#mike analysis

Mike is ashamed to be queer

But he is not ashamed to be happy

Will is not/as ashamed to be queer

But he is ashamed of being happy

And we can see it. Because what Mike consistently forces himself into when he retreats is this: "happy" straightness

But what Will forces himself into when he retreats is this: unhappy queerness

Mike is convincing himself he can be happy straight so he's forcing himself into heterosexuality in an attempt, Will is convincing himself he shouldn't be happy queer so he's forcing himself to grieve a happy ending he hasn't lost.

That Murray-Wheeler line "retreat to the safety of...name? name?" for Mike, we know works for El. But for Will, he retreats to the safety of pain. For many abuse survivors, it's comfortable - familiar. And they were taught because they deserve it, at least they have a right to it.

We don't see Mike cry as much about his queerness so far for this reason. Mike is forcing happiness into straightness. Will is forcing happiness out of queerness. But both are actually resisting the same amount. Both's base states are happiness in queerness, if they allow themselves it.

That's why their season 5 arc goals are the same, but their journeys are different - as they have been for the whole show. Mike needs to learn he has a right to be queer as the source of his happiness, Will needs to learn he has a right be happy as a result of his queerness.

This was just an analysis post but I also think that's what Vecna would use against him. We've covered before the idea of if Vecna went after Mike taunting him with the reminder that he is queer.

this moment on mikes face in this scene actually destroys me. it rips me to SHREDS when i re-watch this.

he just looks disappointed in a way like he knows. like he already knows.

what sucks so much here is before he dissolves into ‘classic mike wheeler defensive mode’ to avoid the subject/point of the conversation— you can see mikes raw expression right here, right before that.

in these few seconds of facial expression, it’s so clear how mike is not mad at El, but is disappointed and frustrated with himself for making El feel this way. at least to me, it’s almost obvious his expression here reads self-deprecative. we see him look away almost as if to curse frustration more toward himself than anything. his frustration also reads as knowing, like he predicted the possibility of this specific issue arising— like he’s thought about this, like he knew it was an issue before it came up, perhaps because it was an internal issue for him already.

call me insane for this interpretation if you’d like—but i love finn’s ability to act through his expressions and this is one of those golden moments to me where he captured something so raw and real with his acting ability. (i am convinced finn and noah and honestly the whole acting cast thought byler was going to happen in the last season.)

but seriously this momentary expression from mike is so important to me every time i re-watch. it’s like seeing his walls go down for a split second moment to internally curse himself for not being able to prevent or do anything about an issue he already saw coming and knew would probably come up at some point, before returning back to defensive mode in an attempt to cover for himself and act like he doesn’t even have any idea what El is so upset about (because he doesn’t even want to address the issue himself). he looks so sad, disappointed, angry, and confused with himself all in this one second long moment. it also appears he’s either mouthing the word “from” in self-mock-frustration or was mouthing a guilty-as-charged-looking “fuck.” here because he saw this coming already.

for me, and how i read the show, mike and will are canon soulmates, but something got messed with along the making of the show, so it didn’t end up explicitly canon. with that said— do understand im just enjoying my creativity and ability to interpret things how i want to— and to me mike reads (and has always read) as a young teen struggling with copious amounts of internalized homophobia (he reminds me of me!) in a very heteronormative society on top of his trauma with the supernatural.

So we know what Vampires represent, right?

Mike is an incredibly complex character all based on repression and conformity, despite the fact that right now he looks like he has the personality of a piece of cardboard. But the more I think about it, he reminds a lot of Marvin from Falsettos: a character that goes through internalized homophobia, conformity, and toxic masculinity. So I took it upon myself to draw the parallels between these two, because their arcs are too similar and it proves that Mike’s character arc is indeed coming over this repression.

Side Note: I do not think that Duffers have watched or listened to Falsettos in all honesty. They’re not cool enough for that. But their arcs are so incredibly similar that the fact that you can see these similarities can point towards what these characters represent and their storylines.

So…Falsettos??

