Hello there.
Y’all ready for Gods of Teen Wolf Part Two? Yes, there is a part one that you
should watch but you won’t be lost in this one if you don’t, so whatever.
One thing that should be addressed before we go any further. I did forget to mention
Parrish in the bit about the Wild Hunt last time. That was all my fault. I actually edited
around him in some of the video on the wild hunt and didn’t even think about it.
Anyway, I planned to do a bit on him in this video but as I was researching,
it got really interesting and I decided Hellhounds deserve their
own video so I’m gonna do that at some point in the future instead.
Today we’re focusing on more Gods of Teen Wolf and I’ll be using more from the book
Age of Pantheons so if you haven’t checked that out yet, I suggest you do so.
What else? Oh yeah. I should make clear that none of this is canon. It’s just my
speculation based on the actual canon we saw during the original run of the show.
All the things - gods, monsters, spirits - are up to Jeff, the writers and whoever has control of the
Teen Wolf intellectual property during the next phase of development. My little videos are just
me trying to make sense of the universe and are in no way, shape or form to be considered canon.
I mean, it’s fun, but it’s not canon. Okay?
If you like it when I talk about Teen Wolf, tell your friends
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Let’s start with the most important God in the
Teen Wolf Universe, the head of the Greek Pantheon Zeus.
I did a whole thing on Zeus and the first werewolves in an earlier video which I’ve linked
above. You can also just look on my channel it's the one with Deaton in the thumbnail.
Long story short, Zeus is the reason we have werewolves. Daddy Thunder got offended by a prank
by this total bro hole who happened to be the king of Arcadia. So the king of the Greek Gods fired
up his lightning bolts and zapped the bro hole and all his sons, turning them into 50 wolves.
Gerard: The part that's lesser known is how Lycaon sought out the druids to help turn him back to human.
They couldn't make Lycaon and his sons human again but they did teach them how to shift back and forth
And, once they could shape shift, they became the worlds first Alpha werewolves.
Zeus is one of those cases where I believe there’s a strong argument for the fact that
he actually exists or existed at one time in the teen wolf universe.
That whole Zeus, Lycaon, Druid thing is straightforward narrative
explaining a real relationship that still exists between werewolf packs and druids.
It’s a logical story without the need for genetic mutation or some disease that causes the changes
we saw and then some additional fluff to explain how the druids and the werewolves hooked up.
The Zeus thing is an elegant solution to the question of why there are werewolves
with supernatural abilities.
I kinda lean hard into this option because what fun is the alternative? If you’re going to have
a supernatural show, why ground it in boring mutations and genetics?
Plus, by season 3, Teen Wolf was leaning hard into the whole spirit realm.
The Oni, Kitsune, and Nogitsune we saw make it increasingly difficult
and convoluted to find some grounded genetic explanation for
demon warriors who spring from fireflies and flaming fox spirits with a mind of their own.
So yeah, there are obviously real Japanese spirits in the Teen Wolf universe. I mean, they’re much changed
from their source material but there’s no doubt that they exist.
I don’t speak Japanese so I have to rely on sometimes suspect English
translations for information. So please forgive me if I screw all this up.
Oni on the show were spirit warriors that could be summoned and set about a task
by the summoner. Originally in Japan, the word just referenced the spirits of the dead but
then came to mean a type of troll or monster that was eventually used by parents to scare children.
The Kitsune were originally associated with Inari.
She was what we would refer to as a god but the Shinto word is more nuanced. Either way,
she was the spiritual force revered by farmers. She represented rice and the harvest.
Inari apparently had a retinue of white foxes that served as messengers.
But the foxes, the Kitsune, then took on all sorts of additional roles within Japanese folklore.
There are various flavors and a strong belief in fox possession
which is kind of like what we saw with Kira in Season 5.
It became obvious here in this scene that Kira’s fox is separate from her
in some ways. It is a spirit entity with a mind all its own.
