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This is a list of characters from the American science fiction horror television series Stranger Things.
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The first season, set in November 1983, focuses on the investigation into the disappearance of a young boy named Will Byers while supernatural events are occurring around the town, including the appearance of a girl with telekinetic abilities who helps Will's friends in their search.[1] The second season (Stranger Things 2) is set a year after the last. It deals with the characters' attempts to return to normal and to deal with the consequences of the first season's events. The second season adds new characters Max Mayfield, her violent stepbrother Billy Hargrove, and Joyce's new love interest Bob Newby.[2] The third season (Stranger Things 3) is set in the summer of 1985 and shows the young friends maturing into teenagers and navigating new life challenges, all while a new threat looms over the town. This season also introduces a new character: Robin Buckley. The fourth season (Stranger Things 4) is set in the spring of 1986 and follows the characters after they have been separated at the end of Stranger Things 3. Season 4 adds new characters like Eddie Munson, Argyle, and Vecna. The first season was released on Netflix on July 15, 2016;[3] the second season of nine episodes was released on October 27, 2017;[4] and the third season of eight episodes was released on July 4, 2019.[5] the fourth season was split into two volumes, with volume one with seven episodes released on May 27, 2022, and volume two with two episodes released on July 1, 2022.
The series features an ensemble cast including Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Cara Buono and Matthew Modine. Noah Schnapp and Joe Keery had recurring roles in the first season before being promoted to the main cast for the second, with Sadie Sink, Dacre Montgomery, Sean Astin, and Paul Reiser also joining. Maya Hawke joined the cast in the third season, and Priah Ferguson was promoted to the main cast. Brett Gelman had recurring roles in the second and third seasons, before being promoted to the main cast in the fourth. Joseph Quinn, Eduardo Franco and Jamie Campbell Bower joined the main cast for the fourth season.
This list includes the series' main cast, all guest stars deemed to have had recurring roles throughout the series, and any other guest who is otherwise notable.
| Character | Portrayed by | Seasons | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| Joyce Byers | Winona Ryder | Main | ||||
| Jim Hopper | David Harbour | Main | ||||
| Mike Wheeler | Finn Wolfhard | Main | ||||
| Eleven / Jane Hopper | Millie Bobby Brown[a] | Main | ||||
| Dustin Henderson | Gaten Matarazzo | Main | ||||
| Lucas Sinclair | Caleb McLaughlin | Main | ||||
| Nancy Wheeler | Natalia Dyer | Main | ||||
| Jonathan Byers | Charlie Heaton | Main | ||||
| Karen Wheeler | Cara Buono | Main | Also starring | Main | ||
| Martin Brenner | Matthew Modine | Main | Recurring | Main | TBA | |
| Will Byers | Noah Schnapp | Recurring | Main | |||
| Max Mayfield | Sadie Sink[b] | Main | ||||
| Steve Harrington | Joe Keery | Recurring | Main | |||
| Billy Hargrove | Dacre Montgomery[c] | Main | Guest | |||
| Bob Newby | Sean Astin | Main | Guest | |||
| Sam Owens | Paul Reiser | Main | Guest | Main | TBA | |
| Robin Buckley | Maya Hawke | Main | ||||
| Erica Sinclair | Priah Ferguson | Recurring | Main | |||
| Murray Bauman | Brett Gelman | Recurring | Main | |||
| Vecna / One / Henry Creel | Jamie Campbell Bower[d] | Also starring | Main | |||
| Argyle | Eduardo Franco | Also starring | ||||
| Eddie Munson | Joseph Quinn | Also starring | ||||
| Vickie | Amybeth McNulty | Recurring | Main | |||
| TBA | Linda Hamilton | Main | ||||
| Character | Portrayed by | Seasons | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| Ted Wheeler | Joe Chrest | Recurring | ||||
| Holly Wheeler | Anniston Price & Tinsley Price | Recurring | ||||
| Nell Fisher | Recurring | |||||
| Calvin Powell | Rob Morgan | Recurring | Guest | Recurring | ||
| Phil Callahan | John Paul Reynolds | Recurring | Guest | Recurring | ||
| Lonnie Byers | Ross Partridge | Recurring | ||||
| Barbara "Barb" Holland | Shannon Purser | Recurring | Voice only | |||
| Connie Frazier | Catherine Dyer | Recurring | ||||
| Scott Clark | Randy Havens | Recurring | Guest | |||
| Lead Agent | Tobias Jelinek | Recurring | ||||
| James Dante | Cade Jones | Recurring | ||||
| Florence | Susan Shalhoub Larkin | Recurring | Guest | |||
| Troy Walsh | Peyton Wich | Recurring | ||||
| Tommy Hagan | Chester Rushing | Recurring | ||||
| Carol Perkins | Chelsea Talmadge | Recurring | ||||
| Kali Prasad/ Eight | Linnea Berthelsen | Recurring | ||||
| Susan Hargrove | Jennifer Marshall | Recurring | Recurring | |||
| Terry Ives | Aimee Mullins | Guest | Recurring | |||
| Claudia Henderson | Catherine Curtin | Guest | Recurring | Guest | Recurring | |
| Sue Sinclair | Karen Ceesay | Guest | Recurring | Recurring | ||
| Charles Sinclair | Arnell Powell | Guest | Recurring | Recurring | ||
| Bruce | Jake Busey | Recurring | ||||
| Grigori | Andrey Ivchenko | Recurring | ||||
| Tom Holloway | Michael Park | Recurring | ||||
| Heather Holloway | Francesca Reale | Recurring | ||||
| Alexei | Alec Utgoff | Recurring | ||||
| Mayor Larry Kline | Cary Elwes | Recurring | ||||
| Doris Driscoll | Peggy Miley | Recurring | ||||
| Suzie Bingham | Gabriella Pizzolo | Guest | Recurring | |||
| Jason Carver | Mason Dye | Recurring | ||||
| Angela | Elodie Grace Orkin | Recurring | ||||
| Ten | Christian Ganiere | Recurring | ||||
| Two | Tristan Spohn | Recurring | ||||
| Patrick McKinney | Myles Truitt | Recurring | ||||
| Dmitri "Enzo" Antonov | Tom Wlaschiha | Recurring | ||||
| Andy | Clayton Johnson | Recurring | ||||
| Lt. Colonel Sullivan | Sherman Augustus | Recurring | ||||
| Melnikov | Vaidotas Martinaitis | Recurring | ||||
| Wayne Munson | Joel Stoffer | Recurring | ||||
| Agent Stinson | Paris Benjamin | Recurring | ||||
| Yuri Ismaylov | Nikola Đuričko | Recurring | ||||
| Oleg | Pasha Lychnikoff | Recurring | ||||
| Ivan | Nikolai Nikolaeff | Recurring | ||||
| Derek | Jake Connelly | Recurring | ||||
| TBA | Alex Breaux | Recurring | ||||
Eden Bingham – Audrey Holcomb
Joyce Byers is the mother of Jonathan Byers and Will Byers and is divorced from their father Lonnie Byers. Joyce is a very caring and strong-willed woman who works as a retail clerk at Melvald's General Store in downtown Hawkins. She was born and raised in Hawkins and she attended Hawkins High School with Hopper and Bob.
