A Fan writes...

I'm curious exactly how magic casting works. It seems to be established that humans and gargoyles need a magic object and/or a magic spell to do magic.

But Oberon's Children seem to not have to use spells. Although Puck seems to. How do you explain that?

Kayless writes...

Hey Greg, I have some religious questions for you.

1. Since you are seemingly very well versed in religious doctrine, I'm curious as to how you feel about the Judeo/Christian scriptures that prohibit wizardry. Deuteronomy 18:9-18:12 (Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord) makes it quite clear that God brooks no wizards in his fold. Is there a conflict for you since so much of the myth Gargoyles is based on revolves around magic?

2. What about the uncanny resemblance between gargoyles and demons? Why do the two look so much alike? Did dybbuks manifest themselves in the form of gargoyles in order to sow discord with humanity, hence the current demonic stereotype and poor human/garg relations?

3. How do the Fae feel about the whole God business? They seem a rather worldly lot, though some might be old enough to remember biblical events.

4. Why is Percy still using the grail? The Holy Grail is a sacred artifact, not your run-of-the-mill magical maguffin. Why would it continue to grant its power to Duval, who has since proved unworthy? I know you said it was costing him a high physical price but I find it odd that it should be giving him any kind of benefits at all (Anybody see what happened to the bad guy in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?).

5. Last one. Is the Judeo/Christian God the supreme ruler of the Gargoyle universe? Given the plethora of Gods and Goddess on the show, I'm just wondering what your views on this are (I prefer to think that He's the one in charge, but I had to ask).

Thanks for your time, as always. Now I must return to the Vole Wars…

WereFox writes...

Greg

Even though her lycanthropy was induced by the eye of Oden, would Fox have been subject to the normal limitations associated with werewolves/foxes? Would she have had a vulnerabilty to silver? Also could she, and did she pass on her lycanthropy by bightring someone. I realize that we already have Wolf, our favorite mutate
Werewolf. What possible reason would we need another.

Faieq Ali writes...

In Huter's moon part three, Demona was going to cast a spell which would wipe out all life except gargoyles. But wouldn't she kill herself because, she would have killed Macbeth and she would have perished as well or would Macbeth be the only human alive? Would Demona's disease or plague have reached the shores of Avalon and killed tom and the Princess?

LSZ writes...

Ok, I'll ask this again: Can a fae change a human or a gargoyle into an actual in-reality fae with all fae powers and weaknesses and so on, as big a species change as gargoyle-to-human?

Todd Jensen writes...

A couple of questions about the point during "The Mirror" when Puck had temporarily turned all the humans in the city into gargoyles.

1. What happened to those humans entering and leaving Manhattan during the time that the spell was in effect?

2. What effect did the spell have on live broadcasts from New York going out to other parts of the U.S. or the world during that time? As in, did people watching such broadcasts away from New York suddenly see the humans in those broadcasts change into gargoyles, or did the spell somehow prevent this?

Todd Jensen writes...

In the Gargoyles Universe, the fay are vulnerable to cold iron. Now, the obvious reasons for this are: a) they needed some sort of "kryptonite" to keep them from unbalancing things, and b) it's a traditional part of faerie mythology (and I'd read about that problem of theirs with cold iron long before "Gargoyles" came out, and even used it in an Arthurian fantasy novel that I'm still writing). But, did you ever develop a "within-the-story" rationale for why iron has such a drastic effect upon Oberon's Children?

WereFox writes...

Greg, you mentioned that earth is the well spring or source of power for the third race. They would need to find an alternative power source were they to leave it. What about existing spells?. If Macbeth or Demona ever left Earth in the coming centuries, would the various spells on them still be in effect. Is leaving earth essentailly pulling the plug on the power source that maintains their link of immortality or Demona's transformation.

Aris Katsaris writes...

Is there 'prophecy' in the Gargoyles universe? So far all the pieces of prophecy we've seen are either related to time-travel (Archmage, etc), or are ambiguous in nature (Weird Sisters in 'City of Stone', Puck in 'Future Tense').

