Did Eleven Create The Upside Down? Stranger Things Star Gives Definitive Answer

Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown gives a definitive answer on whether Eleven created the Upside down in the Netflix series.

Did Eleven Create The Upside Down? Stranger Things Star Gives Definitive Answer

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Stranger Things season 4.

Stranger Things season 4 raised the debate of whether Eleven created the Upside Down and star Millie Bobby Brown has offered a definitive answer to the question. The latest season of the hit Netflix series picked up six months after the events of season 3 as Eleven and the Byers are adjusting to life in California without their friends and family. Meanwhile, those still living in Hawkins, Indiana find themselves under threat of a dangerous new force killing teenagers in terrifying fashion with seeming ties to the Upside Down.

The latest Stranger Things season saw a number of major reveals throughout its first seven episodes, including how Hopper survived and was subsequently captured by the Russians and the true nature of the heavily promoted Creel house. One of the biggest reveals were the flashbacks in episode 7 that saw Eleven facing off against Jamie Campbell Bower’s Henry Creel at the Hawkins lab after he massacred the other children in his drive to murder those involved with Dr. Brenner’s experiments. Eleven would narrowly defeat Henry and send him to the Upside Down, opening the first doorway to the terrifying dimension and putting the events of both the series and season in motion.

In a recent interview with Variety for the hit series, Millie Bobby Brown shared her thoughts on the Stranger Things season 4 reveal that Eleven opened the original portal to the Upside Down. When asked whether she was responsible for creating the alternate dimension, Brown offered a definitive answer to the debate that Eleven did not create the Upside Down and that her answer comes from the Duffer Brothers themselves. See what Brown said below:

“[The Duffer Brothers] did tell me. She does. She opens the rift. This is too big of a debate for me to answer. I’m so worried. I think — no, no, no. I think that the alternate universe was always there. That is always going to be under Hawkins. I just think she has access to it. I don’t think that she created the Upside Down. No, I think that it was always there, I think she just created a gate to it which no one could before.”

Since the Stranger Things season 4 reveal, many fans have debated whether Eleven created the Upside Down through her sheer rage in fighting against Henry or if she simply opened a passage to it. Brown’s confirmation falls in line with the latter argument, which already held the majority opinion given the Russians’ awareness of the Upside Down prior to their interactions with Eleven and having conducted their own experiments to reach it. Additionally, the reveal that the version of Hawkins seen in the Upside Down being stuck in 1983 further confirmed that she only created a copy of the fictional town in the dimension.

Outside of the confirmation Eleven opened the rift, the Stranger Things season 4, part 1 finale did reveal that Eleven was behind Henry’s transformation in to the devilish Vecna. With the trailers for Stranger Things season 4 part 2 pointing towards a major battle taking place in the Upside Down and Eleven having finally reclaimed her powers, anticipation is high for the feature-length final episodes coming July 1. Audiences can revisit the first seven episodes of Stranger Things season 4 streaming on Netflix now.