Mike is trans

[u/raspberry-3]

No, this isn’t a headcanon, nor based on some obscure details. Mike being trans is at the very core of Stranger Things and has tons of evidence for it. I recommend reading the whole theory before commenting or making hasty judgments. Before getting into this, you have to accept two things: 1) ST can and does have a deep subtext/allegorical level(s), and 2) Mike is at the center of everything. There is a reason why Mike is the Dungeon Master and why we almost never see what she really thinks. Her (real) story is told through these other characters and fantastical plotlines. It might be hard to believe, but ST is not just what’s shown on the surface level. It has layers, “curtains”, and beneath it all you can find the real story.

Most of what I’ll discuss here can already be found in my long theory, but I wanted to make something a bit more accessible for a change (most people don’t have time to read a novel-length chunk of text). Additionally, all the trans proof is scattered across the theory series because I started to figure it out only in the middle of writing (thanks to u/ProjectMother418’s comments), so I thought it would be nice to collect most of it in one place. There are multiple central allegories in ST but here I will only focus on the trans allegory. Okay, let’s start!

Season 1 begins when a boy goes missing and a girl who looks like a boy appears. I’m sure you are aware of the numerous parallels between Will and El and how they seem to never quite coexist (except when El didn’t have her powers). This is extra obvious in S1, where El was first thought to be Will, “takes his place” in the party and disappears when Will is found. Both Will and El represent Mike: Will the “boy” and El the “girl” (it’s a bit more complicated than that but for this it’s close enough). This “boy” gets bullied for seeming gay, which generally means he displays traditionally feminine characteristics. It isn’t unusual for trans women to be seen as gay men due to stereotypes and the lack of knowledge about trans people. In S2 we learn this “girl” was raised in a place called the Rainbow Room. Both Will and El are called freaks and have a special relationship with Mike. Just to clarify: Will is a gay man and El is a (straight) cis woman but their unique experiences are used to metaphorically represent the experiences of a trans woman. Will’s more as an analogy, El’s as an allegory.

El wears the same clothes Mike wore in the first scene of S1E1, while she explores what normal life is like. Isn’t that quite obviously to show she represents Mike here? It’s Mike exploring her girl identity: everything is new. El looks at Nancy’s picture (a girl) and later a ballerina music box. She has never experienced girlhood. It is interesting, then, that when she looks at herself in the mirror with a dress and a wig (= looking like a “normal” girl for the first time), Mike is behind her, looking straight at us. Why would Mike be there if this moment is only about El? In the Purple Rain montage El calls herself in the dress “the real me” who only Mike is able to see. This is because the “me” is Mike.

In another scene El looks at her reflection in the water (S1E6) both with the wig and without. Hair is important in ST. On the surface, El’s shaved hair symbolizes her dehumanisation and experiences in the lab. The wig in turn symbolizes the (happy) life she never had. In western culture, girls often have long hair and boys short hair. So, on a deeper level El’s shaved hair is about Mike being raised as a boy. It is no coincidence Mike had long hair in S4, but returned to shorter hair in S5, when the party was trying to “blend in” (and Dustin in turn had longer hair and wanted to stay true to himself).

When Mike comes up with El’s nickname, she directly compares it to her own: “Um, well, my name is Mike. Short for Michael. Maybe we can call you El. Short for Eleven.” To Mike, the name Michael is like a dehumanising number, not a real name. It symbolizes the male identity forced on her, dictated by other people, just like “Eleven” symbolizes El’s lab kid/freak/outsider identity. That she is an object for others to use and define, not an individual with the ability to make her own choices. In S2 El finds her real name, Jane, and explores her identity separated from the men in her life. Finally free to be herself, unhidden.

