A medieval hint on the upside down
The idea of the opposite is something that is firmly rooted in the cosmology of the medieval world.
In the 1st season of Stranger Things, when Eleven flips the board and places the monster on top, The plot of an unexpected turn in our heads begins to glimpse what happens: the idea of many worlds in one and one place which is the opposite of what we live in takes us to a belief that comes from centuries ago and is already implicit in our heads. It comes from the medieval world and their cosmological vision based on the times of the ancient travellers of the twelfth century when the Portuguese had not yet travelled to the lower hemisphere and the stories that circulated about those other worlds were truly unique.
1- The concept already existed in the middle ages.
In the Early Middle Ages, Isidore of Seville’s widely read encyclopedia presented the term “antipodes” as referring to antichthones (people who lived on the opposite side of the Earth), as well as to a geographical place; This “Alter Orbis” at that time was generally considered as an inaccessible place in which everything happened the other way around since it was the other side of the earth.
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville a total crazy book about travels that never occurred goes beyond affirming that the term antipode is designated because each of us has another person exactly the same but upside down glued to our feet. :D
“In the country of the antipodes, everything happens upside down like in a photographic negative. the sun rises and when it sets here, the rhythm of the nights and days is different, when we are in winter they are in summer and vice versa their sky is dark and not very starry unlike ours.” Claude-Claire Kappler — Monstres, démons et merveilles à la fin du Moyen Âge
2- What did the Duffer Brothers take for this concept?
Our antipodes were the equivalent to us, there was another hemisphere same that ours but upside down, where everything had their replica but in a mysterious way. Is an alternate dimension that mirrors our world (Will says: Mom here is the same but horrified and dark, and there is the monster…)
Therefore, when the camera turns around, it is seen very clearly in episode 6 of the fourth season, you are really in the opposite part of reality, this other dimension, if our side is luminous, it will be dark and terrible and lonely, it is to establish that type of opposites.
3- Why do our minds blow up with this story?
The cause is inside us.
It is inside us, like something ancient that we do not understand but we like to play with it; In the same way that you imagine that there is another world behind the mirror when you glared at it as a child; That there are doors to other places and times (Ministerio del Tiempo). It is a feeling of play that we have rooted within, extracted from ancient legends and we love to imagine it and play with it.
References:
Claude-Claire Kappler — Monstres, démons et merveilles à la fin du Moyen Âge
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
