| “ | I can't believe I got my ass thrown in a vault for three months for you. All those rumors I heard... A powerful new Alpha, one of the Hales, building a pack! Do you know how long I've waited to hear something like that? Do you have any idea how it felt to find out you were alive? | ” |
— Cora to Derek Hale in Unleashed
| ||
Cora Hale was a supporting character in Season 3 of Teen Wolf. Cora is the daughter of the legendary Alpha Werewolf Talia Hale and Cora's unnamed father, the younger sister of Laura Hale and Derek Hale, the niece of Peter Hale, and the cousin of Malia Tate. Cora was believed to be dead by everyone in Beacon Hills, including her own brother Derek, until it was revealed that she had, in fact, survived the Hale House Fire and was ultimately captured by the Alpha Pack in the late spring to early summer of 2011 after she journeyed back to her hometown to learn more about the rumors she heard about a new Hale Alpha starting a pack.
After being held in captivity for nearly four months along with Vernon Boyd and Erica Reyes (the latter of whom was eventually killed by Kali a few days before the other two were found and rescued), she was finally rescued by Derek, Scott McCall, and Allison Argent, albeit with many complications.
Once Cora had settled down from feral rage caused by the full moon on the night she was freed from captivity (due to her prison cell having hecatolite, a mineral that blocked her from feeling the moonlight the whole four months she was locked up), it was eventually explained that Cora had run away after the Hale House Fire, believing that her entire family had perished. Despite only being eleven years old at the time, Cora continued to travel south and eventually ended up somewhere in South America, where she settled down with a pack there until six years later, when she heard rumors that a powerful new Hale Alpha was building a pack in Beacon Hills.
Upon her release from captivity, Cora was initially upset to learn that she had spent the majority of her life alone and believing she was an orphan while her brother and sister were alive and in contact with each other, but she ultimately dealt with this shock and decided to stay and join her brother's pack to help him fight against Deucalion and his Alpha Pack.
Once the Alpha Pack and the Darach had been defeated, Cora elected to return to South America, which led both Derek and Peter to accompany her there before eventually making their way back home, though they ran into a bit of trouble on the way; when the Calavera Family of Hunters captured Derek and Peter, it was initially assumed that they believed Cora to be a shapeshifter known as La Loba. However, it was eventually revealed that La Loba was not Cora, but was instead Kate Argent, who had become a Werejaguar also known as "The Bone Woman" after being deeply scratched by Peter when he was still an Alpha. As far as it is known, Cora remains safe and sound somewhere in South America, likely with the pack she lived with in the years after the fire, though the Beacon Hills supernaturals, including Derek and Peter, haven't seemed to receive much, if any, news from her since she resettled there.
Cora is a member of the Hale Family and a former member of the Hale Pack.
Early life[]
Cora was born the youngest child to Alpha Werewolf Talia Hale and her unnamed partner at some point in the mid-1990s. When she was eleven years old, her house was burned down by Argent Hunter Kate Argent and her team of co-conspirators, killing somewhere between eight and eleven members of her family (excluding Laura and Derek, who were at school), many of whom were human. ("Magic Bullet"), ("Wolf's Bane") This fire left Cora and her uncle Peter (whose 2nd and 3rd degree burns were so severe they left him in a coma for six years) as the only ones who managed to actually escape the burning Hale House with their lives.
It is unknown how she managed to make it out of the house while it burned, but her survival instincts were so strong that she was able to escape, and, believing her entire family—Derek, Laura, and Peter, included—had been killed, she fled south through Mexico and Central America into South America, where she eventually found and joined a Werewolf pack there. ("Riddled")
At some point in early 2011, Cora heard rumors of a powerful new Hale Alpha who was building a pack in Beacon Hills, news that severely shocked her, as she was under the impression that she was the only surviving member of her family. However, when she finally made it back to California to investigate this rumor, she was captured by the Alpha Pack, who used her, Vernon Boyd, and Erica Reyes (the latter two being recently-bitten Betas in the new Hale Pack) as leverage to get Derek Hale, the new Hale Alpha Cora had heard about, to join their pack as well; unfortunately, in order to be accepted into the Alpha Pack, Derek would have to kill Cora and the rest of his Betas just as Deucalion, Kali, and Ennis did. ("Chaos Rising"), ("Unleashed") During their captivity together in the vault of the abandoned First National Bank, Erica grew tired from being a hostage and attacked Kali, in hopes of breaking herself, Boyd, and Cora out of there, but Erica was ultimately overpowered and killed by the Augmented Alpha, leaving Boyd and Cora grief-stricken.("Fireflies"),("Currents")
Throughout Teen Wolf[]
Season 3[]
In Tattoo, Cora was seen holding the hand of Vernon Boyd in First National Bank's vault, where the two had been captured.
In Chaos Rising, Isaac Lahey, who had his memories of the captives (Erica Reyes, Vernon Boyd, and Cora) in the First National Bank vault modified and suppressed by Deucalion, performed an ice bath ritual to retrieve these memories with the help of Alan Deaton, Scott McCall, Derek Hale, and Stiles Stilinski. After being submerged in the ice water, he began to recover his memories of what he saw—namely, that he had found Erica's dead body in a closet, and that there was another Werewolf girl in the vault with Boyd. This led Derek and Scott to formulate a plan with Stiles and Peter Hale's assistance to rescue Boyd and the other girl (as well as to verify whether or not Erica was still alive) before they could be killed by Deucalion and the rest of the Alpha Pack.
The scene then cut to the vault, where an anxious-looking Boyd and Cora were pacing around the vault, clearly on edge due to the impending full moon. Cora and Boyd were hidden when Derek and Scott punched their way through the vault wall, unintentionally allowing the moonlight to flood through the dark bank vault. Scott, who seemed to sense something was amiss, was looking around with Derek when Peter and Stiles called him to inform him that the bank vault walls were made with hecatolite, also known as moonstone, which blocks and absorbs moonlight and which had prevented Cora and Boyd from feeling the effects of the full moon for the last three months. As a result, the fact that they were finally feeling the moonlight after being deprived of it so long resulted in Cora and Boyd becoming even more feral and bloodthirsty than most Werewolves, even untrained ones, typically are on a full moon.
