# Why is fantasy moving towards hereditary werewolves?



## EdLincoln (Oct 18, 2018)

I've noticed in most recent fantasy and romance novels involving werewolves, the condition is hereditary.  (There are still lots of people turned by a bite in  horror.) Why is this? People have no problem with characters being turned into zombies by a bite (even though that has no mythological basis.) 

To me, hereditary werewolves lose lot of the bet narrative possibilities.  I've always liked the idea about going about your life and then Blam!  The supernatural OTHER intrudes and you are no longer quite human.  I like the idea of trying to form a pack from random bite victims. 

Can anyone think of any good recent fantasy novels involving characters turned into a werewolf by a bite?


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## BAYLOR (Oct 19, 2018)

*The Howling*


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## EdLincoln (Oct 19, 2018)

BAYLOR said:


> *The Howling*


Somewhat terse response, but thank you.  

I was mostly asking about fantasy novels...horror movies still seem to do the "bite" thing.  Unfortunately, they rarely give you a prolonged view of what becoming supernatural does to your life, which to me is the interesting part.


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## -K2- (Oct 19, 2018)

Though it is not something I read about, I'd suspect it has something to do with how it lends itself to establishing family units, therefor, bonds beyond racial or non-blood kin relationships.  In other words, it opens up the genre to different plots.

K2


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## EdLincoln (Oct 19, 2018)

[


-K2- said:


> I'd suspect it has something to do with how it lends itself to establishing family units, therefor, bonds beyond racial or non-blood kin relationships.  In other words, it opens up the genre to different plots.
> 
> K2



Well, I think it leads to fewer plot possibilities.  But it does lead to different ones.  A lot of authors seem to like to use werewolves to tell stories about a more primal community with a "wolf pack" structure and specific hierarchy.  This works better if they were born werewolves and raised in werewolf society.  I'd find it more interesting to read about a computer programmer who suddenly has to find his place in a wolf-like pack structure, but apparently I'm in the minority.  

As an aside, I've noticed supernatural romance books where you could substitute Amish or  Indians living on a rseervation for werwolves without changeing much.


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## nixie (Oct 19, 2018)

Try Cassandra Clare's  The Mortal Instruments, it is YA and there are wolf packs but I don't think it's hereditary. Clary's step dad Luke a former shadow hunter was turned by a bite.


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## anno (Oct 19, 2018)

Is it possibly due to porphyria becoming an ‘explanation’ in some circles?


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## Al Jackson (Oct 19, 2018)

You know I remember some story I read long ago about a mother and father werewolf hiding from their son that he might have the 'trait'! When he goes all werewolfy and murders their house keeper maid they have to tell he the truth!! Goofy story. I think I saw that in an Italian Fumetti from the 1970s.

Wolf bite transform does it have it's origins in hydrophobia?

On the other hand until* Night of the Living Dead *Zombies were totally different. In fact I don't think they were even called_ Zombies_ in the Living Dead movies? It was some virus from space wasn't it and they were just Living Dead! I am not sure when Zombie was used in a 'living dead' movie.....?

The first zombie movie I ever saw was from the 1940s on TV in the 1950s and those were Voodoo Zombies!
I guess in the morph …. the original Caribbean Zombies are totally forgotten?!

I always thought the zombie-bite was a off putting, seemed nobody died from a zombie attack anymore!
I mean being* dead dead* is more scary than being dead alive!

One thing I liked about werewolves was one was in jeopardy of being killed , scary, not so much so for vampires and zombies!
The whole movie and TV zombie thing has really gotten tiresome , I don't really understand the long popularity.


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## Anthoney (Oct 19, 2018)

It makes werewolves seem less rapey.


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## EdLincoln (Oct 19, 2018)

I've heard of rabies as an explanation for vampirism and rabies.  Always seemed to make more sense then porphyria.  No one would have known blood transfusions helped porphyria until relatively recently, while you can catch rabies from a wolf or bat bite.  

I've never been a fan of zombies either.  With all the supernatural creatures in mythology, zombies seem boring by comparison.  If the zombies are mindless, you lose the possibility of seeing how things look from the monster's perspective.  Romero Viral Zombies seem particularly silly.  Viruses by definition can't infect living cells, so literally *ANY* other infectious agent would be a better choice.  I prefer magic as an explanation for zombies.  There is some appeal to the idea of magic bringing someone back...you can explore what it is like for the resurrected and hint at what they explored before rising.  

