It’s the entitlement.  

As a white person, I’ve noticed that one of the fundamental problems when people like me try to grapple with the consequences of colonialism is a sort of binary thinking as defense mechanism.   If something was good, then it can’t be bad.  There were many positive reasons for expansion and colonization: fleeing religious persecution, exploring economic opportunities away from established oppressive economic structures, countering overpopulation of cities, the ennobling effects of freedom and exploration – all these are great, inspiring things.  What’s uncomfortable is trying to reconcile them with the unintended but very much omnipresent consequences of that colonization:  slavery, disease, generational poverty, and cultural obliteration inflicted on the natives from which colonists stole the land.  You can’t have one without the other.

So their reaction is to deny that it happened.   To say it doesn’t matter.  To say that it happened so far in the past that they shouldn’t have to think about  it.  To focus completely on one side.  (In one excellent development, claiming it was for the natives’ own good has completely fallen out of fashion.) It’s easier that way.  This is also entitlement.

This attitude expresses itself constantly in fandom – an exclusive focus on the Hale family’s needs and history and the wrongs done to them, which serves to minimize and erase that the Hales’ attempts to satisfy those needs were executed on the backs of children and adults who were not Hales.  Yes, the Hales were protectors of Beacon Hills. Yes, they helped found they city.  Yes, they were powerful and influential.  Yes, they were the victims of terrible persecution and a terrible crime.

And not one bit of that justifies the consequences of what Peter and Derek did to the children and adults around them.  It wasn’t until Derek (and to a lesser extent, Peter) let go, as you said, of the idea of Hale supremacy and made it up to the people whom they hurt that they actually got to grow.  

The idea that Derek and Peter didn’t deserve a return to the glory days of the Hales cannot be processed by fandom, so they create elaborate justifications of the worst abuses the show depicted in pursuit of that supremacy.   They’re real werewolves!  They’re mystically tied to the land!   They’ve got the backing of some half-baked werewolf/occult government that recognizes their sovereignty – again and again and again.  It doesn’t matter that it contradicts canon or doesn’t make any sense – if Scott is such a danger because he doesn’t werewolf right that the werewolf government has to step in, are they going in turn give control to Peter, a man who killed people from behind until he got his ass kicked by a bunch of teenagers, or Derek, who never met a Bad Decision he didn’t make? 

No, this concept of the right of others to rule over people who have no idea who they are and never asked for their rule is used to diminish others.  Scott got to play first line!  Scott got popular and the girl!  So he should be grateful for the Bite, for the mental violation, for the lies and manipulation, for all the responsibilities and violence he didn’t want but had to endure. (Look at all the good things we brought to the savages!)  Stiles should be flattered that Peter, after brutalizing the girl he loved in front of him, after kidnapping him, after forcing him to work at his command, graciously offered him the Bite rather than forcing it on him.  It doesn’t matter that Peter used Lydia as an object for his own ends, the trauma forced her evolution into a powerful young woman.   Or the dozens and dozens of people who eventually paid the price for Peter’s temper tantrum.

And those three Gurkhas I mean Betas were willing recruits to fight someone else’s war.  And Derek loved them so much he treated them like family soldiers (training them through combat and breaking their bones, forcing them to sleep on the floor, shouting at them when they dared to want something else.)  Two of them died honorably, fighting Derek’s wars.

The production systematically demolished the arguments of the Hales as to their rights to a glorious destiny.   Derek grew up and moved on.  Peter didn’t and was appropriately punished.   One of the interesting things about every single enemy in Teen Wolf is that they all sprung from the Hales and the Argent’s conflict, and yet the warriors, the people who suffered from them, tended not to have either of those last names.  Every villain was a consequences of the villain before that, and that all went back to a struggle of which most of the victims had never even heard.  

It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so fundamentally racist.

Think about the concept of ‘territory’ which the show never embraced and how that would supposedly work if the show had embraced that concept.   Not only do people who embrace the concept of territory use it in a way science never did in regards to wolf packs, we’re finding now that science had misconceived of how wolf packs regarded territory.  When they use that word, they’re using it the way gangs and feudal lords used it.   It’s another bastardization of pack as paramilitary unit rather than pack as found family, which was the show’s idealization.

