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mikesbasementbeets · 2 years

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i’ve been thinking a lot about elmax recently and how it seems like the show is genuinely setting them up romantically, while also consistently establishing max and lucas as a romantic pair

keep in mind, this is the show that has been setting up byler since season 1. they seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to queer coding, so i refuse (for the purposes of this analysis at least) to believe they’re unaware of what they’ve been doing so heavily and blatantly with elmax, and also with max in particular (el too, but i’m focusing on max).

i've talked about why i think mike wheeler is gay. this is why i think max mayfield is bi. and elumax should be endgame.

queer coding of max mayfield

right off the bat: her name. max. just like el was at first, due to her shaved head, max is mistaken for a boy by those who don't know her. first the party, who see the name madmax at the arcade, and later dr. owens in season 4 (he might even assume that she's el's boyfriend). when she's first introduced by mr. clarke using her full name, maxine, she quickly corrects him. it's max.

this leads into the larger point of queer coding around max. her androgynous fashion sense, the way she carries herself, distancing herself from performative femininity, ie, playing video games ("girls don't play video games,"), skateboarding, making friends with an all male friend group, her general "tomboyish" presentation and attitude - all of it reads as heavily queer coded to me. i'm not saying that any of these things is necessarily queer, or mean that a person in real life is queer, but the way it all comes together in max feels like a purposeful character choice.

i'm not an expert in queer coding so there's probably a lot i'm missing, but one of the biggest signs for me is max's constant association with rainbows. the other characters have their color palettes, and max has rainbows. literally. as many times as mike and will have been coded with rainbow imagery, max is drowning in it.

and then there's the most important piece of queer coding... her relationship with el. i'll come back around to that though, because i want to talk about boys first. because clearly, max does like boys.

this shot is largely played for comedic relief, but it actually does something important for the narrative i think. it establishes again, with a max that has (once again) broken up with lucas for reasons she doesn't seem to have really explained, that max is attracted to men. my optimistic reading of it is honestly, "hey, we know what we've been doing here with max, so just in case you were thinking she's a lesbian... she's not." ...or if you want a different fun read of it... max realized she likes girls recently (i'll get to that) and is just making sure she still likes boys. ladies dig it? do they steve? oh, wait, yeah.

she's also talked about other boys with el in the past, showing pretty unambiguous interest in them

(these scenes are still so gay though seriously... "you must be an angel".... contrasting milven's scene where el didn't like mike's singing... rainbowsrainbowsrainbows... talking about kissing and then emulating a spin the bottle game, later introducing el to wonder woman while they're in bed together, waking up together always rainbows come ON)

and of course, the other most important part of this, her relationship with lucas, which is shown continuously to be one of real, romantic attraction. in season 2, this was mostly established through contrast with her relationship with dustin, who also had a crush on her. max and lucas start off by becoming close as friends, and then begin to develop a romantic connection. max and dustin, meanwhile, are established several times as not clicking in the same way that max and lucas do. they have heart-to-hearts that feel intimate and genuine, and, as steve and dustin discuss, are layered with the kind of "electricity" that denotes mutual attraction.

at the same time though, while we understand that it's genuine on both sides, we're shown that max and lucas' relationship is far from perfect.

for a couple that reads as endgame and has parallels with several of the other endgame couples, they also parallel a lot of the obviously not endgame couples. i'm gonna come back around to that too. first, the other thing.

romantic coding of elmax

elmax. honestly, i can't even get into everything i want to, because it's literally everything about them.

first of all, the start of their friendship is byler romantic coded

"i just walked up to you and i asked... it was the best thing i've ever done."

this sequence in particular though. this is. so bi coded i'm going insane. (also rainbows rainbows rainbows)

not hopper, not mike. you. (there's more to life than stupid boys. *HOLDS HER HAND*)

the next sequence is also pretty gay imo but is also kinda just gals being pals, so i'm gonna focus on the song, Material Girl by Madonna. this is definitely meant to be about eleven here, finding herself, away from mike (and it's also just a great shopping montage song), but the shot layout also subtly indicates that it applies to max and lucas too.

"some boys hug me, some boys kiss me, i think they're okay." and what about girls, max? what do you think of them? el? opinions?

