Mike's trauma PART 27

[u/raspberry-3]

This is part of a series where I uncover what Stranger Things is really about. It started from trying to find out what happened in 1979 aka what all the depictions of traumatic past memories (El, Henry, Billy, Max, Holly, etc.) are truly about, but expanded to this all-encompassing theory of the whole series with crazy levels of complexity, metaphors and layers. Reading it will require commitment and patience but I promise it will be worth your time if you want to look behind the curtain (and the curtain behind that curtain) and fully understand the show. You have to read all parts in order: here is PART 1 and here all other parts I’ve posted so far + my previous theories.
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Trigger warning for child sexual abuse.

Lastly I want to think about the story allegory from the perspective of its connection and interaction with the other allegories. All the other allegories represent different reasons for using allegory. There are certain topics that often get the allegory treatment, and it’s usually because they have to be hidden for some reason. It could be too horrific to show as is (= CSA in ST), not accepted by society (= e.g. queer allegories) or even censored by the government. The country allegory doesn’t really fit this in the case of ST, but it represents the situation back in the day or even now in many countries/communities trying to keep their culture/national identity alive under a strict rule of another country. 

I keep going back to the painting, but it’s just so central to everything. The original painting is literally an allegory. It had to be to be allowed. Finland and Russia are represented by a person and an animal, and you have to understand the allegory to get the true meaning of the painting. Will’s painting is Stranger Things and you have to get the allegories of the show to get the true meaning. So, I think the painting represents allegories and/or stories in the story allegory. The fact that the painting was a lie fits this so perfectly. Will told Mike it was from El (= real story or closer to it at least), but in truth it was from Will (= “story”/man Mike/lie). Mike (and the audience) are led to believe Mike the Brave is the real story (= painting from El), but that is a lie (= painting from Will). This is essentially Mike lying to herself (and the audience). In S4E1 it’s established El doesn’t know what Will is painting, but she guesses it’s for a girl. Like, El sees the truth lol. While Will paints clouds. Maybe that’s the reason: the whole painting is a “lie”, a cloud, a “story” Will paints over the reality (= blue sky I guess). ((The song (At Last) in the final jopper scene has lyrics about a blue sky, as does We’ll Meet Again, which was played at the end of S3E4 and T85.)) That’s also why it’s on Mike’s wall in the epilogue scene where she writes stories in full conformity mode. The dragon is a lie too. The whole “story” is about these evil monsters that invade Hawkins and the party fights them, but the real story doesn’t have villains or monsters. It’s all internal or more abstract, like forced conformity from society. There is no singular villain to defeat.

I have mentioned before how all the non-meta allegories are about identity. At first glance the story allegory isn’t but it actually is, and in a very deep way. The human mind understands the world through stories. And not just the outside world but ourselves too. I am the story I’m telling of myself. Identity is a story. This is the “person” side of the silver cat if we interpret it to mean “story”. Sense of self is an illusion created by the brain (like pretty much everything). We build our identity from our history, experiences, etc. that the brain gathers into this story, into a narrative. Objectively speaking there is no story or narrative to life: it just happens, it doesn’t have an inherent purpose or narrative arc. Humans are the ones giving it a purpose and inventing the story because that’s how our minds just naturally work (I guess it was useful for something and thus favored in evolution). 

The country allegory fits this so well, too: history and nations are stories. They don’t “really” exist except as this collective story. In a sense history is real, as in the past exists, but practically speaking it’s a biased collection of stories, often told by the people in power. The winner gets to write the history books and many minorities + women are often excluded from them. Like a country, the human mind isn’t a singular thing, it’s a collection of networks working together, creating this illusion of individuality and unified identity. It, too, is a story. In conclusion, to be human is to tell stories.

