This is the place for discussion and voting on various aspects of werewolf life, social ideas, physical appearance, etc. Also a place to vote on how a werewolf should look.
Scott Gardener wrote:I perceived no change of mass in AWIL. But, even if there was, that movie did rely on some magic elements, like the undead walking in Limbo.
Werewolves gaining any mass at all, even one pound (or 0.45 kilograms for those of you in every part of the world smart enought to use the metric system), goes against basic physics. We're already pushing biology so much past the brink that the Creationists think we're reaching a little. Let's not have Professor Hawking ordering our execution as well.
It's not that we're saying they go "Alakazam"
And BOOF
An important reason why I don't like the idea of no change in mass is that, what about the brain? Won't it get squished if you switch from a human head to a wolf's head?
"I was all of history's great acting robots: Acting Unit 0.8, Thespo-mat, David Duchovny!"
-Calculon
A reorganization of existing mass is pretty much a given, yes. I do see the painfully obvious.
Keeping the werewolf from dying from cerebral herniation is one of the "stretching biology to the brink" problems. But, the solution doesn't neccessarily require making the entire rest of the body larger rather than the brain smaller. It would just have to be shrunken down very carefully, in a very timed manner, and would involve reinventing a few things, such as converting oligodendrocytes into a new kind of contractile cell type that doesn't exist in known biology, but might be comparable to both smooth muscle in general morphology and to cardiac muscle in the ability to contract on cue together at just the right moment, in just the right way (Only not fifty to a hundred times a minute).
Most of the important part of the cerebrum, the big part, is stored in the cerebral cortex, the outer surface. The rest is all "wires" connecting the top to the rest of the brain and body. (This may be another origin for the "we only use 10% of our brain" myth.) We know that a relatively small brain can still hold a lot of info--Einstein's was smaller than average, and midgets don't all suffer from mental retardation. And, a lot of the "wire" is buffering fat. Granted, compressing a 1400cc human brain into a 400cc wolf skull is going to create "overclocking" heat problems if the excess myelin fat is removed, and done wrong, demyelinating in effect does the same thing as, well, demyelinating diseases, like multiple sclerosis. So, one is going to have to invent a more efficient way of myelinating the brain. Not something easy for humans to do, but I'm sure evolution or a superior intelligence could pull it off.
And, it's a lot easier than trying to generate mass from zero point energy, design a transdimensional entity, or extract ectoplasm out of astral phase, the first ways I can think of off the top of my head for making a werewolf's Gestalt form weigh anything more than the human form without having to binge-eat right before every shift. And, getting viruses and DNA to work with zero point energy is a work of miniturization and economy of materials that's probably exponentially less plausible than building a nuclear reactor with parts from Lowe's.
Taking a Gestalt approach, since it's the "in" thing...
Scott Gardener wrote:...And, getting viruses and DNA to work with zero point energy is a work of miniturization and economy of materials that's probably exponentially less plausible than building a nuclear reactor with parts from Lowe's.
Couldn't you use smoke detectors and a very large washing machine?
"I was all of history's great acting robots: Acting Unit 0.8, Thespo-mat, David Duchovny!"
-Calculon
Okay, realism is good and all, but sacrificing one aspect of unrealism for another aspect of unrealism, eh, it's kinda silly.
No I'm not advocating having the werewolves huge hulking monsters *though if the mechinism for the transformation is unexplained a movie-maker can certainly go that way. Rather, I'm advocating simply not going overboard with the mass-gain. AWIL definitly added mass magically but because it wasn't drastic and didn't happen very quickly *or clearly* nobody really noticed.
I should also note that the most realistic werewolf design for conservation of mass, would be the scraggily mal-nurished looking Werewolf from the third Harry Potter film. Yes it appears that the extra body-parts and such were made by moving mass from some parts of the body to others, so it's marginally more realistic then other werewolf transformations. Problem is that even with the fur that creature was so thin and weak looking it wouldn't have been recognizable as a werewolf, let alone something that could be feared. Visually, it was simply a bad move.
Finally, there's the fact that, it's difficult to create prostetics and such that are smaller then the human body, especially if you're planning on having humans inside of them. You almost HAVE to make werewolves gain some-mass simply for that reason alone. Otherwise you'll have to rely more heavily on CG effects, which are expensive and not always ideal for some kinds of films.
Unrealistic things about a werewolf transformation:
1. Transformation so radical could not possibly happen that fast, if it could happen at all.
2. It would disrupt many body sytems to the point of failure. Internal and external bleeding, the circulatory and lung system collapsing, nerve and brain damage.
3. It would require a LOT of energy. We're talking megacalories, here.
4. The usual triggers - the moon or just plain magic - don't work. The one doesn't have enough influence on biology to set this off, and the other doesn't exist.
But none of those is a major stumbling point for a STORY. Even for a "realistic" story. You just have to be realistic in other areas. Yes, he changes unreasonably quickly, but he changes in a logical manner. Yes, this would disrupt a lot of body systems, but he can heal as quickly as they're broken. The energy issue isn't generally addressed, and the triggers can be overcome with some technobabble (biobabble?) or just declaring magic does, too, exist, so there.
