When we last left the Hawkins gang on the third-last episode of Stranger Things season four, things were looking particularly grim, and the stakes were occupying their usual position around the Earth’s stratosphere. Fans all over have surely lost a few fingernails as they brace themselves for another character’s death, but there are some deaths you just don’t think about so as not to accidentally speak it into existence.
But Reddit is a place of very few qualms, and one post on r/StrangerThings proved it by speculating which death between the four original kids, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, or Will, would hurt the most should any of them succumb to the horrors of the Upside Down.
Even though they may not seem like kids anymore, losing any of these four would be a huge blow to the rest of Hawkins’ champions. Nevertheless, responders were relatively airtight on their declaration of which death would hurt the most.
Even putting aside Dustin’s status as a fan-favorite character, his ability to crack the code of the Upside Down makes him an invaluable character to not only his friends, but to the viewers as well; his death would likely damage the hearts of fans, the ability of the show to flow like it does, and the bank account of Netflix from the inevitable amount of people who would unsubscribe upon Dustin’s death.
As for which death would hurt the least, responders generally agreed that that honor(?) would go to Mike.
Another responder noted that killing off Mike might give Eleven an intense boost to her powers, allowing the gang to ultimately succeed in their fight.
In any case, almost all the characters would cause a few hearts to shatter upon their death, but something about the lives of Mike, Lucas, Will, and Dustin makes the thought of character deaths all the more uneasy.
We can all take a collective deep breath on the matter when volume two of season four of Stranger Things releases July 1 on Netflix.