The concept of pack territory derived from pop culture would be more of an impediment than an advantage.  Would Scott have to rip out someone’s throat to be able to attend UC Davis?  Would Stiles have to submit to another pack in order to go to George Washington?   Is the pack forbidden to travel to Disneyland?   Would Derek have to stand, defiant and proud, and say “Scott, this is my Kroger.  You have to go hunt elsewhere.”   The show rightfully eschewed it.

Territorial wolves in action.

The concept of werewolf territory serves white fandom’s power fantasies by investing the alpha with social and political power which enables them to act outside of basic civilized decency.  You might notice, this fanon concept only seems to apply when – you guessed it! – white men are in charge.  Peter has a right to revenge and to punish whomever he sees fit, because he’s the alpha and this is his territory.   Scott in the first three seasons must submit to Derek and/or Peter because he lives in their territory.  Derek can kill or Bite whomever he wants, because this is his territory, etc.

Yet this same fandom rages against Talia for removing Peter’s and Derek’s memories, even though it was her territory wasn’t it?   They despise Laura for ‘running,’ yet they don’t seem to scorn Satomi for not smothering omega Peter to death in his coma or driving beta Derek away after Laura’s death drew the attention of the Argents.  No, instead they concentrate on how Scott is supposed to be weak, neglectful, or too moral to protect his territory.  (It will always be the height of hypocrisy because, by their own conception, Scott could have driven Derek out of the city, executed Peter, and killed the possessed Stiles ‘for the greater good.’  Yet they never hold the fact that he didn’t against him.)

It’s the same thing with ‘embrace the wolf.’   First off, no one knows exactly what that means, so it’s a blank slate available for fandom to erase Scott’s legitimate grievances against Peter and Derek.  Scott’s dislike of Peter isn’t motivated by legitimate resentment for transforming him against his will, for violating his mind, for trying to kill everyone he loved; it’s about him not ‘embracing the wolf.’  Scott’s refusal to submit to Alpha Derek, who used him, lied to him, threatened him and the people he cared about, beat him, and demonstrated no leadership skills whatsoever isn’t about Scott maintaining his own beliefs and autonomy, it’s about him not ‘embracing the wolf.’   We have not a single canon instance of Scott ‘hating himself’ because he’s a werewolf – he wants the cure because he’s been told that unless he has iron control (or submits to these brutal, violent strangers) he is not only in mortal danger but there’s a strong possibility he’ll hurt the people he loves.  Eventually, in Season 4, he accepts being a werewolf and an alpha because Liam needs him to do so, and he has a responsibility toward Liam.  He put aside his dislike of the powers and responsibilities forced on him against his will because he had to.  

You notice, no other werewolf is accused by fandom of failing to ‘embrace the wolf.’   Peter loves his Italian tables and Shelby Cobras, and I’m sure the Primal would say he was failing to ‘embrace the wolf.’   Satomi teaches her pack peaceful resistance and the ability to hide, and Derek “You’re not leaving, you’re running” Hale never criticizes her once.  Cora abandons her pack (and territory!) for one in South America – twice – but no one ever says she’s betraying her wolf nature.

It’s a created standard for fandom to delegitimize a werewolf who manages to embrace the best of what it means to be a werewolf and the best of what it  means to be human – courage, compassion, humility, and principle – while still having flaws.   I’ll accept the ‘embrace the wolf’ criticism when someone applies it to the white male werewolves.

All of this was no doubt horrible for a teenage boy to have happen to him. And I’m sure that his sister, who was dealing with her own grief, and having to cope with becoming an alpha at too young an age, was not the best emotional support for a kid dealing with all of that. But… up until that point, Derek had had a happy life. A family that loved him, protected him, took care of him. I’m sure his life wasn’t perfect, but it was for the most part happy. 2/

A sixteen year old that was attacked in the dark, in the middle of the woods, assaulted, violated, had his body altered against his will. A teenage boy of only 16 who spent a month where he had a vicious alpha terrorize him, invade his mind, and where he was was repeatedly abused and tortured. And that’s not even counting all the torture he went through in s2 up to 6. Why do you think it is that people do not consider that part of Scott’s traumatic childhood

The problem with parts of the fandom is their strategy of – and this is a laugh riot of irony – black-and-white thinking.    Characters are either one thing or the other; they don’t change for the worse or the better over time, and if they are good people, they can’t do bad things, and if they are bad people, they can’t do good things.

