I wish Eleven had never gotten her powers back.
(and other commentary on the message that the Duffers sent with her ending)
It would’ve been a cool transition to them having to figure out other ways to beat Vecna, since the previous seasons were so focused on solely using her powers to beat the big bad. She reaches her hand out and something moves, explodes, etc. It’s repetitive and predictable. And they kept adding on random powers without explaining anything, like she can suddenly revive people and fly?
I think the reason this season felt repetitive and the final battle felt anticlimactic was because it was mostly just her using her powers. And then the guns and bombs which had never been useful before, but suddenly that’s all they needed to completely end the ancient supernatural creature that had been terrorizing them for 4 years.
If she had just never gotten her powers back, she could have continued her arc of learning who she is without her supernatural powers, and learning that she has many other strengths that will help them in the final battle (intelligence, compassion, loyalty, love for her friends and found family, courage, etc.). And they also wouldn’t have had to worry about killing her off.
But it seems that the Duffers have reduced her to a concept that encompasses childhood magic and imagination. She is seen as a weapon that is immediately discarded after she has been used up.
It would have been a great metaphor for the struggle that women have in finding themselves and their place in a world that has such strict double standards and expectations for them. Eleven is expected by everyone (including the audience) to be a weapon who is their main source of power against Vecna. But she actually discovers her many other strengths that have been overshadowed by the expectations placed on her by those around her and the men who abused her and put her in this position in the first place.
She deserves a place in this world outside of the box that she was placed in since birth. She was born as a weapon, and died as a weapon. She died thinking that’s all she ever was: an experiment whose mission was complete. She died thinking it was her responsibility to fix the mess that arrogant men made in the first place because they were hungry for power. That is what the duffers made her into, but she deserved so much more.
All women who have been abused and exploited by men, women who have been made to feel smaller if they do not fulfill the expectations of men, deserve better.
The Duffers could have chosen this message, but they didn’t. And we should be angry. People say “just accept the show had a bad ending.” But we are allowed to grieve the amazing messages this once-in-a-generation show could have told.
The messages told in stories have power, and those who hold this power have a responsibility to use it wisely.
