Kali Prasad

* 1984
* 1974

Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen † (fellow test subjects/sibling figures)

### Other relations

Axel (friend/accomplice)
Mick (friend/accomplice)
Funshine (friend/accomplice)
Dottie (friend/accomplice)

### Occupation

Hawkins National Laboratory Test Subject (July 1964-1975/1978)
Criminal

## Portrayal

### Main actor

Linnea Berthelsen
Vanathi Kalai Parthiban (child)

### Episodes

9, 13, 15, 17,  31

— Kali Prasad

**Kali Prasad**, also known as **Eight**, is a recurring character introduced in the second season of *Stranger Things* portrayed by Linnea Berthelsen. As a young girl, Kali was one of many children test subjects experimented upon at Hawkins Lab. Ever since her escape, she has sought revenge for the injustices she suffered there.

## History

### Background

Born in 1964, Kali lived in London before she was abducted at the age of five. She was taken to Hawkins National Laboratory. At the lab, she was given the number “008” and experimented on alongside Eleven and other children possessing abilities like herself. Together, she and Eleven would play in a room in the lab called the “Rainbow Room”.

### 1974

Kali and Eleven played in the Rainbow Room when Eleven's birth mother, Terry Ives, raided Hawkins Lab to rescue her daughter, only to be taken away.

### 1975-1978

Prior to 1979, Kali had grown tired of the abuse she endured in the lab and sought to escape. She used her abilities to escape the lab. Eleven had faint memories of her, but she lost them after she overexerted herself by banishing One to the Upside Down.

Kali, meanwhile, found a new family and home, but eventually lost her since they were unable to help her with her abilities. She then began using her powers to get revenge on the people from the lab. At some point, she met Axel, Mick, Funshine, and later Dottie. The gang would pursue and kill the people from their pasts who had wronged them.

### 1984

On October 28, 1984, Kali and her gang killed one of their targets, Dr. John Pericles, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, they were quickly pursued by the police. As the gang entered a tunnel, Kali used her powers to trick an officer into believing the path ahead was filled with rubble, allowing them to get away by causing a massive car crash. The gang then fled to Chicago, residing in an abandoned warehouse.

Elsewhere, Eleven learned about Kali and tracked her down via remote viewing. Arriving at the warehouse the gang used as a temporary base, she was promptly threatened by Axel. Kali used her powers to make him see spiders. Eleven explained she received the image from her mother, before demonstrating her powers and introducing herself as Eleven. They revealed to each other their tattoos and declared themselves sisters.

Kali took Eleven to the roof, where Eleven explained that her policeman thinks he can work out a deal with the lab to let her go. Kali didn't believe he can do this, saying the lab saw them as monsters, but that their "gifts" are not bad, and should not be hidden. Kali explained her illusion powers to her, creating an illusion of a colorful butterfly. After Kali made Eleven a bed to sleep in for the night, she explained that she felt whole now that she had her sister. She said she believed Terry sent Eleven to Kali because the two of them belonged together.

After Eleven fell asleep, Kali decided to use Eleven's abilities to find another member of Hawkins Lab. Mick objected to the idea of hunting another man so soon, as it would put them at risk of being found, but Kali insisted that Eleven was in pain and needed to do it, before declaring that they're going the next day.

The next day, Kali woke Eleven up and re-introduced her to her gang, explaining that while they were not experimented on at the lab, they were still outcasts and Kali brought them together. She then showed her photos of people who were responsible for the pain the gang had gone through, and explained that they hunt down the men to serve justice. She believed that killing the men was necessary, as they are criminals and simply getting what they deserve. Eleven revealed to the group that she had killed before, and that the people she had killed had hurt her; Kali explained that the people her gang hunts down still wanted to hurt them, but now they make the first move.

Kali took Eleven to a train yard, explaining that she once kept her pain inside, but was healed by confronting her pain. She asked Eleven to use her powers to move a railroad car; though Eleven was hesitant at first, Kali encouraged her to focus only on the pain and anger from her past and use those emotions to move it. Eleven succeeded in pushing the railroad car closer to them, and Kali and her gang cheered her on.

Eleven identified a man in one of Kali's photographs as someone who had hurt her mother. Kali remembered that he once attacked her with a cattle prod, identifying him as Ray Carroll. Eleven managed to use her powers to find his location, and the gang agreed to go find him. Before they left, they gave Eleven a makeover to better fit in with the gang.

On the way to Ray's apartment, the gang stopped by a convenience store for supplies. As the store employee was distracted by one of Kali's illusions, Eleven and the gang began stealing from the store. The employee soon found out, and threatened the gang with a gun. When Kali was unsuccessful in convincing him to let them go, Eleven slammed him against the wall, knocking him unconscious and allowing the gang to get away. The gang hastily escaped, as they heard police approaching.

