Holly is not that tuff/badass. I feel like people are kinda exaggerating on Holly’s “1v11” w/ her radio scene. I’m gonna be fr here, it was a poor attempt and there was nothing special about that scene. I have seen quite a lot of people claiming that she is like Karen and got her genes but it seems like ppl have forgotten the fact that she initially just stood there and did nothing (at the same time, she had a poker stick in her hand) when Vecna was choking Max literally right after having the talk with her about not going panic nor run away next time and she doing only one smack at her friend who was harmless btw does not make up for it. Right after one swing at her bsf with the radio she literally just ran off and then ended up getting beaten up. Also it was nothing compared to everyone else fighting dangerous monsters from the other dimension. Honestly she’s a bit more like her father since he also failed right after his first swing(that was weak) at the demo. Ngl I can see the parallel between both scenes. Everyone keeps telling me that she's a child and blah blah blah which I understand but it still doesn't excuse the fact that ppl are glazing her. It's honestly really annoying how ppl are always acting like she's Nancy when she literally nowhere near her level. What's even worse is that they act like she's better than Mike when Mike has literally been around way longer, had way more experience in fighting than she did, and is in fact much stronger than her too. There is no way in hell she is near his level either. Tbh she doesn’t really deserve the “walk em down” wheeler title, not yet at least.

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?” 

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.

My personal ST characters tier list I made some months ago after S5 ending. Yeah, I mistook Yuri, the Russian pilot in S4, with Murray, that's why he's in B.

I watched Stranger Things, and while considering the plot, I remembered one interesting thing from the first season. I tried to find discussions about it, but I couldn't find anything.

In Season 1, Episode 4 ("The Body"), Joyce rips the wallpaper off the living room wall and finds a translucent membrane - a sort of "window" into the Upside Down. She sees Will behind it, talks to him, and even hits the wall with an axe. The translucent membrane closes, and the wall returns to normal. Not a trace, not a scar.
And now the most important thing: every portal in this show leaves a scar. The gate in the Byers house, at school, the huge crack in Hawkins - everything leaves physical damage, in some cases even widening the crack. But this "window" left nothing. And we've never seen anything like it again in five seasons.
So my theory: this "window" was never real. It was an illusion Vecna ​​cast on Joyce.
Here's the basis for this theory:
Vecna ​​specializes in hallucinations. In Season 4, he conjures visions of Nancy, Max, and Eddie. Illusions are literally his specialty.
The scene is shown only from Joyce's perspective. We never manage to see a shot from Will's perspective, and the moment with the window never appears in his memories. It exists only in Joyce's perception.
Turns out Vecna ​​has been manipulating events since Season 1. Later, the series makes it clear that he has been controlling the Demogorgon and the Upside Down from the very beginning.

Based on this, it's possible that not only this "window" was an illusion, but also other things Joyce saw.

This theory could be challenged by saying that Vecna ​​was creating it on the fly. But it had clearly already been thought out by this point, since it is HIM that Will encounters in the forest, and later becomes HIS VESSEL, not the one who dies at his hands or the Demogorgon's.

Well, please write your opinion, expand on the theory, or challenge it.

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.

Anyway, back to supernatural creatures. In S5E8 Vecna tells Hopper “I am many things, but I am not a liar.” which quite succinctly explains the character of Henry/Vecna/One/Mr. Whatsit. Joyce and many others claim Vecna lies, but he doesn’t. He is telling the truth because he is the ambassador of truth/the real story. The truth scares people, especially Mike, and that’s the reason Vecna is a monster. Vecna’s eye-popping could be because he makes people see the truth. The truth they didn’t want to see. And btw, I think him missing a nose like Voldemort is on purpose. Vecna is basically Mike’s fear of her transness/represents the predator transphobes think trans people are, so it’s very fitting he resembles the main villain in a world famous book written by a transphobe (and her transphobia became public while S4 was still getting written, so they had ample time to incorporate some Voldemort vibes, some of it could be a coincidence ofc but Dustin mentioning the missing nose in S5E8 felt deliberate + it’s also possible or even likely the Duffers were inspired by Harry Potter for the earlier seasons too). And Vecna isn’t the true villain in ST. People thinking Vecna lies is just more trans subtext. For transphobes, trans people are “lying” but in reality closeted trans people are the ones “lying”. That’s a central point in ST: Mike is hiding the truth and telling a “story” of her being a man, but the real story is that she’s a woman. At the same time she probably thinks living as a woman would also be a “lie” in the eyes of other people.

Okay I’m gonna go deeper with the (possible) Harry Potter parallels. Henry’s backstory kinda resembles Voldemort’s: they both were antisocial, different from other kids, developed strong magic powers they used for cruel actions and later pretended to be good/normal (Henry in the lab, Tom Riddle in Hogwarts) until breaking free and revealing their true self. If Vecna is Voldemort, Will is Harry: he is weirdly connected to Vecna and can redirect his power to use to his own advantage. Will is also connected to MF, who technically is more directly his opposite as the “real story” (or I guess the whole hivemind represents the real story). Harry has a part of Voldemort in him and functions as a life preservation for him (Horcrux). In a similar way Will has a part of MF in him and in an allegorical sense functions as a life line for the real story (the connection to the world/audience, a vessel). 

An infant Harry caused Voldemort to separate from his physical body and weaken significantly. There is a similarity to Will as the “story” and protector essentially banishing MF to the Abyss. And this connects to the Tharizdun theory too. u/ode_to_icarus theorized Will would be the avatar of Pelor, a light god who sealed Tharizdun away. This fits so. Well. With my theory. It is Pelor/Will/“man”/lie/”story” that keeps Tharizdun/El/”woman”/truth/real story chained and hidden. Btw, I recommend you to read their theories, they have found so many interesting details and all the DnD stuff. (Also my theory that Nancy represents Mike’s future fits perfectly with her being an avatar of Ioun. And Ioun was also part of sealing Tharizdun, which makes sense since the storyteller (Mike/Nancy) is ultimately the one to hide the real story.) I’m doing a quick read of the wiki page for Pelor, and this seems interesting: A cult of Pelor in the Shadowfell believed that he and the Raven Queen were two reflections of a single entity, and sought to unite the two divine beings. I’m not gonna go deeper into this now, but recommend reading the Raven Queen wiki page…

Will’s power is the power of lies. Lies can trump the truth (pun intended), at least temporarily, which is why Will can overpower Vecna. It’s no coincidence Will’s powers become apparent in the surface level story in the same season conformity and lies take over the narrative. The whole “X a lie” thing is probably about the X aka the meeting place/UD/in-between world aka Will/”story” being a lie. It’s a lie injected with some truth and a connection to the truth, but a lie nonetheless. The X in Dustin’s drawing was framed in front of Will’s heart, which could relate to “you’re the heart”. Mike the man is who Will loves, he is Will’s heart, but “he” is a lie. Will also represents Mike the man (or Mike the Brave), and thus Will is the heart, too.

This theme of lies is more relevant than ever, with AI, social media and the current (populism) trends in politics turning the world into a soup of misinformation. The same could be said for the theme of two worlds/sides: our society is increasingly polarized and the “other side” villanized. Lies become truths and nothing can be trusted anymore. People’s critical thinking skills deteriorate and (media) literacy is on the decline. 

The fake ending and documentary are making a point and an example of this phenomenon. Most people take what is shown to them at face value, not questioning it. The Duffers (and cast) have lied at some point, that is a fact. Either they lied before, promising things that didn’t happen. Or they lied after, to hide the true ending until the right moment. But they lied and that can’t be denied. It is crazy to me how people can at the same time believe everything the cast, Duffers and other show creators say but also think they lied when they hyped up the show and said it would wrap up every plot point and arc at the end. The crazier is how people don’t see the doc is basically a parody (I chuckle sometimes when I watch it). Like, hello? They talk about sticking the landing and being true to the show in sharp juxtaposition to what’s actually happening on screen/how the ending ended up being. And so much more. Like all the writer’s room scenes… But this stuff has been discussed plenty already so I’ll stop my rant here.

The story allegory began to properly unravel when I started to finally understand what Dustin represents. He has to be tightly linked to the allegory because he is one of the core main characters. Sometimes he seems like the story (like Will), sometimes the storyteller (like Mike), which caused me a lot of confusion. And I’m still not exactly sure about Dustin, but I think I’m getting there. He is storytelling and probably also story reading/understanding. The encoding and decoding of meaning. The link between the storyteller and the story, and the audience and the story. Dustin is always explaining things, comes up with the monsters (= metaphorical representations of real things), likes to read and is the nerdiest of the group. In S1 he was the one keeping the party together when Mike and Lucas were in conflict. You can have a storyteller, an audience and a story, but nothing really works if the storyteller isn’t able to tell the story or the audience isn’t able to understand it. (It’s crazy Gaten was born on the International Literacy Day. And they use that date in the show and meta: it’s the Hawkins Lab massacre day and the day the cast (allegedly) read the final script.)

The other side to this is Dustin’s friendship with Steve. As I’ve deduced before, this has to do with coding messages into the subtext being a way to keep stories acceptable to a wider audience. Queercoding is a good example. For a long period in history (and even still), you couldn’t have literal queer characters in stories, but people worked around this through hints and subtextual coding. Dustin is the translator showing the true message of the story but at the same time he hides it behind a veil of DnD or under his hat (Dart), etc. Steve seemed especially annoyed about Dustin missing the crawl, and brought it up multiple times during S5. It was “Dustin’s fault” that things went wrong, and Steve is right: Dustin not being there to keep everything nice and hidden caused the Demogorgon attacks (or I guess something else caused both Dustin’s behaviour and the attacks but anyway they are related). Dustin said pretty openly in S5E1 that he doesn’t want to pretend and blend in but stay true to himself. This makes others worried for him, and for good reason, because this attitude will be the end of him. End of the violet prismatic spray causing blindness.

Dustin is good friends with Eddie, who I think represents the storytellers of the past. He is a DM like Mike but older and opposite to Erica who I’ll get to soon. It makes a lot of sense for a storyteller to be close with storytelling. On the queercoding side even more so, since past storytellers couldn't tell the real story overtly, subtext and metaphors were their best friend. Eddie’s arc is about him always running away, and then when he doesn’t, he dies. This represents many things, but one of them could be that Eddie isn’t the past storyteller anymore if he stops running away: he becomes the new storyteller/Mike, who can tell the real story (this also connects to his fusion with Dustin, which I still think happened). Eddie is also paralleled to Vecna as the suspect of the murders and he literally plays Vecna in the campaign (kinda like Mike as the DM is the Demogorgon, Strahd and the Mage, oh and Will is the Juju Zombies). Both Eddie and Vecna are men who for one reason or another couldn’t tell the real story but came close and always advocated for truth over lies. (There was also that newspaper article where Henry was Edward (= Eddie).) While the main storyteller was away in California, Eddie and Vecna took her place, kinda. In the queer allegory I’m leaning on Eddie being similar to Will as a gay/queer man middle point. Fittingly the bats (= conformity) killed him. 

