There is no such thing as an "alpha roar".
I'm still getting questions about this to this day.
This is a misconception, a basic misconception of Teen Wolf canon.
And perhaps worse than thinking that this roar is somehow unique to alphas, people believe this
non-existent special 'alpha roar" has two completely contradictory effects - forcing
another werewolf to shift into beast mode or immediately calming a werewolf down to a tame pup.
And the belief remains widespread even after I had
Jeff Davis specifically break it down for all of us in this video.
The werewolf roar has always been one of those things where
the canon conflicts with what I witnessed while watching the show.
All these clips sound exactly the same to me.
If anything, Scott's very first roar is deeper and more impressive than Peter's roar in Night School.
Then there's Deucalion's roar that doesn't sound
exactly the same as Peter's but had a similar effect on Scott.
Canon tells us that Peter and Deucalion had a little
something extra in their roar that caused Scott to transform.
Scott: I can do it.
Stiles: You can?
Scott: Yeah, remember the night that Peter trapped us in the school? In the gym,
he was able to make me turn using just his voice. Deucalion did the same thing in the distillery.
I just can't hear it. they are different but they're not especially louder or anything else
in fact I still think Scott's very first roar is the most impressive.
But back to season three.
Scott needed to roar in order to get Malia to change back and here's what he eventually did
It doesn't sound all that different to me from his first roar. There might be a few
higher notes in there but that could just be the difference in the recordings I have.
it just seems the same to me and yet it did manage the desired effect.
I'm not a person to just let a canon conflict go, so I took it to Jeff directly. What is the
effect of the Roar on both supernatural and the human folks involved with Scott?
Jeff Davis: “The roar is a kind of clarion call for Scott’s betas. And that can certainly
extend to the non-supernatural members. We use the eye glow to show how his
roar can actually give his betas strength and courage at the same time. For us it’s a little
like King Theoden striking his sword against the spears of the Rohirrim, rousing them to battle.”
Jeff says it's kind of a Clarion call for Scott's betas and that the effect extends
to the non-supernatural members of the pack. They did that eye glow thing with
Isaac to show how the roar actually gives his betas strength and courage at the same time.
Jeff then compared it to this scene from Return of the King in which a
bunch of scared men and women are about to take on a massive army of monstrous foes.
I understand the science behind the rousing battlefield speech from Tolkien.
these people are in total fight or flight mode. Adrenaline and other brain pumping
chemicals are flooding their bodies raising their heart rates and making them sweat.
The speech and the roar in Teen Wolf speaks to the most primitive portion
of the brain and produces even more of those chemicals until they're all totally pumped.
This is what we see with Stiles' reaction.
Stiles: Oh, that's what I'm talking about.
but in he supernatural we have the added element of a divine spark that has an even
deeper well of primitive understanding. The roar speaks to the monster and brings it out.
In season one we saw this was particularly difficult for Scott
to control. He had a fit and in fact gave in to the primitive instinct.
By season three, Scott had gained enough control to resist his monster.
It still showed on his face but he didn't lose it.
Like I said, the show kinda lied to us, making us believe the roar was something that it's not,
that there's something extra special about when an alpha vocalizes.
Now that's partly due to this scene with Derek and Isaac from season two.
People really don't like it when I point out that there is nothing supernatural about this reaction.
Y'all remember Isaac was locked up on the full moon and managed to get out.
But
then Derek swooped in.
Yeah. This reaction doesn't have
anything to do with
Derek specifically. It's all about Isaac.
Well, it's about Isaac and his dad.
The jailhouse reaction is just set there to remind us of this scene.
Yeah. The werewolf bite can fix a lot of things,
but nothing changes the reality of being an abused kid.
But to understand that there is no magic in what is essentially a deep-throated scream,
one needs only to look at this scene from season three's Fireflies.
Derek is this close and screaming full force in
their faces and yet there's zero effect on either Boyd or Cora.
Unlike Isaac, it is clear that these two are beyond listening to anyone in that moment. But
the fact remains that if it was some special power that an alpha has to overwhelm with their voice,
being extra angry shouldn't make these two immune to that power.
The bottom line - a roar is just a yell and getting yelled at causes
all sorts of documented effects on the brain.
It can be a positive yell like Jeff described, rousing positive emotions and feelings of
excitement or it can be an abusive yell that triggers fear and fight-or-flight reaction.