Gonk

I couldn't stop thinking about The Substance while writing about the discourse surrounding Ariana Grande. This ended up being one of my favourite sections:

Another thing I can’t help thinking about is how much of this conversation is really about aging. Ariana is thirty three years old. Whether consciously or not, people continue comparing her to photographs taken when she was sixteen, twenty one or twenty five, as though those versions of her body should somehow remain permanent. But bodies aren’t permanent. They change throughout our lives. Fat distribution changes, faces lose or gain volume, skin changes and muscle mass naturally begins to decline as we get older. That’s not a flaw. It’s simply what living looks like.

This is exactly why The Substance resonated with so many people. On the surface, it’s a body horror film about aging. But underneath all of the gore is a much simpler idea, a woman becomes convinced that the only version of herself worth loving is the younger one. The only version that deserves to live is the younger one. The film forces people to confront why they find the aging body so horrifying.

I've been thinking a lot about the way people talk about Ariana Grande's body lately, and I ended up writing a long essay about it. One paragraph that I'm particularly proud of:

We don't know what a healthy Ariana Grande looks like because we don't know Ariana Grande. We know Ariana Grande the celebrity. Ariana Grande the performer. Ariana Grande the collection of images that have been carefully photographed, filmed and circulated online for the last sixteen years.

We have no idea what support she receives behind closed doors. We don't know what conversations she's having with friends, family or medical professionals. We don't know what recovery, if recovery is even necessary, looks like for her. And, perhaps most importantly, we are not entitled to know.

We've been talking about Ariana Grande's body for almost twenty years. The only thing that's changed is what we're talking about.

The more Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine tour fills people’s feeds, the more another conversation seems to follow it. Not about the performances, vocals or even about the album. About her body.

Every week there’s another viral TikTok dissecting a clip of her walking across a stage, another compilation zooming in on her collarbones under harsh concert lighting, another side by side comparison of how she looked in 2019 versus 2024 versus now. Doctors weigh in, fans speculate, comment sections fill with people insisting they’re “just concerned.”

It’s become one of the defining celebrity discussions of the summer. Yet every time it comes up, I find myself asking the same question:

Why does it matter?

Not because I don’t understand why people are talking about it, but because I don’t understand what people hope to achieve. What exactly is the desired outcome here? If Ariana Grande read every comment telling her she looked healthier in a different era of her life, what would people actually expect her to do with that information?

The more I thought about it, the more I realised something. This conversation didn’t begin in 2025, during Wicked, it didn’t even begin when people started worrying about her weight. We’ve been talking about Ariana Grande’s appearance for almost twenty years. The only thing that’s changed is what we’re talking about.

We've never stopped talking about Ariana Grande's appearance

Ariana Grande first stepped into the public eye in 2008, making her Broadway debut in 13 the musical at just fifteen years old. But it wasn’t until she was cast as Cat Valentine in Nickelodeon’s Victorious in 2010 that millions of people were introduced to her.

Looking back, it’s striking how quickly conversations about her appearance became intertwined with conversations about her career.

Cat Valentine wasn’t simply a character. She was bright red hair, oversized bows, and a childlike aesthetic. Fans described Ariana as “cute”, “tiny” and “doll like.” Even before she released a single album, discussions about how she looked accompanied discussions about what she did.

As Ariana transitioned from Nickelodeon actress to pop star with Yours Truly and My Everything, the scrutiny evolved alongside her career. Mariah Carey comparisons became cosmetic surgery rumours. The high ponytail became synonymous with her identity. Her winged eyeliner inspired thousands of makeup tutorials, while conversations about her increasingly darker tan gave way to early accusations of Blackfishing. People analysed why she supposedly only showed one side of her face. They weren’t just consuming Ariana’s music anymore, they were consuming Ariana herself.

When Dangerous Woman marked her transition into a more mature pop star, the conversation shifted once again. Her image became more overtly sexualised, her darker complexion drew increasing criticism and speculation about cosmetic procedures continued to grow.

In May 2017, twenty two people were killed in the Manchester Arena terrorist attack following Ariana’s concert. The tragedy, and the One Love Manchester benefit concert that followed, fundamentally reshaped her public image. Yet even an event as life altering as Manchester couldn’t stop the running commentary forever.

During the Sweetener and thank u, next eras, Ariana’s appearance was at almost an unprecedented level of cultural recognition. The oversized sweatshirts, high ponytails and thigh high boots became instantly recognisable. Halloween costumes, makeup tutorials and “transforming into Ariana Grande” videos flooded YouTube and Instagram. Her mannerisms and voice were analysed and copied for virality. Somewhere along the way, a person became a silhouette.

There’s something deeply ironic about the fact that one of Ariana’s most iconic aesthetics emerged during a period she has since described as one of the darkest of her life. While the public recreated the image, discussions surrounding her appearance reached new heights. Blackfishing accusations became widespread. Cosmetic surgery analyses became their own genre of online content.

During Positions and while filming Wicked, with fewer performances to discuss, attention increasingly turned to her face and body. Viral videos speculated about cosmetic surgery, “Asianfishing”, and eventually her weight. In 2023, Ariana addressed the conversation directly, reminding people that the version of herself many considered “healthy” had actually been one of the unhealthiest periods of her life, urging people to stop commenting on other people’s bodies because appearances rarely tell the full story.

