I actually wrote an entire theoretical essay on werewolves and what they actually served to represent when the lore of them was first created. Mostly went into the european side of this, as their ideas on werewolves seemed to be mired more into the idea of humanity bordering on evil.
Basically just think that all lore creatures are created as a coping mechanism for people to justify human evil–it helps them dissociate monsterous actions from human society to therefore protect themselves from the concept that human beings, not beasts, could commit such vulgar and foul acts.
There’s a particular illustration of early ideas of werewolves. It depicts a village scene where men have turned into beasts, literally half man half wolf. In it, they are eating other dead villagers. I think this is the best representation for what a werewolf was to the people who created the concept. Beast or man, the line between an anamalistic and primal urge has been crossed.
There’s also a lot of Greek myth on it. The creation of werewolves in that myth also plays off the question of humanity, and presents the werewolf itself as a cursed being (mainly for trying to feed the gods human flesh). A big question in much of the lore is if lycanthropy is an actual curse, where you lack autonomy and therefore are not forgoing your humanity, or if the werewolf itself is the result of already forgoing humanity.
In more Christian myth, the werewolf (of course) has ties to the devil. In some myths, the devil is able to take possession of a werewolf’s body. The mythology surrounding this is actually quite complex. There’s a lot of ideas that suggest the werewolf is more-so a human allowing Satan to take control over them, which then causes them to become bestial. But there’s also lore that disuades against that.
There’s also a lot of things that go into desire. If you lack the autonomy to willingly consent to vulgur acts, then it’s a curse. But other’s beleive the curse comes to you if you already have the desire/urge to do inhumane acts upon others.
Ofc, each culture all has cultivated lore and ideas on it, so it’s important to consider cultural standards of what humanity was, and also the historical standard for such judment.
Basically, I conclude that the creation of such beasts was used to help people comfort themselves of the fact that humans were not capable of such acts, but beasts. Therefore, they and their loved ones were safe from doing these things. A trend people in society continue. Dubbing murderers and such people as “monsters” in order to seperate themselves from that person. It is not an easy thing to conceive that you or someone you love is capable of doing something evil, and yet doing so does not make you less human. It’s worth noting that animals do not have such a system for justice or concious ideas of murder and other acts of evil. They simply act on what they’ve learned from their kin and their base instincts. People, on the otherhand, have awareness for their actions which makes an act of evil not an act of animalistic or primal nature, but of human nature. Humans are the only creatures capable of conflicting moralities. Therefore, the only true evil that exists is in the human species.