Falsettos is a musical (well, technically an opera since all the dialogue is song!!) that takes place in the late 70s and early 80s; and it’s about homosexuality and judaism, and how relationships interfere with each other and how HIV/AIDS affect them also. It’s messy, chaotic, and it makes me cry every time I watch and listen to it. I’ll try to not to spoil too much, because this an amazing musical with great representation, especially internalized homophobia representation, and I definitely recommend it!!! [Also, someone manages to belt with a banana in their mouth. Just to give you some incentive to watch it.]

The musical centers around Marvin (who is played by Christian Borle in the 2016 revival), who is a gay man who left his wife and child for his lover, a man named Whizzer.

So…great!! Gay love, right? Right…?

I’ll be blunt. Marvin sucks.

He’s extremely toxic to those around him. Despite running off on them, still wants his tight-knit family with Trina, his ex-wife, and his son Jason, but barely does much to maintain that family. He was so toxic with his family that Jason doesn’t believe that ‘love is the most beautiful thing in the world’, simply because he never saw a healthy relationship before Trina and Mendel (psychiatrist and Trina’s new husband). He argues with Whizzer all the time, rarely refers to him as his lover and instead claims that Whizzer’s “a friend he ran off with,” and constantly tries to put Whizzer into a wife role. He’s often stoic and snide, but when he snaps, he snaps—he says horrible things and gets violent.

But he pays for it. He gets an outfit change (which sounds silly, but it’s important I swear)—goes from wearing a collared shirt and tie to a messy hoodie to show how messed up he is. Whizzer leaves him, and he only sees Jason on the weekends.

That’s all in Act I. What happens in Act II?

He changes.

He worked through his repression and is secure in his sexuality, and he can get back together with Whizzer. He’s friends now with his ex-wife, although they do bicker a lot. He’s befriends the lesbians next door—he reconstructs his support system (and I won’t say anything else so that I don’t spoil—just please watch it it’s amazing!!).

(Also another side note: I’m not comparing the rest of the characters in Falsettos to characters in Stranger Things. Only Mike and Marvin. I don’t think Will is similar to Whizzer nor El similar to Trina.)

But how does this all connect to Mike?

Let’s review:

Marvin wants to conform to societal norms, even when he didn’t fit them.

Marvin doesn’t have a healthy relationships.

Marvin argues with his love interest friend all the time.

When he snaps, he gets violent.

…And Marvin gets what he wants once he betters and accepts himself.

This is Marvin’s storyline…but it’s also Mike’s.

Marvin was made unlikeable all throughout act I on purpose. It was for the purpose of demonstrating how debilitating and devastating repression and conformity is. This difference is even more jarring with Mike, who was a likable character all throughout seasons one and two. But then the sudden shift in season three and four, where he was—objectively—a huge asshole. And we haven’t even seen his perspective since.

Because Mike doesn’t want you to see his point of view. He’s repressing it.

It’s why he’s been so angry for seasons three and four, getting angry at Will and El with insane reasoning to go along with it. It’s why we haven’t seen him crash out—he’s trying to hold onto himself, trying to not loose composure—just like Marvin did.

And we know that eventually, it will fail. It already did once all the way back in season two with Hopper, who’s to say it won’t happen again?

To summarize it all; if Mike truly doesn’t have internalized homophobia, if Mike doesn’t repress himself, if Mike isn’t actively trying to conform—then why is his story so similar to a character who had internalized homophobia, who repressed himself, and who tried to conform…but ultimately failed. For the better.

mike’s face before telling el he loves her

nancy's the only person in his family that mike could talk to, the only person that has the same trauma and would understand, and yet... he can't. they don't ever talk unless it's to be snippy and bite. nancy spends more time caring about max and will than she does mike, her own little brother.

holly is too young for him to bond with like that. she's just barely a kid, one that still needs to be cared for.

his mom tries her best, but he doesn't feel comfortable being vulnerable with her. considering the fact that she did everything "right" according to society's standards and married their dad of all people, i doubt he feels comfortable showing her who he really is. he lets her hug him when he's at his lowest, but we don't see them actually connecting.

his dad is just some ghost that haunts his house. he doesn't care about mike or think highly of him at all. the only times we've seen him pay mike any attention are when he belittles his interests, mocks him, punishes him, or shuts him down by telling him to listen to his mother. the only support he gets from him is financial in nature.

