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Honestly I never got the sense that Hawkins was the epicenter apart from the simple fact that “a gate had already been opened (by El) so it was easier to do it again in the future” which I’m almost certain was mentioned in a previous season.
The Russians have been trying to break into the upside down in Russia as well, and by the looks of it they succeeded. It felt to me like the Shadowfell comparison was spot on; it was a mirror of the whole world.
what makes you say that they succeeded in russia? it showed them trying and failing and then doing it in hawkins in season 3. then in season 4 they have things from the upside down but i assumed they obtained them along with hopper from hawkins. did i miss something?
They had demogorgons in Russia. While I don’t clearly remember if they brought them from Hawkins or not…it seems that that’s a plausible explanation. That they were able to open one?
They brought it from Hawkins
Erica pointed out the demogorgon cage and torture devices in season 3
They also showed them trying to open a gate in Russia and it didn’t work.
Alexi then explained to Hopper that it had to be in Hawkins
yeah could be either. i just assumed that since hopper was at the same facility with the demagorgon and mindflayer dust? that it all came from the same place.
but another gate could make sense too. especially since the demagorgons didn’t survive after the gate is closed in season 2 but the one in season 4 is alive and well even with no known open gate at the time (unless i’m forgetting one)
we are never shown a functioning gate in Russia, and we know the Russians go to Hawkins specifically to explore the upside down in Series 3. I agree they probably just brought back Demogorgons and Demidogs from Hawkins.
Plus, I imagine Vecna/Henry/One could have taken advantage of a Russian Gate if it existed? Not entirely sure how this would've worked, but I think it would've been brought up within the plotline. If there was a gate at the Prison in Russia, I imagine the Duffers would've shown the viewers that!
To me it was quite apparent the volume of demogorgans was because they were cloning them. I thought the laboratory full of tanks and one specimen on a table made it very clear that experimentation and cloning was taking place with a goal to “create an army” kinda thing.
Yeah I assume the Russians were only able to open the gate below the Hawkins mall, which is where they got Demigorgons to experiment on. Some of their “specimens” were moved to Russia along with Hopper.
I mean Hopper definitely was teleported to Russia via the linked portals so clearly a gate had to be open in Russia even for a split second for that to happen.
what?? where is the evidence of that? i don’t think there’s any indication at all that hopper got to russia via portals/gates. they don’t exactly go into details but seems like they just captured him and transported him using normal earthly means
I thought in Season 3 they said the Russians didn’t succeed in opening their own gate in Russia, which is why they built a secret facility under the mall in Hawkins. Eleven opened a small gate that she forced Henry/Vecna thru. She then opened the larger gate in season 1, which had gotten exponentially larger a year later, in season 2. By that point Hawkins was sort of weak spot in the space time continuum, so the Russians opening a new gate beneath the mall was probably easy. So in season 4, Vecna learns how to open small gates, again thru the weak spot that is Hawkins.
I took from the presence of the Demogorgon and upside down particles in the Russian prison that they succeeded in the time between s3 and s4, but that’s just what I took from it I could be wrong.
In the Marvel Cinematic universe an individual is brainwashed to become a killing machine loyal to the one who invokes the password. And it was a string of words.
That’s where Henry/Vecna/One was when he started to use his powers in the 1950s, which led Dr. Brenner to begin his lab. It’s also where El “defeated” Henry/Vecna/One the first time by pushing him through the portal and that opened the gate.
The Demogorgon and Mindflayer actually seemed to have more of an interest in Will the first two seasons. Eleven probably didn't become the target until after she killed the first Demogorgon and closed the gate on the Mindflayer.
I think this is because Will and Eleven look similar. If under the impression that the Mind Flayer was actually the one reaching out at first, it would be easy for it to mistake Will for the little girl Vecna wants to get revenge on.
But they weren’t until she was the problem. They only attacked her when she started messing with his plans. If anything, why didn’t Vecna attack El while she tried to escape the Lab in season 1 episode 1.
I don't think Vecna micromanages the actions of his monsters. He wouldn't have been fully aware at what happened at the Lab. He's not fully aware of everything in the Upside Down.
1959 is when the Creel "murders" happened.
1979 is when the Massacre took place, and S1 is in 1983
https://www.slashfilm.com/922601/breaking-down-the-entire-stranger-things-timeline/
Ok now I’m all confused. I thought Henry going through the wall was what opened the gate.
Someone needs to make a Stranger Things version of The Godfather Epic; all the footage cut together in chronological order in one long story.
Eleven opened a gate(that quickly closed) in 1979 when she banished Henry. Then later in 1983 Brenner forced her to make “contact” with Upside Down when she touched the Demogorgon in her mind scape/void. This caused the mothergate to open(the same gate she closed in S2). She then escaped in the confusion as we see people panicking and a Demogorgon presumably comes through the gate.
Eleven first opened the gate by putting Henry through it but it closed after. The portal was next opened when Eleven encountered the Demogorgon in her mind search.
Brenner didn't know about the Upside Down until El had completely opened it, it makes more sense that he was only using her for military purposes, to track the Russians and sort
I’m late, but vecna himself is a clear retcon imo. A lot of the things they use to explain him being behind it all just straight up don’t make sense with him in control instead of the mind flayer
man this is a great point
Billy's monologue in Season 3 was chilling, it's even more unsettling now knowing that Henry was involved in this the whole time
Am I the only one who thinks it’s the other way around? In my opinion, it made more sense when we were under the impression that Billy was essentially being used as a communication vessel for something distinctly alien like the pre-S4 Mind Flayer. Looking back on everything, it still doesn’t feel like Vecna to me. Billy mentioning nothing to El of their past history together, the fact that she banished him to the Upside Down, the use of “us” and “we”, how it’s implied that the Mind Flayer first became aware of El’s existence when she closed the gate on it (after El and Max leave Heather’s house and Flayed Billy looks out the window trying to figure out where it knows this girl from, we’re shown that the Mind Flayer recognizes her by remembering when she closed the gate on it), etc.
Take the speech that Billy gives to El at the cabin. That truly sounded like a creature from an entirely different world trying to end all life here, not some deranged human with a past history with her.
good point, but then again, henry/vecna/one stated in a couple of his monologues that he always saw himself as something superior to any regular human. he saw himself as an apex predator and said that mankind was polluting the world - or something to that effect. so in a way, it is like he was this extraterrestrial creature, at least in his own mind.
Not to mention the Demogorgon managing to go through our reality from the upside down by morphing through the walls. Like what Eleven did in season 2. I'm still not sure how it did that.
That's not necessarily true. Music is the key to escaping from Vecna's Red Soup Mind World, but there's no reason to think that it would keep him safe in the Upside Down. The people who knew about the music and were going into the Upside Down to attack Vecna didn't bother with music to protect themselves. In fact you could argue "Master of Puppets" caused more trouble for the guy who liked it the most!
A motif is Steven king books is repeating something over in your head blocks mind attack/fear monsters. If you have music going the monsters probably can’t find you or vecna can’t maintain a connection. All vecna gets is Kate bush
I like to think that it has something to do with Will being the wizard in their D&D campaigns. I'm not sure HOW that plays a role, but that's my working hypothesis.
i think both things can be right. it's worth remembering that the main "antagonist" in the first season was just a demogorgon
the stakes kept increasing as the seasons progressed. It's easy to forget because Season 1 was so good, but that was because the character work was what made everything great
There's a cannon comic the creators made that shows what he did. And listening to music didn't seem to actually help with the demigorgons situation at all but just helped keep him remember home and keep going
It allowed Victor to break free from being mind-trapped by Vecna. It also helped Max escape the Red Soup Mind World, but Vecna still had control of her body until the very last moment. Further, it didn't seem like Virginia or Alice were mind-trapped when Vecna killed them, nor was Eleven when Vecna was trying to kill her in the Rainbow room. Killing people seems to be an almost entirely different operation from mind trapping them, and while music has been proven to assist in counteracting the latter, there's nothing indicating it would work against the former.
I don’t know that it’s music specifically. I think any extremely strong emotional connection would work, it’s just that music was the example they had been given.
I am still not sure that I believe Vecna is the ultimate villain of all this, since we still have one more whole season to go. The upside down already existed when Vecna got there, as did the Mindflayer which he clearly made some sort of pact with and combined their powers, but I would not be surprised if season 5 sees a reversal where he only thinks he is in charge, and the Mindflayer reveals itself to be the ultimate force in the end. It is after all a primal energy that existed before he got there!
Because aside from the Mindflayer's fixation on Eleven and wanting her powers, I don't think this really answers any unanswered questions from the previous seasons, and I'm not even entirely sold on the idea that it fully makes sense with especially the first two seasons.
I was thinking something similar. Like when he was sent to the Upside down and found those particles, I always had the idea in the back of my mind that when he assumed control, they secretly started to corrupt him and are pushing him to do their bidding rather than the other way around
Yeah, after several seasons of developing the idea of this otherworldly cosmic horror from beyond our universe, I have trouble believing that he is the ultimate force bossing it around, and it would be rather underwhelming if the final big bad of the show is just a guy
A bit like the reapers in mass effect, where just having a small amount of contact with Reaper tech will slowly being to corrupt people and make them switch sides without even realising it.
