Millions and millions of theories have been circulating for three and a half years about what the ending of Stranger Things would be, explained in the videos of almost every content creator in the world who deals with films and series, as well as those formulated, in the mind or with friends and family, by practically all the viewers of this show that made Netflix so popular that it bought Warner Bros. with pennies. Yet, it can be said that practically no one had taken us.

An even more incredible circumstance if we consider that the ending written by the Duffer twins is, upon closer inspection, so simple as to evoke metaphors (“Analogies” Dustin would correct us as he did with Steve) such as Columbus’s egg or the Gordian knot cut by Alexander the Great.

There were those who had hypothesized travels back in time to 11, or to Vecna, to undo everything, and when Henry relived in his memory the not only physical pain of that day in the cave for a moment we even believed it. Unlike that other theory about a time travel from the future of a Dr. Kay who would turn out to be a mature 11.

There were those who were mathematically sure that 11+8+1 would be the 20 foreseen by Eddie as necessary to defeat the true enemy, the Mind Flayer who had misled Henry into becoming Vecna. And again, when Will, unlike his high school friends Joyce and Hopper, had tried to leverage Henry’s good feelings, for a moment we hoped for a decisive last-minute repentance, also because there was still almost an hour left to go when, instead, Vecna ​​ended up under the blows of the ax of the one who had directed him in that school show.

It was at that point clear that it was not possible that the Mind Flayer had been created by the evil mind of Henry/1/Vecna, as some had hypothesized.

Just as, after the release of the not very exciting volume 2, it was quite obvious that 11 could hardly have hoped to beat Vecna ​​without somehow also sacrificing herself and her sister Kali: 8 was right, Kay and those who gave her orders would not have given up on the project of creating new children with super powers using their blood.

Therefore, when we noticed that after the disappearance of 11/Jane there were still almost forty minutes left at the end, we hoped until the end that she would reappear like in the second season. In a final reunion of all of Hawkins’ friends.

Instead, the simple conclusion chosen by the creators of this TV series managed to move and surprise us in the same way.

Why yes, Mike’s flash about the power inhibitors being turned on while 11 was standing in the doorway had even made us hope that in the end she had secretly returned to live in the Wheeler basement, but instead everything ended with a story from D&D Master Mike to fellow graduates Dustin, Lucas, Will and Max.

A story that reassured us about the future of their relationship much more than the typical emotional hangover promise formulated by older adventure companions on that roof, and which, among the hundreds of quotes that Stranger Things is filled with, has, we don’t know, deliberately brought to mind Tyrion Lannister’s speech on the importance of telling stories in the finale of Game of Thrones.

Because it reminded us that, in the end, Stranger Things is just a story that has reached its happy ending.

Luckily, those who believed that this story would end with the revelation that it was all a fantasy, a story in fact, of a Mike shocked by the death of his friend Will were wrong.

Luckily, even those who were ready to bet that Steve (who was exposed by the Duffers just to give us a cuddle, that’s obvious), Dustin (who with the ending of his speech at the graduation ceremony made us more emotional than anyone else), Lucas (able to repel a Demo with a kick in the “face” while holding Max in his arms), Will (who who knows how turned on the lights hung by Joyce in the living room), Jonathan, Joyce, Hopper, Holly, Derek, Murray, again, were also wrong. Steve, Professor Clarke, Erica without whom you can’t write America, Max who had just returned, Vicky or according to some even Enzo from the restaurant of the same name.

In the end the so-called “plot armor” protected all the beloved protagonists of this series, sacrificing only Kali, who has never been a beloved protagonist of this series. And so we reiterate that “everyone” because, being among those who searched for “places with three waterfalls in America” halfway through the first episode of ST 5, we have no doubt that 11/Jane’s longer hair as she arrives at that panorama that someone will surely decipher, if it exists, is proof that our Sorceress of Santa Markovia has indeed managed to escape, with the help of her dying sister Kali, and take refuge in a village far from everything and everyone. Pessimists will say that no, the hair isn’t longer, or that it is only longer in Mike’s hopeful story, but at this point not even the Duffers and Millie Bobby Brown will be able to convince us that 11 is really dead.