In season three, she is planning to sell her house and move out of Hawkins, much to Hopper's dismay who tries to convince her to go on a date with him. Even though she does have feelings for him, Joyce tries to avoid getting into another relationship. She is mainly more interested in figuring out why the magnets in her house keep falling off her fridge and while investigating the reason behind this, she and Hopper uncover a Russian conspiracy. After infiltrating a Russian lab beneath the new Starcourt Mall, where the Russians have opened another portal into the Upside Down, Joyce is forced to close the portal by turning off the Russian machine used to open it with Hopper in the room, and Hopper ends up being presumed dead. Joyce becomes a mother figure to Eleven after taking her in when Hopper supposedly died. The Byers family and Eleven move to California three months after Hopper's supposed death.
Joyce has a stay-at-home job and receives a package from Russia carrying a doll, which has a note inside that reveals Hopper is alive. She and Murray call the number on the note and contact "Enzo", a prison guard that Hopper has bribed, who demands $40,000 in exchange for Hopper's freedom. Joyce obtains the money and flies to Alaska with Murray Bauman, where they meet Yuri Ismaylov, a Russian smuggler and pilot that smuggles American goods into the Russian prison camp. Realizing the profit that can be made, Yuri Ismaylov drugs Joyce and Murray and flies them to Russia. En route, Joyce and Murray knock out Yuri and crash in the wilderness. They force Yuri to take them to the prison camp, where Murray impersonates Yuri, while Joyce and Yuri act as hostages. The two witness Hopper fight the Demogorgon, but Joyce manages to rescue him and reunites with him.
James "Jim" Hopper, nicknamed "Hop", is the Hawkins chief of police. Hopper has lived in Hawkins nearly all his life, having attended high school with Joyce and Bob. Hopper divorced after his young daughter Sarah died of cancer, which caused him to lapse into alcoholism. Eventually, he grows to be more responsible, saving Will from the Demogorgon as well as taking Eleven in as his adopted daughter.
In season three, he tries to break up Mike and Eleven since their relationship is moving too fast for him while trying to win over Joyce romantically. Through Joyce, he gets involved in an investigation regarding the supernatural, and they uncover a Russian conspiracy. He is seemingly killed in an explosion under the mall caused by a Russian machine used to open a portal to the Upside Down. In a teaser trailer for season four ("From Russia, with love ..." – released on February 14, 2020), he is shown alive in Russia.
Having survived the mall explosion, Hopper is captured by Russians and is taken to a prison camp in Kamchatka, where he and other prisoners work on constructing a railroad track. While there, Hopper bribes a prison guard named Dmitri Antonov and works with him to escape the prison camp. Hopper manages to escape to a nearby town, but he is recaptured. After Antonov is revealed to be a corrupt guard, both he and Hopper are imprisoned together. During a feast, Hopper realizes he and the other prisoners are being plumped to be easy prey for an upcoming battle with the Demogorgon. He lights his weapon on fire, holding the Demogorgon away long enough for Joyce to lead Hopper to safety. Hopper and Joyce reunite and finally profess their romantic feelings for one another. Hopper, Joyce, Murray, Antonov and Yuri discover a number of creatures from the Upside Down being studied in the prison. Realizing their children are in danger, they work together to kill the creatures, weakening the Upside Down's power and giving the kids an advantage in their fight against Vecna. Hopper and Joyce then return to Hawkins, and Hopper reunites with Eleven. However, the Upside Down begins to engulf Hawkins.
Michael "Mike" Wheeler is the son of Karen and Ted Wheeler, younger brother of Nancy and older brother of Holly, and is friends with Lucas, Dustin, and Will. Mike is an intelligent and conscientious student who is committed to Lucas, Dustin, and Will. In their Dungeons & Dragons party, Mike is their Paladin and usually plays the role of Dungeon Master. He develops feelings for Eleven after taking her in and helping her escape the bad men. Eleven also helps him and his friends find Will. At the end of season one, Mike asks Eleven to the Snow Ball (school dance). After that Mike kisses Eleven and she blushes. However, the Demogorgon appears and Eleven says her goodbyes to Mike as she seemingly dies, killing the Demogorgon.
In season two, he feels upset at the fact that Eleven is gone. He calls her every night, hoping she will one day return. He grows irritated with the party and has a rocky relationship with Max at first. Will reveals his apparent flashbacks to the Upside Down to Mike and he accompanies Joyce, Bob, and Will to the lab when Will's health deteriorates. When Eleven reappears, he is grateful that they do not have to fight the battle without her but angry at Hopper for keeping her hidden for the past year. Mike is key in getting Will's memory back to tell the group to close the gate. Before Eleven leaves to close the gate, Mike tells her he cannot lose her again and she promises him that he will not. A month after Eleven closes the gate, the two attend the Snow Ball together and share yet another kiss.