For a brief moment, it felt as thought the conversation might finally end. Instead, it simply changed direction.

The release of Eternal Sunshine and wicked introduced Ariana to an entirely new audience, but the conversation remained all to familiar. Every red carpet appearance generated headlines about her weight. Side by side comparisons flooded social media. Doctors analysed photographs. Thousands of videos speculated about eating disorders while insisting they were “just concerned.”

In hindsight throughout the last sixteen years of Ariana Grande's career, the object of scrutiny has constantly changed. Her red hair became her ponytail, which became her tan, which became her face and her face became her body. But the scrutiny itself has never disappeared.

What does a "healthy" Ariana Grande even look like?

If you’ve spent any amount of time on social media over the last few years, you’ve probably seen people debating which version of Ariana Grande looked the “healthiest.”

Almost every discussion about her current appearance eventually turns into a comparison with a previous era. People pull up old photographs from Victorious, Dangerous Woman, thank u, next or Positions, placing them beside recent images as though they’re presenting evidence in a case. The conclusion is almost always the same: she used to look healthier. But I don’t think people realise what they’re actually saying when they say that.

A lot of people compare Ariana’s current body to how she looked during Victorious. Whenever I see those comparisons, I can’t help but think about what that period of her life actually represented. She was sixteen years old. People are comparing the body of a thirty three year old woman to the body she had as a teenager and wishing she still looked the same almost two decades later.

Even putting aside everything we know and everything that has been alleged about the environment surrounding Nickelodeon during that time, the comparison itself feels absurd. Most women don’t have the same body at thirty three that they did at sixteen, nor should they be expected to. Yet somehow, when it comes to celebrities, we treat aging like a personal failure rather than a completely normal part of being alive.

Others point to the Sweetener era or thank u, next era, insisting that was when Ariana looked her “healthiest.” It’s a sentiment that’s repeated so often that it’s almost become accepted as fact. The irony, of course, is that Ariana herself said the complete opposite in 2023.

Health isn’t something we can diagnose from a photograph. What people were really saying wasn’t, “She looked healthier.” They were saying, “I preferred the way she looked.” Those are two very different statements.

The contradiction becomes even more obvious when you look at how quickly public opinion changes. I’ve recently seen countless people comparing Ariana’s body on the Eternal Sunshine tour to how she looked when Eternal Sunshine was first released in 2024, insisting that she looked “so much healthier” back then.

But these are often the same corners of the internet that spent 2023 and 2024 insisting she looked frighteningly thin and longing for the way she looked during thank you, next. The goalposts move constantly.

Every new version of Ariana becomes the "unhealthy" one until enough time passes for it to become nostalgic. Then that same version is remembered as the ideal. There is always a younger, better and hotter version they prefer. Which is why I don't think this conversation has ever really been about health.

We don't know what a healthy Ariana Grande looks like because we don't know Ariana Grande. We know Ariana Grande the celebrity. Ariana Grande the performer. Ariana Grande the collection of images that have been carefully photographed, filmed and circulated online for the last sixteen years.

We have no idea what support she receives behind closed doors. We don't know what conversations she's having with friends, family or medical professionals. We don't know what recovery, if recovery is even necessary, looks like for her. And, perhaps most importantly, we are not entitled to know.

I think that's where I take issue with this entire discourse because I don't believe people are really asking for a healthier Ariana. I think they're asking for a more familiar one, the Ariana they remember. Whose image they’ve attached memories, albums and entire periods of their own lives to. But people aren’t static and they’re not supposed to be. Ariana Grande is no more obligated to resemble her twenty three year old self than any of us are obligated to resemble our teenage selves. The difference is that most of us aren’t expected to age in front of millions of people who feel entitled to compare every version of us to the last.

It's never really been about Ariana

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that none of this is unique to Ariana Grande. She's simply the latest woman to find herself trapped in a cycle that seems almost inevitable for female celebrities. Eventually, the conversation stops being about what they're creating and starts becoming about who they used to be.

I think it’s interesting how often we compare female celebrities to earlier versions of themselves. Taylor Swift is a good example. Every new era seems to be accompanied by people longing for another one. They miss the 1989 Taylor, the Red Taylor or the Folklore Taylor. The conversation becomes less about who she is now and more about which version of her people wish she would become again.

What exactly do people mean when they say they want someone to “go back.” Go back to what? To being younger? To looking different? To making different music? Or to the version that person they happened to discover first?

We talk about women’s previous “eras” as though they were entirely different people, rather than recognising them as chapters in the same person’s life. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this tends to happen once women have spent enough time in the spotlight. And once they reach a certain age.

At first they’re exciting because they’re new, the public make them icons. Then, somewhere around their late twenties or early thirties, the nostalgia begins. Suddenly they’re constantly being compared to their younger selves, with every new photograph treated as evidence that they’ve somehow changed for the worse.

It’s an impossible standard because the thing people are asking for is impossible. Nobody can become a previous version of themselves and yet we seem to expect women in entertainment to do exactly that.

You can see this cycle everywhere. Madonna was criticised for refusing to age. Lady Gaga has been compared to her early career for over a decade. Even Sabrina Carpenter, whose career is arguably only just reaching its peak, is already beginning to experience the kind of appearance based scrutiny that inevitably follows female success.

