According to the logic of Stephenie Meyer, Jacob and the rest of his tribe (w/e thing) are not werewolves but in fact shapeshifters. This is even stated somewhere in one of the books. By our standards of what we know, a shapeshifter is a person posesses the ability to change into anything. So by that definition, a werewolf is a shapeshifter. But SMeyer, being the loon she is, insists that werewolves and shapeshifters are two different things.
Here's the epiphany: My guess, is that she never intended Jacob to be a werewolf, just a person that can change into a wolf without there being a perma halfman halfwolf stage that stands on it's hind legs. Think Animorphs. Though she couldn't say that because it would be an admission on her part that she was using K.A. Applegate's idea. BUT...as we all know, no research went into the books. From what I know and have read, there is an RPG game called Werewolf: The Apocalypse published by a company called White Wolf that puts a new spin on the werewolf transformation idea. In Werewolf: The Apocalyspe, there are several different stages of transformation for a werewolf, they are: Homid (Human form), Lupus (Wolf form), Glabro (Physically strong brutish humans that are slightly hairer than regular humans), Crinos (Traditional wolfman), and Hispo (Wolves of unnatural size and strength). From the clips I've seen for New Moon, SMeyer's shapeshifters look an awful lot like Hispos. Though I'm sure there's no way SMeyer could know about Werewolf: The Apocalypse, as it is still very underground. Since the 1st edition of Werewolf was published in 1992, thirteen years before Twilight was published, by technical terms, SMeyer did not come up with the idea for the way her werewolves look. As we all know, different people have different ideas of what a werewolf looks like. There is Lon Chaney's Wolfman (Overly hairy man that has facial and body features like a wolf that stands on its hind legs), the werewolf from An American Werewolf in London (overgrown wolf that crawled around on all fours), The Howling's rabid bunnyrabbit looking werewolves, even Michael Jackson's werewolf in Thriller.
Despite all this, SMeyer still maintains the fact that her werewolves are not werewolves but shapeshifters. Yet common knowledge tells us that despite what she says, her shapeshifters are still a form of a werewolf and are labeled as such because they do not transform into anything else.
So now I'm asking for your opinions. Would you agree with me? Please feel free to post your own takes on this.
Here's the epiphany: My guess, is that she never intended Jacob to be a werewolf, just a person that can change into a wolf without there being a perma halfman halfwolf stage that stands on it's hind legs. Think Animorphs. Though she couldn't say that because it would be an admission on her part that she was using K.A. Applegate's idea. BUT...as we all know, no research went into the books. From what I know and have read, there is an RPG game called Werewolf: The Apocalypse published by a company called White Wolf that puts a new spin on the werewolf transformation idea. In Werewolf: The Apocalyspe, there are several different stages of transformation for a werewolf, they are: Homid (Human form), Lupus (Wolf form), Glabro (Physically strong brutish humans that are slightly hairer than regular humans), Crinos (Traditional wolfman), and Hispo (Wolves of unnatural size and strength). From the clips I've seen for New Moon, SMeyer's shapeshifters look an awful lot like Hispos. Though I'm sure there's no way SMeyer could know about Werewolf: The Apocalypse, as it is still very underground. Since the 1st edition of Werewolf was published in 1992, thirteen years before Twilight was published, by technical terms, SMeyer did not come up with the idea for the way her werewolves look. As we all know, different people have different ideas of what a werewolf looks like. There is Lon Chaney's Wolfman (Overly hairy man that has facial and body features like a wolf that stands on its hind legs), the werewolf from An American Werewolf in London (overgrown wolf that crawled around on all fours), The Howling's rabid bunnyrabbit looking werewolves, even Michael Jackson's werewolf in Thriller.
Despite all this, SMeyer still maintains the fact that her werewolves are not werewolves but shapeshifters. Yet common knowledge tells us that despite what she says, her shapeshifters are still a form of a werewolf and are labeled as such because they do not transform into anything else.
So now I'm asking for your opinions. Would you agree with me? Please feel free to post your own takes on this.
