The Duffer brothers defended themselves after 'Stranger Things' star Millie Bobby Brown called them 'sensitive Sallies' for not killing off more characters

• The Duffer brothers defended themselves after Millie Bobby Brown called them "sensitive Sallies."
• The duo explained why they're reluctant to kill main characters in "Stranger Things."

The Duffer brothers responded to Millie Bobby Brown calling them "sensitive Sallies" who "don't want to kill anyone" in their Netflix series, "Stranger Things," explaining their reluctance to kill off members of the core cast.

On Monday's episode of the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, the showrunners defended themselves against accusations of being too sensitive, saying that upping the show's body count, particularly when it comes to killing a main character, would change its fundamental nature.

"Believe us, we've explored all of it, all options in the writing room," Matt Duffer said on the podcast, adding that killing a major character like Mike Wheeler, played by Finn Wolfhard, would be "depressing."

In a May interview with The Wrap, Brown and her costar Noah Schnapp said that while they were afraid of one of their characters dying, the show needed to kill off some people because the cast had gotten "way too big." Schnapp suggested a "massacre scene" to kill off half the cast, while Brown called the Duffer brothers "sensitive Sallies."

"We need to be 'Game of Thrones,' we need to have the mindset of 'Game of Thrones,'" she told The Wrap.

On the podcast, Matt Duffer responded directly to Brown's call to emulate the HBO fantasy series, which was known for killing off major characters.

"We're not 'Game of Thrones,'" Matt said. "This is Hawkins. It's not Westeros."

In previous seasons, "Stranger Things" killed off characters who weren't a part of its core cast, like Barb in season one and Bob in season two. But the writers have been reluctant to take out any of the show's main characters, going only as far as to fake out Hopper's death at the end of season three before swiftly revealing that he was alive in a midcredits scene.

"When Barb dies, it's two seasons of grappling with that," Matt Duffer said. "So imagine, you know, Mike dying, and it's, like, is that something that we're interested in exploring or not interested in exploring?"

Every death on the show, he said, serves both a "thematic" and a "narrative purpose" to move the story forward. Moving into the show's fifth and final season, he said, meant that "more of that's on the table."

"This is me basically defending myself against these Millie Bobby Brown accusations that I'm a sensitive Sally and explaining there's logic behind it and has nothing to do with my sensitivity," he said. "So there you go, Millie."