Stranger Things villain: every antagonist, from the Demogorgon to Vecna, and who the real one is
Guide · The villains · Seasons 1 to 5
Each season had its villain, and each villain turned out to be the hand of another: the Demogorgon obeyed the Mind Flayer, the Mind Flayer obeyed Henry Creel, and Henry carried something older than himself. Here are all the antagonists of the show, and the ending's answer on the true villain.
The essentials
- Season 1: the Demogorgon, and Brenner
- Seasons 2 and 3: the Mind Flayer, through Will then through Billy
- Season 4: Henry Creel, the sorcerer of the Upside Down
- The real villain: the entity Henry carried, and the man who released it: Brenner
Contents
Season 1: the Demogorgon and Papa
Two villains to start: the creature, nameless before Dustin calls it the Demogorgon, which takes Will and Barbara; and the man, Dr. Brenner, “Papa,” who trained Eleven and opened the gate. The monster is pulverized by Eleven in a classroom; Brenner is left for dead. Season 4 shows that he was not.
The Vecna T-shirt, the villain with a human face.
In the shopMen's Demogorgon lights T-shirt39,90 €See the product
Seasons 2 and 3: the Mind Flayer
The shadow that dominates the Upside Down, which Dustin names the Mind Flayer after the game, possesses Will in 1984 and commands the demodogs through him. Driven out by heat, it comes back in 1985 through a fragment left on our side, takes Billy, melts dozens of townspeople, and assembles itself a body of flesh. Twice beaten by the closing of a gate, never killed.
| Season | Apparent villain | Who commands it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | the Demogorgon | The hive, therefore Henry |
| 1 | Brenner | Himself, and the state |
| 2 | The Mind Flayer, through Will | Henry, from the Upside Down |
| 3 | The Mind Flayer, through Billy; the Russians | Henry; the Soviet Union |
| 4 | The sorcerer of the Upside Down | Henry Creel, revealed |
| 5 | Henry; Dr. Kay | The entity Henry carries; the army |
Season 4: Henry Creel
The first villain with a human face. Vecna, a wasted sorcerer of the Upside Down, haunts his victims and breaks their bodies at a distance. The season reveals that he is Henry Creel, the lab's subject number One, thrown to the other side by Eleven in 1979, and that he had been commanding the Mind Flayer and its creatures from the start. Every monster on the show was his hands.
The human villainsBeside the creatures, the show lines up men: Brenner's men in 1983, the Russians and Grigori in 1985, Jason Carver and his militia in 1986, Dr. Kay and her soldiers in 1987. They have one thing in common: they all have the wrong target.
Season 5: the answer
The last season goes one step further still. Through the hive, Will discovers that as a child, in a mine, Henry opened a briefcase that held a fragment of an entity: the one that will become the Mind Flayer. He did not create it; it contaminated him, and he adopted it. And Brenner's notebooks reveal that by forcing Eleven to contact Henry in 1979, he is the one who created the Upside Down as we know it.
Henry dies in the Abyss, impaled by Eleven and beheaded by Joyce; the entity rises one last time as a titan and is destroyed with the Upside Down. Dr. Kay, for her part, releases the survivors: with no one with powers to hold, the army has nothing left to keep.
So, who is the true villain?
Three answers, depending on the scale. The monster: the entity Henry carried, older than him, with no name. The man: Henry Creel, who chose to carry it and make a kingdom of it. The one responsible: Brenner, who trained a child to open a door he did not understand. The show has always said the same thing: the monsters come from a laboratory, and the laboratory, from a man.
The Demogorgon figure, the first one.
In the shopLego Demogorgon figure 2 in 172,90 €See the product
The hierarchy of evil, from the smallest to the largest
| Level | Who | Role |
|---|---|---|
| The creatures | Demogorgons, demodogs, demobats | The hands: they hunt, they take, they obey |
| The host | Will in 1984, Billy in 1985 | The human body the shadow uses to act on this side |
| The face | Henry Creel, alias One, alias Vecna | The man who commands the creatures and throws the curses |
| The origin | The entity from the briefcase | What corrupted Henry in 1959, and of which he ends up saying they are one |
| The humans | Brenner, Dr. Kay, the Russians, Jason Carver | Those who, without powers, opened the gates or hunted the wrong people |
The human villains, often forgotten
The show is not only monsters. Martin Brenner, “Papa,” took a child from her mother, raised her in a cell, and made Henry; he dies asking Eleven to understand him. Dr. Kay, in 1987, injects Kali's blood into pregnant women to reproduce Brenner's experiments. The Russians of 1985 reopen a gate for military reasons. Mayor Kline sells his town.
And there is Jason Carver, the basketball captain, who has no power and opens no gate, but who turns Hawkins into a pack against Eddie, leaning on the real satanic panic of the 80s. The show suggests that that villain, the town that turns on its outcasts, is the most ordinary and the most lasting.
Why the Duffers wanted a single evil
By giving the finale a single origin, the briefcase, the Duffers transformed five seasons of monsters into a single story. The Demogorgon of 1983 was already an envoy, as the season 5 prologue shows by having it carry Will to Henry. The shadow of 1984 and the flesh monster of 1985 were forms of the entity. Vecna, in 1986, was its human face, and the spider of the Abyss its true form.
Matt Duffer had promised that the last chapter would reveal "who the real evil is." The answer makes Henry both a culprit and a victim: a child who opened a briefcase, and who, fifty years later, refuses to admit he was never free.
The monsters poster.
In the shopDemogorgon Christmas gift hoodie59,90 €See the product
TakeawaySeason 1: the Demogorgon and Brenner. Seasons 2 and 3: the Mind Flayer, through Will then Billy. Season 4: Vecna, a.k.a. Henry Creel, master of everything. Season 5: the entity, Henry, and Brenner the one responsible.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the Stranger Things villain?
Henry Creel, alias Vecna, revealed in season 4. The shadow of the Upside Down and all the creatures obeyed him. Season 5 shows that he carried an older entity, and that Brenner made all of that possible.
Is the Demogorgon the Season 1 villain?
It is the creature of season 1, with Brenner as the human villain. We later learn that it obeyed the hive, therefore Henry.
Who is the season 5 villain?
Henry Creel, still, and the entity he carries; on this side, Dr. Kay and her army, who hunt Eleven.
Are Henry Creel and the shadow of the Upside Down the same thing?
No. Vecna is Henry Creel. The shadow, which Dustin named after the game, is the entity he commanded, and which had contaminated him as a child. They both die in the finale.
Who is the most important human villain?
Martin Brenner, who created Eleven and Henry at the lab. Dr. Kay takes up his methods in 1987, and Jason Carver embodies, without powers, the town that turns on its outcasts.
Was the 1983 Demogorgon already obeying someone?
Yes, with the hindsight of the last chapter: the season 5 prologue shows him carrying Will to Henry, in the library of the Upside Down.
Are the Russians villains?
Those of 1985 open a gate under Starcourt for military reasons, and Grigori kills Alexei. But Dmitri and Yuri, in 1986, help Hopper: the show does not make the Russians a bloc.
Is Dr. Kay a villain?
An antagonist rather than a monster: she hunts Eleven and takes up Brenner's methods on Kali's blood, but her fate after the finale is not shown.