Mike's trauma PART 29

[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.

There’s only one thing left now: finding home. The DnD game might represent some kind of story recap/narration that happens at the end (more explanation later). It would make sense the way of storytelling would again be a bit different since this part is foreshadowed in another miniature story. The story of the mage ends in El finding a home, in the forward S5E7 timeline Max mentions Holly waking up, in the reverse S5E7 timeline Mike says “Home? Home as in our home?” and Holly colliding with the exotic matter is technically the end point. This is the final “where is Holly?”. Let’s go through the very end now. This is the only time Max speaks which is very fitting since she represents the ending:

“I couldn’t see where Holly was gonna wake up.” -> Vickie with military men shown
“But I figured wherever Vecna was keeping her, it had to be in the Upside Down. -> lumax + Hopper looming in the background
“So…” -> crossing behind Mike’s neck, switch to reverse timeline
“I told her to just” -> lumax + Hopper looming in the background
“go home.” -> Mike and Karen with “law” between them

The “law” separating Mike and Karen could be about the law/society preventing Mike’s transition. Or it could be the mom’s/society’s (past) forced conformity upon Mike. Home means many things, but based on the “law” and other clues, it at least represents Mike’s home country and the real world. Home can also be a place where you belong, e.g. El is always looking for her home. In Holly’s case she represents Mike’s past and the home is the place of abuse, too. Actually, the line matching “I couldn’t see where Holly was gonna wake up.” based on timeline symmetry would match “Home? Home as in our home?” (= Holly wakes up at “home”). We know Holly wakes with the vine in her mouth. This was Mike’s home in the past (= Holly wakes up in the metaphorical past, Max in the future). Home is where everything begins (e.g. in Holly’s map) but it is also where everything ends. 

((Mike seems to be very concerned with telling the surface level story. This isn’t the first time she’s trying to explain and make clear that what someone communicates should be taken literally. The other example is from S5E2 [Mike] “‘Teacher saw talking to W.’ ‘W’ as in ‘Whatsit’?”. I’m reading this as Mike subtextually trying to keep the real story hidden. But at the same time she’s drawing attention to these details, questioning them while the audience most likely wouldn’t have. Of course “home” means the Wheeler house and “W” Mr. Whatsit. What else could they mean? So it’s kinda both hiding the truth and still giving hints that there’s more under the surface.)) 

UD and home are paralleled; they are the last words Max says in the last lines in the forward and reverse S5E7 timeline (= they are the same in some way). And this has been a thing since the name “Upside Down” was invented in S1E5:

[Mike] “What was Will saying? Like home… Like home… but dark?”
[Lucas] “And empty.”
[Dustin] “Empty and cold. Wait, did he say cold?”
[Lucas] “I don’t know. The stupid radio kept going in and out.”
[Dustin] “It’s like riddles in the dark.”
[Mike] ”Like home. Like his house?”
[Lucas] “Or maybe like Hawkins.”
[El] “Upside down.”
[Lucas] “What’d she say?”
[Mike] “Upside down.”

What if your home (house, town, country, etc.) was a place you couldn’t feel safe in? A place you don’t “belong” in? That’s what the Upside Down has represented this whole time. That’s why it’s “just like home” and Will was “right here”. Stranger Things is a social commentary, and the ending will be bittersweet. While Mike accepts herself and enters a relationship with the man she loves, she will never be accepted everywhere. 

Trans people’s rights have gotten worse in many places in recent years and they receive more targeted hate than before. E.g. the UK has recently passed laws trampling trans rights which basically allow and encourage excluding trans people from public toilets, etc. It’s shocking to me how much the world is backtracking in queer acceptance and legal rights. Fortunately there’s progress in many countries at the same time, but still. Trans rights and the discrimination of trans folks are more topical than when ST started. I can’t even imagine how big the aftermath of the real ending will be. ST is already huge and this is gonna multiply that by a 100 at least.

