(Credits: Netflix)

Stranger Things fans are well-versed with Vecna and Henry Creel’s backstories by now. In fact, the Netflix series dived significantly deeper in earlier seasons to explain the evolution of 001’s transformation into the Upside Down lord, portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower.

In the first volume of the fifth season, the big bad adopts yet another name: Mr Whatsit.

According to Bower’s latest conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, “they’re all varying entities of himself.” But coming to Mr Whatsit, the actor believes is an obvious “representation of who he considers, and wishes, himself to be. But it’s a memory for him more than an actual human being. It’s a performance; an amalgamation of all the things he’s known and of what he thinks would make people safe.”

If you’re still oblivious to the goings-on in season five, we hate to break the spoilers for you. When we re-enter Hawkins after Vecna’s carnage in the fourth season, the entire gang is on Vecna’s tail, trying to put together every clue that leads to his discovery. But he manages to throw dust in everyone’s eyes, appearing as Mr Whatsit to the children of Hawkins.

Although it’s too early to pinpoint what his sinister scheme exactly is, walking into the second volume of Stranger Things season five, it surely involves the abduction of several Hawkins children, including Holly Wheeler. But as it turns out, these kids have barely figured out what a monstrous underworld awaits them in exchange for these seemingly harmless transactions with Mr Whatsit. What they envision instead is a life in a palatial manor where everything happens according to their choices, even breakfast.

For Bower, these various manifestations through one single character came with their fair share of surprises. Speaking of what got him into playing Vecna in the fourth season, the actor said, “When it came to Vecna, it was this idea of pure resentment, and I felt very comfortable there. Then of course, come to Stranger Things five and all of a sudden, there’s this new iteration and presentation of the character that felt like another bite.”

Bower also revealed that several “spooky things” have happened to him while making Stranger Things when asked whether he tends to take Vecna with him off-set. One of the things right off in his mind where how a stray cat came to live with him. While that was cute enough to laugh it off, Bower then mentioned unexpected appearances of snakes on his front door. “Definitely some odd things that did occur. Then personally as well, taking it with you, of course, when you’re existing in that darker space.”

The Stranger Things actor doubled down on how Vecna is largely a very lonely character, referencing to how another not-so-coincidental-coincidence that took place during the final read-through of the final episode.

As revealed by Bower, he was diagnosed with COVID, as a result, he had to skip the room reading for a Zoom call to participate instead. While he confirmed he’s no longer carrying Vecna, having found another way to release it, it makes one wonder just how dark it is going to get the second volume onwards now that we know the character’s off set impact.