The following contains spoilers for Season 4, Volume 1 of Stranger Things, now available to stream on Netflix.
Stranger Things Season 4 is all about the characters confronting the aspects of themselves they despise. Season 4 antagonist Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) intrudes into people's minds to expose their greatest fears, biggest regrets and most shameful memories. In exposing these vulnerabilities, Vecna is able to murder his victims telepathically, which opens portals between the normal world and the Upside Down.
While Vecna is busy terrorizing the residents of Hawkins, there are two main characters who are confronting the worst aspects of themselves independent of him: Jim Hopper (David Harbour) and his adopted daughter, Jane aka Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). Though they're not together this season, their character arcs still parallel each other in highly significant ways. More specifically, both characters find themselves confronting who they are as individuals, acknowledging what they've done in the past, coming to terms with their mistakes and realizing they're not bad people.
Beginning with Jim Hopper, Season 4 reveals very early on he actually survived the explosion at Starcourt Mall at the end of Season 3. Unfortunately, however, he was captured by Russian soldiers and transported to a private Russian prison. During his imprisonment, Hopper finds himself reflecting on his past and questioning whether he's actually a good person. This aspect of Hopper's character arc is explored in detail in Episode 5, when he converses with a Russian soldier he befriends named Dmitri Antonov (Tom Wlaschiha).
In the prison cell, Hopper confesses he's had plenty of time to think about everything he's done, beginning with the first time he fought in a war as an 18-year-old boy. During the Vietnam War, he was responsible for making Agent Orange, which was a highly toxic herbicide that negatively impacted the health of both American soldiers and Vietnamese citizens alike. As he later discovered, the active ingredient in Agent Orange -- a toxin known as dioxin -- facilitated cancers, diseases, birth defects and other disabilities.
For a long time, Hopper blamed himself for the later health problems his fellow soldiers experienced, even though he was completely ignorant of dioxin and was told by his superiors the toxic chemical was harmless. In addition to regretting this aspect of his past, Hopper also indicates he still values human connections because he needs them. Without other relationships like Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) and Eleven, Hopper tends to drown his traumatic past with drugs and alcohol, indicating a history of self-destructive behavior. One way he atones for his past is by being a good father to Eleven, which is a big part of what motivates him to reach out to Joyce and befriend a Russian soldier to escape prison.
In Eleven's case, her imprisonment is more psychological than physical, even when she is brought back to a bunker in Utah where she is kept in lockdown. Unlike with Hopper, Eleven chooses to return to the bunker as part of an effort to regain her powers so that she can help her friends deal with a new threat in Hawkins. Unfortunately for Eleven, going to the bunker also means reuniting with Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), the scientist she used to refer to as Papa as a child.
Returning to Brenner opens a Pandora's box of unhappy memories for Eleven, not just because she still remembers them as clear as day, but also because Brenner forces her to relive them as part of his plan to help her regain her powers. Re-experiencing her painful memories from her time in the lab forces Eleven to confront her earlier experiences with childhood bullying, which mirrors the bullying she's experiencing in high school with a girl named Angela (Elodie Grace Orkin). The childhood bullying also builds up to the moment Eleven escaped the facility in Season 1, but not before the other kids and orderlies are murdered in the process.
During this time Eleven met an orderly named Peter, who turned out to be Henry Creel, the first child Brenner discovered to have telekinetic ability and experimented on as One. Peter exploited Eleven's need for human connection and manipulated her into removing an implant that limited his powers. Once his powers were unleashed, Peter murdered all the children and orderlies in the lab and tried to get Eleven to join him on his mission to eradicate the human race. Eleven, however, rejects his offer and sends him to the Upside Down, where he becomes Vecna.
Like Hopper, Eleven holds herself accountable for the deaths of the other children because her actions enabled Peter to go on his murder spree. She also finds human connection emotionally healing the way Hopper does, and is similarly motivated to return to her friends and family. While both Hopper and Eleven can't change the dark aspects of their pasts, they do want to pave better futures for themselves, ultimately proving they are good people.
To see more of Hopper and Eleven's character journeys, Stranger Things Season 4, Volume 1 is available to stream on Netflix.
