Major spoilers from Stranger Things 4 are below! *
The fourth season of Netflix’s cult sci-fi drama, Stranger Things, is finally released, and along with it come new characters that come from the Upside Down to creep over Hawkins.
The fourth season of our beloved heroes has the task of taking away a formidable Dungeons & Dragons character by the name of Vecna.
“Vecna makes a Demogorgon look cuddly,” executive producer and director Shawn Levy told Variety at the premiere episode of Stranger Things 4. The show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, have drawn inspiration from D&D legends since the beginning of the season of their hit show, beginning with Demogorgons.
Then Who Is Vecna? Vecna is the latest creature to enter Hawkins in a terrifying manner (seriously, it’s like this tiny town located in Indiana cannot seem to let up, and we’re only four seasons into it). If you’re as terrified of Vecna as the newcomer Eddie Munson and the remainder of our Hawkins team, We’ve compiled all you should be aware of Stranger Things 4‘s main antagonist.
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Who Is Vecna?
Let’s first look at D&D, a.k.a the source of the inspiration for Vecna and the other villains we’ve encountered in the course of more bizarre Things. According to Dungeons and Dragons mythology, Vecna is a lich who organized an army in order to increase his power and eventually become God.
GameRant reports that although Vecna first was introduced to the popular adventure game of the same name in 1974, his story was not fully fleshed out until the year 1989. Within D&D, Vecna had a goal of becoming a godlike creature, which was achieved during his ritual but was halted by Kas, the king of Kas, who was his most reliable lieutenant.
As Vecna’s remains were left in the wake, GameRantnotes that his spirit “began walking the multiverse to gain followers and power,” and we encounter this during season four of Stranger Things when the saviour traps Hawkins, the head cheerleader Chrissy and a nerdy journalist Fred Max and Max in his web of influence.
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The VECNA’s Curse and how does Vecna’s powers function?
The 2nd episode of season 4 is entitled “Vecna’s Curse,” which plays a significant role in the major concepts that focus on the fourth season of ST4. At the show’s end, Dustin talks about Vecna in the form of “an undead creature of great power” that is also a dark wizard and spellcaster. As in previous episodes of the series, Vecna team up with his group, this time comprising Steve, Robin, Max, Nancy, and Eddie — to defeat the monster.
In the show, Vecna cleverly targets teenagers with trauma or who are currently experiencing an emotional crisis and lays his curse upon them to drain their energy and become stronger. In the case of Max, she’s suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after Billy, her older brother Billy gave up his own life for her and her friends during the Battle of Starcourt.
David Harbour, who plays Hawkins police chief (and Eleven’s foster father) Jim Hopper, says that Vecna is a “psychological horror” that viewers haven’t seen before in the show’s entire history. “The Upside Down has been this wild west world where creatures are running around, there’s violence, but we’ve never seen something as calculatedly psychologically evil as this,” David stated to Variety.
