Diego writes...

Why don't you throw a brick through Eisner's window, then when he looks at the brick, he sees it's not a brick, but a small statue of Goliath. Then he'll have no choice but to bring back the show.

Vanity writes...

Punchinello and yourself discussed "sententiousness" in quite lenghty detail. If I remember right the main buckling of the topic of one's being sentient was ultimately his ability to communicate ideas. I don't seem to remember any talk about awareness of thought and decision.
If a Russian speaker was adopted into your household, and could not understand nor speak a single word of English, you cannot communicate with him on any level of aphroristic expression (if you infact cannot speak Russian). In fact the communication would very much be like that between man and an animal. When he wants a drink and says (whatever in Russian means 'I want to drink your water'); you will overtime perhaps reckognize what he wants through mere repitition. Never though be able to ask him if he liked the water, describe the compositional qualities that make up the glass, or how the purification system(s) in your water plant makes that water safe for you and your family to drink. You can say it he won't know it.
Yet he can still make the moral judgement on his own princibles that he understands in his own language as to if he will leave the toilet seat up or not. His sentience is still very much intact as is yours, but in communication most of what we consider humanesque intelligible relay of thought is lost.

He can learn but he may not learn English just as you can but may not learn Russian. Words are words, but diction, structural differences, and phonetic discrepencies between the two languages make changing your thinking process from thinking as an Englishmen(English speaking man not man born on England) to thinking as a Russian quite likely impossible. Even if you learn Russian as to be able to go to Moscow and fool everyone into thinking that you are indeed a native Russian. Your nueral networking will still under most serious probability process thought in English just, as it does; it will translate that process to Russian in a fashion quite like my thoughts now are magically appearing in this post box thingy by mere change of production from thought to text by fingur relay in the procession from mind to hand to finger to keyboard to computer to eventually cyber-wherever. I do not think like a keyboard or a computer yet I can communicate using one but only in the language I am prepared to use it with.

Gargoyles as well can type on keyboards and relay thought. Lexington with very little experience in terms of years and could only practice at night, was able to punch a keyboard judging by the "clicking" sound of the keyboard at nearly 129 words per minute, without looking and locate Coldstone in MacBeth's mansion. Quite impressive really. Yet his thoughts were in English. (note if you were in Madrid when you first seen Gargoyles and they spoke in Spanish and of course you did too you might argue they thought in Spanish and you would most likely be right mi amigo). But not as an English Man but and English Gargoyle again not as a nationality but as a tongue. Still Lex's moral judgements can be made too stand on thier own and can communicate with anything Man or Gargoyle or Oberon's Child that also speaks English, whether they think "English" or not.

Language is not merely a tool for communication it is a way of thinking Eskimos have something like seven words that really just mean "snow". Yet an Eskimo thinks like an Eskimo and can judge the minor differences in the type of snow they see and to them one kind of snow is not "a" snow but a "d" snow and ect..

Luckily for us I suppose that as humans we all relatively think alike even with our differing way of thinking. The means of production are different but the product is still the same. This allows for learning multiple languages each human no matter his language that language has the ability to "learn" or adapt to the use of another language and that is quite a remarkable thing. Almost too remarkable to be chance.

I don't have the full answer, just what I feel like that (and as arrogantly as I can feel it) that I know what perhaps I know or don't know and go with that by fusing it with things that I learn or that are revealed to me by you and others who post and participate. I very much enjoy this site and the people who participate it is so cool, this is the greates fandom in the world.

Vanity writes...

Hi Greg:

I was just watching "City of Stone". It is a beutiful piece of work. I am very fond of it.

I espicially like the one scene where that woman runs up to Travis Marshall to relate what had happened and he just totally blows her off as "crazy". That got me thinking we ALL do that (as humans) completely discount the minority view as absurd and stupid. Classic example "The Flat Earth Society", oh, we just love to make fun of them. I have decided to be more open minded to even the most seemingly crazy ideas or beliefs. I have watched "CoS" many times but that scene never really hit me like it did just today. Was that intentional on your part? To show the err in human ways. You've said all things are true and what she said was true, just because no one believed her doesn't make it no less right. It reminded me of a Greek Philosopher I think his name was Isocrates I am not sure and his quote went
"If all mankind, minus one; were of a common opinion except the one of a differing opinion. All of mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one, than he, if he had the power; would be justified in silencing all of mankind..."