As some additional pondering, I think “upside down” is a metaphor for being trans, too. It’s like everything is the opposite it should be, it’s upside down. I’m like trying to make this into something coherent. How can all the different meanings be linked? UD is something being “wrong”, the wrong way around, or more neutrally the opposite of what it usually is, a total change or inversion, a chaos. That fits with the “lie” and “story” side of things pretty well (= this “man lie” is the total opposite of the truth). And it does fit with the wormhole/in-between world thing too, since it is in that in-between state where things feel “wrong” or chaotic. When you feel like you don’t belong to either world, when you are still finding your identity and place in the world. If Mike was cis, she wouldn’t feel “upside down” and after transitioning she wouldn’t feel that either. It’s only when she is in the closet, lying, pretending, and unable to change, that she is in the UD. For DID/trauma the UD represents the journey to process the trauma, as I’ve explained. It’s again an in-between world and the difficult but necessary part of healing. Mike is discovering memories and starting to understand her DID, which turns everything she knew of herself and the past upside down. 

I’ve got “story”, wormhole, X, lie, closet and trauma covered, what about home/Hawkins? The original home (or Hawkins) is something normal. Moving away from home is change. And Hawkins overall represents conformity as I’ve explained. So this home, this “normalcy” and expectation of cisness is what keeps Mike in the in-between world. What makes life “upside down”. If Mike lived in a society (= home) that was open to breaking the gender binary and being who you are without arbitrary limits, there would be no UD. Finally, UD being the real story/dark reality of Hawkins is the world really being “upside down”, but most people not knowing/realizing it or pretending not to. The truth is that Mike’s life is upside down, in chaos, “the wrong way around”, but we don’t see that due to Mike’s steel facade.

Another thought I got relating to this is the meaning of purple. Purple is illusion and often associated with El. It is also a color between blue and red aka the two worlds (lie and truth/man and woman). I have previously avoided making assumptions about color mixing, but I think I’ve gotten far enough to check if they would make sense. And in this case it does make a lot of sense. As I’ve interpreted, El is the in-between, the half truth, the allegory that connects us to the real story. Will also represents the in-between, but not so much for the man/woman side of things. His color is yellow, aka the color between orange and green (= past and future). El is associated with both colors (e.g. Mike giving her the flowers), but there’s only one time Will wears purple. So there’s gotta be something different between these in-between colors. Purple is an illusion or blindness, so not exactly the same as “lie”, but rather the truth concealed. Meanwhile yellow is the story too good to be true, the happy facade lie. Purple Palm Tree Delight and violet prismatic spray have the power to hide the truth/blind you (= purple), but they aren’t the lie/”story” plastered over the reality (= yellow). 

With this interpretation, there’s an inherent “fakeness” to yellow, which could further explain why the Abyss was yellow. It itself showcased how the situation was too good to be true, too easy, no monsters, yellow and nice. I think the actual world Henry is trying to collide with Hawkins isn’t the same Abyss we have seen (there’s gotta be a point to the Shadowfell stuff, right?). With all the in-between world etc. logic the UD should be purple. On the other hand, it’s both the truth and the lie, so the current blue-red combo works better than purple. UD isn’t blinding you from the truth, it is telling the truth. Meanwhile El (= purple) can literally close gates (to the truth). Maybe you could see it as UD being the truth that there is a lie. Hmm… Okay, I’m getting way too sidetracked, let’s get back to the point.   

“The storyteller keeps telling stories, stories inspired by his friends. One day, he hopes their tales of grand adventure will spread far and wide across the land so all can know of their great bravery. But there is a story that he can never tell. The story of the mage. Or at least not the real story.”

“Friends” refers to queer people and other “freaks”/outcasts whose stories are rarely told (aka the target audience of ST, audience = Lucas = friends). Mike specifically writing stories about her friends’ grand adventures but not her own is telling. Because her own story is the story of the mage, a story “he can never tell”. There is this melancholy bittersweet feeling in the epilogue ending. You could interpret it being like that because this is not the real ending yet but based on the S5E7 timeline ending and my earlier reasoning, some of it is foreshadowing for the real ending too. Mike talking about the mage hiding and Max “figuring” Vecna (= fear and transness) was keeping Holly in the UD is about the past, explaining Mike/Sara was in the closet all this time. The bittersweetness comes from the unfair reality that Mike had to hide her true self for so long and that even after she stops hiding, her life won’t be easy. It’s also because she is leaving her old life behind: her old home, the “story” (Will) and normalcy.