Were the Weird Sisters (for example) making a true prophecy concerning Macbeth and Duncan, or simply saying something and then manipulating events so that it took place?

And was Puck aware that parts of his 'dream' would indeed take place (other than Alex's name ofcourse which he could have been informed of as Owen)?

Scott Iskow writes...

On the subject of magical artifacts:

1) Demona was taking quite a risk in depending solely on the Praying Gargoyle to protect her kind from the fulfillment spell. My question: Did she have a backup plan in case it didn't work?

2) Is there a way (in the Gargoyles Univserse, of course) to determine the authenticity of a magical artifact before it needs to be used?

E.J. Kalafarski writes...

Hi Greg. Did you walk into the World Tour with the intention that Goliath would loose all the items the Gargoyles had been safeguarding? I mean, by the time the travelers got home, Goliath had lost the Grimorum (destroyed), the Eye of Odin (recovered by Odin), and the Phoenix Gate (lost in time). I realize the Gargoyles picked up the Guatemalan Medallion along the way, but was the concept of Goliath returning home with none of these items a conscious decision on your part, or just the way things worked out? Thanks.

Michael Norton writes...

Is there any logical reason that Owen did not include a giant iron bell in the castle defenses? I know this would have ruined the drama of the battle. But it is hard to accept the fact that it never occured to any of the defenders during the battle with Oberon.

Aris Katsaris writes...

I started to wonder about the 'Future Tense' episode...

1. What would have happened if Goliath had indeed given Puck the gate? After all he was dreaming the whole thing - would the real-life gate have just disappeared and been taken by Puck or something? Goliath waking up and finding it missing?

2. That thing about Puck not being able to take the gate, he having to be given it - is that again a law of Oberon's or something inherent in the nature of the Gate and/or fae?

3. And if the former, why when in other cases the fae could use just any flimsy excuse to bend Oberon's law, this one was so strictly interpreted that even 'Here you have it, take the gate' wasn't sufficient for Puck to take it?

Todd Jensen writes...

You asked in a recent rambling about our responses to a number of the "permanent changes" in the course of the series. In the case of the ones that you cited, I can't really recall now how I responded to them at the time (for example, in the case of "Enter Macbeth", my attention was more grabbed by Macbeth's entrance into the series - particularly on account of his name, since that's always been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays - than by the gargoyles' forced relocation - and I was even more delighted in later episodes when we found out more about him and that he was *the* Macbeth).

However, I do recall two "changes" (if relatively small ones) that did startle me. The first was Owen's hand getting turned permanently to stone at the end of "The Price". The second was the destruction of the Grimorum Arcanorum in "Avalon", which particularly raised my eyebrows since that book had been around since the beginning of the series, so that I was astonished to see it go. (I might add that, from my subjective view-point, the end of the Grimorum came, in a sense, not so much when it self-destructed in "Avalon Part Three" as when the Archmage devoured it in "Avalon Part Two").

But when I did look back on them in retrospect, I found that I very much appreciated the changes. It was one of those things that gave "Gargoyles" a special feeling about it that I've so rarely seen in television animation. More like a televised novel, almost.

Llewwellyn Gaelfire writes...

Hi Greg

1. Would Oberon's Mirror work for doing the same sorts of magicks as Titania's (specifically the spell Demona used in "The Mirror" to summon Puck)?

2. If yes, then why did not Oberon simply yank Puck back through his mirror in "The Gathering pt1" instead of going after him?

thanks

Kar -kwannon@yahoo.com writes...

When Xanatos loses his "guinea pig" aka Hudson in "The Price" why would he allow Owen to test the Cauldron of life for him? Since Owen is Puck, and Puck being a Fey is naturally immortal what does this accomplish? If it worked Owen would be no different or did Owen set out to prove that it did NOT work?

Aaron writes...

Greg, thanks for taking these questions. I'm sure you've answered this before, but I can't find any mention of it in the archives.

