[music]
[singing] They ain't seen nothing yet.
Hello there.
My most recent video generated a number of comments questioning a key
aspect of my contention that the Ghost Riders of the Wild Hunt are unkillable.
I never know how much of my prior content viewers have already
seen and how much recapping I should do from video to video. I imagine for regular viewers,
a lot of 'Remember when I said this thing three videos ago' can become tedious and boring.
If I’m revisiting a topic like the wild hunt, which I’ve done several videos on already,
I always try to give new examples of whatever point I’m making.
In this case, to illustrate that the riders can’t actually be killed,
I used the fake Claudia’s - death - to make the point.
I assumed viewers would understand that if one Ghost Rider pops back into the Wild Hunt
at the moment of its - death - then they all return to the hunt since they’re not
alive and those bodies are just cultural constructs
created by our expectations and, in this case, by the Sheriff’s memories.
It is my fault because, visually, the Claudia rider’s “death” was different
than some others we saw. Her physical body vanished and ceased to exist in our dimension.
Some took this to mean that in the cases where a physical body is left behind
after the Ghost Rider - dies - then those beings are really
and truly dead. I don’t know why there’s a disconnect for some viewers, but there is.
If this is not a sticking point for you, go ahead and dip out because the rest of the video
is me painstakingly going over details that you already understand. If you are one of the
ones that thinks a physical remnant of a ghost rider means that the being that
animated that body has ceased to exist, come on and follow me down.
I like to think that most of my videos are fun Teen Wolf nostalgia and canon and not always so
"mansplainy". I could be wrong about that but you should give me a shot anyway. Subscribe to the
channel and hit the bell. That way you’ll know every time I go Back to Beacon Hills.
Douglas: Imagine an army not burdened with the weakness of ordinary soldiers. Men who don't need food,
who never grow tired. An army of unstoppable warriors.
Eh, I hate having one of those subhumans explain anything, but Douglas did his
research. The Ghost Riders are the souls of the dead. They are collected by a supernatural
force that circles the globe adding to its number by collecting more and more souls.
It dates back pretty far into human history as I showed y’all in my Gods of Teen Wolf series.
Overall, the way I prefer to think about the hellhound thing is that
in the Teen Wolf Universe, there has always been this group of dog-like spirits
that serve some supernatural purpose having to do with death and the afterlife.
They assumed different forms and functions and names as different cultures became aware of them.
But they were always the same group of spirits doing what they’ve always done.
There are hellhounds riding the storm with Odin because that association is
one of the most widespread and longest remembered.
But the wild hunt is really just a cultural construct laid over an existing supernatural
force. As I explained in my first Gods video, they look like a bunch of cowboys because
our culture laid that construct on them after the idea was spread through a popular song.
But something has always been out there spanning the globe and gathering up souls
and delivering them to an afterlife.
The things we see when the riders are in our dimension are not the ghost riders. It’s a
construct that our collective unconscious creates in the shape of a bunch of demonic cowboys.
That construct is then laid on top of the existing supernatural force.
In other words, away from America and European cultural influence,
they would look like something else.
[Hawaiian chant]
Back in the precolonial days, an indigenous Hawaiian person would see them as Night Marchers.
This group of supernatural beings is said to be made up of the souls of dead island warriors
who march through the air bringing death to those who don’t show proper respect
and taking souls to march with them forever.
It is the exact same Wild Hunt force, just with a different face.
A 17 th century sailor would have seen the hunt as the ghostly crew of the flying dutchman.
Again, it’s the same unstoppable, soul-collecting, supernatural force in a different context.
There are others but I hope three examples will be enough.
Whatever their bodies look like, they’re not real. Their physicality, their solidness is
created and wrapped around this supernatural force by our own cultural expectations.
We have an excellent example of this in the Claudia rider. Her shape, her body was completely
drawn from the Sheriff’s expectations and then reinforced by his desire to have her back.
He could touch her and probably smell her perfume but she was always just a disembodied soul from
the Wild Hunt inside a Claudia-shaped shell that the sheriff helped make.
So these cowboy-shaped shells left behind after suffering enough hit points are not evidence
that you can kill a ghost rider. They’re just shells, the rider is already back with the hunt.
Feldmarschall Schulz: An unstoppable army made up of the dead you say?
Douglas: With power you have never seen.
I really hate Nazis but this one is right.
This dead army is unstoppable because the Ghost Riders are unkillable.
Thanks for indulging me. I sure some of y’all still want to fight about this and
that is what the comment section is for. Join me next time for another trip Back to Beacon Hills.
[singing] They ain't seen nothing yet.
[music]
[singing] This is as good as it gets.