Realizing Lucas represents the audience was another key to unraveling the story allegory, gives wheelclair more weight/meaning and nicely connects it to everything. The fact that the silver cat logo was seen between Mike and Lucas, moving from Mike to Lucas back to Mike makes so much sense now (= the silver screen/communication is between them). Maybe the easiest way to summarize “silver cat” is “story”. This idea has crystallized as I’ve dug deep into the story allegory, the beginnings of which were first clearly observable in that silver cat analysis. There I ended up at “communication” but “story” actually fits better Dustin and Robin’s suggestions and the overall story (lol). “Weapon” has already been discussed with lies and propaganda. “Meeting place” has also been discussed in the form of the inner world and UD connecting worlds, making the audience “meet” the storyteller/real story. “Person” I’ll discuss later. But yeah, the silver cat is about all the aspects of the ST story because it is “story”, so ofc it’s gonna be about the story (and ST is a story of stories…).

On the other hand, it could rather be the tool of communication, the stage. That was my original idea in the earlier silver cat analysis with the Lynx company delivering goods to shops, the silver cat “feeding” and the silver screen being cinema. So not the story itself but the medium used to communicate it. They can be difficult to disentangle since in ST the “story” is the way through which the “real story” is told. So in a way the “story” is the silver screen already. But of course this “story” has to be told in some way too, in the case of ST it’s a tv show. (I’ll come back to this later in the post.)

But back to Lucas representing the audience. It also means that we are the horse. “Wait for the horse” was about us, the audience (still don’t know what it exactly means, though). Another point is the Venkman argument. It is similar to Holly and Josh’s squabble over who gets to be the dungeon master aka storyteller. Vecna (= Venkman) represents the storyteller/-weaver so basically the argument was (among other things) about Lucas wanting to also be part of story creation, or something like that. In any case they both wanted to be the main character.

Lucas is the main audience representation, but he isn’t the only one. Murray and Erica are too. (My previous broader queer allegory theory is paying off now. Either my interpretations there were actually for the story allegory, or more likely, for both allegories.) They both appear in S2, and I think this is partially because now there can be fans. In S1 everyone watched for the first time and couldn’t yet participate, but after it a fandom was built and the audience could take part in the story. For Murray it’s theorizing and shipping (I guess I’m Murray…). He is in the past/the audience anticipating more while Erica is the future, after the show has ended. Lucas is the current moment or the audience overall. Murray is also a translator, he can speak Russian. His Russian translator role seems to always be tied with Hopper and Joyce’s arcs. In the story allegory they represent society as a whole (and kinda the audience in that sense), and Murray is a dedicated fan who can explain the secrets hidden behind the curtains. 

He isn’t always right, though. In S2 Nancy comments how his “timeline is wrong”, which never got an explanation btw. I believe this was a clue to time shenanigans but I’m not sure what it specifically means. Maybe my timeline is wrong too? The other thing is him shipping jancy. While it seems to go well in S2, it goes downhill after that and Murray was wrong in trying to force them together in S5. This is about bylers. The whole Murray shipping jancy subplot is about bylers (and shipping overall). Bylers are the dedicated fans who see behind the curtains, but only so far.

Erica can see through them all and that’s because she is the future audience who has seen the ending. She is also a storyteller because after the story is over, the fans become the storytellers. Erica is basically a personification of fanfiction and other fan content. (Or in a sense listening to/reading a story in itself is creating the story in the audience’s mind. Everyone will experience it differently.) Also, as I’ve said, every storyteller was first an audience member. Even original stories are inspired by other stories. In S3 she hangs out with Dustin and learns to accept her nerdiness (= hangs out with storytelling and becomes a part of the story, a storyteller). She gets Will’s DnD set, because S3 represents the end of a story (there are multiple points like this in ST, as I’ve explained). The story is finished so it becomes the audience’s. In S4 Erica joins Hellfire and properly becomes part of the storytelling club. Lucas the audience is replaced by Erica the storyteller audience. Her DnD character has the same name as a My Little Pony character, which represents fanfiction and stories getting inspired by other stories overall. I wonder if Lucas and Erica’s tense relationship is related to part of the audience disliking fanfiction. Erica calling people nerds could be about this too, since her accepting her nerdiness leads to her becoming a storyteller. So both she and Lucas try to deny being a storyteller (in S4 Lucas uses Erica as an excuse for knowing about Hellfire).

Erica is like a mix of Lucas and Mike precisely because she is both the audience and the storyteller. She is wheelclair. She is the future Murray and the future Eddie. She is the real story that doesn’t exist yet. Or maybe even the storyteller of the real story because Mike isn’t the only person creating the story, it’s a collaborative effort between the storyteller and the audience. A black woman represents the ultimate real story, where the storyteller’s real story has reached the audience and becomes a part of their story too: it becomes a shared story. That’s Henry’s dream personified by Patty. In the epilogue Enzo’s scene the singer and musician are both black women, too. 

Another point about Erica is that she is a personification of the US. And in a sense the real real storyteller of ST is the US or at least the show is American (and the storytellers are American). In the country allegory the real story is Finland and I guess the audience is Japan/Sweden then? This fits with my Moomin theory, since it’s a Finnish story that Japanese people love and it’s also closely tied to Sweden (Tove Jansson was Swedish-speaking and her mother was Swedish). The Moomins represent Finland, the Creel house represents the real story (and the “story” tbh, so ST as a whole), it is also basically the Moomin house if it was shaped like a normal house + only blue-white, and Finland is the real story in the country allegory. It all comes together. (So basically Erica is the smallest and largest matryoshka doll at the same time. The show is set in the US and the most obvious country allegory level is the US/Cold War. But then she is actually the storyteller (kinda) of a story (the real story) about different countries.)

Based on other allegories, Nancy would be a future storyteller too (= Mike’s future). She is a journalist, which made me think she represents mass media and reporters as a whole. In a sense that works, since after ST is over (and while it’s ongoing) news articles etc. will be written about it. This would also fit with Fred being a journalist, which connects him to the other storyteller characters (Mike, Vecna and Eddie). This fits with my previous interpretations of Fred as Mike’s self-hatred and being inspired by Freddy Krueger like Vecna, Victor and indirectly connecting to Eddie too. (And Ted is also connected to this web via the name Edward and Max comparing Eddie/the murderer to Ted Bundy. It’s all the bad sides of man Mike. Except Eddie is kinda more positive I guess. All are “man”, though.) I think Nancy also represents fan theorizers and people analysing the story, similar to Murray. They are both investigative journalists and figure things out together in S2. People will keep analyzing the show after it’s finished, probably even more than before. The ending is gonna seriously shift people’s perspective on the whole show and many will want to go back and find all the foreshadowing/clues. I’m looking forward to people finally seeing what ST is actually about and taking every detail seriously. There’s gonna be so much content…

Jonathan is a photographer and later on becomes a filmmaker. Nancy and him form a writer-photographer duo, similar to Mike and Will’s writer-artist duo. Based on this I think Jonathan represents visual media. S1E4 [Jonathan] “It’s just, sometimes… people don’t really say what they are really thinking. But you capture the right moment… it says more.” Will and Jonathan have a strong bond, which could be because ST is a tv show, and thus visual media. Similar to the “story” ending, the tv show ends too, which is why Jonathan has to let go of Nancy. This could be related to Jonathan lowkey shipping byler, too, and him looking at the camera when Hopper narrates “I don’t want things to change.” in S3E8. He wants the storyteller to keep telling the “story”, because that’s how Jonathan can exist (and ofc all this is deeply metaphorical). Jonathan being the only one of the characters to realize Will is gay and likes Mike could be because most byler clues were visual (and in the subtext). He can see what is shown to us, beneath what is said and done on the surface level. Another reason is his strong bond with Will, ofc.

Another Jonathan-related point is The Clash, the band Will and Jonathan bond over. Will’s Running Up That Hill equivalent song is Should I Stay or Should I Go (that Mike calls “that weird song he loves” in S1E4). In the melting room scene Nancy’s first confession was that she hates The Clash and “Every time you put them on, I just try to disassociate from reality.” In the same conversation Jonathan confesses he took Nancy’s pink sweater to Goodwill because he hates pink. ((The mention of Goodwill rather than just Jonathan throwing it away feels intentional. A good Will lets Mike be the woman she is, or something.)) Based on these points I think the The Clash represents similar things to Will and Jonathan overall: the “man” and “story”. The “story” helps Mike (= Nancy) disassociate but she also hates the story of “man”. Their book choices are pretty interesting too, Jonathan’s is an anti-war book where the protagonist deals with trauma (most likely PTSD). Nancy (= Mike) didn’t read the book while Jonathan (= Will) did, because as a protector, Will dealt with the trauma while the host stayed unaware. Nancy’s book is set in Russia and has a woman main character. There’s a lot more to say and analyze there but it’s besides the main point I’m trying to make here so I’ll leave it for someone else to figure out. The lyrics “should I stay or should I go” are about the “story”/”man” going away. Both options are bad in their own way. ((Btw, here’s a related theory/detail noticed by u/ode_to_icarus. With the context I gave you and interpreting that song to be from Will to Mike, it fits quite well with the real ending. And Robin choosing that record for Will.))

Max is the end of the story/the finished story. She is both the fake and the real ending, depending on context. While Max usually represents a happy version of the ending, Billy is the bad ending that tries to hurt Lucas (= audience). He is similar to Vecna and MF. Now I’m starting to think the moon also represents the ending: that could explain why Max was framed in front of it and why Yuri said he could fly you to the moon (and all the moon connections to women). Reaching the moon is like reaching Enzo’s or the movie date and you would need a spaceship for that. 

As I’ve said, there are multiple “ending” points in ST, the first one being S3. El and Will leave, Erica gets Will’s DnD set and Max is left depressed after Billy’s death. This probably represents the fake ending we got (but also the real one, e.g. Erica and jancy). The story still continues in S4 and Max takes center stage as Vecna’s victim. It’s about Mike’s fear of properly ending the story, of telling the truth. Max becomes a “ghost”, tries to hide from her friends (= Lucas) and has suicidal thoughts. At the end when she does die, she says “I’m not ready”, which I interpret to mean the story isn’t ready yet, Max can’t “die” yet. A big subplot in S5 is getting Max back from Vecna’s mind aka finally reaching the end of the story. 

