Omg, two major Stranger Things characters were almost killed off ahead of season five?!

The Duffer brothers (who came up with Stranger Things) just shared that they nearly killed off two major Stranger Things characters ahead of season five. The show would have been so different if they’d gone ahead with these original plans.

Apparently, they contemplated disposing of Sadie Sink‘s character Max in the finale of season four. In this plan, Max would have died while fighting Vecna and listening to Kate Bush. Instead, she wound up in a coma. The Duffer brothers (who apparently only ever speak in unison?) told The Independent: “It would sort of defeat the purpose of her growth that entire year. She goes through all of that to die? She finds the light and then… Some of those you talk about and it just feels mean and it goes against what you’ve been trying to say.”

Things could have gone even worse for Max
(Image via Netflix)

The Duffer brothers are wary of killing off too many main characters “to shock people or because people have a bloodlust”. They try to ensure any big character’s death “doesn’t alter the tone of the show in a way that we don’t want.”

The second of the two key Stranger Things characters to narrowly avoid being killed off is Jim Hopper. He was the closest main cast member to dying. Remember at the end of season three, when the characters all thought he’d died, zero Netflix viewers were convinced, then it turned out he’d been imprisoned in Russia for… reasons?

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He lived to smoulder another day
(Image via Netflix)

At one point, the Duffer brothers were going to kill him off for real. However, they didn’t go through with it. “You have those discussions,” they explained, “but I think it was just hard for us to let go of that character.”

Er, well that would have spared everyone from the awkwardness of David Harbour attempting to promote Stranger Things at the same time that Lily Allen was promoting an album dragging him.

Up until season five of Stranger Things, no main character has actually died (er, unless you count Eddie). People have plenty of theories about who might not survive the show’s finale, though.

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