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alt title(s): Werewolf I used to be a werewolf, but I'm all right nowooooOOO!
Together with Count Dracula, the Mummy, and Frankensteins Monster, this is generally considered to complete the set of "classic" horror monsters. Unlike the other three, however, there is no single specific source of popular werewolf lore. The closest claim to one would be Lon Cheney Jr.'s character from the film The Wolf Man.
As with vampires, the exact parameters of lycanthrophy vary, but to meet the definition, a werewolf must be an animorph who takes the form of a wolf. See Our Werewolves Are Different
Technically, a number of variations are possible: in some mythologies, a werewolf is a wolf who can take human form. In Speculative Fiction, the werewolf is often neither really wolf nor man, but some form of alien. However, far and away the most popular conceit is that a werewolf is a human who has somehow (especially against his will) become able to temporarily transform (usually unwillingly) into a wolf.
This transformation may be total, turning the human into an actual wolf, or partial, turning the man into something like a wolf, but retaining human proportions. In 50s horror films, the transformation usually took the form of getting hair and fangs but otherwise remaining almost entirely human. (The "classic" Wolf Man appearance is not entirely dissimilar to the symptoms of a rare genetic disorder, hypertrichosis.) With the advent of more sophisticated make-up and visual effects, techniques have been developed that allowed more wolflike features on humanoids, such as giving a character a wolf's muzzle and ears.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Jyabura, a villain from One Piece, is possessed of a Devil Fruit power that allows him to transform into a wolf or a wolf/human hybrid that looks like a typical werewolf.
- Liru from Magical Pokaan turns into a cute little puppy with anything round, strangely enough, except for the full moon.
- Ginei from Rosario To Vampire, president of the Newspaper Club and Handsome Lech. As a werewolf, his primary battle strategy involves super speed.
- The Captain, one of the villains from the manga Hellsing, is a werewolf. He has several forms which he can go between at will, ranging from a human to a mist-like Dire Wolf. In all forms he has massive physical strength and speed with a Healing Factor.
- Wolf familiars Arf and Zafila of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, who are shown as capable of shifting from giant wolves, to this, to full human (i.e., no wolf ears or tails), to Fun Size versions of the first two forms. And just to punctuate the Wolf Man image, Arf's first on-screen transformation ino a wolf was accompanied with a full moon in the background.
Comic Books
- Werewolf by Night at Marvel Comics. The main character is named Jack Russell, which is a breed of terrier.
- Early in the chronology of Elf Quest, Timmain, one of a group of elfin space travelers stranded on the Earth-like World of Two Moons, shapeshifted into various forms in order to understand the planet's ecology, finally turning herself into a fully fertile she-wolf so that she could mate with the alpha male of a wild pack and have offspring. She didn't just do that on impulse, but so that her descendants would be a part of the planet. In more recent issues (set about 20,000 years later) the elf Kimo has learned from Timmain how to shapeshift into a wolf.
- John Jameson (J. Jonah's son) was an astronaut who was transformed by a ruby he found on the moon into Man-Wolf. He was later transported to the dimension the ruby originated in, where he became Stargod. (Still a man-wolf, but with Jameson's intelligence & personality.)
Film
- The Wolf Man as stated above one of the main Trope Makers.
- An American Werewolf In London could be considered the best of the modern werewolf stories.
- Underworld and its oddly named sequel answer the age old questions of what would happen if vampires and werewolves got into a centuries old blood war, what would happen if someone was turned by both vampires and werewolves, and just how badly does Bill Nighy need a pay check.
- The movie Teen Wolf and the Animated Adaptation, Teen Wolf The Animated Series, featured a light comedy version of this.
Literature
- Constable Delphine Angua von Überwald from Terry Pratchett's "City Watch" series of Discworld novels. Angua can transform into a wolf at will, but is unable to prevent herself from changing during a full moon. Pratchett delves much deeper into the psychology of the werewolf than most writers, describing what the world looks like to a creature that uses smell as its primary sense, and also developing a cultural backstory for the werewolves, such as the term "yennork" being used to describe a werewolf that cannot change shape (and is therefore trapped in the body of either a wolf or a human) but is born to werewolf parents.
