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Stranger Things character
	Jamie Campbell Bower portrays Vecna in the series.
First appearance	"The Hellfire Club" (2022)
Created by	The Duffer Brothers
Portrayed by	Jamie Campbell Bower; Raphael Luce (child)
In-universe information
Nicknames	One; Orderly
Family	Virginia Creel (mother); Victor Creel (father); Alice Creel (older sister);
Home	Creel House, Hawkins, Indiana (1959) Hawkins National Laboratory, Hawkins, Indiana (1959-1979) The Upside Down (1979-) Vecna's Mindscape (??-1986)

Vecna, also known as 001 and born Henry Creel, is a fictional character from the Netflix television show Stranger Things, portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower. Vecna serves as the main antagonist for the show's fourth season. Throughout the course of the season, three characters (Henry Creel, One, and Vecna) are introduced seperately from one another, but are revealed to be the same individual. Vecna takes his name from the Dungeons and Dragons character; although while the Stranger Things interpretation is not based on the former, main characters in the series named him based on some similarities.

Bower has received critical acclaim for his portrayal of the character, with many regarding him as the series' best villain yet.^[1]^[2]

Fictional character biography

Henry Creel was born to World War II veteran Victor Creel and Virginia Creel as their second child, his older sister being named Alice Creel. From a young age, Henry displayed natural telekinetic powers, a fact he kept secret from his family and felt increasingly isolated due to his perceived sensitivity; though in reality were his abilities to sense the supernatural. In 1959, the Creel family moved to Hawkins, Indiana to start a fresh life for the young Henry and Alice. However, Henry began resenting his family and developing a nihilistic and misanthropic view on the world, believing it to be corrupted; subsequently developing his own telekinetic powers by torturing animals, his family, and finding an interest in spiders; eventually discovering that killing and hurting furthered his powers and allowed him to "form his own rules" not abided by society. At some point, Virginia became aware of Henry's powers and contacted Dr. Martin Brenner to try and experiment on her son. Bitter, Henry coldly killed his mother, with Alice shortly following. Due to the overuse of his powers, Henry fell unconcscious and the deaths were put on Henry's surviving father Victor. Although reports were made that Henry died in his coma a week following the deaths of Virginia and Alice, in reality this was staged by Brenner, who took the young Henry for himself to experiment on and study. Henry's true identity was stripped from him and was named One, or 001.

Over the years, Brenner produced several children with abilities similar to Henry. At an unknown point, Henry, seemingly having developed beyond his previous personality, became an orderly for Brenner while "One" was stated to have disappeared. In truth, Henry merely hid his hatred towards society more convincingly, and his hatred towards Brenner increased. As a failsafe, Brenner had his scientists install a device into Henry's neck that prevented the use of his powers. By 1979, Henry was still one of the orderlies in use for Brenner's tests on young children, including a young Eleven. Henry identified with Eleven's loneliness and ostracization by her fellow subjects, and so sought to assist her win games against the other children. Henry, realizing he could manipulate the young girl, was able to convince Eleven that Brenner intends to kill her after demonstrating that she was the most powerful among the group. Eleven opted to escape, but when Henry revealed he could not come, Eleven took out the device hindering his ability to leave. Henry then revealed his identity as subject 001, and proceeded to massacre the labratory. When confronted by Eleven, Henry attempted to persuade her to join him, but she refused and subsequently sent him to the Upside Down following a fight. Now trapped in the reality, Henry's body quickly became mutilated and scarred, as well as adapting to the Upside Down's nature; revealing that he is the true identity of Vecna. He also encountered the Mind Flayer, then a formless cloud of particles, and shaped it into a spider-like form.

Season 4

In 1986, after spending several years remaining dormant and growing stronger while controlling the Upside Down, Henry begins terrorizing Hawkins himself, murdering several Hawkins High School students, including Chrissy Cunningham, Fred Benson, and Patrick McKinney. Dustin and Eddie dub him "Vecna" based on his similarities to the Dungeons & Dragons's character of the same name. Vecna nearly kills Max until her friends find a way to break his influence using music. He later possesses Nancy, reveals to her his past, and then shows her a vision of the future where Hawkins is torn apart by rifts before releasing her. Nancy and her friends deduce that Vecna needs to open four gates to the Upside Down to enact his plan, three of which have been spawned at the site of each of his murders. Max attempts to bait Vecna while her friends travel to the Upside Down to kill him. Eleven enters Max's mind and confronts Vecna, who reveals himself as the mastermind behind the Upside Down's past attacks on Hawkins. Vecna possesses and kills Max before Eleven overpowers him, while Steve, Nancy, and Robin severely injure his physical form before he escapes. Though Eleven revives Max, her brief death opens a fourth gate to the Upside Down, causing rifts to tear through Hawkins, allowing the Upside Down to begin infiltrating the town.

Reception

Bower's performance as the villain was widely praised by critics. Patrick Caoile of Collider said "For the first time, Stranger Things gives us a villain with layers. Through Vecna, Bower explores a compelling, more complicated villain than the monsters that came before. From his traumatic childhood as Henry Creel to the abusive experiments he went through as One and finally to his role as the Mind Flayer’s top general, Vecna is the perfect villain to pit against Eleven.^[3] Another Collider writer Robert Brian Taylor stated, "He's a compelling presence from the moment he first appears. [...] From there his performance continues to shape-shift -- from intriguing to imposing to menacing," and called his monologue scene in episode seven as "hypnotizing" and further deemed the scene as "Stranger Things at its best."^[4] While Vulture's Devon Ivie wrote, "[Bower] has the distinction of embodying three characters, each more unsettling than the last, as the episodes unfurl: a friendly Hawkins Laboratory orderly; Henry Creel, aka "One"; and the most significant villain of the series thus far, Vecna."^[5]