And why do we always talk of emerging young female artists as being the new xyz? The new Madonna. The new Gaga. The new Brittany. And isn’t that exactly how Ariana Grande became popular? For being called the new Mariah Carey. Why do we need another Mariah when she still exists? Do women no longer exist beyond the age of 35?

Another thing I can’t help thinking about is how much of this conversation is really about aging. Ariana is thirty three years old. Whether consciously or not, people continue comparing her to photographs taken when she was sixteen, twenty one or twenty five, as though those versions of her body should somehow remain permanent. But bodies aren’t permanent. They change throughout our lives. Fat distribution changes, faces lose or gain volume, skin changes and muscle mass naturally begins to decline as we get older. That’s not a flaw. It’s simply what living looks like.

This is exactly why The Substance resonated with so many people. On the surface, it’s a body horror film about aging. But underneath all of the gore is a much simpler idea, a woman becomes convinced that the only version of herself worth loving is the younger one. The only version that deserves to live is the younger one. The film forces people to confront why they find the aging body so horrifying.

What makes the film so unsettling isn’t just Elisabeth Sparkle’s obsession with youth. It’s ours. As the audience, we’re constantly encouraged to compare the “old” Elisabeth to the younger, more conventionally desirable version of herself. Her value becomes tied to how closely she can resemble the woman she used to be. Every wrinkle, every change and every sign of aging is framed as a loss.

Watching the discourse surrounding Ariana, I couldn’t help thinking about a particular scene from The Substance. I’ve seen countless videos comparing how her breasts “used to look”, pointing to photographs taken years earlier and lamenting that they were once fuller. It immediately reminded me of the contrast between Elisabeth Sparkle and Sue. Coralie Fargeat deliberately lingers on Elisabeth’s aging body, the softer skin, the sagging breasts and the marks of a life lived. While Sue’s body is filmed in an entirely different way. Her breasts are full, firm and endlessly consumable. The camera doesn’t simply show us two bodies, it teaches us which one we’re expected to desire.

Looking at the way people analyse Ariana’s body online, perhaps they’re doing something similar. They aren’t really comparing Ariana to another person. They’re comparing a woman in her thirties to a younger version of herself, as though youth is the standards against which every future version of her body should be measured.

It’s a cycle with no logical end. Every present version of a woman is criticised until she becomes a past version. Then, suddenly she’s remembered as perfect. Maybe that’s why conversations like this never actually end. Because they were never really about Ariana Grande’s body in the first place. They’re about our discomfort with watching women change. With watching women grow old.

So, when can we stop talking about Ariana Grande's body?

The honest answer is that I don’t think we can. Not because Ariana Grande is somehow uniquely scrutinised, but because she isn’t.

Over the last few years, it feels as though we’ve become increasingly comfortable commenting on strangers’ bodies. Whether that’s because of social media, the rise of short form content or the normalisation of weight loss drugs like Ozempic or simply the culture we’ve created online, I don’t know. But I do know that something has shifted.

People don’t seem to hesitate anymore. Bodies have become content. Someone gains weight, and it becomes a discussion. Someone loses weight, and it becomes a discussion. Someone looks older, younger, different, healthier or more tired and suddenly thousands of strangers feel entitled to analyse what they think is happening behind the scenes.

What’s perhaps most unsettling is that these conversations are almost always framed as concern. But concern rarely looks like millions of people dissecting a woman’s body in comment sections.

Recently, I saw a behind the scenes clip from KATSEYE’s latest music video Animal. The members are standing together with Demi Moore in the middle, who makes a cameo appearance in the video. Standing next to her is Megan, one of the groups youngest members. Megan is only seven months older than me.

There’s a visible difference between their bodies. Demi Moore is sixty three years old. Megan is twenty. That’s it, that should be the end of the observation. Instead the comments were flooded with people saying things like “Megan, step on a scale,” “Why are Megan’s legs so big?” and “She needs to lose weight.” The irony is impossible to ignore.

Demi Moore has spent the last year being accused by tabloids for becoming too thin, with endless speculation about Ozempic and dramatic weight loss.

Yet place her beside a perfectly healthy twenty year old woman and, somehow, it’s the twenty year old who’s “too big.” Got it.

How can both things possibly be true? The answer is they can’t. The standard isn’t just unrealistic, it’s contradictory. Women are expected to be thin, but not too thin. Healthy, but not “too healthy.” Curvy, but not “too curvy.” Youthful, but not childish. Natural, but flawless. To age, but never look older. To change, but somehow remain exactly the same. It’s an equation with no solution. And yet we blame individuals for setting the standard.

This is why I struggle to believe that the conversation surrounding Ariana Grande has ever truly been about her health. Because if it were, her own words would have been enough. Instead, every explanation is met with another comparison. Every era becomes another side by side photograph. Every appearance becomes another opportunity to decide whether she looks better or worse than the last time we saw her.

Maybe that’s because we’ve stopped seeing these women as people altogether. We see images, eras and aesthetics. We see versions of them that exist only in our own memories but Ariana Grande isn’t an era she’s a person. And like every person, she’s going to change.

Maybe the question was never, “When can we stop talking about Ariana Grande’s body?”

