The Deaths of God's Saints: A tribute to Bob from 'Stranger Things.'

Hello again everyone, and welcome back to the Nightcrawler Experience!
This will be the first part of what I'm hoping will be a three- part Halloween installment for this blog. In this entry, I'll be looking at a hit sci- fi/ horror series and an observation I was recently given about it:
 A couple times over the last year or so, I've been given month- long free memberships to Netflix. I've used them to, among other things, introduce myself to the popular Netflix series known as 'Stranger Things.'


This series has really put Netflix on the map; It's got an enormous, dedicated fanbase, and this October even has a haunted house/ maze based around it at Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights event (A friend of mine from church is one of the "Scareactors" in it). Watching it for myself, I can see why: It is a great, intriguing show with solid writing and wonderful acting, particularly from the child actors. The effects are top- notch too, and it can have both scares and humor, and some good dramatic moments as well.
DISCLAIMER: While some of this show's main characters are kids, the show is assuredly NOT for kids. It has a lot of language, and also significant amounts of violence and scary imagery at some points. Exercise caution before seeing it yourself if you're sensitive to such material, or letting kids see it.
SPOILERS!
For those unfamiliar with it, the show takes place in a town called Hawkins, Indiana in the early 1980s. In the first episode, a middle- school- aged boy named Will Byers disappears under very mysterious circumstances, yet both his dedicated mother Joyce and his geeky but loyal friends Mike, Dustin and Lucas are convinced he's still alive. In their quest to prove this and eventually save him, they uncover top secret experiments being conducted in their town, a hidden dimension nicknamed "The Upside- Down," a nasty- looking monster, and a mysterious girl known as "Eleven," or "Elle" for short, with several fascinating abilities.

Now that I've brought you up to speed on it, I'll get more to my point. An interesting thing about the 'Stranger Things' fanbase is that many of them greatly loved and mourned the passing of a fairly minor character from Season 1, named Barb.  She's a character who was only seen in a few episodes before being abruptly killed off, and we consequently know very little about her, yet a massive fan- following was built around her. There was even a hashtag created, #JusticeForBarb, and a book put out about her.

As sad as Barb's death was, though, I was far more affected by another ill- fated character from the show: A man named Bob Newby who is first introduced during the show's most recent season, Season 2.


(Meet Bob. Credit for this image goes to the user ZeroZeroEight on the 'Stranger Things' wiki)

Some of you may recognize his actor as Sean Astin, the actor best known for playing Mikey Walsh in 'The Goonies' (One of my all- time favorite movies) and Samwise "Sam" Gamgee in the 'Lord of the Rings' films (All of which are ALSO among my favorite movies), and Bob is as likable of a character as both of them were.

Season 2 picks up about a year after Season 1. Will's back, and things seem to have mostly gone back to normal in Hawkins. This of course doesn't last long, though, and a lot of new developments happen, such as Will experiencing strange visions, a new girl coming to town and causing some friction among the main boys, the crude school bully Steve very gradually becoming one of the good guys, and Elle learning more about her identity and her past.

This season is also when Bob first comes into play. Bob runs a Radio Shack in town, and has begun dating Will's mom Joyce some time between the two seasons. He's trying to win over Will and his older brother Jonathan, and he and Will do indeed begin bonding well. Bob is revealed to be quite a clever guy, with a love of puzzles and brain- teasers, as well as a kind heart and an earnest desire to help Joyce and her sons in any way he can. Midway through the season, he brilliantly manages to decipher a kind of map relating to the Upside Down, and in so doing saves the life of another major character on the show, Chief Hopper.

Sadly, things take a tragic turn in the second- to- last episode of Season 2, 'The Mind- Flayer.' Bob and a number of other characters, including Will and Joyce, are trapped inside of a research lab which has been besieged by horrible monsters from the Upside- Down, which a character nicknames "Demodogs." The heroes can't get out, because the facility's power is out and thus the entire place is on lockdown, and they know it's only a matter of time before the Demodogs discover what room they're hiding in and make a meal out of them.

