The Duffer brothers have confirmed in an interview, that the Mike and Elevens conversation at the end of vol3 didn’t actually take place in Elevens mind. In fact it never happened, because she couldn’t have used her powers with the kryptonite affecting her.
Rather Mike actually imagines (hallucinates?) their last moments before parting forever. Everything, that she said, including the part where she told him, that he was the only one who understood her, is made up by Mike himself.
You may think, that this now completely destroys the end, because even Mileven more bones, than ever and Mikes character is now not only not driven by internalised homophobia, but also some kind of schizophrenic psychopath.
But if you think about it this information makes everything we’ve seen in season 5 makes sense and opens up an entirely new Gate.
The believe-gate: A Stranger Things/Byler theory based on the things Mike believes himself to be required to do.
Mike Wheeler has always had a clear longing for conformity. Sure his hobbies and interests were unique since early childhood, but when it comes to his idealised version of a future he has always aspired what he himself believes to be as a normal life.
This is largely due to his upbringing as Ted and Karen’s child. They are the picture perfect family on the outside, the standard heterosexual couple with children with children living a normal middle class life, while on the inside their marriage is drained of love or affection and more so one of convenience. Additionally his father has a strong influence of conservative ideals on him.
Since season 3 we’ve seen Mike struggle to build an illusion of the lifestyle, that he believes is required from him. He stops playing dnd and neglects his friends for his girlfriend. Already a huge problem of this relationship seems to be the fact that El and Mike don’t properly communicate their feelings and expectations on this relationship. It is built on teenage hormones rather than actual trust and love.
In turn he tries to suppress his relationship with Will however, which was the driving force for his character in the first two seasons. Mike doesn’t want to deal with the complicated emotions he feels towards him, they are not normal.
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It’s been established since season 4, that the version Mike has of Eleven is not true to the person she actually is. Mike sees her as some kind of superhero and believes his role in their relationship to be an emotional anchor for her.
In season 4 we can clearly see, that both Eleven and Mike are not content in their relationship. Eleven longs to be recognised and loved for as the person she is, not just for the supernatural part of herself. Mike also clearly struggles to tell her that he loves her. He knows his feelings for her are not what they should be, but he can’t let go of her either, cause she is the last thread that ties him to the ‘normal’ future that he desperately craves.
Their relationship crumbles throughout the entire time of their time in California and would have certainly ended until everything changes because of the painting.
Due to Will’s confession, which he disguised under the cover of Elevens feelings, Mike now truly believes that it’s his obligation to love El. His view of her as a superhero is falsely confirmed to be the way she sees herself. The tragic behind this is that Will is exactly the person, that Mike craves a relationship with, he has a strong character (and later also turns out to be a sorcerer), but unlike Eleven he wants to be perceived for his strengths and powers, while simultaneously craving the emotional support Mike is so desperate to offer someone.
When his love confession, that is basically just copy pasting what will said to him in the van, leads to El waking up he sees it as a the final sign for his role as her emotional anchor. It’s a clear sign for him, that he is the person who understands El the best (which is not true in my opinion, this person is actually Will).
El and the rest of the world are now requiring on him to love her. He can’t possibly ever let go of ‘normal’ or even think about confronting his feelings for Will.
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Their relationship continues on in season 5. They clearly have lost their spark and Eleven distances herself more and more from Mike, cause she doesn’t need him as an anchor anymore and also realised, that he could never understand her motivations and actions. Mike on the other hand believes that the opposite is the case.
He tries to motivate her with his story about their happy end by the three waterfalls (also a classic and normal happy end btw) and ignores her when she tells him that her future can’t be written like a campaign of his. But because of the illusion he is under, and because Eleven doesn’t tell him about her actual plans, he believes that this is the future she wants and therefore also the future he has to give her.
At the same time, Wills self acceptance arc threatens to throw Mike of the normal path of life he has to following. In Will he sees for the first time, that a life outside of societies ideals is possible, can be accepted and appreciated. Not only that, the one thing he has secretly desired for years suddenly seems in arms reach. The coming out visibly throws him off for a moment, as shown through him being the last one to go in for the hug and also how he seems to be directly looking at Will while hugging him.
But he still can’t give in, not only because it would destroy his chance for a normal future, but also because El and with her the entire world literally need his support. How could he be so selfish to let her go, when he is the only one who knows and understands her?
His only purpose and anchor becomes supporting El.
When El dies however the entire illusion, that he has operated on suddenly comes crashing down. By loosing her, the role he had as her emotional support suddenly seems vain, the lie he has built his entire life upon is shattered.
And this is where the scene in Elevens mind comes from. It’s not a real conversation between the two, but rather Mikes way of making sense of what he believes to be failing this purpose and making sense of Els actions, which don’t match with the version of her that he has in his head.
He’s creating his own narrative of her death in order to make it align with the illusion. During the talk he asks her multiple times why she’s doing this to which she only tells him that he will one day understand. One last time he enforces the false assumption of him being the only person that understands El, that it’s his purpose now to make sense of what happened.
Also, notice how even in her final moments he still can’t tell her that he loves her or even touch her properly when they hug… yeah that’s a gay man right in front of our salad.
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Mike now believes that it is his responsibility to honor Elevens death and is driven by a new purpose: to find out the reason she died.
He obviously has a lot of guilt concerning her death, feels like a horrible person, because he couldn’t even love the girl who believed him to be her only support in a world that was against her from the moment she was born. If he would admit his queernes now, that would also mean to admit that he used Elevens need for support for his own selfish purposes. That he hid behind a woman, that truly trusted him, to conceal every abnormal thing about his life.
Mike doesn’t know that everything he assumed about Eleven is wrong. He doesn’t know that the only person who ever truly needed him in the way he wants to be needed is Will.
And so he constructs the narrative of El living the life that he promised her. He twists her death into something he can live with, something that makes sense to his confused and traumatized mind.
To further cut himself from his own desires he creates a version of Wills future where he finds happiness in someone else (who does Epilog Boyfriends appearance remind you of though… I know what you are Mike Queerler).
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At the end of the day this concludes in the most tragic miscommunication in recent history.
One the one hand we have El, who clearly wants to be seen as her own person and has her narrative being completely changed by her boyfriends view on their relationship. (Especially because her death is told entirely from Mikes POV)
Than we have Will, who arguably started this whole disaster with his love confession, that he disguised as Els. By believing himself to be unworthy of love and seeing it as his responsibility to save Mike and Els relationship, he solidified Mikes belief that he had to suppress his true feelings in order to support the woman the world requires him to love.
At last there is Mike, who believes himself trapped in a relationship even after it has ended, who can’t ever allow himself to admit his Queerness because it would not only mark him as an outcast of society but also as the most selfish boyfriend to ever exist.
He desperately longs for someone to love and protect, but denies himself the love right in front of his eyes.
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I’m not saying that this is necessarily what the duffer brothers intended (most likely not, based on how horribly season 5 was written), but honestly at this point I don’t even care about that. I just needed a way to make peace with the canon in a way that actually made sense and didn’t completely destroy Mikes, Wills and Elevens storyline. For myself at least I have found the true interpretation of the canon and the best part is that nothing will ever be able to take this away from me because this stupid show has finally ended:)
Byler is endgame btw after Mike works through all of this shit in extensive therapy session.
Thank you so much to my friends @trudelino and @snowchildz, who largely contributed to this theory. I love you so much, you saved my Byler heart.
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PS: If you want more (and honestly way better articulated) infos on believing gate, you can check out my friend SlideShow
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