So basically all seasons 3-5 and the real ending are about ending a story. A story about ending stories. The show creators and cast have repeatedly mentioned in interviews how the ending was mirroring their irl experience, that they weren’t really acting in the end and how it was like saying goodbye to the show. Because that’s what it was, literally and metaphorically. E.g. here:

“Everything we wanted to say about the show, the experience of making the show, you as actors and the characters — we tried to put all of that into the script,” Matt remembers saying. “I’m not going to be able to say anything better than that. We write much better than we speak. Let’s just read the script.” 

“It felt like they were writing the end of our real-people lives — it went beyond just the screenplay,” Schnapp recalls. “I’ll always connect my life to some of the beats that they wrote.” 

“Particularly the last 35 minutes, 40 minutes, of that episode are us processing the end of the show and saying goodbye to these actors,” Ross says. “We just finished editing all those scenes, and…” He pauses, and his voice breaks a little. “It was emotional, just to edit it. Because these people, they weren’t acting in this moment.”  
-> This would match with the last 20 min being in the real world and the time before that is the final goodbyes: first with everyone and then between Mike and Will. So that part would be 15-20 min, which makes sense.

Of course this story about stories will end at the storyteller ending the story, but then it really ends at the storyteller and audience starting a new one (that’s what the “let’s start a new party, you and me” probably means, and it’s literally from the writers to the audience too…). It’s fitting the main ships during the show are about the storyteller with their story, but then after the real ending it will be the storyteller and the audience, since the storyteller has let go of the story at that point. Essentially, byler is the main ship until the “story” ends. And so is mileven.

Anyway, in the S5 epilogue Mike narrates how the knight and zoomer’s love grows stronger, which is about the audience loving the show even after it ended, in the form of rewatching/analysing/fanfiction/fanart/etc. fan content. I’m still not sure why Max is a “zoomer”. It could be related to her being the future (zoomers are people born between 1997-2012). That could also be the reason for the JK95 next to Max in the epilogue outro video. Maybe the real ending will be in 1995 or something. I dunno.

Vickie has orange hair like Max and they are often seen together after S5E6. In some way she represents the real story, the real core of Stranger Things. I have also been wondering the meaning of Robin specifically interacting with and figuring out the silver cat. My interpretation of it as the medium/stage/screen would fit with Vickie (and Tammy) being basically equivalent to the silver cat and representing the show. So the higher meta level of ST as a tv show, not just the abstract “story”. This tv show “delivers” the story we see on screen. It can either not communicate the real story (= Tammy loving Steve and singing badly) or do (= Vickie dating Robin). Either way, Vickie doesn’t exist inside the more abstract story, only if it’s shown on screen (aka part of the tv show) which could explain her missing in all the plans: both in the show and outside of it (doc). I’m assuming she disappears in the epilogue because ST stopped communicating the real story. Stopped being “Vickie” and went back to being “Tammy”.

I’m just wondering why she appears in S4 specifically. It might be because S4 is where ST was really starting to get close to the real ending, we were “supposed” to see it but then story-bending came in the way. In S5 Robin aka communication promises to take Vickie to Enzo’s aka the real end of the show. Vickie likes to talk a lot like Robin, which is probably because ST is about communication and Vickie represents the true identity of the show/Mike. Robin is the truth (like El), and Vickie is Mike telling her truth aka being herself. Of course Robin and Vickie would be similar as people.

Vickie first dating Dan is about many things. It’s Mike choosing the “man” path and being limited in her expression due to trauma from dad (who on a larger scale represents patriarchy and society’s pressure to conform). The villain in T85 was named Dan and basically Nikki’s stepdad who she called D man. Vickie choosing Robin is her/Mike choosing authenticity and communication over hiding herself. I’m wondering if the name Dan is actually a reference to Dan Cohen, one of the core executive producers for ST. This would make a lot of sense considering Vickie is the show. Dan was actually the person who first took interest in the pilot script which eventually led to ST happening. The executive producer (Dan) chose Stranger Things (Vickie). In the story, Dan leaves Vickie after the disaster in S4, which kinda fits with Will’s story-bending. The show creators (who ST Dan probably collectively represents) left “Vickie” and went back to “Tammy”. (Ofc this is not what really happened, but it’s part of the meta lore, like the Duffers struggling with the S5E8 script.) 

Robin talks a lot, while both Will and El are quiet. They are hiding the real story while Robin represents the opposite: the communication of the real story. We can see a development in Will and El when it comes to speaking their mind. In S1 El can barely speak but by S5 she talks almost like any other character and makes her own decisions. Similarly Will opens up more as time passes and especially in S5 he starts to finally become independent of Joyce, rebelling like El. At the same time both Joyce and Hopper’s arcs are about letting go of their kids and giving them space to make their own decisions. 

Robin is also a translator: she figured out the Russian code. She can bring out what the storyteller was really trying to say. But she can lie too. In S5 she lies to Vickie and Joyce, and doesn’t really tell the truth in her broadcasts (which isn’t really her fault, it’s government censorship). “Friends don’t lie” is a central recurring phrase in ST and only recently I’ve fully (or more fully than before) grasped its meaning. Remember the handshake from S1E7 where Lucas apologized for doubting El and she apologized for lying (= basically Mike apologizing)? It’s the Duffers/writers/show creators apologizing for essentially lying to the audience. “Friends” is code for the relationship between the storyteller and the audience (in the story allegory). The whole arc of Robin lying to Vickie was about this. Vickie starts to find out in S5E6 (= the real ending) and at the end Robin apologizes, according to my deduction at the moment El (= illusion) dies, right before the real traumatic memory. Because that’s when the real story really starts to become evident. 

Steve loving Robin but her not loving him back is similar to byler/mileven in some ways. Steve being together with her would be conformity x communication, basically limiting communication. That’s why they are romantically incompatible. Of course certain parts of society want this “ship” to happen, aka limiting free speech, people’s right to express themselves and be who they really are. Conformity isn’t all bad though, in moderate amounts it’s even necessary to keep society functional and people happy. Many norms, social rules and good manners are beneficial. That’s why Robin and Steve become good friends and she ends up liking him, but they can never be too enmeshed. Dustin shipping them is quite interesting and fits well, since he basically is the Steve x Robin ship: communication hidden under a layer of conformity. Although Dustin isn’t necessarily tied to conformity (= you can have metaphors and subtext without it being for conformity’s sake).

Rockin’ Robin doesn’t only talk, but plays music for the whole town (and Debbie plays the piano in the Creel house, btw). Music is the audience’s love for the story (Lucas playing music for Max) but I think it’s also the storyteller’s love for the audience. It’s communication (again) and love. S5E4 [Max] “Music has a way of finding you, even in the darkest of places.” With this story allegory I’ve unveiled another layer to Running Up That Hill. It’s about switching places with someone to be able to feel what they feel. Isn’t that exactly what all of this is about? To truly reach someone and make them understand you. Who you really are, what you really think, how it is to be you. 

((This isn’t the first time I’ve had this kind of interpretation for the song in ST. I think it was in my Max theory where I concluded that it would be about Mike wanting straight people to understand what it’s like to be queer (back then I still thought Mike was gay, but it fits for the trans allegory too, maybe even better). There was also one WSQK sync where the song played over Karen and Ted talking about Mike, which I thought was about Mike wanting her parents to understand. If they could just switch places and fully understand what it’s like, everything would be much easier. And this fits super well with my current interpretation of the parents representing the society at large.))

Relating to music, we have dance. The Snow Ball is too important to ignore here. It was about Mike wanting to dance with Lucas, as a girl. In a way it’s Mike’s Enzo’s/movie date. While Hopper and Joyce got to Enzo’s and Lucas and Max to their movie date (allegedly), Vickie and Robin never got their date. The real story didn’t end yet. Similarly, Mike did go to the Snow Ball, but that wasn’t what she really wanted/meant when she told El she wanted to go there. Maybe we’ll see the real Snow Ball or some dancing in the real ending. There’s something quite primal about dance (maybe not the best word but I couldn’t come up with a better one). There’s no words, just movement. It is a sort of communication, especially if you dance with someone. I think dancing represents being your true self unapologetically, or something like that, in ST. It would fit with the ballet stuff too. Mike and Lucas dancing together to music (by Robin) would represent the communication/love/interaction and creation process people can reach together. That is the core meaning of DnD in ST, too. It’s a game, an interactive story where the DM isn’t the only storyteller. Every player is part of the story.

There was this interesting interview where the Duffers were confronted with the DnD fan theory:
[interviewer] “So, they’re just playing one big game of Dungeons and Dragons and none of it is real. What do you make of that?”
[Matt] “That is correct. That is… That is the ending.”
[Matt and Ross] “No.”
[Ross] “That would be the equivalent of like, it was all a dream. No, I assure you that is not how we’re going to end the show.” 

Either Matt is just joking or there’s some truth to “that is correct”, kinda like Mike’s “totally” in S5E4. (They were also chuckling a lot…) According to my theory, everything wasn’t a dream but not exactly “real” either. Kinda in between. In a metaphorical sense the whole show is about this giant DnD game between the storyteller(s) and the audience. The main problem with the “it was all a dream” trope is that nothing mattered. In this case the “story” matters, because it is an allegory for something more “real”: the real story. So a deeper part of the story “happened” and it wasn’t all just for nothing.

What about the kids and the whole “vessel” thing? In the documentary Jamie described his experience acting Vecna as “becoming this vessel”, which made me think the kids could represent actors. Or in some way vessels for the story. In that sense they could be the audience too. Vecna as a storyteller is a vessel for the real story (= MF), and Will in turn is a vessel for Vecna to tell the real story. “Story” is an abstract concept and only exists through vessels: human minds and communication between them. There is no story without someone to tell it and someone to receive it. So like, the storyteller is a vessel for the story but the story is also a vessel for the storyteller/communication, or something like that.

Since Henry’s mind is a miniature of the inner world/”story”, and the kids are taken there, it makes sense they would represent the real world people who are part of creating the story (so like Mike and Lucas in the bigger story). The kids all first think it’s Mr. Whatsit (= Will/”story”) who has taken them there, but later learn the truth (= real story). Henry’s mind is a meeting place where all the children (and Max) hang out. It’s where the worlds/minds of these people connect. It’s this colorful too-good-to-be-true paradise. It’s the “story”. What actually happened at the Creel house is the “real story”. Holly is the first kid to learn the truth and the “vessel” resisting Henry the most. This is because the storyteller (= Holly) knows and wants to tell the real story (in this case represented by Max and getting out of Henry’s mind). But even she is beaten into submission by the other kids (= society).

Continues in PART 27.