More things I loved about this episode.
King Duncan's death, in my mind one of the top 10 animated deaths ever.
Demona, saves Gruoch and Macbeth when she could have had her vengence, she chose the nobler of the two courses, made me feel all happy inside. I must admit though killing Gilcoumgain then would have saved her a lot of trouble and heart break later on.
Her plan was very sinister, and her killing of the statued humans was a very dark contrast to her more kind-hearted younger self we had just seen earlier in eps like "Vows". I also liked this too, she's not soft and weak as she is commited to her cause and for that I commend her. I agree with her goals, her means are brutal and me being human will make me possibly feel the urge to resist being smited, but I hope she sees her dream out and accomplishes it, power to her.
One thing very much dissapointed me, relating to Demona when she gave the access code to Goliath and Xanatos the code was "ALONE", not one you'd imagine she'd pick, totally took me by suprise when I first saw it; but Goliath was apparently unaffected by her choice of a password and the huge water works under her eyes. Does he have a heart of stone? She's not even real (I think), and I feel a lump in my throat, every time I see that; yet he knows she's real and didn't even care, creep.

MacBeth, what can I say I think he is great. I think his story is one of the more tragic on the show. Considering all that happens, he always loved and still loves Gruoch. The one time that we see him actually take interest in life and love again he is set up by Dominique and Thailog. His plight is very dramatic. Living but having to as Gruoch said "Remain dead", dead to his country, his home, and his family.

Gruoch: Even though she gets very little air time on the series I think she is great. My second favorite female character. She is strong, smart, wise, intuitive, loving, radiant, and very honest in commiting to her duty. I espicially like how she stood up to Demona at the end, what courage. She even scorned the Hunter as "Oh mighty" with her sarcasm, 'your not mighty your a coward'. I cannot see how you could not love her.

"COS" has its share of humorous wit to it as well. I absoulutely love this:
Elisa: "..the signal came from Pak-Media studios you own it so as usual this is your fault!"
Owen: "Mr. Xanatos is trying to fix things. What are you doing to help?"
I love Elisa's expression, that's good stuff.

-Since I do not want to go into great lenghty deatail about every detail of the show..-

King Duncan- Very paranoid.
Hudson+Trio- not much to say
Boudie(SP)- Probably has his heart in the right place but man what a --well cowardly guy--
Demona's Betrayl of MacBeth- this shocked me, leave him to die at the castle but she actually contacted Kenmore?
Wierd Sisters- I HATE them. I think they are corrupt, vile, and wicked, they should burn in a fiery lake in the seventh circle of Hell somewhere. For a very, very long time. (I make this judgement with my Knowledge of the "Avalon" eps)
Vengence begats nothing more than a vicious cycle of further vengence- true perhaps, but highly over exaggerated.
The betrayl of the Cast Wyvern- I want to know who slept at Demona's roost. When the Vikings sacked it.
Bronx and Demona's encounter- I loved it. Good job.
Demona and Macbeth- It's amazing how it goes, I like when Demona came back from the fight all happy and swirled Macbeth high off the ground. Her joyous attitude was refreshing, yet all to short in length.

That's all for this post. Thanks for listening.

Vanity~

Andrea "Elisa Maza" Ivanovs writes...

Hey Greg!

I hope you had a wonderful christmas time and a roarin' new year! :)

All the best,

Andrea

Jacob writes...

Hello all, hello Greg,

I've been absent for a while (did anyone miss me??), but now there are a few things I want to say.
First of all I never said thank you for such a great animated series - still the best I've ever seen. It can be seen that you wanted to make it very good and not just tried to create something for a quick success. Nearly no one-dimensional characters, complex stories that can't be every time easily understood, a continuing plot and not every episode the same story with the some characters and the same end, all this makes Gargoyles to one of the best series ever. What I liked very much either are the (not too) dark atmosphere, some fantasy elements and the elements of old mythologies.
Unfortunately I haven't seen any episode for a few years (any German out there who knows when the last one was aired?). Because of this I appreciate your work with answering all of our questions. I don't know if I had the motivation for this.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that some day new episodes will be aired. But what about the real life movie? Do you know anything new?

Punchinello writes...

<<You idiot! Did you not read the no ideas clause on the main askgreg page or are you just pretending to be stupid!>>

I found this to be a remarkable statement.

Hello Mr. Weisman.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine recently about new kinds of conventions in contemporary fiction, (it was less a conversation than a herculean effort on his part to _educate me_ about some of these things which I should know more about) and the topic of literary devices imported from things that are generally considered banal or somehow inferior to literature came up. The Sunday funnies, technical manuals, etc. He brought up something that I thought you would find interesting. I wanted to find out if you had any reaction to this, as I gather that you consider introducing young people to literature very important and this is something which is (possibly) maligning the way in which they perceive it.

