Warning: Stranger Things season 5 spoilers ahead
Eleven's (Millie Bobby Brown) fate towards the end of Stranger Things season 5 has left fans feeling confused, distraught and divided—and sometimes, all at once. Once the finale episode dropped on New Year's eve, hundreds of fans took to social media to post their own interpretations of the finale. While many feel that she is truly alive, some are convinced that she chose to make one last ultimate sacrifice to kill the Upside Down, along with herself. Actor Sadie Sink, who became well known as Max Mayfield from the show is siding with the latter theory. "I think she is dead," she told host Jimmy Fallon on his popular late night show in her first appearance following the release of the finale.
"What do I think? I think she's dead. Is that a hot take or something? Mike's story is just one last story, and then they say goodbye to childhood. That's one final tale, and that's it. It's just a coping thing. It’s stronger, right?" she shared.
Towards the end of the show, Eleven chooses to stay in the Upside Down as her friends get caught by the military. When the bomb the team planted explodes, it triggers the exotic matter to send shockwaves across the dimension and every element of the Upside Down is sucked into the void. Although her friends urge her to come back, she expands her powers and sacrifices herself, closing the portal to the dimension, thereby thwarting the military's plan to continue experimenting on children with powers to create new super-powered infants. However, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) has his own version to the story. He tells his friends that Eleven survived after Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) helps her one last time to vanish which gives her just enough time to escape from Hawkins. He tells that she is now happily living in a different part of the world.
Earlier, speaking to Variety, co-creator Matt Duffer addressed several popular fan theories surrounding Eleven’s fate, firmly debunking one major assumption. “The only thing I’ll debunk is that Eleven does not communicate with Mike in any way,” he clarified. Duffer explained that the moment at the graduation ceremony where Mike hears the speakers distort is not a supernatural signal from Eleven but a realisation triggered by the principal’s anger. “It makes him realise that there was the kryptonite,” Duffer said, raising further questions about the logistics of Eleven’s supposed escape.
“If that’s the case, how could she have possibly made it all the way to the gate? Not only that—how could she have possibly used her powers to bring him into the void?” he added. The finale intentionally leaves viewers grappling with these unanswered questions, including whether Kali could have played a role or if she might even still be alive. “We like that it’s up to the audience,” Duffer noted. “Obviously, we tell you what the characters choose.”
Duffer went on to emphasise that Eleven’s fate is meant to remain ambiguous, reinforcing that the story is told strictly from the perspective of Mike, Max, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo).
Ross Duffer said Eleven represents "the magic of childhood" and they knew that there was never a version where Eleven was down in the basement in the final scene. "We knew for our kids to be able to grow up, the magic had leave Hawkins. There was never a version that we had written where it was Eleven down in that basement. It was never going to be that simple and that easy. It was finding a way to come up with an ending where it was not that simple, but also bittersweet, and that there was hope there," he said.
All seasons of Stranger Things are currently streaming on Netflix.