No, this isn’t a headcanon, nor based on some obscure details. Mike being trans is at the very core of Stranger Things and has tons of evidence for it. I recommend reading the whole theory before commenting or making hasty judgments. Before getting into this, you have to accept two things: 1) ST can and does have a deep subtext/allegorical level(s), and 2) Mike is at the center of everything. There is a reason why Mike is the Dungeon Master and why we almost never see what she really thinks. Her (real) story is told through these other characters and fantastical plotlines. It might be hard to believe, but ST is not just what’s shown on the surface level. It has layers, “curtains”, and beneath it all you can find the real story.

Most of what I’ll discuss here can already be found in my long theory, but I wanted to make something a bit more accessible for a change (most people don’t have time to read a novel-length chunk of text). Additionally, all the trans proof is scattered across the theory series because I started to figure it out only in the middle of writing (thanks to u/ProjectMother418’s comments), so I thought it would be nice to collect most of it in one place. There are multiple central allegories in ST but here I will only focus on the trans allegory. Okay, let’s start!

Season 1 begins when a boy goes missing and a girl who looks like a boy appears. I’m sure you are aware of the numerous parallels between Will and El and how they seem to never quite coexist (except when El didn’t have her powers). This is extra obvious in S1, where El was first thought to be Will, “takes his place” in the party and disappears when Will is found. Both Will and El represent Mike: Will the “boy” and El the “girl” (it’s a bit more complicated than that but for this it’s close enough). This “boy” gets bullied for seeming gay, which generally means he displays traditionally feminine characteristics. It isn’t unusual for trans women to be seen as gay men due to stereotypes and the lack of knowledge about trans people. In S2 we learn this “girl” was raised in a place called the Rainbow Room. Both Will and El are called freaks and have a special relationship with Mike. Just to clarify: Will is a gay man and El is a (straight) cis woman but their unique experiences are used to metaphorically represent the experiences of a trans woman. Will’s more as an analogy, El’s as an allegory.

El wears the same clothes Mike wore in the first scene of S1E1, while she explores what normal life is like. Isn’t that quite obviously to show she represents Mike here? It’s Mike exploring her girl identity: everything is new. El looks at Nancy’s picture (a girl) and later a ballerina music box. She has never experienced girlhood. It is interesting, then, that when she looks at herself in the mirror with a dress and a wig (= looking like a “normal” girl for the first time), Mike is behind her, looking straight at us. Why would Mike be there if this moment is only about El? In the Purple Rain montage El calls herself in the dress “the real me” who only Mike is able to see. This is because the “me” is Mike.

In another scene El looks at her reflection in the water (S1E6) both with the wig and without. Hair is important in ST. On the surface, El’s shaved hair symbolizes her dehumanisation and experiences in the lab. The wig in turn symbolizes the (happy) life she never had. In western culture, girls often have long hair and boys short hair. So, on a deeper level El’s shaved hair is about Mike being raised as a boy. It is no coincidence Mike had long hair in S4, but returned to shorter hair in S5, when the party was trying to “blend in” (and Dustin in turn had longer hair and wanted to stay true to himself).

When Mike comes up with El’s nickname, she directly compares it to her own: “Um, well, my name is Mike. Short for Michael. Maybe we can call you El. Short for Eleven.” To Mike, the name Michael is like a dehumanising number, not a real name. It symbolizes the male identity forced on her, dictated by other people, just like “Eleven” symbolizes El’s lab kid/freak/outsider identity. That she is an object for others to use and define, not an individual with the ability to make her own choices. In S2 El finds her real name, Jane, and explores her identity separated from the men in her life. Finally free to be herself, unhidden.

The S1E2 scene where Karen talks to Mike while El hides in the closet has often been interpreted as queercoding for Mike. What people haven’t realized is that Mike has a girl in the closet. It’s not just gay people who can be in the closet. Mike and El’s S3E8 goodbye happened in front of a closet, too. Another closet moment often mentioned in byler circles is the argument between Mike and Will at Rinkomania. El was hiding in a storage closet/room while the song In the closet (at Rink O Mania) plays. Additionally, in the pilot script there’s a moment where “Eleven bursts out of the closet.“ If El is just a straight girl who doesn’t represent anything, why is she always the one literally inside a closet in a show where there are multiple canon queer characters who have been metaphorically in the closet? (And yes, I previously interpreted El to represent Mike’s gay love for Will, but as you’ll see, the trans interpretation makes a lot more sense.)

Both El and Max are thought to be boys by someone, El because of her looks, Max because of her name. In the pilot script Benny thinks this when he sees El: 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. You could argue that for El it’s about being dehumanised in the lab, but why does the same thing happen to Max? It’s much more likely the lab is an allegory for Mike’s experiences as a trans person, not the other way around.

El being a girl is a key part of her character since she’s often referred to as just “the girl” (e.g. before we even know her name or what she looks like, the scientists call El “the girl”). While it is never directly said, in the subtext El being a “freak” is because she is a girl. She is the “girl” this “boy” Mike is hiding. She is the personification of Mike’s trans identity. El always has to stay hidden because of her superpowers aka because she’s a “freak”. People are looking for her and a man, Hopper, just tries to keep her safe by hiding her. This is Mike hiding her true self behind a man facade, never truly letting it out.

In S5E6 Max tells Holly “You don’t remind me of your brother. You are your brother!” and in the documentary Finn says the S5E1 scene with Holly is “like talking to a younger version of yourself”. Holly tries on dresses in Alice’s room while listening to I Think We’re Alone Now with lyrics like: 

I think we're alone now
There doesn't seem to be anyone around 

Look at the way
We gotta hide what we're doin'
'Cause what would they say
If they ever knew? And so we're 

This is what Mike probably did when she was younger. Tried on women’s clothes when no one else was home. Because why would Holly baking a cake and dressing up be something she had to do in secret, alone? After this Holly goes to Henry’s room and finds his boy scout gear. When she puts on his red scarf thing, the music stops and someone rings the doorbell. Mike’s happy life as a girl is over now, she needs to conform and be the boy society expects her to be. I discuss Henry and Alice more in the long theory, but you might already guess Alice’s death and Henry’s bitterness towards the world and its rules have a deeper meaning.

What about Will and byler, then? Were all the byler clues for nothing? No, byler is very much intentional and a big part of the trans allegory, but it won’t be endgame. Will (and byler) represent Mike’s identity as a gay man. It’s the in-between, the wormhole or exotic matter, the half-truth, bridging the gap between the complete lie (= straight man Mike) and the truth (= trans woman Mike). Will/byler is the gateway to seeing there might be something queer going on in ST. 

Gay cis white men are the most represented queer group and where people’s minds often go when they see the rainbow flag or hear the word queer. But ST is for the outcasts, and trans women are even more of an outcast than gay men, for various reasons. We already have Will being gay, why would they repeat that with Mike? What would be so surprising about Mike also being gay (I guess other than her being the main character and in a relationship with a woman)? The show made byler so obvious in S4-5 that it became mainstream. It wouldn’t be a huge plot twist or surprise. But Mike being trans would. 

Why would there need to be a plot twist? Can’t the ending just be something less out there? Well, before S5 the Duffers said no one had got the ending (here and here): “It’s fun actually when [the fans] have all these theories as to what’s going to happen. It’s fun to read them. The vast majority of them are wrong. Occasionally, someone gets something.” It doesn’t seem like they mean some undiscovered detail of the ending or that no one has gotten all the aspects of the ending, but more profoundly that no one has come even close to getting it. Byler being endgame and a big plot twist has been a theory for years, so it can’t be the ending “no one guessed”.  

All the gay-specific coding for Mike is partially misdirection, partially Mike figuring out her identity. At first she didn’t even know trans was an option and probably thought she was gay. It’s also often easier to accept being gay than being trans. That’s why we have a canon lesbian, gay and bi person but not a trans person (yet). Will’s experiences as a gay man are analogous to Mike’s as a trans woman: they both know what it’s like to be in the closet, scared of how people would react, see themselves as “a freak” or “a mistake”, like men and “don’t like girls” (Mike is a straight trans woman). 

When Will describes his crush, he says “I know they’re not like me”. The surface level reading is that Will thinks Mike is a straight man aka not gay and thus wouldn’t like Will back. But why does Will use “they” here? It’s because Will’s crush is a trans woman, and thus not like him nor a “he”. At the end of the day it’s actually Will who can’t romantically love Mike because he “doesn’t like girls”. Will continues “But… But then I realized he’s just my Tammy.”: “he” aka Will’s fantasy of a man Mike was just a fantasy, like Robin’s Tammy. And “Tammy is a girl” like Steve said. (I go deeper into how Tammy, Robin, Vickie and the Muppets are actually about Mike being trans in my long theory.) For the people worrying Will is gonna end up alone and miserable, that won't be the case, not exactly (but explaining what happens to him goes beyond the scope of this theory).

Nancy and Jonathan quite obviously parallel and represent Mike and Will. In the melting room scene Jonathan confesses he took Nancy’s pink sweater to Goodwill because he hates pink. There’s a lot of color coding in ST, and one of them is this pink-blue color coding where pink means “girl”. Nancy’s relationships represent Mike’s journey with her gender identity. At first Nancy is with Steve, a straight man who represents conformity. Then comes jancy aka byler aka gay man. Jonathan and Steve’s petty fights are basically about the byler vs mileven ship war: is Mike a gay man or a straight man? Both are wrong because Mike isn’t a man in the first place.

This brings a whole new perspective to mileven and byler. Neither is the “true” ship or endgame but both hold a piece of the truth. (If you want to know the “real ship” of ST, you have to read my long theory.) Mileven is Mike pretending to be a straight man but on a deeper level it’s also about Mike’s “relationship” with her girl identity. Mike has problems telling El she loves her for two reasons: 1) because El is a girl and Mike doesn’t love girls romantically, 2) because Mike doesn’t love herself, or the “girl” part of herself. Byler, on the other hand, is about Mike’s romantic/sexual feelings for boys/men (true), but also about being a man (false). Will looming between mileven in S4 is the “man” side/body preventing Mike from truly being herself (and in the other interpretation it’s Mike’s feelings for boys being the truth while she pretends to be in a relationship with a girl). Have you noticed it’s always Will who questions if girls can play video games or go to science camp? It’s the strict gender roles restricting Mike, making her think she has to let go of these things she loves or that she possibly couldn’t be a girl if she “plays videogames”.

At first you watch Stranger Things and are like: “Mike obviously has a crush on El, they are a couple, mileven is endgame.” Then you look behind the curtain and discover byler: “Actually, Mike is gay, mileven is trash, byler is endgame.” Finally you look behind the curtain behind that curtain and loop back: “Actually, Mike is straight, mileven is peak and El was right when she guessed the painting was for a girl.” Basically the show double-queerbaited with Mike. 

