A meta-analysis on Robin and Will's conversation about queer "signals"
Okay, I love this scene, and not just because it features Will and Robin discreetly discussing the nuances of queer romance.
I love this scene as a writer specifically, due to it's clever and subtle use of authorial intrusion disguised as character dialogue.
Authorial intrusion
Through authorial intrusion, the author/s can address the audience intimately, even under the guise of an existing character.
It allows the author/s to communicate directly to the audience; commenting on the narrative, stating an opinion, or posing a question. It doesn't require a breaking of the fourth wall.
It's similar to author or audience surrogacy. For example, Steve often acts as an audience surrogate in the series — the "simple" voice who asks questions which prompt exposition (usually from Dustin or Nancy), clarifying the plot.
Will and Robin’s scene is certainly seeking clarity, but it isn’t about exposition. It’s about introspection.
So, what is the alleged moment of authorial intrusion in question? It's this simple (and incredibly meta) line from Will, who is this season's lead protagonist: "How obvious?"
Of course, what Will is referring to here is Robin's notion of signals, aka subtle flirtation or signs of mutual attraction — particularly through the lens of queerness, which can be more difficult to navigate and discern.
To provide a succinct summary, the scene plays out like this:
-> Will asks Robin how she knew Vicki wanted to date her.
-> Robin says Vicki sent her subtle "signals" such as a brush of the knee, a bump of the elbow, or a shared look.
-> These little things (compared to a snowball) accrued and eventually became "obvious."
-> Will, acting as a stand-in for the authors, poses the ultimate question: "How obvious?"
This is an extremely "meta" line, because it's as if the authors are completing an exercise in writing a queer romance in real-time. Through this question, the writers are examining their own craft, and gently prompting us to join them.
Questioning the approach
The writers are pondering their own approach to Mike and Will's storyline; How obvious can we make it, or rather, how obvious should we make it? What is even considered "obvious" in this case? Is a shared look or lingering touch obvious, or not?
It's not a condescending question either — they're not saying you should find it obvious, and if not, you're an idiot.
It's not, "How obvious do we have to make it for you to get it, dammit?!"
It's more like, "We've tried to lay down the foundation, but we're unsure if it will land. How can we make this work?"
And this is why it's a question worth asking — there's no clear, universal answer. The writers don't have a lot of material to draw upon. They've probably been pondering this question in the writer's room for awhile.
So, they want to know if their signals have been received, and if so, were those signals obvious or obscure? How obvious should they make it to land the plane?
Providing an answer
The funny thing is, although they're curious to know what the auidence thinks, it's not intended for us to answer — because they've already finished the script.
They've made up their minds concerning "how obvious" they wish to go, and what that looks like to them.
They declared their answer through Robin:
It will become an avalanche.
They've even provided us with a visual metaphor for their chosen technique:
-> The subtle, "little things" like shared looks are like snowballs.
-> The snowball accrues and builds over time, gaining mass.
-> Eventually, it becomes an avalanche; massive and sudden.
The visual metaphor here emphasizes mass and timing — if they do this, then they want it to feel crushingly heavy, and abrupt.
And although they want to make it as obvious as an avalanche, they don't want it to be obvious all the time, and they don't want to make it too predictable — because avalanches cannot be predicted, it's only possible to assess the risk or likelihood.
Will foreshadowed as the "receiver"
So, this question deserves a thematic answer, because it's been introduced as a story element which Will is keenly invested in — it's Chekhov's gun.
There was no point to including this scene unless we can expect to see a snowball turn into an avalanche. Otherwise, they've taught Will how to examine his love life only to... not give him a love life.
You don't tell a character to look for signals if you're not going to give them signals to pick up on. And curiously (yet not so curious, because it was intentional), Will has already been referred to as a receiver of signals.
Like, quite literally in the episode before this conversation took place, by the same exact person.
So according to Robin, Will is a receiver, because he has an antenna.
Antennae convert electric currents into radio waves, or vice versa. In that way, the role of Will's metaphorical antenna isn't just to pick up signals, it's to convert them into something meaningful.
To decode them.
Why does that sound familiar?
Ah! Because Robin is already an expert in decoding — she solved the Russian code in s3, after all.
She even explicitly states that the point of code is to communicate something sensitive.
