first half of the season by teaming up with Nancy and finding a way to save Max from Vecna, in the second half, Nancy is clearly the leader and Robin's contributions become more minor and geared towards comic relief.
• Ditzy Genius: Robin is exceptionally bright and intuitive, but by her admission, not the best when it comes to social interaction.
• Does Not Drive: She does not have a drivers' license. When pressed why, she responds it's because she's poor. Oddly, Steve is not aware of this despite presumably driving her to school for the last several months.
• Dork Knight: Though she always had a nerdy side, Season 4 reveals her to be considerably more neurotic and dorky than previously thought. Especially when she's trying to make a good impression on Nancy and struggling to express her feelings to her possibly-heterosexual crush, Vickie.
• Dungeon Bypass: Figures out a safe way to enter the guarded Russian elevator by buying a copy of Starcourt's blueprints and employing Erica to crawl through the vents to the elevator while it isn't guarded.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Doubly subverted. Thinking she's about to die in the Russian base, Robin confesses to Steve her obsession with him in high school and gives a detailed description of his routine in a class they shared. However, after they escape and Steve returns Robin's presumed interest, she reveals her obsession with Steve wasn't romantic, it was because a girl she had a crush on wanted Steve and she was envious.
• Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced calling Steve a dingus and telling him his "children" are here, establishing her as a Deadpan Snarker who has no problem knocking the former king of Hawkins High down a peg. Her second ECM comes when she reveals herself to be a Teen Genius who speaks multiple languages and offers to help Dustin and Steve crack the Russians' code.
• False Soulmate: There's a lot of ship teasing between her and Steve, who eventually admits that he's falling for her, but she rebuffs his advances because it turns out she's a lesbian and a girl she was pining for was obsessed with Steve.
• Fire-Forged Friends:
  • She understandably hated Steve in high school, given how he used to act, and that the girl she liked only had eyes for him, but over the course of Season 3 they become thick as thieves, even getting jobs together.
  • She initially dismisses Nancy as a "priss" and chides Steve for having once been in love with her. After infiltrating an asylum in Season 4, the two become a lot closer and Robin even pushes for Nancy to get back together with Steve.
• Flanderization: In Season 3, she's a Deadpan Snarker with only occasional quirky moments. Steve does mention her to be hyper, but it's mostly an Informed Attribute apart from a single scene scene where she starts nervously rambling upon being exposed to the supernatural for the first time. In Season 4, the nervous rambling becomes her default speech mode and she's much more of a Motor Mouth and Plucky Comic Relief whose quirky awkwardness dominates her character.
• Foil:
  • To Nancy. Both are clever, dark-haired plucky girls who have a complicated history with Steve. However, they also differ in several ways. Both have what appears to be Ship Tease with Steve, but while Nancy rebuffs him because she chooses Jonathan, Robin turns him down because she's actually a lesbian. Both are extremely intelligent, but whereas Nancy is orderly and analytical, Robin is a creative problem solver who specializes in outside-the-box thinking. Personality-wise, Nancy is no-nonsense and driven, whereas Robin is more verbose, quirky, and uncouth. Financially, Nancy is shown to be upper middle class, whereas Robin explicitly mentions herself to be poor. Their dynamic is given special attention when they team up in "The Monster and the Superhero" and "Dear Billy". Nancy is the leader who has the bright ideas, but Robin is the one who finds a way to connect the dots and make them work.
  • She's also one to Steve, especially in Season 3. Whereas Steve is a straight high school graduate and former Jerk Jock who can be a bit on the Book Dumb side, Robin is an intelligent band geek and a lesbian. Both had to deal with being an unrequited love interest to someone they had deep feelings for (Steve for Nancy, Robin for Tammy Thompson). They also both had their "jerk" sides initially, though it's heavily downplayed in Robin's case as she was mostly just snarky while Steve was a full-fledged high school douchebag.
• Foreshadowing: With the benefit of hindsight, the scene where she mentions wishing to start over and feeling like her whole life has been "one big error" can be seen as self-hatred in regards to her sexuality and thinking she doesn’t have a place in a small, close-minded town like Hawkins.
• Freak Out: She has one in Season 3 when a piece of the Mind Flayer gets inside El's leg. It’s justified since, as noted under Wrong Genre Savvy, this is the first time Robin has encountered anything remotely supernatural. She begins rambling about a girl on her soccer team who suffered a severe leg injury (earning her looks of annoyance from the rest of the group) and has to be told to shut up by Steve.
• Fun Personified: Robin is one of the least serious characters who marches to the beat of her own drummer.
• The Gadfly:
  • She enjoys messing with Steve, even after they become friends.
  • She also teases the younger members of the Party who are forced to stay behind by telling them "bedtime at nine, kiddos!"
• Gay Best Friend: To Steve. Though Robin diverges from the usual stereotype by being a well-rounded character who is important to the narrative.
• Gayngst: She's understandably insecure about being a closeted lesbian in a small suburban town like Hawkins.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: She becomes a part of one in Season 3, the group investigating the Russians' secret base, which includes two boys (Steve and Dustin) and two girls (Robin and Erica).
• Good Counterpart: To Carol Perkins from the first two seasons.
  • Both are brown-haired, blue-eyed female friends of Steve who often talk more than they should. Unlike Robin, who is pretty much harmless — and even early on, directs most of her vitriol towards Steve — Carol spends most of her screen time shit-talking everyone and in general being a real bitch. Steve eventually gets fed up with Carol’s jabbering and tells her to shut up, whereas he seems to genuinely find Robin’s anxious chattiness endearing.
