Greg responds...

1. No. He's a New Olympian.

2. The term "Oberon's Children" refers to all the fair folk, including Puck and even Oberon. But Puck was also Oberon's personal servant. Was.

Greg responds...

I think she loves it. She wants her father to be happy, and whatever hopes she might have for Demona's redemption, they don't include a reconciliation with dad. And Angela loves and respects Elisa tremendously. Besides, when she first met Goliath and Elisa, they were already a couple, and everyone knew it, except maybe for Goliath and Elisa.

Greg responds...

I don't work at Disney anymore, but I can all but guarantee you that your "pal" is shining you (or at least passing on bad info). There are, as far as I know, no plans to make a direct to video. And I have friends at Disney and a very well-connected agent who would let me know if those plans existed.

Keep in mind that "City of Stone" and "Hunter's Moon" were both originally planned as direct to videos. "City of Stone" was rejected because the powers-that-be felt it focused too much on the series' villains and not enough on the heroes. "Hunter's Moon" was rejected months later because those powers made a strategic decision not to do a direct to video for Gargoyles. They felt it wouldn't sell enough units to justify the cost and/ or opportunity cost. (I'm not saying I agree, but that's what they decided.) So I can't imagine what could have happened between then and now that would change their minds. The ratings failure of GOLIATH CHRONICLES? I don't think that would do it.

Demona doesn't blame all her misfortunes on Goliath. Just some. Mostly she blames humanity. As to Goliath and Demona getting back together... well, I think that ship has sailed. Goliath loves Elisa now. And it's a more honest and mutual love, less naive, if slightly more impossible.

Greg responds...

NO ONE GOT TO SEE THE "FIRE IN THE SKY". Nobody. They were all frozen in stone. The terminal condition of the spell doesn't require a visual trigger. It just has to happen. So...

You live in Washington D.C. You turn on your cable box and channel surf around the dial. Once, twice. Man, there is NOTHING on. Wait a minute.
What the hell is that? Is that make-up on that woman? Or is that CGI? It looks so real, you really cannot tell. What language is that? Great looking monster, but nothings happening. So you shut off the t.v. You've got a date tonight, so you get in the shower as the sun sets. Suddenly the water is freezing. You leap out of the shower, with shampoo still in your hair.
Great. Just great. You glance at the clock to see if you've got time to run to the gym and shower there. 5:41 AM? WHAT???? You run out of the bathroom. Your answering machine light is flashing. You press the button.
That's your date on the line, pissed off about being stood up. You're freaked to say the least. Eleven hours of your life, just gone.

And so on... Basically, once Xanatos met the terminal condition, the spell is broken. Anyone effected by it is cured, no matter how far away they are.

Greg responds...

I'm not restricted from saying anything by Disney or anyone -- other than myself. There are two reasons (or three) why I'm not always forthcoming.

(1) I may get to do GARGOYLES again someday. I hope so, anyway. So let me ask you all a question: Do you guys really want me to reveal all the secrets? Would you still be as involved in new episodes if you ABSOLUTELY KNEW that they held no surprises.

(2) If I never get to do GARGOYLES again, I may canabalize some of my Gargoyles ideas and use them in a new project. (I probably shouldn't admit that, but it's true.) I wouldn't want people watching my new stuff and being able to predict outcomes and/or feeling like it was second-hand stuff because I mentioned it in passing on the www.

(3) I'm not in the mood.

I already am quite sure that I've given away more than I practically should have. But truthfully, it's hard to resist. I so want to formulate and tell these stories, I can't resist dropping clues.

I have occasionally stopped by Gore's chatroom. I generally announce it in advance, and I always use my own name.

Greg responds...

Hi.

1. No. Not really, though certain elements of it might have leaked into our reality. Like Alex's name and the destruction of the Clock Tower.

