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.
jealous mike is in the room with us, y'all... let me explain,,
in the scene in the tunnels during will and robin’s talk, we first watch from a short distance as robin starts up the conversation. we stay at this distance for the first half-minute, and the camera angle changes to closeups the moment robin says 'and she just looked perfect', as the conversation shifts to a deeper and more personal subject matter.
from this moment we follow their faces closely, the vulnerability in robin's face as she is sharing this personal story with will, and seeing will's expressions and reactions to what robin is sharing. we're following the conversation from both of their viewpoints - they are the only ones in this conversation, no witnesses. except....
the camera shifts suddenly to this wider angle, and look at what the spot they just happened come to a stop at looks like?? that is literally a heart outlining them. which is a very interesting way to frame two new friends. sure, this could be to show they're having a heart to heart, friends growing closer, etc., but they don't need to tell us this visually, we already have and are seeing that happen through their actions all season. so, why the heart frame? well, up until this point we have followed their entire conversation from a closer viewpoint than this, and now we're farther away, maybe so far that if we were actually there in those caves, we wouldn't be able to make out what it is they're saying? in any case, we're not following their conversation from their own points of view anymore. no, this is through the eyes of an outsider - and i believe it's mike's. this shot only lasts about 8 seconds - long enough to see that will and robin are having an intimate moment, but short enough that the closer details could be missed. this shot is mike witnessing will and robin's closeness and mistaking it for something it is not!!
then, it shifts back to will and robin's viewpoints - this very personal conversation happening between them is obviously a defining moment for the both of them. will needed to hear this, and robin needed to say it; romantic interests are great and all, but having friends who truly see you and understand every part of you is just as, if not even more important.
and now things get really interesting. right at the end of this very emotional conversation, lucas calls out to them, a clear mirroring of the interruption trope, which stranger things has repeatedly used with their romantic pairings throughout the show... except, will and robin are obviously not a romantic pairing; that is, obviously to us, the audience.
here we see that both lucas and joyce are looking their way, but mike is decidedly not… and i wish it was more visible but it looks like mike is fumbling with something in his hands, almost like he’s trying to look busy, like he doesn't care.. when have we seen him do something like this before?
in s4e2, when mike thought will had been painting for a girl he liked. will brought that painting to the airport to give to mike, but then mike showed up trying to act so nonchalant that he seemed downright cold, making will feel too unsure to give it to him. mike was in a way writing his own self fulfilling prophecy; he thought will liked a girl, got jealous, saw will with the painting el told him about, and got even more jealous when will didn't explain what it really was. and all this happening because of mike's distant behavior. in this scene, mike has already made up his mind about what he thinks he is seeing, making him look right past the truth that is right in front of him; el told him will has been working on a painting, that there is someone he likes, and will then brings said painting to the airport to pick up mike. but mike's brain has latched on to the idea that will was painting it for a girl, so he sees these events through that lense. all this to say, could it be that lucas and joyce are looking right at will and robin because they see the moment for what it is, one between friends, but mike is looking away because he is can't see the truth? because he has already decided it must be something more?
then, the camera pans back to will and robin as they break into laughter. first closeup, from their pov's, then at an even longer distance - two very different shots with stark contrasts.
the first shot is their pov, with warm lighting and still close enough to feel like we are part of the conversation - but the second shot is the farthest away we have seen them throughout this whole scene, and it's suddenly also much darker visually. it is striking, because now it feels like we're entirely on the outside of the conversation; like we're not in on the joke they're laughing at, even though as the audience we know exactly what they just talked about. compared to will and robin's pov looking down the tunnel, i think the juxtaposition of these frames is especially telling:
the first frame is much, much darker, and we don't get to see whose pov we're watching from. we already know lucas and joyce were looking at will and robin, urging them to hurry up, but this frame is not to show us that 'yes look we're catching up with you now'. this is another peek through mike's pov - and what he sees is them being far away in their own little bubble, the darkness around said bubble to signify his negative emotions about it. but what's interesting is that the tunnel outline around will and robin is a little wonky, not entirely a circle, aka not really a 'bubble'. but the tunnel outline in the second frame is a perfect circle. again, the second frame is in will and robin's pov: they are looking down the tunnel at the others, and lucas and joyce are both looking back. mike is the only one who's not looking, not really seeing. it is mike who is in his own bubble! the bubble of having convinced himself will that likes a girl, and now he has to try to be nonchalant about it. but as the following pipe bursting scene will show us, this plan of action is not going to hold for much longer.
Hint: Vecna used Holly as "bait", and... let's just say it's not looking good for Karen Wheeler...
[A timeline from November 3rd to November 6th, 1986.]
Theory Overview
What happened, exactly? (a summary from Nov 3rd to Nov 6th)
November 3rd, 1986 – The Wheeler attack
Karen's tragic fate
Mike, injured but alive... just what Vecna wanted.
Holly, the "bait"
Mike's hospital stay, survivor's guilt, and becoming Mike the Brave
November 6th, 1986 – Mike's sacrifice and kidnapping
^ I'll provide evidence for all of this!
First, as usual, here's a brief overview of my main theory:
MIKE IN THE RIGHTSIDE UP
Mike is stuck in his own version of Camazotz: the Rightside Up.
In the 8 months after Season 4, the gang prepared for a big battle with Vecna. Mike was taken during that battle, on the anniversary of Will's disappearance: November 6th, 1986.
Every important plot point from Ep 1-8 was an edited version of what really happened in those 8 months. Vecna just changed the order, characters or context to suit his own narrative, keeping Mike trapped in the Rightside Up – a story with a happy ending that he wishes was true. That's why Mike's real memories will be crucial to his escape in the upcoming episodes: a reversal of the current episode descriptions.
Evidence!
ORDER OF EVENTS: Part 1 (Reality = reversed), Part 3 (12 Episodes), Part 4 (MWTFDYD), Part 9 (Wheeler attack -> Mike's kidnapping), Part 11 (Mr Whatsit = Will)
SCENE ANALYSIS: Part 2 (Will/Robin), Part 5 (Rainbows), Part 6 (The roof talk), Part 7 ("Where's Dustin right now?"), Part 8 (El is missing), Part 10 (Byler's missed date), Part 12 (Byler saw Rovickie kiss), Part 13 (Will's painting)
So what happened, exactly?
This is a summary of events spanning from November 3rd to November 6th – I'll provide evidence later.
Nancy's vision came true. On November 3rd, (Lucas tells us this date) 1986, there was an attack on the Wheeler house, and Karen, Holly and Mike were put in grave danger.
