“ | "You think this minor injury will stop me? I am the famous and feared Beast of Gévaudan! And when I'm done killing, everyone will know. I will have done such horrors that all of history will remember my name!" "No one will remember." "Damnatio memoriae? You would have them take my name? Our name? What? What is this?" "No ordinary steel-- Wolfsbane and Mountain Ash, forged with our blood under the light of a full moon. History might remember you, Sebastien, but only as a beast." |
” |
— Sebastien Valet and Marie-Jeanne Valet in Maid of Gévaudan
|
Sebastien Valet was the brother of Marie-Jeanne Valet and was the original Beast of Gévaudan, history's most ferocious Werewolf who killed upwards of 500 people in North America and France between 1760 and 1767. According to Sebastien, he became the Beast after accidentally drinking rainwater from a wolf's paw print in the woods while he was serving in the French military during the Seven Years' War, referencing the old folklore and myths about how humans become Werewolves.
Though he was killed by his own sister, the famed huntress Marie-Jeanne Valet (who would later become the progenitor of the Argent line of Werewolf Hunters) in 1767, he was resurrected in autumn of 2012 by the Dread Doctors when they revived his spirit and put it into the body of their first and only truly successful Chimera, Mason Hewitt. After Sebastien remembered who he truly was, Mason's body transformed into Sebastien's original body for a short time until the McCall Pack came up with a plan to save Mason by using Lydia Martin's Banshee voice to turn Mason back. Once Sebastien's spirit evacuated Mason's body, Scott killed him with the same pike Marie-Jeanne had killed him with several centuries earlier, putting him to rest once again.
Throughout Teen Wolf[]
Season 5[]
Sebastien's spirit was resurrected sometime between Status Asthmaticus and Damnatio Memoriae, but it took him many weeks of transforming his vessel, a Chimera named Mason Hewitt, into the Beast before he finally remembered his true identity. With Sebastien's powers, Mason unknowingly committed several massacres in Beacon Hills throughout Season 5B, including at a telecommunications tower in Damnatio Memoriae, at Beacon Hills High School in Codominance and A Credible Threat, and at Fort Jewett Army Base in The Sword and the Spirit.
In Maid of Gévaudan, Sebastien was shown in flashbacks to 1760, where he and his best friend Marcel were serving in the French military during the Seven Years' War in what is now modern-day Canada. On the night of a full moon, Sebastien and Marcel, both of whom were injured in battle, ran through the woods during a storm, where Sebastien accidentally tripped and fell in a mud puddle, unknowingly ingesting some of the water before Marcel helped him to his feet. He would later learn that the rainwater he drank was in a wolf's paw print, which is what ultimately turned him into the monstrous Werewolf who eventually became known as the Beast of Gevaudan.
At some point afterward, he stopped to write a letter to his sister, Marie-Jeanne Valet, who was still in their hometown of Gévaudan, France, and informed her that despite their injuries, they kept fighting on in hopes of seeing her again, before Sebastien and Marcel moved on to a new location. They stumbled upon a cabin in the woods and sought refuge there to evade a British search party. It was there that a woman named Colette appeared behind them in the cabin while they were dousing the candles and insisted that they had come to the wrong place. When Marcel questioned her further, she admitted that there was a shapeshifting demon in the woods that she referred to as a "Demon Wolf." This seemed to amuse Sebastien, who then transformed into the Beast and attacked Colette before turning his attention on the British soldiers who had surrounded the cabin, viciously slaughtering all of them before they even knew what hit them.
In 1764, Sebastien and Marcel returned to Gévaudan, where they immediately went to the local tavern just in time to hear Magistrate Tolbert and the other citizens at the bar begging Marie-Jeanne, the best hunter of mundane animals in their village, to lead the hunting party for the Beast. Marie-Jeanne greeted her brother excitedly before doing the same to Marcel, but the excitement of their return quickly turned to horror when Henri Argent showed up at the tavern with the bartender's son Emil in his arms and informed them that he had been mauled to death by the Beast. It was this event that caused Marie-Jeanne, who was still skeptical of the supernatural, to agree to lead the hunting party, and both Sebastien and Henri volunteered to help her as well. The next morning before the hunt began, Sebastien warned Marie-Jeanne about the Beast, and when she scoffed at how superstitious he was being, he reminded her that it wasn't superstition if he had seen the Beast with his own eyes.
When the hunt at dawn failed to find the Beast, they scheduled a second hunt after nightfall, where Sebastien, unbeknownst to anyone else, transformed into the Beast and attacked and killed the majority of the hunting party. He would have killed Marie-Jeanne as well had Henri not arrived in the nick of time to surround them both with a barrier of Mountain Ash, preventing Sebastien from approaching them and ultimately causing him to leave in favor of less protected quarry. The next night, Sebastien was at the tavern with Marcel and the others when Marie-Jeanne and Henri arrived with bottles of wine and insisted that everyone there drink in honor of their fellow villagers who had died in the last few days.
