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Of Men and Werewolves
14 years ago
General
Why do people shun the werewolf?
As an avid fan of werewolves for years, this always bothered me. Time and again, I'd see other monsters, from vampires to zombies, get their own movies, games, books and even heroes. Yet the werewolf? Forgotten. Passed over. Pushed aside. For some reason, the werewolf has never gotten the acclaim or drawn the same fierce interest as other monsters. If there are any werewolf blockbuster movies, I haven't heard of them.
This bugs me. I can't say why. You might as well ask why I like werewolves. As one person pointed out to me, mostly by being an annoying jerk who wouldn't listen, my preference for werewolves is not logical. As he so irritatingly pointed out, there are a lot of supernatural creatures who share similar traits, but not always the dark, bloody history of the werewolf. My love of werewolves is a bit like the urge to write; you can't fully understand it unless you possess it. Even so, the question has burned in me for some time.
I think I finally have an answer.
A while back, I bought a new book. An anthology of werewolf stories, called "Curse of the Full Moon". I enjoyed it quite a bit, though some things I found disagreeable (any preacher that calls God an SOB loses my respect), and others were a little confusing. And now that I've finished it, and reflect upon all I've read, I come back to this point.
"Why do people shun the werewolf?"
"Because, in the end, are we any different?"
And there we are. The answer I've been seeking. And the more I think on it, the more it seems to ring true. I know I've still decades to go before I master wisdom and humility... yet I dare say I may have stumbled upon the truth of the matter.
Think of a werewolf story, any of them. Now, replace the werewolf with a human. Give him or her any abilities needed to play the role, maybe those of a serial killer or a witch, something to ensure they can do what the werewolf does. Except the power to transform. Keep them human. And what do you find? Often enough, humans and werewolves can play the same roles. Monster, hero, antagonist, rebel, enforcer... hell, even some kind of Darth Vader. The werewolf can play so many roles, and the more I think this over, the more convinced I become. I doubt there are few roles that werewolf and man cannot share. Father, mother, sibling, packmate... oh yes, packmate! What else would you call the young men in Australia, the ones who will wade into a bar fight to save a friend, while all the Yankee bastards (possibly myself included) scamper away like little pups with their tails between their legs? The only difference is biology, means and methods. They can play the same roles.
This. This is why werewolves don't get so much loving in the media. On the one hand, they don't seem quite so alien, so enchanting in their inhuman nature. Vampires are corpses who can entrance with a mere gaze. Zombies are less entrancing, but no less dead, and they come in unthinking, unfeeling numbers. Dragons are powerful, lethal and beautiful, terrible as the natural disasters that Eastern cultures portrayed them as. And the werewolf? A human who gets a little hairier and bigger and has anti-vegan tendencies on the full moon? Yawn, snore. Wake me when something good comes along.
Then, on the flipside... if werewolves are so familiar, shouldn't that disturb us? Think about it. Think back to what I said. They can play the same roles as us, from villain to hero to next-door neighbor. About the only role they can't play is that of the hopeless sop, and even then people have written them that way! Look up the Scary Godmother sometime. Harry is practically the poster-boy for furry geeks, minus the sex life (oh, wait, maybe not =P). Even then, the werewolf seems so ridiculous in such a role. A werewolf camping in his mother's basement, resigned to a life of comics, internet and frozen pizzas? We laugh. We laugh because we know he doesn't belong there. It's the one role he cannot truly share with man, not with any sort of seriousness. Because... because...
...because if we treated it with any sort of seriousness, we would have to admit that any human in that situation is also out of place.
This, I think, is the truth of it: that the werewolf is, in reality, a reflection of man's less-civilized nature. Heck, at least two of the stories in my book have no actual werewolves in them... but they do have humans, and they do have monsters, if you can tell one from another. For the werewolf encompasses everything dark and savage in man... yet that is not all he represents, for then whence come Werewolf the Hero? Indeed, if you got right down to it, you'd have to admit that neither werewolf nor man has a perfect, blameless record... and only the werewolf, historically speaking, has a fully evil one.
