Unraveling Vecna: How The First Shadow Shaped Stranger Things’ Darkest Villain

As anticipation builds for the fifth season of Stranger Things, fans are eager to see how the story will weave in elements from the stage production Stranger Things: The First Shadow. The connection between the Netflix series and the prequel play has become a hot topic, especially after Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays Vecna, revealed just how much the play influenced his approach to the character in both season 4 and the upcoming final chapter.

Bower explained that he had already spent a lot of time considering his character’s early years and family dynamics before ever seeing the play.

"It 's difficult to say this without sounding like a prick, because I'd spent so much time thinking about his childhood during filming,"

he joked in a recent interview. The actor described how the pandemic lockdown gave him six months to really dig into questions about Henry Creel’s relationships with his parents and caregivers. When he finally watched The First Shadow and saw the scene where Henry’s mother, Virginia, strikes him, it all clicked.

"Of course that happens, and of course the father being an alcoholic creates a distance. This is a child screaming for love, just wanting to be loved, wanting to be nurtured,"

he reflected. Meeting the actors who played his parents, Bower admitted,

"the first and only thing I could say to them when I met them was, 'I hate you.'"

The play, he said, validated the backstory he’d already built in his mind.

Exploring Henry Creel’s Past

In the fourth episode of season 5, titled 'Sorcerer,' Max finds herself trapped inside Henry’s mindscape. She tells young Holly Wheeler that she’s been forced to relive key moments from Vecna’s life, always ending up at Hawkins Lab on the day of the infamous Massacre. But there’s a new flashback set in 1959, when Henry attended school with Joyce, Hopper, and others, preparing for a production of Oklahoma! The First Shadow centers on this period, showing a shy, troubled Henry joining the school play after moving from Nevada. The play also reveals his early struggles to control his psychic abilities, which began after he encountered a mysterious entity before arriving in Hawkins.

Season 5 nods to these events, with Max hiding in the caves on the edge of Henry’s mindscape, where he’s recreated the Creel House as an idealized version of home. Bower found this detail especially telling.

"I thought it was really interesting that in [season] five, of all the things he could have created – because this is not the real world – of all the choices he made, he decided he'd recreate his family home. Why? What needed to be healed within that space?"

he wondered. He came to believe that Henry was trying to reclaim a sense of belonging, to finally make the house feel like his own.

Inside Vecna’s Mind

Throughout his journey, Bower carried these insights into his portrayal of Vecna. The villain’s actions, he said, are driven by deep-seated resentment and pain.

"When it comes down to it, he has bitter, twisted resentment: 'You took everything from me, so I'm going to take everything from you.' It is monstrous at the end of the day, with Henry, but I mean, poor boy. Just, poor boy."

The layers of trauma and longing for love that shaped Henry Creel into Vecna are now more apparent than ever, thanks to the interplay between the series and its stage prequel.