The dust has finally settled on Hawkins, and while fans are still processing the emotional wreckage of the Stranger Things series finale, “The Rightside Up,” the Duffer Brothers are opening up about the ending that almost was. In a new post-finale deep dive, the creators revealed they toyed with a “Darth Vader-type” redemption for Vecna—a choice that would have fundamentally changed the final battle we just saw.

During the climactic showdown in the Abyss, we saw Will Byers make a final, desperate attempt to reach the humanity left in Henry Creel. For a brief moment, as Henry was confronted with his own distorted memories, it felt like the show might pull a “Billy moment” and have the villain turn against the Mind Flayer. However, as we now know, that hope was short-lived.

“We did discuss with the writers’ room if he could have a Billy moment where he turns against the Mind Flayer [in a] Darth Vader-type situation,” Ross Duffer explained. “Even though he is shaken by seeing this memory, he’s too far gone at this point to turn against the Mind Flayer.”

Instead of a redemptive sacrifice, the finale gave us one of the most visceral ends for a villain in Netflix history: Joyce Byers delivering the final blow with an axe, a moment the Duffers say was refined in the editing room to feel more “cathartic and emotional” rather than just a quick kill. By rejecting the Vader arc, the writers leaned into the tragedy that Henry wasn’t a victim seeking a way out, but a monster who felt he had to justify his path to the very end.

This decision has sparked heated debate among fans. Some argue that Henry’s origins in The First Shadow made him a victim of the Mind Flayer’s “flaying,” while others feel that Jamie Campbell Bower’s chilling final performance confirmed that Henry was truly the master of his own dark destiny. Either way, the Duffer Brothers have officially closed the book on the Creel legacy, leaving Hawkins to heal from a villain who chose to stay in the shadows.