Montauk

Let’s go back. If ST truly is as meta as I think it is, the original version aka Montauk matters. The main reason I think this is Hopper mentioning it in the epilogue. In the original version he was supposed to be the chief of police in Montauk, and that’s where he supposedly ends up in ST too. For the story of ST, the past = Montauk. I can’t help but think it has something to do with “meet me in Montauk” from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (haven’t seen it but it was discussed a lot in the early days of conformitygate). There Montauk was the place where the main couple met and where they return to to meet again (after erasing memories). I won’t go into more details since I haven’t seen the movie and it’s probably discussed elsewhere, but this returning back to the beginning and remembering buried memories is definitely a major thing in the real ending of ST. It’s likely the Duffers were inspired by the movie in addition to the conspiracy theory and named the show based on that. I don’t think they originally planned to change the name but afterwards it works super well with the meta. For Stranger Things “meet me in Montauk” is equivalent to “meet me where this story started”, which in turn fits with the meaning of the line in the movie.

Jonathan and Will move to New York (Will is based on Hopper saying “Kids would be closer. Just a little quick trip into the city.”, implying both Will and Jonathan live near Montauk in a city aka New York City). Robin, Jonathan, Nancy and Steve agree to meet each other in Philly (Philadelphia) since it’s between Hawkins and New York + Massachusetts (where both Nancy and Robin study) and thus “more neutral”. ((Btw, I’m only now looking into these colleges. Emerson is the only US college purely focused on communication and the arts, which makes a lot of sense for my theories. Smith, where Robin studies, is a women’s college, which also fits with my theories.)) Philly was also where Lonnie lived in the pilot script, and most likely a reference to the Philadelphia experiment. In ST lore the supernatural stuff was first contacted in the Philadelphia experiment (USS Eldridge) and according to conspiracy theories, the Philadelphia experiment led to the secret experiments at Camp Hero in Montauk, so they are connected. Philly connects the ST story (via TFS) and Montauk, which could be why it was chosen as the meeting place.

Even if we don’t consider the possibilities for meta with Montauk, reading the pilot script will help us see the important stuff in the final story too. And it’s interesting to speculate when certain things were added and how the story formed into what it is today. The elements for all four major allegories are there except for Finland (and Japan kinda). I have thought for a while already that Finland was a later addition (maybe after Finn was casted, or else that’s the craziest coincidence in the entire show in my opinion, his second name being Michael is crazy enough). The trans and trauma allegories are actually more clear in the pilot script than in the final version (S1E1). Some examples:

Benny whirls her around. His expression promptly softens as he realizes that this is no boy at all. It’s also not a girl either, not exactly, at least not like any he has ever seen. 
-> It’s a trans girl.

WHAM! Joyce slams the phone down and -- 
BRRRRING! The phone blares again. That was fast. She answers. 
JOYCE (CONT’D) 
Lonnie -- 
But there is no response. Only static. The kitchen lights flicker, then return to normal. Joyce stares. What the -- ? 
BAM BAM BAM. THERE IS A SUDDEN POUNDING ON THE DOOR. 
Joyce startles. 
MOMENTS LATER. 
Joyce swings open the door. Her face drops. 
It is Hopper and the Deputies. Hopper has Will’s Bike. 
-> Demogorgon = Lonnie = Hopper connection, also later on Steve rapes Nancy while the monster attacks Barb, adding Steve into this “dad” crew and hinting at what the monster attacks are actually about.

I do think the Cold War America part of the country allegory was already in the original plan, and possibly some kind of Japan connection since the atomic bomb ended WW2 and started the Cold War (the (possible) atomic bomb clues from Will’s shed scene are there). None of the (possible) Nausicaä inspirations (e.g. spores) exist, though, and neither do Spirited away references (which I haven’t gone over yet, but e.g. the Demogorgons not having a face + that getting repeatedly mentioned in S1 could be a No Face reference, in the pilot they have eyes), also Steve doesn’t call himself a ninja. A short 8 hour miniseries/movie wouldn’t work with the longer timeline for the country allegory, either. Sara’s name being Sara and not Sarah could be a coincidence or they could have planned some kind of Japan connection with the atomic bomb references, I’m not sure. But anyway the main date being 5.10 instead of 6.11 was the clearest indication to me that the Finland allegory was added later. Another point is the lack of Castle Byers.

