The Werewolf Conundrum

by Todd Sullivan

I have a confession to make: I am writing a werewolf novel.

In some ways, writing a narrative centered around lycanthropy feels self-defeating. Though everyone knows what a werewolf is, very few can name a popular werewolf character. Ask anyone to name a well-known vampire, and they can rattle off Dracula, Lestat, Blade, Louis, Edward Cullen, Lilith, Morbius, Alucard, Barnabus Collins, Spike, Vampirella. The list goes on.

Vampire fiction has garnered numerous breakthrough hits, and this has inspired many writers to try their hand at the narrative. I myself have had vampire fiction published, from short stories to novellas. I have been fascinated with the mythos since I was a child, and it still remains one of my favorite narratives to write.

The werewolf, however, has had anemic success in popular culture. One or two movies may be recalled if the average person was pressed, with possibly fewer novels, and no characters. Keeping that in mind as I undertook the task of delving into the literary landscape of lycanthropy, I found myself wondering why the vampire is so much more popular than the werewolf. I know I am not alone in this query, as I have seen it posed multiple times in social media groups focused around the werewolf.

With the intention of fostering the best possible parameters to craft a novel that can produce the success of vampire fiction, I asked myself a simple question: what makes the vampire so much more compelling than the werewolf in the eyes of discerning readers and moviegoers?

Below are the reasons, as far as I can see, that explain the discrepancy in the werewolf vs. vampire debate.

One of the greatest disadvantages of werewolf narratives is that they are forced to take place in rural areas. Unlike the vampire, which is supernatural and often depicted as having various powers at their fingertips, the lycanthrope is preternatural and more pure in its defining characteristics. The rule of the werewolf is simple: at the full moon, a human transforms into a human/wolf hybrid. The werewolf cannot become mist, cannot fly as a bat, scale walls like a lizard, lift cars with their bare hands or leap down great heights to land catlike on their feet. Often times, the werewolf, in its human form, is no more powerful than a regular person.

The werewolf, essentially, is a human that has been cursed wild, and in the wild it must exist if it does not want to be hunted and killed. Unlike the vampire, which has various ways in which it can be killed, the method to kill a werewolf is far more simple: a silver bullet striking a vital organ. This weakness is a serious Achilles heel, especially today. One thing modern civilization has is plenty of bullets and plenty of silver.

Most werewolf narratives place the lycanthrope in a rural setting. John Landis’ American Werewolf in London (1981) begins with two backpackers hiking through the moors of Yorkshire, England, when a werewolf attacks them. One of the backpackers is killed, but the other is saved by the villagers after being bitten by the beast. How do the villagers save him? With something as simple as guns, and in the case of this narrative universe, silver is not even necessary to get the job done.

The original werewolf in the John Landis’ movie had been living in the moors for at least a generation, and as soon as an urban element is introduced to its rural world, the beast is hunted down and killed. When the bitten backpacker, now cursed with lycanthropy, returns to London, he transforms at the next full moon, goes on a rampage, is cornered in an alley by the police, and is killed in a hail of bullets in less than twenty-four hours after he first succumbs to the curse.

Place a werewolf in any urban location on the planet in this modern world and the result will invariably be the same. Even in small-town settings, such as Stephen King’s Cycle of the Wolf, the werewolf manages to live only several months before it is eventually killed by a young 10-year old boy in a wheelchair.

A werewolf attempting to live in any highly or mildly populated area suffers unique problems that vampires do not have. A vampire is at home amongst the humans who provide it sustenance. Vampires are cool, calculating, and intelligent. It is hard to imagine one being killed by a child in a wheelchair. The vampire’s violence exists in the shadows, away from the prying eyes of mankind. They are meticulous, stalking their prey before striking with lethal force.

A werewolf, on the other hand, is generally conveyed as a rabid dog attacking whatever comes across its path. In American Werewolf in London, the cursed backpacker falls in love with a young nurse who spends the entire movie trying to help him. Yet at the end of the film, when he transforms into the wolf and she tries to reason with him, he lunges at her and is killed by the aforementioned policemen’s bullets.

A werewolf cannot live in the city, for the full moon is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. It loses control once a month, transforming into the beast. However, placing the lycanthrope in unpopulated settings makes it more difficult for readers and audiences to connect with the character. In America, for instance, 80% of the population lives in urban areas. Around the world, 55% of the human population lives in cities. Readers are used to concrete highways, shopping malls, fancy restaurants, public transportation, trendy bars, relaxing parks, chic nightclubs. They are not used to vast forested expanses and majestic mountains, the only places a werewolf could survive for any length of time.

Readers are going to connect more readily with the well-dressed, sophisticated vampire stalking the city streets. They will find it more difficult to submerge within the point of view of the human wearing flannel shirts and corduroy pants, living in a cabin in the moors and fearing the next full moon which brings about the ensuring transformation that will have it go on a murderous killing spree which will, in most reasonably populated areas, end in its eventual execution.

Werewolves’ rural isolation suggests another reason for vampires’ enjoying more popularity than werewolves. Vampires are historically seen as rich noblemen or lords of their domain. Dracula, the titular character in Bram Stoker’s novel, is a Count in Transylvania who lives in a castle high above those who serve him.