This is a commentary on the queer experience: you have to be careful, subtle, and possibly even use another language (or "cant") if you want your message to be safely received. For example, gay men and women in the UK used to speak in a form of cant called Polari to identify each other when homosexuality was criminalized. (x).
Will and Mike seem to agree with Robin — some things are very hard to say outright, and out loud.
The signals are "queer code"
And yes, that is a play on words.
The queer signals must be decoded and therefore, they are a form of queer code. Furthermore, Robin makes a direct reference to the Enigma machine — a cipher device used by Nazi Germany during World War II.
Robin states that the Enigma machine "won the war" which is simplified phrasing. Perhaps what she means to say is that the Enigma code won the war — because cracking the code played a crucial role in the Allied victory.
In fact, Alan Turing's contributions to cracking the Enigma code as cryptanalyst were so instrumental that he was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire).
Alan Turing was famously gay (and later persecuted for it), and also happens to be the historical figure Will chose as his "hero" for his history assignment in s4.
While shared looks, subtle lip glances, and the brushing of hands are all signals intended for Will to decode, these small "easter eggs" are signals for the audience.
Subtext and text which hints at Will's queerness — because as of Season 5 Volume I, he is still yet to claim his sexuality (even if it seems obvious to us).
This is queer-coding in practice. And yes, Mike receives his own fair share of coding too — just look at his ridiculous bedroom.
Where is this leading?
It's leading to gay romance, obviously.
Will receiving no signals simply isn’t narratively coherent. The story has already established him as the receiver and decoder of queer signals.
What I'm personally getting from this, dear reader, is that we have two possible outcomes before us:
Will experiences a fully developed on-screen romance with a new love interest, complete with subtle signs which eventually become obvious over a period of time.
Will continues to recieve signals from Mike, which culminate into an "avalanche" scene — the writers' attempt at making it "obvious."
It's not a question of, "will he receive signals?" It's a question of, "who is he going to receive signals from?"
I now pose the question to you: which of the two options feels more likely, considering the way the story has been written thus far, and the screentime we have left?
I think the answer seems obvious, but I guess I could be wrong. After all, the entire point of the question is that "obvious" is not so easy to define.
At least we know Will is going to get some use out of that "antenna" of his.
I started thinking about conformitygate and I think the entire finale is Mike's Vecna vision.
Early on in the episode, when Max is brought into Eleven's head, Vickie seamlessly vanishes into thin air, and when Vickie finds Max in her trance, a SCREECH sound effect is heard during the transition (the reveal that Max is glitching out).
Not every scene has this. Ironically Vickie also seamlessly vanishes for the rest of the finale, indicating the possibility that the rest of the finale isn't actually reality, or at least happening in someone's mind.
But when does the finale switch to someone's mind (and cease being real)?
I think the Stranger Things twitter account already told us.
The black screen.
Black screens are typically used in the show to emphasize that we're entering someone's mind. Watch any time Eleven uses her powers, the screen goes black. It happened at 16:22 in the finale, when it faded to a black screen to indicate that we were entering El's mindscape and then Henry's memories.
(This is all still actually happening, btw. This isn't a vision, yet.)
After this, there's a sequence of events, multiple things happening at once. Vickie and Max being discovered by the military (and we never find out what happened to them), Hopper's countdown, El/Max/Kali finding Henry and stopping the world merging, and the Hawkins crew about to be crushed by the radio tower. This all happens simultaneously.
Eleven shatters Vecna/Henry's connection to the kids and frees them (he loses Holly), at the exact same time that the tower cracks and Steve slips off the tower. And then?
He lets go and it goes black. For a long time. Then we hear a sharp screech, like a transition, and we're back to the same exact moment, except now Jonathan has heroically saved him. YAY!! So we don't realize what's actually happening.
We're inside someone's mind, and that ominous screech?
That's right, it's a Vecna vision. But whose mind are we in? Mike's.
He's the key. The missing piece of the puzzle. "Eyes on me!" The final shot of the entire show is Mike in the basement.
But how do we know for sure that this is Mike's vision? Because after that screen, everything goes to shit and Mike's character starts to change rapidly. That's where conformitygate comes in.
First, let's look at Mike pre-black screen (which I'm gonna call BS for now).