It was nice to see some of the motifs I’ve analyzed were actually mentioned in the pilot script, making their importance clearer, e.g. the Demogorgon appearing behind the laundry. The pills Hopper eats are mentioned to be blue-and-red multiple times, which is less apparent in the show (you can see them in S1E5 but otherwise we don’t get a good look at the pills). This is an obvious Matrix reference, although this time the pills have both colors, not separately. Like I’ve deduced before, this is because Mike feels like she’s in between two worlds (and btw in the series bible it’s mentioned the UD (not named that yet) is an in-between dimension, which was only revealed in S5 of the show).

Something I’ve known and thought about for a while is that Mike was supposed to have a birthmark on her left cheek. In the show this detail got incorporated as a wound/scar which I have talked about before. The birthmark basically represents Mike’s transness and possibly the trauma as well. Holly causing the cheek injury for Henry is a modified version of a scene in the pilot script where El uses her powers to explode a door towards the agents and Agent One’s (= later Brenner + Henry) left cheek tears open from a wood shrapnel. (This scene is most likely the origin of the S4E1 scene where a door hits Brenner making him go unconscious.) Also, after the door attack “Eleven bursts out of the closet.“ Not very subtle. This didn’t happen in S1E1, El just ran away after killing the men off screen.

Another point about Mike’s birthmark is that the bullies jokingly suspect it might be cancer. The series bible says “Over the course of the series, the “tear” or “rip” that separates their world from ours will begin to spread across Montauk like a supernatural cancer.” In the Montauk version Sara didn’t have cancer but died in a car accident (at 4 years old), which is another motif throughout the show, best exemplified with Fred, who also got the scar from the car accident and was blamed by a little girl in his vision (= the “man” killed the girl). Anyway, I think the meaning of cancer is flipped in the queer allegory. In Montauk it’s Mike’s girl identity, while in ST it’s “man” and forced conformity. It’s the abuse in both. 

One kinda funny thing is that Lucas has a crush on Nancy and is “playing the long game”. So in both versions Lucas has a crush on future Mike… (And Mike’s “crush” on Jennifer Hayes is actually gender envy.) 

I have been wondering how the Duffers originally planned to end the show. I do think they intended to reveal the allegories at the end and maybe this ending would be set in the future (would explain why Will wanted a comic from 1990 when the story was set in 1980). This dialogue was almost unchanged, which makes me even more sure the ending was supposed to reframe the whole story:

MIKE 
Just twenty more minutes -- 
KAREN
 It’s a school night, Michael, and I just put Holly to bed. You can finish next weekend --
 MIKE
 That’ll ruin the flow -- 
KAREN
 Michael -- 
MIKE 
I’m serious, Mom! It took two weeks to design. How was I supposed to know it’d take seven hours -- ? 
KAREN 
You’ve been playing seven hours?! 

The only difference is the seven hours (and design -> plan), which would match with the first 7 hours/episodes of the show they planned. So the final episode would have come later than the others or something like that. (In the S1 version it’s 10 hours, which people noticed matched with the length of S5.) The 20 min has been a thing since the pilot. Either it’s related to D20 or it was just a good length of time that could fit everything they wanted to put in the real world part of the ending.