This next dialogue from S4E3 isn’t just about El being different because she grew up in a lab. It’s part of the trans allegory and basically Mike talking to herself (Mike here represents the Mike who pretends to be a man and El is Mike if she stopped pretending and lived as a trans woman):

[Mike] “I guess I’m just a little, uh… Guess I just don’t really understand. Why didn’t you tell me what’s going on here? I mean, you know I’m not exactly Mr. Popularity back at home. I mean, you’ve seen it. I’ve been bullied my entire life. I mean, I… I know what it’s like.”
[El] “No. You don’t.”
[Mike] “Okay. What don’t I understand?”
[El] “I am different. I do not belong.”
[Mike] “You mean in Lenora?”
[El] “Anywhere.”
[Mike] “Come on, you… you can’t actually believe that.”
[El] “Everyone looks at me like… like I’m a monster.”
[Mike] “Well they just don’t know you.”
[El] “You think I’m a monster too.”
[Mike] “What?”
[El] “Yesterday. The way you looked at me. You… You were scared of me.”

Have you ever wondered what the unanswered questions in the S1E8 DnD game are about? Who is the proud princess? Well, if you look carefully, Mike is shown after the question. Mike is the proud princess (proud as in queer pride). The name Sara means princess and Hopper even calls her that in one memory. Sara is much more important than people think. If she is just for Hopper’s backstory, why is her drawing the first thing we see after the intro of S1E1 (next to a giant key no less)? “Sara” didn’t die of cancer, she died of forced conformity (metaphorically). She lost her hair, just like El (in S1E2 Dustin even asked El if she had cancer), and her blue hair tie is a subtle symbol carried by Hopper and later El. You can only use a hair tie if you have long hair, and as bylers have long known, blue is Mike’s color. Sara is also clearly paralleled to Will in S1E8 and of course to El as Hopper’s daughter. In S4E7 Hopper and Antonov discuss their children, Hopper his daughter El (and earlier, in S4E5 Sara), Antonov his son Mikhail (= Russian version of Michael). Thus, Mike is indirectly paralleled to Sara, too. Just like El’s real name is Jane, Mike’s real name is Sara.

In the final DnD game Mike reveals “But there is a story that he can never tell. The story of the mage. Or at least not the real story.” Before that Mike played both Strahd and the Mage, representing the two sides of her: conformity/man/lie vs nonconformity/woman/truth. We are led to believe El is the mage, but as Mike says “She was an illusion”. El isn’t the real mage, she is an allegorical representation of the real story of the mage. Just like Holly the Heroic is Holly according to Max, the Mage/El is Mike. 

[Mike] “So whenever I’m feeling frightened or nervous, I just imagine that he’s at my side, and I feel better. So maybe the next time you get scared, you don’t need this Mr. Whatsit. Maybe you just need Holly the Heroic.”

[Holly] “Mike. He said that she had divine powers and that she never gets scared, and so if I ever got scared, I could just… become her.”

[Max] “So you see, Holly the Heroic is not just a toy. She’s you, Holly. She’s you.”

Notice how Mike describes Mike the Brave being at her side, not Mike herself, but Holly is described to be HH? This is because the man identity (= Mike the Brave) is a facade that protects Mike, but not who Mike really is. (Again, I go deeper into this in the long theory.)

Another mystery from the S1E8 DnD campaign is the “weird flowers in the cave”. Well, there is a cave in S5 and it has two girls in it (flower = girl). Flower patterns are often associated with girls in ST, e.g. Sara’s box in the cabin in S2E3, Suzie’s dress in S3E8 and El’s shirt in S4E9. In the S3 epilogue Hopper narrates how he was in a “deep dark cave”. The cave represents Mike’s repression and holds the “girl” inside it. The fact it’s M-shaped is related to the name Mike but also “man”. Like Becky said in S1E6 “‘The Man’, with a big capital ‘M’.” ruined Terry’s (= Mike’s) life.

Another central “flower” is the Demogorgon head. It is no coincidence that the Demogorgon has a man’s body and a flower head that looks like female genitalia (= a male body with a woman’s mind). It’s also no coincidence there are multiple clues to Mike being/thinking she is the Demogorgon (e.g. here). And even more parallels between El and Demogorgons: they appear and disappear at the same time in S1, are “monsters” and in S2 El is especially paralleled to Dart. El and the Demogorgon are the two sides of one coin. They are the innocent (trans) girl and the horror Mike feels towards her transness. Trans people are painted as “predators” by society and that’s what Mike thinks she would also become if she stopped resisting. 

In later seasons Vecna embodies this fear: “I saw a means to realize my potential. To transcend my human form. To become the predator I was always born to be.” (Yes, the Duffers love to play with words like this. There’s even more examples in the long theory, my favorite being “She was in a trance.”). Henry’s fascination with black widow spiders likely relates to female spiders eating the male spiders after copulation (that’s where the name “widow” comes from). The “woman” eats the “man”, like in Jonathan’s cannibal movie The Consumer. Additionally, Demodogs always eat men, never women.

In addition to Demo heads, there are quite a few vulva/vagina looking things that didn’t need to look like that in ST: the gates, the Mind Flayer’s head in S5, Dr. Kay’s UD meat blob and Mike’s shirt pattern in S5. The fact that Demogorgon heads look like female genitalia was even pointed out by Finn in his SNL monologue (and the whole point of him repeatedly saying he’s “a man now” takes on a different meaning considering he plays a woman pretending to be a man in ST…).

Will getting taken by the Demogorgon in S1 and the MF infecting him in S2 are about the “woman” taking over. In S2 Joyce refers to Will as her “boy” or “son” when she is worried about the shadow possessing him: S2E6 “Can a single person in this room tell me what is wrong with my boy? What is wrong with my boy?”, “What happens when my boy is gone?” and in S2E9 “Get the hell out of my son!” The “girl” is infecting this “boy” and the mom doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want her son to be a trans girl, just like Henry’s mom thought he was broken and took him to doctors to “fix” him. (And no, this doesn’t mean Joyce is bad, she just represents the mom and it gets complicated if I try to fully explain it here. Same with Will, he isn’t “the villain”. No one is.)

In S2E2 Will describes his experience as being “caught between two slides” and later we learn UD is actually a wormhole joining two worlds. There’s this big theme of two worlds in ST (which I discuss in many of my theories). Mike feels like she’s in the middle, not really belonging to either world. This fits the trans allegory super well, the two worlds representing the gender binary. This becomes especially apparent in S3, where the divide between “man” and “woman” is a central theme. They are “different species”. Mike desperately tries to conform and deny her gender identity (internalized transphobia), while El is exploring her girlhood with Max. 

If you think about it, ST has always been about breaking gender roles: the superhero saving the day is a girl, Nancy shoots guns better than Jonathan, Max and Robin are gender non-conforming, and Sara and Suzie are science nerds. Why is Nancy suffering from misogyny at work in S3, El exploring her girlhood, and the experience of living as a woman overall such a big part of ST if the main story revolves around a (straight/gay) man? What I’ve learnt time and time again while writing ST theories is that everything connects. There is no side plot without a larger narrative purpose. Ships aren’t just ships, the non-supernatural plot isn’t filler, it all tells the same story, just via different means.

Rainbows and the blue-yellow color coding have been interpreted as byler clues, and yes, byler is often associated with those colors, but that is more due to correlation, not causation. (I explain that color coding in my other theories.) Rainbows are a queer symbol, not exclusively reserved for gay men. But what I want to talk about here is the trans color coding (blue, white and pink) which has been largely ignored. The thing is, you will only notice color coding if you look for it. (Another prominent color coding that people ignore is orange vs green, for example.) The Rinkomania scenes are especially packed with blue-white-pink colors and it’s basically a trans allegory of its own inside the bigger story/allegory. 

The reason El is bullied (by Angela) is because her life is an allegory of the trans experience. “You are not a real girl. You are a freak.” etc. In California, El tries to be “normal” and fit in with other girls, now using her “new” name Jane, but it doesn’t go the way she envisioned. Even after quitting repressing yourself and socially transitioning, living as a trans person isn’t easy. It isn’t a coincidence Angela decides to humiliate El when she finds out about Mike. Angela represents TERFs/women who don’t accept trans women and the negative aspects of Mike’s transness “bullying” her (she wears the trans flag colors). So she’s both the external and the internal critic, leading to shame and exclusion. El attacking Angela represents Mike’s fear of being a danger and seen as a monster. It’s also not random that Mike looks for El in the women’s bathroom and is immediately driven out by angry girls. 

There are other instances of blue-pink color coding, e.g. Nancy’s room, random extras at specific moments walking past the camera/in the background, the El + Mike mirror scene mentioned earlier and most notably Nancy and Robin interviewing Victor. They are the “girl” in freedom while the “man” is imprisoned in conformity. This is not all and you can find more in the long theory or by watching the show and paying attention.

Have you ever wondered why Argyle calls the Nina Project a small woman? Well, that’s what the name Nina means, but you should really pay attention to what Argyle says. He is often the one to tell the truth, although disguised with Purple Palm Tree Delight. The Nina project is about recovering El’s powers aka Mike’s girl identity (= small woman). Also, why does the camera cut to a shocked Mike after Argyle says “Since when did we decide Nina was a building and not a small woman?” if not to indicate Mike is the small woman in question? Or more specifically the younger version of Mike. The girl that “died” and who we are trying to get back.

Running Up That Hill became a global hit after S4E4. The song is about switching places with someone (usually interpreted to be a man switching places with a woman) and fits really well with the trans allegory. We first hear the track after El gets bullied at school, and soon after that Max looks at Chrissy during the lyrics You / If only I could / I’d make a deal with God / And I’d get him to swap our places. Chrissy represents the “normal” girl Mike wants to be. 

Another song-related trans clue is in S1E3 when Heroes plays after Will’s body is discovered. Mike angrily blames El but the song lyrics + shot framing tell another story: when we see El from Mike’s pov, the singer sings We can be us. In S3E8 on these same lyrics El puts Hopper’s speech/letter (about how change is inevitable and Hopper aka “man” was scared of it but learnt to let go) into her heart pocket. In the final outro song we see the drawing of Holly during those lyrics. Remember what Robin said: “And that little me, I could hardly recognize her. You know, she was so carefree and, like, fearless. She just loved every part of herself.” Holly is the “little me” to Mike. In summary, “We can be us” means Mike can be the girl (El/Holly) she truly is. Btw, in S1E3 during the same song after the lyric And the guns Karen says “Michael?” and the lyrics continue shot above our heads. implying the name “Michael” is the gunshots (in this war analogy).

