I love Stranger Things and thought Season 3 was great but afterwards it kind of dawned on me that Billy and the human antagonist Henry Bowers from Stephen King’s “IT” are essentially the same character, they’re trajectories are pretty much the same, asshole bullies who are possessed by the supernatural force.
shareTo some extent yes. The characters weren't carbon copies of each other though. Henry Bowers really had no redeeming qualities. He was a budding sociopath and wasn't given any kind of redemption in the end. Whereas Billy was emotionally troubled and a bully but I wouldn't call him evil.
shareAlso agree to a point. There's also definitely the connection of them both being abused by their dads, but we didn't see that as much in Henry Bowers' story - at least not in the mini series.
But Henry was much more of a straight psychopath, whereas Billy is more complex. He cares for Max and is afraid of her; he seems to dislike Lucas specifically for race-related reasons (I mean, why else?) and his actions, while frightening and intense, don't always appear to be driven by evil motivations. Like, there were points in season 2 where I could see Billy mentally rationalizing his behaviour toward Steve as helpful.