Karen was fatally injured (died)
Mike was injured (survived)
Holly was kidnapped (taken into the Upside Down)
Mike was rushed to hospital for his injuries (like Karen), and forcibly sidelined from the upcoming search for his sister, Holly.
The guilt and grief from this traumatic event, along with feelings of uselessness, ate away at Mike – until he was inspired by one of his friends, who assured him that he wasn't useless; he is Mike the Brave, and he has been this whole time.
All of this led Mike to do something very brave on November 6th, 1986. When Vecna sent Demos into the hospital, Mike pulled out his IV, got out of his hospital bed, and set off an explosion to protect his friends (what Karen does in Episode 6). They were grateful Mike saved them – but they said he needed to stay in hospital to recover.
With most of the gang looking for Holly in the Upside Down, the others completing their plan to connect Will to the hivemind, and Mike left alone and severely injured... Vecna had the perfect opportunity to kidnap Mike.
And now, he's stuck in the Rightside Up – kept there by his feelings of guilt, and his desire to believe in a fantasy story with a happy ending, instead of a much more unfortunate truth.
Where does this fit into my theory?
To reiterate: everything we've seen so far from Episodes 1-8 has already happened. Vecna kept as much the same as possible, to make it more believable for Mike – And, as I outlined in my 12 Episodes theory, the remaining plot for Season 5 will be a reversal of the current episode descriptions.
Now, Mike being a part of the Wheeler attack just so happens to match up with the reversed episode descriptions. What a crazy coincidence.
Episode 12 (from my post)
Mike confronts the cost of secrecy after a vicious attack at the Wheeler home [Mike's real memory of the attack]
After navigating through the Rightside Up with Max's help, Mike will have to confront his most traumatic memories... and he'll have to revisit the day that the Wheelers were viciously attacked in their own home: November 3rd, 1986.
Now, let's get into the evidence.
The day of the Wheeler attack: November 3rd, 1986
As mentioned prior, my theory so far has been that Mike was taken on November 6th, 1986.
Well, this might seem obvious, but I literally just realised that it makes total sense for the Wheeler attack to have taken place three days prior; on November 3rd, the date Lucas directly tells us it happened.
Lucas: You know what date it is, right? November 3rd. Will was taken on the 6th.
Remember, Vecna would have changed as little as possible about what happened, to ensure that Mike believed his new story.
Just as the evidence suggests that Jane really did go into hiding on June 13th, 1986, the evidence suggests that the Wheeler house really was attacked on November 3rd, 1986 – except Mike was there for it.
This explains:
Why Holly, Mike's stand-in, feels so guilty about not saving her mother
Why Will randomly goes through the exact same thing as Holly, except he is able to save his mother
Why Mike parallels Karen so heavily in ST5 (limping in a hospital gown, setting off explosives, talking to Holly about Mr Whatsit etc.)
Why Karen suddenly becomes an action hero, while Mike is sidelined (they swapped roles)
Why Holly remembers her mother falling in two different positions during the Wheeler attack
And more!
^ We'll explore all of this soon!
Karen the Hero (written by Mike Wheeler)
Throughout Season 5, in a surprising turn, Karen Wheeler becomes kind of a badass.
Protecting Holly with nothing but a broken wine bottle
Miraculously surviving two Demogorgon attacks against all odds
Providing the information that leads to Henry's defeat
Pulling the IV out of her arm and limping through the hospital
Setting off an explosion in a laundry machine, single-handedly saving four of Mike's friends
And by the end of the show, she gets a happy ending. One in which she tearfully tells her son she loves him, hugs him, watches him graduate, and calls him up for her homemade lasagna. Yes – Karen's happy ending is VERY centred around Mike, and there's a reason for that.
Out of everyone, why would Mike turn Karen into a brave hero who can survive anything? Well, heads up, it’s about to get real sad in here!
Karen: I'm fine, Michael. I'm fine.
Vickie: With all due respect, Mrs. Wheeler, you're not. You could get an infection, haemorrhage – God forbid, stop breathing.
...What if she did stop breathing?
Have you ever wondered why Holly remembers Karen lying on the kitchen floor in two totally different positions? [Episode 2 vs Episode 6]
This is why.
When Nancy found Mike and Karen, they were both heavily injured. Mike was lying on his back near the red phone with an injured throat. Meanwhile, Karen was lying on her stomach – dead from a chest wound, and not breathing. Sorry, Nancy.
(Based on the red phone's location, Mike may have even been thrown into his own bedroom, through his own closet – instead of Ted. Nancy even tells Robin, "call my house, tell everyone to get out of there". Maybe she did call the house, and Mike answered using his red phone, but the call came too late.)
When the Wheeler house was attacked, Mike ran to Karen. Then, in the kitchen, he stood there while Karen defended him, and when she was slashed in the chest – right in front of him, like a scary movie he couldn't turn off. Karen probably only found out the truth about the Upside Down when it was already too late.
Mike: You saved us. [...] There's so much that I need to tell you about the Upside Down, but...
But... maybe he can't.
Mike loved his mother. He didn't want her to die. He wants to live in a world where she could've survived; where he could've told her the truth, and she could've seen him graduate, hugged him, told him she loved him, and called him upstairs from the basement one more time.
Just as Kiara said here!
And so, when Vecna kidnaps Mike later on and scrambles his memories, Mike subconsciously separates the true story of the Wheeler attack into three different characters.
Karen, Holly and Will.
He gave his injuries to Karen, and her injuries to Ted, giving his mother another chance at survival. And after that, Mike gave his own bravest moments to her too (more on this later).
Mike also gave his fears and insecurities to Holly.
Holly: When my mom was attacked, I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t even save myself. I just stood there. [...] There's nothing heroic about that.
He couldn't save his mother, only watch – and he blames himself. But as I've explored previously, Mike views his fears and struggles as childish, so he gave them to his little sister.
And then, Mike gave his deepest desires to Will. Everything he wished he could've done instead. Through him, Mike wills it all to be true.
Will: I was afraid. I was afraid for my mom.
Mike: You wanted to protect her.
Will: Yeah, but I just... couldn't. It was like this scary movie you just can't turn off.
In the edited version of Mike's story, now it's Will who couldn't save his own mother – except Mike makes it so he actually did.
All the way back in Season 1, It was Will who "put himself in danger to help the Party" in their D&D game, inspiring Mike – so, from Mike's perspective, Will the Wise is the obvious choice for a hero.