(the clothes are emulating a literal rainbow flag behind her ok red yellow blue green purple and max is the orange she's part of the flag like shut UP i can't do this anymore)

and. okay. look, i'm not going to fully explain this one but i need to point it out.

getting back at the straight girl bullies (shown flirting with a boy) in front of a burger king. max taking off her sunglasses (we've talked about the symbolism of mike's shades in season 4) as they run away holding hands. taco bell coming soon. "there's more to life than stupid boys." like. am i reading way too much into this? (yes)

even back to their first meeting though, i'm seeing the seeds being planted. go ahead and read this as purely platonic admiration if you want, i don't care, but there's no way in my mind, especially after seeing seasons 3 and 4. like imagine you're a young bi teenage girl who's been hearing stories about this awesome girl with superpowers who saved everyone's life and then mysteriously disappeared, and then she suddenly mysteriously reappears, saves your life too, and walks in looking like this

personally, my tiny gay heart would stop.

yeah

but let's actually move on to season 4 for a minute.

season 4 was setting up canon bisexual max

i'm going to argue something here that i don't have a ton of actual evidence for: i think one of the reasons max broke up with lucas after season 3 is that she realized her feelings for el. max's arc in season 4 is all about her dealing with the trauma of last season, and guilt for her role in what happened. the guilt is extremely important to this. it's a big part in why vecna chooses his victims: not just kids with trauma, but kids who feel shame surrounding their trauma. most of that for max obviously has to do with billy's death. but i think there's something else that max is dealing with too.

as soon as i started season 4 i was struck with strong “queer max” vibes. first of all, her more feminine and rainbow splashed outfits from season 3 have been replaced again with the more tomboyish, androgynous style of season 2. and then there's the first sequence we get to running up that hill (which starts, funnily enough, on a scene of el walking down the hall at school, upset). the first time i watched this i was literally shocked because it read so explicitly queer to me.

first, max looks at group of girls (thinking about el, most likely)

her gaze trails after them, and then, next shot, max looks at a couple kissing

and then max looks at lucas

only after watching it again did i realize it didn't necessarily have to be queer coding (if you take it as max missing her friend and then, separately, her ex-boyfriend) but holy shit, if that's what they meant, they did NOT have to put the couple making out in between those two shots, with further shots of max looking away almost guiltily. we all know that lucas was max's boyfriend. they didn't have to precede that shot of him with the shot of the couple. that's already their established dynamic (and we haven't even learned at this point that they've broken up).

what's not been established yet though, is the idea of max and el as a couple. and i think..... that's possibly what's being hinted at here through max's perspective. the sequence of shots is so telling: 1. girl friends, 2. couple kissing, 3. ex-boyfriend. guilt. what i'm getting from this sequence of shots is that max's friendship with el is something she's thought about in a romantic light. max is making this association. and feeling guilty about it when she looks at lucas. whom, despite their closeness still at the very end of season 3, months after starcourt, she has since broken up with. the reason the show establishes for this is that max has been pulling away from everyone since billy's death, dealing with the fallout in her family, her mother's emotional absence and alcoholism, etc, and her own grief, guilt, and trauma around it. that makes perfect sense, and i'm not saying it's not true. but i think el moving away was also a factor.

it wasn't until season 4 that max was shown to have really pulled away, after el moved to california. maybe it's a reach, maybe it's nothing, but max as a character is so similar to mike, who was shown to have exactly this response to the byers' moving away: isolating himself and pushing away his friends, suffering his depression alone, and talking to no one about it. meeting el in season 3 showed us a new, bubbly happy side to max (that, yes, probably also came from the rest of her friendships and lucas, but el's is the one we were shown). max and el spend almost the entire season together, and max is undoubtedly going to be affected by her best friend moving away. especially if, like mike, it feels like she's losing more than a friend.

it's not just those shots though. when lucas tries to talk to her later, telling her he knows something's wrong... as soon as she turns around, there's a rainbow.

"right, yeah, there must be something wrong with me because i broke up with you."

then in dear billy, lucas confronts her again. and the language reminds me of karen's speech to mike in season 1. and jonathan's to will in season 4. "you know you can talk to me, right? i'm here for you."

guilt and shame are a big part of max's plot this season. the two characters most associated with that for max are billy and vecna - max feeling guilt over billy, and vecna using that guilt against her.

and those scenes also feel intentionally queer coded to me.

and then there's the dear billy flashback sequence.

while she's trying to escape vecna using her happiest memories, max is also comparing her relationships with lucas and el. they are both friendships. and they are both romantic. she thinks of them in alternating flashbacks. lucas, then el, then lucas and dustin, then el, then max's face, then lucas and dustin, then el, then max's face, and then this particular sequence: lucas, el, mike.

