chance to be a werewolf. would you do it?

[RedEye]

The reality is, believing in the fantastic is always better than facing the "real" world. I don't think there is a person here or anywhere that wouldn't want to step out of their skin and be somebody else or something else.

Wow, I really do wish I had something that profound to say in response.
For the record, I said "no" because of the "significant chance of death" thing. It does beg the question, however: Once you're a werewolf, presumably you can't go back (okay there's some old legends that hint that "redemption" is possible, but bear with me). What would you do if you really were turned into a werewolf? Even if it's your personal ideal werewolf, would your life really change that much? More importantly, if it did would it be for the better? In reality, you would likely have to hide what you really were from everyone else. As such, you would probably get very little opportunity to explore your newfound nature. I'd think that even if you were transformed into a werewolf, you'd by necessity have to spend most of your life as a mundane human being just like the rest of us poor saps.

Okay; let's take the risk of death first. We are all going to die, eventually. How one dies is as valid and important as how one lives. If I were to die trying to become a being I see as a "better me", I would say that was a good death.
As for "Redemption", if you felt the need to be "Redeemed" in the religious sense, then Lycanthropy as a lifestyle is not for you. If you mean the ability to switch forms between Wulf and Smoothskin; that is usually a part of being a Werewolf, a Metamorph.
Religion...The Children of the Wolf would probably have a religion of their own, so maybe "Redemption" comes as a Wolf, not a man; or as a Soul, not a body.
As to the hiding aspect; we hide much of ourselves every day. Being Wulfen would be simply another "hiding", but of a far greater thing than simply a vice or an online character. Living the life? Why not just head out for a "hike" and not come back? You're already set up with what you need to survive in the wild far better than these "Survival Experts" on Television are at their best.
Finally; One would suspect that if they existed, they would be all through society as part of it. That way they could hide better; they'd know who was looking. That would also mean that there would be a society of other Wulfen to hang with, to share with and learn from; remember that Wolves and Humans are social creatures, so you wouldn't be alone.
You might also be surprised on who is "in" on the "Secret" when you're part of that secret. Werewolves might be hiding in plain sight; the "Woods" that are invisible because of the "Trees".
So, I'd still go for it. Life has difficulties in abundance, so why not choose the ones that provide a measure of happiness as well?

[alphanubilus]

Growing up with "dad" my family had to keep loads of secrets, and we were always on the move. I could relate to the awful feeling of always having to be alone, never let anybody get too close, always having to watch what you have to say, never letting anybody come to your house, because they might find out the daddy dearest is one big... I will go ahead and censor it... *******... it rhymes with mustard.

So I can already understand that sort of lifestyle, and because that is the way I grew up, I have a real hard time letting people get inside me. I usually keep relationships at a distance, because there are parts of my life, that they can't understand... at least right now.

However, hiding isn't that hard really. I'm pretty damn sure that if a person was a werewolf, they wouldn't go around wearing "I HEART WEREWOLVES, BECAUSE I AM ONE!" T-shirts or talk about phasing online. If they really wanted to keep their alternate lifestyle a secret, they simply wouldn't talk about it. They wouldn't do things to draw attention to themselves. It is quite simple really. Fiction books tend to make things more dramatic than it really is. There are plenty of families out there that shelter abusive parents, drug addictions, and so on and so forth. Hiding the truth is a lot more common than it seems, ALTHOUGH being a wolf in man's clothing is lot cooler secret, by a LONG shot.

As far as the decision you can't go back on... Hum... We face "life or death" type decisions all the time. We make decisions every day that we can't take back. It always comes down to accepting the consequences of those decisions. A girl and boy choose to have a relationship and result in the conception of a child. This type of thing happens all the time. You say something really hateful to a friend. Your friend can forgive you, but you can't erase the fact that you were a jerk. Choice will always come with consequence, whether positive or negative. It is your willingness to accept those terms and live with them.

What does man gain by becoming a wolf? Knowledge, understanding, four legs, a tail, and really sharp teeth? What if man could look at himself from the untainted eyes of a speculator? What would he see?

