Stranger Things’ Upside Down explained: Its origin, Vecna, and more

Stranger Things 4 revealed a lot about Eleven’s past and dropped a big twist about who is the true mastermind behind the Upside Down’s war on humanity. But with only one season left to go, we still have a lot of unanswered questions — several of which center around the Upside Down.

In an interview with Variety, Ross Duffer did promise that “answers for the Upside Down is really what the basis of season 5 is about.” But rather than sit around and wait for all to be revealed, we’ve gathered up everything we already know about the Upside Down so we can start making our own predictions.

[Ed. note: The following contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4 part 2.]

Is there an Upside to Everything?

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The Upside Down is an alternate dimension that mirrors our world — or at least our world if it was a toxic hellscape overrun with creepy, moving vines, filled with murderous creatures linked together in a hive mind system, and is constantly experiencing electrical storms.

These storms are likely responsible for the Upside Down’s effect on the world’s electromagnetic field. This is how Will was able to use the Christmas lights to communicate with Joyce and why compasses will, if they’re in close enough range, point to Upside Down gates rather than true north.

When Henry Creel/One/Vecna (who we will hereafter refer to just as Vecna for simplicity’s sake) first entered the Upside Down, the location he arrived at didn’t appear to be a version of Hawkins, though. There was nothing but a mountainous landscape, and even more electric storms. There were no houses. No school. No Castle Byers.

But if the Upside Down didn’t always mirror Hawkins, is it truly a parallel dimension that reflects our world or an alternate dimension that was TransformedOur world to be reflected? Or maybe it’s simply that the Upside Down expands far beyond Hawkins and we’ve previously only glimpsed a small portion of it.

Is Eleven responsible for the Upside Down’s creation?

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The first known human contact with the Upside Down was in 1979 during Eleven’s fight with Vecna. Eleven managed to defeat Vecna using her psychic skills to keep him bound to the Rainbow Room Wall as his body fell apart. Vecna was able to disintegrate fully, but Eleven accidentally opened the Upside Down gate behind him.

There’s been debate as to whether or not this scene implies that Eleven created the Upside Down or merely opened the first gate to it. Millie Bobby Brown says that El never created the Upside Down. “I don’t think that she created the Upside Down,” Brown told Variety in June. “No, I think that it was always there, I think she just created a gate to it which no one could before.”

Brown was likely correct in stating that there is no Upside Down created by anyone and that the parallel dimension exists as a result. And if the boys’ science teacher was right in saying there are “infinite variations” of our world in alternate dimensions, there could even be NumerousThere are many versions of The Upside Down.

Is the Upside Down still stuck in 1983 because of this?

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Stranger Things 4 Part 1. Nancy realized that the Upside Down had become frozen in the time continuum on Nov. 6, 1983. This was the date Eleven opened Hawkins Lab’s mothergate and Will went missing. This is clearly not an accident, however Chris Trujillo, the production designer, confirmed that Eleven opened the gate and the Upside Down became stuck in time. He explained the process in a featurette.

The moment that the Upside Down was quote-unquote “created” inadvertently by Eleven, the set dressing and the world of the Upside Down is frozen in that moment. So like when we’re in Nancy’s room, we’ll discover in the Upside Down that Nancy’s room is as it was season 1 when we first were introduced to it.

While we’re still missing the “why” part of this mystery, it’s possible that after Vecna entered the Upside Down, he transformed it to match Hawkins (he does want to reshape the world, after all). Then maybe, after the Upside Down came into contact with the real Hawkins and/or Eleven’s powers when the mothergate opened, it disturbed his control over the realm and froze time as a result.

Another theory suggests that the Upside Down has remained as the barren landscape Vecna saw when Vecna first entered it. Only after Vecna’s mothergate opened, was Hawkins in the alternate dimension copied exactly from 1983.

Is one of these theories superior? At this stage, who knows? They aren’t giving us a lot to work with.

Are there any monsters in the Upside Down, you ask?

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Beyond the dangers of the Upside Down’s fauna and flora (such as toxic vines or spores), the dimension is also home to many monsters. The Mind Flayer is a powerful and many-legged, mist creature that can be incredibly dangerous. Demodogs are their adolescent form. Demobats are able to fly but they are just as vicious.

Then, of course, there’s Vecna, the monstrous evolution of Henry Creel/One who preys on humans’ trauma before gruesomely killing them.

Vecna, the Mind Flayer?

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In the first part of season 4, Dustin guessed that Vecna was the Mind Flayer’s “five-star general,” but it’s actually the other way around.

