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The Duffers in their Masterclass were talking about how you shouldn't be able to switch out lines bc their voices should be distinct enough, but while they were doing it they had a little slip where they paralleled only couples...
It was clear in delivery it was one of those things where you say one name and your brain just auto-fills their other half.
They, too, see Mike and Will that way.
Mike and Dustin Season 1 conversation summary:
Dustin: So we’re friends?
Mike: Yeah, best friends
Dustin: And what about Lucas?
Mike: We’re best buds
Dustin: What about Will?
Mike: Will? We’re besties
Dustin: What?
Mike: Besties for the resties
Dustin: Zesties for the resties?
Mike: No, Dustin that’s woke propaganda
Dustin: Sometimes your total obliviousness just blows my mind
Anyway
"Byler isn't planned"
Eleven's story has been about independence from men from episode 1, as a young girl who survived long-term abuse from her father whose arc was about getting more out into the world on her own.
Intertwined stories is what I'm saying.
If you're storyboarding and trying to intertwine the stories, what I'm saying is....
You go "we have a queer kid, we have a girl who needs to become independent from men....what if we had them date"
Not "what if they were queer and focused on independence".
I take the Duffer's Masterclass and one thing they repeat constantly [they actually just had a compilation of all the times they repeated themselves that were cut it was really funny] but one thing they repeat CONSTANTLY is to not get into the script phase until the last minute. And if you have to change something, go back to the base structure phase to make sure it works.
Never CREATE something in the script. Ever. It's like the core principle of their entire class that they emphasize every episode.
Their whole description of their timeline and how to make one requires having all this figured out before you script it out, let alone finalize scripts, let alone shoot.
So no, I do not think they made Mike break up with his girlfriend because he's queer.
I think they made him DATE her because he's queer.
More specifically, I think they made him date her because he's queer.
I also just remembered something that's supports this. Eleven was originally an adult woman, more like if we had followed her mother Terry's story. The original concept for the character was the independence after abuse part. Not the romance with a twelve year old boy part.
It is even possible that they made her twelve because they realized they had an opportunity to intertwine two stories where being in a relationship would benefit these characters but only as a path to what they really needed, which they would need to break up to achieve. That those characters both benefited from that and it would be genius to put them together.
So yeah. Byler is endgame because of all the girls to have Mike date, they had him date the one whose arc was already set up to be about being fine without him.
They did not do that thinking it would break his heart. They did it because they realized it would be perfect for the plot they already had in mind.
Yes, I am saying once again that it is very possible, even likely, they came up with Byler before they came up with Mlvn.
The Masterclass is so cool to learn about order because guess what
El was not originally pitched to kiss Mike because they wanted a love story. It was pitched out of an early idea of her having like a "kiss of death" part of her powers where when they kissed his head exploded. Then you need to justify "well they need to fall in love to kiss". THEN they went "actually maybe don't explode his head".
It was a means of SUPERNATURAL POWER EXPLORATION. Not love story subplot.
The more I learn about their romantic plotline the more confident I am. So now we have an iteration where she died, an iteration where he died, AND their kiss was not written to establish a romantic plotline for the future, it was supposed to be a one off that moved the supernatural plotline forward only.
Additionally from the class, they say that she was originally an adult (who did not kiss Mike, to be clear). Essentially Terry Ives. We can gather that she would have had similar themes of recovery from abuse - themes, the actual central thing that cannot be changed - but romance never tied to those, let alone to Mike, who as an adult, she could not have had a romance with.
Mike and El's romance came into play late in the game I can not emphasize enough. Even after they were pitched to kiss. I've always said it plays now as the kiss existing to exacerbate his grief, and in a way I was right. It never existed for their romance.
It developed into a promise he felt entrapped by etc. but it was always a plot device for other plotlines, not its own romance for the sake of itself.
In the Duffers Masterclass I just watched they mentioned the monsters' evil overlapping with and representing "everyday evils", describing things like suburbia and conformity and the fake face you put on depression.
