in defense of the name el
ik that a lot of bylers prefer jane over el because its more humanizing, and i used to use jane, but after playing some genshin impact, the gears in my head started turning about the meaning of our names and how we assign sentimental values to them.
ill start with a quick summary of how genshin impact ties into this. the character columbina hyposelenia has multiple names and struggles with them. she is born a goddess and kuutar is the name her followers give her. she later becomes an employee for a certain organization and her boss gives her the codename columbina. both as a goddess and as an employee, she felt used and like no one appreciated her as a person, so she doesnt consider either of these names to be her true name. later on, she gains a group of friends who call her columbina. because she doesnt have a true name to tie her to the world, she begins to disappear. her friends search for a true name to save her, but eventually realize that she doesnt have one. they call out to her using the name columbina, and she realizes that she has grown fond of the name because its what her friends call her. she decides that her true name is columbina hyposelenia, adding on a surname to differentiate it from her codename and pay homage to her original name, kuutar, since both kuutar and hyposelenia are related to the moon. thus, she reappears.
using this analogy, kuutar is equivalent to jane because its the name that she was given when she was born. columbina is equivalent to eleven because its a codename rather than a real name and is associated with a time when others used her for her powers but didnt value her as a person. columbina hyposelenia is equivalent to el because its a name that she owns and that she agreed to being called and it holds sentimental value because of her friends.
jane does hold a special place in els life. its the name that her birth mother gave her, connecting her to the past and proving that she was a regular girl and somebody who mattered to somebody else before she was eleven the lab rat. but terry is no longer her mother in any practical sense, and that life isnt hers anymore either. shes started a new chapter of her life with hopper and the party and the byers family.
and jane has its value in her new life as well. while el is more unusual, jane is very commonplace, so she can use it to integrate, like how immigrants pick white names for ease of use. similarly, while kali is someone from her past, she also reserves a seat for kali in her new life. kali is her family and jane is her name, but hopper and the byers are also her family and el is also her name.
the name el is one of the first things that she can call her own after leaving the lab, and it was given to her by a friend. one could argue that the name jane humanizes, but the name el humanized her from when she was known as eleven first. el is the name that her friends and family and everyone in the extended party calls her. el used to be short for eleven which is associated with her memories of the lab, but now el is associated with her memories of her friends. when she hears the name el, she knows its coming from someone close to her.
i think that kali has formed misconceptions about the names jane and el because of her limited contact with her sister. all she knows is that el was once lost and still exploring her past, and that was when she introduced herself as jane. she doesnt know how close or not close el is with the extended party. she doesnt know that el has grown up into a very confrontational person who is willing to dispute hopper even on the little things like beef jerky. el would surely call others out if she felt uncomfortable with their usage of the name el, but kali doesnt know that. both kali and el have changed so much from when they last saw each other, and they havent gotten the chance to get to know each other again. i agree with kali that hopper (and mike) should treat el as her own person, but her misinterpretation of els name and the whole suicide pact thing speak to the fact that she isnt in a good headspace because of her trauma and isnt seeing things very clearly at the moment.
in conclusion both el and jane are names that el uses, and theyre both important and valuable to her for their own respective reasons. lmk if i misremembered or misinterpreted something or if you want to dispute my point because id love to see someone elses perspective on this matter!
