Kali

**Kali** was an antagonist and supporting character in Season 3 of *Teen Wolf*. She was first introduced as an Augmented Alpha Werewolf and a member of the Alpha Pack, a pack formed solely out of rare, powerful Alphas who have killed and stolen the power of their former Betas, which was led by the self-titled "Demon Wolf" known as Deucalion. Kali made her first appearance in *Tattoo*, where she was seen posing as a nurse at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital in an attempt to capture Isaac Lahey, who had escaped the pack's captivity the previous night after being caught sneaking around their lair in search of his packmates Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd.

She then spent the first half of the season assisting the Alpha Pack in their goal to recruit the newly ascended Alpha Derek Hale, as well as Scott McCall, an Omega who had been recently been revealed to be a potential True Alpha, into joining their ranks. However, she made it clear that she didn't believe either of them were worthy of the honor, particularly Derek, whom she would later (incorrectly) blame for the death of her packmate Ennis.

Though the Alpha Pack initially ignored the growing number of human sacrifices occurring in Beacon Hills in order to focus on their goal of recruiting Scott and Derek, Kali's focus eventually shifted when she realized that her former Emissary, Julia Baccari, whom she had attacked and left for dead with the rest of her Betas as her initiation into Deucalion's pack several years earlier, had returned under a new appearance and identity (specifically, an English teacher at Beacon Hills High School named Jennifer Blake) and was committing the human sacrifices in order to gain the power necessary to defeat her pack.

Despite how powerful Kali was, she was eventually killed by Julia, who used her Darach powers to launch an entire skylight's worth of broken glass into her body from her skull to her feet.

Kali was formerly an Alpha of her own original pack and then became a loyal member of the **Alpha Pack**.

## Early life

Not much is known about Kali's early life, such as her childhood, whether she is a born or bitten Werewolf, how she became an Alpha, and how she built her original pack; what *has* been revealed thus far pertains specifically to what led her to join the Alpha Pack shortly after its formation.

It can be assumed that, at some point in her early adult life, Kali became an Alpha by killing another Alpha and taking their powers. She then built her own pack that had nearly a dozen members when she came to Beacon Hills at some point in the early-mid 2000s in order to seek the guidance of renowned Alpha Talia Hale and her pack, along with fellow Alphas Deucalion and Ennis and their own respective packs.

During this Werewolf summit, which occurred at an abandoned distillery, Ennis informed the Werewolves in attendance that one of his Betas was brutally tortured and killed by the Argent family of supernatural hunters, which was at the time effectively led by Gerard Argent despite the family being well known for their matriarchal leadership.

After this announcement, Kali remarked that she didn't know what the harm done to his Beta had to do with the rest of their packs, but Laura Hale reminded her that the Argents don't discern between packs and will go after any Werewolf they believe has spilled innocent blood, making the death of Ennis' Beta a problem for them all.

This issue with the Argent family, specifically Gerard, led Deucalion, under the guidance of Talia and her Druid Emissary Alan Deaton, to organize a meeting with Gerard to try to make a truce between their families. However, upon Deucalion's arrival at the abandoned distillery with several of his Betas, they were all ambushed by Gerard, who not only used Wolfsbane fog to neutralize the wolves, but also even killed his own Hunter companions with a mace covered in harvested Werewolf claws (which thus caused wounds on the Hunters that resembled claw gashes) in order to support his later lie that the meeting was a trap and that Deucalion and his Betas ambushed them.

Deucalion was blinded in the attack when Gerard plunged flash-bang arrows into his eye sockets, and afterward, Marco, one of Deucalion's Betas who was not at the meeting with the Hunters, attempted to kill him and take his Alpha status, believing that his lack of sight made him unworthy of the pack's leadership. As a result of this betrayal and challenge, Deucalion went into a rage (during which time he learned he could still see with his wolf vision) and killed Marco, after which point he realized that he had gained his Beta's power, making him even stronger and more powerful as a result. *("Visionary")*

Then, after Deucalion, corrupted by the rush of power caused by his murder of Marco, killed the rest of his pack in the same manner and became the self-proclaimed Demon Wolf, he began to seek even more power. This led him to decide to create and lead a pack of Augmented Alphas like himself who had subsumed the power of their own packs.

