The following has spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5. Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown has broken her silence on whether her character could still be alive – just don’t get your hopes up of the answer being the one you want. The very emotional finale saw Eleven sacrificing herself in order to protect the survivors of Hawkins – a surprising narrative move, given that it basically meant killing off the main character in the series. Although she’s shown in the subsequent scene “living” in a remote place away from Hawkins, it seems that this is just a visualization of those who really want to believe Eleven could still be alive. According to Brown, “there’s finality” in the series’ official ending.
Brown recently talked to Netflix Tudum, and shared what she thinks happened to Eleven in the final episode. “As a young girl, I couldn’t find my inner voice, and I could relate to Eleven in that way,” Brown explains about the character, and adds that in Season 5, Eleven is finally “able to find her voice”: “I think this season she is able to make a decision that’s far greater than any she’s ever made before. It’s very new to me because I think I know there’s finality in it.”
Referring to Eleven’s big decision, Brown shares that it was important for her suffering and her pain to end. In the final episodes, the character becomes aware of her role in the sinister experiments that empowered Vecna in his final mission. Although her decision is seen as a sacrifice to rid the world of her dangerous powers, the last scene of the show theorizes that Kali could have helped in making everyone believe Eleven died during the obliteration of the Upside Down.
“I just think it’s incredibly important that it all ends for her, and the suffering and the pain end. I kinda love that ending, that there is just such a bigger purpose to Kali’s powers. Everything has a purpose, and everything is there for a reason.”
Is Eleven Still Alive in the Future of ‘Stranger Things’?
The simplest answer to that is no one knows, but it really does seem like Eleven’s sacrifice was the real ending of the series. When the Duffers wrote the show’s ending, they intended to leave things with some room for interpretation. As fans keep looking for more answers in the form of a non-existent additional episode, perhaps it is just time to accept that, yes, Eleven could be dead, and that the series has simply come to a conclusion. Ross Duffer also talked to Netflix Tudum, and said that, in their version, Eleven was always supposed to be absent from the emotional final scene:
There was never a version of the story where Eleven was hanging out with the gang at the end. For us and our writers, we didn’t want to take her powers away. She represents magic in a lot of ways and the magic of childhood. For our characters to move on and for the story of Hawkins and the Upside Down to come to a close, Eleven had to go away. We thought it would be beautiful if our characters continued to believe in that happier ending even if we didn’t give them a clear answer to whether that’s true or not. The fact that they’re believing in it, we just thought it was such a better way to end the story and a better way to represent the closure of this journey and their journey from children to adults.”
Matt adds, “if Eleven is out there, the most that they could hope for is a belief that it’s true because they can’t be in contact with her. Everything falls apart if that were the case. So if that’s the narrative, this is really the best way to keep her alive. And it’s about Mike and everyone finding a way to move past what’s happened.”
- Release Date
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2016 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Netflix
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