It was then that Cora and Boyd revealed themselves to the two, and Derek was nearly stunned speechless when he saw his now-grown-up sister. Cora yelled at him to get out, fearing that she would hurt him, but before they could even consider leaving, Marin Morrell appeared and used Mountain Ash to trap all four Werewolves inside the vault on Deucalion's orders. This seemed to be the final straw for Cora and Boyd, who were unable to resist their urges any longer and who finally succumbed to the effects of the full moon, brutally attacking both Derek and Scott. Though Scott and Derek had more control over their lycanthropy, they were at a disadvantage to Cora and Boyd due to the fact that they weren't resisting any of their instincts. Fortunately for the former two, Allison Argent had sneaked into the bank prior to their arrival and tried to help them by informing them of when Boyd or Cora tried to attack them when they weren't expecting it.
However, when Cora began viciously fighting Derek, Boyd stabbed his claws into Scott's abdomen and raised him up in the air, causing him to spit up copious amounts of blood, and Allison, fearing for Scott's life, broke the Mountain Ash barrier and shouted at Boyd and Cora to distract them. The two feral wolves were so excited to be free of the vault that they gave up on attacking Derek and Scott in favor of fleeing and running through Beacon Hills instead, though Derek then became furious at Allison for letting Cora and Boyd loose on the town, even if she did it to save their lives.
In Fireflies, Boyd and Cora, overwhelmed by the effects of the full moon that they hadn't felt in almost four months and unable to control themselves due to their decreased tolerance, began to rampage through Beacon Hills after escaping from the First National Bank vault. They then made their way into the Beacon Hills Preserve, where Cora and Boyd were inadvertently split up, and Cora then ran toward a tent in the woods, where she came upon a young woman named Caitlin, who had been camping out there with her girlfriend, Emily.
Just as Cora began to growl menacingly at Caitlin, Isaac Lahey arrived, briefly defeating Cora to save Caitlin, though Cora quickly recovered and responded by tossing him into the nearby tree. Shortly afterward, Derek Hale and Scott McCall caught up with them, and Cora, realizing that she was outnumbered, quickly ran away. Derek and Isaac then chased after Cora while Scott stayed behind to check on Caitlin and make sure she was able to get to safety.
After consulting with and gaining assistance from Chris Argent on how to capture Werewolves without hurting or killing them, Argent, Derek, Isaac and Scott formulated a plan to lure Cora and Boyd to Beacon Hills High School in hopes of locking them in the boiler room for the remainder of the full moon; fortunately for them, Allison Argent was secretly helping them behind the scenes to make up for the fact that she had to let Boyd and Cora loose from the bank. When the two feral Werewolves arrived at the school, they seemed to sense that they were going to be ambushed inside and instead jumped over the school, only for Allison and Isaac to steer them back inside and lock the doors from the outside so they couldn't escape.
After finally getting them into the boiler room, Derek and Scott realized that they had accidentally locked them in with the human Jennifer Blake, a teacher at the high school, forcing Derek to go in and keep Boyd and Cora at bay to keep them from attacking her. Cora and Boyd clawed at Derek viciously until the sun came up, after which point they were so exhausted that they immediately passed out. Cora was eventually carried back to Derek's loft by Scott while Isaac helped Boyd do the same.
In Unleashed, Cora, looking anxious and preoccupied, was working out in the loft while Derek watched with a judging expression. She first did a series of pull-ups on a pipe in the ceiling before dropping to the floor, where Derek suggested that she stop, citing the fact that she was still healing from the trauma of being held captive and running wild on the full moon. Cora irritably retorted that she was done laying around and began doing push-ups, and when Derek's condescending response-- "Then sit"—did nothing to stop her, he used his foot to knock Cora off-balance and she fell onto the floor.
Angry, Cora rose to her feet and demanded to know if Derek was going to help her go after the Alphas, but before he could speak, she began to punch and kick him, forcing him to spar with her despite his reluctance to do so. Unfortunately for her, Derek did not engage, aside from easily blocking her blows and disarming her, which caused her to furiously yell, "Fight back!" When Derek refused to do so, Cora scoffed and harshly stated that she couldn't believe she spent almost four months locked in a vault just for him, adding that she had waited half her life to hear the news of a new Hale Alpha forming a pack. Derek, visibly hurt by her words, tensely replied that he was sorry for disappointing her, but before he could say anything more, the loft's alarm system began to blare loudly.
Cora looked at Derek in confusion and asked him what was going on, and Derek, alarmed, warned her that they had company. Just then, Kali and Ennis entered the loft, and as soon as Cora saw the two Alphas, she wasted no time partially-transforming with her fangs and claws so she could rush toward Ennis. Unfortunately, Ennis was much stronger and easily slammed her onto the concrete floor and held her in a choke-hold while Kali fought Derek for several long minutes, during which time she ultimately stabbed him in the chest with a pipe she pulled from the ceiling.
Cora, seeing Derek's condition, shouted at Kali to stop before she killed him; though Kali did stop twisting the pipe, she kept it in his chest, forcing Cora to watch as Deucalion joined the other Alphas in making their pitch to get Derek to join the Alpha Pack, though Derek managed to convince them to let Cora go so she was no longer being choked, a request Deucalion honored as a sign of good faith. Cora then listened as Deucalion told the story of the Alpha Pack and made his pitch to Derek—kill his Betas, become an Augmented Alpha, and join their ranks. After saying what they intended to say, the Alphas left Derek and Cora to think about their offer, allowing Cora to rush over to her brother and help him remove the pipe impaling his chest.