[Distorted Realism]

if it had benifits while in human form i would... or if i could shift when i wanted...

keeping it a secret... i dunno... i can keep a secret if it is very important.... but thats only because i often jusst store it in the back of my mind...

but when i think about it... i start to get paranoid... and i mean REALLY paranoid... like. Scared to talk because i might blurt it out or somthing....

[Uniform Two Six]

As for "Redemption", if you felt the need to be "Redeemed" in the religious sense, then Lycanthropy as a lifestyle is not for you.

Whoops. That's not exactly what I meant. I'd just finished going back over an old thread about old werewolf legends and how the Catholic church sort of hijacked the werewolf (as an icon) for its own ends. Alot of the Christianized werewolf legends involve "redemption" as a recurring theme. I was (inelegantly) trying to say that some werewolf lore imply an ability to reverse one's state of lycanthropy. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I was referencing something that esoteric. Sorry about that. My bad.

Why not just head out for a "hike" and not come back? You're already set up with what you need to survive in the wild far better than these "Survival Experts" on Television are at their best.

Anyway, the idea that you could just disappear into the wilderness for the rest of your life doesn't appeal to me. Wolves lead very hard lives, often spending months and months on the brink of starvation. That also assumes that the wolf is within a pack. Lone wolves tend to starve to death extremely quickly. I was under the impression everyone was talking about trying to live life as a werewolf whilst hiding within society at large.

It is quite simple really. Fiction books tend to make things more dramatic than it really is. There are plenty of families out there that shelter abusive parents, drug addictions, and so on and so forth. Hiding the truth is a lot more common than it seems

One would suspect that if they existed, they would be all through society as part of it. That way they could hide better; they'd know who was looking. That would also mean that there would be a society of other Wulfen to hang with, to share with and learn from; remember that Wolves and Humans are social creatures, so you wouldn't be alone.
You might also be surprised on who is "in" on the "Secret" when you're part of that secret. Werewolves might be hiding in plain sight; the "Woods" that are invisible because of the "Trees".

Socializing with other werewolves (say being part of a pack), as opposed to socializing with ordinary humans, or in addition to ordinary humans wouldn't really be at issue, I think. Yes, you would have other people to talk to, but I'm talking about going into the woods, shifting, and romping around as a wolf. That would be very dangerous. Yeah, keeping secrets is easy, but usually that means "behind closed doors", not out in the open spaces where some random person might stumble across you.

If there were a really large number of werewolves out in society, I suggest that keeping the existence of werewolves a secret would be much harder, not easier. The more werewolves running around, the more opportunities to be discovered. On a side note, the more werewolves there are running around, the more incentive there is to hide (and not go running around the woods as a wolf). That's because if you screw up and somebody sees you, the more werewolves there are, the more innocent lives you've just endangered. I think if I were a werewolf, I'd probably be a nervous wreck and paranoid as hell.

If I were to die trying to become a being I see as a "better me", I would say that was a good death.

As for dying a "good death"... hey, that's all well and good, but I'd kind of rather not die today. I just don't think it would be worth risking the rest of your life for a chance to become something different. I see a few people on the board here that say things like it would be a good risk since they hate their lives as humans. If you hate yourself, I don't see how becoming a werewolf would help anything. If you hate your life in human society, or your lifestyle, I ask the question again: how would gaining the ability to turn furry and roam around on all fours change anything?

All that said, if there wasn't the major threat of getting killed by the change, I think it would be cool, even if I imagine it being somewhat stressful at times.

[RedEye]

I picked the "Large Population" bit because although it is counter-intuitive, it is easier to hide five thousand people than only five in today's society.
Five thousand ( sample only) people would form a micro-society with far more control over access and discovery only five people (who would spend most of their time moving rather than hiding*)
Five thousand people would enable the "Society" to have informants in all the lines of communication and more importantly would have the skills necessary to keep themselves "hidden"; such as special clothing, shoes, safe-houses, and general denyability than smaller numbers. When you have to sub-contract something, you lose a degree of invisibility.
It's also easier for general society to belive that five people are Werewolves; rather than five thousand. It's just human nature.
Another value of the Large Population model is monetary in nature. Simply put, that many people could hire enough "loyalty" to stay hidden, by rewarding those who "keep the secret" with total patronage and the income that patronage would generate.
And again, there is the "Forest vs. Trees" business that enables larger groups to hide more effectively.
*Five Werewolves would have to be ready to move as soon as their security was penetrated by anyone. Trouble is; today, you may leave town, but if you work you leave a paper trail behind you that almost anyone can access. The day of the "lone traveller" that just "disappears" is gone, thanks to things like social security and income tax. Thanks to 9-11, gaining new identities is much harder to do, and those identities are more likely to fold under the kind of scrutiny that even a small police force can bring to bear on some stranger in their midst.
Which is annoying as all He--!