2. With my mind.

3. Maybe.

4. Which time?

5. Which time?

6. Depends on how you define "immortal".

7. Nokkar. A few others.

8. Good question. I had a story in mind for the third season where Renard would finally succumb to his illness. I planned on doing research for that story, but since I didn't do the third season, I never got around to doing the research. I was going to start by researching Multiple Sclerosis, but allow me to make this clear: I would not have used that or any disease before making absolutely sure I had my facts straight. Also I would not have made up an illness.

9. Alliances come and go. At Wyvern, Prince Malcolm and Hudson came to their initial arrangement in 971 when Malcolm's half-brother Kenneth II was crowned king of Scotland.

10. Time will tell. Or I will. Someday. Not now.

11. Ditto.

Greg responds...

Good question. Keep in mind that magic isn't an exact science. The Weird Sisters told Macbeth and Demona that "When one lives both live." Demona used the magic Praying Gargoyle statue to insure she would survive the fullfillment spell. So would Macbeth have survived? Probably. She knows about the mortality link. She would not want his death at her hands if that resulted in her own. Towards Macbeth, her impulse should not be murderous by necessity. And mindset has a real effect on magic results. However, Demona isn't the most stable and rational of characters. She certainly has murderous feelings toward Macbeth. And if their linking spell "perceived" the death of all humanity as a successful attempt to kill Macbeth, then it might very well have killed her as well. Did she consider this? Maybe.

Maybe it was a risk she was willing, even eager to take. Maybe somewhere underneath it all, she's a bit suicidal. Could she die with the idea of leaving behind a human-free "paradise" where her daughter could live in safety? Remember, Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land, but he was not allowed to enter it himself. Maybe that's how Demona felt about it.

Then again, maybe not. Very provocative question.

Greg responds...

1. The Grimorum burnt up when the Eye of Odin was removed from the Archmage. Since the Grimorum was part of the Archmage at the time, the Archmage burnt up with it. So yes, he's really dead.

2. Princess Elena died before "Long Way To Morning". Malcolm died before "Awakening". I have ideas about their demises, but I don't feel like revealing them yet. Sorry.

3. Whew. A lot of questions for one number. I added letters to make them easier to answer.

(a). They may have killed a gargoyle here and there, but largely they were on a very specific Demon hunt.

(b). Partially, although gargoyles were nearly extinct by the time of "Awakening" let alone "City of Stone".

(c). Yeah, that too.

(d). We know she did.

(e). It's always been "the main reason", but she didn't need the Hunters to start believing that. Remember Hakon?

(f). Remember Hakon?

4. I have no idea -- though I tend to doubt it.

Greg responds...

1. No.

2. No. Angela and Broadway are already a couple. And Gargoyles mate for life. Besides, Angela and Gabriel think of themselves as sister and brother. Ophelia and Gabriel are a couple.

3. Biologically, yes. But to a gargoyle, Gabriel is as much Goliath, Demona and Coldsteel's child as he is Coldstone or Coldfire's.

4. Yes. See the answer to question 3.

Greg responds...

1. The movie has no script yet. No director attached. No casting done at all. So when you ask if there's a chance, the answer is "Yes". Is there a chance they won't appear in the film? "Yes." Is there any way for me to weigh the odds at this early stage? "No." 2. As for Patrick Stewart, we originally had him in mind for a couple of different parts in the series, but he was too expensive. (He makes a lot of money in commercial voice overs.) His agent didn't want to make an exception that would allow other companies to desire the same exception. It was a wise decision financially, but we felt we really were a special case. So we considered asking Jonathan or Marina to personally ask Patrick if he would do a voice for us. But we decided that that wasn't fair to Jonathan, Marina or Patrick. We didn't want to put any of them in an awkward spot. I'm glad we refrained.

Greg responds...

No. Or at least, not to my knowledge. I've never heard of what you're describing before now. I've been to Chicago twice in my life, and I don't recall ever having seen it.
Bob Kline did the earliest development design of that castle atop the skyscraper, and he never mentioned any Chicago building.
I can't remember who first came up with the notion. It might have been Bob or me or any of a number of people who were working in or around the development department at that time.

Greg responds...