That night, Cora hid in a nearby corner while Derek informed Isaac that he would be kicking him out (as Derek, who cared about Isaac, was hoping that distancing himself from the young Beta would ensure Isaac's safety from the Alpha Pack) and listened to their conversation. Cora flinched when Isaac, who was resisting leaving the loft, had no choice but to duck and cover his head when the frustrated Derek threw a glass at him to emphasize his point; this was an act that paralleled the way Mr. Lahey used to abuse Isaac in order to make it obvious that she felt badly for Derek's behavior toward Isaac.
In Frayed, Derek, Peter, Boyd and Cora gathered at Derek's loft to work out a plan for a preemptive strike against the Alpha Pack, not wanting to wait around for their next move. Scott, who had joined the discussion when he arrived to inform them where the Alphas were staying, made it clear he didn't like the plan, as he hated how everyone's first idea was always to kill whomever was threatening them. Peter snidely insulted Scott's "blandly moral" perspective, but ultimately agreed with Scott, believing that the risk was too great to be worth it.
Cora, scoffing at Peter and Scott, turned to Derek and asked why they even needed Scott, referring to him as "this kid," and she frowned when Derek reminded her that Scott had helped save her life. When Scott retorted that there was no way that they could kill a pack of Alphas that powerful, Cora corrected him by reiterating that they were only going after Deucalion, as she, Boyd, and Derek were under the impression that defeating Deucalion would cause the rest of the pack to fall apart.
Knowing Scott (who ultimately brought his friend and Hale Pack member Isaac with him) would try to come to a truce with Deucalion through talking, Cora joined Derek and Boyd in crashing their meeting at the Abandoned Mall in order to launch their strike. Unfortunately for them, they had underestimated Deucalion, who they believed would be without backup—knowing it was a trap, he had brought Ennis, Kali, and the twins with him, making the Hale Pack severely outmatched. Despite their poor chances, Derek lunged for Kali, so Cora and Boyd followed his lead by teaming up against Ennis; Isaac soon jumped in the fray to help his packmates, forcing the reluctant Scott to transform and back them up as well.
Soon, all of the Hale Pack members are incapacitated, with Cora being pinned to the ground by Kali, whose clawed foot was pressed against her throat. When Deucalion gave Derek an ultimatum—kill Boyd or be killed—Kali scoffed and asked why they were so eager to recruit an "Alpha to a bunch of useless teenagers," Deucalion maintained that some (in this case, Scott) had more potential than others, leading Kali to change the ultimatum so that Derek could either kill Cora or kill Boyd, or, as Kali put it, "[choose] pack or family?"
Before a decision can be made, Allison shot a flashbolt arrow from high up in the upper levels of the mall, causing a distraction which allowed Cora to drag the severely injured Boyd to safety while the others fought. She watched from afar as Ennis and Derek began fiercely sparring with each other, with Scott jumping in at the last moment to swipe at Ennis' Achilles tendon with his claws. Ennis lost his balance and fell over the edge of the balcony, grabbing Derek and pulling him down with him; the two ultimately landed onto the escalators they fell on and were believed to be dead due to the severity of their injuries.
The next day, Cora was investigating the escalator that both Ennis and Derek had fallen onto by returning to the Abandoned Mall, where she was surprised to find her uncle Peter had the same idea. Realizing she was startled, Peter assured her that it was just "uncle Peter," finally giving Cora the opportunity to bring up the fact that he was "uncle Peter who killed sister Laura." Peter insisted that it was an accident and remarked that they were all works in progress, as it was her own brother Derek who ripped his throat out and temporarily killed him.
When Cora made it clear that she still didn't trust him, he returned the sentiment, pointing out the fact that there was a six-year gap in their relationship where he had no idea who she was or what she was doing. He then reiterated that they were there for the same reason—because they were both curious to see which of the Alphas managed to muster up the strength to crawl away from the scene, Derek or Ennis.
Later, Cora and Peter went to the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic; while they were standing outside, Cora stated that she had no idea why they were there. Peter explained that the clinic wasn't just a clinic, and admitted that since half of the building was made of Mountain Ash, he wasn't actually sure how to get in. Cora scoffed and rolled her eyes as she retorted that they could be like normal people and walk in the door. Just then, they're both startled by a booming Alpha Roar coming from Kali, who had walked outside of the clinic after learning that Ennis had died, not knowing that it was Deucalion who killed him and not his injuries from the battle.
In Currents, the alarm in Derek's loft once again began to sound off early in the morning while Cora was off in another room and Derek was dozing on the couch while reading a book. Cora rushed into the main room to ask him what the alarm meant, but both she and Derek saw the Alpha Pack's symbol spray-painted on his wall of windows, answering the question for them, though Derek grimly explained that it meant the Alphas were coming for him tonight.
Later that day, Cora went to school, where she immediately pulled the fire alarm to give her the excuse to break up Lydia Martin and Aiden's hook-up in Coach Finstock's office. Once the two were split up, Cora confronted Lydia, stating that she was a messenger on Derek's behalf to "kindly" request that Lydia stop seeing Aiden, going so far as to add the threat of ripping Lydia's tongue out of her head if she didn't comply.
When Lydia, not wanting to seem intimidated by the young woman, stated that, since her ex-boyfriend Jackson Whittemore was a "homicidal lizard", she was sure she could handle a Werewolf. To make her point, Cora grabbed her by the wrist and squeezed hard, causing Lydia to sharply demand her to let her go, though Cora did not do so until Stiles Stilinski appeared and reiterated the request, as he needed both of their help in locating Alan Deaton, their Druid mentor who had been captured by the Darach and was set to be a Kanima laboratory, where Stiles first brought out a Ouija board in hopes that Lydia, who seemed to have a connection to and an ability to seek out the supernatural, could use it to divine Deaton's location. The three reluctantly used the board as intended, but when it became clear that both Cora and Stiles expected Lydia to have the answer, whereas Lydia assumed they were asking a spirit of some sort. Lydia scoffed in disbelief when Cora earnestly asked her if she knew any spirits and asked Stiles if she was "for real."
