Since Season 4 of Stranger Things, when Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) was revealed as the architect of everything that has happened since Will (Noah Schnapp) was taken in Season 1, he has been the number one villain on the series. However, hints in Season 5, Part 1 suggest a story that’s far more layered and complex, one that is explored in the Broadway play Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Based on a few key moments throughout the first four episodes, along with that insane finale, it’s possible that a massive twist is coming that could make fans actually sympathize with Vecna, or rather, with Henry Creel.
Henry Creel’s Backstory, Explained
Henry Creel’s backstory is told in Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a play based on a prequel story written in part by the Duffer Brothers. According to this story, Henry isn’t the orchestrator of all the death and destruction, and the one desiring to create a new world under his control; the Mind Flayer is. Vecna doesn’t control the Mind Flayer; it controls him. In essence, Henry was its first victim, in the same position Will was decades prior, but with a much more powerful hold from the jump, and no one left to try and save him.
Assuming Stranger Things: The First Shadow is canon with the series, the story begins in 1943 when secret experiments attempt to create a force field that can render ships invisible, for the purposes of military attacks, but instead of turning the ship invisible, it was transported to a strange place known as Dimension X along with all the workers. Dr. Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) father is apparently one of the only survivors of this event, and he is never the same once he returns. He also discovers that a Russian spy stole some of the technology and hid it in the Nevada desert. This is where a young Henry is playing when he accidentally activates it and gets transported to Dimension X, presumably an early version of the Upside Down.
During his time there, Henry was transformed by the Mind Flayer, much like Will was transformed by Vecna. He is now under the control of the Mind Flayer, which makes him see and do horrible things. After a terrible accident, Henry’s family moved to Hawkins. They hope a change of pace will help Henry, who has been exhibiting strange and troubling behavior for a reason unknown to them, but it’s here that his psychokinetic abilities become amplified. He finds someone who truly sees him for who he is in a schoolmate named Patty, who happens to be Bob’s (Sean Astin) sister. Despite his horrifying visions and actions, she’s convinced he can be a good person and fight the Mind Flayer, and he’s in love with her. But when his murderous and harmful actions continue, Henry’s mother sends him to Dr. Brenner, and the experiments on Henry as 001 begin, as Brenner is desperate to get to Dimension X now that he’s learned the truth about it from his father.
The story from here already plays out in Stranger Things as we learn that Henry, played in flashbacks by Raphael Luce, returns home for a brief period, useless to Dr. Brenner because his love for Patty is preventing him from killing. He reads his mother’s mind, learns that she wants to send him back, and he, under the power of the Mind Flayer, brutally kills his mother and sister, attempting to kill his father as well.
The rest of the gaps are filled in by Henry in Season 4 of the series when Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) visits her memories of the massacre at Hawkins Labs that led to her escape, and the deaths of everyone but her, Henry, and Kali (Linnea Berthelsen). Eleven, as we know, created Vecna when she sent Henry back to the Upside Down. From there, he became transformed, hellbent on revenge and creating a new world. We blamed Eleven for this, as did she. But this might have been the Mind Flayer’s plan all along, an inevitability one way or another. It needed a vessel. And that vessel was Henry.
‘Stranger Things’ Season 5’s Timeline Poses Discrepencies
There are obvious issues with the timelines in the play versus the series. In the series, for example, the flashbacks depict Henry as being too young to have already been in high school at the time he killed his parents. However, in the Season 5 scene, when Max (Sadie Sink) is transported to 1959 and sees a young Joyce handing out flyers for the school play Oklahoma, Henry is listed as starring in it. According to the lore, he goes to the school that night to save Patty, knowing Dr. Brenner sees her as a distraction and wants her dead.
Age discrepancies aside, if the show continues to follow the lore, Henry is then overtaken by the Mind Flayer and throws Patty off the rafters of the school stage. His father is later accused of his family’s murder, as revealed in the series. But a key detail is that Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper’s (David Harbour) investigations into animal killings in town lead them to that home as housing the killer. Had they not done that, Henry’s father may have been able to save his son.
The key scene that suggests this story will likely be part of the series is when Max tells Holly (Nell Fisher) how and why the cave in Henry’s mind became her home. After running from him, she discovered that this was the one place he couldn’t enter. In fact, he looked downright terrified standing outside the opening. This cave is almost certainly the same one where his life changed forever, where he was sent to Dimension X. It’s a traumatic memory that Henry, the real Henry, cannot face, and a huge Easter Egg for the series that ties back to the play.
Most notably, this confirms that Henry is still Henry, but deeply under the Mind Flayer’s control. If the Mind Flayer could convince him to almost kill the one person he loved, it could transform him into Vecna, a vessel for his evil plans. This is coincidentally the same way Vecna has attempted to turn Will, who likely reminded Henry much of himself at that age, into his vessel.
This leads to the massive finale and that epic moment when Will reveals that he has powers. His powers may be inextricably tied to Vecna, the Mind Flayer, and the hive mind, yet he was able to fight back against it. Henry tried to do the same thing when he was younger, even succeeding at times thanks to Patty’s encouragement. But without Patty, or anyone, for that matter, on his side, and Dr. Brenner even encouraging his evil behavior, Henry ironically became weak and easy to break, the very same traits he accuses Will of possessing.
Could There Be a Henry Redemption?
With Will now proving that he is not weak and that it is possible to fight back, this could trigger Henry to finally have the confidence to fight back against the true villain of the series: the Mind Flayer. Could Vecna even become an ally? It’s a crazy idea, but it makes a lot of sense. The d20 Theory relating to the number 20 on a Dungeons & Dragons die and the fact that Eleven (11), Kali (8), and Henry (1) equal 20 can’t be a coincidence, nor can Kali’s surprise return on the show be for nothing.
The truth is that Henry probably doesn’t want to be Vecna, but he doesn’t have a choice. He has been alone and under the Mind Flayer’s spell for so long. But maybe, just maybe, the kids could snap him out of it, with Will being a driving force for that. Holly looks too eerily similar to Henry’s sister Alice, and this can’t be coincidental. Her role may be to remind Henry of who he once was. Joyce, Hopper, and the other parents all know the real Henry, and may not even realize it. When or if they do, it could be a game-changer.
Thus, one angle fans may have never seen coming is a Henry redemption arc as the Mind Flayer is revealed to be the real villain, controlling Henry in a way that he has been hoping to do with Will as well. Vecna is a product of the Mind Flayer, and that has always been apparent, but what hasn’t is that, deep down, Henry is still a scared little boy who played somewhere he shouldn’t and paid the price when his life was changed forever, his mind no longer his own. If Will’s big moment has proven anything, Vecna might be a villain, but he’s not the villain. There’s hope for Henry yet in Stranger Things Season 5.