Harry Things: Vecna & Voldemort

0:01 O. Well. Hello and welcome back to Camp Nowhere, a Stranger Things podcast. My name is Joel. And my name is Lauren. We're so thankful you're here to listen to us process all things. Stranger Things. We're launching a new miniseries called Hairy Things, where for the Toll, you weren't supposed a lot. For the next several episodes, we'll be doing a deep dive on the parallels and contrast between Harry Potter and Stranger Things. For this episode, we are focusing on Vecna and Voldemort. We sure are, but first spoiler alert if you haven't yet watched Stranger Things in its entirety, seasons one through 5 or Harry Potter films one through 8.

1:14 Also, you could read the books because the books are better. They're really good. Be warned, we will be discussing a lot of spoilers and I don't take spoilers lightly. Last year I got to read all of Harry Potter for the first time and successfully avoided spoilers. And it was purely magical. Yes, we both love these franchises and we do not want to ruin them for you. So once you're all cut up on Stranger Potter and Hairy things, come back here and give this episode a listen. Normally I have on a Stranger things shirt when we record, but not today.

1:46 Chose to mix it up with got a Hogsmeade Harry Potter shirt on got my Marauders map blanket ready to go. You're. Totally decked out. So y'all go grab yourself some Scoops Ahoy, USS Butterscotch or a mug of butter beer and journey with us from Hogwarts to Hawkins as we take a look at the villains wreaking havoc on these fictional communities we love So. Dearly bro, you butter believe this is going to be a good one for. OK, one more pun and we might just have to send you back to ask a ban, dear. At least in Azkaban, I'd be safe from the grips of Vecna and Voldemort.

2:24 True. With that in mind, let's fly right into our first segment here, the back stories of our villains in question. I can take Voldemort if you want to breakdown Becna's. Sound good? Only if we share the sound bite that lives rent free in our heads from the YouTube classic Potter Puppet Pals. Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort, bro. That makes him seem like a lovable guy, and that is unfortunately not the case. OK, so let's talk Voldemort. Voldi. Voldi. He was born Tom Marvolo Riddle on December 31st, 1926 at Wool's Orphanage in London, England.

3:13 His mother, Muropi Gaunt, a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, used a love potion on Tom Riddle senior, who was a wealthy muggle. Yeah, but he abandoned her when she stopped giving him the potion, leading to her death shortly after giving birth to Tom. Wow, what a stand up guy. Tom was raised in the Grim Orphanage and from a young age showed signs of dark magic power and a lack of empathy, manipulating others and intentionally causing harm. You're the doctor, aren't you? No, I'm a professor. I don't believe you.

3:55 She wants me looked at. I think I'm different. Or perhaps they're right. I'm not mad. Hogwarts is not a place for mad people. Hogwarts is a school, school of magic. You can do things, can't you Tom? Things other children can't.

4:22 I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who are mean to me, can make them hurt if I want. So Dumbledore found him at age 11, revealing his magical heritage to him at Hogwarts. He was sorted into Slytherinhaus Shocker, Yeah, where he embraced pure blood supremacy ideology. Ashamed of his Muggle father and name, he created the anagram Lord Voldemort to erase his past. He became obsessed with immortality and so he created Horcruxes, which are like fragments of his soul in objects like his diary or his father's ring or Hufflepuff's Cup after murdering others.

5:16 And he started with murder by way of basilisk of a fellow Hogwarts student, Moaning Myrtle in 1943. Tom was only 16 years old at the time. The murder enabled him to create his first Horcrux, which was his diary, and allowed him to frame Rubius Hagrid for opening the Chamber of Secrets. He formed a cult of followers called the Death Eaters to achieve his goal of ruling the wizarding world in the First Wizarding War. He waged war seeking to purge the world of Muggles, Muggleborns, and mudbloods before his attempt to kill infant Harry Potter on Halloween night of 1981, but it backfired and that actually destroyed part of his body, but not killing him.

