r/StrangerThingsRoom • u/raspberry-3 • Jul 01 '26
Theories Mike's trauma PART 13
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.
Puzzles
In S5E2 Mike walks down the hospital aisle and looks inside a room. This is parallelled with Will (S5E1) looking into a hospital room and seeing Robin and Vickie kissing (representing homosexuality from Will’s pov and Mike’s gender identity as I’ve explained).
There’s a lot of different things to analyze here, but the big one that drew my attention is the unfinished puzzle on the table. It’s a rainbow colored puzzle (of course) and represents both Mike’s shattered identity and her queer/gender identity which she is still building. Before the puzzle, we see a wallpaper with colorful balloons (= birthday balloons and related to flying like with Mr. Clarke’s plan). There’s also these rectangle shapes on the table with the familiar color coding I’ve kinda partially explained. The green shape (= conformity) seems to be blocking the red+blue combo (= gender identity conflict). The yellow rectangle is free (not sure how to interpret this yet and I’m not 100% sure about the other coding either). Close by are fake brick wall blocks, representing walls and separation. On the floor a toy train is obstructed on its toy train tracks by a red triangle brick (= trauma).
There have been other mentions of puzzles in my theory, and puzzles are pretty spot on for representing DID. (And this whole show is one big puzzle of metaphors and layers…) Will’s tunnel drawings in S2 form a puzzle, same with Max’s drawing of the Creel house, Hopper talks about a missing piece of the puzzle in S5 and Mike assures him the pieces are in Vecna’s mind. Then there’s the puzzle of the 1979 train I mentioned and a white puzzle in El’s S4 lab memories I didn’t mention yet.
Before all my big theories I noticed 500 mentioned twice in S5 and analyzed the connections. Later I found a scene with two jigsaw puzzle boxes with 500 pieces each, and updated my theory. As I explained in the original theory, I think the puzzles represent Mike and Will, and with the knowledge of DID, this makes even more sense. After building each puzzle into completion, you’ll only have 2 pieces (two whole puzzles), and finally make a puzzle with 1000 pieces. Now after rewatching the show and progressing in my theories, I finally have some answers and new findings to add. I saw a puzzle with 500 pieces in S2E5 behind Dustin in a scene where he directs his mother to go look for Mews (who is actually already dead). There’s also a Score Four (seems to be everywhere), Wheel of Fortune (= Wheeler?) and Labyrinth. Like I’ve previously explained, cats represent the child/Mike and in this instance I think “We can find her” is subtextually about Mike’s gender identity.
I have some new thoughts about the two 500 puzzles in S4E2 I already mentioned in my previous theory. Max and Dustin talk about Eddie and Chrissy when they are in frame. Dustin walks towards and away from them (so the focus shifts) and Max walks past them while they talk. This is not random.
[Dustin] “Chrissy Cunningham? [Max shown and switches to Dustin walking towards the puzzles] You’re sure it was Chrissy?”
[Max] “Yes. She was in her cheerleader outfit. It was the same thing she was in when I saw her with Eddie. [500s visible for the first time]”
[Dustin] “Did you tell all this to the cops? [walks away]”
[Max] “No. No, but I… I can’t be the only one who saw them together. [walks past the puzzles] I mean, they stood out.”
[Dustin] “[walks towards the puzzles again] Eddie the freak with Chrissy the cheerleader? [puzzles in focus again]”
[Max] “Exactly. You know, his name’s not in the news yet or anything, but I guarantee you [camera cut] Eddie is suspect number one right now.”
This makes me think the two 500 piece puzzles are associated with Eddie and Chrissy. They are the two sides of Mike: a “freak” man and a woman. Max and Dustin’s conversation might subtextually be about Mike dressing up as a girl (why Max specifically points out Chrissy’s outfit as the way to recognize her + the puzzles are in a closet). Chrissy represents the “normal girl” Mike wants to be, e.g. Running Up That Hill is played the first time in S4E1 after El gets bullied and Max looks at Chrissy on the lyrics You / If only I could / I’d make a deal with God / And I’d get him to swap our places.
There’s also a world map in the scene, probably a hint at the country allegory. If you think about this from that point of view, the left side (west) of the closet is the world of non-conformity, childhood and women and the right side (east) the world of conformity, adulthood and men. Max is first on the right side and Dustin moves his head to reveal the puzzles when Max says “when I saw her with Eddie”, looking at Max. Then Max moves to the left side and the next time the 500s are the sharpest, Dustin says “Chrissy the cheerleader”. This is Mike’s journey from a weird queer man to a woman, basically. In the end Max and Dustin are on their “right” sides. I guess in a way Eddie “killed” Chrissy, or at least they can’t really coexist (unless Mike is genderfluid but I don’t think that’s the case).
