Werewolf CSI

[crockpotcauldron]

There are a lot of old werewolf stories in which the werewolf gets busted by someone spotting evidence of their wolf activities on their human bodies. Often it's an injury that someone inflicted on the wolf that lingers in human form - an arrow wound, a knife slash, a paw getting cut off and turning into a human hand. Sometimes it's blood in their mouth, a scrap of fabric between human teeth, or someone looking suspiciously well fed during hard times. It adds an exciting air of murder mystery to what are, essentially, horror stories.

It makes me a little sad that modern werewolf stories have completely dropped the ball in favor of easy regeneration. I blame vampires, honestly. You wind up with this superpowered arms race in urban fantasy, where werewolves have to be powered up so they don't get bowled over by super fast, super strong, bulletproof, hypnotic, intangible, etc vampires. And then, of course, they have to have the long lifespan to match the vampires too, and some mind control, and sometimes the individual extra superpowers - it really gets out of hand.

I'd like to see some more stories where there are actual consequences to wolfy shenanigans besides just dodgy full moon alibis - a cut on the palm from four-wheeling it, a scratch on the nose from sticking it where it doesn't belong, a microchip from a well-meaning biologist. A proper full moon hangover, you know?

Comments

[chickadee_sun]

I don't think vampires are to blame as much as technological improvements. Old-time werewolves are often basically wolves with human intelligence and no other powers. In the Medieval or Early Modern era, that was scary enough. Wolves were wild animals, large dangerous predators that sometimes attacked livestock or even humans. But humans aren't afraid of the big bad wolf anymore. We have high-powered rifles and cars and helicopters we can shoot from. Wolves are endangered because we've gotten so good at killing them.

Werewolves without tons of extra powers aren't just losing an arms race with vampires; they're losing an arms race with ordinary humans. Even without vampire fiction, they'd still need extra powers to keep up. Look at the difference in power between the Martians in Wells's The War of the Worlds and in the 1953 movie adaptation.

I think to counter it stories would have to go much more in a murder mystery direction. Treat werewolf antagonists as human murderers instead of as monsters. Their wolfishness can be relate to the mystery and/or to their motive. Protagonist werewolves can be more slice-of-life or the nonsuperpowered type of action. The horror and urban fantasy genres demand creatures that can pose a credible threat to modern humans, so for more traditional werewolves step outside those genres. CSI, like you said.

Do you think Wilde Life pulls it of well? I don't think Cliff has been caught by traces like you mention, but his powers do seem mostly limited to being a wolf and don't automatically help him deal with other supernatural stuff. "What did you want me to do? Turn into a wolf at it?"

[crockpotcauldron]

Yeah, Cliff is pretty great! "What did you want me to do? Turn into a wolf at it?" is absolutely up my alley as far as werewolves go.
I think you may be right about the power level being due to guns, but honestly, I'm fine with supernatural threats you could take out with a gun. Makes it more of a tense fight, you know? They have to work hard and keep secrets in order to eat you - remember how badass Dracula was, and yet he was completely nerfed in his hometown because they knew all the tricks? The novel was basically an investigation into vampire weaknesses, and after all that fuss and fear they just stabbed him in the heart with a knife.
I love your werewolf ideas, and would absolutely read them!

[chickadee_sun]

Thanks! Too bad I'm not much of a writer.

Not just guns, to be clear. Cars are important too. Horses are expensive and before cars most people didn't have them. Even encumbered by a carriage, a horse is faster than a wolf for short periods, but wolves are persistence predators. A car not only doesn't have that problem, it's basically armored. A wolf can't force its way it without seriously injuring itself. There's a reason so many horror movies start by removing the protagonists' access to a car. Also stuff like urban sprawl, destruction and fragmentation of habitat means there are fewer big stretches of wilderness to get lost in or for wolves to attack out of.

Don't get me wrong; I love blaming bad werewolf tropes on vampires. Infection by bite, a special weakness of silver bullets to parallel wooden stakes, trouble crossing running water, psychic abilities... So many ways imitating vampire stories weakens werewolf stories. But in the case of power creep vampires are another victim rather than the culprit. Your example of Dracula is a good one. He's stabbed to death with a knife in his sleep. Modern vampire stories often want to show the heroes beating the vamp in a fight scene. So you get settings that treat shoving a wooden stake into the heart as a combat move instead of hammering it slowly into a sleeping vamp.

Have you seen tyrantisterror's Four Horrors Theory? (I'm having trouble with links just now but you can google it.) By that classification system, old-timey werewolves (and vampires) were more Gothic Horror while many newer ones have elements of Atomic or Slasher Horror. The latter genres place more emphasis on how big and strong the monster is and how it can beat you in a fight. Genre and theme are big drivers; rules of how monsters work change to fit inside them.

I think looking at the monster itself is almost the wrong place to start? It's like Manic Pixie Dream Girls--that isn't actually a character trope but a story structure trope. The problem isn't that the MPDG is quirky, but that she's basically a plot device in the male lead's life to give him character growth. Her quirkiness just plasters over the lack of attention given to her own character. The problem isn't her, it's that her story isn't being told. And no superficial changes to the female love interest to make her less of an MPDG can help unless they actually make her a character and tell her story.

[crockpotcauldron]

Huh! The Four Horrors theory is very interesting! I'd argue that older werewolf stories could range from the Gothic Horror of deals with the devil to Slasher Horror like the Beast of Gevaudan. Of course, there are plenty of old werewolf stories that aren't horror at all, and some are quite funny! Have you seen the wolf strap stories where they're like "sheep? what sheep?"
I think you're on to something with the Atomic Horror angle, and that's a fascinating insight into the themes of lycanthropy! I'm definitely going to think about that, and see if I can winnow something meaningful out of the stories I've been reading.
And yeah, you're right about cars, and the action movie fights! You have devoted a lot of time to thinking about werewolves! Do you have any favorite werewolf stories?

