Talk:Werewolf

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Contents

[edit] Adding new section please

There should be a section on the main page called "Removal of Werewolves" and it should be expanded.

Fire and Silver are only briefly mentioned.

Currently there are two paragraphs in the "Becoming a Werewolf" section that actually would be more appropriately placed here (i.e. the reference to wolvesbane). I advize seperating the content of "Becoming a Werewolf" and "Removing a Werewolf"

Also, i tried to add to the wiki (but i am unauthorized) with a fact from an old folklore book about removing a werewolf: If a werewolf is at your doorstep, when the home owner throws their house key at the werewolf, it will be compelled to leave.

I understand that this is a popular subject and the site must be protected from people randomly adding their two cents, but I have more information such as this that I think the article could benefit from.

Ryceratops 14:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)Ryan Sept 19, 2007

[edit] Diphenhydramine can make you a werewolf?

In the first paragraph of the "Becoming a werewolf" section, it is claimed that "Diphenhydramine, ingested in large quantities and with sustained mental effort, is another method." Given that Diphenhydramine is a synthetic antihistamine, sedative, and hypnotic, first discovered in the 1930's which has no natural analogs, this sentence seems misplaced in a paragraph about historical legends. As Diphenhydramine is also used as a contemporary recreational drug and has a following among adolescents, it's inclusion in this article seemed to be clear vandalism.

When I deleted the sentence as vandalism on Sept 30, it was reinstated the following day by clpo13.

Was I hasty in labeling it vandalism? Should this kind of drug-related non-sequitur just be flagged as needing a citation? When I look at Wikipedia:Vandalism, the distinction seems to be about whether it is a good-faith edit or not? My call was that is was a bad-faith edit. Was I wrong?

Grhabyt 18:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Heck, if it makes you a werewolf I'm buying shares in the company....cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:47, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
I may have been the hasty one. The sentence had been there a long time, so I assumed it had some kind of credibility. When Grhabyt removed it, I thought his was a NPOV edit, considering s/he was a new user (new users tend to vandalize articles under the guise of fixing vandalism). However, I should have looked further into the issue to see who originally added the sentence and to see if it had any evidence whatsoever. It probably doesn't, so I think it can be safely removed. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Grhabyt. --clpo13(talk) 03:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dinosaurs?

Maybe therapod dinosaurs were werewolves, they look somewhat like mammals and they walk on two legs —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 (talk • contribs) 04:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

um hello theropod dinosaurs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.245.110.142 (talk) 03:28, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Warewolf

Since it's a common mistake to spell "werewolf" as "warewolf", I think it would be a good idea to redirect Warewolf to this page. (I know that would have helped me). Dengarde ► Complaints 02:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Righto, done cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

Right - there is an FA of Kitsune which would be a good model for this one. It is a bit rough but I'll be somoothing it out. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming

I've proposed renaming Category:Werewolves in fiction as well as its subcategories. (See banner above). Discussion is here. - Tobogganoggin talk 02:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Erm, can't get to the discussion. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:08, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Above link to discussion should work now. - Tobogganoggin talk 02:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Discussion was closed as Keep. There may be a better template for this, but I used the standard results template above. -- Kesh 23:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comprised Of

"were comprised of" in the "Other Uses of the Term" is incorrect English grammar. The correct phrase is "and comprised members...." The whole comprises the parts, while the parts are comprised by the whole. Please change this grammatical mistake as the article is blocked and I cannot do so myself.

[edit] Old World skinwalkers

Part of the article reads, "The vilkacis and skin-walkers probably have a common origin in Proto-Indo-European society, where a class of young unwed warriors were apparently associated with wolves."

Is there an actual valid reason for the skinwalkers (which are from North America) to be associated with a Bronze Age cult in the Old World? 75.165.5.155 (talk) 06:06, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Beast of Gevaudaun

I had to skim this page but if I'm not mistaken you never mentioned the accounts of La Bete, A.K.A. the beast of Gevaudaun. La bete was said to be a large, beastly, wolf. She reigned over the mountains of france for three years and killed many people. There is one true story of three women on their way to mass. They were approached by a man who offered to take them through the woods. In the nick of time dragoons arrived and warned the women not to go through the woods because La Bete had just been seen there. When the dragoons left the strange and dark man insisted that they go through the woods but the women still refused. When the man reached out and touched a woman on the hand the ladies it was covered in fur. Almost the exact same thing happened where two other women were on their way to mass and were approached by the same shadowy man. The wind was fierce and when his shirt blew open, it revealed, to the women's horror a long body covered with fur. to find out more about this go on google.com and type in to the search bar 'beast of Gevaudaun' 4theloveofwolves (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)4theloveofwolves4theloveofwolves (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)January 26, 2008, 1:10

Or, you could find the proper citations and add it yourself! That's the nice part about Wikipedia, after all. :) -- Kesh (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Could someone please clarify this?