Mike: Are you positive you didn't? Turn off the scary movie, protect your mom, not the other way around?
See what Mike is doing here? He is controlling the narrative subconsciously, telling a story that he wishes was true through Will and Karen, and telling a story closer to his own reality through Holly.
Mike gave all of his "childish" fears to Holly, he gave all of his bravest moments to Karen, and he gave Will everything he ever wanted.
This way, Holly gets to be scared and comforted like any child would be. Karen survives "by some miracle"; she saves him, his friends, and herself. Will gets to accept himself for who he truly is, beat his tormentor, and be the powerful, confident hero of his own story.
And Mike, stuck in the Rightside Up, gets nothing... thereby keeping himself even more trapped, which is exactly what Vecna wants.
And, speaking of what Vecna wants...
Holly the "bait" (A.K.A. Mike Lite)
Lucas: It makes no sense that Vecna took Holly; Holly, who has nothing to do with any of this.
Or does it?
When I was first putting things together in late Jan/early Feb, I was under the impression that Holly was never actually kidnapped, and her story fully replaced Mike.
However, after re-examining the evidence? Holly was kidnapped. But there's a reason Vecna didn't kidnap Holly and Mike at the same time when he very easily could have. She was the bait.
^ These are my old notes btw – no need to read unless you're curious
By taking her on November 3rd, Vecna baited the gang into the Upside Down for a long and dangerous Crawl. This way, their best resources and strength would be expended during the fight for Holly, all of them would be injured, and some might even die.
Come *CRAWLING* faster, obey your master,
Your life burns faster,
Obey your master, master...
Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
All that effort to get Holly back... only for Vecna to swap her for her brother: Mike.
I'd make a deal with God, and get him to swap our places.
Not only that, but Will probably saw the whole thing. More on that later.
Let's explore how exactly Vecna was able to kidnap Mike on November 6th – starting with Mike's hospital stay, and ending with the brave sacrifice he made for his friends.
Survivor's Guilt! at the Hospital (feat. Lucas)
Now, before the November 3rd attack, Mike had already been feeling a truckload of guilt. We saw only the tip of the iceberg in Season 4, with how Mike considered himself both useless, and totally inferior to El...
Mike: One day she's going to realise that I'm just some random nerd that got lucky that Superman landed on his doorstep.
Mike: I'm scared that one day you'll realise you don't need me anymore.
Mike feels like he's always there, standing by his loved ones, but that no-one actually needs him around. Sure, he figures things out, but he feels like it will never be enough to repay his loved ones for everything they've done for him.
El, who sacrifices herself over and over again for her friends, because if she doesn't, who will?
Will, who goes through trauma after trauma and still remains gentle, brave and kind.
Eddie, who Mike idolised as exactly the kind of rebellious, authentic person he wants to be; he fights with Dustin about whether Eddie's sacrifice was brave or stupid, before ultimately settling on brave.
And finally, the nail in the coffin for Mike's self-image – his mother, Karen, who has always assured him that he can tell her the truth, and who he can always go to for a hug, even when he doesn't say a word. Karen, who died to protect him, never learning the truth until it was too late (and perhaps never learning certain truths at all).
That's why Mike imagines Mike the Brave is "by his side". Not that he himself is Mike the Brave, but that he's just standing there.
He's always just standing there.
And after the November 3rd attack? All of Mike's worst fears about himself have been totally confirmed, in his mind. He is useless, he isn't brave, he isn't honest, and he survived while his mother sacrificed her life for his protection.
[Mike]: I just stood there. Why didn't I fight? Why didn't I help her?
Max: That was old [Mike]. You would now.
Mike wants nothing more than to get out there and fight... but he can't. See, Mike was badly injured during the attack. In the end, these were his injuries:
An injured leg – resulting in a limp [Karen in Ep6] [Vecna in Ep5/6] [Mike in Ep2]
An injured arm – [Karen slips on water and slams against the counter in Ep2] [Mike slips on water and slams against the wall in Ep4]
An injured throat – hurts to talk (but he talks anyway) [Karen in Ep2] [El in ST3]
Mike's throat and arm getting injured have actually been foreshadowed for a while.
SEASON 3
Max: Does it still hurt?
El: Only when I talk.
Max: Well, it’s a good thing you’re not Mike, then. "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," and you'd be in constant pain!
SEASON 3
Will: The juju bites your arm. Flesh tears!
Mike: Oh no, my arm. Look Lucas, my arm.
Stuck in his hospital bed, Mike feels useless, cowardly, and most of all, he feels very, very guilty.
Lucky for Mike, the battle is about to take place, so his friends are coming over for one last visit.
That's when Lucas gives his speech to Mike.
Firstly, if you're curious... out of everyone at the hospital (Robin, Lucas, Joyce and Will – I'll explain later), why Lucas?
This is based off of Max's speech to Holly in Episode 6. In that scene, they each mention one character: Holly mentions Mike, and Max repeatedly mentions Lucas. In fact, "Lucas" is the first word Max says in the scene! Holly is clearly a stand-in for Mike, so... Max is probably a stand-in for Lucas.
A speech like this would fit Lucas' character arc more than the others
Lucas is in several hospital scenes with Mike already
"Lucas and Mike are an underrated duo"... Um, where exactly?
So what happens?
As stated in my 12 Episodes post, the gang cooked up two plans for the final battle:
A larger group will go into the Upside Down to find Holly
A smaller group (Robin, Lucas, Joyce, Will) will stay in Hawkins to connect Will to the hivemind.
During their preparations, the Party did everything they could to prevent themselves from being put under Vecna's curse. They discovered:
Max: Music isn't the only way back. Something that connects you to the real world, to home. Something powerful. Meaningful.
(Kali may have said this, since she's an illusionist – she would know! But that's a theory for another day.)
Since they'll be remaining in Hawkins for the Hivemind plan, Lucas and the others visit Mike to A) say goodbye before the battle, and B) tell him this information.
This is how Lucas and Mike's conversation goes:
Lucas: [We realised that if any of us get stuck in a vision...]
Lucas: Music isn’t the only way back. [...] You just need something that’s special to you. Something that makes you feel safe, something that brings you strength, that brings you hope.
Mike: ...Mike the Brave.
Lucas: Just try and remember what he means to you.
Mike: He doesn’t mean anything important. He’s just a toy. [...] I guess I thought if I ever got scared, I could just become him. But I keep trying and it never works. No matter what I do, I’m still me. [...] When my mom was attacked, I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t even save myself. I just stood there. [...] There’s nothing brave about that.