It was implied that Ennis was the first to join him after killing his own Betas and Emissary, and Kali, who, according to Deucalion, wanted to be with Ennis, decided to do the same to gain membership into the Alpha Pack as well. She first killed all of her own Betas before then going after her Emissary, Julia Baccari, an attack about which she was conflicted due to the love she felt for her and the relationship they had.

However, despite the hesitation she felt about killing Julia, she still went through with the attack and confronted her in the Beacon Hills Preserve. After viciously mauling Julia's face and body to the point where she was nearly dead, Kali, feeling guilty about what she had done, decided that the most merciful thing she could do for Julia was to leave her to "die peacefully" in the woods as she was rather than giving her the killing blow.

Unfortunately for Kali, what she did not anticipate was the fact that Julia's survival instincts pushed her to desperately crawl across the woods to the Nemeton, which had recently gained a spark of power from an unintentional virgin sacrifice several months earlier-- Paige Krasikeva, a high school student who was mercy-killed by the then-teenage Derek Hale after she began rejecting the Bite she received from Ennis. This spark of power allowed Julia to survive Kali's attack, and after she recovered from her wounds, she dedicated herself to getting revenge on Kali and the rest of the Alpha Pack. *("The Overlooked")*

In the late spring or early summer of 2011, Kali and the rest of the Alpha Pack heard word that Talia Hale's son Derek Hale had recently become an Alpha after killing his uncle Peter, which was followed by rumors that a recently-bitten Werewolf named Scott McCall possessed the potential to become a True Alpha. This led Deucalion, who wanted both Alphas to join their ranks in order to increase their collective power even further, to head toward Beacon Hills with Kali, Ennis, and their newest members, twins Ethan and Aiden, in order to recruit the young men by forcing them to kill their own packs.

Upon their arrival, they came upon two of Derek's Betas, Vernon Boyd and Erica Reyes in the Beacon Hills Preserve and captured them in order to use them as leverage against Derek. *("Master Plan")*, *("Tattoo")* They also came upon Cora Hale, Derek's younger sister who, unbeknownst to anyone, had survived the Hale House Fire and fled to South America before also hearing the rumors that a powerful new Hale Alpha was building a pack; like with Boyd and Erica, Cora was captured by the Alpha Pack, and the three were held in First National Bank's vault for nearly four months. *("Chaos Rising")*, *("Unleashed")* At some point during their captivity prior to the start of Season 3, Erica, tired of being at the Alphas' mercy, attacked Kali, who easily killed the younger and weaker Beta. *("Fireflies")*, *("Currents")*

## Personality

Kali was a very strong and powerful woman who also appeared to be Deucalion's second-in-command in the Alpha Pack, which, considering Deucalion's standards, says a great deal about her strength. Kali also demonstrated a tough, arrogant, fierce and dangerous personality during her tenure on the series, never showing fear, even when she was in serious danger. She also had incredible loyalty toward the members of the Alpha Pack, even despite her resentment toward Deucalion for making her kill her beloved Emissary, Julia Baccari.

Even before she joined the Alpha Pack, she was shown as a woman who could not be bullied and who had no problems standing up for herself, as evidenced during the Werewolf summit in Beacon Hills. She also seemed to share Deucalion's feelings of superiority over Werewolves of lower rank, as she made her distaste for Derek and Scott very clear during her time on the series, demonstrating the fact that she found the two younger werewolves unworthy of the honor of joining their ranks.

## Physical Appearance

Kali was very tall, beautiful woman with a slim, athletic build. She had light brown skin, dark brown eyes and long, straight, shiny black hair. Her sense of style leaned toward comfortable, bohemian-style clothing that were both stylish and functional during her many battles; this often included leggings and cropped shirts, sometimes with a vest or a zip-up jacket. Because the claws on her toes were her best weapon, she never wore shoes so that she was always prepared for a fight. She also typically wore dark, blood-red red nail polish on her fingernails and toenails, making her claws on both her hands and feet appear to be the same color.