  • Both girls start off on opposing terms with Steve — Robin hates Steve for stealing attention away from the girl she liked and being a jerk in school; Carol is in Steve's friend group and encourages his negative traits towards other people. Steve wises up and sees both girls for who they truly are, severing ties with Carol and befriending Robin.
  • Both Carol and Robin also have low opinions of Nancy. But whereas Carol never grows to like her, Robin recognizes Nancy for the kindhearted and brave person she is, becomes her friend, and encourages her to reconcile with Steve.
• Green-Eyed Monster: She admits to Steve that she watched him constantly not because she had a crush on him, but because the girl she liked did.
• Has a Type: Both of her love interests are into music — Tammy is an aspiring singer (albeit not a very good one) and Vickie is a fellow member of the high school band.
• Hates Wearing Dresses: Nancy makes Robin borrow some of her clothes for their appointment with Victor Creel. Robin complains about it the entire time, specifically how itchy the dress is and how it makes her look like she came from an Easter brunch.
• Hidden Depths: She has a knack for improvisational theater, as shown when she formulates an off-the-cuff story about summer camp and a lifelong interest in behavioral psychology to the hospital administrator and utterly sells it. Though it's not surprising when you remember she took (or takes) drama in school.
• Hippie Parents: Robin's parents are hippies who get stoned and supposedly conceived her in a car in Oregon in the late 1960s.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: To Steve and Dustin in Season 3. While Dustin is far from dumb, it's not until Robin joins the team that they make any progress. She does most of the heavy lifting in the early part of the investigation, as noted under The Smart Guy below.
• Iconic Outfit: Her Scoops Ahoy uniform is her most famous outfit and very popular for cosplay.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Steve's future Best Friend and Sixth Ranger to the Party who isn't introduced until the first episode of Season 3.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Robin worries that she'll never find love due to her crushes having an Incompatible Orientation.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: It takes a while for her to admit it, but she clearly desires human connection and is elated when Steve is accepting of her when she reveals that she's a lesbian. It's also apparent in Season 4 when she teams up with Nancy and spends much of their early screentime anxiously trying to win her approval.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • Much to Steve's disappointment, though they become good friends instead.
  • On her side, her crush on Tammy Thompson, who was her Closet Key according to Rebel Robin.
• Informed Attribute: Steve describes her as "hyper" when listing off the reasons he shouldn't date her to Dustin in Season 3. This doesn't really reflect in Robin's behavior aside from a single scene where she's understandably freaked by Jonathan having to remove a piece of the Mind Flayer from Eleven's leg. In Season 4, it's clear what Steve was talking about as Robin becomes more acclimated to the group.
• Innocently Insensitive: When Nancy is possessed by Vecna and Robin is searching for music to free her from the trance, she indirectly insults Eddie's music choices by combing through his tapes and saying, "We need music!"
• Insecure Love Interest: She is hesitant to pursue Vickie because of the possibility that she might be straight which, if word gets around, risks Robin being publicly outed.
• Insult of Endearment: She refers to Steve as a "dingus", at first derisively, then affectionately.
• Instant Expert: As the resident Omniglot, she manages to gain a basic understanding of Russian in less than a day.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: In school she is an outcast despite evidently being intelligent. This seems to be self-imposed, however, and by Season 4 she appears to have had better luck at making friends.
• Intoxication Ensues: Robin and Steve are drugged by Soviet interrogators, which leaves them high as a kite and laughing at everything.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In Season 3, before evolving more towards Nice Girl. She's snarky and sometimes downright rude, but is ultimately a good person who becomes Steve's best friend and a vital ally to the Party.
• Just Friends: With Steve, despite what Dustin, Keith, and Nancy think.
• The Klutz: Revealed to have this trait in Season 4, mentioning how, as an infant, it took her six more weeks to learn to walk than all the other babies. Unsurprisingly, she's the most nervous when the group has to carefully make their way across a floor full of vines in the Upside Down Vecna house. Fortunately, Nancy calms her down and Robin makes it through just fine.
• Knight in Sour Armor: She doesn't think the group stands a chance against a powerful, otherworldly creature like Vecna. But someone has to stop him or else the world will end, so they might as well give it their best shot.
• Limited Wardrobe: During Season 3 she's stuck in her Scoops Ahoy uniform until her last scene in the season finale.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Since she's almost exclusively seen in her work uniform in Season 3, there's nothing in her appearance that would indicate her sexuality prior to her admitting it to Steve. This is also justified by the show being set in the 80s. Downplayed in Season 4 where, even at work, she can dress in her own style and has a far more masculine attire.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Even though she helps Dustin and Steve battle the Russians in Season 3, she's still in the dark about the supernatural side of Hawkins until she witnesses Eleven use her mind to fling a car at the Russians pursuing them. When the factions of the group meet up and exchange information, Robin is totally lost and starts asking questions about what the heck just happened. Nancy outright asks who Robin is, having never met her before.
• Maybe Ever After: In Season 4, Robin worries that Vickie isn't into girls, even though Steve is firmly convinced that she is due to returning Fast Times at Ridgemont High with the tape rewound on Phoebe Cates' infamous topless scene. Towards the end of the season, Robin sees Vickie with her boyfriend Dan, leaving her heartbroken, though she tries to stay focused on helping stop the forthcoming apocalypse instead. In the finale, Vickie reveals she and Dan have broken up and that she was indeed the one who was a fan of Fast Times. The girls then have a moment where they stare into each others' eyes and start hitting it off with one another, suggesting Vickie really does like Robin that way.
