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givehimthemedicine · 1 year

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🧇 Eggos as a symbol of M*leven: an analysis

El Loves Eggos is a running thing throughout the show and I want to look at where that actually came from.

does she, Michael?

because here's what it looks like when El tastes an Eggo for the first time. here's the moment of origin!!! drumroll!!!:

😐

Eggos are first established as a Mike thing. he's absolutely wolfing them down at the breakfast table, to the point where Nancy and Karen are both giving him weird looks. they don't know he's doing that because he's eager to go check on the feral child camping in his basement, and might both just mistake this as a sudden unexplained enthusiasm for Eggos.

I really wanted to see whether the whole family was eating Eggos or just Mike, but the scene is shot so that you can't see what's on Ted's or Karen's plates. Nancy might also have an Eggo, which she's eating with a fork and knife to let us know she's repressed and also in a doomed relationship.

then Mike hurries downstairs to give one to El and we get this non-reaction that launched a thousand toaster levers.

what part of this reaction should warrant Eggos becoming her whole thing? because if she didn't "!!!!" over her first one, why would she with subsequent ones offscreen?

Mike has no inkling at this point that she likes Eggos, because.. she doesn't. At least she's given no indication that she does.

I don't know if El has ever especially liked the taste of Eggos. I think what she likes about them is Mike. also as far as she knows, they're are a major pillar of a regular people diet. to her, they're a connection to Mike and by extension to the normalcy, safety, and love that she craves.

Next, El shoplifts the Eggos. out of a whole store of options. doesn't that prove she thinks they're delicious? not necessarily. I think it's just because she latched onto the only familiar thing she saw.

she clearly didn't come in here looking for them specifically, she's just hungry and she can tell this building is where food comes from, but she gets in there and is a bit lost because none of this stuff is recognizable as food to her. between Mike and Benny and the lab, she's probably never seen prepackaged foods and doesn't know what to pick, not to mention she literally doesn't have any preferences anyway. she's wandering rather aimlessly until she sees the picture of Eggos by chance and thinks "hey!! those are the yellow circles I ate before!"

side note: notice just to the left of the Eggos she takes, is an alternate blueberry flavor. El has no reason to choose the default yellow out of familiarity because she's never seen what package they come in at all. she didn't even know they were called Eggos, or that they are a frozen product, she just spotted a picture that looked familiar. the actual Eggos pictured on the boxes don't even really look different. did she just choose the kind with the word "home" on the box? :(

she eats her stolen Eggos in the woods, probably not understanding why they're not very good, because she doesn't know they need to be toasted. she's not having a good time. these are the first Eggos she's acquired on her own without Mike providing them, but as she sits there eating them, and missing Mike and all that he represents, she hears him calling her in the distance, reinforcing the Mike-Eggo link.

also wait, I see 4 boxes open, at 8 apiece, is this at a minimum her TWENTY FIFTH dry frozen Eggo she's eating right now?? my poor baby's gonna have tummy trouble in the upside down

remember right before this, Mike and Dustin saw the grocery store with the shattered door and the cops out front and realized it must be El's work? most likely after Mike got El home, he would have asked her what had happened there, and maybe she could have been in a rare mood to actually answer a direct question. Mike, not knowing her real reasons, could only have been like "whoa, you must really love Eggos!" and El, not yet knowing how to evaluate her own likes and dislikes, might have thought, "huh, yeah, I must."

that's what must have happened because the next thing on the Eggo timeline is Mike telling Nancy that El REALLY likes them, despite El never having given any other indication. nobody's even mentioned Eggos for a few episodes as far as I can remember.

Then, when she asks for them, thinking she loves them now, he calls them "not real food". hmm

this is the first (only?) time El mentions Eggos by name. Mike never told her what they were called - she found out for herself at the grocery store. interestingly, much of this scene is of Mike struggling to put a name on romantic attraction or even distinguish it from platonic or familial relationships.

you know how he just gave her the Eggo without explaining what it was or asking if she wanted it first, and without any frame of reference she kinda just assumed she liked it?

