Vecna , portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower , is the main antagonist from the fourth season of Stranger Things. A fearsome humanoid creature aligned with the Upside Down , Vecna had humble origins as the human Henry Creel. Originally from Rachel , Nevada , Henry and his family moved to Hawkins in , with his parents hoping the change would help him move on from his troubled past [2]. However, after the Creels arrived at their new home , young Henry discovered he had developed special psychic and psychokinetic abilities.
Motivated by a malign influence [2] , Henry used his powers to psychologically torture his family, eventually killing his mother and sister. These events attracted the interest of Dr.
Martin Brenner , who took Henry to Hawkins National Laboratory to be studied; he was designated , becoming the laboratory's first child test subject. Brenner implanted "Soteria" into Henry's neck, a miniature device that suppressed his powers and apparently tracked his movements; in Henry's own words, he had become a "prisoner". In time, Henry became one of several orderlies who assisted Brenner and attended the lab. Brenner would go on to replicate Henry's powers in seventeen other child test subjects, who also had their movements and lives restricted to the lab's confines.
In , Henry tricked test subject Eleven into removing the Soteria chip with her powers. In a fit of rage, Henry used his restored powers to brutally murder the other test subjects and workers, and attempted to do the same to Eleven. However, Eleven stood her ground and ultimately overpowered him, sending him through a gate to an alternate dimension ; there, he gradually transformed into the being known as Vecna. In , Eleven accidentally opened a gate to the Upside Down when she was forced to make contact with the hive mind.
Vecna, acting through the Mind Flayer and the hive mind, made two separate attempts to eradicate humanity in and ; he first possessed Will Byers and sent a army of adolescent Demogorgons to attack Hawkins Lab, before going on to possess a large group of humans and using their flesh to create a gigantic spider-like monster in the image of the Mind Flayer. In , Vecna resurfaced, taking a more direct approach in his attempts to destroy humanity. He began murdering a host of Hawkins residents, tormenting his victims with his curse power and using their deaths to open a series of new gates.