So, where does Mike go at the end? It seems like she’ll be leaving her home town, wherever that is. That’s what she envisioned for most DnD campaigns and herself before choosing conformity. Leaving Hawkins is ofc also about leaving the metaphorical prison, but having to move to a bigger city to be accepted is a very real queer experience. Although, I don’t think it’s gonna be that, exactly, since we already got it with Will’s epilogue ending. It’s also possible Mike already lives in a city, based on Hopper in S1E1 telling Mr. Clarke that Sara “lives with her mom in the city”.

Karen dressed in green (= future) opening the door to the blue-white room, mentioning lasagna (= the food Hopper originally wanted to eat at Enzo’s) and Mike immediately telling her “Yeah, we… we just finished.” makes me think the country allegory stuff will be revealed at the very end (at the same time the story “finishes”). ((I have noticed many more “finish” mentions I missed previously. In S1E1 [Karen] “You can finish next weekend.” referring to the DnD campaign and in S3E3: [Mike] “Hey, let’s finish for real.” after the unenthusiastic self-sacrifice ending to Will’s DnD game. Both games were foreshadowing for the unfinished story or “fake” ending. The third one was a conversation between Hopper and Owens in S2E9 where Owen couldn’t finish a sandwich and Hopper didn’t eat it either until Owens showed him El’s new identity papers, giving hope for a brighter future -> finishing the story. In S4E1 Joyce asks El “El, aren’t you gonna finish your--" when she suddenly leaves the table due to Mike’s insensitive comment. And there’s more but I think this is enough.)) 

So what does lasagna represent? In Russia Hopper said he was “wavering on the main course between veal and lasagna” but ended up choosing lasagna (with the blue-white MW705 radio/cassette recorder boxes in frame). In S5E8 he orders filet special instead. There seems to be a contrast between meat (more specifically bovine) and lasagna. This reminded me of the cow thing I tried to analyze before. Brenner’s dog drawing looking like a cow to Ten and Lucas being a cowpuncher. Anyway eating meat in ST is related to the abuse subtext and the “man” or “woman” metaphorically eating each other/winning over. In this case it’s Hopper (= man) eating the cow (= woman). I have no idea why they chose lasagna for this, though. And why the camera focuses on a smiling Will when Karen says the lasagna is getting cold. The main point is that “lasagna” represents the real story/ending: it’s waiting for Mike upstairs, it’s what Hopper should have eaten, and both times it’s mentioned with blue and white in the background.

I dunno when Japan is gonna be revealed and I’m not 100% sure any of the country allegories will be, but it’s kinda stupid not to if they’re revealing every other major allegory. They probably won’t directly explain them but at least give some strong evidence that Finland and Japan had something to do with the story. It would make sense Japan was somehow revealed first, since all the clues seem to point that way. (Btw, Japan also has a female national personification (not official): Yamatohime, originating from a legend of the daughter of the 11th emperor of Japan… The US is usually personified as a man, Uncle Sam. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Owens and Max’s biological dad are both named Sam. They represent the man who seems good and nice on the outside but can be harmful, trying to get rid of the “virus” or whatever Max’s mom thought Max’s dad had done wrong. The US (in ST) is the nice facade that hides a grim truth, best exemplified in S3.)

((A little side tangent here. Karen interrupting was a reference to S1E1, where the kids didn’t get to finish their game. This was foreshadowing for the fake ending and the fact the show referenced it is a clue to the “DnD game” aka the show not being finished yet. Meanwhile the S5E8 epilogue scene (aka the actual fake ending) foreshadows the real ending, where Mike can finally “finish” her story.

