Todd Jensen writes...

I was just looking over the two recently reprinted memos on all the variant names for the gargoyles. The part that really astonishes me the most about it is how many names were being suggested for the cast aside from the ones that they eventually wound up with. It seems so obvious to me now (although, of course, this is from the perspective of hindsight) that "Goliath" is the appropriate name for the "Gargoyle-Master" that I honestly can't imagine him being called anything else at all. (Ditto with the rest of the cast).

(Of course, I've come across this phenomenon in other "behind-the-scenes" cases; Tolkien, for example, originally considered naming the protagonist of "The Lord of the Rings" Bingo, but fortunately later on realized how inappropriately silly it would be and changed the character's name to Frodo).

Elisa Ann Goliath writes...

Hi! It's me again! Just wanted to ramble a little bit about E&G's relationship. (And a comment or two would be nice:)
Lately I've been thinking a lot about marital relationships. (You know, what makes a good one. My parents recently had their 41st anniversary, I guess that's why I'm thinking about it.) Now, I'm only 16, and I don't presume to know everything about marriage, but I think I can safely say I have a more realistic view of marriage than most of my peers.
In the series, as a HUGE fan of the E&G relationship, of course my main concern is for E&G to get "married", but really if you think about it, they already have a relationship that is.... I don't know, kind of marriage-like. In the Bible, men are commanded by God to love their wives as Christ loved the church (be willing to die for) and women are to submit to their husbands (like it are not, feminist ladies, it works best this way). With Elisa and Goliath, Goliath loves Elisa with all the tenderness of his heart, is willing to die for her, and he values her and her opinions, and is therefore always asking for her input and for her help. Also, since he loves her, he is not demanding or arbitrary, making it easy for her to submit. She, of course, loves him as much if not more than he loves her, is willing to die for him, and is usually ready to submit when he makes a final decision on something, whether or not it is what she suggested. As a proud, independent woman this cannot always be easy, but she makes the sacrifice because she loves him and because she knows that he is only doing what he thinks is best.
Well, I've just been wanting to get that down on record.
Thanks! TTFN!

Aris Katsaris writes...

More on fate and time-travel... :-)

I don't know if The Mighty Thor is Christian or not but if he is, then the following example from the bible may help explain the way that *I* view the whole fate/choice thing... Jesus several times reveals knowledge of the future. He says that St.Peter's going to deny him three times before dawn, that Judas is going to betray him, that the people are going to crucify him.

At the same time each of these choices belong to the people who made them: Free will is an important part of most Christian denominations. Peter *chose* to deny him, Judas *chose* to betray him, and the people *chose* to crucify him. Sure, God knew as he's supposed to know everything. But that He knew which choices they were going to make, doesn't mean that it wasn't *their* choices.

Personally, I don't believe in Christianity, nor do I believe that time-travel (either working-paradox or non-working paradox) will ever become possible... But I generally find it strange if one can accept the former's and isn't able to conceive the latter's strange blend of free-will and foreknowledge...

Entity writes...

Vows -

Melissa wrote about how she thought Elisa overreacted to Xanatos' invitation to Goliath and came off too jealous in her attempts to dissuade Goliath from attending the wedding. I'd just like to say that I was satisfied by Elisa's reaction. I mean, look at the setup: The main villain invites the main hero to his wedding. If this were any other show, it would be pure corn. Elisa was the voice of reason, the voice that reassured me that this episode was not going to degenerate into an episode of G.I. Joe or Ninja Turtles. So, thank you for giving Elisa's role in the episode its due, considering how densely-packed it was. It made the difference between sophistication and corn for me.

Todd Jensen writes...

One thought of my own about the "fate/free will" argument. Somebody cited Demona in "Vows" as an example of this, arguing that because her future self who visits her in 975 is evil, Demona's doomed to become evil herself regardless of what she does.

Actually, my own thoughts on this was that the seeds of Demona's future character are already present even before Demona-1995 meets her. After all, she's already working for the Archmage, and stealing for him, suggesting that she'd started down that path already.

Aris Katsaris writes...

Time travel yet again!

Vashkoda> Ah, I think I get better now what you are talking about... I think I had a couple similar ideas when (pre-Gargoyles) I was trying to explain to myself the "working-paradox" of the Star Trek episode Time's Arrow. It's the episode where Data's head is discovered (among other things) in an archaeological dig, which leads Enterprise back in time to discover what happened, which causes Data to lose his head, etc, etc. I had then thought that perhaps once upon a meta-time (or "cycle" of time) , the Enterprise went for a different reasons in the past, there Data lost his head, etc. That's similar to your "missing origin" scenario, I think, right?