[...]along with another form of this being "licked" by a werewolf to turn one's self (in this case the person is continuously a werewolf but has total control over the form, and has no blood lust, but gains increased strength and agility). Also it is hereditary, meaning you can be born a werewolf in women they do not bring their change into view until after they have mated with a male werewolf, but the boys are born into it.

I have totally no idea what this means. Looks like someone added this in less-than-basic english and omitted a large portion of full stops and commas. Especially: [...]meaning you can be born a werewolf in women they do not bring their change into view[...]

I can be born as a werewolf inside of a woman? Do you not usually leave the woman's body when you're born? And who is "they", just so I know who does not bring his or her change into view? Seriously, this needs some fixing!

I would do it myself, but I'm afraid, since I don't quite get what this section wants to tell me, I'd make things worse... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.66.51.170 (talk) 13:41, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I've removed that section. I don't know why this article is the target for such weird claims and vandalism. -- Kesh (talk) 14:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vulnerabilities

The article describes the werewolf as being vulnerable to silver. While this is a common element of related folklore, there is nowhere any reference as to why silver qualifies as a greater threat to a werewolf than any other material a weapon could be made of. I mean, how does the werewolf escape death from a normal type of weapon? Does he regenerate? Do the bullets and blades simply bounce off his hide? Will they pass through him like through a ghost? Could someone familiar with the topic please add an explanation to the "Characteristics" section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.66.51.170 (talk) 15:44, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction?--or is there a Clarification?

This: "The medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury associated the transformation with the appearance of the full moon; however, there is evidence that the association existed among the Ancient Greeks, appearing in the writings of Petronius. This concept was rarely associated with the werewolf until the idea was picked up by fiction writers."

So...Which is it? Was the association of the werewolf transformation with the appearance of the full moon rarely associated with the werewolf until picked up by fiction writers, or does it go all the way back to ancient Greece?? or is this trying to say something else?? -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.236.53 (talk • contribs) 12:48, April 7, 2008

It sounds like the writer was trying to say that the association existed that far back, but was not frequently cited until fiction writers used it as a plot device. Most medieval stories of werewolves involved witchcraft or pacts with the devil, not necessarily tied to the moon at all. -- Kesh (talk) 17:29, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slovenes in Poland

"Common amongst the Kashubs, and the Serbs and Slovenes of what is now northern Poland" What does this refer to? Slovenes have never lived in northern Poland. Could someone disambiguate this link please? --Eleassar my talk 20:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. Serbs and Slovenes are not found in Poland. They are found in the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia and Serbia). Kashubs are generally from Poland. Swordmaster13 (talk) 05:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

Recent edits have added the information that "Wer" is Germanic for "man", and I originally reverted this with the edit summary "rv unsourced assertion". After reviewing the article I find that I was mistaken, in that the information is cited in the Etymology section. However, the etymology of the term is complex enough that I still don't think it should be handled in such a fragmentary way in the first sentence. Typically only pronunciation guides are provided in the lede and origins are left for the etymology section. Doc Tropics 03:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Werewolves and Vampires?

Has anyone besides me noticed this? THat Werewolves and Vampires do not get along...At all. I recently just watched "Van Helsing" and that's when I noticed the pattern I've been seeing. Here are a few examples:

-Underwold Evolution:

The Werewolf and Vampire clans were at war, or something like that, correct? If not then they hated each other.

-Van Helsing:

Dracula only made a cure for the Werewolves because that was the only creature that could kill him. And earlier in the movie we see this picture of a Werewolf and Vampire fighting.

-Kaibutsu Oujo: MONSTER PRINCESS:

Riza/Liza [Werewolf Half Breed] and Reiri [Vampiress] do not like each other in any way. They often fight over pointless things, and at times it can get physical. Later on, however, they tolerate each other, but they still do not like each other. And, one of them mentioned something about their clans not getting along as well. [This is a horror/comedy. btw]

So, if anyone thinks this is worth mentioning, that'd be pretty cool. I would actually like to know more about it, but I just happened to notice this was all. 70.251.94.30 (talk) 17:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a very recent thing to do "vampires vs. werewolves." We'd need some kind of source to mention it in the article. -- Kesh (talk) 21:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Werewolves in Cinema

I think the Werewolves in Fiction section should be divided into two, with the second being devoted to the depiction of werewolves in cinema. The Sanity Inspector (talk) 18:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

There's no real need to do that in this article. That section links to Werewolf fiction, where a full treatment on werewolves in film is available. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)