Unfortunately I've been having way too many thoughts about Steve Harrington. It's hard to structure them into a single cohesive post. So I'm just gonna say this for now:
S1 has Steve wanting love, having it, and losing it because of grief.
S5 ends with Steve finally learning how to deal with grief, and still not finding the love he craved.
And I think that's a crappy thing to do in a narrative.
It would be less fucked up if he had been shown to have learned, at any point, that romantic love is not what he needs, despite being what he craved. But it wasn't. His literal LAST LINE on the show is "I don't know, guys, I think she might be the one" and then he's promptly mocked for it by Robin. That's so bad in my personal opinion. If they had changed just that line, it would've already been better; "We're taking things slow, you know, no need to rush" would've been enough to show that Steve doesn't NEED to find the one right away, because he already has a lot of meaning and fulfillment in his life from other places, like his friends and his work as a little league coach. It would've shown SOME growth regarding his original goal of love.
And it's not about amatonormativity, this is not me wanting every character to be in a romantic relationship. I wouldn't have minded if the focus of Steve's plot and conflict was solely Dustin and Robin after S3. I love a story where characters find more meaning in a platonic relationship than in a romantic one. It's about GIVING YOUR CHARACTERS A GODDAMN ARC AND STICKING WITH IT
I am highly in favor of "Give the character what they want" plots. Maybe the entire story is the character chasing what they want. Maybe they get what they want, but it's not what they expected and the story is them reacting (positively OR negatively) to that dissonance. Maybe they get what they want, but then realize that it's not fulfilling, so the story is them trying to define what it is that they want. Steve's story, however, is about wanting one thing, not getting it, finding something else because of it, that something becoming the most meaningful part of their story, and... still not changing what they wanted at all.
Steve's arc went from "I wanted love and I fucked up but I got it" to "I'm a crappy boyfriend but I'm a great babysitter", then to "I'm ready to find love with someone else—oops, new lesbian bestie unlocked, now I have two friends" followed by "Oh wait, I actually never got over that first love, maybe I have a shot now that the guy who stole her from me is gone" for some reason, and culminating in "I am actively hitting on this girl who has a boyfriend, but I'm never gonna apologize for it and I'm just going to almost die and that will resolve it—also my friend needs me, gonna make a suicide pact about it". WHAT???
I'm writing too much I'll be back later with some more points I'm getting too worked up