However, what the others didn't know was that the wine was laced with Rowan berries in order to try to identify who among them was the Beast, and Sebastien drank the wine without realizing this fact. When Marcel saw the berries in his glass, he realized what Marie-Jeanne and Henri were trying to do, and he purposely shattered his glass in his hand to cause a diversion so no one would notice that Sebastien was affected by the mistletoe and had begun to partially transform.
Unfortunately for Sebastien, Marie-Jeanne quickly figured out that Marcel was not, in fact, the Beast, since his hand had not healed within moments like it would had he been a Werewolf. After realizing that Marcel was simply covering for Sebastien, who was actually the Beast, she was visibly devastated, though this did not stop her from confronting her brother inside the tavern. Sebastien smugly, but quietly, admitted to having killed all of the mauled citizens without remorse, insisting that killing any living thing that crosses his path was part of his new nature before revealing how he had been turned from drinking rainwater from a wolf's print.
Marie-Jeanne was horrified when Sebastien proudly referred to himself as the Demon Wolf and the feared Beast of Gévaudan, and when he realized she was considering outing him to the rest of the tavern, he dared her to do so and threatened to kill everyone there in a manner of moments to cover it up. He then stood to his feet and reminded her that she could not kill him or catch him before kissing her on the head and leaving the tavern, leading Marie-Jeanne to spend the next three years planning a way to kill her brother with Henri, who had been studying how to survive a Werewolf attack for most of his life, information that Marie-Jeanne intended to weaponize in order to kill Sebastien end her brother's reign of terror once and for all.
In 1767, Marie-Jeanne finally caught up with Sebastien, and he chased her through the snow-coated woods before she pulled a special steel pike out of a snow bank and impaled him through the chest with it. When he transformed back into his human self, he laughed at her and insisted that it would take more than a conventional weapon to kill him, not realizing right away that she had mixed the steel of the pike with Mountain Ash and Wolfsbane before forging the tip with her blood under the light of a full moon. Realizing his death was imminent, Sebastien instead boasted that, at the very least, history would remember him as the most vicious and feared Werewolf to have ever lived; however, Marie-Jeanne then informed him that she planned to punish him posthumously with damnatio memoriae, essentially erasing his existence from history to ensure that while he may be remembered, it would only be as a Beast. She then kissed him on the head just like he kissed her during their last meeting as he died on the snowbank.
In The Beast of Beacon Hills, Mason Hewitt, the Dread Doctors' sole successful Chimera who had been possessed by Sebastien's spirit and forced to transform into the Beast using the Doctors' special frequencies for several weeks, finally became strong enough to allow Sebastien to remember his true identity as he shifted into the Beast for the first time without the frequency trigger. Afterward, when the Beast shifted back into its human form, Mason's body had been transformed into Sebastien's original body, though he still retained Mason's memories due to the fact that his body had two sets of DNA. After being attacked by Cerberus, a Hellhound possessing Jordan Parrish who was prophesied to battle him, Chris and Gerard Argent realized that Sebastien has finally regained his memories, leading Gerard to call him by his true name and ask him if he knew them. Sebastien sneered at Gerard and identified him as an Argent descendant of his sister and Henri before running away.
In Apotheosis, Sebastien attacked and killed a man on the street and took his clothes and car keys before getting into his car. However, since automobiles were not invented when he was last alive, he was unfamiliar with how to work it, though he soon learned that he could draw on Mason's memories to help him catch up with the times. He then drove the car to the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, where Alan Deaton, Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, and Liam Dunbar had brought The Surgeon, who was the only Dread Doctor who had yet to die from the Beast's attack. He summoned The Surgeon to him, and after the Doctor trapped the others in the clinic, he went out in the parking lot to talk to Sebastien, who removed his mask to reveal that he was Marcel, Sebastien's former best friend and comrade from the Seven Years' War. Sebastien was clearly disgusted by Marcel's shriveled and broken appearance and remarked that Marcel seemed to have been misinformed of the perks of his so-called immortality. Despite this, Marcel insisted that he did all of this for him, and managed to reveal that Chris and Gerard had the pike, which Marcel had reforged into a sword-cane, before he finally succumbed to his wounds and died.
Knowing he needed to find the pike but not knowing where to look, Sebastien went to the Beacon County Sheriff's Station and approached Valerie Clark at the front desk to inform her that he was looking for a man named "Argent." When Sheriff Stilinski heard Sebastien use that name, he summoned the man into his office to talk, not realizing who Sebastien really was until he received a text message from Stiles that updated him on the situation. Though Stilinski initially threatened Sebastien with his gun, claiming that his handgun would be more effective than the muskets of his time period, Sebastien once again threatened to kill everyone in the station in order to convince the Sheriff to let him go. However, when Stilinski led him out, Valerie saw that his sidearm was drawn and aimed her own gun at him, shooting at the man despite Sheriff's orders to the contrary.