6:03 He had targeted the Potters based on a prophecy. Voldemort spent years as a disembodied spirit in Albania. He then returned through Professor Quarrels. 19 quarrel. Professor Quarrel, Literally like Squirrel but without the S Gotcha. Voldemort spent years as a disembodied spirit in Albania. Returned through Professor Quarrel. Why is it so hard to say? Professor Quarrel is your grandma? It's giving your grandma.

6:38 Voldemort spent years as a disembodied spirit in Albania. That'd be an interesting band name. Disembodied spirit in Albania. I'll add it to the list. Do it. After that, he would turn through Professor Quarrel in 1991 and then finally regained a physical body in 1995 when he used Harry's blood. Lord Voldemort directly killed at least 18 to 21 plus named characters throughout the Harry Potter series, with the total death count likely reaching the thousands when including indirect victims, Muggle murders, and his creation of an army of Inferior, which are dead bodies in the Harry Potter universe that are reanimated by dark magic to serve as mindless puppets for Voldemort's use, mainly as guards and soldiers.

7:29 Wowza. So he was definitely a ruthlessly evil dictator then. Now for Vecna's back story, also known as One Henry Creole, maybe Mr. What's it? So we'll just use any of those names. Henry Creole was born in 1947 in Rachel, Nevada. The Creole family moved to Hawkins, Indiana in 1959 when he was 12 years old. Henry felt detached from humanity and believed society was a broken, unnatural construct. He discovered and developed his immense telekinetic abilities as a child, using them to torment his family with scary hallucinations and eventually killing his mother and sister while purposefully framing his father for those murders.

8:18 After his father, Victor Creole, was convicted for those murders and taken to Pennhurst Mental Hospital, Henry fell into a coma upon waking. Doctor Martin Brenner, or Papa as we know him, took him into custody at Hawkins National Lab where he was labeled #1 and used as the template for the child experiment program that Doctor Brenner initiated. Brenner suppressed 1's powers with the device while trying to replicate them and the other children. On September 8th, 1979, Henry, acting as an orderly, manipulated 11, which was one of the children in the experimental program, into removing that suppression device.

9:04 He then massacres the other subjects, all of them except 11. She overpowers him and forces him through a gate into the Upside Down for the next four years or so. While stranded in the dimension Henry survives, he finds the Mind Flare transforms into Vecna, becoming the architect of the Upside Downs hivemind. The harsh electrical environment of the Upside Down, combined with his encounter with the Mind Flare, actually altered his physical form, leaving him disfigured and deeply connected to that dimension.

9:40 On November 6th, 1983, Vecna orchestrated the events of the series to bridge the gap between the Upside Down, Hawkins and the Abyss, or Dimension X, seeking to destroy all of humanity. His plan was initiated by his Order of a Demogorgon to find and bring him 12 year old Will Byers Vecna or Henry Kriller. One has directly killed over 40 people throughout Stranger Things, with the total estimated body count exceeding 60 to 70 plus, including the 1979 massacre, the 1985 mall fire that wasn't a mall fire, and the 1986 Hawkins earthquake that wasn't an earthquake.

10:25 Grandpa has America earthquake. All right, let's jump. Into I was quite. How do you? Transition from that I had to use for you Friday. I'm so sorry. OK, attempting to transition. Now let's jump into the next segment. What are Vecna and Valdez respective, though not respectable, motivations and worldviews? OK, so Voldemort's ambition was rooted in a an extreme narcissism and desire for supremacy. Voldemort's ultimate goal was to achieve absolute immortality, conquering his deepest fear of death to live forever as an all powerful ruler.

11:14 Driven by this, he sought to subjugate the wizarding world, purge it of Muggle borns, and establish a new order where magical blood purity reigned supreme. Wow, we love that. That's so great. We have narcissism and racism. What a combo so. Fun Vecna's goals were different. OK, so Vecna's Vecna views humanity as flawed and aims to cleanse the world by destroying it, with a special hatred for 11 for hindering his plans and refusing to join him. True, and so that is one thing though they have in common.

