Stranger Things Season Four, the Old Ghosts that still haunt you.(Oh also, Vecna is the Scarlet King by the way...)

It was two seasons ago that I made the connection between SCP and Stranger Things, in that blog post I also plainly laid out as to why I believe that based on the Lore of SCP 001 will probably play a big role and potentially be the main overarching Villain of the show, now you may not believe it but I was genuinely theorizing, I revealed that I knew an overarching villain existed and was called Vecna, I did not know anything about him other than he has skin cancer that makes him look like a peeled onion.

I did not even know that Vecna just like the Demogorgon Vecna is actually a character from Dungeons & Dragons, and given that he is, I think it was a missed opportunity to show that this outcast was also a Dungeons & Dragons fan back in the day, emphasizing on the fact that people and especially the media often use the few bad apples to Demonize whatever new thing they don't understand.

It's a natural human thing to try to find logic in whatever illogical tragedy befell their lives, sometimes it isn't even a tragedy, it is just their kid growing up and being a teen or *Le Gasp* a result of their own bad parenting.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/84219a_56471b1269e347b2bc6847ae8bfa9780/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Man the Satanic Panic was really something huh?

It's still so crazy to me that the og sci fi shows and movies like Star Trek and Star Wars somehow survived the absolute bullshit that was thrown at them, but then again the fans probably liked them harder when they realized that they were rebelling even harder against their parents and the so called men of God who limited their lives to a point where they could barely breathe.

Strangest thing is that these men probably turned to god to fight similar external forces that controlled their lives when they were young.

Being in control makes them feel safe, which is why they are so afraid to give up the control.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/84219a_3789c64ca2734f04b0047e29eb2f317c/720p/mp4/file.mp4

I really used to wonder why of all the times did Stranger Things choose to write it's story in the 80s?

But now that I look at it, it makes perfect sense, the 80s was the Era of the Cold war, the Satanic Panic, a time when everything was chaotic, it had been a while since the two world Wars, people who had been born right after the War and hence their formative years were spent dealing with the aftermath of war, it was turbulent.

But that wasn't the only thing it was turbulent, now that a major stressor is removed, the world was moving forwards fast.

New advancements in technology everyday.

And the thing is, the last time technology evolved, their world turned into a hellscape (Industrial Revolution), and then that led to machines of war, but at the same time they were dependent on it.

Their minds asks them to find something to blame, it's Satan! It's the Commies! It's whatever new person my child is dating!

All of this to avoid the simple truth...

And the thing is, Since Society is run by adults, it is only natural that the ones who conform are given great power and encouragement, they can walk into a room where the Police are trying to calm the public down and spout baseless non sense and be met with applause.

All because, this particular brand of nonsense, agrees with the world view that makes everyone feel comfortable.

The strangest thing is, once in a while, they are right, and because they are so determined to attack what they think is the threat, the real threat goes unnoticed.

What is worse is, they themselves become a road block in the path of trying to stop that threat, or in some cases, a greater threat themselves.

It is tragic really.

And that in a nutshell is the arc that Jason goes on.

Jason is the current high school Jock and in a lot of ways a Dark reflection of Steve.

Where as Steve always had a tinge of good in him, and he always wanted to keep growing, Jason is Stagnant, he is rigid in his worldview, even when he blames Dungeons & Dragons for radicalizing Eddie Munson and then by extension causing Chrissy's Death, he still denies the Supernatural angle.

And when it is right in front of him, when a close friend who has supported him through thick and thin tells him to entertain the possibility he brushes it aside, tells him it's not worth it, until...

He looses that friend, the same way he lost his girlfriend, except this time he can see what's happening with his own two eyes.

He can see that Eddie had nothing to do with it, that he trips and falls over, and yet he won't stop blaming Eddie, I mean he does change the reason behind his blame, but it stays where it is.

Because the reality is, this is not just about catching the one who killed Chrissy, this is not just about stopping the murders.

Jason cannot accept that he is Jealous, because accepting that would mean showing weakness, and that will only make him like the weirdos he hates so much.

In his mind it will make him part of the problem, and he is not that right?

Jason cannot accept the simple truth that his girlfriend simply wanted to do some Drugs to ease her pain, a pain she hid from him because she probably thought he wouldn't love her if she showed it to him.

Or because she couldn't or didn't want to bother him with all this.

Jason has created a world view where he is the hero out to save every one from the evil of the satanists.

I mean look at how him and his little group walk into the room.

Tell me this isn't reminiscent of those classic "the Hero comes to save everyone" shots.

