A beautiful werewolf?

[Morkulv]

Also, isn't the true definition of the word 'werewolf' a combination between man and wolf? How the hell does that work as a seperate species?

If it combines the dominant features of man and wolf, it could be called a man-wolf. Even if it's not biologically related to wolves and/or humans, it can still be colloquially referred to as a werewolf because it appears to be a cross between a human and wolf.

Having said that, I do personally prefer the term werewolf to refer to a human that changes, or was changed, into a wolf-like creature (with bestial behavior). But semantically, the word can be much broader than that.

People use words for all kinds of things. A long time ago, I had a big debate in the general section of this forum with a guy who claimed that the term 'werewolf' is supposed to be some kind of therian heritage and that he and other therians had the right to use that word to describe themselves. The bottom line is: we humans developed terms to describe certain things, be it mythological or otherwise, that share certain characteristics. You could call a chair a table, and you can probably even use it as a table if you're creative, but that doesn't make it a proper description for that particular subject.

I've looked into several dictionary answers, and on Wikipedia, and the term werewolf more or less applies to what you described in your last bit. So with that, I take it that the word werewolf is a proper description for anything that resembles that.

[Scott Gardener]

Why should a werewolf be beautiful? I could just as arbitrarily ask why one should be ugly. The notion of beauty tends to stem from functionality. Natural beauty comes from organisms that are healthy--symmetrical, physically fit, and able-bodied. Ugliness tends to pair with impairment. Morbid obesity, disfigurement, and the like stem from loss of ability--or at least sacrificing something in order to get enhancements. It is perhaps this last part that motivates horror writers and directors to make werewolves ugly, but I feel that it's an end of a spectrum that is over-done.

And, thanks, Morkulv, for immortalizing my quote as a tag line!

[Morkulv]

I'm not advocating ugly werewolves at all. I just think that a 'beautiful' werewolf will lose all of its mystery if we portray it just like any other wolf. To me, its the combination of human and wolf that interests me. WIth that said, I'll admit that I kinda liked the werewolves (oh sorry, I mean "lycans"...) from the first Underworld movie. The way they looked wasn't very wolf-like, but they had the right human elements to where it perhaps would have worked if the design looked more canine.

That, and I do believe that a movie about werewolves should be pretty dark. Not over the top, but it shouldn't be a happy tale. Some artists tend to have a very uplifting view of nature, and while I absolutely love nature, I think its for the most part a very wet, cold, and dark place to live in. To me, a werewolf should reflect that kind of living envirement.

Also Scott: you're welcome!

[Scott Gardener]

I do get tired, though, of movies and TV shows with both werewolves an vampires having to show the vampires as rich and elegant while the werewolves live in beat-up trailer parks and sewers. Just once, I want to see a werewolf who drives a Lexus and has a post-graduate education. Sure, it's not easy when you shift every full moon, but it's not easy getting there without that, either.

[Terastas]

I do get tired, though, of movies and TV shows with both werewolves an vampires having to show the vampires as rich and elegant while the werewolves live in beat-up trailer parks and sewers. Just once, I want to see a werewolf who drives a Lexus and has a post-graduate education. Sure, it's not easy when you shift every full moon, but it's not easy getting there without that, either.

Link to a thread that already has my long-winded opinion to avoid thread derailment

As for werewolves looking beautiful, well. . . You know, I'm getting the impression that we're disagreeing a lot because we have differing takes on what "beautiful" means. A lot of the people arguing against it sound like they're thinking of something like Wilford B. Wolf, whereas a lot of the people arguing in favor of it would consider a werewolf beautiful simply for not looking inbred.

If that's the case, I'd say they're both right. A werewolf still lives predominantly as a human, so any one with his head on straight wouldn't care how pretty he looks while shifted, but if werewolves were prone to deformities, I'd once again have a difficult time believing they could have survived up to present day.

Maybe there were werewolves like that at one point, but natural selection would dictate that werewolves who are deformed would not live to pass on whatever variant of lycanthropy made them that way. Modern lycanthropy would be a condition refined by two thousand years of extreme Darwinism and counting. With a history like that, I think the risk of becoming a deformed or otherwise permanently inhibited werewolf would be pretty slim by now.

