It's hard to say since the writers kind of changed Hayley a lot to accommodate Jackson.

A lot of their marital problems came from them just not knowing each other. They knew each other for less than six months before Hayley died and lost Hope and Jackson ran off to the woods. They didn't see each other for about six months. Then Jackson comes back and they get married within a month. We see Jackson wanting Hayley to put the pack first and abandon her connections to the Mikaelsons, while Hayley wants Jackson to live in the Quarter and help raise a Mikaelson. They also both went into the unifications with different intents. While Hayley does say she did it for herself, we know that's not entirely true. She never would have done it if not for Hope and the pack.

I think that is the fundamental issue with their marriage. To Hayley, it was a political alliance that could grow into more. To Jackson, he was already in love with a version of Hayley he had in his head. Hayley could never live up to the idea of Andrea and Hayley was already in love with another man so she couldn't fully love Jackson the way he wanted.

I do appreciate that Jackson begins to see his fault in the marriage right before his death. Before that, he would just give Hayley ultimatums and not admit any of the fault in their problems. It was up to Hayley to bend and change to make the marriage work. We see a bit of change in Jackson in the Christmas episode. I think Jackson may have been able to keep this up, but it didn't actually resolve anything. They never actually discussed their issues or resolved any of them.

All of this to say, I don't think they would have lasted much longer. For one, Jackson's death felt inevitable in the show. As I said in an earlier post, the writers viewed the werewolves as disposable. But had he not died, I can't see Hayley putting up with it for much longer. They softened her out a lot to fit with Jackson. The Hayley that stood up to Elijah in their relationship and demanded what she needed would not have tolerated Jackson forcing her to choose between family and pack. I don't think Jackson would ever have really let it go. They probably would have been together for a few more months. Jackson fleeing to the bayou whenever he got upset. But this would have worn on Hayley. Neither of them were actually happy together.

I also don't buy that they had to be together for the unification to work. Only that they had to be co-alphas. Jackson walked out multiple times and left for weeks at a time. So they were not living together as husband and wife. They could have separated and kept their pack. I also think if Jackson stepped down, the pack could maintain their power from following Hayley as an alpha. It is her pack and her powers after all.

Thanks for the ask!

I actually laughed when I read this question. Not because I think it would be impossible but because I think it would be absolutely wild. Maybe if the show was being run by more interesting people we could have had a storyline like this. It would make sense.

I mean on one hand, we have Hayley and Elijah who are in love and on the other hand we have a forced marriage. If anyone was going to have a throuple, they were primed for it. I have said it before but I don't believe the unification magic is so aware that Hayley and Elijah couldn't have stayed in a relationship. Also, no one proposed the idea of a throuple. I feel like that would have worked for the magic aspect of it.

If it did work, Hayley would have had to be the one to introduce it, and you know she would have. Hayley, especially at that time, was definitely a 'have your cake and eat it too' kind of person. And that is not a critique on her. She knew what she wanted and she went for it. So why not bring up the idea to the men.

Elijah would have been on board. He had been pinning after Hayley for like two years at that point and would have jumped at the opportunity to be with her in any way possible. He also has lived so long that I don't think it would have been strange to him. I joke that I love jealous Elijah but we really didn't get many scenes where he was obviously jealous. I feel like he was just, essentially, too old for that teen drama. So it wouldn't have bothered him that Hayley was also with Jackson. Especially because it would mean he got to be with her as well. Jackson would have been resistant for a variety of reasons. I can see him saying "That's not how we do things." But there definitely was a power imbalance there so I could see him caving and agreeing, but resenting it. So not a healthy throuple.

However, overtime, I could see Jackson and Elijah finding common ground. People love to say the men are so different, but they really aren't. They just wear different clothes. Jackson is more like a Mikaelson than he or the fandom want to admit. Jackson treats his pack similar to how the Mikaelsons treat their family. I think this is something Elijah and he could bond over. They've both had to make tough decisions, even bad decisions, in order to protect the ones they love. They've both also messed up a lot. They also both cared for Hayley and Hope which would likely be the first common ground they could come to.

