Eleven (Stranger Things)
Eleven is a female television character who features in Stranger Things.
Contents |
Biography
Jane Ives was a female human born as the daughter of Terry Ives who was a young woman in the late 1960's when she participated in a controversial government program called MKUltra. As a test subject, she took part in experiments that involved psychedelic drugs and sensory deprivation. In December of 1969, Alice Johnson, a friend and fellow test subject of Terry Ives at Hawkins National Laboratory, experienced a vision from the future. In it, she saw a girl marked with the number 011 with shaved brown hair being observed by Dr. Martin Brenner. The girl utilized an invisible force to throw off an orderly, a detail which stunned Alice. Alice was unaware of what the vision meant. In that same month, Dr. Martin Brenner was informed that Terry Ives was actually pregnant. Brenner then began to plan accordingly, ensuring that the unborn child would become a subject for the program, seeing it also as an opportunity to give subject 008 the playmate that she had always wanted. Around 1970, a student named Terry Ives chose to participate in Brenner's experiments. As a test subject, Terry would take psychedelic drugs and be sensorily deprived, in the hopes of 'expanding the boundaries of the mind'. Terry also apparently received a transfusion of Henry Creel's blood. Unbeknownst to Terry, she had become pregnant during this period. In 1971, she gave birth to a girl, naming her Jane. Due to the experimentation on Terry, Jane was born with various extraordinary psychokinetic abilities. Immediately after her birth, she was abducted by Brenner; the incident was covered up as a miscarriage, meaning there were no birth certificates or medical records of Eleven's existence. While Terry knew she had seen her daughter alive upon giving birth, Terry's sister believed Jane never survived. Terry filed a lawsuit against Brenner and his associates, but was unsuccessful due to a lack of evidence.
Growing up in Hawkins Lab, and secluded from the outside world, Jane was not referred to by her given name, instead being labeled '011', indicating her role as a test subject. Brenner built himself up as a father figure in the mind of Eleven, making her refer to him as 'Papa'. Eleven was not the lab's only test subject: she had sixteen "brothers" and "sisters", who were probably abducted from their birth mothers in a similar fashion. In the early years of her life, she was allowed to play in the Rainbow Room with the other test subjects, including Eight. Psychological tests were conducted to exploit the telekinetic abilities the children were born with. In 1974, Terry attempted to retrieve Jane, breaking into Hawkins Lab with a gun; she briefly saw Eleven playing with Eight, but was apprehended. Brenner then subjected Terry to electroshock therapy, which left her in a seemingly permanent catatonic state for years after. During Eleven's time at Hawkins Lab, she became acquainted with a friendly orderly who took a particular liking to her. Since Eleven had no friends amongst the test subjects following Eight's escape, she received words of encouragement from the orderly before doing training exercises with the other children. On September 4, 1979, Brenner took Eleven and the other subjects into the main training room, where, one-by-one, the children would attempt to psychically manipulate a series of lightbulbs. Eleven struggled with this task, leading the oldest child, Two, to mock and belittle her. Despite this, Eleven briefly powered one of the bulbs.
On September 7, the friendly orderly advised Eleven to use negative emotions, such as anger and sadness, to better channel her abilities. Later that day, Brenner pitted the children against each other in a combat-based test. Two children at a time would stand on mats, with both trying to psychically push their opponent off their mat, all the while resisting the other's attack. In this game, Eleven ultimately defeated Two, humiliating him. Later, Two and his allies - Three, Four and Five - ganged up on Eleven in the Rainbow Room, and bullied her with their powers, even threatening to kill her. After being slammed into a wall, she apparently suffered a concussion. Some time later, she was taken to recover in the infirmary.
On September 8, Brenner checked up on Eleven in the infirmary, before he escorted her to the training room and summoned all the other test subjects. He punished Two for attacking Eleven through use of an electroshock collar. Later that day, Eleven and the friendly orderly played chess in the Rainbow Room, during which the orderly quietly offered her a chance to escape the lab. The orderly disclosed - or claimed - that the other children planned to kill her, and that Brenner had been intending for this all along. He silently slid her a key card under the table, and told her to meet him in the basement. Some hours later, Eleven persuaded another orderly to escort her to the infirmary, pretending to feel ill. Eleven used the distraction to reach a stairwell and travel to the basement. There, she met with the friendly orderly, who showed her an escape route through a drain pipe. He then convinced her to use her powers to remove the 'Soteria' suppressant chip from his neck. Shortly after this, security guards stormed the basement; the two reached a corridor but were surrounded by the guards. However, the orderly, telling Eleven she didn't "have to be afraid of them" anymore, suddenly outreached his hand. Using his own set of powers - restored from having the Soteria removed - the orderly maimed most of the guards and killed one of them; he took Eleven to a storage cupboard and told her to wait there, revealing his ‘001’ tattoo before leaving. One proceeded to go on a murderous rampage throughout the laboratory, killing all the other test subjects and various Hawkins Lab personnel, and indirectly knocked Dr. Brenner unconscious. Eleven entered the Rainbow Room and watched in horror as One finished killing Two. One explained himself to Eleven, telling her of his origins and philosophy, and of his former identity as Henry Creel; Henry asked her to join him in his goal to eradicate humanity. Eleven refused and instead used her powers to fling Henry into the wall; angered and disappointed, Henry stood back up and outreached his hand, with Eleven doing the same. The two test subjects engaged in a psychokinetic duel, with One initially overwhelming and almost killing Eleven. However, Eleven, finding strength in a distant memory of her mother, ultimately overpowered One, pinning him against the wall of the Rainbow Room. She began disintegrating his body, but somehow, she opened an interdimensional gate in the wall, through which One was transported. The gate began to seal up, and just after the membrane separating the worlds finished healing, Brenner entered the Rainbow Room. Though he initially believed Eleven was responsible for the massacre, he later learned One was to blame after reviewing surveillance footage. Brenner was amazed by Eleven's feat of power, but by the time Eleven woke from her coma, Brenner learnt she had no memory of the incident, and her powers had been somewhat reduced. Brenner was bewildered by One's disappearance, and wondered if he was still out there somewhere, 'hiding in the darkness'.
