Stranger Things 4 is a spectacular comeback for Netflix at a time when the size of this giant has been reduced significantly. In addition to raking in sales, it also pushed Kate Bush‘s song “Running Up That Hill” to No. 1 on iTunes. This is understandable because really the quality of the movie is too good. It revolves around one thing that is the film’s main antagonist: Vecna Stranger Things.
This time, this villain is actually a lot more dangerous than the villain in other movies. With his terrifying appearance, mysterious plot, and diabolical witchcraft, Vecna has brutally killed many of Hawkins’ ill-fated people. Let’s find out about Vecna Stranger Things.
Table of Contents
1. How did Vecna Stranger Things appear in Hawkins?
Vecna appeared in the first episode of season 4 while threatening cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien). He mentally tortured her by impersonating Chrissy’s harsh mother and repeatedly banging on the bathroom door.
He then went on to create the illusion of a tree clock ringing hauntingly. This causes Chrissy to panic and goes to his friend Eddie’s house (Joseph Quinn) to buy drugs to forget the obsession.
Here, in a terrifying scene, Vecna Stranger Things finishes off Chrissy by distorting her body. After Chrissy, Vecna applied the same tactic with Fred Benson (Logan Riley Bruner) – a colleague of Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) at a newspaper.
This time, he uses the memory of the tragic accident that Fred once caused to terrorize his spirit. Unfortunately, the skinny nerd boy did not escape the tragic end.
Vecna’s third victim is high school student Patrick McKinney (Myles Truitt). The fourth victim of Vecna is Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) – a core member of the child army. But fortunately, thanks to determination, and support from friends, Max was lucky to escape death narrowly.
In the final episode, he captured Nancy Wheeler just before Nancy escaped from The Upside Down.
2. Who is Vecna Stranger Things?
The name Vecna appeared in the film was given by Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) inspired by the famous villain of the Dungeons & Dragons board game. In Dungeons & Dragons, Vecna is the most powerful witch of the human race with the ambition of immortality to rival the gods. Thanks to dark magic, Vecna was granted. But the price to pay was that he became a zombie wizard. This is also the default state of the commonly used Vecna in the game.
The appearance of Vecna Stranger Things is not much different from the original. In terms of power, both are masters of black magic. If Vecna in Dungeons & Dragons has the ability Dominate Person, then Vecna also uses a similar spell to finish the victim – Vecna’s curse.
3. What is Vecna’s curse?
The main audience of Vecna’s curse is teenagers with many psychological problems. Mental wounds lower their defenses. This helps Vecna easily penetrate into each person’s head. From there, he can use haunting memories to control and mentally terrorize his prey, causing them to completely submit.
For Chrissy, it was a nagging fear for the mother. For Fred, it was the fatal accident he once caused. For Max, it was watching The Mind Flayer kill Billy. Patrick’s emotional trauma comes from his abusive father. As for Nancy, it was the obsession of Barbara’s departure in ep.1.
Vecna’s curse begins with constant headaches and nightmares. Their intensity will gradually increase over time. When his prey’s minds began to drain, he used illusions to isolate them. After about a week, Vecna will finish the prey.
Outside, their bodies began to float in mid-air. In another dimension, their minds began to be consumed by Vecna. The unlucky prey all had to suffer an incomplete death with their bodies twisted, bones were broken, and eyes sucked back into the skull.
In particular, the effect speed of Vecna’s curse seems to be significantly increased if prey appears in The Upside Down. In the final episode, despite not having any symptoms, Nancy was easily pulled back into illusions by Vecna.
Fortunately, it’s not impossible to resist Vecna’s curse. When she heard her favorite music, a portal to reality opened before Max’s eyes, helping her escape from Vecna’s clutches. From then until the end of episode 7, Max constantly had to listen to Kate Bush’s voice to avoid Vecna Stranger Things. So will the music box be what rescues Nancy in the future?
It is known that Vecna Stranger Things used the victim’s corpse to do 3 things:
- Make trophies at his headquarters.
- For every 1 person he kills, he opens another space portal leading directly to The Upside Down.
- Vecna’s power will increase significantly after each human life.
One of the best things about season 4 is that it brought a charismatic and fulfilling background to the villain. At the same time, the film goes a step further, linking Vecna’s origins with Eleven herself (Millie Bobby Brown).
4. Who is Henry Creel?
In the climax of episode 7, Vecna Stranger Things is Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) – the caretaker at the place where Eleven was created. At the same time, he is also 001, the first experimental subject of Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine).
Henry was born in the late 40s, the youngest child of the Creel family. Since childhood, due to his sensitivity to supernatural things, Henry was despised by his own family. When he went to school, he had many difficulties socializing. Even teachers and doctors called Henry a piece of trash.
At the age of 12, the Creel family moved to Hawkins to start over. The new home helps Henry discover an interest in black widow spiders – his only friends. From here on, Henry’s hatred for humanity kept growing. In his eyes, humans were filthy insects that needed to be eradicated. As soon as he became aware of his own power, Henry tortured the small animals that lived around the house.
