Adding This To My Very Tiny List Of Reasons To Like Mike.

Adding this to my very tiny list of reasons to like Mike.

Also adding this to my "Duffer Brothers WHY" list.

Mike is the party’s problem creator, and that is why he is so vital to the party's success.

Let me explain.

I’m not talking about him creating real problems. I’m talking about D&D.

Mike is the dungeon-master. He creates plot. He creates opponents. He creates problems and snares and tricks for the other players to face. We even see in one of the tie-in comics that he plotted out a campaign specifically with the intention to give Will the chance to feel like a hero instead of a victim (the Thessalhydra campaign) after his trauma in the UD, which mean he had to consider skills, inventories, weaponry, opponent strengths and weaknesses, and more, all to funnel toward a scene where Will gets to kill the Thessalhydra without making it obvious and patronizing.

So when it comes to making plans regarding the UD, Mike is brilliant and he is necessary. He’s the one who figures out El is taking about an alternate dimension because he thinks outside the box and isn’t hindered by conventional logic. He considers all sides. He’s the only one to view Will’s True Sight as a power that allows him to become a superspy—a change in perspective that helps Will save Hopper and in turn saves Hop, Joyce, Mike, and Owens at the lab. Only Mike knew Will was a spy and needed to be sedated, and if he hadn’t been there, Spy!Will would have known where they were at all times and the demodogs would have killed them all. Not only that, but he came up with the shed plan and was the first time bring up that closing the gate would kill Will.

Dustin is the one who proposes they distract the demodogs for El and Hop, but here’s the problem. His plan to lure Dart to the junkyard and Steve’s input on this plan—inspired by what he’d seen Nancy and Jonathan do in s1 with the gasoline trail—took forever. It was a smart plan, but it left them incredibly vulnerable and trapped in a small space, and in the end required Steve to go out into the open. It didn’t account for the possibility that there might be more demodogs, and it left part of the bus (the top hatch) exposed. It also doesn't account for an escape plan.

It’s very similar to what they do in s4 with Eddie’s trailer in the UD: fortify, lure, hide. Except they forgot to account for the vents (like the top hatch) and in the end, Eddie ran out into the open and was overwhelmed by the sheer number of the demobats. The main difference is that they did have an escape route (the trailergate) except they don't have the ability to close the trailergate, so they're still vulnerable.

So while we don’t know what Dustin’s plan would have been to distract the demodogs if Mike hadn’t been there, we still know that they needed Mike’s knowledge of the hive mind and the tunnels and the weakness to fire (beyond just a general “oh fire is a good weapon” knowledge like Nancy and Jonathan stumbled into in s1 and that Steve tried to replicate in s2, but a for-sure “fire is its weakness” knowledge that Mike gains at the lab) in order to pull off this plan successfully. Dustin’s idea to distract and his emotional connection to Dart in particular protects them, but Mike’s knowledge and outside-the-box thinking is vital. It’s likely that he’s even the one to make them all wear goggles and bandanas because he probably saw Hopper coughing and wheezing after prolonged exposure to the toxic air and knew that he’d needed to be hosed down at the lab. His plan is also a get-in-get-out plan, meaning he intended for them to get in, wreak havoc, and then immediately get tf out safely. Mike plans for after the attack as well.

In s3, Mike knows they need to act as fast as possible in regards to Billy because he has experience with a Flayed individual—the only one out of the kids’ party other than Will who actually experienced Will being Flayed. All the other kids only showed after he’d already been sedated, and only Mike was in the shed with Hop and the Byers once he woke up (and then and to be sedated again). Everyone else doubts, everyone else hesitates, but Mike and Will know they need to act now—they can’t sit and wait for information, they need to create a scenario to give them information. So Mike creates one: The Sauna Plan.

This isn't to say that Dustin isn't smart! He's incredibly intelligent! But Dustin is more science-minded and doesn't think outside of the box as naturally as Mike does. And this is why they're most successful when they work together.

Dustin has a ton of D&D knowledge, but he doesn’t really apply it until prompted. I can think of at least 2 instances where Mike describes a supernatural occurrence in detail and then Dustin names it with a D&D reference. Mike explains what he thinks El means by flipping the board over and he suggests/describes an alternate dimension, and then Dustin says, “like the Vale of Shadows.” In s2, Mike describes in detail the hive mind and how it works, and then Dustin says, “like the Mind Flayer.” Dustin is able to label but he doesn’t understand before being able to label it like Mike does. In fact, Dustin doesn't question why Vecna is creating the gates until Erica prompts it – if Mike had been there, this question would've undoubtedly been prompted much sooner because Mike asks a billion questions all the time (for example, "Why would he give me a pen that doesn't work?")

Dustin and Nancy actually approach problems in a very similar way. When Nancy encountered the Demogorgon in the UD, she started looking through a science book to rationalize it in terms she understood. Dustin did the exact same thing when he found Dart – he went to the library and did research on amphibians and pollywogs. Both times, they found valuable information! Nancy was able to figure out that the Demogorgon was attracted to blood and Dustin figured out that Dart would continue to molt and is heat-sensitive. But in s2, Mike is the one who took Will's knowledge and experience seriously and accepts right away that Dart is from the UD, and treats Dart as a serious potential danger even before they know he's a demodog.

Nancy is also incredibly intelligent, and she's a fighter through-and-through. I adore her! But here's the thing about Nancy: she hates feeling powerless. She hates being emotionally vulnerable in a way that makes her look weak. She can be emotionally vulnerable in an affectionate way and be okay with that! But she hates being vulnerable in a way where she feels hurt and scared and grieving, and when she feels this way, she feels the intense need to Immediately act and stomp out what’s making her feel that way. We see it in s1 where after she learns about Barb’s death, she wants to immediately go back and kill the Demogorgon.

Nancy prefers the direct approach, even when that's not the best choice. Her choosing the direct approach against Vecna required a lot of time they didn't have trekking across the UD, and it didn't account for what would happen if they got snagged in the vines. In fact, her approach is very similar to Hopper's in s2 when he goes to the tunnels for the first time! He chooses to be direct and it nearly kills him because he didn't plan for backup and can't free himself from the vines without external aid.

And the more I think about it, the more I suspect that Vecna gave Nancy the vision of his plan and her family dying specifically to make her emotionally vulnerable and therefore impulsive and brash and direct.

And in s4, we see what happens when Mike isn’t there to challenge Dustin's logical, science-based thinking and Nancy's direct, brash attack style – when Mike isn't there to present outside-the-box thinking and see the problem from all angles:

The demobats get into the "fortified" trailer, Eddie goes out into the open and dies, Nancy & Co. get immobilized by vines, they only prepared one music source for Max and so when her Walkman is destroyed, she's wholly and utterly vulnerable, and if it weren't for El piggybacking from the other side of the country, she would've died permanently.

The one time Mike isn't in Hawkins, they fail.

Mike, the dungeon-master, is a problem creator, so he is vital to the party's ability to solve problems.