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maverick-werewolf · 28 days ago

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Daily Werewolf Thoughts - Days 10-16

More not super prettily formatting werewolf thought posts that I've been doing daily!

Day 10- You don't really love werewolves if you don't enjoy terrible werewolf movies. Which the vast and overwhelming majority of them are terrible, at least if you ask me. But I just love werewolves so much I am driven to watch them (I also love movies with all my heart and soul), and even if the film is beyond terrible - again, as most of them are, even the ones people say are good - there's going to be a few moments that make it worth it, because werewolves are so badass, and I absolutely love studying how they created the werewolf for any film. Here's a bit of a rant for today...

One such film and series is Underworld. I hate the Underworld movies. Yes, stone me. They're terrible. The only one I enjoyed in its own right at all was Rise of the Lycans, since it had a far more compelling story than Selene's tight black leather (I understand why men enjoy this, in their defense) and absurd motivations that only extend as far as what the director wants for the next action sequence - and it was set in the Middle Ages, which is way better as a werewolf story, imo. Anyway, regardless of how I feel about the movies, I LOVE how they handled the practical effects on the werewolves.

The Underworld werewolves are unmatched. I'm not crazy about the design of the main "lie-kans" - I will never forgive the movie for the "lycans" thing btw - because they were specifically designed to be more "cat-like" or even more like a pitbull. For some reason people like to use things like cats, bears, etc to design something called a "werewolf." So I think those initial ones, like in the first film, frankly look pretty stupid. But the "feral" lycan "breed" or whatever they're called that have the more wolfish heads are a very cool design, and ultimately what I'm talking about here is how they were created and put to film. Sidebar: I'm not one of those people who thinks that the instant a movie uses any CGI, it should be condemned; CGI is a tool like any other filmmaking tool, and it can be used to achieve things we otherwise could never film and that are artistically beautiful and creative; but yes, I do prefer practical effects where they can be used.

The werewolves in Underworld were created using bodysuits, animatronics, and creature actors. They wore leg extensions, got big guys in the first place, and had extensive work for muscle, hair, and especially the faces and facial animations. The entire face is created using servos that respond to controllers held by workers off-camera to animate the werewolf costume in real time, while it's being worn by a person. The entire face, eyes, mouth, lips, etc were fully animated using a complex system of animatronics, and a comm system so the actor can be given instructions from the lead puppeteer so everyone can properly sync their work - and the final effect is such a step beyond anything we've seen from werewolf designs of this size in film before - or since.

There are better videos of the later films that had more advanced technology, like Underworld: Evolution (terrible movie but great werewolf effects), but here's one on youtube that has a lot of what was involved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jWIF8lSlxg&ab_channel=IsaacKoo

*: "feral" by definition most often specifically refers to domesticated animals that have gone wild again and sounds very odd when used to refer to something like a wolf (but it always happens anyway because people don't care about the English language; ask any video game about their "feral wolves")

**: "breed" specifically refers to controlling the birthing of animals to produce a desired outcome, as in domesticated animals, such as dogs, cats, sheep, etc., and it makes me want to become a hermit living alone atop the Himalayas when I see people use it for werewolves

Day 11- I've often wondered what exactly set me down this path of being completely and hopelessly obsessed with werewolves. I've never really had an answer. I've speculated it was just Halloween itself, seeing the very rare and occasional werewolf around, since that's always been my favorite "kind" of werewolf. I have distinct memories of a little werewolf statue in a Hallmark; I really loved looking at that thing (never got it, though, sadly). I've occasionally wondered if it was watching Scooby Doo at my grandma's house - but in retrospect, the werewolves in Scooby Doo of that era weren't much to write home about, so that probably wasn't it. I do know for a fact I've been obsessed with them for as long as I can remember, certainly by age 6, so whatever it was, it started early. I was reading Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Werewolves when I was 8, searching for werewolves in video games forever, and I'll never forget the first werewolf figure I got to decorate my desk.

If you ask one of my favorite professors, who sat on the committee that passed ultimate judgment upon what became my book The Werewolf: Past and Future, she would tell you I was led to love werewolves because of "dream visions" (she is a professor and lifelong student of Old Norse, Old English, and the cultures, many sagas, and histories thereof). I told her about how my earliest memories of werewolves and the start of my obsession with them were actually long series of dreams and nightmares I had - a white werewolf would always crop up in them, sooner or later. Sometimes he was on my side, sometimes not. My dreams and nightmares are... very detached from reality in the first place, but the white werewolf became consistent for a long time. What put the idea of a werewolf into my head in the first place? I'm really not sure.

Some of my favorite experiences with werewolves come from playing as them in classic RPGs, including ones where you aren't technically supposed to be one. I loved playing a werewolf in Neverwinter Nights using character editors, cheat codes, and scripts on the big roleplaying server I played on. Now THAT was fun, but that's a whole separate story.

Anyway, I really don't even know. All I know is, I've loved werewolves for as long as I can remember, and I always will, no matter how silly that might seem.

