| “ | Oh, did you ever see a movie called Village of the Damned? The original, not the remake-- nobody cares about crappy remakes. I'm talking about the 1960 black and white masterpiece. Huh? It's about this group of children... blonde-haired, beautiful children who make their eyes glow. And they do terrible, terrible things. The tagline on the poster read, "Beware the stare that will paralyze the will of the world." Now, when I told everyone that I saw children with glowing eyes, they wouldn't believe me! I tried to get them to do something. They wouldn't budge! They wouldn't move... As if they had been paralyzed. I'm going to shake them out of their paralysis. I'm going to get them moving. I'm going to galvanize them. | ” |
— William Barrow to Kira Yukimura in Galvanize
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William Barrow was a minor character and antagonist in the second half of Season 3 of Teen Wolf. He was first introduced as a patient at Eichen House who had been held there ever since he blew up a school bus at Beacon Hills High School with a shrapnel bomb several years prior to the start of the series. The bomb killed four students and left a fifth with no legs, and it was reported that, every day, he promised his psychiatrist that when he got out of Eichen House, he would do his bombing "right" this time; he was also known for ranting and raving about children with "glowing eyes," suggesting that he had experience with supernatural creatures at some point in his life.
Some time after the Nogitsune's release from his prison within the roots of the Nemeton, the Void Kitsune used his specialized flies to use a limited form of possession on Barrow, allowing him to essentially control the mass murderer and make him do whatever he wanted. He took advantage of Barrow's fear and distrust of supernaturals and sent him after Kira Yukimura, believing that this would cause Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski (the latter of whom the Nogitsune was possessing) to come rescue her, which would then lead Barrow to trigger Kira's foxfire, electrocuting Stiles and thereby jumpstarting the Nogitsune's power inside of him. The Nogitsune's plans for Barrow ultimately went exactly as he had hoped, but Barrow was accidentally electrocuted to death by Kira in the process, preventing him from harming any other children.
Throughout Teen Wolf[]
Season 3[]
In Galvanize, Barrow was released from Eichen House that night (October 29, 2011) into custody of the Beacon County Sheriff's Department, who then brought him to Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital to have surgery in order to remove pieces of shrapnel from his abdomen that were surrounded by scar tissue and were obstructing his organs. He was given his pre-surgery evaluation by Melissa McCall, during which he mentioned that it was the night before Mischief Night, which is the night before Halloween, a night that Barrow called "Hell Night." After establishing that he understood the surgical procedure he was about to have, Melissa went to take his vital signs; Barrow, noticing her fear, told her to ask him the question he knew she wanted to know, so she asked him why he blew up the school bus with the bomb. His response was, "I saw their eyes. They were glowing" before he began to laugh maniacally and repeat the phrase over and over again, scaring Melissa away.
The next day, Melissa assisted Dr. Vandenburg with Barrow's surgery, but both became horrified when they found not scar tissue and shrapnel, but a tumor that was pulsing as it grew bigger and bigger. When the tumor finally exploded, a storm of flies flew out and swarmed around the medical professionals just as Barrow awakened from the anesthesia, grabbed the scalpel out of the horrified Dr. Vandenburg's hands, and stabbed him in the neck with it. Taking advantage of the ensuing chaos, Barrow escaped, even despite the fact that his surgical wound was still wide open, and when Special Agent McCall and Sheriff Stilinski ran into the operating room to investigate, they found Barrow gone and Melissa applying pressure to the wound on Dr. Vandenburg's neck.
Barrow was next seen at Beacon Hills High School, where he was hiding in Coach Finstock's office when Lydia Martin and Aiden ducked in to make out, forcing him to hide behind the now-open door. When Aiden and Lydia realized that Coach's office was still trashed from Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski's Mischief Night prank, they decided to go to Marin Morrell's former office instead. Once they had left, Barrow smiled evilly as he took a stapler off of the broken desk and used it to staple his surgical wounds closed, leaving drops of his blood on the floor. Though it was unknown at the time, it was eventually revealed that Barrow was able to do this because he had a swarm of Nogitsune flies inside his body, which allowed the Nogitsune to control his actions and thereby override the anesthetic from the surgery and the pain of his gaping wound in order to fulfill his mission.
