When Blue Meets Yellow & A Wicked Being

The skating rink shows a lot of this too. Mike in the middle with El and Will on either side - a typical love triangle image. Except Will and El mirror each others movements here. It's meant to show they are interchangeable. This kind of thing happens in every scene with the three of them. El and Will fuse together.

In the darkness, there's a light that shines brighter than any star, for it's only Mike's Love that can guide Will home. It was always them.

I want to add this thought (and I’d love to know your perspective on it):

I think the subtle parallels between Mike and Papa/fathers/Demogorgons/the Mind Flayer/Vecna are all about Will’s struggles separating his abuse from his blooming romance with Mike.

I also think this is the greatest barrier between them. Internalized homophobia is an aspect to it too.

I think the subtle parallels between Mike and Papa/fathers/Demogorgons/the Mind Flayer/Vecna are all about Will’s struggles separating his abuse from his blooming romance with Mike.

@spaghettificatiion, I agree! Going to add my Mike Wheeler specific thoughts further down. For the first section, let's focus a little bit on Will.

The way I see it, Will has 3 key ongoing plotlines/ narrative arcs, and though they are distinct from one another, they are intimately entwined:

His trauma, both supernatural and intrafamilial

His sexuality

His love story

Will's trauma cannot be addressed without the acknowledgement and exploration of his sexuality, and his sexuality arc cannot be separated from his love of Mike. They all intersect! So, because Will associates his queerness with his likely CSA trauma, I'm sure he finds it difficult to separate his feelings for Mike from his trauma as well.

This is something he will need to work through in s5: confronting memories of the UD (a SHADOW realm) will result in confronting his repressed intrafamilial abuse trauma, which will free him up to embrace his sexuality, allowing him to pursue a loving relationship.

That's called shadow work, baby. Speaking of shadows...

Mike's demogorgon/ papa/ mind flayer-coding can certainly be a part of Will's arc as expressed above, but I think it's also to do with his own character journey, particularly the exploration of his shadow-self.

This got away from me somewhat, but I've been neglecting my boy Mike lately on the analysis front, so it was about time...

Can I call this #ShadowGate? Is that already a thing?

Stranger Things deals a bit with this concept of the darkness within all of us, that threatens to consume or corrupt us. Something which is often referred to as the Shadow self or "shadow work" (in which it is embraced, explored, deconstructed).

In this analysis I already associated darkness to the subconscious/ unconscious in Stranger Things. It holds up here as well.

Our shadow selves are not evil, but they can be. It really depends on the person. The shadow is really just a manifestation of the parts of our selves we find disgusting, unacceptable, dangerous, or too difficult to deal with. It's relegated to our unconscious psyche.

Little Jungian diagram below:

The Upside Down is the The Vale of Shadows

No coincidence then, that the Upside Down is a shadow realm, which Dustin compares to The Vale of Shadows.

It's a place of "death and decay"... aka neglect. The neglected, repressed, ignored parts of ourselves.

Upside Down = a dark reflection or echo of our world. Shadow self = a dark reflection or echo of our ego/ persona.

Dustin reads out, "It is right next to you, and you don't even see it" quite ominously. Interestingly, it is Mike who is sitting right next to him, who he does not see, because he's not looking at him (he's looking at Lucas).

Bar for fucking bar, bro...

Mike's face is half in the light, half in shadow... this is a recurring motif for him. He's not exactly demogorgon/ papa/ mind flayer-coded... he is shadow-coded.

Mike is the Shadow

Now, to travel to the Shadow realm, Dustin comments that you cast Shadow Walk. Shadow Walk = shadow work... they literally sound the fucking same!!! Dustin remarks that El can probably "shadow walk" aka do shadow work, and that's... really fucking accurate, actually. Because El can travel into people's subconscious, and even look into their repressed memories. Henry exposes people's shadow selves through torturous hallucinations. El and Henry are masters at shadow-work (the problem being they don't really do it for themselves...)