But the thing is that the butterfly effect still tears this down. In a sense there can be *no* small adjustments in the timestream, because there's no scientific distinction between "small" or "great" - the tiniest change in the combination of my parent's genes (a literally microscopical change) creates a individual which looks more like my brother, rather than like me. I really feel that a universe which has Xanatos in poor clothing go back in 975 couldn't possibly create a Napoleon (or Xanatos himself) the same way that a universe with Xanatos going back with rich clothing would... *Any* change means *huge* change...

(The Earth without Data's head buried in it couldn't have realistically spawned the same Picard/Riker/Data/Enterprise as the Earth *with* Data's head... Therefore the former idea of a "missing origin" must be disproven...)

Tim writes...

Vows-Loved this episode, it had Demona, Xanatos, characterization galore, intricate plot, everything that makes Gargoyles above and beyond other animated series. Favorite lines was Xanatos's "But you won't. Because you didn't. Time travel's funny that way." That is SO Xanatos! And Young Demona and Goliath's conversation gives me a lump in my throat, just because it is so tragic what ultimately happens. As to what was going on in her head when she flew down to the beach before the Massacre, I would say Panic. Full-fledged Panic. Heh, that's another beautiful scene. And the last scene in Vows when Goliath and Demona float off into the distance with those heart-strumming music chords playing is just wonderful and sad at the same time. A nail in the coffin, as you said.

Phil writes...

Continuing the recent discussion on the immutability of time and Mighty Thor's question about fate/predestination vs free will.

As an amateur writer I can relate to being the creator of a universe. When your characters are well developed, they do seem to have minds of their own. There are things they'll do and things they won't do. As "god," you can force them to do what you want, but then they're not the same person. You have to manipulate events so that choices they make are logical and in-character.

As I'm sure you've said, Greg, time is only immutable if you know about it. You can't change things that have happened, you can only work around them. And you can only fulfill things you didn't know about before.

The way I see it, our challenge as writers/creators is to arrange time/fate so that "independent" characters are "free" to make the choices we want them to make. It's often very difficult, but the result is so fulfilling when everything seems to work out naturally.

Thanks for reading my ramble, Greg. This is just my point of view. I'm interested to learn if and how yours differs.

SEM writes...

This is just a little follow-up to Faieq's question about Katherine and Tom not having children. Faieq assumed a fertility issue which Greg admitted not knowing for sure of either did or not.

There are methods of birth control that date back to the ancient Egyptians that involve acorns (given the variance of fan age involvement on the boards I won't go into much detail unless asked). Anyway, assuming acorns were accessible to Katherine that kind option would have been there.

But as Greg pointed out, Katherine and Tom probably wouldn't lean toward using any methods. And he's the expert.

Just got Toon Disney last night and am so thrilled to finally be able to catch up on ALL the GARGOYLES episodes I've missed!
Just putting the information out there for consideration.

Knoxville writes...

Hi Mr. Weisman,
This is only my second time posting here but I was wondering (you will probalby think I'm nutso or something)if you have ever found yourself saying that it would be wonderful to be a actual gargoyle like Goliath and the clan. I know I have, alot recently actually.
Thanks,
Knoxville

Jon writes...

Greg,

Like a lot of people, I'm sure, I haven't posted much to this forum, but have followed it avidly for as long as it's been running. I first wanted to thank Gorebash, Todd, and, most of all, yourself, for taking the time to keep this Ask Greg site up and going. It is just awesome that the fans that have received so much pleasure from Gargoyles (including myself) can communicate and share ideas with the creator of the show. It's particularly refreshing to see how much thought, effort, and soul (for lack of a better word) you have commited to Gargoyles; it's obviously not simply a product that you created for your job, you really believe in it and love it, which somehow affirms our own strong feelings for the show.

I started watching Gargoyles about mid-way through its first run. I was a graduate student (I guess you were WAY off your target demographic with me! :) ) at the time, and was hooked from the first time I saw it. I believe Long Way to Morning was the first episode I watched, and I taped every episode from then on until I had them all and could re-watch (and re-watch…) them in order. I loved the show for all the reasons that others have mentioned here; the complex characters, the mix of history, legend, and "realism", the continuity, the intelligent dialogue, and the magic that the story wove from episode to episode. But there was an aspect to Gargoyles that appealed to me on a much more personal level. I guess the best way to describe it is that the main characters in the show (specifically, the Manhattan clan and Elisa) exhibited a code of honor/respect/intelligence that I really appreciated, and often find to be lacking in today's world. The interactions of the Gargoyles sort of provided a model, or a reminder of a way of life that is often lost in the cynicism of the modern world. The meaning of Home. The importance of Accountability. The responsibility of Power. Trust. Friendship. Kindness. Loyalty. Humility. And perhaps most of all, Courage.

