'Stranger Things' Creators Confirm Eleven's Fate in Series Finale

SPOILER ALERT – Do not read ahead if you haven’t watched the final episodes of Stranger Things!

The series finale of Stranger Things has officially been released!

On Wednesday (December 31), the hit sci-fi series came to an end after five seasons when Netflix released the final episode.

After watching the episode, many fans may be unclear about what happened to Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown) and in a new interview, the Duffer Brothers, who co-created the series, are addressing her fate.

Keep reading to find out more…In the episode, it appears as if Eleven dies after sacrificing herself to destroy the upside down.

In an emotional exchange in the finale moments of the episode, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) tells his friends that Eleven is standing in front of the Mac-Z portal was simply an illusion made by Kali/008 (Linnea Berthelsen) to allow her sister to escape the U.S. Army’s grip.

A montage then plays of Eleven making her way to a small village with three cascading waterfalls.

The group then tearfully proclaims, “I believe.”

So did Eleven really die or is she still alive?

“What we wanted to do was confront the reality of what her situation was after all of this and how could she live a normal life,” Matt Duffer told Netflix. “Mike is the optimist of the group and has chosen to believe in that story.”

Ross Duffer then noted that Eleven’s fate isn’t clear, explaining, “She lives on in their hearts, whether that’s real or not.”

As fans know, the government was still looking for Eleven in hopes to restart the top-secret program that gave her powers, so there was no way for her to rejoin her friends.

“For us and our writers, we didn’t want to take her powers away,” Ross shared. “She represents magic in a lot of ways and the magic of childhood. For our characters to move on and for the story of Hawkins and the Upside Down to come to a close, Eleven had to go away.”

He continued, “We thought it would be beautiful if our characters continued to believe in that happier ending even if we didn’t give them a clear answer to whether that’s true or not. The fact that they’re believing in it, we just thought it was such a better way to end the story and a better way to represent the closure of this journey and their journey from children to adults.”

The series finale of Stranger Things is available for streaming on Netflix now. If you want to be spoiled, you can find out which characters lived and who died here.