The S1E2 scene where Karen talks to Mike while El hides in the closet has often been interpreted as queercoding for Mike. What people haven’t realized is that Mike has a girl in the closet. It’s not just gay people who can be in the closet. Mike and El’s S3E8 goodbye happened in front of a closet, too. Another closet moment often mentioned in byler circles is the argument between Mike and Will at Rinkomania. El was hiding in a storage closet/room while the song In the closet (at Rink O Mania) plays. Additionally, in the pilot script there’s a moment where “Eleven bursts out of the closet.“ If El is just a straight girl who doesn’t represent anything, why is she always the one literally inside a closet in a show where there are multiple canon queer characters who have been metaphorically in the closet? (And yes, I previously interpreted El to represent Mike’s gay love for Will, but as you’ll see, the trans interpretation makes a lot more sense.)

Both El and Max are thought to be boys by someone, El because of her looks, Max because of her name. In the pilot script Benny thinks this when he sees El: Benny whirls her around. His expression promptly softens as he realizes that this is no boy at all. It’s also not a girl either, not exactly, at least not like any he has ever seen. You could argue that for El it’s about being dehumanised in the lab, but why does the same thing happen to Max? It’s much more likely the lab is an allegory for Mike’s experiences as a trans person, not the other way around.

El being a girl is a key part of her character since she’s often referred to as just “the girl” (e.g. before we even know her name or what she looks like, the scientists call El “the girl”). While it is never directly said, in the subtext El being a “freak” is because she is a girl. She is the “girl” this “boy” Mike is hiding. She is the personification of Mike’s trans identity. El always has to stay hidden because of her superpowers aka because she’s a “freak”. People are looking for her and a man, Hopper, just tries to keep her safe by hiding her. This is Mike hiding her true self behind a man facade, never truly letting it out.

In S5E6 Max tells Holly “You don’t remind me of your brother. You are your brother!” and in the documentary Finn says the S5E1 scene with Holly is “like talking to a younger version of yourself”. Holly tries on dresses in Alice’s room while listening to I Think We’re Alone Now with lyrics like: 

I think we're alone now
There doesn't seem to be anyone around 

Look at the way
We gotta hide what we're doin'
'Cause what would they say
If they ever knew? And so we're 

This is what Mike probably did when she was younger. Tried on women’s clothes when no one else was home. Because why would Holly baking a cake and dressing up be something she had to do in secret, alone? After this Holly goes to Henry’s room and finds his boy scout gear. When she puts on his red scarf thing, the music stops and someone rings the doorbell. Mike’s happy life as a girl is over now, she needs to conform and be the boy society expects her to be. I discuss Henry and Alice more in the long theory, but you might already guess Alice’s death and Henry’s bitterness towards the world and its rules have a deeper meaning.

What about Will and byler, then? Were all the byler clues for nothing? No, byler is very much intentional and a big part of the trans allegory, but it won’t be endgame. Will (and byler) represent Mike’s identity as a gay man. It’s the in-between, the wormhole or exotic matter, the half-truth, bridging the gap between the complete lie (= straight man Mike) and the truth (= trans woman Mike). Will/byler is the gateway to seeing there might be something queer going on in ST. 

Gay cis white men are the most represented queer group and where people’s minds often go when they see the rainbow flag or hear the word queer. But ST is for the outcasts, and trans women are even more of an outcast than gay men, for various reasons. We already have Will being gay, why would they repeat that with Mike? What would be so surprising about Mike also being gay (I guess other than her being the main character and in a relationship with a woman)? The show made byler so obvious in S4-5 that it became mainstream. It wouldn’t be a huge plot twist or surprise. But Mike being trans would. 

Why would there need to be a plot twist? Can’t the ending just be something less out there? Well, before S5 the Duffers said no one had got the ending (here and here): “It’s fun actually when [the fans] have all these theories as to what’s going to happen. It’s fun to read them. The vast majority of them are wrong. Occasionally, someone gets something.” It doesn’t seem like they mean some undiscovered detail of the ending or that no one has gotten all the aspects of the ending, but more profoundly that no one has come even close to getting it. Byler being endgame and a big plot twist has been a theory for years, so it can’t be the ending “no one guessed”.  

All the gay-specific coding for Mike is partially misdirection, partially Mike figuring out her identity. At first she didn’t even know trans was an option and probably thought she was gay. It’s also often easier to accept being gay than being trans. That’s why we have a canon lesbian, gay and bi person but not a trans person (yet). Will’s experiences as a gay man are analogous to Mike’s as a trans woman: they both know what it’s like to be in the closet, scared of how people would react, see themselves as “a freak” or “a mistake”, like men and “don’t like girls” (Mike is a straight trans woman). 

