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.
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.
At this lab, Vecna, formerly Henry Creel, supervises Eleven as she learns to control her psionic powers. In these series of flashbacks, audiences are finally offered answers on how Vecna and the Upside Down both came to be. His secret is that he is also number One and has the ability to absorb others, according to him.
One powerful reveal shows that Vecna was a boy called Henry Creel, who discovered he had powers such as telekinesis and a form of mind control, which he used to kill his family. His father, Victor Creel (played by horror icon Robert Englund), was blamed.
For the entirety of Stranger Things thus far, The Mind Flayer was our big villain (pre Vecna). An omnipresent entity that ruled over the Upside Down and spent its time trying desperately to bleed into the Hawkins where our heroes live.
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.
Out of all these monsters, Vecna does have heightened intelligence along with personal motivation, which makes him the most dangerous. He also has the power to cause harm from a distance, and that makes him seem more powerful than the Mind Flayer.
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 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).
It's revealed that Vecna is actually Victor Creel's son, Henry. After realizing he has powers while feeling alone in his own home, Henry decides to attack his own family and kill them to test his power. Victor is framed for the murders at Creel House, while his son is taken away.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Brown is likely right in saying that no one created the Upside Down and that the parallel dimension has always existed. And if the boys' science teacher was right in saying there are “infinite variations” of our world in alternate dimensions, there could even be several versions of the Upside Down out there.
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.
Brenner. The episode culminates in Eleven unknowingly freeing One from Brenner's control, allowing him to unleash his true power on the staff and children in the lab, killing everyone except for Eleven and Dr. Brenner, who is only knocked unconscious.
The final scene of Volume 1 shows a shot of Vecna, and a close up of the 001 tattoo on his arm, confirming that Henry Creel, a.k.a. Number One, became Vecna.
Ultimately, it is revealed in Stranger Things season 4's finale that the reason why Vecna was killing Hawkins teenagers was to create a massive gate that merges the Right Side Up with the Upside Down - and he specifically needed four bodies to do so.
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.
Stranger Things season 4 confirms that Jamie Campbell Bower's Vecna is pure evil and cannot be given a redemption arc that'll fit his story.
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.
The Mind Flayer exercised supreme control of the Upside Down via a psychic link, with Demogorgons, vines, and Demobats forming a shared hive mind; for a period in 1985, possessed humans known as "the Flayed" also comprised part of the hive mind.