# What can kill a werewolf? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 23, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572 "2005-10-23T23:18:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/1 "2005-10-23T23:18:16Z")
And yes, I’m aware that a silver bullet is the prime answer here. Perhaps I should rephrase: can a werewolf be killed by, say, getting thrown into a woodchipper? Or a semi going 60 mph? Or dynamite (if you get that one give yourself a cookie)? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/2 "2005-10-23T23:20:22Z")
Fire. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/3 "2005-10-23T23:27:07Z")
> [@Love Rhombus](#): > > And yes, I’m aware that a silver bullet is the prime answer here. Perhaps I should rephrase: can a werewolf be killed by, say, getting thrown into a woodchipper? Or a semi going 60 mph? Or dynamite (if you get that one give yourself a cookie)? The Semi probably not but the Wood chipper should do find. This is from years of watching classic Horror movies from the 30’s on and playing D&D since 1976 and reading 1500+ SciFi/Fantasy novels. The dynamite would have to puree the werewolf and not just remove a large chunk. Silver weapons of all sort are good against werewolves. They were fighting these things before guns were common. …In some cultures, a blow to the head of a werewolf using an iron rod will free the man from werewolf possession. Any weapon that would basically disintigrate or chop into small bits will do the job. I once saw a silverware set loaded into a cannon to hit and kill a werewolf at point blank range. ---
**Author:** ![Tenar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/4 "2005-10-23T23:30:18Z")
> [@jrfranchi](#): > > I once saw a silverware set loaded into a cannon to hit and kill a werewolf at point blank range. Now THAT’s what I call a bad Thanksgiving with the family. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/5 "2005-10-23T23:30:45Z")
Barbara Woodhouse ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/6 "2005-10-23T23:31:41Z")
> [@Love Rhombus](#): > > And yes, I’m aware that a silver bullet is the prime answer here. Perhaps I should rephrase: can a werewolf be killed by, say, getting thrown into a woodchipper? Or a semi going 60 mph? Or dynamite (if you get that one give yourself a cookie)? Decapitation will do the trick, also. The jury is still out if tearing its heart out will do the trick, though. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/7 "2005-10-23T23:42:01Z")
Huh, and all this time I was under the impression that only silver would do the trick. After all, if something else would do it, why wouldn’t a werewolf just kill themself? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/8 "2005-10-23T23:44:36Z")
An atomic weapon should also do the trick… ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/9 "2005-10-23T23:44:58Z")
\ \ _SFX: Wolf Howl_ Igor: Werewolf! Dr. Frankenstein: Werewolf? Igor: _(looks around, then points)_ There wolf! \ You’ll have a howling good time once I move this thread to Cafe Society. \ ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/10 "2005-10-23T23:50:47Z")
> [@Love Rhombus](#): > > Or dynamite (if you get that one give yourself a cookie)? If The Monster Squad taught us anything, it was that dynamite will NOT kill the Wolfman. And that he has nards. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/11 "2005-10-23T23:56:41Z")
Well, on the Disc, werewolves can be killed by the equivalent of dynamite. Vimes blew up Angua’s brother with a lob-fired signal flare in **The Fifth Elephant**. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/12 "2005-10-23T23:58:39Z")
According to legends, drawing three drops of a werewolf’s blood will cause them to change back to human shape, and calling them by their Christian name will cure them. **Love Rhombus** Until Hollywood came along, almost every reluctant werewolf story involved a person who was cursed by somebody else. These werewolves didn’t want to die. They wanted to be cured so that they could return to their proper place and get justice/revenge. However, the majority of werewolf stories involve an evil person gaining the power to become a wolf and being quite happy about it. They wanted to commit homicide, not suicide. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/13 "2005-10-24T00:17:08Z")
In most pre-modern werewolf stories, it doesn’t take much. Anything that you’d take against a REALLY big wolf would do. In fact, the classic werewolf story ends with the wolf taking some nasty wounds, often losing a limb, and then limping off into the night. The next morining, some unlikely person is found dead or drying with wounds matching those inflicted on the wolf. In fact, I think the silver bullet is a Hollywood invention. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/14 "2005-10-24T00:33:13Z")
In the Gaberial Knight Universe, a fatal wound to the heart or the brain is all you need. Presumably decapitation or a wood chipper would work nicely as well. One is killed by knocking it into a big oven and shutting the door. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/15 "2005-10-24T00:44:48Z")
> [@Menocchio](#): > > In fact, I think the silver bullet is a Hollywood invention. I had thought so too. But, a recent GQ thread revealed that using silver to kill werewolves dates back at least a century and a half in German folklore. Re Gabriel Knight Lousy Sierra bastards! I had a copy that wouldn’t let me past day three or four. I downloaded a patch from their website. It wiped out all my saved games and wouldn’t let me past day one. ---
**Author:** ![Rainbowthief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4bbf92/32.png) [@Rainbowthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rainbowthief)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/16 "2005-10-24T04:05:03Z")
A 1940’s style ray gun will kill anything, werewolves included. ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/17 "2005-10-24T04:25:12Z")
A disintegration spell. Though that might be overkill. Most of the myths perpetuating lycanthropes were founded in ignorance and fear, in a time long before silver bullets and wood chippers. They were fearsome because they were thought to be nigh invulnerable (to the methods of the time), and physically able (and usually willing) to destroy an entire village in minutes. So far as I’m aware, there weren’t any legends about werewolves regenerating wounds or regrowing lost limbs, etc. Things of that nature were added into the canon by moviemakers to add excitement. The original myths didn’t take into account things like uzi’s and dynamite and Sherman tanks, and who wants to watch a horror movie about a nasty, villainous, bloodcurdling monster that gets blown away by the first schlep with a shotgun? So, my belief is: you can kill a werewolf by any means you could kill a normal human nowadays. They might be more resistant to things like poisons and diseases, but a .44 to the head’ll do it just as well as it would a mugger. The problem, of course, is wrestling a 7’ anthropomorphic wolf with the strength of two men into the wood chipper before he bites your face off. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/18 "2005-10-24T05:10:45Z")
Chocolate? ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/19 "2005-10-24T05:38:51Z")
I read an occult book that claimed that you could kill them by stabbing them three times in the forehead with a copper knife…No idea if this has any basis in myth or the book just made it up. Now how you get a killing machine to stand still while you repeatedly stab it the book didn’t clarify. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572/20 "2005-10-24T05:41:22Z")
Well, Anita Blake from the _Anita Blake : Vampire Hunter_ series used her necromantic powers to suck the life from Chimera ( who was a werewolf, among other things ), reducing him to a lifeless mummy. On a less character specific note, anything that utterly destroys the body should work; acid, fire and so forth. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-kill-a-werewolf/327572.md?page=2)