In addition to his ability to manipulate matter, Henry can also manipulate the minds of others. Before torturing Max and Nancy, Henry’s first victim was his father. Henry repeatedly made his father witness the haunting memory of a burning infant he had seen while participating in the war.
When logic and science couldn’t explain it, Henry’s father was forced to call for help from an exorcist, but it was no help. Henry’s mother gradually realized the true truth about her son, so she rejected him and tried every way to get rid of Henry.
One night, when he couldn’t stand it any longer, Henry killed his mother and sister. At the same time, he used black magic to blind his father so that he had no memory of what had just happened.
When the police arrived, Henry’s father automatically became the number 1 suspect and was arrested in a mental institution – where he lived for the next 3 decades, while Henry was hospitalized. Here, Dr. Martin Brenner brought Henry back to the Hawkins lab. Or a crazier theory is that he had been keeping an eye on Henry for a long time. At one point, it was Brenner who forged the inheritance to drag the Creel family to Hawkins. When tragedy struck, it was a great time for Brenner to arrest Henry. Since Henry, Dr. Brenner created many individuals with superpowers. Maybe Project MKUltra is just a cover for Brenner’s true intentions.
5. How did Henry Creel become Vecna Stranger Things?
To control Henry, Dr. Brenner created a device called the Soteria. This chip not only extinguishes Henry’s powers but also helps locate him. Since having Soteria, Henry has had to settle down to be a normal person – something he deeply despises.
Henry is assigned to work as a nurse at the Hawkins laboratory with the task of taking care of the test subjects including Eleven. Finding the right prey when she both has a traumatized past and is isolated from other children. Henry pretends to be a nice person to approach her.
Initially, he gained trust by helping El master his powers by digging into his most painful and angry memories. Later, upon seeing Eleven’s true potential, Henry manipulates her with a malicious script. He said that El being bullied at the lab was part of Dr. Brenner, he wanted Eleven to die at the hands of other experiments because she was too difficult to control.
However, Henry’s secret manipulation of El was discovered by Brenner. But his act of torturing Henry was discovered by El, making her believe Henry’s words even more. In September 1979, three years before Eleven officially escaped, a tragedy occurred at Hawkins Laboratory. Henry and El fled, Eleven helped Henry remove the Soteria chip and unleash Henry’s ability.
The first thing he did was massacre all the staff and test subjects except for Eleven. When he tried to convince El to follow him but was refused, so he tried to kill her. However, using his superior ability, Eleven defeated Henry and pushed him into another dimension. There, he was disfigured and became the Vecna Stranger Things.
6. The True Goal of Vecna Stranger Things
Because of hatred for humanity in general and Eleven in particular, the return of Vecna Stranger Things is inevitable. Maybe during the past 7 years, Vecna had planned revenge and patiently waited for the right time to strike. As soon as she learned that Eleven had lost her powers, Vecna implemented a plan.
His goal is undisputed, which is to destroy humanity or at least become the hegemony of the earth. The real relationship between him and The Mind Flayer is something worth discussing.
Theory 1: Vecna is a minion of the Mind Flayer
This theory comes from Dustin himself when he likens Vecna to a 5-star general of the Mind Flayer. If true, then the existence of Vecna is explained quite simply. After being banished to The Upside Down by Eleven, the Mind Flayer quickly acquired Henry and turned him into his most powerful henchman. Everything Vecna does in season 4 is to serve the orders of her superiors.
Theory 2: Vecna creates the Mind Flayer
This hypothesis is more creative. It thinks that Vecna is the creator of the Mind Flayer. After arriving at The Upside Down, Vecna used his power to create the second Hawkins. Then he spawned soldiers like The Demogorgon, Demo Bats, and even the Mind Flayer – creatures with a very similar shape to an spider, just like the animal Henry used to play with as a child.
During his time stuck in another dimension, Vecna Stranger Things penetrated the minds of the people of Hawkins to recreate the town, including personal details like Nancy’s diary. As soon as Eleven opened the portal again in 1983, Vecna stopped updating Hawkins 2.0 to focus on an all-out attack.
However, which hypothesis is correct, we need to wait until early July.
7. What will happen to Vecna Stranger Things in the future?
The last two episodes of season 4, PAPA and THE PIGGYBACK, will definitely help the audience have a better look at this hideous villain. In addition to telling us about the relationship between him and the Mind Flayer, we will most likely know more about the process of Henry being taken by Dr. Brenner used as a test subject.
The power of Vecna Stranger Things probably won’t just stop at things that have appeared. It is possible that Henry is not simply able to turn the clock back, he is manipulating time. This is indeed valid. If you could move things with your mind, would you use it just to turn a clock? Most likely, time manipulation is also a latent ability of Eleven and is waiting to be discovered by her.
An anagram of Henry’s father (Victor Creel) gives the phrase “Correct Evil” which raises many questions. Why did Henry deliberately not kill his father and blame him for killing his family? If he really wanted to spare you, why use witchcraft to make you so hallucinate that you had to blind yourself?
Could it be that Victor also mistreated, abused Henry, and made him a dangerous person? Is this the reason that helped Henry form the ability to manipulate time with the main purpose of going back in time and living a different life?
Let’s wait for the answer in early July when the last 2 episodes of season 4 come out!