Every Vecna victim in Stranger Things season 4 was chosen for the same reason: hidden trauma Vecna could exploit and amplify until it became fatal. But not every death carried the same weight for the story. Ranking every Vecna victim by how much their death actually changed Hawkins reveals just how deliberately the season built toward its finale.
Table of Contents
- How Vecna selects every victim
- Patrick McKinney — the victim the show barely explored
- Fred Benson — the victim who widened the mystery
- Chrissy Cunningham — the victim who started it all
- Max Mayfield — the almost-victim who changed everything
- Frequently asked questions about every Vecna victim
How Vecna selects every victim
Every Vecna victim in season 4 shares one trait: unresolved guilt or trauma hidden behind a normal exterior. Vecna’s curse works by locating that hidden pain, surfacing it through escalating hallucinations over several days, and using it to trap victims in a waking nightmare before delivering a fatal, bone-breaking attack. Each kill also opens an interdimensional gate at the site of the victim’s death, meaning every Vecna victim in the season serves a dual purpose — feeding Vecna’s plan for a merged Hawkins while devastating another corner of the town.
By the time all four gates from his intended victims are open, they expand and converge on the town square, triggering an earthquake-like catastrophe that kills at least 22 additional Hawkins residents, including Jason Carver, who wasn’t one of Vecna’s direct targets but was caught in the resulting devastation anyway.
Patrick McKinney — the victim the show barely explored
Patrick McKinney is Vecna’s third confirmed victim, a member of the Hawkins High basketball team and friend of Jason Carver whose backstory the show reveals only through implication. Patrick’s father verbally abuses him, calling him a “disgrace” over his drinking, and that hidden domestic trauma is what makes him vulnerable to Vecna’s curse in the first place.
Unlike Chrissy or Fred, Patrick’s hallucinations are never shown directly on screen. He’s killed at Lover’s Lake while chasing Eddie Munson alongside Jason, disappearing underwater before resurfacing in the telltale levitating position that signals Vecna’s attack. His death opens a gate at the bottom of the lake, but because so little of his internal experience is depicted, Patrick’s death carries less narrative weight than the season’s other victims — a death used primarily to escalate Jason’s manhunt rather than to deepen the audience’s understanding of Vecna’s pattern.
Fred Benson — the victim who widened the mystery
Fred Benson, Vecna’s second victim, is Nancy Wheeler’s colleague at the Hawkins High newspaper, introduced specifically to investigate Chrissy’s death alongside her. His hidden trauma is survivor’s guilt from a car accident the previous year that killed a friend — guilt Vecna weaponizes by showing Fred hallucinations of the crash and the grieving family he left behind.
Fred’s death matters structurally more than Patrick’s because it happens while he’s actively working the Chrissy investigation with Nancy, meaning his death directly advances the season’s central mystery. It’s also the first time viewers see the full pattern of Vecna’s curse develop in real time — the clock chime, the escalating hallucinations, the final trance — giving the audience the template used to recognize Max’s symptoms only episodes later.
“It’s time for your suffering to end,” Vecna tells his victims, a line that recurs across Fred’s, Chrissy’s, and later Max’s confrontations with him.
Chrissy Cunningham — the victim who started it all
Chrissy Cunningham is Vecna’s first victim and, structurally, the most important of the season’s confirmed kills. Her death in the season 4 premiere, inside Eddie Munson’s trailer, establishes everything that follows: Vecna’s existence, his method of attack, and the wrongful manhunt against Eddie that shapes the rest of the season. Chrissy’s own hidden trauma — an eating disorder driven by her mother’s emotional abuse, concealed behind her status as Hawkins High’s head cheerleader — sets the tone for every victim that follows, all of whom hide real pain behind an ordinary or even enviable public image.
Chrissy’s death also carries the heaviest narrative consequences of the three confirmed kills, since it’s the death that frames Eddie as a murder suspect, fuels Jason Carver’s entire arc, and ultimately contributes to Eddie’s own death in the finale. Even the Duffer Brothers have said in retrospect that they wished they’d found a way to keep the character around longer, given how much weight her single episode ended up carrying for the rest of the season.
Max Mayfield — the almost-victim who changed everything
Max Mayfield is Vecna’s intended fourth victim, and although her death is ultimately reversed by Eleven, the attempt on her life changes more about the season’s trajectory than any of the confirmed kills. Vecna targets Max using her guilt over Billy Hargrove’s death, and her prolonged battle against the curse — surviving one attempt in episode 4 by using Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” to escape his trance — gives the show its most sustained, high-stakes sequence of the season.
Even though Max survives the season 4 finale, her temporary death still triggers the opening of a fourth gate at the Creel House, and the psychological toll of the ordeal leaves her in a coma heading into later seasons. Ranked purely by lasting consequence to the story and to the characters left behind, Max’s near-death arguably outweighs the season’s three confirmed victims combined — it drives Max’s entire arc afterward, deepens the group’s understanding of Vecna’s methods, and directly triggers the catastrophic gate convergence that reshapes Hawkins for the rest of the series.
For more on how Max’s ordeal played out beyond season 4, Read more: Max Mayfield’s Fate covers her coma, Camazotz, and eventual ending. And for the villain responsible for every death on this list, Read more: Vecna’s True Identity breaks down Henry Creel’s full origin.
ScreenRant’s breakdown of every character affected by Vecna’s curse goes deeper into the mechanics behind each individual attack, and it’s worth reading in full here.
Stranger Things 5 | Official Trailer | Netflix
Frequently asked questions about every Vecna victim
How many confirmed victims does Vecna have in Stranger Things? Every Vecna victim confirmed by name in season 4 includes Chrissy Cunningham, Fred Benson, and Patrick McKinney, with Max Mayfield surviving an attempted fourth kill.
What do all of Vecna’s victims have in common? Every Vecna victim shares hidden trauma or guilt that Vecna locates and amplifies through escalating hallucinations before delivering a fatal attack, regardless of how normal or happy their public life appears.
Who was Vecna’s first victim in Stranger Things? Chrissy Cunningham was Vecna’s first victim, killed in the season 4 premiere inside Eddie Munson’s trailer after her hidden eating disorder made her vulnerable to his curse.
Did Max Mayfield actually die from Vecna’s curse? Max Mayfield was temporarily killed by Vecna’s curse in the season 4 finale but was revived by Eleven, making her the only near-victim among the season’s targets to survive.
Why does each Vecna victim open a gate to the Upside Down? Every Vecna victim’s death opens a gate at the location where they died, part of Vecna’s larger plan to merge Hawkins with the Upside Down once enough gates converge.
