There are times when the terminology seems to confuse the hell out of me. Sometimes, it’s because the odd term is completely new to my ears. At other times, it’s a term or phrase that has an obscure reference that I spend forever trying to work how such an odd term could mean that. And there are those terms that have a common meaning within pop culture that seem to be at war with the literary meaning.
The term shapeshifter is one of those terms that falls into the last category.
While pop culture would have us believe that the term shapeshifter refers to someone whose physical appearances change, the term actually refers to their behavior.
Shapeshifter: Animagus or another form of magic?
Recently, I was reading through some articles about obligatory scenes and elements for thrillers and horrors, trying to get a feel for what other editors believe make a good thriller story. When looking at the list of required elements, in the middle of the article was a line stating that both thrillers and horrors needed to include a shapeshifter.
So, there I was looking at this article, and a moment of confusion clouded my mind. A contemporary thriller, set in the real world with current technology, is meant to include a werewolf or other some magical being that could change their physical shape at will? My brain struggled to process this for a second—then it hit me.
Within a literary context, a shapeshifter is not a magical creature as pop culture would have one believe. A shapeshifter is a character who says or does one thing, but underneath the surface, their actions portray a completely different character. They can behave one way with one group of characters, but when surrounded by a different group of characters, they change or shift into someone else. They are a shapeshifter, shifting their surface actions to fit the situation.
These shapeshifter characters can be seen everywhere, including in real life. They don't possess any magical powers, but their duplicitous nature is evident in many ways.
The Shapeshifter at Work
Within crime thrillers and horrors, the shapeshifter character is often one that works to undermine the efforts of the protagonist. Sometimes this antagonistic nature is by design, deliberate actions taken to betray the hero of the story. And there are times when the shapeshifter is a character led by accidental circumstances, becoming the bumbling fool. However, the shapeshifter doesn't always need to be antagonistic. Sometimes the shapeshifter in a story is actually the hero.
Think about spy thrillers or military thrillers. The hero of the story never fully reveals all they are capable of, and they are often in a situation where they need to hide a portion of themselves from those around them. Let's face it, spy characters in real life are trained on how to shift their appearances at a moment's notice. They are taught how to be shapeshifters.
Within writing, the shapeshifter will be a source of tension and conflict, regardless if they are an antagonist or the protagonist themselves. There will always be this underlying mystery as to whether the true nature of who they are is revealed to the other characters.
Shapeshifters are Found Everywhere
With the recent release of the new Star Wars movie, I feel a burning need to pick that story apart, delving deeper into what has become a pop culture classic and looking at it with different eyes. For this discussion, we’re going to stick with the original film Star Wars: A New Hope.
Okay, there was magic in that story, but unless you were watching a different movie to me, there weren’t any characters who could change their physical shape—at least not in that original movie. Yet, if you look at the behaviors of many of the characters, quite a few of them were actually shapeshifters—saying one thing but behaving in a different way.
Both Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi were shapeshifters, but they exhibited their shapeshifting natures in different ways.
Obi-Wan told an outright lie to Luke in those early scenes, saying that he had never seen those droids before, but any fan of the franchise will know that it wasn't true. Not only that, the old man lived the life of a hermit, when all along he was a powerful warrior with magical powers. And the way that he conducted Luke's training… Are you starting to see how he was a shapeshifter?
Han Solo was the scoundrel and the ruffian, always looking for the next big pay day. Even Leia called him out on it. But underneath, he was a caring person who was actually after the next fight against the authority. If he hadn't been one type of character on the surface but another underneath, he wouldn't have become the iconic bad boy that we all love.
For both characters, their shapeshifter ways were subtle, but that’s exactly the point. The true nature of a literary shapeshifter is subtle. It’s not in your face like the werewolf.
Is a werewolf a literary shapeshifter?
Werewolves might be shapeshifters in the sense that pop culture has come to understand the term, but are they literary shapeshifters? Are their actions a contradiction?
Let's take Professor Remus Lupin from the Harry Potter series. Physically, he was a werewolf, and in book 3 (The Prisoner of Azkaban), he did try to hide from the students that he was a werewolf, but his actions were open and honest. He never once said or did anything that was contradictory to his overall character makeup.
Professor Severus Snape, on the other hand, was a character that was duplicitous in his actions all the way through, right up until his death. He hated Harry, and would go out of his way to humiliate the youth, but behind the scenes, he was protecting Harry, teaching him what he needed to know to survive in the world that Harry knew little about. Snape was a literary shapeshifter.
So too was Professor Albus Dumbledore. How many times did Dumbledore do or say something that was beyond cryptic, only to discover that his true nature was manipulative in the extreme? He might have been one of the supposed good guys, but from a literary sense, he was still a shapeshifter.
Do all stories need a shapeshifter?
I write and edit action-based stories with a particular fondness to thrillers and horrors. In these stories, you will always find that one character who behaves in ways that is a contradiction. How big of a role that the character has within the plot will depend entirely on the story itself, but they will be there in some form. But what about the other genres?
Can literary shapeshifters be found in romances or comedies or any other story? I think the answer is Yes.
The pure duplicitous nature of a literary shapeshifter creates conflict. Secrets create intrigue and the desire to know the truth. Without conflict, your story will fall flat. Employing a shapeshifter could add the layer of conflict that your story was missing.
If you think long and hard about the characters in any of your stories (or any story for that matter), I'm guessing that you will be able to find at least one character whose actions don't quite match their words. Most of us would not call these characters shapeshifters because of the pop culture connotations associated with the term, but the shapeshifter is still there.
So, if you are one of those who is looking at these articles about the required elements for thriller and horror, before you go rushing off to add magical elements into your contemporary story, stand back and think about what the term might actually mean when it comes to characters.
Have you encountered a literary term that confused you? Drop me a line, and I’ll add it to my list of literary terms that need to be explained.