Jamie Campbell Bower says Vecna is lonely and Will is more powerful than ever

But for all the debate, many fans found Will’s coming-out scene to be powerful, moving, and cathartic. Among them is Jamie Campbell Bower, who stars as Vecna on the show.

“The power of Will’s coming out,” Bower tells PRIDE, “I find that so profoundly moving. For Will to step fully into his power of self—it's so beautiful, and it's so poignant...and then there's Vecna, lonely, but surrounded by cake,” he says with a laugh.

Despite his power and taste for terror, it is actually loneliness that exemplifies Vecna and drives him. “That idea of loneliness was so pervasive and was so important, isolation from his childhood experience, isolation from his family, feeling like there was something wrong with him,” explains Bower.

There’s something undeniably poetic about how Vecna interpreted that and became consumed with hate, and how Will rejected similar feelings, opened up, and was set free.

While that doesn’t excuse Vecna, it does make him a more complex and human villain, and has made him a more interesting character for Bower to embody.

“Can I empathize with him? Can I feel for him?” Bower asks. “I remember, there's a particular scene that happens before he sat with those children where the kids were all freaking out, and he's there being like, ‘Max is the monster and Holly's been taken to the dark side.’ I remember watching that scene just being like, ‘God, this is grim’ so, in that moment, do I empathize with Vecna and Mr. What's it? From a viewer perspective? No, not really,” he laughs.

Regardless, Bower will have to say goodbye to the character, along with the rest of the audience, when Stranger Things returns one final time December 31 on Netflix.