Perhaps this explains why so many stories place him as the hero. Something in us admires the savage and wild nature of the werewolf (and his many cousins), even going so far, perhaps, to envy his freedom. Few werewolves have ever ended up trapped in a job like Dilbert's. They belong more in the wild, in the forests and plains, the places yet untouched and rarely visited by mankind. And in many ways, I suppose I, and many like me, feel the same way. A cubicle job horrifies me. As necessary as they are, a nine-to-five job has never been to my liking. Even as I question if I'm just being silly since my grandparents and parents have worked with little to no complaint, something within me insists I'm just being honest about this. (Then again, my telepathic, pyschotic vulpine "friend" rants about his honesty too when he's busy pulling apart someone's mind.) I just don't feel at home in such jobs, even if they bring me money and "security". I long for strength and the wildness of nature, and the werewolf nicely sums it up for me.
Even so, I will admit that most werewolf games and movies aren't to my liking (they either get it wrong or use cheesy effects), so part of it may just be no one's done a very good werewolf in those media. Comics and prose are much better at it, though heaven alone knows how many are crap and how many shine. Why some can't bother to put forth a good effort, I don't really know. Most of them are probably just trying to cash in on the mythos.
Still, you get what I'm driving at, yes? This strange correlation between werewolf and man, how they seem to fit so many of the same roles. So it seems to me it may boil down to two things.
Either people find them so familiar that they give werewolves a pass... or they delve a little too deep and find, to their shock and surprise, a pair of all too human eyes staring right back at them.
It's something to consider.
As an avid fan of werewolves for years, this always bothered me. Time and again, I'd see other monsters, from vampires to zombies, get their own movies, games, books and even heroes. Yet the werewolf? Forgotten. Passed over. Pushed aside. For some reason, the werewolf has never gotten the acclaim or drawn the same fierce interest as other monsters. If there are any werewolf blockbuster movies, I haven't heard of them.
This bugs me. I can't say why. You might as well ask why I like werewolves. As one person pointed out to me, mostly by being an annoying jerk who wouldn't listen, my preference for werewolves is not logical. As he so irritatingly pointed out, there are a lot of supernatural creatures who share similar traits, but not always the dark, bloody history of the werewolf. My love of werewolves is a bit like the urge to write; you can't fully understand it unless you possess it. Even so, the question has burned in me for some time.
I think I finally have an answer.
A while back, I bought a new book. An anthology of werewolf stories, called "Curse of the Full Moon". I enjoyed it quite a bit, though some things I found disagreeable (any preacher that calls God an SOB loses my respect), and others were a little confusing. And now that I've finished it, and reflect upon all I've read, I come back to this point.
"Why do people shun the werewolf?"
"Because, in the end, are we any different?"
And there we are. The answer I've been seeking. And the more I think on it, the more it seems to ring true. I know I've still decades to go before I master wisdom and humility... yet I dare say I may have stumbled upon the truth of the matter.
Think of a werewolf story, any of them. Now, replace the werewolf with a human. Give him or her any abilities needed to play the role, maybe those of a serial killer or a witch, something to ensure they can do what the werewolf does. Except the power to transform. Keep them human. And what do you find? Often enough, humans and werewolves can play the same roles. Monster, hero, antagonist, rebel, enforcer... hell, even some kind of Darth Vader. The werewolf can play so many roles, and the more I think this over, the more convinced I become. I doubt there are few roles that werewolf and man cannot share. Father, mother, sibling, packmate... oh yes, packmate! What else would you call the young men in Australia, the ones who will wade into a bar fight to save a friend, while all the Yankee bastards (possibly myself included) scamper away like little pups with their tails between their legs? The only difference is biology, means and methods. They can play the same roles.
This. This is why werewolves don't get so much loving in the media. On the one hand, they don't seem quite so alien, so enchanting in their inhuman nature. Vampires are corpses who can entrance with a mere gaze. Zombies are less entrancing, but no less dead, and they come in unthinking, unfeeling numbers. Dragons are powerful, lethal and beautiful, terrible as the natural disasters that Eastern cultures portrayed them as. And the werewolf? A human who gets a little hairier and bigger and has anti-vegan tendencies on the full moon? Yawn, snore. Wake me when something good comes along.
Then, on the flipside... if werewolves are so familiar, shouldn't that disturb us? Think about it. Think back to what I said. They can play the same roles as us, from villain to hero to next-door neighbor. About the only role they can't play is that of the hopeless sop, and even then people have written them that way! Look up the Scary Godmother sometime. Harry is practically the poster-boy for furry geeks, minus the sex life (oh, wait, maybe not =P). Even then, the werewolf seems so ridiculous in such a role. A werewolf camping in his mother's basement, resigned to a life of comics, internet and frozen pizzas? We laugh. We laugh because we know he doesn't belong there. It's the one role he cannot truly share with man, not with any sort of seriousness. Because... because...