Lydia Martin came out to see what the commotion was about just in time to see Sebastien, partially transformed, knock out Valerie and the Sheriff. When Sebastien turned his sights on Lydia, she Banshee-screamed, channeling the power of her voice through her hands and thrusting them forward to almost telekinetically throw him across the room, but not before he was able to deeply cut her throat with his claws. Hayden Romero, who had come to see her sister Valerie, arrived at the station just in time to see Sebastien attack Lydia, and she was hit hard in the face before Sebastien forced her to take him to the Dread Doctors Operating Theater.
Once there, Sebastien became distracted by the fresco painting of the Beast of Gevaudan fighting a Hellhound, giving Hayden enough time to grab a syringe gun with Tracy Stewart's Kanima venom before he asked her who the other creature in the fresco painting was. When she explained that it was a Hellhound, Sebastien used Mason's memories to realize that she was talking about Jordan Parrish, who he believed would be given the pike by the Argents to finish him off for good. She attempted to catch him off-guard and inject him with the venom, but he easily stopped her from being able to do so and broke her arm as he demanded to know when "youths" had become so confident. Before he heard the sound of one of the Argents' ultrasonic emitters, he plunged his clawed hand into Hayden's side, critically wounding her. He then set off to obtain the pike, as he knew it was the only thing that could kill him a second time.
In the tunnels, Sebastien briefly battled Jordan Parrish, who he believed had the pike, but when Parrish was distracted by Lydia's scream, he briefly incapacitated him before Chris began shooting at him to get him to walk away. It was then that Sebastien ran into Theo Raeken, who was desperate to steal the Beast's power and had gone so far as to steal the powers of Tracy Stewart and Josh Diaz in hopes of making the fight more in his favor. Unfortunately for Theo, Sebastien proved immune to his newly obtained Kanima venom, and Sebastien sneered at him about being another arrogant youth before he shifted into Beast-form and left to go seek out the pike once more.
He finally found the pike in the hands of Scott McCall and Liam Dunbar, but when he demanded that they give it to him, they insisted that they would only do so if he gave them Mason back. Sebastien admitted that, while he had little use for an alter-ego, no matter how helpful Mason's memories may have been for him thus far, he wouldn't even know where to begin to separate them from each other. This led Scott and Liam to transform into Werewolf form before attacking Sebastien, who transformed into the Beast. Once he got the upper-hand, Sebastien switched back to human form, though he kept his claws out, and grabbed Scott in a choke-hold, but when Liam attempted to kill Sebastien with the pike (and by doing so killing Mason as well), Scott stopped him, insisting that they could still save him. When Liam asked Scott who would save him, Sebastien looked at them both in confusion and asked them what kind of Werewolves they really were, as he believed all Werewolves to be vicious and brutal killers like himself.
Sebastien went on to compliment Scott on how strong he was before pointing out that Scott lacked a killer instinct. However, when he offered to show Scott "how to go for the throat," he inadvertently stuck his claws into the back of Scott's neck, not realizing that by doing so, he would be performing the memory-manipulation ritual typically used by Alphas. This ritual caused Sebastien's mind to be flooded with Scott's memories, almost all of which had to do with Allison Argent, his sister Marie-Jeanne's descendant who happened to be identical to her in appearance as well as, in many ways, in temperament and personality. Sebastien was so caught off-guard by the sight of this young woman who looked so much like his sister that he murmured, "Marie-Jeanne?" and let go of Scott, a moment of distraction that allowed Scott to back away from him.
Just then, Lydia arrived with Kira and used her Banshee voice to call out Mason's name, allowing him to turn Sebastien's body back into his own and separating him from Sebastien's spirit, which took a non-corporeal form of the Beast. Parrish, seeing an opportunity to end the bloodbath, grabbed Sebastien's spirit with his Hellhound powers and yelled at Scott to take his shot, which led Scott to take the pike/sword-cane and toss it at the Beast like a javelin, killing Sebastien for the second and final time.
Personality[]
Very little of Sebastien's personality prior to becoming a Werewolf is known, but it has been implied by Gabriel Valack and others that Sebastien was already very much a monster even when he was human, which seems to explain why his Werewolf form took such a monstrous and bestial appearance. After he became the Beast, Sebastien became an even more ruthless killer who had no regard for the lives of his victims, nor did he have remorse for the lives he had taken. He also seemed to be obsessed with power and notoriety, as he took great pride in being unmatched in physical strength and seemed to believe himself to be immortal and near-invulnerable in his Beast form, and was also shown to care deeply about the mark he made on history. While he was the Beast, he killed nearly 500 people, including men, women, and children alike.