What this frees parts of the fandom to do is to isolate one point of time where the character they are attracted to is good, powerful, skilled, etc. and freeze them at that point forever.  So, they all remember where the show gave Scott a heroic moment where his pack beat the bad guy, and they forget how panicked a sixteen-year-old was when he first changed.   

Scott’s panicked and suspect decision making at the beginning of Season 1 disqualifies him from his more settled and heroic behavior in say, Season 4.  

Similarly, for many members of this fandom, Derek Hale will forever be a victim of Peter and Kate – a young boy who wanted to loved and be loved and thus deserving of success, and patience and regard.   

For many members of this fandom,  Peter Hale will always be the alpha, on the road to righteous and well-deserved revenge and thus his atrocities are unfortunate but necessary.

For many members of the fandom, Allison Argent will always be the woman who under her grandfather’s tutelage shot Boyd and Erica with malice in her eyes.

For many members of the fandom, Scott McCall will always be the boy who having been turned into a werewolf and gained phenomenal athletic skill, played in a game he shouldn’t have to impress his mother, impress his girlfriend, and retain his dream.

It’s a very simple trick – just pick the character you like at their best or pick a character you don’t like at their worst, and see everything they ever do through that lens.

It doesn’t matter to them that Derek in Season 2 was doing exactly what Peter and Kate did to him and Scott – placing teenagers in extreme danger for his own ends.  Derek used Erica, Boyd, Isaac and tried to use Jackson as child soldiers and a replacement family.  It was horrible and the show intended it to be horrible, though it also presented it as understandable (empathy without approval).  But fandom can’t see that Derek, as much as he was harmed by what happened to him, is acting the villain.   They keep him frozen at the point he lost his family, a perpetual victim protected from the consequences of his actions by his trauma.

It doesn’t matter to them that Allison in Battlefield (2x11) was reacting to the manipulations of Gerard and the violent actions of Derek’s pack.  Yes, Victoria died, but she died after Derek and his pack tried to kill Allison’s friends Jackson and Lydia repeatedly.  Allison’s glee at tracking down and hurting Erica and Boyd was wrong, wrong, wrong, but it ignores the fact that Isaac would be dead if Allison hadn’t intervened in Shape Shifted (2x02) – they keep her frozen at the point where she was Grandpa’s girl, hunting down werewolves for fun.  

Neither picture – Derek as perpetual victim or Allison as Kate’s reincarnation – is a true picture.  But this technique is very useful if you like Derek or you dislike Allison, if you find Peter sexy or you hate Scott McCall.  To keep Derek Hale innocent of his bad decisions, all you have to do is ignore the consequences of Derek’s refusal to overcome his trauma in Season 2 or his ability to do so in Seasons 3B and 4 and keep going back to Innocent Baby Derek.  To keep Allison Argent as just another prejudiced Argent hunter, all you have to do is ignore all the time she didn’t behave that way in Seasons 1-3.  

Parts of the fandom who wanted the narrative shifted to the white characters know that Scott when bitten was the same age as Derek as when he was seduced by Kate, but they move their focus of judgment to after Scott’s been a werewolf for two years and should understand all this.   That’s how they can forget – by a deliberate choice.  

You’re right and you should say it.  

I mean, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it? You have a Latino main character whom significant parts of the fandom despises to the point of rejecting canon in its entirety.  If I could change the strength and breadth of the double standards that the fandom employs to delegitimize Scott into pure energy, I could free us from our dependency to fossil fuels.

In one breath, they say they identify with Stiles because he has ADHD, he’s emotionally fragile, he’s broken, and he involves himself in situations that aren’t healthy for him with no resources of his own because he’s recklessly brave and foolishly loyal.

Yet, I’ve lost count of the number of stories where fandom has older white male characters – the ones who praise Scott in canon – say that Stiles should have been the one Bitten.  After all, he’s smart and he’s loyal that he would just be so much better, even though he’s emotionally fragile, broken, recklessly brave and foolish.

Or the human alpha nonsense, when canon Stiles’ idea of leadership was to berate and mock the people who looked up to him.  They can’t name one scene where Stiles expressed anything resembling leadership to anyone who didn’t like him in the first place.  But he should be alpha, because he’s smart and he’s loyal and so he would just be so much better, even though he’s emotionally fragile, broken, recklessly brave and foolish.

