Stranger Things Creators Explain The Shocking Revelation Behind Eleven’s Powers & Connection To Vecna

As Stranger Thingsapproaches its finale, the Duffer Brothers have reframed Eleven’s story in a way that raises the stakes.

Stranger Things season 5 isn’t just about defeating Vecna or the Upside Down anymore. It’s also about whether Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) can ever escape a world that sees her as a weapon, especially after the ruthless Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) made her debut to carry on Dr. Martin Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) work after his death.

From the very beginning of the series, she has been hunted. While the dark creatures from another dimension often steal the spotlight, the human threat has never gone away. In an interview with Variety, Stranger Things co-creator Ross Duffer explained why the stakes are so high for Eleven in the show’s final season.

This is one of the reasons we want to bring Kali back — there’s really been dual threats throughout the run of “Stranger Things.” There is the supernatural threat, which is represented by Vecna this season. But the military has always posed a threat, from Season 1 on. Even when Brenner is gone, he gets continually replaced by someone else. In this case, in Season 5, by Kay. So we needed Kali to represent maybe a more pessimistic, but perhaps realistic, version, compared to Mike’s worldview of we’re gonna have butterflies and rainbows. And Kali’s going, “How is this going to work? And what is the solution here, that you can live a normal life?” That’s really a huge part of Eleven’s journey this season.

The revelation that Eleven’s abilities stem from tests involving Stranger Things’ villain Henry Creel, better known as Vecna, changes the mythology of the show. Rather than random gifts or vague psychic evolution, the powers are the result of a, for lack of a better term, complicated science experiment.

Brenner, using Henry’s blood to create more children like him, makes Eleven the most successful and human product of his experimentation. Her strength and skills set her apart from the rest. However, the origin of her abilities ties her directly to Vecna in a very personal and dangerous way.

The connection could also ultimately become the end of her, because as long as she has his blood, she will continue to be hunted down. At the moment, there doesn’t appear to be a way for her to remove this blood from her system, making it impossible for her to cut ties with the villain and be free of the military, which is pursuing her to weaponize her powers.

Stranger Things’ other co-creator, Matt Duffer, discussed how they came up with the idea of having Eleven be linked to Vecna in some way. “I think that came about when we were working both on the play and Season 4, if I recall. Because so much of it ties into Henry, into One. Once we started to really explore that, we felt that it was interesting to then use that to explain and delve into where these powers actually originated from,” he explained.

When asked about whether there was a way for Eleven to escape her fate, Matt offered a pessimistic answer. He said that it’s in her DNA and that’s not something that can really be removed, nor is there a way for anyone to solve this problem for her, not even magic.

The idea is no, because we like that this is something that’s in her DNA. It’s unchangeable. There’s no magic antidote that’s going to solve this issue. And we like that, because it just creates a very complicated, messy situation. It’s very easy to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to go fight the bad guy and defeat the evil!’ But even if they’re able to do that and survive that, there’s this other, almost even darker, more complicated question on the other side of that.

Stranger Things season 5 volumes 1 and 2 are available to stream on Netflix. The series finale will debut on December 31, 2025.