My friend explained the phenomenon of these "adventure card games" to me. I guess the pokemon fall into this category. (Horrifying little things) There are also all manner of these dungeons and dragons type games. Apparently a convention has developed among people who play the games of generating fiction using the cards. For instance, each player would represent a character internal to a story and the cards they play with would dictate the structure of a work of fiction they were creating and "acting out" at the same time. The interesting thing about this is that characters within this convention are frequently developed by means of a pre defined list of "character attributes." Once again, for instance, you would have a condition like

10 personality types. Pick one.
10 types of conventional behavior. Pick one.
10 types of hats. Pick one.

The idea seems to be that character development emerges from the intersection of these variables. Even though I'm certain that this kind of convention could be exploited towards an interesting end in literature, I found this sort of "amateur authors" version of writing very limiting, and the whole method of lists of typical character attributes seems to be an arbitrary convention that was being maintained for the sake of game playing. It's all very silly.

The reason I mention all of this is because my friend told me that he has observed a trend among many amateur authors and many young aspiring authors to use this same kind of convention when writing. He sees characters being treated as though the author were at a buffet, and the author were allowed one "feature" for each little spot on his tray. He sees this a lot. He teaches a creative writing class at the moment and has noticed this sentiment that people are coming into the class with, that if they string together a lot of trivia about a fictional person, a real character will emerge as if by magic. He sees them conduct this exercise a lot where they define a character with...

John lives in Wisconsin.
John works in the Madison public Library.
John likes his job okay.

He mentioned he sees this limiting perspective carry over into their observations of other peoples writing. This way of thinking seems to prevent them from really experiencing a character. It seems they can only define the character for themselves from within the context of this kind of trivia.

He asked me if I had seen this obsession over trivia instead of character anywhere else. I immediately realized that I had! It usually takes the form of...

Where did fox get her tattoo?
Who were Mab's parents?
Who were Oberon's parents?
Who were Titania's parents?
Who were anansi's parents?
Will Brooklyn have children?
How many children?
Will his children have names?
Will those names begin with a consonant or a vowel?

This is why some people so appreciate your continued participation with this board. I'm really just writing this because I would like to read any general reaction you have to it. However, I think I would not be alone in wanting to hear you comment on the kind of questions outlined above (of which you field many). I think I kind of resent the implication in some of these questions that, as the author, you should know the names and mailing addresses of all of Elisa's cousin's three times removed, along with their favorite foods and weight at birth. Is there something you think is essentially being missed with questions like these? Maybe if you were to share with your fans, the kind of dialogue you think is worthwhile and exciting, you would see the trivia questions replaced with more real dialogue about "Gargoyles."

J writes...

Hey,

You ever get tired of answering all these questions? Like this one, "How come blah blah blah and blah dont blah blah blah, and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." After reading a page or two of questions they all started to fade together into one simple demand. "TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU WILL KNOW, HAVE KNOWN AND PRESENTLY KNOW ABOUT GARGOYLES!!!" You've either got the patience of a saint or.... well I dont know what.

Thankyou for helping to create such a fantastic and fulfilling story/world. You can tell if something is great fantasy if it makes the everyday world seem all the more pale and ordinary.

And now on to the questions.......

Galvatron writes...

Aris- Yes I know western centric doesn't fit I was looking for something like ethnocentric.

"Anyway, the Greeks, Norse, whatever had their deities be finite creatures which began their lives within the universe. There's a difference between that and a supposedly infinite God which *created* the universe. I can imagine the monotheists being upset if they discovered their god was a fay - if The Infinite proved finite, only one of many. But the Norse and the ancient Greeks already believed that there existed many gods. Why be too upset at discovering a couple more they hadn't heard about?"

Thats not my point, my point is that making the God of the gargoyles universe the God of Jews/Christians/Muslims makes it seem that they're superior to all these other cultures since they worship the true god while the other cultures worhip energy beings.

Aris Katsaris writes...

Galvatron> I think you are confusing Greg's words and intent... His take is after all something like "Everything is true for a given value of 'true'"...

He never said that Muslims, Jews and Christians are *correct* in everything they believed. That might indeed be offensive - but it would also be impossible to pull off, since after all, they believe in some contradictory things as well.

From what I understand, Greg said that these guys worship what they perceive as Infinite and as Creator. That's factually correct in our real world. And then he went on to say that such an Infinite and a Creator exists. Some of the more specific beliefs may well be wrong.