Honestly, I think the zombies craze is a result of pure macho misanthropy.  People fantasize about getting away from society, but don't want to think about the pesky details of raising your own food or making fishing nets as you would in a shipwreck or space colony colony story.  Zombie Apocalypse stories sweep away all the people while leaving the caned goods and guns, then get to shoot all you want without guilt.  

I've never seen werewolves as rapey.  Also, no one seems to have a problem with biting seeming rapey when zombies do it.  

"The Black Wolves of Boston" and "Ghost Electricity" series involved protagonists turned into werewolves by a bite.  The former was very good.  Also, I liked "Misfit Pack" "Good Bones" by Kim Fielding and "Mostly Human: Young Adult Werewolf Rockstar" even though they objectively weren't great because I liked them exploring the effect being bitten had on the character's life.  The "Moon Called" series by Patricia Briggs involves werewolves turned by a bite, but we never see a character who hasn't been a werewolf for decades, and two of the major characters did come from werewolf families.


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## Ihe (Oct 19, 2018)

It depends on the genre. Bites work for horror because the MCs in that genre tend to be more reactive, and there's less space for backstory and secondary plots, faster paced. Family units, clans, werewolf politics, hiding in society, power dynamics, etc--all of these are right up fantasy's aisle, as the wordier ones tend to spend more time to develop world and character.

Any way I look at it, there seems to be more plot possibilities if it's hereditary.


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## Ihe (Oct 19, 2018)

I will commit the sin of consecutive posting because I'm in a talkative mood and thought I could expand a bit more on my comments. I'm very pedantic lately, sorry .

The reason I say hereditary is more flexible and overall superior plot-wise is because a) the more connections within your fantastic context you start with, the more subplots you can weave from the get-go, the more characters you can have without going through the ordeal of having to introduce each one properly, and with all those threads, the story can increase in complexity far beyond a bite-story, b) All those connections can be exploited much more effectively and sooner in the story for emotional effect on the reader and c) bite stories, as varied as they could seem to some, they all have pretty much the same linear structure, independently of any events in the timeline. Plot complexity gives you more story structuring options to choose from, as is the case with werewolf clans (you can start as a child before coming of age and turning, as an old man reminiscing, as a young wolf just being betrayed by his own brother, from the POV of a human protegee of the werewolf clan, in the middle of an underground war between fantastic beasts, maybe fantastic beasts are commonplace and the werewolves can live normal lives in the open, or maybe they can't and are plotting to infiltrate government institutions to gather power, etc).

If you start with a bite, there are three things that usually must happen in such a story: MC needs to get bit, usually in traumatic moments, he then needs to learn how to be a werewolf, and then needs to accept himself or die somehow if he doesn't. That's pretty much it. If you stray from this too much, the story will lose appeal, because you're focusing solely on the one MC, and more specifically, you are focusing on his gradual transformation and discovery. That is the main purpose of bite stories--cast of one will always be more limited in plot structure. But with a werewolf family? Now there the focus isn't so one-directional. It's more unpredictable because it has more moving pieces. Once you normalize lycanthropy a bit, you can see past the obvious misty superficial charm of it and start digging deeper into what it entails and what it could mean for the MC, and how it interacts with the rest of the world.

A bite story is about the journey to being a werewolf, genetic lycanthropy is about a character that just happens to be a werewolf. You can get away with a lot more in the latter. The change of focus opens up new worlds, IMO. Then again, it's all about the goal of the writer's story. Same story+2 genres=different worlds .


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## M. Robert Gibson (Oct 19, 2018)

EdLincoln said:


> Unfortunately, they rarely give you a prolonged view of what becoming supernatural does to your life, which to me is the interesting part.


I know of a couple of films that try to give you the zombie perspective
Warm Bodies (2013) - IMDb
and 
Harold's Going Stiff (2011) - IMDb


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## Robert Zwilling (Oct 19, 2018)

The simplest explanation seems to be that the bite method is old school. It also needs a lot of explaining. The instant werewolf method just jumps right into the story which seems to be what readers are looking for. Individual bites also allow the story line to meander as it goes forward. Many readers seem to prefer straight forward movement in the story line. Plus the social aspect is another important factor for the audience, already in a social circle before the first page ends will get people interested faster rather than building up each social connection. A story could break the cone of silence and have the bitten characters interacting peaceably with both the biters and the bitten but that would probably be rare.

Maybe they are the zone between walking dead and vampires. When werewolves are wolf like, they are closer to walking dead. When werewolves are normal they are closer to vampires not interested in biting anyone.