11:55 Both of them saw a specific child as a threat and hated each of them as a result. Like Vecna couldn't stand 11 because she hurt his pride when he invited her to join him like you mentioned and she not only responded by saying no but then she banished him to the abyss and dementia next. Yeah, and then Voldemort hated Harry because he didn't like how Harry exposed his weakness when he had attempted to kill Harry. And then Harry was known as the Boy Who Lived, essentially the only one who was able to evade Voldemort's schemes of murder.

12:30 Here's a clip of Voldemort's exchange with Harry Potter in the fourth film, Goblet of Fire. It's the first time Harry is interacting with Voldemort while Voldemort has returned to his full physical form, and this is right after he killed Harry's friend Cedric Diggory.

12:52 Harry, I'd almost forgotten you were here, standing on the bones of my father. I'd introduce you, but word has it you're almost as famous as me these days.

13:08 The Boy Who Lived. How lies affect your legendary Should I reveal what really happened that night 13 years ago? Should I divulge how I truly lost my powers? It was love. You see, when dear, sweet Lily Potter gave her life for her only son, she provided the ultimate protection. I could not touch him. It was old magic, something I should have foreseen. But no matter. No matter. Things have changed. I could touch you. Astonishing on a few drops of your blood will do. Pick it to 1, Potter, I said. Pick it up.

14:18 Get up, get up. You've been taught how to do well, I presume. Yes. First we bow to each other. Come on now, Harry, the nice it is, must be observed. Dumbledore wouldn't want you to forget your manners, would he? I said. That's better

14:47 that a boy, Harry. Your parents would be proud, especially your filthy muggle mother. I'm going to kill you, Harry Potter. I'm going to destroy you. After tonight, no one will ever again question my powers. After tonight, if they speak of you, they'll speak only of how you begged for death, and I, in a merciful Lord, obliged. OK so really disgusting that he refers to himself as a merciful Lord. Right. Yeah, Jesus alone gets that title. Yes, and Amen to that. All righty. I think it's time for the question of the hour.

15:42 OK, which villain is the worst? The worst? So in my personal but objectively correct opinion, I would say Voldi is the worst. He kills more people and he kills them indiscriminately. Like with Vecna, if someone attains his blood, then they'll gain powers. And Vecna has shown that he'll try to at least get them to join him because he sees like power in them. It's like, OK, then you can join me. And so he tried to extend that invitation to 11. But in the wizarding world, you're either a wizard or you're not.

16:26 Like you don't. There's no like magic stone or blood or anything that can like make that can turn you into a wizard. You're you're a wizard or you're not, and if you're not, then Voldemort views you as expendable and worthless, and so he won't even bat an eye over killing you immediately. Yeah, I have to agree with you. Honestly. Voldemort is worse. He seems completely incapable of love. And I mean, that's like what kept Terry from dying was the protective love of his mother. And I don't know, I don't think Voldemort has, really.

17:03 It's sad because we don't know if he's really ever fully experienced that kind of love. But yeah, he seems incapable of extending it himself. And in total, like just looking at the body count, he did kill far more people than Vecna did. All in all, like you mentioned, he was incredibly racist and a supremacist. I actually put a poll out on our Instagram on which villain was worse and the results are in. Joel, drumroll please. 71% of y'all voted for Voldemort and only 29% voted for Vecna. Good answer.

17:41 Now something I'll give the folks who voted for Vecna is that he had the opportunity for a redemption arc. Will extended him that chance to turn evil for good, and Vecna still chose to stay loyal to the evil plans of the Mind Flare. And so we will give you all that. True. So both of these dudes clearly evil, but they pale in comparison to our worlds because, right, we're talking about fictional worlds here, but our world's very real antagonist, Satan. So for this next segment, we're going to compare and contrast these villains with Satan, also known as Lucifer or the Devil.