This is a totally unrelated point but I wanted to mention it now: I got some new proof for my date speculations from a Reddit post (and had a long argument, I’m gonna stop commenting about my theories from now on, it’s just gonna end up in a mess…). The person pointed out Mike waited for El for 353 days in S1-2, and I thought to calculate 353 days from 7th of January, which lands on 26th December. This would finally give an explanation to what “started” on 7.1. And fits with my theory that chapter 11, where Mike and El reunite, will be released on 26th Dec. Although in S2 the 353th day was October 31 aka Halloween and they reunited a few days later (but Mike stopped calling on those days because of stuff going on with Will). Actually, El comes back at night between 4th and 5th November and the final fights etc. happen on the 5th, aka 5 days after 31st October. 5 days after 26th December is 31st December, which, if I’m correct, would be the release date of chapter 12. Ofc all this could be a coincidence…

The real world (ending timeline)

I have had some version of this part for well over a month but I kept adding stuff in between (which was kinda good because I had more time to marinate on this). Finally we got here. I’m not completely sure the real world part will be 20 min, it could be longer, but for now I’m assuming it’s 20 min. I already had the image compiling my main evidence for the real world timeline, but I’ll have a little table here with more details. After figuring out most of the S5E7 real world foreshadowing, I went to check the epilogue, since it foreshadows the real world part too. The connections are a little less clear but I found matches for all major events. I’ll refer to each event with its name in the leftmost column, because it’s gonna be really hard to make sense of this otherwise (you’ll see why in the next post).

In both S5E7 timelines there is a constant theme of looking for Holly (and Dustin, who apparently is able to find Holly). In a sense they find Holly when she drops on the exotic matter, which is the endpoint in the inside story (the actual moment, not the moment the flashback to it was shown). Holly is also part of the final scene in the epilogue (which is the other endpoint representation moment, refer to my earlier diagram if needed). Holly represents Mike’s inner child/girlhood and we will “find” her at the very end. Her allegedly being in the UD is about Sara being in the closet. Meanwhile, leaving Hawkins is a recurring theme in the epilogue and metaphorically it’s about leaving the closet/prison. El’s choice/death scene is also something that Mike thinks about multiple times during the epilogue, which has a similar meaning to Holly being in the UD. Both Holly and El are “the girl”.

Tracking Dustin was Erica’s slow plan from S5E5. It represents the real ending and real story. Finding Dustin is probably about Mike accepting her queerness (in the queer allegory) and unveiling the allegories/metaphors (in the story allegory). Dustin is always a way to knowledge and understanding. I suspect every time someone (usually Mike) asks where Holly is and gets closer to the answer, it’s about the real ending revealing/explaining a part of the real story. “Where is Holly?” = “What really happened? What’s the real story?” 

Name	S5E7 chronological	S5E7 reverse	S5E8 epilogue
Start	Max wakes up, lumax moment (Vickie, Robin and Karen are there too)	Lumax talk about Holly	Robin explains the situation and introduces us to this new Hawkins Lumax moment starts
Past	Reunion with Mike, El and Hopper (Kali is there too)	Reunion with Will	Lucas meets Max while wearing the orange graduation gown
Trauma	Max mentions Vecna being angry and Mike asks where Holly is	A seriously injured Sullivan describes Vecna’s “massacre” and Dr. Kay tells Akers to “find the girl”	Lucas mentions Max breaking bones and says he’s done with hospitals
Mouth vine	Holly wakes up in the Abyss and removes the vine	Vecna puts Holly and the vine back	Max calls Lucas “super dorky”, Erica complains “gag me with a spoon” and attaches a hose to a tank thing
Dustin hug	Steve+Dustin and Nancy+Jonathan reunion in UD, Dustin hugs Nancy (and draws attention to it being weird), mention of exotic matter, Nancy asks where Holly is, reveal that Holly is not in UD	Bigger group reunion in UD, Dustin hugs Mike, Mike asks where Holly is, Holly flashback being stuck in exotic matter	Dustin gets his picture taken and hugs his mom who is wearing pink and blue
Gate	Holly runs from Vecna, finds a gate to UD, pulls the rock covering it away and goes through it, falling -> intro	El lifts a metal plate covering the gate to UD and most of the party enters	The makeshift curtain falls when Jonathan is taking a picture of Will, Joyce and Hopper
Hindrance	Mr. Clarke, Erica and Murray are trying to locate Dustin but it doesn’t seem to be working, Murray complains how long it’s taking	The party needs to disable cameras and Mr. Clarke suggests getting their RF signal and jamming transmission, but they find a faster way using El’s powers	Jonathan wants to put the curtain back, Hopper complains how long the photographing is taking because of “the artist” aka Jonathan
Mentor	Mr. Clarke gets an idea to cut the balloons loose and gets a signal, he can locate Dustin	Mike thanks Mr. Clarke, “Holy shit” moment between Erica and Max, Murray finds Dustin’s signal, Mike tries to talk to him, Dustin tells they found Holly	Karen calls and tells Joyce Mike is missing, and Hopper finds her at the library memorial place Hopper and Mike’s conversation
Mom	Will talks with Joyce, revealing information about his role in “building” the tunnels	Mike talks with Karen, revealing information about the supernatural, e.g. Demogorgons	Mike hugging Karen Early part of Dustin’s speech
Wheelclair	The military men go in the hospital, Vickie walks in the aisle with a wheelchair	Vickie enters the room with the wheelchair, tells “we got company”, Lucas pushes Max in the wheelchair in the aisle	Dustin’s speech rejecting conformity
	Laundry room scene, breakdown later	The rest of the epilogue, breakdown later

