The Werewolves of ‘Grimm’

Ever since its premiere, I have had loads of people suggesting I check out the show Grimm. Due to a serious lack of time I haven’t been able to give it a watch, but after being told that there are werewolves on the show, I think I’ll have to make time.

More about the show:

“Grimm is a new drama series inspired by the classic Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Portland homicide Detective Nick Burkhardt discovers he is descended from an elite line of criminal profilers known as “Grimms,” charged with keeping balance between humanity and the mythological creatures of the world.

As he tries to hide the dangers of his new found calling from his fiancé, Juliette Silverton, and his partner, Hank Griffin, he becomes ever more entrenched in the ancient rivalries and alliances of the Grimm world.

With help from his confidant, Monroe, a reformed Grimm creature himself, Nick must navigate through the forces of a larger-than-life mythology, facing off with Hexenbiests, Blutbads and all manner of ancient evils, including royal lines dating back to the original profilers themselves, The Grimm Brothers.”

The show definitely sounds like something I’d love. But as for the werewolves, well, I hear that the blutbad creatures mentioned above are actually werewolves. According to the Grimm fanpage, Blutbaden have an incredible sense of smell that can only be weakened by an herb called Wolfsbane (just like werewolves). Blutbaden are usually violent in packs. Also, in between kills, Blutbaden fatten up their victims because they tend to go a week in between meals. It was also mentioned that it was blutbad in the Little Red Riding Hood story, not an actual wolf.

Sounds very similar to a werewolf, but what about its appearance? Well, according to the notebooks Nick’s aunt left him, “The hand grows stronger, hair covers the fingers. The teeth grow longer and sharper. Jaw musculature becomes several times thicker. Lumbar musculature triples in thickness and strength…”

Definitely sounds like your classic horror movie werewolf.

Have you seen the show, if so, what did you think? If, like me, you haven’t seen the show, do you plan on giving it a watch now?

– Moonlight

About the Author
Moonlight loves to write about, read about and learn about everything pertaining to werewolves and other supernatural beasties. She writes for top genre sites like Vampires.com and Werewolves.com. You will most likely find her huddled over a book of folklore with coffee in hand. Touch her coffee and you may lose a limb. You can stalk her via her Twitter.

 

By moonlight

One of the writers for werewolves.com, as well as vampires.com.

11 comments

  1. They look like werewolves ala Teen Wolf which means they get hairier and have claws etc but it is not an extensive transformation. The has touched on various cases based on fairy tales suh as Red Riding Hood, the three bears, the three little pigs etc while having some other ongoing stories about life as a Grimm (much like a monsters layer though this one is less so) and a cop. the werewolves hav beenf eatured in several stories prominently and there is a continuing secondary werewolf character (who is reformed and does not eat people). I am still not sure what I think of the series though.

  2. Another seen-every-episode Grimm fan, here. Although NBC has had a history of putting a lot of crap onto the air, they have finally found something of which the other networks should be envious. In fact, I find Grimm to be much better and more watchable than ABC’s Once Upon a Time (which had me wondering why people seem to love that show where the kid is the best actor). Grimm‘s use of the the original, Grimm fairy tales also seems to provide a better base, in my opinion, whereas Once Upon a Time seems more as though it is contrived in an attempt to maintain future continuity.

    From what I can find, the term blutbad never actually appeared in the original Grimm fairy tales. In fact, since talking animals are not uncommon in such stories and such anthropomorphism served as a literary device, without involving transformations, it is doubtful that the brothers Grimm had actually intended their characters to be werecreatures. Had that been the intent, they probably would have used the German term werwolf, instead of the show’s more-vivid term that translates as “blood bath.”

    In addition, the show makes no claim of being a retelling of the original stories with the original terminology. Instead, it’s more of a “where are they NOW” look at the characters, relative to their original tales, but offering preternatural backgrounds and explanations to those characters and tales.

    Werewolf stories have wide ranges or variation in whether transformations are voluntary, involuntary or some combination of the two and whether the effects of the full moon are necessary, unnecessary, resistible or irresistible. They also differ on whether transformation always results in actual, quadrupedal wolves or bipedal hybrids, as well as on how much, if any, of the man’s original consciousness is retained when he is in the wolf form.

    Given all the above, I WOULD accept the blutbaden of Grimm as werewolves and would say that the whole thing could just be considered a case of “A rose, by any other name.”

  3. I too have been watching every episode of Grimm and I happen to like it and Once Upon A Time both equally well and for different reasons. Both essentially take and modernize Fairy Tales, but completely different angles.

    Grimm appears so far to be episodic with only small snippets hinting to a larger overall arc and story that may or may not unfold. I’ve enjoyed that so far, every episode is inspired and draws from a Grimm’s Fairy Tale. There’s two I went and had to look up that I was surprised I wasn’t familiar with them.

    Over on the NBC site and Grimm Forum, there’s a gal there who talked about the pseudo german being used for the different creatures. It works, but for the blutbad, I’d have stuck with werwolf.

    Since I’ve played a lot of White Wolf’s World of Darkness, the character Nick makes for a good Hunter character who’s able to see the “Grimm” creatures for who they are, much like if it was the changeling or fae creatures of that setting (WOD) he’s seeing.

  4. Well I guess I will give Grimm a try, but since it doesn’t air over here I probably will face some difficulties with that.
    When it comes to mythology I doubt that this show is any different than stargate, after reading the fan page. Seems more like the name Grimm and those names are rather like an “aha” effect (like the aliens in stargate having the names of earth deities) than actually based on mythology. But we will see. No Idea why they choose a verb for a noun.
    But maybe the show is good. And I agree that these blutbaden are rather like the werewolf aka Teen Wolf/Lon Cheney Jr. I guess the actual brothers Grimm would have written about fully transformed lupine beings.

    1. Now that I am caught up on the show… The creatures found in the show are based on the tales collected by the Grimm brothers. The brother traveled and collected folk tales on a wide variety of magical beasties, and those are what you find in the show, just with a modern twist.

      1. Based probably but how close is a different matter. Many of there tales wouldn’t really give a good basis for stories of this series.
        But who knows, maybe we will see people go down into hell or something, transformed into swans or deer or face giants. That is a possibility. Of course we might also search for ghosts. We will see, anyway from what I saw so far of the show it seems rather loosley based on the original tales.

  5. I have to say this. This is not a werewolf, this is a wolfman knockoff. A REAL Werewolf is one that is fully transformed and has practically a wolfen head. It does NOT look like some wolf-man hybrid. REAL werewolves look like biped wolfs. I should also note that I am a Werewolf expert and severe critic.

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