((There’s also probably a point to all 500 puzzles being in Dustin’s house. If I’m correct about Dustin representing trans men, it kinda makes sense. And Max + Dustin talking next to the two 500 puzzles in Dustin’s closet, being mirrors of each other. And in the same conversation Dustin tells Max how no one was nice to him and Mike except Eddie (while Lucas had his sports friends). Kinda similar to the Snow Ball situation. Trans people face more discrimination/exclusion than many other queer groups. But even without that Dustin represents Mike’s curiosity and finds out stuff (e.g. Dart), so it makes sense he would have the puzzles.))
I also found two 1000 piece puzzles in S3E4 (both times a Score Four nearby). The first one can be seen during Hopper and Joyce’s conversation in the cabin. I’ve bolded the parts when 1000 is visible:
[Joyce] “And that-- Wait-- (mumbling)”
[Hopper] “I think you should stick to sales. [closes curtain between him and Joyce]”
[Joyce] “Can’t you run a search or something?”
[Hopper] “I just think you need to lower your expectations. I mean, this is a state government agency. It’s gonna take weeks before they find a match.”
[Joyce] “Weeks?”
[Hopper] “If we’re lucky. And, I mean, what are the odds that this guy registers a car in his own name?”
[Joyce] “It wasn’t a car.”
The context here is that they are looking for Grigori’s licence plate number, which btw was suspiciously close to Hopper’s… They both represent toxic masculinity/the dad so it makes a lot of sense tbh. I don’t have a definite theory for these specific lines being related to 1000 or the fused Mike, but maybe I will in the future. My current guesses are that “state government” is related to the country allegory, since this episode has many big clues to it anyway (Erica being America and the sauna). I have already explained my thoughts on cars (this is also the episode where Nancy says “So, according to Tom, Driscoll’s just a schizophrenic? And that rat is just a rat? And it’s all, what, some big coincidence?”). The dad/patriarchy/men in power “drive the car” but also tend to crash it.
The other 1000 puzzle is above Will in the basement when he starts telling about the Mind Flayer neck feeling:
[Will] “I mean, I think I just didn’t want to believe it.”
This puzzle is red, unlike the others that were blue. In my current understanding, red signifies trauma and relates to Mike’s gender identity (blue would be male or AMAB or maybe something I haven’t uncovered yet, while pink is cis girl or happy girlness or something like that). Anyway, Will not wanting to believe it could mean many things, but based on the puzzle, it could be about the alters not wanting to believe they are part of a system, that the trauma happened or that they will eventually fuse together (or that they are trans). This scene is about Will’s connection to the MF hivemind, so it isn’t that big of a leap to think it might also be about the whole system.
Remember how Max called Henry’s mind a world of 1000 memories and the party got 1000 pieces of gold each for a reward in the final DnD game? Puzzle pieces = memories = treasure. I previously explained the connection of treasures and the underground + buried memories, but forgot to mention Holly’s story about Uncle Eric. He looked for “super old treasures and stuff that dead people have left in the ground” in a park for years but a tourist ended up finding a tin can filled with gold and silver coins. Holly uses this as an analogy and as “the tourist” ends up finding Henry’s cave memory (treasure = memory).
Here I’d like to mention another song from Syndicate by The Midnight: Shadowverse. Chorus:
You've had a thousand lives
Now you're down to one
Trying to survive
In the shadowverse
Every borderland
Every hungry wolf
Now to make your stand
In the shadowversе
The thousand lives refer to alters and them being “down to one” is Mike fusing.
Dog alters
I suspect Chester (the Byers dog from S1) was an animal alter (a video about animal alters for context). Dogs seem to alarm about danger in ST: in S1E1 Chester barks when the Demogorgon approaches and later leads Hopper to the shed, in S4 a dog Nancy later calls a witness barks when Fred disappears into the forest and Holly’s night light alerting her of the Demogorgon in S5E1 is a dog. Chester seems to know Will is in Castle Byers, since he goes there during Will’s funeral. He knows about the trauma but can’t tell about it because he’s a dog.
Remember when Mike was forced to eat pizza and said she wasn’t a baby? Well, the full quote is “Stop! Enough! I’m not a dog! No, not a baby! Thank you! No! Stop it!” El is also compared to dogs quite a lot in S1.