This continues Mike's long-lasting negative self-image; as someone useless and unimportant – and his devaluing of what he views as "childish", which started all the way back in Season 2 with Mike donating all his favourite toys.
But Lucas pushes back against Mike's self-loathing.
Lucas: There was nothing that you could do in those moments, Mike. I mean, you’re a Wheeler. You’re smart. You honestly think you could’ve stopped that monster with a shovel? And, I think you're leaving a few important things out. [...]
Lucas: So you see, Mike the Brave isn’t just a toy. He’s you, Mike. He’s you.
By challenging Mike's assumptions, Lucas is able to break through his friend's self-loathing and allow him to see the truth – that this whole time, he has already been brave. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is stand there, even though you're scared.
Thanks to Lucas, Mike is no longer limited by the belief that he is a useless coward – and as an unexpected bonus, he has all the fuel he needs to do something very, very brave.
And just in time, too.
The day of Mike's kidnapping: November 6th, 1986
I've listed everything that happens in dot points, and next to them [in brackets like this], the scenes they're based on.
The gang split in two. [based on: Lucas and Erica's two plans in Shock Jock]
Most of the gang went out to find Holly in the Upside Down. [based on: the beanstalk plan from the finale, El and Hopper searching for Holly]
The other group, comprised of Joyce, Robin, Will and Lucas, planned to connect Will to the hive mind. But first, they went to the hospital to give Mike and Max one last visit. [based on: Will's hivemind plan from Shock Jock featuring Robin + Joyce + Lucas + Will, the hospital scenes with Robin + Lucas].
While the rest of the gang was putting their resources and effort into saving Holly, Vecna sent Demos into the hospital – and they came straight for Max, Robin, Lucas, Will and Joyce. [based on: Vecna sending Demos to these four characters in the MAC-Z, the tunnels, the barn, the truck, AND the hospital... and somehow they survived every time lol]
Mike heard this over the intercom. Instead of sitting there and staying safe, Mike decided to be brave. [based on: Karen hearing the hospital intercom warning + getting out of bed]
Fueled by his newfound sense of bravery and self-worth, Mike got out of bed and pulled out his IV, limping and grunting in pain. [based on: Karen limping in her hospital gown to save Robin, Lucas etc.]
Mike set off an explosion in the hospital, saving his loved ones from the Demos. He finally got to be Mike the Brave. [based on: Karen's hospital explosion, Mike exploding his "Mike the Brave" figurine in the Upside Down]
Mike had to stay behind and rest while the others completed their plan. [based on: Karen staying behind to rest while the others completed their plan]
Will: Mike, this group saved me when no-one else could. You did that. And we're about to do the same thing with Holly. We're gonna bring her back to you, Mike, I promise. Okay? Yeah?
[based on: Mike reassuring Karen]
Now that his friends are gone, and Mike is even worse for wear than before – Vecna himself appears in the hospital. [based on: Vecna appearing to Mike at the MAC-Z, Vecna appearing to Max and Holly in her memory, Will being Vecna's "spy"]
The thing is, though... Will was connected to the hivemind by this point.
Ep 5 - Shock Jock
[Joyce]: What about Holly? Do you see Holly?
Will: No. [...] [Mike.]
Lucas: Wait, what about [Mike]?
Will: [...] Vecna... Vecna's hunting him.
He could see everything Vecna was seeing, and he tried to save Mike. [based on: Will trying to save Max and Holly from Vecna in her memory]
Will: MIKE! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, YOU NEED TO RUN! RUN!
But MIKE CAN'T RUN! ...His leg.
He tried anyway, limping down the hallway as fast as he could. [based on: Mike limping down the hallway and looking behind him, Karen limping down the hallway, Max and Holly running from a limping Vecna]
Vecna (to Will): Get out. GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!
Will was knocked into a trance. [based on: Will being knocked into a trance in Shock Jock]
Mike was totally and utterly screwed.
Vecna reached Mike easily. He fell to the floor, possibly even falling down a flight of hospital stairs, and slammed his head. [based on: Mike falling to the ground and slamming his head, Holly falling down the stairs and slamming her head, Robin's fake granny in hospital who fell down a flight of stairs]
Mike was knocked out. [based on: Mike getting knocked out by Vecna's explosion at the MAC-Z, Holly knocked out from falling down the stairs, Max almost knocked out by Vecna as he choked her while the scene cuts to her hospital bed]
VECNA KIDNAPPED MIKE. [based on: Vecna kidnapping Holly after she fell down the stairs, Vecna kidnapping the kids in front of Mike]
In a cruel twist of fate, it was Mike's final act of bravery that led directly to his kidnapping.
Vecna now has Will: his builder and Mike: his storyteller – exactly what he needs to complete his plan and create "something beautiful".
Well, shit, right?
What happens next?
Episode 12
Mike confronts the cost of secrecy after the vicious attack at the Wheeler home [his real memory of the attack]
Mike will have to accept the unfortunate reality that he's been trying to run from – that his mother will never learn the full truth; she'll never hear all of Mike's stories from the Upside Down, nor about his love for Will, nor any other secrets he may have kept from her.
But he'll be freed from the Rightside Up – and with this freedom, he'll let go of the idea that he needs to hide, to live in fantasy, or to be someone other than Mike, in order to be loved.
Because in the end, truth and love will triumph over fear.
Vecna can try to convince Mike that there are only two doors, but as long as Max is still running around in his mind, there's a third one.
Escape
:)
...Whew.
This was a BIG ONE, omg. It literally took me around four days to put this thing together – excluding the work I had already been doing to try and piece together Mike's explosion moment. It was worth it though. I love theorising and puzzles, so this is actually, miraculously, fun for me. Hope it was a good read for you!
Thanks for making it to the end!
Also: I found some crazy shit when I was analysing Karen's hospital scene, way too much to fit in here lol. Let's just say "I was him, I was Vecna" makes a lot more sense now – just not in *that* way.
We've seen in the past that Mike has been able to break Will out of his visions just by touching him, like in Season 2.
If Will is being used by Vecna/the Mindflayer to create a mass illusion (as his new Illusionist class in the credits suggests), maybe Mike has been prevented from touching him, lest the illusion is interrupted.
no, max, holly is not her brother — and that’s the whole point.