The group then tried psychometry, where Stiles placed the keys to Deaton's animal clinic in her hand in hopes that she could use the personal energy to locate him, but all Lydia did was shiver and remark that the metal was cold. Finally, the exasperated trio tried Automatic Writing, in which Lydia let her mind wander and would hopefully write a location; however, much to Cora and Stiles' frustration, Lydia simply drew the same tree that she had been doodling in class all semester.
At the end of her rope, Cora asked Stiles, "Isn't she supposed to be some kind of genius?", leading Lydia to retort that yes, she was a genius, but that didn't mean she was a psychic. She then shocked them all by pointing out that she had no idea why they were wasting their time with her, when it was obvious that they should be talking to Danny Mahealani, who was a target of the Darach's via mistletoe poisoning but wasn't an actual sacrifice, a theory that was ultimately confirmed to be true by Scott McCall, who had just gotten a clue from Deucalion.
Changing tactics, Scott sent Cora, Lydia, and Stiles to the hospital to try to get more information on Danny's involvement in this mess while Scott followed up on a lead that Allison Argent found in her father's office. After raiding through Danny's book bag at the hospital where he was still recovering from being poisoned, they found a research paper Danny had proposed that had been rejected by Adrian Harris due to the subject matter-- Telluric Currents—bordering on "pseudoscience."
Remembering that Harris, too, had a connection to the Darach and was likely one of her "Warrior" sacrifices, the three met back up with Scott at the animal clinic, where he added his own discovery from talking to Allison—a map in Argent's office that had the telluric currents throughout Beacon Hills; remembering Deucalion's clue of "let the current guide you," Scott realized that the victims must be captured on one convergence, sacrificed at a midway point, and then had their bodies dropped at another convergence. This led Cora to realize, to her horror, that Deaton was being held in the First National Bank vault, the same place she was held hostage for nearly four months.
Just then, Cora received a text message from Vernon Boyd alerting her to the fact that the plan he, Isaac Lahey, and Derek had come up with to fight against the Alpha Pack failed due to the Alphas cutting the power to the loft, Scott advised them all to go help Derek, assuring them that he could save Deaton on his own, insistent that no one was going to die that night.
Cora then rushed over to the loft in Stiles' Jeep with Stiles and Lydia, where they wasted no time turning on all the power switches in the electrical room in hopes of giving the Hale Pack members (who had flooded the apartment and placed electrical cables throughout the water) a fighting chance by electrocuting the Alphas. However, not only did this successfully electrocute Kali, but it also shocked Derek and Boyd as well; because Boyd was weaker, as a Beta, this disrupted his accelerated healing ability, making it easy for the twins to hold out Derek's clawed hands and impale them in Boyd's chest, forcing Derek to inadvertently steal Boyd's power, the first step in joining the Alpha Pack.
Just as Cora, Stiles, and Lydia were about to run into the pack, Kali watched Derek stand over Boyd's weakening body and gave her final ultimatum—Derek would kill the rest of his Betas by the next full moon, or Kali would kill all of them, Derek included. Cora and Stiles ran over to Boyd's body once the Alphas were gone, with Cora collapsing next to and crying over Boyd's body, having gotten close to him during their captivity together, while Stiles comforted Derek and Lydia, who seemed to have predicted this outcome with her yet-unknown Banshee powers, stood shocked in the doorway.
In Visionary, Cora was hanging around the loft when Stiles came looking for Derek, causing Cora to tell him the story of a time when a younger Derek and Peter almost got caught by Hunters and were forced to hide in a root cellar in the woods for two days to get the heat off of them. When Cora asked Stiles why he even cared, Stiles exasperated replied, "Let's see... Because, over the last few weeks, my best friend's tried to kill himself; his boss nearly got ritually sacrificed; a girl that I've known since I was three was ritually sacrificed; Boyd was killed by Alphas... Do you want me to keep going? 'Cause I can, all right? For, like, an hour."
Cora, in Derek's defense, asked what Stiles thought he could do about any of these events, leading Stiles to admit that he believed it was Derek's duty to help out given the fact that he was the one that everyone else was after. Cora, seeing his point, admitted that the Derek of today was much different than the one she knew as a child, and when Stiles curiously asked how, Peter dramatically walked down the stairs and stated that Derek was actually a lot like Scott McCall (and most teenagers)-- unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic, tolerable only to other teenagers.
Stiles, not knowing much about Derek to begin with, asked what changed, and Peter smirked and stated that he fell in love with a girl. Stiles was skeptical that Derek's personality change was solely due to teenage heartbreak, so Peter reminded him that, when Derek was a Beta, his Werewolf eyes were blue, before asking him if he knew why Werewolves could have different colored eyes. Stiles, assuming it was genetic or something, simply shrugged, and Peter revealed that knowing what changed the color of Derek's eyes was crucial to understanding what changed Derek as a person.
The girl, Paige Krasikeva, was a fellow student at Beacon Hills High School with Derek in the early 2000s who he met when a couple of his basketball player buddies began teasing her for wanting to practice her cello in peace. He eventually met up with her to apologize and ended up winning her over, learning her name and developing romantic feelings for her. This led to Stiles holding a side-bar to discuss Werewolf aging, which became frustrating when Peter refused to give a straight answer about how old they were; when Cora stated that she was "seventeen" in what you'd measure in years, Stiles realized it was too complex a topic for this discussion and returned to the story, where Peter explained the ups and downs of Derek and Paige's relationship, including their make-out sessions at the Abandoned Distillery, though their last time there was interrupted by a Werewolf summit led by Talia Hale, Deucalion, Kali, and Ennis, all of whom were Alphas of their own respective packs at the time, to discuss Ennis' Beta being killed by Argent Hunters and rallying them to attack on his Beta's behalf.
