Hello there.
I'm Paul Rea from the Official Teen Wolf Wiki.
Today I'm looking at a question about the kanima that popped up on the official Fandom App.
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and you can access that multitude of wikis through this one app.
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Anyway, I got some questions about the kanima and why it did some of the things it did,
so I'm going to try to answer that today.
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One thing right up front, the kanima is always a mistake. It's officially and canonically a
perversion of the werewolf bite. Instead of becoming a scary hairy, emotional issues can
cause the bitten person to become the ultimate, co-dependent, lizard-shaped killing machine.
So, while this mistake happened enough times for there to be an official entry
in the Hunter's bestiary, as well as that thing about the vengeful priest,
there are apparently no naturally born kanima running around in the wild.
Let's do a quick re-cap of the kanima timeline.
Jackson's bite from Derek went wrong because of his issues.
Matt: Lahey gets in one of the photos.
I look down at the screen in my camera and I just have this unbelievable rage that fills up inside of me.
and I just, I look at him and I want to see him dead.
And the next day, he actually was.
The first night of the full moon, for some, unexplained reason, the kanima specifically picked
up on Matt's murder vibes aimed at Coach Lahey. Since Jackson lived right across the street from
the coach and Isaac, and we know that he saw them leave their house, it is implied that Jackson
transformed and followed the coach. He then killed him because Matt was wishing for it real hard.
Coach: Holy...
That bit is a little weird, because, it wasn't till the second night,
when he was stalking outside Jackson's house, that Matt and the kanima actually met.
Matt: It was like this bond had been cemented between the 2 of us.
I knew he had killed Lahey for me and I knew he would do it again.
The question that came up most recently had to do with this second night and why
the Kanima seemed to be following Allison when she was looking around Isaac's house.
On the full moon, the Kanima goes back to Isaac's house and menaces Allison.
Question: Does it do more than murder people? Does it also creep on girls that its master likes?
My immediate answer was yes. A kanima would definitely creep on women its master likes.
But in this case, I don't think that's the whole story.
This night, the second night of the full moon, Matt was actually outside Jackson's
house right across the street from Isaac's. He saw someone creeping around Isaac's house.
And Matt stayed there too, parked right outside, on the street between the two houses,
because he didn't trust Jackson with his camera. It's not a quantum leap to
suggest that he got really interested in what was going on at Isaac's,
especially after Allison got there to help Scott secure himself for the full moon.
But yeah, he was creeping. The Kanima acts on the whims and wishes of its master.
Matt would have wanted to find out what was happening with his crush
and the Kanima was happy to check it out for him.
We saw this whim fulfillment again in Abomination when Matt witnessed
Allison and Stiles steal Gerard's keys at the lacrosse game. As soon as Jackson was free,
Matt sent the kanima to find out what Stiles was doing, and it found him with Erica and Derek.
Stiles: What? Wait, have you seen it? You just have this look on your faces like you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Kanima: Hiss.
Question: Why go after Derek and/or Stiles? Was it attacking non-murderers this early?
People seem to always forget that Derek is actually
a murderer. He killed Peter when he was completely helpless. I don't know if that's
why the kanima was triggered here, but, triggered it was, and it focused on Derek.
Derek: Run!
Stiles: Derek, your neck.
And, no, I didn't forget that Derek killed Paige too. But the word,
"murder" is a legal term and while Paige's death was a homicide,
it wasn't necessarily - legally - a murder. It's also irrelevant to this video anyway.
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I was talking about who the Kanima went after that night at the pool.
Scott speculated that it was after Stiles because Stiles witnessed it killing the mechanic.
Scott: But you did see it kill somebody which is probably why it tried to kill you,
and is still trying to kill you and it probably won't stop until you're dead.
I believe this was another red herring thrown out there to distract and decieve us.
Scott had almost nothing to go on for his assumption, and he also
wasn't counting Peter's death as a murder, which would make the obvious target Derek.
Personally, I don't think any of that can explain why exactly the kanima decided to
keep Derek and Stiles trapped in the pool for more than two hours.
Stiles: Okay, maybe it took off.
~kanima vocalizes~
I don't think it's really explained in the show either, but it's been a while
since I did a serious and studious re-watch of Season 2. If there was information that
explains why in some episode that I'm forgetting, let me know in the comments.
My own belief is that Matt had the kanima keep them there because he thought it was funny.
Derek: Get him off of me.
Matt: Oh, I don't know Derek, I think you two make a pretty good pair.
It's as simple as that. He got his jollies experiencing the suffering of others through the Kanima.
Matt: I need answers.
Scott: Answers to what?
The other question I've seen lately is about the whole,
is Matt turning into a kanima, thing, from the episode Fury.
Here's a case where Derek summed it up pretty well, he was way too cryptic for my tastes,
but at least it's some explanation.
Stiles: You know what's happening to Matt.
Derek: You can't just break the rules, not like this.
The universe balances things out, always does.
Stiles: Is it because he's using Jackson to kill people who don't deserve it?
Derek: And killing people himself.
Stiles: So, if Matt breaks the rules of the kanima - he becomes the kanima.
Derek: Balance.
What does that mean? I get the part where Matt broke the rules and was being punished,
but what force is doing the punishing? What does "balance" even mean in this case?
If it had continued, would there be two kanimas,
or would the process kill Matt because he wasn't bitten first?
I think this mystery is not solved, and, maybe never will be.
Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time we go back to Beacon Hills.