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Science Fiction Stack Exchange and some other Stack Exchange sites are currently running a game called the "Winter bash" where users can earn "hats", overlay images they can add to their user avatar. One of these awards is called "Werewolf Hunter", and is awarded for gaining a silver badge within the holiday period. The image for this hat depics a hat and what looks sort of like a crossbow (see image below).

What does this image really represent, and how is it connected to werewolf hunting? Is this sort of hat and weapon worn by a particular famous werewolf hunter in some piece of fantasy fiction?

Werewolf hunting hat

Yes, I am deliberately asking this on the main site of SciFi SE (not on meta), because I'd like to know about the pop culture references this is trying to evoke. I could ask the same thing here if some website unrelated to SE gave such an award. Werewolf hunters probably mostly occur in fantasy fiction, which is why this is the site I'm asking on.

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    For another non-meta question on what the winter hats represent, see english.stackexchange.com/q/215399/32815
    – b_jonas
    Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 12:37
  • Shouldn't this be a meta question?
    – Robert
    Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 12:50
  • 3
    @Robert: no. It's a question about werewolf hunters, as they are depicted in fantasy fiction. But wait, I'll retitle it to make that clearer.
    – b_jonas
    Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 12:54
  • Yeah, the title would have gotten the question closed as off topic. I guess I could have edited it. Now the question makes sense.
    – Robert
    Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 12:59
  • Oh. That's a hand with a crossbow. I assumed it was a hat with an attached minigun...
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 13:23

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This seems to be most closely based on Gabriel Van Helsing from the 2004 movie Van Helsing who was a hunter who was also a werewolf (he hunted Vampires and other monsters generally, tho)

enter image description here

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  • Wasn't Van Helsing a human who became infected by a werewolf during the movie? If I recall, he was later cured before the infection was incurable.
    – Ellesedil
    Commented Jun 9, 2016 at 20:41
  • He was an angel who hunted a vampire, shot a werewolf, became a werewolf, and killed Dracula.
    – Omegacron
    Commented Nov 3, 2018 at 16:17

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