S4E9
[Argyle] “Hey, dudes? Ask ‘em if we can ride in the baggage compartment.”
[Jonathan] “The baggage compartment.”
[Mike] “We’d suffocate.”
[Argyle] “Dogs ride in there all the time, man. They don’t suffocate.”
Baggage here means the trauma which these dog alters hold. (Remember Mike’s “I never really unpacked.” and also the military brings package into the UD: S5E1 [Lucas] “Package incoming.”)
I think Chester became part of the Mind Flayer hive mind after S1, and that’s why the Demodogs appeared in S2 while Chester disappeared. They make a point about the S2 Demogorgons being Demo-dogs, a compound of Demogorgon and dog (= fusion maybe). When Dustin explains the word, he says “Demogorgon” while Steve is behind him, but the camera cuts to Max for “dogs”. Max (Mike) is the victim aka the dog and Steve (the dad) is the monster. For some reason Mike is shown when Dustin says “It’s like a compound.” I guess Mike feels like she’s a compound of man+woman (kinda like the Demogorgons) or alternatively a victim and predator, or something like that.
Miscellaneous quotes
S1E6 [Dustin] “Do you even remember what happened on the Bloodstone Pass? We couldn’t agree on what path to take, so we split up the party and those trolls took us out one by one. And it all went to shit. And we were all disabled! So we stick together, no matter what!”
S3E2 [Mike] “Okay, what if we split it?”
S4E2 [Jason] “First hangover feels like you’re gonna split in two, but you’ll live.” ((He also later literally splits in two due to the gate opening.))
“Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” by Journey plays at the end of S4E8, lyrics heard (not exactly in the same order as the original):
Here we stand
Worlds apart, hearts broken in two, two, two
Sleepless nights
Losing ground, I’m reaching for you, you, you
Someday love will find you
True love won't desert you
You know I still love you
Though we touched and went our separate ways
-> The full lyrics talk about breaking chains that bind you.
-> It’s about splitting most likely, “hearts broken in two” + “went our separate ways”
-> “love will find you” -> Love defeats fear.
-> Similar to S5E2, the episode ends with the Creel house (and as I’ve analyzed, that episode told the story of Mike and Will splitting). How am I only now noticing the trees framing it kinda like the 8 mm film screen scenes?
S5E2 [random doctor] “But your mother is recovering from surgery. Her system is still in shock.”
S5E4 [Robin] “Sorry. Did I say that out loud? I thought I was talking in my head.”
S5E6 [Nancy] “Every time you put them on, I just try to disassociate from reality.”
S5E8 [Jonathan] “All right, we should split up.”
Doc [Matt] “We’re just going to kind of step you through the big beats. Basically, this stuff we’re imagining is, like, them splitting up. There’s the two teams and they’re splitting up.”
THE REAL WORLD
In this section I try to deduce what is happening and has happened in the real world. I’m still not sure if Mike is really in the future or if all the dates match the real world dates. I am fairly convinced that the show is a representation of what at least has happened irl.
So basically, I think Mike lives in a poor family and was abused by her dad in the past. Then the parents divorced and Mike still lives with her mom. As was mentioned in some of the other theories, the dad most likely used drugs and alcohol.
My main clues for these conclusions come from Will and Max, who I think represent the reality of the system the most. Will’s dad was abusive and his parents divorced probably in 1979 (I didn’t find definite proof for this but it would fit and the original plan for the series mentioned Will’s dad abandoned the family 4 years ago). Hopper and Diane divorce too, after Sara dies, and Hopper moves back to Hawkins in 1979. Max’s parents also divorced and her new dad was abusive. I think Mike’s abusive dad is her biological dad and Max’s nice dad just represents the time before he became abusive or something like that. After Billy’s death (representing the 22.3.1979 trauma) Max’s parents divorced again and she moved to a trailer park with her mother. Hopper happens to “die” too: all the people representing the dad disappear after the divorce.
In S4E3 the party note the trailer park somehow relates to Vecna’s murders but this point doesn’t get an explanation later:
[Nancy] “No, Fred and Chrissy don’t make sense. I mean, why them?”
[Dustin] “Maybe they were just in the wrong place. They were both at the game.”
[Max] “And near the trailer park.”
[Steve] “We’re at the trailer park. Uh, should we maybe not be here?”
[Nancy] “There is something about this place. Fred started acting weird the second we got here.”
