tumblr things ⇒ stranger things

EL IS NOT BAD

themikewheelers

[you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't wanna. just read my "a/n" at the end for a summary]

Times Eleven has hurt people:
The bad men in the lab, in self defense
The bad man at the school, in self defense
When she threw Lucas, an accident she couldn't control and felt awful for
The guy in the woods, who she needed his jacket and hat TO SURVIVE
When Max fell off the skateboard, which was an emotional response El probably feels super guilty for
The guy in the store holding the gun to Kali, and El did it to protect Kali
The guy from the lab Kali's gang went after, when El was being manipulated to hurt him and couldn't even go through with it because she felt so bad
The ONLY TIME El purposely hurt someone was Max, but somehow y'all are trying to act like El is the same as Kali, a grown adult (we don't know her exact age but on the original casting call it said she was 30, and the actress who plays her is 24) that runs a literal murder gang. Kali murdered so many people, and no one say she was just getting revenge against her abusers, because she wasn't, she was killing absolutely anyone associated with the lab, and in the process she also took advantage of the people around her. I forget her name, but there was that one TEENAGER in her gang who had escaped from a mental hospital that Kali tricked into joining. The whole point of including Funshine say how Kali "saved" him was to show how Kali manipulated lonely people and got them involved in awful things by making them feel like she loves them. She said herself to the other gang members that she only wanted El to join so they could utilize El's powers (which is uhh exactly what the lab wanted out of El) and Kali literally forced El to confront Brenner, her ABUSER, and started messing with her mind trying to convince her that Brenner was gonna come after her all in some messed up way of trying to manipulate El to stay. Are you seriously gonna compare all of this to a 13 year old girl who was upset and jealous so she made another girl fall off her skateboard? El definitely wasn't right to do that to Max, but she is in NO WAY like Kali, not even close. Hell, even characters like Steve, Jonathan, Mike, Lucas, etc. are way more violent than El, they've all gotten into actual fights before. What El did is basically the equivalent to a little kid pushing another kid down on the playground. Kali, on the other hand, was abusive and manipulative and a literal MURDERER. The fact that she was abused herself doesn't justify her actions whatsoever. Bad things happening to us doesn't justify us becoming bad people.
So I don't want to hear ANYTHING ELSE about how El and Kali are the same. They really aren't, not whatsoever.
I'm not saying Kali wasn't interesting or that's she's irredeemable or anything, but she was an awful person in s2, and people seriously need to stop trying to justify her actions bc of what happened to her in the lab. Instead of comparing her to El, we should be acknowledging that El is the OPPOSITE of her. El went through the exact same awful things that Kali did, but she's still a good person and she has so much compassion, and yeah she's hurt people before, but it's been almost entirely in self defense and she feels so guilty for it (calling herself a "monster") and it's not whatsoever the same as the way Kali has hurt people. The Duffers said themselves that Kali and her gang is supposed to be like the Dark Side in Star Wars, and they were included in El's story to show how El made the decision to turn away from all that.
Kali was a very intriguing and interesting character to watch, but she was NOT a good person, and she's ABSOLUTELY nothing like El.

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overall message of this rant is that eleven is nothing like her "sister". she did everything to either survive or in selfie defense. she isn't a bad person like kali. she intentionally hurt max because of her emotions. that was all, so please don't compare el to kali, a person who intentionally hurts people for revenge.