- Reaper Man features a couple interesting specimens. One is, three weeks out of the month, a beautiful young woman; the other is, three weeks out of the month, pretty much just an intelligent wolf. That fourth week, though, they meet each other half way, and it's implied they begin a relationship.
- The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan has 'wolfbrothers', men with the ability to communicte telepathically with wolves. Wolfbrothers gain greatly enhanced senses, as well as golden eyes which people remark as resembling those of wolves. Wolfbrothers are prone to acquiring wolf instincts, and in some cases have been known to completely lose touch with their humanity, becoming essentially wolves in men's clothing.
- The "Wolf and Raven" stories, which are part of Shadowrun's Expanded Universe, feature a man who is posessed by Wolf, one of the many animal totems of the world, which grants him powers and mannerisms similar to the classic Wolf Man (as well as a Split Personality, of sorts). It should be noted that this is very different from the game's usual take on werewolves.
- Remus Lupin and Fenrir Greyback from Harry Potter
- The Dresden Files demonstrated the many, many types of wolf man in Fool Moon: People who turned themselves into wolves through thaumaturgy, people who turned into wolfmen through magical belts of wolf skin, people who were pretty much ordinary people but who gained extra strength and became more violent around the full moon, people who were cursed to turn into mindless killing machines every full moon, and wolves who could turn into people.
- The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries has several werewolves. They also have therianthropy for other animals, though it is considered offensive to call another type of therianthrope a "were".
- Larry Niven's story "What Good Is A Glass Dagger?" is told from the POV of an idealistic Atlantean Werewolf. The surprise bit comes when he discovers that werewolves aren't people who become wolves, but rather wolves who turn into humans.
- Twilight. Jacob Black is one of a family of werewolves, who live on a Native American reservation and hate vampires. And Jacob, of course, falls in love with Bella.
Live Action TV
- Doctor Who has had several different examples:
- "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" featured a lycanthropic girl who could be forced to transform by nothing more than an "old devil moon" stage lamp gel.
- In the new series, "Tooth and Claw" involved an alien intelligence that could possess people and turn them into a Wolf Man form, and jump between bodies by biting.
- A society of werewolves also appears in the Big Finish audio Loups-Garoux, in which the Doctor notes that "There are so many forms of lycanthropy," presumably to avoid any problems with continuity.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer had Oz, who learned to suppress his normal transformations, but could also be triggered to transform outside of a full moon by stress. The series also had Veruca — a minor love interest of Oz — who had embraced the wolf inside her, making her a bad puppy.
- The short-lived series Wolf Lake revolved around a community of lycanthropes based (roughly) on Native American werewolf mythology.
- FOX, in their inaugural season, aired a series, Werewolf, which depended upon a rare (and completely bogus) astronomical conjunction which caused the moon to be full for eight nights in a row.
- Gou Fukami of Gekiranger, thanks to a Dangerous Forbidden Technique. He did eventually cure the wolf within him, but since his very fighting style is wolf-based, it still sort of applies.
- Angel had a recurring love interest who was a werewolf.
- Wolf from The Tenth Kingdom.
Tabletop Games
- Not surprisingly, the game Werewolf: the Apocalypse was all about these, as is its successor, Werewolf: The Forsaken.
- Not to mention the wide range of other werecreatures in both old and new Worlds of Darkness.
- The original Dungeons And Dragons had several variations on this, including were-bear, were-rat, and were-tiger, each taken from a different real-world mythology. The most recent edition has the Lycanthropy template, allowing one to make were-anything characters.
- The game also has the reverse concept: Wolfweres (and other kinds of [Animal]were), which essentially are animals able to shapeshift into humans and similar races. The two kinds of shapeshifter generally held a strong mutual loathing for one another, and both were featured relatively prominently in the game's horror setting Ravenloft (where such creatures were always evil, something that did not hold for other settings).
