A lot has happened over the course of Stranger Things' three season run on Netflix. Characters have come and gone, villains have been introduced and defeated, and couples have gotten together and broken up over and over again. But Millie Bobby Brown's Eleven, the series' central hero, has been a reliable presence from the very beginning, even if her character has definitely undergone many changes and quite a lot of development over time.
When we first meet Eleven in the series' first episode, she's a scared little girl fleeing from unknown dangers. And by the end of the series' third season, she's a brave young heroine embarking on the unknown with her newfound family. Here, we're taking a look at some of the most noticeable ways in which Eleven has changed over the years, and the ways in which she's still that same girl from the first season.
10 Changed: She has more friends
When we first meet Eleven in the beginning of the series, she's lost and alone in the world, on the run from the evil people working at Hawkins Lab. Over the course of the first season, she bonds with the central group of friends at the heart of the series - Mike, Dustin, and Lucas - and helps them find their lost friend, Will. By the end of the season, they're all able to consider her their friend, and vice versa.
Her friendship group grows even more in the series' third season, which finds her developing a new strong friendship with the group's other female member, Max Mayfield. El and Max become particularly good friends as they deal with the brief fallout from their temporarily ended relationships with Mike and Lucas. To see El go from the girl we first met to a girl who has sleepovers and mall shopping trips is one of the most satisfying parts of her journey.
9 Same: She's a badass
El may not be as little and vulnerable as she may have been when we first met her, but she's definitely just as much of a badass as she ever was. Over the course of the series, El has become increasingly fearless when it comes to fighting off enemies both human and supernatural.
No foe is too fearsome or large for her, whether it means grappling with a Demogorgon, her Papa, a Mind Flayer, or a possessed Billy Hargrove. Eleven is incredibly powerful despite her diminutive stature and young years, and that's something that will always be true of the series, no matter what happens.
8 Changed: She has family
Eleven hasn't only gained friends over the course of the series' three season run. She's also found herself in possession of a bigger family than she could ever have expected. In the second season, she's briefly reunited with her biological family, her permanently traumatized mother Terry Ives and her protective but skeptical aunt Becky Ives.
Beyond that brief reunion, however, Eleven has found herself with an even more unexpected family. At the end of the second season, Eleven is officially adopted by Hopper, who wastes no time at all in becoming a fiercely protective papa bear. By the end of the third season, after Hopper's apparent sacrifice, Eleven is now in the custody of Joyce Byers, which gives her new brothers in the form of Will and Jonathan Byers, too.
7 Same: She has a unique style
Given that Eleven didn't grow up in a society like all the other young characters in the series have, her style has always been especially unique. In the first season, she sports a buzz cut as a result of her captivity in Hawkins Lab, and wears hand me downs and costume pieces. The second season finds her sporting an extremely curly haircut and wearing plenty of tomboy-esque, hunting inspired looks as she camps out in Hopper's cabin.
The third season finds her experimenting with style even more as she shops in the new Starcourt Mall with Max, including trying on some flashy colors and loud 80s patterns. But she still often comes back around to her preferred comfortable, tomboy style, though her hair is now much longer and more relaxed.
6 Changed: She speaks more
When Eleven is first introduced, she barely speaks. It takes Benny Hammond bribing her with food to get her to speak at all, and even then, it's scarcely more than a few single word utterances. Over the course of the first season, she learns to speak more, slowly but surely communicating in her own unique way.
Though her speech is still stilted in the second season, she finds her own voice and learns more about the world around her. And by the time the third season rolls around, Eleven's voice is well crafted and her attitude more apparent than ever in her newfound command of language.
5 Same: She's a selfless hero
Given all that Eleven has endured in her short life, it's not at all surprising that she's willing to subject herself to a great deal of trauma, for the sake of protecting those she now cares deeply about. She knows firsthand what it feels like to be tortured, tormented, and experimented upon, and she would do whatever it took to keep that from happening to those she loves.
So with that in mind, it's an understatement, really, to call Eleven selfless. Her inspiring heroism is unyielding, even when no one would ever blame her for wanting to take a break and just be a normal kid for once.
4 Changed: She knows the truth
We've already touched on Eleven's reunion with her biological family, but we haven't yet addressed the immensity of what that reunion meant for her character. In meeting the Ives family, Eleven comes to learn the truth about her birth, her upbringing, and just how evil her Papa Dr. Brenner truly was.
Eleven may have been aware of the horrible surroundings she lived in at Hawkins Lab when we first met her. But the Eleven we know in the series' second and third seasons is profoundly changed by the truth.
3 Same: She still loves Mike
From their first wide-eyed meeting, to their sheepish first kiss, to their shy courtship and eventual hormone-fueled relationship, Eleven and Mike have been consistent in their feelings for and commitment to one another from the very beginning.
The series may have other love stories in the works, such as the teenage romance between Nancy and Jonathan, and the slow burning friendship turned more between Joyce and Hopper. But Mike and Eleven's love has always been the most pure, the most present, and the most reliable.
2 Changed: She lost her powers
Eleven is incredible just the way she is, powers or no powers. But that doesn't make her shocking loss of powers at the end of the third season any easier to come to terms with. When the season ends, Eleven is still struggling with the loss of them herself, as she tries in vain to pull her teddy bear from the closet with her now gone telepathy.
Mike tries to reassure her that the powers will return someday, and we have reason to believe him. It wouldn't be Stranger Things otherwise.
1 Same: She still loves Eggos
You knew this one had to be on here, didn't you? If there's one thing that Eleven has been associated with all throughout the series' run, it's her love of Eggos. Though they didn't feature as prominently in the third season as they did in the previous two seasons, the frozen waffle treats are clearly still important to Eleven's character in many ways.
Hopefully, season four will continue that trend. Nobody gets in the way between Eleven and her Eggos, whether they're triple decker Eggo extravaganzas or not.
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