...because if we treated it with any sort of seriousness, we would have to admit that any human in that situation is also out of place.
This, I think, is the truth of it: that the werewolf is, in reality, a reflection of man's less-civilized nature. Heck, at least two of the stories in my book have no actual werewolves in them... but they do have humans, and they do have monsters, if you can tell one from another. For the werewolf encompasses everything dark and savage in man... yet that is not all he represents, for then whence come Werewolf the Hero? Indeed, if you got right down to it, you'd have to admit that neither werewolf nor man has a perfect, blameless record... and only the werewolf, historically speaking, has a fully evil one.
Perhaps this explains why so many stories place him as the hero. Something in us admires the savage and wild nature of the werewolf (and his many cousins), even going so far, perhaps, to envy his freedom. Few werewolves have ever ended up trapped in a job like Dilbert's. They belong more in the wild, in the forests and plains, the places yet untouched and rarely visited by mankind. And in many ways, I suppose I, and many like me, feel the same way. A cubicle job horrifies me. As necessary as they are, a nine-to-five job has never been to my liking. Even as I question if I'm just being silly since my grandparents and parents have worked with little to no complaint, something within me insists I'm just being honest about this. (Then again, my telepathic, pyschotic vulpine "friend" rants about his honesty too when he's busy pulling apart someone's mind.) I just don't feel at home in such jobs, even if they bring me money and "security". I long for strength and the wildness of nature, and the werewolf nicely sums it up for me.
Even so, I will admit that most werewolf games and movies aren't to my liking (they either get it wrong or use cheesy effects), so part of it may just be no one's done a very good werewolf in those media. Comics and prose are much better at it, though heaven alone knows how many are crap and how many shine. Why some can't bother to put forth a good effort, I don't really know. Most of them are probably just trying to cash in on the mythos.
Still, you get what I'm driving at, yes? This strange correlation between werewolf and man, how they seem to fit so many of the same roles. So it seems to me it may boil down to two things.
Either people find them so familiar that they give werewolves a pass... or they delve a little too deep and find, to their shock and surprise, a pair of all too human eyes staring right back at them.
It's something to consider.
And by the by, this telepathic, pyschotic vulpine "friend" of yours wouldn't happen to be the one going to Wild Nights is it? The one I am planning to meet up with? >_>;
And no, that's not Azal. That'd be my character Lucius, who rents space in my head now and then. Or rather, more "then" than "now" as of late, which I'm only too happy for. The guy's like a direct hotline to the devil.
Blood and chocolate, a movie about a once great and powerful (numbers wise) werewolf clan hiding among humans and ruling the city behind the scenes.
There's an 80's movie about werewolves but it depicts the wolf as mind over body. Its all in the head kind of thing.
Patricia Briggs has a series of books starting with Cry Wolf centered around packs of wolves spread across the world. And individuals within those packs. Each pack controlled by an Alpha who answer to the Marrok, who is the single most dominant alpha wolf. Dominance levels being a sort of rank. Where as most Alpha's are aggressive, the rare Omega has an innate talent to calm any other wolf near her or him. And they alone can tell the Alphas no. As an Omega they stand apart of the usual pack command structure.
Blood and Chocolate I haven't seen (yet), though I admit it looks interesting.
I think I've seen that 80's movie. With... oh, what's his name... played the Joker originally... but yeah, I did like it. People don't realize that wolves are amoral not evil. And any wolf can be tamed or at least forced to submit if you're persistent and tough enough.
I love Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series. Haven't read the Alpha and Omega one yet, but I do plan to do so. She writes some awesome stuff.
Even so, still seems like there's slim pickings. And there still doesn't seem to be any decent werewolf games out there (most who try don't get the movements down right; might as well be people in costumes). I think someone ought to fix that...
2) More power to ya!
3) I predict you training to be a Park Ranger, leaving most of said office job behind. ^^
Just a random thought.
I'd like werewolves to move from "monster" to "hero" at least once. All the other monsters seem to have gotten their fifteen minutes of fame, if not a starring role in various types of media. Werewolves... not much that's worth mentioning. =\ Still think someone should change that.
This was really cool and interesting to read though.