Vecna's power not only takes a mental toll but also a physical one. Much like depression, Vecna's victims experience physical symptoms such as exhaustion, lack of sleep, headaches, and nosebleeds. Similarly, when dealing with depression and trauma, a person's physical health worsens.
Speaking on the portrayal of trauma and depression in Stranger Things, American psychiatrist Jennifer Chaiken remarked: “I think having Vecna as a representation of [PTSD and] depression can be really helpful for those who do struggle with [these issues] as a way of externalizing [and depersonalizing] them.”
More than a Monster
Vecna represents more than a scary-looking creature from another dimension; he symbolizes the effects Depression, PTSD, and trauma can have on people.
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.
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.
Vecna adopts psychological warfare to target his prey – which, you could argue, very much serves as an allegory for trauma, depression and mental illness, which is all too real.
Vecna lives in the Upside Down and preys on people's past traumas and guilt. The monster curses its victims, making them relive their trauma in progressively more gruesome ways until it violently kills them. (And we mean, like, really violently.)
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.
Why Did Vecna Go After Chrissy? Vecna's powers allow him to form psychic connections with people in reality, especially teenagers dealing with trauma and mental health issues.
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.
8 Vecna's Victims Experience Disturbing Visions and Memories Much Like PTSD. Vecna's victims all experience disturbing and painful memories, linked to their past. Many of these memories appear suddenly, startling the victim with their onset, much like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
After learning how Victor Creel was able to evade death back in 1959, Robin and Nancy deduce that playing the victim's favorite song can help them escape the trance that Vecna places them in, with music and happy memories being the only way to keep Vecna's fatal curse at bay.
The D&D monster also believes that secrets are the true source of power, and would acquire characters' secrets to gain power over them, similar to the Stranger Things villain's manner of feeding off people's trauma.
At the same time, Nancy, Steve and Robin reach Vecna's body in the Upside Down and throw multiple Molotov cocktails at him before Nancy shoots him, sending his blazing body flying out the window of the Upside Down's Creel House.
Vecna is choosing victims based on their own subjective guilt, not their actions. : r/StrangerThings.
Vecna idolizes these spiders, reveling in how they “immobilize and feed on the weak,” inspiring his own method of killing his victims where he paralyzes them with vivid visions before finally killing them and displaying them tied up in webs located in his fractured home inside the Upside Down.
"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."
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 ...
Though Fred appeared to be bright and level-headed, he harbored extreme guilt for his role in the fatal 1985 car accident, and believed many people look at him as a "murderer." This guilt and mental unrest made him a target of Vecna.
What is the significance of 4 for Vecna? The new season shows that the four chimes of the grandfather clock symbolize the four victims Vecna needs to claim in order to enter our dimension and take over humanity.
At his empire's height, Vecna was betrayed and destroyed by his most trusted lieutenant, a vampire called Kas the Bloody-Handed, using a magical sword that Vecna himself had crafted for him, now known as the Sword of Kas.
Vecna's use of his victims' guilty conscious to terrorize his prey is an obvious tool in his arsenal. What is more subtle and powerful is that he uses shame to isolate and control.
Once the monster catches them, as he inevitably does, Vecna kills them from the inside out by taking their soul while their body in the real world is broken in horrific angles and their eyes are gouged out.