The Cat writes...

Subject Make-A-Wish, Nov. 1999
Hey Greg.

Okay I this isn't exactically the best place to ask this but I'm not going to see you at The Gathering this year and by the time the next Gathering rolls around I'll probably have forgotten the question.

Anyway, my mother was telling me that _you_ asked her whether or not what was said about the road kill in Texas was true when we met ya'll back in November of 1999 through Make-A-Wish. However, I don't seem to remember you asking that. Then again my memory has gotten rather faulty lately.

What I want to know is were you the one that asked that or was it someone else?

Okay, another thing(more like a personal ramble on what was said that day) after we got finished taping the mock episode of Turf ya'll are all signing pictures and my script. Thom says something about his character Lexington and about Sheena Easton(I had no idea who she was then, but not long after that day I saw her on the Home Shopping Channel.)
Thom: Sheena Easton always said "The wee one is playing with his...weewee." I can't think of the word that she used though.(Something to that effect.)
Jeff(quickly supplies the word): Willyad!
All the while I'm thinking:'Tippickle men. Obsessed with that part of their anatomy! Well,I'm tired I'm not going to say anything. I just want to get to the hotel and fall into bed.' (That wasn't exactly what I was thinking, but there might be little kids out there that their parents do not wish them to know such things just yet.)

Anyhow, you get the idea. By the way in case you were wondering how I was capable of remembering that little chat between Jeff and Thom. It's because my mother accidently filmed it. If those two were a little more conservitive I might be tempted to use that darn tape as blackmail.

Well as they say down here, Adios Amigo. The Cat.
Hmm, curiousity is suppose to kill The Cat, I wonder how many of my nine lives I've wasted this time around.

The Cat writes...

Hey Greg,
It's The Cat, again. Technically I've already asked this question, but it has more to do with when the gargoyles learned how to read than anything else.

It has been asked already, but your answer is not correct.

You aswered that Demona learned from the Archmage. Goliath learned from Demona. Lexington learned right before they were turned to stone for a thousand years. Brooklyn learned right after the spell was broken and of course Broadway and Hudson learned together from Elisa and the rest of the clan.

It is not correct in the fact that English was not a language back in 994A.D., much less a written language. So, here is your answer revised a bit for all those people that have to learn this in History class and then wonder how it could be possible for the gargoyles to have learned to read English if it wasn't a language.

Demona learned how to read English sometime while the others were in their stone sleep, after all life must really get boring having nothing to do and being a live for several centuries( do ya'll people really think that she'd kill humans all the time?) Goliath, Brooklyn and Lexington most likely learned how to read right after the spell was broken. After all the language Goliath and Lexington learned how to read was most likely Latin given the fact that that language was the only one besides Greek and Hebrew that were written down at the time.

Another question(actually the one above wasn't really a question, hmm, I've really got to work on that)

In the episode, A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time, The Scroles(I'm unsure if I spelt that right and I don't have a dictionary at hand right now) of Merlin were written in Ancient Celtic, but how could that be? Celtic wasn't a written language. Or it could have been and I just haven't covered that topic in my history lessons yet. But I don't think it was a written language at the time that the scrolls were written.

Well, I know this is a kind of multi-topic letter, but I was going on the topic of written languages more than anything. See ya.

Lord Sloth writes...

Do you know what your son Benny meant 2 years ago, when he said:

"I want to say that Mama likes Bigtime and Iggy and I like them, but I shoo them. And I'm sorry about that."

I don't believe this riddle had anything to do with the post it came with, which was asking about a connection between Owen's role as an assistant compared to Robin Goodfellow's role as housekeeper, but you never know. Perhaps you could ask him if he's around at the moment.
And is he perchance, referring to Iggy Pop, or to Iggy the lovable power generating rat?

I'm sure there's some profound meaning here, but I just can't comprehend it.

Joseph writes...

what would be the science behind how goliath and his clan glide,and climb almost anything except solid steel?

Wolfram Bane writes...

Now that the 'How Many Gargoyles Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb?' contest is over, the world may breathe a collective sigh of satifaction... We know the answer to the question that has eluded us for millennia (or at least months...)