[Uniform Two Six]

Five thousand ( sample only) people would form a micro-society with far more control over access and discovery only five people (who would spend most of their time moving rather than hiding*)
Five thousand people would enable the "Society" to have informants in all the lines of communication and more importantly would have the skills necessary to keep themselves "hidden"; such as special clothing, shoes, safe-houses, and general denyability than smaller numbers.

I see what you're saying, but it just seems to me that all of that would be meaningless if some dude out for a walk saw a werewolf loping along. Take the real world, for instance, where werewolves (presumably) don't really exist. Some idiot out for attention says he saw a werewolf and the next thing that happens is the History Channel shows up to film a half hour MonsterQuest segment. If you were a real werewolf, any screwups would have the potential to expose the existence of werewolves. I mean, I just don't get it. If there were five thousand werewolves out there how does that have any bearing on some guy running back and telling everybody that he saw one werewolf in the woods outside of town? What good is a safehouse if the secret gets out? Okay, great. You've got a place to hide. What good does that do when the entire world has just found out that there are things hiding in human form?

[RongYao]

I would change the topic little .
With the new technologies (making hybrids and etc) today do you think that in the near future will be able to create a werewolf ?
I think that is interesting for the scientists , to merge a human and animal in one creature !
p.s. Sorry for my english , I hope that you understand the question .

[Berserker]

We fantasize about being werewolves. I find it interesting though, that many of their abilities and advantages are achievable as a human being.

Incredible strength, endurance, athleticism? Physical beauty? As a human, you can achieve these things.

A free life, living with nature, eschewing technology and civilization, hunting to live? Ascendent spirituality? As a human, you can do it with the right focus.

I think some folks wish that these things were thrust upon them with little to no effort on their part: become a werewolf and all of the "impossible" things from our human lives suddenly become a reality.

We just don't have the willpower or dedication necessary to become what we want to be. That doesn't mean it isn't within our grasp.

Just food for thought.

[Uniform Two Six]

With the new technologies (making hybrids and etc) today do you think that in the near future will be able to create a werewolf ?
I think that is interesting for the scientists , to merge a human and animal in one creature !

Could science reach the point at which it would be possible to create a human/animal hybrid? Yes.

Could science create a shapeshifter? No.

Just my $.02

[RedEye]

Five thousand ( sample only) people would form a micro-society with far more control over access and discovery only five people (who would spend most of their time moving rather than hiding*)
Five thousand people would enable the "Society" to have informants in all the lines of communication and more importantly would have the skills necessary to keep themselves "hidden"; such as special clothing, shoes, safe-houses, and general denyability than smaller numbers.

I see what you're saying, but it just seems to me that all of that would be meaningless if some dude out for a walk saw a werewolf loping along. Take the real world, for instance, where werewolves (presumably) don't really exist. Some idiot out for attention says he saw a werewolf and the next thing that happens is the History Channel shows up to film a half hour MonsterQuest segment. If you were a real werewolf, any screwups would have the potential to expose the existence of werewolves. I mean, I just don't get it. If there were five thousand werewolves out there how does that have any bearing on some guy running back and telling everybody that he saw one werewolf in the woods outside of town? What good is a safehouse if the secret gets out? Okay, great. You've got a place to hide. What good does that do when the entire world has just found out that there are things hiding in human form?