The next summer, the two are dating, but Hopper manages to separate them because they are spending too much time together. When Eleven and Max realize Mike has been lying about his grandmother being sick, El eventually dumps Mike. However, the two reconcile at the hospital waiting for Nancy. While Eleven tries to find Billy, Mike expresses concern that everyone is careless with Eleven's powers and confesses that he loves Eleven. He tries to project his feelings to her after she gets bitten but struggles to find the right words. On the day that Eleven and the Byers family move away, Mike promises Eleven that he will keep in contact and schedules visits at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Eleven then tells Mike that she loves him and kisses him before she leaves Hawkins with the Byers family.
In the spring of 1986, Mike and Dustin join the Hellfire Club, Hawkins High School's Dungeons & Dragons club, led by Eddie Munson. Though Lucas is also a member, he has committed himself to the Hawkins HS basketball team, putting him at odds with Mike and Dustin, who urge him to side with them—the "nerds and freaks". He and Eleven maintain a long-distance relationship with letters, and for spring break, Mike flies to California to visit Eleven and Will at their new home in Lenora Hills. Though Eleven insisted to Mike that she had friends and was living a semi-popular lifestyle, Mike discovers that she was lying to hide the heavy bullying she experiences from other students. He witnesses Angela and a gang of girls humiliate Eleven at Rink-o-Mania, and he is shocked when Eleven retaliates with physical violence. The following day, Mike and Eleven argue when she expresses her dissatisfaction with the relationship, pointing out Mike's strange reluctance to say he loves her. When Eleven is arrested for attacking Angela, Mike, Will, and Jonathan are distressed and unsure how to help her—until Sam Owens sends agents to inform them that Eleven has accepted his offer to begin training to get her powers back. At the Byers' home, the three are being guarded by two agents, until U.S. Army soldiers attack the house, forcing them to escape with the help of Jonathan's friend Argyle, bringing a wounded Agent Harmon with them. After Harmon dies and leaves them with a phone number to reach Owens and Eleven, Mike enlists the help of Dustin's girlfriend Suzie, who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, Suzie provides them with coordinates for the Nina Project, which is in Nevada. Along the way, Mike expresses his inner anxieties regarding his relationship with Eleven, scared that she will eventually realize that she doesn't need him as he needs her. As the U.S. Army closes in on Eleven, Mike and the California Crew arrive, giving Eleven a chance to destroy her attackers and their transportation. Together, they venture to a Surfer Boy Pizza location in Nevada to build Eleven a sensory deprivation tank for her to travel into Max's mind to protect her from Vecna. When Vecna overpowers Eleven, Mike professes his love for her, giving her the strength to overpower him. The California Crew then returns to Hawkins, where Mike and the others prepare for a final battle with the Upside Down, which has leaked into their town.
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Eleven is a telekinetic girl who is the sole match for the creatures of the Upside Down. She later becomes Jim Hopper's adoptive daughter and Mike Wheeler's girlfriend.
Born to Terry Ives, Eleven was abducted by Dr. Martin Brenner at birth and taken to Hawkins National Laboratories to hone her telekinetic abilities alongside other gifted children. In 1979, she is bullied by the older numbers for exhibiting a poor usage of her powers, but she finds kindness in a lab orderly, who encourages and supports her. Eventually, Eleven demonstrates great power, but she is targeted by the older children once again and threatened with death. The lab orderly urges Eleven to escape Hawkins Lab, but she frees the orderly, who reveals himself to be Henry Creel / Subject 001 (One). One proceeds to kill everyone in Hawkins Lab, with the exceptions of Brenner and Eleven. When One attempt to convince Eleven to join him in a mission for human dominance, Eleven rejects him, and the two fight. The adult One overpowers the eight-year-old Eleven, but Eleven's powerful, loving memory of her mother gives her the strength to overpower One, sending him into the Upside Down, where he becomes Vecna. Eleven falls into a coma, and her abilities, memory, and intellect are reset when she awakens.
After her escape at the beginning of season one, Eleven is befriended by Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, who believe she can help them in finding Will. In the kids' Dungeons & Dragons party, she is the Mage. She spends the majority of the first season hiding and running from the "bad men", meaning the lab workers. She helps the boys locate Will and fends off threats for them along the way. In the season one finale, she presumably dies after fighting the Demogorgon, though she actually survived and was sent to the Upside Down alongside the Demogorgon.
In season two, following the events of the season one finale, Eleven is shown to escape the Upside Down through a gate in a hallway in Hawkins Middle School. Hopper then becomes a father figure to Eleven, though he hides her from Mike, Dustin, and Lucas for her safety. Eleven grows increasingly frustrated at this isolation from the other world, and she temporarily flees Hawkins in search of her biological mother, Terry Ives. She later ventures to Chicago, Illinois, where she meets a girl named Kali (subject 008 / Eight) and her group of vengeful killers. Despite going through a journey of self-discovery, Eleven ultimately returns to Hawkins, reuniting with Mike and her friends. She closes the gate she opened the year prior in Hawkins Lab, ending the Mind Flayer's connection to Hawkins. Hopper legally adopts her as his daughter.
In season three, Eleven is actively dating Mike, much to Hopper's chagrin. When Hopper attempts to separate Mike and Eleven, he forces Mike to lie to her. She suspects this ruse, and she consults Max Mayfield, who helps her discover her individuality. When the Mind Flayer's threat emerges once again, Eleven is pursued once more. After being bitten by the Mind Flayer, Eleven loses her powers, as well as Hopper at the end of the season and moves with the Byers family to Lenora Hills, California.
