Blooper?

[BuzzH]

Okay, I'm thoroughly confused by something.  I'm about 1/2 way thru 1897 and something occured to me.  [spoiler]If Quentin originally died in his room via a gunshot wound from Judith, and was subsequently walled up to come back as a ghost when David and Amy go poking around the west wing in 1969, how is it that his descendant, Chris Jennings, is a werewolf?  If Quentin was a werewolf when Judith shot him, he would not have been killed unless she used a silver bullet, and then he wouldn't have decomposed into that skelaton because if you kill a man/woman who's a werewolf, they forever become the wolf, right?.  Instead the kids would have discovered either a live werewolf, or a werewolf skelaton.  If Quentin was mortal the first time around and COULD have been killed w/an ordinary bullet, then why is Chris a werewolf?[/spoiler]

Is any one else scratching their heads?   

[Ian]

Well, for one thing, there are different myths about what happens to werewolves when shot, so I don't know about that.

I'd say that since Lenore was born before Quentin even was a werewolf, then Chris was most likely bitten by one in the course of his life. Does anyone know if Chris actually said how he became a werewolf?

[retzev]

Complex question.

Usually, and by that I mean in most of the werewolf flicks I've seen , when a werewolf is killed while they're in "wolf-mode", they shift back to human-form as they die. I don't know if that's consistent with "orthodox" lycanthrope mythology, if there is such a thing, but it makes for a nice plot point when the hero is caught by the non-believing authorities with a smoking gun in his hand and a dead man at his feet.

So...

[spoiler]Is it possible that Judith shot him with a silver bullet, knowingly or not?[/spoiler]

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Does anyone know if Chris actually said how he became a werewolf?

Yes, he does - in Ep #676. The upshot is that Chris explains that a few days after his 21st birthday he suddenly felt pain, sprouted hair and transformed. But a full description of the scene is in this installment of Robservations:

... Chris says, "It was just a few days past my 21st birthday. ... Suddenly I began to feel a great pain all over my body. ... I looked down, and my hands, my hands had begun to grow hair, all over them! I looked in the mirror and there was hair growing all over my face, too!" ...

[BuzzH]

Does anyone know if Chris actually said how he became a werewolf?

Yes, he does - in Ep #676. The upshot is that Chris explains that a few days after his 21st birthday he suddenly felt pain, sprouted hair and transformed. But a full description of the scene is in this installment of Robservations:

... Chris says, "It was just a few days past my 21st birthday. ... Suddenly I began to feel a great pain all over my body. ... I looked down, and my hands, my hands had begun to grow hair, all over them! I looked in the mirror and there was hair growing all over my face, too!" ...

I think what we're trying to find out is, how was he cursed?  Was he attacked by another werewolf, or was he cursed because [spoiler]he was Quentin's great-grandson and by the terms of Magda's curse that "all male descendants of Quentin's would be affected too"?[/spoiler]

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I think what we're trying to find out is, how was he cursed?  Was he attacked by another werewolf, or was he cursed because...

Well, yes.    But the scene in question in Ep #676 makes it quite clear that Chris has no idea how he was cursed. That would definitely leave out any werewolf attack scenario. Also, the show eventually makes it quite clear that Chris is a werewolf because he's Quentin's descendent. The show also makes it quite clear that Quentin was cursed in both the original 1897 events as well as the events that were altered by Barnabas' trip to 1897. For example, today's slideshow features Ep #684 in which [spoiler]Barnabas and Chris discover the child's coffin (later revealed to contain the remains of Quentin's son) containing the pentagram.[/spoiler]

[Gothick]

Just to point out....

[spoiler]In Quentin's "original" death, it was Beth who shot him, not Judith.    Beth did know that Q was a werewolf, so for all I know she used silver bullets.  The "flashback" does not reveal how Q "originally" came to be walled up dead in his own room.  Barn has a line where he says something like "we can't answer all the questions now."  I think that goes double for the DS writers and the whole Quentin Collins storyline.  If you factor in temporal paradox, it's all enough to make your head not just scratchy, but do a full on Regan-and-pea-soup spin.[/spoiler]

In my own experience of watching Dark Shadows, I long ago gave up trying to have the story make too much sense.  I find it is more fun if I just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Cheers, Gothick

[BuzzH]

In my own experience of watching Dark Shadows, I long ago gave up trying to have the story make too much sense.  I find it is more fun if I just sit back and enjoy the ride.

You make a good argument for just 'enjoying the ride' as it were, and normally I just roll my eyes at the inconsistancies, like [spoiler]pre 1795 Barnabas saying he stole his 'middle-aged' uncle's wife, yada-yada[/spoiler] but this one was SO glaring, I had to ask.   

MB, you make a good point too, he WOULD remember an attack by another werewolf.  So I guess [spoiler]Beth-thought it was Judith, been a while DID use silver bullets, most likely when he was a wolf, and he died and transformed back to his human form[/spoiler]   

This, of course, would be the original event I'm guessing. 

