Max Mayfield (and some Lumax) Analysis
So before I begin this analysis, I'm going to put a quick trigger warning for depression, PTSD, abuse and suicide. If that's not something you want to read about at the moment, please take care of yourself and skip this post. I'm going to write this out similarly to the Mike Wheeler one by breaking down her arc season by season. I might not have included all of her moments, but this post is long enough already so sorry if I missed something out.
Season 2
At the start of season 2, we are introduced to Max. Max is a tomboy who enjoys skateboarding and is brilliant at arcade games. We later find out she can pick locks and drive to a certain extent as well as (in season 3) do proper first aid. Max overall is very smart and skilled and she's one of the most resourceful of the group which is shown throughout the show. In the book Runaway Max, which is dubiously canon, it is said that she learnt to drive from her biological father and even if this isn't the case in the show, we do know that she used to have a good relationship with him (saying her mother was the problem, writing him a letter in S4) which probably contributed to her aloof and unhappy attitude in season 2. It also is an early example of Max's loyalty which we see later on in the series.
Speaking of her aloofness, when Max moved to Hawkins, she is deeply sarcastic, cynical and antisocial. She pushes away the opportunity to make new friends in Lucas and Dustin but we can tell she still wants to be their friend by the fact that she turns up to Halloween with them. She also endures exclusion and poor treatment from the party in order to have friends and be included and I think this shows that deep down, Max craves friendships and closeness with people.
I think this is because Max is dealing with a lot due to her parents divorce, her move to Hawkins and her abusive stepbrother. We see Billy be rude to her, use tactics to emotionally torment her (breaking her things, trying to run over her friends) and be racist towards Lucas. This leads her to push other people away partially because she worries for them but also because she has very low self-esteem so maybe believes people don't want to be her friend and doesn't want to get close to people in case she gets stung again. I also think this is why she endures poor treatment from the party initially but as the season progresses, she stands up for herself to Mike and calls herself the group's 'zoomer', showing how she now feels like she is/should be part of that group.
We see Max's attitude to the world when it comes to the Upside Down. When Lucas explains to her what's going on, she doesn't believe him whatsoever. This is fair enough considering most people wouldn't believe in a parallel universe with D&D monsters. But I also think this is a greater symptom of her distrust and cynicism. But when the strange events are impossible to deny, we see a new side to Max. Max now feels able to trust Lucas and admits to him what's been going on with her stepbrother. She joins up with the group to help fight the demodogs and we see her caring a lot about them. When Billy attacks Lucas and then later Steve, she is able to fight back against him with her newfound confidence that's she's gained from meeting her friends, drugging him and telling him to leave her and her friends alone. She also steps up and drives them to the Mind Flayer's 'hub'. This is also an example of Max's loyalty.
At the end of the season, we see Max going to the Snow Ball. I think this seemingly small Max scene shows just how far she's come since the start of the season. In this scene, Max asks Lucas to dance with her and jokingly refers to him as a 'stalker', his nickname from earlier in the season. At the beginning of her time on the show, Max was aloof and distant. Her nickname 'stalker' was more accusatory and it was used to push away Lucas and co. But by the end of the season, Max has let down her guard, made friends and gained some self-esteem. Instead of being asked to do things, she now pursues friendships and relationships. Instead of using a nickname to push someone away, it's now a friendly joke. I think this scene is the pinnacle of how far Max has come.
Season 3
In terms of character development, I have a lot less to say about S3. We found out in S2 that Max was sarcastic and loyal and was opening up more to people. In S3, we get to see more of the payoff from that. At the start of the season, Max and Lucas are in a happy and steady relationship. Despite Max teasing Lucas and regularly breaking up with him, you can tell that their relationship is pretty good and that Max is no longer pushing away her friends. She has still maintained some of her sense of humour and teasing that made her popular, but it's coming from a positive place now.
Later on, Max takes Eleven under her wing. Eleven is pretty clueless about boys and a lot of the world in general so Max clues her in on what she's missing. Again, we're seeing that Max is now actively trying to make friends and that she's a lot happier which is a result of her arc in S2. Side note: I'm very glad they went in this direction with their friendship as Eleven being jealous of Max in S2 was odd to me. I much prefer them as friends.