1. I'm not telling yet.

2. Figurative.

3. "Completely" is a big word. But for all intents and purposes he's over her. But it's a very complex kind of over.

4. I hope so. I'd sure love to write one. But no one's approached me.

5. The movie (and any revived series) will, I assume, be targeted to the same group it's always been targeted to. That is, the widest possible audience. Or to put it another way, we wrote what we liked, and hoped everyone else liked it too.

Greg responds...

No. I made that up. But it made sense to me. It was an extrapolation backwards from the legends that did surround gargoyles. From the notion that gargoyles and chimeras, etc. were put on castles and churches to scare away evil spirits. Why would people think that a monstrous stone creature would act as a protective talisman? Why wouldn't you assume the opposite? I extrapolated backwards and came up with what you saw. After the fact, my co- workers and I found a number of parallel motifs all over the world, which is one of the factors that inspired us to do the WORLD TOUR episodes. One story that we could never quite crack was a Scarecrow story. Gargoyles and Scarecrows seem to me to have a lot in common. The problem was that Batman has a Scarecrow villain that's been used in 100 ways over the years (heck, I used him in a CAPTAIN ATOM story myself) and we could never quite come up with anything that seemed unique enough to make the grade. But someday, I'll crack it.

Greg responds...

"Hunter's Moon, Part Three" was designed to be a final episode OR a turning point, depending on whether we got a renewal. (The same had been true for "Reawakening" a year earlier.) When I realized that they were going to do 13 more, but that I'd only be involved in one of those 13, I made an effort to create yet a third episode of open-ended closure. A chance to say goodbye to the fans and most of the lead characters, before I journied off to other adventures. So I wrote, "The Journey". Vinnie's voyage to Japan was written to parallel my voyage to DreamWorks (although at the time I didn't know where I'd wind up working). I intentionally created new elements to the series. Mr. Duval. The Quarrymen. Etc. I pushed relationships forward. I wanted to be true to the series even in my final farewell, so I felt it was important to keep it evolving right up through the end. But it was written as a goodbye.

Which doesn't seem like an answer to your question. But it's really the best answer I could give without more information from you. There are tons of loose ends that I wish I were able to tie up or at least continue working on. I've got story ideas into the 22nd century (and back as far as the first century), so I wasn't short on material. But I wouldn't want to rush things unnaturally, just cause I was only going to get one more chance at bat. That's a great way to strike out, I figure. In this hypothetical scenario, how many episodes would I have in my new last chance? If it was only one, I'm not sure what I'd do. There's so much in Goliath Chronicles that I didn't like, I'd have to spend sometime putting band-aids on the series to get it back to a place I was comfortable moving forward from. A lot would also depend on the when. I'd like the series to continue (as it has so far) in more-or-less real time.
If my next shot at writing this was in the year 1999 I'd probably be telling different stories than if my next shot was in 2007.

How's that for a preamble? Basically, I regret not having done the last 12 Goliath Chronicles, not because I missed out telling any one specific story, but because I missed out telling 12 more stories, missed out weaving 12 more naratives into the Gargoyle Tapestry. 66 isn't bad. But 78 would have been better.

Greg responds...

1. She could definitely get sick. But the condition wouldn't be fatal. Of course, Gargoyles have a fairly substantial immune system of their own. Most sicknesses don't last past sunrise. A lot of the fun of Demona's present condition (a gargoyle with TWO magical spells that have a physical effect on her) is that these are all unanswered questions UNTIL we do the story that demonstrates the answer. Even Demona doesn't know for sure how her body will react.

2. I like them all. But it's hard to top the top two. Xanatos & Demona. I immodestly believe that in these two we created two of the most original, well-thought out and complex antagonists you'll ever see anywhere. I'm also quite fond of Macbeth and various other antagonists who aren't always villainous. Owen/Puck is a lot of fun. The Archmage was great fun for me.

Sevarius wound up being a hoot, etc. And Thailog, well, what can I say?

Greg responds...