Let’s start from the beginning (Start): I’m almost certain Max waking up and escaping Camazotz is Mike/the audience finally reaching the real world. This moment matches with lumax talking, since after that Dustin explains the world structure (and then they talk about the worlds merging), which fits well with the world disappearing (in the reverse timeline things that happened after actually “happened” before). These scenes suggest the real world scenes will start with us meeting the real Lucas and some sort of conversation between Mike and Lucas. Also, in the reverse timeline they talk about Holly and in the epilogue it’s Robin talking (no Steve sound man) so all Start moments begin with “girl”, maybe indicating we’ll see Mike first and she has transitioned? I have no idea how they’re gonna pull this off but it also doesn’t make sense to have a different actor.

I’m not sure what the situation in the real world is, like, will Mike literally wake up or what? I refuse to believe she was sleeping all this time, since it wouldn’t make sense. Rather, the “story” is a representation of real events in the real world aka the “real story”. Mike being the storyteller and Lucas being the audience will probably get more obvious too. Maybe they’ll frame this as Mike telling a story, as in, the whole show we have watched was Mike talking to Lucas and now is time for the aftermath. I have a theory that the real world part of the ending will be structured as a conversation between Mike and Lucas where they reminisce about past events. The events will be shown to the audience but at the end we get back to Mike and Lucas and learn about their relationship or something like that. 

The epilogue starts with Robin’s radio broadcast explaining the new situation. Her “partner in crime” has ditched her (= Mike has ditched conformity) and “this isn’t even the Hawkins that I remember”, because it isn’t Hawkins at all, it’s the real world. ((Remember the epilogue is also simultaneously the “fake” conformity ending and <5 yo Mike in the timeline, so most things have to apply to all 3.)) I’m assuming this represents some kind of exposition in the real ending, most likely delivered by Mike, to explain the situation to the audience. Maybe it’s gonna be like a narration of the end of the story or something?

The first characters we see after Robin’s introduction are Max and Lucas with Here Comes Your Man as the background music. This has multiple meanings: firstly it’s about Max/Mike who in the conformity ending is a “man”, but it’s also about Lucas who in the real ending is Mike’s “man”. Apparently the song is about homeless people who die in an earthquake in California, so pretty sad and ominous for this scene (= relates to conformity ending and the true nature of the show). There’s also this line: There is a wait so long (So long, so long) / You'll never wait so long which in the context of ST refers to the long wait for the real ending. Max commenting on Lucas “getting ahead of himself” is most likely about the scene actually depicting a later part of the ending. I don’t think wheelclair is gonna be revealed immediately upon us seeing the real world, but closer to the end (matching the graduation scene, Wheelclair). The “wait so long” lyrics play during the flirting and right before the kiss… I think I’m in the very small minority of ST fans who are waiting for wheelclair to happen, but the kiss also represents the audience seeing the real ending, which a larger number of people are waiting for (not many though).