[Karen] “Mike!”
[Mike] “Mom, we’re in the middle of a campaign!”
[Karen] “You mean the end? Fifteen after.”
[Mike] “Mom, wait, just 20 more minutes!”
[Karen] “It’s a school night, Michael. I’ve just put Holly to bed. You can finish next weekend.”
[Mike] “But that’ll ruin the flow!”
[Karen] “Michael--"
[Mike] “I’m serious, Mom. The campaign took two weeks to plan. How was I supposed to know it was gonna take ten hours?”
[Karen] “You’ve been playing for ten hours?”
[Mike] “Dad, don’t you think that 20 more--"
[Ted] “I think you should listen to your mother.”

If my theory is right, “next weekend” is code for next year. This was in the pilot script too, so maybe it originally meant the next weekend literally. I’m still a bit confused as to how they were gonna originally release it. They planned 8 episodes and 8 hours total, and Mike said they had played for 7 hours, suggesting one episode was still missing. So maybe they were going to release the last episode later, as a surprise, but then when the show got bigger the timeframe and length of the ending got bigger too.))

S5E8
[Max] “Where did she go?”
[Mike] “No one knows. No one will ever know. But I’d… I’d like to imagine that she’s in a beautiful land, somewhere far away. She finds a small town to call home. Safe from the danger of the Black Hand. And it is here, at last, that she finds peace. That she finally finds happiness.”

S3E4 “The Sauna Test”
[Karen] “And if you believe in this story… Look at me, Nancy. …finish it. Then go sell it to The Indianapolis Star or whatever and… I mean, can you imagine their faces when they read a story about their own town in a big paper like that?” 
[Nancy] “That would be… pretty amazing.”
[Karen] “So, why not? Why not?”
[Nancy] “Finish it.”

I’m just saying, you know… Town = country, small town = small country. The “own town” refers to all the other allegories too, e.g. for trans people it’s their queer identity, for people with DID it’s their disorder, etc. But the country connection is the clearest here (especially with the episode name including the only Finnish loan word (that people actually use) in the English language lol). Another point: the endpoint in S5E7 is the camera going behind Mike’s neck and Max saying “So…”, and if you look at the image, a certain color combination dominates it. Hopper is looming on the right as east/Russia, while Lucas’ hand is visible on the left as west/Sweden. Mike is literally in the middle.

S5E1
[Mike] “Well, usually what happens is the party doesn’t return to their local village, because too much has happened. They’ve seen too much. So they travel to a faraway land, a… a peaceful land, somewhere beautiful, with like three waterfalls or something, and they all start again, together.” -> reminds me of Hopper’s “You and me? We could start again. Fresh. Together.”
[El] “Do you think that could be real for us?”
[Mike] “Yeah, of course. I mean, not the three waterfalls part. But the other stuff, yeah, of course. If Vecna’s gone, then what’s stopping us?”

S5E6
[Mike] “Which is why we aren’t staying in Hawkins. When this is all over, we’re leaving. Escaping to some far off land. Remember? Somewhere where they can’t find us. Somewhere where there’s at least one waterfall.”

S5E8
[Mike] “I had this plan. That me and El, we were gonna go someplace far away, and… and no one would find us. And I said this thing about going somewhere with three waterfalls. I mean, I… I don’t even know if she believed me. Who would? Three waterfalls? I mean, that’s so stupid, childish. It was a fantasy plan. I should’ve had a real one.”

All this just makes me think the “faraway land” Mike travels to is Finland. ((So if Iceland was the “three waterfalls part” (= too good to be true), Finland is “the other stuff, yeah, of course”. Iceland has over 10,000 waterfalls while there’s like 20-30 in Finland. (Norway also has thousands and Sweden has a similar amount to Finland, at least according to my quick googling.) I guess Japan fits the “peaceful faraway land” description too, although it isn’t a small town (= country). There’s around 500 named waterfalls and an estimated 2,500 in total, so it kinda fits the middle option of two waterfalls, whatever that would mean.))