After arriving at Ray's residence, the gang broke in. Kali and Eleven confronted Ray, unmasking and revealing themselves as the girls from the Lab. When Ray claimed that he was only following orders, Kali said that he still had a choice and chose to hurt them. When Eleven was hindered by Ray's claim that Brenner was still alive, Kali believed he was lying. Just as Eleven was about to kill him, she noticed a photograph of Ray with his daughters. Upset that Eleven wouldn't kill him, Kali took out a gun in order to kill him herself. However, Eleven used her powers to throw the gun out the window. The police arrived, and the gang was forced to retreat. Kali was angry at Eleven for taking away her choice to kill Ray, and warned her against trying to stop her next time.

Back at their hideout, Kali told Eleven the reason for her being so hard on her was because she saw all of her past mistakes in her. She explained that after Eleven had been taken away, she had used her powers to escape the lab. She eventually hid with people she trusted, but they couldn't help her and she eventually lost them. After that, Kali decided to stop hiding and use her powers against the people who hurt her. Kali presented Eleven with a choice: either go back into hiding, or to face Brenner again. In an effort to make Eleven face her problems, she conjured an illusion of Brenner in her head, which reduced a terrified Eleven to tears. Kali then told her she could leave whenever she wanted, but if she stayed, the two of them could heal together.

As police swarmed the hideout, Kali gathered the gang together, using her powers to turn them all invisible to their pursuers. They managed to escape to the van, but had to dodge the police who were waiting for them outside. Kali created an illusion of a massive wall in-between them and the van, allowing everyone time to escape before the illusion wore off. However, Eleven told her that she needed to leave and help her friends. Kali tried to convince her to stay, saying they belonged together and the others could not save her. Eleven agreed, but said that she could save them, and left just as the wall faded, forcing the gang to flee. The gang successfully escaped the police, but Kali was incredibly upset at her sister's departure, staring out the window as they drove away.

Later, Eleven used Kali's advice of using her emotions to close the Mothergate.

### 1986

After Eleven's powers were drained the previous year, Dr. Sam Owens and Brenner brought her to an experimental facility, the Nina Project, so she could regain her powers via a sensory deprivation tank and CCTV footage of Hawkins Lab. While re-experiencing her time at the lab, One mentioned Kali while reminding Eleven of when Terry had come to take her away from the lab.

## Personality

Kali is a head strong independent woman who uses her powers for the sake of robbery and revenge. Identifying as an outcast and stuck on the streets, Kali feels her life was destroyed by the people that took her away and seeks justice.

Despite Kali's upbringing and cold personality, she shows a different side to her friends and to Eleven. She is welcoming to all fellow outcasts, regardless of whether they are "gifted" or not. After being shown proof that Eleven is gifted like her, she instantly accepted her into the group and even trained her to use the pain of her past to empower her telekinesis. However, her survivalist lifestyle means she's not above manipulating others into doing her bidding, as she did with Eleven.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Illusions:** Kali Prasad has the psychic ability to induce mental hallucinations that cause for her target(s) to sense and experience phenomena that are not actually present.
	+ **Duplication:** Kali can create an exact facsimile of herself or that of someone else, which act as a holographic mirror of its molecular structure in the external world. These projections, as realistic as they may appear, cannot actually interact with the physical environment as they are only detailed hallucinations that exist solely in the mind(s) of whomever Kali focuses upon. Kali is most notably remembered for using this ability against Eleven after she manipulated her "sister" to believing that their "father", Dr. Martin Brenner, was present in their space and caused Eleven to experience Dr. Brenner cruelly chastising her.
	+ **Invisibility:** Kali can render herself and others completely undetectable to the human senses, likely achieved by manipulating the visuals of another person's mind. Kali is most notably remembered for using this ability to render herself and her friends all invisible from police troopers after their compound was discovered and raided by officers.
	+ **Phantasmagoria:** Kali can manipulate the mind to experience a sequence of events that are not actually playing out in the physical world. This ability preys on all five of the human senses and is the most commonly practiced by Kali. She was first shown using this ability on a police officer, who was in pursuit of her and her friends, after she caused him to experience a bridge collapsing. She later used the ability to trick her friend, Axel, to experience a mass of spiders crawling all over his body as punishment for threatening Eleven. She made Eleven experience a beautiful, luminescent butterfly that was not actually real and she later manipulated a convenience store clerk into believing that the toilets had overrun as a distraction for her friends to steal food and money. She was last seen using this ability to trick multiple police troopers into seeing a massive wall materialize between the two groups to subsequently stop the officers from pursuing the gang even though the wall only existed in their minds.