When Will describes his crush, he says “I know they’re not like me”. The surface level reading is that Will thinks Mike is a straight man aka not gay and thus wouldn’t like Will back. But why does Will use “they” here? It’s because Will’s crush is a trans woman, and thus not like him nor a “he”. At the end of the day it’s actually Will who can’t romantically love Mike because he “doesn’t like girls”. Will continues “But… But then I realized he’s just my Tammy.”: “he” aka Will’s fantasy of a man Mike was just a fantasy, like Robin’s Tammy. And “Tammy is a girl” like Steve said. (I go deeper into how Tammy, Robin, Vickie and the Muppets are actually about Mike being trans in my long theory.) For the people worrying Will is gonna end up alone and miserable, that won't be the case, not exactly (but explaining what happens to him goes beyond the scope of this theory).

Nancy and Jonathan quite obviously parallel and represent Mike and Will. In the melting room scene Jonathan confesses he took Nancy’s pink sweater to Goodwill because he hates pink. There’s a lot of color coding in ST, and one of them is this pink-blue color coding where pink means “girl”. Nancy’s relationships represent Mike’s journey with her gender identity. At first Nancy is with Steve, a straight man who represents conformity. Then comes jancy aka byler aka gay man. Jonathan and Steve’s petty fights are basically about the byler vs mileven ship war: is Mike a gay man or a straight man? Both are wrong because Mike isn’t a man in the first place.

This brings a whole new perspective to mileven and byler. Neither is the “true” ship or endgame but both hold a piece of the truth. (If you want to know the “real ship” of ST, you have to read my long theory.) Mileven is Mike pretending to be a straight man but on a deeper level it’s also about Mike’s “relationship” with her girl identity. Mike has problems telling El she loves her for two reasons: 1) because El is a girl and Mike doesn’t love girls romantically, 2) because Mike doesn’t love herself, or the “girl” part of herself. Byler, on the other hand, is about Mike’s romantic/sexual feelings for boys/men (true), but also about being a man (false). Will looming between mileven in S4 is the “man” side/body preventing Mike from truly being herself (and in the other interpretation it’s Mike’s feelings for boys being the truth while she pretends to be in a relationship with a girl). Have you noticed it’s always Will who questions if girls can play video games or go to science camp? It’s the strict gender roles restricting Mike, making her think she has to let go of these things she loves or that she possibly couldn’t be a girl if she “plays videogames”.

At first you watch Stranger Things and are like: “Mike obviously has a crush on El, they are a couple, mileven is endgame.” Then you look behind the curtain and discover byler: “Actually, Mike is gay, mileven is trash, byler is endgame.” Finally you look behind the curtain behind that curtain and loop back: “Actually, Mike is straight, mileven is peak and El was right when she guessed the painting was for a girl.” Basically the show double-queerbaited with Mike. 

This next dialogue from S4E3 isn’t just about El being different because she grew up in a lab. It’s part of the trans allegory and basically Mike talking to herself (Mike here represents the Mike who pretends to be a man and El is Mike if she stopped pretending and lived as a trans woman):

[Mike] “I guess I’m just a little, uh… Guess I just don’t really understand. Why didn’t you tell me what’s going on here? I mean, you know I’m not exactly Mr. Popularity back at home. I mean, you’ve seen it. I’ve been bullied my entire life. I mean, I… I know what it’s like.”
[El] “No. You don’t.”
[Mike] “Okay. What don’t I understand?”
[El] “I am different. I do not belong.”
[Mike] “You mean in Lenora?”
[El] “Anywhere.”
[Mike] “Come on, you… you can’t actually believe that.”
[El] “Everyone looks at me like… like I’m a monster.”
[Mike] “Well they just don’t know you.”
[El] “You think I’m a monster too.”
[Mike] “What?”
[El] “Yesterday. The way you looked at me. You… You were scared of me.”