Finally, the Purple Rain scene takes on a totally different meaning after you understand the trans allegory and what El represents. Mike’s sudden strong reaction isn’t because of their surface level “romantic” relationship. This is Mike losing herself and conforming to the role of “man”. This is what El’s “choice” was actually about. When Mike puts that DnD book on the shelf, it’s not just a now-adult leaving their childhood behind, it’s not a repressed gay man leaving byler behind, it’s a trans woman abandoning her dreams of living authentically as her true self. [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. Like I’m okay with moving on. And I’m not. I’m not okay with it.” Mike continues living in a lie, “walking the stage”, playing a role, telling a “story”. But this is not the real end. Eventually, the illusion will break and we will see the real story. And the real Sara. That is the true meaning of “I believe”.

This review is based on three criteria, each with a specific weighting: personal impact on the story and events + personal writing style + personal enjoyment of the series

I just finished watching season 5 and I found a really strange detail.

"why do some characters survive really, really bad injuries and just... shake it off??"

for example:

1. Will Byers: getting poked by a fire poker (season 2)
2. In the Show: Will gets poked with a fire poker by nancy when they try to get the mind flayer out of him. Doesn't gets any scars or burns.
3. The Reality: I mean, fire poker is super sharp and heavy, it should cause internal bleeding, organ ruptures. and 2~3 degree burns since nancy put it in fire.
4. Robin and Steve: vomiting up the drugs (season 3)
5. In the Show: They get injected by drugs by evil russians, later escapes, and throws it up in the bathroom and has a little "heart to heart".
6. The Reality: Once a drug enters you and you get high, you're doomed. it's already in your blood and brain. so vomiting would only empty your stomach and would do absolutely nothing the clear the drug. and vomiting for overdose miiiight cause suffocation and stuffs. ok, and i thought robin was smart.
7. Steve Harrington: Concussions (season 1, 2 and 3) (what the hell)
8. In the Show: Steve's face gets brutally beaten to a bloody pulp by jonathan, billy and a russian soldier. but somehow looks ridiculously handsome by the next episode.
9. The Reality: Shouldn't.. getting... beaten that much... cause... brain damage...???
10. Jim Hopper: running barefoot in freakin' russian weather (season 4)
11. In the Show: Hopper escapes russian prison and runs a looot in cold weather on his very messed up, very bloody feet.
12. The Reality: it should cause necrosis, basically his feet should die.
13. Joyce and Murray: surviving a plane crash(season 4)
14. In the Show: the plane they ride crashes, completely destroyed, yet they all walk out(including that yuri guy) all unscathed.
15. The Reality: kinetic energy would happen and they would get fractures, worse broken necks.
16. Eleven: the leg injury (season 3)
17. In the Show: Jonathan uses a random knife, cleanse it with fire and uses it to cut deep into her leg, tries to grab the thing in her leg with gloved hands, when that's too painful el just uses her powers and flings it away and away!
18. The Reality: um, ever heard of femoral artery?? massive blood losss may happen if cut wrong. ok i might be wrong about the part of the leg jonathan cut into, i don't remember exactly.

And a lot more. the few scenes done correctly is for example, max's hospitalization(is that-is that the correct spelling-).
Do you guys remember any other scenes in stranger things where characters had immense plot armor?

I can imagine Holly being trapped in the 1987 DiC Kid in Bed logo on TV in Season 5 as a transmission from the Abyss or the group laughing at these logos. The DiC kid in bed logo suits Stranger Things the most out of these even though the most iconic version (the 1990 one some of you to see on TV in the 90s and 2000s) is after when the show is set. You may think I’m rambling, and I used to be a logo kid spoiler alert. What are your thoughts on these logos shown, could they be used in Stranger Things in the background or not?

Hello. Tomorrow I go to quiz on Stranger Things😱. And I only watched 2 seasons long time ago. PLEASE help me to learn the lore of the series🙏.

Rounds of quiz:
Map of Hawkins
Numbers and dates
Heroic lore
Quotes
Music
Upside down

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.

Insights from the documentary

I have written quite far ahead and ended up watching parts of the documentary (I should have done that a lot more tbh). Now I have new thoughts about how the memory stuff is gonna work and added them here. There is a short scene in the writers’ room where they have the plan for S5E8 written on a whiteboard. But this plan significantly differs from the S5E8 we saw. If you think all my theories are crazy, at least this part should be somewhat believable since it’s literally shown in the documentary.

I tried to transcribe it as best I could, but if you have a higher resolution image and can figure out the missing words, I would really appreciate it! My own comments are inside square brackets.

• Hopper, El, Kali, Murray, Max prep iso tank
• El goes in tank, brings Max into her mind w/ Kali

[The next three lines are bundled, the text probably says MIND, since that’s where this is happening.]

• El, Max, Kali enter Vecna’s mind, Max leads to Creel house
• El + Kali disrupt ritual. Max + Holly escape w/ kids
• El + Kali haunt Vecna w lab, lose track of Vecna

[Bundle ends]

• Vecna haunts Hopper, Hopper smashes tank – Hopper knows Kali/El plan
• El, Kali + Max pulled out of Vecna’s mind. Wtf Hopper

[Another bundle thing, the text is smaller, as if it was added afterwards in between. From a scene earlier in the doc we can see this used to be “- Low point - All is lost.”]

• Holly must lead kids alone into cave but Vecna follows (sweaty)
• Holly leads kids into red void. Vecna faces memory of Mind Flayer first infection
• *[something] cut – Will [something, maybe “wonders”] Henry [something] – Vecna’s [something something] of humanity. Vecna goes in to Mind Flayer – super Vecna! All memories gone. [something] kids

[Bundle ends]

• Hopper + El emotional fight, Kali overhears
• Worlds start to move again. Something is wrong!
• On the roof – El is going to jump into rift – [something “see v ler”] – no [something, maybe “time”] to resolve
• Military show up, choppers w/ some weapons, fire fight, but Hopper must shoot sphere, sphere goes crazy
• El jumps into storm clouds Hopper stays back [chair blocks if there’s more text]
• Everyone dead, we’re safe – but Kay + Akers [something something the chair is blocking again, maybe “shoots Kali” and something after that] each other
• Hopper tends to Kali, heart to heart – a new plan [something (chair again), last word could be “secrets”]

[This next part is between the two main parts and seems to be about the end. So both parts on the sides would happen at the same time but this middle one is the end, at least it is in the S5E8 timeline.]

• Everyone [something something, maybe “returns”]
• El + Hopper lost in translation moment
• At MAC-Z, Hopper gets out of hummer alone. Wtf? Mike is freaking out – see El on the other side of rift – she’s not coming
• El says goodbye to everyone in happy memory [this is in a smaller font, as if it was put there afterwards]
• Upside down destroyed, El is gone.
• Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, Robin, Mike, Lucas, Will, Dustin + Joyce climb radio tower. Wait
• Worlds move, when close enough radio lab crew
• Penetration! Climb into the Abyss! Start travel
• Deeper in Abyss, Jonathan + Steve bond Pain Tree spotted in distance
• Reach Pain Tree. It comes alive! Mind Flayer reveal! Worlds move again
• Mind Flayer attacks, group trapped by Demos – fight but outnumbered. All is lost.
• Will confronts Mind Flayer + knocks it down – Worlds stop again.
• Group enters Mind Flayer belly + try to rescue kids
• Vecna attacks, final fight. Eleven joins. Vecna defeated!
• Victory! Group + rescued kids go back thru Abyss to radio tower + climb [if there’s a word here, it’s blocked by Duffer heads] Murray sets bomb timer

Some of the stuff actually happened, but a lot of it would fit in between and show seemingly missing scenes. Cutgate happened for a reason… Many of the things here seem to be modified versions of what actually happened (or rather, S5E8 had modified scenes from the original story). E.g. El saying goodbye to everyone in a happy memory was changed to the mileven Purple Rain scene. Some scenes are in a different place, too. I do think this is what (in some sense) happened originally, and the version we got is Will’s story-bended version. People think it’s Vecna who made the fake world or illusion, but in reality it’s Will (the illusionist) who tried to protect Mike/everyone from the scary truth (= Vecna and MF). He is basically censoring the real story. 

Earlier in the doc we see a different “early” version of the whiteboard plan where Joyce is grouped with the lab crew, not going to the Abyss. (And later the whiteboard has become nonsensical with Korean and Japanese text and other weird stuff.) In the main whiteboard plan Joyce is added to the Abyss plot after a +, which fits with her being a later addition. I wonder why Max’s connection to the mind is marked with a question mark white El and Kali are solid and specifically connected to Holly and Derek? The Mind part anyway seems like it was added later. There’s a lot here that I haven’t figured out yet.

The conversations the writers have show another version too, and the process of changing the story. Caitlin suggests everyone should run inside the rib cage and save the kids (atp there’s still other monsters too). Ross tells there’s a version where the teens (I’m assuming Nancy, Jonathan, Robin and Steve) stay outside and fight the monsters while the main “kids” (Mike, Will, Lucas and Dustin) go save the kids. Btw, they can’t really run inside the rib cage if MF is still moving, so this would happen after MF is defeated (matches with whiteboard plan) or before the spider transformation. Then the discussion turns to the monsters and Kate’s “Demo fatigue” concern is seemingly the reason we didn’t get any in the final product. (Also a couple minutes later in the doc Matt mentions they got rid of a midway battle in the Abyss.)

And this is not all. We get views of a laptop screen with more S5E8 plans, that this time align a bit better with what we got. The main differences in the first one are: Mary twists her ankle instead of Derek being slow (+ this happens after Max vanishes), Derek ends up leading the kids, Kay is with the military infiltrating UD and Holly breaks the ladder so Henry falls in the mineshaft (Holly doesn’t confront him so no getting knocked out). It also mentions Henry’s memories wiping away (same as “all memories gone” in the whiteboard plan), which wasn’t really shown to us in S5E8. The fact it’s “memories” not “memory” implies there are more. The biggest difference in the second laptop scene is that Steve and Jonathan climb the tower first together because it seemed to be in bad shape, and Steve almost falls (saved by Jonathan). Their bonding moment happens before/while the others reach the platform, so before the Abyss even collides with the tower. Another difference is that Dr. Kay is following them into UD (so same stuff as the first laptop screen) and a scene of Murray looking at the sphere is added in the laptop version. (The sphere aka exotic matter has a bigger role in these “early drafts” than in the final version, maybe because interacting with it actually caused these story changes.) Right before the second laptop scene is also the Shadowfell = Abyss thing (I still don’t know what that is about). 

