My Feelings About Derek Hale Are Complicated: An Essay.

[sapote]

Okay, so I posted kind of an incoherent flaily thing earlier about how Complicated my feelings are (after a full day of getting buffeted about by the winds of tumblr) and now I'm going to take it down and replace it with something that is hopefully but not definitely more coherent.

I've been coming around to the idea that I should actually take the interpersonal dynamics on this show seriously on a couple of fronts - that I was supposed to take it seriously when Matt was a grade-A creeper, that the way Scott and Allison kept miscommunicating would have consequences not just for their relationship but for them as people. The way that, if you think about it, Isaac Lahey's dad turns out to be a big bad of the season is kind of breathtaking.

I've loved this! I've loved that one of the major messages of the show with Matt and with Emo Teen Peter was "if your gut is screaming that someone's bad news, it's okay to listen." I love that acts of violence have consequences moving forward. I love that if something seems like a huge red flag? I'm supposed to take it as a huge red flag. This - happens less than it maybe should in things I watch. I really didn't realize that this was a show I should pay this kind of attention to, and now that I'm paying attention there's such a lot going on.

But this puts me in a weird place with Derek, because when I didn't think of this as the kind of show that would try to have intense, substantiated character arcs, I was honestly kind of sorting him in my mind into the category of a plot mover whose actions wouldn't have consequences and might seem morally incoherent depending on the broader needs of the season's plot.

And now that I'm taking into account that this is a show where characterization should be taken seriously, I'm realizing that Derek as currently stands is holy crap, really kind of a bad guy. His motivations are clear and interesting. He's clearly suffering a lot. But his reactions are often really really scary and red-flag-y and apparently I'm supposed to actually take this seriously, see again, Matt. And I want to take it seriously. Because every time I have taken a negative dynamic seriously in the show so far, it's really really been worth it.

But damn, it's a ship killer. Derek in canon is actually more of an interesting villain with a couple of good sides than an angsty hero with a couple of bad sides. He's targeted some really vulnerable people with promises of power and influence and belonging because he needs power and influence and belonging, and then he hurt them on purpose because he was frustrated and/or it was expedient. I can't believe that this particular show would show that Isaac's brutal father hit him and locked him up, and then go on to show that Derek hits him and locks him up, and not mean it. I don't think that this is irredeemable or irrecoverable - Isaac himself gets a grip on the situation, in a way that probably feels pretty damn cathartic to Isaac - but it's pretty intense.

Stiles has been telling everyone that his gut says not to trust Derek as he currently stands, and I learned from the thing with Matt that Stiles' gut is reliable and should be listened to. I honestly think that Scott did the right thing, in strict canon, staying the hell out of Derek's pack while he could, and Scott rarely does the right thing instinctively. I do think Derek's loyalty to Scott was a really redeeming, noble thing about Derek, but I also don't think Scott would have done well to put himself under Derek's power. And I definitely think canon Derek needs to not hit on teenagers until he's way, way better at dealing with power and feelings without breaking arms.

I do think that a lot of this can be explained by Derek being pretty self-loathing, taking it out on people he sees as extensions of himself, and making a lot of mistakes. But I also think that when the canon yells PAY ATTENTION HE DID A BAD THING I'm probably going to stop ignoring it, which is going to make things different.

In the meantime, fanon Derek is very lovable and damaged, but will come around after the application of sufficient cuddles and trust. (This is partially because there was a really, really long season break between s1 and s2, I think, and s1 Derek was not this intense.) This puts me in an awkward position, because I've both heard and read a lot about fanon Derek, and I want him to have cuddles and trust, but ONLY IF HE PROMISES NOT TO GIVE ANY TO CANON DEREK, who I think is going to have to go quite a ways to earn them. And I'm in a weird position right now where if I had to choose between canon and fanon, I would actually probably choose canon, which seriously has never happened to me before, I tend to only watch shows that are so uneven that you need fanon to even remotely make characterization work. I was not expecting this to happen to me.

... But I am worried that if I choose canon I will be forever alone, and damn I'm loving Sterek fanfiction so long as I remember that fanon Derek is kind of completely different. Is this my karma for being one of those McShep shippers who cut out after season 3 of SGA but kept writing anyway? It is, isn't it.

I am hoping for a long, awesome redemption arc, personally, where Derek is able to both admit to his mistakes and in some way heal the giant emotional wounds that make him make mistakes like this. I am definitely rooting for it way harder than I rooted for Spike on Buffy, who was not really my boo, and frankly even having said this, Derek is kind of my boo. I just - he's kind of a villain boo. I've never had one of those before, I completely missed Harry Potter fandom.

It seems best to have a big thing in my teen wolf tag that says "my feelings about Derek Hale are... complicated and I apparently kind of think he's a villain" because I have real trouble not talking about Teen Wolf ALL THE TIME because I LOVE IT SO MUCH and I also don't want to be a giant joykill outside of my journal.

I tell you what, I ship fanon Derek/canon Derek. They would be really good for each other.