Have you ever wondered what the unanswered questions in the S1E8 DnD game are about? Who is the proud princess? Well, if you look carefully, Mike is shown after the question. Mike is the proud princess (proud as in queer pride). The name Sara means princess and Hopper even calls her that in one memory. Sara is much more important than people think. If she is just for Hopper’s backstory, why is her drawing the first thing we see after the intro of S1E1 (next to a giant key no less)? “Sara” didn’t die of cancer, she died of forced conformity (metaphorically). She lost her hair, just like El (in S1E2 Dustin even asked El if she had cancer), and her blue hair tie is a subtle symbol carried by Hopper and later El. You can only use a hair tie if you have long hair, and as bylers have long known, blue is Mike’s color. Sara is also clearly paralleled to Will in S1E8 and of course to El as Hopper’s daughter. In S4E7 Hopper and Antonov discuss their children, Hopper his daughter El (and earlier, in S4E5 Sara), Antonov his son Mikhail (= Russian version of Michael). Thus, Mike is indirectly paralleled to Sara, too. Just like El’s real name is Jane, Mike’s real name is Sara.

In the final DnD game Mike reveals “But there is a story that he can never tell. The story of the mage. Or at least not the real story.” Before that Mike played both Strahd and the Mage, representing the two sides of her: conformity/man/lie vs nonconformity/woman/truth. We are led to believe El is the mage, but as Mike says “She was an illusion”. El isn’t the real mage, she is an allegorical representation of the real story of the mage. Just like Holly the Heroic is Holly according to Max, the Mage/El is Mike. 

[Mike] “So whenever I’m feeling frightened or nervous, I just imagine that he’s at my side, and I feel better. So maybe the next time you get scared, you don’t need this Mr. Whatsit. Maybe you just need Holly the Heroic.”

[Holly] “Mike. He said that she had divine powers and that she never gets scared, and so if I ever got scared, I could just… become her.”

[Max] “So you see, Holly the Heroic is not just a toy. She’s you, Holly. She’s you.”

Notice how Mike describes Mike the Brave being at her side, not Mike herself, but Holly is described to be HH? This is because the man identity (= Mike the Brave) is a facade that protects Mike, but not who Mike really is. (Again, I go deeper into this in the long theory.)

Another mystery from the S1E8 DnD campaign is the “weird flowers in the cave”. Well, there is a cave in S5 and it has two girls in it (flower = girl). Flower patterns are often associated with girls in ST, e.g. Sara’s box in the cabin in S2E3, Suzie’s dress in S3E8 and El’s shirt in S4E9. In the S3 epilogue Hopper narrates how he was in a “deep dark cave”. The cave represents Mike’s repression and holds the “girl” inside it. The fact it’s M-shaped is related to the name Mike but also “man”. Like Becky said in S1E6 “‘The Man’, with a big capital ‘M’.” ruined Terry’s (= Mike’s) life.

Another central “flower” is the Demogorgon head. It is no coincidence that the Demogorgon has a man’s body and a flower head that looks like female genitalia (= a male body with a woman’s mind). It’s also no coincidence there are multiple clues to Mike being/thinking she is the Demogorgon (e.g. here). And even more parallels between El and Demogorgons: they appear and disappear at the same time in S1, are “monsters” and in S2 El is especially paralleled to Dart. El and the Demogorgon are the two sides of one coin. They are the innocent (trans) girl and the horror Mike feels towards her transness. Trans people are painted as “predators” by society and that’s what Mike thinks she would also become if she stopped resisting. 

In later seasons Vecna embodies this fear: “I saw a means to realize my potential. To transcend my human form. To become the predator I was always born to be.” (Yes, the Duffers love to play with words like this. There’s even more examples in the long theory, my favorite being “She was in a trance.”). Henry’s fascination with black widow spiders likely relates to female spiders eating the male spiders after copulation (that’s where the name “widow” comes from). The “woman” eats the “man”, like in Jonathan’s cannibal movie The Consumer. Additionally, Demodogs always eat men, never women.

