YIN and YANG Does a Werewolf need to be "Balanced"

[celtwolf]

now, i think that werewolves SHOULD have a scary side.
i think werewolves are a sort of representation of mans dual sides, the rational and civil mind, and the irrational and primal mind. not that werewolves in their gestalt form or wolf form are evil and ruthless killers, just that they are more primal. i mean that , werewolves were almost DESIGNED to physically manifest our dark and evil sides, the loss of self-control when we are enraged or endangered.
now, the modernized version of werewolves that we are trying to pinpoint here, and my personal view of werewolves, is a calmer view. a view that werewolves aren't really monsters to be hunted and killed. now, the way that we are describing them is more of a misunderstood beast, which is denying an important part of werewolf mythos; that werewolves represent a manifestation of our primal mind.
i think that werewolves should have a reason to be viewed as evil aside from the human paranoia instinct. have werewolves be more primal, more like a real wolf than normal humans. have them react with a full-on fight-or-flight response when they sense danger without rational human thought to judge the situation once in a while.
remember, werewolves represent what we fear in ourselves. they are human, in some ways more than normal humans. they are not entirely evil, nor entirely innocent.

and to the director, if he reads this: while you make the movie, think of werewolves not as wolves, but as a living, breathing manifestation of everything you fear about yourself and the people you know and love. this will keep you true to the foundation of werewolf lore.

EDIT: damn, i just realized how redundant i was. i said i wasn;t very good at writing things down cohesively!
~Celtwolf

[Scott Gardener]

Part of the beauty of the concept of Freeborn as I seem to perceive it, based on what we've seen so far (the teaser and the info we've been given) is that it acknowledges that humans fear werewolves, but it also points out that as usual, the fear is a self-fulfilling prophesy against something powerful but ultimately with benevolent intent, but perfectly capable of being a monster if pushed.

As far as making werewolves monsterous just for the sake of making them monsterous, we're trying to get away from that. But, I don't think that's what you had in mind.

[celtwolf]

nope, it isn't. what i meant was that we should make werewolves human, but more of a literal representation of the two seperate parts of the human mind, the primal animal and the civil man.
within all people, there is this distinction, and we fear the primal side as it causes us to do things we know we wouldn't do if we applied rational, civil thought to the situation. werewolves embody this as a more physical change than just a mental change, as it would be in normal humans.
now, primal does not mean evil, just more animalistic in behaviors. when a human gets angry, or becomes fearful, this primal side takes over and causes the human to react as an animal would. this is embodied into a physical change with werewolves, as when a werewolf gets mad, or feels esxtremely scared, it will physically and mentally change into an animal, though not entirely in the mental sense as we have established in this forum.

heh, i guess i worte it better this time.

~Celtwolf

[Aki]

Bah. I dislike that thought.

Too... Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...

[celtwolf]

well, aki, that's what a werewolf IS. a werewolf IS a different version of jekyll and hyde. as opposed to good and evil halves of the mind and body that were described in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, werewolves embody the rational and animalistic halves of the mind. it's similar, but also entirely different.

[Aki]

I don't really see a Werewolf as a Jekyll and Hyde scenario. J & H is more than generic black and white terms like Good and Evil. No sane man makes a serum to make himself evil...

It kinda is the same thing as what your describing. Jekyll was a was very civil and calm, good nice guy. But, as a celebrity, he had to always be like that, or have his reputation ruined. Hyde was his chance to vent his animalistic urges, run around, be angry, smash stuff, smash people, the whole nine yards.

Hyde didn't act with any rational thought. He was very primal. He definatly wasn't thinking long-run when he trampled that girl, or beat Sir Denvers Carew into a bloody pulp.

When you look at it. It is the same. Jekyll is the rational man, and Hyde is the animal.

I don't see Werewolves as a wolfy version of Jekyll and Hyde however. I see them maintaining the same thought pattern or what have you at all times. As in, they'll act the same as they would if they were perfectly human. As I always have viewed Werewolves as having a mind entirely uninfluenced by being a Werewolf. If one has monk-like patience, calmness and pacificiness as a human, then so would the Werewolf. No suddenly gaining a primal rage or something.

[Vicious]

Ugh, I'm always digusted by the concept of garou as cursed or evil, or in any way bad.

I consider humanity the evil thing, a force of nueroses and selfishness.
Consider that perhaps for werewolves, humanity is the curse, and source of turmoil.

[hydrocarbon]

what



Just think of them as people, all varied and individual.

[celtwolf]

I don't really see a Werewolf as a Jekyll and Hyde scenario. J & H is more than generic black and white terms like Good and Evil. No sane man makes a serum to make himself evil...

