Prior to the Netflix release of Stranger Things 4, we looked into the Dungeons & Dragons Vecna’s past. However, we were not anticipating the character’s sordid and private connection with Hawkins, Indiana from the television show. We also weren’t prepared to find out that he was behind all of the strange incidents that had plagued that small town. The most recent antagonist of the horror series was a monster before Eleven transported him to the Upside Down. But how could a little child endanger his family, turn into Dr. Martin Brenner’s most hazardous test subject, and become the supreme ruler of the dark dimension? Here is Vecna’s dark tale in its entirety from Stranger Things 4.
A Troubled Henry Creel Moves to Hawkins
Vecna wasn’t always a terrifying creature from the Other Side. Henry Creel, a troubled kid in the real world, used to be him. In 1959, Henry’s family relocated to Hawkins as a result of Henry’s “issues”. Uncertainty exists over the precise problems that prompted the relocation. Robin and Nancy were warned by Victor Creel that his son was “sensitive.” Henry said that “something was amiss” with him while chatting to Eleven in the lab. “Every instructor and doctor told me I was broken.” His parents believed “a change of environment, a fresh start in Hawkins, would just cure” whatever ailment their kid was experiencing because they were unable to get treatment for him. Instead, the town turned became their final destination.
Henry soon after they had moved into their new home discovered a black widow spider nest. After that, the youngster developed a new “feeling of purpose” that revealed how evil he was inside before killing his family. Henry was able to identify what he detested in life and people thanks to those spiders. He described his realisation to Eleven as follows:
Most people are arachnophobic. They loathe them. Yet I could not stop being fascinated by them. More than that, I felt a strong sense of kinship and comfort with them. They are lonely beings, just like I am, and are gravely misunderstood. They are the most significant predators in our world and are like gods. They render the weak immobile and feed on them, bringing equilibrium and order to an unsteady ecosystem. But this balance was being disturbed by the human world. You know, humans are a special kind of pest that pollutes our planet, multiplies, and imposes their own structure. a structure that is utterly bizarre. Whereas other people saw order, I saw a straight jacket, a cruel, repressive world where prefabricated rules govern everything. Every life is a fading inferior replica of the one before it, whether it lasts for a few seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, or decades. Get up, eat, work, rest, procreate, and pass away.
Even as a young child, Henry believed that because humans were subject to the unstoppable march of time, they did not fully live. He thought that individuals only “performed in a ridiculous horrible show, day after day, while waiting to die.” He refused to live that way because he could not. And he came to the realisation that he didn’t have to when his passion and fury unleashed his horrible powers one day. Henry was able to “establish equilibrium” to a world he perceived as shattered by creating his own “rules” for it. He made the decision to become a predator “but for good” at that point.
A Demon Destroys the Creel Family
Henry had greater powers the more he used them. He was able to murder living beings from the inside out thanks to his telekinetic powers. And when he understood he could “reach into” peoples’ thoughts and uncover their darkest secrets, the impulse to slaughter more than just little creatures arose. He discovered that people, like “everything else in this world,” were “all a lie, a terrible lie,” as he continued to learn more about them.
Victor Creel believed a demon, a “evil neither animal nor human,” a “spawn of Satan,” had cursed him and his family for something terrible Victor unintentionally did during World War II. Henry haunted his family with nightmare visions and dead rabbits. Additionally, he claimed that the demon “took pleasure” in torturing everyone, even Alice, Victor’s innocent young daughter. Henry, however, claimed that Virginia, in some way, was aware that he was the one frightening the family. Henry claimed that the professional doctor would lock him up and “fix” him if she requested their assistance.
Henry had no desire to become a patient of that physician. Instead, he made the decision to “break free” by murdering his mother and sister and framing his father. His evil scheme also came close to succeeding. With each death, he gained strength and power, but he was “still a child” and unaware of the extent of his abilities. When Henry attacked his family, he almost died.
Victor Creel thought his kid passed away a week after that tragic evening. But when Henry emerged from his coma, he was already under the care of Martin Brenner, the physician he had hoped to avoid.
Henry Creel Becomes Martin Brenner’s #1 Patient
Henry Creel continued to be Dr. Martin Brenner’s ward, employee, and prisoner at Hawkins Lab for 20 years. Henry’s time under Papa’s “care,” like Eleven’s, was everything but loving. The two strong youngsters’ experiences, however, are not entirely comparable. The following is what Henry, who was assigned to Brenner as test subject 001, revealed to Eleven regarding the formation of the Brenner’s super power children group:
In actuality, he wanted more than just to observe me. He wanted to be in charge. Papa tried to reconstruct me once he finally understood he could not control me. He started a programme, and soon others followed.
Henry’s abilities directly contributed to the plan that separated Jane/Eleven from her real mother. Henry Creel’s potential power was recognised by Dr. Martin Brenner. Brenner planned to mould and mould his own human weapons from the start of their lives because Henry was too nihilistic and sadistic to ever truly put under his control. Before any of them arrived at the Lab, however, One had already left, as far as the other youngsters were concerned.
Brenner was unable to control Henry’s powers, but he was still able to keep Henry imprisoned. Even Henry, who is now known as Peter Ballard, was unable to remove the tracker he had implanted in his neck on his own. In addition to keeping Henry in the lab, that device also left him weak and prevented him from using his skills. One became an orderly in a place where his “siblings” were unaware that he was their older “brother” despite being far too old for the programme and far too dangerous to let go. He does, however, convey something significant about himself in his general acquiescence. Henry wanted to survive even though he detested people. Even though it meant being tortured for offering Eleven advise, he simply bided his time. When he understood the extent of Eleven’s unrealized potential, he also saw a way out.
