Aris Katsaris writes...

Why changelings? I mean: why would fay exchange their children for human ones? I am not sure it was ever that clear in the real myths but what's the reason in the Gargoyles universe?

Todd Jensen writes...

After reading LSZ's comments on the use of Norse mythology in "Gargoyles" (particularly with Odin) and your responses to them, I thought that I'd weigh in with my own thoughts on Odin as portrayed in the Gargoyles Universe.

As something of a Norse mythology buff (and, like you, I very much enjoyed the d'Aulaire book which was my big introduction to the Norse myths), I enjoyed Odin's showing up in "Gargoyles". The one detail that bothered me in "Eye of the Storm", though, I confess, was when both Odin and Goliath in his "Eye of Odin" form were wearing horned helmets. This was because I'd read that the Vikings never actually wore those kinds of helmets, and, even more significantly, Hakon and his Vikings in "Awakening" weren't portrayed as wearing horned helmets but the sort of outfits that Vikings wore in actual history. So I felt a bit disturbed by the horned helmets in "Eye of the Storm", on the grounds of "They know better, because of how they drew Hakon and his followers."

Admittedly, since Odin and the "Odinized" Goliath weren't human flesh-and-blood Norsemen like Hakon, but fantasy beings, maybe the horned helmet concept does work for them, in that their appearance would be reflecting the popular imagination view of Vikings.

Entity writes...

Hi Greg,

A belated personal reaction to THE MIRROR. In the past, you've seemed curious as to how things came off to us. Did we get the implication here, or did we correctly interpret there. Well, here's something that really threw me initially. When Goliath describes the Third Race, he uses a lot of different nouns and adjectives. At first, I thought this new "Third Race" was going to be a contrived method of stuffing all other creatures of myth and fantasy into the series, in addition to the gargoyles, without having to give each one a unique background and history. In this way, you could bring in a unicorn, a minatour, an elf or an ogre, and you wouldn't have to justify them existing as individual species like the gargs, because they're conveniently blanket-labelled as the "Third Race." In short, I thought Goliath was describing a people more akin to the New Olympians, a collective, rather than a coherent species. Elisa's response was most responsible for cementing my conclusion, when she said, "Shapeshifters, elves, fairies, you mean they're real?" It sounds a lot like Elisa's interpretation of Goliath's speech was the same as mine.

As you could imagine, I felt quite betrayed and outraged. To forge such a unique, well-shaped universe and then just lazilly toss in everything else as if you said, "Well, on second thought..."

This wasn't the case, and the Third Race wound up being a wonderful addition to the series. But it took me a while to realize that. :)

LSZ writes...

Do the smith-gods of various pantheons possess the iron-resistance?

LSZ writes...

Does Oberon's father share his iron-resistance?

LSZ writes...

Did any of the fae who got worshipped actually believe they were gods?

LSZ writes...

1) Are there any faelike beings out there in space then, if such evolution on other worlds is possible?
2) Are any evolutionary processes to start such beings beginning or halfway through or in the final stages off-Earth?
3) Are any of the three races in the Space-Spawn War on similar evolutionary lines to the fae?

Aris Katsaris writes...

As a comment to one of LSZ's posts> I'm not that certain that Ra would be the leader of the Egyptian pantheon - I think that in the myths the leadership seems to have passed from Ra to Osiris and finally to Horus the Younger when Osiris was murdered...

LSZ writes...

Who's the fae nearest in power to Titania, not counting fae more powerful than she is in raw force(Oberon, Mab)?

LSZ writes...

Are the fae leaders of the pantheons(Odin, Ra, Zeus) etc always the most powerful of that group?