There is an old werewolf movie, Werewolf Of London, that does the biting, and the problems of fitting into society in brief fashion because of the time constraint of the movie itself, but it is quite good, I think it stands up to changing times okay.


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## M. Robert Gibson (Oct 20, 2018)

With my cynical hat on, could it be as simple as publisher think: "Hey look.  That book with hereditary werewolves was successful.  We need more books with hereditary werewolves"


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## Paul_C (Oct 20, 2018)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> With my cynical hat on, could it be as simple as publisher think: "Hey look.  That book with hereditary werewolves was successful.  We need more books with hereditary werewolves"



I'm sure there are also writers who think more about getting published than telling the "perfect" story.


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## Randy M. (Oct 20, 2018)

Just a thought: bite vs heredity is sort of parallel to horror vs sf/fantasy.

The bite story is about the singular struggle of one person to contain or come to terms with her/his lycanthropy and the psychological toll it takes (The Werewolf of Paris; The Nightwalker). The story of hereditary lycanthropy concerns a society of werewolves and the filling out of how that society works (Sharp Teeth) unless the focus is on humans learning about such a society (The Wolfen, sort of).

Randy M.
(strikes me those are imperfect examples, but they're what I have to work with  )


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## Al Jackson (Oct 20, 2018)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> I know of a couple of films that try to give you the zombie perspective
> Warm Bodies (2013) - IMDb
> and
> Harold's Going Stiff (2011) - IMDb



Why do we have way more zombie and vampire movies than werewolf films?


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## Randy M. (Oct 20, 2018)

Something about popularity, Al. I don't think any werewolf book has had quite the impact of Dracula or Frankenstein, not even The Werewolf of Paris which was fairly popular, but has had long periods of being out of print.

When Universal Studios made horror movies in the 1930s Frankenstein caught on the strongest; when Hammer Studios made horror movies in the 1950s and '60s, _Horror of Dracula _brought in the bigger audience. The '40s saw _The Wolfman_ and there were some sequels of that.

Zombies as we know them are largely from George Romero's _Night of the Living Dead_ and they seem somehow to encapsulate late 20th and early 21st century concerns.

Randy M.


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## Al Jackson (Oct 20, 2018)

You know Hammer made one of the most classy werewolf films The Curse of the Werewolf with Oliver Reed, 1961, alas did not catch on. Hammer's Zombie movie was ok, but kind of lackluster. Plague of the Zombies was a bit weird even tho those were Voodoo zombies.
I guess the old original Voodoo zombie is gone for good??!


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## paranoid marvin (Oct 20, 2018)

Teenwolf did the hereditary thing a while back, but often it has been a bite (or even scratch) that caused the lyncanthropy. Either way, there are interesting places to go with the story; and in some ways making it hereditary helps distinguish it from vampirism.


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## -K2- (Oct 21, 2018)

Personally, I get why so many folks are fascinated with the bite from a werewolf or vampire thing.  That way they can easily fantasize about possibility of being turned themselves.  Heredity kills that possibility.  That said, as people in general have become better educated as to the workings of disease, genetics and biology in general, you're now asking for a tremendous detachment from what people now know... wherein years past they simply didn't know better (the average person).

If enough people begin to question to even scorn a concept as implausible, then the story dies.  In the end it likely boils down to 'which route makes the fantasy more of a possibility.'

My guess being, swappin' spit ain't it.

K2


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## anno (Oct 21, 2018)

In terms of popularity my explanation is that the other monsters all had very little control over their actions and no regard for consequences,my wolf brethren had a bestial draw and a period of complete savagery that left the inner human element shocked and appalled when waking up on the forest floor (or even London Zoo) in a self denial mess.
*“Even a man who is pure in heart*
*and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright."*


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## Teresa Edgerton (Oct 22, 2018)

Werewolf movies used to be more popular than they are now, but werewolf books (or any kind of shapeshifter, but especially wolves) are hugely more popular than they were before, crossing the genres of SFF, horror, and romance.

Why might that be?  Why are books full of werewolves and movies and TV are not?  Maybe because zombie and vampire movies can be made on a small budget, but werewolves take a certain amount of special effects.  Not a lot of special effects, but you need some, and vampires and zombies just need costumes.

