Millie Bobby Brown: Stranger Things needs the “mindset of Game of Thrones”

Stranger Things is super fun and nostalgic, with all the elements of a classic ‘80s horror movie. It seems like every season the plot gets darker and darker…but we very rarely see beloved characters get killed off. If star Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) had her way, the show would adopt a “Game of Thrones mindset.”

The characters on Stranger Things are covered in plot armor. At the end of the third season, we see fan-favorite Jim Hopper (David Harbour) in an explosion, but the show was hinting that he somehow survived by the end of the episode, and confirmed it in a teaser back in 2020.

That said, the show isn’t completely against killing off its characters. For instance, Joyce’s boyfriend Bob (Sean Astin) was killed off in season 2. Then there’s Billy (Dacre Montgomery) and Barb (Shannon Purser). Regardless, Millie Bobby Brown is concerned that the cast is getting a little too big, and joked that the only way to deal with the issue is to have a “massacre” in season 5. “The Duffer Brothers are sensitive sallys who don’t want to kill anybody off,” Brown told The Wrap. “We need to have the mindset of Game of Thrones. Kill me off! They tried killing David [Harbour] off and they brought him back!”

Of course, there are other ways to slim down the cast without brutally killing them off. “I’m just going to say I trust the Duffer Brothers and their creative process.”

Stranger Things season 4 is the “Game of Thrones” season

Stranger Things 4 will take us outside Hawkins, Indiana. The Byers family has moved to California and Hopper is in Russia (somehow), so this season has a much larger scope. As creators Matt and Ross Duffer put it, season 4 is their Game of Thrones season. “We kind of jokingly call it our Game of Thrones season because it’s so spread out, so I think that’s what’s unique or most unique about the season,” Matt Duffer told Deadline.

Funnily enough, season 4 shares another connection to the HBO fantasy show: the new season features not one but two Game of Thrones veterans. The first is Joe Quinn (who played Stark soldier Koner) as Dungeons & Dragons expert Eddie Munson. The other former Thrones star is Tom Wlaschiha (Jaqen H’ghar), who plays a Russian prison guard.

Volume I of Stranger Things season 4 arrives on Netflix on May 27; Volume II drops on the streamer on July 1. Watch the first eight minutes here:

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