[chickadee_sun]

Oh, of course not all old werewolf stories are horror of any kind! Thanks for pointing it out. I really should've specified that I was talking about the subset of stories which are horror stories. Good point about the Slasher Horror; I hadn't thought about it. But yeah, especially stories about how human nature is inherently sinful and violent and evil have some Slasher Horror to them.

I've read about wolf strap werewolves and sheep-stealing werewolves, but I don't think I'm familiar with this particular story. It sounds fun. Do you know if I can read it online?

I'm not good at favorites and I think you're already familiar with a lot of werewolf stories I like. (Especially the ones you got me into.) How about Saki's short story Gabriel-Ernest for evil werewolves, and the webcomic Family Man for good ones? Well, you might not like Family Man since I seem to remember you don't like stories where werewolves are a genetic thing. Family Man's werewolves are an ethnoreligious minority in 18th century not-Germany-yet. They're sometimes presented as parallel to Jews and Roma.

[crockpotcauldron]

aw, I love wolf strap stories. Let me see what I can scrounge up! This is a pretty good site for them: https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/werewolf.html

Here is one where the werewolf keeps mysteriously bringing mutton home to her husband:
"A married couple in Hessen lived in poverty. To the husband's amazement, the wife nevertheless was able to serve meat for every meal. For a long time she kept it a secret where she got the meat, but finally she promised to reveal it to him, under the condition that he not call out her name as it was happening. Together they went to a field where a herd of sheep was grazing. The woman walked toward the sheep, and as ishe approached them, she threw a ring over herself and instantly turned into a werewolf. She fell upon the sheep, seized one of them, and fled. The man stood there as though petrified. However, when he saw the shepherd and the dogs running after the werewolf, thus endangering his wife, he forgot his promise and called out: "Margaret!" With that the wolf disappeared, and the woman was left standing naked in the field."

And here's one where the werewolf hunts himself a snack and then pretends nothing happened. Looks like it was a popular one, because there are several versions of it. I think this is the one I remembered.
"Three workmen were mowing a meadow. Noon came, but no one had brought them their meal yet, so they agreed to mow one more round and then to lie down beneath a bush until the food arrived. And that is what they did. Two of them fell asleep immediately, because one never sleeps better than when one is tired, and there is no softer bed than one made from flowers and grass.
The third workman, however, tied a wolf strap around his waist and crept up to a herd of horses that was grazing there. The best foal was just right for him. He grabbed it and killed it. The remaining horses and the herder ran off. The other harvesters saw what had happened, but they wisely pretended to be asleep, for they were frightened and horrified.
After the werewolf had satisfied his hunger, he took off the strap, came back, and lay down to rest. Their food soon arrived: a large pot full of porridge and for each man six boiled eggs plus some bread and salt. As the two harvesters were helping themselves with their wooden spoons, the werewolf said, "Earlier I was terribly hungry, but for some reason I don't feel like eating now." The two others said nothing.
The one harvester complained the entire afternoon about cramps and a stomach ache, and often went to the brook to quench his burning thirst. The two others said nothing. That evening, as they were on their way home, he said once again that he had never felt so stuffed, to which one of the harvesters replied that it could happen to anyone.
When they arrived at the town gate, and he was still complaining, the other workman said, "A person who eats an entire foal should not be surprised to feel stuffed and have stomach cramps. To that he replied, "If you had said that earlier, you would not now be walking home on your own legs." He then threw his scythe away, tied the strap around his waist, turned into a wolf, and was never again seen in that place."

I love that kind of story.

I haven't encountered Gabriel-Ernest before, but I'm going to read it now. As for Family Man, I did try to read it a while ago, and I'll give it another shot.

[nerd_bastard]

oh man, that would make for an amazing romcom werewoof story tho-- 'this cute field researcher microchipped me on a full moon and now I have engage in Shenanigans to keep them from figuring out why I always seem to be in the same spot their microchip tracker points to until I can ask them out on a date'

[crockpotcauldron]

Yes omg I would love that romcom

[vashnoi]

cosigning for the overwhelming desire for a research biologist/werewolf rom-com

Imagine a Phd student or postdoc with their first funded project getting really mad at this one data point that has diverged from the pack and is now... parked on the outskirts of the woods by this isolated cabin for some reason? Tch, must have messed up that with tracker I guess. I should go and see if I recover it. Wait, but it's moving around. Huh.

There is so much scope for hilarious wolf researcher and werewolf stories.

[crockpotcauldron]

Yesss exactly imagine an outraged PhD student tracking a radio collar to the garbage can behind a crow-covered cabin and hearing from the neighbors that this scruffy recluse apparently is keeping a wolf as a pet.

Imagine that poor werewolf listening to a lecture about how wolves are wild animals that cannot ethically be kept as pets, while having vivid flashbacks to knocking over their own garbage cans last night and chewing up the couch.

There's so much potential!

This story of course ends with the PhD student strapping a GoPro to the werewolf to gather better data on the pack.

[vashnoi]

Beautiful. And over the course of shenanigans, it would gradually emerge that the were actually knows a lot about wolves, who would have thought it. Stuff that only experts usually know. Stuff that not even experts know!

Omg a research partner ending would be so good. ("I should get to be at least a contributing author for this.")

[crockpotcauldron]

Yes omg that would be perfect. The werewolf casually sharing pack gossip and cooking venison as the student scribbles notes and argues. The student gleefully reporting the academic shitstorm the paper stirs up, as they fleacomb the werewolf.