A derivative of this classic figure is Strahd von Zarvoich, a major villain from the Dungeons & Dragons campaign Ravenloft. Like Dracula, he is master of Barovia, a forested land surrounded by mist. He is singularly powerful and extraordinary wealthy. When his authority is questioned in Christine Golden’s Vampire of the Mists, he proclaims, “I am Barovia!” In his realm, all must bow down to him alone.

Whether people will actually admit this or not, the idea of being unquestionably served is a strong desire humans hold. We want to be masters, our whims made manifest by our servants. And within vampire narratives, where do we often find the wolf? In both Dracula and Vampire of the Mists, the wolves are reduced to guard dogs for their undead masters. They prowl the gates of castles, they protect vampire lords sleeping the day away in their crypts. In Vampire of the Mists, when a werewolf enters the story, she is merely a plaything of Strahd, and quakes and flees with her tail between her legs at his fiery temper.

In Len Wiseman’s Underworld (2003), we once again see vampires living in opulence. They lounge in mansions, drive luxury cars, and move with impunity in the human world. Vampires are the elite, the 1% of the one percent, whereas the Lycans (the werewolves) live in sewers and subway tunnels. Lycans dress in plain clothes, when clothed at all. Our first view of them in Underworld have two werewolves fighting each other for sport while others stand around cheering the savagery of the match. Their leader, Lucian, after stopping the fight, scolds them by saying, “You’re acting like a pack of rabid dogs!”

A similar dynamic between the vampire, which is depicted as belonging to the upper crusts of society, and the much more modest werewolf living in a small house, is seen in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. The Cullen family, the vampires of the novel, are fantastically rich. They own mansions that cost millions, dress in designer clothes, and own rare and expensive cars. The werewolf characters, on the other hand, live on a reservation. Reservations abound with poverty, which is statistically double that of the rest of America. While the vampire increases his personal wealth through trading stocks, the werewolf, when in human form, is depicted in the movie version of Twilight as being a mechanic who can detail the engine of a truck.

When seeing how these these two characters are drawn, one can easily answer the question of which one readers and audiences prefer to imagine themselves as: vampires that have billions at their disposal, or werewolf laborers who get dirty doing manual work?

Finally, within the vampire mythology, the vampire usually has a more desirable existence than the werwolf does in the lycanthrope mythology. In Anthony Waller’s American Werewolf in Paris (1998), the backpacker is attacked by a werewolf in a rave, survives, and becomes a werewolf at the next full moon, where he murders multiple innocent people.

In John Fawcett’s Gingersnaps (2000), the teen girl is bitten by what’s believed to be a dog, is infected with lycanthropy and is eventually killed by her little sister. In Joe Dante’s Howling (1981), the reporter barely survives a werewolf attack and is killed when she transforms into a werewolf on the nightly news.

In Mike Nichols’ Wolf (1994), the businessman is bitten by a wolf and begins the slow transformation into a full wolf, never able to return back to human form. In Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman (2010), the main character is bitten by a werewolf that turns out to be his father and is eventually killed by the woman he loves.

Two noticeable storylines reveal themselves in werewolf narratives. Most of them end with the werewolf dying a violent death. There are exceptions, but the demise of the werewolf is generally associated with the literature. Audiences are not meant to be seduced by the power of the lycanthrope. They are meant to fear the transformation, to see it as a tragic outcome of a gruesome encounter, and to search for ways to cure the curse.

Which leads to the second aspect of the werewolf mythology. The curse of lycanthropy is not offered to the character, it is forced upon them. Contrast this to vampirism, which is considered a dark gift. In most vampire lore, a human is drained of blood and then asked if they want to drink the blood of the vampire in order to join them in undeath.

Lycanthropy is similar to rape, whereas vampirism requires consent.

In most vampire narratives, the vampire does not meet a violent death. Here, too, there are some exceptions. Dracula is stabbed through the heart with a wooden stake and decapitated, though the legend of Dracula is as prevalent today as when the novel first came out in 1897, and derivatives of the character are numerous in popular culture.

The vampire’s death is a minority in vampire literature, not the rule. Most narratives have vampires living on after the last page has been read or as the credits roll. Conversely, the werewolf’s death is the norm, not the exception. The werewolf is simply considered a beast that needs to be put down, whereas the vampire is considered a human that has transcended into something better than it was before.

Despite these many disadvantages of the lycanthrope narrative, I am writing a werewolf novel. Ultimately, there is something noble in the mythology. It is a challenge to any writer who decides to undertake the journey into the wild. Lycanthropes are of the natural world, and in this day in age when the planet is threatened by so many artificial pollutants pumped into the waters and atmosphere, maybe it is time we remember that, like the werewolf, nature is wild, majestic, deadly, yet also surprisingly vulnerable. The tragedy of the werewolf narrative perfectly reflects the dangers of modernization consuming the natural world around it. And though this concept may not be as popular as the vampire narrative, it is still a story worth telling, if only as a cautionary tale.