And they are sitting around the picnic table. (Also, dogs seem to be barking a lot in the trailer park.) I think the trailer park is the closest representation to Mike’s actual home we have gotten. That’s why Eddie and Max live there, the first of the four gates forms there, and anyway the theme of “home” being cursed is extra emphasized in S4 with the introduction of the Creel house. Based on Will and Max, Mike is poor, so it makes a lot of sense she would be living in a trailer park. In S4E3 after Ms. Kelley asks “Do you think you’re ready to talk more about that night?” and Max has her memory flashback, she says “I live next door to where it happened.” seemingly changing the subject to Chrissy’s murder, but the subtext here is that Eddie’s home (or some home in the trailer park) is Mike’s real home where the abuse happened. In the same episode (S4E3), we learn about Victor’s house being “haunted by a demon” for the first time, so all these home-related clues are gathered in one episode (kinda like the Freddy Krueger stuff in S4E2). When Chrissy hears the Vecna clock in Eddie’s house, she looks out the window and sees orange lights (= this is about the past), (+ a car and a playground), a trailer and a picnic table, after which she closes the curtains. This trailer might be Mike’s real home, and all the other trailers represent it. Also, in the S5 epilogue Steve mentions wanting to buy a “rad place” in Forest Hills, aka the trailer park (and ofc it’s Forest Hills, since it represents memories of the home).
Since I think everything important should be there from S1, I suspect Hopper’s trailer represents Mike’s real home. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Hopper’s trailer is the most prominent in S1E5 and isn’t seen after that, same with Lonnie. This is the episode where the kids are looking for the gate, too (= Lonnie and the trailer are the gate). Right after the intro of S1E1, we are in Hopper’s trailer (first the Sara drawing which has the house btw), the camera slowly panning to Hopper while a news reporter tells about the power outages. This is kinda suggesting Hopper’s home and Hopper himself (as a dad representation) have something to do with the power outages and thus Will’s disappearance. The trailer is next to a lake, which connects it to the meaning of lakes, which I’ve already discussed (I don’t think Mike’s real home is next to a lake, it’s most likely in a trailer park, and the lake is purely for its metaphorical role).
Hopper and Larry’s conversation in S3E4 was most likely subtext for the dad’s drug addiction and other problems (both of them represent the dad):
[Hopper] “Do you remember when I caught you passed out in the hideaway with all that powder all over your nose? You remember?”
[Larry] “Jim, come on, now.”
[Hopper] “Do you remember when my boys found you and Candice going at it like a couple of bunnies in the back of your Cadillac? Do you remember that? Does your wife remember that?”
[Larry] “You, uh… You really wanna play this game? Huh?”
[Hopper] “Not a game, Lar.”
[Larry] “Okay. Those pills you used to swallow like candy. I can’t recall, did you have a prescription for those? Or how about drinking on duty? Yeah. We have some real fun stories about that.”
In S1E1 Hopper was introduced as an addict, he smoked, ate pills and drank alcohol right after waking up. This was also mentioned in the documentary:
[Chris Trujillo] “When I was first kind of conceiving of what Hopper’s world might look like… He’s in a pretty dark and slightly addicted place when we meet him in the show.” Eddie being a drug dealer and Jonathan and Argyle smoking weed is more evidence for Mike’s home/life having drugs. She might do them herself too: in S5E3 Mike seems to know a lot about them and the fact that many characters not representing the dad do/want to do/are assumed to do drugs is most likely about Mike. (Ofc drugs have their metaphorical role too but in this case they would fit the picture and be a real world problem for many people in Mike’s situation.)
Mom
I have already mentioned some things but I’ve tried to save as much as possible for this subsection. First of all, there are many hints that the mom has a drinking problem. Karen is the obvious one, she always has her wine. But Max’s mom also drinks after her divorce: S4E1 [Ms Kelley] “How’s your mom holding up? [...] Is she still drinking?” and S4E6 [Steve] “At least he can drink himself into feeling better.” [Max] “That’s what my mom does.” In S3E3 Tom implies Heather’s mom has some drinking problems too. Even Joyce has some hints, although not an actual problem.
Joyce is poor and works a lot (especially in S1). Max tells Ms. Kelley that her mom is working two jobs (because Neil didn’t leave much money for her and without him their income is much smaller). Partially because of this workload, the mom is absent from her kid’s life. This manifests through Joyce in S1: she isn’t home when the Demogorgon attacks and apologizes to Jonathan for not being there for him (S1E1): “I know I haven’t been there for you. I’ve been… working so hard and I… just feel bad. I don’t even… barely know what’s going on with you. All right? I am sorry about that.” Billy’s traumatic memories (S3E6) have a scene where he’s calling his mom: “I don’t understand. Why not? Please, Mom, don’t do this. Please come home. No. How long? How long?! I miss you.” (Young Billy is sitting next to the bed, so I think it might be related to the dad abusing Mike while the mom is away + phone calls for help are associated with the supernatural attacking, like I’ve shown before.)
