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.