Any thoughts as to the next contest. In all honesty, I believe a contest so that we can finally see the elusive gargoyles Timeline. I know a few bits and pieces, but it would be amazing to see a completed Timeline. Being a fan from the beginning, I appreciate the level of effort that went into the creation of a stable continuity. With all the history, legends, time travel and flashback, I do not walk away from the series plagued by continuity errors.

Thank you lots of enjoyment and plenty more within the future.

Zarok writes...

Hey Greg
More Space-Spawn questions for you…
1) What kind of anatomy do you see the Space-Spawn having, considering they were "born amidst the fury of an exploding star" I doubt they would be humanoid? Now I know you don't do character designs for very good reasons but I just wanted to know if you had any ideas on this subject.
2) How do the Space-Spawn communicate with each other, vocal chords being useless in the vacuum of space since there's no sound?
3) Would a Space-Spawn be able to survive in earth's atmosphere unaided by technology or magic?
4) Lastly, could you please give us just one part of the reason why the Space-Spawn war started? Some teaser? Some little opener? Some hint? Something?

Lord Sloth writes...

Just thought I'd join the bandwagon here since posting in these archives is pretty well the best way to give my writings immortality.

I got my mom to watch this with me earlier (it's getting easier to get her into a new episode each time) and she enjoyed immensely. I like just as much, it's a very "crisp" looking episode IMO, and the story in spaced out well to always keep me interested with new revelations.
- When it got to the part where Elisa disappears and we see Raven flying over head, mom mistakenly asked "she turned into a crow?", and I thought that somewhat interesting as that never occurred to me when I first saw it; did anyone else think that?
I think my favorite part of this episode is when Raven scares that hungry bear enough to charge toward Elisa, and then Bronx boldy tackles him. It's just a very tense and scary moment that looks beautiful.
-I like when Goliath runs up that fallen tree trunk in order to glide; don't ask me why, I just do.
- I just want to congratulate whoever it was who designed the Thunderbird; she looked incredible cool, both scary and majestic.
-I also really liked Raven in his Gargoyle guise, and I agree with Jim R., he really reminds me of someone else.
-His clan of Illusion looked sweet as well, but I was kind of relieved that they weren't real since their diversity would have been harder to accept then the London Clan. Leo looks a lot less like a lion then the wolf guy resembles wolf
- Sea Monster had a nice prehistoric look & I liked how she used the blowhole, but her forelegs seemed very scrawny for her to be a good swimmer, if they could keep her afloat. Perhaps she had very big paddle hind legs to supporter her, and perhaps I'm just nit picking and she doesn't have to look right cause she's being of magic.
-A bit more repetitiveness in how Rory Dugan will latter on be learning to accept his Heritage, but this doesn't bother me at all. Each episode was different enough that it's cool seeing their similarities. At least Nick wasn't some old relic of a Haida Shaman reborn.
- Incidentally, I didn't like Nick all that much. Didn't dislike him, but he did seem slightly typical in his rejection of tradition. A the same time, I'd really like to see more of him in the show, and think he'd make a great mach up for Beth, assuming he'd end up with Beth. Perhaps Diane will become a widow in the near future, but we all know, for the long term, he can't touch Elisa with a 30-foot pole.
- Just want to mention that I love the all Tricksters in "Gargoyles"; smart and subtle is the key. And I think Xanatos deserves to be declared an official trickster.
- I'm no volcano expert, but I didn't think a caldaria could be filled almost to the brim with magma, and not be in danger of causing disaster. I accepted this more in "Ill Met" since it was on a magic island, but does anyone know if a volcano can really do this. It's a good thing it can in the Gargoyles Universe, cause it would be pretty embarrassing to let the water flow, renewing the balance of nature at last, only to have the volcano overflow and destroy everything. And I'm assuming the caldaria would have changed a bit by 2198.
-I loved that last scene with Harry Water (not Potter), though it did kind shock me initially.

One more interesting thing is how Angela shouts "We've defeated the monster!" after their first battle with Grandmother. If this had aired after "Monsters" (as it does on my tape cause for some reason I wanted to put the two Scotland episodes together) she would probably have not made that face value judgment. Now I know someone will likely point out that the name of that creature was "Sea Monster", but I'm sure you know what I mean, so don't. Just anther fascinating evolution of a character in this incredible show; was that intentional Greg?