Cora and Stiles continued to listen while Peter told the rest of the story as he drew a spiral (a symbol for revenge in Werewolf culture) in the condensation in the window of the loft. When Stiles seemed confused by the wolves' devotion to revenge, Cora informed him that losing a packmate was more akin to losing a limb than losing a family member. She then went on to ask what this had to do with Derek, and Peter explained that it was the entire confluence of events that occurred after Ennis' Beta's murder, leaving out the fact that he was the one who influenced Derek into giving Paige the bite so that they could always be together, scaring him into thinking she'd leave him if she ever found out he was a Werewolf. Since Talia would never do it, they needed one of the other Alphas who were in town for a short time, and since Ennis had recently lost a Beta, he agreed to give her the bite to replenish his ranks.
When they got to the part of the story where Talia and Deucalion sought the counsel of Alan Deaton, they explained the concept of Druid Emissaries to Stiles—essentially, they were advisers who helped them stay connected to their humanity, but they were usually secrets in packs that only the Alpha knew. This led to the revelation that Deaton's sister, Marin Morrell, was the Emissary to Deucalion's original pack and the current Emissary to the Alpha Pack, shocking Stiles due to the fact that he had recently shared personal information with her.
Peter soon explained that Ennis did manage to give Paige the bite (despite Derek's feeble attempts to stop him at the last minute), but she ultimately began rejecting it, leaving Derek with no choice but to bring her to the root cellar in hopes of nursing her back to health. When it became clear she wasn't going to make it and the pain got too great, Paige revealed that she had always known Derek was different before begging him to end her suffering. At her request, Derek reluctantly snapped her spine to mercy-kill her, which caused his golden Beta eyes to turn bright blue to reflect the killing of an innocent life.
Later that night, after Peter had left, Cora noticed Stiles thinking about something and asked him what was going on, as he had a look on his face that "made her want to punch him," causing Stiles to joke that she was definitely Derek's sister. He then admitted that he didn't believe Peter before explaining that he had just learned about unreliable narrators in English class while they read Heart of Darkness, leading Stiles to believe that Peter was embellishing the story to make himself look better and that they didn't get the whole story. Cora, shocked, asked if he was really planning on asking Derek the story about the girl he loved and killed, and Stiles determinedly stated that he would if he had to do so.
In The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Aiden and Lydia were making out in Coach Finstock's office, with Aiden unaware Lydia's true intent was to buy Scott and Stiles enough time to question Ethan on the Alpha Pack's emissary. The two stopped for a brief moment for Aiden to confess he was surprised to make out with Lydia since the death of Derek's Beta Vernon Boyd and Lydia called him out on how he could help his fellow Alphas kill one of her friends, but Aiden defended himself by saying it was Kali who ordered him and his brother to do so before insisting that he and Ethan were not given a choice. Lydia proceeded to mock him, stating that she thought that all Alpha Pack members were Alphas, leading Aiden to admit that the Alpha Pack was not as democratic as it sounded, before reminding her that Derek had "killed" Ennis. Lydia questioned if Derek would have to kill his remaining Betas as per the Alpha Pack's ultimatum and Aiden confirmed it, adding "Like the time he and Boyd tried to kill you." Lydia was stunned and asked Aiden how he was aware of that.
Before they could argue further, a Werewolf drew the spiral (the symbol for revenge in Werewolf community) with his claws on the window of the door that leads to the boys' locker room, leading Aiden to believe Derek is there. Ignoring Lydia's warnings and the threat that she would scream to get the attention of others, Aiden came out to the locker room, demanding Derek to come out and show his face, only for the Werewolf to be revealed to be Cora, who attacked him from behind and slashed him across the chest with her claws several times.
Recovering quickly, Aiden grabbed Cora in a choke-hold and shoved her to the ground, where she hits the wall with her head. Not paying attention to Lydia's pleas to stop, Aiden grabbed a weight and striked Cora in the temple with it, sending her flying toward Lydia but he was stopped in the nick of time by Scott, Stiles and Ethan, the latter of whom reminded his twin of the ultimatum Kali gave Derek several days earlier and none of them would harm Derek or anyone important to him until then. The twins left the locker room and the McCall Pack members helped Cora nurse her injuries.
Cora was seen washing the blood from her temple with a piece of cloth and Stiles and Lydia commented on how badly Cora looked. Cora, annoyed, assured Scott, Stiles and Lydia that she would heal but she started to feel woozy from the blow to her head and would have fallen had Stiles not caught her in time. Cora insisted that she would be fine, giving Stiles the chance to question Cora on the "suicidally-crazy" way that she attacked Aiden. Cora angrily shouted that she did it in an attempt to avenge Boyd and reminded them that they were not doing pretty much of a thing for their town. Though Scott reminded her they were doing their best efforts to protect the citizens of their town, Cora reminded them they were still failing and judged them for being unable to save innocents from being killed and the only thing that they were good at was fidning the bodies before walking out of the locker room, leading Stiles to remark that Cora, with such an atittude similar to that of her older brother Derek, was definitely a Hale before deciding to take her to his house.
On the way to the Stilinski House, Stiles and Cora received news from Allison and Isaac that the next set of the sacrifices—the philosophers—could be related with law enforcement, possibly making Stiles' father Noah Stilinski a target of the Darach. Stiles realized that he was left with no choice but to finally reveal the existence of the supernatural to his father and turned his attention to Cora as he informed her that he would need her help to convince his dad.
At his home, Stiles started to inform his father of the supernatural community of Beacon Hills, explaining to him Derek and Scott are Werewolves. When he incorrectly asked if Kate Argent was a Werewolf, Stiles corrected him that she was a Werewolf Huntress, a statement Cora added with "Along with Allison and her father." The Sheriff incorrectly deduced Deaton was a Kanima but Stiles explained to him that Deaton, as they think, is a Druid Emissary, while Jackson Whittemore became the Kanima prior to being killed and reborn as a Werewolf. He questioned about the Darach but both Stiles and Cora denied knowing her identity and were not sure if she was "slashed up and left for dead."
Unfortunately, the Sheriff did not take this seriously, and began leaving Stiles' room, claming that he has had enough but Stiles did not give in and asked Cora to reveal her supernatural nature to his father, she got up to her feet and prepared to shift but she instead passed out and Stilinski checked on her. Stilinski turned to Stiles with a worried look and asked his son to call an ambulance for Cora.
