The True Tragedy Of Billy Hargrove Is That He Was A Too Complex Character For The World He Was Set In.

Why have Billy look alive when he's dead when the others looked dead but are alive? Why would Vecna do that? Wouldn't it be more affective to have Max see the corpse of her dead brother? And the tear???? Why would Vecna bother putting that little detail in???

“Is defending Billy Hargrove really the hill you want to die on?”

Well yeah I’ve already planted my feet so like

Billy adopting Eleven as a second little sister.

Billy chauffeuring Eleven and Max to school every day acting like it’s the biggest burden and his greatest annoyance in life yet always interjecting whenever he hears them talking about boy troubles or bully troubles to offer (sometimes questionable) advice because he loves them and he’ll be damned if anyone messes with his girls. It happens so often that whenever they’re having an issue, like dealing with a shitty teacher or figuring out the perfect way to get back at Dustin or Lucas or Mike during some prank war, they purposefully talk louder so that Billy will insert himself and offer his opinion.

Billy never shying away when Eleven asks him questions, even if she’s asking about uncomfortable topics like relationships and sex, because it’s honestly next to impossible to embarrass him and he’d rather she hear it straight than get confused by people’s gross innuendos. She feels safe asking him just about anything because she knows he won’t dance around the answers.

Billy waiving his rights to the radio and letting Max and Eleven pick the music whenever one of them is upset, keeping a stash of their favorite cassettes in the glove box just in case. He doesn’t dig their music, but he will dashboard drum and sing along to Madonna just to make them laugh. He also knows their order at all the local fast food joints, can swing through a drive-thru or pop into the ice cream shop and order for all three of them without asking what the girls want, and has been known to detour to their favorite spots when he thinks that one of them needs a pick-me-up.

Billy letting Eleven play with his hair products when he catches her watching him get ready for a date, taking the time to tell her what everything is for and showing her how to use it all. He even gets her some bottles of her own when she finds something that she likes.

Billy teaching Eleven and Max how to drive in an empty parking lot, surprisingly calm as he guides them through the motion. Max is a natural, though she’s definitely something of a speed demon. Eleven is much more cautious and is a little heavy on the brake, but Billy is shockingly patient (even if every rough stop has him wincing for his poor Camaro). Hopper is honestly too much of a nervous wreck to teach El himself, try as he might, so she’s pretty lucky to have Billy there to help her.

Billy being Max and Eleven’s emergency contact. They drank too much at a party? Call Billy. Some guy is making them feel unsafe? Call Billy. Their car broke down? Find a payphone and call Billy. He will drop everything to help them, no matter where he is or what he’s doing. He has held their hair back and made them greasy hangover food. He keeps all their secrets, covers for them if he has to, always makes sure that they are safe because, again, those are his girls.

Billy lowering his guard around Eleven and Max, trusting them more than he trusts anyone else because, time and time again, they’ve proven that they are one hundred percent in his corner. Sure, they bicker with him, pester him, push his buttons. But it’s because they love him, and they feel safe with him, and he feels safe with them, too.

Billy and his two kid sisters, Eleven and Max.

The anguish on El’s face just screams “Well shit, if this is how my best friend feels about her own BROTHER, what will she think of me if she hears about all horrible stuff I did?”

El knows she could have easily been a female version of Billy if she didn’t get an intervention in the form of the party, Hopper, and the Byers family. So to hear her best friend talk about another abused kid like that….it must have hurt deeply.

billy fans 🤝🏽 el: understanding billy's actions and sympathizing with his past

TikTokers saying "oh you love billy but hate argyle" uh what 😃

I've literally never met a billy fan who said anything bad about Argyle. I mean... I love both characters. This narrative is getting old fast.

I don't know where they got these ideas from, honestly.

So if you like... a fictional character... who happens to be a teenage ab*se victim... then you're automatically racist and/or homophobic?

If you want to really get into this, I think you mean IT character Henry Bowers, and he and Billy are not the same. The Duffers wanted them to be, but fortunately Dacre made sure that didn't happen.