Day 12- Remember when video games called RPGs had actual roleplaying elements in them? Some of the only games that have ever let you play as a proper werewolf are the Elder Scrolls series, specifically Daggerfall and Morrowind: Bloodmoon, the latter being my absolute favorite werewolf game ever. Why? Because you actually played as a werewolf - and all that came with it - instead of lycanthropy being a cool thing and/or awesome button.

In Bloodmoon, if you are a werewolf (having either become one from surviving a werewolf attack - werewolves spawn with INSANE rarity, trust me I found one naturally and it took me weeks, in the wild of Solstheim or you can become one through the main Bloodmoon questline), you will transform each night. You must devour 1 humanoid (playable race) NPC or suffer from hunger and exhaustion the following day, lowering your stats. The transformation will break any armor you have equipped. If someone witnesses the transformation, word of your true nature will spread, and you will be hunted. You are also attacked on sight - but NPCs will often run away rather than dare attack you. Your stats are insanely boosted, you run like the wind and leap to the point of almost flying, and you can destroy nearly anything in your path. It is one of the single coolest things in all of gaming and nothing like it has ever been recreated (I have biases).

Being a werewolf became part of your character and changed your entire gameplay experience rather than just being an "ability" or "race."

Many of these systems were also in place in Daggerfall, Morrowind's predecessor. But Morrowind was the last game of the ES series to incorporate proper werewolf mechanics. In Oblivion, we got exactly nothing, which left me crushingly disappointed as a child. In Skyrim, you have an awesome button werewolf mode wherein you must continually devour enemies in order to maintain the werewolf form. It's cool and it's fun, and I'm very glad Skyrim had werewolves playable at launch, but it doesn't have anything approaching the same feel as "being" a werewolf in Bloodmoon, where it is a curse. It can be an inconvenience, it can be an advantage, and it's something you have to plan your gameplay around - and something you must hide from everyone around you. That is what playing as a werewolf should be. I'm likely to make another post soon talking about that some more, because it's a favorite subject.

Anyway, therefore, Morrowind's expansion pack Bloodmoon is easily one of my favorite games ever made. It is really the only game where you can really play as a werewolf instead of a reasonably cool and fun but ultimately far less interesting alternative.

I also recently wrote a big ol' article about the best video games that let you play as a werewolf: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/werewolf-articles/werewolf-article-play-as-a-werewolf-video-games/

Day 13- A werewolf's transformation sequence is one of the single most important things in any werewolf story. It might even be -the- most important. After all, the crux of werewolves is that even a man who is pure at heart (etc) can become a monster - and back again - and the sequence undergoing such a traumatic change is quite a thing to tackle.

I've seen it approached many ways. Painfully (obviously), painlessly, slow, fast, as something undesirable and as something desirable, as something controllable and uncontrollable - I swear this isn't innuendo. Anyway, personally, my favorite will always very easily be the most classic concept of the werewolf transformation: painful, traumatic, and very, very bad. I am not here for cuddly or happy werewolves. I'm also a fan of the werewolf not remembering what happened, but I'll ramble about that one later.

This also actually has basis in legend, as well. Even in antiquity, witnessing a werewolf transformation would potentially bring one to madness. This is mentioned in several stories, including but not necessarily limited to Niceros's story, in which witnessing the werewolf transformation freaks him out beyond reason. When he realizes the soldier he'd traveled with was a werewolf, he swears never to go near him again: "I couldn’t have eaten a crumb of bread with him, no, not if you had killed me!"

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, oft hailed as one of the "first werewolf legends" (that we have recorded, anyway), we also get our first proper werewolf transformation ever in the form of the legend of Lycaon...

"[Lycaon] howled his heart out, trying in vain to speak.

With rabid mouth he turned his lust for slaughter

Against the flocks, delighting still in blood.

His clothes changed to coarse hair, his arms to legs—

He was a wolf, yet kept some human trace,

the same grey hair, the same fierce face, the same

Wild eyes, the same image of savagery."

I've always found it interesting to note that his clothes became coarse hair, rather than him tearing his clothes off. Just a little difference there between this and many other legends.

Lots more on the ancient Greek tale of King Lycaon here: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-fact-66-the-legend-of-king-lycaon-of-arcadia/

There are a few legends, of course, that don't make it quite this dramatic. But popular culture carried over the painful transformation sequence for those with the werewolf curse, by and large, and it's incredibly effective. Everyone remembers seeing the first transformation in An American Werewolf in London (as much as I think the movie itself frankly just sucks), and likewise no one was exactly taken by a guy jumping really high and painlessly CGI'ing into a wolf in like .3 seconds.

I obviously have a lot of opinions on werewolf transformations, just like every other werewolf thing. The best and most memorable werewolf transformations are painful, dramatic, and traumatizing - because, after all, being a werewolf is neither a fun thing nor a good time... not for anyone involved.

Day 14- There's something I deeply hate in media, and it's when someone says "a werewolf scratch can turn you!" What on earth?