18:23 Vekna and Lord Voldemort share striking similarities with traditional depictions of Satan, primarily acting as kind of an archetypal representation of ultimate evil, corruption, and like fallen figures, you might say. Yeah, so I can start us off. So yeah, both villains follow a narrative arc that's similar to Lucifer. So they have that archetype of like powerful being rebels against the established order and as a result is cast down into some sort of hell like realm. So with Becna, originally Henry Creel, he was a human with powers, but he was defeated by 11 and cast into the Abyss slash dimension X, and that was a hellish dimension where he was physically deformed and became a sort of ruler of darkness.

19:18 The dark wizard, Yeah. You've got Voldi, who was formerly Tom Riddle, a brilliant student who fell from grace through the pursuit of dark magic, resulting in his loss of his humanity and transformed physical monstrousness. So then you have Satan, who was cast out of heaven because of his sinful pride against God. Satan was not content with his high position as an Archangel, and so he desired to overthrow God and take God's place. He led other angels in that rebellion against God too, and so God expelled him from heaven, and that was God's perfect judgement over Satan's sin.

20:02 Our sin, which is the same that got Adam and Eve cast out of the Garden of even Eden, also separates us from God. But God made the way for us to be forgiven and reconciled back to Him if we place our faith in Jesus for his death and resurrection. Yes, and Amen to that. So like the devil, both characters also act as tempters who prey on the guilt, shame, and trauma of their victims. So Vecna preys on traumatized teenagers, isolating them and feeding on their guilt before killing them. And then Voldemort.

20:46 He tempts his followers with the promise of power and purity, or at least his view of what purity is, manipulating them into performing just like atrocious acts. And As for Satan, the Bible describes him as a predator who looks for vulnerable moments, such as times of suffering or trauma, as times to attack. So first, Peter 58 warns that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Scripture depicts Satan not only as a tempter who entices people into sin, but also as the accuser who exploits the resulting guilt, shame, and trauma to create despair and division and instill a sense of unworthiness of God's love and grace.

21:34 So Voldemort, Vecna, and Satan all ultimately strip their victims and followers of any sense of true freedom and hope. But thankfully, God promises that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then James 47 promises that if you submit yourselves to God and resist the devil, he will flee from you for. Sure point #3 I kind of feel like the the song from Hamilton He'll never be satisfied where it's like I discovered 3 fundamental truths at the exact same time. I love that you have that memorized.

22:15 And they go like #1 #2 and I'm like #3.

22:23 OK, it is with #3. #3 both of them lose their humanity to become basically monsters. They abandoned their human names for ones that inspire fear. So yeah. And not only that, but they even have like kind of snake like features too. And they lose their noses. I don't know, like, are they able to smell? I don't know what The thing is of like, you become evil and it's like your nose. It's got to go. It reminds me of that like meme that we recently saw, like if Vecna got to hang out with Voldemort. Like do you think that one would ask the other, hey do you ever miss having a nose?

23:09 Like I wonder if they would talk about that. Yeah, they probably would. But yeah, So like, their appearances are different. Like their appearances are more monstrous and they abandon their human names. And also with that, I just thought about this, but you said the names inspire fear. Like with Voldemort, the characters in the series, like they typically don't even, they don't feel like confident enough to even call him Lord Voldemort because they're afraid of him. They call him He who must not be named.

23:43 Like, it is a huge turning point with, you know, Dumbledore's Army and everything to where they even feel comfortable to start to refer to him as Voldemort because before that, they were just afraid of too afraid to even say his name. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah. So like both Vecna and Voldi, they're referred to as dark Lords or dark Wizards. Satan is called the ancient serpent in Scripture. And then like as far as human names becoming like changing to a different, more menacing name, you got Tom Riddle who became Lord Voldemort.

24:22 You got Henry who became Vecna, and he got Lucifer who became Satan. Slash the accuser or the devil. Right. I will say, though, with Vecna, I will. I've gone back and forth wondering, like, does he even ever refer to himself as Vecna? Like, you know what I mean? I mean, like, yeah, because I think that was something the kids came up with from Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, from AD and D. Main And so that's just kind of funny to think about this whole time. We're like, oh, Vecna's the villain and he's probably like, who's this Vecna you're talking about?

