Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 introduces viewers to the idea of ‘crawls’. Mike and his friends all carry out ‘crawls’ of the Upside Down, to map the place, while Hawkins remains in quarantine.
With the Spider Monster having reared its head in Season 3, many might be wondering if the ‘crawl’ has something to do with this creature. However, that is not the case at all.
What is a ‘crawl’ and how is it linked to Dungeons & Dragons
With Hawkins under quarantine and the military present, our heroes have to get creative in order to get around. Cue the crawl. Here, they use code words, take positions in a planned manner, and make use of radios to communicate.
When Hopper enters the Upside Down, his mission is to find Vecna and kill him. The only problem is nobody seems to have seen Vecna since the mind-flaying monster took some Molotov cocktail and shotgun shell hits at the end of Season 4.
The term itself is a reference to Dungeons & Dragons, which has featured prominently in the series, and in fact was a major plot point last season. A ‘crawl’ likely refers to a dungeon crawl that takes place in the game.
Players move through various parts of an area, looking for things and fighting off monsters – much like what Hopper's been doing in the Upside Down. In fact, the name for One, the psychic who Eleven sent to Upside Down, setting off the chain of events, is called Vecna after a fictional character appearing in the game. The characters also use their D&D figures to plan the crawl, as one person shared on X.
Stranger Things shows how our heroes cope with the monstrositities that come from the Upside Down with parllels to D&D. The game is not just to drive the plot forward, but has also served as a cultural conversation piece, by way of the panic that spread across the US at the time that D&D promoted Satanism. And, last but not the least definitely, it is D&D that helped the friendship between Mike, Dustin, and Eddie blossom. Eddie Munson, the well-beloved D&D maester and rock guitarist extraordinaire from Season 4, can hardly be forgotten after his heroic sacrifice to help the others attack Vecna, all the while pulling off the perfect riffs to Master of Puppets on his guitar.