Vecna entered the Upside Down for the first time. He wandered through the deserted wasteland until coming across the living cloud of dark fog, which was an primitive version of the Mind Flayer. Vecna, who absorbs beings’ consciousnesses and resultantly feeds off their power, knew he had stumbled upon exactly what he needed to exact his revenge on the world:

There were so many amazing things I had seen, but then I discovered the best. It would be the change that would transform everything. It was a way to fulfill my potential and transcend my human nature to become the predator that I had been born to be.

Vecna reached for the Mind Flayer and used his power to transform it into the spider-legged creature he remembered drawing as a child. Vecna created most likely the Upside-Down hive mind. He became the puppet master behind all of the monsters and absorbed their minds.

Vecna gained an advantage in the world when Eleven opened it years later. The hive mind enabled him to send his soldiers out, such as the Demogorgons or Mind Flayer. All the while, he was still in the Upside Down and gaining more power.

What is Vecna truly looking for?

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During Vecna’s 20-minute monologue in the season 4 part 1 finale, he made his distaste for humanity extremely known. As Vecna explained — at length — he finds people’s hypocrisy unforgivable and sees them as irredeemable parasites. He saw Eleven as something better than everyone else, and this was the only exception. He turned on her and exiled him to the Upside Down. His love for her was shattered into hate.

So in short, his motivations don’t seem to be that complicated: destroy Eleven and destroy humanity, all under the pretense of doing it for a better world unencumbered by humanity’s stain. However, Vecna’s execution of this vision is more complicated.

Vecna’s ultimate goal is to create enough cracks in the barrier between our world and the Upside Down, paving a way for a full-scale takeover of our world aided by his army of monsters. But Vecna knew his power alone wasn’t enough to do this and that he had to acquire and exploit Eleven’s powers as well, which is what everything he’s done up until this point has been about.

“All this time, we’ve been building it for you,” Vecna told Eleven through Billy in season 3.

In the season 4 finale showdown with Vecna, Eleven battled with him in Max’s mind while Steve, Nancy, and Robin attacked his physical form, shooting him and engulfing him with flames. Although the team thought that they defeated Vecna, they were able to save him and even enact the next part of their plan.

Hawkins was rocked by a huge earthquake after the fight. huge There were rifts that formed in the earth and converged at the centre of the city. For a few days, these rifts didn’t show signs of their supernatural origins; by the show’s final scene, the Upside Down had begun coming through the cracks, bringing with it electrical storms and the vegetation-killing infection.

Now, with the barrier between the worlds barely intact, it’s only a matter of time before Vecna tries to fully take over our world.

What is Will’s connection to the Upside Down?

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Will was haunted by the Upside Down experience, even after he returned from his week in captivity. Season 2 saw Will experiencing visions of the Upside Down and vomiting up monster snails. He was also possessed by Mind Flayer. Even after the Mind Flayer was driven out of Will’s body, we’ve seen that Will is still able to sense its presence in Hawkins. Only, the end of season 4 revealed that Will wasn’t actually sensing the Mind Flayer — he was sensing Vecna.

Although this may be very distressing for Will, it could give the group an edge against Vecna if he continues to have a connection with the Upside Down. “I can still remember what he thinks, and How he thinks,” Will told Mike.

Why is Will connected to the Upside Down even though no other person has ever experienced similar effects? Some fans speculate that it’s because Will is even more closely tied to the Upside Down that we already know. There are those even who believe that Will was specifically targeted for abduction in season 1 because he has unexplored powers similar to Eleven’s, and that’s why he survived a week there when no one else has survived.

Are there many ways to get to the Upside Down?

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Eleven, who sent Vecna through the temporary Eleven gate in 1979, is the first known to have been opened. In 1983, Eleven made physical contact while deep in psychic state with the Demogorgon/Vecna and opened the first permanent gateway.

When that Demogorgon escaped into our world, it was able to create multiple temporary gates between the two dimensions, such as the one in Will’s room and the one Nancy goes through in the base of the tree. Eleven also has made temporary gates since her escape from lab. This includes the one in Hawkins Middle School.

In 1984, Russia discovered the Upside Down’s existence and began working on creating its own gate. The Keys were finicky, volatile machines capable of temporarily creating a gate. There are many keys, but we know only two of them: one located under Starcourt Mall and one located in Kamchatka.

After destroying the Starcourt gate in season 3, the Hawkins gang thought they’d closed all the openings to the Upside Down. Each of Patrick’s deaths, Fred and Chrissy were caused by Vecna killing them.

However, when Vecna got his fourth sacrifice in Max, it didn’t just create another small gate. Hawkins was transformed into the largest gate ever by huge rifts that opened between worlds throughout the city.

What number of gates is there? There are too many.