24:56 Like my name is Henry. Like but but yes, yeah, he's given a different name or but then he you know, he calls himself Mr. What'sit and that sounds super sketch. That could be a villain type name. Could. Definitely be sketchy, yeah. OK, so point #4. #4. I knew he was going to do that. Is that they share this narcissistic, fascistic, if you will, drive to reshape the world according to their own twisted ideologies. They also wielded deception in order to do this. And that's similar to Satan, who is one of his nicknames, is literally the father of lies.

25:37 So Vecna believes humans are pests and that he must fix the world or he's trying to fix the world by destroying it. Kind of ironic he deceived 11 to get her like I mentioned earlier, to remove that power suppression device in order to advance his evil plan. Like that's so sad. She thought she was helping him and really he was just manipulating and deceiving her. And then in season 4, episode 7 entitled The Massacre at Hawkins Lab, he delivered one of the most chilling monologues in TV history as he revealed his worldview.

26:16 Interesting. Like I love this. It was to both young 11 and like present day Nancy simultaneously. So we'll share that now. Like you, I didn't fit in with the other children. Something was wrong with me. All the teachers and the doctors said I was broken. They said my parents thought a change of scenery, a fresh start in Hawkins, might just cure me.

26:53 It was absurd. As if the world would be any different here. But then, to my surprise, our new home provided the discovery and a new found sense of purpose. I found a nest of black widows living inside a van. Most people fear spiders, They detest them. And yet I found them endlessly fascinating. More than that, found a great comfort in them, the kinship. Like me, they are solitary creatures and deeply misunderstood. They are gods of our world, the most important of all predators. They immobilize and feed on the weak, bringing balance and order to an unstable ecosystem.

28:12 But the human world was disrupting this harmony. You see, humans are a unique type of pest, multiplying and poisoning our world, all while enforcing a structure of their own, a deeply unnatural structure. Where others saw order, I saw a straitjacket, A cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. Each life a faded, lesser copy of the one before. Wake up, eat, work, sleep, reproduce and die. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for it all to be over, all while performing in a silly, terrible play day after day.

29:22 I could not do that. I could not close off my mind and join in the madness. I could not pretend, and I realized I didn't have to.

29:49 I could make my own rules. I could restore balance to a broken world, a predator, but for good. A predator for good. Oh, the irony. A note here. It really is heartbreaking because Henry recognized that he and everyone around him was broken. That's true. We are all broken. And yet he completely misses the right solution. The solution isn't to try to reshape the world how you want it to be. The solution is to submit our brokenness to the God of the Bible. Like, bring that to him. He's the only one who can fix us and fix our brokenness.

30:37 Voldemort seeks to purify the wizarding world through the dominance of pure blood Wizards. He deceives Jenny Weasley through his Horcrux diary to manipulate her into opening up the Chamber of Secrets in order to advance his evil plan. You've got to help me, Tom. This is Basilisk. It won't come until it's cold. Give me my wand, Tom. You won't be needing it. Listen, we've got to go. We've got to save. Her. I'm afraid I can't do that, Harry. You see, as poor Ginny grows weaker, I grow stronger. Yes, Harry, it was Ginny Weasley who opened the Chamber of Secrets.

31:18 No, she couldn't. She wouldn't. It was Ginny who set the basilisk on the mudbloods and filched his cat. Ginny, who wrote the threatening messages on the walls. Why? Because I told her to. You'll find I can be very persuasive. Not that she knew what she was doing. She was, shall we say, in a kind of trance. Still, the power of the diary began to scare her, and she tried to dispose of it in the girl's bathroom. And then you should find it. But you, the very person I was most anxious to meet. And why did you want to meet me?

31:55 I knew I had to talk to you, meet you if I could, so I decided to show you my capture of that brainless of Hagrid to gain your trust. Hagrid's my friend, and you framed him, didn't you? It was my word against Hagrid's. Only Dumbledore seemed to think he was innocent. But Dumbledore saw right through you. He certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after that. I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the chamber again while I was still at school, so I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my 16 year old self in its pages so that one day I would be able to lead another to finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work.

