Why the Stranger Things finale didn’t kill off any main characters, according to the creators

This article contains spoilers for the “Stranger Things” finale.

Many viewers were surprised and even upset that no major characters died in the “Stranger Things” finale. Now, creators Matt and Ross Duffer have revealed that while they considered killing off some characters, it seemed antithetical to the show’s coming-of-age themes.

The “Stranger Things” finale was a conflagration of questionable decisions from the writers and unreasonable expectations from a devoted fan base. The Duffer Brothers had so much to do with the latest installment of their obscenely popular series that they were never going to be able to wrap it all up to the satisfaction of all viewers. But there is no doubt that they also made some very strange decisions, simply refusing to explain the fate of several “Stranger Things” characters to apparently completely forgetting that Demogorgons were a thing.

But what might be one of the most glaring missteps is the fact that the series escaped the most obvious character deaths. For a long time, fans expected the Duffers to kill off major characters in the finale, but in the end, the only big death was that of Linnea Berthelsen’s Kali Prasad. Kali was brought back after her appearance in Season 2, only to be shot by Lieutenant Akers (Alex Breaux) before bleeding out (during this time, she may or may not have cast an illusion to help her old pal Eleven escape).

Since fans have demonstrated how devoted they are to these characters, you would have thought that the lack of major deaths would have been fine. This is not the case. The fans were furious and the Duffers have now addressed them directly.

Speaking to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Duffer Brothers conducted an in-depth post-mortem on “Stranger Things” and its divisive finale, answering lingering questions and addressing fan concerns. One of those concerns was, of course, the lack of major character deaths in the finale, which Matt Duffer said boiled down to the fact that “Stranger Things” is at its core a coming-of-age tale. As the co-creator says:

“The percentage of time spent talking about death and dying of characters is really low, you know, because that’s not what the show is about. It’s an adventure, a coming-of-age story. We definitely could have killed people; that’s just not what we want to do, and that’s not, to me, what the show is, or what the show is about.”

Matt Duffer then explained that he and the writers considered killing off the main characters, recalling how they explored every possible outcome to see which would work best. “You explore everything,” he said. “Because why not? As much as possible, you want to explore every avenue possible in terms of the direction of the season and the series, and you try to land on what works for you.” Obviously killing off one of the main cast didn’t seem right, but given how much this main cast has expanded, surely someone should have thrown in a kickoff? Even Eleven, who seemingly sacrificed herself, received an ambiguous ending (which “Stranger Things” fans are of course furious with).

There’s no doubt that if the Duffers had killed someone, it would have upset a whole other contingent of fans, so they were kind of screwed anyway. However, poor Kali surely deserved better.