Stranger Things will always be remembered as one of the biggest successes to come out of Netflix. However, while there are plenty of positive aspects about the series as a whole, season 5 may also have delivered one of the most controversial endings it could have presented.
Many characters get a nearly perfect storybook ending and acknowledgement that you can go through the depths of pain and suffering and come out the other side, looking forward to a bright future. But not everyone got that type of conclusion, most notably, Eleven, who may have deserved the happy ending more than any other character in the main ensemble.
Having spent nearly her entire life in some type of torture, abuse, or isolation, Eleven only had glimpses of what it was really like to feel safe, be loved, and be surrounded by friends and family who genuinely showed her what a happy life meant. However, the suggestion that Eleven was more of a symbol of childhood magic than a human is just not true.
The perspective that Eleven is meant to be a representative symbol of childhood magic that the rest of the characters need to leave behind to grow up and move on from completely obliterates how the audience has always viewed Eleven: as a person.
Eleven's life should not be boxed into a role as connected to other people's journeys of personal growth, or to some sort of trauma reaction to the Upside Down that the rest of the characters need to separate themselves from in order to become adults. She is not a remnant of the dangers of Vecna or the Abyss either.
Eleven is a girl, or young woman, who had nearly her entire life stolen from her and deserved the chance to experience a safe, happy life in the aftermath of all the destruction with those who have become her family. There is nothing in any of the main characters that suggests they would never be able to move on from the horror of their youth if Eleven got to remain in their lives. Why do the rest of them get to move on together, and Eleven does not?
Eleven's temporary hideaway would make sense, but not a permanent separation from Mike and the rest of those she loves.
It is a devastating ending to an already tragic character. Eleven deserved to be recognized as someone whose fate was not split between death and the hope of peace somewhere out there. She deserved real peace where she could grow old with her friends.
The idea that Stranger Things forces Eleven into isolation, yet again, in the event that she did survive, is such a sad ending to a character who only ever wanted to belong and be with others. This is not just a sacrifice of the highest order; it is an unnecessarily heartbreaking conclusion for a character who deserved a far better future. She was a person whom the narrative treated as a tool, which completely goes against Eleven's arc of growing to experience a real life outside of lab facilities.
No matter if it was the unexpected one-liners or the love of Eggo waffles, Eleven was the original breakout character of Stranger Things, the person who became the face of the series. Each season showed Eleven learning and growing as she became more familiar with a world so drastically different from the environment she had grown up in. She had learned what it meant to grow into her own person, have friends, how to be a daughter and sister, what it meant to have a father who was looking out for her best interests, and was at the center of the show's biggest love story.
Eleven had one of the biggest arcs in the series, and the concept that so much growth and development meant to show there could be more to life than danger and destruction, only to end in self-sacrifice, is one of the most defeating ways the series could have ended.
If Eleven is truly dead, while a huge sacrifice, it could also be said that Eleven's life was nothing more than a means to an end, a way to put a definitive stop to the military's desire to create more people like her and put a stop to the Upside Down in one grand exit. But if Eleven did survive, then she is all alone again, even if it is a peaceful existence.
After everything Eleven had been through, either one of these options is a crushing weight.