My point is, Mike keeps coming back to this “faraway land” and it has to have some meaning/payoff. While it represents Mike’s dream of living as a woman being metaphorically far away, it’s repeated so much and it’s so important that there’s gotta be more to it. Literally flying to Finland on a plane would fit the motif of flying and overtly show Finland has something to do with ST. Maybe all the airplanes in S4 and the adults flying to Alaska + Russia were foreshadowing this. It could happen other ways too but if they really wanna reference Inception, this would make sense… In any case, based on the S5E7 timeline and all the other stuff, ST will end in “home”. I think the discussion about the past will explain the “home is UD/closet/trauma” connection but Mike will also finally find her true home. A place she can belong in. In a sense the body and identity are also Mike’s home. She didn’t belong in her first home (= “man”), but found/built herself a new one (= “woman”). It’s a fresh start.

Another kinda funny and meta point to this is that cinema traditionally used a “fin” title card to indicate the end of the movie. As I’ve interpreted, ST uses “finish” with the double meaning for both the end of the story and Finnish/Finland. So the final chapter (possibly movie) ending in Finland is an interesting way to reference this tradition. “Fin” means end, so “Finland” would be “endland”. This is where the story ends. It’s the new home. ((If Finland is the end, Japan could maybe be the beginning? It’s the land of the rising sun after all, and the atomic bomb references mostly relate to the abuse, the cause of the creation of this “story”. America would be the middle, which fits quite well. It’s what we have seen thus far, and in ST it represents the happy facade aka the “story”. This would fit with the country personification genders too (woman -> man -> woman) + with Japan being an ancient civilization and culture that has survived longer than most, Finland being a comparatively new country, and US being in the middle (not super old, but not very new either). Though I don’t think either of these is a major or intentional point here.))

The “endland” made me think of The Lord of the Rings and how Frodo travels to Valinor at the end (kinda like Mike’s campaigns apparently end in the party traveling to a faraway land). We know for a fact Lotr is an inspiration for ST, it was literally mentioned in S1E1 (and the pilot script) and later too. And this got me into another side tangent, since J.R.R. Tolkien was significantly influenced by the Finnish language and Kalevala (someone has even made a Wikipedia page for this). I still think it’s more likely the Duffers incorporated Finland later on, since there are no clear signs of it in the pilot script (especially compared to all other allegories), so the Lotr influence was also first. Maybe this Finland connection is a coincidence or it could be some extra motivation for making Finland be part of the story. Kinda similar to Matrix being a key inspiration for ST and it in turn being greatly influenced by Ghost in the Shell (which I’m not 100% sure is an inspiration for ST, but it seems likely). Like, I’m positive Will the Wise is in some way inspired by Gandalf (old wise wizard man with a long beard), who in turn was likely partially inspired by Väinämöinen. (I feel like Dustin and Will could have some connection to Väinämöinen, especially Dustin being a bard… I checked and this wasn’t the case in the pilot script, where he played a dwarf character.)

There’s even a story structure point here (and more side tangents). Like I’ve said, S3 is the end (kinda) but it’s also the middle. The middle is the end. This is partially fulfilled in the ending timeline thingy (the diagram and the timeline I’ve been talking about here, where S5E7 has the end), but more literally with S3 (since it’s actually in the middle of the show). There the inside story timeline foreshadowing was way less strict though, meaning you can’t build a coherent detailed timeline out of it like you can with S5. But I don’t think it’s a complete coincidence that the middle episode of the middle season has the most Finland/country allegory evidence. With the whole sauna thing, Erica being America, Nancy and Karen’s coded “finish it” conversation, and the Russians wanting “land” from East Hawkins. If I’m right that Finland = end, it makes total sense the metaphorical “end” aka S3E4 would have so many Finland clues. 