## Relationships

### Familial

**Eleven**

Because of their similar abilities and shared experiences at Hawkins Lab, Kali and Eleven view each other as sisters. The two were shown to play together in the rainbow room when they were young (something that Eleven originally had no memory of). Following their reunion, Kali took her in immediately. During their time together, Kali became a mentor to her of sorts, teaching Eleven how to better control her powers by using anger.
Kali’s true intentions for helping Eleven are mostly left ambiguous. It is implied she originally intended to manipulate Eleven so she could exploit her abilities to make tracking down their targets easier. However, she appeared to genuinely want to help Eleven overcome her pain from the harsh experiences she had suffered. Though, her methods for doing so were no doubt dubious, her skewed morality almost leading Eleven down a dark path of crime and murder. She even went as far as making Eleven see an illusion of Brenner in an attempt to convince her to face her pain. Good intentions or not, when Eleven ultimately chose to return to Hawkins instead of escaping with the gang, Kali was visibly heartbroken and devastated.
### Non-familial

**The Gang**

Kali is the founder and leader of the gang, comprised of Mick, Axel, Funshine, and Dottie. Outcast by society, Kali took them in, and in doing so provided them the opportunity to get revenge on those responsible for what happened to them. In return, the gang was loyal to Kali, following her orders with little to no protest. However, Eleven’s arrival and Kali’s subsequent decision to take her in caused some friction between her and some of the gang’s members, particularly Mick and Axel. Though, they still reluctantly went along with Kali’s wishes after being convinced.
**Martin Brenner**

Kali despises Brenner for being the one responsible for her imprisonment in the lab, in addition to the cruel treatment she received at the hands of the scientists under his supervision. It is implied by Kali he had tried the same manipulation tactics on her as he had with Eleven, attempting to condition her into viewing him as a father figure.
## Appearances

\*Kali appears during flashbacks in "Dig Dug", "The Gate" and "The Dive".

## Behind the scenes

The character was first revealed in a casting call obtained by *The Hollywood Reporter*. She was billed as a series regular and described as "male or a female of any ethnicity between the ages of 30 and 38," meaning the character could end up being of either Gender. The character was also referred to as "Roman".

On November 7, 2016, it was announced that Danish actress Linnea Berthelsen had been cast for the role.

Originally, the Duffer Brothers intended for the character to be male, a different number, and aged somewhere in his 30s. However, when they couldn't find the right person to play the part, they decided to change the casting call to include women and younger actors.

## Trivia

* In Hindu mythology, Kali is a powerful but terrifying goddess who fought against evil forces.
* Her character was originally supposed to be a male character, based on the original name, "**The Lost Brother**", for the final episode of Season 2.
* "Prasad" (commonly spelled as prasāda) is food that is left as a religious offering in Hinduism and Sikhism.
* Kali's hairstyle was partially inspired by Cyndi Lauper.
* The baby mask Kali gave El to wear is seen hung in El's bedroom in the third season, and is hung on El's corkboard next to her desk in the fourth season.
* In "The Hellfire Club", when Brenner fills out his crossword, he fills in Kali's name as the answer for "The Wife of Shiva".
* In "The Dive", One advised Eleven to channel her emotions; it is possible he gave the same advice to Kali.
* Kali's powers are very different from the other test subjects, and she and Ten are the only known test subjects to not have telekinesis.
* It is currently unknown what - if any - relationship Kali may have had with Henry Creel. It is assumed that she would have been killed in his massacre of the test subjects had she not escaped; since Henry's status as One didn't appear to be common knowledge, she likely didn’t consider him a "sibling" as she did with Eleven.
* Like El, Terry Ives, and One, the use of Kali's powers caused her nose to bleed.

## References

1. ↑ Newspaper clipping from "*The Lost Sister"* detailing Kali's disappearance from London
2. ↑ *Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds*
3. ↑ "'Stranger Things': Meet the 3 New Characters Joining Season 2" *The Hollywood Reporter*. September 1, 2016.
4. ↑ "Stranger Things 2 exclusive: The Goonies, Aliens stars join Netflix series" *Entertainment Weekly*. November 7, 2016.
5. ↑ "Emmy Contender: *Stranger Things* 3D-printed Demodog Heads, Made Eleven Scarier in Post" *SYFY*. August 23, 2018
6. ↑ "The Duffer Brothers Recap Stranger Things 2, ‘Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister’" *Vulture*. November 7, 2017
7. ↑ "*Stranger Things* Actress Linnea Berthelsen on the Advice That Millie Bobby Brown Gave Her Before She Shaved Her Head" *Vogue*. November 2, 2017

### Canon hierarchy

1. ↑ Information from *Stranger Things: Six*, a Tier 3 source, conflicts with what's presented in the main series.

	* The fourth season's depiction of the test subjects is at odds with the versions from the *Stranger Things* comics.