Vecna (Stranger Things)

Vecna
Stranger Things character
Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna (Season 4)
First appearance	Chapter One: The Hellfire Club
Created by	The Duffer Brothers
Portrayed by	Jamie Campbell Bower Raphael Luce (young) Louis McCartney (young, stage play)
In-universe information
Full name	Henry Creel
Alias	Subject 001 "One" Peter Ballard
Gender	Male
Family	Victor Creel (father) Virginia Creel (mother) Alice Creel (sister)
Significant other	Patty Newby (love interest)

Vecna, born as Henry Creel and later revealed as 001/Peter Ballard, is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist of the Netflix television series Stranger Things created by the Duffer Brothers. Portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower and Raphael Luce, the character made his debut in the fourth season as a malevolent being from the Upside Down that haunts his victims with horrifying visions of their past traumas before killing them in a sadistic, brutal manner. As the fourth season progresses, he is ultimately revealed to be the ruler of the Upside Down as well as the mastermind behind all of the events of the series that have terrorized the town of Hawkins, beginning with the disappearance of Will Byers.

Before becoming known by the main characters as Vecna, he was known as Henry Creel. He was born to Victor and Virginia Creel and has an older sister named Alice. After moving with his family to Hawkins, Henry discovered that he possessed telepathic powers and used them to kill his mother and sister, which caused him to fall into a coma. Henry was taken by Dr. Brenner and was experimented on by the doctor, causing more children to get the same telepathic abilities. As the years progressed, Henry became a supervisor for the other children, where he befriended Eleven. However, after he revealed his true nature as a misanthropic, nihilistic, and genocidal psychopath, Eleven succeeded in overpowering Henry and sent him to the Upside Down, where he was gradually disfigured by its abnormal lightning and toxic atmosphere, triggering his transformation into the being known as Vecna. As Vecna, he eventually used his powers in order to control the monsters and became the ruler of the Upside Down, serving as the general and hive mind to all the creatures of the dimension. Since then, Vecna has pulled the strings behind the events and actions of the Mind Flayer and the other Upside Down's lifeforms during the previous seasons, with his role in Will Byers's connection to the Upside Down eventually coming to light.

Since his first appearance, the character has been well received by both critics and audiences, with strong praise for Bower's performance, make-up design, and the character's backstory revealed in the seventh and ninth episodes. For his performance, Bower received a nomination for the Best Villain in a Series award at the Critics' Choice Super Awards.^[1]