I also love to think over time, given the chance, Elijah and Jackson would become friends. I can just see Jackson talking about hunting or some nature thing and Elijah just casually asking questions, trying to pretend he's not that interested. We view Elijah as an uptight business man, but let's not forget he was originally a farmer/warrior from what is present day Virginia. Elijah is a country boy. I would love a scene where Jackson is surprised by Elijah's knowledge of farming or hunting and then Hayley walks into an intense discussion about crop yields or the best way to skin a deer.

To me, it wouldn't ever be a true throuple, it would more likely be an open relationship. I just never got queer vibes from Jackson, but who knows. But if the show had focused more on character development and family, and less on drama, we may have actually seen a begrudging friendship and mutual respect from the two men. And Hayley would have truly benefited from that. But we all know how little Julie likes to let women have control over their relationships.

Thanks for the ask! These are always so fun for me.

If I was the writer from the beginning, I would have gotten rid of any love triangles. I've said it before, I don't like them. They are unnecessarily messy. Especially in a show like TO where the plot is so heavy. It worked better in TVD because the show centered more around the relationships. Most of the enemies were part of the romantic drama. But TO was focused on family and the enemies were typically after power or revenge. There wasn't time for messy relationship drama. I would have preferred for the show to have established relationships that could have been partners/supported each other throughout the show.

I've loved Nathan Parsons since before TO even existed so I was so excited to see him in TO. Fun fact, he was one of my first male crushes. I was then super disappointed to see his character be so underutilized and underdeveloped. I would have introduced him as alpha of the pack without the arranged marriage. I know many cultures have arranged marriages and that is great as long as everyone wants it. Hayley was not comfortable with it and said it multiple times. I hated that the show just kept going down that path and introduced the arranged marriage again in season 2 just under a different name, the "unification." If I was in charge, the women would have much more autonomy in the show.

I would have kept the warring family idea and even had Jackson be warry of Hayley's sudden appearance. This girl who is supposedly the long-lost "princess" of the pack shows up, pregnant by their enemies, and living with the Mikaelsons. Hayley would have had to earn his respect as well as the packs, but once she did, he would teach her the pack's history. I would also make him a better alpha. I don't think I would make him more politically minded because I would have played more into the fact that he has spent his entire adult life as a wolf because of the curse. He would have leaned on Hayley who naturally seemed to know how to make allies with the other factions. Instead of a marriage to fix the rift in the pack, Jackson and Hayley would have created a bond based on mutual respect and love for the pack. They would have introduced the idea of co-alphas without needing it to be romantic or sexual.

I hate when shows can't allow opposite gender individuals to just work together without it being romantic or sexual. I love a good friendship. That is one of my biggest complaints about TVDU. It created such great friendships but instead of developing them, it focused on the romantic drama. The friendships/found families in New Orleans were what was going to save it from war. You have Marcel and Davina, Vincent and Cami, Cami and Marcel, Vincent and Freya, etc. These bonds that transcended the factions was what saved them over and over. But the wolves are left out of that since, after Jackson died Hayley basically forgot about the pack. They could have done it with Eve, but she died to early. It would have been nice to see Jackson forming those bonds with the other factions, starting with Hayley.

I wouldn't do an unrequited love storyline. These always just make me sad. I know it happens in real life but that's why I love fiction, I don't need to add any unnecessary pain that way (I know that's ironic coming from me). If I did explore Jayley, I would have actually shown them developing feelings for each other. Show Hayley being torn between her feelings. And then shown that even if you love someone and try to make it work, for various reasons, it may not. This doesn't mean it was bad or one of the partners was "evil." In real life, relationships don't work out, it doesn't make the relationship any less important or impactful.

