At an August 2026 Comic Con Wales panel, Stranger Things actor Noah Schnapp was asked what he’d change about the final season. He pointed to Joyce Byers beheading Vecna with an axe in the finale and wondered why Will Byers, the character he plays, didn’t feel it.
“If I could change anything…Honestly, like what didn’t make sense to me is when Vecna was killed, like Will didn’t feel anything,” Schnapp said.
“This is such a small thing, but I thought they were like connected, and he was feeling what the hive mind feels, and then all of a sudden they chopped Vecna’s head off, and Will didn’t feel anything. So I was like, I don’t understand this whole parallel that maybe we could have, I don’t know, I wanted more there. But I, who am I to say, I’m not no writer, so I don’t know. I thought it was really good, and, um, ‘I believe.’”
Schnapp called it a small detail and said he thought the ending was really good.
The question draws on Will’s earlier connection to the hive mind. In season 2, he has a seizure when vines in the Upside Down burn. He later senses a shot to Henry/Vecna’s hand, though he doesn’t feel it as if he’d been shot himself, and he doesn’t feel Vecna’s limbs being broken.
The finale was released on New Year’s Eve 2025. Co-creator Matt Duffer had addressed Will’s lack of a reaction on January 1, 2026: in his explanation, the Mind Flayer was already dead when Joyce beheaded Vecna, and Will’s connection to Vecna had been severed.