meanwhile, everyone else has a family they can turn to. dustin, despite lying to his mother to keep her out of his shenanigans, seems to have a decent relationship with her. even if he doesn't, he still has steve and robin. lucas is shown to have a healthy relationship with his parents and erica. will and el have their family.

max's situation is different, but she has the backing of the party; people that love her and actively try to help her and pull her back into the world of the living. she isn't thrust into a leadership role that doesn't allow for vulnerability. she has nancy who is willing to fight monsters for her, el who literally performed a miracle for her, and lucas who has stood by her since the beginning.

and mike... well. he has will back now, sure, but... things have been different between them for a long time now, even if they're both trying their best to be how they were before. and before then, will obviously was in california, not returning his calls or reaching out, making mike feel like he'd lost him for good.

so... all that being said, it's not that surprising that mike is the way he is: riddled with abandonment issues, wanting to be needed, immediately apologizing whenever he dares to open up, inclined to give others the protection and comfort no one's ever given him, prone to jealousy and possessiveness, unable to be completely and wholly honest about what troubles him, not exactly the most open to new people, and someone with appallingly low self-esteem.

God, this scene tells me a lot about how mike is feeling. Mikes micro expressions from el to will, is so??? Mike seems to have some conflict going on but we don’t exactly know what it is yet, which i 100% think is going to be addressed in s5. All of the looks, heart eyes and speeches are all going to add up to mike being a gay man. I know that Will isn’t going to be used for his queerness to help a straight relationship. This will ruin all three characters arcs, it would not make sense and it would also be harmful to the queer community:(

Mikes arc: this is based off my interpretation of mike and what i think his conflict and how he’s going to end up in s5. His conflicts are his queerness and his internalized homophobia that causes him to push everyone away while also watering himself down to the standards of “normal” mike is actually a gay man who loves to play dnd with his friends, he also loves star wars and writing :) but his father makes fun of him a lot, he was bullied in middle school, and he is associated with the “occultists”(dnd group💀) at school, he’s pretty much been outcasted his whole life for being different, so of course the poor boy is gonna have internalized homophobia and he going to repress who he actually is to impress el and to seem straight. He even pretended to not gaf about dnd but immediately after s3 he joins a dnd group, clearly he’s pretending to be someone he is not. At the airport he’s wearing his silly little outfit, and argyle points out that it’s a shitty knockoff, which is a double meaning. The clothes are knockoffs of ocean pacific and mike is a knockoff of himself. He was pretending the entire day. So his conflict is pretending he’s normal. Even though he stated in the first episode(with his gay montage) that he doesn’t want to be normal but then he turns around and does this? Interesting.

Mike and eleven: why i think mike and el won’t be endgame, mike won’t have his arc of being himself again and he’s gonna repeat the same thing his parents did(nuclear family) which is boring as hell and also ew? Why are we romanticizing this possibility?? Mike changed for el, mike changed to impress el. He also feels inferior to el and he’s said “i love you” twice to her for the past?? 4(?) years(I don’t remember I don’t pay attention to milkvan) mikes arc would be useless if he was just pushed into this other than, accepting himself and being who he was in s1 and s2 where he didn’t feel the need to pretend.

Mike and will: will, doesn’t pretend to be someone he is not. He’s still in the closet but he’s still himself. He doesn’t want to pretend to be anything else whilst mike is pretending. Mike needs will to fulfill his interests and accept who he is. They need each other to be themselves and they need each other in general because they love each other. If mike ends up with will, we will see our beloved s2 mike. And we will see a more interesting version of mike than mike with el.

Mikes s5 ending: none of us know but one thing i do know is that he’s gonna have his gay little moments, and i want it to be NOTICEABLE. I want people to be like “ohhh, okay that makes sense” LMAO YK?? Also byler kiss!! I’ll take anything, as long as they kiss and confess to each other. I don’t think theyll pull a reddie or all of us bylers are going to riot💀 so i want mike and will alive, they deserve a happy ending.

Also in s5 i want mike to be with another queer character where they open up, like robin orr vickie(?🤨) or maybe even just a conversation with will. OR SUPPORT, ANYTHING FOR THE POOR BOY😭😭 el could be like “mike, ik what you are” and it would work. Please, he needs comfort 😢