One horrifying idea explains why Vecna, the new villain introduced in Stranger Things season 4, only targets traumatised victims. Henry Creel, or 001, was Vecna’s previous name at Hawkins Lab before he was corrupted and deformed by the Upside Down. Without counting Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Vecna picks four victims in season 4 to cause a wedge between the Right Side Up and the Upside Down. Up until the point where Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) brings Max (Sadie Sink) back to life before the Gate is fully completed, he succeeds in his aim. Nevertheless, the Upside Down leaking into the Right Side Up leaves Stranger Things season 4 on a cliffhanger.
Vecna was revealed to be the true villain of Stranger Things in Season 4, having effectively created the Upside Down as we know it today. He killed his mother and sister twenty years earlier and was also accountable for the 1979 Hawkins Lab Massacre. He psychologically torments each victim with memories of their traumatic pasts for days before to killing them by piercing their eyes and breaking their bones. The victims of the Hawkins Lab Massacre were the only ones who were not psychologically tortured before dying because Vecna was temporarily unable to do so and killed them primarily to flee and get retribution. In contrast to his other murders, Vecna didn’t know any of his victims personally, rendering them useless as objects for Vecna’s purposes. Vecna’s murders are some of the most graphic murders that Stranger Things has so far shown, and season 5 will have more.
In Stranger Things season 4, Vecna’s curse targets traumatised Hawkins teenagers for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. One argument, however, offers a tenable justification for what the show is most certainly hinting at (via Reddit). Their existence in Vecna’s Mindscape indicates that their demise is more beneficial than initially thought. In a villain monologue to Eleven at the conclusion of season 4, episode 7, “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab,” Vecna says that he believes that one of humanity’s greatest flaws is the repetitive, regulated structure of society, which he views to be imprisoning and disharmonizing. However, this was not the main reason behind his murders in 1986. Vecna’s victims provide him with energy and may determine how strong he becomes in season 5.
How Traumatized Victims Fuel Vecna’s Powers
Cunningham, Chrissy Season 4 of Strange Things’ Death, Vecna, and At each murder scene, Vecna can open an upside-down portal, which eventually joins together to form a single big upside-down gate. In Vecna’s Mindscape, the bodies of the victims continue to exist as psychic versions. Stranger Things season 5 will have to address whether the dead are still there after the Gate opened, but a few season 4 hints provide some insight into why they were there in the first place. According to the Reddit idea, Vecna tells Eleven about the influence of painful, furious memories. In addition to this, Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) claims in the Stranger Things episode “Papa” that Vecna “consumes” everything about his victims, which further supports the idea that he chooses traumatised people in order to fill his memory bank with unhappy and angry experiences. With every victim, he might progressively gain power.
Vecna’s Victim Choices Explained
In Stranger Things, Fred Benson was possessed by Vecna just before he was killed by hanging in midair.
Vecna’s decision to target Max from Stranger Things for a future goal is purely coincidental. Otherwise, “The Monster and The Superhero,” the fourth season premiere of Stranger Things, demonstrates that Vecna has the ability to select from a variety of possible Hawkins victims before he latches onto Patrick McKinney (Myles Truitt). Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien), one of Vecna’s 1986 victims, endured her mother’s body-shaming abuse. Reporter for the school newspaper Fred Benson (Logan Riley Bruner) escaped a fatal vehicle accident, which haunts him to this day. Due of his father’s mistreatment of him, Patrick was the target. Finally, Vecna exploits Barb’s (Shannon Purser) death as an opportunity to utilise Nancy and attacks Max for her anguish from seeing Billy killed. It seems sense that Vecna chooses which terrible memories he wants to store in his subconscious if traumatic experiences feed his powers and if he is able to select his victims from a variety of damaged people.
Why Vecna Chooses Teenage Victims In Stranger Things Season 4
It makes sense that Vecna would want traumatised victims to assist him in opening the Upside Down Gate when one considers his vast Stranger Things goal. It still doesn’t fully explain why he specifically targets teenagers. Vecna can also access the memories of adults, as he demonstrated when searching for victims. In fact, his mother, an adult, was his first victim when he was a toddler, proving that he is more than capable of picking them as his target.
Vecna may, however, prefer to target young people since he finds them simpler to control than adults. Vecna prefers to avoid children because he needs his victims to be old enough to have experienced trauma in the past. However, Vecna’s teenage victims are at a vulnerable age where he may manipulate them to do whatever he likes. Vecna is still in contact with Will (Noah Schnapp) from Stranger Things, whom he infiltrated as a youngster and maintained alive into his teenage years, in part so that he would be more qualified to carry out more difficult tasks for Vecna. Adults would undoubtedly be scared by Vecna’s psychological tortures, but youthful victims are better suited to live under a strong leader like Vecna. Vecna could theoretically influence adults, but he probably finds teenagers to be much simpler to frighten and manipulate.
The fact that all of his victims from 1986 are minors could simply be a coincidence. Vecna picks the memories from his victims he wants to store in his mind, hence the fact that all of the victims are Hawkins High students is just coincidental. Even though it’s strange that all of his victims are teenagers, there might be more to their motivations in Stranger Things season 5.
Why Vecna’s Victims Are In His Mindscape
In “Dear Billy” from Stranger Things, Max finds herself in Vecna’s Mindscape before escaping Vecna. There, she discovers Chrissy and Fred’s deformed bodies being supported by a network of heavy vines. These aren’t the victims’ actual bodies because Vecna’s Mindscape is different from both the Upside Down and the Right Side Up. They represent their very being and are their essences. Vecna/001 states that the massacre victims are “not gone” and are “still with [him]” in Stranger Things’ “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab.” Vecna keeps the essences of his victims in his Mindscape for later use, taking Brenner’s statement that Vecna consumes his victims into consideration. In fact, his prior victims are not represented in his Mindscape, indicating that he most likely exhausted their essences.
After spending a few years in the Upside Down, Vecna is now more equipped to take over Hawkins thanks to his ability to create micro portals. Before the Gate was opened, Max discovered Vecna’s ’86 victims in his Mindscape, but the fact that they remained there after their deaths created the smaller gates raises the potential that they may still be with Vecna. There is no evidence that Vecna’s victims were only used for opening portals unless he used all of their essences to open the enormous Gate. If this is the case, it will only be made clear in Stranger Things season 5, although it is still possible that Vecna’s victims serve some other greater purpose.
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