Adam writes...

Hi Greg

Once again thanks for the opportunity to chew the fat.

One thing that always bothered me was how easliy the surviving clan memebers pick up their lives after the sudden murder of almost everyone they cared for. When they wake up in Manhattan for the first time, by their reckoninging, the massacre occurred the day before and would be fresh in their minds. I couldn't even imagine getting out of bed or even wanting to go on if I lost my family. Yet the trio are resilient enough to go exploring. I know they are in a brave new world and all but would they be so thrill seeking after so recently being rocked with grief. I hope I don't sound overly critical here, I don't mean to be. It just appears that the emotional impact of the massacre on the clan isn't as pervasive through the series as I'd expect. I just keep coming back to the notion that grief over a loss of that magnitude would be almost paralyzing. Would they even want to be alive?. Obviously, for the show, yes but ..... uhhh .

And then there is Tempatation. I know Brooklyn is grateful to Demona for saving him from the bikers, but you have to think that in the back of his mind he's thinking, "My family and friends were killed because of what you did !" I'm surprised he didn't go for her throat. How angry are we at the drunk driver who unintnentional kills. I certainly wouldn't want to be in the same room with that individual let alone take a tour of the city them.

If the clan is capable of getting on with their lives so quicky and still not give into to hating Demona then they are certainly better than I am.

Todd Jensen writes...

My little "return-ramble" to your "Awakening Part Five" ramble.

One part of this that I especially like is Xanatos's response when Goliath's holding him over the edge of the castle, correctly pointing out that "without me, you'd still be gathering moss". It's refreshing to see a major villain in an animated series who doesn't start whining for mercy in such a situation but maintains his sang-froid. That's one reason I find myself having that sneaking fondness for Xanatos: he defies so many of the cartoon master-villain cliches. (Other examples of that are his complete lack of interest in getting revenge and his having the highly efficient and capable Owen for his chief assistant in contrast to the conventional "bungling sidekicks" that most cartoon villains seem to be saddled with).

Your remarks on the little ironies in Goliath and Demona's conversation surprised me: I hadn't even considered the fact that Goliath's remark that the people responsible for the Wyvern massacre was deliberately intended by the writers to be wrong because of Demona's part in it, but it makes sense to me at once. I've got to admit, I think that Goliath must have afterwards had a very hard time believing that he'd actually argued that Xanatos was proof that there are good humans out there :)

One certainly can't help but feel a little sorry (or maybe even more than a little sorry) for Goliath; first he thinks that his "Angel in the Night" is lost to him forever. Then he gets reunited with her, only to discover that she's become lost to him in a much darker sense, turned into a vengeance-driven would-be genocidist. At least he has the rest of the clan and Elisa; that must be some consolation there.

I must confess that I never made the connection between Goliath's "Giants?" line at the end and Oberon's gigantic form. (There do seem to be giants apart from that in the Gargoyles Universe, since I remember spotting a couple in Oberon's throne room in "The Gathering Part One"). I did see that line, though, as another good little example of how Goliath is still seeing the modern world through his 10th century eyes. (One of my favorites, which I forgot in my earlier "Awakening" responses, was that bit where Xanatos has to describe the "stolen" disks in terms of "magical talismans filled with hundreds of spells". I thought that the production team did an excellent job of showing the gargoyles' response to the modern world).

Bud-Clare writes...

"Anyway, to indicate three she holds up her index finger, her middle finger and ... her thumb."
It's part of the secret Illuminati handshake. They had a member working at Disney Japan. (Didn't Roy work on Elisa? No one trust him...)

Personally, I liked the part where Demona announced her name... although I had already seen The Mirror by then, so I'm not sure if the fact that I already knew her name and what she was like affected my impressions of that scene in some way.

Um... I have no idea which topic Gore will archive these under, so I don't know if they should have be submitted separately or not. He needs to add a "Random Comments From Fans" topic to the archive, so I won't have to be confused about it anymore.

Ambrosia writes...

Hi Greg!! I was just reading your interview with Lexy. You said that you hoped Gargoyles would inspire people to learn more about sujects you touched on... and I realized that it has done exactly that for me. In fact, I don't know if I realized the magnitude of an impact Gargoyles has had in my life until I thought about that...
In The Mirror when the clan is trying to explain to Elisa who Oberon's Children are (I thought everybody knew this??), Brooklyn says, "Yeah, that guy Shakespeare wrote a play about them: A Midsummer Night's Dream." The next day after I saw that episode, I had the play in my possession and began poring over it. This began a love/obsession for Shakespeare- particularly that play.
Also, I read your ramblings about Theseus and decided I needed to learn more about him. Mary Renault's The King Must Die stuck out in my memory one day between classes and I found it in the library. I'll post again when I'm finished with it.
In ancient history 103, I could be tired and completely tune out my professor, but I'd hear the word "Scotland" and snap back awake and pay perfect attention.
I never really thought about these things as they were happening, but looking back I can see that so many things I've learned or done came from gargoyles: I'm teaching myself to draw, I want to visit New York... stuff like that. I wanted to say... thanks!