this may a reach, but... if she has feelings for el, she's probably feeling guilty around mike, too. this is the only shot of mike in the sequence. after this, in quick succession, it's lucas, then lucas, then lucas, and then el.

then lucas, then lumix snowball kiss, then max's face, then high fiving el, then her eyes open, and she breaks free

there are more shots of lucas than of el, but that's just the thing: max keeps trying to just think of lucas (because, as shown by the shot of mike, the way she's thinking about el makes her feel guilty, which is the opposite of what she wants), but el keeps coming back in. she thinks of her first kiss with lucas, and then thinks of high fiving el after they "dumped their asses." and that's the shot that breaks her out.

(and the song itself? 1. birthdaygate coded, 2. ROMANTIC. baby, darling, angel. you must be an angel. the voice of an angel saving victor creel from henry, el saving max. i'm reaching again. but. seriously.)

and then the flashbacks in episode 9 (and i'm not even touching el's flashback montage here). it's so difficult to be brief about this because they're literally doing SO MUCH here. i'm might have to make a separate post with every shot in this sequence because it's so good. (edit: here)

literally just. go back and watch the entire thing if you need to, but i need to go through this. elmax is unbelievably romantic coded this episode. there is no getting around it.

max chose the snow ball as her happy memory to hide from vecna in, but it didn't work. when vecna finds her, he says, "you can't hide from me, max." max turns around and, with a determined look, closes her eyes. closing her eyes almost seems like she's trying to keep hiding, but facing the door where venca is feels more like defiance. she's not going to try to hide anymore...

in the first shot, she spins the bottle in her mind, and her memories flicker from her first time meeting lucas, to the movies with lucas, to the start of her friendship with el, back to the spinning bottle, and then. the last two shots repeat. movie date with lucas, el approaching her in the street. but the lucas shot flickers shorter, and the el shot lingers, and then it's max's mom tying her hair too tight for the snow ball.

like maybe... this wasn't her at her happiest. forced conformity is killing the kids, right?

and the bottle flickers in again and it's el. it's max dancing in el's room, you must be an angel...

and then we come back to max's face and there are rainbows reflecting in the light

"is mike a good kisser?" el laughing, more rainbows

after that, she gets distracted by vecna and broken out of her memories, and when el shows up, max asks,

"are you real? did i make you?" she was thinking so strongly of her memories with el, she thought that it had worked.... and everything is romantic coded, there's nothing even to argue for here, it's just. there. seriously, like. just watch the episode. it's elmax.

after this the focus goes back to el mostly and it's still extremely romantic but i can't get into it anymore, i need to focus on max.

the way it all ends brings me back to the elumax question again. because right here, i'm clearly seeing elmax/byler vs. lumix/milven. paralleling mike's love monologue failing to help el, lucas' protection, both physically and in her mind, was not enough to save max.

that was el. that was el that saved her. (of course, she saves your life because of "friendship")

el's love for max is what saved her. not mike. not lucas. elmax.

going back to the latter half of season 3... el and max's relationship progressed very quickly through shared trauma, and max is the one there for el all season... and when billy dies, el is the one who holds her.

season 3 also made it clear that max's relationship with lucas wasn't without flaws.

all of the romantically inept things that mike was doing with el? lucas was doing them first, max was breaking up with him, and lucas was later advising mike on how to fix it. and especially by the end of the season, max seems much more like she's in el's corner than lucas'.

why i think it's possible max and lucas might end up as friends

after she's broken up with him in season 4, lucas spends most of the time just trying to be her friend again. he doesn't even seem bothered by their breakup (although we don't know how long ago it was), he seems to really just want her in his life again, to talk to him.

and, yes, they spend season 4 rebuilding the relationship in a way i think would be beautiful to see work out romantically. but i don't think it's inevitable. (remember that they also rebuilt stency this season.... as much as they might like each other, we've been shown in past seasons that their romantic relationship was flawed.)

i wish i could get into all the parallels, because they're the biggest part of what confuses me on the show's endgame goals but i really can't because it would take up an entire post. the duffers love parallels, obviously, it's one of their main narrative techniques at this point. and i think they usually work really well, because they're not trying to show that each of these characters or couples is exactly the same. they use parallel situations to exemplify the small details that make each character and relationship unique.