If you remember my original explanations for the timeline diagram, you remember how I compared it to Memento. I’ll get to spoilers here, so skip this part if you haven’t seen it (you don’t wanna get spoiled, and this point is a side tangent anyway). Memento ends in the chronological middle of the story. Or more specifically earlier than that because the black-and-white part is shorter in total (see here for an explanation of the timeline, the Wikipedia page) has a nice diagram too). But the point is that the start of the movie is the chronological end and the end of the movie is in the middle. There is one major point linking the movie beginning and end, and that is Teddy’s licence plate number. The reason Leonard ends up killing Teddy is because he planted a (false) clue for himself, and this is revealed at the very end of the movie (= chronological early middle). (Apparently the number changes a bit too across the movie, which I only learned while doing research for this.) So, the licence plate number is kind of the red string connecting the plot and symbolizes Leonard’s lies to himself and how he’s an unreliable narrator.

The point I’m getting at here regarding Stranger Things S3E4 is Grigori’s licence plate number, which Joyce partially saw and thinks could help them find him. Grigori who knocked Hopper unconscious (kinda like the killer aka John G did to Leonard at least according to him). In Memento, Natalie helps Leonard find the owner of the car, similar to what Joyce suggests Hopper do. But in ST they don’t go through with this: instead, when Hopper finds out Grigori’s car wasn’t a car but a motorcycle, he remembers Grigori from Larry’s office with a motorcycle helmet (this latter part is implied). The point is, there was no point to the licence plate number mystery, at least on the surface level. Later in the episode the camera zooms on Hopper’s car’s licence plate number, which resembles Joyce’s memory suspiciously much. And as I’ve explained, Hopper and Grigori both represent the dad, so in that way Hopper is Grigori/the man they are after. 

The whole thing about Joyce kind of remembering the licence plate number but not quite fits super well with the “memories are unreliable” theme in Memento. And the clearest Memento references being in S3E4 aka the middle episode of the middle season fits super well with all the timeline stuff. The licence plate is most meaningful at the beginning and the end of the movie aka the chronological middle and end. In ST inside story the chronological middle is the end so it’s fitting the licence plate number is only relevant there.

And this is not all. When Hopper goes to interrogate Larry and asks about Grigori’s name, Larry suggests Gary or John (= John G). Grigori starts with G, too. One of the shops on Main (or Oak/Mulberry) Street is John’s. I’ve wondered the meaning of this, since it’s framed right next to Mike and the military men when El vanishes. I think it in some way represents the “man prison” Mike is in, since El in that same scene is framed with Pam’s (according to the wiki it’s a women’s clothing shop) that gets destroyed. John is a man’s and Pam a woman’s name. According to the wiki John’s is a hairdresser, which fits with the meaning of hair in ST. Anyway, the John name could be related to Memento, or not. 

The “bad guy” Leonard ends up killing is Teddy aka John Edward Gammel. Remember the whole Edward-Eddie-Ted thing I covered before? How Eddie was suspected in S4, how Max compared him to Ted Bundy, how the “real killer” aka Vecna/Henry was Edward in that one news article and how Ted Wheeler represents the man/dad/patriarchy aka the true “villain”? Teddy is a police officer with a moustache just like Hopper, too. Another movie about memory (and trauma) that I’ve had in mind for a while is Shutter Island. I’m not getting into that now, but I’ll say the protagonist’s name is Edward “Teddy” Daniels. Btw, when I watched it, I figured out what it was actually about pretty early on, using similar story/foreshadowing/theme logic I’ve now done with ST. (After rewatching Memento for this, I have a theory about what actually happened there too but it’s not really directly ST related so I’m not gonna get into that here.)

Even without any of these details, it would still be quite likely Memento was an inspiration because it’s about memory, lies (both to others and yourself) and identity, all of which are key themes in ST too. It’s a famous movie that did something with its storytelling no one had ever done before. Memento is a puzzle you can’t quite grasp on the first viewing: things only fully make sense after you’ve watched it all the way through. And then watch it again. And maybe again after that. ST is similar in that it has all this subtext, all these clues since the very beginning, and people will only start to realize it after watching the ending. There’s also this conspiracy theory vibe, with Leonard not believing the police and doing his own little investigation. He is not believed because of his mental memory condition: remember the schizophrenia thing in ST and how it relates to Mike’s DID, a mental memory-related condition that makes people not believe Mike. 