(or: i think i’ve cracked season 5.)
one question i constantly see come up, even amongst discussions from within the conformitygate bus is…why? why were these episodes…made the way that they were? sure, the idea of a surprise continuation after everything’s claimed to be finished is cool, and the concept of we the audience being trapped in a vecna vision is neat, but…couldn’t they have just made a normal season to begin with? have a good ending, and save everyone the collective trouble?
the discovery of copyrightgate by @thebestofmyrmidons (episodes 2-8 being unregistered with copyright and thus seemingly waiting for edits to be made first) has led some people to speculate that perhaps the season would be rewritten entirely with brand new, better episodes, but i was hesitant to get behind this for a few reasons. one, the lost media of it all, two, the insane waste of money, time, effort, work, and resources this would be, and three, season 5 isn’t really…nonsensical? i mean, it kind of is, but those parts are more in the way of smaller details/apparent continuity errors that indicate vecna’s looming presence over the entire thing (the dial, the milkshake line, dustin using 50s slang, etc).
the characters themselves, though…do follow a plottable trajectory. sure, it’s definitely not the one we all wanted to see, but outside of some more abrupt shifts in the epilogue, the actions the characters take— upsetting as they may be— do not just come out of nowhere. there is a reason will calls mike his tammy in his coming out scene, and you can track its development throughout the prior episodes. it isn’t all crack with no substance.
so i was, like. determined to figure this thing out. will’s coming out scene being Like That for a discernible, textual reason (on which i have a very detailed post) meant that basically everything else should also be Like That for a reason. yes, there are plenty of likely valid meta/social commentary/ego reasons they would decide to do this, but none of them apply to the actual story itself, and the narrative justification that should, in theory, be in it. the characters surely must gain something. something is being said here.
this is why i remain firmly in the camp of the revisions made to existing episodes being a mix of flashbacks and missing scenes— so mike and el talking about their relationship over the timeskip, mwtfdydgate, scenes that make it clearer to the ga that this is a season where vecna wins, etc. this would then mean that any future content would have to take place after that epilogue, and after the events of the season. i have what i think is even further proof of this, but i’ll get to that later.
people have pointed out how holly parallels mike a lot in this season, and that her arc appears to follow the trajectory his should have, so any cg content would have him doing just that; he finds his bravery, and breaks out of camazotz. perhaps, as people were saying when vol 1 first dropped, we’d even rewind all the way back and do an episode 2 where mike is now the one who gets taken instead. and while these conclusions make sense…they still don’t really answer the question of why we had to start with holly in the first place. okay, holly is mike, but what does that actually mean? that we’re in for watching the same arc 2 times? why not just go with mike from the start? why holly, and why all the focus on her? what is the point?
to start to answer that question, i will remind you all of something i’m sure you are more than well aware of: will byers and henry creel are foils to each other. they are who the other could have been, had their circumstances been just the slightest bit different.
to nail this point home even further, henry creel has even been given an entire play centered around him; a tragedy, where falling in love cannot and does not save him from himself and his eventual fate, and fear wins out in the end.
…do you see where i’m going with this?
season 5, at one point or another, sees every character motivated or run by fear that is specifically interfering with something they love. robin lies because she’s scared of vicki finding out the truth, hopper is overprotective because he’s scared of losing el, joyce is scared to let will go too far from where she can reach him, dustin is scared of losing anyone else and lashes out at steve as a result, max suddenly becomes terrified that lucas has abandoned her the second that song stops playing and is unable to break herself out and reunite with him anyway, vecna instills a fear into will that has him doubt the legitimacy and validity of his feelings for mike, mike slowly forms the terrifying thought that he’s never truly had a genuine place beside will, and jancy are dealing with a confusing mess of love and fear until they get to be one of the few people that actually work through this for reasons i suspect might have to do with later conversations with one or more of their younger siblings. though some of these cases get resolved, not all of them do, and that’s before we even get to the mess of implications given to us by the epilogue. much like the first shadow, the story is a tragedy. fear— and conformity born from that fear— wins out in the end.
so if will is henry, protagonist of tfs the tragedy, and mike is holly, protagonist of stranger things 5 the tragedy, then tfs is to will what stranger things 5 is to mike.
because henry and will are FOILS. they mirror each other. tfs ends the way it does because henry is not will, and stranger things 5 ends the way it does because holly is not mike.
when max tells holly in that cave that she’s just like her brother, she is WRONG. holly isn’t mike in the same way that henry isn’t will, because they’re both missing what those two have always had in spades: LOVE.
whenever will starts to feel too overwhelmed by all the things that have happened and are currently happening to him, mike is always there to help pull him back to his feet. he reminds will of who he knows he truly is in both a literal and emotional sense. as i know we all know, mike is will’s heart.
i mentioned in my post on a cg-lensed 5x01 that i thought mike saying he imagines mike the brave as being there beside him came from a place of always being an outside observer to most conflict and tragedy. and while i still think this holds true, i also think that this is mike saying that he feels bravest when he has the reassurance of someone always being beside him, ie; WILL is mike’s strength. they are at their best and most unstoppable versions of themselves when they are together and not pushing each other away, which is why seasons 3, 4, and vol 2/3!mike feel like such drastic shifts from how he appears in seasons 1, 2, and vol 1. this is also why vecna spends all of season 5 trying (and succeeding) to force them apart.
essentially, henry does not have a mike, and holly does not have a will. i’m sure the fact of the former is easily understood, but let me elaborate on the latter.
holly, much like her brother, lives in a house with parents that do not love each other. and while we don’t explicitly get a whole lot on how this has impacted mike (though things are certainly implied when you go and look for them), holly is given multiple scenes in which her parents’ fighting makes her visibly upset. not to mention that these fights largely center around her. so she’s well aware that what she sees in her house every day is not genuine love, and that she herself is the cause of a lot of their spats! thankfully, though, both she and her brother do at least have friends; mike has will, of course, and the party, and holly has her good friend mary!
when will gets possessed, mike is the only person will is still able to recognize apart from his mother, and the hand mike himself had held earlier is the same one will uses to convey a message in morse code.
but when holly gets kidnapped and taken to camazotz, mary…is so far gone under mr. whatzit’s influence that she specifically is the one to try and strangle her.
(nor does holly trust that max isn’t a monster even after multiple instances of her saving her life. but we’ll come back to that later.)
so holly’s missing a pretty key part of what being mike wheeler requires, actually. though she nonetheless does her best to try. she tries to adopt the same advice her brother follows for himself (which gets her kidnapped), she tries to be a leader like her brother (which gets her strangled and ultimately unable to escape camazotz), and, in the epilogue, she’s shown playing dnd with her friends in her basement, just like her brother.
