on banshees
for @lydiamartinappreciation week, day 2: Banshee Lydia
context: I took a class called Irish Folklore when I studied abroad in Ireland, and one of the things we studied was banshee lore.
It's safe to say Teen Wolf isn't too concerned with lore-accurateness for any of its mythological creatures, and the Banshee is no exception. But I was rereading my final essay for that class, and even though Lydia (and the other banshees of TW) don't exactly fit the mold of your traditional Banshee, there's definitely a lot in the lore that Lydia connects with, thematically.
So because connecting schoolwork to my interests is one of my favorite things to do, may I present:
The Wailing Women: Lydia's Connections to the Traditional Irish Banshee (According to my Irish Folklore Class)
An Bhean Sí
The Irish word for this figure (anglicized to banshee) translates to "the fairy woman," though she is not associated with the fairy folk. She may also be called an bean chaointe, the keening woman. Notice, if you will, the definite article "an" (or "the," in English). Traditionally, the Banshee is a solitary figure - you don't see multiple Banshees, there's only one.
This, obviously, doesn't hold true in TW, but I think it's interesting that, unlike werewolf pack dynamics, where Omegas/lone wolves are rare, most of the banshees we meet are solitary. Meredith is isolated from the outside world in Eichen House, Lenore is completely alone in Canaan, and Lydia's interactions with both tend to end poorly. Lydia does have the pack, but as much as they love her and she loves them, her unique abilities isolate her.
And when the Wild Hunt targets a town, they take everyone, human or supernatural, except the banshees. So even though TW doesn't stick to the lore of having only a single Banshee, its banshees are still intertwined with themes of loneliness and solitude.
Predictor of Death
Banshees don't predict danger. They predict death. (4x09: Perishable)
It was believed that hearing the cry of the Banshee heralded a death in one's community or family. However, unlike in popular media portrayal, the Banshee was typically seen as a benevolent figure. She did not cause the death by wailing; rather, she wailed to warn the community of a death that would have happened anyway, allowing them to prepare mentally and emotionally.
Similarly, Lydia doesn't cause any of the deaths she predicts. She has a strong connection with death, which manifests in her visions, her ability to find dead bodies, and her predictions of death, but her visions aren't what cause those things to happen, and they often provide context or warning for her and her friends.
One notable death prediction that she (and Meredith) have is Derek's in season 4. It would have been easy for the pack to assume that Derek's name unlocking the last part of the deadpool was a threat, but that didn't end up being the case. Derek was already dying due to whatever Kate did to him; Meredith using his name to encode the list and Lydia to decode it gave warning to this fact. It allowed Derek himself and the rest of the pack to mentally prepare for the possibility of his death.
The Keening Woman
Keening women were an important part of Irish funerary tradition up until the 20th century. These women came to the funerals of people they typically did not know personally, and provided their services wailing and crying for the dead (also known as keening). They were essentially professional mourners, becoming a template of grief for the rest of the community to follow so that they could process their grief and move on from the death of a loved one.
In a 2000 documentary titled Talking to the Dead, Patricia Lysaght, a preeminent scholar of Banshee lore, called the Banshee "the counterpart of the human keening woman, with the banshee sort of crying death into the community, the human keening woman crying death out of the community." (22:31)
This quote struck me as relevant to Lydia, not because it's necessarily true to her, but because it actually points out an interesting contrast. Though the Banshee's call traditionally precedes a death, Lydia more often finds the bodies after they're already dead, especially earlier in her arc.
This seems to be because her banshee abilities are still new to her, and in parts of 3a, she tries to resist their pull (I mean, what teenager wants to be finding dead bodies on the regular?).
But, even though the deaths aren't caused by her, she begins to feel some responsibility for them.
Maybe if I just stopped trying to fight it, I'd find them before it happens. Maybe with enough time for someone like [Scott] to do something about it. (3x09: The Girl Who Knew Too Much)
As time goes on and she gains more control over her abilities, she does begin to be able to predict death before it happens (i.e. Derek, or her premonition in the library before Theo kills Scott in 5x10), along with other future events. However, I would posit that, despite her guilt over not being able to save the people whose bodies she finds, the act of finding the bodies in itself does serve an important purpose.