And then there are the qualities that they use to disqualify Scott from the dubious honor of being alpha to people who end up taking him for granted, betraying him, and then letting him make it up to him.   You know what’s weird?  (It’s not actually weird; it actually is pretty understandable.) Most of these reasons could come directly from the Grand Wizard of the KKK’s Handbook.  

Scott is sexually obsessed.  He’s pursuing (insert love interest here) while other people are dying (except he never actually did that, and several times put his romance at risk in order to help other people).  If you don’t think the white supremacists of yesteryear used the concept of racial minorities are coming for our women! as tools of control, you need to read more.

Scott is stupid.  He’s a bad student (this argument has been debunked so many times it should be a meme in itself), he’s oblivious, he’s immature, he’s lazy, and his plans are terrible (except when they’re not, then they are suddenly someone else’s plans).  If you don’t think the white supremacists of previous generations used the concept of racial minorities are ignorant children in a larger world!, you need to watch entertainment dated before 1970.  

Scott is angry, stubborn, tyrannical, etc.  His hatred of Derek and Peter is due to anger management problems and petty grudges (footage not found).  He never listens to other people (except for the times when he does listen to other people).  If you don’t think the white supremacists of last week used the concept that racial minorities are violent savages and warlords!, you need to tune into Fox News once in a while.

While I approached this tongue in cheek, I’m also very serious.  These are ways used by white supremacists to marginalize other races, even today, and rob them of their humanity.  Why wouldn’t they be employed for this?

The fandom is riddled with ideas that make Scott not only the other, but inferior:  He didn’t earn his True Alpha status, it was the product of experiments by a sinister black man.  His defeat of Derek is stripped of context and likened to rape.  He didn’t actually bite Liam – Liam is a born werewolf and Peter’s real child.  Scott’s not a werewolf at all – even though the entire premise of the show is that he’s a werewolf – but he is actually a lowenmensch like the Nazi villain because his sclera turned black once.  And there’s more.

It’s as insidious as all the stories where Stiles forms a real pack with Derek, Isaac, Jackson, Lydia, and Liam  (and sometimes Peter).  Mason, Kira, Malia and the other lesser races can stick with the Latino menace.  Don’t take my word for it – look it up for yourselves.  They haven’t deleted those stories yet.

I know I’m harping on this particular story a lot, Prince, but as a black trans person, I have to. Because clearly so much research went into developing this + portraying diverse cultures. It just makes it worse tbh. And if prominent members like cole taught us anything, fans of color + LGBT fans can regurgitate and espouse racist rhetoric and homophobia or transphobia. Cuz we all grew up in this society with its propaganda. Ok, Stiles is pan? But your sole trans characters are treated poorly

And an author needn’t be white to write a story with white savior (over or under) tones.

Thank you for this question, though it feels that you’ve got me dancing in a minefield.   I want to talk about respecting other identities in the creation of fiction.  It’s not an easy thing to do, but it is an important thing to do.   

For example, as a white gay cis male, I have to recognize that, even when crafting a fictional story, my insights into other identities are approximations at best.  I can work hard to imagine and put down in writing the thoughts and perceptions of others, and that it is important to do so, but I must always acknowledge that I’ll never quite be able to be 100% authentic.  This awareness should help steer my writing away from many things – overgeneralization, fetishization, etc. – but to me, the most important thing it helps me do is constantly question both the evaluation of other-identity characters that I write and the causation of other-identity characters that I write.  

I also bear this in mind when I read.  No identity, either of writer or character, is immune to mishandling.

From what you describe, the writer has completely transformed the character of Braeden into something unrecognizable (though it has nothing to be with being trans).  Braeden in the show never forced anyone to do anything.   She asked questions.  She offered to teach.   She did demand that Isaac hold on to her when she was trying to rescue his half-dead werewolf but from the twins, but to equate that with controlling is quite a stretch.  If anything, Braeden could be criticized for being too laissez-faire, such as when she didn’t care what the Calavera would do to Kate once she captured her.  

And it’s quite a transformation to make Kate the sassy best friend of Laura.

It can be done.   You can do anything in fiction.  You can also criticize fiction, and this particular one gives you concern.  One of the pitfalls I watch for when making changes to a character in my own writing is what I call the “Mr. Potato Head effect” – if you’re not careful applying a new identity to a character, you can end up associating certain traits with other traits when that association doesn’t exist.