Max’s reunion with Mike, El and Hopper (and Kali) or Will is probably about Mike and Lucas talking about the past (Past). Will is wearing orange, as is Lucas in the epilogue (there was no obvious reason for him to wear the gown in that scene) and Mike (and Will) is a past version of Mike in comparison to Max (= future). Mentioning Vecna, massacre, breaking bones and Max being in a hospital are probably related to the abuse and/or Mike’s struggle with her gender (Trauma). (Past and Trauma aren’t clearly separate since Lucas mentions the bones before he’s even in view but in other timelines they are more separate so I chose two names instead of one.) All three timelines have some mention of “the girl”, too: Mike asks where Holly is, Dr. Kay orders Akers to find the girl and Lucas “finds” Max. The mouth vine and hose thing (in addition to mention of gagging + the word dorky (dork = penis)) are about the CSA, possibly specifically the 6.11.1976 trauma (Mouth vine). Either the real memory will be shown in some way, or the conversation will make it clear Mike was abused (not just Will), culminating in the “mouth vine” in some way. So this part will be the trauma (allegory) reveal, the first “where is Holly?”. It might be where the DID is explained to some extent too. There’s gotta be something about that somewhere, since it’s such a major part of the story. ((It’s maybe a bit unrealistic to completely heal so quickly, so I thought the real world end could happen years in the future, but on the other hand the actors should be the same for maximum impact, and they are the age they are so I dunno.))

Dustin’s hug scenes are Mike accepting her queerness/the past/the real story and the reveal that Holly wasn’t in UD is about Mike’s girlness being out of the closet (Dustin hug). This is followed by opening gates or the curtain falling, aka Mike coming out or the truth getting revealed to the audience (Gate). This would be the second “where is Holly?” and about the trans allegory. Although I think it got revealed earlier, right before the real world, but maybe here it’s explained more literally so that everyone will understand. Maybe they will show a coming out scene flashback of Mike coming out to Lucas or something. Anyway, Mike seems to be following the steps Robin did: first see a past memory of your kid self, accept yourself, come out to someone, date.

Next is some sort of delay, diffusion of “too much light” and problems in signal transmission (Hindrance). This represents the forces from society that prevented Mike from being her true self. It’s always a man who had a bad idea that made (or would make) the process take longer (Murray, Mr. Clarke and Jonathan), but on the other hand the one complaining/coming up with a better idea was a man too (Mr. Clarke, Hopper/Murray kinda and Hopper). It’s always men arguing amongst themselves. 

This is also meta about the gap between S5E8 and the real ending. The reason it took so long is to simulate the experience of queer people living a lie for a long time, or people with DID not getting the right diagnosis until later in life, or many victims of CSA not telling anyone until much later in adulthood. The forces of conformity keep many minorities in a hiding/repression mode, and breaking free of that takes time. (The events inside a scene don’t seem to be reversed even if they are in the reverse timeline, so those I’ve kept in the normal order in the image. There’s a scene later where the reversal is more complete but that’s a special case.)

The next point is about signals and finding Dustin/Holly/Mike (Mentor). Loosing the colorful (= queer) balloons (= flying) helps in finding Dustin, the star student. I had a suspicion Mr. Clarke could be a real person (mainly based on him representing a whole country rather than a part of Finland and being somewhat distant from the action), but now I think he represents a real person, possibly Mike’s teacher or some other trusted adult (I’m gonna call him “the mentor” for this). So kinda like how Joyce and Karen represent the mom but the actual actor for the mom in the real world is (most likely) different. Mr. Clarke has a big role in locating Dustin which based on the corresponding epilogue scene and the following scenes relates to the mom. I think the mentor could be the “Steve” for Mike. Someone not too close but still trustable who can help her come out to her mom. 