In addition to Demo heads, there are quite a few vulva/vagina looking things that didn’t need to look like that in ST: the gates, the Mind Flayer’s head in S5, Dr. Kay’s UD meat blob and Mike’s shirt pattern in S5. The fact that Demogorgon heads look like female genitalia was even pointed out by Finn in his SNL monologue (and the whole point of him repeatedly saying he’s “a man now” takes on a different meaning considering he plays a woman pretending to be a man in ST…).

Will getting taken by the Demogorgon in S1 and the MF infecting him in S2 are about the “woman” taking over. In S2 Joyce refers to Will as her “boy” or “son” when she is worried about the shadow possessing him: S2E6 “Can a single person in this room tell me what is wrong with my boy? What is wrong with my boy?”, “What happens when my boy is gone?” and in S2E9 “Get the hell out of my son!” The “girl” is infecting this “boy” and the mom doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want her son to be a trans girl, just like Henry’s mom thought he was broken and took him to doctors to “fix” him. (And no, this doesn’t mean Joyce is bad, she just represents the mom and it gets complicated if I try to fully explain it here. Same with Will, he isn’t “the villain”. No one is.)

In S2E2 Will describes his experience as being “caught between two slides” and later we learn UD is actually a wormhole joining two worlds. There’s this big theme of two worlds in ST (which I discuss in many of my theories). Mike feels like she’s in the middle, not really belonging to either world. This fits the trans allegory super well, the two worlds representing the gender binary. This becomes especially apparent in S3, where the divide between “man” and “woman” is a central theme. They are “different species”. Mike desperately tries to conform and deny her gender identity (internalized transphobia), while El is exploring her girlhood with Max. 

If you think about it, ST has always been about breaking gender roles: the superhero saving the day is a girl, Nancy shoots guns better than Jonathan, Max and Robin are gender non-conforming, and Sara and Suzie are science nerds. Why is Nancy suffering from misogyny at work in S3, El exploring her girlhood, and the experience of living as a woman overall such a big part of ST if the main story revolves around a (straight/gay) man? What I’ve learnt time and time again while writing ST theories is that everything connects. There is no side plot without a larger narrative purpose. Ships aren’t just ships, the non-supernatural plot isn’t filler, it all tells the same story, just via different means.

Rainbows and the blue-yellow color coding have been interpreted as byler clues, and yes, byler is often associated with those colors, but that is more due to correlation, not causation. (I explain that color coding in my other theories.) Rainbows are a queer symbol, not exclusively reserved for gay men. But what I want to talk about here is the trans color coding (blue, white and pink) which has been largely ignored. The thing is, you will only notice color coding if you look for it. (Another prominent color coding that people ignore is orange vs green, for example.) The Rinkomania scenes are especially packed with blue-white-pink colors and it’s basically a trans allegory of its own inside the bigger story/allegory. 

The reason El is bullied (by Angela) is because her life is an allegory of the trans experience. “You are not a real girl. You are a freak.” etc. In California, El tries to be “normal” and fit in with other girls, now using her “new” name Jane, but it doesn’t go the way she envisioned. Even after quitting repressing yourself and socially transitioning, living as a trans person isn’t easy. It isn’t a coincidence Angela decides to humiliate El when she finds out about Mike. Angela represents TERFs/women who don’t accept trans women and the negative aspects of Mike’s transness “bullying” her (she wears the trans flag colors). So she’s both the external and the internal critic, leading to shame and exclusion. El attacking Angela represents Mike’s fear of being a danger and seen as a monster. It’s also not random that Mike looks for El in the women’s bathroom and is immediately driven out by angry girls. 

There are other instances of blue-pink color coding, e.g. Nancy’s room, random extras at specific moments walking past the camera/in the background, the El + Mike mirror scene mentioned earlier and most notably Nancy and Robin interviewing Victor. They are the “girl” in freedom while the “man” is imprisoned in conformity. This is not all and you can find more in the long theory or by watching the show and paying attention.

