Jane Ives, better known as Eleven and El, is the main protagonist of the Netflix series Stranger Things.
Jane/Eleven was kidnapped and raised in Hawkins National Laboratory, where she was experimented on for her inherited psychokinetic abilities. After escaping the lab, she was found by Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, and Dustin Henderson. Upon discovering her abilities, Mike believed that she could help find Will Byers, their missing friend. During their time together, she and Mike formed a strong bond. It was ultimately revealed that, in a lab experiment, she made contact with a creature from another dimension, accidentally opening an inter-dimensional gateway. In an attempt to protect her friends, Jane/Eleven eventually faced and destroyed this monster in a showdown at Hawkins Middle School, mysteriously vanishing in the process.
Eventually, she was found to be alive, secretly living with Jim Hopper at his grandfather's old cabin. After she grew impatient from being separated from her friends, Jane/Eleven went on a journey by herself, discovering her past in the process. Realizing that she could not leave her friends behind, she returned to Hawkins, reuniting with them, to help defeat yet another extra-dimensional threat. Jane/Eleven was then taken in by Hopper as his adopted daughter. This also allowed her to attend the Snow Ball dance with Mike.
During the summer of 1985, Eleven's romantic relationship with Mike continued to blossom, much to Hopper's dismay who took steps to complicate it. This resulted in Eleven forming an unlikely friendship with Max Mayfield. Upon learning that the Mind Flayer had reappeared to stop her and get revenge, taking over Billy Hargrove and other people in Hawkins in the process, she joined her friends to defeat it. Amidst the ensuing fight to stop the Mind Flayer, Eleven lost her powers. Following Hopper's supposed apparent death, she was taken in by the Byers family. Three months later, before moving out of Hawkins with the Byers, Jane/Eleven and Mike made plans to visit each other at Thanksgiving while also professing her love for him.
She is portrayed by Millie Bobby Brown, who also plays Madison Russell in the MonsterVerse, young Alice in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, and Enola Holmes in the titular 2020 film of the same name and its 2022 sequel, whose performance has been widely acclaimed. Charlotte and Clara Ward played the character when she was younger.
Jane Ives was born in 1971 to Andrew Rich and Terry Ives, the latter being a test subject of Dr. Martin Brenner and the MKUltra program. As a result of the experiments conducted on Terry, Jane was born with psychic abilities, which led to the infant being abducted. In Hawkins laboratory, Jane was given the label "011" and never of her parents' existence, with Terry believing that her daughter was still alive as Rich was killed during his tour in Vietnam. Dr. Brenner would have Eleven develop a father-like bond with him so he could use her for the experiments, where scientists attempted to enhanced her psychic abilities such as the ability to eavesdrop on someone's conversation.
Season One
While being conducted in another experiment in eavesdropping on Soviet soldiers, a creature arrived and caused Eleven to panic. Dr. Brenner would have her re-enter the tank to interact with the monster, which caused a portal to open between the Upside Down and Hawkins, Indiana. During the chaos, Eleven escaped to the woods where traveled to Benny Hammond's diner, who called child services since he believed she was abused. Government agents arrived and Eleven escaped into the woods after killing several of them, where she encountered Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair and Dustin Henderson, who were looking for their friend Will Byers. The trio brought Eleven to the Wheeler's basement and Mike accommodated her, even skipping school to watch over her. Eleven explained to Mike that "bad people" were after her, and later revealed her telekinetic powers to the group when Lucas attempted to leave the basement.
When the group were desperate to find Will, Eleven flipped their Dungeons & Dragons board over and placed Will and the Demogorgon's piece on it, thus providing a vital clue to them. The trio then decided to have Eleven guide them to Will's location, but she brought them to the Byers' residence, which he actually was in the Upside Down's dimension it. When police cars were driving to the local quarry, Eleven and the group followed them and saw them pull Will's "corpse". When Mike and the others became upset, Eleven used Wheeler's supercom to allow him to hear Will singing, thus confirming that he was still alive. The following day, Mike told Lucas and Dustin of this, and they decided to bring Eleven to Hawkins Middle School so she could use Mr. Clarke's heathkit. After attending a ceremony for Will where Eleven used her powers to make the bully Troy Walsh piss on himself, Eleven was able use the heathkit to overhear Will speaking to his mother.
The heathkit would combust into flames, and the group returned to Mike's basement, where Eleven clarified the boys' theory of Will being trapped in a dimension by calling it the "Upside Down". When Dustin learned that his compass was effected by electromagnetic interference due to other dimension, they had Eleven guide them to the portal. However, Eleven manipulated the compass to prevent them from reaching the portal, as she didn't want her friends to get hurt. When this was discovered, a fight broke out between Mike and Lucas, which ended when Eleven pushed Lucas off of Wheeler with her psychic powers. Mike then became angry with Eleven since Lucas was injured in the process, upsetting her enough to leave. After stealing eggos from a supermarket, Eleven stopped Mike from falling to his death when Troy and his friend James threatened to hurt Dustin. She then caused the bullies to run away and reunited with Mike and Dustin, who decided to return to the Wheeler residence.
Despite returning there, Lucas informed them that "bad men" were coming, which were actually Dr. Brenner's agents who had been hunting Eleven for days. The group managed to evade them with Eleven using her powers, and Lucas apologized for his previous behavior before they headed to the junkyard. The kids were then found by Chief Jim Hopper, who was working with Joyce Byers, Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers during their search for Will. At the Byers' residence, Eleven tried to communicate to the Upside Down to no avail, and told the others that she needed to be in a bath to be able to communicate further. Breaking into the Hawkins Middle School to use a makeshift tank, Eleven was able to learn that Barb Holland was killed by the Demogorgon, but Will was barely alive. Afterward, Dr. Brenner's men arrived and attempted to capture the kids, but Eleven killed several of them, which resulted in the monster arriving through their blood.
During the battle, Eleven sacrificed herself by killing the creature, but at the cost of being transported to the Upside Down. Awaking in the Upside Down's version of the school, Eleven managed to escape via a portal and returned to the Wheeler residence, but was forced to run into the woods when Mike accidently caused Brenner's agents to get her attention. Living in the woods for a month, Eleven eventually found a box of eggos and learned that it was Hopper. She confronted him, but he instead brought her in a cabin to live in, where he taught her morse code and gave her a set of rules.
Season Two
By October of 1984, Eleven remained in Hopper's cabin, but started to grow impatient since she wanted to reunite with her friends and go out for Halloween. She attempted to reach out to Mike by entering the mental void, but he left his basement after failing to communicate with her via his supercom. The next day, she left the cabin and traveled to Hawkins Middle where she saw Mike with Max Mayfield, believing that the girl was flirting with him. After hurting Max with her psychic abilities, Eleven returned to the cabin before she scared Troy and James. She would soon discover files underneath the cabin's floorboards, and learned that her mother was still alive.
Trivia
246 actresses were seen to be offered for the role of Eleven, make her to have a record of having the most cast offers.
In a 2021 crossover event, Eleven appeared as a character and playable hero in the mobile game The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross, where she teamed up with the Seven Deadly Sins to defeat the Mind Flayer.
She was originally suppose to die at the end of the first season, but due to her popularity and the fact that the show would have more seasons, the Duffer brothers scrapped the idea.
Heroes
Heroes