## Powers and Abilities

As an Augmented Alpha Werewolf, Kali possessed the standard abilities of an Alpha that had been enhanced to a very high degree as a result of absorbing the power of all of her former Betas. This included physical attributes such as superhuman strength, speed, agility, reflexes, durability, and senses, along with an accelerated healing factor. She also had the ability to absorb the pain of others, and she was especially adept at the memory-manipulation ritual commonly used by Alphas in which she could both share, suppress, and remove the memories of a person by sticking her claws into the base of their skull.

Kali also possessed the ability to shapeshift her features into those of a wolf, which included glowing red eyes, retractable fangs, and retractable claws. Her shapeshifting ability is notable in that, unlike all other Werewolves in the series, she can extend her toenails into sharp, pointed claws as well as her fingernails.

She also has unique Werewolf eyes as while most Alphas have glowing crimson irises, Kali's eyes are a duller, darker red with a thick black ring around the outside of the iris, and only she and Ennis have been shown to have this eye coloring. Kali was never seen with the ridged brow, mutton chops and pointed ears that other Werewolves have when they completely shift into their Werewolf form, and it is unknown if she did not possess the ability to transform these features or if she simply never fully transformed during her time on the series.

## Weaknesses

Kali possessed all the standard weaknesses associated with Werewolves. She was vulnerable to Wolfsbane, electricity, *letharia vulpina* (also known as "wolf lichen") and the modified canine distemper virus, which could weaken her or even kill her at high enough amounts of exposure. And, as with all werewolves, Kali was susceptible to the influences of full moons, supermoons, and intense emotions, all of which could cause her to lose control over her transformations, though Kali, as an experienced older Werewolf, has an exceptional degree of resistance against these influences.

She was also vulnerable to the effect of lunar eclipses, since all werecreatures will lose their powers during the period of time when the moon was in the earth's umbral shadow, preventing her from utilizing her superhuman strength and healing to defend herself against threats; it was this lunar phase that possibly had a hand in Kali's death, as the lunar eclipse paired with the extent of her injuries could have prevented her from healing from the glass shrapnel embedded in her head, chest, and abdomen.

Like all supernatural creatures, she was also unable to touch or handle rowan wood and its incinerated form called mountain ash, making it a substance that could be used to prevent her from entering areas that were surrounded by an unbroken circle of it, such as the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, which had rowan wood built into the foundation, or when Marin Morrell used it to protect herself from Kali and the twins by surrounding herself with a ring of mountain ash.

## Etymology

**Kali**: Kali is a feminine given name meaning "the black one" in Sanskrit; it is the feminine form of the Sanskrit word *kalam*, meaning "black" or "dark-colored." The word *Kala* typically means "time," but can also mean "black" which is why the Hindu goddess Kali was known by the epithets "the Black One" or "Beyond Time." The goddess Kali is the fierce, destructive aspect of the goddess Durga, who represents time, change, power, creation, preservation, and destruction, making her name fitting for the character Kali, who as she is powerful and destructive and has the power to change humans into Werewolves.

The goddess Kali is also the wife of Shiva (who, coincidentally, is also known by the name *Kālá*, from which Kali's name is derived) the powerful god of destruction and one of the three major deities of Hinduism, and she is depicted with black skin and four arms, with which she carries a severed head and is also brandishing a sword. The name Kali also has other meanings in different cultures; to Pacific Islanders, it means "wooden pillow," whereas in Swahili and other African cultures, it means "fierce, intense, lively, and energetic," the latter terms of which are also relevant to the character Kali.

## Trivia

* According to Deucalion, Kali only joined the Alpha Pack to be with Ennis, indicating that she had romantic feelings for him. *("The Overlooked")* This was further suggested when Kali became so devastated after Ennis' death that she rushed outside and roared at the top of her lungs, causing the building to rattle and all of the security alarms of the cars in the parking lot to go off at once. *("Motel California")*