for example, milven and stency often parallel each other, but they're not quite the same. i don't think mike ever had genuine romantic feelings for el. he thought he liked her, but ultimately he's gay. nancy, on the other hand, did genuinely have a crush on steve (hc her as a lesbian if you want, i fully support that, but i think the show thinks she likes boys). that is the show's example of a teenage crush that sparks and then fizzles, not turning into deeper love.

whereas lumix, which also sometimes parallels these two ships (for example, their habit of sitting across from each other rather than beside. not always though... they're inconsistent), i believe is an example of a love that is real and genuine... but might not be meant to last forever. because in addition to those other two, they also parallel byler, jopper, and jancy, which i believe are endgame ships.

to be honest... all of this makes me believe even more firmly in gay mike too. because unlike mike’s complete lack of romantic feeling for el, or nancy's naive crush on steve, this is a narrative that sets up genuine, but possibly not everlasting love. a bi character discovering her sexuality by falling for her best girl friend while she’s dating a guy she also really likes. i think lucas is max’s first love, but not her only.

however

all this said, i also think it's very likely that lucas and max will end up together, and el might end the show on her own. lucas and max are NOT milven or stency, and whatever flaws they have don't necessarily spell out a doomed relationship. there's a lot of good there too, i just didn't get into it here.

and el's whole character arc has been about family, friends, and finding herself outside of other peoples' influence. i think this could still work if she were with max, since max has always been the most supportive of el's independence and self-fulfillment, but i can really see the show ending with el on her own, and it being a natural and positive conclusion to her journey

either way though, i think with everything they've been doing, they might actually confirm in canon that max and el have romantic feelings for each other (...or indicate it so obviously that they think it’s undeniable and then later confirm in interviews when most viewers don’t get it because they’re too subtle for their own good)

anyway, here's how elumax can still happen

look, i don't really trust the show to be able to pull this off, mostly because it just. isn't something that's done. not in popular media like this. but honestly, it's hard for me to grasp all of this because it feels like the show is telling me that max belongs with both el and lucas. i think most people assume she will end up with lucas after the way their relationship was rebuilt in season 4, and i think that absolutely makes sense. but i truly think elmax has been built up just as much, just a lot more subtextually. it's just that no one expects it to actually happen. 1, because lumix not ending up together would feel pretty disappointing after all this build up, and we don't want to see lucas, who truly loves max, end up alone. especially when max loves him too. and 2, because of heteronormativity - most people assume elmax are only being set us as friends, regardless of whether they're picking up on the romantic coding. and the "norm" is one romantic partner per person. but max needs el just as much as she needs lucas, and the ending season 4 proved that. lucas holding max in his arms, thinking he's alone with her, but then we see that el is actually there too. right alongside lucas. el saved max's life after she died in lucas's arms.

i could just give up and assume that elmax is platonic and they're giving max both a romantic and a platonic love story, but as i've already talked about, max is queer, and her dynamic with el is romantic. (theres so much evidence of this from el's side too that i just didn't get into)

going into season 5, max is in a coma. we already know that lucas is spending his time at her bedside. and i think it's fair to assume, based on el's priorities after the pizza dough freezer, ignoring mike completely to stay with max and lucas, and to revive max, she's going to be very focused on max too.

this is already way too long but i'm almost done, i want to briefly talk about lucas and el's dynamic from season 1. of all the party members, lucas was the most skeptical and deeply wary of eleven. he didn't trust her, and she ended up inadvertently hurting him when he fought with mike. but over the course of the season, they both learned to trust each other, having moments together than felt just as important as el's friendship with mike.

if season 5 is a return to season 1 dynamics, especially seeing the way season 4 left these two characters (sharing the same priority - max), i think lucas and el will spend a decent amount of time in season 5 together, or at least share a plotline (around max?). now that they're finally being given the chance to actually spend time together, i can see them growing much closer next season, maybe even leading to a mutual understanding and acceptance of both of their feelings towards max (maybe even falling in love?). and if max wakes from her coma to discover that the guilt and shame she's been suffering around her feelings for these two people is actually unnecessary, and that they can all be happy with each other, in whatever way they decide, even if other people might not understand?

*slides the duffers $5*

that would be an absolutely iconic ending.

#elmax #max mayfield #byler #honestly though i would sell my soul for canon elumax #if they could pull that off in season 5 i could die happy #also i'm giving the duffers a LOT of credit here i'm just choosing to give them the benefit of the doubt #this got SO LONG i'm sorry #mikesbasementbeets posts

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