Somewhere along the lines, the Gargoyles became role models for me, in a strange sort of way. They embodied heroic characteristics, many of which I have listed above, that I guess I continue to try to live up to. As ridiculous as it might sound, I think Gargoyles has helped make me a better person.

Anyway, in closing, it seems like the world is short of great stories, and short on role models, but there are more of both since the airing of Gargoyles. Thank you, Greg.

Vashkoda writes...

Hey Aris. Well, the argument about missing loop origins is moot since Greg says there are none. Now I'm more interested in -why- these loops even exist. But I guess I'll explain more what I was thinking when I brought up the "missing origins".

What I reasoned was that for a certain period of time (lets say the first few hundred cycles of time), time was new and malleable and could be "experimented" with. So if Xanatos got his hands on the Gate in the 1990's and then decided he wanted to go to the 900's, he -could-, and yes, it -would- mess with the timestream, but that obviously would have been his intent if he wanted to send himself the coin so that he could be rich. And yes, that would mean that the Xanatos he once was would never have existed because his actions would change his own history (hence the "non-working paradox"). But lets imagine that this situation happened to hundreds of individuals who tried to alter the timestream, and lets say that for the most part, they cancelled themselves out so that they never happened. But for a -few- individuals, maybe their altered history does -not- prevent their getting the Gate and going back in time as they had originally done (even in real life, some people do get their cake and eat it too). Except of course now, the Xanatos who travels back in time is not the same as the Xanatos who originally went back (this one's richer, for example). So small adjustments are made in the timestream, but nothing as drastic as when Xanatos first appeared in the 900's (now the Prince might notice that Xanatos is dressed nicer than before, but at least Xanatos's appearance itself doesn't trigger anything new). So as time as a whole repeats itself, adjustments are made and wrinkles are ironed out until finally everything -works- and makes sense. Sure, it might take hundreds of cycles, but at some point every predicted event will be accounted for and the timestream, at last, becomes "immutable".

And as for the butterfly-effect, who's to say that there originally was a Macbeth, Napoleon, or Kennedy? Maybe they're all the result of Xanatos or some other traveler going back in time? The way I see it, the present as it is now could just be the final result of all the alterations made in time. So it's not a coincidence at all that Goliath still exists when Xanatos comes back from his trip (for all we know, Goliath still exists only -because- of X's trip).

Aris Katsaris writes...

Vashkoda, you said: <<I had hoped that there indeed was a "missing origin" to the time loops, as the presence of such loops would have made a lot more sense to me. >>

This discussion interests me, so I hope nobody minds if I take part in it:

I've read and seen a *lot* of time-travel stories, and I have to say that the "missing origin" concept of time-loops, the idea that there can be time-travel which *does* change history, seems much more filled with plot-holes than the kind of time-travel we saw in Gargoyles.

For example consider your own scenario: That there was once a 975 which *didn't* contain Xanatos as time-traveller. Let's assume that history otherwise goes on as normal and creates a Xanatos which for some reason wants to go back to 975 and change history. Let's assume that he can.

The problem is that if he goes back to 975 he will change history *entirely*. By simply being there for a single second, he will displace certain molecules of air, which (the butterfly-effect) will displace more molecules. After ten years a couple storms will occur which wouldn't have occured, other storms which occur won't. More importantly among the millions of possible gene-combinations for every single child, surely a different one will be made at every conception. *No* individual conceived after Xanatos' arrival in the past will be the same as before his time-travel. By going to the past, Xanatos won't have just erased his own birth from history, he will have erased the births of Macbeth, Napoleon, Lincoln, Kennedy, etc...

The only way to have Xanatos go back to the past, *and* be able to return to an even remotely recognizable world, would be if all the trillions of changes that will take due to his being there are already part of his world's history - aka if there's no "first loop" aka if history is unchangeable... But having someone *both* to be able to change history *and* at the same time change it in such a limited way as to influence only a limited amount of events, is wanting to have your cake and eat it also... Atleast the "unchangeable history" is just illogical for our sequential minds - one could even go metaphysical and say that it's God who put the loops there... The "changeable history" version may be logical, but it's also impossible... :-)

Vashkoda writes...