I truly do think Jackson deserved better from the writers. This is why *spoilers for my story, The Great War* I had jayley end the way they did. It was on Jackson's terms. I know some people thought it was out of character, and maybe it was for the show, but that's the point. Jackson is supposed to be a strong leader, yet he couldn't stand up for himself in the show. He gave Hayley ultimatums instead of setting boundaries and then just left when it got hard. They needed to have a real conversation. So in my story, when they did have this real conversation, they realized they were never going to get what they wanted out of the relationship. Jackson deserved to be able to set his boundaries and get away from the Mikaelsons. He deserved to have a love that isn't forced or manipulated. It's why I didn't kill him. I hated that so many characters were sacrificed just to push certain ships or push the Mikaelson story forward (RIP Gia).

I have already written an outtake for chapter 30 but I do love this idea. And y'all know I love writing haylijah. I'm not sure when I'll get it done but I will definitely write this!

Thanks for the ask and the suggestion!

Hi love! Thanks for asking!

I absolutely wish we could have seen Hayley have actual family. She searched her whole life for her family and even sacrificed 12 of her friends for their location. Only to find them and essentially be rejected by them, except for when she has something to offer. I love found families, which is why I love her connection to the Mikaelsons, but I would have loved for her to build that connection with her pack. She began to have it with Eve, but after Eve was killed, we don't really see her build that bond with anyone else.

This is where the show failed to develop a love triangle. I don't like love triangles, but especially this one. Even when I don't like both ships, I can usually see why people are torn. But in order to make the audience torn, you have to make the character torn as well. We don't really see that from Hayley. She isn't torn between two men, rather torn between a man she loves and the simple life she wants. She likes the idea of marrying Jackson because he represents the life she could have had if her parents hadn't been murdered. And this is only after she is forced to even consider it in order to save her daughter. They didn't have to completely remove him as a love interest to make them have a better relationship. They simply needed to invest in the character/ relationship.

We can compare this to the other love triangle in this fandom. I liked early Stelena and can't stand Delena, but I can see why people ship them. People were shipping Delena since season 1, even when it seemed that Stelena was endgame. This is a successful love triangle. But people shipped them because we saw moments between Delena where he was vulnerable and she felt like she was the only one who could fix him. We could see them begin to develop feelings, even just familial ones. We don't get scenes like that with Jayley.

Every moment of vulnerability we see from Hayley is with Elijah or even Klaus. For Jayley to be a competitive ship, I needed to see moments where Hayley was opening up or Jackson was being vulnerable. I needed to see some connection between them other than just being from the same pack or being betrothed. I also needed to see Jackson understand that Hayley wasn't Andrea. He was so busy trying to "save" her from the Mikaelsons that he never realized how similar to them she was. They could have had her tell him about how she helped get 12 wolves killed and have him have to process/understand that, understand who she became because his grandfather killed her parents. They had a complex history and really could have been a complex ship. But we never get to see them share anything personal and develop that complexity.

Which brings me to your point. If Jackson had been related, it would have really changed the dynamic. Hayley would still feel torn between her family and the Mikaelsons but it wouldn't have been so difficult. We don't really see Hayley taking Jackson's romantic interest in her into consideration in season 1 at all. She really only mentions it to push Elijah to act. Other than that, we don't see any romantic connection. They basically were just family. But the real shift would be the hierarchy of the pack.

One thing I've mentioned that I hate about the Crescent pack is the confusing hierarchy. Part of this is due to the fact that the pack actually split in two and developed two different "royal" families. My other issue is the monarchy aspect. Packs are meant to be led by the strongest members, members who are chosen or earn it, it doesn't matter what family they come from. This is something they seemed to ignore in TO because they wanted to position Hayley and Klaus and King and Queen. I hated this. Hayley was always referred to as a queen, even having the pack kneel for her (ew), while Jackson is referred to as the alpha, not the king.

If they were related, theoretically, one of them would have a better claim to the pack rather than being from rival families. To me, Hayley or Aiden should have been alpha. We don't see Jackson ever step up for the pack the way we see Aiden and Hayley. In a normal pack, if the alpha runs off and someone else steps up, they would challenge that position. But here, Jackson just comes back and resumes his position. I would have liked to see a challenge. This is why monarchies are bad. They are allowed to rule no matter what they do, they don't have to improve or even try.