In being drawn to places where death has already occurred, she ensures that the victims are found, and more specifically found by people who can properly act on that information. Because Lydia is the one to find several of Jennifer's victims in 3A, the pack is able to eventually defeat Jennifer and avenge her victims. Because Lydia is the one to find the man at the gas station in 4x02, they're able to figure out Kate's plan for the de-aged Derek.
As Lysaght put it, the duo of the Banshee and the human keening women served to almost bracket a time of mourning, with the Banshee bringing it in, and the keening women closing it out. But Lydia plays both roles, both warning of death's coming, and providing closure after the fact.
We also see this in Lydia's most heartbreaking scream.
This one, this scream, serves no purpose other than an expression of grief. It's not a warning, it's Lydia's best friend dying. And not just her best friend, but a key member of their group, a beloved daughter, friend, and lover.
Like the keening women, Lydia cries for Allison's death.
Because she may be a banshee, but she's also human. She encompasses both bookends of death represented by these traditional Irish figures.
Familial Connection
That got... sadder than I meant it to. I don't want to leave you on that note, so for this last section, let's talk about something a little less depressing.
Remember in the first section where I said the Banshee is a solitary figure? Well, that's true, but at the same time, she has a deep connection with the people whose deaths she cries for. It's said that she only cries for true Irish families - which became a point of pride when Ireland was colonized by the English.
To my memory, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to who Lydia's death-sense extends to, but I wonder if you could make the argument that she's intrinsically connected to Beacon Hills in the same way that the Banshee is intrinsically connected to Ireland? One story of the Banshee is that a family heard her crying, and later received a letter from America saying that an emigrated family member had passed away at the same time as they'd heard the Banshee. I'd be willing to bet that even if one of the people close to her had left Beacon Hills, she would still be able to sense their death, and I wonder if it would work the other way around - when Lydia leaves BH, would she still find herself subconsciously getting involved in deaths that occur there?
Anyway, that wasn't the point I was trying to make here. While Lydia can and does sense the deaths of people she doesn't know, she certainly seems to have a stronger connection with her close friends (see: Allison's death, as well as Stiles in 6A). Even though, like I said in the first section, her banshee powers can isolate her, she still has very deep and meaningful connections with those around her. Unlike the traditional Banshee, she actually interacts with others, and that becomes so important.
Because traditionally, by the time the Banshee cries for a death, it is too late to prevent it. But Lydia, by relying on her connections with the pack, is able to do something about her premonitions.
Conclusion
I started this essay off by saying that Teen Wolf's Banshee lore isn't accurate to the traditional lore, and that's true. But in the ways that it differs, we can see how it does so to draw out the show's themes. (to say these things were completely intentional might be giving the writers a little too much credit, but the themes are still there!)
One of the big themes in TW is humanity despite the supernatural. This is labeled most explicitly in Scott's arc, but it's absolutely present in Lydia's as well. Like Scott, Lydia's abilities are awakened through violence being done to her, and all of a sudden, her humanity is thrown into question.
What is she? Humans can't do the things she can. But the bite didn't suddenly make her a completely different person, which leads to this push-and-pull between humanity and the supernatural that is present throughout TW. As we saw with Allison's death, she's still human.
And the thing is, another big theme of the show is breaking tradition. The Wild Hunt takes a town and leaves a Banshee - it happened in Canaan, and it seems to be inevitable in Beacon Hills, until the McCall pack forces a different outcome, in large part thanks to Lydia. The traditional Irish Banshee is a solitary figure, but Lydia surrounds herself with people she loves, and it changes the outcome of the story.
She holds onto her humanity, even as she embraces her Banshee abilities. And by doing so, she breaks the mold of tradition in order to make a better future.
Further Banshee resources: Talking to the Dead documentary Blúiríní Béaloidis podcast episode with Patricia Lysaght The Banshee: The Irish Death-Messenger by Patricia Lysaght (haven't read this, but it seems to be my professor's source for most of the powerpoint I used as a source)