You've stated that female gargoyles have a worldwide 20-year fertility cycle.

1. Does Demona conform to this cycle, or does her being forever 70(35) short-circuit that?

2. The last question applied for about nine hundred years. But now, what effect do Demona's daily transformations have on her reproductive cycle? I remember a question about this, but I think all you said was that Puck didn't design the spell with pregnancy in mind.

3. When Demona changes to a human, is it simply an exterior, cosmetic change, or does she become fully human internally? I'm betting the former, since she doesn't seem to have a belly button in human form, but that could be either an animation glitch or simply a detail too small to pick up.

4. If she does make a full change, does she have a human reproductive system, and all the monthly fun that comes with it?

Thanks again.

Bud-Clare writes...

What is the Stone of Destiny? Until now, I never gave it any thought, dismissing it as just another magical artifact... except no other magical object shown on Gargoyles had the ability to talk. What makes it so special?

Bud-Clare writes...

Why did the Eye of Odin only transform Fox at night?

Aris Katsaris writes...

In "Hunter's Moon" one of the requirement for Demona's spell to work was that it should be cast in "holy ground". For that reason she uses an abandoned church... The question I'm going to ask is a bit vague, but hopefully you'll understand it: what does this place's "holiness" as pertaining to the spell, derive from? Is it something all places of worship would have, even "pagan" ones? Does it derive from people considering it 'holy' or is an objective "gift" (so to speak) from the deity in question and thus unrelated to belief?

It's almost certainly something which you couldn't answer within the series (I think), but perhaps you could answer it here... :-)

Todd Jensen writes...

You've stated that gargoyles, in your vision at least, came about naturally in the way that all other living things did, and were not creations of faerie or human magic. I certainly feel that that's the most probable explanation for them. But something that I would like to raise is this - in the Gargoyles Universe, would it even be possible to create a genuinely sentient race using magic?

My own feeling is that it isn't, based on what I saw in the series. Oberon, one of the most powerful magic-users in the Gargoyles Universe, animates a number of statues in "The Gathering Part Two" to aid him against Goliath and his clan, but the statues remained made out of stone rather than becoming flesh and blood, and showed no sign of true sentience in battling the clan, no more so than - say - the Steel Clan. The same thing was the case with Raven's "totem beasts" in "Heritage", who, when animated by him, remained made out of wood and also behaved more like automatons than like truly alive and intelligent beings. And in "Golem", the Golem that was created by Rabbi Loew likewise didn't come across to me as truly sentient, but just a walking clay statue - it never even spoke except when Renard was possessing it. (The Golem did show some dim signs of genuine awareness, but not on the level of a gargoyle, certainly).

So, what I'm basically asking here is - aside from your belief that gargoyles were not created by magic - would it even be possible in the Gargoyles Universe to magically create a truly sentient being or race? Or is such a thing beyond the capabilities of any being other than God?

E.J. Kalafarski writes...

Just out of curiosity, did the Cauldron of Life transform Owen's arm in actual stone, or into the organic stone-like substance that Gargoyles become during the day?

Alan "Ordell" Coleman writes...

Does the Third Race see human science as a type of magic?

Todd Jensen writes...

A thought about the Magus's death in "Avalon Part Three". He drained himself in that episode tapping into Avalon's magic to battle the Weird Sisters. What occurred to me recently is that this was a case of a human wizard tapping into a source of faerie magic. So - was this one reason why the Magus died? The danger of mixing magics which Xanatos mentioned in "City of Stone"?

NZ Fan of Gargoyles writes...

Hi Mr Weisman.
First off, thanks for such a great show. I'm writing fan fiction at the moment, and am writing an Elisa and Goliath one. If I recall correctly you had something about them having children, or having to adopt one. I have a question about it, I hope you can answer for me.

1. If it were possible for them to have a child, either naturally, by magic or science. How long would Elisa be pregnant?

2. Anything else about the whole pregnancy thing you'd care to add.

Thanx for your time.