It kinda is the same thing as what your describing. Jekyll was a was very civil and calm, good nice guy. But, as a celebrity, he had to always be like that, or have his reputation ruined. Hyde was his chance to vent his animalistic urges, run around, be angry, smash stuff, smash people, the whole nine yards.

Hyde didn't act with any rational thought. He was very primal. He definatly wasn't thinking long-run when he trampled that girl, or beat Sir Denvers Carew into a bloody pulp.

When you look at it. It is the same. Jekyll is the rational man, and Hyde is the animal.

I don't see Werewolves as a wolfy version of Jekyll and Hyde however. I see them maintaining the same thought pattern or what have you at all times. As in, they'll act the same as they would if they were perfectly human. As I always have viewed Werewolves as having a mind entirely uninfluenced by being a Werewolf. If one has monk-like patience, calmness and pacificiness as a human, then so would the Werewolf. No suddenly gaining a primal rage or something.

actually. DR. Jekyll created the serum to make himself the best man possible, supressing all of his dark desires and attributes. Mr. Hyde was a side-effect, an alternate personality created by the supression of his evil.
i'm not saying that i think werewolves are that way; civil and rational in their human forms and malicious and evil in their lupine forms. i'm trying to say that it is similar to that in the sense that they mentally change, though the change is to a more animal mind. it is really up to the person whether or not they choose to be malicious.

[Renorei]

Ugh, I'm always digusted by the concept of garou as cursed or evil, or in any way bad.

I consider humanity the evil thing, a force of nueroses and selfishness.
Consider that perhaps for werewolves, humanity is the curse, and source of turmoil.

Pffftt...humans aren't evil. We are only doing what every other species of animal would do if they happened to possess our intelligence and opposable thumbs.

But, I agree that werewolves aren't, and shouldn't, be considered evil. They are certainly capable of being evil, but the fact that a person is a werewolf doesn't make them inherently so.

[Aki]

I don't really see a Werewolf as a Jekyll and Hyde scenario. J & H is more than generic black and white terms like Good and Evil. No sane man makes a serum to make himself evil...

It kinda is the same thing as what your describing. Jekyll was a was very civil and calm, good nice guy. But, as a celebrity, he had to always be like that, or have his reputation ruined. Hyde was his chance to vent his animalistic urges, run around, be angry, smash stuff, smash people, the whole nine yards.

Hyde didn't act with any rational thought. He was very primal. He definatly wasn't thinking long-run when he trampled that girl, or beat Sir Denvers Carew into a bloody pulp.

When you look at it. It is the same. Jekyll is the rational man, and Hyde is the animal.

I don't see Werewolves as a wolfy version of Jekyll and Hyde however. I see them maintaining the same thought pattern or what have you at all times. As in, they'll act the same as they would if they were perfectly human. As I always have viewed Werewolves as having a mind entirely uninfluenced by being a Werewolf. If one has monk-like patience, calmness and pacificiness as a human, then so would the Werewolf. No suddenly gaining a primal rage or something.

actually. DR. Jekyll created the serum to make himself the best man possible, supressing all of his dark desires and attributes. Mr. Hyde was a side-effect, an alternate personality created by the supression of his evil.
i'm not saying that i think werewolves are that way; civil and rational in their human forms and malicious and evil in their lupine forms. i'm trying to say that it is similar to that in the sense that they mentally change, though the change is to a more animal mind. it is really up to the person whether or not they choose to be malicious.

I could agrue with youi about Jekyll's motives, but, that would be offtopic, so I won't. Even though I think you are very wrong.

I'm saying that when a human is bitten by a Werewolf and becomes one (not as in shifting into gestalt or wolf forms, but just being a WW) he doesn't change at all mentally. Just physically. Now, if Mr. Werewolf wants to act all primal, he can.

[vrikasatma]

I remember a debate we had at a party once. The premise was, "Does God consider murder to be evil?" The exchange got quite vehement and passionate, but never disrespectful or confrontational.

I don't consider animalistic urges to be evil or base. They can save your life, after all. Say someone was trying to kill you or beat you up, would you stand there quoting Walt Whitman to him? No, you'd lash back, go for vitals, go for vulnerable parts, just like an animal would. Yet I know more than one person who'd see someone throw a punch in their own self-defense and act like they'd just pushed the button on a nuke.

When I finally kicked my abusive boyfriend out, it was brutal. Bloodshed. Was I evil? No, I was defending myself, my loved ones and my home, just like when Raksha attacked Shere Khan for invading her den.