- Shadowrun has a virus which turns people into mindless Neanderthal types which get stronger and vicious during the full moon. However, they don't gain animal traits, beyond the extra hair. What Shadowrun does have are Shapeshifters, as in normal animals of all varieties spontaneously giving birth to magically active stock able to take on human form. Not to mention all the dragons who've learned the ability...
- Warhammer 40000 brings us the Wulfen, werewolves In Space. With guns.
Video Games
- Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within
- One level of Osu! Tatake! Ouendan 2 has the group cheering on a werewolf as he struggles to keep from transforming in front of his girlfriend. Made more difficult for him because he transforms just by seeing things that are round, including balls, ice cream, and bald heads. If the player fails the song, the poor lug gets carted off to the pound. The actual ending of the stage has him finally transform in front of his astonished girlfriend, who turns out to be happy because she loves dogs.
- Werewolves are a common enemy in the PC game Nocturne, appearing in all but one chapter, and they can be killed with any weapons; it's just that silver bullets kill them a lot faster.
- One of the main "dual nature" gimmicks in Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess is that Link transforms into a wolf when he enters the Twilight Realm. It's quite an impressive step up from the unarmed, pink bunny he turned into in A Link to the Past's Dark World.
Webcomics
- Clan of the Cats
 : Chelsea Chattan and her older sister Melpomene are both were-leopards and witches; Chelsea in particular is the rare 'purebreed' who transforms completely into a black panther. The family is under a curse, which does not cause the panteranthropy, but rather makes it uncontrollable.
- College Roomies From Hell: Roger and Lily Pepitone, whose family have a hereditary were-coyote curse
- The Wotch: Samantha 'Wolfie' Wolfe is (can you guess?) a werewolf, while Katie McBride is infected with ailuroanthropy (were-cat-ism) by a seemingly normal domestic cat, which was last seen in the Spin Off series Cheer! with former football player turned cheerleader Lita Harper.
- Shifters is yet another 'weres versus vampires' series.
- Sorcery 101 features three werewolves as major characters (Brad, his grade-school age daughter Rebecca, and Jeff, a teenager whom Rebecca bit during a tantrum.)
- Peter is the Wolf: Just about every major character in this is a werewolf, though there is at least one kitsune (were-fox). Has both a 'general' and 'adult' version; the former is only vaguely Ecchi, while the latter is definitely NSFW.
- Girl Genius has the fanged, green, and hairy Jagermonsters. They mix elements of the Wolf Man, Jekyll And Hyde, and Super Soldier.
- On top of that, they're just plain goofy, and easily this troper's favorite characters.
- Unt don' anybody forgetink ze silly German akzent!
- Und der hats.
- Alpha Luna.
- One of the supporting characters in No Room for Magic is Roy, whose dad turned him into a werewolf so that he could survive gym class. It's made him less shy, but he feels compelled to sniff strangers' butts.
Western Animation
- Gargoyles had an episode where Xanatos' engagement gift to Fox turned her into a werewolf.
- Freakazoid did a parody of the original The Wolf Man with an obvious Lon Chaney Jr. parody coming to Dexter for help with his werewolf problem. Freakazoid, after forcing him to suffer numerous indignities, ultimately cured him by dumping him into the internet and back out again.
Real Life
- Vampires were originally very similar to (or basically were) werewolves. In some historical lore, vampires would turn into wolves rather than bats; this quickly changed once America was explored, as the vampire bats found in South America fit the role much better.
- The connection is made even further when it's thought that if one fails to properly dispose of a Werewolf's corpse, it will rise up as a Vampire.
- Actually, vampires did change into bats before America and the discovery of vampire bats (which were named for vampires, not vice-versa) depending on the source. It's that bats and vampires were both made into demons after Christianity became the norm in Eastern Europe.
- Some legends say that witches were also blamed for making potions (with extreme hallucinogenic properties) that made men into werewolves (or at least made them believe they were wolves).
- It is also thought that the rabies virus may be to blame.
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