She was transported to Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, and Derek remained sit beside her bed until she awoke, much to his relief. When Cora questioned her brother over what was happening to her, Derek replied that he was not sure and promise that he would not leave her before kissing softly her forehead as she rested. Some minutes later, Derek heard Lydia's scream when she was about to be killed by Jennifer Blake, who had just been revealed to be the Darach, because Lydia knew too much about her plans to take down the Alpha Pack and this scream is what led Jennifer to reveal Lydia was, in fact, a Banshee, also known as "The Wailing Woman" and a supernatural Harbinger of Death.
In The Overlooked, Cora played a large role in the episode despite being unconscious for the majority of it. She was still a patient of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital due to the head injury she sustained from her fight with Aiden the day before. Melissa McCall was in charge of the evacuation after a severe thunderstorm shut down the power to the building, and when Dr. Vandenberg was asked if all of his patients were clear, he responded that they were all being transported as they spoke except for one—Cora Hale.
In her hospital room, her uncle, Peter Hale, was doting on her in her room by patting a wet cloth across her face, stopped what he was doing to shout, "Hey! Anyone want to tell me when they're getting my niece out of here?" Just then, Melissa walked into the room to apologize for the delay, only to be stopped in her tracks when she realized it was the man she went on a date with the previous winter, who she knew had both bitten and turned her son Scott McCall and who was killed by his nephew Derek Hale shortly afterward.
When she pointed out that he was supposed to be dead, he sheepishly admitted that he got that reaction a lot. Suddenly, before the two could talk further, Cora awoke and projectile vomited onto the floor by their feet; all three of them were alarmed to see that not only had she thrown up black blood, but that it also had Mistletoe berries in it, suggesting that the Darach was involved.
At Derek's loft, Jennifer Blake's identity as the Darach was revealed to Derek Hale, Scott McCall, and Stiles Stilinski, and when Derek was about to kill her, Jennifer got him to stop by pointing out that if she was killed, they would never find Noah Stilinski, and she would not be able to save the life of Derek's sister Cora. When Derek looked at her in disbelief, she pleaded with him to call Peter to verify this statement. Upon reaching Peter on the phone, the elder Werewolf confirmed that Cora's condition was worsening—she was in and out of consciousness and had just vomited black blood. Peter was about to reveal that there was also mistletoe in Cora's system when Derek correctly guessed this for himself and hung up. He once again was about to kill Jennifer for what she had done, but Jennifer, Scott and Stiles managed to convince him to hold off, in exchange for Jennifer coming with them to heal Cora.
On the way there, Jennifer insisted that while she was set in her plans to end the Alpha Pack for good, she didn't want Cora to die, and she emphasized that he needed to hear the whole story before he made judgments about her. Upon their arrival, Melissa advised the group that there were two last ambulances, ten and twenty minutes away, that Cora needed to be on before pointing them in the direction of her room. Unfortunately, by the time they got there, they found Cora having been moved by Peter in an attempt to flee from the merged twins, Ethan and Aiden, who were trying to get to Jennifer to prevent her from gaining any more power.
The packs managed to get Cora back and were forced to work through a number of obstacles to get Cora to safety, including evading the twins, fleeing from Kali, and trying to protect Jennifer from Deucalion in order to allow her to survive long enough for her to help them heal Cora and locate Stilinski. Stiles eventually got Cora to an ambulance, where they hid out until the the Argents, along with Isaac Lahey, allowed them to get away, though she did go into respiratory arrest at one point, forcing Stiles to perform rescue breaths until she was resuscitated.
In Alpha Pact, Derek and Isaac had managed to take Cora back to Derek's loft, where they continued to watch with worried expressions as she continued to cough and bleed black blood from her mouth. When Isaac questioned Derek over whether he was sure Cora was genuinely dying from her mistletoe-induced illness and if he knew what to do to help her, Derek answered the two questions with "I don't know." This seemed to have become the last straw for Isaac, who proceeded to unleash all of the anger, grief and frustration that he had been piling up as a result of the events that have occurred over the last weeks. He criticized Derek for engaging in a sexual relationship with Jennifer and not having realized sooner that she was the evil Dark Druid responsible for the human sacrifices that Scott and the others members of the future McCall Pack were attempting to prevent. He then turned the conversation back to the painful reminder that their packmates Boyd and Erica were killed by the Alphas because Derek involved them in the supernatural underworld in the first place before pointing at the dying Cora to emphasize his point that Derek was doing nothing at all to help.
Near in tears, Isaac demanded to know why Derek turned him and the others into Werewolves, wondering if it was solely about a matter of power before asking him if it was more related to the fact that he was lonely prior to forming his pack. After a few moments considering these questions, Derek responded that perhaps it was the case and guaranteed that he would help the others right after saving Cora, but Isaac shouted, "There is no time!" He alerted to the approaching full moon, which would be the time the Sheriff and Melissa would be dead, and voiced his willingness to help the others track down the parents in any way possible, adding, "You can sit here and perfect the art of doing nothing!"
He shut the entrance gate with tremendous force out of anger toward Derek and his indecisions. Peter, who had been eavesdropping the whole conversation, came down the staircase and expressed his belief that Isaac was using the excuse of going to help in saving the parents in order to shift his allegiance from Derek to Scott, even though Derek reminded him Scott wasn't an Alpha yet.
The next day, Peter watched Derek taking some of Cora's pain away and murmured, "Careful..." Derek stopped and reassured Peter that he knew that he could kill himself if he went too far with the absorption process but Peter replied he was not talking just about that.
A few hours later, Peter described the lifestyle of actual wolves, specifically how an injured wolf is never abandoned by his fellow wolves and is groomed and cared by others as a way to have his pain alleviated. An increasingly-irritable Derek demanded Peter to just tell him the way to save Cora and Peter explained that when Derek would be taking Cora's pain away, she would absorb the extra "spark" that made Derek an Alpha—the "spark" that boosted Derek's heightened strength, changed his eyes from a cold blue to a searing red, and granted him special abilities that other Werewolves of lower rank did not possess. Peter went on to remind him that this kind of ritual did not work every time that it was performed and healing Cora would come with a price.
