About Werecats (Essay)

Werecats and Werewolves

Werecats work on the same principles as werewolves, being changed involuntarily in both directions.  A bite transforms a human into a werecat, and every full moon, the human craves going into the moonlight to transform into the giant cat creature–generally a black jaguar.

The main differences between werewolves and werecats are in personality.

Werewolves are generally good persons when human, but savage monsters when in wolf form.  It is a Jekyll and Hyde type of dichotomy, with the kind and social human reverting to the lone wolf, an animal which is by its nature a pack hunter.  When a dog is isolated and must survive by itself, it necessarily must become more savage than when it is in a pack.  

A werewolf is a fearsome creature, desiring above all to slay and eat humans.  As a human, it is so ashamed of the dark things it does that it probably cannot remember anything that happens after the moon hits it.

If you think about it, this is a sensible extension of both the pack social nature and pack-hunting savagery of the dog family.

Cats, on the other hand, are quite different.  Instead of being primarily social animals, cats are sociopaths.  Each cat is the only being in its universe.  Everything else is an object.

(Please put the pitchforks down.  I am a cat person; I have loved and lived with cats nearly all my life.  But if you think about the way cats really behave, you will see that they see other creatures–even other cats–as objects.)

When I started thinking about the psychology of werecats, it occurred to me that the Jekyll and Hyde nature of a werewolf would be played out very differently in a person who shape shifted to a cat.  

The human werewolf’s inability to remember life as a wolf would not be true for human werecats.  They would be able to remember everything.  Not only that, while a werewolf has cunning far beyond that of an ordinary wolf, it is aware of itself only as a wolf.  Yet a werecat has full awareness of itself as a human, even when it is a cat.  It doesn’t have a human-sized brain, but it can make judgements and control its bloodlust.

That doesn’t mean it resists the pleasure of killing, for what cat ever turned away from pleasure?  Yet it can decide that it is not safe to kill humans, and even decide when it is and is not safe to stalk and kill a particular animal, such as a neighbor’s dog.  It also knows to hide the evidence of its hunting.

As a human, it not only remembers and takes satisfaction in its actions as a cat, it develops a cats approach to pleasure over time, and also absorbs the cats lack of conscience.  It would view the humans around it with lofty contempt, unlike the werewolf’s desperate attempt to blend in with its pack.  Cats prefer being solitary.  They like to play with other cats, but they are fine alone.

Because of the transformations every month at the full moon, a human were-creature cannot become pregnant.  That is, she could, but she would not be pregnant after the first time she transforms.  She could theoretically bear a baby if she stayed out of the moon for nine months, but that has never happened.  The desire to transform is too great to resist.  (One of my future stories will be about a were-creature who decides to bear a baby, what she does about it, and what results.)

As the full moon approaches, werewolves get tense, moody, and gruff.  Werecats get excited, reckless, horny, and eager for thrills.