Stranger Things season 4 volume 2: Why is Vecna’s grandfather clock important?
By Sabrina Reed
Since details and footage of Stranger Things 4 started being released, fan theories have spread like wildfire about the grandfather clock that had a prominent place in promotion. It was an odd edition to this teen-centric horror story that spoke to something from the past being integral to the season’s plot.
When fans got their first glimpse at the Weekly Watcher and the beginnings of the terrifying tale of what happened at Victor Creel’s house in the 1950s, the pieces started to come together. The grandfather clock is located in the man’s home.
In 1986, the clock stands vigil over the abandoned Creel residence. It’s an antique within an antique, the Victorian-style house littered with spiderwebs, cracked floorboards, and broken glass isn’t a place one would want to spend for long. Especially, given the murders that took place there.
But, in 1959, the house had been lovely…and looming. With it’s bright coat of paint and manicured lawn, it was welcoming if not a little intimidating to look at. The grandfather clock, which stood in the foyer then as it does in ’86, was a nice showpiece. Its moon face was innocuous and inviting passerby to read the time or take in its detail.
The clock, however, is ominous in the main plot. It foreshadows doom. We’ll tell you why that is, but we must warn you that much of this information comes from later episodes in Stranger Things 4 including the finale. As such, if you haven’t finished season 4, bookmark this article and come back. There are major spoilers beyond this point!
Why is the grandfather clock important in Stranger Things 4?
One last warning. This article contains major plot points about the fourth season. Turn back now if you haven’t finished the season.
Major spoilers ahead of Stranger Things 4
The writers could have left the grandfather clock’s significance at it being a feature of the Creel house. That’s the space in the Upside Down where Vecna has taken residence. It’s assumed by our cast of characters that his dominion of the place is due to it being where he found a breach into their dimension. However, as “Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” reveals, the story is much deeper than that.
It’s not that the grandfather clock happens to be located in the very place that Vecna terrorizes the citizens of Hawkins from. No, he’s known that clock since he was a boy. It was in his home, in fact, Vecna lives in the Creel house because that was where he lived in 1959. The creature that has been haunting this cast of characters is actually Victor Creel’s son, Henry.
He walked past the grandfather clock every day. There’s even a moment in the season where he stares at it. The moment is importance because Henry, who went by One when he was under the care and control of Dr. Brenner, accessed parts of his brain that no one had before, to his knowledge. He used telekinesis to manipulate objects, including the clock, as well as animals and people. It was a test of his skill.
The clock’s prominence in Stranger Things 4 has to do with its connection to Vecna. Time is an importance aspect of his character. That’s why the sound of a ticking clock can be heard when he starts to haunt his intended victims. It’s why they see the clock. It’s a piece of his world, his home, that leaks into his psychic connection to them. He draws them into his domain so that he can have control over their execution.
Vecna has lost time more than once. He set about murdering his family so that he could be free himself of their banality, their need to cling to the societal structure they know, and the limits his mother tried to place on him. But, he wound up as Dr. Brenner’s charge anyway and the scientist tried to rewrite Vecna’s history to fit the narrative that he needed.
Our villain had to wait 20 years before he had a chance of being free again, and El thwarted that effort after he slaughtered both scientists and lab kids alike in 1979. Seven more years went by before he would take matters into his own hands as he killed to open additional doorways into the dimension he’d been born into.
Time is at a stand still in the Upside Down, it’s frozen. No wonder a clock and its ticking holds such a disturbing place in Stranger Thing 4‘s plot. And, things got even more disturbing in volume 2 when it was revealed why the clock only chimes four times.
In episode 8, “Papa,” Nancy relayed to Team Hawkins what Vecna showed her when he had her trapped in his mindscape. He’d divulged his plans for their small town and in doing so showed his hand enough to jolt them into their own plan to stop him.
The four chimes of the clock correspond to the need for four kills which will then open the four gates Vecna needs to sweep back into their dimension. He already made three kills in volume 1. His last kill is meant to be Max. If he ends her life, he gets what he wants.
Unfortunately, though El was able to bring Max back from the clutches of death, the teen did die which triggered the opening of the four gates. Now there’s more than just a breach in Hawkins, there are fourth cross-ways that have torn up the town, led to a mass death event, and can only continue to spell trouble for this group and their fellow citizens if they can’t stop Vecna in season 5!
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