Stranger Things: 5 of the biggest fan theories for what's to come in final season

Warning: This article contains spoilers for seasons one to four of Stranger Things, as well as minor details concerning the stage play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow.

The eagerly-anticipated final season of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things is set to land on the streaming platform on Wednesday, and as fans gear up to find out how the battle with Vecna will unfold, they’ve also been sharing their theories as to what might come next.

We were already treated to the first five minutes of the first episode of Season 5, “The Crawl”, earlier this month, where a character’s fate was ‘confirmed’.

Released on 6 November to mark ‘Stranger Things Day’ – the day Noah Schnapp’s character Will Byers went missing in the very first series (6 November 1983) – the clip shows Will in the Upside Down attempting to escape a Demogorgon, only to end up knocked out and taken by the monster to Vecna, who force-feeds Will an unknown substance.

The video’s release came as fans speculated whether the mysterious shadowy figure seen in the first season was actually Jamie Campbell-Bower’s Vecna, but in an interview with Digital Spy, show creators Matt and Ross Duffer (better known as the Duffer Brothers) debunked the theory and confirmed it was the Demogorgon.

“Back in season 1, we obviously hadn't designed Vecna or anything. We knew that there was a more sentient evil behind everything in the Upside Down, but obviously this is long before Vecna had been designed,” Ross told the outlet.

And so, as the fandom goes into overdrive, here’s five other fan theories which may well turn your world Upside Down…

1. Will will lose an eye

- YouTube youtube.com

Sticking with Byers for a second, YouTube content creator Jenks has suggested the character will lose an eye in the final series.

Referring back to Stranger Things 2, when the schoolchildren were learning about the case of Phineas Gage – a man who survived a pole going through one of his eyes and part of his brain – Jenks says the scene focuses “the cameras a lot on Will Byers”.

He also goes on to refer to a “strategically placed shot” in Stranger Things 4 which sees a poll covering Will’s eye as he sits in a car.

“This cannot be a coincidence,” he says, before pointing to promotional material for Stranger Things 5 which doesn’t show Will or Vecna with both of their eyes, and the ‘Eye of Vecna’ artefact in Dungeons and Dragons, from which the show takes some inspiration.

2. The thessalhydra will be the main monster of Stranger Things 5

In another D&D-adjacent theory, fans have noted that every season has seen a different monster be at the forefront – from the Demogorgon in Stranger Things, demodog in Stranger Things 2, the Mind Flayer in Stranger Things 3 and Vecna in Stranger Things 4.

So what about Stranger Things 5?

People are speculating that that might be the thessalhydra, which was seen in a Dungeons and Dragons game in the show, but was also depicted in a drawing by Will and potentially seen in a vision experienced by Nancy.

3. Eddie Munson is Kas, who kills Vecna in Dungeons and Dragons

If you still haven’t gotten over the death of Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) in Stranger Things 4, then one fan theory may be music to your ears, as it argues that the character we all saw get ripped apart by demobats may actually be Kas the Bloody-Handed.

In Dungeons and Dragons, Kas is the lieutenant of Vecna who ultimately betrays him.

4. A Dungeons and Dragons game in Stranger Things 4 might hold the answers…

However, others have speculated that Kali (or Eight), introduced in Stranger Things 2, might have a part to play in taking down Vecna, referencing a game of Dungeons and Dragons in season 4, episode 1 where Eleven isn’t enough to reach the score of 20 needed to defeat the big bad.

Eleven, Eight and One (in other words, Henry Creel) does equal 20, though…

5. Counsellor Ms Kelley is connected to Vecna

In Stranger Things 4, we learned that both Chrissy Cunningham (yes, of “Chrissy Wake Up” fame, if you need your memory jogged) and Fred Benson had sessions with Hawkins High School guidance counsellor Ms Kelley, not long before they hallucinated a grandfather clock and died after having their bones snapped by Vecna.

The same goes for Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), who fled the big bad to the epic tune of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” in the episode “Dear Billy”, but ended up blinded and in a coma come the end of Stranger Things 4 when she was killed by Vecna but revived by Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).

But going back to the grandfather clock, one theory notes that it has a keyhole on the front, and Ms Kelley has a key necklace on her when meeting with students, leading fans to speculate that Vecna and the counsellor may be connected.

And in the comments of one Instagram video entertaining the theory, fans have questioned whether Ms Kelley may actually be Patty Newby, the sister of Bob Newby (played by Sean Astin in Stranger Things 2) who is introduced in the canonical Stranger Things stage play, The First Shadow.

In the show, as well as being related to Bob and going to school with a young Joyce (Winona Ryder in the series) and Jim Hopper Jr (David Harbour in the TV show), Patty falls in love with Henry Creel, who is revealed in Stranger Things 4 to be 001 in Dr Brenner’s experiments and, eventually, Vecna.

Why not read…

• Your Stranger Things rewatch may be missing one important detail
• Netflix just dropped Stranger Things season 5's first major spoiler

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