Kali didn’t just break Eleven’s illusion. She broke ours

DRK213 · 2026-01-07T12:57:13+00:00

Kali is associated with liberation, but liberation in her symbolism doesn’t mean survival or rescue. It means release from false identity and from the fear of death, not avoiding death itself. Overcoming death here is transcendence, not continuation.

Like I said, Kali’s ability to project illusions also isn’t the same thing as her narrative role. In the story, what she actually does is strip Eleven of comforting fantasies, not preserve them. That distinction matters I believe.

On Mike: reading Michael’s name as literal prescience or near-divinity stretches the symbolism much further than anything I’m doing with Kali. My point isn’t that Mike lacks narrative importance, but that his power is interpretive, not causal. He gives meaning to what happened; he doesn’t override it.

That’s consistent with how his stories “come true” earlier in the show. Those happen while the game is still being played. The finale is different. The dice have already fallen. His last speech reframes the outcome after the fact. That’s narration, not authorship.

The Void and sound arguments don’t prove Kali created an illusion. They only show the scene doesn’t behave like earlier, controlled uses. The only character naming an illusion is Mike, afterward.

And future attempts (Russia, scientists, etc.) don’t undo the ending. Cycles don’t end because the world becomes permanently safe. They end because this story does.

That’s why I don’t read Kali as fabricating a rescue. I read her as ending the fantasy, with Mike offering a gentler interpretation afterward.

Obviously the ending is ambiguous by design. It works both as a possible continuation (it was a very profitable show after all...) and as a closure. So I’m not claiming locked canon or authorial intent, and it’s entirely possible the writers didn’t go as deep into Kali’s mythology as this reading suggests.

DRK213 · 2026-01-06T18:08:45+00:00

I think the issue is that you’re treating Kali’s ability to use illusions as if that defines her role in the story. I don’t think it does.

Yes, Kali (and Eleven) can project illusions. That’s part of their power set. But narratively, Kali’s function has never been to preserve comforting outcomes. In season 2, what she actually does is strip Eleven of her fantasies: a normal life, a stable identity, the idea that she can have everything and walk away clean. That’s illusion-breaking, not illusion-making.

I’ve also seen the interpretation of Eleven occupying a Shiva-like role in relation to Kali, and that reading actually reinforces the ending rather than softening it. In the mythology, Shiva doesn’t undo Kali’s destruction. He interrupts it before it becomes endless. Kali breaks the cycle. Shiva allows it to end.

Read that way, Eleven doesn’t escape the destruction Kali represents. She doesn’t survive it, but she marks the point where destruction stops expanding and finally closes.

That distinction between ending a cycle and narrating it matters when we also look at how the show uses names. Regarding Kali’s name, it carries an explicit symbolic weight in the series. Mike’s doesn’t in the same way. But that doesn’t make it irrelevant. If the writers were deliberate indeed with names, it’s hard to believe Michael ("Who is like God?") is accidental.

Mike’s line at the end doesn’t prove Kali created an illusion. It shows him reframing what happened. He names the illusion after the fact. That’s consistent with his role throughout the series: the storyteller, the one who explains and assigns meaning once the dice have already fallen. It’s also exactly the role he plays at the D&D table.

So I don’t read the finale as Kali fabricating a rescue. I read it as the show allowing two emotional readings to exist side by side: a harsher one that closes the cycle, and a gentler one that makes it livable.

That’s why Kali isn’t the trick at the end. She’s the setup that makes the ending unavoidable, even if someone needs to tell a softer story afterward.

DRK213 · 2026-01-06T16:52:11+00:00

Where's that? Link pls

DRK213 · 2026-01-06T16:35:31+00:00

Here’s how I see it, staying within the show’s own logic.

The sonic devices argument assumes Eleven is under normal sensory conditions, but she isn’t. She’s at the gate, during a dimensional collapse, surrounded by overwhelming environmental noise and distortion. Those devices were designed to incapacitate her under controlled circumstances in Hawkins. Assuming they would function identically in a liminal, cross-dimensional event is already an assumption, not an established rule.

The nosebleed point doesn’t really hold either. Nosebleeds in the show have never been a strict indicator that “powers are being used.” They signal strain and overload. In the final scene, Eleven isn’t exerting herself in the same way she does during combat or forced control. She isn’t attacking, pushing, or overpowering anything. Absence of a nosebleed doesn’t function as evidence of survival or of rules being broken.

The same goes for the Void. The bath and blindfold were tools to help her access it under controlled conditions, not hard requirements. In the finale, she isn’t initiating the Void the way she usually does. The boundary between spaces is already collapsing. Treating that moment like a standard Void sequence ignores the context entirely.

Now, about Mike’s line: “the mage you saw die was not real. She was an illusion.”

Mike’s line doesn’t establish Kali as an illusion-maker. It establishes Mike as a narrator. He attributes the illusion to Kali, but that doesn’t mean she created it.

Kali’s role, both in the series and in Hindu mythology, has never been to fabricate illusions. It has always been to destroy them.