I don't see any reason why El would already know what a kiss is or what it means. she lacks the life experience to process whether she's really into this or just thinks she is because... well, Mike seems into it, and he's easily the least abusive interpersonal relationship she's had so far, and he represents normalcy and safety and home, and she's always wanted to be loved and this feels like something to do with that, so... smile??

now believing her to be the world's biggest fan, Mike comforts a distressed El with visions of a future with unlimited Eggos. we know Mike likes feeling needed, in fact he equates it with love itself, so I can see him absolutely eating up the idea of being El's Eggo-provider.

in the same sentence, he re-offers the Snow Ball thing he was talking about earlier when he kissed her. this links Eggos with M*leven, and the idea of him loving her.

then she takes out the demogorgon and disappears to the upside down.

Hopper, too, must discover her apparent love of Eggos when he responds to the shoplift call and the store manager tells him that's all the bald kid stole. so that's what he leaves for her in the woods.

but to El, Eggos are a Mike thing. she doesn't know anyone else knows that she likes them. so she finds this mysterious box with Eggos in the woods - the woods, where Mike found her originally. the woods, where she sat eating Eggos and heard Mike calling to her, and practically the last thing he ever did was promise her Eggos... what can she think but that Mike left them? that after all this time out here cold and scared and alone, that Mike is still looking for her? that there's still hope for her to have a home and be loved?

she stakes out the box and discovers the Eggo-provider to be Hopper, not Mike. that's disappointing, but she reveals herself anyway because she's been Bear Gryllsing out here for I think at least a few weeks in that Nancy dress and she's pretty over it.

Hopper buys her Eggos as a regular treat when they live in the cabin, not knowing she likes them mainly because they're a reminder of the proto-relationship she's desperate to get back to.

they're Hopper's go-to bribe when she isn't speaking to him. it's a strong motivator because she's been stuck in this cabin for like a year dying a slow death of isolation and FOMO. even if she's mad at the new provider, she can't bear to miss out on the Eggos because of what they represent.

it's also what Hopper takes away as punishment, along with the TV, for her sneaking out. these are both indirect ways of taking away Mike (she uses the TV for static to go see him in the void) who she's already upset about having missed out on, because she saw him with Max and thinks she's taken him away, too.

also Hopper's being a dick and threatening to send her back to the lab and stuff, so thinking she has no one left in the world who loves her, she runs away to find her mom and start the life that should've been hers in the first place.

Hopper checks in eventually to apologize and remind her that Eggos aren't real food. she isn't home to hear it.

here she is stealing something to eat from the convenience store with Kali's gang. she takes an apple but then spots the Eggos and decides she'd rather have that than fruit, so again, she was not seeking them out. she would've made a beeline for the freezer section if she was.

this time, she gets sidetracked and doesn't actually leave the store with them. they don't seem quite as important as before.

El spends most of season 2 forcibly and unhappily separated from Mike, which yields probably the Eggo-heaviest season as she clings to them as a connection to their relationship.

she then spends most of 3 separated from Mike as well, except this time by her own choice, happily, and wouldn't you know it, the season is a pretty dry spell for Eggo references. she's having the time of her life hanging out with Max and learning about herself, and doesn't miss the relationship.

she uses this freezer's hum to go void-watching, and oh, what's this? a row of Aunt Jemima brand frozen waffles encroaching on the Eggo display? she's branching out. there's more to life than stupid Eggos.

the party uses and eats and loots anything they wanted from this store, and this is her best ever opportunity to steal some sweet sweet yellow circles. in fact, she's sitting in front of the exact freezer where she grabbed all her little arms could carry in season 1. the coast is totally clear, and there are even more in stock now.

she doesn't even touch one box.

season 4 starts off with this Mike toaster shot paralleling the one in season 1 for what other reason than to Eggo-bait us?