There's one book I have read about a year ago that has a lot to do with the mythological stuff in this episode. It's got raven, and the thunderbird (though they don't make any personal appearances, it does go into Raven's origins and how he became such a pest) but it mainly concerns this fear/soul-devouring demon named Sisiutl; and the one of the main characters in a native called Grandfather interestingly enough. It's called "Dreamspeaker", it's by Cam Hubert and I recommend it to you all most enthusiastically. It won't even take you long, it's just 121 pages (though I'm sure you will wish there was more by the time you finish. After we finished watching Heritage, mother took out the book "Daughters of Copper woman" by Anne Cameron, which seems to go quite in depth into the legends of the Natives of B.C., and I hope to look into it more. Once again that dratted show has got me interested in another of the world's culture, and now I'm wasting my time researching it rather then watching TV. Hey, I wonder if that's what Disney finds so threatening about "Gargoyles". <HMRPH>

I'll just add a footnote that will probably please you. Ever since I started spending a lot of time at ASK GREG, my interest in writing stuff has increased tenfold. I'm creating essays about gargoyles as well as my own short stories and I feel that I owe it to you for creating this topic in the first place. Now I only need to learn to make English assignments interesting, and thus do more of them, but I've passed High School now so I'm happy.

That was a bit lengthy.

Arystella writes...

Hi Greg!
Me again! I hope I'm not being picky or anything, but I wanted to ask you a question about Hudson's sword. . . sometimes when Hudson turns to stone, so does his sword, but other times it doesn't.
Why is this?
(What sorcerey is this!?)
:-)

Amy writes...

I am a huge fan of the Gargoyles series, and have been looking for the full series. But, except for the first season, nothing else has come otu. I was just wondering if you knew if Disney is ever going to put out the full series on VHS or, better yet, DVD. I know I'm not the only one that would like to see it for sale.

Zarok writes...

HERITAGE
Here goes my very first episode ramble don't know why it took me so long (I had a "shadows of the past" ramble but my computer seems to have eaten it). So we come to the second episode in the world tour, I am a full world tour supporter Greg I think it served a vital role in broadening the scope of the gargoyles universe. This episode really sets out to explore the whole "all things are true" issue. I think the introduction of Oberon's children was instrumental in that goal. I really like the way you went about that, first you established the fay as a race via Puck, set down the ground rules, creatures of pure magic, shape shifters, vulnerable to iron, no messing with mortal lives. And here in the world tour you establish that many of the supernatural beings in world mythology were in fact children of Oberon. This lets you bring in Odin, Anansi, the Banshee and so on without fussing over backstory and the like but back to today's episode. This episode starts off nicely I think, Goliath's rowing along and Elias craving a hot dog all nice and serene the BOOM the sea monster bursts out of the water and starts mixing it up with the gargs. It's kind of odd actually in retrospect causes grandmother would probably not have attacked the travellers. Then again, they defeat her rather easily, too easily. The whole totem pole thing made for a nice bit of red herring. Raven does a good job of duping Goliath by using one of the most fiendish kinds of lies, ones that are as close to the truth as possible. Even closer than raven realises as a gargoyle clan will actually make its home in that very crater, they'll be abducted by aliens a few minuets after they hatch but its still their home. I never thought grandmother was a bad guy, she just oozes niceness all over the place, the thunderbird is impressive, very majestic. Raven cleverly gets around the non-interference edict by sending that bear after Elisa (as I'm writing this you still haven't answered my question regarding weather the edict applies to animals). Natsilane's personal journey here is well played as he comes to terms with the fact that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy. Actually while we are on the subject I really am not too crazy about that Quote don't get me wrong it's a great quote its just that its so overused in soaps, sitcoms, advertising, hell even Lex Luther uses it, Kinda like the whole Yorick thing. The final battle in the volcano is very cool I especially liked the wooden totem beasts. Just curious are Natsilane's weapons made of iron or are they magical or what? Anyway thanks for another great episode. Till next time.