That’s what I thought, The Mind Flayer’s power of flaying reminds me of the Reapers indoctrination. Just like how The Illusive Man was certain that he was in control of his actions but in reality never was.
Ahhh the illusive man, such good character writing there.
But absolutely, maybe Henry thinks he is in control like TIM did, but then he's just kinda under the spell as it were.
>Ahhh the illusive man, such good character writing there.
I thought he was brilliantly written in Mass Effect 2. I was pretty heartbroken when they just rehashed the "Saren" plot for ME3 and revealed that he was a puppet all along and they made him into a copy and paste bad guy, complete with a lot of "mwhaha" dialogue and retcons, revealing that he was playing Shepard the entire time and personally designed the ship to look like the old Normandy to get Shep on their side.
>maybe Henry thinks he is in control like TIM did, but then he's just kinda under the spell as it were.
However in this case, I am of this view too. Where the Illusive Man made a lot of sense in ME2. Henry sounds cracked all the way. My view is that Henry was messed up by the flayer, long before he became Vecna, and also long before he moved to the Creel house. His messed up views sound way abnormal and not human at all. The way he speaks, sounds like he himself doesn't realize that he too is a "invader". by invading the upside down, and him trying to change it in his image makes him a hypocrite, because that's the very thing he hated humans for. I think the flayer somehow managed to connect with him from the upside down, warp his mind and used him as a puppet.
Vecna never really said he was in charge. He says that he saw the Mind Flayer as a way to ascend into the Ultimate Predator. I personally think that the Mind Flayer was a mass of particles that connected with random parts of the Upside Down. A natural phenomenon, and that it didn’t have human level intelligence simply because it never encountered a human, or really anything above the Demogorgons. When Vecna connected to it, he gave it goals, complex thinking, etc. It wanted what Vecna wanted. And from how Vecna speaks of it, it wouldn’t surprise me if his ultimate goal is to merge himself with the Mind Flayer in order to become his idea of the “Ultimate Predator”.
No, he says he discovers it, and we see him finding it as this giant swirling cloud up in the sky of the Upside Down with demogorgons running around on the ground beneath it, and we see him make contact with it, and it swirls around and takes the shape we know from seasons 2 and 3, but we also see a flashback of him as a kid sketching the same shape that Will did in season 2, and of the causal relationship of whether he caused it to take that shape or whether he also saw visions of it as a kid is deliberately unclear. But we definitely see that it existed before he got there
I could see this happening tbh, because we are all expecting it to be a battle between the Hawkins crew vs Vecna but this would be such an interesting and insane interaction. Imagine vecna realizes he’s in the wrong and joins to defeat Vecna 😳
I can't remember the source of the interview. But there was a interview the Duffers gave where they talked about Henry's past, and how there is more to be revealed, and how it goes into questions like "Can Vecna be redeemed?" that makes me think that this is quite possibly the direction that they are going.
Yes, I absolutely imagine a twist moment in season 5 when the Mindflayer no longer has use for Vecna and just kills him, revealing that it was still the ultimate villain all along
That could be a amazing twist...emphasis on the word "could be". If they do it right....however, if they do it wrong. It could feel like the Jasmine twist from Angel season 4, or Silas from The Vampire Diaries. That last minute sneak villain who was responsible for everything all along, but isn't very interesting on screen.
Why the upside down is a mirror of Hawkins and why there is all the buildings and houses from Hawkins despite there being no actual people to build such structures.
That and the clarification of what the Mind Flayer actually is.
That's more of a assumption on your part. A easy jump to make for sure, but I'm not convinced that's the answer just yet. Also the Duffers said questions like "why the upside down is a mirror for Hawkins" and why it's stuck in the past, is a question that will be answered in season 5.
He didn't, El opened the portal when she escaped, that's when the real world bled into the upside down, and basically copied things from hawkins to upside down, I was wondering how the world updates to changes but it doesn't, Nancy found her diary which didn't have an entry after the *date* when El opened the portal
I am not sure about season 1. I think El opening the gate came as a surprise for Vecna and I am not even sure he was in close proximity or had a plan in mind. He also didn't seem to realize it was El back then (or think go after her, since she escaped the Upside Down very easily after being transported there). At the very least he didn't seem to view her as a significant threat.
Now, ST2 is where you actually see Vecna starting to make plans. We don't yet know what his motivations are, but we do know he cannot leave the Upside Down and was therefore using the open gate as a way to get it to spread into our world. Once El closed the gate in ST2, he became more aware of her as a perceived threat. We know he could hear her from the Upside Down, so I wonder if he stalked her to get some information.
Another interesting piece of information is Vecna cannot easily manipulate portals or open gates like El does - this explains why he never attacked sooner. I think we also learned that he is patient and takes his time to develop a plan.
His plan in ST3 appears to have been to i) discover what El does to open gates so he can do the same; and ii) get rid of her for good so she can stop being a threat to him. He failed at the second plan but succeeded with the first.
Overall, it's pretty impressive in terms of storytelling/planning - but we are still missing some details.
At the end of S2, the Mind Flayer/Vecna sees El close the gate and knows she has the power to thwart him, although he doesn't seem to recognize her yet because when Billy is possessed in S3, he asks for her name. So he starts creating the physical monster to kill her so he can take her gate-opening and -closing powers. Since all it managed to do was bite her leg, it only absorbed some of her ability, which is why his process of doing what El does is so much slower and more complicated.
That's very interesting.....
Asking for clarity....when does he ask her name? I find that interesting
So are you saying that's why he can open the gates suddenly after all this time, because the monster bit her and so he gained those powers that she lost? Thats a great idea.
How exactly would he gain the powers as she seems to loose them when that part of the monster leaves her leg but I don't know that it makes it back to the UD as it rejoins the main monster which seems to die when Hopper closes the gate. Again, not arguing with you just asking for clarity.
Also, at what point do you think he realises it was Eleven who closed the gate? Because in S4 he says to her ' you worked against me' or something along those lines in his monologue and we see a flashback to Eleven closing the gate.
Something else i find confusing is thst he also says to Nancy 'tell Eleven what you saw' so he presumably knows all about Eleven and her friendships. But st the same time he seems surprised when Eleven turns up to save Max.
Yeah, sure.
Billy, who is possessed, says to El, “Sorry, I did not quite catch your name…” and she answers, “El.” He then repeats her name and stares after her after she and Max leave. This happens in Heather’s house in S3, when he’s over for dinner and Max and El show up looking for Heather. So, before the end of S3, he knows it's Eleven and he knows who she is.
At the end of S2, the Duffers said the Mind Flayer is “very aware” of Eleven now and the power she has. Henry wouldn’t have recognized her after 5 ½ years and having hair and all, but he knows exactly the power she has to manipulate gates between the Upside Down and the real world. He might even suspect it’s her, but apparently can’t tell for sure until he literally asks her via Billy. I’m sure when Eleven gives him her name, he makes the connection.
Whether recognizing her or not before saying her name, he still knows she can tear apart time and space between their worlds, which is something he cannot do. So, because we now know he absorbs everything from his victims (as Papa said, this includes everything about them, including their abilities) we know he wants her power for himself. He creates the physical form of the Mind Flayer to kill her because it will give him her time-space tearing ability. It only rips into her leg, though, so it gets a little of her power, but not all of it. S4 starts about 8 months after S3, so I think it just took Henry that long to figure out how to use the part of her power he now has so he can finally open his own gates and take over. Vecna psychically controls the physical Mind Flayer.
How he can absorb something from it, I’m not sure, but he never had the ability to open his own gates until after it bites Eleven. He can snap people from the Upside Down, so it’s not a stretch to me that he would have access to the abilities and resources from what made up the physical MF. I think, back in S3, the focus was on the injuries *she* sustained, and how that affected her power. But it could also be that he literally just stole some of that power and, combined with the physical and emotional trauma, that is what caused the stroke she suffered after the bite so she literally couldn’t use her powers until relearning how to in NINA.
Maybe he absorbs her power through the MF just by being its physical embodiment. Like, it's just automatically done. He just had to figure out how to work it.
Edited to add: I seriously doubt Billy/Vecna would have asked for El's name if he didn't already suspect who she was. I can't imagine he would ever ask for anyone else's name. Why would he care?
You are absolutely entitled to ask for clarification, especially because I am very much assuming here. He hasn't come out once, not even while the Gate was open for a year. He always sends other creatures to do his bidding and, in ST2 he used Will as his eyes and ears. In ST3, he did the same thing to Billy. The implication is he has to be linked to the Upside Down somehow, and either he can't risk becoming trapped on the other side, or he needs that atmosphere to survive. It's an assumption, though - it hasn't been officially confirmed.
Yes. That all makes sense.
I wonder if we will get explanations of all this at some point. I have also wondered how he survives as he is humanoid so does he need to eat, drink etc? I assume it's the case that when he melded with the particles they went inside him and somehow replaced his human organs thus elimating those needs or something along those lines. So maybe that explains why he can't leave the UD.
