By the end of Teen Wolf, it seems like Lydia Martin has it all together. She's brilliant, and easily the wisest of her friends. It seems like with a level head on her shoulders, she would always make the best decisions. That's not necessarily true, but her decision-making skills grow as she matures and comes into her own in the series.
Most of Lydia's best choices in Teen Wolf center on her ultimate desire to be true to herself. Lydia spends the early episodes hiding who she truly is from everyone around her. As Lydia lets her walls down and s the McCall Pack, however, she becomes the person she's meant to be.
Lydia Becomes Friends With Allison
When Teen Wolf begins, Allison Argent is the new girl in school. Lydia is, arguably, the queen bee. Lydia could have easily dismissed Allison or even ignored her completely considering the carefully cultivated persona she had in the first season, but she didn't.
Instead, Lydia reaches out to Allison and quickly brings her into the fold, and even maintains that friendship long after Lydia's popular persona begins to crumble. That's one of Lydia's best decisions because, not only does it mean she befriends someone who has some serious skills when conflict heats up in Beacon Hills, but Lydia gains a best friend she can trust completely. That's not something Lydia has before she meets Allison.
Lydia Stops Hiding Her Intelligence
Part of the image Lydia cultivates in the first season involves her not letting anyone know just how smart she is. Both Stiles and Allison pick up on Lydia's brilliance pretty quickly, but no one else seems to. Whenever Lydia says something that betrays her shallow image, she shrugs it off and smiles, like it's nothing.
That changes after the first season when she is attacked by Peter Hale and after she realizes that Stiles really sees her when they discuss the Fields Medal for Mathematics. Lydia is finally able to be herself when she drops the vapid party girl act. It allows her to make real connections with the people who go on to become of Scott McCall's pack. It also allows her to learn to defend herself and to embrace her own power.
Lydia Doesn't Pursue A Relationship With Parrish
For a while, it seems like the show is setting up Parrish and Lydia to be an item. Teen Wolf fans were pretty split on whether that would be a good idea. They have a connection, vivid dreams about one another, and he works with her on improving her self-defense skills. Their platonic relationship never turns romantic though.
That's actually a good thing for the show. For one thing, Lydia is a high school student while Parrish is well into his twenties at that point. The age difference alone wouldn't have sat well with a lot of the audience. For another, his position in the police department (and eventually, the reveal of him as a Hellhound) made him a powerful ally for the McCall Pack. That relationship could have been damaged if a romance didn't work out.
Lydia Embraces The Supernatural
When Lydia first encounters a werewolf, she's in denial. She's so far in denial that it starts interfering with her life. It's not until she accepts that Beacon Hills is a little supernatural that she really starts paying attention to what's going on.
That's also when she's able to be herself, become friends with Scott, and understand what Allison's going through with her family of hunters. It takes Lydia a long time to get there, but once she does, there's no turning back. Even when she doesn't know just what kind of supernatural abilities she has, she follows her instincts to unlock them.
Lydia Trains With Parrish
When Lydia first gets dragged into the supernatural elements of Beacon Hills, she doesn't have much of a way to defend herself. Sure, if she's in a chemistry classroom at school, she can whip up a self-igniting cocktail to throw at someone pursuing her, but she can't do that all the time.
As she slowly begins to learn more about her own abilities, she gets Parrish to start teaching her how to physically defend herself. Lydia never becomes the best fighter in the pack, but having that foundation does allow her to tap into her banshee abilities in a more offensive way later as well.
Lydia Delves Into Her Family History
While much of Lydia's search into her own family history is full of red herrings, it's still a fun journey for the audience to take with her. Though Lydia's mother wants her to just leave things alone, Lydia doesn't stop trying to learn more about the grandmother she lost at a young age.
As it turns out, that grandmother was a banshee, and that's where Lydia's own abilities come from. The storyline allows the audience to see another side of Lydia, and it allows her to stand up to her mother, opening Natalie Martin's eyes to the supernatural, even if she doesn't want them to be.
Lydia Becomes Friends With Stiles
While there are plenty of audience who find Stiles's teenage obsession with Lydia a little creepy, there's no denying that once he backs off and approaches her as a friend that the two work well together. Lydia becoming genuine friends with Stiles isn't just good for her, as he's someone who is willing to defer to how smart she is, but it's also good for the group as a whole.
Lydia and Stiles make a great investigative team, unraveling the mysteries of Beacon Hills that the others don't understand and giving everyone else a direction to follow. The McCall Pack would be lost without them.
Lydia Doesn't Give Up Her Search
When the Ghost Riders come to Beacon Hills, people disappear without a trace, not even a memory of them left behind. Because of Lydia's banshee abilities, however, she still has an instinct that something is wrong when Stiles is taken. Though all of Lydia's friends - and even Stiles's father - don't him, and try to discourage her, she continues to follow her instincts.
It's Lydia who gets the sheriff to his son, and it's Lydia who brings Scott's attention to the Jeep in the school parking lot. Eventually, she's able to Stiles all because of her decision to trust herself when no one else does.
Lydia Screams
Lydia's road to discovering she's a banshee is a tough one. Unlike the werewolves, there are no claws or fangs for her to transform with, her strength doesn't increase, and the skills she does develop leave her confused. Lydia is sleepwalking, finding dead bodies, and hearing things no one else can hear. When her frustration boils over, she tells her friends that she just wants to scream, which is exactly what she's encouraged to do.
It's the screaming that slowly allows Lydia better control over her abilities. Her screams are initially warnings that death is near. They gradually become a weapon. Letting go instead of locking it inside her is what allows Lydia to come into her power.