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.
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 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.
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.