Maybe the better question is:

Accusing the Duffer Brothers of queerbaiting because Byler wasn’t canon isn’t just inaccurate, it reinforces damaging stereotypes about queer people, straight-queer friendships, and what representation is supposed to look like. In the process, it ends up doing more harm to the LGBTQ+ community than anything the show itself portrayed.

To talk about this honestly, we need to be clear about what queerbaiting actually means. It doesn’t mean “a queer relationship didn’t happen.” It doesn’t mean “my ship wasn’t endgame.” Queerbaiting refers to creators deliberately hinting at queer relationships for marketing or profit, without any intention of ever portraying them in the story.

Feeling disappointed isn’t the same thing as being exploited, and collapsing the two erases the seriousness of actual queerbaiting in media.

But the pattern that’s emerged online goes far beyond disappointment. Posts accusing the show of homophobia or queerbaiting are praised and spread widely. Claims that a straight character must reciprocate a queer character’s feelings, or else the narrative is discriminatory, get treated as fact. Close emotional intimacy between straight and queer characters gets flattened into romantic subtext only. And underneath all of this is a growing sense of creative entitlement, where some fans genuinely believe that disagreeing with the writers’ choices means the writers have done something morally wrong.

It’s not hard to see why this pattern appears. Platforms like TikTok rewards outrage and quick, confident accusations. Fandom spaces value interpretive creativity, so subtextual spectualation can feel more “intelligent” or “progressive” than engaging with the text as written. Emotional investment makes ship disappointment feel like injustice. And after a decade of ship wars, political language become ammunition, “queerbaiting,” “homophobia,” “misogyny”, even when it’s misapplied.

But when you zoom out from the noise, the accusations become deeply troubling.

Turning a straight boy not returning a gay boy’s romantic feelings into “queerbaiting” reinforces the exact stereotypes queer people have spent decades fighting. It suggests straight and queer people can’t have close friends without it being suspect. It imagines straightness as something fragile and easily “contaminated”. It frames queer desire as something that must always be reciprocated, and if it isn’t, the story is oppressive.

This is the same logic that fuels toxic masculinity.

It’s the same logic homophobic parents use.

It’s simply dressed in fandom activism.

And it creates real world consequences. It makes straight boys afraid of showing affection to queer friends because “people might think things.” It reinforces the idea that queer people can only exist in stories through their relationship to straight people’s romantic arcs. It makes representation feel transactional, as if creators “owe” a queer romance to audiences or else they’re bigoted.

That mindset is the actual harm here, not the finale.

This isn’t about shutting down queer interpretations or telling people they can’t be upset. It’s about recognising that misusing the term “queerbaiting” cheapens it. it’s about acknowledging that being disappointed in a ship doesn’t entitle anyone to reframe a narrative decision as a political injustice. If we actually care about queer representation, then we also have to care about not undermining it with arguments that accidentally reinforce the stereotypes queer people are fighting every day.

A lot of the discourse around Byler vs Mileven isn’t actually about the ships themselves, but about the repeated claim that Mileven fans “lack media literacy.”

By media literacy, I don’t mean simply spotting subtext or producing alternative readings. Media literacy is the ability to understand a text’s intended meaning, themes, politics, and purpose, while accounting for narrative structure, explicit and implicit information, historical and writer context, and reader response. Skilled analysis can absolutely include feminist, queer, or other critical lenses, but it still requires engaging with what the text is explicitly doing before reinterpreting it.

What stood out to me after posting my previous essay was how often people remarked they don’t see much serious or long form analysis coming from the Mileven community. On platforms like TikTok especially, Mileven readings are frequently dismissed as obvious, shallow, or uncritical, while subtext heavy interpretations are praised as smarter or more insightful. “Media literacy” often becomes shorthand for a specific style of reading rather than an actual measure of analytical skill.

I don’t think this perception exists because Mileven fans are less capable of analysis. I think it exists because different communities reward different outputs. Byler spaces tend to rely on implicit information and collaborative subtextual expansion, which encourages intensive close reading and creative theorising. Mileven spaces, by contrast, rely more on explicit narrative commitment and long term structure, which doesn’t require the same kind of speculative labour to sustain discussion. That difference in interpretive method affects visibility, not literacy.

In other words, the accusation that Mileven fans lack media literacy often stems less from poor analysis and more from the assumption that canon supported readings are less imaginative. What’s really being conflated here are two distinct skills: analytical comprehension and creative expansion. One prioritises understanding what the story is doing; the other prioritises imagining what else it could be doing.

Intro

The ongoing divide between Mileven and Byler fans has become one of the most polarising aspects of Stranger Things Discourse, particularly since season 3. While shipping debates are not new to fandom culture, the intensity of this one often obscures a more interesting discussion about narrative structure, character arcs and thematic intent.

This essay is not an argument against queer interpretations of the show, nor against Will Byers as a character. Rather, it is an analysis of why Byler, as an endgame concept, conflicts with the long-form storytelling Stranger Things has consistently committed to, particularly in relation to Will’s development and Eleven’s role as the series’ central protagonist. While Byler is an understandable and valid headcanon, Mileven functions as a deliberately constructed narrative anchor and Will’s arc is ultimately about self-discovery rather than romantic resolution.