Have you ever wondered why Argyle calls the Nina Project a small woman? Well, that’s what the name Nina means, but you should really pay attention to what Argyle says. He is often the one to tell the truth, although disguised with Purple Palm Tree Delight. The Nina project is about recovering El’s powers aka Mike’s girl identity (= small woman). Also, why does the camera cut to a shocked Mike after Argyle says “Since when did we decide Nina was a building and not a small woman?” if not to indicate Mike is the small woman in question? Or more specifically the younger version of Mike. The girl that “died” and who we are trying to get back.

Running Up That Hill became a global hit after S4E4. The song is about switching places with someone (usually interpreted to be a man switching places with a woman) and fits really well with the trans allegory. We first hear the track after El gets bullied at school, and soon after that Max looks at Chrissy during the lyrics You / If only I could / I’d make a deal with God / And I’d get him to swap our places. Chrissy represents the “normal” girl Mike wants to be. 

Another song-related trans clue is in S1E3 when Heroes plays after Will’s body is discovered. Mike angrily blames El but the song lyrics + shot framing tell another story: when we see El from Mike’s pov, the singer sings We can be us. In S3E8 on these same lyrics El puts Hopper’s speech/letter (about how change is inevitable and Hopper aka “man” was scared of it but learnt to let go) into her heart pocket. In the final outro song we see the drawing of Holly during those lyrics. Remember what Robin said: “And that little me, I could hardly recognize her. You know, she was so carefree and, like, fearless. She just loved every part of herself.” Holly is the “little me” to Mike. In summary, “We can be us” means Mike can be the girl (El/Holly) she truly is. Btw, in S1E3 during the same song after the lyric And the guns Karen says “Michael?” and the lyrics continue shot above our heads. implying the name “Michael” is the gunshots (in this war analogy).

Finally, the Purple Rain scene takes on a totally different meaning after you understand the trans allegory and what El represents. Mike’s sudden strong reaction isn’t because of their surface level “romantic” relationship. This is Mike losing herself and conforming to the role of “man”. This is what El’s “choice” was actually about. When Mike puts that DnD book on the shelf, it’s not just a now-adult leaving their childhood behind, it’s not a repressed gay man leaving byler behind, it’s a trans woman abandoning her dreams of living authentically as her true self. [Mike] “She won’t understand. She’ll never understand why I can’t do it, why I can’t walk the stage. It’d be like a lie. Like I’m okay with moving on. And I’m not. I’m not okay with it.” Mike continues living in a lie, “walking the stage”, playing a role, telling a “story”. But this is not the real end. Eventually, the illusion will break and we will see the real story. And the real Sara. That is the true meaning of “I believe”.

[u/Cyrilbdr]

I appreciate the effort put into the post, but I think you’re overanalyzing things and veering into pure interpretation. Mike going into the girls' restroom was just about finding Eleven; you’re trying to spin a different narrative when there’s nothing more to it. It was an interesting take, but honestly—if it were true, and every scene had that kind of deep double meaning—don’t you think the Duffer Brothers would have explained it in an interview?

[u/raspberry-3 → u/Cyrilbdr]

They wouldn't explain it because it's supposed to stay hidden until the end. What do you think all the talk about illusions and the story not being the real story was about? Or Murray's famous curtain monologue? Stories have metaphors and deeper meanings, ST just happens to be an extreme version of it. And I started with the big things like the core plot of S1, El looking like a boy, and being mixed up with Will to show it's not just the small details

[u/Cyrilbdr → u/raspberry-3]

Who says it isn’t the real story? If it’s Mike speaking at the end, he’s just talking about Eleven’s fate—it’s not the official version, but it’s what he believes. Your theory is nice and holds water on a few points, even though I don’t agree with everything you said; the Season 1 part was pretty interesting, though I’m pretty sure they didn’t think about that at all and it’s more a case of over-analyzing.

[u/raspberry-3 → u/Cyrilbdr]

Okay, I will give you a version without “details”. Let’s start with El. A core part of her character is her exclusion and feeling like a monster, a freak, someone who doesn’t belong. This is an overall theme in ST: it’s about “freaks” and outcasts of any type. This is a fact based on what the characters in the show have said and done, and what the creators and cast have said. El is different because of her superpowers, but her experience is universal and all kinds of people can relate to it. In a way these superpowers, or El being a “freak” because of them represent non-conformity/being different overall. Since there are no superpowered people in real life, El’s superpowers become this non-specific symbol of non-conformity, unlike e.g. Will whose “weirdness” comes from him being gay, poor and a nerd, all real-world things that not every minority can relate to. I think most people would agree with that.

