#meanwhile milkvan is paralleled to steve and nancy

[byersfanclub]

im so tired of this fandom minimizing wills love for mike ESPECIALLY when the van scene exist .

I simply don't understand how anyone COULDN'T be rooting for will's happiness and for him to get the boy other than they're watching the show through a heteronormative lens. milkvan are toxic, that's just fact. they're paralleled to stancy and other bad or non-endgame couples in media the duffers have stated as inspo for s4 meanwhile byler parallels canon and healthy couples in both stranger things itself and inspo media. will's love for mike is a plot point for a reason and it definitely isn't just for him to be rejected and live with the pain of your first love being your best friend. it simply just doesn't make sense with the way the narrative is written for byler not to happen, and you're literally supposed to be rooting for will, it doesn't matter than mike is "dating" el. ppl still shipped jancy when nancy was with steve and ppl still shipped jopper when joyce was with bob. ppl simply minimize will's love and byler being VERY possible for one reason: mike isn't made out to be explicitly gay/bi even tho queercoding is there, but ppl are too stupid, hence why ppl still couldn't tell if will was gay even after vol.2 dropped but can accept robin is a lesbian because she explicitly states she likes women and we see her visibly pine after vickie (vickie pining after robin too... very similar to byler/milkvan but ppl are more inclined to believe it because robin is explicitly wlw and vickie was obviously brought in as a love interest) BASICALLY if things aren't spelled out for GA members or ppl who just don't think byler will happen in general, then they dismiss it (and just give bad solutions "will can just have a random boyfriend at the end" or "will's arc is about rejection cause it's the 80s" as if the show isn't about interdimensional monsters and shit but ok) I understand the show isn't just about byler, but how is it fair that literally almost EVERY character including ones who only have 1-20 minutes of screen time are able to have romance built into their story/character BESIDES the one mlm MAIN character the entire story is centered around?

this was much longer than I intended but my point stands.

[background-character-341]

Okay, so I've decided to finally write this analysis that's been kicking around my brain for way to long.

Also, just a note before we start: I wholeheartedly believe that byler is endgame and Mike loves Will. Therefore this analysis was written with that in mind. If this bothers you for some reason, keep scrolling.

So, without further ado:

Stranger Things 4 and Romantic Monologues

We all love to shit on Mike's monologue and how it was a complete and utter failure as a declaration of love. We also love to heap praise on the van scene as a romantic moment. But these two aren't the only two romantic monologues in season 4, and if we take a closer look at them, there's a pattern regarding which ones work and which ones don't.

Mike

So Mike's monologue is objectively bad as a declaration of love. There are a million analyses on how bad it is. And it's very bad. Mike is lying the entire time, uses words that are a direct callback to things said to El by her abuser, and has to be prompted by her brother. Not to mention the fact that the entire thing was in response to Will's feelings, not hers. Mike barely pays any attention to what El actually wants, instead giving her what he thinks she wants. Yeah, Mike told El that he loved her. But it was never really about hearing him say I love you. I won't dive too deep into that; go read this post if you want to know more. But the general gist of it is that the only reason El wanted to hear him say I love you was because Mike wasn't making her feel loved. And his monologue didn't fix that because it didn't come from his heart. It was fake and riddled with romantic cliches and had to be wrenched out of him by the image of her choking on the table in front of her. It's very bad.

Steve

So Steve's monologue is technically two monologues, but I'm going to treat it as one for the purposes of this analysis. I absolutely despise these monologues. But we're already off to a better start than we were with Mike, because Steve is being genuine. You can tell because he isn't falling back on romantic cliches or what he's supposed to say in a moment like this. His six little nuggets speech feels genuine because that is how he feels. It's all coming from his heart.

The problem with his monologue, and the reason why I hate it, is that it doesn't take into account what Nancy wants. And we know that she doesn't want any part of the future he's envisioning for himself because she goes out of her way to tell us. She says, "That sounds like a nightmare". She is very clearly not on board with this plan and the writers make sure we know that.

So while Steve's monologue is genuine, we have yet another romantic monologue that ignores what the person on the receiving end actually wants.