In spring 1986, Eleven has attended Lenora Hills High School alongside Will, and here she experiences incessant, daily bullying by classmate Angela and her friends. When Mike visits El and Will, Angela and her friends gang up on Eleven at Rink-o-Mania, and Eleven strikes Angela in the face with a roller skate in retaliation. She is taken into police custody, but Dr. Sam Owens intercepts her arrest, offering her a chance to restore her abilities. After she accepts, Owens takes her to a facility in Nevada, where she reunites with Brenner. She is forced to confront her traumatic memories in Hawkins Lab taking her to a facility where she relives her repressed memories of her time at Hawkins Lab. After recalling the lab massacre, Eleven finds that her abilities are restored, and once she learns of the Hawkins Gang's plan to kill Henry / One / Vecna, she attempts to travel back to Hawkins with Owens, though Brenner intervenes and insists on keeping Eleven. After the U.S. Army attacks the silo lab, Brenner attempts to flee with a sedated Eleven, only to be shot. Eleven manages to save herself, and she refuses to forgive a dying Brenner. She later telepathically saves Max from Vecna and revives her when she succumbs to her injuries.
Dustin Clarence Henderson is a friend of Mike, Will, and Lucas, and a goofy and quick-witted boy whose cleidocranial dysplasia causes him to lisp. In the Dungeons & Dragons party, Dustin is the Bard and has arguably the most extensive knowledge of the game, particularly the monsters. He has a crush on Nancy, and while both he and Lucas have feelings for Max in season two, Lucas and Max ultimately end up together. He also befriends Steve, who gives him advice on how to make girls like him.
Prior to season three, Dustin spends a month at a science camp and, thanks to Steve's advice, is able to get a girlfriend, Suzie, whom he claims is a genius and is "hotter than Phoebe Cates". His friends are skeptical as to whether or not she actually exists as he is unable to get in contact with her over his makeshift radio tower, "Cerebro". Dustin instead discovers the coded Russian transmission and, along with Steve, Robin, and Erica, ventures into the Russian's underground lair. He later proves Suzie's existence when he contacts her for the Planck constant in the season finale (She forces him to sing "Never Ending Story")
Now in high school, Dustin, Mike, and Lucas join a Dungeons & Dragons club named "The Hellfire Club", led by the eccentric Eddie Munson. After Chrissy Cunningham is killed by an unknown entity, Dustin dubs the entity as "Vecna". During a plan to kill Vecna, Dustin and Eddie successfully distract the demo bats away from Steve, Nancy, and Robin, but become trapped in Eddie's trailer. Protecting Dustin, Eddie exits the trailer and lures the bats away from the trailer. While fighting them, Eddie is knocked down and his flesh is rendered, leaving him mortally wounded. Dustin comforts Eddie as he dies. Two days later, upon seeing Eddie's uncle Wayne putting up a missing poster for Eddie, Dustin informs him of Eddie's death, calling him a hero that saved the town that treated him horridly.
Lucas is the eldest child of Sue and Charles Sinclair, the elder brother of Erica, and a friend of Mike, Will, and Dustin. Lucas is wary of Eleven at first and blatantly distrustful of her but befriends her later.
In high school, Lucas joins the Hellfire Club and the basketball team but struggles to make time for both clubs. At the cemetery, he, along with Dustin and Steve, helps Max escape Vecna and comforts her after she escapes.
He finds himself confronted by the senior captain of the basketball team, Jason Carver while Max is under Vecna's curse. A fight ensues with Jason briefly overpowering Lucas, however, after he sees Max beginning to levitate he summons the strength to continue which results in him knocking out Jason.
Lucas observes in horror as Max begins to succumb to Vecna's Curse, her bones are crushed and she loses her sight. This leaves Lucas devastated as he cries hysterically as Max dies in his arms, before Eleven psychically resurrects Max, barely saving her. At the end of the season, he is seen reading to Max as she is laying in the hospital comatose. Spores from the Upside Down are seen from the hospital window as Lucas and Erica observe.
Nancy Wheeler is the oldest daughter of Karen and Ted Wheeler and the older sister of Mike and Holly. Nancy is something of an outcast at school until Steve Harrington takes an interest in her.
Their relationship lasts until the end of season two when she starts dating Jonathan after a little help from Murray ("So get it over with!"). She is very proficient with firearms and has been seen using pistols, revolvers, rifles and shotguns.
In the third season, Nancy and Jonathan work as interns at the Hawkins Post, where Nancy is subject to workplace harassment and sexual discrimination from her male superiors. She and Jonathan are eventually fired for pursuing a story against their editor's wishes, but Nancy continues to investigate the case, which leads her to multiple encounters with the Flayed being controlled by the Mind Flayer from the Upside Down through Billy.
In season four, Nancy begins working as an editor at her school paper alongside her coworker Fred Benson. When Chrissy is murdered by Vecna, Nancy, and Fred investigate her crime scene, where Nancy questions Max's neighbor and learns of Victor Creel, a man who murdered his family and was incarcerated at Pennhurst Asylum. When Fred is killed by Vecna, Nancy reunites with the gang and is informed of Vecna. Later, Nancy is put into a trance by Vecna and learns he is actually Henry Creel, Victor Creel's son who actually killed his family and framed their deaths on his father. Eventually, she, Steve, and Robin set Vecna on fire before shooting him several times.
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Jonathan Byers is the older brother of Will and the oldest son of Joyce. He is shy and reserved and is considered an outsider at Hawkins High. He is an aspiring photographer, and very close with his mother and brother.
Jonathan starts dating Nancy at the end of season two. They both become interns at the Hawkins Post in season three, but are eventually fired by their editor for pursuing a story. He helps his friends defeat the Mind Flayer before he and his family decide to move to Lenora Hills, California.
In the fourth season, Jonathan makes a new friend named Argyle. Jonathan, who planned to attend college with Nancy, reveals to Argyle that he was accepted to a community college in Lenora Hills. After gaining the number of NINA, they seek the help of Suzie who resides in Salt Lake City, Utah. Suzie locates NINA's coordinates, and the group arrives there while Eleven is facing off against the U.S. Army's troops. Jonathan helps the group build an isolation tank for Eleven to fight Vecna and later returns to Hawkins only to find it being infiltrated by the Upside Down.
Karen Wheeler is the mother of Nancy, Mike, and Holly and the wife of Ted. Although a loving mother at heart, she remains largely clueless about her children's activities up until the destruction of Hawkins by Vecna and often tries to directly connect with them rather than trying to understand them. Nancy believes she only married her husband to fit the image of a nuclear family.
At the end of the second season and the beginning of the third, she develops a sexual attraction towards Billy Hargrove, partly out of boredom with her husband, but ultimately decides against acting on these feelings to avoid splitting her family apart; her brief submission to them, however, indirectly results in Billy being possessed by the Mind Flayer. Later, she finally connects with Nancy by encouraging her to continue pursuing the story she was fired for working on against her editor's orders.
Dr. Martin Brenner, who is referred to as "Papa" by Eleven and the other children he experimented on, is the head scientist of Hawkins Laboratory and the experiments performed there. He is a callous and manipulative scientist, having abducted Eleven from her mother, Terry Ives, whom he later subjected to electroshock therapy to destroy her mind and thoughts. Brenner then put Eleven through numerous experiments, one of which saw her use her abilities to accidentally establish a link to the Upside Down. After Eleven escapes the lab, Brenner and his team hunt for her throughout Hawkins while covering up the actions of the Demogorgon they unknowingly let loose. Brenner is apparently killed by the Demogorgon in the first-season finale, though a former worker named Ray claimed Brenner was still alive during his attempt to plea for his life to Eleven and Kali.
In season four, Brenner is revealed to still be alive and working with Dr. Owens on a project called "NINA", which they hope can restore Eleven's powers. NINA is a specialized sensory deprivation tank and experimental drug that allow Eleven to vividly recall memories of her time in the lab. Flashbacks to 1979 show that Brenner was experimenting on at least fourteen children alongside Eleven until all of them except for her were murdered by subject 001 (Henry Creel/Vecna), whom Eleven overpowered and banished to the Upside Down. The exertion put Eleven in a coma that erased most of her memories and weakened her powers, which Brenner began attempting to restore. Brenner's experiments on Eleven throughout the first season are revealed to have been attempts to locate Henry, whose powers he sought to replicate in the other children.
The NINA project ultimately succeeds in restoring Eleven's powers, but U.S. Army troops led by Lt. Col. Jack Sullivan storm the facility and kill the staff, believing Eleven to be responsible for a string of murders in Hawkins (which were in fact committed by Vecna). Brenner is fatally shot by a sniper while attempting to escape with Eleven, who overpowers the Army.
William "Will" Byers the younger brother of Jonathan and the youngest son of Joyce, is the shy, kind, timid, and often the most overlooked member of the party. In the group's Dungeons & Dragons party, Will is the wizard, but later occasionally plays the role of Dungeon Master; he is referred to as "Will the Wise". In season one, he vanishes somewhere near "Mirkwood" after encountering the monster that escaped through a rift to the "Upside Down", an alternate dimension discovered by the Hawkins Laboratory scientists.[6] Schnapp was promoted to series regular for the second season, after recurring in the first.[7]
In season two, he began to experience flashbacks to his time in the Upside-Down, with visions of a large shadow monster trying to attack him. The monster eventually possessed Will, and was later dubbed by Dustin as "The Mind Flayer". Joyce, Mike, Jonathan, and Nancy were able to drive the Mind Flayer out of Will, returning him to normal.
In season three, his friends' preoccupations with their girlfriends lead to Will feeling like the odd man out. His link to the Mind Flayer helps the group know when it is active. At the end of the season, he moves out of Hawkins with Joyce, Jonathan, and Eleven.
In season four, Will, Mike, Jonathan, and Argyle recover Eleven and help her build a sensory deprivation tank through which she can fight Vecna. Upon returning to Hawkins, which has been ravaged by a series of faults opened by Vecna from the Upside Down, Will begins feeling the Upside Down's influence again—recognizing Vecna as the presence he felt all along.
Schnapp has stated that he believes that Will is gay and attracted to Mike.[8] The show has hinted at this through the first three seasons, but it was made more apparent during scenes in the fourth season. Will tries to boost Mike's confidence that they will find Eleven as they drive to the Nina project site. Later, he is comforted by Jonathan who knows that Will is different and mentions that he will accept him, saying "You're my brother and there is nothing in this world that will ever change that."
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Maxine "Max" Mayfield is Susan Hargrove's biological daughter, Billy's younger stepsister, an avid skateboarder, and the tomboy of the group who catches the attention of Lucas when it becomes known that she has the highest score in Dig Dug.[9] Max is often shown at odds with Billy.
In season three, she and Lucas are dating after supposed multiple breakups. Eleven approaches her to seek advice when she suspects that Mike is lying to her, and Max convinces her that Mike might have done that to play along with his friends. Max helps Eleven in exploring the outside world, making them close friends. She is also shown to be a fan of Wonder Woman. Max gains a brilliant relationship with Eleven over the season. Later on, she plays a big role in helping to kill the Mind Flayer's lesser form and she also helps Eleven when they are trying to escape the Starcourt Mall.
