Do you think that anyone who hasn't died in the show 'til S5 is going to die in the real timeline ? I honestly don't think they're going to kill anyone lol ( maybe people like dr kay or one of the wheeler parents ??? They could kill both wheeler parents but i don't think they're going to do it because of Holly, so maybe Ted is going to die ?? Idk )
Because like they said... They're not game of thrones, and It would go against their massage that "love defeats evil and fear"
I think LOVE is what is going to make them all win this battle, so i don't think anyone is going to die
That is....an interesting question.
I believe we need to understand how live can work on screen.
I pointed out this Youtuber before, I do it again (also because I'm rewatching some of their movies currently):
He compares the more grandiose, almost obsessive and often superficial love story we get in most Disney films in which finding love is the goal, to what Ghibli does going through different kinds of love that combine the romantic, the platonic, the everything in between and the day to day love, how you don't approach it as a prize at the end of the story but as something that either grows and/or needs to be tended to.
And I get what he's trying to say here even if one could disagree a little, however I think, done well, we can have aspects of both, the extravagant and flamboyant love with the mundane and "ordinary" love. You can have both of "completing each other" in a certain way, making each other whole and being the force that heals one another changing you but over time. We have hints of this in ST but especially the latter, time that you take for your characters, is the biggest problem.
We were introduced to the idea of this but they pulled the rug under some of the character's development that leads to...nothing.
The Duffers have tendency to talk a lot without saying something, wasting time that was very obvious in S4 and give some maybe minutes, while others barely get a few seconds. I assume they believe that a few seconds can tell enough, yet also stretch some scenes into ridiculousness (for the record, if the MF is creating scenes between characters, then don't use a film like Titanic, that it can have no knowledge of. Except your story is everything ever is just that world but...well, I better open that can of worms and dissect how inherently nonsensical the plot of the entire show would be if that's the case. It has so many logical problems just from a narrative perspective that I would trust Uwe Boll of making a better version.)
It just....doesn't work at least not in total. Think of how important the revival of Max was and then "Yeah, we need to water it down" because, um, reasons, no matter how you interpreted the ElMax relationship - btw something only parts of the fandom did point out. The Duffers either lack grace & competence or the willingness to do it and at best use other characters as proxys to tell the love stories, romantic or platonic or in between, of others. And while they may think that this is clever storytelling, I suspect they overestimate their own cleverness.
Though there's nothing wrong with leaving certain things to imagination, you need a foundation for that and for example Princess Mononoke does exactly that, building up a relationship and keep it to the imagination, certain ships in ST barely get enough of said foundation. Scraps of it. Now, they say, use your imagination.
And to be completely honest I don't trust the Duffers to be competent enough or willing to tell such a story.
Yet, you could do it. The earlier mentioned grandios and the mundane could be done perfectly done in ElMax - the realization that and how much their love means as the grandiose at the start of the final season and to work out how this system heals them, this connection can be maintained, has to be taken care of throughout the season. You can make it within a fusion of personalities and in my opinion that would be a great allegory and better representation of both queer love and mental disorder than we typically get from Hollywood, but even in your regular relationship - if one cannot imagine that it turn out that these characters are a single person with DID - you could have done it I think.
And Byler could do it in a similar way, and using aspects of Princess Mononoke at the end for them could be the way.
(btw I think it's possible that the upper left scene may have inspired ST, yet instead of Mike, they gave the part to El... And Mononoke Hime isn't super ambiguous about the relationship between the characters.)
I think that's why making Byler the physical equivalent of ElMax would be an approach that would work fantastically if handled with grace.
So much as I see a potentially similar theme of Sophie and Howl as being healthy for one another in ElMax and San and Ashitaka in Byler, this works in the opposite direction as well. Not exact copies as these characters are clearly different, but from a basic idea that then combines the previously mentioned "grandiose & mundane".
That would be my basic blueprints for them.
But I haven't really answered your question, I'm afraid. Probably because I don't have a clear answer. I can't say what to actually expect or if we should indeed expect anything at all and they just use Conformitygate to sort of promote their stuff and people "buy" it. - The Duffers lie. All the time and they made it worse in the last few months, so even when they seem sincere, I can't trust there words. So I can't even tell, if they intend to do any of the "love wins" at all. There Season 5 and the implications of a conformity ending in it, is actually just tje bleak nonsense you get from certain horror franchises. This conformity ending. It's nihilistic. And on its surface it's just shallow.
We have the hints of more and better stories behind the curtain that is behind the curtain but I doubt we will ever see it to be honest - I'd like to be wrong here. But as said before, the trust isn't really there. 5 was a (deliberate) failure - aside from anyone's expectations.
Besides death is often used as a spectacle as far as see it, especially 5 - actually S5 made Max's death (and resurrection) a spectacle retroactively.
Hollywood in general either tends to make very bleak shit, just think of GoT as the template of how fantastical cinema & TV has to look according to the producers because they want to repeat the success by coping that formula, while films like Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves does a great job in not falling into this trap, and show us how you can have a different kind of fantasy. The Willow TV-show does this as well and no matter if you like the execution or not, it shows that different styles are possible. Or and that's the opposite, Hollywood makes the "happily ever after" stuff and, look, I would be lying if I said I don't like that.
Yet....how about nuance? Being half-way happy and @noreasontobeupset pointed out that this is something Doctor Who does. It's never just dark and bleak, yet also doesn't necessarily give you your cardboard cutout happy ending. Like Ghibli you get something in between.
S5 wasn't that - that ending, the approach of creating something everyone can interpret for themselves is just a copout.
And what's baffling is that their idea is just and dumb meta message only those would understand that already analyze this show instead of using the show to actually challenge their audience, their entire audience, with nuance and heart. I think you can do it. Go with a bang and...