Also the fact that he is a white man doing this to a black police officer isn't lost on me, although maybe the racial angle is much less pronounced here.

My comparison to Steve wasn't just out of nowhere.

In Jason's mind he is the Hero, and it is through his way that everyone will be saved.

It is because of all this that him and his ilk can justify beating up Erica who is significantly younger than any of them.

Why he can justify making Nancy uncomfortable even when she is holding a shotgun, because in his head she is the elder sister of Mike who is in the Hellfire club, and that is the club that summoned Satan to kill his girlfriend and close friend right?

That is also the club whose leader was alone in a room with his girlfriend, how dare he! Keeping aside the fact that she is an individual who can choose for herself of course.

Jason ignores not only these realities, but also Vecna, the real threat behind all of this, because accepting that means aligning himself with the Satanists, anyways why would you listen to the Devil, he would only addle your mind.

Strangely enough, this man pointed out his own problem.

So yeah, blind religious Fanaticism not only doesn't work most of the time but often works to hide the real problems.

More often than not it is a way for one to deal with unaddressed emotional trauma in a very unhealthy manner, unhealthy for all parties involved.

So one would think going on the side of reason logic and science is the way to solve everything, but if you think that, you forget that the entire reason this happened is because some random doctor/scientist was trying to create someone with telekinetic abilities.

Cold allegiance to reason is who Vecna is, or at least pretends to be, but there is someone else.

A man who thinks he is being the most reasonable in all of this charade, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Sullivan he believes that all the deaths are happening due to eleven, because she is the only one who he knows to have Telekinetic powers.

Little does he know that eleven has lost her powers and is not even in Hawkins, not to mention that she might be the only hope anyone has against 001.

So you don't stick to emotions, you don't stick to reason, what do you do?

Is the answer somewhere in between?

Well know, the answer is to realize that one doesn't always have all the variables, in fact that is true most of the times, this mentality of I have to solve everything and I have all the answers is the problem.

One should realize that Appeal to emotion, Appeal to authority, fallacious Appeal to authority and Middle ground, all are logical fallacies.

But the biggest Fallacy of all is the Fallacy Fallacy i.e. things aren't simply wrong because they have a Fallacy, it's just that the only way we can be sure that something is true is if there is a Fallacy free way to express it...

The other way round? Who knows.

But speaking of people who think they know how to solve all the problems in the world, let's actually talk about Vecna.

Vecna or Henry Kreel or 001 is as the name suggests the first anomaly, he is the first to gain strange mind control powers, and it is from him the Dr. Brenner got the idea to make a lab full of children who had similar powers.

Now sometime ago I compared Vecna to the Scarlet king, but who is the Scarlet King?

Well as I mentioned before, Stranger things take heavy inspiration from SCP, as well as from DnD, the DnD thing is much more straight forwards, because the Show literally tells you this, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the thing everyone in the eighties was blaming for their kids getting corrupted became the very thing that kids not only banded around but also took lore from to explain what was actually happening.

And then these same so called corrupted kids then become the saviors of Hawkins, but we are getting sidetracked again.

In the lore of the SCP, no one knows who or what SCP-001 is, the supposed first anomaly.

The two most notable ones however are SCP-001: The Gate Guardian and SCP-001: The Scarlet King...

The Gate Guardian is a massive six winged humanoid Figure carrying a large flaming sword, thought to be the Angel Uriel standing Guard at the Gate of Eden, and it is due to his warning that the Original Founder of the Foundation thought to make it...

But then there is the Scarlet King, an ancient Eldritch Deity born from the Tree of Knowledge, the youngest among all his siblings who decided that the world needed to end after he experienced pain.

And so he killed all his Siblings, growing stronger with each kill, he rules the "Darkness Below" and initially took the goddess Sanna as his wife but upon her death after the birth of their daughters, he took all his daughters as his wives, he represents chaos and the end of all things.

This is an Artistic Depiction of the Scarlet King I found on Art Station by the Illustrator Victor Lopez.

Now tell me that does not sound like Henry Creel A.K.A. Vecna A.K.A. 001?

Except for the "born from the Tree of Knowledge" Part, everything fits!

This man was born into a Normal family, but he saw the world as fundamentally broken, while he was the older sibling, he did kill his entire family and then his supposed numbered "siblings".

He grew stronger with each kill.

He currently rules the "Upside Down" and his ultimate goal is the total annihilation of everything.

To be a predator but for good.

To end Order.

And that is the running theme of this season isn't it, people who think they know exactly what's wrong with the world and how to fix it.