Xanatos knew Owen was Puck. Years before, Puck had offered Xanatos a choice, remember? Xanatos did not tell Demona about Puck's secret identity. Yes, I had plans for the Labyrinth Clan.

Greg responds...

By now, Jade and Turquesa have indeed returned to Guatemala. And yes, I was talking about the Mayan Clan's rookery, where their eggs should be hatching sometime next year.

Greg responds...

Note, as usual, I've added numbers to your questions. GENERAL REQUEST: If you're going to ask multiple questions in one post, please NUMBER THEM for me.

1. Xanatos wanted to create his own brand of Gargoyles.

2. Too long to relate here.

3. What weren't?

4. It depends what you mean. They aren't all literally his biological children. In fact, most of them aren't. They are his children in the sense that he is their lord and protector.

5. Individually?

6. Most of the characters that you know from Greek Mythology were the ancestors of the New Olympians.

7. Significance?

Sorry, if my answers aren't that helpful, but you've asked a unique combo of vague questions (#4, 5, 6, 7) and HUGE questions (#2, 3, 5). If the question is too big, I'm not likely to answer it in this format. If the question is less than clear, then I'm not always sure HOW to answer it.

Greg responds...

1. They had no choice. Also, the trio were pretty young, making adaptation less difficult.

2. Goliath felt that at least some Gargoyles would have to continue to live in the real world if humans and Gargoyles were ever going to learn to live in peace. The trio could have chosen to leave, especially after hearing about Angela's sisters, but they all three had lives in Manhattan, and weren't that eager to depart, especially so soon after being reunited with Goliath, Elisa and Bronx (and Angela).

3. I doubt any company is entertaining any serious interest in the show, because they KNOW that Disney would never sell it to them.

4. It's been a while since I saw FIRST KNIGHT. I don't remember who you're talking about. Still, the answer's almost definitely no.

Greg responds...

1. Yes, I know.

2. There's a whole clan of Gargoyles living on a secluded country estate just outside of London proper. Leo and Una are the only two that actually live in the city.

Greg responds...

She wouldn't, I suppose. But that's a HUGE "if". HUGE.

Greg responds...

At least some of the effects will be CGI. Other options are being "considered", but no decisions have been made. (The movie doesn't even have a director yet.)

My opinion on what method would be better would be uninformed, particularly with regard to cost.

Greg responds...

It was in the Clock Tower, when the Tower was destroyed. In my mind, Broadway or Elisa later went back to successfully retrieve it.

Greg responds...

They've grown some since their first appearance in "Awakening, Part One".
They'd continue to grow as they got older.

Greg responds...

Hey, Ricardo. Unfortunately, I've just received your questions here in August and our chat was obviously sometime in June. So I don't remember the specifics of our previous discussions. Nevertheless, I'll do the best I can with these new answers:

1) No, not in the sense you mean. I keep trying to clarify this. Nothing legally binds me. I'm just taking common sense precautions to protect myself from a potential lawsuit. But the truth is, I don't mind. I have my own ideas about and for the GARGOYLES. They range from silly little things right on through to the pornographic. Reading other peoples takes on them, no matter how well done, would make me feel strange. Like someone's messing with my toys. That's not to say I begrudge people the opportunity to write fanfic based on the show. I'm flattered by it. But I have no burning desire to read it.

2) Fox will still answer to Janine, but she did legally have her name changed to Fox and that's who she considers herself to be. David calls her Fox. As for the other Packers, I never said they legally changed their names to Wolf, etc. I doubt they'd bother, frankly. I haven't bothered to give any thought to Wolf, Jackal or Hyena's real names. Coyote is Coyote of course, plus whatever number incarnation he's on. (That's an Ultron-V inspiration by the way.) Dingo's name is Harry Monmouth, unless I use that name somewhere else first.

3) I've never noticed any difference in his voice for that character from one episode to the next. Certainly, there was no intentional change.

4) I had ideas for Beth.

5) Yes, it's still around. It seems to specialize in bio-engineering, but I'm guessing it'll soon have it's hands in many different pies.