His escape from the hospital whipped Beacon Hills into a frenzy, causing the Sheriff's department, the FBI agents currently working at the station, and the McCall Pack to all devote their efforts to tracking him down. Despite everyone pursuing him and the school going into lock-down mode, Barrow was able to hide in the school's chemistry supply closet until after Stiles pulled the fire alarm and caused everyone to evacuate. This gave him the chance to sneak into the library, where Kira Yukimura was reading in one of the aisles, her mp3 player turned up so loudly that she was oblivious to everything going on around her.
Later that night, Stiles and Lydia returned to the school to once again try to find some clues as to where Barrow went and what he was doing. They ended up in the science lab, where they discovered his blood on the floor in the chemistry closet and realized that the chemicals had prevented the Werewolves in the McCall Pack from tracking him there during the first search. They then found a code written on the chalkboard—19, 53, 88. Lydia realized that the code was written in atomic numbers, which stood for potassium (K), iodine (I) and radium (Ra). When she wrote the symbols out next to the numbers, they realized that it spelled "K I R A" and figured out that Barrow was targeting their new friend.
That night, Barrow lurked outside of the Yukimura House until Kira walked Scott out to his bike after he had dinner with her and her family. While they were saying goodbye, Barrow came up behind Scott and hit him in the back of the head with a crowbar, knocking him unconscious long enough to capture Kira without intervention. Stiles and Lydia, who had come to Kira's house to save her and Scott, found Scott and woke him up so they could figure out what to do next.
Lydia, who had been hearing a strange buzzing sound all day due to her Banshee senses, became frustrated at her inability to figure out what the sound meant, and Stiles encouraged her to follow her impulse to scream to see if that helped. Lydia let out an earsplitting wail that drowned out all of the noises that Lydia had been hearing aside from the aforementioned buzzing noise; without the other noise pollution, Lydia realized that the buzzing wasn't due to flying insects—it was the result of electricity. This caused Stiles to remember that Barrow was an electrical engineer before he was arrested and imprisoned, and the three correctly assumed that he had taken Kira to the electrical substation where he previously worked.
Sure enough, Barrow had tied Kira up to the chain-link fence surrounding a large electrical generator in the substation. He was then seen walking toward her with a live wire in his hands, dragging the exposed tip of the wire against the fence so hard it created sparks. He briefly set the wire down before pulling the cell phone out of Kira's pocket and using it to take a photo of Kira with it, claiming he needed proof "their time together" for all of the people who were skeptical of his claims. He went on to tell her about the cult classic movie Village of the Damned, which included children with glowing eyes whom he swore he had seen in real life. He lamented the fact that no one ever believed him before insisting that he was going to galvanize them into action as he picked up the live wire and started to move it toward Kira's face.
Just then, Scott arrived and stated that she wasn't the one he wanted, as he assumed Kira wasn't a supernatural and that he was actually after Werewolves. Barrow backhanded Scott with the live wire so hard that it shocked him and sent him flying several yards backwards, the electricity preventing him from transforming or otherwise acting to stop Barrow from aiming the live wire at Kira's face. However, before Barrow could even touch her with it, a huge ball of ice-blue electricity burst forcefully out of Kira, blowing out the generators and causing a city-wide blackout in the process. Kira then managed to absorb all of the excess electricity (which was later revealed to be Kitsune foxfire) through her hands, but Barrow was electrocuted so badly as a result of his attempted murder of Kira that he was killed instantly.
In Riddled, Barrow was briefly mentioned by Lydia Martin when she and Aiden Steiner had speculated that Stiles had sleep-walked to Eichen House, where Barrow was imprisoned after the shrapnel bombing. Later, Derek Hale and Kira figured out that the Nogitsune was using his flies to control Barrow, and that he had no intention of killing Kira—instead, he wanted to trigger her foxfire, which then electrocuted Stiles while he was rushing into the substation and used his trusty aluminum bat as a conduit so that the foxfire would boost the Nogitsune's power enough to fully take over Stiles' body.