For years, Brenner trained Eleven and developed her psychic abilities, knowing she just needed 'a spark' to restore her to her former level of ability. To punish her for any failures, Eleven was sometimes locked in a solitary cell for great periods of time; this experience severely traumatised her, leaving her with a fear of confinement. In one experiment, Eleven was presented with a soda can, which she then crushed using telekinesis. Although her nose began bleeding soon afterwards, Dr. Brenner seemed pleased nonetheless. Another experiment involved using her powers to manipulate a living creature. Dr. Brenner presented Eleven with a cat, but she could not bring herself to do anything to it. As punishment for her refusal, she was dragged into the cell by two guards. Refusing to be locked in again, an enraged Eleven used her powers to smash one guard into a wall and to break the other's neck before they could close the door. While she sobbed at her experiences, Brenner gently carried her away, pleased with Eleven's feat of ability.
The Cold War was at a height in the early 1980s, with the United States and Soviet Union in conflict; Brenner and his associates sought to use Eleven's power to spy on their adversaries. Testing Eleven's ability to eavesdrop over long distances, Eleven was ordered to repeat words stated by an individual elsewhere in the laboratory. She did not repeat the words through her voice, but instead transmitted the individual's words via a speaker. Brenner later directed Eleven to spy on a Soviet agent. A room in the lab's underground complex contained a sensory deprivation tank used to enhance Eleven's psychic powers; when sensorily deprived, Eleven could become immersed in an inner mental void, in which she could project her consciousness and psychically reach out to other living creatures. On an unspecified date - likely in 1983 - Eleven was lowered into the tank before entering her Void. She succeeded in finding the agent, but she unwittingly encountered a creature from another dimension, transmitting the creature's noises over the loudspeakers in Brenner's control booth. Eleven panicked and the experiment was aborted, but Brenner remained intrigued by the creature.
Overview
Personality and attributes
Her friends and loved ones began to give her the nickname of El. After being adopted by Jim Hopper, she came to be known by the name of Jane Hopper.
Raised in Hawkins National Laboratory and completely deprived of socialization, Eleven was timid, socially withdrawn and extremely cautious of other people. However, she became fiercely protective and showed unyielding loyalty towards those who cared for her, especially to Mike whom she fell in love with, to the point of sacrificing herself to destroy the Monster when it threatened to harm her friends. Even after being separated for a year, Eleven showed considerable determination in saving her friends by returning to them in Hawkins from Chicago when she sensed them to be in grave danger through the Void, reuniting with them in the process. If Eleven attempted to defy Dr. Brenner's orders when under his control, she would be locked in a cramped room as punishment, potentially for hours on end. These painful experiences lead her to develop severe claustrophobia. She also showed some signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, frequently remembering her harrowing experiences at the lab following her escape.
After spending a year with Hopper, her vocabulary and ability to speak came to significantly improve allowing her to better talk to other people.
Powers and abilities
Her most common power was telekinesis whereby she was able to manipulate objects, people and creatures with her mind. This ability was capable of being amplified by her emotions where she could be strong enough to lift large, heavy objects.
Initially, exercising her abilities to accomplish small tasks was shown to be rather difficult for her. However, with practice, Eleven was able to accomplish greater and greater feats. Nearly a year after the events of November 1983, Eleven became able to use her telekinetic and telepathic powers far more easily and without as much effort and concentration, easily closing doors, lifting objects, and entering her mental void by simply placing a blindfold on and using the white noise from a television. Her abilities are somewhat linked to her emotional state, being at their strongest when influenced by her anger and fear. Being in distressing situations would occasionally cause Eleven to unleash her powers involuntarily.
Using her powers takes a physical toll on her body. When using her powers to perform more menial tasks, Eleven usually only suffers from nosebleeds. Based on how her powers are executed, it is likely the source of this blood is actually her brain. When accomplishing more daunting tasks, however, she would become physically exhausted, often to the point where she'd be unable to walk. Her most extreme acts caused bruising on her face, her eyes to become bloodshot, her ears to bleed, and occasionally even unconsciousness. However, if Eleven was sufficiently satiated, this physical toll could be alleviated. Eventually, Eleven’s body had grown accustomed to the recurrent use of her powers, being able to go longer durations without succumbing to complete exhaustion.
Eleven can open and manipulate gates to the Upside Down. In 1979, she somehow created the first known gate during her fight with Henry Creel at Hawkins Lab, and later, opened the Mothergate upon making psychic contact with the Demogorgon. It's unclear whether Eleven intentionally or accidentally opened the 1979 gate; similarly, the creation of the Mothergate occurred against Eleven's will. One year after the Mothergate opened, Eleven returned to Hawkins Lab and successfully used her powers to close it. After getting trapped in the Upside Down, she manipulated a temporary gate that the Demogorgon had opened, widening it enough for her to crawl through. After the Gate was opened, it allowed Hawkins Lab scientists to access the Upside Down. She herself entered the dimension after disintegrating the Demogorgon, seemingly by accident.
Eleven was the result of the top-secret Project MKUltra that was designed and conducted by the CIA with the goal of developing mind-control techniques which could be used against enemies during the Cold War.
Notes
- Eleven was created by The Duffer Brothers where she was portrayed by actress Millie Bobby Brown with her featuring in the Stranger Things universe.
Appearances
- Stranger Things:
External Links
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