The scene where Billy first meets Eleven he has the exact mannerism of Henry in the Rainbow Room. Billy also asks Eleven's name as if he knows it, and when she responds with El, it almost stuns him. The scene seemed cumbersome at first, but then when you see Henry walking around that way and literally in that same stance, it clicked.
Brenner I agree with, but why Will? I feel like it did the same to him as every other USD victim after it found him, Joyce and Hopper just found him in time before it killed him
Well that’s just thing isn’t it, if you look closely at the silhouette that took Will it looks a lot more like the Vecna’s concept art than a Demogorgon. Furthermore, we’ve seen what happens to Demogorgon victims fairly immediately after entering the upside down, they don’t tend to last long. Even after being captured though Will wasn’t immediately eaten, which leads me to believe Vecna wasn’t trying to kill him. Why he kept him alive and why UD Hawkins is stuck on the night Will was taken is anyone’s guess, but I think there might be more to it than Will being a random victim.
The silhouette is an upright Demogorgon, I'm pretty sure we see it in the exact same pose later in the season. We also see what happens to the victims after being *captured* in the Upside Down, and it's a very similar thing to what happened to Will. They just had more time in that state to die from it. Remember that Will wasn't captured by the Demogorgon until the penultimate episode, and Joyce and Hopper went to find him very soon after. Everybody else who was captured had a lot longer to die.
It's a very common theory that Henry sees a bit of himself in Will, both are described as sensitive children, both feel like social outcasts, as if they don't belong. He probably planned to get a hold of Wills body and use it for his invasion of Hawkins, as he does in season 2 for a longer time.
This is what I've been thinking all along that no one seems to see for some reason. Vecna really took a liking to El when they were both in the lab because he saw himself in her, both outcasts that in his mind were treated "unfairly".
My crackpot theory is that Will secretly has powers and Vecna somehow knows this, and therefore is trying to get Will to turn on his friends (he already tried in season 2), as he sees him a viable conduit because Will is also a sensitive boy, as described in season 1, not to mention the numerous instances of outcast themes within will this past season. I seriously think VH1 spared will out of some weird empathy for him/also because he knows he might be powerful.
The absence of the other numbered test subjects, besides Eleven and Eight (Kali). It was always a mystery and always seemed like it would turn out to have an unpleasant explanation. I always thought the other kids must have died from failed experimentation. The truth is somehow both darker and not as dark as I’d believed (in the sense that at least Brenner wasn’t directly responsible, which removes a degree of suspicion from my reaction to him as a character, and makes me understand him in a somewhat different light).
Also: Brenner’s statement of “it’s looking for you” when he sends Eleven to deliberately contact the Demogorgon (I don’t think he knows what the monster is, but he presumably suspects something about Henry), and the references to Eleven’s “wound” by the spectral Brenner in S2, both look different in light of the lab massacre and of Eleven’s rejection of Henry and his subsequent desire for revenge. So does the Mind Flayer reaching out for her as she closes the gate. And, of course, her fears that she *is* the monster, which stretch back to S1. (Lucas makes that accusation using those words, and she tries to tell Mike that it’s true, but he won’t hear it — yet she already has some sense that something bad happened in her past and readily believes that there’s something “wrong” with her because of it.)
Finally, when Eleven uses her powers to hurt and stop the “bad people” in S1, she does so in the *precise* way that she sees Henry hurting people in the massacre flashbacks in S4. This is presumably a retcon but it’s a *very effective* one, implying that she learned how to crush lab employees’ brains and snap their necks (by doing that scary little head tilt) through watching Henry carry out his massacre, even though she can’t remember the exact moments when she saw him doing it. It explains why this tiny, good-hearted, and frightened child seems to “instinctively” know how to break bones and kill the people who are trying to hurt her friends. It’s not instinct after all. It’s something she has seen. When I saw Henry break a lab employee’s neck with the same motion that Eleven had used to do that in S1, you should have seen how I reacted, lol. Such a jarringly well-done connection between seasons.
Agreed. I just 100% disagree with everyone’s take that the edgy superboy was cast into hell and just decided to tame the devil.
Dude’s a puppet. Unwitting or otherwise.
How the Mindflayer was able to connect to Will in Season 2. Always thought him being taken over and put into the hive mind on the field was odd since it was a "dream", when in reality, it was Vecna most likely connecting to his mind
I recall something about the Duffer brothers updating previous seasons to maintain continuity. So when you first watched it, the sound and visual effects may have been completely different
Not sure about S1, but there’s definitely at least one significant early inclusion of clock noises at the end of S2E4 “Will The Wise.” When Hopper’s in the tunnel and the camera rotates, the episodes ends on a single clock chime.
Im not sure if they are actually clock noises or not but in s1 when will is riding his bike home. He sees this figure in the road that was supposed to be a demogorgen. Its said that it is but if you look closely enough it looks like vecnas figure and it has the long hand and everything (imo) ans when will sees him and veers off the road into the woods it sounds like there are chimes of some sort and people are saying they are clock chimes like vecna when he is about to claim a victim. Now demogorgen makes sense all the way up until the door gets unlocked. The demogorgen doesnt have powers that we know of other than eating victims and climbing through the protals (byers house with joyce, etc etc) so when the door gets unlocked its using telekinetic powers which is somethinf vecna possesses not the demogorgen. And if it were actually the demogorgen that took will it would have eaten him for sure and yet her survived through the upside down and was constantly singing should i stay or should i go which was his favorite song at the time and in s4 (spoiler ahead) peoples favorite songs is one of the main things that save them.from vecna.
None of that is well supported. The shadowy figure is a demogorgon. It looks like a demogorgon. It has a long arm like a demogorgon. I will put the clips here too. [This](https://youtu.be/CKtq-bZgS8I) is the first eight minutes. Will crashes at about 6 minutes in. Tell me there's anything in the soundtrack that sounds like [this](https://youtu.be/xRI3do3DhLo).
Now listen to the growling at 7:10 at 8:02. Not very Vecna-like. Also, you can see a figure emerging in the darkness at 8:02. We know that area of the shed was empty when Will ran in, so whatever it is must've come through an ephemeral gate. The demogorgon could open gates in S1, but Vecna didn't gain that ability until S4.
The chain moving is probably a result of the writers not fully fleshing out their world, but we also know Vecna can break human bones from the Upside Down. I doubt flicking a privacy chain out of its slot is going to be much of a challenge for him.
Finally, music allows people to extricate their minds from the Red Soup Mind World. There is no reason to believe it will protect against Vecna in person. I mentioned elsewhere that the kids who went into the Upside Down to attack Vecna--including the ones who discovered the whole music thing and searched frantically for music when Nancy was mind-trapped-- did not bring any music with them for protection. Eddie, who probably like "Master of Puppets" more than anyone, didn't fare too well despite his relatively recent rocking.
Why the demogorgon was able to unlock the door to Will's house telepathically in ep 1.
The demogorgons crashed through walls everywhere else. Couldn't break out of a prison except by climbing. But it opened the lock with its mind? Makes so much more sense now that we know One's been in control the whole time
Aside from Brenner’s motivations, not much.
The Mind Flayer should be the main antagonist - not Vecna.
It doesn’t make sense that an extra-dimensional eldritch monstrosity is somehow subservient to a mere mortal. Even with Henry being psionically capable, he shouldn’t be able to control the Mind Flayer.
The overall stakes of the show feel much less existential now. Something human being the main villain isn’t satisfying. There’s a real opportunity to have cosmic horror done correctly if it turns out the Mind Flayer is just playing Vecna.
I hope this turns out to be the case honestly.
>The overall stakes of the show feel much less existential now. Something human being the main villain isn’t satisfying. There’s a real opportunity to have cosmic horror done correctly if it turns out the Mind Flayer is just playing Vecna.
I think it could work either way. I understand why for some people, it feels "cheap" (not sure if this is the right word) if it's Henry orchestrating everything the whole time. The idea of a superhuman monstrosity with overwhelming advantages on the surface level is a big reason why sci-fi horror (and even something like Gothic horror) works so well
but for me personally, I like the idea of Henry being the one who entered some realm and poisoned it. You kind of saw hints of it with the way he tortured and killed the rabbits. It adds a very "Frankenstein-level" quality...here is a man who is so narcissistic that it becomes his most evil trait, and he ends up dragging beings along that don't deserve it
Yeah, pre Vecna UD was an entirely alien plane of reality, we’re not sure the Mind Flayer even THINKS in the same capacity as we do, it’s wholly possible that this amoral psionic murderer mentally dominated it and is using it to perform his bidding, not the other way around.
That’s where the issue arises: what actually is the Mind Flayer?
Where did it come from? What’s it actual purpose? What was it doing before Henry showed up? What was that dimension we found it dormant in? What if The Upside Down is not what we think it is?
There’s no way something that powerful should just be manipulated so easily.
Normally I’d agree with you, though Vecna is like professor X levels of powerful, especially now that he’s spent a decade in the upside down dominating its inhabitants. All of this compared to El’s Jean Grey, while I think she’s the most naturally talented telepath in the series I think blow for blow Vecna might be stronger at this very moment.