You're definitely right about the protective as a wolf thing though. I was always confused by what level of understanding the pack had as wolves. We are told in TVD that the wolves don't remember when they turn and don't have control. This is what makes hybrids different. But the Crescent Wolves seemed to remember their time as wolves and even control it. Maybe this is due to the curse or just one of many plot holes, who knows. But we already know that the wolves naturally are drawn to family. Ansel was drawn to Klaus as a child and then to Hope in his wolf form. That would have made sense for Jackson to be drawn to Hayley as his family and his wolf being protective. I don't think it would make sense to say his wolf was protective simply because of an arranged marriage.

It also would have shifted Jackson's motivations. To me, it felt like every interaction between Jackson and Hayley was motivated by Jackson's desire to fulfil his childhood dream of marrying his lost Andrea. It broke my heart for Hayley that the first chance she gets to meet her family, Jackson tells her he is disappointed by it and the rest of her family just ignores her. I would have loved Jackson to hold off on the obligations and just get to know Hayley. Maybe ask how she's feeling about being pregnant or offer her some stories about her (their) family. If he was biologically related to her, this would have been more of her focus. And to your point, he would have been more interested in the baby since it was his family. It would have been more impactful to see them bond over losing their family, of being forced out of their homes. They really did have a lot they could have bonded over but the show just didn't let them.

It would have made him take Hayley more seriously as a political leader of the pack, rather than just a potential wife. The pack was terrible at politics and part of this could have been because they lived most of their lives as wolves. They should have welcomed Hayley's experience and intelligence and even her connection to the Mikaelsons. Ironically, the pack had the arranged marriage because they understood it could help create peace between the warring packs. You would think they would understand Hayley's connection to the Mikaelsons could do the same thing. Hayley even bonds with Davina and could have gotten the witches on their side. They could have worked with the Mikaelsons and even the witches to come up with a better solution.

Another issue I have is that the unification ceremony gives the pack the power of the alphas, but why wouldn't Hayley just taking over the pack and them swearing their allegiance to her give them her power? The magic just felt so forced. There seemed to be a lot of better options.

Essentially, he didn't need another story line to be a better character. He needed better writing or more time.

Sorry this was so long but I hope I answered it all!

To me he was a stepfather but not a father, if that makes sense. Which is funny because people always get mad at him for trying to "take Klaus' place."

I will preface this by saying most of my opinions on this come from the lack of development the writers gave Jackson as well as the fact that the writers didn't want baby Hope, they just wanted teen/adult Hope.

When people get mad at me for how I view Jackson, they usually bring up quotes from the show but struggle to actually point to moments where Jackson is exhibiting those traits. Jackson is a classic mistake in writing of "show don't tell." Instead of showing us that he's a good father to Hope, they tell us and we are supposed to just take the character's word for it. The show essentially left a lot of their relationship up to our imaginations and I just never made headcanons with Jackson so it fell flat. But to me, he cared more about marrying Hayley than being a father to Hope.

Again, part of this is due to the fact that we hardly see anyone in season 3 interact with Hope. I get that it's hard to have a baby on set, but when you launch a whole spinoff around a magical baby, it helps to have a baby. I definitely think Jackson loves Hope, but not necessarily as his own. I feel like he held the Mikaelsons against her a little bit. If he and Hayley would have (could have) had their own kid, they definitely always would have fought over Jackson saying "our kids" versus "your kid." I also think that if Hayley would have been willing to leave Hope with Klaus and start a family with Jackson, I don't think he would have been upset by that. Anything to get away from the Mikaelsons.

