How is Vecna connected to Victor Creel? In episode 2, Nancy interviews Eddie's uncle shortly after Chrissy's death at the trailer park. Eddie's uncle mentions Victor Creel's name, suggesting that he was the one who did the killings. Nancy and Robin then investigate Creel, and uncover his shocking link to Vecna.
Vecna is the catchiest name of the character's three names (Vecna/Number One/Henry Creel). Vecna was named after, in typical Stranger Things fashion, a villain from the Dungeons and Dragons franchise.
It was created by Brian Blume, who drew inspiration from the ancient Roman goddess Vesta and combined her name with the Latin word for life, hence creating the name Vecna. Over time, the name Vecna has become associated with various fictional characters in different media, including video games, comics, and literature.
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.
The name Vecna is actually an anagram for Vance, an ode to fantasy author Jack Vance, whose works were the inspiration behind the magic system used in Dungeons & Dragons. Vecna is mentioned in early iterations of Dungeons & Dragons but is introduced formally in the 3rd Edition of the game.
Vecna's first big credited kill was Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien). He followed that murder with canonically terrible driver Fred Benson (Logan Riley Bruner) and basketball star Patrick McKinney (Myles Truitt).
They named him after a DnD character who's a wizard, since Vecna's curse sounds like something a dark wizard would do.
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).
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.
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.
Vecna's obsession with time appears to be linked to his hatred of humanity. He views time as a human imposition on the natural world; an attempt to impose order on nature.
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.
Vecna was the original child studied by Dr. Brenner and the son of Victor Creel. He's the infamous Number One, but had his powers blocked and worked as an aide in the Hawkins National Lab.
He believed that the construct of time and monotony needed to be destroyed. So, in his mind, by destroying humanity, he was doing it favor. That's what makes him so evil.
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.
As Vecna, he uses these mental abilities as a way to psychologically weaken and lure in his victims – much in a way that Pennywise, Freddie Kruger, and Pinhead do. (All of which have been cited by show creators the Duffer brothers as inspirations for the villain.) But he does have a surprising weakness: music.
Played by Jamie Campbell Bower, each prosthetic was glued to his skin with medical adhesive by prosthetics designer Barrie Gower and his team. For the finishing touch, Vecna was covered in "glossy slime to make him really, really glossy and wet looking," according to Gower.
In the D&D realm, a defining feature of Vecna is that he's missing his left hand and left eye. This is because his trusted accomplice, Kas the Bloody-Handed, betrayed him and used the sword Vecna created himself to chop off his left hand and remove his left eye. This ultimately destroyed Vecna.
In simple words, Vecna needs a total of four gates to take over Hawkins and rule it. Now, you must be thinking, why is Vecna killing people if he can take over the complete Hawkins? Well, in one of the previous episodes, it was revealed that with each person Vecna kills, he creates an opening to the real world.
"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."
If Vecna can overwhelm their victim with fear, and keep them from resisting, their fate is almost certainly sealed. In the real world, he makes the victim levitate while in their trance, before snapping their bones and neck, and crushing their eyes.
She breaks free, momentarily incapacitates Vecna, and runs with the determination to live toward her friends, dodging debris that Vecna throws in her path. Max hurls herself through the portal, awakes from the trance, and is held by Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin). "I thought we lost you," he cries. "I'm still here.
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.
Music evokes strong memories that are both good and bad, so it makes sense that it could open a doorway out of the oppressive alienation of trauma, despair, and guilt that Max found herself in.