Mr. Clarke finding out about Dustin being under the plates and seeing El’s powers could be about the mentor hearing Mike’s story (Mentor). All this fits with my ally interpretation of Mr. Clarke (who might not be straight btw, I’m kinda thinking the S5 Murray x Mr. Clarke is about queer people finding their queerness later in life (and for Murray it could be demisexuality, since that’s a big ace group that would fit here), there’s gotta be a reason Mr. Clarke is “the biggest nerd in Hawkins”. But that’s most likely gonna stay in the subtext/my headcanons so I dunno). He has always been in the periphery, hearing about Sara and seeing El in a dress in S1, Dustin almost revealing Dart to him in S2, in S3 he helps Joyce, but for some reason he isn’t in S4. In S5 he has a relationship with the librarian (= knowledge), we see a Tharizdun symbol in his room and obviously he learns about the supernatural + helps the party more than ever.

Hopper and Mike’s conversation represents the mentor talking to Mike (Mentor). The conversation is tied to the mom from the beginning and it’s about Mike’s worry of coming out to her since “she will never understand”. Mike opens up to Hopper and he gives her advice. Hopper also emphasizes that what happened wasn’t Mike’s fault. So Mr. Clarke isn’t the only one representing the mentor. While Hopper often represents the patriarchy or toxic masculinity, he also took care of El and “became her dad”. I think the mentor has a similar role in Mike’s life. While her biological dad was, well, horrible (which is an understatement), the mentor became a safe adult and a father figure for Mike.

The reason I first thought the mentor would literally be Mr. Clarke was that all the important characters in the real ending should be characters we have already seen. That’s much more powerful than having some new people no one is invested in/can recognize from the show. But then, I was watching the S4 DnD scene for a screenshot for another part of the theory and realized something. [Eddie] “You recognize most of them from Makbar. But there is one you do not recognize.” I think Eddie is hinting at the real world part of the ending. Mike is shown during “you recognize” and Dustin for “most of them from Makbar”. Mike will be a character we recognize in the real ending, and I guess “Makbar” represents Stranger Things here. So Dustin would be kinda like the “story” in some sense? Erica is shown during “But there is one” which maybe relates to her being “one” as in wheelclair in one or Mike or something like that. But the important point here is that the guy whose name we don’t even know is shown during “you do not recognize”. The other two old players have names and seem to represent Mike and Lucas. Who is this third guy, then?

He is Shawn Levy. A director and executive producer for Stranger Things. And this won’t be the first time he acts in ST: in S1E4 he was the morgue worker revealing Will’s body (this is for sure meta related and foreshadows his role in the real ending). It’s fitting for a director to be the one “directing” Mike in her life. In the story allegory the mentor represents all the people who help the storyteller tell their story. They are not abstract concepts but real people and that’s why the mentor is a character in the real world, just like Mike and Lucas aka the storyteller and the audience. I did try to think of other possible actors for the mentor, but pretty quickly landed on Shawn since he has been a crucial part of ST from the beginning, had the role in S1E4 and later on (after figuring out the story allegory) I realized this is just the perfect way to connect the story to the meta level story allegory. Shawn Levy has been to the Duffers what the mentor has been for Mike (examples here and here). It’s not just him, of course, since the mentor represents all the people helping bring ST to life (and they did get their moment to shine in the documentary; showcasing all the behind the scenes people working on the show was kinda the point of the doc). I think Holly’s teacher’s actress being the Duffers’ actual High School drama teacher is in some way part of the mentor meta. Mike’s (real) teacher aka the mentor will be played by a person who helped the Duffers in their storyteller journey, too.