Despite this, Sebastien did seem to have some honor, as he volunteered to fight for France in the Seven Years' War and made sure to send his sister Marie-Jeanne letters to let her know he was okay. He also seemed quite proud of their lineage, as he was appalled when he learned that Marie-Jeanne intended to erase both his existence and their family from history by choosing to take Henri Argent's name after they married.
Upon Sebastien's resurrection, he returned to the exact same temperament he possessed before his death, killing anyone who crossed his path and having no understanding of the supernatural creatures in the present day who fought to defend humanity rather than taking innocent lives for sport. He believed the supernatural community of Beacon Hills were a bunch of "arrogant, confident youths" who had no respect for their elders and was at best amused by Theo Raeken's attempts to steal his powers. He was also shown to be quite intelligent, as he knew how to cover his tracks and allude his sister's attempts to hunt him down in the 18th century, an impressive feat given Marie-Jeanne's reputation as the best huntress in Gévaudan. This intelligence followed him into his second life in the 21st century, when he stole clothing from one of his victims so as to not attract undue attention from the citizens of Beacon Hills and quickly learning how to share Mason's skills and memories in order to do things such as driving a car.
Despite his bloodthirsty nature and reputation as a remorseless killer, Sebastien knew how to pick his battles and had no problem with promising to stay his hand in exchange for the cooperation of others, such as when he made a deal with Noah Stilinski to leave his deputies alone in exchange for being led to Chris and Gerard Argent; however, Sebastien will only hold up his end of the bargain so long as the other party does as well, as Valerie Clark's attempts to shoot him caused Sebastien to go back on his word.
Physical Appearance[]
Sebastien was a tall, lean man with olive skin, black hair, and dark brown eyes. In the 18th century, his hair was long enough to pull back with a ribbon as was the style of the era, but in the modern day, his hair was shorter and slicked back. He was also mostly seen in his 18th century military uniform from the Seven Years' War, though he was also seen in more "casual" dress of black pants, boots, and a white blouse when he returned home. The only clothing he was seen to wear in the present was a white t-shirt, a black blazer, closely-fitted blue jeans, and boots, which he had stolen from one of his victims to better blend in with the new era.
Powers and Abilities[]
As the Beast, Sebastien possessed the common powers of a Werewolf, but they were enhanced to such a powerful degree that he dominated nearly every supernatural creature in the series. His supernatural strength, speed, agility, reflexes, durability, and senses were far beyond that of most other shapeshifters, and his body in Beast form was so durable that he was nearly invulnerable to conventional weaponry such as firearms, arrows, or small blades, though any injuries he was able to sustain were quickly healed unless they were inflicted by special materials like Marie-Jeanne's Pike. His strength was so mighty that he could rend metal doors off of their hinges and rip humans in half with his bare hands. However the Beast was not unstoppable, as Hellhound Parrish was able to consistently match the Beast in battle, though he was initially losing due to his own inward struggle with his Hellhound spirit.
The most notable of his Werewolf abilities was his power to shapeshift, as it was unique among his fellow Werewolves and other shapeshifters. Instead of simply transforming his features like most Werewolves do, Sebastien would transform himself into a nine-feet-tall, thickly-muscled and oil-black Beast by summoning shadows and wrapping the shadows around him until he gained the appearance of a lupine beast. The shadows would somehow take a corporeal form when wrapped around him, and he had blood-red veins that traced the surface of his skin. His eyes would completely glow bright blue, and every one of his teeth would grow into fangs as his fingernails elongated into talons. This immensely-large transformation made him a formidable opponent in a battle, and it took nearly the entire McCall Pack and their allies in order to take him down the second time. His accelerated healing ability and longevity led Sebastien to boast that he was immortal, though whether this was truly the case or whether he was simply misinformed remains a mystery.
Weaknesses[]
Sebastien Valet only had two known weakness, the first being Mountain Ash, since, like any supernatural creature, he is unable to cross a barrier made from it; his was proven to be the case when Henri Argent saved Marie-Jeanne Valet in the woods the night they went looking for the Beast by creating a barrier around it that not even Sebastien, with the immense amount of physical strength he possessed, could breach. His second known weakness was the pike that Marie-Jeanne used to kill him the first time, and that Scott used to kill him the second time; the steel in the pike was mixed with Mountain Ash and Wolfsbane before she used her own Valet blood to forge it under the light of a full moon. This seems to indicate that Wolfsbane could weaken him just like the mistletoe in his wine, but probably could not kill him on its own. Unlike most supernaturals, Sebastien showed no weakness to electricity or Kanima venom.
Etymology[]
|
Relationships[]
- ↑ Gerard's grandfather mentioned in "The Sword and the Spirit
- ↑ Gerard's mother