Will, Sexuality, and Narrative Intent

The most prominent rise in Byler discourse can be traced back to season 3, particularly the scene in which Will becomes frustrated with Mike and Lucas for prioritising girlfriends over D&D. Finn Wolfhard’s line, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls,” is often cited as the moment that solidified Will’s queer coding for many viewers.

Regardless of when the Duffers decided to make Will’s sexuality explicit, it is clear that has been thoughtfully integrated into the narrative. Set against the backdrop of the 80s, a time marked by moral panic, religious hysteria, homophobia and the AIDS crisis, Will’s struggle with identity fits squarely within the show’s larger themes of otherness and alienation. Stranger Things has always been a story about outcasts finding community, and Will’s queerness is a natural extension of that.

The show’s inclusion of Robin as an openly lesbian character provides an interesting contrast between adult self knowledge and adolescent confusion. Robin functions not as a romantic guide for Will, but as a mentor figure, someone who understands the fear and isolation that comes with self realisation in an unaccepting environment. Will’s storyline is framed not as a rush toward romance, but as a slow, careful exploration of identity.

Mileven and Narrative Function

One of the reasons I am such a committed Mileven fan is because Eleven is one of the most compelling protagonists in recent television. And as I watched the show as a child and grew up with the actors, the character made me love Millie Bobby Brown and how she has transitioned into adulthood after experiencing such intense public scrutiny throughout her childhood. Eleven’s character arc, recovering from extreme trauma while learning how to exist in the world, is the emotional backbone of the series.

Across all four seasons, Eleven is positioned as the narrative solution to the Upside Down. This is made explicit in season 4, when Owens and Brenner repeatedly emphasise that Eleven is key to stopping Vecna. Crucially, the show also establishes that her power is tied to emotional grounding and connection. The Nina project does not simply restore her abilities; it reframes them around memory, belonging and love.

Mike and Eleven’s relationship functions as one of those emotional anchors. This does not diminish Eleven’s autonomy; rather, it complements her growth. In season 1, Mike serves as her guide because she has just escaped the lab and has no understanding of the outside world. At this point the most ideal person for her to meet as her guide is a child, someone with a wild and vivid imagination who lacks adult reason and responsibility. He will not doubt whatever unfathomable fact she tells him, and he will not risk compromising her position by informing the authorities. In season 2, Hopper becomes her parental figure, allowing Mike and Eleven to transition from a survival based bond into a more conventional childhood relationship. By season 3, Eleven asserts independence, forms meaningful female relationships outside of Mike, understands making decisions for herself and actively chooses the relationship on her own terms.

This progression allows Eleven in season 4 to advocate herself fully. She asks Mike for reassurance and emotional openness, not because she is dependent on him, but because she now understands what she needs from a healthy relationship. Their temporary separation forces Mike to confront his own emotional limitations, culminating his monologue during the Vecna fight.

The Van Scene and Unrequited Love

The van scene in season 4 has become a focal point for Byler interpretations, but its narrative purpose is often misunderstood. The scene serves two clear functions: it confirms that Will has romantic feelings for Mike, and it articulates Mike’s long standing insecurity about being needed.

Mike’s fear, that Eleven will no longer want him if she no longer needs him, has been part of his arc since season 2. It reflects his struggle with emotional expression and his tendency to equate love with usefulness. Will’s response in the van is not a declaration of mutual feeling, but a selfless act. He gives Mike the language to express love to Eleven, even though doing so hurts him.

The show frames Will’s feelings as unrequited intentionally. This is what gives the scene its emotional weight. Will chooses Mike’s happiness over his own, reinforcing his arc is not about romantic fulfilment, but about emotional maturity and self awareness.

When Mike delivers his monologue, it functions as the emotional trigger that pulls Eleven back from giving up. She is then anchored by what she is fighting for, especially Max. This sequence follows the emotional logic established earlier in the season. It is not subtext; it is textual canon.

Growing Hostility Toward Eleven and Millie Bobby Brown

As Millie Bobby Brown has grown older, hostility towards both her and Eleven has increased noticeably within fandom spaces. This reflects a broader cultural pattern in which young female stars are celebrated when they are perceived as harmless or malleable, and criticised once they age, gain agency or assert independence.

Eleven’s transition from a child figure into a young woman with autonomy has coincided with increased efforts to downplay her narrative importance. Criticism of Eleven frequently overlaps with criticism of Millie herself, suggesting that the discomfort is not purely about storytelling preferences, but about who is allowed to remain central, powerful and desired within a narrative.

This shift parallels the rise in polarisation between Mileven and Byler fans, particularly as Eleven remains the show’s protagonist rather than stepping aside for another character.

Will’s Role in Season Five

Speculation surrounding season 5 has often framed Will as the “new” protagonist who will replace Eleven as the key to defeating Vecna. While Will’s growing importance is undeniable, this reading misunderstands the show’s structural logic. I think this interpretation has more misogynistic undertones than people would like to admit. They would rather jeopardise the integrity and narrative arc of the show than have a female protagonist. And they are more comfortable perceiving a male character as the main central protagonist and the former as his rival.

Stranger Things has consistently operated through dualities: mind and body, control and force, trauma and recovery. Eleven’s power addresses Vecna’s physical and dimensional control, whilst Will’s connection to the hive mind positions him as a counter to Vecna’s psychological manipulation. These roles are complementary, not competitive. The emphasis of worm holes through Mr Clarke’s lesson is a key aspect to the resolution of the show. It is only when Will is able to remove Henry’s consciousness from the upside down, is Eleven finally able to close the worm hole once and for all.