I have a lot of thoughts about all of this, obviously, and I'll get more into the whole werewolf bite thing later, but let's entertain if you will this notion that becoming a werewolf is like rabies. This is an extremely Early Modern concept, following the rise of scientific thought and the dismissal of all things mystical, religious, magical, mysterious, and allegorical, but even then, a werewolf spreading lycanthropy (in itself an Early Modern concept, as it was viewed as a disease, not a curse) via bite has no basis in folklore already. Does that make it bad? Nonsense, a werewolf bite is a classic storytelling element - that, once again, almost certainly comes from The Wolf Man (1941). It's so classic that for some reason zombies later completely lifted it and now everyone acts like it's a zombie thing, which is completely unfair.

But a werewolf scratch? Really? Even if we're equating it with rabies, that still doesn't work. And how stupid is it for someone to be like "oh no! the werewolf SCRATCHED you!" When I hear "scratch," I think "my cat got a little too excited about the tummy button," not "I've been mauled by a giant twisted man-beast and now I will inherit its curse." How does a werewolf even "scratch" someone without taking an entire limb off or raking red rivers through your torso? Are we sure it was a werewolf, or is it a chihuahua*?

I really wish this "werewolf scratch" thing would stop. It's just bad all over. Bring back werewolf bites exclusively.

*: what pains me is that some people would find this hilarious and make this their exclusive takeaway, because werewolves have just become jokes

Day 15- I love a wide variety of werewolf designs. If the werewolf is presented well, the design doesn't always matter that massively, as long as it doesn't look incredibly dumb and/or doesn't even resemble a man or a wolf. Unfortunately, it's amazing how often this happens.

Many monster design classes do actually say, when designing a werewolf, absolutely don't use a wolf as a reference. Artists are told by everyone under the sun, including filmmakers: use dogs, cats, bears, mandrills, hyenas - I've even seen mules, foxes, bats, badgers... and above all, they are told explicitly: whatever you do, don't use a wolf as inspiration. That'd be like, expected or cliche or bad or corny or something, because it's a WOLF monster. And we can't do anything "expected."

Werewolves are two things: human and wolf. If you're drawing the majority of your inspiration from a bear or a cat or a fox or hyena or whatever else, why even call it a werewolf? Why not make a different creature entirely, like the Beast of Gevaudan?

(more on that remark here: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/the-beast-of-gevaudan/ )

I can understand the desire of some to have some particularly "memorable" or "unique" design (although I have never been taken by any of these attempts, nor do I remember them fondly), but ultimately, it baffles me that someone would choose to draw more directly from animals that aren't wolves for a werewolf design. Then again, you can also go too far in the opposite direction and just end up with fluffy wolf-people, and those can look far too cuddly (at least to... modern audiences; no one thought the werewolves in Dog Soldiers were cute even just a few years ago).

It's a careful balance to walk. When I was very young and innocent, I hated that many designs removed the tail from a werewolf (which they have in legend and I think it looks cooler), but I completely understand now. I also understand wanting to change the head shape, ear shape, etc, but all of this can be achieved without making the werewolf look like some other animal or like nothing in particular. There's a reason the Underworld werewolf design that became ubiquitous for so many werewolves afterward - Skyrim, for example, and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, just to name two - was the one with the wolfish muzzle and head shape, not the "cat pitbull" design from the first film.

Call me old-fashioned (I am), but I want a werewolf to look like what it's called. Note: I'm also not knocking the quadrupedal but still part-man looking designs, although those are far from my favorite, but it should still have wolf features. At least a few.

Day 16- Another werewolf folklore lesson! How about "curing" lycanthropy? What was that like in folklore - lifting the werewolf curse?

As per usual for my discussions, I have to mention that being a werewolf was not considered a "disease" until relatively recently; it was a magical curse, not an illness that could be "contracted" or "cured," and individuals were not "infected." Likewise, there weren't exactly a lot of examples of a werewolf curse - as per traditional "transforming between man and beast on a regular basis" definition of "werewolf" - being lifted in folklore.

There are some examples of more unusual variations of the curse being lifted, however, namely with those who end up stuck in a more seemingly permanent wolf form. Removing a magic item that cursed you to become a werewolf is fairly common, such as the magic skins donned by Sigmund and Sinfjotli in the Volsunga Saga; when they wore them, they were wolves, and only returned to human form when they managed to get the skins back off again. Another example is Melion (titular character of a British lai), who was trapped in the form of a wolf when he put on a cursed ring.

And in at least one story, that of Guillame de Palerne, the werewolf returns to his human shape when the one who cursed him is killed. This is a special case in that the werewolf never actually returned to a human form and was in fact stuck as a wolf, so it's not quite your typical werewolf example, but it is still from a French story whose title was translated as William and the Werewolf - and it's a good story.

However, in the vast majority of cases, especially with the werewolves that are more in line with what we think of as proper werewolves (transforming back and forth, instead of stuck in a wolf form), either the werewolf stayed a werewolf and it wasn't really that big of a deal (such as in several ancient Greek tales and some medieval tales, for example)...

Or else the werewolf was killed. Popular culture sometimes insists the only cure for lycanthropy is death, and that also often held true in many legends. It's also quite fun and dramatic, of course, although I do get tired of the werewolf predictably getting wasted.

There is, of course, a Werewolf Fact for this: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/how-to-cure-lycanthropy/

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