Simply put, five thousand werewolves could make the "Monsterquest" bit a joke, just by staying home for a week while the film crew is there. This came up, oddly enough, with the "Dogman" episode. There were even polygraph tests done, and those people believed they saw a humanoid dog/wolf in real life. Perhaps they did...nobody believed them.
Was that taken with more than a grain of salt? Nope.
Five thou Wulfen could make such a hash of sightings that any Smoothskins who saw them would be thought of as "special", in the bad way.
Seeing the same Wulf in five places makes things a lot more believable than seeing, say, five Wulfen in one place; drinking beer.
With five thou. Wulfen; you can destroy the witness's credibility; thus preserving the Secret.
Hmmm...I may just have proven they exist!

[LunarCarnivore]

would i become one? No! it would just over complicate my life too much, plus you'd have to ditch your human friends and loved one for the pack, its not worth it.

[Uniform Two Six]

Five thou Wulfen could make such a hash of sightings that any Smoothskins who saw them would be thought of as "special", in the bad way.
Seeing the same Wulf in five places makes things a lot more believable than seeing, say, five Wulfen in one place; drinking beer.
With five thou. Wulfen; you can destroy the witness's credibility; thus preserving the Secret.

Huh? Could you elaborate?

Let me give a hypothetical example. The werewolf in question is loping along and isn't watching what he's doing. He gets spotted by two guys out hunting. Said two guys are best friends. One is the local sheriff and the other is a videographer. The two of them try to alert the townsfolk that something is in the woods outside of town. Nobody takes them seriously... except a dozen other people who've also seen our careless werewolf. The sheriff (having some experience in locating people who don't want to be found), instead of ignoring the "crackpots", now proceeds to meticulously interview all of the persons who claim to have seen the creature. You've now got a guy with all of the resources of modern forensic science, as well as a skilled videographer, as well a dozen or so other people who really want to know what the hell is going on. The sheriff's deputies are probably wondering if he's lost his mind, but some (let's say a mere 10%) also factor in that their boss was totally stable up until now, so maybe, just maybe there might be something to all this. You're average John Q. Human isn't going to have either the resources or the tenacity to really pursue the matter, but now you've got a significant portion of a law enforcement organization wondering if there's something that poses a threat to the public lurking in the woods. Now these people are spending a good portion of their time and energy trying to get to the bottom of all this. In this scenario, the werewolves (at least locally, and possibly globally) are completely scr***d.

Even if it is possible to discredit a lone individual here or there, all it really takes is to run across the wrong dude, and you've got problems especially if you've gotten into the mindset of "it doesn't matter, because everyone will think he's a crackpot". If you've also got loads of people seeing werewolves in a stretch of forest, you're even deeper in the hole.

[RedEye]

Five thousand ( sample only) people would form a micro-society with far more control over access and discovery only five people (who would spend most of their time moving rather than hiding*)
Five thousand people would enable the "Society" to have informants in all the lines of communication and more importantly would have the skills necessary to keep themselves "hidden"; such as special clothing, shoes, safe-houses, and general denyability than smaller numbers.

I see what you're saying, but it just seems to me that all of that would be meaningless if some dude out for a walk saw a werewolf loping along. Take the real world, for instance, where werewolves (presumably) don't really exist. Some idiot out for attention says he saw a werewolf and the next thing that happens is the History Channel shows up to film a half hour MonsterQuest segment. If you were a real werewolf, any screwups would have the potential to expose the existence of werewolves. I mean, I just don't get it. If there were five thousand werewolves out there how does that have any bearing on some guy running back and telling everybody that he saw one werewolf in the woods outside of town? What good is a safehouse if the secret gets out? Okay, great. You've got a place to hide. What good does that do when the entire world has just found out that there are things hiding in human form?

Simply put, five thousand werewolves could make the "Monsterquest" bit a joke, just by staying home for a week while the film crew is there.

I believe you missed this point. Even if there were more werewolves in a forest than squirrels, just staying out of sight for a week or so would get the Sheriff interested in other things.
Especially if the Sheriff were one of those Werewolves... (that is a very Alpha position, y'know)

[Uniform Two Six]

I believe you missed this point. Even if there were more werewolves in a forest than squirrels, just staying out of sight for a week or so would get the Sheriff interested in other things.
Especially if the Sheriff were one of those Werewolves... (that is a very Alpha position, y'know)

Tee-hee-hee...
True, true.
However, I think maybe I didn't emphasize the right thing. If you run across the wrong guy, and he believes what he saw, and he (strangely) assumes the worst (namely that you pose a threat), then simply going to ground for a couple of days isn't going to do much good. The guy saw a werewolf. He's not just going to throw his hands up and say "Oh well, I haven't seen the monster for at least 48 hours. I guess it's no big deal after all. I think I'll go home now and see what's on TV."