(also, the spyglass holly finds in henry’s house has a cutout in the cap that looks suspiciously like the mouth of henry’s cave— which itself looks suspiciously like the letter ‘M’ on mike’s dnd binder. holly is trying to embody mike’s advice to her, and is looking around at things through the lens of her brother’s worldview, but she doesn’t immediately notice that this has also left her vision tunneled. and even though she eventually realizes that she’s been using the thing with the cap on and takes it off, this is not enough to stop her later from doing the exact same thing again.)
and this, interestingly enough, is actually a sign of her heading right towards conformity.
hear me out.
the reason this season centers on holly specifically to act as a foil to mike, and not any other character they could’ve used or introduced, is that holly is the single and only person who does and could exist in stranger things that we know exactly one thing about, and virtually nothing else:
she’s holly wheeler. she’s mike’s little sister. if quite literally anyone else showed up and started emulating an arc suspiciously close to what mike’s should look like, something would immediately feel off, but holly doing this appears to be a perfectly natural conclusion. both the audience and the narrative’s expectations of holly to become someone she fundamentally cannot inherently dooms her to failure from the start.
so she plays dnd, and nothing appears off at a glance, because this is Mike’s Sister doing what Mike’s Sister would do, despite the fact that she hasn’t really given any previous indication that this would actually be something she’d do. she conforms into doing exactly what we expect her to.
(not to mention the additional effect this has of further devaluing mike and will’s relationship, since it turns dnd from ‘something we specifically did together because it was special to us’ to ‘something all children do simply Because They Are Children and so mike no longer plays because he is Not.’ so that’s really the icing on the cake.)
so, why have these two tragic stories? why go into the real ending with what is essentially a will who could not be stronger than what he was terrified of, and a mike who never got to be more than what was expected of him?
aside from it being nice thematically for both sides to come together and get their mirrored resolutions together in the end (especially if the rumored patty newby cameo actually comes to fruition, in whatever way that would play out) this now makes the challenge posed to mike appear bigger than it ever possibly could have before.
because, now, the past, present, AND future (because holly is the future generation!!!) are all pointing towards the fact that FEAR WINS. in the stranger things world, FEAR TRIUMPHING is now the NORM.
to break himself out, mike now has to go directly against the idea that VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING is pointing him towards. most repressed guy of all time is now faced with breaking what is essentially the final boss of societal norms.
luckily, as holly’s mirror— and, you know, actual mike wheeler— he has a pretty good chance of succeeding.
there’s just one problem.
actual michael wheeler is still, thanks to the work of vecna, missing his actual will. their relationship has been reframed and devalued to the point that they’ve both come to think that it was never truly what either of them thought it was, and have pushed each other away as a result. so what does that mean for any future content?
well, let’s look at holly’s story— a mirror of mike’s. who are her key players?
we have holly herself, mr. whatsit, max, derek, and the other children. the protagonist, the antagonist, the guide, the unlikely ally, and everyone else stuck in camazotz with them.
holly is mike, obviously, but i don’t think henry would be both holly’s and mike’s mr. whatsit. mr. whatsit is a friendly, familiar face who gently nudges you into permanently staying in a fake world of his own creation. because, deep down, a part of him still wants to keep these people safe, and so he changes them to ensure that they are; keeps them as the type of people that would never be hurt. to step outside the boundary he’s created is to willingly turn yourself back into the sort of person monsters cannot help but go after— and he can do nothing for you then.
holly is to mike what henry is to will.
and michael wheeler is not going to be lulled into staying in his own personal hell by henry creel.
i’ve made it known on here before that i am a firm member of the ‘will is the final boss’ camp, and all of this just has me digging my stake into the ground even further. though i don’t believe will knows that he is being used to create the illusions presented to us this season (not yet, anyway), it ends up inevitably rendering itself as a display of both his and henry’s beliefs.
because that is not el in the void. that is will, conjuring up for mike a scene he subconsciously thinks he’d want to see: the girl will thinks mike is in love with telling him everything he thinks he’d want to hear. mike’s “life started the day he found el in the woods?” well, look at that— el’s felt that immediate connection since day one as well. he has her tell him she loves him, and he has her kiss him, but he cannot make mike do anything in return. and mike cannot say he loves her back.
mike is set to spend the rest of his days in camazotz believing both that will never truly needed him, and that even in her dying moments, he still wasn’t capable of being someone who could genuinely love el back. this is a representation of him being literally gay and unable to reciprocate, being subtextually unable to love the part of himself that is queer, and metaphorically no longer being able to push his feelings for will outside of himself where he does not personally have to handle them— which, due to the recent deconstruction of their relationship, have only gotten harder to hold. again, unbeknownst to will, this is mike’s personal hell. more on all of that in a sec.
so where is el, then, if she wasn’t in that void? how much of what we see towards the end is a complete illusion?
now, that last part, i’m not quite sure on, but…did you notice how many times this season max was referred to specifically as a monster? how holly, trying and failing to be her brother, cannot bring herself to fully trust her even after she’s gone and saved her life?
and do you remember what the one action that finally got mike to fully trust and forgive el was? what said action made mike directly affirm to el that she was not?
i think we’ve found our guide.
mike needs someone to help snap him out of the camazotz haze and go help will, and who better to do that than the subtextual, physical manifestation of mike’s queerness and feelings for will that he’s never able to fully convince himself is truly gone?
(if you’ve never heard of this reading of el before, i…genuinely do not have the space within this post to properly explain it all to you, but @pancak3sandbac0n has an incredibly detailed series of posts where this is explored at length!! they’re very well done, go and give them a read.)
el could perhaps be a little pressed for corporeal forms at the moment, though, so either that or something else is preventing her from appearing in front of mike in person, or perhaps she can only do so momentarily. (my reasoning for this is again based on the posts above, where el subtextually serves as the displacement vehicle for mike’s feelings for will whenever she’s physically close by so he doesn’t have to feel them himself, and the realization train cannot afford any detours here) so mike receives some sort of message from who he thinks is will, can’t help himself from eagerly going to follow it (will needs something from him!) and is instead greeted by the fact that el is alive (the inexplicable, yet undeniable, continued existence of his queerness and feelings for will. tough luck.)
though he can’t physically see el, or at least can’t see her for very long, he cannot go back to thinking she was no longer still alive, or entertain the fact that she’s still out there somewhere where he simply cannot reach her. (so, he cannot go back to entertaining the idea that his feelings for will were no longer there, or even off and far removed from him.) and if el says that will is in trouble, then mike knows he can’t just sit back and leave that alone. he’s never once been able to.
if el can’t be physically in camazotz, though, he’s going to need some additional help. i do believe that mike being holly’s mirror and the heart of the party will leave him better off when it comes to swaying his friends to his side, but something will likely prevent him from being able to go to them at first— will being compromised, perhaps. so he’ll have to find someone from outside his usual suspects.
enter…our unlikely ally. our derek.
this is going to be the biggest hear me out of the entire post, i think, but. hear me out.
derek, to holly, is an annoyance. constantly getting in the way, and not seeming to care about the grief he causes her. he’d been on mr. whatsit’s side at first, but eventually conspires to work against the construction of the world he’s created. usually, people tell him he does nothing but mess things up, but the crew decide to use the in they know he has with the other kids to help them get closer to henry.
derek…is robin.
