Eleven is able to blast Vecna away from Max at first, but once the surprise wears off, he defeats El, restrains both of the girls, and takes them to his red-tinged lair (which reminds me of Sherlock's mind palace, so I'm going to call it a mind palace).
Eleven demonstrated the ability to overpower Vecna when she piggybacked into Max's memory and again after Vecna took her hostage in the Upside Down. Eleven was the one who first opened the gate to the Upside Down, a skill at which Vecna was less adept.
Eleven literally raised the dead, an accomplishment beyond anything Vecna has ever achieved, a power beyond even Dr. Brenner's wildest dreams. And it was only possible because she allowed her love to serve as the fuel for her powers. Dr.
Stranger Things revealed Vecna to be the show's ultimate villain, but killing him might not be the best way to end this hit Netflix original series.
Meanwhile, in Russia, Murray is able to torch the demogorgons and demo dogs there. This weakens the Upside Down at the perfect moment. Nancy, Steve, and Robin torch and shoot Vecna's physical body to smithereens.
At his empire's height, Vecna was betrayed and destroyed by his most trusted lieutenant, a vampire called Kas the Bloody-Handed, using a magical sword that Vecna himself had crafted for him, now known as the Sword of Kas.
The trio gets upstairs and find Vecna strung up on his vines, unconscious while he deals with Eleven in the mind palace. They torch him with Molotov cocktails, and when he wakes up, Nancy shoots him with a sawed-off shotgun.
At the height of his empire Vecna was betrayed by Kas. Kas managed to destroy the Archlich before his own death, with the Sword of Kas, a lethal blade of the Undying King's own make, leaving only Vecna's left hand and left eye behind. Vecna eventually returned and by 581, had risen to godhood.
One/Vecna had his powers blocked and was working as an aide at Hawkins National Lab where he befriended Eleven. Not knowing that One was evil, Eleven restored his powers which he used to gruesomely massacre the entire lab.
And he saw the possibility for escape when he realized the extent of Eleven's untapped potential. One manipulated Eleven into plotting her own escape, which also involved getting her to remove the device in his neck. (Henry, however, did not tell Eleven the truth when he said Brenner wanted her dead.
In the series, Eleven is shown moments from her past at Hawkins Laboratory, right up until she manages to banish Vecna into the Upside Down.
What does Vecna want with El? In his twisted mind, Vecna believes that he his helping the world by wiping out humans, as a "predator, but for good." When Vecna asks for El to join him, it's because he also sees her as a predator, "better" than humans.
Ultimately, it is revealed in Stranger Things season 4's finale that the reason why Vecna was killing Hawkins teenagers was to create a massive gate that merges the Right Side Up with the Upside Down - and he specifically needed four bodies to do so.
"I walked up to her [as Vecna] and she burst into tears. She wouldn't look at me and she was visibly just disgusted by the whole thing... After she cried and I made it obvious that she knew it was me, one of the things she said was that, 'I knew it was you when I could smell cigarettes,' because I'm a smoker."
During the match, Eleven was able to overpower Vecna, using her psychic abilities to keep him pinned to the Rainbow Room wall as his body disintegrated. But before he could disintegrate completely, she unintentionally opened a gate to the Upside Down behind him, which Vecna then fell through.
Patrick was targeted due to his father's abuse of him. Finally, Vecna targets Max for her trauma from witnessing Billy's death and uses Barb's (Shannon Purser) death as a way to use Nancy.
Next up, the viewers go on to theorise that One/Vecna is actually Eleven's dad. Yep, told you it was wild. The theory claims that Brenner wanted to create a child with stronger powers, so he waited until One was old enough to become a father.
His first three victims — Chrissy Cunningham, Patrick McKinney, and Fred Benson — are all peers of The Party, people they know from school, which makes Vecna's terror all the more real.
What Does Vecna Want? Vecna's goal is to open as many gates to the Upside Down as he can, in order to help the Mind Flayer.
After taunting her with incessant chiming from a grandfather clock and appearing before her in hallucinations, Vecna eventually kills her in an incredibly gruesome way. First, she went into a trance with her eyes rolling into her head, then she began to levitate before her eyes were removed and bones were snapped.
After inflicting protracted suffering, Vecna finally executes the victim, using his powers to make them levitate before snapping their limbs and gouging out their eyes.
His main weakness is not any particular set of traits, but a constraint imposed by his location: the Chaotic Quest entrance is a portal rather than a staircase, and Vecna is covetous. Vecna will therefore readily warp to you, but will not teleport away to heal.
Eleven saves Max's life, but it comes at a price. Max is brain-dead and would be undergoing severe medical trauma.
Henry spends years trapped in the Upside Down, which changes him into the monster that is now terrorizing Hawkins in the present: Vecna.