Bob makes the incredibly brave decision to go down into the lab's breaker room (Which could potentially make himself a prime target for the Demodogs), because he's the only one of them with the computer skills needed to get the power back on and reset the locks so they can escape. Joyce pleads with him to reconsider, knowing this is just shy of a suicide mission, but he responds with a smile, "It's gonna be okay. Remember, Bob Newby, superhero."
Bob manages to successfully get the power back on, so Joyce and the others are able to get out safely. Heart- breakingly, just as Bob has made it to the facility's lobby and is about to escape along with them, a Demodog out of nowhere tackles him to the ground and kills him.

When the others have made it back to  one of their houses, many of them are of course mourning the loss of good old Bob. In this scene, the boy Mike reveals to his buddies that, when Bob was attending Hawkins Middle School as a boy, HE was the one who first founded the school's A.V. club that they're all members of, and even organized a fundraiser to get all of its equipment.

As sad as I already was at Bob's death, hearing that made it all the more moving for me. That revelation helped confirm that, as a kid, Bob was a lot like the four main boys on the show. He ended up being sort of like a precursor to them.

 It kind of ties into Sean Astin's performance as Mikey in 'The Goonies,' as it reminds me of the scene when Mikey is talking to the skeleton of the pirate leader One- Eyed Willie and tells him, "You're the first Goonie."

In the end of the season, of course, the heroes manage to save the town, and in the season finale's epilogue, we see that Will's fridge is now decorated with a new picture he drew, depicting Bob as a superhero.


(A fitting tribute to a hero; Credit for this image goes to the user "AquaTerra7" on the 'Stranger Things' wiki)

I was guided to write this entry partly because a fair number of good, righteous people I've known have died this year. You may recall I dedicated my review of 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' to the memory of two of them, John Knapp and Joseph "Teak" Black. Well, more have passed as well this year, such as Megan (An old church friend of mine who, like Teak, accompanied me on several Cat Island missions trips, but sadly succumbed to cancer this summer) and Perry (An old family friend). I've mourned every one of them deeply.
In thinking of those losses, and Bob's death on 'Stranger Things,' a verse from Scripture popped into my head: Psalm 116:15, which says that "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."
Now, on the surface, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense: You'd think that God would mourn or condemn when good, righteous people who've served Him die.
However, that's where things get tricky: One way of looking at it is that it's showing God honors their service to Him throughout their lives. Another which I read somewhere was that those who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus are thus regarded as so precious and beloved by God that even their deaths are seen as precious to Him. There's also the matter of how to define the word "Precious." It suggests that they are of great value to God, and also that their deaths are very important to God and of great value, not something to be taken lightly. In 'Stranger Things,' it is clear almost immediately that the show's heroes will never take Bob's noble death lightly, and they will remember both that and the good life he led. Similarly, in real life, when we lose those we love, we must not treat their deaths lightly, or fail to properly honor them.

Another issue I feel I should bring up to help convey my point is the way that verse uses the term "Saints." As a United Methodist, I do not have the same view of saints that Roman Catholics do, that they have been canonized and have official feast days during the year and whatnot.
Rather, when I personally think of that term, it calls to mind a sermon I once heard while in seminary: It involved us seeing "Saints" as those people in our own lives who helped shape us into who we are, and influenced our walks with God. It then led to us thinking about who some of the "Saints" in our lives are.
In that sense, on 'Stranger Things,' Bob can be seen as someone who was a "Saint" in the lives of Joyce and the four main boys. He provided them with strength, courage, comfort, and inspiration. He had helped found the club that the four main boys were all members of. Last, but certainly not least, he was willing to perform a mission that he had to have known he probably wouldn't return from in one piece, because he knew it was the only way to save all of their lives.
Likewise, in real life, John, Teak, Meg, and Perry were a few of the MANY "Saints" in my life. Each of them, in their own ways, impacted my life and helped shape my own knowledge of who I am in Christ. For that reason, I will always remember them and honor the legacies they left behind, in my life and the lives of others.
So, I leave you with a question: Who are the saints in YOUR life, the people who helped shape your walk with God? If they are those who've passed on and entered God's Kingdom, ensure that their memory endures forever through following the good examples they've set. If they're people that are still alive, find a way to let them know what an impact they had on you, and how much it means to you.
That's all for this edition of the Nightcrawler Experience. Keep an eye out the next few days as I do the other Halloween- related entry/ entries. Until then, God bless you all!