Amy L. Forsythe, the makeup artist for Stranger Things season 4, officially debunks the theory that Eddie's tattoos foreshadowed his fate. The Netflix series Stranger Things debuted in 2016 and quickly took its place as one of the streaming service's most-viewed original content. Releasing in two parts earlier this year, and Stranger Things season 4 broke multiple viewership records. Alongside being nominated for 51 Emmys and 4 Golden Globes, Stranger Things is currently the most-watched English-language program on Netflix, with season 4 alone garnering 1.4 billion viewing hours from streamers in its first 28 days.

Introduced in season 4, Joseph Quinn's beloved metalhead Eddie Munson quickly became a fan-favorite character like no other. While all the Stranger Things characters have a distinct '80s style, Eddie is the only prominent one to have a more punk-rock look, with long hair, silver rings, and a ton of tattoos. Though only briefly mentioned - and only occasionally seen, given Eddie's costuming - Eddie's tattoos have sparked numerous fan theories arguing they foreshadowed his season 4 finale death. Eddie's tattoos include a wyvern, a demon skull, a spider, and, most notably, a hoard of bats alongside a demon puppet being controlled by a disembodied hand. In the season 4 finale, Eddie shreds Metallica's "Master of Puppets" on his guitar, before being eaten alive by demonic bats - which seemed too perfect to be coincidental to many fans.

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In an interview with Insider, Forsythe says that while Eddie's fate lined up perfectly with his tattoos, this was completely coincidental. Forsythe says they were chosen more to fit with a metal aesthetic than for specific plot reasons, but that the bat and puppet tattoos did link back to the show in completely different ways. While the bats were a callback to Steve's own fight with the demobats, the puppet tattoo was actually a reference to Vecna. Read Forsythe's full explanation below:

The puppet-master tattoo was a nod to Vecna — how he controls people and pulls them up from the ground. I had no idea 'Master of Puppets' was going to be played... The bats definitely were pulled from 1. heavy metal, and 2. knowing subconsciously that Steve would be getting in this bat fight. I didn't know what a demobat looked like yet, and I was going back and forth with my tattoo artist because we needed some filler, just a splash of something. And I was like, 'What about bats? Five or six of them, and make them look like the ink is dropping out a little bit.'

Stranger Things Season 4 Eddie Munson

While Eddie was scripted to have tattoos as part of his metalhead look, Forsythe admits she wasn't even sure if they were going to be visible on-screen, given his costuming. And, while Eddie's tattoos are mostly covered with his leather jacket, there are certain scenes in which his bat and puppet tattoos are visible. Even though some fans read this peek at Eddie's tattoos as foreshadowing - and they would, in fact, act as clues to Eddie's tragic fate - it was all purely coincidental.

Ironically, since Eddie's heroic death, many Stranger Things fans have been getting replicas of Eddie's tattoos done on themselves. Although Forsythe had no idea how they would tie in perfectly with his storyline, fans have found a new meaning in his tattoos that the show's makeup department never intended. While Forsythe says she knew fans would really resonate with Eddie, she had no idea just how far Stranger Things fans would go to carry a piece of their favorite character with them - and to give new meanings to what were originally just cool-looking tattoos.

Source: Insider