When it comes to Eleven’s fate, there’s only one Stranger Things star who knows what happened — and it’s Millie Bobby Brown, the actress who portrayed her.
During a recent interview with podcaster Josh Horowitz, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer revealed that Brown, who famously portrayed the telekinetic teen for the show’s five seasons, is the only person (aside from the brothers) who knows what really happened to her character following the series finale.
“Yeah, Ross and I know,” Matt Duffer said of Eleven’s fate in the Stranger Things universe. “And we were just talking to Millie about it. But I think it takes away the power of the ending if you tell people what you were thinking as you were writing it.”
Duffer disclaimed that Brown won’t disclose Eleven’s fate anytime soon, telling Horowitz, “She’s not gonna tell you either. Don’t waste your time. … Millie swore herself to secrecy.”
As Stranger Things fans recall, in the series finale the Hawkins gang defeats Vecna, the Mind Flayer and the Demogorgons once and for all after successfully carrying out a coordinated attack in the Abyss. On their way out of the Upside Down, the group is stopped by Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) and her troops, who are set on capturing and controlling Eleven.
Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler and Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in Stranger Things. (Netflix)
In order to protect her friends, Eleven makes the ultimate sacrifice when she seemingly reenters the deteriorating Upside Down, which the group blew up as they left. Sacrificing her own life, Eleven says, is the only way to keep everyone safe from the military’s incessant pursuit of her telekinetic powers.
“None of this will ever end, not if I’m still here,” she tearfully tells Mike.
But it’s in the final moments of the series finale, when the gang gathers for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, that Mike suggests a more hopeful ending for Eleven. In telling the story of the Mage, whom audiences assume is Eleven, Mike theorizes that she managed to escape the Upside Down and is finally able to live off the grid in an idyllic town.
Whether Mike’s story is true or merely wishful thinking remains unclear — and that’s the whole point. Ross Duffer previously told Netflix’s Tudum that “there was never a version of the story where Eleven was hanging out with the gang at the end.” It was paramount, Duffer explained, that Eleven keep her powers. At the same time, Eleven represents the magical aspect of the series. That the teens would be able to leave the trauma of the Upside Down in the past, with Eleven still present, felt unrealistic.
“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,” Ross Duffer told Netflix’s Tudum. “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.”
Matt Duffer also told Horowitz, “To us, in a way, [Eleven] represents childhood and imagination and wonder. And that is leaving with [Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas and Max] as they transition from young adults to adulthood, closing the door on that part of their lives.”