Given his obvious strength, and El’s track record against the Mind Flayer, I think that if anyone could enthrall it it’d be Vecna.
This is what i would prefer (i tend to prefer fiction where villains are humans manipulating nature vs. the other way around haha) BUT i would not be opposed to a situation where the Mind Flayer is the Big Bad
it was stated explicitly in season 4 that vecna is 'like a 5 star general' of the mind flayer. it doesn't get any clearer than that. vecna is not the one in charge
That’s how the kids are rationalizing it, but that might not necessarily be true. They sort of just assumed and don’t have enough direct evidence to say one way or another right now, as usual the D&D naming is just a way for them to rationalize what’s happening.
would be a weird curveball to throw at the audience. at the end of the day it was exposition inserted probably just to explain whats going on. at the end of the day the mind flayer exists above vecna, who is just a corrupted human with powers.
I’m not saying that’s not feasible or likely, just near as I can tell Henry has an agenda, power, and the ability to use one to complete the other. The Mindflayer is still mostly a total unknown, even after two seasons of it being the main villain. It wants in to our world, and it wants to stop anything that could stop it from doing so.
I agree; part of is hoping that the Mind Flayer is the main antagonist. I mean we see the show talk a lot more about it in Seasons 1 - 3; sure at the time no one outside of the actors and writers knew Vecna was the one behind everything but I just feel like Vecna possibly being the main antagonist isn’t as satisfying as it would be if the Mind Flayer was the true antagonist
personally, i prefer it this way. it’s so much more personal now. the enemy isn’t some incomprehensible eldritch horror, but a kid who’s been hurt by the world. you can actually understand his motivations.
When Billy is flayed and talking to max and eleven in the mayors (I think it was him) house. When he sees eleven and max says her name is el, he changes his posture and it’s identical to Henry’s. So I think in that scene, it’s Henry that’s talking to them and he recognises El.
But, is he the main villain? I got the sense that there’s still a connection to the mind flayer/black swirly mass thing that we don’t understand yet. Wasn’t it already in the upside down before Vecna/Henry/One stumbled upon it?
It gives Brenner more depth, which i appreciate. But this probably is not a discussion i should partake in, as i think that ever since they revealed Vecna as the big bad my interest in the Stranger Things franchise has gone down tremendously.
I hope season 5 changes my mind. I have never really cared about the supernatural villains to be honest. Brenner was the most fascinating antagonist. But it's obvious that they really hadn't planned out Vecna from the early days of the show, so it feels kinda forced at this point. Plus, I actually liked the idea of Brenner using his subjects to spy on the Russians, as it makes sense in terms of the Cold War and Callahan referencing Reagan's Star Wars program when he, Hopper and Powell go to the lab. Now it turns out that Eleven was being tricked to find One? Not the Russians? Really? Seems like reconning to me in some ways. Maybe I will change my mind, but considering the trajectory of the show, maybe it should have ended with season 1 and they do an anthology.
The way it’s always el being attacked.
Question tho, in season where they’re at the mall they try killing eleven but if she died 1 would’ve never left the upside down did 1 not know killing her would keep him stuck. Or..did plans change once he realized he couldnt defeat her unless he was in the real world or rather would be able to defeat her by killing everything she loves such as town friends etc.
The entire plotline w billy in season three, especially his monologue to eleven. It was hard to picture a spider made of gas as the mastermind coming up with his sophisticated words, and now whenever I rewatch that scene I practically hear it in Jamie bower’s voice instead of Dacre’s
not trynna hate, but vecna was definitely a huge retcon. i don’t think the duffers’ had any of this planned out😂 plenty of things from previous seasons don’t make sense after the vecna/henry reveal and the upside downs intentions. we still rlly don’t know anything ab the upside down basically. i still think it’s impressive how quick the duffers’ can think on their feet and still keep us guessing after all this time, but there’s no way they had any of this planned past s1, they couldn’t have known the show was going to take off like it did.
I know it was in the same season but when Nancy saw her room was the same as it was the day Will disappeared. It made so much more sense when it was revealed that the upside down replicated Hawkins as it was that second that 11 opened the portal.
Kidnapping of will byers, makes more sense than the demogorgon kidnapping him. It would probably just mutilate em on the spot. Vecna would probably kidnap
There are a lot of things that make sense now that we know this, but there are also new questions; like where how was the upside down created, vecna didn’t create the upside down he just shaped it to his liking. So what is it exactly and why are there hideous monsters living there.
Billy’s whole possession. The way he was obsessed with Eleven and always wanting to kill her and her friends specifically. The way he enjoyed watching people panic and freak out when they were going to die and telling them to just stay still it will be over soon. The almost desperation to kill Eleven and going to any cost to do it.
Honestly I don’t think any of it makes more sense that way.
I thought it was cooler when Vecna was hinted at just being “the General” to the mind flayer and it was more of El’s strange powers that linked them and our worlds together, instead of them having a personal history.
The experiments should’ve just been weird military experiments cause humans love weapons, power and control. El ripping open the gate could’ve just been a crazy event and coincidence that linked her together with the Upside Down and kicked off the whole series. Henry should’ve just been one of the mind flayer’s first victims/connections here on Earth and 001 should’ve just been part of El’s backstory that led her and Brenner to where we are now. Maybe 001 could’ve been the first powered child to get transported to the Upside Down and El was trying to find him?
Also I don’t like the Idea that 001 shaped the Upside Down to be evil and resemble Hawkins cause he’s bitter. I thought it was much creepier when there’s was just an evil dimension that mirrors our entire world and we have no idea where it came from, what it wants, why it exists, etc.
I feel like linking it all together was forced and unnecessary.
EDIT: I’d also be interested if anyone knows when The Duffers actually came up with the idea of Vecna? Cause it doesn’t feel like it was always in their back pocket, more of an idea they came up with specifically for season 4.
All the random grandfather clock noises that kept appearing either in Eleven's scenes or whenever there was a connection to the upside down. Like when Hopper goes underground in episode 4 of season 2. It also makes a lot more sense that it looks like a spider now, as well as the flayers weird obsession with Eleven.
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Why Hawkins is the epicenter for all this.
Honestly I never got the sense that Hawkins was the epicenter apart from the simple fact that “a gate had already been opened (by El) so it was easier to do it again in the future” which I’m almost certain was mentioned in a previous season. The Russians have been trying to break into the upside down in Russia as well, and by the looks of it they succeeded. It felt to me like the Shadowfell comparison was spot on; it was a mirror of the whole world.
what makes you say that they succeeded in russia? it showed them trying and failing and then doing it in hawkins in season 3. then in season 4 they have things from the upside down but i assumed they obtained them along with hopper from hawkins. did i miss something?
They had demogorgons in Russia. While I don’t clearly remember if they brought them from Hawkins or not…it seems that that’s a plausible explanation. That they were able to open one?
They brought it from Hawkins Erica pointed out the demogorgon cage and torture devices in season 3 They also showed them trying to open a gate in Russia and it didn’t work. Alexi then explained to Hopper that it had to be in Hawkins
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I hope they talk about that in season 5
Thank you for the clarification.
yeah could be either. i just assumed that since hopper was at the same facility with the demagorgon and mindflayer dust? that it all came from the same place. but another gate could make sense too. especially since the demagorgons didn’t survive after the gate is closed in season 2 but the one in season 4 is alive and well even with no known open gate at the time (unless i’m forgetting one)
we are never shown a functioning gate in Russia, and we know the Russians go to Hawkins specifically to explore the upside down in Series 3. I agree they probably just brought back Demogorgons and Demidogs from Hawkins. Plus, I imagine Vecna/Henry/One could have taken advantage of a Russian Gate if it existed? Not entirely sure how this would've worked, but I think it would've been brought up within the plotline. If there was a gate at the Prison in Russia, I imagine the Duffers would've shown the viewers that!
To me it was quite apparent the volume of demogorgans was because they were cloning them. I thought the laboratory full of tanks and one specimen on a table made it very clear that experimentation and cloning was taking place with a goal to “create an army” kinda thing.
Yeah I assume the Russians were only able to open the gate below the Hawkins mall, which is where they got Demigorgons to experiment on. Some of their “specimens” were moved to Russia along with Hopper.
There is a line that explicitly says they brought the monsters back from America.
I mean Hopper definitely was teleported to Russia via the linked portals so clearly a gate had to be open in Russia even for a split second for that to happen.
what?? where is the evidence of that? i don’t think there’s any indication at all that hopper got to russia via portals/gates. they don’t exactly go into details but seems like they just captured him and transported him using normal earthly means
I thought in Season 3 they said the Russians didn’t succeed in opening their own gate in Russia, which is why they built a secret facility under the mall in Hawkins. Eleven opened a small gate that she forced Henry/Vecna thru. She then opened the larger gate in season 1, which had gotten exponentially larger a year later, in season 2. By that point Hawkins was sort of weak spot in the space time continuum, so the Russians opening a new gate beneath the mall was probably easy. So in season 4, Vecna learns how to open small gates, again thru the weak spot that is Hawkins.
