I started thinking about conformitygate and I think the entire finale is Mike's Vecna vision.
Early on in the episode, when Max is brought into Eleven's head, Vickie seamlessly vanishes into thin air, and when Vickie finds Max in her trance, a SCREECH sound effect is heard during the transition (the reveal that Max is glitching out).
Not every scene has this. Ironically Vickie also seamlessly vanishes for the rest of the finale, indicating the possibility that the rest of the finale isn't actually reality, or at least happening in someone's mind.
But when does the finale switch to someone's mind (and cease being real)?
I think the Stranger Things twitter account already told us.
The black screen.
Black screens are typically used in the show to emphasize that we're entering someone's mind. Watch any time Eleven uses her powers, the screen goes black. It happened at 16:22 in the finale, when it faded to a black screen to indicate that we were entering El's mindscape and then Henry's memories.
(This is all still actually happening, btw. This isn't a vision, yet.)
After this, there's a sequence of events, multiple things happening at once. Vickie and Max being discovered by the military (and we never find out what happened to them), Hopper's countdown, El/Max/Kali finding Henry and stopping the world merging, and the Hawkins crew about to be crushed by the radio tower. This all happens simultaneously.
Eleven shatters Vecna/Henry's connection to the kids and frees them (he loses Holly), at the exact same time that the tower cracks and Steve slips off the tower. And then?
He lets go and it goes black. For a long time. Then we hear a sharp screech, like a transition, and we're back to the same exact moment, except now Jonathan has heroically saved him. YAY!! So we don't realize what's actually happening.
We're inside someone's mind, and that ominous screech?
That's right, it's a Vecna vision. But whose mind are we in? Mike's.
He's the key. The missing piece of the puzzle. "Eyes on me!" The final shot of the entire show is Mike in the basement.
But how do we know for sure that this is Mike's vision? Because after that screen, everything goes to shit and Mike's character starts to change rapidly. That's where conformitygate comes in.
First, let's look at Mike pre-black screen (which I'm gonna call BS for now).
2:16: Mike and Eleven part ways at the van, and this is the Mike we know and love. He's sweet, encouraging, he gives her a comforting platonic hug. But it also gave me the impression that this was going to be the last time they ever saw each other. And in a way, it was, if we assume that their later interactions weren't actually real.
11:36: Mike and Will talk on the radio tower. Even though the best friends thing was dumb, Mike was still acting mostly like himself. He was nervous, messing up, offered Will his own water bottle. It's sweet, buzzy, typical Byler fare. He assures Will that he's not going to lose him because of Will's feelings.
19:16 (just minutes before BS): Will and Mike finish each other's sentences and we get this look, a typical Mike looking at Will moment. No other words to describe it tbh.
At 21:26, BS happens and the next time we see Mike, Nancy and Robin hug, celebrating that we're alive. Typical celebration moment, albeit with a bit of a random group, but ok.
But I noticed, while everyone's celebrating, Will is seperated and at the back, and Joyce seems to be furiously saying something to him. He is totally still, he didn't hug the party, just stands there. We never hear what Joyce is saying.
What follows is a series of generic writing, heavier focus on fan favourite characters like Steve and Nancy, cheesy dialogue, and over the top fight sequences that feel more like a DND campaign than a real episode of the show. Inconsistencies, plot holes, but more importantly, Mike's character becoming way more El focused out of nowhere, and abandoning Will. Even their friendship is slowly wrecked. This has all been talked about to death, so I'm going to focus on three more things:
1.Montages appear frequently post-BS, and my sister (@steve-needs-a-hug shout out) said it reminded her of how Vecna can just peruse through your memories, flipping through them like a montage. And there are a lot of these, including a Mileven one.
You know what else is interesting?
When Mike enters Eleven's mind, there's no black screen. He seamlessly falls into it, like how people in Vecna visions can go from one thing to another with ease.
2. Mike's character becomes so useless during the post-BS portion of the finale, to the point where his little sister is more heroic than him. He becomes the butt of the joke. This could be Vecna preying on his insecurities, telling him that he's useless in an attempt to break him.
3. His worst fear comes true. He becomes like Ted, all his friends have moved on without him, and he's stuck alone and repressed, telling their stories but never creating any of his own. He loses Will. He loses Eleven.
Vecna shows you your worst fear realized.
So, if my Mike theory is true, what's happening in real-life? What actually happened?
Mike went into a trance during the tower collapse.
At the same moment that Steve almost falls to his death, and Holly breaks free of the connection, Mike's eyes roll back and Vecna shows him and us the rest of the finale. Because the show has been emphasizing that Byler is the key to defeating Vecna, not El being a superhero. That's just what Mike falsely believes. In order to ACTUALLY defeat Vecna, Mike needs to confront his fears and accept who he is. NOT conform like in the vision. Vecna is trying to break him but he needs to fight that.
If we're operating on this theory, then we don't actually know what the true ending is, perhaps to allow us a chance to create our own. So, idk about y'all, but that's exactly what I'm gonna do.
The El thing. That El is NOT a superhero but just a person. That was the entire point.
I like this timeline because it always struck me as odd how before this point in the episode now that you mention it:
Hopper tells El she deserves to see the other side of this. Not just to win the battle but to see the other side. It is what I have ALWAYS said about her character and why dying in the finale doesn't work for her. Even ambiguously. They said it OUTRIGHT.