Folklorically (is that a word—if not, it is now, I just invented it) speaking there were lots of ways to become a werewolf: bite or scratch of course.  Spell (voluntary), or curse (involuntary).  Die with some great sin like fratricide unredeemed.  Or not even explained.  Sometimes the werewolves in folklore or old literary tales just _are,_ a mystery to the other characters in the story.  From those stories, perhaps comes the idea of lycanthropy being hereditary.  If no one knows how they became werewolves maybe they were born that way, and the author speculates from there. 

Plus current fantasy readers like their supernaturals in groups.  In the old days, vampires were solitary, but now they get put into covens like witches.  Werewolves used to come in groups if they were witches or sorcerers using black magic spells, but such stories were rare.  Most of the time werewolves were solitary, but now increasingly we see stories where they appear in packs.  I think as someone said up above its the group dynamics that appeal to so many readers. Sure, a few people wrote popular books about hereditary werewolves living in packs, and other writers copied them because they were inspired by them or because they wanted to get on the bandwagon, but there was something there that readers really liked about the pack idea or those earlier books would not have been so popular and the books that followed after them would not have attracted readers and there wouldn't have been a bandwagon.  

So what is the appeal of the pack that strikes such a chord now, and what was it about the lone supernatural that struck a similar chord before? Could it have something to do with how society is changing?  Or is it simply writers sticking with what they know works (and when I say what works, that could be what works for them personally as readers as well as writers, just as much as what works for the market, and when I say them, I also mean us, because _we_ are the market, even during those times when we are not that part of the market whose tastes are being most often served.


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## Vladd67 (Oct 22, 2018)

I suppose it could be argued that as a disease being a Werewolf could be passed by a bite etc. infected bodily fluids tainting the victim’s blood, and then the unborn child being infected by the mother leading to it becoming hereditary.


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## Joshua Jones (Oct 22, 2018)

I am not huge into this genre, but I see potential pitfalls with both the bite and the hereditary options. On the former, as has been noted above, one will either follow one of a handful of pretty standard plot scripts, or run the risk of the werewolf change being for no real plot reason. The latter, however, runs the risk of the characters' werewolf nature being a setting rather than characterization. What I mean by that is the story may not be an actual werewolf story, but an action story or romance or (insert genre here) which happens to have werewolves. If the werewolves could be reasonably swapped for another creature without significant plot changes, then is it really a werewolf story? 

I think that is the tension I feel with stories like this. No matter how you do it, there are structural challenges which must be overcome before one can address the standard challenges of writing interesting characters and stories in interesting ways. Then again, all stories of every genre have this challege to some degree, but werewolf stories seem to have it worse than some due to the integral limits and abilities of the character type.


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## The Big Peat (Oct 22, 2018)

Randy M. said:


> Just a thought: bite vs heredity is sort of parallel to horror vs sf/fantasy.
> 
> The bite story is about the singular struggle of one person to contain or come to terms with her/his lycanthropy and the psychological toll it takes (The Werewolf of Paris; The Nightwalker). The story of hereditary lycanthropy concerns a society of werewolves and the filling out of how that society works (Sharp Teeth) unless the focus is on humans learning about such a society (The Wolfen, sort of).
> 
> ...



And if you want to combine the two, you end up with something like *World of Darkness* where being a werewolf is hereditary, but many don't know they are one until it strikes during puberty and they wake up in a big old fashioned circle of entrails and viscera.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Oct 23, 2018)

Vladd67 said:


> I suppose it could be argued that as a disease being a Werewolf could be passed by a bite etc. infected bodily fluids tainting the victim’s blood, and then the unborn child being infected by the mother leading to it becoming hereditary.



If it's in the blood, it could only be passed on from mother to child, inherited only through the maternal line.  If, however, the disease alters the mother's chromosomes, then I suppose she could pass it on through her sons as well as her daughters.



Joshua Jones said:


> werewolf stories seem to have it worse than some due to the integral limits and abilities of the character type.



I don't see why werewolves, in their human personalities, need be any more limited in character or abilities than anybody else.  Not unless the writer _chooses _to have a character's human nature altered by their animal side.

It also depends on what kind of werewolf they are—literature offers so many different models.  If they are the mindlessly violent carnivore at the full of the moon type, then needing to be locked up tight once a month can cause all kinds of limitations on their lives and careers.  If they shift at will and retain some control of what they do (and real wolves aren't mindless killing machines after all), then it is less of a limitation and perhaps sometimes a secret advantage.


