In Defense Of Nancy Wheeler,

In Defense of Nancy Wheeler,

a short collection of thoughts concocted by someone who is very used to defending a character that is shitted on and misunderstood by half the fandom and victimized by poor writing choices.

1.) In Defense of her being a bad friend

"she abandoned barb and that's why she died"

principally... a shitty thing to do, but i'd ARGUE it was a lapse of judgement that literally triggers her entire character arc. HEAR ME..

and a weaker, but still valid argument that does not excuse her decision, but is fair nonetheless.. how was she supposed to know barb was going to get swallowed up by an inter dimensional monster in the pool???… just saying. JUST SAYING.

Like I mentioned, it triggered a huge character arc for Nancy. Nancy felt awful that Barb went missing, and she recognized her faults. This guilt and confusion toward the tragedy led her to other realizations, like the state of her relationship, who Steve is as a person, and her own identity. My girl had a lot on her plate and she paid her debts in FULL solving Hawkins mysteries to not only compensate for what happened to Barb, but protect her friends and family!!!!!!

Don’t even get me started on how she felt not being able to tell Barb’s parents once she found out what really happened. Must’ve been awful.

2.) In defense of her shitty love triangle (my biggest point arguably)

everyone who hates her because of the love triangle she's subjected to are (and i’m sorry to say it but not really,) stupid. her character is obviously trying to break out of being central to a love triangle, but the writers can not for the life of them figure out what to do with steve and jonathan past s3 developmentally, which keeps her stuck in that place.

Nancy is so badass and has so much potential.

Someone also pointed out the underlying misogynistic issue of keeping women’s development “at bay,”— whether it be intentional or not!!— by having their entire importance dependent on male characters. That’s a post for another day, though.

and i'd like to point out she's not in a place like el, who is also in a canon love triangle, but also completely able to realize and explore her independence after catalysts (being friends with max, breaking up with mike).

THIS IS BECAUSE SHE HASNT HAD THE CHANCE TO BE AUTHENTICALLY ALONE AND REALIZE THE IMPACT OF HER OWN CATALYSTS (barb incident, solving hawkins mysteries)!

nancy’s character— to me and many others feels like she is given the illusion of choice by the writers. nancy in her love triangle is more like mike in his. she is not given the same opportunity to branch out, and is instead stuck choosing between two people, like mike. el's only choice is mike or herself. despite both being female characters that discover their independence, nancy isn't far enough on the receiving end to have her own arc.

Now logically, Nancy could branch out and be alone, and so could Mike. However, just like Mike is set up to be in love with Will, Nancy is set up to be in love with her male interests. Whereas this is sets a tone of freedom and accomplishment for Mike’s character, this.. to me, sets a tone of imprisonment and stillness for Nancy’s.

Final: There is still hope for Nance in s5

i would really like to see more parallels between these two friendships in season 5. like el and max, robin and nancy didn't start off being best friends!!

nancy was standoffish toward robin like el was with max, and they both reacted that way because of a boy, but then slowly realized they valued their female friendship more than romance.

this friendship helped el escape vecna and the idea that she needs approval from the males in her life.

i think it would be cool if they didsomething like that with robin and nancy instead of keeping her at such a stand still with steve and jonathan in the final season.

FIN🤌🏾