Scott McCall & Personal Accountability
Scott McCall – A Teen Wolf Meta I think Scott McCall is one of those people who makes friends quickly but can’t keep them longterm. Because people rightfully don’t put up with his entitlement and toxic behavior – especially when they realized it’s not just aimed at others, but at them as well. That's why Scott clings to Stiles so hard. Because no matter how badly he treats Stiles, Stiles still puts up with Scott's bullshit, jealous fits and temper tantrums; tolerates Scott's hypocrisy and abusive behavior; and still wants Scott as his friend, still likes him. For some reason only Jeff Davis and Tyler Posey knows. And Scott knows it's extremely rare to find people like Stiles, who will accept you as you are without judging you – which is something Scott's utterly incapable of. The problem is that Stiles was too accepting of Scott. Maybe if Stiles had put up more boundaries, had told Scott that he went too far, had called Scott out on his shitty actions and behavior more often, then maybe Scott would have had to grow the fuck up and change his attitude...or maybe they would have just broken up, since it is a well known canon fact that Scott is a whiny manchild who can't take NO for an answer and can't stand being contradicted/ rejected/ overshadowed/ called out on his wrongdoings and abusive tendencies. Just look at how he treated everyone around him. We see it in Season 1, with his ableist "jokes" about Stiles taking too much Adderall, making fun of Stiles' ADHD, and claiming that the Hale Family deserved to be burnt alive by the hunters. The way he insults Melissa, his own mother, or uses his mother's grief and/or guilt against her. We can see it in Season 2, when he calls Isaac an idiot and mocks him for wanting the Bite to defend himself from his abusive father. We can see it in Master Plan, when he violates Derek (an incapacitated rape victim) and then boasts about it in front of his own victim. We see it in Season 3A, when Scott repeatedly abuses Isaac out of jealousy. We see it in Season 4, where he takes advantage of his werewolf powers and assaults Liam (a freshman) just because Liam's better and much more talented than him at lacrosse. We see it in Season 5, when he treats Stiles and Kira like garbage and then gaslights them into thinking it's their fault, which is abusers' MO. We see it in Season 6, when he runs around trying to recruit people to do the dirty work for him and wants to bite Stiles against his will because "the plan is to get Stiles to come up with a plan". Interestingly enough though, Scott has always kept his cruelest jabs for the only ones who tolerated him and he was closest to: Melissa, Stiles, Allison, Isaac...
Okay, so this is long. Give me a moment.
First of all, I want to address this statement: "The problem is that Stiles was too accepting of Scott." In terms of how Stiles was written, in the early season you see him have a lot of compassion for people around him, always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, and I think he got that from both of his parents, but especially his father.
I think that this was brilliantly written and it certainly explains why Scott would have made friends with him when they were in elementary school. Right around that time, Stiles lost his mother (at age nine), and he would have met Scott right when his dad walked out on him and his mom and this would explain how they became friends in the first place.
When you have the two main characters make friends at an emotionally vulnerable time in their lives, especially at such a young age, it helps to explain why Stiles kept on holding onto Scott as his friend, despite his bad behavior and lack of personal accountability.
We see it time and time again in the show--where when Scott is absent from the scene and Stiles is there instead, when people question Scott, Stiles seems to come to his defense (though a bit weakly at times), and we see that he wants to believe in the best in people, especially his best friend. However, when Stiles kills Donovan in self-defense and Scott doesn't believe him about the circumstances--well, this is when Stiles is finally disillusioned about who his friend really is.
After that incident, we see Stiles' narrative finally splitting away from Scott's entirely, and he begins to shift his priorities because he realizes that he no longer trusts Scott.
Now, in regard to "Scott has always kept his cruelest jabs for the only ones who tolerated him and he was closest to", I can say that this is one aspect of his character that was consistently written, so it makes you wonder if it was done on purpose.
If you watched this show from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old boy, you would have been on Scott's side the entire time--especially with that kind of behavior towards your friends. One of the unfortunate aspects of male teenage behavior is to insult your friends because you love them. Being able to dish out insults is considered normal teen behavior, but any adult who watches the show can immediately see the toxic behavior.
However, this kind of behavior is something that dictates the kind of person that Scott was. Treating his friends badly with the expectation of no consequences shaped how he then viewed the world around him, causing him to extend that behavior to every aspect of his life, making him an unlikable character from the beginning.
He had no sense of social or emotional responsibility or accountability, making all of his decisions questionable.
That about covers it, I think, so I will leave it here.