I had hoped that there indeed was a "missing origin" to the time loops, as the presence of such loops would have made a lot more sense to me. My problem is not with grasping the concept of pardoxes, but with understanding the reasoning behind them. When I thought that there had been an actual origin to the loops, the loops made sense because they were initiated by individuals who had access to the Gate and the desire to alter time. But by telling me that these loops have always existed, I begin to wonder why they exist in the first place. Were they made intentionally, meant to serve a particular purpose, or is the timestream just "flawed" (well, maybe flawed isn't the best word, but the presence of random paradoxes certainly make me question the efficiency of who/whatever created the timestream). If the loops are intentional, it begs the question of who arranged for them to happen, and why. Because of its nature, one can't help but think of a time loop as a means to rectify a mistake or improve one's situation (saving yourself from a fatal fall, making yourself rich, etc). But if you're saying that the characters themselves aren't responsible and that loops were always present in the timestream, then one has to look at it from the timesteam's point of view, and what it has to gain from them. Some characters have greatly benefited from the loops (Griff and Xanatos, for example), so does that mean that the timestream is somehow biased to favor certain individuals? (but you'd still have to wonder why the stream went to the trouble of creating a *paradox* to make Xanatos rich or save Griff's life). Or was the timeline "drafted" with errors, which were then fixed via paradoxes when the timestream was finally created? For example, although Xanatos is a New Yorker from the 20th-21st century, the timestream may have goofed and placed him briefly at a Scottish castle in the late 900's. Then, to explain his presence, the stream sent in the Phoenix Gate and placed him in a situation where he would have access to it (this use for the Gate does in fact fit with your description of it as a kind of "pressure valve" for the Timestream--here, acting to fulfill events that were fated but can't otherwise happen within the normal constraints of time and space).

So is the presence of these time-loops intentional (and if so, who is responsible and why?), or is the timestream just "flawed" (for lack of a better word)?

Donald writes...

You know, of all the types of Time Travel stories there are, the "working paradox", as you put it, is my favorite. However, it does seem that many people, like Vashkoda, have fundamental difficulties grasping the one defining aspect of the concept.

Time is not linear. All of time exists as one unit...there is no beginning and no end. Think of it as a multi-faceted jewel, of which we can only see one facet at a time. The whole jewel is already there, but it is a limit of our perception that makes us think time is linear.

I suppose your love of the working paradox is why you like the first Terminator but not the sequel. I feel the same way. It is probably one of the more famous of the working paradox stories. Another good example is The Philadelphia Experiment, which was more purely focused on the concept.

In case you're wondering, the multi-faceted jewel explanation comes from Alan Moore's Watchmen, which did not really have a time travel element to it, but the roots of the concept were there with the Dr. Manhattan character's ability to perceive all of time within his existence.

Of course, that idea harkens back to poor old Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Of course, that's not really a time travel story either, but it does help explain the concept a bit.

Hope I haven't bored everyone ;-)

Melissa writes...

Hey Greg,

Just a few small comments on your ramble on "Vows".

Although I think this was a great episode and it had amazing dialogue moments, I thought that after seeing it a few times it became boring and I was less interested in it. I was definitely more "into" the second half of the episode when it got to conversations held by the old and young Goliath and Demona. The dialogue between all of them just seemed to fit so well and flowed beautifully.

I did notice the change in size of the Gate but I just thought of it as being bigger in human hands and smaller in the gargoyle's hands because of size difference between gargoyles and humans.

I also thought that Elisa (my favorite character) was acting way out of hand. I thought it was out of character for her to act so jealous. It wasn't even that, it just looked like she had PMS. I kept yelling at the tv (to Elisa) to back off his case!

Alright...I'm done.

Aris Katsaris writes...

You said: <<O.K. Thanks. So death was NEVER personified?
Certainly Uranos was personified in the mythology, right? And Eros, of course. >>

Umm, I'm not certain what exactly it is you mean by "personification", so let me be a bit more elaborate.

Pretty much *everything* was personified as a deity, including abstractions like "Victory"-Nike, "Peace"-Eirene, "Justice"-Dike, "Violence"-Bia, "Night"-Nyx, "Sleep"-Hypnos, etc. The name is the concept is the deity...

However most of these deities never seemed to have a solid existence in stories besides their very function - unlike gods and goddesses like Athena, Hades, Hermes, Thetis, Callisto, etc, who very clearly were "persons" with a history and personalities that was separate from their specific roles...

Uranus was ofcourse personified - he was a person who was defeated and castrated by Cronos, etc, etc. And in fact he was probably personified so much that the meaning of his name being "sky" was probably almost forgotten, and Zeus was considered the god whose province was the sky, etc.

Eros is a weird case: The story which "personified" him as the son of Aphrodite and the lover of Psyche, was written very late, 2nd century AD I think, by a Roman writer. In that one he was obviously a seperate person, "personified" with any definition one can come up with.

