and the problem with the way they handled jane's character arc is that they never saw her as her own character. the duffers called her a symbol of childhood magic. they treated her like she was just a stand-in for the themes that they wanted to build their story around. her death was not about her or what she wanted. it was about mike and hopper. her life was not about what she needed to heal from her past. it was about what everyone around her needed her and her powers for. the future that mike imagines for her is not about what she wanted. it's about him needing to believe that she's still alive. she wanted kindness and love and family and friends and peace. mike imagines her on the run forever, alone. the speech hopper gives her about living to see a future where she one day has her own child is not about her. it is about him, because he wanted to live to see that family. she never got to be her own person because the writers never saw her as a person at all. eleven was a device for the stories of the men around her. and jane never got to exist.


