To take the example from above, if you change Braeden from the free-wheeling mercenary she is in the show into a controlling, abrasive antagonist and make her trans, if you aren’t careful, you could imply that Braeden is a controlling, abrasive antagonist because she’s trans.  Braeden was a hero and an ally when she was cishet, and she’s now an obstacle and a threat now that she’s trans?  That’s not a good look.   

What I feel writers must strive for, and readers should freely criticize them about if they fail, is how they integrate these changes with the characters as they are basically understood.   You, as reader, feel that this author signaled the value of characters by their race and self-identification, and they did it poorly, equating being black and being trans with negative qualities while a white character is enhanced by being described as “pan.” 

It is absolutely something you, as a reader, have a right to criticize.  

Look, let me make one thing clear.  No one believes any of this.

No one really believes that Scott McCall was written as a glory hound.  There’s too much evidence that he isn’t and not much evidence that he is.  Both scenes in which he is unfairly praised told us more about the his enemies – the people praising him – then it did about Scott McCall.

No one really believes that Scott McCall (much less Melissa McCall) was written as vindictive.  There’s too much evidence that Scott never sought revenge and no evidence at all that he pursued it.  He doesn’t seek revenge against Peter, against Gerard, against Derek, against Deucalion.  More than one character (Stiles, Peter, and Scott himself) literally express frustration, fear, and scorn that he doesn’t.  

No one really believes that Scott McCall was written as a tyrant.  Scott seldom gives orders and when he does so, they’re neither cruel nor oppressive.   Even at his lowest point with Stiles, all he does is demand space and for Stiles to talk to his father, the sheriff, about a killing.

No one really believes that Scott McCall was written as a hypocrite about killing. Scott shares the same attitudes toward killing that ninety-nine percent of humanity does – that killing should be avoided and that you shouldn’t kill people for being victims of other people.   For every time that he actively opposed the killing of victims and innocents (Allison, Lydia, Jackson, Mason, the chimera, the normal population of Beacon Hills, and the supernatural population of Beacon Hills – twice), he withheld judgment on Derek, Braeden, Chris Argent, among others for using lethal force.  Even when deceived about the nature of Stiles’s killing of Donovan by Theo, he’s not angry about it.  He’s destroyed by it, as you would be too if your best friend killed someone, hid it, and lied to you about it.

No one really believes that Scott McCall was written as a bad friend to Stiles. The overwhelming evidence is here.  

None of these interpretations were made in an effort to understand or enjoy the show.  They were motivated by an agenda and only vaguely and reluctantly connected to canon – that the lead protagonist should have been an array of white male characters instead of a Latino male character.  

When I was in second grade, I got into a fight with a Seventh-Day Adventist about – I’m not even sure what it was about – but it was stopped by my music teacher.  She gave me advice that I remember to this day: “You can take a single verse out of the Bible and make it mean anything you want it to mean.  If you want to get at the truth, you have to take the book as a whole.  Does what you think that verse means fit in with everything else?”   She was a very good teacher.  

The simple fact is that everything about Teen Wolf put together makes it clear that none of these above interpretations are valid.   The writers, the producers, the actors, and the majority of the audience knows they aren’t valid, when you take the show as a whole.  If Scott was any of those things, basic writing would have insisted that it be dealt with before the end of the show.  

Then why draw them?  The members of the fandom are pursuing an agenda.  They don’t desire to talk about what is on the screen, they want to justify what they desired to be on the screen.  What’s sad to me, is they got what they wanted.  Derek rode off into the sunset after all the terrible things he did with a proper redemption arc, a family, a hot girlfriend, and new powers – all the good things that they insisted  he deserved.  Stiles got his bad actions forgiven and brushed over, got a wonderful, important future, his father didn’t die in his arms, and managed to have two girlfriends without either of them dying or being kidnapped by demigods.   Peter didn’t spend the rest of his life in jail or a mental health facility after nine murders, eight attempted murders, multiple attempts at mind control, three kidnappings and assorted other crimes. Instead, he flitted about with his millions and his cars and even got a daughter as a shortcut to redemption.

Yet there are parts of the fandom that believe were “robbed” by the writing.  That somehow, Scott McCall ending the show as the hero and the lead protagonist deprived their favorites of a happy ending.   The goal of their agenda isn’t about justice, it’s about delegitimizing the entire series which had the nerve to put a Latino male as front and center.

But it’s not racism.