You're forgetting that ST is literally a bunch of Stephen King references without substance or originality. The Duffers wanted Billy to be Henry Bowers. If you think Billy was bad, I suggest you read IT (the movies are available too in case y'all don't know how to fucking read).

I feel so gross whenever fanon plays off Snape's parental issues as an excuse that he actively uses, in-universe, to make Lily feel sorry for him and overlook his bad behavior.

Not only is it out-of character for him, the way it's often portrayed gives off the impression that Snape's account of the severity of the situation is unreliable — when the only context his abusive home life is ever brought up is when he's being emotionally manipulative for personal gain, isn't it then likely that he would be exaggerating the situation?

A really prominent trait of canon Snape is that he doesn't like being pitied. He actually hates being seen as a victim. He would much rather be seen as a terrible person than as a hurt, vulnerable one. It's the reason he ends up calling Lily mudblood in the first place. It's why he'd sooner join the Death Eaters than reach out for help.

IDK — Just the fact that some antis apparently acknowledge Snape's canonically abusive childhood, but then spin it into something he consistently takes advantage of to manipulate others for sympathy and forgiveness to the point it comes off as deceptive, when that's actually pretty much the opposite of how he acts in canon... it makes my skin crawl.

When Mihael Keehl shows more respect for our BAMF Naomi Misora than her own fiancé.

I was planning to take a small social media break but I saw the amazing headcanon that Argyle and Billy might have been friends in California! It such a sweet idea that I just had to draw something with that :) There’s something so special about childhood friendships and having seen someone through everything including growth spurts and the preteen awkward phase! And in a scenario where Billy lived, seeing that pizza van would be like some sort of miracle after everything he’s endured.

I don’t know why my mind insists on making me sad, but I just can’t stop thinking about Max in S3 being SO in denial about Billy being the new host for the Mind Flayer or ANYTHING being off about him. Even when El, someone who knows MUCH more about the Upside Down and the Mind Flayer, claims something odd is going on with Billy, she persistently tried to rationalize all the weird things discovered.

Such as when they found ice bags in his bathtub:

Max says that they were “probably for his muscles or something [cause] he works out like a maniac”.

Even if Max really believed that it was some weird workout thing, if I found my sibling’s tub full of ice, I would have definitely been more weirded out; she was mostly dismissive about it.

Or when El said that Billy seemed wrong when they found him at Heather’s house, Max reassures in a humorous way:

“Wrong is kind of like his default, but it’s nice to know he’s not a murderer, because that would have totally sucked”

Despite seeing that Heather was indeed ok, there was still the BLOODY WHISTLE found in her brother’s room. And she was adamant that, as long as Heather didn’t seem harmed in any way, it was enough to disregard ANY suspicions of Billy doing wrong.

Or the Party points out how weird it is for Billy to be fully covered from head to toe at the pool

Max: I don’t know, he looks pretty normal to me.

Lucas: Normal? How many times have you seen him with a shirt on?

Max: I mean it’s a little weird….

Max knows Billy better than anyone in Hawkins. She KNOWS that Billy shows off his body any chance he gets. It is NOT normal to dress more conservatively out of the blue.

It is only during the Sauna Test that she couldn’t deny the fact that Billy is, without a doubt, the new host.

It is so heartbreaking because we can tell that their relationship has improved from where it was left in S2 (when she nearly crushed his nuts with a spiky baseball bat).

I can already imagine that between S2 and S3, they came to a sort of truce. Their relationship wouldn’t do a complete 180 of course. But it would be the type of truce where they would try to be less hostile towards each other, keep their tempers in check, and minimize the arguing between them. That would eventually lead to them having a mutual understanding and respect of each other.

Billy and Max share a lot of similarities (both are headstrong and outspoken) and been put in the same miserable situation (moving away from their home in California), that once they were able to put their bitterness towards each other aside, they formed a kinship and found out that, hey, maybe having this little shitbird/asshole as a sibling isn’t so bad.Their relationship was finally improving and on the path for the better.

Until the Mind Flayer put that progress to a screeching halt.

Alright, I’m done with my depressing rant.🥲

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