Will’s arc has always centred on helplessness, fear, and being left behind. His newfound ability to access the hive mind represents not a takeover of the narrative, but his first real opportunity to reclaim agency. This development aligns with the idea that Will’s story is about reclaiming the childhood and identity stolen from him by the Upside Down. Vecna has taken his mind, body, life and innocence and Will is finally taking control.

Why Byler Undermines Will’s Arc

Will’s love for Mike makes sense because Mike represents safety, familiarity, and a time before everything went wrong. However, allowing that love to culminate in a relationship would half Will’s development rather than advance it.

When Eleven met Mike, she was also stunted, isolated, afraid and disconnected from the world. Their relationship supported her growth because it existed alongside her increasing independence. Will, by contrast, has not yet had the opportunity to develop outside of fear and trauma. His arc requires separation from what feels safe in order to move forward.

Robin’s speech to Will reinforces this. It is not an encouragement to pursue Mike, but a call to self determination. Will’s growth comes from choosing himself, not from attaching himself to someone who symbolises the past

Queer Readings, Canon, and Burden of Proof

Queer interpretations of Stranger Things are Valid and important, particularly given the 80s setting and the show’s focus on marginalised identities. However, interpretation still operates within boundaries of what the text ultimately commits to.

Mileven is not a last minute decision or a narrative placeholder. It has been built, challenged and reaffirmed across 4 seasons, culminating in Mike’s explicit declaration of love in season 4. Enjoying Mike and Will’s dynamic or imagining alternative outcomes is entirely legitimate, but denying Mileven’s existence in order to argue Byler conflates headcanon with canon.

Importantly, the burden of proof does not lie with Mileven fans to justify a relationship that already exists within the text, nor to disprove Byler. One cannot prove a negative. Headcanon and canon can coexist, but they do not carry equal narrative weight.

Shipping Wars and Audience Influence

Shipping communities often form around popular teen shows because of the thrill of speculation and the freedom that ambiguity allows. Non-canon ships invite imagination precisely because nothing is fixed. Once a relationship becomes canon, much of that speculative appeal disappears. People enjoy the gamble of the possibly of being right, and the ability to project whatever they want onto those characters and their perceived relationship.

Take a show like Outer banks, a huge portion of the topic of discussion surrounding the show and what would drive outsiders to watch it is the Jiara community. If you are a obx fan you most likely would have noticed that as soon as Jiara became canon, the hype surrounding them died down and suddenly everyones a Riara fan. This is the mistake the creators of obx made, and one the Duffer Brothers were careful not to do too.

Shows that attempt to appease shipping communities too directly often lose narrative coherence, as seen in other teen dramas where audience reaction begins to dictate storytelling choices. As it is the writers job to show the audience what they think they want to see, and not the other way round. Stranger Things has largely avoided this pitfall by committing to its long-term arcs rather than chasing fan consensus. And I think that this is what makes it still one of Netflix’s most, if not the most successful show to date.

At this stage in the story, it would be narratively incoherent to dismantle Mileven while simultaneously resolving Vecna, the Upside Down and the military threat. Will’s exploration of his sexuality is far more meaningful as a journey toward self understanding than as a late stage romantic twist.

Conclusion

Byler, as an interpretation, is understandable. Byler, as endgame, undermines both Will’s character development and the thematic structure of Stranger Things. Will’s story is about reclaiming agency, identity and a stolen childhood, not about romantic resolution. Mileven, by contrast, has been carefully constructed as an emotional anchor that supports Eleven’s growth without limiting it.

If you were around during 2018 and early 2020 on YouTube, you have seen the edits and potentially had been equally obsessed as I was with the Spanish Netflix show Elite. Which centres around Spain’s most wealthy high schoolers who experience murder as 3 scholarship students enter their school Las Encinas. A lot of the character arcs and plots directly mirror Shakespeare. While I’m unsure whether or not this is intentional I wanted to point out some solid comparisons between the show and Shakespeare’s body of work. Additionally, I’m vaguely aware of the ideology that almost all modern literature and media throughout the ages follow classics like Shakespeare because we as humans can’t help but draw inspiration from everything and anything we see, read and listen to. However, I find it interesting that each season (the later ones not as much) follows a similar structure and loosely follows a Shakespearean tragic storyline. I would also like to point out that I will only be covering seasons 1-3 because after that the show essentially recycles the same storylines. Therefore I will only be covering the original characters’ story arcs throughout those seasons, characters like Patrick, Ari, Mencía and more will not be covered.