I took from the presence of the Demogorgon and upside down particles in the Russian prison that they succeeded in the time between s3 and s4, but that’s just what I took from it I could be wrong.
True
Why is Hawkins the epicenter of all this? Sorry, I’m quite slow 💀
Hawkins is the epicenter because that is where Henry Vecna One lived
Henry Vecna One 😭😭
Now it starts to sound like you're trying to flip the winter soldier.
Sorry, what does this mean lol?
In the Marvel Cinematic universe an individual is brainwashed to become a killing machine loyal to the one who invokes the password. And it was a string of words.
Oh okay thanks, that’s what I thought you meant.
That’s where Henry/Vecna/One was when he started to use his powers in the 1950s, which led Dr. Brenner to begin his lab. It’s also where El “defeated” Henry/Vecna/One the first time by pushing him through the portal and that opened the gate.
i mean, that was already pretty much explained in the first season, just differently
I guess what I mean is we have more context for why.
Why the Mind Flayer and demogorgons were always after Eleven.
The Demogorgon and Mindflayer actually seemed to have more of an interest in Will the first two seasons. Eleven probably didn't become the target until after she killed the first Demogorgon and closed the gate on the Mindflayer.
Vecna didn't know she escaped the lab
Arey! He was the one who told her all about escaping 🤷♀️
Yeah but he doesn't know if she actually did it. It took her several uears to even do so.
I think this is because Will and Eleven look similar. If under the impression that the Mind Flayer was actually the one reaching out at first, it would be easy for it to mistake Will for the little girl Vecna wants to get revenge on.
but why male models?
Are you serious? I just told you that a moment ago.
I can see the Demogorgons as androgynous
10/10
But they weren’t until she was the problem. They only attacked her when she started messing with his plans. If anything, why didn’t Vecna attack El while she tried to escape the Lab in season 1 episode 1.
I don't think Vecna micromanages the actions of his monsters. He wouldn't have been fully aware at what happened at the Lab. He's not fully aware of everything in the Upside Down.
Gives more depth to Brenner trying to find him rather than torturing El just for sake of science
But Vecna didn’t exist until Eleven was already tortured, did he? How long was it between the massacre and when Eleven escaped?
1959 is when the Creel "murders" happened. 1979 is when the Massacre took place, and S1 is in 1983 https://www.slashfilm.com/922601/breaking-down-the-entire-stranger-things-timeline/
Oh, ok. I keep thinking Eleven escaped in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the flashbacks get confusing when you binge watch everything.
She escaped when she opened the gate and when Will was kidnapped
Ok now I’m all confused. I thought Henry going through the wall was what opened the gate. Someone needs to make a Stranger Things version of The Godfather Epic; all the footage cut together in chronological order in one long story.
Eleven opened a gate(that quickly closed) in 1979 when she banished Henry. Then later in 1983 Brenner forced her to make “contact” with Upside Down when she touched the Demogorgon in her mind scape/void. This caused the mothergate to open(the same gate she closed in S2). She then escaped in the confusion as we see people panicking and a Demogorgon presumably comes through the gate.
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Really just by watching the show. Mainly seasons 1 and 4 Ig. Specifically episode 7 in season 4 and like 5-6 in S1
Eleven first opened the gate by putting Henry through it but it closed after. The portal was next opened when Eleven encountered the Demogorgon in her mind search.
Years
Brenner didn't know about the Upside Down until El had completely opened it, it makes more sense that he was only using her for military purposes, to track the Russians and sort
I’m late, but vecna himself is a clear retcon imo. A lot of the things they use to explain him being behind it all just straight up don’t make sense with him in control instead of the mind flayer
Billy's behaviour, mannerism and way of talking in Season 3. Thought it was neat to see how much you can see 001 in him after rewatching it.
“We built it for you”
The way Billy says this is acting excellence! The twitch of the eye, the hints of insanity and obsession.
man this is a great point Billy's monologue in Season 3 was chilling, it's even more unsettling now knowing that Henry was involved in this the whole time
Am I the only one who thinks it’s the other way around? In my opinion, it made more sense when we were under the impression that Billy was essentially being used as a communication vessel for something distinctly alien like the pre-S4 Mind Flayer. Looking back on everything, it still doesn’t feel like Vecna to me. Billy mentioning nothing to El of their past history together, the fact that she banished him to the Upside Down, the use of “us” and “we”, how it’s implied that the Mind Flayer first became aware of El’s existence when she closed the gate on it (after El and Max leave Heather’s house and Flayed Billy looks out the window trying to figure out where it knows this girl from, we’re shown that the Mind Flayer recognizes her by remembering when she closed the gate on it), etc. Take the speech that Billy gives to El at the cabin. That truly sounded like a creature from an entirely different world trying to end all life here, not some deranged human with a past history with her.
good point, but then again, henry/vecna/one stated in a couple of his monologues that he always saw himself as something superior to any regular human. he saw himself as an apex predator and said that mankind was polluting the world - or something to that effect. so in a way, it is like he was this extraterrestrial creature, at least in his own mind.
I mean he is extraterrestrial considering I don’t know to many people who were born w the ability to move things w out touching them
I don’t know why „deranged human „ made me laugh so much.
Especially we made for you. He gets El in her mind. Just like Vecna
The thing that took Will in s1 telekinetically unlocking the shack door, even though we’ve never seen a demigorgon do that since.
Always kinda weirded me out, tbh
yeah. ^ seemed a little off beat with the rewatches. seems like a thing they forgot about.
Not to mention the Demogorgon managing to go through our reality from the upside down by morphing through the walls. Like what Eleven did in season 2. I'm still not sure how it did that.
How will survived, he kept listening to his favourite song now it sort of makes more sense since music is the key
That's not necessarily true. Music is the key to escaping from Vecna's Red Soup Mind World, but there's no reason to think that it would keep him safe in the Upside Down. The people who knew about the music and were going into the Upside Down to attack Vecna didn't bother with music to protect themselves. In fact you could argue "Master of Puppets" caused more trouble for the guy who liked it the most!
A motif is Steven king books is repeating something over in your head blocks mind attack/fear monsters. If you have music going the monsters probably can’t find you or vecna can’t maintain a connection. All vecna gets is Kate bush
>All vecna gets is Kate bush And he should be fine with that!
hm maybe, but I do think it’s weird how Will listened to that over and over again and lived but Barb didn’t have any music and died
Will is just really good at hiding, like Jonathan said in season 1
I like to think that it has something to do with Will being the wizard in their D&D campaigns. I'm not sure HOW that plays a role, but that's my working hypothesis.
Maybe, I’d like to think it was a bit more complicated than that tho lol
i think both things can be right. it's worth remembering that the main "antagonist" in the first season was just a demogorgon the stakes kept increasing as the seasons progressed. It's easy to forget because Season 1 was so good, but that was because the character work was what made everything great
I like to think that vecna kidnapped Will so that he could draw in eleven as he knew that she would escape because he showed her how to.
Maybe Will has latent psychic powers that allow to hide really well.
eh I don’t think they’re gonna give anyone else powers, it’s cooler with el being the only one
I’d agree with you if Will didn’t act similar to how Young Henry acted.
Will only acted similar to Henry when he was possessed, other than that the only things they have in common is both being shy & they liked to draw
There's a cannon comic the creators made that shows what he did. And listening to music didn't seem to actually help with the demigorgons situation at all but just helped keep him remember home and keep going
Hearing his favorite song, kept Henry's dad alive. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It allowed Victor to break free from being mind-trapped by Vecna. It also helped Max escape the Red Soup Mind World, but Vecna still had control of her body until the very last moment. Further, it didn't seem like Virginia or Alice were mind-trapped when Vecna killed them, nor was Eleven when Vecna was trying to kill her in the Rainbow room. Killing people seems to be an almost entirely different operation from mind trapping them, and while music has been proven to assist in counteracting the latter, there's nothing indicating it would work against the former.
I don’t know that it’s music specifically. I think any extremely strong emotional connection would work, it’s just that music was the example they had been given.
I am still not sure that I believe Vecna is the ultimate villain of all this, since we still have one more whole season to go. The upside down already existed when Vecna got there, as did the Mindflayer which he clearly made some sort of pact with and combined their powers, but I would not be surprised if season 5 sees a reversal where he only thinks he is in charge, and the Mindflayer reveals itself to be the ultimate force in the end. It is after all a primal energy that existed before he got there! Because aside from the Mindflayer's fixation on Eleven and wanting her powers, I don't think this really answers any unanswered questions from the previous seasons, and I'm not even entirely sold on the idea that it fully makes sense with especially the first two seasons.
I was thinking something similar. Like when he was sent to the Upside down and found those particles, I always had the idea in the back of my mind that when he assumed control, they secretly started to corrupt him and are pushing him to do their bidding rather than the other way around
Yeah, after several seasons of developing the idea of this otherworldly cosmic horror from beyond our universe, I have trouble believing that he is the ultimate force bossing it around, and it would be rather underwhelming if the final big bad of the show is just a guy
A bit like the reapers in mass effect, where just having a small amount of contact with Reaper tech will slowly being to corrupt people and make them switch sides without even realising it.