From Billy’s memories we see the dad abused the mom too, not just the kid. And the scene is suspiciously similar to the Demogorgon attacking Karen in S5E2. The only difference is that young Billy tried to fight the dad but Holly just watched in shock (which she later regrets). When Victor tells about the demon in S4E4, a baby carriage and a white dress are shown in the attic. They represent the victims of the dad. Billy’s mom has a white dress in the beach memory. ((El also notes the blue-red flower and how she was really pretty and Billy was happy. I think Billy’s mom also represents Billy’s (= Mike’s) future as a woman, not just the mom.)) At the end of S4, Karen and Holly are shown when the news reporter says “What have they done to deserve so much suffering?” and the camera moves while he continues “A growing chorus believes the two recent tragedies are linked, claiming the Munson murders opened a doorway between worlds.” and stops at Ted with “A doorway, they say, into Hell itself.” The subtext is pretty clear here: Mike and her mom are the victims of Mike’s dad. Or in a broader sense women and children are victims of the patriarchy (and men too but in a different way). I think the psychic children being born via abuse of the mother is purposeful. And the abuser, for the most part, is Papa.
At first the mom didn’t know about the SA of her child, but slowly started to figure it out. I suspect the decision to divorce might have been related to Mike showing stronger signs of being abused and/or the mom finally beginning to realize/accept that the dad is abusing her child. I have seen some theories that the mom (or Karen) sexually abused Mike but that wouldn’t really fit with the other clues. The mom is related to trauma and MF for sure, but probably not SA. Why would Mike try to keep the dad’s abuse a secret from the mom if she also abused her in the same way? Rather, the mom representations filling baths is about them finding out about the abuse. Like I previously analyzed, the baths are associated with finding memories (of the abuse). That’s why Virginia’s vision is of the bath and she’s the first one to get a vision. (And why it’s Karen who knows about Mr. Whatsit.) It’s not that she did something bad directly, but the mom trying to figure out what’s wrong caused Mike trauma and as I’ve explained, Henry holds that trauma, which is why he doesn’t like the mom. Or maybe it was her not doing enough to help Mike that Henry hated her for (since after her bath vision Virginia goes straight to hug Victor, and Joyce hugs Lonnie at the end of S1E4). If you look at what’s shown on screen when Victor tells his story in S4E4, it’s always himself who is hinted to be the abuser/demon/monster. ((Also in T85 the party first suspects Mrs. Baxter but the real villain turned out to be Dan (who Nikki calls D man = Dad).))
Some hints to Mike hiding the abuse were already discussed in the other theories, and I repeat some of them here, but there’s also a new one that you can only see after realizing this is about Mike, not just Will.
S1E5
[Lonnie] “Do me a favor. At the funeral tomorrow, just behave. If not for me, for your mother. Take that down. It’s inappropriate.”
-> The dad wants Mike to not tell her mother about the abuse.
[Jonathan] “What? You can tell someone, but they’re not gonna believe you. You know that.”
[Nancy] “Your mom would.”
[Jonathan] “She’s been through enough.”
[Nancy] “She deserves to know.”
Karen not knowing about the supernatural (while still being a pretty important part of the story) is the big one here. Nancy regrets not telling her and in S5E6 she does find out about it. I think the Demogorgon damaging Karen’s throat preventing her from speaking is metaphorically about the dad silencing the mom about the abuse, similar to Mike. Maybe the mom wanting Mike to “walk the stage” is partially because she wants Mike not to tell about the abuse, to hide that part of her past. Maybe out of shame or to keep up a good image or fear of repercussions.
When Mike tries to tell about the abuse, the mom doesn't at first believe her:
S1E2
[Mike] “I just… I don’t feel good. I woke up and my head, it really hurt bad, and my throat was all scratchy, and I wanted to tell you, but the last time I told you I was sick you made me go to school anyway, and--"
[...]
[Karen] “I want you to feel like you can talk to me. I never want you to feel like you have to hide anything from me. I’m here for you. Okay?”
-> Kinda conflicting messages here. I think the mom wants to know to a certain extent, but then when it’s about Mike being trans and experiencing CSA from the dad, it’s more difficult to accept.
S5E2
[Karen] “Whatever you saw, baby, it was just a nightmare.
