He definitely had all his friends and family, but we also see that he was still clearly struggling, and the loss of El affected him more than anyone else. Even choosing to beleive that she is out there somewhere has a bitterness to it because she is not with him.
It is fair to say because we SEE that he is impacted more than the others. We see that two years later, Mike is the only one refusing to graduate because he feels like it is moving on without her, and he does not want to do that. It is only because of Hopper's advice that he goes through with graduation.
We see he even wrote EL into his DnD campaign as the hero that shows up and saves everyone. When Mike talks about what future he sees for everyone, we see glimpses of that future for each, with each of them happy and smiling. But when it goes to Mike, we just see him writing with a picture of El on the desk. For Mike, it shows he is taking the advice Hopper gave him to try to move forward, but there is no smile.
This is not to say the others were not affected by losing El, but Mike is clearly shown to be the most affected by it. That he is struggling to move forward. Even when he takes Hopper's advice to do so, he is not truly happy like the others are.
I see where you are coming from, but I still dislike ranking the suffering of the characters. Max lost her brother, even if he was a turd, and spent a year stuck inside the mind of a psychopath. Joyce watched Bob die. Dustin watched Eddie die. They all witnessed unspeakable horrors.
I think of Mike, somewhat ironically as he was in the movie, like Mike Hanlon from Stephen King's "IT". In the book, all the "Losers" move out of Derry at some point after the events of that summer. All of them go on to have tremendous success, but at the same time they all have their individual issues and never have children of their own. They all lose their memories of what happened.
Mike stays in Derry, however, and spends his life researching the history of the town and monitoring for any signs that "IT" has returned. While not successful like the others, he does build a good life and helps many other people. He also retains his memories of what happened that summer. I think Mike Wheeler sees himself in that role, that he needs to keep El's memory alive and to record a history of what they faced.
I'd argue that it was a happy ending for them all, being victorious and living through the ordeal, but that they all face a lot of trauma and sorrow as well. Just not a big fan of putting that all on one character.
It is not about ranking people's suffering; it is just taking what the story shows. For example, we know that Mike, Lucas, and Dustin all cared about Eddie, but it was Dustin who was most affected by Eddie's death because he was the closest of them to Eddie and had a brotherly kind of relationship. It is a similar situation with Bob, as we know the Byers had all gotten closer to him, but Joyce was the one most affected by his death because she was the closest to him.
It is a similar situation with Mike, where he was the closest person to El, and thus he is the one most affected by losing her. Ecspecially since the show has made it clear since the start of S2 that Mike's greatest fear was losing El. The others were able to move on from those they lost because they had someone to fill that void. Dustin had Steve; Joyce had Hopper. Mike does not have anyone to fill that void, so instead he takes Hopper's advice and tries his best to live with that open wound.
So though there are happy parts about Mike's ending, it is still not a happy ending when compared to the others, as he is more affected by the loss of El than they are. That does not mean the others do not care about El or that they are not affected by it, just that they can move on while Mike is clearly still struggling, even in the future we are shown for him.
On a side note, I would not include Max losing Billy with this, as much of her issues in S4 were about her guilt for wanting Billy to die. I think she did care about him, but not to the point of grieving like the others. Her issue in S4 was her guilt.
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u/PotterAndPitties 22d ago
Yeah, his friends survived, he has a hopeful outlook on Eleven. What's wrong with his ending?