You better Vecna self before you wreck yourself as we’re doing a full breakdown on the big bad in the Stranger Things season 4. In the latest volume, we learn a lot about his backstory and throughout this video we’re gonna be going over that, talking about who he really is and also just some of the behind-the-scenes info that the creative team used to trick us.
Because of this, there will be the heaviest of all spoilers and I don’t want to be public enemy number one so if you haven’t watched it then turn this video off. Oops already spoiled it a bit there in that bit, can’t help myself, so let’s get into the breakdown.
Is Vecna Billy?
Going into this season there was a lot of theories and rumours surrounding Vecna. Dacre Montgomery aka Billy even posted a photo of himself in the makeup chair for the season and there were people matching up the scars on his character’s arm. We even had the entry in which he appeared like Billy to Max at one point and it seemed like everything was coming up Milhouse. However, it was really coming up Mephisto and Vecna’s true story is a lot more straightforward than bringing him back.
Who is Vecna?
Vecna’s name is based on the Dungeons and Dragons character that was once a powerful wizard, however, he ended up becoming an undead creature.
We discover that he was actually Henry, the son of Victor Creel, a war veteran who got up to some shady s**t during the war. It was a war to be fair but whether these nightmare situations were passed on through genetic memory or Vecna simply was a bad apple, remains to be seen. Together the family moved together into a giant home and though his sister was a normal and happy child, Henry/Vecna didn’t fit in.
As he narrates his backstory to Eleven he talks about doctors and psychiatrists that clearly picked up on his behaviour abnormalities and, for lack of a better word, classed him as being broken. An outcast, his parents moved to Hawkins in the hopes that a change of scenery to quote-unquote cure him. However, it was in this house that he discovered a nest of black widows, the venomous spiders that eat their partners after mating. Vecna found comfort in them and somewhat of kinship due to them being misunderstood, solitary creatures. The Mind Flayer also shares some similarities with a spider and thus it makes sense why he’d end up becoming the big bad’s Five-Star General.
Vecna’s Motivations
Vecna viewed the spiders as Gods on Earth and with the Mind Flayer being a god of the underworld, or rather Upside Down, you can see why he ended up becoming a follower of his. Now from the way Vecna describes the creatures you can see why he views himself as a God too.
We even get the same music used for Doctor Manhattan’s origin story and he is very much seen as a God too. Also, Zack Snyder is the blueprint for like this whole scene.
He states that they bring balance to an uneven ecosystem and spiders of course feast on flies and other insects. Also, I will be calling him Vecna throughout most of this video. I know that’s not originally his name but it will just stop the confusion later on when he gets called that.
Now he viewed humans as the enemies of the spider due to our tendency to multiply and warp the world around us. He doesn’t go all Agent Smith but it’s clear that he views humans as a virus and also one that he considers meaningless. Vecna says that all the lives he observed were simply just stuck in a loop, going around in circles, wasting time whilst destroying the world around them. According to him, we are just waiting to die but with us comes a dangerous side. We have the capacity to destroy the entire planet and thus he saw wiping out the chaos that we caused as our mission.
Clocks
Another interesting aspect that Vecna talks about is time and from this comes his fascination with clocks. At one point he rants about seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years and how they were invented by humans to keep everyone confined to routines. In the Upside Down, we discover that time is at a standstill there and that it’s exactly the same as how it was on the day that Will Byers entered it. This could show why he wants to spend time there as he will remain out of the structure and trappings of time.
This is showcased by him rewinding the grandfather clock. He started killing small animals, a trait often showcased in serial killers and he used their deaths to practice his abilities. He developed his psychic powers which allowed him to creep into the minds of people.
During this time he looked into his parent’s minds and realised that they had dark secrets they didn’t present to the world. We don’t really learn what these are but come the second volume they might discuss it in more detail. Vecna slowly started to plague his parent’s minds with horrific images which his father Victor said were the workings of a demon. He showed him visions of a burning crib and we discovered that in the war his father ordered the bombing of a building that had civilians along with babies inside.
Becoming Number One
However his mother figured it all out and she apparently turned on her son, calling a doctor, doctor Brenner, to study him. Vecna greatly feared this fate and wanted to escape it so he enacted a plan to murder his family. He hoped to pin it all on his father and after starting with his mother he moved to him and his sister. As we’ve seen with these abilities though, they take great mental strain and when attempting to murder his father he was nearly killed after being overpowered.
Put into a coma his father was arrested and he work up in the care of Doctor Brenner. Though Brenner promised his mother that he wanted to study him he actually had more nefarious plans and he wanted to control his powers. However, upon realising that the boy was too difficult to reign in he started to duplicate Vecna and he started up the programme that we see throughout Volume 4. He was given the codename Number 1 and he’s where it all began.
Slowly the numbers rose from 2 all the way up to Eleven, while he put an inhibitor device into Vecna. This nullified all his abilities and he made him an orderly at the facility. Slowly he watched over the kids, unable to leave because he could expose the secrets of what was really going on.
Meeting Eleven
Seeing Eleven as a bully victim he slowly sunk his claws into her and turned her against both Brenner and the rest of the subjects. Realising that she’d had a difficult upbringing too he saw her as someone that could join him in his quest to destroy humanity. He gave her a way to escape and said that because of the device in his neck that he couldn’t go with her because Brenner would be able to track them both.
Eleven decided to help him and she tore the chip out of his neck which allowed him to come off the leash.
Guards arrived and it wasn’t too long before Vecna started killing them all. He also wiped out the rest of the students and then he asked Eleven to join him. However, she turned this down and ended up tearing a hole through into the Upside Down that she tossed Vecna through.
Creating Vecna
In the harsh reality, the lightning there burned and warped him into the terrifying creature that haunts people’s nightmares and he gained a symbiotic relationship with the environment. We learn that the tentacles are also very much him and that he cut tears into reality.
Vecna is clearly pulling heavily from Freddie Krueger and not only do we get a cameo by Robert Englund, but we also get several Elm Street easter eggs. Much like how Freddie used dreams to hurt his prey, Vecna attacks his victims in their minds which is where he murders them.
Guy ends up going after all the kids who now resemble the characters from Wet Hot American Summer.
He slowly starts to murder people one by one after first torturing them with visions.
How to Beat Him?
He is absolutely terrifying but there are ways to beat him. In the series he ends up trying to kill Max, however, upon using Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush, they’re able to pull her out of his grasp and get her to exit the Upside Down.
Trailers have shown Eddie thrashing away on his guitar, potentially also being something that he’ll use in the series. Love is what defeats him, well that and Eleven and I do think that after she reunites with Hopper that she’ll have her abilities back to full strength.
Nina was not only about discovering the past but it was also about getting her powers back once more through taking this trip down memory lane. I think that everyone will unite and bring it all together to finally put an end to his bloody, diabolical plans.
You summofabich.
I feel that this season is very much gonna be about all the characters battling him and whereas in the past it was mainly the gang leaving it up to Eleven as the kids went past their bedtime, here I think they’ll all get involved.
There’s also the potential that Will might too. He still has quite a connection to the Upside Down and continues to draw things that we aren’t privvy to. It’ll be interesting to see if that comes into effect but for the moment that’s everything you need to know about the character and his backstory.
I’d of course love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me know you punk.
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