Instead of escaping Vecna's Mind Lair by hearing her favorite song, Nancy is actually released by Vecna himself.
However, Nancy is freed by Vecna within the first five minutes of volume 2, with instructions for her to tell Eleven what he has planned for Hawkins. Nancy wakes up to see Steve and is never affected by the curse again, despite Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) escaping Vecna only to again be attacked by him later on.
She manages to overpower him in his Mind Lair, which helps to free Nancy, Steve, and Robin. They then manage to burn Vecna's physical form.
While his usual strategy is to mimic his victims' self-deprecating thoughts (again, a very real psychological phenomenon), this time he is telling Nancy his plans and then releasing her so she can inform everyone—including Eleven—that the end is near, with the intention of demoralising and disempowering them.
Vecna Will Target Nancy In Stranger Things Season 5 - But Will Do More Than Kill Her.
Nancy is also cursed by Vecna, although she is able to escape. Vecna picks Nancy because she is still devastated over Barb Holland's (Shannon Purser) controversial Stranger Things death in season 1.
Through the window, Max saw her real body levitating above the cemetery, her friends panicking on the ground below. Bracing herself, Max pulled at a vine in Vecna's neck, causing him to writhe in pain and accidentally release her from the vines' grasp.
While intending to get his revenge on Eleven and Brenner, Vecna also goes after victims who have dealt with traumatizing experiences in the past (reminiscent of his childhood and his time at the Hawkins lab).
She Doesn't Have a Great Aim
After the Hawkins team develops a plan to defeat Vecna, Nancy is in charge to blow his head up with a shotgun. However, either she didn't have a great aim or she was trying to play it safe because she didn't hit him in the face even once, and that may be the reason why Vecna is still alive.
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.
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.
Instead of fleeing again, as he did in previous instances of danger, this time Eddie stands his ground and fights. It's his last heroic act. Though Eddie manages to occupy the Demobats until the battle is over, he succumbs to his wounds. He dies in Dustin's arms in the Upside Down, and his body is never recovered.
Eleven has a memory during this episode and realizes that 001/Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) wants her to join him on his evil journey, and she banished him to the Upside Down. 001 then transformed into Vecna, the horrifying Stranger Things villain.
By 1986, the death of Barb Holland is what many believed to be what set off the "curse" of Hawkins. Fred Benson, a friend of Nancy's who was similar to Barb, was cursed and killed by Vecna. His death brought back Nancy's trauma, guilt, and grief over Barb's death.
Steve, Nancy, and Robin (Maya Hawke) were almost suffocated by Vecna's tentacles, but Vecna is seriously wounded by Eleven and his grip on the trio loosens. Steve, therefore, makes it out of the Upside Down alive.
Wheeler is Vecna's sister are pretty slim. While it's possible on a theoretical level, it would just be a really weird plot twist, even for Stranger Things. However, it's still odd that Mrs. Wheeler was the only side character with a poster.
And while his usual modus operandi is to embody his victims' negative self-talk (another very real psychological phenomenon), this time he is telling Nancy his plans and then releasing her so she can report back to everybody—Eleven included—that the end is nigh, with the goal of discouraging and disempowering them.
The theory that Vecna is actually Billy Hargrove may come with an interesting twist, which suggests that Vecna isn't Billy per se, but rather a monster imitating Billy in order to torment Max and Stranger Things season 4's characters.
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.
Unlike the reporters at the Hawkins Post, Fred treated Nancy with respect. Though Fred appeared to be bright and level-headed, he harbored extreme guilt for his role in the fatal 1985 car accident, and believed many people look at him as a "murderer." This guilt and mental unrest made him a target of Vecna.
Vecna's obsession with time appears to be linked to his hatred of humanity. He views time as a human imposition on the natural world; an attempt to impose order on nature.
As Vecna, he uses these mental abilities as a way to psychologically weaken and lure in his victims – much in a way that Pennywise, Freddie Kruger, and Pinhead do. (All of which have been cited by show creators the Duffer brothers as inspirations for the villain.) But he does have a surprising weakness: music.
Vecna holds off Eleven long enough to brutally attack Max in his signature style—she levitates, her eyes go white and bleed, and he snaps her limbs. Eleven regains her strength and pushes Vecna off before he can complete the job, but the damage is already done.
If Vecna has you in a trance, listening to your favorite song can help pull you out of it, as we saw when Vecna attacked Max only for her friends to pull her out his trance using the synth-tastic stylings of Kate Bush, specifically her 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God).”
So, Max was nearly murdered like Vecna's three previous victims. Just before Max died, Eleven rallied her strength, defeated Vecna and freed Max -- but the damage had already been done. Even though Max was free from Vecna, she died in Lucas' arms.