Worrying about how the body mass would change, or the brain weight, or other such things, simply should be dismissed. This IS a fantasy. You can only get so realistic.
Well, most people are going into a movie to be entertained, not for a physics lesson. As long as a break in the laws of physics isn't too obvious most *if not all people* won't mind.
WolvenOne wrote:Well, most people are going into a movie to be entertained, not for a physics lesson. As long as a break in the laws of physics isn't too obvious most *if not all people* won't mind.
I agree. I like to be entertained. I really don't care what method is used. As long as its not stupid. Like wall climbing.
hmmI dunno if this issue has ben adressed before, but is the lycan virus like HIV?..will it be transmitted during sexual intercourse?
.? That is the problem with you mortals, you die too easily. You hardly fight back. A couple of pitiful screams and a little squirming and you are done. I can hardly call it satisfactory."
What's the point? They got their Keanu Reeves now...
most probably of the virus can be transmitted through a bit via say saliva then the fluids during sexual intercourse wpuld transmit the virus. A easy and fun way to get it
if it's a virus then I'm fairly certain it'd have a hard time traveling via saliva. More likely it'd be the blood. Since creatures tend to bleed ever so slightly when they bite down hard on something, this isn't a problem though. *this isn't enough blood to be very visable.*
IblisPendragon wrote:hmmI dunno if this issue has ben adressed before, but is the lycan virus like HIV?..will it be transmitted during sexual intercourse?
Well, maybe. I mean the Harry Potter werewolf had it.
Ok, to be real now,
It is said a werewolf is supose to be immune to all human disease. Not to say a werewolf would have their own little sickness.
But supose a person with HIV/AIDS was bitten by a werewolf. Will he/she still have it.
Allen wrote:
But supose a person with HIV/AIDS was bitten by a werewolf. Will he/she still have it.
Hmm, I can see three possibilities:
1) I don't see why not, since the the only time I can see the (werewolf) virus interacting with the immune system after the initial would be to temporarly supress it duting shift.
2) The changes made to the body to allow for the shapshifting might change the immune system around enough that HIV doesn't really recognize it anymore.
3) Purple monkey dishwasher.
I figure since HIV/AIDS supresses the body's immune system, an infected person would probably have a greater chance of contracting lycanthropy from a werewolf bite. (But I doubt the stress of turning into a werewolf would be good for them.)
I wanted to add something real quick to the gaining and losing mass thing: Personaly I think that yes they are going to gain mass during a shift and thenn lose it when changing back, by I sappose the reasorbing thing. Which I think is better than constantly gaining mass every shift, which I beleive happens to venus fly traps because in order to open and close they expand the outside or inside of the trap.
"We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream."
The venus flytrap works by hydrostatic pressure. It pumps water from one place to another.
NOTHING in biology as we know it gains or loses mass. The only things that do gain and lose mass are subatomic particles, in violent reactions that absorb or release energy, according to that E=mc^2 thing that Einstein is remembered for.
Things grow in biology by eating other things. They transform in shape, and can appear larger by rearranging their existing mass. (And, there's no reason that werewolves can't do this as well. I'd expect them too, in fact.) But, things don't get heavier or lighter spontaneously.
Or, as Homer Simpson put it, "in this household, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
Taking a Gestalt approach, since it's the "in" thing...
Okay, probably wouldn't work but something I've played with is the idea that the extra mass in werewolves would be stored somewhere within the body in an ultra dense form.
Of course, that's almost as unrealistic as a werewolf gaining mass.... and I would think people would notice if a person was 50 pounds heavier then he actually should be.
Personally, I would just assume to minamize the mass gainage to what was neccesery for speciel effects, and hope it's not too noticable to the audience. That appears to be what all the other great werewolf films have done at least.
I'd just avoid explaining it at all lest you end up sounding like Star Trek:
"Yeah, the werewolves gain mass by borrowing energy from the quantum foam, then returning it after they shift back."
"Reverse the polarity of the neutron flux!"
The couldn't do that since they'd be borrowing the energy for macroscopic amounts of time.
WolvenOne wrote:Okay, probably wouldn't work but something I've played with is the idea that the extra mass in werewolves would be stored somewhere within the body in an ultra dense form.
Of course, that's almost as unrealistic as a werewolf gaining mass.... and I would think people would notice if a person was 50 pounds heavier then he actually should be.
That's still probably best explanation to werewolf size gain on transformation. Bones and many soft tissues would get denser after infection, and when transforming the material stored would expand to normal density. You could get head taller with this method but not much more. As said, better leave it open.
There was something about werewolves being better resistant to cancer earlier because regeneration and, possibly, better immune system. It could just be the opposite. Due regeneration werewolves would have rapid cellural growth rate. So what if one rapidly splitting cell would turn into a cancer? The cell might die in early stage, but if not, it would grow fast.
they were fun to watch 