Mike's outwardly eager to get on with his spring break trip and go see El, but the fact we're prominently shown him toasting two pop tarts instead of Eggos hints at a different goal he may or may not be aware of. I don't mean this to be a byler post, but I know that's what yall are going to say and it could sure work for that, but at a minimum it hints that Mike's true priorities are drifting from his relationship with El. Mike is also allowed to realize there's more to life than stupid Eggos.

oo look who's learning about other breakfast foods on her own and isn't so concerned with Mike's approval

after the rink-o-mania incident, things are weird between El and Mike and he makes her Eggos as a peace offering. it should be a cute sentimental gesture but also kinda feels a little damning that El Likes Eggos is still basically the only thing he knows about her after how long they've known each other.

the presence of Eggos in the house means that Joyce is keeping them in stock for El, who's been back on her bullshit since ten seconds before she left Hawkins. although to what degree I don't know, it depends how aware she is that she's lying to herself. either she's going through 2 packs a day keeping this relationship alive with lies and desperation, or there's been one box in the freezer awhile growing ice crystals. not sure.

either way, right now she's pissed off and doesn't want them. she never really liked Eggos, but now she's gone too long without getting what they represented, and doesn't even want that anymore.

also what kind of sociopath pours syrup on someone else's Eggos an undetermined amount of time in advance and lets it get all soggy. you gotta do that yourself so it's fresh and you control your own destiny/syrup distribution. are they sitting in a giant puddle of syrup?? boy, how do you mess up EGGOS. this on its own is a dumpable offense.

Mike's idea of El is still "haha Eggo go in, superhero come out" and he looks at them like he just doesn't understand why it's not working. so he tries again like smoothing out a wrinkly dollar bill and trying it in the vending machine again. he brings her the soggy symbolic Eggos she already didn't want when they were fresh.

she doesn't look at them. it's over.

I really believe their relationship doesn't survive this scene.

if this scene went on longer it would've been Mike picking up an Eggo and gently smushing it against her mouth with concern while she stares at him like

also notice Mike isn't having Eggos for breakfast. he and Will are having eggs and toast (real food). he only made Eggos (not real food) for her. he's trying to give El something he doesn't really even want himself.

also what do you wanna bet Will got that syrup out for himself and Mike to put on their eggs and then Mike didn't take any and put it on El's Eggos instead.

Anyway, post fight-or-possible-breakup, El ends up at this diner with Owens. she has to have discovered a second kind of food that she likes by this point in her life, but she peers at a menu on the wall for a moment and recognizes something familiar, a lot like at the grocery store, and orders "waffles, please." she is, after all, in a pretty scary situation here - arrested, dragged off in handcuffs, federally kidnapped in the middle of the desert, and put sorta back in custody of her lifelong abusers. she kinda broke up with Mike, but it's still her habit to look for the comfort of familiarity.

on the surface it's worth a chuckle because El Loves Eggos and waffles are the closest thing to Eggos you can order at a restaurant. but also it's the first time she's ever gone off-brand, isn't it?

waffles are the real food that Eggos are a junk imitation of. she wants real love, and symbolically, this is her letting go of her notion of Mike being her only option for that.

five seconds later she chooses to immediately embark on her self-discovery journey which she's been clearly warned may result in her never seeing her friends again.

she doesn't stay for the waffles at all. showing that not only has she left Mike behind, but romance, period, is not her priority at this time.

later at Surfer Boy we see what it looks like, by the way, when El really does like the taste of something. here's the !!! reaction I've been attributing to Eggos that never actually happened.

Mike is there to scowl and insist that pineapple on pizza is both insane and blasphemous. El knows how to like what she likes now, and she (on a good-natured level of course) couldn't give less of a shit whether he approves. in fact she tries to force feed it to him. the growth.

ps, she was about to codify their breakup before they got pizzablocked.

Mike then lies and says he loves her at emotional gunpoint, killing Max and causing the apocalypse and stuff so the vibes get weird again.

El doesn't talk to him at all after that. and Mike makes no effort to stay near her on the approach to Hopper's cabin, which he should realize is an emotional moment for her.

our final Eggo reference is this old box in the destroyed cabin, looking like a relic of the past. Nancy finds some cleaning supplies and everybody starts sweeping and picking up trash.