• Mirror Character: To Will. Both are smart and creative homosexual characters struggling with feelings for someone they believe doesn't love them back. This is mirrored in the penultimate episode of Season 4 when Robin watches Vickie and Dan kiss while Will watches Mike and Eleven reunite. However, there are some key differences between the two scenes: Robin is in focus while Will is not, as Mike and El are in focus. Robin is devastated and doesn't notice Vickie's turmoil while Will is happy and relieved. Another difference is that while Robin has come out to Steve and become more extroverted, Will remains introverted and is still closeted (though Jonathan is all but stated to know his brother is gay). As of the Season 4 finale, Robin seems to have had more romantic luck than Will, since Vickie is strongly implied to return her feelings, whereas the question of whether Mike likes Will back remains unresolved.
• Mistaken for Romance: As Steve's budding best friend, they're frequently mistaken for being a couple.
• Moment Killer: She unknowingly interrupts Steve and Nancy when they're having a heart-to-heart before the fight against Vecna in the Season 4 finale. Considering Nancy is still with Jonathan, it's probably for the best.
• Motor Mouth: Mostly in Season 4. She talks non-stop, especially when she gets nervous.
  Robin: I'm having this problem where it's like, I should stop talking. I have said everything I need to say. But then I guess I get nervous, and the words keep spilling out, and it's like my... my brain is moving faster than my mouth, or... or rather my... my mouth is moving faster than my brain. I'm digging this hole for myself, and I want to stop digging. I'm trying to stop, but I can't.
• The Movie Buff: She's implied to be quite the cinephile, quickly rattling off The Apartment, The Hidden Fortress, and Children of Paradise as her favorite movies while applying for a job at Family Video. Note that the latter two would probably be difficult for the average American teenager to find at their local video store in the 80s. She also enjoys Doctor Zhivago and compares a news article about Victor Creel to The Exorcist.
• Nerds Are Sexy: While pouring his heart out, Steve (who Has a Type) admits that he finds Robin's intelligence attractive.
• Nerdy Bully: She's a bit of one to Steve in Season 3. While she never goes beyond snarking at him for failing to pick up girls, it's quite the turnaround from high school where he was a Jerk Jock while she was an intellectual band geek (though Steve doesn't appear to have been a jerk to Robin and in fact barely seems to remember her).
• Nice Girl: In Season 4. While she can still be a snarky troll, she's much more well-meaning and a loyal and supportive friend to everyone. She also checks in with Nancy to make sure she isn't coming off as mean or condescending.
• The Nicknamer: She calls Steve "dingus", "Popeye" (because of his work uniform) and "The Hair" (three guesses why).
• No Sense of Personal Space: She is eager to explore Nancy's bedroom and wastes no time rifling through her things.
• The Not-Love Interest: Despite getting Ship Tease with Steve, as the girl he spends time around in Season 3 and whom he gradually opens up to, it turns out she's a lesbian and they end the season as friends.
• Not So Above It All:
  • She reveals that despite her snark and irreverence towards Steve, she envied how cool and popular he was, not least of all because he attracted the attention of the girl she liked.
  • In Season 4, Robin has let her guard down and displays a much goofier, dorky side, no doubt from hanging around Steve and Dustin.
• Odd Friendship: With former Big Man on Campus turned Nice Guy Steve Harrington. Becomes less odd the more they hang out and the two find they have a similar sense of humor and struggles with finding love.
• Omniglot: Played with. While Russian is not a language she speaks (she speaks several), she is able to decode it with relative ease.
• Only Sane Woman: In Season 3 when she's grouped with the goofy jock Steve, Cloudcuckoolander Dustin, and Bratty Half-Pint Erica. She's definitely not this in Season 4, though considering she only really shared scenes with the Scoops Troop, the Russians, and Keith (a fellow outcast who she knows well enough to sweet talk into giving Steve a job), this could retroactively make her Only Sane by Comparison.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Frequently in Season 4, thanks to her non-stop jabbering. A good example is when Steve is bitten by a Demobat in the Upside Down and Robin nervously tries to assure him he'll be fine... by namedropping potential side effects of rabies like hallucinations and muscle spasms.
• Parental Neglect: Implied. She mentions that her mother reminds her how much of a Motor Mouth nuisance she can be daily.
  • Played With in the podcast; she mentions that her parents are hippies who are usually pretty lenient with her and let her do her own thing, but the recent disappearances have suddenly caused them to become more overprotective of her.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Has evolved into Steve's best friend and closest confidant by the time of Season 4. He drives her to school, they work together, they talk about girls together, and they are frequently at each other's side to the point where most people assume they're a couple. In Robin's words, however...
  Robin: Platonic with a capital 'P'.
• Plucky Comic Relief: For the Hawkins group in Season 4. It's especially noticeable when they enter the Upside Down and almost every word out of her mouth is some form of snark or a one-liner.
• Plucky Girl: She leaps at the chance to join Dustin and Steve in their investigation.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: In addition to being a cinephile, she's familiar with the character Cyborg from DC Comics.
• Positive Friend Influence: She gets Steve a job at Family Video and acts as a sounding board by listening to his dating horror stories for the better part of a year and dispensing advice.
• The Power of Acting: Despite her usual Motor Mouth tendencies she is a surprisingly good liar, in part because she is skilled at reading people and improvising as she goes. Best demonstrated when she manages to get the administrator of a high-security mental institution to allow her private access to a patient by inventing an elaborate backstory about being a frustrated grad student caught in bureaucratic red tape that manages to simultaneously flatter the administrator while also exploiting his bias against the dean of her alleged grad program.
