Hopper picked up a sword to fight a Demogorgon in Russia in the Stranger Things season 4 finale, but where did the sword come from?
In the season 4 finale of Stranger Things, every subplot came together to aid Eleven and the Hawkins group in defeating Vecna. Jim Hopper used a sword to slay the final Demogorgon in Russia, but where did he get that sword? The eagerly anticipated Stranger Things season 4 was finally released in two parts after a protracted wait due to delays brought on by the coronavirus pandemic: the first seven episodes were made available on Netflix in May 2022, and the final two on July 1st.
Stranger Things season 4 caught up with its main characters in three different locations: Hawkins, California, and Russia, with the group once more split into teams. This was after destroying the Russian lab beneath the new Starcourt Mall, the death of Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) losing her powers, and Hopper (David Harbour) seemingly dying. The team in Russia had to find a way out of prison (and the country) while also fighting a Demogorgon, and the team in California went after Eleven, who was taken by Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser) and Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) to help her regain her powers. The Hawkins team also had to deal with a mysterious wave of murders connected to the Upside Down.
The Stranger Things season four finale brought all of these subplots together, even though initially most of them appeared to be unrelated. The Hawkins team attacked Vecna, Eleven entered Max’s mind to battle Vecna while the California team kept her safe, and the team in Russia defeated all of the Demogorgons in the Russian prison. Hopper defeated the Demogorgons with the aid of Murray (Brett Gelman) and Joyce (Winona Ryder), then used a sword he discovered on the floor to battle the last Demogorgon. When Hopper needed it, the sword appeared as if by magic, but it had actually been there the entire time; it was just that Stranger Things made it difficult to remember.
Why You Forgot the Origin of Hopper’s Sword
The decision to split Stranger Things season 4 into two parts had advantages and disadvantages. It kept the audience’s interest and left them wondering what would happen next. One of them is that there were numerous details that the audience overlooked because of the time interval between episodes, and there was so much going on in the Russian subplot that details like the origin of the sword were easily overlooked.
Hopper, Antonov, and a few other prisoners were sent to the courtyard in episode 7 to battle a Demogorgon, but they were only there to perish. The prisoners were given a key to the weapons locker by the guards, allowing them to get whatever they needed to combat the Demogorgon.
The sword may have been one of those weapons (the camera briefly focuses on an object in the open locker that is somewhat difficult to identify), but it may also have come from another area of the prison. By the time Hopper, Joyce, and Murray arrived back, the Demogorgons had destroyed the building and everything was scattered all over, so someone may have used the sword to defend themselves in the courtyard.
Conan played by Arnold Schwarzenegger once owned Hopper’s sword in Stranger Things
In addition to being a satisfying scene, Hopper finding the sword and using it to kill the Demogorgon has an interesting backstory. The sword, which Arnold Schwarzenegger used in the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian and which the title character discovers in an ancient king’s tomb, was identified by David Harbour in an interview with GQ.
Conan the Barbarian and Stranger Things have no link because they take place in entirely distinct universes, but it seems natural that the Duffer Brothers would include this information in their show given how many other 1980s pop culture references they have made in Stranger Things. It will be interesting to see if Hopper keeps the sword and whether he would use it to combat other enemies in the near future now that he is back in Hawkins and the Upside Down has taken over the town.