The iconic structure of Elite

The structure of Elite follows a similar one to that of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. While being a tenuous connection, both flash between the present and the past through the perspective of the central characters. That comparison has no relevance except for pointing out the show structure which I’m aware isn’t unique just to Elite and Death of a Salesman. The season starts with, of course, a crime needing solving. In season one it was Marina’s murder, then in the second Samuel’s fake abduction and finally in the third Polo’s death. As I stated before, each episode delves into the outlooks of different characters, the first ever episode being from the standpoint of the new scholarship students- Samuel, Nadia and Christian. Each is interviewed by ‘Inspectora’ or the inspector in the present and flashing back to the leading up events. What makes this structure so intriguing is the fact that the different perspectives make the entire suspect list unreliable narrators as they all have different versions of their own stories. While the facts are laid out, a lot of the information is withheld from the viewer. Again, I’m aware this is a common trait for all murder mysteries but it’s the combination of tragic features and murder mystery features that is interesting to me. My favourite season, the third, makes a direct reference to this by naming each episode with the character that it is in the perspective of. Allowing every character to become the protagonist of their story, even if they are the killer like Polo. This is because Polo wasn’t the villain, he was just unlucky enough to be another wealthy and entitled Las Encinas student who was never questioned by the adults around him for his violent or malevolent behaviour and lashed out towards Marina. Like how Guzman almost killed the scholarship student who gave Marina HIV. Polo became a victim of his environment and that led to his tragic fall. The point I’m trying to make is that through the structure, each character can play out their Shakespearean tragedies. Some even recreate multiple.

Tragedy and Elite

The most tragic part of Elite is watching the protagonist Samuel Garcia, a naive, loyal and noble character turn into the person he most resents. Marina’s killer. Samuel the show's tragic hero, becomes corrupt with power. As he falls deeper and deeper into high society Spain he takes on Polo’s role as Carla’s boyfriend. In that way, Samuel becomes Macbeth and therefore Marina’s killer. Carla is both a tragic victim and a villain in the same way Polo is a villain. She committed the crime and is therefore a villain yet she still appears as a victim. Though Polo appears to be Macbeth and Carla Lady Macbeth at the surface level, the show structure allows viewers to humanise them in a way that we wouldn’t usually. We’ve grown such a close relationship with everyone that it is hard to see one character as evil and the other as good. This is because we’ve seen every character’s point of humanity and point of inhumanity. Marina is through and through a tragic victim, she is an admirable woman and character, uncorrupt even though she is surrounded by power and she is resilient despite all her misfortunes. Despite all this, she dies from it. Dying from the competitive circumstances wealthy parents put their children in. Regardless, she was two-timing and drove a wedge between two brothers. Now I’m not saying she deserved to die, but in tragedy typically the tragic victim is an entirely innocent woman or character who is collateral damage of the hero’s tragic fall. The fact that Marina is presented as separated from that corrupted part of society she’s so closely connected with but still is in some ways equally evil makes it in my opinion even more tragic. However, perhaps Marina is the modern-day tragic victim who is the manic pixie dream girl. We get to know these characters so intimately that knowing the factual events right at the end makes us question our morals. Learning Marina dies halfway through season 1 begs the question of whether her death makes her past actions excusable. Does that make it right that Samuel later dates Carla? Does that make her a tragic hero if she is flawed? Having every character be flawed takes away from Elite’s classical and traditional aspects of tragedy but in that way creates a modern and personal tragedy that the public can relate to. Arthur Miller wrote on the topic of tragedy in his essay called ‘Tragedy and the Common Man’, “That the tragic mode is archaic, fit only for the very highly placed, kings or the kingly… I believe that the common man is apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were”. So to combine that idea with the supposed elites of Spain, humanising them further contributes to this idea. Making tragedy relatable, is the modern version of Shakespearean and Greek tragedy. Additionally, the protagonist of the tragedy Samuel, is a common man who is noble but corrupted by power leading to his tragic demise later on in the series when he dies. Just like Macbeth. However, Polo is the one who follows Macbeth’s arc scripturally and mentally.

Elite and Romeo and Juliet

It is given that multiple characters in a show about the working class meeting the disgustingly rich in their cushy private school will follow the Romeo and Juliet tale. The ones that come to mind first are Samuel and Marina, Guzman acting as Marina’s overbearing bitter father- Capulet. The two struggle through forbidden love, Marina a child of wealthy and influential parents and Samuel a poor scholarship student. Their love is similarly kept secret like Romeo and Juliet when they get married in secret and their love causes their tragic demise. Marina dies in part because of their love- or more her love for his brother as she steals Carla’s father’s watch to run away with Nano. When Marina dies, a part of Samuel dies. That part of him that is oblivious to the black hole that is wealth and the consequences that come from it and being surrounded by it. By season two, Samuel is a far more angry and vengeful person, rid of the passive and kind person he once was. Evident in his later relationship with Carla. You could also argue that Nano is Marina’s Romeo too in a similar way to Samuel but represents a darker and more complicated love that further escalates Samuel’s transformation. He loses not only a part of himself but also a section of his support system- his brother Nano.

Another example is Ander and Omar who share more of a similar conflicting worlds to Romeo and Juliet. Omar’s religious parents cannot accept his sexuality and Ander’s father cannot accept that through his love for Omar, he mustered up the courage to tell him he doesn’t like tennis and additionally does not fit the hyper-masculine jock perspective that his father has of him. What’s interesting about their relationship is that Ander isn’t from a wealthy family like the other Las Encinas kids- his mother is just the principal. That being said he is certainly meant to be wealthier than the scholarship kids however this makes it so that the conflict within Omar and Ander’s relationship is not about wider social status disparities but because of conflicting families. Mirroring Romeo and Juliet’s tragic circumstances. Through Omar’s parents, a more nuanced and complex version of Romeo and Juliet is explored through homosexuality and what that factor means to people like sportsmen and the elite.