• Power Trio:
  • In Season 3, she's the Spock (down-to-earth, intuitive) to Dustin's Kirk and Steve's McCoy.
  • In Season 4, she's the McCoy (friendly, impulsive) to Steve's Kirk and Nancy's Spock.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: While drugged, she mocks Ozerov for being stupid enough that a couple of kids who work at an ice cream shop managed to pick up their code and infiltrate his base.
• Red Herring: Season 4 seems to hint at something happening to Robin, between being at a physical disadvantage due to her poor coordination, finding out the girl she likes is already taken, and saying she doesn't think things are going to work out while gearing up for the battle against Vecna (which is featured in the trailer for the second half of the season). She makes it out alright, and is even implied to get the girl in the end.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • In Season 3, she's the mellow and sarcastic Blue Oni to Dustin and Steve's passionate and impulsive Red Onis.
  • In Season 4, she's the chatty and exuberant Red Oni to Nancy's serious and practical-minded Blue Oni.
• Remember the New Guy?: She's a classmate of Jonathan and Nancy and a former classmate of Steve who sat behind him in history class. However, he barely noticed her due to being a self-absorbed Jerkass back then.
• The Resenter: Turns out that she is this for Steve, having disliked how the girl she liked in school would rather spend her time looking at him than at her. When they're forced to work together she really enjoys rubbing it in his face how terrible his job and love life have become, until she begins to realize he's actually a Nice Guy and they slowly become Vitriolic Best Buds.
• Sad Clown: In Season 4, it's obvious her constant wisecracks are her just barely keeping it together as the danger the group is in piles up.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: In Season 4, this is her dynamic with the more laid-back Team Dad Steve.
• Say My Name: Calls for Steve and Nancy to save her when she gets pinned to the wall by vines in the Season 4 finale.
• Serious Business: When Steve and Dustin erase her scoreboard to take notes on Dustin's signals, Robin says that was important data, hinting that she was more invested in Steve's pickup game than she needed to be.
• Sherlock Scan: Accurately figures out what the Soviet code meant just by glancing at various logos around the mall.
• Shipper on Deck: After befriending Nancy in Season 4 Part 1, she openly approves that Nancy and Steve should rekindle their romance. She also thinks Max and Lucas are adorable together, and that they deserve to get back together.
• Ship Sinking:
  • Season 3 seems to be setting up a romance between her and Steve. The penultimate episode reveals that Robin is a lesbian who has merely become fond of Steve as a friend.
  • This seems to be the case with her and Vickie, with Robin's hopes dashed by finding out Vickie has a boyfriend. Although...
• Ship Tease: With Vickie in Season 4. The finale heavily hints they'll end up together.
• Shout-Out: The beret she wears in the Season 4 finale is a reference to Alan Frog's costume from The Lost Boys.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Or woman. Vickie seems to be a sweetheart who's as Endearingly Dorky as Robin is.
• Sixth Ranger: A new character introduced for the third season who soon joins the Masquerade.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • She spends her meeting with Dr. Hatch distracted by how uncomfortable the outfit Nancy loaned her is.
  • Inverted when she lampshades that her disappointment over finding out Vickie has a boyfriend pales in comparison to the possible end of the world, and urges Steve not to worry about it.
• The Smart Guy: As part of the "Scoops Troop" in Season 3, she's the one who cracks the Russian code, obtains a copy of the blueprints for the Starcourt Mall, and has the idea to use Erica to crawl through the vents and let them inside the storage room that will lead them to the Russians' underground base. Even in Season 4 when she's with a larger group of geniuses, her intelligence is key to saving the day: she uses the video store's rental history to figure out where Eddie is hiding, realizes the Victor Creel story will probably be in the conspiracy tabloids instead of a more mainstream newspaper, improvises a so-crazy-it-could-work story that convinces Dr. Hatch to let her and Nancy actually meet Creel, and finally, realizes it's music that gives Vecna's victims a fighting chance, which saves Max's life when she gets possessed and almost killed a short while later.
• Sorry, I'm Gay: Steve is encouraged by Dustin to date to Robin, although Steve vehemently insists he does not like Robin. Despite this, Steve starts to warm up to Robin as they sneak in and out of the Russian lab under the Starcourt Mall. When Robin reveals that she sat behind him in a class in high school, Steve mistakes this for her confessing her feelings for him. In reality, she later adds she was jealous of him because he always stole the attention from Tammy Thompson, a girl she crushed on in the same class.
• Soul-Sucking Retail Job: She's clearly not thrilled to be spending her summer slinging ice cream at Scoops Ahoy. Though she seems much more comfortable working at Family Video, and has been employed there for six months.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Her snide exterior is revealed to be a front for some serious self-esteem issues regarding her sexuality. With Steve's influence she is able to let her guard down and become more outgoing and friendly.
• Spiteful Spit: When held prisoner, she defiantly spits in General Ozerov's face.
• Stalker without a Crush: She admits to being obsessed with Steve in high school, right down to memorizing his choice of breakfast. Though not because she wanted him, but because the girl she liked did, and Robin envied him for it.
• Stealth Insult: When Dustin asks if she can speak Russian...
  Robin: Ou-yay are-yay umb-day. (You are dumb)
  Dustin: [impressed] Holy shit!
  Robin: That was pig latin, dingus.