Now, let me point out a Byler moment I find kind of cool...

Will describes the Shadow Monster as a living being that was coming for him, and the camera focusses on Mike, who is in shadow. In the scene he's referring to, Will called for Mike, and then the Shadow Monster appeared. Mike was also literally coming for him, and the shadow particles turned into his own hand.

What this all means, I don't really fucking know to be honest. But we can make educated guesses.

In this post I laid out my interpretation of Mike and Will's Jungian archetypes: Mike is The Caregiver and The Everyman. Each of the Jungian archetypes has a shadow.

The Caregiver shadow is generally referred to as the Slave/ Enabler, and the Everyman shadow is the Conformist/ Nobody.

The Conformist/ Nobody feels extremely shadow-coded to me, because the "Shadow Monster" is what activates or controls the hivemind. Hivemind = herd mentality. Herd mentality = conformity. Forced conformity = what's killing the kids.

So Mike's shadow-coding is (partially) about forced conformity... and it's foreshadowed as something that's going to kill him?

I really enjoyed this video analysis/ predictive framework by Kristina Wiltsee on Youtube. I don't use the same framework as her, but I agree with a lot of her conclusions.

She says Mike's arc is about "becoming real" and that he needs to make his own "arc move" in s5 instead of always being the cheerleader… hmmm. That sounds slave-coded to me. She even predicts that he will die! My interpretation? Mike the Everyman (conformist) needs to self-actualize and be "real" and Mike the Caregiver (slave) needs a metaphorical death and rebirth to "free" him and make him realize his own importance.

Mike's Shadow Aspects

It's easy enough to point out some of Mike's shadow aspects, too. I like pointing out character flaws in my favorite characters, and I don't know why some fans shy away from this:

He is a bit jealous and possessive.

He is a bit controlling (no, not in an abusive way - he simply doesn't like when he's not in control/ not in-charge, not consulted, not in the loop. He needs to be involved, have some form of control over what's happening around him).

He has a need to be needed (co-dependency?)

He represses, deflects and projects (conformity).

He is guilt-ridden (often blames himself, or takes on responsibilities he doesn't need to or cannot action).

Basically, like Will, he has a few things to work through. Some of these may or may not be due to repressed homosexuality...

A lot of these shadow traits can also be related to what I will now refer to as "the shadow constituents" aka demo-monsters, the mind flayer, "fathers", and Henry/ Vecna. Hence why we see Mike's connections to those characters:

Jealous and possessive: Papa, Vecna, fathers.

Controlling: Fathers, but also the Mind Flayer.

Co-dependency: Papa and Vecna, who enmesh with their abuse victims (x) AND the demo-monsters, who are slaves to the hivemind.

Repression, deflection, projection: ???

Guilt: Papa

So, Mike's character flaws are just flickers and projections of his shadow-self, which is mostly hidden. He will likely need to Shadow Walk (do shadow work) in the shadow realm (Upside Down) in order to confront these parts of himself.

And a brief caveat to point out that Will Byers' archetypes are The Lover and The Innocent. Therefore, his shadow selves are The Hedonist and The Victim. For Will, the shadow constituents represent his abuser Lonnie. Will's shadow work is literally all about embracing his desires (the hedonist) and confronting his own victimhood (the victim), which he finds disgusting, embarrassing, and shameful.

Mike's shadow work is... harder to work out. Because for some reason, he is self-inflicting.

Will's shadow constituents are externalized: he is victimized by external forces.

Mike's shadow constituents are internalized (hence the parallels): he is victimized by internal forces... himself, basically.

Also, recent confirmation that Mike is the Duffers' self-insert (or at least, started that way) has given me more confidence this is the case. What better way to deal with your own "demons" and do shadow work than to write a version of your childhood self? Especially when that character is unapologetically imperfect and complex.