Being Omar’s sister, Nadia shares an equal problem with him. Except Nadia and Guzman are truly two conflicting families and two conflicting worlds. They are emblematic of the Romeo and Juliet story in Elite. Guzman is immediately not accepted by Nadia’s father as a white and entitled man and Nadia is immediately not accepted by Guzman’s world as she is forced to conform to it to be with him as a Muslim woman. Though the show rather ignorantly presents her transformation of losing her faith as being rather liberating I see it more as her being sucked into the vacuum of wealth just like Samuel. Losing the true, good and noble aspects of themselves. In letting go of her religion, she lets go of herself and her identity and morphs into the one expected of Guzman’s white and cutthroat world. Guzman however does not die metaphorically or literally at the hands of their love, perhaps he loses a part of himself through his sister's death. The only thing their love does for him is humble him, and make him more of a likeable and grounded person. Possibly in this way, the arrogant and entitled element of him dies for his benefit.

Elite and Othello

The writers of 'Elite' exhibit a disturbing and almost perverse obsession with threesomes and throuples as a continuous plot point. It is unsurprising, then, that the homoerotic trio of Othello is mirrored in multiple characters. That trio is Desdemona, Othello and Iago. The most obvious being Carla, Polo and Christian. Polo early on in season 1 takes on the role of Iago, controlling and almost obsessing over this pornographic image of the fair lady being dominated by the rougher and more oppressed male ‘soldier’. Though Polo and Carla start as the initial relationship, Carla and Christian form a far more emotional and true relationship within their trio. Whereas Polo seems more sexually obsessed with the two, in a similarly confused homosocial way Iago had towards Othello and an equal obsession with the Madonna being adulterated into the whore like Desdemona. Both Christian and Carla are brought to their tragic falls by Polo’s corruption, Carla being made accomplice albeit by her own choice and Christian again losing that same part Samuel lost when he joined Las Encinas. Additionally falling further by trying to speak up and gain his lost self back but is hospitalised by Carla’s father and bribed into silence by offering to pay for his surgery in Switzerland. Further succumbing to the power of wealth which he can no longer escape. Additionally both of them through their tragic blindness fall because of Polo’s corruption just as Othello and Desdemona fall because of Iago’s Machiavellianism.

To take Iago out of the equation, the Garcia brothers and Marina share a similar story to Cassio, Desdemona and Othello. Marina and Samuel act as Othello and Desdemona, both infatuated with each other or rather the stereotype they represent. Samuel represents the opposite of Elite society Marina is trying to escape and Marina represents the world Samuel is trying to enter and be accepted by. Therefore their relationship shares the same superficiality as Desdemona and Othello’s relationship as Othello values Desdemona as a prize of being a desirable and pure white woman and she values Othello as a masculine and dominating black general. This equal fetishisation is reflected in Marina and Samuel. Nano comes in as Cassio almost, another working-class man infatuated by Marina’s wild spirit and wealth just as Cassio is another nobleman mesmerised by Desdemona’s beauty and purity. However, he differs from Cassio’s character as he genuinely did have an affair with the other guy’s woman. Either way, they all cause each other's tragic demise: Marina’s death, Samuel’s metamorphosis and Nano’s banishment (being accused of killing Marina and then fleeing the country).

Lu takes control of her ‘play’ in a similar way to Iago. Manipulating Guzman into trying to seduce Nadia and take her virginity- she does this out of pure jealousy and maliciousness just like Iago. What’s more, as I stated before Iago has a perverse obsession with the virtuous woman becoming ‘tainted’ and Lu finding intrigue in the Muslim woman going against her faith and acting out of pure lust echoes this. Perhaps she even shares the same homoerotic obsession with Iago. She therefore exploits those around her to try and cause Nadia’s demise, in this way Nadia is Othello and Guzman Desdemona. She is an outsider because of her race and religion and Lu’s obsession with that fact is reminiscent of Iago’s fixation with Othello’s race. She also discards her Muslim values to fit in with the predominantly white environment of Las Encinas. Just as Othello denounces his Ottoman heritage and religion and takes on the image of a model Christian man.

Elite and Macbeth

Perhaps the writers were aiming for more of a Bonnie and Clyde feel for Polo and Carla but what I see more is Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. This parallel is drawn because Polo kills Marina, and Carla helps cover it up for him before she is consumed by guilt and edges towards letting herself become an accessory to murder and telling the police the truth. When Christian’s pre- Las Encinas self is consumed by the corruption of the wealthy he is similar to Banquo’s ghost haunting the school hallways and Carla and Polo. As they watch him become a shell of the enthusiastic and lively person he once was. This is the main drive for Carla to want to confess, she wants to be free of her guilt towards Christian. Not because she killed him directly but because they formed such a personal relationship within their three-man couple she feels a responsibility for Christian’s corruption of becoming an accessory to their crime. This feeling is solidified further when Carla’s father hospitalises and bribes Christian and directly hobbles him both mentally and physically permanently. The guilt Polo feels towards Marina is also a similar personal responsibility to Duncan and Macbeth as Marina is his best friend's sister. Therefore Polo is Macbeth, Carla Lady Macbeth and Marina Duncan.