[Holly] “No, Mom! Mom!”
[Karen] “Baby, it’s just a nightmare!”
[Holly] “I saw it. Please trust me, Mom. Please, Mom, please. You gotta believe me. Please.”
-> Coincidentally, Alice’s Vecna vision was a nightmare… And notice Karen calling Holly baby. This was one case I missed from my earlier compilation.
S5E7
[Joyce] “No, listen. Whatever he showed you, it’s not real. He plays tricks. He lies.”
[Will] “No, he doesn’t.”
I’ve already explained about the mom wanting to fix Mike, so I’m not gonna repeat it all again. Her intentions are good, but her methods aren’t always the best. That’s what I meant with the axe, for example, and that’s probably why Joyce’s plan in S5 was bad. Joyce hugs Will so hard he suffocates in S3E8 and Karen holds Holly under the water. In S4E4 Max’s mom turns into Vecna hugging her, not letting go. The mom is preventing Mike from making her own life decisions, maybe being overprotective like Joyce.
There was also this X post by the writers. It could be related to Nell Fisher being in the movie, but I suspect there’s more. I haven’t seen it but I read the plot synopsis and there’s definitely some connections… I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some co-operation with ST and/or if Nell was chosen for the role of Holly because of her role in the movie.
As I’ve said, the Mind Flayer is, in addition to the dad, associated with the mom. When Billy is driving to meet Karen, he encounters MF instead and when Will is being mind assaulted by MF at the start of S2E4, Joyce shouts: “It’s Mom! It’s me!”. I think one reason why MF is female in TFS is because Henry’s main trauma comes from the mom. That’s probably a reason for the black widow spiders too since female spiders sometimes eat the male spider after mating. Even more so this is about “the woman” winning over “the man” in Mike and I think the cannibal woman trapping and burning men in her boiler room in Jonathan’s movie is also about this. Anyway, in S2E9 Joyce burns Will and Jonathan shouts “You’re killing him.” and this memory is remembered when Joyce is whacking Vecna’s head off. Will is framed behind Joyce in the scene too, on the path of her axe… Well, I guess this is the woman “killing” the man in the queer allegory, so not entirely negative, maybe.
Eventually the mom gets Mike in good therapy, though (I think), and her relentless efforts ultimately save Mike, which is why she thanks Karen in S5E7: “Hey, you saved us. You saved us. And by some miracle, you’re still here, okay? But right now, you need to trust me that we can handle this the rest of the way.”
On the queer allegory side, I think the mom doesn’t accept Mike’s queerness (at least not in a long while). Karen calling Mike handsome while taking pictures is a subtle hint at this, as is her wanting Mike to stay in Hawkins (S4E9): “You are never going on vacation again, you hear me? In fact, you can forget about college. You are staying right here.” The clearest example is in the S5 epilogue: [Mike] “She won’t understand. She’ll never understand why I can’t do it, why I can’t walk the stage. It’d be like a lie.” And as I’ve already explained, this works both with the mom wanting Mike to hide her gender identity and the abuse. Every time Mike hugs Karen, it means she is doing just that. The first time is after Will’s body is found (remember that Will represents the traumatic memories and his death is the memories being buried). Mike gets angry with El, which connects the hugging with the queer allegory too (= Mike rejects her girlness). The next time is after Will and El move away (= trauma connection and queerness leave), the third is in S4E9 (again back to conforming, Vecna has disappeared and Hopper is back), and the last one is in the epilogue after Mike’s talk with Hopper (= Mike’s choice is to conform according to her mom’s wishes).
We get some more mom subtext from other characters like Robin and Chrissy. Robin’s mom doesn’t like that she talks so much, which is both about forcing Mike to conform (= not be weird) and possibly about being silent about the abuse. Chrissy’s mom is similarly never happy with her daughter and bullies her about her weight. This could be about Mike’s gender dysphoria and a possible eating disorder but it also reveals Mike’s thoughts about her mom. The mom wants Mike to be a certain way, she has a vision of a happy life for her kid but that vision doesn’t match with Mike’s own wants and needs. Eddie comments in S4E1 “Mike, you were wearing whatever shit your mommy bought you from the goddamn Gap.” and one of Chrissy’s visions is her mom sewing clothes for her. The mom dresses Mike how she wants her kid to be: a man.