One tricked Eleven into devising her own escape plan, which included convincing her to take out the implant in his neck. Henry, however, lied to Eleven when he claimed that Brenner wanted her killed. Although Brenner frequently lied, his activities with Eleven were intended to gain control over her and reveal her powers rather than to kill her. Brenner was a nasty man, but he did care for his “babies” in his own special way. One broke free from his bonds and proceeded on a murderous rampage, killing almost everyone in the lab, including the children. But he didn’t want to kill Eleven.
They were going to collaborate under the direction of Henry, who once found strength in unity. Eleven was given the opportunity to join Henry in his menacing mission to change the status quo for humanity.
You are nothing more than a monster and a lab rat to be controlled in your papa’s eyes. However, the reality, Eleven, is quite the reverse. You are superior to them and better than them. You scare them as a result of this. You will be set free if you travel with me for the first time in your life. Imagine what we can do as a team. The world could be altered in whatever way we deemed appropriate. Follow me.
Eleven attacked Henry in addition to refusing to follow him. If not for the guidance One had previously provided her, she would have met the same end as all of his other victims.
Eleven Sends One to the Upside Down
Robin and Nancy were informed by Victor Creel that “all evil must have a home.” He was correct, but he was unaware that his demonic son had moved into the Upside Down. Eleven recalled what One had previously told her about using her power as she watched Henry hold her in the air and prepare to tear her body apart like he had done with his other victims.
In a memory from his past—something that made him angry as well as sad—Henry “had found his strength.” Eleven associated that with the memory of seeing her mother hauled away from her.
Eleven not only defeated One, but also sent him to another dimension as she summoned all of her fury and her suffering from deep within her soul. Henry Creel was sucked into the Upside Down after she opened a portal there. His skin was torn apart as the evil mirror world there started to transform him into something twisted and deadly. However, Henry Creel applauded the change.
One Becomes an Explorer in the Upside Down
At first, one thought Eleven had killed him and consigned him to hell. He soon discovered, however, that she had exiled him to a brand-new location—a world untainted by humanity. He developed into a “explorer” there after seeing “so many things.” Then, “the most extraordinary thing of all, something that would change everything,” came to him one day. He discovered the mysterious specks that would one day form the Mind Flayer.
Henry was given “the means to reach his potential, to transcend” his human form and turn into “the predator he was always destined to be” by that circling, whirling mass. He rose to become the Upside Down’s ruler.
On Stranger Things, Henry Creel looks at the Mind Flayer in the Upside Down. 4 Netflix ads by Kiosked
Henry’s mind is the hive mind of that realm. By extension, Vecna, Henry Creel, One, and the Mind Flayer are all the same entity, and they are to blame for all of Hawkins’ assaults. Similar to how he dispatched the Mind Flayer, Vecna also sent the Demogorgons and Demodogs into the real world.
Vecna Looks For a Way Back
One hasn’t been assaulting Eleven and Hawkins out of pure retaliation; throughout the years, One’s human form totally changed into Vecna. She gave him what he wanted, therefore in some ways he is appreciative of her. As he desired, he lives in a world without time or structure. But that didn’t accomplish his goal of changing life in the way he desired. He needed a means to return to the real world in order to do that.
Eleven, who was unaware of their shared history, made touch with a Demogorgon, and he believed he had discovered it. In truth, Brenner had her hunting in the dark for Henry, whom he still loved, while claiming to be battling the Russians. Vecna was unable to return through that portal or any of the others that came up later at Hawkins Lab. Before he could use them, Eleven kept shutting the doorways between dimensions. So he made the decision that he had to open them himself.
presenting: the line-up of my nightmares pic.twitter.com/CSqC2cQAZj
— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) July 4, 2022
Vecna used the Mind Flayer to attack Hawkins. The children had actually lost, even though it appeared that they had fought the creature’s corporeal form in Starcourt Mall. Vecna employed the assault to take Eleven’s abilities. He discovered a way back inside Hawkins with them.
One Steals Eleven’s Powers
From the Upside Down Vecna can still see into people’s brains, just like Henry could. His body is directly pierced by the dark dimension’s vines that have migrated to the physical world. He was able to perceive people for who they truly were and the suffering they were hiding.
He can render people virtually powerless by attacking those who have endured extreme pain, especially those who feel accountable for the death of another. The first time Max escaped, her buddies played her favourite music. Vecna’s hypnosis was broken, allowing her to escape the Upside Down and return to her home reality. However, when Vecna kills someone, they don’t simply pass away. More horrible than that, actually. Like when he was still a human, they continue to be a part of him.
At the scene of each victim’s death, a little portal between realms was opened by his murderous spree. However, he only need four victims to effectively tear the dimensional barrier apart. Even though Max’s passing was only momentary, it was enough for Vecna to tear four enormous lines through Hawkins, leaving it completely open to the Upside Down. The evil realm’s assault on Hawkins began with the “snow” that was already falling.
Vecna revealed to Nancy a vision that foretold what would occur next. Once the actual Hawkins has been completely destroyed, an army of monsters will come after. The bodies of loved ones and fallen warriors will be left behind. They will then proceed to explore the rest of the world. That is, unless Eleven is able to muster enough strength to not only permanently shut the portal between realities, but also to end Henry Creel’s reign of terror.
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