After almost three years of great expectation and wondering, two of them involving the worst moments of the infamous Covid-19 pandemic, Stranger Things Season 4 finally met its beloved public with a massive impact all over pop culture. Various types of merch are being produced by different types of brands around the world – such as MAC Cosmetics and Hot Topic – and the music industry has tasted a bit of this impact too: Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush came back to the charts worldwide just by being part of this season’s soundtrack. And you should be reminded that that was just Volume 1!
However, every great influencer is influenced by another greater one, and Stranger Things is most definitely influenced by the greatest. As a Star Wars fan, it is impossible to ignore the memories brought by “Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab”, especially its end. The similarities between the antagonists Vecna and Darth Vader are incredibly pleasing, but also terrifying, and so it becomes important to list all of them and analyze them deeply.
But before we start this journey, it’s vital to know that huge spoilers come ahead in this very text. Make sure you watched all of the series before you read it. With that precisely checked, let’s go!
Vecna X Darth Vader: an unexpected multiverse of connections
Both characters have multiple similarities to entertain our nerdy brains and they start right back in their childhood. Henry Creel, such as Anakin Skywalker, never felt quite like they fit in. Not in their small world, with their families or in their little cities, nor in society as it was in any of their contexts. And already when they were very little, it came to their knowledge that this estrangement with life had a very unusual but pleasing explanation: Henry and Anakin were one of a kind. It had turned out to be more than right there feeling of misplacement since they were both gifted with unique supernatural abilities. Abilities which were found out by good or very bad actions, but all coming above from strong emotions.
Children with such talents were rare. Even better: they were the firsts of their kind to come to knowledge and expected by faithful wise old men for a long time. These men were not only specialists in their powers, but could also teach and orient them on how to control them. Sure they went a little bit far sometimes and overexploited these kids, but the important thing was that they took these children to raise them as their own, right?
However, a palliative justification for the existential pain that each one felt was not enough. The fact that they could mind control objects and humans alike did not alleviate the lack of affection or the judgment and pressure from others around them. Soon, the way they perceived the characteristics which made them different started to gradually change. Maybe they weren’t the wrong ones around after all, but instead the superior ones.
Suddenly, it made more sense that the universe had become a warped place, deviated from its proper order, and Henry and Anakin simply couldn’t help it: they must give up their ordinary lives and take responsibility for revolutionizing everything everywhere, each and every soul and atom, once they were the only ones capable of executing correctly the task.
It surely wasn’t on their plans, but while following the path to becoming officially the masters of all, someone interrupted the process by finding them without a warning: Eleven and Padmé couldn’t keep their curiosity – or high anxiety – controlled and what they saw and heard could not be deleted, even if they deeply wanted it to; so the single wise solution was to tell the whole truth once and for all.
Creel and Skywalker would not be satisfied with a brief explanation if they could take advantage of the opportunity and talk their pupils into joining their cause. By trying to persuade girls who were in their right mind, they failed and faced some resistance, a conflict of some sort involving physical confrontation, which led to deadly injuries and almost death itself.
The process of nearly dying left its marks. A trip through the Upside Down for Henry and burning on a lava planet for Anakin altered their faces and body forever to the point of the barely-human form. Transformed into something entirely new by these permanent scars, they could also be known by something other than their human names, titles strong enough to match their entity state. Thus, Vecna and Darth Vader are born.
volume 2 expectations
After reading this comparison, Star Wars fans should not only be finally comprehending why they loved this season’s first part so much but should be also excited about what could possibly come up in this second part. Accustomed to this great sci-fi fantasy universe’s story, it is only fair for us to hope for a conclusion on the same level of greatness. The Duffer Brothers left us with no choice but to stream the three trilogies of Star Wars while waiting for 1st July to magically come up, so our expectations can finally be calmed down. Until then… let’s theorize about what Vecna can give us next and tell all our friends what our favorite songs are, just in case…
——————–
The article above was edited by Marina Lopes Fiel Fornazieri.
Liked this type of content? Check out Her Campus Casper Libero for more!