That is The Wheelers, poster child, perfect. They appear like what everyone says you should look like. But...
Ted is the breadwinner but he's in a constant state of passivity.
Karen is the housewife but she's miserable and misses thrill.
Nancy is the goodie two shoes perfect future wife but guess what she has sex, and she has guns, and she's pursuing an independent career.
Mike gets "too" good of grades and is straight but he....is telling the truth about that?
I don't think that's right. Having a girlfriend you don't tell anyone has superpowers is still posterchild, still putting on a face just like anything else, and it's succeeding to. This isn't about personal insecurity like his in season 4. This is about public appearance. If El were allowed to exist publically, The Wheelers at face value would be a married couple with two kids - a girl with a nice boyfriend she's going to college with and a high school boy with a nice girlfriend.
They need to be a [hopefully divorced] couple with two kids - a career driven girl who can defend herself like hell and a queer high school boy.
Not to mention on the superpowers note, that isn't even against status quo or norm. It sounds odd but it's not. Know why? They haven't even thought of that to be against. He needs to be something they ARE AGAINST.
Slut-shaming was prevalent in season 1 when Nancy had sex. Underestimation and misogyny was present in season 3 when she was pursuing a career. She surprises and defies expectations of herself in ways that are directly judged.
Homophobia was prevalent for Mike in season 1. "You'd be such a loser if you knew a psychic" never was, I promise you. She has something to fear going public: governments who have expressed desire for persecution of her. He does not. He would not be persecuted for her existence or for relation to her. If they wanted to say that, he could have faced consequences for harboring her in season 1, but they didn't - not to mention the fact that it doesn't represent any audience member to say 'it's hard having superpowers'.
Mike needs to be something that is actively hated, not something they haven't heard of and therefore probably maybe would or could hate. Something that IS. HATED. Something that has been expressed towards him. Something that he has been threatened out of.
All of those things are true of him being queer. The same way Nancy was slut shamed by the police and ridiculed by her male coworkers, Mike was spoken to homophobically and physically harmed and threatened.
It's odd to have superpowers, but Mike has no reason to fear persecution. It's unconventional. It doesn't challenge convention. And that's what the people of Hawkins are afraid of. Challenging of their beliefs. The truth about his person can't invoke surprise, it needs to invoke hatred.
They said they were inspired by their own experience growing up in suburbia. Hiding who you are and what you're going through out of fear of judgment around you. Mike with El would fear the unknown. But he needs to fear a concrete something.
From perfect nuclear family to divorced parents of a gunslinger career daughter and a queer son is anti-convention. Straight boy dating a superhero is unconvention - as in unrelated, not against. Divorced parents of a gunslinger daughter and a straight son with a cool girlfriend is inconsistent. To the core themes to which this family is meant to perfectly represent.
Every other family is openly not fitting the norm: single parents, mental health issues, nuclear family but Black. The Wheelers are perfect. The Wheelers are the only illusion still left to be broken. Being with El - being straight - in no way breaks a single convention. It surprises. But once you adjust, you just look at him and go "oh look a straight boy, his girlfriend has powers yeah, you get used to it". It does not break. Queerness breaks. Queerness shatters.
The theme is represented by The Wheelers. They cannot be inconsistent. They must secretly shattering convention in every facet. They can't just forget one. Miserable mom, passive dad, powerful daughter, and perfect little straight boy with the good grades whose family fell apart around him. That's what they'd see. Mike, especially as the only member of that poster board family who is also in the kids' group which is the poster board for wrongful persecution and bullying, of all people cannot be what's left out. He MUST, even if no one else, be the poster child of "forced conformity. that's what's killing the kids".
And sorry but if his sister who likes her job is more anti-conformity than "bullying meets pretending to be perfect to hide a deep dark secret: poster child", you're doing something wrong.
Eleven and Will represent two sides of the same coin in the themes of abuse. Mike represents the theme of anti-conformity, because to do so you have to have tried to conform - that's just stories work.