Noshiko also sort of lays out the possession thing when she is dying back in 1943.
Noshiko: But I could not die knowing they would get away.
So I called out to our ancestors for kitsune tsuki (きつねつき), possession by a fox spirit, for a powerful
nogitsune, to take control of my weakened body, imbue it with power and use it as a weapon.,
She wanted to use the nogitsune herself for vengeance but it had other plans.
Nogitsune really just means wild fox. Its behavior on the show
is an amalgam of all the trickster aspects in the fox legends. So, Noshiko got way more
than she asked for and we got one of the most memorable characters ever on the show.
Void Stiles: Me? I'm a thousand years old. You can't kill me.
Love that guy. I mean, I totally hated that guy but… You know what I mean.
Now were getting into a couple of gods that are referenced indirectly on Teen Wolf.
In Season 5, we get Garuda claws.
Deaton: A werewolf with the talons of an eagle. It's
possibly a shapeshifter known in eastern mythology as a garuda.
So, we know Garuda exists or existed in this universe because Deaton is
familiar with them and also the Dread Doctors could make a fake creature with garuda claws.
In the real world, garuda are bird men mainly found in Hinduism and Buddhism.
I’m literally afraid of screwing this up so I’m going to stick to the very basic stories on Garuda,
which leads us first to the Hindu god Vishnu.
When the protector of the universe needed to get around quickly, he rode Garuda.
But before becoming a celestial Uber, Garuda had his own life and legend.
His mother asked specifically that he be stronger than her sister wife’s 1000 sons
who also happened to all be snakes.
He had a prematurely hatched brother who drove the chariot of the sun
and at some point Garuda waged war to save his mother from slavery.
And yes, it’s all a lot more complicated than all that but I’m just one guy with an
American Liberal Arts education, a wonky internet connection and limited time.
I do know the Buddhist have a much more interesting background on Garuda.
It’s not just one guy, it’s a whole species of supernatural creatures
that have their own society and royalty and the whole shebang.
In these stories they’re the sworn enemies of the snakes.
It’s unclear which Garuda we’re dealing with in Teen Wolf. Like I said,
the latter story is far more interesting but I also like to think that Vishnu is out there too
keeping the universe glued together while Shiva picks it apart.
This next god reference is difficult because it’s just so old and the stories have been
warped and twisted through the ages and in modern times by, of all things, Dungeons and Dragons.
I’m talking about the Scorpion man Scott mentioned in Season 5.
Kira: A kid turning into a half scorpion half werewolf, is there even a myth for that?
Scott: Sumerian. I remember something about it in the bestiary.
The thing he’s talking about is most likely from the story of Gilgamesh
where scorpion men are the guards at the sun god’s palace.
But if you dig deep enough into their origins you find the god Tiamat.
And here’s why digging into her and finding a proper representation is difficult.
Dungeons and Dragons used the name for a multi-headed dragon way back in 1975 and then
everybody decided it was a cool name for a planet or for a video game boss or a weapon or whatever.
As best as I can tell, Tiamat was one of the original creator gods in what we now
consider the middle east. She represented the sea and married the god of fresh water and they
made lots of little gods who eventually turned on them and killed their father.
Well, Tiamat was pissed and created monsters to fight for her in the god war.
Among those were the scorpion men.
Here’s the problem with figuring out if Tiamat actually existed in the Teen Wolf universe.
The Dread Doctors did use supernatural ingredients in making their chimera.
We know they used mostly werewolf but as I mentioned those were some good
garuda claws they made so they had some mojo along with their fakery.
But they also used regular animals – like Josh was just werewolf mixed with
electric eel. So was spiky guy here just mixed with regular scorpion?
I mean Scott brought up Sumeria before they actually knew they were dealing with fakes.
I don’t know. Either way, Tiamat is cool and It would be a bad ass if she were real.
Thanks for watching. Like and comment if you want
to and be sure to join me on the next trip Back to Beacon Hills.