I don't blame Jackson for not wanting to associate with the Mikaelsons after Klaus cursed them all. Although, ironically he was the one making side deals with Klaus in season 1 and 2. However, he had no right to give Hayley an ultimatum, especially where Hope is concerned. Of course, if you love someone, you don't want them to be around toxic people. But you don't get to make that decision for anyone else. People have to be allowed to make their own decisions. You can only set boundaries for yourself, and he does. He gives her an ultimatum and when she picks the option he doesn't like, he leaves. This is where I have a hard time with him as a father. It reminds me of Ginny and Georgia (*spoilers*) when Paul finds out the truth about Georgia and he initially leaves but then he can't stay away because he loves the kids so much. It takes him less than 24 hours to decide to help Georgia to protect the kids. (*end of G&G spoilers*) Jackson leaves and doesn't even reach out to Hayley for an entire month while he knows they have enemies in town. Yes, he had every right to do that, but I can't help but hold that against him as a father and husband. Just like I hold Klaus not reaching out to Hayley while he has to stay away with the Hollow against Klaus. We can headcanon that Mary is updating him but again, the show doesn't bother telling us anything.

I personally hate the scene when Jackson walks out. I know he is mad that she went to help the Mikaelsons, but Rebekah was actively kidnapped and drowning at the bottom of the ocean. He then makes her feel guilty because he had to put Hope down and she cried for a long time. A husband/father shouldn't make his wife feel guilty because he had to put the baby down. And, a husband should never make a mother feel guilty that her baby was crying. That detail was unnecessary. Yes, he was mad at her reasoning and mad that he made Thanksgiving dinner and she missed it, but there was other ways to say it. He weaponized Hope against her. It just made him sound like he resented having to play stay-at-home father, but what else was he doing? Neither of them worked.

I also think Jackson had this idealized idea of what his life with 'Andrea' was going to look like and it didn't include a magical child she had with another man. Even when she was living with the bayou, she didn't feel supported by him. She tells Eve that she's on her own with the baby. He does build her a crib but then after she 'looses' the baby, he doesn't even reach out. Compare this to Cami who is in tears, running to Klaus when she heard to see if it was true. Also, compare the reactions to Cami meeting Hope and Jackson meeting her. The writers are also a bit sexist and focused more on building Cami up as a stepmother and didn't focus too much on Jackson as a stepfather.

I don't like to always compare Jackson and Elijah because I don't think it is super helpful to the discussion. We should be able to analyze one without the other. However, since you asked, I do think Elijah plays more a parental figure to Hope. He also has the advantage of being biologically related to Hope. No matter what was going on between him and Hayley, he was always going to be in Hope's life.

Although, I do think that it wouldn't have mattered to Elijah if Hayley had a baby with someone else. I think he still would have taken on a parental role because he loves to be a parent. We know from the past that he was willing to be with Tatia and be a father to her child, so I don't see a difference with Hope.

I don't think Elijah would have ever left town without Klaus to start a life with just Hope and Hayley. The only way he would is if there was no way to protect Hope and Hayley while saving Klaus. Even then, he would go back for Klaus. Elijah was always very careful to not overstep his role with Hope. He knew Klaus' fears and also knew how Klaus tended to behave when he felt insecure. For everyone's sake, Elijah would keep a respectable distance as an uncle. Although, Elijah always just kind of acts as the parental figure of the group, so that wouldn't change too much. I can definitely see him taking on the more strict disciplinarian role while Klaus just spoils Hope.

Thanks for the ask! I hope I answered it all <3

stop hating women for having emotions

A trend throughout a lot of fandoms, and particularly TVDU, is to celebrate men for showing the bare minimum in emotional maturity and then hating women for trying to work through their own emotions. I've seen this so much recently with Hayley. She gets hate from all sides of the fandom because of the men people stan.

Now don't get me wrong, there are legitimate reasons to not like her in certain aspects, but if you have to mention a man's name to try and explain it to me, you've already lost me. Every man she comes in contact with has done equal if not worse. You don't need to hate a character simply because you like another character.

I've seen it from Klaus stans, Elijah stans, Jackson stans, etc. People use any excuse to hate her because she isn't as devoted to their fav toxic man as they are.

