Stranger Things' Vecna Is the Queer Icon You Didn't Know You Needed

Stranger Things season 4 volume 2 spoilers follow.

There's been a lot of talk among fans regarding Will's coming out journey in season four, and Robin continues to remain a fan-favourite this time around as well. But if we're talking queer representation in Stranger Things, there's only one true icon here, and that, of course, is Henry Creel. Or Miss Vecna, if you're nasty.

Now, we know what you're thinking. How can Vecna be gay? Those squelchy tentacles aren't exactly fashion-forward. But hear us out.

First off, Vecna lives for drama. With those powers, he could have easily killed the kids way sooner, but instead, Veccie chooses to drag things out in the most theatrical way possible. Honestly, he really put his whole Vecussy into the drama this season.

And if Vecna's straight, explain to us how he got so easily distracted by Kate Bush? We're surprised he didn't fast walk up that hill alongside Max and party like it's hot ghoul summer. Now, throw in his love of iced coffee, and you have yourself what can only be described as a true queer icon.

So in short, we would come out to Vecna. And we're not the only ones who would either, it seems.

"Vecna is gay and we all know that," said one Twitter user. "Will vs vecna is just gay on gay crime," said another.

And then there's this dance.

"It's about damn time" indeed. Damn time that messy gays like us finally get to see ourselves reflected on screen in the shows we love. And thankfully, there's plenty more where that came from.

Just a casual search online will reveal a host of memes and TikTok videos that make the most of Vecna's newfound influence as a queer icon. We're talking iced coffee, we're talking cute giggles, and even his "walk", which is apparently giving everything from "Cher" to "twink" and even "Will", depending on who you ask.

It's important to recognize here that a lot of these jokes play into queer stereotypes, some of which could be considered harmful, but that depends entirely on who's playing around with them. If you're not queer and you're getting involved still, maybe don't? But if you are, then you'll know the joy of subverting and thereby reclaiming the very tropes that have so often been used against us before.

Yet all this still begs the question: How exactly did Vecna become a queer icon in the first place? Or, to put it another way, where did the yassification of Vecna begin?

So, it turns out that beyond Jamie Campbell Bower's inherent demon twink energy, Vecna's actual origin in the show also speaks to the homosexual in all of us as well.

After murdering his family (ie acting out at home), Henry was sent away to a place that's specifically designed to torture young kids, forcing them to suppress their instincts. That gay conversion therapy analogy gets even more twisted when you realize that the "playroom" in Hawkins National Laboratory is actually called the "Rainbow Room".

During his stay, Henry is forced to conform and act a certain way by Brenner, a father figure (called "Papa") who strives to build some semblance of conventional family in the lab. Fighting back doesn't work though, so Henry pretends to give in and follow these rules, passing as someone who holds the same values as Brenner. But deep down, Henry knows that he's different still, that he doesn't belong there.

Eventually, demo-shit hits the fan when Eleven — one half of the show's biggest heterosexual ship — pushes Creel out into hell itself. But, hell isn't so bad, actually. In fact, it's not long before Henry starts calling himself Vecna and builds a whole new identity for himself in the Upside Down.

Freed of any pretense or pressure to conform, Vecna's thriving and living his best life now in a place that actively defies normality. It's literally called "The Upside Down", after all.

But don't take our word for it. Ask Veccie!

"At first, I believed you had sent me to my death, to purgatory," Henry tells Eleven. "But I was wrong. I was somewhere new. I became an explorer of a realm unspoiled by mankind."

You know how much Vecna loves drama, so his monologue doesn't stop there either.

"I saw so many things," he continues. "Then, one day, I found the most extraordinary thing of all. Something that would change everything. I saw a means to realize my potential, to transcend my human form, to be one the predator I was always born to be."

That actually sounds pretty great, to be fair. In the immortal words of Rina Sawayama, "Get in line, pass the wine, bitch, we're going straight to hell."

It's no wonder then that Vecna sought Will Byers out first once he'd settled down in his new pad. Clearly, Henry sensed a kindred spirit in his newfound bestie.

And it's also no wonder that something about this story has resonated with queer viewers enough to inspire meme devotion, not to mention flashes of lust for those "squelchy tentacles". But only in some cases, it must be stressed. We know. It's a problem.

This isn't the first time that a seemingly straight horror monster has captured the imagination of queer fans everywhere. The Babadook and IT's Pennywise famously left us all "babashook" a few years back when they were both declared to be honorary gays — and even shipped online.

Like them, Vecna's very existence is one of radical defiance, pushing back against social norms and commonly-held beliefs around what's acceptable. Sure, they all killed a bunch of people along the way, and we're not condoning that, per se, but there's something about this revolutionary form of protest and endurance that speaks to queer people who have also struggled to fit in.

Because queerness, by its very definition, defies and destabilizes so-called "normality". And that's why LGBTQ+ people often find themselves drawn more to the monsters in horror than the "heroes" we're supposed to identify with. That's how society regularly treats us, after all, to the point where we ourselves might look in the mirror and sometimes see a "monster" staring back at us.

Sure, Robin and even Will also defy the status quo in their own, less murderous ways, simply by virtue of existing as queer people in the '80s, but nothing they've done has been quite as iconic as Vecna, limb snapping be damned!

So, until Will picks up the pace or Robin goes vegan, there's only one reigning queer icon in Stranger Things. And that, of course, is Miss Vecna. Or Henry Creel, if you're straight.

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