The Father of Time, the Titan, the Big 3 and the Boy Who Crossed the Underworld
“Time froze in the Upside Down on November 6, 1983, the day Will Byers disappeared and Eleven opened the gate to the Upside Down.”
Ok but what if Henry Creel isn’t just “Vecna”, he’s Kronus, and his house in the Upside Down is his Tartarus??
@emblue-browsingtheinterwebs said something that stuck with me in my “The Upside Down as the Greek Underworld” post:
“What if the first soul disrupted or taken was Henry? And the longer his soul is there, the closer the Upside Down becomes to our real world… because he’s trying to make it back here.”
And that actually fits too well!!
Kronos and Kronus are different gods, but because their names are very similar, they are often confused. Kronos is the personification of time itself, an abstract, eternal force, while Kronus/Khronos is a Titan from Greek mythology who ruled during the Golden Age and is known for overthrowing his father and being the father of the Olympian gods. Over time, Kronos (the Titan) and Khronos (time itself) were often merged.
Henry/Vecna is a blend of both. Metaphorically, he goes through the same fate, he’s not Henry, but he’s not a monster of the underworld either. He’s a mutant like Kronos and Krhonos.
Think about it Henry’s “fall” mirrors the myth of Kronus, the devouring father who’s ultimately overthrown by his own child. In Stranger Things, Henry believed he was above humanity a higher being who could shape the world. But when Eleven refuses to join him, she casts him down. Literally.
In that 1979 moment, when she opens the rift and banishes him through it, she doesn’t just “defeat” him, she traps him in an interdimensional abyss, just like Kronus was imprisoned in Tartarus (the darkest part of the Underworld) by his own offspring. That moment becomes the birth of the Upside Down: a corrupted underworld shaped by the presence of Henry’s soul.
And the longer Henry remains there, the more that realm decays, leaking into Hawkins, just as time and death leak into life once the divine balance is broken.
But here’s where it gets even deeper, Kronos is Time.
He doesn’t just rule over it, he is time itself, devouring everything, keeping reality trapped in an endless cycle.
That’s why the Upside Down is frozen. The moment El opened the portal, Will entered the realm, time stopped. The world became a snapshot of Hawkins in 1983, because Kronos and Kronus (Henry) cannot move forward, his essence begins to bleed into the real world, a bridge formed when a human crossed the line and carried his dimension with them. He remains suspended in the instant of his fall, trapped in an endless loop of his own undoing.
But the bond isn’t strong enough yet. It’s only when Will becomes part of the underworld that his connection to it, and to Vecna, is fully restored. So things started to change when Will returned. From that moment on, Vecna’s power and the Upside Down’s influence grow stronger, and they will continue to do so until Will returns to the underworld and El closes the gate.
And Eleven isn’t just Zeus in this story, she embodies all three of Kronus’s children:
Zeus, the one who wields thunder and banishes the tyrant, her telekinetic power is raw, divine energy. And the most powerful god.
Poseidon, whose strength comes from the depths. Eleven always regains her power through water, the sensory tank, the pools, the submersion that reconnects her to her abilities and her memories.
Hades, ruler of the boundary between worlds, neither living nor dead, but essential to the balance. Eleven opens and closes the gates, she decides who passes between realms.
Meanwhile, Henry (Vecna) becomes something closer to Kronus turned Lucifer: a fallen angel, devoured by his own hunger for control, reshaping his prison into his image. His presence in the Upside Down corrupts it, freezes it, binds it to his will. The world can’t move forward because Time itself refuses to.
So maybe the Upside Down isn’t just another dimension.
Maybe it’s a living reflection of a myth, a timeless underworld created by a broken god and sustained by the soul he left behind.
And that’s why El’s role is so vital, she’s not just fighting him. She’s maintaining the cosmic order.
Every time she dives into the dark, into that tank filled with water, she’s crossing the Styx, not to destroy Henry, but to keep the worlds from merging.
She is Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades combined.
And he?? He’s the Father of Time. The one who devours everything, even himself.
When Dustin says “the Upside Down is older” it reinforces the theory I am examining, that this parallel dimension acts as the Underworld, predating the show’s events, though its beginnings are still unknown.
To conclude, Will remains the central focus of the disruption for me and the reason Vecna discovered a “weak point” in the prison he inhabits. Once a living human soul descends into the underworld, it is no longer considered fully alive, it becomes a shade or spirit residing in Hades. And when Will was brought back, it’s as if a part of the underworld was brought along with him. That’s why the connection between the two worlds is intensifying, once you become part of the underworld, you cannot fully return to the living world.
There’s a post from @greenfiend that explains Will being death really well!! Basically, “the heart” of Stranger Things is accepting the death of loved ones and learning to go on with your life!! Here is her post “Will died”
Bonus
I forgot to add something important!! If Stranger Things ends on December 31st, that’s not random!!
In Greek mythology, New Year’s Eve would be a Khronic moment, the death and rebirth of time itself. Kronos, the god of Time, represents endless cycles of decay and renewal. The turning of the year was once celebrated in the Kronia, a festival honoring Kronos and his Golden Age, a brief return to equality and chaos before the world reset.
It’s a night ruled by liminal gods:
Hermes, the guide of souls. Hecate, the keeper of crossroads and Janus, who looks both backward and forward at once. It’s the night when boundaries blur, between years, between worlds, between life and death.
So if the final chapter of Stranger Things happens on New Year’s Eve, it wouldn’t just be an ending. It would be the Khronic moment, when Time itself (Henry/Kronos) pauses, the cycle collapses, and the world is reborn. El, as the child of the new order (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades in one) would face him at the turning point of existence.
The clock would strike twelve, the world would end and begin again.
And time, finally, would start to move.
There’s also a possibility of time resetting or them going back in time. El might even be capable of erasing Henry’s existence entirely, wiping not only her own memories of him, but everyone else’s too, as if Henry had never existed at all, causing him to cease to exist. But if something like that happens, there’s a risk that she could share the same fate, since their existences are fundamentally connected. After all, she’s the one who sent him to the Upside Down, and in essence, the one who caused the existence of Vecna.