Personally, Hayley is one of my favorite characters in TVDU. And everyone knows my top favorite character is Elijah. Sure, I wish the writers would have given us more haylijah, but blaming Hayley solely for that is ridiculous. Elijah spent all of season 1 putting up barriers and still the only reason she turns to someone else is because she wants to protect her daughter. She then sacrifices nearly her entire life for the Mikaelson family. Jackson stans hate her because she doesn't love him like they think he deserves, but again, she never breaks her promise to him. The marriage was always political. Jackson knew this but caught feelings anyway, this is not Hayley's fault that he wanted to make it more. Klaus stans hate Hayley for so many reasons I can't even list them, but they are all utterly ridiculous. One thing Hayley will always do is put Hope first, not Klaus, as any mother would do. Maybe if the other mothers in the show had done this, we wouldn't have such toxic men (also this is not shifting blame onto women just pointing out the cycle of trauma).

Hayley, unlike many of the men, had good intentions most of the time and actually had character growth. She went from being a selfish, reckless young woman to a completely selfless, caring mother and alpha.

We see the same trends with Rebekah, Elena, Bonnie, Caroline, etc. All of the women are condemned whenever they try to process their emotions or put themselves first for once in their lives. I know the cast is made up of some attractive men, but we need to stop being so blinded by their appearance that we cannot recognize the importance of women fighting for their own happiness. Even if that happiness isn't from an attractive man. As Christina Yang would say, "He's not the sun, you are."

Depiction of Jayley in The Great War

This is going to have spoilers for my fic, The Great War, up to the most recent chapter 28 (both parts on WP). Do not read if you are not caught up.

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I have not been shy that my fic has a haylijah endgame. If you follow me on anything, you know they are my favorite ship in the entire TVDU. I've also been fairly obvious with my feelings on Jackson in the show. That being said, I've also always prefaced conversations surrounding Jackson by saying most of my reasons for not liking Jackson are for lack of screen time and lack of development.

I started writing The Great War because I felt like most of the characters' development gets ruined at some point and I wanted to fix it. This includes for Jackson.

Many of you were surprised that I didn't have Jackson die by Tristan like he did in the show, but I felt like that was incredibly unfair to his character. It made his character's entire purpose just an obstacle for haylijah and when it wasn't needed anymore, they killed him off. I hated that they did it to Gia and I didn't want to do it to Jackson. Their characters deserved more than that.

I think Jackson had the potential to be a good complex character. We are watching a show where most of the characters are easily described as morally grey if not straight-up villains. Jackson's character should have been the opposite of that. We see in TVD the evil vamps are balanced out by Bonnie. We don't really have a good balance out in the first couple of seasons of TO, not until Vincent becomes a main character. I think Jackson was meant to be this character but Nathan Parsons had other projects going so he couldn't be in the show as much as he needed to be.

Nathan Parsons' schedule left me feeling like Jackson was an absentee character. He is really only present in the realm of the wolves, leaving Hayley to broker peace with the other factions by herself. He never felt like the alpha of the pack to me. He let Oliver take over the pack, let Klaus manipulate him, didn't even notice Aiden betraying him, didn't stop the witches from turning the kids, etc.

When I write, I try to keep the characters from the show in the back of my head. The two biggest moments I think of for Jackson that I feel define his character are:

One, when he didn't even check in on Hayley after she died and lost her baby. This was also while the pack was being taken over by the witches. I couldn't even wrap my head around how he just abandoned her and the pack. They needed to give him more of a backstory as to why he did that. Hayley had to go track him down and he made an offhanded comment about her death and the baby showing that he did know it happened. This is just poor writing, not even due to scheduling conflicts since there was already a time jump. They could have easily said Jackson had come to check on Hayley and she turned him away. It just felt like he had no interest in Hayley or Hope outside of what they could do for him and the pack.

Two, when Jackson threw a fit that no one was at Oliver's funeral. Oliver had betrayed the whole pack, was the reason Hayley's child was "dead," why Eve was dead, why the pack was under the control of witches, and why the pack had to send their children away. I wouldn't have been at the funeral either. He was mad at the pack for not showing up, but he hardly even showed up to save Oliver's life. Hayley, who again, lost her life and child because of Oliver, attempted to save his life on her own and tried to be there for him. Jackson couldn't even manage to thank her for the efforts she was making to the pack.