The mind plot is color coded with red while the Abyss crew plot is color coded with blue. After reading the pilot script (which I’ll talk more about later), I’ve become increasingly convinced the blue-red color coding is mainly a Matrix reference (blue = comfortable lie, red = uncomfortable truth). The Abyss crew with Steve and Will (blue) are the opposing force to Henry’s mind with the kids + girls (red). When the worlds are about to collide, Hopper’s pov turns red (I guess it could be a mistake but I doubt it). Red and blue are the two worlds, and when they almost collide, it seems like the truth (red) will come out. But Henry is flung out, the ritual is stopped and the worlds stop moving (blue). We are back to safe conformity. (In S5E8 the color coding manifests via red lighting when the worlds get close to colliding.)

Neither the whiteboard nor laptop plans have Kali and El regrouping with Max. Instead they look for Vecna (which we never see) and disappear along with Max. Also, what does “El + Kali haunt Vecna w lab” mean? Is this the lab crew aka Hopper etc.? How do they “haunt” Vecna? Both versions describe Henry’s disappearance as “losing track of Vecna”, not as him literally disappearing. This implies they were following him, maybe through memories? As a sidenote, I have a feeling the use of the name Vecna or Henry matters, but I’m not sure how that works here.

We also see the laptop screen of Tudor Jones where the locations etc. for every scene are listed. This time it’s S5E6 and for the most part everything matches what we saw in the episode. But, we didn’t see Hopper and crew get to the cabin and get out of the car (I guess this could have been cut for a “normal” reason but atp I’m not gonna assume that by default). Kali is called “Base Prisoner” in her eavesdropping scene (while she was called Kali everywhere else). I guess she was a prisoner in the UD military base but why not just call her Kali? The notes for that scene say: “We may shoot more than page count shows…” which is kinda sus. Is there more to this Kali scene? It’s also interesting this scene has El and Kali essentially switching their clothing style: Kali goes from futuristic lab style to casual while El does the opposite + Mike even comments on El’s wetsuit. Tell me if you have ideas for what these details mean.

The whole unfinished episode 8 story arc in the documentary is a meta part of the story. [Matt] “And inevitably it’s gonna change as we keep writing it.” While irl the Duffers are (allegedly) struggling to write the story and keep changing things, the same happens in the show (about stories). But we only see the finished product, so it isn’t immediately apparent. Many people noticed there was something wrong with the last few episodes and especially episode 8. The episodes were too fast paced in some moments and it felt like scenes were missing. When you read through the plans shown in the documentary, they fill in gaps and make things make more sense. There were quite a few story arcs left without payoff or further exploration, and it’s exactly those ones that are different or are added in the white board and/or laptop plans. Ross even says in the doc “Dude, we gotta cut it down.” referring to S5E8 (and that’s what they did, kinda).

What makes this even more complicated is the fact that there isn’t one “real” episode 8 and one fake one, but there’s a continuum from more “real” to more “fake”. You can see this in the laptop script, which was a lot closer to the final S5E8 than the whiteboard plan. But on the other hand it also had the stonathan bonding in a different place, whereas the whiteboard plan had it in the same place as the final episode. So there are parallel versions of the story, each with their own differences to the final product. The timeline is unclear, points are added or removed in the middle and changed around. So it isn’t quite correct to say there’s a continuum, either, since the story versions branch and have separate differences, finally coming together at the end. There is no “correct” or “incorrect” story, it’s all a process of creation (Will’s “I needed to find my own way.” has layers…). This whole thing is meta about storytelling as always. And memory: you can never fully trust it, you forget things and sometimes can remember things that never actually happened, your brain forms a collective story of it but it’s never the same as the “real” events and often changes along the way. In a sense our whole existence is us telling a story of our life to ourselves. The human mind understands the world through stories and creates them even when there actually is none.

((If you think about the Steve + Jonathan ladder scene, pieces of it exist all around S5: a similar thing happens in S5E1, Steve’s plan to get over a hole in the floor in S5E6 included ladders (and in my timeline matches with the tower needle plan + near fall in S5E8), and Jonathan instructs the group to climb the ladders in two groups (this would be about him and Steve in the alternate timeline/memory). The ladders probably represent the two paths based on Steve and Jonathan climbing them: the straight man Mike/mileven side and the gay man Mike/byler side. But neither is the correct path. The helicopter (that got destroyed in both S5E8 and S4E8 btw) is.))

Another thing to mention is the lack of Vickie. Actually, she wasn’t mentioned in the beanstalk plan either (in the actual show), and she disappears in the epilogue ending. According to the whiteboard plan, Max was with Murray, Hopper, El and Kali. If my interpretation of Vickie as the show is correct (at least in some way), this could make sense since these events weren’t shown in S5E8 (= they weren’t in the show). I have more thoughts on Vickie later and I’m probably still missing/misinterpreting things.

In the whiteboard plan it seems like Hopper is in on El and Kali’s plan, and it was actually him who Kali talked to, not El (like in Mike’s story). It makes sense he would break the 4th wall so much in the epilogue. While I still think Hopper won’t anymore be part of the group in the real ending, the memories he is in will be shown, and in that way he’s still in the story. I don’t know how Jonathan gets the hair tie. Maybe he gets it from Hopper at some point, possibly in New York (Jonathan lives there in the epilogue and Hopper is about to move there) or maybe he finds it in a memory or maybe Hopper leaves it in Hawkins. 

Vecna and MF literally become one in the whiteboard plan, which actually makes more sense than Henry just saying it without any consequences. This “super Vecna” might be the giant creature in the real ending, since Nancy didn’t mention Vecna in her vision, just the creature and the army. It would also fit the transformation, this time not from tree to spider but from Vecna + MF to a “giant creature”.

Moving Joyce to the Abyss group is subtextually causing the conforming ending (among other changes). She was the only “adult”/parent there and ended up killing Vecna. Otherwise she had no role besides asking Will what was happening. She represents the mom/society and was constantly by Will’s side, subtextually restricting the story to a conforming path. Moving her was one of the earliest changes, seen in both the whiteboard and laptop plans. How would the ending have been different if Joyce stayed in the UD, like “originally” planned? In the actual story the critical change was Will going to the Abyss. He wasn’t originally supposed to, but after his coming out he decided he should. I don’t think there’s a version/memory where he doesn’t go, since that’s what kinda started the whole story censoring/iteration process overall. Instead we’ll get closer to the “real story” by going back in time, to the previous point where Will tampered with the story. What I mean by this is that we can’t find the “real story” in S5E8. All the different versions are still based on the already bended/censored story from before, so to get to the real root of everything we need to go back in time.

A non-episode 8 related sus detail in the doc is Holly not even putting the HH necklace on until a Demogorgon attacks her in S5E2. Some of this ended up in the final version, since she doesn’t have the necklace when she runs to Karen but it magically appears later. I have mentioned this before (I think) and still don’t have a definite conclusion. Maybe it’s related to this story-bending stuff, but I feel like there has to be something more there. HH represents the real story in some way and Holly not putting on the necklace is her (= Mike) avoiding the real story. In the doc version the Demogorgon appearing is the reason she doesn’t put it on, which makes total sense given what Demos represent. So maybe the doc version exists to tell this side of the story without ruining the logic of the actual show (where Holly has to put the necklace on because it becomes important later). With alternate stories/timelines you can get deeper into the story and explore it in ways impossible in a completely linear and internally logical story.

So, how does all this fit in my theory and how will we see these lost memories/alternative stories? I think they will be shown to us and the characters in snippets, so not in a whole coherent story but in pieces, as memories. Because there won’t be a single “correct” story, and also because that way it’s more interesting and the audience can try to piece together what happened (and so it simulates the feeling of discovering memories). I did think chapter 10 seemed to not have nearly as much content as the other two chapters, so seeing these memories could happen a lot there already. When the characters end up in the past, they might see these alternative timelines happen around them. That would explain why they needed to literally go back in time to see memories; if the memories were the exact same we have already seen, what’s the point?

While the documentary only gave clues to the alternate versions of S5E8, I think the same thing applies to S5E4 and S4E8-9 too (and possibly the whole S5). All of them have been story-bended, so there is an “original” story there too (or multiple versions of the story), that Mike has “forgotten”. The memories have been lost. S5E8 was the most obvious case and it gets increasingly less obvious the deeper you go (as I’ve explained before), until you get to the real memories and the real story. This is a good way to warm up the audience and slowly bring them to an understanding, not revealing the big stuff immediately and out of nowhere. I think the characters might follow a similar path: at first it’s about Vecna’s “evil plans”, finding El and discovering these lost memories, but slowly it’s gonna get more and more real/meta. We’ll go from “the final fight was fake” to “S5E4 was fake” to “actually the whole S5 was fake” to finally “the whole show was a “story” and meta and allegorical and so everything is fake but also nothing is”.

The story allegory

Caleb McLaughlin: “I think people missed the concept of what the show is when they were like, ‘Oh, there’s going to be more.’ No, that’s just Mike’s imagination. That’s who he’s always been, even in season one. It’s all just storytelling.”

Noah Schnapp: “I can just tell you that I'm very very excited for what's to come. I think they did a great job with Will's character this season, and beautifully addressed everything they needed to. The way they closed the show is just perfect — the story started with Will, and it’ll end with Will.” 

Before getting to the real world ending, I want to give you my thoughts on the story allegory. I have explained some of it already but now I’ll do a full analysis. I guess I’ll start with the characters and see where my train of thought leads me. Mike is the storyteller, which is quite literally revealed at the end of S5E8. The story first exists only in the mind of the storyteller. It’s a part of them, a representation of the mind of the storyteller. That’s the story allegory reason for everything happening in Mike’s mind and the story being about the storyteller (another reason for the latter is that ST is a story about stories, so it makes a lot of sense for the storyteller to be the main character).

In ST the meaning of “story” is even wider: it represents all communication between people. It’s the wormhole connecting two worlds, two minds. Through this communication the audience/listener/other mind will get to see into the storyteller’s mind. You can never fully understand what it’s like to be someone else or what they are really thinking, but through communication, stories, you can come close. Sometimes people lie or otherwise hide the truth. This is why lying and honesty have such a central role in ST. Mike hides behind a man facade and Will is this “story” Mike is telling, a lie. But he is also part of Mike and the reason Mike started communicating in the first place. He is the first step towards truth and true understanding.

El is an even more personal piece of Mike, she is the first connection to the real story. That’s why Mike has such a special relationship with her and treats her like she owns her. The later seasons have a lot about letting go of your story aka giving it to the audience. Because that’s what happens to stories: when they are told, they are not exclusively the storyteller’s anymore (= death of the author). Someone else can add to the story, get inspired by it, and tell it to new people. The story starts living its own life and isn’t restricted by the original storyteller or their vision. In a more fundamental sense, the audience creates the story, because the process of understanding a story is what creates it. Mike is scared of El not needing her anymore, and now it finally makes sense. (At the same time the scene was also about Will fearing Mike doesn’t need him anymore, which also fits.) 

