My opinion on what I think is going to happen to Max (more like a compilation of every rant and thought I've had for the last 4 days).
The "Max is brain dead" statement (a.k.a no, she is not)
In a recent interview with Josh Horowitz for his "Happy Sad Confused" show, the Duffers referred to Max as being brain dead and blind (here's the link to the part of the interview in which they said it). Now, the reason why I have an issue with this is that there's no way Max is brain dead. Why do I say this? Let me explain:
Over the years, there has been some controversy over the definition of brain death and its criteria. I won't get too much into it because I'm not a doctor, but I did my research and this is what the NHS says (the first screenshot is from this website and the second is from this one):
According to the National Library of Medicine, apnea (slowed or stopped breathing) is an essential finding in brain death. An apnea test is a mandatory examination for determining brain death, it provides an essential sign of definitive loss of brainstem function. In short, a brain dead person cannot breathe without a ventilator.
Let me ask you something: do you see a ventilator? (The machine on the right is a patient monitor btw).
There's none, which means Max is not, in any way, on life support. Therefore, she is not brain dead. Easy as that. While it's true that people who are unconscious for a longer time might transition to brain death, it's not Max's case (not yet, at least). So either the Duffers don't know the criteria for brain death, or they randomly threw the term in an attempt to explain Max's state, or they confused it with being in a coma due to cardiac arrest (which seems to be her case), or all of the above.
Why couldn't Eleven find her in the void?
There are 3 reasonable explanations (within the show's logic) as to why this happened:
A coma is a state of unconsciousness and minimal brain activity with no signs of awareness. So it could be that due to the nature of her condition, her mind appears to be empty even if it's not; it's simply... absent. This is the option I like the most because it's backed by science.
Vecna somehow kidnapped/absorbed her mind. This is the most plausible one because of the context that has been given within the show.
Her mind is stuck somewhere else, possibly hiding from Vecna.
Gonna elaborate on the first two in a bit.
The original pairings/groups issue
In the same interview with Josh Horowitz, the Duffers said they are looking forward to returning to the original pairings/groups from S1. I recovered the information from this EW article.
The original groupings and pairings are:
The core 4 kids: Lucas, Dustin, Mike & Eleven (and Will to some degree because he is an original character, but he was in the Upside Down for almost the entire season and had very little interaction with the rest of the group).
The teenagers: Jonathan, Nancy & Steve.
The adults: Joyce & Hopper.
This leaves a few characters in an unknown position, particularly Erica, Robin, and Max (the Duffers said S5 will be set entirely in Hawkins, so I'm not considering the characters from other locations: Murray, Suzie, Argyle, Yuri, and Dmitri "Enzo"). Putting Max into a coma was probably the easiest scenario they could come up with to set her aside, reduce the number of characters as much as possible, and focus more on the original ones.
If the Duffers wanted to kill Max, they would have done it already
This is probably the strongest argument against the "Max won't survive" theory: it simply makes no sense from a narrative POV.
I come from the Game of Thrones fandom. GoT was a show built on the premise that any character could die, no matter how important they were (and even D&D didn't have the guts to kill many of them). Stranger Things has never been like that, the characters who have died have almost always been recently introduced ones: Barb, Bob, Alexei, Chrissy, Eddie, and Jason (except for Papa but fuck him). So far the Duffers haven't messed up with any main character, and I doubt they'll start doing it now.
They had a great opportunity (for lack of a better word) to kill Eleven and Will in S1, Hopper in S3, and pretty much everyone in S4. If they wanted to kill Max, they had at least two "perfect" moments to do so: the first one when she actually died in Lucas' arms, and the second one in a scene that didn't happen but for a hot moment I swore it would:
When I saw Eleven had restarted Max's heart but she was unconscious, my first thought (and fear) was they were setting the ground for a scene in which everyone said their goodbyes. Given Max's arc during the season and what she said about feeling depressed and alone, it made sense in my head to have her die surrounded by her friends telling her how much they loved her. And to have a final montage of everyone reading the letters she wrote for them.
