Hello there.
One thing I will never understand about the Teen Wolf fandom is the obsession
in some corners to make Stiles supernatural.
In my mind, the character simply won’t work if he’s not human - but fans are
going to do what they do with their own head canon - and more power to them.
But one aspect of the supernatural Stiles movement that does brush up against canon is
that Stiles somehow maintains some residual power from his time sharing a body with the
Nogitsune. This is impossible for reasons I’ll explain but the idea still persists,
so today, we’re looking at the side effects of possession in the Teen Wolf universe and
how Stiles and Mason had very similar experiences and very different reactions.
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In case it’s been a while, the nogitsune was a thousand year old trickster spirit summoned
by Noshiko Yukimura during World War II to take vengeance on soldiers who had withheld life-saving
medicine from and then opened fire on prisoners at an American concentration camp near Beacon Hills.
The nogitsune arrived and killed almost everybody including the prisoners.
Noshiko and Satomi managed to get it out of the body it was in
and then trapped it in the form a housefly in a glass jar that Noshiko then buried in
the roots of the Nemeton which is a magic tree in Beacon Hills preserve.
Like 70 years later, Scott, Stiles and Allison re-energized the magic stump during
a storm that violently shook and collapsed the ground around the site.
This apparently freed the nogitsune who began stalking Stiles in his dreams because
the whole thing with re-energizing the Nemeton left him open to psychic attack.
While the Nogitsune had limited control over Stiles’ movements
he was blacking out and running around causing damage and hurting people.
Deaton managed to put nogitsune to sleep but that was temporary and then Stiles
finally gave in fully to save Malia from a drill happy patient at Eichen House.
Once fully in control, the nogitsune stole one of Noshiko’s tails, released
dozens of his flies to control the werewolves as a series of distractions
and collapsed in a parking lot where Lydia found him.
After Scott and Lydia traveled into his brain and woke Stiles up – the nogitsune
regurgitated a pile of bandages onto the floor of the McCall house.
And, thinking the body that emerged from the bandages was the Nogitsune,
Scott tackled it and in the confusion,
the real nogitsune kidnapped Lydia and escaped which had been its plan all along.
Now, at this point in the story – the Nogitsune is completely out of Stiles body. I’ll repeat
that in a slightly different way – Stiles and the Nogitsune are two totally different beings now.
There are two schools of thought on how this happened.
The bandage vomit and the rising from the floor was all an elaborate illusion put on
by the Nogitsune to create confusion and distract while it made a new body for itself on the couch.
Don’t forget illusion is a power the Nogitsune has.
The other option is that this guy crawling out of the floor really is Stiles in a brand new body.
Whichever one you choose to believe, Stiles is completely Nogtisune free from this point on.
But he keeps getting weaker because they’re connected.
Yes – the nogitsune is still using Stiles’ life force to maintain the body it created.
It has to do this because it’s just a spirit and has no body of it’s own. Even though it
managed to make one – it still has to steal the energy from somewhere to keep it going.
But let’s be clear – everything that is the nogitsune, every ounce of power
it has is in that new body. So when Scott bites the new body and destroys it – every
ounce of nogitsune is reduced back to a house fly and trapped in the box.
The magic box made from the magic tree stump or the magic tree. Whatever.
But, just because it’s all gone from Stiles doesn’t mean he is suddenly just fine and dandy.
While physically free of the Nogitsune, he retains all the memories of what he did while possessed.
Stiles: I remember everything I did Scott.
I remember pushing that sword into you. I remember twisting it.
This weighs on him and while the writers kept him pretty busy for the first few
episodes of Season 4, they still worked his lingering trauma into the story.
Stiles: I remember everything I did. And the worst part is I remember liking it because I felt powerful.
You can see numerous other instances where the writers and Dylan O’Brien
changed the Stiles character based this trauma.
His whole reaction after Donovan’s fall in Season 5 is a good example.
He knows there’s no nogitsune inside him to blame
for this – it’s all him and it’s all the more horrifying because it’s all him.
I personally believe that the theory that Void Stiles is somehow still lurking
lessens the genuine growth and future trauma the character suffers going forward.
Sheriff: Why don't you tell me your name.
The Beast: That's not my name.
And because television writers are never going to give up the opportunity to recycle a good plot -
by the end of Season 5 we saw possession 2.0 - with Liam’s friend Mason taken over by a big bad.
In case it’s been awhile – the Dread Doctors were taking teenagers and mixing their DNA with
supernaturals to try to resurrect Sebastien Valet and the Beast of Gevaudan. The head Dread was
in love with Sebastien and spent like 200 years mixing and matching supernatural stuff until he
finally hit the jackpot with Sweet innocent Mason. Mason became the host for Sebastien and the Beast
and went around tearing shit up and causing general mayhem and destruction.
But in this instance, instead of giving Mason and actor Khylin Rhambo the opportunity to grow
from this lasting trauma while giving the audience a chance to develop a
deeper understanding and sympathy for the character – they just made Mason forget.
I asked Jeff Davis about it in hopes of getting some insight but
he said Mason suffered no side effects at all.
This actually makes sense with the plot – all the chimera forget themselves during
the process. That fact we learned from the formerly-winged wonder Zack.
Zack: First, you forget. You don't know who you are or what you're doing. Then you get violent.
And in the case of the beast – remembering his identity was a key plot point
so it kind of makes sense that Mason’s memory would be affected.
But I expected them to address it in some small way at least.
I mean, after everything they put Stiles through with his
possession you’d think there would be something.
But no - when Mason returned for Season 6, he jumped right into the mystery of the wonky compass
and said nothing whatsoever about his time possessed by one of histories most notorious serial killers.
Thanks for watching. Now, go forth and like and comment and maybe subscribe.
I’ll see you next time we go back to Beacon Hills.