Mind Flayer

**Mind Flayer** is the main antagonist of *Stranger Things*. He is a destructive conqueror who wants to take over the world out of his megalomania. Throughout, he poses a very real threat to Eleven because of his cunning and his fortitude.

His demonic sounds are provided by Craig Henighan.

## His Qualities

### What Makes Him Entertaining?

* He is often perceived as one of the most iconic Netflix villains of all time because of how well-written, fearsome, and memorable he is.
* He is an extremely intelligent and cunning "master of puppets" who has pulled all of the strings throughout the entire show.
* His mastery over psychokinesis and the Upside Down's hive mind makes him fun to watch, such as when he shows lightning flashes around himself or when he and Vecna make balloons explode with blood.
* His demonic roars, screeches, and snarls are very epic.

### What Makes Him Detestable?

* He is a sadistic creature who lives solely to bring more despair and anguish into the world, as he believes that his life's purpose is to make others suffer. There's also literally no indication that he lacks moral agency or doesn't know better. After all, Dart is shown to have redeeming qualities which the Mind Flayer lacks.
* He took advantage of a little boy and exploited him, inducing Henry Creel to slaughter defenseless animals for no reason, make his kin experience nightmarish hallucinations, and murder his own mother in cold blood, proceeding to take his little sister's life and attempt to do the same to Victor Creel, who is his father. This results in Victor going to an asylum.
* Throughout the first three seasons, he torments as many innocent people as he can, especially Will Byers and Eleven herself. This includes going far enough to *murder* beloved characters such as Barb Holland and Bob Newby and cherished base-breakers such as Billy Hargrove. He even melts dozens of people just to make it easier to destroy Eleven once and for all.
* His endeavor throughout the fourth season is to use Henry Creel to murder teenagers (Chrissy Cunningham, Fred Benson, Patrick McKinney, and Max Mayfield) by preying on their trauma so he can cause an earthquake to ravage Hawkins and merge with the Upside Down so he can consume all life on the earth.
* He is uncapable of understanding righteousness at all and this is what gets him defeated every single time. He thinks Eleven doesn't really care about Mike since he doesn't understand friendship, he thinks Joyce doesn't have the will to get his smoky avatar out of her son since he doesn't understand motherly love, he thinks Billy is incapable of self-reflection because he doesn't understand why people care about morality, and he thinks Eddie and the others would never let Demogorgons and Demobats hurt them, not for the sake of others, since he doesn't understand why people would do good for its own sake. To sum things up, all he ever does is destroy beautiful things and places and kill innocent people, and lie to himself that it is a good thing, not a bad thing.

## Trivia

* Given that the Mind Flayer's crimes were incorrectly tied exclusively to Vecna, the Shadow Monster was originally and indirectly a Hate Sink before he was removed for having too much of an "Evil is Cool" vibe.
* He is one of four EDs from *Stranger Things* along with Billy Hargrove, Grigori, and the **Mind Flayer**.

## Navigation

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