#stiles meta

[qwanderer]

Just pondering the parallels between Miles (Vorkosigan saga) and Stiles (teen wolf)

Dad is the law in these hills, but this little guy has to take care of himself in the bigger world with the best defense he has, his ability to talk incessantly due to raging ADHD.

He has been devoted to a crush on the same woman since they were both kids, and is one of the few who actually knows how smart and badass she can be, but she loves someone else. Still, she is an indispensable part of the network of resources he collects and uses as best he can to save people from torture, death and nastiness of all kinds.

He goes on a lot of adventures ranging from wacky hijinks to extremely deadly, including killing people and getting temporarily killed, which involves suspension in an icy container. This temporary death leads to a chink in the health and reliability of his brain, his primary armor.

(I have to stop here for now because I'm only a little ways into "memory" in my reread)

[queerebrum]

So, I made this gif to go into a set, but, the longer I look at it the sadder I get. This is such a quintessentially Stiles scene. He winks, he points, he’s snarking at Rafael McCall, he should, for all intents and purposes, be having the time of his life.

Once the wink ends though, his face just falls, he blinks and his eyes sort of blank out.  I stared at this a long time before I realized this was after the scene where Kira’s foxfire jump-started the Nogitsune. This scene feels off because is it really Stiles? Either Stiles really is just worn all the way down to bare bones and is still trying to mask to make everyone else feel better, or this isn’t Stiles. 

Either way, I’m very sad about it.

[lotuspicrs]

‪i just realised when stiles threw the mountain ash at the anuk-ite he raised his hand like he was manipulating it and the ash sailed upwards to consume the anuk-ite ‬

[princeescaluswords]

I would also say that Stiles changes his approach to problems somewhat. In s3 he tries to be more logical -- he's not quite there but he will change his theories and the evidence develops, is willing to consider Lydia as a suspect, argues against the Alphas being the killer b/c they arrived at the same time and starts to use tools he's seen from his father. But after he fails to find the Darach or realize he's possessed he starts to retreat to more emotional and instinct driven methods.

You see, here is where I disagree.   Stiles relies almost entirely on inductive reasoning.   He is intuitive, perceptive, and has a good command of information, but it doesn’t change the fact that he goes with his gut first and then finds the evidence to fit his intuition. 

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does have weaknesses.   From season one to season 5, Stiles’ fixates on his gut feelings even when other possibilities exist: Deaton is the alpha; Matt is evil; the three-fold death; the list of Darach identities; Kira is evil; Liam is a shifter; Peter is plotting something; Theo is untrustworthy – you’ll notice that half of these are wrong and half of these are right.  That’s the problem with inductive reasoning – if you are looking for confirmation for your instinct, you can find false positives or you can miss obvious clues.   Why did he not even investigate Miss Blake, who was at the school at a ridiculous hour, who didn’t run screaming for the hills when ‘werewolves!,’ who sexed up an incapacitated and missing Derek?   He already had his list of suspects, and he wasn’t going to change that list because of new information.

It’s one of the big storylines of Season 5A.  What happens when his intuition isn’t enough?   When the evidence isn’t there?    He’s frustrated, angry, and paranoid. which sets himself up for his spiral into self-loathing.  

I only hope that the FBI beats his reliance on his gut right out of him, because, contrary to our hopes and Malia’s support, he’s not a very good detective because of it.

[septemberpoems]

calling it now

stiles or derek kicked an evil!fbi dude’s ass and stiles stole the vest to smuggle derek out of there to safety bc nobody could bullshit being an fbi agent like stiles

[princeescaluswords]

(#3 I guess?): I would also say in s4 show tried to address Stiles' tendency to keep information from people to protect them from themselves. He doesn't want to tell Malia about Peter after the dead pool comes out b/c he thinks Peter will manipulate her. That's not fair to Malia and its not new behavior, he's done it w/ Scott and his father. But Malia breaks up with him & afterward, in 5.02, Stiles tells Liam its better to tell people. Stiles keeps secrets in s5 but its for different reasons.

Except, three episodes afterwards, he does the same thing to everyone that he has been doing to his father, to Lydia, to Young Derek, and to Malia.  He conceals information as a means of controlling others for their own good.

