Lydia Martin grew into her banshee abilities in the Teen Wolf series, but she’s out of practice in the movie.
The Teen Wolf movie on Paramount+ picks up more than 15 years after the events of the MTV series. As a result, some of the characters who were teenagers in the original series have better command over their abilities, while others have stopped using them almost completely. Holland Roden’s character Lydia Martin is one of those who chose to stop using her abilities. Lydia Martin being an out-of-practice banshee proves to be incredibly important to her character’s emotional arc in the movie.
When Teen Wolf first premiers Lydia doesn’t even know she has any kind of supernatural lineage. Over the course of the series, she discovers her father’s family came from a bloodline of banshees, and she hones her power. Lydia has premonitions concerning death and danger, can find her way to dead bodies without any knowledge of them, and has a “scream” that she can use as a weapon. In the Teen Wolf movie, however, she’s a high-powered businesswoman looking to harness sound energy as a renewable resource and hasn’t opened that chapter of her life in a long time.
Lydia Hasn’t Used Her Power In Years
The one ability that the audience sees Lydia use early in the movie is her writing/drawing skills. As a banshee, she exhibits a kind of graphomania: uncontrollable writing and drawing. It’s something she also does during the Teen Wolf series, and a skill she can tap into by clearing her mind once she has sufficient control over her abilities. Unfortunately for Lydia, she doesn’t have control over it in the Teen Wolf movie because she hasn’t used the skill in so long. When she suddenly feels the urge to write, she has to excuse herself in the middle of a meeting at work, lock herself in her office, and put pen to paper to see what happens. The full extent of her writing and drawing isn’t revealed until after Jackson puts the puzzle pieces together.
When Lydia meets up with Scott in Beacon Hills, however, she makes it clear that she hasn’t used her abilities in a very long time, and that she’s very out of practice. It took Lydia nearly all of her high school years to understand her banshee abilities, so not using them for years takes a toll on her command of them. She can’t just go out into the woods and stumble upon what she’s looking for. Instead, she and Scott have to rely on Malia’s sense of smell since Malia spends so much more time as a coyote, and in the woods of Beacon Hills, than Scott or Lydia.
When Lydia is asked why she hasn’t been using her power, she doesn’t want to go into detail about it. It’s Jackson who says that Lydia not being willing to scream anymore must have to do with Stiles, who doesn’t appear in the Teen Wolf movie. That teases what could have been an extensive mystery for the movie, but the truth is revealed during the climactic confrontation with the nogitsune.
Lydia Details A Specific Nightmare
Though Jackson teases the reason for Lydia’s decision not to use her banshee abilities, he doesn’t know the whole truth. Lydia only reveals the truth when pressured by the nogitsune. The nogitsune, a creature that feeds on fear and pain, is able to tap into those emotions in Lydia because of her decision. It’s only then that she reveals to her friends and the audience just why she cut herself off from her abilities for so long – and a narrative reason for Stiles not being in the Teen Wolf movie.
Lydia explains that while dating Stiles, she begins having a recurring nightmare. In it, the two are in a car that gets into an accident. Though Lydia survives and is able to get out of the car, Stiles is thrown from the wreckage and dies. Lydia has the nightmare so often that she’s unable to tell if it’s just a nightmare caused by her fear of losing him, or if it’s really a premonition from her banshee abilities.
Lydia’s uncertainty about an ability she might not have control over causes her to leave Stiles. She thinks that if she’s never in a car with him, he won’t be in a fatal accident. While Lydia’s logic might be flawed since Stiles could always experience a different accident, her heart is in the right place. She simply wants to protect him. Lydia’s desire to protect him, however, also causes her to not use her abilities at all so that she doesn’t have to see her own personal nightmare again.
Teen Wolf Finally Says Banshees Don’t Scream
When the confrontation with the nogitsune comes to a head, Lydia might not suddenly be dating Stiles again, but she is able to admit her own fears out loud. She also clears up one point for the Teen Wolf audience after the nogitsune goads her into using her fear and pain. Jackson encourages her to scream because Allison and their other friends will hear her because of her banshee abilities. She can’t let the fear stop her. Lydia corrects her friend. Banshees don’t scream. They wail.
During the run of the Teen Wolf series, Lydia is frequently encouraged by her friends to scream. Her scream is what leads the group to dead bodies and helps them unravel supernatural mysteries. In mythology, however, Lydia is correct in her assessment of banshees in the movie. They don’t scream in alarm or terror. Instead, banshees wail in sadness or pain. It’s empathy that fuels her abilities, and when Lydia makes that clear, she’s able to wail and use her power again for the first time in years.
Lydia opening herself back up to her abilities in that way is one of the few emotionally satisfying arcs in the Teen Wolf movie. After seeing her spend her teenage years learning how to be a banshee, the audience wants to see Lydia in her element as an adult. Understanding why Lydia is so out of practice allows the audience to empathize with her, but seeing her wail all over again is a bit of catharsis. It also does make the audience wonder if there might be hope for her to reunite with Stiles in the future if the Teen Wolf franchise takes another step forward.