32:33 Well, you haven't finished it this time. In a few hours, the Mandrake draft will be ready and everyone who is petrified will be alright again. Haven't I told you getting Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been you.

32:54 How is it that a baby with no extraordinary magical talent was able to defeat the greatest Wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed? Why do you care how I escaped? Oldmort was after your time. Voldemort is my past, present and future. So the Bible talks about how Satan disguises himself as an Angel of light. We see that in 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 14 and how he is the deceiver of the whole world in Revelation 12/9. Yeah, and similar to Satan commanding demons #5 both Vecna and Voldi control creatures that live to destroy, and they use them for their bidding.

33:49 So VEGNA controls the hive mind of the Upside Down, which includes like your Demogorgans, demo bats, and demo dogs. Voldi controls dark creatures like Dementors, giants, the inferiori, and then in the Bible Satan is referred to as Beelzebul, the Prince of demons in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 12 verse 24. Yeah, man, that kind of sounds like an album that would drop Beelzebul, the Prince of Demons. Yikes. Both villains point number number six. There we go. Both villains view themselves as superior beings.

34:28 They have kind of this God complex. Vecnon particular is described as viewing himself as a God over the creatures of the upside down. Henrys powers were likely attributed to some outside force. Quick plug here. If you all didn't know, they recently announced that Stranger Things, the first shadow play, is going to be filmed for Netflix this year, and hopefully watching that will give us more insight to how Henry actually attained his powers. And then those powers were sharpened by his early fascination with nature's predators, specifically Black Widow spiders.

35:05 He was like fascinated with them. Voldemort's power source is a combination of immense natural talent as a magical prodigy and obsession with, like Joel mentioned earlier, Dark Arts knowledge and his deliberate fragmentation of his soul. You know, somebody's evil if they're willing to like, fragment their soul into however many, yeah, pieces that he did, but into those Horcruxes in order to achieve or try to achieve immortality. His strength stems from ancestral power, as he was, like Joel mentioned, a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, his intense willpower and a severe lack of moral constraints.

35:51 His power was ultimately derived from a relentless, selfish pursuit of knowledge, aiming to conquer the one thing he feared most, which is death. So like we mentioned earlier, Satan, he was cast down from heaven because of his pride. He foolishly thought he could be superior to the God of the universe. So I had a few other thoughts. Hit us with it. So I don't know if this would count as a #7 or. Yes, go for. It but just reflecting on it more that both Vecna and Voldemort were like I guess the term is like utilitarian where they like cuz the point I'm getting at is that they you were talking about a God complex and so you have to reject God in order to have a God complex like.

36:52 Wow, true. So like you. So like one of the fundamental questions is what gives human life value? God says that every human life is valuable because every human life is made in his image. Amen. Yeah. But if you reject that, which is what Voldemort and Vecna do, then you have to come up with an answer to that question. And so their answer is how useful a person is. Like, what can they offer? And so they're they approach humanity or just life in general as utilitarian. If it's useful, you keep it. If it's not useful to you, you throw it away.

37:38 So that's one thing that I was thinking of. One other thing was what their fears were because you mentioned like fear of death, right? And so I'm wondering, are their fears the same or are they different? Because Voldemort doesn't want to die, right? And so he uses like he discovers Horcruxes, right? And he is so afraid of death that he's willing to actually like fragment himself which that. Plus, he literally camped out in the back of Professor Quarrel's head. Like, you gotta be really afraid of death to be willing to do.

38:20 Something you gotta be dedicated. Dedicated. Dedicated to be to camp out on the back of a bald man's head, it's. Just that was not on my bingo card to hear you say it today. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to say that. That's not on our script, no. Here we. Are, yeah. So, OK, you were going somewhere. I did not mean to derail you off the Hogwarts Express. No, you're good. I was just reflecting like, are their fears the same? OK, because Voldemort is afraid of death and he's willing to go to such extreme lengths as not only fragmenting himself, but you also have to kill someone in order to do that.