2:16: Mike and Eleven part ways at the van, and this is the Mike we know and love. He's sweet, encouraging, he gives her a comforting platonic hug. But it also gave me the impression that this was going to be the last time they ever saw each other. And in a way, it was, if we assume that their later interactions weren't actually real.
11:36: Mike and Will talk on the radio tower. Even though the best friends thing was dumb, Mike was still acting mostly like himself. He was nervous, messing up, offered Will his own water bottle. It's sweet, buzzy, typical Byler fare. He assures Will that he's not going to lose him because of Will's feelings.
19:16 (just minutes before BS): Will and Mike finish each other's sentences and we get this look, a typical Mike looking at Will moment. No other words to describe it tbh.
At 21:26, BS happens and the next time we see Mike, Nancy and Robin hug, celebrating that we're alive. Typical celebration moment, albeit with a bit of a random group, but ok.
But I noticed, while everyone's celebrating, Will is seperated and at the back, and Joyce seems to be furiously saying something to him. He is totally still, he didn't hug the party, just stands there. We never hear what Joyce is saying.
What follows is a series of generic writing, heavier focus on fan favourite characters like Steve and Nancy, cheesy dialogue, and over the top fight sequences that feel more like a DND campaign than a real episode of the show. Inconsistencies, plot holes, but more importantly, Mike's character becoming way more El focused out of nowhere, and abandoning Will. Even their friendship is slowly wrecked. This has all been talked about to death, so I'm going to focus on three more things:
1.Montages appear frequently post-BS, and my sister (@steve-needs-a-hug shout out) said it reminded her of how Vecna can just peruse through your memories, flipping through them like a montage. And there are a lot of these, including a Mileven one.
You know what else is interesting?
When Mike enters Eleven's mind, there's no black screen. He seamlessly falls into it, like how people in Vecna visions can go from one thing to another with ease.
2. Mike's character becomes so useless during the post-BS portion of the finale, to the point where his little sister is more heroic than him. He becomes the butt of the joke. This could be Vecna preying on his insecurities, telling him that he's useless in an attempt to break him.
3. His worst fear comes true. He becomes like Ted, all his friends have moved on without him, and he's stuck alone and repressed, telling their stories but never creating any of his own. He loses Will. He loses Eleven.
Vecna shows you your worst fear realized.
So, if my Mike theory is true, what's happening in real-life? What actually happened?
Mike went into a trance during the tower collapse.
At the same moment that Steve almost falls to his death, and Holly breaks free of the connection, Mike's eyes roll back and Vecna shows him and us the rest of the finale. Because the show has been emphasizing that Byler is the key to defeating Vecna, not El being a superhero. That's just what Mike falsely believes. In order to ACTUALLY defeat Vecna, Mike needs to confront his fears and accept who he is. NOT conform like in the vision. Vecna is trying to break him but he needs to fight that.
If we're operating on this theory, then we don't actually know what the true ending is, perhaps to allow us a chance to create our own. So, idk about y'all, but that's exactly what I'm gonna do.
can’t stop thinking about how queer-coded this line is:
“He was so attuned to the forces of nature that many thought that he [mike’s dnd character] would become a ranger or even a druid. But his grandfather was a knight and his father was a knight. So a knight he had to become.”
So a knight he HAD TO become.
im sick.
Not to mention that his mission as a knight is to protect Elven wizard Eleven who is connected to the Eldertree.
and im just gonna leave mike’s s4 dnd hfc character idea here:
this is so heartbreaking.
And let’s not forget: “A paladin who has broken a vow typically seeks absolution from a cleric who shares his or her faith or from another paladin of the same order.” -Dnd player’s handbook
In conclusion, mike’s forced conformity and queerness have never been clearer!!
Why does Mike repeatedly call Will a sorcerer and say his powers are innate but Will keeps saying he's not really a sorcerer and consistently clarifies he's just siphoning powers (probably more like a warlock)?
Mike knows the difference between a sorcerer, a wizard, a warlock, and a cleric. He is firm in his conviction that Will's powers are innate and we should believe him.
Sorcerer
In D&D, the sorcerer class did not actually exist back in 1987. It was introduced in the 3rd edition of the Player's Handbook, released in 2000, and I'll reference the 5th edition for the sake of an aspect to sorcerers I believe works best for Will: sorcerous origin.
