Eleven: She can kill you with her mind!

[Kalliste]

I have to say I think Eleven is my favourite character of the show, slightly above Hopper.

Millie Bobby Brown has done a great job in the role considering she barely gets to speak and yet she has me wanting to know more.

Also fascinating that she is only 12, I can't imagine being so young and having to do some of those scenes without be terrified even though I knew they weren't real.

[AuntiePam]

Mine too -- any time Hopper and Eleven were on the screen, they had my full attention. 

Millie seems very mature for her age.  There's an interview where she said her mom was concerned about Millie shaving her head, and Millie said "Mom, it'll grow back." 

[Automne]

I'm amazed at her evolution in acting because she was honestly quite terrible in Intruders.

[Kalliste]

14 hours ago, Automne said:

I'm amazed at her evolution in acting because she was honestly quite terrible in Intruders.

Oh really? People in the episode threads have said she was great in it. I haven't seen it myself though.

[PatternRec]

Millie Bobby Brown was amazing in this show. Never saw someone so young be able to show such emotion on their face like that. Also, she has a youtube channel and she's totally the cutest kid ever:

[Snookums]

I really like how hard it is for her to talk. Not only because she's clearly been horribly traumatized, but as a powerful psychic/radio receiver she's probably had a constant babble in her head since she was born. The actress does a great job playing somebody having to fight through the noise to form sentences and say them aloud.

[Danny Franks]

Millie Bobby Brown is a tremendous actress. I was blown away by her performances in this show, whether Eleven was terrified, angry, happy, confused. She hit every beat perfectly, and really generated a vast amount of pathos and empathy for a character that barely utters a word.

Acting with no dialogue cannot be easy, particularly for a young girl who is only just learning the tricks of the trade, and figuring out how to draw an audience into her performance.

The character of Eleven quickly became one of my favourites in the show, because although she's completely closed off and deadpan, you could see flashes of sardonic humour, her exasperation with the other kids, he yearning to have normal experiences and to live in the world that had only just become real to her. The growth from her not being able to come clean about her connection to the Demogorgon, and her partial responsibility for it being in the world, to finally deciding to sacrifice herself to save everyone, was powerful and I hope that we see her again soon, in season 2. 

[EarlGreyTea]

By far one of my favorite TV characters of all time. I echo all that's been said about Millie's range - terrifyingly good in someone so young. There's not a note she's not required to play in this role. I think my favorite is polite exasperation, like when Dustin tried to get her to levitate that toy and she just looked at him with with a polite WTF expression. There's a scene in the second episode where Mike hands her a clean pair of clothes and she puts the cloth to her face like she's never worn something soft like that - which she probably never had before. Little moments like that both show off Millie's range and the depth of the character.

I was struck by how much this poor character was used by others, even by the boys and Joyce. Modine I can understand - experimentation and all. But the boys immediately tried to get her to use her powers, even for something as simple as opening the door to the AV room. And Joyce

Spoiler

as well, which was understandable seeing as Eleven was the only hope of contacting Will. The only one with completely altruistic motives toward her was Benny.

 

While I liked the blossoming crush she and Mike developed on one another,  and her chemistry with Finn, can't the poor girl get a family and a real life without immediately getting macked on by the first guy who comes along? Having said that, I ship it.

Edited September 5, 2016 by EarlGreyTea

[EarlGreyTea]

whooops, double post.

Edited September 5, 2016 by EarlGreyTea

[zxy556575]

She acts, she sings, she raps! Millie Bobby Brown is all the more remarkable considering her native English accent. Not that she had a ton of dialog but still. It was one more thing for her to focus on.

Edited September 6, 2016 by lordonia

[Willowy]

Shouldn't the title of this thread be "she can kill you with her brain", a la River in Firefly?

[SeanC]

I looked at the episode of Grey's Anatomy that Millie was in, back in Season 11.  It's primarily a voice role, as she plays a little girl who the doctors have to direct to give lifesaving aid to her mother over the phone; when Owen answers the phone, one of the first questions he asks is "how old are you?", to which she responds "I'm eleven."  Heh.

Edited September 25, 2016 by SeanC

[chrisjdel]

On 8/23/2016 at 3:23 AM, Snookums said:

I really like how hard it is for her to talk. Not only because she's clearly been horribly traumatized, but as a powerful psychic/radio receiver she's probably had a constant babble in her head since she was born. The actress does a great job playing somebody having to fight through the noise to form sentences and say them aloud.

I don't think she's telepathic. There was no evidence she could hear other peoples' thoughts. For example she never answered a question before it was asked. If she knew what Mike was trying awkwardly to say in the cafeteria scene, that whole conversation would've been unnecessary - and she wouldn't have been surprised when he kissed her. The abilities we've seen her exhibit are clairvoyance (remote viewing) and telekinesis.

 

At first El reminded me a lot of Kurt Russell in Soldier. She seemed to understand everything people said but was reluctant to talk, and gave mostly one word responses when she did. It wasn't a lack of language skills. She was clearly used to speaking only when spoken to. The lab staff was probably told not to engage the girl in casual conversation. The last thing you want is to humanize her and have someone get attached enough for their conscience to kick in. They probably discouraged, maybe even punished, frivolous behavior on her part. She didn't even know what it meant to have a friend. The main difference between Kurt Russell's character and Eleven is that she's still young enough to adjust and live a normal life. She was already talking a lot more in later episodes, in complete sentences too. Give her time.

[SophieDelago]

I think she could probably kill you with her mind. I think we'll discover the full extent of her powers in the upcoming season. But I feel that if she was able to kill the demagog with relative effort (I mean, all she sustained was a bloody nose and a loss of consciousness) then she would be able to kill anyone with ease.

[VCRTracking]

I kind of wonder how she learned she could go into the void just by blindfolding herself and turning the TV on to a static channel in season 2. I like how they never explained it and just showed it but I do wonder how. Like did she try to make a salt water bathtub like season 1 and Hopper stopped her so she tried different ways to go into sensory deprivation?

[bettername2come]

On 11/29/2017 at 3:11 AM, VCRTracking said:

I kind of wonder how she learned she could go into the void just by blindfolding herself and turning the TV on to a static channel in season 2. I like how they never explained it and just showed it but I do wonder how. Like did she try to make a salt water bathtub like season 1 and Hopper stopped her so she tried different ways to go into sensory deprivation?

She was watching her soap opera, angstily thinking about Mike, accidentally turned the station to static and started getting some images, and thought "you know what would make this easier? A blindfold."