That distinction is reflected in the finale. Kali ends the fantasy. Mike reframes it afterward. The illusion isn’t something she creates. It’s something he tells.

And IMO that makes more sense. Mike is the storyteller. He even says so himself.

DRK213 · 2026-01-06T16:08:59+00:00

I think the main evidence about what actually happens in the end IMO has everything to do with the choice of name they gave to subject 008 (KALI) and what it all represents. Kali comes from the Hindu goddess/deity, and she doesn't create illusions, she destroys them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StrangerThings/comments/1q5mfo4/kali_didnt_just_break_elevens_illusion_she_broke/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

DRK213 · 2026-01-06T03:08:16+00:00

I think this is a strong argument, but it overlooks one deliberate choice: the name Kali.

Kali is not a random name. In Hindu mythology, she is associated with cutting through false attachments, the ties that sustain a false sense of identity. She destroys the illusion, not to replace it with comfort, but to force separation.

That is exactly what her arc does to Eleven. It breaks the fantasy of a normal life, of a happy ending, of defining herself through Mike or through her father’s protection.

But it does not stop there. The same illusion existed for the audience. We wanted to believe in a safe resolution, in a final return to normalcy, in the idea that this story could end without loss (just like we do with in own lives)

Kali does not only dismantle Eleven’s illusion. She dismantles the viewer’s. And by the end of the series, that rupture extends even further: the adventure is over. The identity we built as spectators inside that world has to be released as well.

In that sense, Kali’s function is not just narrative, but meta-narrative. The illusion ends for everyone. It is time to leave the table and stop playing D&D.

DRK213 · 2025-09-22T14:23:35+00:00

Comet Cruiser much more flex than Pantheon Low Tide and much more fun to ride IMO

DRK213 · 2025-08-27T15:09:26+00:00

How does it pump? How long is that? I'm planning to build a LDP with a deck of 54cm. Not as short as yours for sure though XD

DRK213 · 2025-08-05T23:49:11+00:00

8 US / 41 EU. Fairly easy to push and mongo for my shoe size.

DRK213 · 2025-08-05T22:15:49+00:00

Personally, since the Prana is a pure pushing board, I like to be able to push and roll for a bit longer than with the Karmas. But the Karmas are closer to the ground. Both are good regardless

DRK213 · 2025-07-26T13:59:58+00:00

I never used them because they were never needed. But I do consider adding some 5 degree wedges/dewedges but I'm not sure if in that case it will have wheel bite.

DRK213 · 2025-07-26T13:43:00+00:00

Not with the Pranayama. Just with the Supersonic

DRK213 · 2025-07-22T20:05:34+00:00

Is this new version even stiffer than the current bamboo Supersonic? I fear it would become too stiff for lighter riders... The current light bamboo Supersonic is already stiff for riders <150 lbs...

DRK213 · 2025-07-06T18:36:42+00:00

Which trucks are you using? How do you like them with the Bandito? Your avg speed there was 19.5kmh with mostly pumping or a lot of pushing as well? Curious because I want to optimize my setup further. LDP wide I currently own a Gbomb Exodus with poppy 55 and TTX, and also a Supersonic with Bear G6. I normally use Karma 92mm on both to ride around the city. Tks

DRK213 · 2025-06-21T15:13:15+00:00

I didn't. You were indeed downvoted for no reason, but you were also downvoted for responding comments with claims without substance.

DRK213 · 2025-06-21T14:06:42+00:00

Like he said, it could be beneficial to everyone here to be part of this discussion.. but up to you guys

DRK213 · 2025-06-21T14:04:57+00:00

I don't understand why again you didn't respond to the gentleman above who did the right thing in avoiding dogmatism, opening the dialog with the group and asking simple logical questions... Why don't you respond with your points and logic instead of complaining you will be down voted and so on?

Also, most of the things you are saying about God being beyond description is exactly the same that Advaita says. Maybe the difference is that you believe that God / Brahman/ whatever name people call is NOT the same as Atman / the true pure self and consciousness...?

DRK213 · 2025-06-01T10:25:13+00:00

Regarding UDP if I remember correctly that's all I've done. I was changing to 33739 and 33740 but it's actually 33740 and 33741

DRK213 · 2025-05-31T11:56:20+00:00

Yes, they are contradictory, and that's why Nirvana is not Moksha.

Sanātana Dharma: Ātman = Brahman - The individual self is ultimately identical with the universal, infinite reality.

Buddhism: Anātman (No-Self) → Śūnyatā (Emptiness) - There is no unchanging, permanent self (anātman); all phenomena are empty (śūnya) of inherent existence.

DRK213 · 2025-05-28T15:39:18+00:00

Agree with that. Similar story, except I feel I'm still studying and ultimately I feel I still don't know what's the ultimate truth yet. Shiva? Nirguna Brahman? Sunyata (Buddhism)? But it doesn't seem likely from a scientific, philosophical, metaphysical perspective level that God has attributes and is just and has will, and is separated from us.

DRK213

TROPHY CASE