#ok yeah anyway i’ll die a terrible death if the series doesn’t happen or isn’t gay

[gateskeeping]

if there’s one thing i want it’s for the the children’s hour limited series (if that ever happens) to get the loto treatment bc lord do i need to see my girls get a happy ending or SOMETHING

[halekingsourwolf]

hihi, in that post you just wrote you mentioned that Derek has a more personal stake in what's going on throughout the series than Scott does. Can you expand on that or was it just a hyperbole?

Hey there,

Oh, not at all. I don’t mean to say that Scott has no stake in what goes on, or that this is true in every instance. But overall, I think you could definitely make a case that, while Scott is the protagonist, Derek is the more central character to most of the conflicts. This is probably most apparent in seasons one and 3A, and I’d argue also four, and I’ll just run through them all roughly here.

Just a reminder that I haven’t actually watched most of the show in years so I apologize for any details I miss or get wrong. And yeah, I do focus more on Derek as a rule so maybe I’m forgetting some huge contributions by Scott; if so, please feel free to jump in and correct me. That said, I’m really not going to list out every detail from every season, just run roughly through the overall arcs and the way the characters impact them and vice versa. Obviously this just covers seasons 1-4, where Derek was a regular character. And ok, that’s enough disclaiming. Diving in:

Season one

While arguably the show starts with Scott being bitten, what really sets everything into motion is the murder of Derek’s sister. Laura’s death, the thing Derek needs to solve and avenge, is the launching point that pushes all the other show’s conflicts into motion. And while the show puts most of its focus on Scott and his personal dramas (whether the pretty new girl will like him, whether he’ll do well in lacrosse) most of the actual conflict is driven by Derek. He’s the one determined to figure out who the Alpha is (and who, it turns out, has a personal connection to him), he’s the one with a history and continuing conflict with the Argents, which turns out to be the whole motivation behind the Alpha’s actions. Scott’s conflicts are relatively small things: will he make co-captain? Will his bowling date go well? While Derek brings in most of the major conflicts: shot by Kate leading to revelations about the Argents, captured by Kate… Eventually, he (with Stiles’ help) is the one who discovers who the Alpha is and confronts him, and later he’s the one who kills him.

Despite Scott being the protagonist, this season is really a story about the Hales vs the Argents, Derek and Peter dealing with their trauma, and Derek avenging his sister.

Season two

This one is less Derek-centric, since the main villain/conflict for most of the season (Matt) has nothing to do with either him or Scott. However, most of Scott’s actions throughout the season are reactionary to Derek –– while Derek recruits betas and builds a pack, Scott shows up to try and convince the betas how terrible Derek is. Derek makes plans to try and stop the kanima, and Scott works to thwart him. When Derek rescues Scott and it leads to the death of Allison’s mother, Scott sends Allison after Derek. And while Scott is the apparent “hero” of the season, since his “master plan” is what ultimately defeats Gerard, he does so by using –– yep, guessed it –– Derek.

On another note: the entire kanima arc (really, the entire thing that set the season in motion) was a direct result of Derek’s actions. Derek bit Jackson at the end of season one, which turned him into the kanima, which allowed Matt and later Gerard to use him to their own ends. While Derek doesn’t realize this at the start of the season, he does have a much more personal stake in what’s going on than Scott does. His killing of Peter is also the driving force behind Lydia’s arc, and he’s the target used to resurrect him later on, so while the “master plan” is Scott’s… most of the major plot elements are set in motion or resolved in one way or another by Derek.

3A

Here’s a rough summary of the season: two of Derek’s betas are captured and he works to find them and save them. Derek’s long lost, thought-dead sister is rediscovered. Their captors are a group of Alphas who spend most of the season terrorizing the pack and killing two of Derek’s betas to try and recruit Derek to their side. Meanwhile, Derek strikes up a romance with a new teacher who turns out to be one of the season’s main villains, a dark druid who had been manipulating him for protection. Derek’s sister is hospitalized and he ends up having to give up his Alpha power to save her. One entire episode is focused on exploring Derek’s backstory and another tragedy in his life, which notably led to the awakening of the Nemeton and set everything happening this season into motion. …At the last minute, it turns out that Scott is actually a “True Alpha” and the Alpha pack had been after Scott all along (despite actively pursuing Derek to the point of kidnapping and murdering members of his pack). I’ll let you decide who the driving force of the season was.

3B

This season is definitely the weakest in terms of focusing on Derek, though notably it also had the least focus on Scott. Stiles (and the Nogitsune) was undeniably front and center and behind most of the action, with the rest of the characters scrambling to react to him.

Season four

The driving conflict at the start of season four is the kidnapping of Derek Hale. The first two episodes are almost entirely focused on this, with them first saving him from Kate and second dealing with the aftermath of that –– figuring out how to deal with de-aged Derek and Kate’s plans for him.

The Benefactor arc affects both characters equally at first as they (along with the other supernaturals) are being targeted, but spins back to focus on Derek when a bit of computer coding suggests that Derek is destined to die soon. Derek and Scott each have their individual arcs as well, with Derek slowly losing his powers and Scott trying to train newbie wolf Liam. However, the Liam arc isn’t particularly intrinsic to the story (it could be removed without the overall plot being affected) and, while Derek’s loss of powers is ultimately the same (it apparently has to do with his evolution… somehow. Don’t ask me. It still makes no real sense) it’s played as being part of some master plan by Kate. It’s the reason Derek hires Braeden, to find out where Kate is and what her plans are, and it’s repeatedly suggested to be part of the villain arc until the finale reveals it not to be. Therefore… again, while Scott and his beta troubles and his lacrosse games and his love life have the majority of the screentime and focus, these are all ultimately details. Minor plot points. Just like in season one, Derek’s story is more connected to the villain’s story and the overall arc of the season.

I also think it’s notable that Scott’s attempts to win over Liam are basically just Scott parroting Derek’s dialogue from season one. So a driving force behind all of Scott’s interactions with Liam is… again, Derek. (This isn’t even really shown as character growth –– Scott never goes to Derek to commiserate over new betas or apologize for his early behavior, recognizing how hard it must have been for Derek. It’s played for laughs and then Liam ends up idolizing Scott anyway…. this isn’t really on topic but it’s just frustrating.)

Now, I don’t want to ignore the second villain arc in this season –– Peter, and his attempt to steal Scott’s powers. And as I said at the start, I don’t mean to say that Scott was not important to the plot in any season. He was the main character and, yeah, he did stuff. In most seasons, he was the one who struck the final blow and saved the day. But, as far as I recall, Peter’s plan to kill Scott only became a major plot element in the final two episodes (and that whole plan… and Peter’s motivations were muddled to all hell). The major villain of s4 –– the one whose arc carried over, who started and ended the season –– wasn’t Peter, wasn’t even the Benefactor. It was Kate. The driving question was what is Kate up to? The person who was wronged at the start of s4 was Derek, and the one who overcame that and emerged triumphant was Derek. In a very real way, the season was about Derek overcoming his traumas caused by Kate, with the story taking us through him being young and naive and manipulated by her, to the trauma of that aftermath (shown here by physical weakness and inability to fight back), to his evolution and her defeat, with him standing over her, triumphant. Scott doesn’t have anywhere near that strong and coherent an arc in s4.

God, this was not brief at all. But yeah, I’d definitely argue that, for most of the seasons Derek was in, he was more deeply entrenched in the narratives and in pushing the story forward than Scott was. Scott may have been the POV character but very often he was just pulled along by the plot or focused on more trivial matters. Derek was the core character and the driving force in much more of the major, relevant action.