Billy gets possessed by the mind flayer so the group describes to essentially boil him in order to find this out. In this scene, Billy begs Max to let him go and you can see that she is tempted as she walks towards the glass. At the end of the season, Max pleads to Billy to try and get him to overcome his possession. He ends up sacrificing himself to save Eleven, her and the rest of Hawkins. His last ever words were 'sorry' to her, which has obviously impacted her. We see her at the end of the season acting cheerful and happy, but privately she is sad and empty. This incident massively traumatizes Max and begins her character regression. Even though Max had a poor relationship with Billy, I think she still believed he could've changed.
Season 4
Before I speak about S4, I just want to reiterate my previous trigger warning for PTSD, depression and suicide as it's pretty heavily implied in S4 and spoken about in some detail in mine.
At the start of S4, we see Max in being spoken to by her councillor because she forgot her last session. She's wearing dark baggy clothes in contrast to her more fun and bright clothes in S3. Max is isolating herself from her friends and her boyfriend. We find out her grades are slipping and that she's putting a lot less effort into school. At the pep rally, she rarely talks to Mike and Dustin except to make a snide comment. Her use of sarcasm in S4 is a lot more reminiscent of what it was like in S2 as she's using it as a tool to be rude and push people away instead of to show her affection to her friends. I also think this is the case in that (quite funny) scene where Max is making fun of Dustin's Hellfire Club t-shirt. She's not doing it out of a place of affection like her with Lucas in S3, she's doing it to try and push people away from her.
She also pushes away Lucas by breaking up with him and deflecting his comments which are coming from a genuine case of concern as him being annoyed she broke up with him. Lucas compared Max to a ghost because whilst she's physically there, Max is not herself at all, which shows just how much she's changed. Lucas clearly cares a lot about Max and I think part of her knows this but because of her depression she's not able to accept that he genuinely cares for her until later.
Under Max's aloof exterior we can still see that she's the same caring girl. Max checks up on Chrissy when she's concerned for her and noticed her leaving the councillor's office whilst upset. She feeds a dog that lives near her house and is very loving and affectionate towards it. She listens in to Lucas' game on the radio. Max is not incapable of love or closeness; it's all an act. But Max thinks that she is. She convinces herself people couldn't understand or care about her so she puts up her guard and pretends to not mind. This is a lot like her in S2, but her depression seems to be a lot worse in S4. I also think that because she's dealt with so much loss that she believes that if she gets closer to someone then she will lose them too.
When Chrissy dies, Max turns to Dustin and her other friends for help. But even at this point, she's still distant from them. We see more of her intelligence and resourcefulness during her investigation, which leads to her realzing that Vecna is going to target her next. She seems pretty resigned to the fact that she's going to die. She's sad about it, obviously, put not nearly as much as you'd think. She writes letters to everyone in her life, telling them what they mean to her because she's too distant to tell them whilst she's alive. To me, these are clearly meant to be suicide notes and before I continue, a lot of this is based off of this post by @kaypeace21 so please check that out for more on this allegory.
Vecna tries to use his trances to convince Max that no one cares about her or would be able to help her. He tries to make her feel isolated and scared. Vecna confirms all of her deepest anxieties and he psychologically tortures her whilst trying to lead her to an inevitable death, telling her that she hides from them and she knows why. He tells her that she is the reason Billy died and that part of her wanted him to die because of his abuse towards her. We know that this isn't true and that Max is clearly mourning his loss and the loss of any chance at having a sibling relationship. But Vecna is not saying anything Max hasn't thought of. He's a personification of that little voice in a depressed person's mind telling them that they're awful and alone and no one could understand them. Vecna tells Max that she wishes to join Billy and the lyrics of the song Running Up That Hill say she wishes their places were switched. Vecna is essentially a walking, talking suicidal thought.
But through the montage, Max realizes that he's wrong. Max has so many people who care about her. She has a boyfriend who loves her. She has so many great moments with friends. She's not a bad person, she's not alone and she's not helpless. Max runs away from her demons and from the forces dragging her down. She runs towards the light. She runs towards hope. And she survives. When she wakes up in Lucas' arms she tells him that she's here. She's not a ghost anymore; she's ready to begin the long rocky road to recovery with the boy and the friends she loves.
To conclude
Max Mayfield is sarcastic and funny, but often times her humour is just a tool to push away the people she cares about. But we start to see at the end of S4 that Max is trying to make a change and recover from her depression.
This post was longggg. I've got asks for Will, Robin, Eleven and Dustin analyses and I promise you that they're coming! Thanks for the ask, anon (:
