Stranger Things theory: Is Stranger Things just a Dungeons and Dragons game?
Could the story simply be a game of Dungeons and Dragons Will Byers and his friends are playing in Mike Wheeler’s basement?
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is enjoying a surge in popularity thanks to Netflix’s hit drama Stranger Things, which first hit screens in 2016. Stranger Things started with schoolchildren Will Byers (played by Noah Schnapp), Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), and Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) playing the fantasy board game in a basement. After Will went missing and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) showed up, the group used D&D to try and understand the sinister happenings in Hawkins – but could they just be playing a version of the game in Mike’s basement?
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from all seasons of Stranger Things
Is Stranger Things just a Dungeons and Dragons game?
The clues appear to be there with the characters likening the Upside Down to the Vale of Shadows and Shadow Realm in season one.
The creature they refer to as the Demogorgon looks different to the one in the show, but does have similarities to the creature in D&D, which is described on the Forgotten Realms Fandom as having a “body at once sinuous like that of a snake and powerful like that of a great ape”.
Season two introduced the Mind Flayer which was targeting Will with its psychic abilities before it managed to crash into Hawkins in the third outing.
Finally, season four introduced Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), who was flung into the Upside Down by El after she battled with him amid the Hawkins Lab massacre.
Stranger Things could just be a game (Image: NETFLIX)
Stranger Things: The Upside Down is likened the Vale of Shadows (Image: NETFLIX)
Vecna is also another creature from D&D, who is also known by the moniker “Master of the Spider Throne”, which would fit with Henry Creel’s (Raphael Luce) obsession with arachnids.
Additionally, when Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and her friends entered the Upside Down through the gate in Eddie Munson’s (Joseph Quinn) trailer ceiling, they were still in 1983.
This timeline would suggest the school kids are still playing D&D back in 1983 when Stranger Things first started and this is nothing more than a flight of fancy.
Although this is only a theory, it would also fit with the Duffer Brothers’ vision of creating a homage to 80s pop culture and really leaning into this era and could be likened to the films Neverending Story, Labyrinth and Videodrome which blur the lines between reality and fantasy.
Stranger Things: The story could just be a Dungeons and Dragons game (Image: NETFLIX)
Stranger Things: The Hellfire Club played Dungeons and Dragons (Image: NETFLIX)
Express.co.uk also spoke exclusively to Elle Dwight, the CEO of the free online role-playing game (RPG) platform Role about her thoughts on this theory and the influence Stranger Things has had on D&D.
Elle said: “One of the joys of role-playing has always been that the fantasy is all around you, just at the edge of your imagination, waiting to be grasped. As a world that seems to twist reality in a sinister way, it would make sense that the Upside Down pulls from the imagination and fantasy of all these kids dreaming up the world they play in D&D.
“Whether that world is literally the world of D&D is probably left intentionally vague, but the correlations are there.
“Even as a nightmare realm, it is still a realm steeped in magic and imagination. That sounds like D&D to us!”