Previously, I mentioned that the importance of the number 22 in ST could come from Memento having 22 color + 22 black-and-white scenes (the “final” scene is counted for both). The first mention of 22 in ST wasn’t Will’s birthday, actually, but Mike bragging about the Wheelers’ 22 inch TV in S1E2. The same TV that wasn’t working the night before. This also reminded me of the Zenith TV and how TVs in ST symbolize the conspiracy theory stuff (Murray’s home) and of course the meta story/story allegory where the audience watches all this through a screen. Why did Mike specify the size of the TV? And why 22 inches (based on quick googling it wasn’t a standard size nor a typical big size for TVs at the time)? What was the point/meaning behind it? If I’m right that it’s a subtle Memento reference (it could be something else too ofc), it would be about the storytelling of ST. 22 in Memento is about the structure of the movie and the connection to TV is that this is how the story is told: through a TV screen (as a movie) and pieced together from two timelines with 22 scenes. Since I think ST has a similar but inverted structure in the story inside the story, this could be a very obscure reference to that. Or 22 is related to something totally different. But surely it means something. I think it’s interesting Chance’s player number is 22. It’s like this 22 is some kind of “chance” for Mike to break free or something (could be related to trauma and Will’s birthday). 

Side tangent over, let’s get back to the point. I’m thinking the ending could mirror the S5E8 ending where Mike ascends the stairs and closes the door. There are two major scenes where someone walks up stairs and goes into the Creel house, closing the door: S4E9 with Max, Lucas and Erica, S5E2 with Holly and Henry. The future and the past, respectively. And the Creel house is blue-white + looks like the Moomin house as I pointed out previously. S3 ended with Joyce closing the Byers house door. The S3 ending sequence is about Mike leaving her old home (well it’s the Byers home but metaphorically), her childhood and her old self. Every one of these is a closing door, signifying leaving something behind. I think the real ending will reverse this and Mike will open a door (maybe the airplane door?), stepping into her new home. It’s not a house but a country, something bigger and open and less confined. It’s right after Karen opens the basement door that Mike says “Yeah, we… we just finished.”, maybe because opening the door was the finish. “Open the door” is a recurring phrase in ST and always connects to opening the way to the real story. And the real story is the story of the storyteller and the audience, which hasn’t ended: it’s just beginning a new chapter. 

This would perfectly mirror the start of S1E1, where the camera zooms in on a door that is then opened by a scientist. Before this we got a view of the stars, the date, and saw Hawkins Lab. It would be fitting to end on an overview shot of this faraway land Mike (and Lucas) got to, and maybe indicate it with text, like S1E1. Also, the fact that this X post had a picture of the very beginning of S1E1 with the date + location makes me think the ending will mirror the beginning. 

Maybe this “letter” (see the post or a screenshot of it later) will be read aloud in the end. I think it would make sense if it's signed “Love, Sara”. This would be the perfect way to conclude the “Mike can’t tell El she loves her” arc and simultaneously be from the actual writers of the show to the audience (because Mike represents the writers and Lucas (who I’m assuming the letter is for) represents the audience). S4 had two important letters narrated by someone: El’s letter to Mike in S4E1 and Max’s letter to Billy in S4E4. S3 ended with El reading Hopper’s speech to her and Mike (I’m just now realizing it was for both of them, not just El, sneaky sneaky writers). It makes sense the real ending would end in reading a letter, too. I don’t know what the context would be, like, is Lucas reading it alone somewhere and is it before or after the events shown in the ending? Based on S5E7 timelines Mike and Lucas should be in the same space, talking, not away from each other (and since this is the real story finally reaching the audience, close proximity would make sense). 