Jonathan & Nancy

This one's a bit of an outlier. Technically, it's two monologues: one from Jonathan and one from Nancy. But they're set side by side like a dialogue, so it makes more sense to look at them as one.

Unlike the previous two declarations of love, these two actually take into account the person on the receiving end. They're about their qualities and strengths and what they see in them. We already know they love each other before they ever say it because you don't talk like that about someone you're not in love with.

But this is also the first time we've seen an endgame couple say the word love in relation to each other. And after they both say they love each other, Nancy insists that everything is fine in their relationship, and you can hear the bitterness in her voice. She's lying. And we find out later that everything isn't fine in their relationship, and they are in fact having communication issues. Their monologues did nothing to change that. They did nothing to fix their problems.

The monologues are genuine. We can feel that. We never doubt that they actually love each other. And we can see that in their reunion in episode 9. But they don't address the actual problems they're having. Something's still missing.

Lucas

As they're walking to skull rock, Lucas and Max have one of the most important conversations for rebuilding their relationship in season 4.

Lucas in this scene is reassuring Max with this monologue. Telling her that she doesn't need to hide anymore because he understands that she's going through something hard and he's here for her. It's a monolgue that's tailored to Max's insecurities. When Max tries take on some of the blame for their relationship falling apart, Lucas immediately shoots her down because he knows that she has so much guilt over what happened to her brother, and what she needs right now is someone to tell her that it's not her fault. Lucas tells Max that he sees her because he knows that she has been feeling invisible.

I see you aren't inherently romantic words, but they do more for Lucas and Max's relationship than any I love you ever has for any other relationship in this show, because they are the words that Max needs to hear.

And that's the crux of it really. This monologue works because it's what Max needs to hear. It's about acknowledging her feelings and reassuring her insecurities. It's about bridging the gap between the two of them.

Joyce

Joyce and Hopper have two romantic moments after they reunite: one right after, and then one at the church. The first one is basically Joyce telling Hopper that they missed him and the second one is her telling him that he was worth that whole trip. Unlike Lucas's monologue, they're both much more romantic moments, but they still follow the same basic formula. Joyce is telling Hopper what he needs to hear.

Hopper's main insecurity is that he only brings sadness and death to the people around him. But here Joyce is telling him that that's not true. They missed him. They want him around. She even brings in El as proof of this. And she's telling him that he's worth it. He's worth all that money, he's worth getting captured, he's worth crashing a plane in Russia. He's worth it. And they missed him.

Will

So, finally, the van scene. This scene has been analyzed a million times. I have gone from thinking that Mike is an idiot with rocks in his brain to being convinced that he knew exactly what Will was talking about here. This scene has so many layers, so much to be looked at and analyzed, and there's no way I can do it justice. This is where I direct you to this analysis. Just go read it, it's amazing.

But from the perspective that we're looking at, from the perspective of romantic monologues and why they work in Stranger Things, this one follows the same formula that the last two have. Will in this scene is doing the same thing for Mike that Lucas did for Max and Joyce did for Hopper: he's reassuring Mike. Mike feels insecure in his relationship with El. He feels like he's not important. Like he's nobody, and nobody needs him. And Will is telling him, "No. You are somebody. You are important. You make (El) feel like she's not a mistake. (El) needs you Mike."

The reason Mike is so moved by this monologue is that this is everything he has ever wanted to be told. And for the first time he feels loved. And Will never once said those three words.

I see you, I missed you, I need you. On the surface those words aren't nearly as romantic as I love you. But that's the point. I love you is too general. I love you could be about anybody. But having the ability to look at someone, see the parts of them that they hate, and say that they don't need to feel that way because you're there? That's specific. That's love.

Grand declarations of love don't work in Stranger Things because they don't actually address the relationship. They don't get to the heart of it and tell you what it is about these two people that makes them compatible. And they don't address any of the underlying problems in a struggling relationship. All the I love yous in the world can't change the fact that Jonathan is lying to Nancy about Emerson. They can't bridge the huge chasm between Steve and Nancy. And they certainly can't make Mike and El's relationship less toxic.