Question about Tom Jennings

[Garth Blackwood]

[spoiler]It was revealed at one point that the werewolf curse is inherited by all male descendents of a werewolf. Chris Jenning's was shown to
actually be Quentin's (great?) grandson, which explained why he suffered from the curse. But he and Tom were twin brothers, so obviously Tom was a descendent of Q's as well, so ... Was Tom also a werewolf and we just never heard about it, or is there some reason that he didn't suffer from the curse. One can't really argue that its a recessive trait or something like that, because indentical twins have the same exact genetic makeup, so if one of them had it, the other surely should have as well.

The only way to make the DS story consistent on this point is to have Tom be a werewolf as well. Thats pretty hard to believe though, considering no one heard/saw anything about a werewolf until after Chris arrived, and Tom had clearly been around town for a while, as he was known around as many people's handyman ... Also Joe Haskell remarked about how Chris underwent a change a while back which changed him to an iintrovert and a man who moved around all the time and was hard to reach, but Tom was not like that at all, further indicating Tom wasn't a werewolf.[/spoiler]

Any thoughts?

[Maggie Babe]

[spoiler]I believe it was the oldest son. Tom nd Chris were twins.  Chris was born first ...so he was the child that was cursed.[/spoiler]

(I hope I used the spoiler button correctly)

[Midnite]

This contains spoilers from 1968 & 1969 storylines:

Though we heard Magda say in 1897 that the curse would be on all male descendants, the writers did a bit of retconning when they had Julia explaining to Chris that the curse was passed to the oldest son of each generation (#898), which would be Chris.  It was never mentioned on the show that they they were twins; only that their resemblance caused their cousin Joe to have difficulty in telling "us brothers" apart (#658).  And actually, the show provides evidence that they were born at different times.  This is from the topic "Tom and Chris: Twins or Not":

In ep #564, Joe is visiting Tom's grave, and the headstone reads:

Thomas Jennings 1944 - 1968

In ep #676 which taped/aired in January, 1969, Chris tells Barnabas that his first transformation occurred right after his 21st birthday, 7 years before.

These events indicate that Chris is older than Tom by a few years.

[Midnite]

(I hope I used the spoiler button correctly)

It was a good effort, Maggie Babe!  The spoiler text goes between the 2 tags (no extra spacing needed), and anything not spoilery can be outside the tags, so your code would look like this:

Code: [Select]

[spoiler]the "surprise" goes here[/spoiler]
not a spoiler
I hope that helped.

[IluvBarnabas]

I had been under the mistaken impression that Tom and Chris were twins for many years, until I came on here and read many posts about the age difference between Chris and Tom.

[spoiler] But Magda, when she laid the curse on Quentin, cursed ALL his male descendants as well, and that should have included Tom. She didn't say, 'all of his oldest male descendants.'
[/spoiler]

Of course, though, it wouldn't be the first time the writers (or DC) didn't think about certain plot angles thoroughly. Nor would it be the last.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

[spoiler] But Magda, when she laid the curse on Quentin, cursed ALL his male descendants as well, and that should have included Tom. She didn't say, 'all of his oldest male descendants.'
[/spoiler]

Yes, but as we've explained at length before, in the Romano culture[spoiler]the only significant male descendant is the first born male, and any other males are totally insignificant. Back in the forum's UltraNet days, a member actually pointed us to a Web site about the Romano that laid everything out quite clearly and fully explained how Magda's wording actually only meant the oldest male, which is why Julia's explanation to Chris in Ep #898 that the curse is passed to the oldest son in each succeeding generation doesn't actually conflict with what Magda said. Sadly, though, that site seems to have disappeared - or at least no one else has been able to find it. If only we'd saved all those old posts, but alas...[/spoiler]

[Doug]

In the book "The Dark Shadows Companion", it said there is no explanation on why Tom wasn't affected
with the curse.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

That book also says that Tom and Chris were twins, which DS itself established they clearly were not. Someone wasn't paying attention. (It would be absolutely fascinating to discover where the twin notion actually originated because it clearly didn't originate from the series because, as we've often mentioned, the word twin is never spoken and actually seems to be specifically avoided, which in and of itself is VERY odd if Tom and Chris were indeed meant to be twins. There are topics on the forum that discuss this more deeply.)

Sadly, one can't believe everything one reads in any of the PomPress DS books because there are errors (often blatant errors) in every one of them - which is doubly sad because, as we've lamented numerous times, they should actually be definitive reference books - but regretfully they are not. Sometimes it's best to just enjoy the great photos and ignore the text. 

[MagnusTrask]

Here's a skull-scratcher... if Chris and Tom really were identical twins, and if Tom really was a werewolf too, and survived through 1969/70, and if Tate still had his powers in 1969, and if Chris got Tate to do a portrait of him which "cured" his werewolfism... would that painting cure Tom too, since they look identical?

The puzzling thing is that I got it into my head to pose such a question at all, and managed to squeeze that many "ifs" into one sentence.

[Lydia]

In answer to Magnus's question: I think that Chris and Tom would alternate being the werewolf: one full moon it would be Chris, and the next full moon it would be Tom.  Previous to the portrait's creation, the two werewolves would have roamed together, growled together, and killed together in joyous partnership, and after the portrait was created, the werewolf of the month would be forever lonely, wondering where the other one was.  Have you ever seen a werewolf cry?

Not having read the whole explanation of gypsy curses that is so sadly lost, I feel free to pose this solution to the problem: perhaps, though they never knew it, Tom and Chris were cousins, and Tom was adopted at a very early age by Chris's parents.  And when they were in highschool, they dated Patty and Cathy Lane.