• Stepford Snarker: She uses sarcasm to mask the pain she feels from being a lonely social outcast and closeted lesbian.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Starts out this way around Steve, alternating between calling him a dumbass while helping him and Dustin crack the Russian code and being very protective towards them (and Erica) when they infiltrate the underground base. The first time she truly lets her guard down is when she and Steve are tied up and she thinks they are about to die, causing Robin to admit how obsessed she was with him in high school (albeit not for the reasons he thinks). In the following episode, she admits she's enjoyed their time together and the two become genuine friends, with Steve being the first person Robin comes out as a lesbian to.
• Teen Genius: A seemingly average girl who gets dragged into a Soviet conspiracy by Steve and Dustin because she quickly learns to understand Russian and can interpret coded messages.
• Throwing Out the Script: When Dr. Hatch refuses to let Robin and Nancy see Victor Creel, Robin spins a long-winded yarn about how Creel's story inspired her to become a psych student and how women still aren't taken seriously in the field in this day and age. To Nancy's surprise, it works.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After spending most of Season 4 at wit's end over both the impending apocalypse and her fears that Vickie doesn’t return her feelings (which are compounded when she sees Vickie kissing her boyfriend), the finale reveals that Vickie has broken up with said boyfriend and is likely interested in Robin after all.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • In Season 3, she's the Tomboy (an "alternative" girl, more unkempt and casual) to Erica's Girly Girl (favors cutesy tween girl outfits with bright colors).
  • In Season 4, she's the Tomboy (more uncouth and alternative) to Nancy's Girly Girl (the "Ms. Perfect" Class Princess).
• Tomboyish Name: "Robin" can be a gender-neutral first name.
• Tomboyish Voice: Speaks with a really deep and raspy voice, courtesy of Maya Hawke.
• Tomboyness Upgrade: Her appearance noticeably undergoes this between Seasons 3 and 4. Although considering she was near-exclusively shown in her low-cut work uniform skirt in Season 3, it could be described as less of an "upgrade" and better as her being able to dress her own style.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's shown to be a bit of a romantic, being a fan of old-school romance dramas like Doctor Zhivago and being a Shipper on Deck for some of her friends to get back together.
• Took a Level in Badass: While already quite the badass in Season 3, it was almost entirely due to her intelligence and bravery in the face of the Russians' threats. She graduates to full-fledged Action Girl in Season 4, going on the offensive against threats in the Upside Down. She helps save Steve by tag-team killing a Demobat with Nancy, and participates in the takedown against Vecna by lighting him on fire with a Molotov cocktail.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Downplayed. While she's even more nervous in Season 4, especially around Vickie, she's also more lively and personable, to the point of being the group's resident Plucky Comic Relief. This is in stark contrast to her cynical and closed-off characterization in Season 3.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Downplayed. In Season 3 she is a smart and witty Deadpan Snarker, especially when interacting with goofier characters like Steve and Dustin. While still intelligent, in Season 4, she becomes more of a bumbling and socially awkward Cloudcuckoolander, probably as a contrast to the serious Nancy, usually serving as Plucky Comic Relief.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Compared to Season 3, she's much more openly friendly in Season 4, if a bit Innocently Insensitive due to her Motor Mouth traits.
• Town Girls: She's the Neither to Nancy's Femme and Max's Butch. She's less feminine than Nancy but lacks some of Max's more overtly tomboyish traits.
• Troubled Fetal Position: Curls into herself when Steve confesses his feelings for her, her fear and dread evident that she'll have to tell him the truth and that on learning it, Steve won't want to be her friend anymore (and that being the tip of the iceberg of what he might do). Fortunately, Steve immediately accepts her and teases her for her taste in girls.
• Undying Loyalty: To most of the group, but especially Steve and Nancy. After Nancy and Robin become friends she shows no problem following her lead and hops into a lake after her to rescue Steve when he's been dragged into the Upside Down by a Tentacle Rope. Eddie commends Robin and Nancy for their bravery in the following episode.
• Unwillingly Girly Tomboy: She is not thrilled with having to get dolled up and wear one of Nancy's dresses when they go undercover as a pair of sophisticated psychology students in "Dear Billy". She complains about how itchy said dress is and how the bra she borrowed from Nancy is pinching her boobs.
• Verbal Backpedaling: When she hears her former crush Tammy Thompson singing (horribly) at the school pep rally, she starts to tell her current crush Vickie about how she used to think Tammy sounded good back when she had a massive crush on her, only to realize she's let too much info slip and amends her sentence to them taking a "massively hard class together." Vickie doesn't catch it, though.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Steve. She frequently describes him as a jerk and an idiot, but she also makes it clear that she sees what a good guy he is and comes to be his best friend throughout Season 3.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Barb. Rebel Robin reveals she and Barb were friends from Kindergarten to the Sixth Grade, when Barb started hanging around the "priss" Nancy.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She gets skittish at the possibility of Steve contracting rabies from being bitten by a Demobat in the Upside Down, even going as far as to call rabies her number one fear. Later she calls earthquakes her number two fear.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Downplayed. For most of her group's storyline in Season 3, Robin is fairly convinced she's in a conventional Cold War spy thriller... up until a car is telekinetically thrown at the Russian agents pursuing them.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In "Papa", while preparing for the final battle, Robin spots Vickie across the store and looks set to finally confess her feelings. Cue Vickie's boyfriend leaping out from nowhere and showering his girlfriend with kisses, leaving Robin devastated.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Her reaction to finding out Nancy is going to stick her in a dress as part of her disguise to get into Pennhurst.
• Youthful Freckles: She has them, and is fresh out of her junior year in high school when we first meet her.

