Not every character in Stranger Things survives. Just ask Barb. (Or Bob. Or Billy. Or Eddie.) However, as the hit Netflix series gets ready for its final season, the show’s creators have revealed which two main characters they almost killed off—as well as the reason why they ultimately spared them.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Matt and Ross Duffer explained that David Harbour’s Hopper and Joe Keery’s Steve Harrington nearly died at the ends of seasons three and one, respectively.
“I think death grazed him,” Matt said of Hopper, who many fans believed had died in the gigantic mall explosion that ended the show’s third season. A teaser for the next season revealed that he was alive but in a Soviet Prison, and part of the plot of season four involved rescuing him from the cold Russian wasteland.
“There was a version where he perished at the end of 3. It’s been a while since we had those discussions, but I feel like he came the closest to dying,” Matt continued.
“It would’ve been very easy to kill him,” Ross added, “but Hopper still had growing to do. We hadn’t finished his story. It’s important to us to be able to finish the stories we want to finish and not just be offing people for shock value.”
Steve, meanwhile, was originally going to die at the end of season one, but Matt said it was because of how much they liked the actor that they spared the character.
“We just fell in love with Joe Keery, but had we not liked Joe Keery, Steve would’ve been gone,” he said.
The Duffer Brothers Say the ‘Repercussions’ Stop Them From Killing More Characters
While important side characters have died over the course of Stranger Things‘ four seasons so far, the main cast has thus far survived. The Duffer brothers say they’ve considered killing more characters—including major ones—but they opt not to because they’re thinking about what would happen after a shocking death.
“What often holds us back is you have to talk about the repercussions,” Matt says. “This is a total hypothetical: You kill Mike. It just makes the show rather depressing and bleak, and it becomes entirely about that.”
He continued, “We try to be careful, if there is a death, that it has real repercussions. So we just wanna be careful about when and how frequently we do it.”
Given that this is the final season of Stranger Things, there’s less room for those repercussions to reverberate, so perhaps even characters who have managed to stay safe so far will be at risk as the finale nears.
The first four episodes of Stranger Things season five hit Netflix on November 26. The next three will be available to stream on Christmas, with the finale debuting on New Year’s Eve.
This story was originally reported by Men’s Journal on Nov 11, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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