38:59 Oh yeah, that's. True, so he's willing to take people's lives, like kill them in order to. Create a Horcrux, yeah. And yeah, preserve a piece of himself so that he can hopefully live on. Right. Is Vecna afraid of death or is it more like an existential kind of thing of like. Because to me it seems like Vecna is more if he's afraid of death, he's afraid of death because he's ultimately afraid of life being meaningless and just not having purpose. Yeah, 'cause like in his monologue that we played earlier, he talks about like, we reproduce and we work and we do these things and then we just die.

39:47 Right. And so, yeah. So he's kind of more like a nihilist as well that just like nothing really matters. Yeah, right. It's all meaningless. Yeah, so like. So his solution should have been to just read through Ecclesiastes. Maybe that could have been like a bomb. So yeah. I mean, I do think I want to hear what you have to say, sure, obviously. But also to your question, I do think he at least feared death just a little bit. I don't not think nearly as extreme as Voldemort. Why I say that is I'm thinking about that specific scene in Season 5 where it shows a younger Henry, right as Max and Holly are going through the memory loop.

40:32 They're trying to find a way out of that cave and they have to go past young Henry. And there's a man in a lab coat, I think. And the man had a gun. And I think remember, like young Henry was terrified. He he thought that the man was going to shoot him. And so his response was what? To kill the. Man, yeah, he like stoned him. Like he. Yeah, because he was afraid that he was gonna die. So I don't know if that was just like natural instinct of self-defense or what, but he killed him in quite a brutal way because he was so afraid of death.

41:11 We don't know because we haven't seen the first shadow play. We don't know why Henry seems so terrified to go inside that cave where Max kind of made it like a sanctuary, her hideout, because she's like, I don't know why, but he won't come in here. And I'm like, curious what? What was he so afraid of? Maybe it was that memory, because maybe that's how everything started of where he started to get these evil powers. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, It makes me wonder too, what? Like I'm trying to picture what if Vecna actually succeeded?

41:51 Like if Vecna actually succeeded in his plan, what would the world actually look like? Like what was his goal? Because if he brought dimension X or the Abyss into the real world and they collided or exploded or merged or whatever like. It's an earthquake. Like he's not like he, he can't get away from death, though. I don't know. You know he can't live forever. I think he he's trying to take ultimate control. I think it's that God complex thing. He thinks that if he can enact this plan and, you know, like purge the world of people and then create his own new world, that maybe he can be eternal and be like the God of that new world.

42:41 It's like, how is that going to work? I mean, he is very powerful. And so maybe that's how he thought he'd have ultimate control. But then there's that mortality piece of but you're not actually God. You are not capable of living forever. You can't do. It, yeah. I don't know. I never really thought about that. Yeah. And like I think he talks about wanting to create in his image basically, which is so funny because if like if you're going to reject God and try to do try to do things differently, you're trying to do the same thing though.

43:19 Like God created humans in his own image, and now you're trying to create life in your own image. That's not gonna work. Not won't work. It's gonna because you're flawed and you're trying to make life in your own image, and those are gonna be flawed too. Wow, that's so true. But yeah. Wow. Those are just my thoughts, reflections. Amazing, yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Well, we are certainly humbled that y'all would want to listen to us and journey with us and to all things hairy things. If you enjoyed listening, give us a review, a rating on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Amazon, wherever you're hearing your podcasts.

44:11 And yeah, giving us a rating, a review or a comment, you could comment. Yeah, that really helps us get our show out there to other listeners like you. Absolutely. So our next episode in this miniseries will be focusing on protagonists Will Byers and Harry Potter. If you have any thoughts about their similarities or differences, strengths or weaknesses, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact us at [email protected] or on Instagram at our handle Camp Nowhere Pod. Thank you all so much again, and we'll catch you on the next one.

44:52 See y'all. Peace.