Eddie Munson

Edward "Eddie" Munson

"This year is my year. I can feel it. '86 baby!"

Played By: Joseph Quinn

Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)

"You are scared. You're tired. You are injured. Do you flee Vecna and his cultists? Or do you stand your ground and fight?"

A local punk who acts as the DM of Hawkins High's D&D club, Hellfire, and also the guitarist of a local garage band.

---

• '80s Hair: Eddie possesses very long hair, not unlike then-contemporary rock star Jon Bon Jovi.
• The Aggressive Drug Dealer: Subverted; he's assumed to be this by Hawkins police, and the fact a girl he was selling drugs to was brutally murdered in his trailer does paint that image. While he does sell drugs, he knows Chrissy is just going to him because she's clearly stressed and is completely willing to walk away.
• All-Loving Hero: Beneath his rock and roll exterior, Eddie is a pretty nice guy that always looks out for others. It's explicitly stated that he sought out Mike, Dustin and Lucas when they entered high school to bring them into his group of friends, and while he may play the part of the aloof and unapproachable leader, it's made very clear he does it mostly for fun. When Chrissy comes to him for drugs, he takes time to make sure that it's what she really wants, doesn't try to push her on it, and tries to calm her down and cheer her up when he notices that she's troubled. Notably, when Chrissy dies in front of him, Eddie blames himself and believes that he was a coward for not doing anything despite there literally being nothing he could have done to save her. Even in his final moments, he asks Dustin to look out for the other outcasts and not make them feel so alone.
• Ambiguously Bi: Seems smitten with Chrissy but also appears to flirt with Steve, frequently invading his space and at one point calling him "big boy" in a suggestive tone of voice.
• Book Dumb: He mentions early on that he's only a final exam away from either graduating or failing out of school and that he's already failed his senior year at least twice. Though, he is a D&D dungeon master who quotes Lord of the Rings... so maybe he just doesn't apply himself in school.
• Character Development: Starts as a cowardly delinquent ready to abandon everything out of fear to a person ready to fight and even sacrifice himself for others.
• Convicted by Public Opinion: Due to his trailer-park background and poor reputation amongst the Hawkins community, he's immediately blamed for Chrissy's death, with literally no chance at clearing his name as Satanic Panic grips the town.
• Cool Big Bro: A substitute for Mike and Dustin, especially the latter who sees him as a role model, enough for Steve to feel jealous when he saw that he had another older friend. He's generally this to all of Hellfire Club and he encourages Dustin and Mike to be the same for other loner kids at Hawkins high so their experience there doesn't have to be miserable,
• Cowardly Lion: He's very ashamed to realize he's a coward, as he's quick to run away from danger, which causes him to be implicated in the murders. However, he still dives in to help save Steve and holds his own when fighting the flying monsters in the Upside-Down.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Mauled to death by an army of Demobats and chokes on his own blood.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He looks and acts like a stereotypical 80's metalhead and embraces the edgy Satanic Panic image of D&D, but at his core he's a kind (albeit cynical) person whose worst vice is selling weed.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's prone to making wry quips, usually insulting someone.
• Delinquent Hair: Has a long shag haircut befitting his '80s metalhead image.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: He bleeds out from his wounds while Dustin cradles him in his arms.
• The Drag-Along: Not happy to be following Nancy and Robin into the Upside Down to save Steve. He only relents because he doesn't want to be left alone on the boat.
• Drives Like Crazy: Max remarks that he drives like a maniac, and when stealing the Winnebago Robin expresses concern at the idea of Eddie behind the wheel.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Platonic version — he tells Dustin, "I love you, man" before he dies.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The Hellfire Club debuted in the anthology novel Hawkins Horrors, released a month prior to Season 4, although Eddie is only referred to as "The Dungeon Master".
• Establishing Character Moment: We first get both barrels of Eddie during his first scene at lunch when he stands up on the tables and starts loudly ranting against the various cliques at school, showing that he's both a social outcast and an impossibly cool bad boy, just the kind of guy the Party would flock to.
• Fairy Tale Motif: While he serves as the Dungeon Master for the Hellfire Club's campaign, he has some notable traits associated with bards; he has an eclectic knowledge base that comes in handy during his trials such as how to hotwire a car, he plays a musical instrument in the form of his electric guitar that he uses to distract the Demobats surround Vecna's lair by playing Master of Puppets, and he serves as an inspiration for the outcasts at Hawkins High and more specifically for Dustin by Passing the Torch to him during his Dying Speech after distracting the Demobats long enough for Nancy, Robin, and Steve to defeat Vecna.
• Fake Guest Star: One of the main characters of his introductory season, he's not in the opening credits and instead billed as "Also Starring".
• Fall Guy: Is blamed for Chrissy's death after Vecna murders her, causing him to go into hiding. An examination of Chrissy's body—even without the benefit of knowing about the Upside Down—should cast plenty of reasonable doubt on the idea Eddie killed her, but that doesn't matter. He's a penniless social outcast who deals drugs and Hawkins is at a fever pitch of hysteria.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Steve. Both of them initially held each other in disdain, but after getting dragged into the Upside Down and being forced to fight off Demobats together, they begin to bond.
• Foil:
  • To Jason Carver. Both are leaders of their respective "Cliques," and both spout ideological speeches about their place in society. But for Eddie it's clear most of what he says is him play-acting for the amusement of his friends, whereas Jason is convinced in the righteousness of his words and cause. Eddie's gang hang out with him because he makes them feel accepted, while Jason's gang are composed of status-seekers. When Eddie goes into battle, his weapons are music and a shield and he fully intends to take on a swarm of Demobats by himself. Jason on the other hand uses guns and organizes a lynch mob to take on a single target.
  • To Robin. Both are Deadpan Snarkers who are into music, have Ship Tease with redheads, and are initially envious towards Steve before becoming Fire-Forged Friends with him. There are also differences — Eddie is a Metalhead who plays guitar in his own band while Robin plays trumpet for the high school band. Robin is a Teen Genius and hinted to be in advanced classes^note She took a class with Steve, who was a grade above her and Book Dumb, whilst Eddie, although not dim, is repeating his senior year for the third time and is implied to be Brilliant, but Lazy. Robin, due to fears about being outed for her sexuality, is a total wreck when it comes to flirting with Vickie; meanwhile, Eddie, ever the Large Ham, charms Chrissy with ease. Finally, Robin admits to being Not So Above It All and secretly wanting to be popular, whilst Eddie proudly embraces his outsiderdom and doesn't give a damn what people think about him.
• Foreshadowing: Eddie has a couple of bats tattooed on his right arm. This foreshadows his fate in "The Piggyback", in which he is killed by a swarm of Demobats.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Downplayed, but Steve, Nancy, and Robin don’t seem affected by his death despite spending most of Season 4 trying to rescue him and later teaming up with him. This is probably a side effect of the two-day time jump between Eddie’s death and the epilogue, but it’s still very jarring.
• Freaky Fashion, Mild Mind: Eddie's wardrobe of ripped denim, thick skull rings, and customized leather jacket, combined with his wild hair, causes people to be wary of (if not outright hostile towards) him. However, he proves himself time and time again to be warm-hearted, a supportive friend, and incredibly noble under difficult circumstances. He goes out of his way to put Chrissy at ease when it's clear something is bothering her, he doesn't take long to warm up to new people (including Little Miss Snarker Erica and former Jerk Jock Steve), and clearly had a close bond with his uncle. When reminiscing about him after his death, Dustin notes that he'd never even seen Eddie get angry at another person, and was simply good at his core.
