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Stranger Things Season 5 finally lets Will Byers step out of the shadows and into the kind of destiny that kids don’t just stumble into. He’s the Harry Potter of this universe. His power is rooted in fear, memories he never actually wanted, and a villain who refuses to let him go.
In Vol. 1 of Season 5, Will Byers steps into the story like he’s been hiding a whole secret identity since 1983. If you’ve ever watched Harry Potter and thought "wow imagine if this wizard stuff went full horror", well, that’s literally Will this season.
He’s got the same creepy connection to the Big Bad, except his version comes from being dragged into a monster dimension as a kid. Stranger Things Season 5 doesn’t just give rise to the Harry Potter x Will Byers comparison but if you look closely, it goes way beyond that.
Will isn’t just bonded to Vecna anymore but now, he's The Sorcerer and he’s learning how to use it, control it, and turn it into something the party never saw coming.
Author's Note: This whole piece is basically me geeking out over two things that shaped my life in totally different eras. The parallels between the two are honestly too wild to ignore!
If you’re a Harry Potter fan, a Stranger Things fan, or both at the same time, then feel free to stick around. You’re definitely in the right place.
How Will Byers' energy mirrors Harry’s magic but makes it way more darker
I’ve watched Stranger Things Season 5 Vol. 1 like a little child who paused every scene to analyze Will’s face, and the whole thing feels like the Duffer Brothers finally said okay fine he is the main character.
From the second he comes back to Hawkins, that weird feeling in his neck comes back too. It’s the same painful signal he’s had ever since Vecna grabbed him in Season 1. Every time Vecna or a Demogorgon gets close, Will is on the ground, clutching himself like the world is splitting open.
And now, have we seen this film before? Yes, we have! With Harry Potter! He's too always had that stabbing scar pain whenever Voldemort was near. Will has the same thing but multiplied because the Upside Down is literally running through him.
The show even makes Will feel what Vecna and the creatures feel. If a Demogorgon is burning, Will’s body reacts like fire touched him too. Harry too had those moments where he could feel Voldemort’s rage or panic or even see things through Nagini’s eyes.
However, Harry felt all of that because he was a Horcrux. With Stranger Things Season 5 Vol. 1, Will isn’t technically a Horcrux but the Upside Down version of that is basically happening. We all saw Vecna force those mind flare particles into Will’s mouth when he went missing, and now that connection is exploding in Season 5.
The wild part is Will does not even try to use his link. He just gets hit with it at random times. In the Season 5 premiere, he falls into Holly Wheeler’s perspective without even knowing it. Holly is on a playground ride, Vecna steps into her mind, and Will’s vision spins like he’s the one stuck on the roundabout.
That’s when Robin calls him a human antenna and tries to break it down. She says Will is “like a receiver” that picks up Vecna’s signal when he’s close. And because the antenna is literally Will’s brain, the connection hits him harder than it hits anyone else.
But in the finale of Stranger Things Season 5 Vol. 1, it finally flips. Will is not only receiving the signal, but now, he starts controlling it. When Vecna sends the Demogorgons after Mike, Lucas, and Robin in 3 totally different places, Will snaps and taps into something he never believed he had. His eyes go white and every Demogorgon drops at once.
Will annihilates and destroys them using something that looks like telepathy and telekinesis combined. Noah Schnapp even told Netflix that it felt like a “holy grail” moment, the kind of scene he had been waiting to be a part of.
The show leans into it even more with the title of Stranger Things Season 5 Vol. 1 Episode 4, which is literally called The Sorcerer.
Will Byers and Harry Potter: The principle difference
The more Stranger Things Season 5 shows Will’s new powers, the more the Harry Potter x Voldemort comparison makes sense. Harry had Voldemort’s magic inside him because of what happened the night Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby.
Where as Will has Vecna inside him because Vecna dragged him into the Upside Down and took over his mind in Season 1-2. Harry’s link was an accident. Will’s was on purpose. Vecna built the tether. He made sure Will could never fully disconnect.
And because of that, Will has access to pretty much everything Vecna can sense. He can see victims the moment Vecna enters their minds. He can see through the eyes of Demogorgons. He even sees Vecna stalking new targets like Holly and Derek before anyone else realizes what’s happening.
That is the same way Harry suddenly knew things about Nagini or sensed Voldemort’s emotions. Both of boys are stuck carrying their villains like shadows that never go away.
But Will’s whole situation is different because the Upside Down connection combines monster magic and trauma. Will always thought the connection was a curse tied to the worst thing that ever happened to him.
Whenever the show showed him shivering or holding his neck, it felt like he was reliving the fear from Season 1. Harry had that trauma too, but at Hogwarts he also had people telling him he was powerful. Will had the exact opposite. He kept thinking he was broken, to a point where even Joyce babied him all the time.
Stranger Things Season 5 Vol. 1 breaks that cycle. Robin gives him this small but powerful speech about not letting people’s judgments crush him. She tells him that she had to break free from what everyone thought of her to be happy. And Will carries that into the moment where his friends are about to die.
For him, the connection isn’t this horrible curse anymore. It becomes the thing that saves Mike, Lucas, and Robin. That scene instantly flips the idea of Will being the quiet kid in the background. It makes him the person good enough, strong enough, and brave enough to stand between monsters and the people he loves.
How Stranger Things Season 5 pushes Will toward the same fate Harry almost faced
The crazy part about Stranger Things Season 5 is that once Will unlocks his abilities, the show starts putting him in this spot that feels a lot like Harry’s final arc where Harry’s connection to Voldemort made their fight personal.
It made Harry the one who had to stand in the middle of everything. Will gets pushed into that exact spot in Vol. 1. He starts the season sensing Vecna’s return and ends it facing him head on during the Demogorgon attack.
Vecna even spares him in their encounter like he knows Will is important. Not a side character. Not a spare. But someone who has a direct role in whatever the end of this story will look like.
Both Voldemort and Vecna are monsters who lost their humanity chasing more power. Both have pale skin, messed up faces, and absolutely zero noses (this one's for the giggles). And both underestimate the young kids they’re trying to destroy.
Vecna thinks he can control Will forever. Voldemort thought the same about Harry. And yet both boys turn their villains’ mistakes into their biggest strengths.
In the Harry Potter series, people believed Harry might have to die because of that connection. The story made it seem like sacrifice was the only way to break it. Stranger Things is not saying Will is doomed just yet. But, the show keeps setting up this idea that Will’s link to Vecna is both the key and the danger.
If severing it comes with a cost, then the person who carries the link might be the one who has to pay it. Max also has a link to Vecna, but Will’s connection is deeper, older, and way more central to the whole Upside Down mystery.
By the end of Stranger Things Season 5 Vol. 1, Will is not the scared kid who went missing in the Upside Down. He’s the Sorcerer. He’s the antenna. He’s the boy who can look into the Upside Down and bend it back. Just like Harry had to grow into the hero Voldemort made him, Will is becoming the hero Vecna accidentally created.
Stranger Things Season 5 finally treats Will Byers like the character he was always meant to be, and it feels so unreal to watch it happen. This is the kid everyone once saw as the victim, the quiet one, the boy who just kept surviving.
Now he’s stepping into the story with this raw, haunted power that feels as big as anything Harry Potter ever faced. Will didn’t get powers because he was chosen. He got it because he suffered, because Vecna marked him, because the Upside Down refused to let go.
And instead of breaking him, it turned him into something fierce. Something brave. Something absolutely essential. Whatever the final fight looks like, Will isn’t just part of the team anymore. Will is the one the whole ending is orbiting around.
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