The latest season and the first volume of Stranger Things 4 is on-air on Netflix. Now, with the new season, a new menace is creeping into the lives of people in Indiana and from Hawkins Lab. But, there are many references to satanic dark academia and the internet world from the 80s. One of the subculture rages was Dungeons & Dragons. The first season shows the teens playing the game.
Their characters were facing off with one of the antagonists in the game Demogorgon. It is the same villain that the kids face in the first season. This character was inspired by the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons character, Demogorgon, a hideous two-faced lord of the abyss. Another character that the Eleven & Co. slays is Mind Flayer that appears in season 2. Again, the spider-looking demon is inspired by a character in D&D.
In the series, Flayer possesses Will Byers to pry on the team at Hawkins Lab, but by the end of season two, Eleven dumps it in the Upside Down and closes the portal, but it returns in Season 3 again. So, season 4 is no different and has introduced another villain named Vecna in the kids’ story, but the foe has a different human arc to it compared to the other two villians.
Dungeons & Dragons Connection Of The Vecna, New Bad Guy In Stranger Things 4
Duffer Bros., the creators of the teenage, sci-fi drama Stranger Things have profusely expressed their interest in the Dungeons & Dragons, the table-top game. The game inspired creators to portray the villains in the show. Though it is not the exact copy, the brothers have drawn inspiration from the villains Demogorgon & Mind Flayer.
So, the game by default inspired the new menace in the town. This time it is the Vecna, the baboon, a two-faced wizard with some magical powers to perpetually be immortal. Vecna debuted in the 1974 edition when Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created it.
The character had a very harsh presentation until the modern versions of the game. Vecna’s eyeballs and hands become artifacts. During the game, the moderators of Dungeon Masters use them as rewards for players in bartering that the players’ characters also have to amputate their hands and eyeballs.
However, during the second edition, Vecna was fleshed out in a better and upgraded manner. Earlier, it was just “two magic items made from the remains of his body.” In the second edition, the players could battle Vecna. This led to an up-gradation where Vecna became a human to the wizard. It could rise to gain godhood by recruiting dark powers to attain knowledge and powers.
From Human To Demon: The Trajectory Of Vecna In The Stranger Things 4
The new disaster overlooking Indiana and Hawkins Lab is Vecna, the wizard. Eddie’s reunion scene introduces Vecna. Eddie Munson details the death of Chrissy, the lead cheerleader at Hawkins High. The description seems like a page from witchcraft, so the kids draw a parallel between Chrissy’s death and the curse of Vecna.
He connects the dots that the gates of Upside Down are wide open where Chrissy died. Not just that, Nancy and Patrick also become victims of Vecna. The portals at the location of the three deaths have opened. The common points of all three victims were they were teenagers and depressed. The curse makes Vecna convert Wizards into one-eyed creatures Nothics, who melt the flesh of the person leaving bones with a gaze. So, Vecna utilizes the curse to victimize the ones with mental illnesses.
The California connection in the trailer is when many characters suspect that the Gates of the dimensions have opened as Vecna becomes the head of the military in the Mind Flayer governed Upside Down. So, Dr. Owens rushes with Eleven to Nevada to retrieve her powers back. In Nevada, Eleven recollects her memories of the day when all the subjects were slain.
She recalls that One, a friendly companion in the lab, aids her to get out of Dr. Brenner’s studio and tells her that the doctor wants to cause harm to her. However, Eleven later realizes that One is none other than Henry Creel, a patient at Pennhurst asylum, responsible for killing his mother and sister.
Victor Creel, father of Henry Creel tells the story of his son, who was “sensitive” and not the wizard he became. The witchcraft wizard was a small kid, who, due to his troubled behavior moved base in Hawkins with his family. “The teachers and doctors said I was broken,” says Henry. But as soon as they shift, he finds two black widow spiders, which become his “purpose.”
The tentacle-like wizard created in the game may have inspired the origin story. Because the spiders make Henry understand the fractured structure of human life. Too young to be a nihilist, he believed humans do not truly live, and waited to die. Dragons & Dungeons also imply two civilizations in existence i.e., humans and barbarians, and one must live like barbarians.
This trope backs Henry’s transformation story. The family started to sense that “an animal neither animal nor human” has dawned upon them. With his power, Henry used telepathy to extract people’s darkest secrets, and the more he utilized his powers the more he got exposed to his potential. Out of all, the motherly extinct kicked in for Mrs. Creek, and she suggested that Henry must be in the vigilance of a doctor who could fix him up.
Henry kills his mother and sister to avoid the intervention and blamed his father for the murder. The rampage almost kills Henry. Victor believed that his son is dead, but Dr. Martin Brenner shelters him, and he becomes his first subject.
Martin’s Idea To Imprison Led To The Transformation Of Henry AKA One To Vecna
Henry not only became a subject but an employee, ward person, and a human with uncontrolled powers. Henry became One or 001 at Brenner’s lab. Martin imprisoned One due to his invincibility after Eleven lost her mother due to him. The doctor ties a neck device on One which fails to curtail Henry’s manifold powers.
He broke out of all shackles and went on a killing rampage slaying everyone but Eleven. However, she retaliates but could have ended up dead like the kids in the lab. Instead, she used the curse of Vecna as Henry had already become part of the Upside Down. So, she defeated him with the trauma of losing her mother with all the rage and pain and deported him to the Upside Down world permanently.
However, even in the darker dimension, Henry who becomes Vecna could connect to people’s minds and read them. So, the reason he kills Chrissy, Patrick, and Nancy is that he could look through their trauma, and now has opened the gates that could help in the vengeance he is seeking toward Eleven.
Also Read: Stranger Things: David Harbour Confirms He Already Knows How Series Will End