• Future Loser: Because of his reputation and his family name, Eddie expects to be this. In the eye of public opinion, Eddie fulfills the role but to the main cast (especially to his uncle Wayne and Dustin), he died a hero.
• The Gadfly: Playfully teases the bare-chested Steve by calling him "big boy."
• Good Counterpart: To Billy. Both of them are delinquents with rocker hair who give off a Bad Boy persona, but the difference is that while Billy is The Bully with a severe Lack of Empathy, Eddie is a Nice Guy with none of Billy's toxic traits. Eddie is someone who went out of his way to befriend Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, and invite them into his Hellfire Club whereas Billy's first interaction with them was trying to run them off the road with his car and later attempting to hurt Lucas when he found him with Max. While Billy acts as a Villain with Good Publicity to the rest of Hawkins, and is popular with almost everyone (except Max, the Party, and Steve who have all been at the receiving end of Billy's bullying and see him for what he truly is), Eddie is the local "freak" in town and doesn't give a damn about what people think of him. Their deaths are even similar — both die bleeding to death on the ground after making a Heroic Sacrifice as one of the Party mourns for them.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He admits to Steve that he was a little jealous of his big brother relationship with Dustin, not wanting to believe that the former Jerk Jock was actually a decent guy.
• Held Back in School: He mentions that he failed his senior year twice in a row already, which goes a bit towards explaining why he appears to be much older than his friends.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Eddie is accused of being a murderous cult leader, but in reality, is a kindhearted Cowardly Lion. Even after his death, people still blame him for the events that befell Hawkins at the conclusion of the season.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Eddie goes against the DemoBats in order to keep them distracted from the group preparing to attack Vecna's body while he's vulnerable mid-trance, but is fatally injured as a result. He dies in Dustin's arms after Vecna is (temporarily) defeated.
• Hidden Depths: He's the scary looking punk who looks like a delinquent, and seems to be a troll, but it turns out he's actually a really nice guy, who is nothing but gentle, if playful, with Chrissy. They almost seem to be an unlikely Beta Couple in the making until she's murdered and he's implicated. He also has a deep knowledge of metal music and fantasy literature, can hotwire a car, and is good enough with a guitar he can play a cover of "Master of Puppets" with no preparation. The latter is particularly impressive as the album "Master of Puppets' was released mere weeks before the events of the season, meaning Eddie was either practicing like mad to learn it or is just that good.
• Hollywood Satanism: Invoked. He's not a Satanist, but he does embrace the edgy reputation his D&D playing gets him when the Satanic Panic starts. However, because others believe in this, people who only casually know him assume he killed Chrissy.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed. He can be obnoxious and a touch aggressive even towards his friends, but at his core he is a friendly guy who was the first person to be nice to Dustin and Mike when they started high school. He's also very observant of others' troubles, trying to cheer up Chrissy as he realizes she's stressed.
• Killer DM: Downplayed. While The Party decries his campaign as "sadistic" and knows they have no shot at finishing the final session if they're a player short, it's clear that Eddie throws such stiff challenges at his players not out of a desire to "beat" them at the game, but to see the epic story unfold when they pull out all the stops to win. He seems genuinely pleased when the group manages to barely succeed by killing Vecna with a critical hit.
  Eddie: That's why we play!
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": After Eddie's Metallica solo that manages to delay Vecna, he and Dustin briefly celebrate about how awesome and metal it is.
• Magnetic Hero: Eddie's friends are very loyal to him. This is in part due to the fact that Eddie goes out of his way to befriend the outcasts and "losers" of Hawkins High, giving them a circle of friends and support to rely on. They're dedicated to him because he is so dedicated to them.
• Metalhead: Between the battle vest with band patches, the cassettes of metal albums, and the sweet guitar, Eddie fits this to a T.
• Nephewism: Eddie lives with his uncle in a trailer park, due to his father's imprisonment and his mother's absence. Despite the cliché, particularly with Eddie's personality, it appears his uncle is a good father figure as Eddie never indicates otherwise, and his uncle is the only person besides Dustin who doesn't immediately assume - or at least suspect - Eddie is guilty.
• Nice Guy: Surprisingly; he looks dangerous because of the stereotype, but his uncle and legal guardian has absolute certainty he couldn't have hurt Chrissy, and from what we see he's a genuinely friendly, if somewhat cheeky, individual. He's a harsh DM, though.
• The Power of Rock: Eddie shreds a cover of Metallica's Master of Puppets on his guitar in the Upside Down to distract the Demobats away from Vecna and clear a path for Steve, Nancy, and Robin to enter his house and kill him. With a demonic red sky in the background - it doesn't get more metal than that.
• Sacrificial Lion: Since Max is revived by Eleven, Eddie remains the main heroic casualty of the Season 4 finale.
• Satanic Panic: A victim of it; he's a nice kid who plays D&D and likes garage rock, so when a girl is murdered in his home it quickly spreads that he killed her for a Satanic ritual.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Zigzagged. On the one hand, Vecna survived and managed to complete his plan to merge the Upside Down with the normal world; and people are unaware of his sacrifice and still believe he was the leader of a Satanic cult that caused untold suffering to Hawkins' citizens. The only ones who know the truth are the main characters and his (Eddie's) uncle. On the other hand, if Eddie didn't keep the demobats focused on himself, then Nancy, Steve and Robin would most definitely have been killed. He saved them at least.
• Serious Business: He takes Robin judging his taste in music quite seriously.
  Eddie: THIS IS MUSIC!
• Sheep in Wolf's Clothing: He's genuinely a nice guy who happens to look an awful lot like Luther. This is unfortunate because everyone assumes he killed Chrissy as part of a twisted Satanic ritual, because it just makes sense to them that a "freak" like him would be responsible.
• Shipper on Deck: Encourages Steve to get back together with Nancy.
• Ship Tease: Briefly gets this with Chrissy, but unfortunately it leads to him being implicated when Vecna kills her in his home.
• Shout-Out: Eddie Munson is a syllable away from Eddie Munster(and a letter away from Manson). The name "Eddie" could also be referencing Eddie The Head, Iron Maiden's mascot who has a similar fashion sense as Eddie's.
• Sixth Ranger: Another previously unconnected individual who ends up joining the cast as the crazy stuff starts happening.
• The So-Called Coward: Eddie blames himself for Chrissy's death, despite there literally being nothing he could have done to save her. His later heroic feats and Heroic Sacrifice shows that he was far braver than even he realized.
• Take Up My Sword: As he dies in Dustin's arms, he makes the latter promise to look after the other outcast students, present and future, of Hawkins High.
• Tired of Running: After struggling with guilt over running away from the scene of Chrissy's murder, he passes up the chance to escape to safety and instead stays behind to keep holding off the Demobats.
• Took a Level in Badass: He really steps up to the plate fighting against the Demobats.
• Trauma Conga Line: Watches a girl get brutally murdered in a way that looks straight from a demonic horror movie, is blamed for her death due to his poor reputation among most people as well as the Satanic Panic, has to run away from angry teenaged athletes who are out for blood, watches as another person dies in the same way as the girl as is yet again blamed for it, is temporarily trapped in what's basically hell, and then dies from blood loss in his friend's arms after being eaten by bloodthirsty bats. All over the course of about a week.

