Here we are more than three years since the final episode of Teen Wolf broadcast on TV
and I’m still seeing a lot of the same questions come up again and again.
One such query is in regard to Stiles’ game changing move with the mountain ash at the
end of Wolves of War.
A lot of folks think Stiles should have turned to stone when the Anuk-Ite glanced his way
during the final confrontation.
I mean, up until this point the Anuk-Ite had a perfect record of making statues out of
everybody else who looked its way – how did Stiles avoid the medusa effect?
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The Anuk-Ite was the skinned weasel-looking thing in Season 6 that broadcast fear and
could turn people to stone with its eyes.
But Scott figured out that because one of the two halves that created the Anuk-Ite was
a werewolf, the combined creature would be vulnerable to the same weaknesses as all the
other werewolves.
So, Scott tells Stiles to steal the jar of mountain ash they’d seen in Gerard’s supervillain
trophy room at the armory.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate that Gerard had what amounted to a closet-sized
supervillain trophy room?
That guy.
Anyway, steal the mountain ash, dump the mountain ash on the Anuk-Ite and win the war.
That’s Scott’s plan and it worked.
Yay!
The good guys win again.
But for some fans it seemed like a cheat because Stiles did get a face-full of skinned weasel
creature before the mountain ash started to work.
So why didn’t Stiles turn to stone?
The easiest answer is that this is a plot hole.
Jeff Davis needed Stiles to win so he just wrote it that way.
That’s an easy explanation because we did see some plot-driven shortcuts over the years
– Aiden’s death comes to mind.
But I don’t see a plot hole with the Anuk-Ite.
Let’s look at how the power worked previously on screen.
The first time it was displayed was in the episode Genotype.
The two halves had just combined when it ran across a couple of the hunters.
First, they seem paralyzed by fear.
The Anuk-Ite’s eyes flash and they begin to turn to stone.
The whole process takes a few seconds.
We see this process repeated later at the hospital as the creature moves down the hall
– but in these cases we only have its point of view so we don’t actually see what it’s
doing to cause the petrifying effect.
The next time we see the whole process it’s with Peter and it’s the same, eyes glow,
rock forms.
With Jackson, eyes glow.
And with Derek -
same thing with the eyes before he turns to stone.
So knowing that the Anuk-Ite’s eyes fire up before it turns someone to stone – let’s
look at what happened when Stiles runs in.
There’s none of that fired up eye glow which makes it clear to me
that the power wasn’t engaged in time to effect Stiles.
But let’s say it was engaged – even if that’s true I contend there wasn’t time
for it to work before the creature was covered in Mountain Ash.
Part of what adds to the confusion around this scene is the fact that they slowed it
down for dramatic effect.
If we speed it up to normal you can see just how quickly this all went down.
The creature didn’t fire up its eyes, it didn’t have time to
before the ash cloud was on it.
Also, even if the power had begun to turn Stiles to stone, it wouldn’t have had time
to finish the process before the Anuk-Ite was neutralized.
Then the process would have reversed as it did with the other stoned heroes
so Stiles would be fine either way.
Another complaint about this episode that I see often is that the mountain ash should
have just formed a circle and trapped the creature inside the circle.
That might have happened had the creature not been just one big wet exposed nerve – the
ash literally stuck to its body and coated it completely trapping it.
As always – add your thoughts in the comments and thanks for watching.
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