There's still this ridiculous notion left over from Victorian and Age of Reason mores and bolstered further by Abrahamic belief systems that humans are better than animals and to act like an animal, to exhibit animal-like tendencies, is evil and aberrant. Tell me what's aberrant behaviour? I once had a Buddhist wildly scream me out as being anti-life because I didn't want to have children. Is opting out of the gene pool in the same basket as 9/11 and Abu Ghraib? My ex called me "Hitler" because I chased him out to his car with a sword, the same sword he'd tried to kill me with a month before (BTW, he did that not because of animalistic tendencies, he did that because he was crazy. When insanity is a factor, all bets are off).

[Scott Gardener]

I thought we wanted to get away from the "Jeckel and Hyde" angle, because that's what everything else has been, at least from The Wolf Man to the eighties. I'm mutiny to see more of something outside the overused and simplistic "good versus evil" angle.

Granted, your focus is less on that than "human versus animal"concept. (Wwell aware that Homo sapiens is an animal species, a fact that for some reason gets forgotten.)But, the model you advocate at least implies that there is something very dirty or unlikable about the wolf side.

[Ultraken]

The way I look at it, different forms do affect the werewolf's mindset, but not necessarily in the usual "raaarrr!" way. I'll assume human form as a baseline, and work relative to that. I also assume no radical "multiple personality disorder" style changes or loss of memory. I also assume that the werewolf always remains at least the ability to contol their actions.

My thought is that gestalt form is impulsive, and somewhat like being drunk: not necessarily using the most rational judgement, and tending to act before thinking. Heightened senses, alertness, and instinct begin to focus the werewolf on the present, though the werewolf can still concentrate if there are few distractions. The werewolf is hardly a "raging monster", though can be very destructive when angry--as would anyone with five times normal strength, hopped up on stimulants, and armed with two handfuls and a mouthful of knives...

Moving along, wolf form is instinctive, and somewhat like being in a dream: rational thought clouded, but basic personality intact. Heightened senses, alertness, and instinct tie the werewolf even more strongly to the present than gestalt form. The werewolf is not an "unthinking animal", though, and would remember (and resent) being treated that way.

(I don't necessarily abide by this for every character. Many tend towards "furry" in gestalt form and "talking animal" in animal form.)

[Apokryltaros]

At least according to how I'd like to view lycanthropy...
I view it as a curse.
A curse with benefits, but a curse, nonetheless.
What I'm trying to get at is this:
Lycanthropes are amalgams of human and beast, and, in my opinion, if one favors one side over the other, disaster is never far behind.
In that, if a werewolf comes to the conclusion that his beast-side is superior than his human-side, and does his best'est to reject his human-side entirely, ala avoiding contact with humans, staying in wolf form all the time, etc, etc, he risks becoming a mere beast, an unthinking animals, or, at best, a wolf with thumbs.
If this new werewolf decides that being a werewolf means that he can now indulge in all of the wild impulses and bad thoughts that are queued up in his head, well, he's on his way to becoming a horrible monster far worse than the sum of his parts.
On the other hand, I strongly doubt that any good would come of a werewolf trying to supress his beast-side. Unless he happens to have access to powerful magicks, his beast-side is not going to go away, no matter how hard he suppressed his instincts, or how hard he wishes himself to be human. It would be akin to trying to shrink a water balloon by squeezing it...
Except that this particular water balloon happens to be filled with boiling acid.
Then again, dabbling in magic and sorceries for a way to rid one's inner beast may lead to severe repercusions, too. After all, they don't call it "The Black Arts," for no reason.


I developed this view while I was trying to develop the protagonist of my story
(yes, I'm one of the 700+ people in this message board of 666 members who's working on their own story)
When my protagonist became a weretiger, his beastial side was, at first, akin to his id made flesh and claws, and would lash out at those who had hurt him and his brother. In the begining, he would only change when he was asleep, and would have only dream-like memories of his changes. As his lycanthropy progressed, though, his beastial side was growing stronger, literally and metaphysically, so that, he risks changing whenever he gets excited, and that, each time he does change back into a human, he feels as though he's a little less human than before.
While he does like being human, he soon enjoys being a tiger, too. In fact, for a while, he contemplates giving up on being human all together, as he figured that, as a tiger, he would be better able to protect his brother. However, he decides against this course of action, as he is afraid of hurting his brother, especially since, as a tiger, he tends not to know his own strength (happens a lot with tigers, actually).

[Grayheart]

In my personal view werewolves are in the first place neutral beings. They have (taken all together) all our strenghts and weaknesses. It is my opinion that humans are animals and therefore a werewolf isn't something evil, because they are just another kind of animal.