In season four, Max struggles with coping after Billy's death, which had lasting reverberations on her family situation. Her parents divorced, and Max and her mother Susan moved into a trailer park. Max has isolated herself from everyone, including Lucas, and she frequently attends the counselor's office due to her PTSD symptoms. She witnesses Eddie and Chrissy going into his trailer together and later sees him flee. After learning of Chrissy's death, she relays this information to Dustin, so they track down one of Eddie's friends to learn about Eddie's location. After recalling Chrissy attending the counselor's office before her death, Max, Dustin, and Steve break into the school and find her file, as well as Fred Benson's, Vecna's second victim. She learns that both Chrissy and Fred suffered PTSD symptoms similar to hers, realizing that she is Vecna's next target. She writes letters to her friends and family and reads Billy's at his grave. She is put into a trance by Vecna, but Lucas, Steve, and Dustin learn from Nancy and Robin that music can help her escape Vecna, and play her favorite song, Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill", saving her from Vecna. After Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Eddie dive into the Upside Down, Max and the gang return to the Wheeler residence and communicate with the Upside Down gang using a Lite-Brite. They go to Eddie's trailer and rescue them from the Upside Down. After Vecna shows Nancy his plans for Hawkins' destruction, the Hawkins gang plots to kill Vecna. Realizing she can provide a distraction to give the others time, Max volunteers as bait for Vecna. In the season's final battle, Max, Lucas, and Erica go to Creel House, awaiting Max's possession to give Nancy, Steve, and Robin an opening to Vecna. When Vecna possesses Max, she retreats to the safety of her favorite memory—the 1984 Snow Ball, where she and Lucas first danced—but this fails to work for long. Eleven enters the fray within Max's mind, but she is overpowered by Vecna, who begins killing Max. At the last second, Eleven manages to save Max from Vecna's final blow. However, moments later, Max dies from her injuries in Lucas' arms, but Eleven is able to resurrect her, though she remains comatose. Max ends up at the hospital still in a coma, with Lucas, Eleven, Will, and Mike at her bedside.
Steve Harrington, who is referred to as Steve "The Hair" Harrington, is a popular student at school. He tries to develop a relationship with Nancy and bullies Jonathan, though he later comes to regret this.[10]
Keery was promoted to series regular from the second season onwards, after recurring in the first. Steve then played a more prominent role, developing a brotherly relationship with Dustin, and becoming a self-described babysitter for the main group of kids. Steve is the owner of what the friends call "The Bat", a baseball bat with multiple large nails driven into the head of it, made by Jonathan to fight the Demogorgon. Steve uses the bat to fight off a pack of adolescent Demogorgons that attack Hawkins in the second season.
In season three, Steve works at Starcourt Mall at Scoops Ahoy with Robin Buckley. He, Robin and Dustin discover a secret Russian base under Starcourt Mall, where soon later Erica joins. Steve, along with Robin, is later imprisoned by the Russians. He admits to having a crush on Robin but is rejected soon after learning that Robin is a lesbian.
In season four, Steve continues working with Robin at the local video store. He teams up with Robin, Nancy, Dustin, Max, and Lucas for much of the season, investigating the Creel house to search for and learn about Vecna, and also locating Eddie. After they discover a new gate to the Upside Down in a lake, Steve dives down to investigate and is pulled through, but eventually makes it back with Nancy, Robin, and Eddie after they follow him in. During the final plan to defeat Vecna, Steve returns to the Creel house in the Upside Down with Nancy and Robin to kill Vecna, and the three succeed in severely maiming him with Molotov cocktails before he escapes. Vecna's plan nonetheless succeeds, and Steve, Robin, and Dustin volunteer to help townsfolk affected by the "earthquake" created by Vecna's gates.
William "Billy" Hargrove is the arrogant, abusive, careless and rash step-brother of Max. His own behavior is revealed to be a consequence of the physical abuse he himself is subjected to by his father.
In season three, he becomes the main host for the Mind Flayer. Eleven, having looked into his memories earlier, reminds Billy of his happy memories with his mother, allowing him to break free from the possession and sacrifice himself to save Eleven from the Mind Flayer. After the Mind Flayer is defeated, Billy apologizes to Max for all his wrongdoings as he dies in Max's arms.
In season four, Billy appears as a hallucination when Max is put into a trance by Vecna, where Billy blames her for his death. Max reveals that a part of her is happy and sad that he died but that she still cared about him and loved him.
Bob Newby is a former classmate of Joyce and Hopper, who runs the Hawkins RadioShack,[11] and becomes Joyce's boyfriend in Season Two, as well as a mentor figure for Will.[12] An amiable man, he often refers to himself as a "superhero" and sees a future with the family.
The Byers initially try to keep him out of the knowledge of the Upside Down, but end up relying on his help to locate Hopper when he figures out Will's delusions. He, Hopper, an unconscious Will, Mike, Joyce, and Owens are eventually trapped by the Mind Flayer in Hawkins Lab with the power out. As the only one capable of resetting the breakers and unlocking the doors, he volunteers to do so. After succeeding, he is attacked, killed, and eaten by Demo-Dogs in front of Joyce and Hopper. His legacy lived on into season three, with Joyce still mourning his loss.
Dr. Sam Owens is a United States Department of Energy executive who replaces Brenner at Hawkins Laboratory. Owens is as committed to science research and stubborn as his predecessor, but much more empathetic to the residents of Hawkins Lab.[11] Owens is in charge of studying and treating Will's lingering traumatic episodes from the Upside Down. He is fired from the lab at the end of season two after it is attacked by monsters at the Upside Down, and provides Hopper with a birth certificate for Eleven naming her Hopper's adopted daughter.
In season three, Jim Hopper calls Sam Owens to inform him a gate has been opened in Hawkins. In the finale of the season, Dr. Owens and his men fly to Hawkins and raid the Russians' secret base. During the raid, Sam sees a gate inside the wall that is not fully closed.
In season four, Owens has secretly begun working with Brenner on a program called "NINA" that may be able to bring back Eleven's powers. Owens recruits Eleven to participate in the program after a string of murders in Hawkins; she initially revolted after learning of Brenner's involvement, but the brief resurgence of her powers during an escape attempt convinces her to stay. The project ultimately succeeds in restoring Eleven's powers, but U.S. Army forces led by Lt. Col. Jack Sullivan storm the facility, believing Eleven to be responsible for the Hawkins murders. Sullivan attempts to force Eleven's whereabouts out of Owens, but Eleven destroys the Army's vehicles.
