Banshee+Abilities

Scream

The banshee's scream is their most valuable trait. A banshee will scream involuntarily when they are experiencing a premonition of death, or they can eventually learn how to scream at will.

Their Scream can only be heard by another banshee or those with a supernatural sense of hearing. In 3x09 - The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Lydia let out a Scream because she was about to be murdered by Jennifer Blake, which lead to Jennifer identifying her as a banshee. They can be heard from miles away, even to a werewolf's magnitude of hearing.

A uses uses their Scream like a lever over their abilities and hearing. The Scream is used to drown out all other surrounding sounds so a banshee can focus on what only they can hear. In 3x15 - Galvanize, when Lydia, along with Scott's Pack, were looking for serial killer William Barrow who had kidnapped Kira Yukimura. Lydia was hearing a sound similar to flies, and had an great urge to let out a Scream which she did. Right afterwards, the buzzing sound amplified. Lydia realized it wasn't the sound of flies she was hearing; it was the buzzing of electricity. She then pieces together that electrocution would be the cause of Kira Yukimura's planned murder by William Barrow's hand at a power substation.

The banshee's scream is also used as an offensive weapon. Their voice can be used to harm a supernatural with a preternatural sense of hearing. In 4x06 - Orphaned, Meredith Walker screams offensively while being interrogated harshly by Lydia, causing the fellow banshee''s ears to bleed. Finally, a banshee can learn how to use their voice offensively by giving their scream focus and direction. This results in them creating sonic concussive projectiles such as beams or explosions.

In 3x19 - Letharia Vulpina, Lydia, in frustration, threw Talia Hale's claws while Screaming unintentionally, giving her focus into one point, sending the claws flying across Derek's loft then becoming embedded in the wall. In 5x01 - Creatures of the Night, Lydia, using her hand-to-hand training, specifically strikes, kicks and grabbling, is able to project powerful offensive Screams as high-powered sound beams multiple yards outwards from her frame. Meredith also once used her voice after ferociously slamming her fists on a desk, then channelled her voice, creating an explosion, with glass shattering, destruction happening around her all at once "like a bomb." Once a banshee is powerful enough, the Scream can become so dangerous, that without control, it could kill everyone nearby and even the banshee herself.

A banshee scream is also used to cast spells. In 4x11 - A Promise to the Dead, Lydia was able to wake Deaton up with her Scream when he was incapacitated, stuck in a vegetative state by Valack's telepathy. In 5x20 - Apotheosis, Lydia Screamed Mason's name at the the Beast whom had been revived by using Mason as a vessel. The resulting spell Lydia cast using her Scream, reversed the Dread Doctors' conversion process to revive the Beast, freeing and separating Mason from the Beast's essence envoking the myth that to "cure a werewolf, you call out their Christian name."

Sound Divination

A banshee's power generally manifests as clairaudience or the ability to hear. They hear voices or noises in their heads that only they can receive and translate. These voices are the messages of their fellow banshees or harbingers of death. The sounds they hear are what a banshee receives to divine further information surrounding death.

Banshees are attuned to a level of the universe nothing else is. This network broadcasts supernatural messages concerning death to a banshee. They are able to connect to this network and issue messages of their own, broadcast their own 'whispers' surrounding death, or communicate with other banshees.

This network can be accessed through conduits in the physical world that produce soundwaves; plucking piano strings, listening to inactive phones as by Meredith Walker or listening to a record player in the case of Lydia, and her grandmother Lorraine Martin.

In 3x23 - Insatiable, Lydia had intended to warn the Pack not to look for her, because she'd predicted Allison Argent's impending death. This warning was relayed to them by Meredith. Lydia had subconsciously tapped into the whispers' network and Meredith had received the message.

In 4x04 - The Benefactor, Lydia, with the record player on, tapped into the network again. From her eyesight she saw the outlines of multiple faces emerging from the walls of the study at her grandmother's lakehouse, which were issuing whispers. These faces she saw are likely to be the source of the banshee whispers.

Harbinger of Death

Main article: Death Omens

Banshees cannot only predict death, they can identify where death occured, and sense someone's death becoming aware of their passing away just by 'feeling' it.

During Season 2, Lydia would experience fugue states, after her powers were activated, though she didn't understand why they were happening. One fugue state occured in Omega and she was confirmed to be present to sites linked to death: the Hale House, where the Hale Pack was killed and Beacon Hills Cemetery. She would also be drawn to dead bodies, murder scenes, and receive visions or noises indicating how, where or when someone would die.

Lydia's harbinger of death status visually manifests for the first time in 3x06 - Motel California, at the infamous Glen Capri, notorious for its reputation in guests' suicides, Lydia hears the final moments of two such cases: a couples' suicide pact and a woman drowning a baby, presumably from when they happened in the past. She enters the room where the said couple committed suicide. She then hears faint whispers and is able to distinguish ghostly faces screaming upon the wood of the room's wall.

In 3x23 - Insatiable, Lydia heard noises at Camp Oak Creek that were much louder than normal due to the multiple deaths that occured during the massacre and the Nogitsune's reign of terror in 1943.

At the end of Season 3, Lydia feels the deaths of Allison and Aiden, just as they're passing away.

In 4x03 - Muted, Lydia was drawn to the Walcotts' family house, not only because of the family being murdered, but because the Walcotts were wendigos and fed on rationed dead bodies. Just like at the Glen Capri she makes out the same human faces upon the wood of the family's secret panel leading to their 'game' locker.

Telepathy

Banshees are shown to be capable of telepathy.

When Meredith and Peter Hale were simultaneously comatose, both were placed in the same room, Meredith was involuntarily synchronized with Peter's thoughts for months. Peter was in his vegetative near-death state and was subconsciously rambling. In Meredith's mind's eye it was as if Peter was standing right next to Meredith, leaning over her, whispering into her ear.

In Required Reading, Lydia realized a Banshee prediction she'd had was a someone else's memory, one she'd tapped into. That of a test subject of the Dread Doctors while they were examining him in the past, who'd die at the hands of Theo Raeken.