5 moments when 'Stranger Things 2' was perfectly channeling Harry Potter
Stranger Things pulls from a known library of classic ‘80s movies, but it's also a classic story of a ragtag team of scrappy heroes fighting the battle of good versus evil. That's a tale as old as time --and the secret behind some of Hollywood's most successful and resonant stories.
There are a lot of things you'd compare Stranger Things to before Harry Potter, but Season 2 has the kind of similarities that won't escape an observant Potter fan. They're not terribly obvious references, but that's what makes them even more fun to spot and appreciate.
Devil’s Snare
Hopper gets caught in the tangled roots (arms?) of the shadow monster below Hawkins, and it starts to wrap around him like the Devil’s Snare that Harry, Ron, and Hermione encounter in the first Harry Potter book. Hey Hopper, did you try sunlight?
Will's visions
Once he’s host to the “shadow monster,” Will isn’t entirely himself. "It's like I feel what the shadow monster is feeling, see what he's seeing," Will says. He can see and feel the monster alongside his own consciousness, the same way Harry can sense Voldemort’s emotions and see into his mind. But at least Harry didn't use the term "now-memories."
A horcrux among us
Speaking of Harry's connection to Voldemort, Will being host has some nasty side effects, like the beginning of episode 6 when his in agonizing pain because people from the lab tried to ignite the Mind Flayer's underground lair. He says it hurts "everywhere," but there's no physical indication of pain; the worst pain Harry experienced in the series was in book five during the battle at the Department of Mysteries:
And then Harry's scar burst open. He knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance – He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature's began. They were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape...Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again...
This sounds unpleasant! But the secret, as Harry learns and Will needs to figure out, is love.
The angry young man
Not that Harry was ever anywhere near Billy, but Max describes her brother as “angry all the time” – the same words Harry uses to describe himself in the film version of Order of the Phoenix. Billy makes book 5 Harry look like a walk in the park.
A vaporous villain
During the finale, the season's underwhelming de facto villain, the Mind Flayer, leaves Will’s body in a cloud of ominous black smoke. You know who else did that? VOLDEMORT, and he sure as hell came back. At least Will fared better than Professor Quirrell...for now anyway.
Stranger Things 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
Topics Books Harry Potter Netflix Stranger Things
Proma Khosla is a Senior Entertainment Reporter writing about all things TV, from ranking Bridgerton crushes to composer interviews and leading Mashable's stateside coverage of Bollywood and South Asian representation. You might also catch her hosting video explainers or on Mashable's TikTok and Reels, or tweeting silly thoughts from @promawhatup.
