Instead of escaping Vecna's Mind Lair by hearing her favorite song, Nancy is actually released by Vecna himself. Her freedom comes with a price: He gives her a vision of his plans for Hawkins and tells her to pass that message on to
While his usual strategy is to mimic his victims' self-deprecating thoughts (again, a very real psychological phenomenon), this time he is telling Nancy his plans and then releasing her so she can inform everyone—including Eleven—that the end is near, with the intention of demoralising and disempowering them.
Inside Vecna's realm, he preyed on Nancy's guilt over Barb's death. But Nancy didn't only see horrifying images from her past — she also saw glimpses of Vecna's past, which is how she learned he's Henry Creel.
However, Nancy is freed by Vecna within the first five minutes of volume 2, with instructions for her to tell Eleven what he has planned for Hawkins. Nancy wakes up to see Steve and is never affected by the curse again, despite Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) escaping Vecna only to again be attacked by him later on.
Steve, Nancy, and Robin (Maya Hawke) were almost suffocated by Vecna's tentacles, but Vecna is seriously wounded by Eleven and his grip on the trio loosens. Steve, therefore, makes it out of the Upside Down alive.
Nancy successfully escapes from The Upside-Down thanks to Jonathan's help and the two retreat back to Nancy's house, where they sleep in her bed to comfort each other. This is witnessed by Steve, who takes the encounter out of context and assumes Nancy is cheating on him.
She Doesn't Have a Great Aim
After the Hawkins team develops a plan to defeat Vecna, Nancy is in charge to blow his head up with a shotgun. However, either she didn't have a great aim or she was trying to play it safe because she didn't hit him in the face even once, and that may be the reason why Vecna is still alive.
Realizing he had tremendous psychic power, he haunted his family with visions before ultimately killing most of them. His father was framed for the murders and locked away in a mental hospital as a disturbed serial killer. Henry then found himself in the care of Brenner, who decided he wanted more kids like the boy.
She manages to overpower him in his Mind Lair, which helps to free Nancy, Steve, and Robin. They then manage to burn Vecna's physical form.
Eleven has a memory during this episode and realizes that 001/Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) wants her to join him on his evil journey, and she banished him to the Upside Down. 001 then transformed into Vecna, the horrifying Stranger Things villain.
The new season has presented viewers with a new antagonist that has the characters fearful for the fate of Hawkins – and their lives. Dustin (played by Gaten Matarazzo) named the villain Vecna after noticing similarities between his powers and those of a character in the game Dungeons and Dragons.
That means Vecna, Henry Creel, One, and the Mind Flayer are all the same creature, and they have been responsible for every attack on Hawkins.
As Sink put it: “You kind of learn in the season that he targets people that are in a real [bad] place, and Max is obviously one of those people. Just with everything with Billy, so she was kind of like the perfect target.
While intending to get his revenge on Eleven and Brenner, Vecna also goes after victims who have dealt with traumatizing experiences in the past (reminiscent of his childhood and his time at the Hawkins lab).
Fred Benson
Like Chrissy, Fred has a darkness in his life that Vecna uses against him. He was responsible for a fatal car accident and begins to see and hear visions that drive him into guilt. When Nancy goes traversing off to do her thing, Fred is lured to a nearby road.
The balance of power seesaws back and forth with Eleven first taking the upper hand and then Vecna revealing that by banishing him to the Upside Down, El has made him more powerful than ever before. It seems Vecna has won and Max is doomed.
Max rises into the sky, her limbs begin to snap, and she goes blind. Max briefly dies and the portal begins to open to The Upside Down, but Eleven throws a monkey wrench in Vecna's plan by bringing Max back to life.
Wheeler is Vecna's sister are pretty slim. While it's possible on a theoretical level, it would just be a really weird plot twist, even for Stranger Things. However, it's still odd that Mrs. Wheeler was the only side character with a poster.
Next up, the viewers go on to theorise that One/Vecna is actually Eleven's dad. Yep, told you it was wild. The theory claims that Brenner wanted to create a child with stronger powers, so he waited until One was old enough to become a father.
His first victim was Chrissy Cunningham. Vecna targeted Chrissy by using her depression and eating disorder against her in his visions. Chrissy was killed in Eddie Munson's trailer, and the first gate was opened on the ceiling.
Joe Manganiello's character Arkhan fought against Vecna with the adventuring party Vox Machina in the web series Critical Role. He then stole the Hand of Vecna and replaced his own hand with the artifact.
We know Eleven was born in 1971, which means her mom got pregnant with her during the tests, sometime in 1970. A 1959 flashback in the mid-season 4 finale reveals a 12-year-old One (Jamie Campbell Bower). That puts One, a.k.a. Vecna, as 24 when Eleven was born.
In that campaign, the monster they face is the Thessalhydra, and there are several good reasons to believe that this is the creature that Nancy sees in her Vecna vision.
Nancy is also cursed by Vecna, although she is able to escape. Vecna picks Nancy because she is still devastated over Barb Holland's (Shannon Purser) controversial Stranger Things death in season 1.
The theory that Vecna is actually Billy Hargrove may come with an interesting twist, which suggests that Vecna isn't Billy per se, but rather a monster imitating Billy in order to torment Max and Stranger Things season 4's characters.