Take my example above and let's take it one more step. The sheriff (who is not a werewolf for the purpose of this discussion) has spent the last few months tracking down every report of a "crazy lunatic" who has reported a werewolf in the woods outside of town. On the other side of town, a young teenager is fed up with his parents' rules and school, and his life in general and takes off in the middle of the night. He hitchhikes out of town and goes to pursue a life in a traveling circus or something. Our illustrious sheriff finds a missing person case on his desk the next morning. When asked where the kid might have gone, the parents reply that he liked to go hiking in the woods outside of town when he was in one of his moods.

Now, nothing bad has happened (except that the kid is a self absorbed dork, but that's apparently been brewing for a while now). Yet here's how it looks from the wrong perspective: Sheriff sees werewolf in woods. Kid likes to go into woods. Kid disappears. Werewolf ate kid (probably).

If you were a werewolf and you let yourself be seen, you've got to deal with the problem that whoever saw you is most likely going to assume the very worst about you and ascribe the worst intentions to you. Let's take this one step further into the real world. There's a very good chance that the concept of a werewolf (or at least the traditional European concept of the werewolf) might well have gotten started as a way for highly superstitious people in the middle ages to explain what would today be thought of as criminal psychosis (i.e. some schmuck goes bonkers and slits the throats of his family with a knife). There's quite a few psychologists that are pretty well convinced that a lot of psychologically disturbed people were more or less victims of the werewolf mythos. That is to say that the mythos itself provided a convenient excuse to execute mentally disturbed people back in the dark ages (and even later). Nowadays we "know" that werewolves (and demons, and all the other supernatural things that make people go bonkers and kill people) don't exist (I put quotes around that because it's impossible to prove a negative... except mathematically ). As such, when something like that happens we look for everything except werewolves.

What happens if someone knows werewolves exist? You immediately become a threat to them. They're not just going to ignore you. In short, you're scr***d.

On an aside, I'm originally from a small mountain town called Mammoth Lakes, CA. Mammoth Lakes usually has a half dozen or so dead bodies turn up outside of and sometimes in town each year. The bodies have usually been torn apart by animals. Almost without exception the deceased wandered off in a raging snowstorm around 2am (bar closing time). Probably they all passed out in the snow, died from exposure, and were subsequently devoured by coyotes. But you can see how that could be misconstrued by somebody who really believed in the existence of werewolves.

[RedEye]

Well, if somebody actually knew that Werewolves existed; chances are that somebody would either be the last one to admit it (self-preservation and evidence supression); OR would be courted by the Were's as a pair of eyes and ears that were safe from discovery, since this theoretical person is demonstrably not a Werewolf themselves.

Even the "Rawr" version of the Werewolf would want one or two trusted human "eyes" in with the rest of the humans; unless they totally brain-toasted in their Wolf form.
Then they might actually forget that there's somebody who "Knows". That would make the "Informed" person even more intent on pretending ignorance.

Meh...it could go any number of ways.

[Uniform Two Six]

Absolutely. I agree it could go any way. I also agree that most likely, if somebody saw a real werewolf, they'd probably be too frightened to come forward for fear of retaliation. If they did come forward, nobody would believe them. Additionally, they probably wouldn't be in any position to do anything significant on their own anyway. All I was saying in my original point was that despite the liklihood that no individual person would be a threat should they discover you, the danger is still real. All you have to do is stumble across the wrong dude, and you've not only gotten yourself killed, but you've revealed the existence of werewolves to the entire human population and effectively doomed all the other werewolves in the entire world. I'm just saying that I'd be too worried about the worst-case consequences to really have any fun as a were.

[Moonwatcher]

If i had a chance to be a werewolf and it doesn't dam you or kill then yes the freedom would be great. No human rules or regulation just plain free yes i would be a werewolf.

[AngryGothChick]

As much as I'd love to,I wouldn't do it.I don't think it would be worth it.