Why did he keep werewolves from his father for nearly three complete seasons?   To keep him safe.   It’s the same reason he gives for doing it to Lydia and to Malia.  But the point is that while his goal is noble, it still keeps the situation in his control.  

(Side note: I am fully aware that other characters have done it as well.  I’m just talking about Stiles here.)

When he conceals Donovan from the pack and his father in season 5, the reason is still control.   He wants to manage how the pack and his father look at him; what other reason does he have for concealing an obvious case of self-defense from people who have 1) experienced aggressive chimera before, 2) forgiven far worse crimes, and 3) have been with him from day one.   Yes, it’s irrational, yes, it’s driven by fear, but at the base, Stiles is still trying to control the world by withholding information.

[princeescaluswords]

I realize I should probably clarify? I don't mean that Stiles doesn't get help when he asks, just that the help doesn't work out. We talk about characters not learning from mistakes, but sometimes they are learning, its just not a positive lesson.

Oh, I agree with that.  Character growth doesn’t have to be growth in a positive direction.  In fact, literature is full of characters who are made worse by their experiences, such as in the novels Lolita, The Metamorphosis, Heart of Darkness, and The Awakening.   And if Stiles had been shown to spiral into some dark place where he became a sullen, bitter paranoid, that would have been dark, but it would have been growth.  (There are some excellent fanfictions which approach this idea.)  What the show did, unfortunately, is always pull back from this.   Stiles suffered anguish and pain from what happened to him and from his bad decisions, but he was always perfectly recovered by the end of the season. (This is a television thing.  What can you do?)

My problem is that the way he was written and acted, he always started the seasons as if nothing had changed since he overheard his father talking about a body cut in half in the woods.  He was still sarcastic asshole with boundary issues, as if he hadn’t been possessed.  Take the beginning of Season 6, “Memory Lost.”  He recognizes that he uses Lydia as some sort of ‘supernatural metal detector’ but it doesn’t bother him in the slightest.  He’s still self-centeredly pissed off that they won’t cater to his need to make something a supernatural mystery.  (And before you say “He was right!” how many of the multiple times per week in the last three months was he ‘not right.’)   

Positive growth would have been: “Lydia, thanks for coming.  I understand that my concerns are difficult for you” (only done in less stilted language – script writer i am not.)   Negative growth would have been a screaming fit where he accuses her of not caring that people die.  Instead, we get a sarcastic “Let’s be real, it’s way more than that.”  It’s Wolf Moon all over again.

The only growth we see is from the rest of the pack, who understand that this is what Stiles needs to feel secure.  Lydia simply walks away; Malia imitates her; Scott tries to talk him through the evidence.  

[princeescaluswords]

As far as Stiles changing: Stiles may have brought Scott out to find a body, but for most of s1 into s2 his motivations for any investigation etc. is either an immediate threat or Scott bringing it to him as important. Starting in s3 w/ the Darach, Stiles may not ID the problem, but he does take the initiative to begin investigating and then bring it to Scott. Its a small but important shift between doing something b/c Scott thinks he should, and doing something b/c he does & it evolves in s3 on

I think you got cut off, but I’m going to try to answer your question anyway. 

That is an interesting point of view – your argument is that Stiles changes his motivations for investigating, which is where we should be looking for character growth and development.  I am open to this line of argument, because I’ve seen people who miss actual events because they’re looking for a particular type of event.  (There should be a difference between taste - “The character didn’t grow the way I wanted them to” – and fact “The character did grow.”)

I think that the show is ambiguous about why Stiles investigates, but I can’t deny that where in Wolf Moon is fueled only by morbid curiosity, as the show progresses he sees it as responsibility.  Remember the scene in “Muted” – “Remember the family-murdering axe murderer?  You’d rather go to class?  I’ve never heard something irresponsible in my life.”     I don’t think I can deny that Stiles has become obsessed with their role in Beacon Hills: “This town would burn to the ground without us.”

I thought about this question a lot, and I think that I can’t refute your initial argument, which means – and I hate this – that I was wrong.  Stiles did grow through the series.  We can argue whether it is positive or negative growth, but that’s immaterial.  I was looking at how he treats the people in his life – and I still believe that he hasn’t changed in regards to that – but he has changed in how he treats his relationship to the world around him. 

You got me. :)