60 Teen Wolfs in 60 Days, day 4: Magic Bullet

[hth]

 

Amazon Prime summary: A new hunter in town puts Derek's life in danger, forcing him to make reluctant allies out of Scott and Stiles.

 

I really think it's cool how you have three characters chasing each other in this opening scene, and at this point it's really not possible to tell exactly who you want to catch whom. Well, except of course Derek, who they've already worked way too hard to make seem scary, so you know he's not especially scary. Also, he looks so faintly baffled at his bullet wound. Oh, Derek, it's only going to get so, so much worse from here. I've never seen a show take such gleeful advantage of a rapid-healing character; I feel like writers just can't get to sleep at night unless they've found a new way to turn parts of Derek into ground hamburger.

 

Not sure what to make of Derek's plan to find Scott, which seems to be to shamble into the high school dripping blood and ask the first person he sees to direct him toward Scott. See, this is why Stiles has to do everything in this town! He's the only one who thinks up contingency plans. Of course, Derek did come to the game, so maybe Jackson's not a random grab; maybe he remembers him from the lacrosse team and assumes those guys are Scott's friends, so they would all know where he is. I bet Scott would be pretty flattered if he realized that Derek was just assuming people liked Scott.

 

Speaking of sexual ethics, this is the first of probably many times I'll say this, but I really appreciate the utter absence of slut-shaming on this show – even in a descriptive way. Like not only does the narrative of the show not mind that Lydia fully believes sex is how you say “You have my attention briefly!”, but no one else ever seems to mind it, either. It's just her way. And Allison does a pretty hard turnaround from “boys are a big distraction and I don't need them,” to “oh, hello, yes, please,” and there's really no drama generated, meta or in-character, about either of those decisions. She was fine not having sex, and then she met a guy she wanted to be having sex with, so then she was, and she was also fine. I don't know how realistic that is – I remember spending a lot of time and energy trying to make the Best Possible Decisions about sex in high school, and it seems from the internet that if anything kids are living in far more of a pressure cooker now – but I do find it aspirational. People should be more like Allison! They should not bother with the whole thing until such time as they meet someone who makes it seem not remotely bothersome, and all of that should just be dandy.

 

I love how aggrieved Derek is by being half-dead. It just seems to be annoying the shit out of him, and that's one of my very favorite things about Derek. No matter how terrible a thing is happening, his immediate response is this expression that says, “Well, fuck me running. Of course this is happening to me; everything happens to me.” The dead could be literally rising. His pants could be spontaneously filled with snakes. He'd still look like he was thinking, “Of course this is happening to me.”

 

Yes, Scott, she's seriously asking you that question. Because you just went very jumpy and shut her down, and that's the correct time to ask if someone is having second thoughts. I realize it's not Scott's job to be the full-time sex educator for an audience he isn't aware exists, but I do wish the writers had handled that better. Sometimes even teenage boys have mixed feelings about things, or want to go at a certain pace of their own choosing! That's not like a punchline or something. The response to someone checking on your consent really should not ever be, “That's the craziest thing I've ever heard!” and there's a whole toxic masculinity issue with telling dudes that any mixed feelings they might have about getting laid with a girl they went bowling with one time are literally absurd. Scott can be perfectly clear that he is doing what he wants to do without framing it that way, like Allison is being ridiculous to ask. Hmph.

 

And, see, the shot of tequila line is there to remind you that just when you think Scott is always and forever going to be a hapless deer in headlights, you have to also remember that he's been raised from a fawn by Stiles. He gets how jokes work. He is familiar. He usually doesn't have a chance to get one in edgewise, because Stiles, but he's not incapable of it.

 

I think this whole positivity thing is the key to why Stiles is so great. I mean, every show has the jittery, geeky, slightly weird comic-relief guy. That in itself is nbd, although of course O'Brien is particularly good at it. What's interesting to me is that usually when you have that guy, he's the designated worrier – the one who wants you to know that this is crazy and they're all crazy for doing it and they're probably going to die in undignified ways. His job is to be the voice of the Non-Hero, the Regular Person, who looks squarely into the eyes of adventure and goes HOLY SHIT, NO, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? In that way, he's the audience stand-in for all of us who see ourselves as basically regular people who don't even like squishing spiders, let alone amputating arms. And from time to time, Stiles fills that traditional role.

