Stranger Things: Why Did Vecna Take The 12 Kids To The Abyss?

So, I guess this is the question we’ve all been asking: why did Vecna, aka Henry Creel, deliberately abduct 12 nerdy teenagers from Hawkins High School and take them to his lair in the Abyss? What exactly does he need them for? Well, a spoiler warning if you haven’t yet watched the second volume of Stranger Things Season 5, because that was where we found the answers to most of our questions.

Spoiler Alert

If you remember, in season 5, episode 6, when Vecna took Will’s subconscious back to his lair, he revealed to him that he was his “builder.” When Vecna first abducted Will on 6th November 1983, he corrupted his body with black extraterrestrial particles, which let him control his mind. Therefore, after Will returned to Hawkins, Vecna used Will as a vessel to dig up the tunnels that connected the Upside Down with Hawkins, thereby opening a pathway for Vecna’s minions, the Demogorgons, not only to unleash his wrath upon the residents but also to abduct more children and enable him to execute his grand plan, which is to merge the Abyss with Hawkins.. So as mentioned earlier, Vecna had taken young Will away to weaken the barrier between Hawkins and the Upside Down, which, as revealed in the fifth season, isn’t a pocket dimension but a cylindrical wormhole that connects two worlds. And now that the two worlds were connected, Vecna was using the minds of these 12 kids to make rifts and uproot the Abyss so he could merge the extraterrestrial dimension with Hawkins and finally remake the world. But there’s a twist here. Vecna can’t simply abduct kids and use their body and mind to amplify his powers. He needs to win their trust so they will consciously allow him to use them as a vessel. Well, that’s how grooming works, right? The minds of children are weaker and therefore can easily be molded and controlled. This was why he took their subconscious minds to his dream world, Camazotz, so he could make these kids feel like they were at home and manipulate them into believing that he was saving them from the Black Monster, while in reality, Vecna was the real monster. And once these kids have put their guard down, Vecna will channel his thoughts and powers through these kids to draw the two worlds closer, finally merging them into one.

Also, you may be wondering why Vecna didn’t keep the kids’ real bodies in the Upside Down and instead took them to another dimension, the Abyss. Well, this part actually explains how Vecna’s power really works. When he infected Will with the black material, he let him go back to Hawkins so he could use his mind to create a rift in the human world, and now he took those 12 kids to the Abyss because he wants to pull off the same thing there. You can say that the bodies of these kids work as a drill, or a builder as Vecna calls it, and therefore they need to be present in the dimension that he needs to weaken. Furthermore, I know that the number “12” holds some significance to Vecna’s real motive, but the last seven episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 haven’t shed any light on the importance of this digit. Some fans on the internet have tried to find some biblical meaning behind it, while others believe that it points to the total number of hours on an analog clock. Well, either could be true, it’s likely the last episode of the series will explain its relevance to us.

And last but not least, we don’t know yet if it’s Vecna who wants to merge the two dimensions, or if it’s the extraterrestrial hive-mind that is likely controlling Henry through these silver-black particles running in his veins. In Season 5, Episode 7, Henry told the 12 kids in his captivity that Max, the girl who escaped his dream world, worked for the Black Thing, which may imply that even Henry’s afraid of the extraterrestrial entity and may have abducted the kids to fight against it so it could fulfill its ulterior motive? Well, that’s just a theory.