For three seasons, we thought the Mind Flayer was Stranger Things' big bad. Season 4 revealed something more disturbing: behind the shadow monster was a human mind—Henry Creel, a psychic child who became the nightmare creature called Vecna.
Henry Creel's Origin
Henry Creel was born with psychic abilities he couldn't understand or control. His family moved to Hawkins in 1959, into the house that would become the Creel House.
Young Henry was fascinated by death and saw humanity as a plague. He tormented his family psychically, making them see visions and slowly driving them mad. When his father Victor began to suspect the truth, Henry killed his mother and sister, framing his father for the murders.
But the effort of killing his family put Henry in a coma. When he woke, he was in Hawkins Lab, where Dr. Brenner designated him "One"—the first subject in the program that would eventually produce Eleven.
Subject One
In Hawkins Lab, Henry/One was Brenner's first success—and his greatest failure. Too powerful to control, too intelligent to manipulate, Henry was eventually implanted with a chip that suppressed his abilities and forced to work as an orderly.
When Eleven arrived at the lab, Henry recognized her potential. He befriended her, manipulated her into removing his chip, then massacred every child and employee in the building. Only Eleven survived by doing what she was born to do: she opened a gate and banished Henry to the Upside Down.
Becoming Vecna
In the Upside Down's primordial state, Henry transformed. The dimension's energies twisted his body into something monstrous while his mind bent the dimension itself to his will. He created the Demogorgons. He shaped the Upside Down into a mirror of Hawkins. He became Vecna.
His D&D namesake is fitting—Vecna the lich lord is obsessed with forbidden knowledge and control over death. Stranger Things' Vecna shares these traits, killing to create gates that will eventually let him merge dimensions.
Vecna's Powers
- Psychic invasion: He enters victims' minds through trauma
- Telekinesis: Extreme physical manipulation
- Gate creation: Each kill creates a new gate to the Upside Down
- Hive mind control: Commands all Upside Down creatures
- Precognition: Can see possible futures
- Near-immortality: Survived in the Upside Down for years
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