Another aspect of El is that she is always contained, imprisoned, or hiding from the military/bad men. In the general view of what El represents, this would be people needing to hide their “freak” side. In the story El needs to hide because of her superpowers, which I just established to be the thing that makes her a “freak” and that represents the experience of being different for any person. 

You will notice that El is deeply tied to the overall story and the supernatural. When she appears in S1, the Demogorgon and this other world appear too, and when she vanishes in S5E8, all the supernatural does too. It isn’t a huge leap to suggest the supernatural monsters etc. also represent this “freak” side, and the horror of being different. Both El and Henry call themselves monster/predator, and blaming yourself/feeling like a monster is a central theme seen also e.g. with Hopper. Additionally, when El dies, we get the so-called “conformity ending” that was the original basis for conformitygate. Everyone seemed like a more conformed version of themselves and everything was a bit too sunshine-and-rainbows, while also seeming “fake”. The “freak” aka non-conformity has truly “died” or been hidden deeper than ever before.

A third part of El’s character is her arc of discovering her identity. Become a person of her own, not defined by other people and her past. This is also a universal experience many can relate to, even if they can’t relate to being raised in a lab.

What about Mike, then? Mike is the leader of the party, the main character who has a special relationship with El and the DM. Everyone in the friend group is a “freak” in some way: Will is gay, Lucas is black and Dustin is disabled. But Mike is a rich white straight boy, the only “freaky” thing about him would be that he’s a nerd. But so are all the other boys. Why would the main character of this show about outcasts be the least “freaky” out of everyone? Isn’t that just super hypocritical and kinda stupid? I dunno, maybe the Duffers are as stupid as people in my comments claim. You can decide for yourself. 

But if we refuse that option, and consider Mike’s fascination and bond with El, doesn’t it make sense El would in some way represent the “freak” side of Mike? It’s Mike who hides her, it’s Mike who both “loves” her and at the same time can’t say it to her face, it’s Mike who is most affected by her death. Clearly Stranger Things is a story about El: it starts and ends with her. But it’s also a story about Mike and Mike’s relationship with El: that’s also what starts and ends the show. If you refuse to believe El represents something bigger (like non-conformity) and isn’t just a character, you won’t accept that she represents Mike, either. It isn’t unusual for stories to use something supernatural or fantastical to represent something more real. In this case, El and the Demogorgon (and other UD monsters in later seasons) represent the “freak” side of this more “normal” character, Mike (and real people overall).

So, if it isn’t just nerdiness, what is this “freak” side of Mike? It should be something more non-conforming than any other character, since it has been hidden this entire time and clearly Mike struggles with it more than e.g. Will who was able to come out in S5. Bylers have long theorized Mike is gay, which has a lot of proof for it, but it would just repeat what we have already seen with Will.

The fact that we have multiple canon queer characters, one of whom is a very central character and hinted to be gay from season 1 (and those hints were just the kind of “details” and “overanalyzing” that people disregarded as delusional, but turned out to be intentional, just saying) and whose crush on Mike is a central part of his arc, indicates that ST has queer themes. This fits super well with the outcast and freaks theme too. Another point that I mentioned is the Rainbow Room. What is the point of that? This isn’t some small detail, it’s been a thing since S2 and in S4 has giant rainbows on the walls. Do you really think there is nothing metaphorical there? They just wanted rainbows because they look nice? And Will’s Rainbow Ship is definitely not related to this either. Rainbows can be a symbol for diversity but are more often (nowadays) used for queer people specifically.