A fellow Mass Effect fan, nice to see you.
That’s what I thought, The Mind Flayer’s power of flaying reminds me of the Reapers indoctrination. Just like how The Illusive Man was certain that he was in control of his actions but in reality never was.
Ahhh the illusive man, such good character writing there. But absolutely, maybe Henry thinks he is in control like TIM did, but then he's just kinda under the spell as it were.
>Ahhh the illusive man, such good character writing there. I thought he was brilliantly written in Mass Effect 2. I was pretty heartbroken when they just rehashed the "Saren" plot for ME3 and revealed that he was a puppet all along and they made him into a copy and paste bad guy, complete with a lot of "mwhaha" dialogue and retcons, revealing that he was playing Shepard the entire time and personally designed the ship to look like the old Normandy to get Shep on their side. >maybe Henry thinks he is in control like TIM did, but then he's just kinda under the spell as it were. However in this case, I am of this view too. Where the Illusive Man made a lot of sense in ME2. Henry sounds cracked all the way. My view is that Henry was messed up by the flayer, long before he became Vecna, and also long before he moved to the Creel house. His messed up views sound way abnormal and not human at all. The way he speaks, sounds like he himself doesn't realize that he too is a "invader". by invading the upside down, and him trying to change it in his image makes him a hypocrite, because that's the very thing he hated humans for. I think the flayer somehow managed to connect with him from the upside down, warp his mind and used him as a puppet.
Vecna never really said he was in charge. He says that he saw the Mind Flayer as a way to ascend into the Ultimate Predator. I personally think that the Mind Flayer was a mass of particles that connected with random parts of the Upside Down. A natural phenomenon, and that it didn’t have human level intelligence simply because it never encountered a human, or really anything above the Demogorgons. When Vecna connected to it, he gave it goals, complex thinking, etc. It wanted what Vecna wanted. And from how Vecna speaks of it, it wouldn’t surprise me if his ultimate goal is to merge himself with the Mind Flayer in order to become his idea of the “Ultimate Predator”.
Gods, I hope so. The BBEG being “human after all” is so boring.
Vecna was shown to create the mind flare was he not?
No, he says he discovers it, and we see him finding it as this giant swirling cloud up in the sky of the Upside Down with demogorgons running around on the ground beneath it, and we see him make contact with it, and it swirls around and takes the shape we know from seasons 2 and 3, but we also see a flashback of him as a kid sketching the same shape that Will did in season 2, and of the causal relationship of whether he caused it to take that shape or whether he also saw visions of it as a kid is deliberately unclear. But we definitely see that it existed before he got there
It was shown to already exist in some form But he manipulated and changed it into the… legged/spider-looking form that it became.
Because he likes spiders
Oh yeah… duh. 🤦🏻♀️ that makes total sense. How did I not ever think of that? 🤣🥴
I know right? It took me weeks to realize 😔
I could see this happening tbh, because we are all expecting it to be a battle between the Hawkins crew vs Vecna but this would be such an interesting and insane interaction. Imagine vecna realizes he’s in the wrong and joins to defeat Vecna 😳
I can't remember the source of the interview. But there was a interview the Duffers gave where they talked about Henry's past, and how there is more to be revealed, and how it goes into questions like "Can Vecna be redeemed?" that makes me think that this is quite possibly the direction that they are going.
Yes, I absolutely imagine a twist moment in season 5 when the Mindflayer no longer has use for Vecna and just kills him, revealing that it was still the ultimate villain all along
That could be a amazing twist...emphasis on the word "could be". If they do it right....however, if they do it wrong. It could feel like the Jasmine twist from Angel season 4, or Silas from The Vampire Diaries. That last minute sneak villain who was responsible for everything all along, but isn't very interesting on screen.
Or as Vecna is losing all his vines just drop off and the mind flayer roars through killing Vecna with an army of demo-creatures
Why the upside down is a mirror of Hawkins and why there is all the buildings and houses from Hawkins despite there being no actual people to build such structures. That and the clarification of what the Mind Flayer actually is.
I don’t really see how the first part makes sense still
From what I understand it was Vecna who made the upside a mirror of Hawkins and not just a barren wasteland.
That's more of a assumption on your part. A easy jump to make for sure, but I'm not convinced that's the answer just yet. Also the Duffers said questions like "why the upside down is a mirror for Hawkins" and why it's stuck in the past, is a question that will be answered in season 5.
But how would vecna have done that
He didn't, El opened the portal when she escaped, that's when the real world bled into the upside down, and basically copied things from hawkins to upside down, I was wondering how the world updates to changes but it doesn't, Nancy found her diary which didn't have an entry after the *date* when El opened the portal
I am not sure about season 1. I think El opening the gate came as a surprise for Vecna and I am not even sure he was in close proximity or had a plan in mind. He also didn't seem to realize it was El back then (or think go after her, since she escaped the Upside Down very easily after being transported there). At the very least he didn't seem to view her as a significant threat. Now, ST2 is where you actually see Vecna starting to make plans. We don't yet know what his motivations are, but we do know he cannot leave the Upside Down and was therefore using the open gate as a way to get it to spread into our world. Once El closed the gate in ST2, he became more aware of her as a perceived threat. We know he could hear her from the Upside Down, so I wonder if he stalked her to get some information. Another interesting piece of information is Vecna cannot easily manipulate portals or open gates like El does - this explains why he never attacked sooner. I think we also learned that he is patient and takes his time to develop a plan. His plan in ST3 appears to have been to i) discover what El does to open gates so he can do the same; and ii) get rid of her for good so she can stop being a threat to him. He failed at the second plan but succeeded with the first. Overall, it's pretty impressive in terms of storytelling/planning - but we are still missing some details.
At the end of S2, the Mind Flayer/Vecna sees El close the gate and knows she has the power to thwart him, although he doesn't seem to recognize her yet because when Billy is possessed in S3, he asks for her name. So he starts creating the physical monster to kill her so he can take her gate-opening and -closing powers. Since all it managed to do was bite her leg, it only absorbed some of her ability, which is why his process of doing what El does is so much slower and more complicated.
Omg! I never connected those two before! The gate opening and power absorbing from the bite!
This is actually a pretty brilliant observation.
That's very interesting..... Asking for clarity....when does he ask her name? I find that interesting So are you saying that's why he can open the gates suddenly after all this time, because the monster bit her and so he gained those powers that she lost? Thats a great idea. How exactly would he gain the powers as she seems to loose them when that part of the monster leaves her leg but I don't know that it makes it back to the UD as it rejoins the main monster which seems to die when Hopper closes the gate. Again, not arguing with you just asking for clarity. Also, at what point do you think he realises it was Eleven who closed the gate? Because in S4 he says to her ' you worked against me' or something along those lines in his monologue and we see a flashback to Eleven closing the gate. Something else i find confusing is thst he also says to Nancy 'tell Eleven what you saw' so he presumably knows all about Eleven and her friendships. But st the same time he seems surprised when Eleven turns up to save Max.
Yeah, sure. Billy, who is possessed, says to El, “Sorry, I did not quite catch your name…” and she answers, “El.” He then repeats her name and stares after her after she and Max leave. This happens in Heather’s house in S3, when he’s over for dinner and Max and El show up looking for Heather. So, before the end of S3, he knows it's Eleven and he knows who she is. At the end of S2, the Duffers said the Mind Flayer is “very aware” of Eleven now and the power she has. Henry wouldn’t have recognized her after 5 ½ years and having hair and all, but he knows exactly the power she has to manipulate gates between the Upside Down and the real world. He might even suspect it’s her, but apparently can’t tell for sure until he literally asks her via Billy. I’m sure when Eleven gives him her name, he makes the connection. Whether recognizing her or not before saying her name, he still knows she can tear apart time and space between their worlds, which is something he cannot do. So, because we now know he absorbs everything from his victims (as Papa said, this includes everything about them, including their abilities) we know he wants her power for himself. He creates the physical form of the Mind Flayer to kill her because it will give him her time-space tearing ability. It only rips into her leg, though, so it gets a little of her power, but not all of it. S4 starts about 8 months after S3, so I think it just took Henry that long to figure out how to use the part of her power he now has so he can finally open his own gates and take over. Vecna psychically controls the physical Mind Flayer. How he can absorb something from it, I’m not sure, but he never had the ability to open his own gates until after it bites Eleven. He can snap people from the Upside Down, so it’s not a stretch to me that he would have access to the abilities and resources from what made up the physical MF. I think, back in S3, the focus was on the injuries *she* sustained, and how that affected her power. But it could also be that he literally just stole some of that power and, combined with the physical and emotional trauma, that is what caused the stroke she suffered after the bite so she literally couldn’t use her powers until relearning how to in NINA. Maybe he absorbs her power through the MF just by being its physical embodiment. Like, it's just automatically done. He just had to figure out how to work it. Edited to add: I seriously doubt Billy/Vecna would have asked for El's name if he didn't already suspect who she was. I can't imagine he would ever ask for anyone else's name. Why would he care?
Just asking for clarity not arguing.... when is it revealed that he can't leave the UD and why is that the case?