I have tried to keep the characters very similar to how they are depicted in the show and I've gotten some mixed reviews on the characterization of Jackson. I think I've kept him relatively similar to what we saw in the show. But I know everyone perceives characters differently. I personally didn't see him as a strong alpha or a great husband to Hayley. But I also didn't see Hayley as a great wife in return. Mainly because they were never meant to be romantic. The unification was a political arrangement that was forced to be romantic. They were also in their very early twenties at the time with little life experience. Hayley had been in and out of foster care, never seeing a healthy relationship. Jackson had spent his entire adult life as a wolf, never learning how to be an adult. Of course they struggled to communicate.

Jackson would have been such a neat character to explore how this all has impacted his growth. He essentially would have mentally been frozen at the age he turned into a wolf because of the Crescent curse. His backstory was completely missing. We don't know how he was turned, where his parents are, how he grew up, etc. A lot of the reasons people love Jackson are based on headcanon of his past or of how he treated people off screen (which is usually headcanon).

Some people have realized that I've been giving Jackson more of a backstory in my fic. Not a whole bunch because he's very much a side character. But even in the conversations with Hayley or Hayley's inner thoughts are meant to give Jackson much more understanding than the show offered.

I don't think he should be a hated character, there are much worse characters on the show. But at the same time, I always perceived him as a kind of entitled, immature character who needs a lot of development. So that's how he is being depicted at the moment in my story. But again, character development is possible for everyone.

I wanted to explain the reasoning for how Jayley and Jackson are depicted in my fic. I tried very hard to give them a better ending than the show, but I do think they needed to end and would have even if Jackson hadn't died. After all, I didn't think it was fair to either of them to be in a forced relationship.

Hayley Marshall: Alpha of the Crescents

I will never call Hayley queen. Because she is not. She's the Alpha of the Crescents.

Werewolves already have a hierarchy: alphas, omegas, betas etc. TVDU doesn't really explore the werewolves much so we don't see this in detail but we see hints of it throughout. Adding royalty to the packs destroys this pre-established hierarchy.

When Jackson first introduces this idea of royalty he says their families are "like" royalty and everyone just ran with it. In episode one he was explaining that their families are from the first pack, Hayley's being the one that all werewolves derive from.

But that doesn't give her a preordained right to rule. We see this with how she's treated in Seasons 1 and 2 by her pack. Often disregarded and even pushed out of pack politics. This is especially true after she turned into a hybrid.

This is even true with Jackson. He doesn't state he was the alpha because he was destined, rather that he stepped up during the curse. This is how alphas were established in TVDU. The ones who can either fight to the top or everyone follows because of their leadership.

This is also why Hayley should be the sole alpha of the pack. She comes to New Orleans, breaks their curse, fights for their rights with the other factions, actually works to negotiate and create peace, fights for the pack when the others have given up, etc. She was the only member of the Crescents that truly led them and put them first. She didn't desire to be alpha, rather she desired to protect her family.

To me, the show kept referring to her as queen so as to not take away Jackson's status. We see the pack treat her as a queen consort more than anything. Jackson is never once called king but is always referred to as the alpha. The pack may bow to her but they don't follow her. This is abundantly clear after Jackson dies and we hardly ever see the pack again. While, yes, this could be because Hayley distanced herself and even left New Orleans, however, they were willing to follow Jackson and Hayley out of the city. If she was truly a monarch of the pack, they would have followed and helped protect Hope as she fled the Strix by herself. Instead, they stayed behind and, assumedly, found a new alpha.

The Crescents have always struggled with loyalty and the fact that there were supposedly two packs in New Orleans but never really delved into a pack outside of the Crescents always confused me. I wish the show would have gone into their storylines more but at the same time, I don't think they would have done Hayley justice as an alpha.

All of that to say, I will not refer to Hayley as queen. She is the alpha, not because of her family bloodline, but because of her leadership and willingness to do anything to protect and defend her pack.