Was Matt turning into a kanima?
This comes up every now and then after I mention the season-two lizard-guy in one of my videos.
It's actually a good example of something that is said,
that is believed to be true, but is definitely not canonical.
Sean: Just because we live a trailer does not mean we're trailer-park trash.
Jessica: Exactly. We're worse. We don't even have enough money to be in a trailer park.
In season two - when Matt was in full control of Jackson - he sent
him into this lovely trailer home in the woods to kill this couple.
Apparently the couple had laughed at him when he was saved from drowning
at age nine. And then he got yelled at by a really mean man.
Anyway, Matt sends Jackson to kill this nice couple who had the audacity to laugh at him.
While Jackson dispatches the guy quickly enough,
he notices how fat the woman is and feels sorry for her obesity and therefore does...
No, I know she's pregnant. I get it. Jackson refuses to kill her.
Lots of people want to go into this huge deep dive into how Jackson's
mom died before he was born and how that played into the decision here.
But that bit of apocrypha is not why we're here.
Jackson refused because the baby wasn't on his target list as provided by Matt's twisted mind
Allison: It calls the kanima a weapon of vengeance. There's a story in there about this South American priest
who uses the kanima to execute murderers in his village.
The kanima kills murderers.
While the laughing girl apparently fit Matt's unusual definition of murderer, the baby wasn't
in the equation at all, so Jackson's lizard brain balked and refused to kill the pregnant woman.
This meant that Matt had to sneak into the hospital and do the deed himself.
Now flash forward to his tantrum at the Sheriff's Office.
Matt flashes these scales and says he needs the bestiary to figure out what's going on with him.
This leads Styles and Derek to posit this hypothetical explanation.
Stiles: You know what's happening to Matt?
Derek: You can't just break the rules not like this.
Stiles: What do you mean?
Derek: The universe balances things out.
Stiles: Is it because he's using Jackson to kill people who don't deserve it?
Derek: And killing people himself.
Stiles: Matt breaks the rules of the kanima,
he becomes to the kanima. Derek: Balance.
Yes it's a good theory but unproven.
While it is said on the show, it's not necessarily canon because we didn't see it actually happen.
Matt had kanima-like skin but he did not turn into a kanima. That is the official canon.
Derek: It's called the kanima.
Stiles: You knew the whole time.
Derek has shown some knowledge of kanima.
derek is not kanima expert things derek knew about the kanima its identity crisis (the mirror thing). that it's called a kanima. that it is a malformed werewolf.
things derek didn't know about kanima venom effects it in human form. kanima shares master's weakness. how hard it is to kill. what happens if it doesn't resolve. that love could save him.
He seems less shocked by Matt's condition, but we have to remember that Derek at this point
has got zero firsthand experience with this specific situation.
He his sounding confident, but everything he's saying
is new age hippie dippy about the universe needing balance.
It is Stiles who actually comes up with the reasoning here.
Derek just agrees that Stiles' hypothesis would lead to what he describes as "universal balance".
At this point in the narrative,
neither of these guys is in a position to really know what he's talking about.
We just don't take their guesswork as strictly canonical.
There is an argument to be made that the writers included this exchange
as an explanation for what we saw and meant this to be the gospel.
Again, that is our meta supposition so while "Matt turning into a kanima for breaking the
rules of the kanima" is certainly widely assumed to actually be true, it is not strictly canon