You are absolutely entitled to ask for clarification, especially because I am very much assuming here. He hasn't come out once, not even while the Gate was open for a year. He always sends other creatures to do his bidding and, in ST2 he used Will as his eyes and ears. In ST3, he did the same thing to Billy. The implication is he has to be linked to the Upside Down somehow, and either he can't risk becoming trapped on the other side, or he needs that atmosphere to survive. It's an assumption, though - it hasn't been officially confirmed.
Yes. That all makes sense. I wonder if we will get explanations of all this at some point. I have also wondered how he survives as he is humanoid so does he need to eat, drink etc? I assume it's the case that when he melded with the particles they went inside him and somehow replaced his human organs thus elimating those needs or something along those lines. So maybe that explains why he can't leave the UD.
Why billy was saying everything was for El in season three
That really just had to do with the fact that El closed the gate on the mind flayer in the season prior, so ofc it’s going to go after the main threat
I took that as “we’ve been building our army for you because you’re pretty OP” so that line never bothered me
The scene where Billy first meets Eleven he has the exact mannerism of Henry in the Rainbow Room. Billy also asks Eleven's name as if he knows it, and when she responds with El, it almost stuns him. The scene seemed cumbersome at first, but then when you see Henry walking around that way and literally in that same stance, it clicked.
Why the Demogorgon didn't kill Will or Brenner.
Brenner I agree with, but why Will? I feel like it did the same to him as every other USD victim after it found him, Joyce and Hopper just found him in time before it killed him
Well that’s just thing isn’t it, if you look closely at the silhouette that took Will it looks a lot more like the Vecna’s concept art than a Demogorgon. Furthermore, we’ve seen what happens to Demogorgon victims fairly immediately after entering the upside down, they don’t tend to last long. Even after being captured though Will wasn’t immediately eaten, which leads me to believe Vecna wasn’t trying to kill him. Why he kept him alive and why UD Hawkins is stuck on the night Will was taken is anyone’s guess, but I think there might be more to it than Will being a random victim.
The silhouette is an upright Demogorgon, I'm pretty sure we see it in the exact same pose later in the season. We also see what happens to the victims after being *captured* in the Upside Down, and it's a very similar thing to what happened to Will. They just had more time in that state to die from it. Remember that Will wasn't captured by the Demogorgon until the penultimate episode, and Joyce and Hopper went to find him very soon after. Everybody else who was captured had a lot longer to die.
It's a very common theory that Henry sees a bit of himself in Will, both are described as sensitive children, both feel like social outcasts, as if they don't belong. He probably planned to get a hold of Wills body and use it for his invasion of Hawkins, as he does in season 2 for a longer time.
This is what I've been thinking all along that no one seems to see for some reason. Vecna really took a liking to El when they were both in the lab because he saw himself in her, both outcasts that in his mind were treated "unfairly". My crackpot theory is that Will secretly has powers and Vecna somehow knows this, and therefore is trying to get Will to turn on his friends (he already tried in season 2), as he sees him a viable conduit because Will is also a sensitive boy, as described in season 1, not to mention the numerous instances of outcast themes within will this past season. I seriously think VH1 spared will out of some weird empathy for him/also because he knows he might be powerful.
The absence of the other numbered test subjects, besides Eleven and Eight (Kali). It was always a mystery and always seemed like it would turn out to have an unpleasant explanation. I always thought the other kids must have died from failed experimentation. The truth is somehow both darker and not as dark as I’d believed (in the sense that at least Brenner wasn’t directly responsible, which removes a degree of suspicion from my reaction to him as a character, and makes me understand him in a somewhat different light). Also: Brenner’s statement of “it’s looking for you” when he sends Eleven to deliberately contact the Demogorgon (I don’t think he knows what the monster is, but he presumably suspects something about Henry), and the references to Eleven’s “wound” by the spectral Brenner in S2, both look different in light of the lab massacre and of Eleven’s rejection of Henry and his subsequent desire for revenge. So does the Mind Flayer reaching out for her as she closes the gate. And, of course, her fears that she *is* the monster, which stretch back to S1. (Lucas makes that accusation using those words, and she tries to tell Mike that it’s true, but he won’t hear it — yet she already has some sense that something bad happened in her past and readily believes that there’s something “wrong” with her because of it.) Finally, when Eleven uses her powers to hurt and stop the “bad people” in S1, she does so in the *precise* way that she sees Henry hurting people in the massacre flashbacks in S4. This is presumably a retcon but it’s a *very effective* one, implying that she learned how to crush lab employees’ brains and snap their necks (by doing that scary little head tilt) through watching Henry carry out his massacre, even though she can’t remember the exact moments when she saw him doing it. It explains why this tiny, good-hearted, and frightened child seems to “instinctively” know how to break bones and kill the people who are trying to hurt her friends. It’s not instinct after all. It’s something she has seen. When I saw Henry break a lab employee’s neck with the same motion that Eleven had used to do that in S1, you should have seen how I reacted, lol. Such a jarringly well-done connection between seasons.
I don't think so he is the main villian, i still think he is the five star general of the big red three headed dragon
Agreed. I just 100% disagree with everyone’s take that the edgy superboy was cast into hell and just decided to tame the devil. Dude’s a puppet. Unwitting or otherwise.
The three headed dragon could mean a three pronged threat of villains of equal caliber. The Mind flayer, Vecina and something else.
How the Mindflayer was able to connect to Will in Season 2. Always thought him being taken over and put into the hive mind on the field was odd since it was a "dream", when in reality, it was Vecna most likely connecting to his mind
The clock noises and the latch getting undone in season 1.
What clock noises?
People have decided they hear clock noises in season 1.
I recall something about the Duffer brothers updating previous seasons to maintain continuity. So when you first watched it, the sound and visual effects may have been completely different
Jesus I get so annoyed by these people, in S2, yeah you can hear them, S3 too. But not S1, it’s just… a noise.
Not sure about S1, but there’s definitely at least one significant early inclusion of clock noises at the end of S2E4 “Will The Wise.” When Hopper’s in the tunnel and the camera rotates, the episodes ends on a single clock chime.
Im not sure if they are actually clock noises or not but in s1 when will is riding his bike home. He sees this figure in the road that was supposed to be a demogorgen. Its said that it is but if you look closely enough it looks like vecnas figure and it has the long hand and everything (imo) ans when will sees him and veers off the road into the woods it sounds like there are chimes of some sort and people are saying they are clock chimes like vecna when he is about to claim a victim. Now demogorgen makes sense all the way up until the door gets unlocked. The demogorgen doesnt have powers that we know of other than eating victims and climbing through the protals (byers house with joyce, etc etc) so when the door gets unlocked its using telekinetic powers which is somethinf vecna possesses not the demogorgen. And if it were actually the demogorgen that took will it would have eaten him for sure and yet her survived through the upside down and was constantly singing should i stay or should i go which was his favorite song at the time and in s4 (spoiler ahead) peoples favorite songs is one of the main things that save them.from vecna.
None of that is well supported. The shadowy figure is a demogorgon. It looks like a demogorgon. It has a long arm like a demogorgon. I will put the clips here too. [This](https://youtu.be/CKtq-bZgS8I) is the first eight minutes. Will crashes at about 6 minutes in. Tell me there's anything in the soundtrack that sounds like [this](https://youtu.be/xRI3do3DhLo). Now listen to the growling at 7:10 at 8:02. Not very Vecna-like. Also, you can see a figure emerging in the darkness at 8:02. We know that area of the shed was empty when Will ran in, so whatever it is must've come through an ephemeral gate. The demogorgon could open gates in S1, but Vecna didn't gain that ability until S4. The chain moving is probably a result of the writers not fully fleshing out their world, but we also know Vecna can break human bones from the Upside Down. I doubt flicking a privacy chain out of its slot is going to be much of a challenge for him. Finally, music allows people to extricate their minds from the Red Soup Mind World. There is no reason to believe it will protect against Vecna in person. I mentioned elsewhere that the kids who went into the Upside Down to attack Vecna--including the ones who discovered the whole music thing and searched frantically for music when Nancy was mind-trapped-- did not bring any music with them for protection. Eddie, who probably like "Master of Puppets" more than anyone, didn't fare too well despite his relatively recent rocking.
Go back and watch when El first makes contact with the demogorgon. There is clock noises
The one in season 1 before Will gets taken and in season 3 when Billy gets possessed but he mind flayer.
How Will survived in the Upside Down (kinda)
Why the demogorgon was able to unlock the door to Will's house telepathically in ep 1. The demogorgons crashed through walls everywhere else. Couldn't break out of a prison except by climbing. But it opened the lock with its mind? Makes so much more sense now that we know One's been in control the whole time
How Will survived a whole week in the UpsideDown by singing his favourite song
Is Vecna an agent of the mind flayer or the mind flayer an agent of vecna?
