#‘shouldn’t ‘show don’t tell’ be an obvious thing?’ sttwt is still debating what a love triangle is

[theoriginalsapphic]

Okay, it's been long enough:

Mike was trying to call Will; not El.

The ending scene in season 3 is about Mike and Will; not Mike and El.

How can I be so sure about it? It’s simply by one of the most basic rules of storytelling: show, don’t tell.

To put into simply terms, “show, don’t tell” it’s a technique which transmits information to the audience through actions, words, subtext, thoughts, senses, and feelings, etc., rather than by straight-up telling the audience through surface exposition.

To use a film that probably everyone is familiar with as an example, in Up it’s showcased how Carl and Ellie were deeply in love with each other through a five-minute wordless montage of their life. Without that scene, even if Carl had spent the rest of the movie saying how much he loves Ellie and how he misses her, the audience would probably had not formed an emotional connection with Carl and his story of love and loss like they did with a five-minute scene.

What’s more effective? Which one evokes a more vivid image in your head?

Sarah was sad, so she started crying.

Sarah laid motionless, tangled in a disarray of bed sheets she hadn’t changed in over a week. Tears leaked down her temples and into her ears, but despite the mild discomfort, she remained frozen, glued to the threadbare mattress.

Show, don’t tell.

So, with that being said…

Why do people believe that the last scene in season 3 is about and Mike and El and mlvn?

Up until here, it could be said it’s debatable whether this is about Will or El; El is in the U-Haul truck with Joyce, while Will is in the other car with Jonathan. Both vehicles are on seen on frame driving away, so it could easily be about either of them or even both of them. also, nice parallel with the season 2 finale, with, once again, both Will and El in different vehicles driving away while Mike is framed in front of the Byer's home.

However, that changes during the length of the scene.

What is Mike afraid of?

But what changes he is scared of? The series doesn’t tell; it shows.

The series doesn’t say aloud that Mike is scared of changes related to Will, but it shows it by having Mike somberly stare at the Byers’ house in this scene. If the series wanted to show that Mike’s emotional reaction in this scene is about El then they would have him look at something that the audience can immediately connect with El, like Hopper’s cabin or Eggos or anything that we would immediately relate to her.

The scene that follows this scene just reinforces that this is about Mike and Will by drawing a visual parallel between the two times that Mike felt like he has lost Will.

And even having a verbal confirmation by Mike himself the following season.

Following this train of thought…

Why do people still think that the phone calls were meant for El?

I’m not going to say that Mike told El that they were communicating through Cerebro, or that they couldn’t talk through the phone because the government may had been spying on them because that doesn’t matter.

What matters is what we were shown in the screen, and we were shown is that… El never complained or even mentioned phone calls. Will did.

El never mentions any phone calls or struggling to communicate through the phone with Mike in the entire season. The whole ‘phone calls’ situation is a topic of conflict brought between Mike and Will; not El.

The series has Will verbally express his discontent with Mike’s lack of phone calls while El never even talks about it, so why would anyone relate ‘Mike won’t stop calling’ with El when she never raised a problem about it?

El later appears in the scene that shows the audience that Mike did try to call, but the series doesn’t focus this scene about Mike and El at all. It focuses on El and Max instead.

The series has the chance to relate Mike’s missed calls with El in this scene. Instead, they show two things:

Missed calls were never a source of conflict between Mike and El but is one between Mike and Will, thus confirming that Mike’s missed calls were meant for Will— not El.

El’s priority is saving Max and not her relationship with Mike, just like it will be in season 5.