6) Yes, she very much does. We had to cut (for time) a tiny little partial scene near the end of "Hunter's Moon, Part Three". It comes right after Xanatos and the gargoyles fly off from the cathedral in David's helicopter, heading toward the Eyrie. Matt orders the cops to hold their fire. And then we dissolve to...
______
INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR - NIGHT

An exhausted Elisa sits on a bench opposite a guarded hospital room. Robyn, no longer in armor, but handcuffed and under police guard herself exits the room and approaches Elisa. Elisa raises her head. Robyn doesn't look happy.

After that silent exchange, Elisa and Jason have their scene beside his hospital bed. [Note the above scenelet was cut before it was sent overseas for animation. There's no lost footage.]

Of course, if the "BAD GUYS" spin-off had been approved, Hunter/Robyn would soon be out of prison and working for the mysterious Director.

7) Forever's a long time. Brooklyn still has some maturing to do. Plus some Timedancing. The Demona he meets in 2158 isn't going to be the same Demona he knew. As for "Future Tense", Michael, Robert, Marty and myself were simply going for shock value by pairing Demona and Brooklyn. So was Puck.

8) Fox and Xanatos have both "softened" some. That is, their priorities have changed. Love and family mean a lot more to them than either ever thought possible. But that shouldn't change their basic personality types or their M.O.s. The thing I most disliked about the Goliath Chronicles episode "Ransom", was that Fox was acting so wildly out of character. In my mind, Fox is just as tough as she ever was.

9) No. I don't think so. Certainly not Delilah. Brentwood might be good with technology, but don't expect a lot of similarities in personality.

10) I'm not sure what you want to know about Thom. He's a talented guy and extremely nice. He was a regular on one of the night time soaps, (Falcon Crest, I think, but I'm not sure). He's the voice of Snap (as in Crackle and Pop) and he was the voice for Felix the Cat. He's currently doing a voice for DreamWorks "Invasion: America" series which will premiere in January '98.

As for Brigitte, I wasn't familiar with her work until after she was cast as Angela. She auditioned for our voice director Jamie Thomason, as did a lot of talented actresses. Jamie narrowed down his choices to a half dozen great picks. Frank Paur and myself just thought that Brigitte had a certain timeless and placeless quality to her voice appropriate to a character raised on Avalon. She also had a nice range from naive ingenue to fierce gargoyle warrior. Her growling was a bit weak at first, but she caught on fast.
She's also an extremely nice person. But I didn't know that when we cast her.

Jamie cast Haunani Minn as Sora based on his reading of the script and a little bit of verbal descriptions from me. That recording is the one and only time I've worked with Haunani, since that's the only episode that Sora appeared in, but she seemed nice and she did a great job. Hope that helps.

11) All right, first off, the clan didn't know about the link at all until the "Avalon" trilogy. So at the time of "The Price" they had no idea. As for "The Reckoning" you need to keep two things in mind, one is that during the heat of battle and under death-defying and traumatic circumstances, it's hard to remember that a flesh and blood gargoyle has a touch of immortality.
Also, the gargoyles aren't exactly masters at magic. They don't know the extent of the spell or how thoroughly it might or might not work. Angela ASKS if Demona could have survived. She's not sure of the answer. Goliath responds that he doesn't know for sure either. He's not saying she's dead.
He's simply acknowledging that he can't know for sure. If we (the writers) emphasized their lack of expertise for the sake of upping the drama, I make no apologies. I don't see any inconsistencies.

12) When we got around to it. I like her a lot, but she's pretty far down on the screen time food chain. Some people complained that Lex didn't get enough screen time. We had a large cast. Goliath was the lead. Elisa was the second lead. Brooklyn, Lex, Broadway, Angela and Hudson were the main support characters. Next comes Bronx, I suppose. Major players like Xanatos, Demona and Owen/Puck. Fox, Matt and Alexander. Recurring villains like Thailog, Macbeth, Sevarius. Recurring allies like Talon, Maggie, Coldstone and Coldfire. The list is fairly endless. There are a number of characters I'd like to spend more time with: Chavez, Jack Dane, Vinnie, Jeffry Robbins, Morgan, Jason Canmore, Dr. Sato, Brendan & Margot etc. But it's tough to fit them all in.

