In Stranger Things 5, Vecna isn’t satisfied breaking the barrier between Hawkins and the Upside Down. Now he’s set on merging Hawkins with an alternate dimension called the Abyss (also known as Dimension X).
As it turns out, the Upside Down is not a true parallel dimension. It’s a wormhole or “bridge” of exotic matter linking Hawkins and the Abyss. By collapsing that bridge, Vecna hopes to let the Abyss spill into the Earth and merge the two into a single reality he can control.
The Twelve Vessels
At the heart of Vecna’s ritual are twelve children, including Holly Wheeler and others taken from Hawkins.
As revealed in Volume 1, Vecna selects kids who he thinks are “weak”. Specifically those suffering from trauma, isolation, or repressed pain. The whole point is to pick kids whose minds are more malleable than teens.
Through them, Vecna channels his psychic powers like a network of amplifiers. The twelve children act as twelve anchor points.
Individually, each child can sustain only a fraction of his power. Together, they generate enough psychic energy to tear down the barriers between Hawkins, the Upside Down, and the Abyss.
Will Byers as the Prototype
Will’s abduction back in 1983 was the first experiment.
Through Will, Vecna learns that a traumatized child could survive being infused with Vecna’s essence. Even when Will is back in Hawkins, Vecna could control Will, even when the two are in separate dimensions. Vecna uses the poor boy as a spy to keep track of The Party’s every move.
This connection also taught him how to select future victims. By studying Will’s reactions, he could determine which children would be resilient enough to act as vessels. Will’s trauma set the stage for a larger-scale plan.
The one positive thing is that Will now knows how to tap into the hive mind to channel Vecna’s powers. It’s something Vecna didn’t see coming and it could flip the odds in The Party’s favor.
What Happens Now?
In the series finale of Stranger Things, The Party has two objectives.
The first one is to rescue the twelve kids from Vecna. The second goal is to destroy the Upside Down while Vecna is trapped inside it.
The plan is to detonate a bomb that will destabilize the exotic matter holding up the Upside Down. However, Vecna prides himself on being two steps ahead. We’ll see if he already knows of this plan and has a trap set in place. The series finale of Stranger Things 5 airs on December 31 at 8:00 p.m. EST.