Humans tend to surpress their instincts, they even tend to forget that they have instincts at all. For me a werewolf is more aware of its instincts, cause they are stronger. If a human, who wasn't able to control his or her instincts, becomes a werewolf, this person would be very dangerous, cause instincts like hunting everything that runs make them more dangerous than they already have been before. But a person who already had a high degree of selfcontrol would be less dangerous, cause better capable of controlling his or her instincts.

Hopefully I could explain my thoughts good enough ...

[Vicious]

Acting on instinct isn't irrational, it is acting on what needs to be done.
Instinct compells us to seek out things liek shelter and food. It compells a wolf (or any predator) to hunt as a means to aquire food and survive. It is in no way irrational, but essential.

Wolves are thinking creatures as well. Being mammals they are capable of apraising a situation to a degree, instead of just acting on impulse. Maybe a were-crocodile would just eat whatever or whoever was close at hand, a reptillian brain doesn't have any room for much judgement. A lot of you seem to be thinking our wolves are on that level.

But wolves, dogs, cats, tigers, even bloody squirrels can recognize family and freinds, who is a threat and who is not to a substantial degree. [When I was a kid the two sisters who lived across from me had a pet squirrel, which is why i mention squirrels. They raised it and it stayed with them, so I'm assuming even such rodents have the capacity to imprint on humans as family.] They can experience and learn and figure out where a safe place to live is, what prey is viable, and which of said prey looks easiest to take down. Wild wolves have figured out to stay far away from humans. Bloody sound judgement on thier part.

"Beasts" are not jsut mindless killers. Gestalt wouldn't be either, no matter how far away they went from humanity. Brainpower would remain no matter how much instinct one would feel. There's nothing monstrous about wolves or gestalt.

[Apokryltaros]

We're not saying that acting on instinct is irrational, acting on instinct is crucial to survival in most circumstances.

On the other hand, the fact that werewolves are an unnatural hybrid of human AND wolf lends substantial credence to the idea that they are monstrous.

[Lupin]

On the other hand, the fact that werewolves are an unnatural hybrid of human AND wolf lends substantial credence to the idea that they are monstrous.

The only way they would be unnatural if it was by magic, or they were created in a lab or somethhing though.

[Apokryltaros]

On the other hand, the fact that werewolves are an unnatural hybrid of human AND wolf lends substantial credence to the idea that they are monstrous.

The only way they would be unnatural if it was by magic, or they were created in a lab or somethhing though.

Um, pray tell how are mutagenic bites and being able to violate the laws of biology and physics not unnatural?

[Renorei]

On the other hand, the fact that werewolves are an unnatural hybrid of human AND wolf lends substantial credence to the idea that they are monstrous.

The only way they would be unnatural if it was by magic, or they were created in a lab or somethhing though.

Um, pray tell how are mutagenic bites and being able to violate the laws of biology and physics not unnatural?

Some people have a weird idea that werewolves wouldn't or shouldn't violate the laws of physics. Frankly, I think it's hogwash.

[hydrocarbon]

TUMBLEWEED

[Lupin]

On the other hand, the fact that werewolves are an unnatural hybrid of human AND wolf lends substantial credence to the idea that they are monstrous.

The only way they would be unnatural if it was by magic, or they were created in a lab or somethhing though.

Um, pray tell how are mutagenic bites and being able to violate the laws of biology and physics not unnatural?

Two things:
A) You're assuming that the laws of biology and physisics as we know them are complete.
and
B) That werewolves somehow do the impossible and violate them.

[Apokryltaros]

Two things:
A) You're assuming that the laws of biology and physisics as we know them are complete.
and
B) That werewolves somehow do the impossible and violate them.

The laws of physics and biology may not be complete, but, what laws we do have helps to explain the natural world very thoroughly.
And I would find it hard to believe that anyone here, let alone anywhere, can come up with a perfectly understandable, and valid scientific explanation of how a human can change his or her physical form so that he or she can appear as a wolf, or gain wolf-like features in less than a minute, and have the explanation not draw upon the supernatural for help.
Werewolves are, barring science fiction adaptations, supernatural creatures, and are, therefore, unnatural.

[Lupin]

And I would find it hard to believe that anyone here, let alone anywhere, can come up with a perfectly understandable, and valid scientific explanation of how a human can change his or her physical form so that he or she can appear as a wolf, or gain wolf-like features in less than a minute, and have the explanation not draw upon the supernatural for help.

Nobody can provide an explination for why a Uranium atom spontaneously emits two protons and two neutrons going 33,000mph, but just because we can't explain it, doesn't mean we go around calling it 'supernatural'.