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## Joshua Jones (Oct 23, 2018)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> I don't see why werewolves, in their human personalities, need be any more limited in character or abilities than anybody else.  Not unless the writer _chooses _to have a character's human nature altered by their animal side.
> 
> It also depends on what kind of werewolf they are—literature offers so many different models.  If they are the mindlessly violent carnivore at the full of the moon type, then needing to be locked up tight once a month can cause all kinds of limitations on their lives and careers.  If they shift at will and retain some control of what they do (and real wolves aren't mindless killing machines after all), then it is less of a limitation and perhaps sometimes a secret advantage.


They aren't necessarily limited in their human (or even werewolf) personalities, but they are pretty well defined in their skill set and basic nature. What I was intending to communicate with my typical mud-like clarity is that due to the well established character abilities and limitations, the author doesn't have as much flexibility in story types as some other genres may enjoy. At some level, their changing into werewolves must be explored, and that leads to the dichotomy of transmission the OP is discussing. With bite transmission, the plot just doesn't have much flexibility, and with hereditary transmission, there is a very significant chance that their werewolf nature will be ultimately irrelevant to the story. 

You are absolutely right that characterization needn't be limited in these stories. My point was that, due to the nature of what it means to be a werewolf, there are some limits on story which can make it more challenging.


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## KGeo777 (Oct 23, 2018)

Beyond technical issues with presenting a good werewolf, the werewolf is generally presented as a tragic figure (unlike most classic vampires and even the Frankenstein "monster" was no saint in the novel). The Howling is an exception. 'Humans are our *prey*. We should feed on them, like we've always done. Screw all this "channel your energies" crap.'

Zombies are a mixed bag--either automatons or slightly sympathetic.
But even the classic Voodoo zombie is just a personality-absent magic slave. Usually scary but mostly due to the magic control (since they didn't eat you). Romero combined it with the ghoul.


Vampires have undergone about as significant a change as zombies/ghouls. Originally bad, but these days its hard to find a true evil vampire--especially if its Dracula. A conquering mastermind with very bad intentions in the novel---turned into a romantic figure quite often (even Lugosi's first Dracula outing was more sinister Valentino than demon--not by the time of Abbott and Costello Meets F).
All these characters were originally dangerous "others" (even if tragic). These days they go to your high school (TeenWolf, sparkling vampires).


I have never been satisfied with the look of werewolves.
I do not find wolves particularly scary (I understand European wolves are more nasty than their North American counterparts).
I like the Larry Talbot Wolfman but he's just a fuzzface really.
Teenage Werewolf was ok too.
The Hammer Curse werewolf was an intriguing design.
The Howling werewolves were superficially creepy but I can't be spooked by the final dog face they had.


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## dwndrgn (Oct 24, 2018)

I can think of no hereditary werewolves in UF out currently; naturally I haven't read them all either. Care to share the books that got you thinking on this?


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## Randy M. (Oct 25, 2018)

I agree about both, Al. The Reed movie was a loose adaptation of The Werewolf of Paris. 

_Plague_... came out a couple of years before N_ight of the Living Dead _and has no where near the visceral impact. 
But we'll always have _White Zombie_, one of Lugosi's better efforts.

Randy M.


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## Karn's Return (Oct 25, 2018)

To be perfectly honest, the changes across all sorts of literary genres and themes ebb and flow with the mindset of society, and today's society seems to be going in a far more scientific-minded, belief-driven track, and as a result, transformation curses such as lycanthropy would be seen as hereditary rather than transmitted, like zombification. Personally, I don't put lycanthropes in any of my work, same with zombies and vampires, but that is simply due to my own preferences and how I feel that such themes are far too overused, often in a very lackluster, non-impressive manner.


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## EdLincoln (Dec 13, 2018)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> Werewolf movies used to be more popular than they are now, but werewolf books (or any kind of shapeshifter, but especially wolves) are hugely more popular than they were before



Partly as you said it is because good zombie special effects are so easy, while convincing shape changing requires good CGI.  I also think it is because zombies represent death (which we are still afraid of) while werewolves have to come to represent nature (which modern man feels confident we can beet the %^&* out of).  Thus evil zombies tend to be popular in horror, while werewolves who are good guys or morally ambiguous tend to be in fantasy which may treat the supernatural as a beseiged metaphor for nature.  Fantasy is MUCH less common in movies then books because Hollywood is always nervous about trying to explain the backstory of new fantasy world to moviegoers.  



dwndrgn said:


> I can think of no hereditary werewolves in UF out currently; naturally I haven't read them all either. Care to share the books that got you thinking on this?