Pagans believed in Zeus or Odin or Osiris or many others gods. And Greg says that, yes, Zeus and Odin and Osiris also exist. But some of the more specific beliefs about them may also be wrong.

So your claim seems to me to be nothing more than "Odin isn't portrayed as Infinite!". To which my response is: "He was never supposed to be, not even by the Norse themselves."

Now if Greg went on to portray the afterlife exactly as Christianity portrays it, *that* might be a bit exclusive... But it seems to me that he's going for a diversity of afterlives, a bit similar to what Terry Pratchett did...

(Weirdly enough however I *was* annoyed by the intrusion of monotheism and dualism in shows like Hercules & Xena which previously featured polytheistic pantheons. But that was more because it seemed to me to subvert the very theme of the heroism of "Man vs gods" and turn it into "The Real God[tm] vs the many false gods"... Greg portrays a universe where all these beliefs can pretty much coexist. The producers of Xena, on the other hand decided to portray a universe where they must fight to the death - the introduction of The One God immediately made the lesser gods something evil which needed to be destroyed. Bleh! )

Sorry for the rant, Greg! :-)

Aris Katsaris writes...

Possibly starting a debate...

Galvatron> Umm... "western"-centric because Greg made western deities such as those of the Greeks or the Norse be children of Oberon? Do you think that Athens is somehow located to the *east* of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Mecca?

I assure you, it's not. :-)

Anyway, the Greeks, Norse, whatever had their deities be finite creatures which began their lives within the universe. There's a difference between that and a supposedly infinite God which *created* the universe. I can imagine the monotheists being upset if they discovered their god was a fay - if The Infinite proved finite, only one of many. But the Norse and the ancient Greeks already believed that there existed many gods. Why be too upset at discovering a couple more they hadn't heard about?

Galvatron writes...

Don't you feel it's alittle bit western centric making the god of the Greeks, Norse and all the other "pagan cultures" Children of Oberon who are no better than the non-corporeal beings of scifi while the God of Judaism, Islam, Christianity is actually the creator of the universe? I mean it's like saying that they're stupid for getting suckered in by the Children while we're smart for actually worshipping the true God.

The Cat writes...

This is The Cat,

Thank you for answering my questions. You answered the more important ones today or yesterday. Anyothers I have are a bit depressing and don't really need to be answered, so if you don't want to answer them that is okay.

Anonymous writes...

I'd just like to thank you for creating such an dramatic and educational show which got me interested in Shakespeare and all those legends that appeared in the Avalon World Tour including Cuchullain, Raven and the Kichinas. Finally I'd like to thank you for answering my hundred or so question which I imagine was a very tedious task.

Lynati writes...

Oh. and while I'm here...

Do you think when Aaron finally tracks down Marina Sirtis and asks her to sign the Demona tatoo on his chest that she'll do it gracefully, or will she have someone distract him and then run away really fast?

Aaron writes...

Greg writes: "There's the amazing NEW GUY. He's terrifying."

Does NEW GUY come from the planet Mertz? If so, that really would be terrifying.

Aaron writes...

Artemis writes: "They can't flip people off either!"

Sure they can! Not having a ring or pinkie talon (consensus differs as to which gargs don't have) doesn't mean you don't have a middle talon, and thus, still have the ability to flip people the bird. (Yes Greg, we have sat around and debated this)

Aaron writes...

Shavri wrote: "...Anyway, I'm just glad the whole thing was a dream_sequence scheme created by Puck and not something that would actually happen in "your" Gargoyle Universe."

By contrast, I *loved* the idea of a Brooklyn/Demona romance. It's one of the many reasons Future Tense is my favorite episode. But then, I've seen too much anime and believe the bickering couple will always end up together by the end of the series. ;) (It's also one of the funniest touches of FT, IMHO, that only in a world where everything else has gone to Hell can Brooklyn have a happy relationship)

http://www.avalonhigh.com

Aaron writes...

Greg writes:

"If Disney 'goes under' (a fairly ridiculous notion) than the property becomes one of their assets."

I dunno, Disney was $19 BILLION in the hole, last time I looked. Buying Fox Family alone set them back a little over five billion, which is I'm sure a great deal more then Fox paid (Was it Pat Robertson who used to own it, back when it was just TFC?) for it. Attendance at the parks, at least stateside, is at an all time low, and that was before the horrible events of September 11th which, aside from the devastating loss of life, depressed an American economy already sliding toward recession. (And certainly didn't make anybody feel like running out and going to Disneyland) All the Disney Stores in the US are closing as soon as their leases are up. Of course you're right, the idea that they'd sell off anything is still absurd. They'll just make cut-backs, (Like canceling Team Atlantis) and lay people off until the ship rights itself again. More's the pity.

