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This Hero was proposed and approved by Heroes Wiki's Pure Good Proposals Thread. Any act of removing this hero from the category without a Removal Proposal shall be considered vandalism (or a "villainous" attempt to demonize said character) and the user will have a high chance of being | ||
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| “ | It's gonna be okay. Remember, Bob Newby, superhero. | „ |
| ~ Bob Newby to Joyce Byers. |
| “ | I always thought stuff like this happened in movies and comic books; certainly not in Hawkins and certainly not to someone like you. | „ |
| ~ Bob to Joyce. |
Robert "Bob" Newby is a major character in the Stranger Things franchise.
He was the boyfriend of Joyce Byers and was a father figure to her sons, Jonathan and Will until he sacrificed himself to save them in order to get them to safety from the Mind Flayer.
He was portrayed by Sean Astin, who also played Mikey Walsh from The Goonies, Samwise Gamgee from Peter Jackson's film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and also voiced Chester from the Bunnicula animated series, Raphael from the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Special Agent Oso from the titular animated series, and Kodi from Balto III: Wings of Change.
Biography[]
Background[]
Robert "Bob" Newby was born in 1947 to the principal of Hawkins School and attended both Hawkins Middle and Hawkins High School before moving to Maine. In his childhood, Bob was scared by a clown at a fair, which caused him to start having nightmares about him. During one nightmare, he decided to stand up to the clown and it disappeared, thus allowing him to sleep easily. While in middle school, Bob befriended Scott Clarke and became the founder of the AV Club there. In high school, he was classmates with Jim Hopper and Joyce Horowitz, but she didn’t take much notice of him.
The First Shadow[]
Bob was a senior in Hawkins High School and was running the AV club, giving himself the nickname “Bob the Brain”. Unlike his sister, Patty, their father, the Hawkins High Principal, appears to favor him (while also being equally as strict) but is somewhat displeased by his son's obsession with the radio.
He was infatuated by Joyce Byers and joined her school production solely to get close to her (which indirectly led to him kissing Karen Childress while practicing a scene). Upon seeing his sister’s attachment to Henry Creel, he convinces her to join the production as well and enjoy herself.
When certain pets begin to die in gruesome ways, he works with Jim Hopper to find the source of the violence (although Jim only showed interest in the reward money available for discovering who’s responsible). To Bob’s joy, Joyce Byers soon joins them, and he builds a machine to locate the next victim through the behavior of the electricity.
They are soon brought to the Creel household where they discover Victor Creel in a manic state due to his son showing him trauma from his time in the war. Bob’s father eventually reveals himself, blinded and severely injured by who they believe is Victor (despite it being Henry).
Afterward, they make efforts to prove it was Victor who assaulted Principal Newby, with their plan being for Hopper to interrogate a confession out of Victor during the school production. During the plan, Bob attempted to confess his feelings to Joyce but was interrupted by the commotion going on at the time. Things go wrong when Hopper accidentally interrogates Joyce’s ex-boyfriend, Lonnie, instead of Victor.
Eventually, after killing his family, Henry shows up at the production to warn Patty to run away from him as the Mind Flayer is taking control. However, Dr. Brenner steps in and tries to coax him into killing her so he would be left for use as a weapon for the US government, and he almost does, seriously injuring Patty by knocking her off the stage. Bob runs over to comfort his sister.
After a time-skip, it is revealed Bob is still on the radio (it is unknown whether this was at RadioShack) and during the winter holidays, he dedicates a song to his sister, who left to find her mother that Henry located.
Season Two[]
In 1984, Bob would visit Hawkins and reunite with Joyce, with whom he started a romantic relationship after she officially divorced from Lonnie Byers. Unlike her ex-husband, Bob had a healthy relationship with Joyce and her sons and had movie nights with the family to get to know them. He initially advised Joyce to leave Hawkins for Maine but didn't push the idea onto her as he advised Will to stand up to his fears. When Will started to draw things from his source of the Mind Flayer's dimension, Joyce recruited Bob to help her solve it due to his love for puzzles. Bob discovered that the drawings were of Hawkins itself, and the group managed to reach Hopper before heading to the Hawkins laboratory.
Dr. Owens deduced that Will was connected to the Mind Flayer's hive mind, and the entity influenced the boy to send the Demodogs to the lab. Bob would then volunteer to turn the power back on since he knew "BASIC", and managed to do so before he was tragically killed by a pack of Demodogs.
Legacy - Season Three[]
Bob is remembered by Joyce in several flashbacks, as she still deals with her grief over his death. By the end of the season, Joyce decides to leave Hawkins with Will and Eleven, deciding to put their safety first due to the recent attack by the Mind Flayer.
Trivia[]
- Bob was the first major character to die in Stranger Things.
- Bob was meant to be killed by Will after losing control during their conversation about Waldo and Will's nightmares, but his death kept getting delayed due to the character's likeability. There was even a point during which they considered letting the character survive the Lab, but decided to kill him off, as the writers felt it was the best thing to do narratively.
- His line about pirate treasure spoken in "Dig Dug" is a nod to the 1985 film The Goonies, in which Sean Astin (who portrays Bob) was notably cast in as Mikey Walsh.
External Links[]
- Bob Newby on the Pure Good Wiki
- Bob Newby on the Stranger Things Wiki
[]
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