Leading eventually to them becoming the exact thing that they chose to fight against, the one who hurt them.

Refusing to change to listen to a different voice, because they believe they know everything, they see everything.

I once saw this video essay that outlined how people with extreme abilities to perceive things, such as enhanced vision, hearing etc. can often become over reliant on these abilities and hence end up not using their other senses, especially forgetting to think

Yes I am talking about Heimdall, he can read minds, he knows what someone is going to do before they do it, but... he doesn't think...

To him Atreus is a threat

Threat = destroy.

But he doesn't think that if he kills Atreus, Kratos will be after all of Asgard, and if there is one thing he is known for it's killing Gods.

Similarly, Jason doesn't think what will happen if he... say asks Lucas to wake up max too early, or makes the whole town chase after Eddie.

Jack Sullivan tortures a man and kills the other just to find out where eleven is, in his mind it's justified because they are protecting a killer.

And Finally Henry doesn't think that if he does all of this and fails, it will only be used as a ploy to further villainize people who are like him, or see the flaws in the world like he does, and if he succeeds?

Well... remember infinity Ultron?

In a twist of horrible Irony, These Villains probably lock themselves in the worst possible outcome not just for the ones they harm, but for themselves.

Because what they enjoy is the process of destroying the world, it makes them feel good, but once they are done...

They realize it's not what they wanted.

But it is over now... things can't ever go back to the way they were...

In a way when they are defeated they are saved from themselves, and if they die, they get what they really want, an end to their misery...

But Vecna isn't just a villain on his own, and neither is Jason nor is Jack, they are all symptoms, Symptoms of a system that is horribly broken.

I truly believe that if there was a big enough thing that happened, Jason and Jack would have turned to the good guys, Even Vecna, if he actually felt that there was some place for him in this cruel world, he would probably turn out better, yes he was absolutely a piece of shit from the start, but "papa" definitely worsened everything bad about him.

He made Eleven look for 001, he created all the other children because of 001, to make a version of him he could control better...

And the thing is, he is alive... somehow, in this season.

And he is brought back by Owens to help Eleven get her powers back, and the show uses this as an excuse to fill in her backstory, and it makes sense, that after the extreme trauma she suffered in the previous season she suffered a stroke like disease and lost the ability to use her powers properly.

And it would seem even amongst her siblings she was disliked by most.

It seems that for a moment the show is gonna do a rug pull and make it so that "papa" has actually turned over a new leaf and is a good guy now, and I believe the real point was, that amongst all the things he did, he truly did believe that he was doing the right thing.

And he died, realizing that he got what he wanted, the perfect magical child, but that she will never love him, not even hate him, cause she has bigger worries, just... not love him, he will be nothing more than a footnote in her story.

He did love her... in his own twisted way...

And she did feel bad for loosing him, abuse or not, for the longest time he was her only family...

But now she has a better family, and a heart...

Mike has a strange arc this season, in fact I believe he is probably the one with the least development this time around, but whatever he gets, it is very important, his arc is basically realizing that he may not be the superhero that his girlfriend is, but he is more important to her and everyone else than he can possibly imagine...

He is the heart.

Poor will says this to him and ends up crying in the end.

I wonder how much of what he said was El, and how much was him.

Truly a queer character has never been more relatable to me.

But now that we know that everything is Vecna, does that mean that Will is Vecna's horcrux?

You know like Harry and Voldy.

Hey I am not the only one to make that connection between these two bald dudes am I?

But we will get to that later.

Meanwhile I am just happy that Jamie Campbell bower got the recognition he deserved, I mean after Mortal instruments and fantastic beasts, it seemed he really was done for.

Strangely enough Mortal instruments was a fanfic of Harry Potter where Draco and Ginny hit it off and Harry got friendzoned, and Jamie played Jace... who was Draco, and the Fantastic beasts franchise is a spin off of Harry Potter...

And now he is Voldemort and Will is his Horcrux...

Poor man really can't get away from that Harry Potter can he?

Reproduce, and DIE!(yes that monologue is stuck in my head, what about it.)

Nancy Robin and Steve actually start the Mystery inc in this season, as they search relentlessly for what is causing all the Murders.

Steve and Nancy go through somewhat of a rekindling, and Jonathan is definitely at fault for that, because he can't be honest with Nancy, they even have the classic Amber and Mark two way conversation to show how they aren't communicating where as if they did, everything would work out.

Or Invincible season 2 came out after Stranger things Season 4, so maybe Mark and Amber did a Jonathan and Nancy?

I have no clue, Jonathan is smoking funny plants this season, and along with him is his stoner friend Argyle, who like Sam's roommate in Transformers 2, is along for the entire ride this season.

