Hello there!
Today we’re tackling a question I’ve seen over and over again since Season 2 of Teen
Wolf. Why don’t the other werewolves go all beast mode like Peter did in Season 1?
I’ve always thought the answer to this was too obvious and simple to do a whole video
about it, but it keeps coming up along with a few other misconceptions about werewolves
on the show, so, here we are.
Today we’re looking at why it’s better to be a werewolf and not a monster on Teen Wolf
I’m Paul Rea and I do these little trips Back to Beacon Hills at least once a week.
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The first time I tried to record this video it came out all passive aggressive like, okay
what’s the biggest difference between werewolves that look like this and the ones that look like this?
I don’t mean to be a mansplaining jerk, but to me this is all just so self-evident.
Of course, this being Teen Wolf, they never actually explained it on the show, so here is some werewolf 101.
Over time, werewolves learn to completely control their physical form, they can stop
their eyes from flashing in photographs, they can alter their smell and eventually, if they’re
fully balanced in mind and body, they can fully shift into a wolf.
And don’t “but” me with "but Theo" "but Malia" I’ll cover these exceptions to the full
wolf shift at the end.
Back to the basics - as we saw with Scott in the early episodes, it was a constant struggle
to control his shift.
This is true of both made werewolves like Liam and born werewolves like Derek.
The writers made it obvious again and again that staying in control and mostly human in
appearance is the goal for all good werewolves because only bad werewolves lose control of the shift.
I’m looking at you Season 1 Peter.
Peter was the original monster of Teen Wolf and since he showed up looking like eight
feet of growl, everybody just assumed that was what Alphas looked like.
That’s when the myth of the “Alpha Form” in Teen Wolf fandom was born.
But just like Omega Eyes and the Demon Wolf, the Teen Wolf “Alpha Form” isn’t really a thing.
It’s just not.
Werewolves that look like this are completely out of control.
In Peter’s case, he had six years of rage and pain built up and almost completely lost his mind.
He was not in control of anything and his body reflected that by twisting into a monstrous mad wolf.
And this total loss of control isn’t restricted to Alphas.
The Beast of Gevaudan is an Omega and from the start he was so out of his mind and evil
that his form was even less in control than Peter’s.
Instead of Alpha Form what you’re looking at here is a Psycho Form or Wolf Madness.
Since we never saw the Beast when he wasn’t crazy, Peter is actually the only good example
of the difference between being in control or out of control.
Peter: All right boys, let's rumble.
Once Peter died and came back, he was far more reasonable and in control.
He was still a bad guy, but he was thinking clearly and was able to maintain a more human form
The next time he came close to losing it was in Season 4 in his confrontation with Scott
when all those feelings of betrayal and madness began to come to the surface again.
Peter: For my family's power to be rightfully inherited by me.
You can see in this scene his face went a little more monstrous.
We saw the same thing happen to Scott earlier when he was about to lose his shit on that hunter.
His face became less and less human until he reigned in his emotions.
Deucalion: Should we show them why you needed to sacrifice nine people just to face me?
Deucalion: Or is it 12 now?
Deucalion was also mentally unwell when he faced Jennifer but I personally think he was
in complete control and he put on this face on purpose as an intimidation tactic.
Mainly I think that because he never used that face again in the rest of his appearances.
Back to the monsters, this is not something to strive for.
I’ve seen people describe this form as “evolved”.
It’s not evolved, it’s the exact opposite of evolved.
It is the most devolved state of primitive violence.
f there are evolved werewolves, it's those rare souls who can fully shift into a real wolf.
We saw this three times on the show.
Laura was transformed in her grave, Talia could transform fully in her lifetime and
Derek reached this point just before he left.
Now with the first two, we have no way to know exactly how they developed this ability.
We’re told that it’s rare, but it showed up in two generations of the same family so,
it doesn’t seem all that rare.
Jeff Davis told me once that wolves who find balance between their monster and human parts
can acquire the skill.
Then we got to watch Derek actually go though the process to reach his wolf form.
I mean, Kate’s magic Mexican tomb reverted him to a kid and then turned him human somehow.
That’s a lot to deal with both physically and emotionally.
As a born werewolf, becoming human meant Derek completely lost his sense of self.
His body was fully altered and then he died.
We’re not told directly why this could lead to his full transformation.
Kate: You were dead.
Derek: No.
Derek: I was evolving.
But what does evolved mean?
Allow me to speculate and Dr. Phil this situation for a second.
I won’t do the Dr. Phil voice but Derek had been a werewolf all his life.
Suddenly, he wasn’t anymore and he seemed remarkably okay with that fact.
Unlike Peter who raged about his power being stolen from him, Derek was chill and just
made the best of being human.
He was at peace when he died and when he came back that calm demeanor remained.
My personal belief is that going through the process of becoming a werewolf in reverse
gave him certain insights into what each of his abilities feels like.
Basically, the absence of each supernatural enhancement left a void that he could mentally
point to, he could feel each ability fully and better understand it with its loss.
When they all came back, he had a full understanding of each aspect of his werewolf power
and then could access and control them.
That’s my syndicated afternoon TV psychology take on the situation.
So that’s the full wolf thing based on the evidence presented on screen and what Jeff’s
told me.
Now, with the monster thing, they pretty much showed us how that worked with two big hairy
examples in Peter and The Beast.
Monsters are crazy werewolves - full wolf werewolves are well-adjusted and controlled.
All the others on the show fell somewhere on the spectrum.
We saw Scott was about to go monster and while he was able to reign it in that time, I don’t
think his teen angst and constantly elevated stress levels would allow him to go full wolf
anytime soon.
Even Satomi, who became a Buddhist, was always
on the edge of anger and violence due to inner turmoil.
Yeah, so no full wolf form for Satomi.
Again, monster werewolves are out of control.
Full wolf werewolves are in total control.
For now, thank you for ...
~indistinct whispers~
What?
~indistinct whispers~
Oh yeah, except for the exceptions.
There always seem to be exceptions in Teen Wolf.
Theo can turn into a full wolf.
This is because Theo is the Wish.com version of a werewolf so his ability to fully transform
is just another gift of the Dread Doctors’ science.
Malia can turn full coyote.
Two things here, the first time she did it was due to a traumatic experience.
It wasn’t a case of her choosing to turn into an animal.
She had no idea how she did it.
She just did it and spent eight years as a coyote because she couldn't do it again.
Once she was human again, she had no idea how to turn back into a coyote.
Malia: You want to help me?
Malia: Find a way to change me back.
In fact, it took her a year and a half in-show time at least to regain the ability she had
managed effortlessly when she was a child.
Also, I should mention that Theo was lying to Malia when he said he could show her how
to fully shift.
He was lying to everybody during that episode.
There are a lot more misconceptions I could cover here - A lot of people seem think the
full turn is just a Hale thing that Malia inherited.
Canonically it’s not.
It just so happens that the Hales on the show could do it.
I’m sure there’s some other confusing thing I should be able to put to rest but this
is long, I am tired of hearing my own voice.
I’m sure y’all will let me know if I wasn’t clear
on something.
For now, thanks for watching and please do all the YouTube things – like the video,
comment on the video and if you feel like it subscribe to the channel.
I’ll see you next time we go back to beacon hills.