Who is Mr. Whatsit in Stranger Things season 5? The Netflix hit features references to A Wrinkle in Time

Stranger Things is finally back, and the final season of the Netflix hit has begun. Fans are getting closer to finding out how this extraordinary story, which shook the world in 2016 and has continued to attract huge audiences ever since, will end.

Who is Mr. Whatsit, and what does he have to do with A Wrinkle in Time?

The first part of Stranger Things season 5 was released on November 26, introducing a new mysterious character – Mr. Whatsit. We initially meet him as the imaginary friend of Holly Wheeler, who gets into trouble when she is caught talking to him at school.

All clues at the beginning suggested that Mr. Whatsit was Demogorgon, but how could he talk to Mike's sister when the only sounds he can make are deafening screams? It soon turns out that Mr. Whatsit isn’t Demogorgon at all, but rather someone who warned Holly about the monsters prowling Hawkins.

The most important answer is provided in Chapter Two of season 5. In this episode, we learn from Holly, Mike, and Nancy’s mom that the girl describes Mr. Whatsit as a well-dressed, tall man, who turns out to be an elegantly dressed, human version of Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), who is then shown on screen.

Stranger Things, The Duffer Brothers, Netflix, 2016

In this scene, Vecna strolls with Holly through an idyllic version of Hawkins and takes the girl to a perfect version of Creel House, promising her that he will save all her friends from the monsters. The place he took Holly to seems to be hidden behind a giant wall that is impossible to break through, which Eleven and Hopper found while searching for Holly in the Upside Down.

Stranger Things is full of references to various works of culture, and this time it seems that the creators decided to draw inspiration from the 1962 novel A Wrinkle in Time, which features the character Mrs. Whatsit, a creature that can take any form and lives in a place safe from evil forces, inhabiting an abandoned house.

Sounds similar to Vecna, right? And that's not all the similarities between Stranger Things and A Wrinkle in Time, in which the main villain, IT, controls all the people on the planet Camazotz, just as Vecna does in the Upside Down.

Stranger Things 5 will certainly draw even more references to A Wrinkle in Time, as indicated by the title of episode 6 – Escape from Camazotz. Perhaps, in this regard, it is worth revisiting the book before the premiere of the second part of season 5.

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