 

But even more often, you know who fills that traditional role? Scott does. Scott thinks having a good day at lacrosse practice means he's probably dying. Scott almost bolts out of the room with cartoon puffs of dust in his wake when someone points a bow with no arrow in it at him. Scott thinks all of this is crazy and they're all crazy for doing it and they're probably going to die in undignified ways, and if your Teen Wolf drinking game involved taking a shot every time Stiles has to tell him “it's okay,” like he's the fucking werewolf whisperer, you would be in rehab by the third commercial break.

 

Stiles brings a little motherfucking positivity to the table around here, because someone has to. It's the opposite of the cliché hero/sidekick dynamic, and I think it's very deliberate. I think they're writing Stiles intentionally as the hero – the smart, savvy, resourceful, courageous one – the one who on any other show would be fucking Spider-Man (dude, I hope O'Brien gets that role; he was born for that role) – and then fucking with us by giving the superpowers to his hapless buddy. I think that's the gag. That's why in “Wolf Moon,” it's Stiles's actions that drive everything in the beginning – he's Veronica Marsing around, finding cool stuff, going to pick up his doofy friend and dragging him along on this adventure while Scott is all like, “But, Stiles, isn't it a school night? We should be well-rested for practice!” Stiles leads him through the woods. Stiles is stronger, faster, bolder in every way, while Scott struggles literally to breathe. When they get caught, Stiles takes the bullet for him, because that's what the hero does. Personality-wise, as characters, it's utterly clear that Stiles is the stronger person and the guiding force in their relationship, the one who can handle his shit and Scott's, too.

 

Then this random, crazy thing happens. Scott falls down in the dark. Something bites him. And everything starts to change.

 

I swear this is not accidental. This is a story about a natural-born superhero...whose barely competent best friend blunders into superpowers and needs round-the-clock care to keep from getting killed by them.

 

It's a fucking. Brilliant. Conceit. I'm seriously jealous I didn't think of it first.

 

I realize my argument is slightly undercut by putting it in an episode where Stiles does in fact kinda freak out, but come on, like Scott would've handled having a bone saw forced into his hand any better. On balance, I have a solid point here, at least for the first couple of seasons. As I said, this is a show that loves an arc, and I think it's clear that Scott does eventually become a legit hero in his own right. I'm interested to see as I watch through these if there's a specific turning point where you can see that process begin, because we definitely are not there yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[anatsuno]

WHAT A GREAT POINT ABOUT STILES. I have never decoded this before - although I think it also serves (in part) to explain a lot of fic where Stiles is the hero; or rather, I mean, the amount of fic where Stiles is the hero. I was blind to this! and now I see! (ahem. sorry.)

[hth]

He's a terrific hero-character! I'm half-joking about them intending him to be the hero; I think what they really intended was for him not to be a sidekick -- to build a character who could remain Scott's partner-in-crime even as things got freaky. And in order to justify a human being able to keep up with werewolves, you need a pretty extraordinary human.

[copracat]

you have to also remember that he's been raised from a fawn by Stiles.

I laughed so hard I think I pulled something.


One of the things I've always enjoyed about Stiles is that despite being the one without superpowers, he will out the bone saw. He rarely (I only say that for cover, my memory says never) fails to commit to taking action.

[hth]

Yeah, he totally would've cut off Derek's arm if he had to! The show really does require more and more of Stiles consistently, and I think you're right, he pretty much 100% of the time steps up to what's required. Which is the basic definition of the hero in most stories!

[mecurtin]

This would definitely explain that baffling Cap Shirt!

This is a story about a natural-born superhero...whose barely competent best friend blunders into superpowers and needs round-the-clock care to keep from getting killed by them.

What is kind of crazy-making about TW is that nothing, absolutely nothing, about the way the show is presented tells the viewer that this is the story TPTB intend to tell. There is are no interviews, PR copy, panel discussions, *anything* to suggest that Jeff had that in mind.

So it's completely possible that your reading is correct! But that raises the question of why do something cool but never acknowledge that you're doing it? I can think of 3 possibilities:

1. Jeff always intended to tell a story without ever publicly talking about it, because he's a secretive bastard. And indeed some people buy this theory and call him Trolldemort.

2. Jeff intended to tell a story that he couldn't sell to MTV. So what you might call the cover and presentation of the show are about the show MTV thinks he's made, and only people thinking carefully about it are seeing the show Jeff intended to make.

