School newspaper reporter Fred Benson (Logan Riley Bruner) fled from a deadly car accident that continues to haunt him. 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.
Related Stories. But even the Hawkins crew's four-phase plan of attack and Eleven's revived telekinetic blasts are not enough. Vecna holds off Eleven long enough to brutally attack Max in his signature style—she levitates, her eyes go white and bleed, and he snaps her limbs.
The reason that Eleven couldn't find Max is actually pretty simple -- Max had already died. That means her soul had already been absorbed into Vecna's consciousness.
Now, how does Vecna selects his victims? Using his telepathic powers, he can easily go through every memory in a person's mind. So he intentionally chooses the person with a weak state of mind and one who had a rough past, as it's easy to get control of their mind.
Vecna, an evil spellcaster named after the Dungeons & Dragons character, is killing and feeding off the trauma of his victims in order to emerge from the Upside Down into the real world at full power.
Clocks represent a passing of time, which can represent the fact that Vecna's victims' time has nearly run out — it is no coincidence that many of the clocks are set to midnight. Throughout the series, we learn that Vecna is a human who found himself trapped in the Upside Down for years thanks to our girl, Eleven.
And while his usual modus operandi is to embody his victims' negative self-talk (another very real psychological phenomenon), this time he is telling Nancy his plans and then releasing her so she can report back to everybody—Eleven included—that the end is nigh, with the goal of discouraging and disempowering them.
Hawkins has suffered a lot of trauma over the years - not all of which is connected to Hawkins Lab and the Upside Down - and Vecna's curse takes advantage of that. Vecna appears to carefully choose people who feel a strong sense of guilt or shame, particularly if those emotions are repressed.
(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.
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.
He sent fragments of the Creel House flying at Max in a last-ditch attempt to stop her, but it was too late: she had returned to reality. After surviving the attack, Max listened to the song at all times to protect herself from Vecna.
Physically, yes. Lucas tells his friends that Max is in a coma, and we see her wearing casts on her arms and legs. The Duffer brothers have also confirmed that at the end of Season 4, Max is alive yet "brain dead, blind, and all of her bones are broken." The big mystery is where the redhead is mentally.
Via his 'curse' power, Vecna could make other conscious beings hallucinate and bring them into the mindscape. On March 24, 1986, Max Mayfield entered the mindscape while afflicted with Vecna's curse, but managed to break out of the hallucination and escape to reality.
While Vecna was severely injured by Steve, Nancy, and Robin, he was still able to kill Max, opening the final gate that was needed for the Upside Down to spill out into Hawkins. Because Eleven was battling Vecna in Max's mind, she was able to bring her friend back to life, albeit in a coma.
Well, based on the injuries she sustained, it's likely Max will be blind going forward. Additionally, the Duffer Brothers actually confirmed during a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast that Max is blind and brain dead.
Max's death was used a device to push Murphy toward killing Josh in the series finale. Max didn't need to die to wrap up the story this way. Sure, Murphy needed to have a complicated place to land.
While caught in Vecna's grip, a tear in the dark dimension reveals her friends on the other side, desperately trying to save her from Vecna's curse. Of course, it's "Running Up That Hill," blasted into Max's headphones that breaks Vecna's hold on her.
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.
Why Did Vecna Go After Max? As Vecna continued to go after young victims in order to open more portals, he set his sights on Max Mayfield, since she was investigating the deaths of Chrissy and another student named Fred Benson with help from her friends (including Dustin, Steve, and her boyfriend Lucas).
"Vecna really is a creature that has mutated in the last however many couple of decades during his time in the Upside Down," prosthetics designer Barrie Gower said. "This is where he has become more overtaken by the Upside Down world and become pretty much possessed and mutated."
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.
"Vecna really is a creature that has mutated in the last however many couple of decades during his time in the Upside Down," prosthetics designer Barrie Gower said. "This is where he has become more overtaken by the Upside Down world and become pretty much possessed and mutated."
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.
The group believed an entity from the Upside Down - dubbed "Vecna" - was using the killings for some grander purpose. Following Nancy, Steve, Robin and Eddie Munson's brief misadventure in the Upside Down, Vecna psychically revealed his identity to Nancy, and shared his plans for the future.
We still don't know why Vecna waited seven years after being banished to the Upside Down before starting his murderous rampage.