There are many sorcerous origins but 5e started with two: Draconic Origin and Wild Magic. Later, Storm Sorcery, Divine Soul, Shadow Magic, Aberrant Mind, and Clockwork Soul were added, with the latter two joining in 2020. Evidently, the one that sounds the most like what Will is going through is Shadow Magic—where the sorcerer's innate magic comes directly from Shadowfell, a different and darker plane of existence. This can occur from lineage/birthline, or from being exposed to the energy itself and being transformed by it.
Makes sense for Will, right? Let's clarify something a bit more.
D&D's planes exist in what's called a Great Wheel. This wheel has existed since the first edition of the Player's Handbook. In the most updated version of the Great Wheel, there are sixteen outer planes in which the good-aligned planes are at the top of the wheel, the evil-aligned at the bottom, lawful to the left, chaotic to the right. In the center rests the inner planes (elemental matter, ie earth, water, air, fire, energy) and material planes (balance of the philosophical forces in the outer planes and the physical forces in the inner planes, ie the actual gameplay world).
Shadowfell is a material plane coexisting with the standard world. It's seen as a mirror of the darkness within the world. Sounds a lot like Dimension X, which is referred to in show by Dustin as the Abyss. As he explained in show, the Abyss is from D&D. It's one of the lower planes on the Great Wheel and is considered the plane of infinite layers. It's chaotic evil on the Great Wheel, it's got unpredictable horrors and evil, and there's a lot of monsters here. Including: demogorgons.
Now, the assumption in show is that Vecna is creating rifts from the Abyss into the Upside Down, the bridge from the Abyss to the real world, in hopes to collide the worlds together. Great assumption, except we really do not know why Vecna is doing this. Why does he want to destroy the world? Why has he been sending demogorgons and monsters across the bridge into the real world? What does he gain from all of this?
And frankly, Vecna gains nothing. This is not his plan. Back in ST4, the theory was posited that Vecna is under control of the Mind Flayer rather than the other way around. We saw the Mind Flayer enter Henry when he was banished to Dimension X by El in 1979. He believed himself to control the Mind Flayer, but he has been Flayed. Let's review the Mind Flayer in D&D real quick.
The Mind Flayer
If you forgot, the Mind Flayer is a D&D entity just like demogorgons, the Abyss, and Vecna. The Mind Flayer is an illithid (and if you played BG3, you probably know a bit about illithids and their role in the multiverse). It has psionic powers and thralls intelligent creatures across the multiverse as they believe themselves the dominant and main species. Mind Flayer's live in the Underdark, which is a bunch of underground tunnels and caves under the surface of the main world. It has has a Shadowfell counterpart named the Shadowdark. (Again, if you played BG3, this is the world—Forgotten Realms—the campaign is based in.)
Mind Flayers control the minds of other creatures, in particular commanders who will do its bidding. They are often connected within hive mind colonies with an elder brain. They feast on the brain of humanoids and consume its personality, fears, and memories.
We saw this best in S2 when Will's personality changed whenever he accessed the hive mind / Mind Flayer and in S4 when Vecna cursed the teens by preying on their fears and memories.
So why is colliding the worlds important? It gives the Mind Flayer humanoids to consume. It gives them another world to control, a larger part of their hivemind. This Mind Flayer may very well be the elder brain. (And A Wrinkle in Time gives us a hint to this, with IT, the controller of Camazotz, being a giant brain.)
Let's talk about what the elder brain can do.
Elder Brain
An elder brain is composed of long-dead mind flayers. It is the core of mind flayer communities and it can use its telepathy to initiate and maintain telepathic links with ten creatures at a time (links held up by keeping close distance). It can plane shift, dominate monsters, sense thoughts, and consume the thoughts and memories of those psychically linked to it. When the elder brain infiltrates a being, it deceives its senses and implants subconscious suggestions and influences to compel creatures toward actions that benefit its grand plan. It can even evoke the persona of any being it absorbs.
Elder brains live within a lair, which we saw when Holly woke up in the Abyss. Vecna is stationed in the center where something like a beating heart pumps above him. Oddly enough, the elder brain requires fluids and water to survive. In ST, we see the monsters of Abyss avoid water. The Abyss itself and the Upside Down are water-free. But our world isn't.
