This started out to be a story about how Jackson is not a chimera.
I get that like three times a day - is Jackson a chimera?
No.
The thinking seems to be - "Well Jackson can express both kanima and werewolf features and
abilities, so he is just like those fake creatures created by the dread doctors."
Jackson: Watch this.
I had planned this whole long-winded explanation of the difference between genetic chimeras and
crossbreeding, but then I realized there is a much simpler way to explain this.
None of the creatures that you see before season five
on Teen Wolf has a damn thing to do with genetics.
Okay?
The real creatures of Teen Wolf have no special genetic components.
Their abilities are 100 percent soul and spark.
When an alpha bites someone they transfer spark.
It's not some gene-altering infection.
It is a spark of energy that attaches to the person's soul and changes them.
That's partly why we see that how the werewolf feels can alter the bite's effects as we saw with Jackson.
Instead of turning into a werewolf, he turned into a reflection of his own inner turmoil.
Once he resolved that inner turmoil, he transformed into a werewolf.
But the damage done to his spark initially doesn't just go away.
Jackson: I can't change completely, but it's kind of like having a Tiptronic transmission.
Peter: Taking an innocent life takes something from you as well, a bit of your soul darkening it.
It's like when a werewolf gets blue eyes from killing someone.
Peter: Dimming the once brilliant golden yellow to a cold steel blue.
Jackson: I can't change completely but it's kind of like having a Tiptronic transmission.
That full body kanima transformation will always remain a part of Jackson's spark.
The damage is done, so he keeps his tail and his venom.
People ask me if I've talked to Jeff about
this "spark versus genetics" thing. I have not directly.
I've always just known this like I know water is wet.
But for those folks who ask, I did dig back into my archives to
find out where my absolute certainty on this topic comes from. How did it form?
Jeff actually did address this directly in an MTV Tumblr interview back in 2013.
Y'all remember Tumblr? Yeah it's apparently still a thing.
Jeff said "We stay away from talk of genetics usually. I like to keep things in the world of the mystical rather than scientific."
Science did not enter into Teen Wolf until the dread doctors showed up in season five.
Dread doctor creations are fake and one of the signs that they
were fake versions of the real thing is that they depended on
the genetic components of the host to carry grafted-on fake abilities.