[Ian]

Also, the show eventually makes it quite clear that Chris is a werewolf because he's Quentin's descendent.

The only thing that makes me wonder about this is that Joe is also Quentin's great grandson. So...erm...yeah. XD

[Raineypark]

Perhaps the werewolf thing is a recessive gene......

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Within the DS storylines there's really no mention or even an actual  hint that Joe is a Collins. And if one checks out The Collins Family Tree in the various versions of the DS Almanac, it shows that Chris and Joe are cousins on the Jennings/Haskell side of the family: Quentin's grand daughter (Leonore's daughter) married a Jennings (that much is obvious), but that Jennings apparently had a sister who married a Haskell. And those familial relationships easily explain away why Joe didn't share the werewolf curse with Chris. 

[murph]

Chris had a brother named Tom, who was bitten by Angelique and became a vampire.  As far as I know he never suffered from the werewolf curse.  Of course, at this point in the storyline Joe was Tom's only relative, so the writers hadn't dreamed up Chris and Amy yet.

I'm with you Gothic, I find it easier to enjoy Dark Shadows on it's own terms and not try too make sense of the plotlines.

Murph

[petofi]

As far as I know, no one was bitten by a werewolf and then became one on DS.  People who had close encounters with the werewolf tended to get killed outright.  [spoiler]Ask Donna Friedlander about that.  Or good old Dorcas trilling.  Or Mr. Wells, etc.  Those who escaped death did so without getting bitten, although Joe Haskell got mauled pretty badly in what I consider to be the best stunt scene ever on DS.  It all seems to have started with Magda's curse on Quentin, which was aimed at him and, supposedly, all male children of "succeeding generations."  Maybe she was being literal, since Tom, a lowly handyman with a penchant for going into rooms he wasn't invited to go into, didn't get the curse.  Chris, who was successful enough at college to pursue his interest at architecture, did. [/spoiler]

Petofi

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It's probably worth mentioning that Magda's actual wording of Quentin's curse isn't the only instance in which specifics about the werewolf curse was dealt with on DS. There's also Julia's subsequent explanation to Chris. And the two could seem to conflict with one another because in Ep #750 Magda says the curse will extend to "all his male kin of succeeding generations," while in Ep #898 Julia says the curse "was intended to go on to the oldest son in each succeeding generation," which Chris was established to be. However, even that conflict can possibly be reconciled within Romano tradition. Back in the forum's VN days, one of our regular contributors provided a link to a Web site that was all about the Romano clan. The site explained that in Romano tradtion the eldest son in each generation is considered to be the male descendent and any other sons are considered to be completely  insignificant, unless or until the eldest dies - sort of like a royal line of succession.    And placing the curse in that light calls into doubt whether or not every one of Quentin's male descendents in every generation would actually suffer from the curse.

Also, I remember that another poster once pointed out how it doesn't seem as if the curses on DS can be taken completely literally. They used Angelique's curse on Barnabas as an example, citing how Angelique said everyone who loved Barnabas would die, yet death was clearly not the fate for everyone who loved Barnabas. Obviously Julia was the most glaring exception to that - but even Joshua should have succumbed. He may not have been overtly demonstrative of his love for Barnabas, but his love was certainly made obvious by his actions during the end of the 1795/96 storyline. And the curse didn't say only those who outwardly displayed their love for Barnabas would die - it said everyone who loved him, period. So, by virtue of that fact, Joshua should have indeed been a victim of Angelique's curse, but he never was. On DS there are apparent loopholes in almost everything. 

And finally, the most fascinating thing about this discussion is how it comes up so frequently. I mean, just look at how many topics on the forum have dealt with it in just the past four years alone.   

[Fletcher]

Wow, now I am really confused.  I thought I had the whole thing figured out 30 years ago, but because nobody has even mentioned my understanding of the situation, I'm beginning to wonder if I misunderstood something -- way back in the 60s.

Here's my take on the original question:

[spoiler]My understanding of the dead body walled-up in the room was this:  The children and the audience only "thought" it was Quentin's skeleton sitting in the chair.  We were led to believe it was Quentin for months and months.  But much later, near the end of the 1987 storyline, when the action played-out, we all found out that it wasn't Quentin's body at all -- it was Trask's body and he was sealed in the room by Judith.[/spoiler]

To be honest, I thought this was a wonderful red hearing -- one of the best in the history of daytime television.  But, reading all your responses to the original question, I am beginning to think that I misunderstood something along the way.  I would assume that if my interpretation of the story is accurate, then one of you would have already mentioned it.    Hmmmm.  Now i am really questioning my memory.  I haven't seen that storyline since it's original viewing back in the 60s.  I assume some of you have seen the tapes/dvds, so certainly have clearer memories of what really played-out on screen.

Can someone let my know if my interpretation of this part of 1897 is accurate???  [spoiler]Wasn't  it Trask's skeleton all along?[/spoiler]

And, I apologize for not hiding my spoiler.  None of the icons seem to indicate that function.  How the heck do you hide text?


*spoilers boxes added by MB