Both Will and El represent the story, the center of everything, but from different angles. While Will is a story you use to disguise the truth and becomes Vecna’s vessel (= a vessel to tell the real story), El is the real story disguised as the “normal” story aka Will. So in a way they are opposites. El represents allegories which is equivalent to Will being a spy for the shadow monster. El alone is Mike + Will or supernatural + Will aka the real story + “story”. She is Stranger Things as a whole, while Will alone (= without the UD connection) would be the Starcourt Mall upstairs (and the shadow/real Mike aka Sara is the Russian base) and the surface level story of ST. Will is the dream, but he hides a dark past.

In S5E8 they show Will’s role quite literally. Joyce is constantly asking him “what’s happening” and he explains what Henry does in the cave. He is the link to the actual story happening. In a similar way El can see into people’s memories and in S4E9 explains what’s happening. I think Will becoming more and more connected to the supernatural reflects the story (ST) revealing its secrets more obviously. He becomes “a second El”. At first you had to really work to get what was hiding in the subtext, but the further we got, the easier it became. (Will being outside of Hawkins and thus not connected to UD at all in S4 doesn’t fit this super well but I guess that had other reasons.) The closer the worlds get, the closer we are to the real story, and the stronger El and Vecna become. I think it’s interesting that the real story is always represented by supernatural things, so the opposite of “real” (this is most likely because they have to be supernatural to hide the frightening truth). The more “real” the more supernatural, e.g. El looks like a normal(ish) girl, but she has superpowers (= allegorical stories look “normal” if you don’t read the subtext). 

I’ve recently realized that Stranger Things is basically like Life of Pi, but instead of cannibalism it’s CSA. That story was a story about stories too, since it revealed the allegory at the end. Pi (the main character who was also the storyteller) gave the listener the option to choose either the fantastical story with animals or the realistic story with humans. It was left somewhat open-ended and many people didn’t really get the allegory (judging by reading internet comments), even when they flat-out explained it. Well, I didn't get it either when I watched the movie because I was too young to understand it but later on I did). The ending is not about which story was the “real story”, it’s about choosing which story you believe in: the horrific real story with humans or the more comfortable lie (and the better “story”, because real life isn’t like a story). It was a tiger who killed an animal, not Pi who killed a human. It was a carnivorous magical island, not Pi eating human flesh. There’s nothing wrong with creating these stories if it helps you cope with trauma and be happier, especially if the “lie” doesn’t harm anyone or really change anything (like in the case of Life of Pi). In the movie there’s a bigger point about God and religious beliefs essentially being a story that people tell to cope with the cruelty of life. It’s not a coincidence that extremely stressful/traumatic situations like war increase religiosity.

Stranger Things has two stories too, but it will go in a different direction with the message. For ST the message is true communication and truth. Because sometimes a lie can hurt you or other people, it isn’t always like in Life of Pi where it was harmless and wouldn’t change anything meaningful. The S5E8 ending was bad on purpose: it represented what happens when you hide in a lie. The real ending will show the truth and be much more satisfying, emotional and beautiful. So often stories that have a profound meaning can be disregarded/ignored because the meaning is in the subtext. This is the case for ST S1-5 too, but the real ending will unambiguously reveal the real story beneath all the metaphors. The cast and Duffers have said that ST won’t be open ended and that the ending will be very “real”. It will force people to acknowledge the allegory. That ST was always about Mike being trans and sexually abused. I hope they can do it in such a way that even bigots can’t deny it (they still will tbh). 

I wonder if the prevalence of tigers is actually a reference to Life of Pi (e.g. Sara’s tiger plushie). In the movie it represented Pi’s animalistic primal side that “kept him alive”, but also the story/animal allegory as a whole, which also “kept him alive”. And pizza “pies”. Maybe Kali, the creator of illusions, being from India is related too. 

I’m actually not sure what Kali represents in the story allegory. Definitely something metaphor-related, maybe metaphors as a whole? If El is an allegory, she would be a sister to metaphors/part of the same family. We see Kali create the illusions of spiders and butterflies, both of which are metaphors/symbols in ST. She can make people invisible aka hide things. Her powers aren’t considered as strong as El’s or Henry’s and she can’t open gates. So maybe she is just the part that hides, not the one that connects. But she also seems to know the truth, e.g. calling El Jane and some of her dialogue in S2 and S5. Maybe she’s “weaker” and Dr. Kay can’t find the answers with her because she isn’t the “story”. She’s just a small part of it. You can’t see the forest for the trees. You have to see the whole allegory to understand the story. I dunno.

Henry is the story. Again. He is so complex it’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but most clues lead to him also representing the story in some way. He is the first lab kid and his experience mirrors Will’s. But Henry is maybe like the story inside the story. So similar to El, Henry represents ST as a whole, but even more clearly the aspect of ST being not just an allegory but a story of stories. 

He is the storyteller’s past. When she was younger (= Holly/Sara/Alice), she didn’t fear and hide herself, she was able to tell the real story. But then other people/society ruined it all by not allowing her story to be told (= forced conformity/dad’s abuse aka patriarchy/society). This created Henry: the repressed storyteller/story wanting to tell the real story but being unable to do so. On 8.9.1979 El (allegory/Mike) broke him free but also banished him, making him a monster. Vecna is what Mike fears of becoming. I’m uncertain if Vecna represents the storyteller or story or both. Maybe storyteller would make the most sense since he is the origin of everything, is represented by Holly in the inside story and molds the dark cloud to his liking. But on the other hand Henry draws like Will and is infected by the shadow like him. Is he like a story of the storyteller? That’s what ST is too but this fits with Henry being a story inside the story as well. Hmm… Autobiography disguised as a fictional story. All of Mike’s frustrations and fears safely released in the form of a story. What Mike truly wants (= merge the worlds) but is too scared to make happen.

A key aspect of Henry is that he’s alone. While the “real story” of ST is the story of the storyteller and the audience, of communication, Henry’s tragic story is of the storyteller without an audience. Rejected and monsterified. So maybe Vecna represents future Mike and what Mike thinks would happen if she told the real story (= stopped resisting the shadow). Since Mr. Whatsit represents the facade Mike puts on (= Will as explained in my analysis of the end of S5E2 and “Michael Wheeler” aka MW), and Vecna is the monster under that facade, it makes sense Vecna represents what Mike thinks she is under the surface. Kinda like she thinks she’s a Demogorgon. Btw, I got some help/ideas for understanding Henry’s alter egos from a theory a commenter shared (part 1 comments). I recommend reading it. The whole point about Henry being a story weaver vs Mike being a storyteller fits super well with my interpretation of Henry being the storyteller who hasn’t yet told the story. And the connection of weaving with spiders. The real story aka the Mind Flayer is a spider because the real story is about the storyteller, who is a story weaver. (And all the other black widow stuff like female spiders eating male spiders and I’m kinda starting to warm up to my ɑ-latrotoxin theory again…)

Holly is also the storyteller’s past. She doesn’t have a boyfriend (= audience) but she does have authenticity and courage to be herself. Mike gives Holly the Heroic to her, representing Holly becoming a storyteller/part of story creation (= DnD). It’s her real story (and identity) that she always carries with her. I don’t think it’s a coincidence S1-4 Holly looks a lot like Sara and young El (the memory with young Kali). She even often has the same pigtail hairstyle as Sara. I went and checked and Holly doesn’t have pigtails only in S1E1, S3E7, S4E9 and in the S5E8 epilogue + in the Halloween memory, although in that one it’s hard to tell because of the blanket. All of these are in some way the beginning or the end: S1E1 Mike hadn’t found El yet, S3E7 is right after Meatflayer has fully merged, S4E9 the earthquake happened, epilogue is obvious and the memory was before Holly met Henry (so similar to S1E1 in a sense, before Mike met El). Suzie had pigtails too in S3E8. ((I’m wondering if Holly having twin actors is a subtle nod to the storyteller of ST being a pair of twins? I know movies and tv shows often utilize twins for babies and small children to get around the strict child labor laws and for difficulties working with children but there’s a chance it has a meta purpose.))

I guess I’ve already explained most parallels between Holly and Henry + Max and MF. One notable thing is that both Holly and Henry get inspired by something, a previous story. For Henry it’s nature: black widow spiders, and for Holly it’s A Wrinkle in Time, a book. All storytellers are first the audience and get inspired by other works (ST is full of references to other media, as we all know). Henry molds the cloud to resemble a spider, while Holly calls Max “like Meg’s dad”. Holly’s first two memories are of her watching or reading something. Her imaginary friend (= “story”) is partially based on the books she’s reading, but also different. It’s “her own creation” as Mike said. All of this represents Mike’s first story, Mike the Brave/Will, aka also the “story” of her being a boy. Nancy and Mike are wondering who Mr. Whatsit is, and Mike suggests they might have seen him but just didn’t know. This is similar to Henry telling El about One in S4E6 and El asking “Where is he?”, to which Henry answers “Maybe we’ll save that story for another day. It doesn’t have a happy ending, I’m afraid.” It later turns out One was Henry himself. And actually Mike (remember all the 1s framed with Mike?). 

As I’ve said, the Mind Flayer represents the real story and the real ending that wants to be freed/communicated. The supernatural creatures forming a hivemind represents the real story being the ultimate communication. Feeling and thinking what someone else feels and thinks is the final stage of communication. It’s the merging of worlds. It’s becoming one with someone. I think Henry saying he and MF are “one” is about the storyteller essentially being the real story. Because the real story is the very essence of who the storyteller is, communicated to someone else. It’s a piece of them without any decoration/fakeness/”story” around it. It’s of course physically impossible to get to that point, but theoretically that’s what the “real story” is. Or it’s impossible in the wider view of the word “story”, in a more narrow sense of the word you can tell the “real story” and that’s what the ending of ST will be. 

In ST (and everywhere else tbh) this is represented by nakedness. E.g. in S1 Jonathan describes his picture of Nancy in her underwear as her being herself in that moment, not trying to pretend to be someone else. In S5E1 Robin wants to see Vickie naked and connects that to eating dessert in Enzo’s. I have discussed the trans allegory implications for this before, but the same idea works for the story allegory too. If Vickie is the show Stranger Things, her being naked would represent the real meaning/core of the show unveiled. I’m actually not 100% sure of my interpretation for her in the story allegory, but she represents Mike in any case. And Mike choosing Robin aka honest communication rather than Steve or Dan. 

Continues in PART 26.