My guess is they will make Mike suffer in s5 as a way to work through their shadow selves, and "atone" for the parts of their younger selves they don't like very much, but ultimately want to embrace and forgive... because we all have flaws and weaknesses.

Whether one of the Duffer brothers is queer or not is beside the point. It's possible one of them is, and this is a way for them to deal with that fact. But there is an entire team of talented writers involved in Stranger Things, so this aspect of Mike could have likely come from someone else, and the Duffers felt it was a great extension of their own conformity/ insecurity-based childhood issues that they based Mike upon.

How this relates to Will?

Well, it's possible that one part of Mike's shadow is his repressed queerness. Therefore, the Shadow Monster and other shadow constituents come after Will: A manifestation of Mike's shadow (jealous, possessive, controlling, repressed) haunting the object of his queer desire (what he finds shameful).

The shadow is trying to "possess" Will, so that Mike can't have him. Therefore, he doesn't have to deal with that part of himself.

But Mike doesn't want harm to come to Will, and the shadow is also consuming him... he needs to deal with it.

I’m sure there’s more to it than just his feelings for Will, though — because there’s more to Will’s shadow than just his feelings for Mike.

Rather, their shadow aspects reflect each-other. They lowkey trigger each other. Work it out, boys.

He says while engulfed in shadow and fighting with Will, after repressing, deflecting and projecting onto him...

It's no coincidence that the gate at Lovers' Lake was coined "Watergate" by Dustin.

For those who don't know, Watergate was a huge scandal involving President Nixon in the 1970s.

An important aspect of the scandal were the Nixon tapes, especially one known as the "smoking gun" tape.

Erica says this in the same scene as Dustin mentioning Watergate... hmmm....

Within the same episode too, we are shown Papa grabbing a tape to aid in El recalling her lost memories.

And back in ST2, Joyce discovers that the MF is a real entity through watching Will's tape...

There are many more instants of tape recordings within the show as well.

To add to this point, there was an infamous “18 1/2 minute gap” within the Nixon tapes obviously to hide the truth.

My favorite line in the trailer is when El tells Mike "This isn't like one of your campaigns. You can't write the ending this time."

I laughed because that's not how DND works! Players can't choose the ending, and neither can the DM! Sure, you can set expectations for a couple of potential endings, but you may not end up anywhere near them!

I haven't been playing for long, but I realized that the more creative, risk-taking, experienced, and self-aware the players are, the more incredible the outcome. And the party checks all those boxes at this point.

The party is at an advantage because they actually know the game of DND. It was invented after Henry got locked up in the lab. And while he was raised in there, he got to play chess.

He played so much chess in that stuffy lab over the years that that's how he sees things. El was his pawn. He chases his prey until they're cornered into a checkmate. Every killing is so ritualistic and repetitive and predictable! He thinks that if he plans everything in advance and does all of the correct moves, he will surely get his way.

And sure, chess is a smart person's game. So many different combinations. But it's quite rigid, hierarchical, and limiting. It's sterile and controlled like a lab environment. The playing field and teams are literally black vs white. The pieces maintain pretty much the same abilities and status the entire time. The winner is whoever can follow the rules best. It is forced conformity at its finest.

DND works a lot more like real life. And Vecna doesn't know real life.

It's messy, expressive, and pushes you to think on your feet. In DND, you level up with experience. You can change your class and expertise. You can make waves without even physically moving! You work with other people on a solution rather than facing the opponent alone. You're guided by your values. And sure, there's someone with more power narrating the story, but you have the power to defy their expectations. You can make the DM rethink the rules. Human imagination is limitless!

So I wouldn't take El's statement so seriously. She should know that when she acts as an agent of her own life, she is so much more powerful.

The game is a reminder that in life, you'll encounter so many things that just happen to you, whether it's by chance or other people's doing. But after that, it's your turn to choose how you react. You can't control the world, but if you let it control you, there's no game to be played. And when you feel experienced enough, you can narrate your own story.