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This article is about the Mind Flayer's victims. For the episode, see The Flayed (episode).

"The Flayed" referred to various men, women and children of Hawkins - as well as swarms of rats and possibly other animals - who became possessed by the Mind Flayer in the summer of 1985.

After a new gate to the Upside Down was secretly opened beneath Starcourt Mall, the Mind Flayer's psychic link to the human world was reestablished, allowing the entity to reawaken a piece of itself that lay dormant at Brimborn Steel Works. Through this piece, the Mind Flayer possessed swarms of rats, melting them down and using their bodies to create a core proxy form, which the entity too possessed.

The Mind Flayer repeated the same process on a larger and more complex scale with human beings, possessing Billy Hargrove and others; these possessed humans came to be known as "the Flayed". They were led by Billy and Heather Holloway, and had their minds hijacked by the Upside Down's hive mind. Some of these individuals (and rats) had their bodies melted down and reconstituted into flesh-thralls, creatures consisting entirely of bone and cartilage.

Eventually, most of the Flayed, and all the flesh-thralls, were summoned to the Steel Works to be melted down and absorbed into the core proxy form, a creature sharing the spider-like silhouette of the Mind Flayer's true form.

Creation[]

Human Hosts[]

The human Flayed were created by the Mind Flayer using tentacle-like structures attached to the proxy form resembling the vines found throughout the Upside Down, which were used to infect subdued hosts with the Mind Flayer's particles. The first victim was Billy Hargrove, followed by Doris Driscoll and other unconscious victims that were kidnapped and taken to the basement of the Steel Works, where they would be possessed.

Rats[]

The rats of Brimborn and Hawkins’ sewers were infected in a similar way to Will’s infection the year prior. Following a blackout in Hawkins caused by the initiation of the Soviet Key, a fragment of the Mind Flayer coalesced in the basement of the Steel Works, having laid dormant since being expelled from Will in 1984. Once this piece of the Mind Flayer was reawakened, it possessed the nearby rats and directed them to consume chemicals, before exploding into piles of matter that would be used to create a physical body for the Mind Flayer.

Biology[]

The Flayed were part of a hive mind, much like the native life forms of the Upside Down, with the Mind Flayer at its heart. The Flayed were known to display the same intense aversion to heat shared by both the Mind Flayer and everything else connected to its hive mind. When one Flayed was hurt, all the Flayed felt the pain, which was perhaps one of their weaknesses.

When needed, the Mind Flayer could infuse the Flayed with supernatural strength beyond the average human. This change was signaled by the veins under their skin appearing black due to a tar-like substance coursing through their body. An infused Flayed additionally had an invulnerability to damage that would kill or seriously injure the average human, such as being thrown through a wall or intentionally hit by a speeding car.

Becoming a Flayed caused a radical dietary change in both the "diseased" rats and in humans, as the Mind Flayer forcibly overrode normal bodily wants and dietary palates in favor of the desire to consume chemicals, most often poisonous ones. This was first observed with the rats' consumption of Doris Driscoll's fertilizer, and later shown to carry over to humans, as both the infected Driscoll herself and the infected Holloway family were shown to be consuming chemicals (Doris was eating her fertilizer and the Holloways were "guzzling" cleaning products). The members of the Party theorized that the cause of this chemical consumption, a behavior noted to have been absent from Will Byers during his possession by the Mind Flayer, was because of the now-isolated monster's desire to induce some sort of a chemical reaction inside of its hosts in order to make a new substance. Another theory proposed, this time by the older teens, was that perhaps the reason the Flayed were capable of subsisting on poisonous chemicals was because they were only poisonous if the consumer in question was human. It is also highly likely that caustic reactions associated with this chemical consumption by the Flayed either caused or aided in their violent explosive transformations into the amorphous blobs of biomass which this portion of the Mind Flayer would use to create his new physical form.

The Flayed retained higher brain function, due to being possessed humans, but were not as resistant to the Mind Flayer’s control and influence as Will Byers was in 1984, being almost completely subservient to the entity, with only an exaggerated version of their previous personality remaining. However, Billy Hargrove, at the very least, was noted to have an "activated" and "deactivated" state, which former host Will was able to feel due to his ability to sense the Mind Flayer’s presence, and to also be able to show a degree of restraint, as he warned Karen Wheeler to stay away from him and attempted to convince his stepsister Max to release him from the sauna and pleaded with her that he was being used, prior to being activated amidst this pleading and attacking her. The Flayed also developed an intense psychological attachment to the location of Brimborn Steel Works, the lair of the Mind Flayer, with Doris Driscoll showing symptoms of distress when separated from it for an extended period of time, and the infected hosts being shown to congregate there when not blending in with their previous normal lives.

List of Flayed[]

Behind the scenes[]

Trivia[]

  • Variants of the Flayed called "kuklies" appear in The Vanishing, a non-canon crossover mission from the first-person shooter Far Cry 6.
  • The deaths reported in the Starcourt "mall-fire" are likely a cover story used to hide the Flayed's existence.

Theories[]

Some fans speculate and/or argue that Will Byers, who became possessed by the Mind Flayer in Stranger Things 2, counts as one of the Flayed:

  • Arguments for Will being one of the Flayed:
    • While under the Mind Flayer's influence, Will and Billy both experienced disturbing visions and hallucinations, and were forced to act in accordance with the hive mind.
    • The Mind Flayer could speak through Will, just like "he" could speak through Billy and the other Flayed.
    • Will displayed an unusual aversion to heat, similar to the Flayed (and the wider hive mind).
    • In "The Upside Down", Will was found in the Upside Down with a vine extending down his throat. Similarly, the Spider Monster pumped organic material into its victims' faces using a strange tentacle, which seemingly caused them to become subservient.
  • Arguments against Will being one of the Flayed:
    • The Flayed were forced to consume cleaning products and other toxic chemicals, which seemingly aided their internal biological transformation; their bodies could also be reconstituted into fleshy thralls, if the Mind Flayer so desired. Will, on the other hand, never consumed chemicals in the same way, and seemed incapable of fully transforming into another type of creature.
    • When surveying the aftermath of the Holloways' abduction, Will insists that this is "something new".

It should be remembered that "flayed" is ultimately a made-up and imprecise term, one of several used by the Party to make sense of the supernatural phonomena they encounter.

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