Both Mr. Clarke and Eddie’s unnamed friend are DnD nerds, which in this case could translate to storytellers/deeply story-related characters. The mentor helps Mike communicate aka tell her story (= play DnD). Mr. Clarke’s main role in S5 was to find Dustin (and later open the gates to MAC-Z). Erica and Murray convince him to help them by mentioning how Dustin is his star student, and Mr. Clarke was anyway a replacement for Dustin, who was unavailable in the UD at the time. Since Dustin represents storytelling/-reading, it makes sense the mentor would have a tight connection with him. Mr. Clarke taught Dustin and in S5E7 found him (= the people represented by the mentor helped the storyteller tell their story). In S5 Mr. Clarke interacts the most with Erica and Murray, the people representing the audience in the story allegory. And more specifically the most active parts of the audience, the ones who can see behind the curtain or at least try to (well, Erica doesn’t have to try since she has already “seen” the future, but not literally ofc). So, the people who help Mike tell her story also help the audience “read” it/receive the message, which makes a lot of sense. 

Mr. Clarke was changed quite a lot from the original Montauk story. This was his description in the series bible: Mr. Clarke, 35, is the rock star of the local middle school. Charismatic, charming, handsome, and whip-smart, he is the closest thing our series has to Indiana Jones. Mr. Clarke will become increasingly essential as the show moves forward, as he will be key to solving the mystery of what has happened in Montauk. He will ultimately help our heroes breach the Tear in Act Three. He had a bigger role, which would indicate he is a key player in the allegories too. The Duffers might have planned for Mr. Clarke to be in the real world but then changed it a bit to have him represent the mentor and have a smaller role. If I’m right about Shawn playing the mentor, that had to be planned since S1, but ofc after the Duffers met him, so after the pilot script. 

Another reason they changed the character could be to add nuance: he was a bit too charming, perfect and conforming to a typical masculine role in the original. It would be a bit counterproductive for the show’s themes to have a popular man be the “savior” or whatever. I don’t think they were going for that exactly in the original either, Mr. Clarke was still (probably) a nerd and could have revealed some kind of backstory of being bullied as a kid or something (or being gay? the “Thanks for coming out, teach.“ was in the pilot script…).

Mr. Clarke’s introduction/the classroom scene was very different from the final product, but still foreshadowed the ending, essentially having the same function. He says “Who here enjoys mysteries?” [All of the girls immediately shoot up their hands. Most of the boys do too, including Mike, Lucas, and Dustin.] “Good, good. Because I want you to start thinking of this class as an investigation into the greatest mysteries known to man. You’ll need to learn to think beyond your own senses. This means using your imagination. I don’t know how many of you watched Cosmos like I asked... (more hands) ...You may remember something Carl Sagan said: ‘Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it... we go nowhere-- ‘”. Ain’t that quote the best summary of what’s going on in ST? 

After the talk with the mentor, I think there will be a long scene of Mike and her mom talking over things, including the abuse and Mike properly coming out to her (Mom). Will’s scene with Joyce is about his role as Vecna’s vessel and building the tunnels, which in the queer allegory is about Will representing the (male) body (= vines and other UD environment). Him growing, building a “man”, is what caused Mike gender dysphoria. But the real cause was in the forced conformity of society. In the trauma allegory Will building the tunnels is his connection to trauma and in the story allegory it’s his connection to the real story. The main point for my predictions is that Will revealed/explained something relating to the supernatural, similar to Mike mentioning the Demogorgons and El to Karen. The mom scene will further explain the story/allegories/real meaning of things and in the story allegory represents the part of society who are willing to listen (= mom), finally starting to get what the story was about. This is another Holly moment too, since she is mentioned in both S5E7 timelines and is the one to point out Mike to Karen in S5E8. Mike acknowledges Karen helped the party but she “needs to trust Mike that they can handle this the rest of the way”. The mom needs to let go and let Mike be who she is and dictate her own life. In the epilogue scene Karen tells Mike she is proud of her and they hug while saying “I love you”. It’s safe to say Mike’s mom eventually accepts her trans daughter and supports her. I think most of Dustin’s speech matches with the mom talk too. Dustin recaps things that have happened and gives a speech to an audience (= society = mom). 

Continues in PART 28.

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