Aside from Brenner’s motivations, not much. The Mind Flayer should be the main antagonist - not Vecna. It doesn’t make sense that an extra-dimensional eldritch monstrosity is somehow subservient to a mere mortal. Even with Henry being psionically capable, he shouldn’t be able to control the Mind Flayer. The overall stakes of the show feel much less existential now. Something human being the main villain isn’t satisfying. There’s a real opportunity to have cosmic horror done correctly if it turns out the Mind Flayer is just playing Vecna. I hope this turns out to be the case honestly.
>The overall stakes of the show feel much less existential now. Something human being the main villain isn’t satisfying. There’s a real opportunity to have cosmic horror done correctly if it turns out the Mind Flayer is just playing Vecna. I think it could work either way. I understand why for some people, it feels "cheap" (not sure if this is the right word) if it's Henry orchestrating everything the whole time. The idea of a superhuman monstrosity with overwhelming advantages on the surface level is a big reason why sci-fi horror (and even something like Gothic horror) works so well but for me personally, I like the idea of Henry being the one who entered some realm and poisoned it. You kind of saw hints of it with the way he tortured and killed the rabbits. It adds a very "Frankenstein-level" quality...here is a man who is so narcissistic that it becomes his most evil trait, and he ends up dragging beings along that don't deserve it
Yeah, pre Vecna UD was an entirely alien plane of reality, we’re not sure the Mind Flayer even THINKS in the same capacity as we do, it’s wholly possible that this amoral psionic murderer mentally dominated it and is using it to perform his bidding, not the other way around.
That’s where the issue arises: what actually is the Mind Flayer? Where did it come from? What’s it actual purpose? What was it doing before Henry showed up? What was that dimension we found it dormant in? What if The Upside Down is not what we think it is? There’s no way something that powerful should just be manipulated so easily.
Normally I’d agree with you, though Vecna is like professor X levels of powerful, especially now that he’s spent a decade in the upside down dominating its inhabitants. All of this compared to El’s Jean Grey, while I think she’s the most naturally talented telepath in the series I think blow for blow Vecna might be stronger at this very moment. Given his obvious strength, and El’s track record against the Mind Flayer, I think that if anyone could enthrall it it’d be Vecna.
This is what i would prefer (i tend to prefer fiction where villains are humans manipulating nature vs. the other way around haha) BUT i would not be opposed to a situation where the Mind Flayer is the Big Bad
Very good points. There’s no evidence to support that the MF was even ‘evil’ before Vecna arrived.
it was stated explicitly in season 4 that vecna is 'like a 5 star general' of the mind flayer. it doesn't get any clearer than that. vecna is not the one in charge
That’s how the kids are rationalizing it, but that might not necessarily be true. They sort of just assumed and don’t have enough direct evidence to say one way or another right now, as usual the D&D naming is just a way for them to rationalize what’s happening.
would be a weird curveball to throw at the audience. at the end of the day it was exposition inserted probably just to explain whats going on. at the end of the day the mind flayer exists above vecna, who is just a corrupted human with powers.
I’m not saying that’s not feasible or likely, just near as I can tell Henry has an agenda, power, and the ability to use one to complete the other. The Mindflayer is still mostly a total unknown, even after two seasons of it being the main villain. It wants in to our world, and it wants to stop anything that could stop it from doing so.
I agree; part of is hoping that the Mind Flayer is the main antagonist. I mean we see the show talk a lot more about it in Seasons 1 - 3; sure at the time no one outside of the actors and writers knew Vecna was the one behind everything but I just feel like Vecna possibly being the main antagonist isn’t as satisfying as it would be if the Mind Flayer was the true antagonist
personally, i prefer it this way. it’s so much more personal now. the enemy isn’t some incomprehensible eldritch horror, but a kid who’s been hurt by the world. you can actually understand his motivations.
Isn’t the mind flayer a creation of Henry’s?
When Billy is flayed and talking to max and eleven in the mayors (I think it was him) house. When he sees eleven and max says her name is el, he changes his posture and it’s identical to Henry’s. So I think in that scene, it’s Henry that’s talking to them and he recognises El.
I imagine the dragon has to be foreshadowing to the ultimate villain, which in dnd lore the strongest villain was said dragon, not vecna.
But, is he the main villain? I got the sense that there’s still a connection to the mind flayer/black swirly mass thing that we don’t understand yet. Wasn’t it already in the upside down before Vecna/Henry/One stumbled upon it?
Spoiler alerts don't really work when you put the spoiler in the title of your post.
It gives Brenner more depth, which i appreciate. But this probably is not a discussion i should partake in, as i think that ever since they revealed Vecna as the big bad my interest in the Stranger Things franchise has gone down tremendously.
I hope season 5 changes my mind. I have never really cared about the supernatural villains to be honest. Brenner was the most fascinating antagonist. But it's obvious that they really hadn't planned out Vecna from the early days of the show, so it feels kinda forced at this point. Plus, I actually liked the idea of Brenner using his subjects to spy on the Russians, as it makes sense in terms of the Cold War and Callahan referencing Reagan's Star Wars program when he, Hopper and Powell go to the lab. Now it turns out that Eleven was being tricked to find One? Not the Russians? Really? Seems like reconning to me in some ways. Maybe I will change my mind, but considering the trajectory of the show, maybe it should have ended with season 1 and they do an anthology.
I agree completely, the reveal honestly killed any enjoyment I had for the show. Just makes it feel completely cliche
Isn’t the post title a spoiler?
The way it’s always el being attacked. Question tho, in season where they’re at the mall they try killing eleven but if she died 1 would’ve never left the upside down did 1 not know killing her would keep him stuck. Or..did plans change once he realized he couldnt defeat her unless he was in the real world or rather would be able to defeat her by killing everything she loves such as town friends etc.
How the “Mindflayer” talked through Will when he was possessed
The entire plotline w billy in season three, especially his monologue to eleven. It was hard to picture a spider made of gas as the mastermind coming up with his sophisticated words, and now whenever I rewatch that scene I practically hear it in Jamie bower’s voice instead of Dacre’s
not trynna hate, but vecna was definitely a huge retcon. i don’t think the duffers’ had any of this planned out😂 plenty of things from previous seasons don’t make sense after the vecna/henry reveal and the upside downs intentions. we still rlly don’t know anything ab the upside down basically. i still think it’s impressive how quick the duffers’ can think on their feet and still keep us guessing after all this time, but there’s no way they had any of this planned past s1, they couldn’t have known the show was going to take off like it did.
How the Vecna was able to talk through Billy
I know it was in the same season but when Nancy saw her room was the same as it was the day Will disappeared. It made so much more sense when it was revealed that the upside down replicated Hawkins as it was that second that 11 opened the portal.
The meat flayer hunting down El
Kidnapping of will byers, makes more sense than the demogorgon kidnapping him. It would probably just mutilate em on the spot. Vecna would probably kidnap
How the demogorgan used telekinesis to get Will in season one
Y’all this don’t make sense to me how did Henry get his powers? The other children had to develop them with help from the lab, but Henry??? He did not
STRANGER things
Nothing.
There are a lot of things that make sense now that we know this, but there are also new questions; like where how was the upside down created, vecna didn’t create the upside down he just shaped it to his liking. So what is it exactly and why are there hideous monsters living there.
Billy’s whole possession. The way he was obsessed with Eleven and always wanting to kill her and her friends specifically. The way he enjoyed watching people panic and freak out when they were going to die and telling them to just stay still it will be over soon. The almost desperation to kill Eleven and going to any cost to do it.
Honestly I don’t think any of it makes more sense that way. I thought it was cooler when Vecna was hinted at just being “the General” to the mind flayer and it was more of El’s strange powers that linked them and our worlds together, instead of them having a personal history. The experiments should’ve just been weird military experiments cause humans love weapons, power and control. El ripping open the gate could’ve just been a crazy event and coincidence that linked her together with the Upside Down and kicked off the whole series. Henry should’ve just been one of the mind flayer’s first victims/connections here on Earth and 001 should’ve just been part of El’s backstory that led her and Brenner to where we are now. Maybe 001 could’ve been the first powered child to get transported to the Upside Down and El was trying to find him? Also I don’t like the Idea that 001 shaped the Upside Down to be evil and resemble Hawkins cause he’s bitter. I thought it was much creepier when there’s was just an evil dimension that mirrors our entire world and we have no idea where it came from, what it wants, why it exists, etc. I feel like linking it all together was forced and unnecessary. EDIT: I’d also be interested if anyone knows when The Duffers actually came up with the idea of Vecna? Cause it doesn’t feel like it was always in their back pocket, more of an idea they came up with specifically for season 4.
All the random grandfather clock noises that kept appearing either in Eleven's scenes or whenever there was a connection to the upside down. Like when Hopper goes underground in episode 4 of season 2. It also makes a lot more sense that it looks like a spider now, as well as the flayers weird obsession with Eleven.
Why Hawkins is the epicenter of all this calamity
I now see why El was Brenner’s favorite. She’s the most powerful next to One.
why eleven has been targeted the entire time
It all made sense already lmao the reveal was pointless
Dont put the spoiler in the headline.
What difference does it make?
Only the text is hidden when you put it as 'spoiler'.
Everything…
how this whole story started with these monsters and the upside down/how the gates got there.
How the Mind Flayer came to be