Major “Strange Things” season 4 spoilers are there in this article.
The penultimate season of “Stranger Things” is officially underway, and as the finale draws near, the mysterious pandemonium known as The Upside Down has only begun to make sense. It was up to our favourites, dispersed around the world, to discover his origins and stop him before he annihilated the world as we know it as the monstrous, tentacle-wrapped muscle man known as Vecna went on a teenage killing spree throughout Hawkins. We discovered that Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower), the child of notorious family killer Victor Creel (Robert Englund), who was later shown to have been wrongly convicted of killing his family, was the father of Vecna. Actually, as part of Dr. Brenner’s research at Hawkins Laboratory, Henry killed his family by using his paranormal abilities. He later transformed into “One.”
One was exiled to The Upside Down after a confrontation with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) at the Lab, where he became the origin of all the terrifying harbingers that were released upon Hawkins throughout the course of “Stranger Things.” Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) proposed that Vecna was the “five-star general” or second-in-command to the Mind Flayer they first encountered in season 2 as the group started to understand Vecna’s origins and the extent of his power. Sadly, Dustybuns’ prognosis was much off the mark. He was right to suspect a link between Vecna and the Mind Flayer, but how the two relate to one another will undoubtedly pose new dangers to Hawkins, especially to those who attempt to combat it.
Spoiling the unspoiled realm
During her attempt to save Max by approaching her through the Void as Vecna targeted her for his fourth and last death, Eleven discovered the truth of Vecna’s relationship to the Mind Flayer. Vecna offered a menacing monologue that addressed some of the most pressing topics after capturing Eleven and pinning her up with his vine-like tentacles. Henry/One was sent into the nether dimension and had his body burned as he fell between worlds after Eleven accidentally made a hole between our world and The Upside Down after using her powers against him. Henry/One initially thought he had been dumped into what he dubbed “a region untainted by mankind,” but soon understood that it was actually a type of purgatory. When he fell in 1979, The Upside Down was still a dreary, barren wilderness, not yet an inverted replica of Hawkins. When Henry/One encountered Demodogs and other evil entities, he perceived them as little predators that needed to be protected, much like how he perceived household spiders as a human on Earth.
Henry/One approached a vast, swirling mass and changed it into the shape of a spider-like entity, using his superhuman ability to connect and control other people’s minds. The Mind Flayer was developed by Henry/One and is an incredibly enormous cosmic beast that resembles one of his early sketches. The Mind Flayer came in season 2 to serve Vecna’s needs by assisting him in realising his monstrous potential, transcending his human form, and “becoming the predator [he] was always born to be.” Vecna was not put on this earth to serve The Mind Flayer.
The black widow of The Upside Down
As a child, Henry Creel was enthralled by spiders. He considered the black widow to be the ideal alpha predator and only despised it because of its size. Henry/One/Vecna was able to harness the power of the form that would become the Mind Flayer by coming into contact with it. He could try to reset humanity by employing the Mind Flayer, extending his power through the strong being. Vecna transformed the people of the Upside Down into a hive mind by gaining control of the Mind Flayer. Because of this, all demobats, demodogs, and demogorgons behave in unison and are susceptible to destruction if the host is rendered helpless.
The Demogorgon, the Mind Flayer, and other various Upside Down creatures were sent forth by Henry/One/Vecna to weaken the barrier separating the two realms. Eventually, this allowed America and Russia to open their own gates, allowing Vecna to pass right through. He accuses Eleven of being responsible for all of the death and damage that has befallen Hawkins, saying, “All I needed was someone to open the door.” He implies that all of this might have been avoided if she had not cast him into the Upside Down. He was aware that Eleven’s strength was necessary for him to survive, and after the Battle of Starcourt Mall, he was granted his wish.
Vecna is still connected to his survivors
Will Byers was the target of Henry/One/initial Vecna’s attempt to strike our reality, but he was unable to succeed due to his lack of power. He tried again with Billy, but Eleven once more thwarted his scheme. In season three, he assaulted her once more through the Mind Flayer, who bit her and put a worm in her leg. She learns her powers are gone after Jonathan removes the worm from her body, but she is unaware that Vecna sucked her power out through the worm.
Now that she had her power, Vecna was finally able to access the victims’ thoughts and construct the four gates required to introduce The Upside Down to our reality. Fortunately, Will Byers is still in touch with his hive mind whether or not Vecna is aware of it. She sensed his presence in the last seconds of season 4. If/when she awakens, there is a significant probability that she will also be connected to Vecna because Max is unconscious but still alive. No matter what Vecna has in store for season 5, we can be comforted in the knowledge that Eleven, Will, and the rest of the group will be prepared to finally defeat him.
