Did Eleven die in Stranger Things?

Stranger Things season five, volume three finally arrived after much anticipation and one last teaser trailer giving fans a sneak peek at the ending. As promised, audiences got a cinematic, feature-length runtime as the story wrapped up for good and viewers bid farewell to characters they’ve grown to love over nearly a decade.

With the show now wrapped up, many audience members still have many questions about how Stranger Things finally finished, including who died, who made it to the end and whether the Hawkins gang defeated the Mindflayer and Vecna (played by Jamie Campbell Bower) for good while closing the wormhole between the two dimensions. Here’s the lowdown on the Stranger Things grand finale.

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Who dies in the Stranger Things finale?

The body count was surprisingly low in the Stranger Things finale, given that the show is known for killing off beloved characters without hesitation. Vecna and the Mindflayer were killed, with Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) finishing off the evil villain in true style. The gang closed the wormhole between the two dimensions in the process.

Sadly, Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) also died after she was shot by Akers (Alex Breaux) as the soldier threatened Hopper (David Harbour). Tragically, Eleven was unable to save her sister who died in her arms.

Hopper took out several members of the Wolf Pack Unit led by Akers as they launched their assault on them, while Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman). Most crucially though, it also appeared that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) had perished as she seemed to sacrifice herself and end the vicious cycle whereby her powers were exploited.

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Is Eleven dead in Stranger Things?

Eleven’s fate at the end of Stranger Things was left ambiguous. It was thought she’d met her maker, along with the Upside Down, when she chose to stay behind after the bomb was detonated to close the rift. El vanished as the rift closed and everyone, including the army, thought she’d died.

However, Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) had a different theory after hearing distortion on the speakers at his graduation ceremony. Mike told his friends his theory that shortly before Kali’s death, the two sisters had devised a plan. Kali would use her powers to make it look like El had died, but this was just an illusion.

This was Kali’s last gift to her sister before she died and meant that Eleven would never be hunted down again by the military for her powers. Instead, Mike believed El had escaped from everyone by faking her death and was now living somewhere else and exploring the rest of the world alone.

There was a scene of El finding the three waterfalls that Mike had promised to take her to if they both survived. It was unclear whether this was real or just how Mike imagined El’s new life. Although it was a theory, it offered solace to Mike and his friends.

There was also the feeling that Mike wanted to find her one day as he clung on to hope. According to the Stranger Things creators, the Duffer Brothers, it’s up to audiences to decide if El survived or not. Ross Duffer told Netflix ’s Tudum: “[S]he lives on in their hearts, whether that’s real or not.”

The final scene of Stranger Things saw Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) and her friends playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement, signalling the passing of the baton to a new generation. This moment saw the whole of Stranger Things coming full-circle with the show also beginning with the original group playing D&D in the Wheelers’ basement.

Stranger Things season 5 is streaming on Netflix now