3. The show as MTV understands it is the show Jeff is trying to make, but everyone working on it is so stressed that what comes out has a kind of half-baked, swirly structure that we're reading stuff into it wildly. But the structure we see isn't really there, it's all a big Rorschach Blot.

[hth]

Oh, I absolutely think there's a 4. The thing about being a writer is that it's completely easy to do instinctively, if your dramatic instincts are good. I mean, you can study structure and all that, but some people just have an innate feel for this stuff, and given a few key early choices, it's totally possible to write something very coherent without noticing you're doing it.

My best guess as to what happened, in reality-land, is that the show Jeff wanted to make was about a Very Unlikely Hero who grows into the mantle of heroism thrust upon him. That was really the crucial decision: to make Scott the antithesis of what you'd expect a werewolf to be like -- timid instead of brave, physically weak instead of strong, a worrier and a follower and a sentimental dude. That gave Jeff room to really tell a story where things change drastically and big stuff happens, which if you're a good writer, is what you want.

But once you make that one decision, other things start cascading into place. Why is this basically passive character running around in the woods? Well, maybe it's not his idea. Someone else brings him. And we want him to have a best-friend/confidant character, so obviously that's the guy. And by the very nature of needing to tell this first sequence, this is what you've set up: you've told the audience that Stiles is a guy who wants to do things and Scott is a guy who goes along with it. You don't have to intend for Stiles to look more like the hero: you've set him up so that he has to behave like heroes behave. And that felt intuitively right to him, so he kept writing it. Everything spools out from those early choices, and you have Stiles continuing to be this guy who digs into what he's not supposed to see -- who wants to know the answers to everything -- who sees a problem and actively chases down a solution -- who tells Scott what has to happen next, consistently, over and over. And what you think you're writing is a story about how Very Unlikely a hero Scott is, and how he grows and changes, but *simultaneously,* the plot needs to be driven, and you've put the reins into the hands of a different character. You really have no choice, and if you're a good writer, you get that without ever having to consider it.

So I'm joking when I say that it was the premise of the show, but not when I say that the dynamic is *baked into* the premise of the show. And I do think there must have been some conscious communication around it, because the directing really does support that early conceit: that Stiles is a leader and Scott is a follower. The story is set up to let us watch that change, but just because you want to strengthen Scott's character doesn't mean you want to weaken Stiles' -- no writer wants that for their second lead. So as Scott becomes stronger and stronger, *Stiles has to as well.* Again, not deliberate, precisely: it's just what makes the story both consistent and satisfying, so you'd be an idiot not to. So now you're story about the Very Unlikely Hero who grows into the mantle of his authority is running parallel to a story about...a guy who was smart and brave and a leader in the first episode and *keeps getting more that.* Voila, you've written two separate types of hero-stories running in concert with each other, and every choice was deliberate without being *intentional,* if you see the difference?

I think there's a lot of Rorschach Blot involved with most tv shows -- the writers have to keep coming up with too much new stuff for anyone to assume all of it was essential to the premise. But I'm convinced this is something that *was* essential to the premise.

[mecurtin]

OK, I completely buy this. And also, Jeff wanted an Obvious Antagonist and Anti-Hero who *looks* the part ... but is actually something else. And that "something else" turned out to be the victim of abuse, persecution, and multiple trauma. As time went on, Derek continued to be the writers' punching bag -- but he just keeps on going, keeps on surviving and trying to survive. And that makes *him* heroic, too.

A lot of the Meta Pack on tumblr have talked about the triskele, and how you can see it symbolizing Scott, Stiles and Derek: each a hero, each with a heroic arc counterbalanced by the other two. As you say, it doesn't have to be something Jeff planned from the get-go, but it was baked in by the character choices he made at the start.

[hth]

Yes, absolutely with Derek! I think some of the same factors that create him as a character are what created Severus Snape: the need for a character who functions as a troublesome factor for the protagonist but also conceals the potential to be an ally raises this question, what could make a person trustworthy but also difficult to like? And the natural answer to that is, someone who's been worn down hard by events but keeps going, and when you've created that character, you're positioning him narratively as a hero, whether you intend to or not!

And I love your interpretation of the triskele, particularly when you introduce Talia's interpretation of it as alpha/beta/omega. Scott: the True Alpha. Stiles: the best possible beta, his pack's permanent support-staff and problem-solver. Derek: the werewolf who was strong enough to be an alpha but gave it up, who seems to be strongest when he's allied with but not quite belonging to Scott's pack, arguably represents the best of what an omega can be.