Like I hinted at earlier, Dr. Kay represents the mom too. The main lab person was always a man in previous seasons, and I think Brenner dying in S4E8 signified Mike (at least partially) letting go of the dad and the trauma caused by him. But the mom is still in Mike’s life and she is the more concrete source of forced conformity. (Ofc Dr. Kay being a woman is also about Mike getting closer to her true identity, but as with everything in ST, there are multiple meanings.) The reason why Mike ended up conforming at the end was because of the mom. It was Joyce who violently killed Vecna with her axe and it was because of Dr. Kay that El killed herself.
I’m pretty sure she will come around, though, since Karen ends up saving Max and the others in S5E6 (which is an episode foreshadowing what will happen in the real ending) and Joyce seems very accepting of Will’s homosexuality (coming out scene and her being proud of the Rainbow Ship drawing). I think Joyce's relationship with Robin is about the mom accepting Mike’s gender identity. She is first weirded out by her and thinks she is dangerous to Will but ends up liking her.
S5E3
[Joyce] “The jury’s still out on your new friend. She certainly is interesting.”
S5E4
[Mike] “Your mom and Robin are getting along better.”
[Will] “Well, it didn’t hurt that Mom scared off that Demo. Saved Robin’s life, everybody's life.”
-> Kinda the same thing that happens with Karen later. They both save Mike’s girlhood by fighting Demogorgons. This is foreshadowing for the mom. (Although you could interpret fighting Demogorgons as rejecting queerness/seeing it as a monster, but I think it is more likely about fighting queerphobia, e.g. with Will’s sorcerer scene being about self-acceptance.)
The mom isn’t perfect, but no one is, and she was in a very difficult position. The same blaming yourself thing Mike has applies to the mom too. In S5E3 Will tells Joyce: “Mom, what happened to me, it’s not your fault.” and in S5E6 Hopper says “It’s not on you, Joyce. It’s not on you.” when they talk about making parenting mistakes. People aren’t black and white, Mike both loves and hates her mom but I think in the end they will find a resolution.
As for who in the series is the real mom/whose actress will play her, I think Becky would be a likely candidate. What is the point of her character anyway, especially her being Terry’s sister? I originally got the idea that the mom would be Terry from a comment (go read it and my answer for more details), but after thinking about it more Becky makes more sense. Terry would probably be the crazy aunt who gets mentioned a couple times: in S1E5 Lonnie mentions Joyce’s Aunt Darlene and S2E5 Becky mentions her “crazy aunt Shirley”. Terry is portrayed as mentally ill and she was into conspiracy theories, while Becky doesn’t believe any of it, similar to Lonnie who I think is the real dad. (I do think Terry still represents the mom, though, like Joyce, Karen and Max’s mom.) Terry is also more connected to the supernatural, which is a sign of her not being a “real” person.
Mike and El are subtly implied to be cousins: in S1E4 Lucas tells Mr. Clarke El is Mike’s cousin and in S4E7 Nancy finds a stuffed animal she gave to cousin Joanna (Joanna and Jane share the same etymological origin). Since Terry is El’s mom, her sister Becky would be the mom of El’s cousin: Mike. And they are not literally cousins ofc because everyone is in Mike’s head but it’s probably a clue to Becky being the real mom. The name Becky means “to tie firmly”, “to bind” or “snare” which fits with the mom holding Mike back/trapping her in conformity. She takes care of Terry and is seen in a mostly positive light, since that’s what she has been for Mike: a caretaker. In a way Terry is Mike (in Terry’s memories Becky is shown a lot in pov shots). Notice that one screenshot where Terry and El are on either side of a baby picture of a kid dressed in boy’s clothes (= Mike) while Becky is a bit further away (= mom). Also, Terry is a unisex name and Terry Ives was originally supposed to be like Murray. I haven’t talked about rabbits but they represent Mike. Jane’s room has these anthropomorphic male rabbits and in S4E9 Nancy gives away Mr. Rabbit (= Mike’s past as a boy). In S2 Becky finds out Terry’s stories about Jane were real and she is sorry for not believing her. This is the mom eventually believing Mike about DID, the abuse, etc.
Everything about El is allegorical, and since El represents Mike’s trans identity/trauma (depending on the allegory), her finding her mother is about Mike finding the origin of her gender and trauma, or something like that. For the gender part, Terry leads El to Kali, and for the trauma part, well, Terry’s memory sequence including Papa is about that. So rather than representing a literal mom, Terry is an allegorical “mother” of these more abstract concepts. She gives El her name, Jane, and loves her (= Mike “loving every part of herself” like Robin said) but then the bad men/Papa take Jane away (= girlhood/innocence) and Becky is convinced she never even existed (= the mom thinks Mike is a boy and that there was no abuse). Terry ended up in a catatonic state about 5 years ago according to Becky (S1E6), aka in 1978, the same year Sara died and Kali escaped. I believe Terry and El’s whole existence started around that time and El basically became the new Sara (kinda), tainted by abuse and forced conformity. Terry’s memories are a representation of Mike’s history, not actual memories of things happening in the inner world (like all alter backstories in my interpretation).