[FoxKnight]

I would rather just keep reading others' posts and not say something that I know I'll regret later like I find myself doing a lot around here, but I have to reply to Terastas' post


How exactly could natural selection play a part at all?

If one were to consider it a transmittable disease, which is able to evolve much quicker than entire organisms, (and remember that our cells and bacteria have their own DNA), deformities would not be weeded out so easily because werewolves only spend about 1/84 of all their time not in human form, (given an 8 hour night and on the 28 day lunar cycle). Surely it would require one spending much less time as a human for the deformities to become problem enough to maybe kill the werewolf, which would end the failed mutations in the lycanthropy disease.

Even heredity could be problematic to disprove the notion of deformities in werewolves because of the threat of detection. Heredity and inbreeding would just lead to more deformities and having too big a family tree would inevitably lead to being found out by normal humans. Actually, there doesn't seem to be a good enough middle ground that balances that to make heredity a plausible feature of the story unless one were to just ignore the idea deformities altogether, and, by extension, natural selection. The only solution to this would be what was done in The Howling: a small society of werewolves.

A curse, of course, would not be subject deformities/evolution because it's magic and although a separate species would be subject to natural selection, but that would take the "were" (human) out of "werewolf". So, we may prefer a more aesthetically pleasing/actually wolfish werewolf but to say aesthetically displeasing/deformed ones simply die off because of evolution is incorrect.


This is not me trying to promote "ugly" werewolves or say natural looking/beautiful werewolves are the way to go but rather just to defend the idea of an ugly werewolf.

[silver1]

I agree with you on this. Personally,i think that a werewolf could be both considering that werewolves are both human and wolf but in my opinion the werewolf would look much like one of the werewolves from Van Helsing but with a tail. Thats my idea of a beautiful werewolf.

[Volkodlak]

ok we all can agree that too someone is design x beautiful but too some is ugly.

but sticking wolf head on body is a litle odd head and boby should be in between of wolf and human meaning shorter snout, hybrid(human/wolf) skull design this could lead too unwolfish apperance.

[Terastas]

How exactly could natural selection play a part at all?

Consider how brutal the history of the world has been. People have been looking for excuses to massacre their neighbors in all regions of the world for thousands of years, especially in Europe, where most (if not all) of the werewolf stories originate, if only because the brutality was A) systematic, and B) mandated. The ruling classes and institutions used fear and intimidation to maintain their authority; they were literally looking for excuses to have people killed. No doubt turning into a wolf would have sufficed for them.

Humans also have a knack for two things: Obsession, and dedication. A werewolf couldn't turn or kill anyone that happened upon them because, just like in today, the bodies would eventually pile up, stories about a monster lurking wherever would circulate, and the werewolves would consider themselves lucky if it was a mob with torches and pitchforks that finally came for them and not the lord's army.

If you've ever read The Jungle Book, that should sound familiar. The law of the jungle prohibits hunting humans, not because of some bizarre moral code, but because they will demand retribution and, more likely than not, overcompensate in their pursuit of it. Werewolves in any setting would be subject to the same principles. They could not fight or kill; their survival would be completely dependent upon remaining undetected.

Under those circumstances, I would expect the only werewolves to survive long enough to infect the next generation to be the ones that-
A) Are able to suppress their shifting reflexes or lack them altogether.
B) Suffer little to no changes in instinct or mental inhibition while shifted.
C) Can run like holy hell when shifted.

Werewolves who shifted completely involuntary, who succumbed to wolf-like instincts when shifted, or who were deformed in any way that could inhibit their movement even slightly so, I wouldn't expect to last a year.

So if there was a present-day strand of lycanthropy in existence, it would be one that was conditioned over hundreds, if not thousands, of generations to favor these traits.

Otherwise it might as well be a story about dodo birds still living in the present day, because the idea of one having survived under the expected conditions for X amount of time makes just about as much sense as the other.

[Uniform Two Six]

That makes sense, although now that you mention it, that gives me an interesting thought. If werewolves didn't have a whole lot of control (uncontrolled transformations, ruled by instinct, etc.) they could have survived in earlier times when populations were more thinly spread, with more empty wilderness. Remember that silver-backed gorillas were thought to be purely fictitious until sometime in the 19th century (and that's not all that long ago in the greater scheme of things). Wouldn't it be an interesting plot for werewolves to have existed in medieval times but aren't around anymore for precisely those reasons?