Collide the real world with the Abyss, and it now has water for the elder brain to thrive. A gate opened in Lover's Lake after all.
Why avoid the water in S2 when figuring out the tunnel system Will had been subconsciously created to make in his dreams? If everything about the Upside Down is proven wrong—as in it's not an alternate dimension itself but a bridge to an alternate dimension—then perhaps the "fear" of water isn't fully a fear of the water but a need for it. To not use it all up but in fact, begin the plan to consume the water within this world and make it part of the Abyss. To fuel the elder brain and it's hivemind.
Now a quick tangent about Vecna and his powers as an overview for something important.
Vecna
If you're reading theories, you've probably heard about Vecna and his eye and hand. This show is not going to be physically permanently altering the characters so actually losing an eye or hand is out of the question. That said, the powers Vecna's eye and hand have can still be used metaphorically and not in a direct literal sense.
A review of Vecna's eye and hand: these artifacts are grafted onto the user in order for them to gain access to power spells with little cost but their own sanity and good/evil alignment. The eye grants the user truesight, clairvoyance, dominate monster, and there's a chance Vecna can tear the user's soul from their body and control them. Flay them. We see this occur with Will and all his eye imagery. The hand increases your strength, grants access to sleep, slow, teleport, or Finger of Death—an instant death spell. Both the hand and eye together? The user is incredibly powerful: they are immune to poison, experience premonitions, have regenerative properties, and gain access to a powerful spell called Wish.
What is Wish? Probably one of the most powerful spells in D&D. Wish always you to do anything within the bounds of the campaign. Literally anything you can think of with no (immediate) charge. This allows summoning of any object, immediate regeneration for a multitude of creatures, even undo a single recent event by forcing a reroll or unmaking a weapon. Basically, turning back time. It is extremely powerful and consequently invokes a lot of stress on the caster. This stress can make it so the character is incapable of casting Wish ever again.
Destroying the eye and hand requires the Sword of Kas killing the creature that has grafted the eye and hand onto its body. Think...maybe the Mind Flayer. It has access to Vecna's eye and hand. This sword is physical in D&D but can be metaphorical in the world of Stranger Things. All it needs to be is something that Vecna does not have, something that a so called traitor has, enough to kill.
Something like...love maybe?
Now that's a lot of information. Let's go over this timeline real quick before we get back to Will.
Stranger Things Timeline
The Abyss hosts all these terrible creatures and an elder brain. The elder brain is stuck in a water-less waste of a world and has previously consumed humans that have accidentally entered it. Recall that in 1943, a ship had accidentally entered the Abyss and everyone in it was killed. Except for Captain Brenner. Yes, Martin Brenner's, or Papa, own father. Captain Brenner returned to our world vegetative but with a new blood type. He was infected with something. Brenner grows up and tries to replicate the experiment his dad was essentially killed in, out in Nevada. In 1953, one of the scientists ends up being a spy and tries to escape with valuable technology, coming to a head with Henry Creel in an underground cave. We see this memory in ST5; the spy is killed by Henry, who opens up the suitcase. While the show pulls us away from seeing what is in the suitcase, we can assume this is when Henry was Flayed. According to The First Shadow, he was briefly transported to the Abyss and Flayed. His personality completely changed after this incident and he blocked this memory from his own mind and is afraid to reenter it. A newly changed Henry began terrorizing the neighborhood by accordance of the Mind Flayer as we saw in ST4, and this frightened his mom, who reached out to Brenner in 1959. Henry ended up killing his mom and sister, the blame falling on his father. Brenner believed Henry to be the murderer and got him involved in the MKUltra project as his number 001.
The rest we have seen played out in show. Brenner discovered Creel's blood was different, infected pregnant women with Creel's blood in "experiments" to create kids with powers, El ended up the closest in power to Henry, and actually is exactly what Brenner is looking for: a way to open a gate to the Abyss. To discover what happened to his father and Henry and where these powers came from. El banished Creel back to the Abyss in 1979 and Brenner spent the next 4 years attempting to reopen that gate via the MKUltra project and abusing El's psionic mindscape powers. El eventually connected to the Abyss hivemind, creating a wormhole (the Upside Down, which we could call Shadowfell), and one of the creatures passed through the bridge into the lab. El escaped in the aftermath and Will Byers was kidnapped.