HEAR ME OUT.
derek causes destruction intentionally. robin, as his mirror, causes destruction without necessarily understanding that that is what she is doing. (but, as she tells will in shock jock, people also certainly aren’t eager to tell her she’s been helpful.)
because micheal wheeler has long since proved himself to be quite the jealous type, whenever will is concerned, and he spent a large portion of season 5 watching robin and will giggling and being close and sharing glances and for why, hm? could will actually like her? just like that?? (you were “too preoccupied with yourself” to notice will was gay, michael?)
and because the thing about that field scene that i don’t think everyone got (and this is partly on the fault of the editing, since i think they cut away too quickly for you to properly see the expression on noah’s face you’re supposed to) is that robin is not clocking the reciprocal possibility of byler. the script, which can be heard in videos of them doing sorcerer’s table read, specifies that after mike does not return will’s playful shove, will feels upset and embarrassed. and that is what robin clocks. that is what leads us to the talk about tammy she gives him right after. except robin is not as well-versed in byler lore as she needs to be in order to be having this conversation, and gives will advice towards a situation that does not actually apply to him.
except…whoops! will’s now taken that, combined it with the negative self-perception vecna’s trying to force him into having, internalized them both to hell and back, and now the devastating dismissal of will’s love for mike as something entirely stemming from an issue and failure of will’s is kind of also robin’s fault!
considering that this is the mindset i expect will lead us to final boss will, the consequences of this misinterpretation are so severe i cannot imagine it would go unaddressed. i see this happening through one of two options:
one: robin is flayed, and has been for a while. not the most interesting, to me, and i don’t know why it would only use her to do this one thing and nothing else when vecna’s already been chipping away at will’s perception of himself. but this is definitely plausible, and a way to make it clear that her advice was coming from a wrong place.
two: mike, in need of assistance, now aware that will is gay and the two of them had likely gotten close for some other reason, goes to her to desperately plead his case in moving to help will. and robin, faced with the full brunt of just how far mike is willing to go for will, realizes that she has severely misjudged the situation concerning these two. so if mike’s going to try and reach out to will, then she needs to, too. the comfort of camazotz that lets her not have to think about how deeply she may have hurt her friend may be alluring, and the fear of confronting the weight of what she’s done once outside in those woods is scary, but she knows that she has to set things right.
and unlike derek, i don’t think our mr. whatsit here will be quite as successful at scaring her into backing down (because will byers is more loved than he has ever truly comprehended), though i’m sure he’ll certainly try to make his case. but fear isn’t going to have the upper hand this time!
when mike makes his return, his attempt to rally the troops is successful (sorry, holly), and he’s able to successfully escape camazotz with all of them in tow (sorry, holly).
(though, actually, all of the kids making it out in the end has me leaning towards the possibility that, in their mirror, now someone will not.)
and then…the final boss!will of my dreams. i have a post detailing my thought process regarding him in full, but the long and short of it is: mike and will are both at the heart of the season and this is the best setup to properly ensure equal participation, mike running headfirst into the eye of the storm to try and save will regardless of how he thinks will feels about him in return to prove that everything his entire world is telling him is wrong is one of the bravest things he could possibly do, and GAY LOVE WILL SAVE THE WORLD.
so people have tried to pinpoint the moment at which the events of this season start to ‘go wrong,’ and wonder if this point, wherever it is, could be the point from which further content resets from.
i disagree. sort of.
the point at which the season goes ‘wrong,’ the point at which all signs begin to point towards the ending we get, is the moment holly wheeler is taken instead of her brother, and forced to fill a role she cannot. holly not being mike is the entire reason we are here.
and this, i will remind you, does not actually happen from episode two. it happens right at the end of episode one.
the only episode of the bunch that has been registered with copyright, and thus the only episode that cannot be changed.
so, yeah. the characters are going into cg content with allll 10 hours of baggage we’ve had unceremoniously dumped on us in their momentary absence. thankfully, the road they’re headed down should end up relieving a lot of that weight— mike and will will make sure of it.
Let’s talk about Jane Hopper’s “romantic” feelings (she’s my baby and I’ve been waiting to make a post just about her)
This my personal opinion and I absolutely don’t mind anyone disagreeing. People focus on Mike’s complexity but to me Jane is harder to read. So let’s agree to disagree 🫶 I appreciate you if you still read this long ass post
We spend so much time dissecting Byler and psychoanalyzing Mike’s feelings that I don’t think we sit with Jane’s perspective long enough. Her story is about independence, emancipation, and finding out who she is. But the need for independence does not automatically cancel out love. You can love someone and still realize you need to leave in order to become whole. You can want someone and still understand that staying with them is not where you’ll grow. So I don’t think it’s always fair to frame it as a clean split. Those things are not mutually exclusive and can coexist.
HOWEVER, I don’t think that’s the case here. Here’s my long, stubborn and unprompted opinion: I don’t think Jane was ever in love with Mike Wheeler.
And I’m not saying that because of Byler. I’m kinda tired of repeating this but I jumped on the Byler bus way later because I always need as much evidence as I can get. I disliked Mileven from the very beginning, before I even knew what Byler was. It always felt wrong to me at its foundation because that relationship started on uneven and low-key toxic ground. A nerdy boy who suddenly sees his supernatural fantasies come to life through a mysterious girl who is entirely dependent on him. And we know how deeply Mike is drawn to being needed, to being the person someone relies on. At the same time, Jane isn’t just a girl to him since she is the key to finding Will, someone profoundly important in his life. She is miracle, a fantasy, a solution, all wrapped into one. But this isn’t about Mike Wheeler. I want to talk about precious Jane.