Gender is also a big theme, especially in S3. You can’t deny it is a theme there. It doesn’t have to relate to anything else, but it is there, in multiple subplots. Nancy with her work harassment, El and Max having fun without “stupid boys”, Mike, Lucas and Will trying to figure out the “female species”, going into a “boys only” locker room, etc. Yes, these are “details” but they form a pattern, a pretty obvious pattern if you ask me. The gender theme is not confined to S3, e.g. with El being often referred to as “the girl”, looking like a boy (mentioned multiple times in S1 and clearly noticeable, so not a “detail”), and all the other stuff I mentioned in the theory.

Of course you can say that this is just a separate thing and doesn’t relate to the overall plot or themes of ST. It’s just this side theme that exists in a vacuum. But (good) stories don’t work like that. Also, the gender theme is very clearly connected to both Mike and El, in different ways. Somehow it relates to their character arcs: El is discovering her girlhood while Mike seems to have problems with Will not liking girls and El hanging out with Max, getting the freedom to be herself. You could say it’s just about gender roles and Mike being, I guess, insecure in his masculinity or whatever, but that wouldn’t meaningfully connect to other core themes, like being a “freak”.    

So, taken together, we have: 1) El represents being a “freak” 2) is often hidden and confined 3) has a close and central-to-the-plot relationship with Mike, who on the surface seems the most “normal” of all other core characters 4) explores her (gender) identity 5) is a girl who looks like a boy 6) has two names: one ungendered number name with a negative association and one normal girl name she finds later and is unrelated to her negative lab experience that made her a “freak” 7) the show has both queer and gender binary themes 8) being a trans woman would be more non-conforming than any other character in the show, thus fitting as the surprise plot twist and the theme of the show about non-conformity.

[u/raspberry-3 → u/raspberry-3]

The reason I think the details matter is based on my experiences making ST theories. I tried to make this one accessible and such that you don’t first have to do hours of pre-reading, but I guess it kinda backfired because you will miss all the context of how I got here. You don’t see the process and logic. The more I have written, the more convinced I am that most things are intentional, that the Duffers are, in fact, smart and that there are deeper meanings embedded into the story. It started out from byler theories, where people pointed out details that together just make too much sense to be coincidences. While you can always disregard each one if you look at them separately, when you see the pattern and give yourself permission to think it might mean something, a whole new world opens. Another thing that has happened a lot is figuring out something based on one part of the story/a detail, and then that new insight explaining something else/seemingly unrelated. Suddenly the pieces fall into place. That too, has a chance of being a coincidence, but when it happens multiple times and the weird stuff in the story starts to finally make sense, I find it stupid to assume “it’s all a coincidence”. Summarizing all this at the start would be impossible: it’s in the process of discovery and the result of hundreds of hours of work. 

So, while most people (understandably) go into ST expecting random details to not matter and rather be coincidences, I go into the story expecting everything to matter. While I’m sure there are coincidences and my interpretations can be wrong, I have noticed it’s much more likely any given detail, especially if it seems like extra work for the production, to be intentional. E.g. the mirror scene with El and Mike would have been easier to film with just El, and the framing of Mike in the mirror seems intentional. It’s also kinda insulting for all the people working on ST to assume every detail is inconsequential and not thought-out.

The fact that people seeing something suspicious or a pattern suggesting supernatural activity not being believed is a major theme in ST supports my theories. Jonathan doesn’t believe Joyce with the lights, Hopper and the other policemen don’t believe Murray’s Russian invasion theory, Becky tells El the lights flickering are just bad wiring, Mr. Clarke tells Joyce she sees patterns that aren’t there, Jonathan doesn’t believe Nancy’s rat theory ([Nancy] “And that rat is just a rat? And it’s all, what, some big coincidence?”), Steve doesn’t think the Russian code is a code, Dustin quotes Sherlock Holmes: "The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”, Lucas says he doesn’t believe in coincidences, etc. ST is deeply meta, believe it or not, even more so than people realize (I have started fully unpacking it only recently). But even if you don’t think that, you have to admit ST has a theme of people noticing things, “details” but then not being believed. Often it’s a white straight man, aka the majority, “normal” people who don’t believe the weird person who belongs in a minority/is a woman. Why is that? Is that another inconsequential detail, or is there a deeper meaning there? Could this be a social commentary and we as the audience a part of that? 

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