After previously having tricked
As Eleven witnesses the horror in the room, she completely overpowers Peter with her own powers and shreds him to pieces, opening the very first gate to the Upside Down and sending him through. As Peter falls through, he is struck by lightning and burned, before turning into Vecna.
In her rage, Eleven looks to disintegrate One, but instead sends him through to the Upside Down, opening her first gate to that other dimension. One bursts into flames as he is struck by beams of crackling energy, and ultimately becomes Vecna.
A Troubled Henry Creel Moves to Hawkins. Vecna was not always a hideous beast of the Upside Down. He was once a troubled child in the real world named Henry Creel. Henry's “problems” caused his family to move to Hawkins in 1959.
Character biography
Vecna was born as a human, centuries ago as a member of the untouchable caste in the Flan city of Fleeth on Oerth. He was initially trained by his mother, Mazzel, in the art of magic, before she was executed by the government of Fleeth for practicing witchcraft.
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).
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.
It seems that the reason why Vecna wasn't killing for the seven years after the Hawkins Lab massacre was because he was waiting to become more powerful as the Mind Flayer and Demogorgons took more victims, as he was likely weakened after being thrown into the dimension.
Kind-hearted cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien) is the first character to be cursed by Vecna, and she dies in season 4, episode 1, "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club." After feeling ill, Chrissy sees the clock and begins picturing her mother, who has always been cruel, saying harsh things about her physical ...
Patrick was targeted due to his father's abuse of him. Finally, Vecna targets Max for her trauma from witnessing Billy's death and uses Barb's (Shannon Purser) death as a way to use Nancy.
In his twisted mind, Vecna believes that he his helping the world by wiping out humans, as a "predator, but for good." When Vecna asks for El to join him, it's because he also sees her as a predator, "better" than humans. He offers her his path as a sort of freedom, as they reshaped the world in their image.
Vecna's Hand
This is a reference to the D&D character Vecna, for whom this Vecna is named; the D&D Vecna has a monstrous hand infused with dark magic. The design of Vecna's hand is also a nod to Freddy Krueger, the Nightmare on Elm Street villain who had a huge influence on this season in general.
Curiously, he also seems obsessed with time, projecting strange visions into his victims' minds—including of the grandfather clock from his home in the Creel House. Vecna's obsession with time appears to be linked to his hatred of humanity.
"Vecna seems to be actually intrigued by Nancy being able to figure him out, to be able to get this close to the truth... I think this is more Vecna's narcissistic traits that pull him to Nancy, why he wants to give her this information."
In episode 7, Vecna is revealed to be Henry Creel (played as a youngster by Raphael Luce), the son of Victor Creel (Robert Englund) and his wife Virginia (Tyner Rushing) shown in the 1950s flashbacks.
Whenever victims become entranced or possessed by Vecna, their eyes form a milky glaze, until they meet their demise as Vecna plucks their eyeballs out. Also, when Vecna's victims hallucinate — an early indicator they've been targeted by Vecna — the people in their hallucinations have milky eyes.
The theory predicts that Vecna wants to regain his human form, and he will use Will to do so in Season 5. Knowing that Vecna singled out Will in Season 1, it's a reasonable theory, but it might go too far. After all, Vecna already has a human form, and he has vowed to eliminate humanity.
In the visions of her trauma induced by Vecna, Chrissy's mother appeared both mentally and emotionally abusive towards her daughter - and it's implied her comments about Chrissy's figure caused her daughter to develop her eating disorder.
Together, their powers combined are the exact powers of 001/Henry. Fans are now theorising that the powers of both 011 and 008, who have the combined power of 001, is what is needed to finally match and defeat Vecna. To put it simply, 011 + 008 + [with the combined power of] 001 = 020, a.k.a. Erica's critical hit.
Once he takes control of the mind, he traumatizes them by showing the visions of their dark past. He takes them to unknown places and gives them a glimpse of himself. The pain of his victims doesn't end here. Every single one of his victims experiences nose bleeding and severe headaches as well.
Brenner (Matthew Modine) states in the Stranger Things episode "Papa" that Vecna "consumes" everything about his victims, Vecna targets traumatized victims because it builds for him a well of sad and angry memories to draw from. With each victim, he can become gradually more powerful.
Remember also that we have evidence that powers can be inherited -- El inherited her powers from Terri Ives, for example. So it stands to reason that Henry inherited his powers from one of his parents.
Vecna successfully stole Eleven's powers when controlling the Mind Flayer in Stranger Things' season 3 ending, which finally allowed him to emerge stronger than Eleven and enact his plan to take over Hawkins with the Upside Down.
One of the most important sequences in this episode featured Vecna showing Nancy the real circumstances of the “eyeball murders” in the 1950s, with flashbacks indicating that young Henry Creel murdered his family when his mother tried to get him psychological help and he intentionally framed his father Victor for the ...