Reddit Theories About Season 4 Of ‘Stranger Things’ That’ll Blow Your Mind

The Hawkins gang are back to fight the forces of the Upside Down in a smashing new season of Netflix’s Stranger Things.

The first half of Season 4 has already dropped, with the second instalment coming next month. The new episodes are already much spookier than its predecessors, as the kids-turned-teens have to face a new villain killing children named Vecna.

As school kids continue to meet grisly fates after becoming cursed by Vecna, the Party must find out what’s going on by travelling back to the Upside Down, while Eleven attempts to get her powers back by exploring traumatic memories from the laboratory that kept her captive throughout her childhood.

This post will contain many, many Season 4 spoilers, so if you don’t want the recent episodes spoiled, exit this browser window right TF now.

OK, now that we’re in a safe space… what an incredible season! Very scary, but very good!

One hell of a big reveal came on the final episode when we found out the person who was helping Eleven escape the lab when she was younger was actually Henry Creel aka number 001 — the lab’s first specimen — a young boy with immense powers who was sent to be psychologically studied after killing his mother and sister.

Earlier in the season some of the gang met with Henry’s father Victor, who was framed for the crime and imprisoned. In a flashback memory, Eleven fought against Henry and managed to banish him to the Upside Down. It’s here that Henry  eventually became Vecna. Henry IS Vecna. Yep, mind blown.

This means that fans can expect an absolute showdown when Vecna and Eleven reunite, with the final two episodes of the season dropping July 1st. Until then, Reddit users have gone into overdrive presenting their own theories about what the events of the latest season could mean for Hawkins and the Upside Down.

Reddit theories about Season 4 of Netflix’s Stranger Things:

(Some posts have been edited for clarity.)

1. Vecna sources power from the trauma of his victims.

“As 001, he said that he realised his psychokinetic power gets stronger when he thinks about memories that make him sad or angry,” @nugnugjuice wrote. “I think he targets people with trauma, not to free them, but rather to take their trauma and put it in his mind so that he could have more traumatic memories to draw power from.”

Another Redditor agreed, “I think there’s definitely legs to this theory,” @drewdonut added. “I get a lot of Freddy Krueger vibes from 001 (plus the Robert Englund cameo), and Freddy fed off of children’s fear so 001 might be similar.” 

2. The key to defeating Vecna will be his inability to recall happy memories.

“I feel like Vecna is basically absorbing memories (and pain and suffering) from all of his victims to become more powerful. In the final showdown between him and El, it’s going to come down to this,” @cheekybeaky_00 wrote.

“He teaches her at the lab to use a memory that will make her sad and angry to harness her power. During the scene when El is fighting him in said lab, he is much stronger than her. She tries to use unhappy memories to fight him but he overpowers her. Just before she’s about to die, she remembers her mother telling her that she loves her. After that she is way stronger than 001 and throws him in the Upside Down.

“I feel that at the end she will defeat him using her happy memories… Max also broke away from the Vecna’s vines by remembering all the good times she had with her friends.”

3. How the Upside Down, Mind Flayer, and Vecna are connected.

“My theory is that before 001 entered the Upside Down and became Vecna, the dimension did indeed already exist, but it had no consistent shape or form and was simply an endless/infinite storm as seen at the end of episode one,” @linkyluma posed.

“Vecna, as he does with his victims, made a psychological link with this storm, and this gave it an intelligence and the same aspirations as himself (to destroy, basically) and this storm became the Mind Flayer. His arrival [Vecna’s] also gave shape to the Upside Down so it resembled his memories of home: Hawkins. As for the Mind Flayer, it resembles a spider because of Henry’s fascination with the arachnids.

“Neither Vecna nor the Mind Flayer is more powerful than the other; in a sense they are one and the same (though the Mind Flayer, or at least its fundamental essence, is far older and has conceivably existed forever) as they share the same motives.

“Vecna has been dormant up to this point as his battle with Eleven gravely wounded him, but we know he gets stronger with every kill. So the Mind Flayer in his place has been on the offensive, trying to creep into our world and kill to strengthen Vecna until, he himself, is powerful enough to take over and attack — which we see in Season 4.”

4. It was Vecna who abducted Will in Season 1.

“I’m rewatching Season 1, and I’ve discovered something I never noticed until now. I always assumed the Demogorgon took Will in the first episode, but upon my rewatch, I think it was actually Vecna,” @brentus84 wrote.

“First, the creature that Will sees on the road when he crashes his bike does not look like the Demogorgon. It actually looks like Vecna, or an early version of him.

“Second, when Will gets home and is running around, his dog starts barking. This could just be dogs barking at the supernatural (not an uncommon occurrence in supernatural film and television), but Max’s dog was also barking when Vecna appears at Eddie’s in ‘The Hellfire Club’ episode, although that could have just been because it was hungry.

“Next, the door chain unlocked from the inside. Will watched as it slid to open. Unless I’m forgetting something, Demogorgons aren’t telekinetic. You know who is, though? Vecna. Will vanishes in his shed. We don’t hear him screaming as he’s dragged away, he just disappears. I don’t think Demogorgons can create gates, but Vecna can. This is why he disappears without a trace.

“My working theory is that after Eleven banished Vecna to the Upside Down, he was trapped there. He couldn’t find a way back, as he didn’t know how to create gates yet. When Eleven opened the gate after connecting with the Demogorgon, Vecna came out, too. In fact, he appeared right by Hawkins Lab, which is where Will was riding when he crashed his bike. I think this is also the only time Vecna came through before Season 4, which is why the Upside Down is stuck in November 1983: Vecna had no other knowledge to update it.”

5. Eddie will die by the end of the season.

‘Eddie is going to sacrifice himself saving Steve, fulfilling his arc that’s been setup,’ @brainpostman wrote. “He’s an eternal high schooler who’s sure to graduate this year. Like a cop going on one last call before tomorrow’s retirement, he will go out in a blaze of glory.

“He’s been characterised as a self-proclaimed coward, a risk-averse cynic who can’t be described as terribly ambitious, someone who doesn’t do much outside his comfort zone. His sacrifice will be the moment when he realises who he really is as a person and what he wants to accomplish with his life (literally).

“Why Steve exactly? Well, Eddie endearingly proclaimed his jealousy of Steve’s position both in society at large and in the Party itself. He said himself how he sees how Robin, and Nancy, and Dustin, all look up to Steve and care for him very much, something Eddie wants to earn for himself.

“At the same time, we know he has a good heart, so knowing how much people care about Steve, he will deem his life a fair exchange for Steve’s survival. Thus, both filling a role of a ‘Steve’ for the first time in his life (a brave headstrong hero, a caretaker) and earning not just pity, but respect and admiration of the people around him, which will also acquit him in front of the whole town, somehow.”

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Volume 2 of Season 4 of Stranger Things drops on 1 July.