[Volkodlak]

That makes sense, although now that you mention it, that gives me an interesting thought. If werewolves didn't have a whole lot of control (uncontrolled transformations, ruled by instinct, etc.) they could have survived in earlier times when populations were more thinly spread, with more empty wilderness. Remember that silver-backed gorillas were thought to be purely fictitious until sometime in the 19th century (and that's not all that long ago in the greater scheme of things). Wouldn't it be an interesting plot for werewolves to have existed in medieval times but aren't around anymore for precisely those reasons?

or it could be evolution at medival times were instinct based now they are evolved too surivive among us?

[Terastas]

The only reason I'm not entirely keen on the idea of werewolves in the Middle Ages is because the Catholic Church wasn't the first power base that was really overzealous about encouraging servitude through bloodshed. Unless the werewolves in question were located in the Americas, it probably would have been the Romans, Greeks and/or Persians that first forced the werewolves to adapt to discretionary survival tactics.

But I'd think it would be a fair assumption that at least part of the werewolves' survival strategy would be to relocate to the far reaches of the current ruling party's empire, if not beyond it. Scotland and Germany, I'm now noticing, both seem to figure more prominently in werewolf lore than any other regions. Meanwhile, all of the dominant political forces at the time (except for the Huns, which don't really count) were all situated around the Mediterranean.

So I'm not disputing the possibility of werewolves living during medieval times. Just whether or not they would have been living openly.

[outwarddoodles]

I kinda wish that I could find my old post in this thread just so I can disagree with it. My ideas of werewolf beauty have changed over the years and I have found myself grown more accepting of the ugly woofers. I sure as hell don't like the wrinkled rat look, or the hairless raccoon or any of those sort -- but I appreciate bestial werewolves with a little bit of a darker side and allowing for more unwelcome features. The werewolves from Skyrim fit in that category. Rather than, you know, 'perfection'.

My art shows fairly natural looking wolves. I've just been appreciating them all.

I do get tired, though, of movies and TV shows with both werewolves an vampires having to show the vampires as rich and elegant while the werewolves live in beat-up trailer parks and sewers. Just once, I want to see a werewolf who drives a Lexus and has a post-graduate education. Sure, it's not easy when you shift every full moon, but it's not easy getting there without that, either.

Gotta agree to this!

[silver1]

Outward, I love the way the werewolves look in Skyrim, they look more like wolves which is the way I view werewolves. I personally hate the "stuck inbetween" look that is often seen in movies, the best example of that is Remus Lupin's traformed state from the Harry Potter series(worst portrayal of a werewolf ever!!)

[Volkodlak]

Outward, I love the way the werewolves look in Skyrim, they look more like wolves which is the way I view werewolves. I personally hate the "stuck inbetween" look that is often seen in movies, the best example of that is Remus Lupin's traformed state from the Harry Potter series(worst portrayal of a werewolf ever!!)

i like them too who is remus lupin?

i like hybrid WW look because WW isnt human or wolf but both

[silver1]

Lovec, have you not seen Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban? Its the movie in which Professor Remus Lupin first appeared.

[Volkodlak]

no i didnt watched it

[silver1]

That is why you didn't know who Remus Lupin was. The movie was pretty good, but the werewolf in it looked so horrible I actually started yelling curse words at the Tv. It was an absolute and total disgrace to anything werewolf related and it actually pissed off ALOT of werewolf fans. Hollywood has made some very bad looking werewolves before, but the werewolf shown in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban was the absolute worst that I have ever seen. You will just have to see the movie to get what I'm talking about.

[Volkodlak]

That is why you didn't know who Remus Lupin was. The movie was pretty good, but the werewolf in it looked so horrible I actually started yelling curse words at the Tv. It was an absolute and total disgrace to anything werewolf related and it actually pissed off ALOT of werewolf fans. Hollywood has made some very bad looking werewolves before, but the werewolf shown in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban was the absolute worst that I have ever seen. You will just have to see the movie to get what I'm talking about.

i saw it i dont know if WW design can be worse than this one.

[silver1]

I don't think so, I most certainly haven't.