The poster child for anti conformity cannot beat out the other character options of homophobia and racism for that spot by being "kind of scared that one soldier will be mad at him by proxy".
When I think the poster child for conformity killing the kids I don't think him
Lieutenant Colonel Jack Sullivan does not represent the classic "everyday evil" threat suburban kids face.
I think of them
They're killing the kids. The kids stuck in homophobic, white suburbia smalltown midwest watching these episodes know. Snipers in helicopters aren't killing those kids. They are. And they're killing them for being queer. For Mike, they'd have no reason else.
No one has ever told Mike "just conform and date somebody without superpowers". Actually, the only thing they've ever told him is "it's so cool that you have a girlfriend with superpowers". So there is no way that a white straight boy staying with his white straight girlfriend is what will "kill him": death by "conformity".
To quote his sister:
He is the sole intersection between the picture perfect family and the group of kids pressured most frequently to conform. He's not going out straight.
"If you do something that isn't true to the character, it's gonna be pretty clear and feel really off" - the writers who supposedly made Mike "super out of character" for two full seasons
No they didn't. They see immediately when it's wrong and are irritated by it enough to immediately redirect it.
In fact, they likely find that it was the ONLY thing he would do in that situation.
I've said before and I'll say again: Mike's behavior is completely in character for the situation he's in. You're just wrong about what that SITUATION is.
"He would never act this way just because he's scared of vulnerability" then maybe it's not vulnerability he's scared of.
"Okay but he would never prioritize himself over their feelings" maybe their reactions now are still BETTER than what he fears they would be if they knew the truth
Given you've watched the duffers masterclass, do you remember if they're contradicting their own lessons?
This is a great question! They did not. But I mean that as an insult. Now that you mention it, I don't think they went over narrative structure - inciting incident, midpoint, cave, elixir, climax, road back - even once. Most of the screenwriting stuff I talk about I know from my own classes, I more-so took the Masterclass to get insight into the writing of Stranger Things specifically, but the concepts I've talked about were from other sources of screenwriting knowledge.
And they did contradict those.
The biggest ones that stick out to me are of course the un-fired Chekhov's gun that is the Cyrano-painting, but the #1 I thought of immediately was honestly that by basic narrative structure and openly visible by every other plotline told at that time, Mike saying I love you to El was supposed to be his ROCK. BOTTOM. That is the point at the story when you are at your WORST. Max died in Lucas' arms, Eddie died in Dustin's, Hawkins was destroyed, El lost Max, Will was heartbroken, and....Mike stayed with El. Those events are narratively equated. They happen right before the realization [s5 vol1 finale] that was meant to drive the climax.
Narratively, Mike telling El he loved her was his rock bottom. That is not an opinion, it is not a shipper's interpretation, it is about the placement in the 5 season arc, something they fulfilled as defined in every other plotline.
And then in season 5, the Duffers - I believe because they were without Leigh - said "actually that was him at his happiest and telling the truth <3".
Not paying off obvious setups is stupid but one can argue if you're lazy enough you...forget? I guess?
But that was just a plain fracture of basic narrative structure.
If Mike and El were endgame he would have failed to tell her then. Because it isn't about what happened or my interpretation, like I said. It's about going into season 4 episode 9 with the knowledge: whatever happens with Mike this episode is his rock bottom.....
and THEN showing him tell her he loves her. That rock bottom is a UNIVERSAL. RULE. to WHATEVER his plot would have been in that episode. That simply was the episode where that event had to occur, no different than it being the episode the big battle had to occur. It is structurally equally as much of a core, baseline requirement.
And it did fit with a plotline. And only one. One they claimed to never have been true.
Meaning they broke that scene structure. It'd be like defeating Vecna in episode 4 and just meandering through personal plots exclusively for the rest of the season. It's idiotic and incorrect. It isn't how stories are written. Any story since Odysseus.