If it's any consolation, in contrast to Entity's view, I think you've gotten sillier since G2K1. "On second thought, let's not go to Ask Greg, 'tis a silly place." ;)

http://www.exploitationnow.com

Aaron writes...

Re: The Weird Sisters.

"Their tri_part mission."

Luna's log, Stardate: Um... It's hard to tell from Avalon.

These are the adventures of the Weird Sisters, our tri-part mission, to seek out new life, and play mind games with it... To find new ways to plague Demona... To boldly never give a straight answer to anything!

I have entirely too much free time.

And, so this'll have a question in it, is Puck's magic flute connected to the opera "The Magic Flute"?

http://www.pvponline.com

Aaron writes...

Greg writes: "(That smart_ass response was a reference to an old tootsie_pop commercial. Anyone old enough to remember it has my sympathy.)"

Actually, I'm pretty sure the tootsie-pop people have reused that one sometime in the last five years. I think I even saw that commercial while watching gargs.

http://www.megatokyo.com

Aaron writes...

Greg writes: "In 1040, after the bargain, she (Demona) was 35 (Macbeth's chronological age). She still looks great though, doesn't she?"

I think that's worth a Hell Yeah!

http://www.sinfest.net

Corrie "Cormak" McDermott writes...

Hi Greg,

I noticed that you type up notes about scripts of different episodes occasionally. ie. "The Mirror", "Eye of the Beholder" etc. Are you typing these up in any particular order? Or are they just being typed up randomly? I haven't seen notes/big ramblings on Hunter's Moon. (hint hint) Although I must admit I LOVED that scene that was never animated in the third episode between Jason and Elisa in the clocktower ruins. That was a nice touch.

I also just wanted to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to answer our questions. I've been a fan of Gargoyles since the show aired. When I found this website I was in my glory with all the new information that was archived here. (Many thanks to Gorebash for this website as well!) So I just wanted to thank you for sharing what you have. You've made an E/G Fan VERY happy and inspired. Take care

Todd Jensen writes...

This covers much the same ground as one of my posts in the Comment Room on the night of October 25, but I thought that I'd post it here as well, to give you all the better an opportunity of reading it.

I was quite intrigued with your remark that you'd decided long ago that Jean Valjean existed in the Gargoyles Universe. The reason for that was that, up until now, whenever "Gargoyles" made use of "pre-existing" fictional characters, it was almost always people from literature, at latest, in the early modern period (as in Shakespeare's characters). The Gargoyles Universe is certainly rich in characters from myth and legend, and early literature such as Shakespeare's plays. But so far as I could tell, nobody in literature post-dating Shakespeare's time period found their way directly into the Gargoyles Universe. Some may be alluded to (such as Sherlock Holmes in "The Hound of Ulster"), or have "Gargoyles Universe" analogies (such as the Frankenstein monster with Coldstone), but none had yet shown sides of being actual characters who were real instead of fictional in that universe. (Well, maybe Dracula, whom you had mentioned intending to include in time, but since Bram Stoker based him on the historical Vlad the Impaler, he's not entirely a product of the 19th century).

So it definitely raised my eyebrows when you mentioned that decision on your part about Jean Valjean. I don't know if you'd actually reached the point of planning to have him appear somewhere in the series (a lot of it, I imagine, would depend on whether "Les Miserables" is in the public domain or not as yet), but it certainly surprised me.

Todd Jensen writes...

Something that I've occasionally wondered about the general "bring-back-Gargoyles" attitude that is so strong in the fandom. I've pondered, from time to time, the possibility that the general disappointment that nearly everybody in the fandom felt over the "Goliath Chronicles" may have been a major factor here, that one of the leading reasons why so many "Gargoyles" fans want the show to return is that they were disappointed with the episodes that followed "The Journey", and wanted to see the events following the gargoyles' revelation to the world and the formation of the Quarrymen done "correctly". Do you think indeed that this could be a major reason for this attitude?

Artemis writes...

(sorry, no questions this time, but)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU (and all those other people) for all the Scottish history in the show. Because of it, I am totally facinated with the topic. It's even better that I know cuz I am from scottish decent (as well as a little english and irish), and my other side came from france (sounds like someone in the show, ne?)
Also, it has inspired me to read Macbeth, and I used to hate Shakespeare!
So thanx again to you and all the little peoples!
And while I'm on the topic of scottish history, can you PLEASE finish "Once Upon a Time there were Three Brothers"? I'd make me very happy!