Warning: This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4, Vol.1
Traces of the new Stranger Things villain, Vecna, can surprisingly be found right back in season 1, even inspiring Eleven’s first victims. Officially introduced by name in Stranger Things season 4, Vecna is the abominable new foe of Hawkins, being likened to the high dark wizard of Dungeons & Dragons. Vecna targets Hawkins’ traumatized teenagers, and even got close to claiming the group’s very own Max Mayfield. Despite Vecna’s sinister nature, he secretly inspired Eleven’s first victims, and even helped to defeat them.
When Eleven escapes Hawkins Lab in season 1 she is hunted relentlessly, and Dr Brenner and his agents will stop at nothing to get her back. They even kill innocents in their wake, including Benny, who was likely the first adult to ever show Eleven true kindness. As the agents zero in on her location, Eleven becomes desperate in the Stranger Things season 1 finale when she and her friends are surrounded, but then she seems to remember something of Vecna/Number One and the lab massacre that helps her to defeat them.
Eleven used her powers on people before to defend herself, such as the unconscious agents in Benny’s diner, and flipping the van. However, the first time audiences really see her intentionally attack someone is in the Hawkins Middle School stand-off, and she uses a Vecna trademark. In a hallway, agents surround her and her friends, but then Eleven uses her powers to defeat them. The agents start bleeding from their eyes, and then drop dead. Crucially, in Stranger Things canon, audiences now know that the first time this torturous technique was used was by Number One in the Hawkins Lab massacre, who went on to become Vecna.
Though Stranger Things 4 episode 5 reveals that Eleven had repressed the memories of the massacre, it seems that traces of it remained. Making victims bleed from their eyes wouldn’t be a typical point of attack, therefore, memories of Number One and the massacre had to be in her subconscious somewhere, influencing her first real victims. Deep down in her memories, she must have remembered when Number One told her to think about something she hates to unlock her true potential. At that moment in season 1, she was faced with what she hated; being torn from people she loved, and forced into the lab. It’s entirely possible that Eleven remembered what One did to people that made him upset, and accidentally copied him.
In the context of Stranger Things season 4, Eleven’s first victims are especially hard-hitting, as they symbolize what could have happened if Eleven agreed to join One. She kills the agents so brutally and with ease, even with how young she was, which furthers understanding of why One wanted her on his side. Her whole life as a test subject was designed in a way to make her incredibly impressionable and malleable, and in theory, it would have been very easy for her to turn to the dark path in Stranger Things. However, looking at the season 1 scene in question, it shows her using this intense strength – a strength that could match Vecna – for good. Rather than asserting her authority as a super-powered being, like Vecna, she uses her powers as a defense, protecting her and her friends rather than actively seeking to do harm.
Stranger Things season 4, volume 2 will be released on July 1 on Netflix.
Want more Stranger Things season 4 articles? Check out our essential content below…
- Stranger Things 4: Everything We Already Know That Happens In Volume 2
- Why Eleven Doesn’t Have Her Powers In Stranger Things Season 4
- Stranger Things Season 4 Cast & Character Guide
- How Hopper Survived Stranger Things Season 3’s Ending
- What The Grandfather Clock Means In Stranger Things Season 4
- Stranger Things’ Vecna Identity, Powers & Origin Fully Explained