Argyle

Argyle

"What do you think, Byers? I call it a weeder. Do you get it, man? Like a feeder?"

Played By: Eduardo Franco

Dubbed By: Donald Reignoux (French)

Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)

"Surf's up. Surfer Boy Pizza, this is Argyle speaking. We make everything fresh here at Surfer Boy except for our pineapple, which comes from a can. But I still highly recommend slapping some pineapple on your pie. Oh, fruit on your pizza is gnarly, you say? Well, I say try before you deny."

A stoner and pizza delivery boy who becomes Jonathan's best friend and personal chauffeur in California.

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• Aerith and Bob: More like Argyle and Jonathan. Of course, it's likely a nickname.
• Afraid of Blood: Hinted at. The sight of blood unnerves him.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He seems to have this trait coupled with his stoner tendencies to the point where Jonathan calls him "eccentric".
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: While on paper, using a deep-freeze in the back of a pizza shop as a sensory deprivation tank might sound insane, it proves incredibly effective in helping Eleven make contact with Max to save her from Vecna.
• Distinctive Appearances: He sports unusually long, pin-straight black hair (natural to his actor), which really helps to sell in his California-boy stoner character.
• Drives Like Crazy: Speeds and swerves through the streets whenever he drives.
• Erudite Stoner: Downplayed, but as shown in Hidden Depths below whenever he's not being The Ditz he's capable of some pretty surprising insights and out-of-the-box thinking, such as when he discovered the tire tracks leading to the Nevada lab and came up the plan to use the pizza shop freezer as a bathtub.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Jonathan; they hit it off pretty much immediately, and the supposed "slacker stoner" goes out of his way to give Jonathan, Will, and El rides and act as Jonathan's relationship counselor. (Actually giving fairly good advice)
• Hidden Depths: Despite being a seemingly idiotic stoner, Argyle is the only member of the Party who reacts appropriately to the death of the agent trying to save them, with absolute panic and horror, and later attempts to mark his grave to send him off with some dignity. His freakout is also immediately calmed by Jonathan saying he's only upset because the weed has worn off, which he seems pretty open to and even apologizes. This willingness to believe he's the one being unreasonable suggests he might have an anxiety problem he self-medicates with weed, even though he's completely justified in the current situation. He also understands the existential themes of The Never Ending Story; and is genuinely invested in Jonathan's happiness. His marijuana-themed bird feeder (or "weeder") is also actually really well-crafted.
• Nice Guy: An easy-going guy who's a good friend to Jonathan.
• Oh, Crap!: When they finally find Eleven at the end of Season 4 amidst a chaotic scene of dead scientists and a crashed helicopter, Argyle is the only one to react appropriately with shock. Justified since unlike the rest of the cast, he hasn't been on dangerous adventures filled with paranormal monsters and extreme danger.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Argyle's generally a chill and laid back stoner but is absolutely horrified when he has to drive (and eventually bury) a fatally-wounded federal agent in the middle of a desert. It's justified, considering the circumstances.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Since every group dynamic in Season 4 has at least one comic relief character, he brings some comedy and wacky antics to his group of serious people; Will, El, Mike, and Jonathan (Jonathan was also a stoner in early Season 4, but he gets serious when he realizes El is in trouble).
• Serious Business: Stoner slacker he may be, but Argyle is committed to giving customers high-quality pizza. When Eleven is preparing to have one more showdown with Vecna, Argyle bakes a supreme one so she won't have to fight on an empty stomach.
• Ship Tease: With Suzie's sister Eden, with whom he smokes weed.
• Signature Headgear: He always tops his impressive black mane with a Surfer Boy Pizza visor or a baseball cap.
• The Stoner: Is high almost all the time and his answer whenever faced with a difficult situation is to smoke some purple palm tree delight.

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