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Robin Buckley[13] is Steve's coworker at the Starcourt Mall's ice cream parlor, "Scoops Ahoy!". Robin decodes a Russian radio message and finds the base along with Steve, Dustin, and Erica. She tells Steve she was obsessed with him in high school, but only because Tammy Thompson had a crush on him, thus revealing that she is a lesbian. In season four, Robin has a crush on classmate Vickie.
In season four, Robin continues working with Steve at the local video store. After locating Eddie, Nancy and Robin go to the library and look up information on Creel, learning that Creel blamed his family's murders on a demon, which they believe to be Vecna. The two visit Creel at Pankhurst Asylum, where he recounts his family's murders. Later, she goes with Nancy and Steve to the Creel house in the Upside Down as part of their plan to defeat Vecna. During episode 8 season 4 Vickie kisses a boy and Robin gets a bit sad. During the last episode of season 4, Robin and Vickie hit it off, leaving fans to believe there will be some romance between Vickie and Robin in season 5.
Erica Sinclair is Sue and Charles Sinclair's youngest child and is Lucas' younger sister.[14] She was introduced in the second season as a recurring character and promoted to series regular in the third season. She aids Dustin, Steve, and Robin in infiltrating the Russian base beneath Starcourt Mall. During these events, Dustin convinces Erica that, like himself and his friends, she is a nerd and that she should embrace that. At the end of the third season, she is given Will's Dungeons & Dragons manuals. She is very snarky, foul-mouthed, sassy and often thinks of Lucas and his friends as nerds, though she is also very brave and can be nice at times. In season four, she has embraced her nerdy side and joins the Hawkins High School's Hellfire Club in her brother's place after demonstrating proficient knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons. She serves as a lookout and communicator between the many groups in their plan to defeat Vecna.
Murray Bauman is a private investigator and conspiracy theorist hired to investigate Barbara Holland's disappearance. He was first introduced in season two. He assists Nancy and Jonathan in their mission to shut down Hawkins National Laboratory.
In season three, he helps Joyce and Hopper infiltrate the secret underground base in Starcourt Mall, where the Soviets had been building a machine capable of opening a gate to the Upside Down. He is also shown to be fluent in Russian. In season 4, he and Joyce travel to Kamchatka to rescue Hopper from imprisonment. There, he disguises himself as Yuri Ismaylov to rescue Hopper and burns demodogs to aid the kids in Hawkins against Vecna. He is a dramatic, bearded and balding man who loves vodka and often drinks it to think; he also can predict good couples, for example, Nancy and Jonathan, and Joyce and Hopper.
Vecna is a murderous being in the Upside Down, who first appears in season four as a main character. He preys on individuals reeling from past traumas, and his method of killing involves inducing grandfather clocks and nightmarish visions before telekinetically breaking their bones and imploding their eyes into their skulls. He operates out of the Creel House in the Upside Down. He is revealed to have been responsible for the events that terrorized Hawkins in the previous seasons, all the way back to Will's disappearance in Season 1.
Vecna is revealed to be Henry Creel, Victor Creel's son who was born with telepathic abilities. Henry grew up with a deeply misanthropic view of humanity after being ostracized throughout his childhood. He came to resent his family for their perceived hypocrisy, having learned that his father mistakenly bombed the home of an innocent family during World War II. In the 1950s, he terrorized and murdered his mother and sister in his family's house using his powers, but the exertion put him in a coma while his father was arrested for the murders and placed in a psychiatric institution. Henry was placed in the care of Dr. Brenner, who made him test subject One in Brenner's attempts to replicate Henry's powers in other children. As an adult, Henry was made an orderly at Hawkins Lab to help oversee Brenner's experiments on a number of superpowered children, including Eleven. Brenner placed an implant (dubbed "Soteria") in Henry's neck that suppressed his powers and dubbed Subject 001. In 1979, Henry befriended Eleven amidst her being bullied by other subjects, and pointed out to her that she and the rest of the lab's occupants were prisoners. Sympathizing with Henry's plight after witnessing him being punished by Brenner, Eleven destroyed the Soteria implant, restoring his powers. Henry massacred all the other children and most of the lab's staff and attempted to kill Eleven after she refused to help him eradicate the rest of humanity. Eleven overpowered Henry and sent him into the Upside Down, where he became disfigured by lightning injuries and prolonged exposure to its toxic environment. Henry discovered various creatures residing in the realm, and used his powers to control them, the Mind Flayer being the result of his manipulations.
In 1986, after spending several years remaining dormant and growing stronger while controlling the Upside Down, Henry begins terrorizing Hawkins himself, murdering several Hawkins High School students, including Chrissy Cunningham, Fred Benson, and Patrick McKinney. Dustin and Eddie dub him "Vecna" based on his similarities to the Dungeons & Dragons's character of the same name. Vecna nearly kills Max until her friends find a way to break his influence using music. He later possesses Nancy, reveals to her his past, and then shows her a vision of the future where Hawkins is torn apart by rifts before releasing her. Nancy and her friends deduce that Vecna needs to open four gates to the Upside Down to enact his plan, three of which have been spawned at the site of each of his murders. Max attempts to bait Vecna while her friends travel to the Upside Down to kill him. Eleven enters Max's mind and confronts Vecna, who reveals himself as the mastermind behind the Upside Down's past attacks on Hawkins. Vecna possesses and kills Max before Eleven overpowers him, while Steve, Nancy, and Robin severely injure his physical form before he escapes. Though Eleven revives Max, her brief death opens a fourth gate to the Upside Down, causing rifts to tear through Hawkins, allowing the Upside Down to begin infiltrating the town.
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Argyle is a student at Lenora Hills High School, where Eleven, Will, and Jonathan now attend in Lenora Hills, California.