13) Yes.

14) Under the Weird Sister's spell. Maybe en route to Avalon.

15) Yes.

16) She really, really hates her guts, and did so in "Temptation" as well.
If you listen carefully, you'll hear Demona struggle to make that admission in Elisa's favor. She only says that because she's trying to get Brooklyn on her side, and she knows that Brook likes Elisa. She doesn't share Brooklyn's feelings about the detective.

17) Both, of course.

18) "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time" was, I believe a Brynne Chandler Reaves title (or maybe Lydia Marano). I think Brynne got it as part of a quote from the work of the late Barbara Tuchman, though Brynne's research indicated that the phrase did not originate with Tuchman. The written word is elegantly evoked in the title, which of course, was entirely appropriate to the episode.

"Ill Met by Moonlight" is a Michael Reaves title and a quote from William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Oberon says to Titania: "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania". He's annoyed with her because she has a young boy, a human changeling, that she won't turn over to him. They're at odds and he isn't pleased to see her. Just as, in our episode, he's not pleased to see the gargoyles and humans when he returns to Avalon. Generally, I tend to favor one word titles (or one word plus the determiner "the"), but I specifically remember Michael saying he had a title he knew I'd like because it came from Shakespeare. (Everyone knows I'm a Shakespeare nut.) The funny thing was that my first reaction wasn't positive. I thought it was kinda hard to read. But it was so perfect, I talked myself out of that objection. However, everytime someone writes it as "I'll Meet by Moonlight", I wonder if my initial reaction wasn't correct.

I'm not 100% positive but I think "Long Way to Morning" was one of mine. I just liked the sound and the exhaustion it evoked. And it seemed perfect (in different ways) for both our main story and our flashback story in that episode. Hudson had to keep Goliath alive until they turned to stone in the morning. And Hudson had to recover the Grimorum before morning or the Prince would die. The resolution of both stories would take the whole episode.

"Legion" was also one of mine. I remember an old t.v. miniseries based on Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN. At one point, the "monster" is put under hypnosis and speaks in the voices of all the various people who made up his bodyparts. That was Coldstone to a tee. The "Legion" name itself is a biblical reference to a demon named Legion or (interpreted another way) a legion of demons who possessed some poor biblical guy.

"Shadows of the Past" was a Michael Reaves title. I was tempted to shorten it to "Shadows", given my above stated preference for one-worders, but Michael's version seemed much more evocative of what was plaguing Goliath in that episode. In this case the word "shadows" does double duty. It represents Goliath's tortured memories, as well as the ghosts or SHADES who are haunting him.

"The Reckoning" was one of mine. Originally, the "Hunter's Moon" trilogy was supposed to be a direct to video movie. Back then, "The Reckoning" was scheduled to be a two-part series finale. A final reckoning, so to speak that would give us some open-ended closure before leading us into the video release of "Hunter's Moon". Long before "The Reckoning" was written, we found out that the "Hunter's Moon" video wasn't going to happen. So we broke it into three episodes and added it to the end of our schedule.
Unfortunately, that meant we had to cut three other stories out of our schedule. First, we cut "Reunion" (the original title of "The Gathering") down from a two-parter to a single episode. Then we combined Vinnie's pie- story with the Wolf/Hakon revenge story. Then we combined Puck's training Alex story with the Coldstone/Robot story. Then we realized that there was no way that the now retitled "The Gathering" was going to fit into one episode. So we brought that back up to two and reduced "The Reckoning" down to one, all before a single word of the latter story had been written.
Through all this, the original title stuck. It's not quite the final reckoning I originally invisioned, but it's still a reckoning for Thailog and Demona's relationship and most particularly for Demona and Angela's relationship. So I felt it still worked.