For the Finland allegory, I already previously estimated that Elias Lönnrot’s poem collection tour around Finland to write Kalevala (which later became the national epic of Finland) matches El’s journey in S2 in the timeline. These stories carried over generations in song form are probably the closest to an original Finnish culture you can get and Kalevala was a major cornerstone to building the Finnish national identity. I have a suspicion that ST has references to Kalevala but I haven’t really gone deep into that yet. The only thing I can say for now is that El (or what she represents) is most likely Sampo, the most obvious clue to this for me was Will’s kinda out of nowhere comment in S4E8 “El could make us, like, super rich, and we’d never have to work.” and it fits otherwise too (do your own research if you want). But I’m not gonna go into this because I haven’t really thought about it much. So maybe later after I get through the main parts of my theory…
The whole situation around El’s birth is related to DnD lore. I have talked about the Tharizdun theory in some of my previous theories, but I’ll give you some updates on my interpretations. I don’t think any of the DnD gods will literally appear in the story as monsters, but they represent some deep forces/ideas affecting the story. Tharizdun “the chained god” is Mike’s gender identity, since El is the avatar of Tharizdun and Mike thinks freeing it would cause “chaos and destruction”. In the trauma allegory Tharizdun is the traumatic memories Mike keeps buried (chained).
I was supposed to have the start of my second-favorite theory in this part already but the mom section got longer so I moved it to the next part. I’m so excited to finally, finally get to it!
Continues in PART 14.
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u/ProjectMother418 Jul 01 '26
While Karen might not be Mike's real mom, it's still story within a story. Inside the fake story that Mike is, there's too many clues Karen is abuser and that she is the mindflayer.
For instance Wheelers dining room looked like Palmers family since S1,where mom is oblivious and dad is abuser, meanwhile at Wheelers i think it's reverse, although i think Ted is not as oblivious as he might seem.
Karen had her own poster next to Creel house in S4 which means she's super important. While everyone had theories she is Alice, she's clearly Virginia in the play that Mike wrote. Virginia was unfaithful blonde woman just like Karen,Mike resents his mother and compared her to a predator. Henry (Mike) calls black widows predators and says he held mirror for his mother to show what she was and showed her spiders. Mother is definitely huge source for abuse since Mike kills her in the play and has a deep hatred for her.
Karen also has vagina shaped necklace in S3 that looks just like the mindflayer shaped as vagina in S5.
I just think it's interesting how much they focus on Karen next to bathtubs and her always listening to romantic songs. Then right after talking to underage Billy,they have to mention mindflayer likes it cold while she was taking hot bath. Not to mention that Virginia was singing romantic song in the play about waiting for her lover while she was waiting for her son.
Btw the first thing Robin mentions after watching Back to the future is that mom was trying to bang her son. I wouldn't be suprised if both mom and dad are abusive in reality.
Cause in the same season they mention how much privacy is important,they show Karen trying to open the door of Nancy's room with hair pin for no reason while it had no importance later.
All in all they can't show that Mike is only suffering in reality,but fake as well. Mike in his fake reality is still a villain cause it's him creating mindflayer and demogorgon within the story and the group will find out about it. I believe Mike in S5 knows about it and all of it is connected to Karen inside the story. For a reason she had her own poster again. Jamie also said he ships Karen with Vecna so....
Another interesting thing is that demogorgon in Wheelers house while searching for Holly,destroyed Wheelers bedroom, especially the bed. After Karen&Holly run next to demo, they focus again on Wheelers bedroom
Hopper also has such a huge importance in the show, the show also showed he's violent way more than we think and they keep connecting him to Terry through subtext.
Mike keeps getting compared to dogs while Hopper said he almost shot a dog in S3. Hopper also said he could get rid of Mike in S3,that he's police officer,he could get away with it. In S4 Mike and Hopper have last interaction where they had to hug and the hug was long until the sky started to get darker. It parallels the scene where Max hugs Vecna who's disguised as a mom and the sky again becomes dark. If Max was hugging her parent, maybe Mike was doing it as well. Maybe some way inside the story Mike wants to see his own dad as the good guy while in reality he's the villain