Argyle becomes Jonathan's best friend, and he provides Jonathan needed counsel, helping him relax with his stoner mentality. He works as a pizza delivery driver for Surfer Boy Pizza. When U.S. Army soldiers attack the Byers home in search of Eleven, Argyle provides getaway transportation for Mike, Will, and Jonathan. He goes on to join the boys in their own attempt to find her. During their travels, they seek help from Dustin's long-distance girlfriend Suzie in Salt Lake City, and Argyle falls for the hacker's older sister, Eden. Argyle is pivotal in the California Crew's efforts to aid the Hawkins Gang's plot to defeat Vecna, helping create a sensory deprivation tank for Eleven at a Surfer Boy Pizza location in Nevada. He then accompanies Eleven, Mike, Will, and Jonathan back to Hawkins.
Edward "Eddie" Munson is an eccentric Hawkins High School student and president of Hawkins High's Dungeons & Dragons-themed "Hellfire Club", where he befriends Mike and Dustin. He lives with his uncle, Wayne Munson, and has parents who abandoned him. While the two are not seen onscreen together, it is made clear that their relationship is very close.
While selling drugs to Chrissy Cunningham, Eddie watches as Vecna telepathically kills Chrissy. He screams in horror and runs away. He realizes that the authorities will not believe his story and is later located by Dustin, Steve, Max, and Robin, who explain to him the existence of the Upside Down. The local police name Eddie as their chief suspect in Vecna's murders. The school basketball team, led by Chrissy's boyfriend Jason Carver, attempts to hunt him down, with Jason believing Eddie to be the leader of a "Satanic cult". The group of friends realize they must work to clear Eddie's name. When they locate a new gate to the Upside Down in a lake, known as the Water Gate, he dives down after Steve gets pulled in and experiences the Upside Down for the first time. In preparation for the final battle against Vecna, the group purchases and crafts weapons, with Eddie and Dustin re-entering the Upside Down to distract the demobats protecting Vecna's lair. As part of the final plan, Eddie plays Metallica's "Master of Puppets" on his electric guitar. He later stays behind and sacrifices himself to further fend off the demobats. After Vecna's gates create large rifts that tear through Hawkins, the town still believes Eddie is responsible for the murders. Dustin meets Eddie's uncle and assures him that Eddie was a hero who died protecting the town that hates him.
The Mind Flayer is introduced in the second season as a malevolent semi-corporeal entity that resides in the parallel dimension known as the Upside Down, where every living thing in that reality serves as an extension of its hive mind and acts on the entity's desire to spread itself to Earth.
In the second season, the Mind Flayer's existence was revealed as it implanted a piece of itself into Will through visions, while using adolescent Demogorgons to eliminate anyone who interfered in the terraforming. While the others managed to close the gate to sever the Mind Flayer's foothold, its ethereal fragment took refuge at Brimborn Steel Works after being "exorcised" from Will. During the events of season three, a new Gate opened by Russians allowed the Mind Flayer to have its isolated fragment create an organic vessel by infecting and possessing living beings and absorbing their entire biomass. The Mind Flayer nearly succeeded in killing Eleven, only to lose its foothold when Joyce and Hopper infiltrated the secret Russian laboratory and closed the new gate.
In the fourth season, the Mind Flayer is revealed to have been shaped and controlled by Henry Creel (Vecna), who discovered the entity as a formless mass in the Upside Down (after being sent there by Eleven) and morphed it into its spider-like appearance, owing to his childhood fascination with Latrodectus black widows. Hopper, Joyce, and Murray discover another fragment of the Mind Flayer inside a Russian research facility in Kamchatka, where it eventually breaks free and animates the other Demogorgons inside the facility. Hopper and Murray manage to kill the remaining creatures. The Mind Flayer has made multiple forms of itself such as the monster that chased Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler in the hospital, and the physical form it built throughout Season 3, using melted flesh as a body.
Predatory creatures from the Upside Down that serve as Veccna's initial invasion force, are murderous and violent with limited intelligence. Demogorgons start off as slug-like creatures that are incubated in a victim's body, growing into a tadpole-like creature and gradually molting into an adolescent form called a "demodog" before fully maturing. An adult demogorgon, appears after a gateway to the Upside Down was accidentally opened in Hawkins, and demonstrated an apparent ability to create random rifts between the Upside Down and the normal world.[15] Though that demogorgon, was eventually destroyed, its abduction of Will Byers allowed the Mind Flayer to unleash a swarm of adolescent demogorgons upon Hawkins before they were all slayed when their connection to the Mind Flayer was severed.
The end of the third season reveals another adult demogorgon, being held captive by the Russians at a prison camp in Kamchatka, where prisoners are sometimes executed by being fed to the creature. In the fourth season, Hopper and his fellow prisoners are forced to fight the Demogorgon. Hopper uses a flaming spear to hold back the creature while it ravages most of the other prisoners, while Joyce and Murray help him escape alongside Dmitri Antonov, a guard he bribed and befriended. The group discovers a number of demogorgons (as well as a fragment of the Mind Flayer) under study inside the prison. The creatures are accidentally let loose during a firefight between the prison guards and the Russian Demogorgon, but Hopper and Murray kill the remaining creatures and escape Russia.
A variant with wings like a bat called the Demobat also exists. The variant was introduced in the fourth season when Steve Harrington went through Watergate, the gate at the bottom of Lover's Lake which opened up when Patrick McKinney was killed by Vecna. The Demobats attacked Steve, but were fended off by him, Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley and Eddie Munson. Later, Eddie played "Master of Puppets" to distract the Demobats and ended up being killed by them. After Vecna was repelled, they fell to the ground and seemingly died.
A term for Earth-based beings that are possessed by the Mind Flayer, Will Byers being the first case during the second season until an ethereal fragment of the Mind Flayer was purged from his body. The isolated fragment later began possessing rats and eventually humans during the events of season three, having most of its hosts ingest toxic chemicals so they could gradually be melted down into materials for the Mind Flayer to create a proxy body to act through in its attempt to kill Eleven.
The following is a list of guest characters that have recurring roles throughout the series. The characters are listed by the order in which they first appeared.
The following is a supplementary list of guest stars that appear in lesser roles, make significant cameo appearances or who receive co-starring credit over multiple appearances. The characters are listed in the order in which they first appeared.
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