#i just didn't outwright say it but thats- it is in fact my point

[dinitride-art]

Accusing Michael Wheeler of Being a Main Character in Season 4 (and an unreliable narrator)

The first scene in season four is Mike reading El’s letter. Now, cinematic parallels and tropes are used in different types of media to convey a message that the audience can read. It is not that the creators of the media necessarily took inspiration from these, but that the commonalities are there because they are saying the same thing to the audience. Normally in scenes like this, it’s a montage of sorts that includes a character actually writing the letter- or some indication of them having written it visually- and then the character reading it at the end. When the letter scene happens, El is not seen writing. The point of the scene is to convey a harsh juxtaposition between what El is telling Mike and what is actually happening. What’s important about this is that it is showing what Mike sees and what he doesn’t, which furthers the theme of light and dark in this season. Will in the light, Mike in the dark. We can see what Mike doesn’t, he can’t. In the airport scene, we have to find out from El that they’re having problems. The card on the flowers is only brought up by El. Mike has been ignoring it, so we don’t see it. Even then, El literally has to spell it out for us when she’s yelling at Mike in her room. We’re confused at first and in the dark because our narrator is being unreliable.

              The scenes with Mike in them are centered around the mike. At Rink O’ Mania he’s placed in the middle of Will and El when they’re sitting down and putting on their roller skates. On the ride home, he’s in the middle again, looking forwards, while El and Will look out of the windows. This positioning flips back and forth between Mike and El. When El is the main focus of the scene she’s in the middle of Mike and Will. Like when she hit Angela in the face, and Mike asked, “What did you do?” We, as an audience, know that right there she’s the main one driving this section of the story. It’s the same when they’re at the dinner table later, El framed in the middle while Mike and Will are on her sides. She’s the central focus there, where as Mike was the central focus when he was in that positioning as well. It’s the same as the end of the season where Mike, Will and El are in the middle of the ending shot. Those three are going to be important in the final season. But also, Will is framed in the middle in the scene right before that which further indicates his importance later on.               

 The way that we see Mike for most of this season is through a very neutral gaze. Unlike will, who we see covered in light, or El who we see in somewhat sinister tones (like at rink o’ mania following Mike’s gaze from Argyle and Jonathan arriving to El. Then we zoom in and see she’s just scared, but Mike’s perspective of her is very interesting) and in distress, we see Mike exactly as is. We have nothing to go off of because there isn’t looking at something happening to Mike, it’s just happening and Mike is leading the way. Mike’s scene’s tend to show his reactions to what’s happening but not much of an indication of his actual thoughts and opinions. The most we’ve got of an honest look inside his head is when he talks to Will when he apologizes and in the van when they talk about El.                

Mike has been described as “oblivious” by many different characters in the series. Most - if not all- of them being his close friends. We can’t see shit because Mike can’t see shit. What is Mike thinking? What is he feeling? He sure as hell doesn’t know.                

Or, he has the inclination that something is wrong but he doesn’t want to look further into that because he’s scared of what he’ll find. 

The end of season three when El says that she loves him and kisses him. Right there is when he gets scared. He’s still scared when he goes to California and sees Will there. Maybe he doesn’t know exactly why, but it could also be that he doesn’t want to know. Mike and Nancy are better at ignoring things and pretending they never happened than processing them. If you pretend everything’s fine and never bring up any problems then it’s fine, right? We see that with Nancy and Steve and we see it with Nancy lying to Jonathan about if they’re okay.

              Don’t bring it up and you won’t know if you don’t like the answer. I didn’t like Nancy in certain parts of season three when I first watched it because at first glance I didn’t understand why she was acting the way she was, because she, like Mike, is an unreliable narrator. She didn’t tell Jonathan what exactly was going on, she just pushed it away until it imploded. And then she and Jonathan had a fight because Nancy was put into a situation where she couldn’t deal with what was happening and was absolutely miserable. But Jonathan couldn’t understand it and she went into a defensive mode. She and Mike are written very similarly in how they handle situations.

              So, back to Mike. He’s a terrible liar, to himself and others. An unreliable narrator if I’ve ever seen one. But he’s still being shot like he’s the main character, like we’re seeing what he’s seeing. We only get a few outside perspectives on him, and those usually belong to Jonathan, or El when she’s the center of the scene. Most of the time, we are getting Mike’s reaction to the situations put in front of him.

              His reactions just don’t make sense to us. And maybe that’s because they don’t make sense to Mike either. And he’s not ready to deal with that.

#stranger things #byler #mike wheeler #the lights #the byler is implied #i just didn't outwright say it but thats- it is in fact my point #mike wheeler i know what you are #also origional title when i wrote this was 'DEFENDING MY THESIS' #this is directly related to my post about will and lighting #this was also created because I've been going though Mike's scenes in season four #hes drinking main character juice the whole time #I swear #so i wrote this to try and figure out why