Except unlike Sam's roommate he is actually entertaining.

And he helps everyone find project Nina, and somehow woos the babysitter at the Amish home of Suzie.

Which speaking of never have I liked a character more than Suzie and she has had a total of maybe ten minutes in all the four seasons but somehow she has had the most pivotal roles, like changing Dustin's grade!

No I am joking, she is a hacker who figures out where Nina actually is, so without her they couldn't find El...

And they couldn't get the keys required to shut the key in season 3.

And speaking of the Key, that exploded, and Somehow Palpatine returned!

No no no, somehow Hopper survived.

I mean the explanation is bullshit, I am sorry, but I am glad he is here, because without him, we wouldn't have the Soviet Russia section of this season, and that is actually quite important.

The last season showed them as the outright Villains who almost reopened the Gate, causing the Mind-flayer to kill so many people to create a single monster just to kill one girl.

In this season, once they capture Hop after his survival it seems like they will go that way again, as even the one helping Hop: Enzo, is just trying to get rich, he is a corrupt guard.

And in a twist that absolutely no one expected(definitely) the smuggler he uses to get the money Yuri Ismaylov double crosses him and turns him along with Murray and Joyce to the govt. to get even more money!

An of course Hop, as he is now an escaped prisoner.

Put in the same boat as Hop, Enzo and Hop develop one of the most wholesome friendships I have ever seen as they both discuss their teenage children and how they are both "at that age" while prepping for what could be the biggest battle of their lives, that against a Demogorgon.

And I am just gonna come out and say it, this candle lit dinner just before going to fight a monster, is straight out of a Fantasy story, Hop in this season is a Fantasy Hero.

He is the Veteran who has fought against upside down predators before and he does so defending the "fair maiden" Yes okay Joyce will probably kill you herself and saved Hopper first, I mean these are more progressive times.

But in the end he literally picks up a sword and beheads a Demogorgon in a classic Samurai style duel.

And that is in no way a coincidence, this man singlehandedly made a soviet see that there is a bigger threat that needs their attention over their petty cold war, lead an entire party against a mythical beast after surviving an almost un-survivable incident, and fights the monster one on one to win by a be heading.

Jane/eleven began this season by presenting her father as an historical hero, being bullied for it, because she can't say what actually happened, can't retaliate because of having lost her powers and settles for a roller skate to the face of her bully.

She spends the season believing she is a bad person, in the beginning there is even a red herring making us believe that she killed her siblings(but if you see her eyes, you will get a hint that that isn't true.), but it turns out that isn't the Truth.

Her dad believes himself to be cursed and a failure, and ends up being the main reason his daughter succeeds besides Mike's pep talk, as he weakens the hive mind just enough for her to gain control.

All in the time when Nancy and the gang are able to "kill" Vecna by multiple Molotov cocktails and Shotgun blasts.

(Except no he survived).

But in all this we forgot two main people, well three actually, Max, Eddie and Robin.

You see Vecna is Dr. Brenner's/Papa's Ghost from the past who has come to haunt him and everyone else, and he uses his powers to show everyone their past ghosts, he thinks he is all seeing and all knowing, but really, he too is trapped by his own ghosts.

And amongst all of this is Max, someone who has suffered the worst kind of Trauma, the loss of a loved one whom you always thought you hated.

You see its the worst kind because you spend your life hating this one person, thinking they are the worst thing in your life, but then you see another side to them, and see them fight tooth and nail to defend probably your best friend, and just as you realize you love them, they are no longer here...

You blame yourself for not moving, for not acting, and you realize a part of you wanted them gone... but you don't realize that even if you didn't the shock wouldn't have let you move anyways.

In other words you blame yourself for your reasonable negative feelings when they play no part in what happened.

And as Vecna targets those with Trauma, she is one.

She does almost die when she offers herself as bait and lets go of the music protecting her from him, but Eleven restarts her heart, Ironically probably giving her a worse fate, brain death.

But, one thing, If Vecna can open rifts like this, why didn't he do it already?

The only possible explanation is he didn't know until now.

And Eddie Munson, he is yet another Dark reflection of Steve, someone who is cool precisely because he embraced every single one of his qualities that everyone else considers uncool.

He leads the Hellfire club, a leader of the losers who play DnD if you will.

He comes in makes us love him and then he dies.

I wish he had kept running, I mean I understand the emotional thing, but come on man, you were literally told to not act the hero.

You could have just kept cycling!

No who's gonna play Metallica for us? T-T