Of course now that you sau it I have trouble thinking of any you'd have heard of.  Twilight of course made werwolves heriditary.  Most of the obscure writers and writers of supernatural romance, Sharon Green, Kian Roads, the whole weird "Omegaverse" thing.  Most of the big name authors other then Stephanie Mayers hedge their bets by doing it both ways...Kelly Armstrong and Patricia Briggs have universes were lycanthropy *CAN* be spread by a bite but most of the major charecters come from shifter families.  



Joshua Jones said:


> If the werewolves could be reasonably swapped for another creature without significant plot changes, then is it really a werewolf story?



Oddly, there are a number of Supernatural Romances I've read where you could swap out the werewolves with the Amish and not change much...the point was they were a society outside modern society with it's own old fashioned rules.


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## dwndrgn (Dec 17, 2018)

Twilight does have werewolf families, but in all of Patricia Briggs' werewolf books lycanthropy is only spread by bite - only one character (Charles Cornick) is born a werewolf and that is because of magic. I haven't read any Kelly Armstrong and haven't heard of the others. Actually, now that I think about it, Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels books all have hereditery shifters but they are all animals, not just wolves and they aren't considered to be werewolves, just wolf shifters.


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## M. Robert Gibson (Dec 17, 2018)

dwndrgn said:


> just wolf shifters.


I'm really, really sorry about this, and I really don't want to lower the tone in here,
but ...
I read that last word as if it had a double t in the middle.


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## Anthoney (Dec 17, 2018)

dwndrgn said:


> I haven't read any Kelly Armstrong



I have.  She has both types of lycanthropes.  Born and Bitten.


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## EdLincoln (Dec 19, 2018)

dwndrgn said:


> Twilight does have werewolf families, but in all of Patricia Briggs' werewolf books lycanthropy is only spread by bite - only one character (Charles Cornick) is born a werewolf and that is because of magic. I haven't read any Kelly Armstrong and haven't heard of the others. Actually, now that I think about it, Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels books all have hereditery shifters but they are all animals, not just wolves and they aren't considered to be werewolves, just wolf shifters.



Yes, this is one of the areas where the stated cosmology is at odds with the story.  In theory her werewolves are the result of a bite.  In practice a lot of her major characters have werewolf parents.  Charles and his brother Sam have a werewolf Dad, the protagonist Mercy Thompson is some other form of shifter, and  later we learn their pack submissive was the son of an important European Werewolf.  I guess there must be a lot of werewolf attacks on Father & Son camping trips?    

Llona Andrews is more consistent with what the less well known authors do.  They usually rename them "shifters" and add other "were-animals".


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## EdLincoln (Dec 19, 2018)

dwndrgn said:


> Twilight does have werewolf families, but in all of Patricia Briggs' werewolf books lycanthropy is only spread by bite - only one character (Charles Cornick) is born a werewolf and that is because of magic. I haven't read any Kelly Armstrong and haven't heard of the others. Actually, now that I think about it, Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels books all have hereditery shifters but they are all animals, not just wolves and they aren't considered to be werewolves, just wolf shifters.



Yes, this is one of the areas where the stated cosmology is at odds with the story.  In theory her werewolves are the result of a bite.  In practice a lot of her major characters have werewolf parents.  Charles and his brother Sam have a werewolf Dad, the protagonist Mercy Thompson is some other form of shifter, and  later we learn their pack submissive was the son of an important European Werewolf.  I guess there must be a lot of werewolf attacks on Father & Son camping trips?    

Llona Andrews is more consistent with what the less well known authors do.  They usually rename them "shifters" and add other "were-animals".


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## dwndrgn (Dec 27, 2018)

EdLincoln said:


> Yes, this is one of the areas where the stated cosmology is at odds with the story.  In theory her werewolves are the result of a bite.  In practice a lot of her major characters have werewolf parents.  Charles and his brother Sam have a werewolf Dad, the protagonist Mercy Thompson is some other form of shifter, and  later we learn their pack submissive was the son of an important European Werewolf.  I guess there must be a lot of werewolf attacks on Father & Son camping trips?
> 
> Llona Andrews is more consistent with what the less well known authors do.  They usually rename them "shifters" and add other "were-animals".



The one son (Charles) was born a werewolf due to magic. The other son was born before his father became a werewolf and I have no idea about the submissive you mention, I don't remember that one. And Mercy isn't a werewolf, she is a descendant of a Native American coyote spirit.


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