Season 1
Jane had no social cues, no understanding of friendship, no framework for romance. Suddenly there is this boy who takes her under his wing, introduces her to the world, explains right and wrong, teaches her what promises are, what loyalty is. He becomes her interpreter of the outside world. So ofc dependency forms early. How could it not when he’s like safety, knowledge and belonging.
And then she has her first kiss after JUST imagining him as a brother she might have in a new safe and loving family. I repeat: she did NOT conceptualize him romantically at first. She saw him as family. So when that shifts into a kiss, into a romantic label, how are we supposed to believe she fully understood what that meant? She didn’t even understand what romance was or have the emotional literacy for it.
Season 2
Then season 2 isolates her all over again. That tiny, fragile taste of normalcy is ripped away, and she is back in confinement. Ofc she clings to the memory of Mike. Ofc the Snow Ball promise becomes larger in her mind. When the only thing you have to fill your time is television, especially romantic television, your perception shifts. The kiss becomes cinematic, the dance a destiny. The boy who kissed you like the couples on screen must mean something bigger, because that’s what the screen tells you.
Even people raised in normal circumstances internalize what media teaches them about love. Now imagine someone like Jane, whose entire understanding of relationships comes secondhand. The logic of it is almost constructed and mechanical: a boy is kind to me, he kisses me like on TV, so it’s love, so this is what comes next. It doesn’t come from an internal understanding of desire but from imitation.
Season 3
Season 3 makes it even worse as their dynamic turn into something that feels like codependency. Now it goes both ways. Mike throws himself into the relationship with an intensity that’s less like organic, natural love and more like performance. It’s like he was trying to grow up too fast (grow from his feelings for a certain someone ughm 👀), to ground himself into a heterosexual teenage script of what “normal” looks like. Meanwhile, Jane is isolated again but just in a cozier cage. Her boyfriend becomes her primary connection to the outside world. They don’t talk about much, they don’t share interests, they just make out because that’s what couples do. For Mike, It’s easier than actually communicating and avoids difficult conversations. And for Jane, it follows the script she’s been given because what else are couples supposed to do?
Then Max comes into the picture and it’s one of the most liberating and heartbreaking moments of Jane’s arc. For the first time, she explores herself through clothes, preferences and opinions. When she asked “How do I know what I like?” That line alone destabilized the entire “she’s in love” argument for me. How can you be certain about loving someone romantically when you are still figuring out whether you even like a color, a style or a pair of shoes? When your own identity is still forming?
The way she looked at Max reminded me of how she looked at Mike in season 1 as if she’s wide-eyed, curious and absorbing the world around her. Then during that silly breakup, she honestly looked more hurt by betrayal than by the idea of losing the relationship itself. Being lied to by someone she trusted hurt more than the separation. After that, her focus drifts and her attention is elsewhere for most of the season. It didn’t feel like Mike was her emotional center anymore.
Season 4
Then Hopper “dies,” she moves states, integrates high school, exposes herself to social dynamics she has never navigated before. And that’s when we suddenly see her investing heavily in her relationship with Mike in a way that felt exaggerated. She built him a shrine in her bedroom, his name and damn face is everywhere. Drawings of him and letters and keepsakes…
The first time I watched that, I still wasn’t a Byler (better late than sorry 🫣). I just felt uncomfortable with that scene because It didn’t feel like natural, organic love. It was like she was clutching onto something. She was lonely and ostracized and likely watching other teenagers publicly experience romance and thinking, I have that too. I have a boyfriend. I’m normal. I’m okay.
Also, the show gives us nothing about her maintaining contact with her other friends and especially Max who was the one person who showed her she could exist outside of a relationship. She was isolated again in another way BUT as she gained more exposure to the world, her needs expanded. I believe that’s when she started sensing the flaws, that something was missing, that it’s not enough. But instead of confronting it, she doubled down, exaggerated devotion and romanticized what she had. Feel free to disagree but to me that’s overcompensating and self-preservation.
When she lost her powers, she was stripped bare. Without them, she is just Jane and I think, subconsciously, she always feared that her powers were what made Mike choose her and kept him invested. If I’m not special, if I can’t save everyone, what am I? Does he love me, or does he love the superhero?
And every time Mike opened his damn mouth and leaned into the “you’re my superhero” crap, it reinforced that insecurity. He idolizes her strength and glorifies her abilities. But does he know and see her as a person separate from that? Does he understand her trauma deeply enough to reach her with words? Can he see her without the pedestal he puts her on? At the same time, Mike also seemed to be outgrowing the fantasy too. The brave superhero narrative isn’t enough anymore to sustain his (cover) feelings the way it once did. By S4, they’re both clinging to something that doesn’t fit.
My take on where they stood: I truly believe the letter she left before going with Owens was the end of that relationship. I also don’t think she believed his surfer pizza confession. If she had drawn strength from his words and felt truly seen, she would’ve turned to him afterward and would’ve sought comfort in him after losing to Vecna. Instead, she withdrew and didnt talk to him for the rest of the trip. She only broke down and showed vulnerability when Hopper appeared. Her dear dad, not the guy who just confessed his “undying love” to her. So If that declaration was meant to shift something in her emotionally, it likely didn’t.
So yeah, her independence arc didn’t happen despite her love for Mike but alongside the process of navigating what he meant to her. She clung to the idea of love and a boyfriend because it offered stability and normalcy, especially when Mike framed their bond romantically from the beginning. When someone categorizes your connection that way early on, it becomes terrifying to imagine redefining it because it might mean losing them entirely. But by season 4, the illusion fractures and she begins to understand that she has been pretending, just as he has been pretending. I really loved how they paralleled each other in the beginning of S4.
Season 5
Also, as a conformity and shadow gater, I’m convinced they were already broken up by season 5. Could Jane, in another phase of her life, with more self-awareness, emotional grounding, and no monsters to hunt her, have loved Mike in a healthy, sustainable way? MAYBE. But the Jane we’ve seen so far, a girl socialized through TV, still learning what she likes, still separating safety from affection, still fighting for her survival, didn’t have the right tools and experience to distinguish affection and dependency from true romantic love.
I don’t think she was in love with Mike and I don’t think she truly understood what being in love felt like. On a shadier note, once she fully becomes herself outside of powers and survival, I don’t really see her going for someone like Mike. Just saying 👀
Don’t let Ross trick you. We were right the whole time. I lined up the serif of the H that’s peaking out on the left of the scribbled name, and copied and pasted every letter to scale
⬇️ This line is an exact copy on both sides. Pretty much a perfect match, taking into account my makeshift Y, spacing inconsistencies, and the angle the picture was shot. It’s Holly 100%