The big question is why Will Byers? Why was Will captured by Vecna / the Mind Flayer?
Why Will Byers?
The Mind Flayer/elder brain has absorbed Henry Creel. Henry was already proven to work when it came to Flaying humans and folding them into the hivemind. Will shares the same birthday, March 22nd. The year Henry returned to the Abyss, 1979, puts Will at age 8, the same age Henry was when he first encountered the Abyss. 8 years later, it's 1987. The kids who are chosen are within the 8-9 year age range. Coincidence? I think not.
Henry had a very similar personality to Will before he was Flayed. Soft spoken, awkward, struggling to fit in. He loved a girl, Patty, and tried to make things work but his powers frightened his mother so deeply that when he discovered she wanted to send him back to Brenner, this broke him deep enough that not even his girlfriend's love could save him.
In being Flayed, the original Henry Creel is forgotten. The discrepancy between what Vecna shares about his powers and the play accounts is there for a reason.
In being Flayed, one becomes forgotten as they are assimilated into the Mind Flayer, the elder brain. They as a person no longer exists.
In 1983, the Mind Flayer, through Vecna and the demogorgon, traveled through the bridge into hopes to find another vessel. Another being to consume into the hivemind. Children are already proven to work and a child mirroring Henry Creel would work best. Broken family, outcast, seemingly unloved, easier to break and use to fuel the elder brain's hive mind.
(We see with Derek and Holly at least that their families are not picture perfect, either. Their innocence and love for their families despite this makes them easy prey.)
Unfortunately for the Mind Flayer, Will is loved by his mother, his brother, and his friends. Unlike Henry Creel, these people do not fear his powers. He is loved for them, even when he is mind-controlled to use these powers for evil.
This is why Will is a sorcerer and Vecna is a wizard. Vecna, though changed and shaped by the Abyss, is drawing on the magic within the cosmos, the weave, the Abyss. Vecna is focused on ritual spell casting, as seen with his curses in ST4 to create the gates, and needing 12 kids--in particular, their minds--to begin casting his next spell for opening up more fissures.
Will does not partake in this ritual. His powers are bolstered by his love, something that is innate to him. Something Vecna/Henry does not have. Love is a charisma skill, it is instinctual. It is not calculated. Sorcerers also mesh well with many other classes in D&D meta wise, particularly with paladin. In fact, sorcadin as it's called, is one of the most versatile multiclasses in D&D period.
So...why does Will keep saying he's not a sorcerer but Mike insists he is?
POV Matters
Will's powers are two different things in their minds. Will sees his powers as siphoning, thus not really making him a sorcerer, because he believes he is only taking control of Vecna's powers and using them as a source for himself. This aligns more with a warlock, who is pact pound to a patron (in his mind, the Mind Flayer) and "borrows" their magic. Vecna's powers as we know are fueled by anger, hatred, and fear. Theoretically, this is what Will would be "borrowing" for using his magic.
Anger, hatred, and fear are not what Mike sees in Will. He sees honesty, love, and bravery. He sees the goodness in Will, and that is innate. That is Will's power. That makes him a sorcerer.
Even then, with Will the Wise being a wizard, Mike stating Will is a sorcerer, and Will thinking himself more of a warlock, the idea is that Will is simply magical. And with love and honesty being the answer to all against the threat posted to the party, it will be something everyone needs to channel and access to defeat not just Vecna but the Mind Flayer / elder brain as well.
Mike the Brave
You can't talk about Will without talking about Mike, so here's some discussion about Mike the Paladin and Mike the dungeon master.
Mike the Brave is a cover story. It is an identity Mike hides behind when he is scared, as confessed to Holly in 5x01. Mike the Brave explore dungeons, fights monsters, and fights sorcerers. He is brave in the face of danger and steps forward to save his friends and allies. This is who Mike wants to be, who he wishes he was, as he believes he is otherwise. In parallel with Holly being told she is Holly the Heroic by Max, we must see Mike realize he is Mike the Brave.
Bravery does not come easy for Mike. He has been hiding from himself for many years now and it is in the aftermath of Will's bravery that he himself becomes the bravest, becomes the heart. In ST2, Will's bravery in saving himself from the Mind Flayer brings Mike forward. In ST3, Will's honesty about the Mind Flayer brings Mike forward. In ST4 and ST5, the same pattern occurs. When Will steps forward, so does Mike. It gives him the space to be his best self in the wake of Will's light.
