#vs el also knowing how people with powers are treated and doesnt want her friend under fire like that

[clericbyers]

god your tags are EVERYTHING on that post of mike pep talking will vs el. like the speech he gives about how everyone is push her powers too far feels SOOO hypocritical bc he really does just treat her like a means to an end rather than a member of the team. ((dare i say, he treats will like a party member, a friend and ally who he fights along side VS the way he treats el like an npc with a helpful skill set? i'm not saying he thinks she's expendable, but she doesn't have his full trust...)

[ my tags for reference: #mike does not trust el!!!, #its so weird!!, #he wants to be with her but he lies to her and treats her like a tool bc he doesnt trust her ]

hot take below:

It’s absolutely hypocritical given when Mike first met El and found out she could find Will, he used her as a weapon to get Will back. Her powers were cool and awesome to all the kids and her abilities lead to Mike quickly trusting her given she was his direct line to getting his best friend back. Their quick bond was built on the foundation of “friends don’t lie”. When Mike thought she broke his trust by lying to him about Will being alive after the Party saw the body dragged out the quarry, he was furious. He didn’t want to talk to her at all. And he flipped out in ST2 when Hopper lied and kept her hidden the whole time and when she went to the gate. Mike, even though he is quick to lie himself (and is bad at it at that), does not like being lied to. He thrives on trust and loyalty, he is a better person when he’s with people he trusts, such as the Party in full.

Mike likes El’s abilities and her kindness and loyalty but he does not trust El fully. He does not trust her being outside, he does not trust her being with anyone but him when he can have some semblance of control over her and know that what she’s doing when with him is something he can trust. When she’s with Max, who Mike also does not deem trustworthy, he flips out because now there’s something happening between them (“[Max] is conspiring against me! She’s corrupting [El]!”) that he can’t put his faith in. When El reveals she spied on the boys, Mike is furious and very hung up on the fact. El using her powers on him is breaking that fragile trust. He likes her powers when it benefits him but when they are used on him? Mike is not here for that.

When Mike points out that they shouldn’t use El’s powers like a weapon, he’s absolutely only protesting because Max mentioned it (ignoring how this was El’s idea in the first place), because he wants that control back. Max repeatedly points out that this is all El’s decision, that the spying was El’s decision too, and Mike refuses to believe that. He does not trust that El is capable of deciding things herself. Max points out that El saved the world twice and Mike still doesn’t trust her. Mike only spits back, “You wanna talk about trust, really? After you made Eleven spy on us?” And quick note here how Mike calls her Eleven here, not El, not Jane, but Eleven. (Max does as well during this argument.) Eleven is the name she was given when she was a weapon used by the scientists in the lab. This screams that he literally only sees her as a tool at this moment.

Mike says all this about innocent, playful spying but he was very insistent 8 months ago that Will spy on the Mind Flayer even though the Mind Flayer was using Will to spy back. He used Will’s connection as a tool but he never treated Will himself like a tool, he positively referred to him as a spy and flipped the situation around to be a good thing. He put his faith and trust in Will’s connection to the UD/MF. Mike promised they wouldn’t let the MF have Will but he makes excuses for why El shouldn’t use her powers, why she shouldn’t connect to the MF through Billy, even though she frankly has more control over her powers and her experiences in the Void than Will did being a spy against/for the MF.

Also look at how Mike maintains eye contact with Will vs El!

“Mike, I need you to trust me.” Mike firms his lips and looks down, breaking eye contact because he can’t do it. He looks over at Max and doesn’t say anything until she gives him a face and he rushes to say, “Yeah, just be careful.” His eyes are darting to the side and he’s fidgeting with his fingers as he pulls away from her grip on his hand (a grip that she initiated). Mike is unsure and nervous and he doesn’t trust that she’ll be safe doing this. He doesn’t trust her faith in her own powers.

“What if he figures out we’re spying on him? What if he spies back?” Mike quickly turns to face Will and maintains steady eye contact for the rest of the exchange. He is sure, he is confident, he believes Will can do this. He places his hand directly on Will’s, keeps it there, and states, “We won’t let him.” This is a group effort. Will is not alone in this. Mike says this so strong and firm, so powerful, that even the audience believes this plan will work.

In both situations, the MF finds out where they are through the connection to Will and El. Mike goes about this problem with Will by hiding Will in the shed for when he wakes up (so Will doesn’t know where he is and thus the Mind Flayer doesn’t either). Joyce, Jonathan, and Hopper are with him to support Will when he wakes up. Mike goes about this problem with El by...chilling in the cabin with the rest of the Griswold Family literally doing nothing until the MF comes to find them. Will touches his neck and says “he knows we’re here,”...like? of course?? lol and then even with the battle in the cabin against the MF’s meat machine, it’s mostly just El doing all the work, though kudos to Nancy and Lucas especially given he was the one who hacked the appendage off the meat machine and freed El.

Point is...your party member vs NPC with helpful skill set analogy is spot on. Mike treats Will with his own autonomy and trusts him to fight alongside him while El is useful for certain moments according to him and while he does have a point about not knowing her limits (and knowing personally that her powers could kill her), he still only brings it up for his advantage to gain the upper hand against Max and try to control how El uses her powers because he doesn’t trust her with them.