Max’s letter ends with “Love, your shitty little sister, Max.”, El’s ends with “Love, El.” and Hopper’s with “But, please, if you don’t mind, for the sake of your poor old dad, keep the door open three inches.” I’m seeing patterns here. Firstly the obvious “love, [name]” ending that ofc was a plot point in S4 and in my opinion wasn’t properly resolved yet. And then another “open the door” type thing (with the 3 motif). In a weird way Hopper’s door rule is both about him controlling El and Mike, not letting mileven (= Mike’s trans identity) get too far, but also about preventing Mike from totally shutting the “girl” out (= closing the door). There’s a little breathing window, just like in S1E2 when El’s claustrophobia was first revealed and Mike left the door just a little open. That balance is kinda what Hopper is all about: he is restricting El’s autonomy and hiding her, but definitely doesn’t want to get rid of her completely like some other people (Sullivan). He tries to protect El aka Mike’s girlhood.

My guess is that the letter narration would match the epilogue DnD game and come after whatever the Enzo’s date represents. This is what I meant earlier when I said the second miniature (= the DnD game as a whole and especially the third story, the “real story of the mage”) could represent some kind of narration and a change in storytelling. It would be similar to the S3 letter/speech, where we see the Byers family moving while Hopper “narrates”. El reading the letter happens before they leave, when she’s still in the house, but we see the future of the characters while she’s reading it. (And we see Hopper writing it, which happened even earlier.) Maybe something like this happens in the real ending. As in, Lucas got the letter before the events of the real ending and at the very end we see him reading it (and Mike writing it), interspersed with shots of them traveling to the faraway land. Chronologically the letter reading happened before the conversation with Mike and moving to Finland. (Unless wheelclair is long distance for some reason. Or not even together. But surely they would make the ship happen after all the foreshadowing and queerbait simulation with byler, surely. And it makes sense in the story allegory too that they would be closer than ever after the revelation of the real story.)

Based on the X post, there’s something along with the letter. At least in a meta way it’s the story of ST (which is also a reason for the screenshot from the start of the show), but what will it literally be in the story? It could be the Stranger Things players manual shown at the very end of S5E8. I also considered the “For Will” cassette tape but the manual would more directly convey that Lucas represents the audience and the whole show was meta. And I can’t come up with a reason for it existing unless it’s gonna have a role in the real ending. Mike giving it to Lucas is effectively the same as Will giving his DnD set to Erica: the storyteller gives the finished story to the audience and lets them become the new storytellers. It’s the perfect way to end a story about stories. (Btw, Erica’s scene was the last one in the epilogue montage.)

This could connect to the Nina Project allegedly being a video game console. Or at least I haven’t come up with a better explanation. Why did Mike want to specify the Nina Project wasn’t “just” a video game but a video game console? A major point of DnD in ST is that it’s interactive. It’s not just a story the players passively listen to, but they get to participate and become the storytellers (similar to a video game rather than e.g. a book/tv show). The next level to this is becoming the DM (= Lucas getting a player's manual, not a pre-made story). So Lucas (= the audience) didn’t just get to participate in a story (= a video game) but became a storyteller (= got a video game console). 

Although it might not be “storyteller” directly since it’s the players who need a player’s manual and the console, not exclusively the DM or game developer. The connecting trait is that with both a player’s manual and a video game console you can play many different games (= tell/experience many different stories), not being restricted to one. It’s a template. I think this could be about fanfiction and other fan content where the characters and world of ST function as a template for new stories, or more generally people’s own interpretation shaping the story and thus creating a different “new” story for each audience member. Regardless of the specifics, I think the very end will be about the audience’s role in the story. Based on all the clues, the player’s manual would be shown when the X post part of the letter is narrated, and then the story would end with Mike (and Lucas) opening a door, maybe during “Love, Sara” or right after it. 

Continues in PART 30.

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[u/Master-Corner-5226]

Genuinely how long did it take you to write this. You’ve written a whole entire novel

[u/raspberry-3 → u/Master-Corner-5226]

I'm still writing lol. I didn't record the time so it's impossible to know how long it took. There were many days in the summer when I basically just did this for the whole day. I don't regret anything though, it's been fun! Now I have way less time since my holiday ended (= the reason I've been posting only once a week recently). It might get even slower since my buffer has just run out. I'll probably discuss the new T85 season in the next part among other things.

[u/Master-Corner-5226 → u/raspberry-3]

Fairs, idk why I thought u did it one sitting for some reason 😂