In Letharia Vulpina, Barrow was again referenced by Ethan Steiner when he and Scott McCall (who were searching for clues as to where a booby-trap may have been hidden by the Nogitsune) found the gift-wrapping materials leftover from Scott and Stiles' earlier prank on Coach Finstock on Mischief Night; this was significant because they had recently learned the prank was proposed by Stiles while under the Nogitsune's influence and was inspired by Barrow's shrapnel bombing years earlier.
As a result, the pack guessed that that the bomb was on a school bus just as William Barrow had planted his own; however, the Nogitsune was one step ahead of them, distracting them at the school with a fake bomb wrapped in a birthday present on the bus while the real bomb was actually located in the Beacon County Sheriff's Station. The Nogitsune's plan worked out perfectly, as the time the Sheriff's deputies spent thinking they would be disarming a bomb at the high school prevented them from intervening before the bomb at their own place of employment went off, killing several Sheriff's deputies and injuring a large number of deputies and civilians, including Derek Hale.
Personality[]
Barrow was shown to be quite a deranged person, as he was so unsettled by his knowledge of the supernatural teenagers in Beacon Hills with various powers that he put a shrapnel bomb in a box wrapped like a birthday present and put it on one of the school buses, causing an explosion that killed five children and caused a sixth to lose both legs. This mental instability made him a perfect minion for the Nogitsune, whose fly infection caused Barrow to become even more obsessed with his cause.
Physical Appearance[]
Barrow was a very tall and extremely thin man with pale white skin, light brown hair, and pale blue eyes.
Skills[]
As a human, Barrow had no supernatural powers. However, his Nogitsune fly infection caused him to have an extremely high pain tolerance, which allowed him to flee the hospital even despite having his abdomen cut open from chest to navel before it was even able to be sewn up. He was also able to staple his wound closed with ordinary staples with such little pain that he actually laughed maniacally during the process. Barrow was also a talented scientist and electrician who was able to build a shrapnel bomb and who was an expert in electrical engineering.
Appearances[]
Etymology[]
- William: William is a masculine English name derived from the Germanic name Willahelm, which is composed of the elements wil, meaning "will, desire," and helm, meaning "helmet, protection." The name was common among the Normans, who then introduced it to the British Isles during their conquests. Variants of the name in other languages include: Wilhelm (Ancient Germanic, Modern German); Willahelm (Ancient Germanic); Gwilherm (Breton); Guillem (Catalan); Vili, Vilko (Croatian); Vilém (Czech); Vilhelm (Danish); Wilhelmus, Willem, Jelle, Pim (Dutch); Wil, Willy, Wim (Dutch, German); Vilhelmo, Vilĉjo (Esperanto); Villem (Estonian); Vilhelm, Viljami, Jami, Vilhelmi, Vilho, Viljo, Ville (Finnish); Guillaume (French); Willi (German); Vilhjálmur (Icelandic); Uiliam, Liam, Uilleag, Ulick (Irish); Guglielmo (Italian); Wiremu (Maori); Guilherme (Portuguese); Guillermo (Spanish); Gwilym, Gwil, Gwilim (Welsh).
- Barrow: Barrow is a surname of Anglo-Saxon origin that is either a topographical name for someone who lived by a grove, or a locational name from any of the numerous places called Barrow in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Shropshire, Suffolk, and Somerset, deriving from the Old English pre-7th century word bearo or bearu, meaning "grove," or "wood," or else the word beorg, meaning "hill" or "barrow." It may also be a topographical name for someone who lived by a hill or burial mound. Additionally, it could be a locational name from Barrow in Furness or Cumberland in the British Isles, which derives from the Celtic barro, meaning "promontory." The name dates back to the late 12th century in the Pipe Rolls of Lincolnshire.
Trivia[]
- Barrow was said to be on two medications by Melissa McCall: tempazepam (used to treat insomnia and anxiety) and divalproex (used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder).
- In Riddled, it was revealed that Barrow was a patient at Eichen House. This makes him the first character known to be a patient there.
Gallery[]
See also[]