Wild 'Stranger Things' Theory Argues Mind Flayer Has a Longer History With Eleven Than We Thought

Since Stranger Things fans quickly binged the long-awaited third season this summer, they have been theorizing the fates of our favorite Hawkins gang. Some ideas have been relatively mild, such as Jim Hopper (David Harbour) still being alive, while others have been insanely out there, making connections that are so creative, I think even the Duffer brothers would be impressed.

One of those theories, posted by Reddit user Falloutaddicted recently, is blowing fans’ minds. Seventeen reports that the user not only makes an interesting connection between Eleven and the Mind Flayer, but also argues how their theory could make it into Season 4. They write:

"I made a post on this subreddit a little while ago about how I think that the Mind Flayer is 001. As you see with El and Kali, when they use their powers they use energy: and if the Mind Flayer is 001 or any other number he would too. But where does he get this power from? My theory is that he extracts energy from his flayed minions. Here comes the interesting part: what if he builds a giant creature that extracts energy from everyone that is thrown into it and being output in the 001 that is also in there to have his real body protected while the shadow-monster and flayed can get damaged[?]"

The user continues about how next season will play out:

"This is what could be the storyline: Will and El can't sense the Mind Flayer as they are out of Hawkins, while the others start to notice some strange activity and investigate and split up at some point. One group gets ambushed and trapped in the flayer's power reactor, another group discovers that the portal in the lab is open again and contact Eleven and Will to come back to Hawkins and the final group will confront the government (who wants to keep all strange activities secret) with this. Once Will arrives in Hawkins he starts to feel the Mind Flayer again and El still tries to deal with the loss of her powers. The group in the reactor has escaped and tries to go back to the normal world but doesn't know where the portal is, so they go to Starcourt Mall (or the ruins) and discovers that the communists are there working together with the Mind Flayer. The group confronting the government quickly discovers that Hopper is still alive and the Russians keep him hostage, as the American government keeps one of their commanders hostage, this action is being lead by the one and only Dr. Brenner who got promoted because of the project with El. El discovers this too and wants to make her way to Brenner to kill him while the others need her. She even got so mad when she heard that she got her powers working again and decided to help defeating the Mind Flayer. "

Even though it is such a wild theory, it actually sounds kind of plausible. And just the amount of crazy that Stranger Things is. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens if a fourth season happens.