Peter was talking to his nephew, admitting that Derek had not been exactly "Alpha of the year" and asked him to consider what he would be losing. Since he was immersed in guilt and self-loathing following all of his reckless actions that had only put his packmates in extreme danger, Derek confessed that he was no longer concerned about power; on the other hand, Peter reminded him that Kali had given him until the next full moon to join the Alpha Pack and she would be coming for him the next evening, expressing the fact that since Derek was unable to beat her as an Alpha, he surely would not survive battling her as a Beta, only for Derek to look at him in the eyes and reply that he could not care less about it. Peter seemed to understand this was Jennifer's plan all along—the only way Derek could heal Cora was by giving up his Alpha powers, leaving him with no choice but to team up with her to take down the Alphas, and he would need her by his side just as much as she wanted him by her side.
The two received a brief visit from Lydia, who wanted the location of the Nemeton, which happened to be where Jennifer was holding the Sheriff, Melissa and now Chris Argent hostage, but both Derek and Peter claimed that Talia Hale, Derek's mother and Peter's older sister, had taken their memories of the sacred tree so they wouldn't return there again. After Lydia left, Derek believed it was the right time to do it. Peter reminded him that he still had a choice but if he did such thing, he would face Kali as a Beta but Derek told him they wouldn't just face a full moon but a lunar eclipse as well, which meant they would all lose their powers.
Just as Stiles, Allison and Scott prepared to perform a surrogate sacrifice ritual to find their parents, Derek began the process of transferring his Alpha "spark" to the dying Cora. He took as much pain as he could and roared at the sky as his eyes turned from their Alpha red back to their Beta blue as Peter looked at this in awe.
In Lunar Ellipse, Derek was left severely weak after donating Cora his Alpha spark and she gave him a bottle of water to help him recover his strength. When Derek pointed out that she was better than ever, Cora reminded Derek that she was okay thanks to his selfless action. However, Peter reminded Derek that the full moon was rising and while he drained himself all the way to the red, there was a fully charged Alpha on her way to rip him apart limb from limb. Derek assured his uncle that he would be okay in a few hours, which Peter hoped so because a few hours was all he had left.
Upon learning from Morrell that Deucalion had killed Ennis and blamed his death on Derek to get him, Aiden, and Kali to force Derek to join the Alpha Pack, Ethan left the Alphas' side entirely and came to the loft with Lydia to inform Derek, Peter and Cora that Kali was on her way to the loft and had Aiden as back-up. They all debated their options—Peter was in favor of Derek leaving Beacon Hills as fast as possible, because his demotion to Beta status meant that he would be slaughtered by Kali; though Cora guaranteed Derek that she was okay with him fighting (and potentially dying) in battle but urged him to fight for something meaningful. They all turned to Lydia and asked her what she felt, earning the response "I feel like... like I'm standing in a graveyard."
Derek and Cora were about to leave the loft in their truck and Peter asked them not to call until they were a hundred miles away from there, to which Derek agreed before driving away.
Shortly after Kali and Aiden's arrival to the loft, Jennifer showed up and an intense fight sparked between Jennifer, Kali and the twins. Jennifer telekinetically lifted numerous shards of glass from the broken skylight before shoving all of them into Kali's entire body as revenge for Kali trying to kill her roughly eight years ago as her Emissary, before grabbing Ethan and Aiden's merged form's neck and breaking it over her shoulder with her superhuman strength. Once the Alphas had been killed, Jennifer forced Lydia to scream in order to lure Derek and Cora back to the loft and the scream managed to reach Downtown Beacon Hills, alerting the two siblings that Lydia was in trouble and they headed back.
Upon their return, Cora comforted Lydia while Derek confronted Jennifer, who confirmed that she did kill the Alphas for anyone who had ever been a victim of the Alpha Pack. Losing his temper, Derek yelled at her to stop talking to him like a politician and asked her to give up recruiting him to her cause, frustrating Jennifer that she used Derek's relationship with Scott as a last ditch effort to get Derek to help her. She explained that she still needed a guardian—a role that could be filled by either Derek himself or the three parents that she kidnapped. Even though Derek reminded her that he lost his Alpha status to save Cora, Jennifer tried to convince him that she just needed him to get Deucalion at the right place and at the right time; Derek pointed at Kali and the twins' bodies laying on the floor of his loft, so why would she need him when she was capable of killing the remaining Alphas all alone? Jennifer warned him she had already seen Deucalion at his strongest and if he had Scott on his side, she was at a disadvantage unless she had Derek with her. Though Cora wisely warned Derek not to trust the Darach, Jennifer convinced him to help her fight Deucalion until the lunar eclipse started and stripped all the Werewolves' powers for the duration, allowing her to kill the "Demon Wolf," and promised one last time to let the parents live.
Once Derek and Jennifer left, Cora and Lydia began leaving to get help but stopped in their tracks when they witnessed the twins separating from their merged form and realized that they were barely alive.
The girls urgently rushed the twins to Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, where Deaton immediately helped them set the twins in two separate tables. When Cora questioned Deaton if he could save them, Deaton stated that he might but only if their bodies restart the healing process. They watched him give the twins epinephrine shots and some oxygen while Deucalion and Scott fought Jennifer and Derek.
After Jennifer was defeated by the combined efforts of Scott, Deucalion and Derek, Cora and Lydia helped the twins get on their feet and Cora listened as Aiden told Lydia that he knew the whole time that she cared about and liked him.
Derek and Cora made the decision to leave the loft and return to South America, where she had passed the last six years with another Werewolf pack. This was her last appearance in the series.