But then, when it didn't happen, I realized it would have been pretty stupid of the Duffers to kill Max, revive her and get everyone's hopes up, only to kill her again. So yeah, if they made such a big deal of Eleven saving her, it will make absolutely zero sense to kill her for real. Just sayin'.
Sadie doesn't know Max's fate
Yesterday, Sadie gave an interview to Deadline and said she has no idea what will happen to Max. She could be lying, of course, but I find it unlikely.
The Star Wars inspiration
In this interview with Collider, the Duffers mention getting inspiration from Empire Strikes Back to write the ending for ST4. The article even points out the parallel between Han Solo ending the movie frozen in carbonite and Max's coma.
As the massive Star Wars fan that I am, I was surprised at the parallel. Almost all of the Stranger Things fandom is convinced that, if Max wakes up, she will be blind, which could also be a reference to Han Solo's blindness after awakening from his carbonite hybernation (although Han's condition was established to be temporary from the start, while Max's seems pretty definite to me). Of course, the fact that the Duffers drew inspiration from ESB does not necessarily mean S5 will be like Return of the Jedi. But if Han being frozen in carbonite is what inspired them to write Max's coma, it would make sense they have her wake up early in the season (just like Han).
What I think all of the above means for Max
The most popular theory so far says that Max's mind was taken by Vecna and is trapped somewhere else, and that's why Eleven couldn't find her. If this is true, the most logical answer is that when Vecna dies and Max's mind is recovered, she will wake up.
Yesterday I stumbled upon this user's (renaissancemeetsworld) post about The Void, a card from D&D, and it pretty much convinced me that the theory might be correct:
Now, I think it's interesting to point out that Max didn't die like the rest of Vecna's victims. Technically speaking, Vecna didn't get to finish her off because he was interrupted by Eleven, so the process wasn't completed. Even if Max did die, she was brought back, which weirdly makes her both a victim and a survivor of Vecna's curse.
Vecna is said to take everything from his victims. Not only does he kill their minds, he also destroys their physical bodies. This is why if the theory of Max's mind being held hostage by Vecna is true, Eleven resuscitating her (a.k.a saving her physical body) is the key to her survival. The other victims are basically fucked because even if Vecna is defeated and releases their minds, they won't have a physical body to return to. But Max would, and that's why the Duffers made Eleven restart her heart.
However, I have a major issue with this theory, even if it seems like the most plausible:
Vecna is the main villain of Stranger Things, which means he should be defeated right at the end or near the end of the show, based on the traditional storytelling structure in which the big bad is defeated in the end. If this happens and Max's mind is finally free once he dies, then it would be safe to assume Max will stay in a coma for the entirety of ST5. This scenario holds a significant inconvenience: Max being kept in the penalty box for the entire season would be very lackluster and anticlimatic after everything that happened in S4. Max is a well-beloved character and Sadie is, in my opinion, the best actor in the show; therefore, setting her aside would be a terrible waste (even if Max continues to appear but we only see her inside her mind or something).
What would I like to happen?
We know there will be a time jump in S5, although we don't know how far into the future the Duffers will take the story. However, given the sense of urgency of the S4 finale (the Upside Down/Hawkins barrier is gone and they are one-and-the-same now), it can't be that big of a time jump. Like, there's no way the characters are going to carry on with their lives when everything is literally collapsing around them.
People can be in a coma for days or weeks, even longer in more uncommon cases. So I would like for Max to begin S5 still in a coma but wake up early in the season, either because the group finds a way to retrieve her mind without having to kill Vecna first, or because her body recovers enough for her to regain consciousness, or something along those lines.
Oh and I wouldn't be too mad if they give us some scenes of her adjusting to being blind and waking up with some awesome ability that will be crucial to killing Vecna ✌🏼