Mike is a writer as the dungeon master. He is the puppet master and controls not just the narrative but the monsters within the story. Both the campaign and his own life. Mike is extremely repressed and traumatized; he is hiding every feeling in his heart in his fear of the biggest one of them all. He is letting the monsters win and this stunts his bravery in all aspects. He is not letting himself be Mike the Brave. In fact, he simply does not believe he can be Mike the Brave. It is a character he depicts at his side, not as himself.
So who is Mike the Brave? This is Mike's paladin. Paladins are bound to an oath, which dictates the types of holy (or unholy if an oathbreaker) spells one has access to use. The oath of devotion matches Mike's beliefs the best. A devotion bound paladin lives by the tenets of honesty, courage, compassion, honor, and duty. One particular spell that encompasses Mike is the zone of truth, found in Mike's repeated "casting" of the spell with, "friends don't lie". There is also protection from evil and good, beacon of hope, holy nimbus, and others but the point is this: oath of devotion paladins are often the ideal knight in shining armor. They are about protection and honesty.
In order for Mike to become Mike the Brave, he must allow honesty from himself. The show tells us Mike is hiding something, when he is still in the room when Kali points out that Hopper is hiding his truth as well. When he is dressed in camouflage during Will's coming out scene. When he does not speak up and simply hides in the background. He is kept to himself throughout V2, barely reacts to anything, and seems to be consistently thinking. About what, we are not told, not yet at least. Whether Mike is Vecna'd / Flayed is up to the finale to decide, but in the interim, we can say he is definitely dealing with something internal.
Mike was loud and present in V1, openly touching Will, helping bolster Will's plans, being a proud and firm leader. He hugs Will and spends most of the beginning of 5x05 praising Will for being a sorcerer. But the moment Will is tranced, the moment Vecna attacks Will's mind and shows him his greatest fears, Mike steps back. In fact, if you watch Mike and Lucas rush to Will after he collapses into his trance in 5x05, Mike reaches out a hand to touch Will and then immediately pulls back. He remains at the radio station and keeps an eye on Will, but doesn't do anything but watch. No touch, no words, just a worried gaze. He then argues with El and keeps telling her they'll all leave Hawkins, but it begins with getting Will back.
Will is Mike's heart. He cannot function without it but he is scared of losing it. He told Will this in ST4 and during Will's confession, he is visibly attuned to the words of pushing people away and ending up alone. It is his fear, too. This fear of being alone. This fear of being different. But just as always, Will takes that brave first step forward in the face of fear, and now that gives Mike options he did not know he had before.
Almost like a Wish come true, the undoing of an event: of a premature self-rejection which now allows for a confession of his own.
Either way, love and devotion, honesty and courage, these things matter. It is the way to defeat Vecna and the Mind Flayer. It is the way to defeat the elder brain before it flays the entirety of the world.
Now, back to that sorcadin comment from earlier. One of the best multiclasses available in D&D, sorcadin is a powerful charisma-based combination of potent offensive spells from the sorcerer class and healing and defense from the paladin class. Will the sword, Mike the shield.
(Also note that Mike is often blocked to the left of Will, near consistently, even when they're fighting. Left hand holds the shield, right hand holds the weapon.)
"M" marks the spot. Mike is the heart. Will is the bridge. There's an X over Will's heart when he's looking at the wormhole drawing. Mike and Will are circled together in 4x09 when El is describing her piggyback plan. They are a pair and they will be able to defeat the Mind Flayer / elder brain together as long as there are no more secrets, no more fear. Only love, bravery, and honesty.
Mike must face his fears and trauma, he must accept he is Mike the Brave and always has been. He is gay and in love with Will and he can tell him and know he will not be pushed away for it. Will's Vecna vision will not come true because Mike loves Will back.
Mike can love and be loved in return. Will can love and be loved in return. And their love is more powerful than the Mind Flayer or Vecna can ever imagine.
i don’t understand. why give that crush so many scenes then? why let the characters relationship have such a big journey? why make it seem like mike reciprocated? this is stupid i’m crying