Personality[]
Due to her being orphaned at a young age and going on the run after the Hale House Fire, Cora has grown into a headstrong, independent young woman who is more than capable of taking care of herself. Like her brother Derek and her cousin Malia, she has the tendency to be reckless and impulsive, particularly when it comes to incoming battles, where she is more likely to run straight into danger rather than retreat. Cora is also shown to be extremely mature for her age, regarding the rest of the Beacon Hills werewolves as being stupid, misguided teenagers. However, her opinion of them appeared to have changed following Stiles saving her life while suffering the effects of mistletoe. She was very loyal to her family, especially Derek, though she was wary of her uncle Peter after learning that he had killed her sister Laura. She also had a warrior spirit, as she told Derek that she would support him if he wanted to go into a battle he didn't think he could win, as long as he was willing to die in the battle for a meaningful reason.
Physical Appearance[]
Cora was a petite, beautiful young woman with pale white skin, large brown eyes, and hair that had been dyed reddish-brown with blonde streaks underneath. She dressed in a practical fashion, preferring active wear such as spandex leggings and sports bras to train, or jeans and flannel t-shirts for every day life. She wore no makeup, nor did she wear jewelry, preferring a simple style.
Powers and Abilities[]
Cora possesses the common abilities of a Beta-level Werewolf, including superhuman strength, speed, agility and reflexes, durability, and senses, as well as accelerated healing. She also had the ability to absorb the pain of other living beings, and could shapeshift her features into that of a wolf, causing her brow to become ridged, her ears to become pointed, her sideburns to grow thick, her eyes to glow bright gold, and her teeth and fingernails to grow into fangs and claws. As a born Werewolf and someone who had been on the run for much of her life, Cora was much more in-tune with her lycanthropy and her animal instincts than the bitten Werewolves of Beacon Hills, and as such, she had no issue transforming into her Beta form whenever the situation arose.
Weaknesses[]
Cora possesses the common weaknesses of a Werewolf, including wolfsbane, mountain ash, electricity, letharia vulpina, the Modified Canine Distemper Virus, and ultra/subsonic noises. She is also vulnerable to Lunar Eclipses, which will cause her and all werecreatures to lose their powers for the length of time that the moon is in the Earth's umbral shadow. Though she has been an active Werewolf long enough that full moons are usually not an issue for her, any Werewolf can still lose control on full moons or supermoons under the right circumstances, such as when Cora and Boyd had been deprived of the full moon for three months due to the hecatolite (also known as moonstone) in the bank vault walls, which prevented them from transforming during the duration and caused them to be overwhelmingly bloodthirsty and vicious after they finally felt the moonlight for the first time afterward.
Etymology[]
- Cora: Cora is a Latinized version of the Greek name Kore, which means "maiden" and was used as an epithet for Persephone, the goddess of the springtime as well as the Queen of the Underworld in Greek mythology. Cora wasn't used as a given name in the English-speaking world until after it was employed by James Fenimore Cooper as the name of a character, Cora Munro, in his novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826). In some cases, Cora may be a short form of the feminine given names Cordula, Coraline, or Corinna, and it is also the name of an indigenous ethnic group located in Western-Central Mexico. Interestingly enough, Cora Hale's first name is a variation of the name of her cousin Malia's biological mother, Corinne, and thus their names both share the same meaning of "maiden."
- Variants of the name in other languages include: Corinna, Korinna (Ancient Greek); Cornelia (Ancient Roman, Dutch, Italian, Romanian); Kornelija (Croatian, Serbian); Kornélie, Nela (Czech); Cokkie, Corrie, Lia, Lieke (Dutch); Corinne, Cornélie (French); Korina, Kore (Greek); Kornélia (Hungarian, Polish); Corina (Romanian).
- Hale: Derived from a geographical locality, "at the hale," i.e. "hall" (either as a proprietor or servant at a residence there). It is also derived from the Old English healh, meaning "nook" or "hollow." In northern England, the name often has a specialized meaning, either denoting a piece of flat alluvial land by the side of a river, or as a patch of dry land in a fen. It is also sometimes a habitational name from any of the several places in England that shares the same name. Additionally, it could also have origins as a Middle English personal name derived from either of two Old English bynames, Haele ("hero"), or Haegel, which is akin to the Germanic Hagano meaning "hawthorn." The name Hale was first recorded as De Halys in 1130. It is said that the Hales were related to Saint Edmund, the King of East Anglia, which is how the family's coat of arms got their arrows pointing downward.
Relationships[]
- Derek and Cora (brother/sister, former packmates)
- Cora and Peter (niece/uncle)
- Talia and Cora (mother/daughter, former packmates)
- Cora and Laura (sisters, former packmates)
- Cora and Stiles (allies, friends)
- Cora and Lydia (allies, friends)
- Cora and Boyd (close friends, former packmates)
- Cora and Isaac (friends, former packmates)
- Cora and Erica (friends)
- Cora and Deucalion (enemies)
- Ethan, Aiden and Cora (enemies)
- Cora and Kali (enemies)
- Cora and Scott (allies)
Appearances[]
- Tattoo
- Chaos Rising
- Fireflies
- Unleashed
- Frayed
- Motel California
- Currents
- Visionary
- The Girl Who Knew Too Much
- The Overlooked
- Alpha Pact
- Lunar Ellipse
Trivia[]
- Despite her short time on the series, Cora was shown to have developed friendships with Vernon Boyd and Erica Reyes while they were in the captivity of the Alpha Pack, and began tentative friendships with Stiles Stilinski and Lydia Martin after she was released.
- Cora's life was ultimately saved by her brother Derek after he sacrificed his Alpha spark to heal the mistletoe poisoning she had sustained from Jennifer Blake.
- Cora, along with her cousin Malia, are the only Hales who have not been an Alpha, as her mother, brother, sister and uncle have all been Alphas throughout the series.
- Unlike Peter, Derek and Malia, Cora's Werewolf eyes are still gold.
- Cora did not reappear after the first half of season 3 because Adelaide Kane was cast as the lead of the CW series Reign later in the year and her commitment to Reign forced Cora to be written off Teen Wolf.
Gallery[]
See also[]