But before that, Eros seems to have been much more of an abstraction, one of the very first gods who was birthed by Chaos: For if there had been no Eros (no love) later gods (like Gaia and Uranus, or Cronos and Rhea, or Zeus and Hera) could not have loved each other. More of a force, less of a person.

Now Death-"Thanatos" was ofcourse personified like anything else: he's supposed to be the son of Night, and the older brother of Sleep (Hypnos). But besides that, he seems to me to be much more of an abstraction like Nike, and less of a person like Athena. He's referred to as a person occasionally (Zeus sends Hypnos and Thanatos to carry the body of Sarpedon with honour away from Troy, I think that Hercules is supposed to have wrestled with Thanatos in one case) but those two are pretty much the only occasions I remember him be a person...

I don't know if the above helped clarify or confuse...

Kalafarski writes...

A couple comments on your Vows ramble....

As I've said in a couple of posts about the Phoenix Gate before, I love the way you handle time travel. It just works so perfectly.

But here's what I found interesting. Demona has brought her past self nineteen years into the future. She shows her that her home has been invaded, her clan has been betrayed, her brothers and sisters are dead. And her true love has been turned to stone.

I thought it was interesting that Demona doesn't try to convince her younger self that Goliath is naive, too trusting of humans, or foolish. She doesn't even try to tell her that all this destruction will be Goliath's fault. Instead, she plays off of young Demona's love for Goliath, blaming the humans for what has happened to him. But it's not like the humans are the only ones old Demona blames in her own head right now. Goliath is clearly there. "Do not share it with....do not share it!"

So my question is, why does Demona do this? Is she certain that, knowing how she herself thought 1000 years ago, her younger self would never turn away from Goliath? Or is it that Demona's plan is to use her past self's own "foolish trust" in Goliath to serve her own ends?

Jon writes...

Well, now that I've posted once... :)

After reading your ramble on Vows, I wanted to comment a bit about it. It is an excellent episode, and one of the things I noticed is that Goliath sure gets the crud beat out of him in this one, first by Xanatos at the Golden Cup, and then by Demona after he barges in on her reunion with her younger self. Both animation sequences showed Goliath bleeding from the mouth after various blows. For some reason, that just awed me (and still does). This is a cartoon where the "hero" gets hurt!! I was always ridiulously amazed and pleased by this, maybe because it is so unusual to have that level of maturity and realism incorporated into a cartoon.

The animation sequence where Goliath and Demona are flying down to the watch the wedding is just terrific, really gives a sense of the power of movement of the gargoyles.

I never thought about Demona's overly excited greeting to Goliath that we see at the beginning and end of the episode was because she was just shook up about the encounter with the future Goliath. Very sophisticated.

I was always very amused at the concept of Goliath as Best Man for Xanatos. Not only is it ironic given their history, it's just funny to see Goliath in a role that is so "human".

I had a few questions, too:
1) The older Demona tells her younger self "Do not share it [the Gate] with... Do not share it!" Who did she mean her younger self shouldn't share it with? You may have said this before, sorry if I missed it.

2) Was the scene where Owen offers Goliath a bow tie cut during production (you mentioned it in the memo, but, unfortunately, it's not in the show)?

3) Did the younger Demona have any reservations about stealing the Gate? I'm still a bit shocked that the she stole it so willingly. While I know that this sort of foreshadows her personality to come, I'm still surprised she didn't have a bit more moral fiber at the time. Maybe she was living in fear of what the arch mage would do to her if she failed? Or perhaps she just didn't place any value in the trinkets or possessions of the worthless humans?

4) Was Demona's abuse by the Arch-mage intended to be a primary motivation for her general hatred towards humans? Early in her life she was mistreated by a cruel human that was more powerful than herself, and her self-loathing at carrying out his evil little errands could very easily have created a guilt cycle that resulted in a desire to kill ALL humans, as sort of a payback for what the Arch-mage did. All of which was compounded multifold by the events of the massacre, but still, her early suspicion/dislike of humans could have stemmed solely or at least primarily from the abuse of the Arch-mage. Ok, I'll stop trying to psychoanalyze Demona. But she's so FASCINATING....

Thanks!

Ed writes...

'VOWS' - what an episode. So many twists, so much drama, and some brilliant comedy from the Xanatos family. The thing that always occurred to me when watching this is: who on earth in Shari Goodharz? She only wrote the one episode that I recall and yet this is one of my favourites, if not my favourite outright. And yet she never did anything else. I guess looking at your outline she had a lot of dialogue to work in but even so, it was pretty damn good.

Actually, it always seemed like quite an intense episode to put before a multi-part story. I didn't watch it in order properly until I knew the whole season ('CITY OF STONE' aired at the beginning of the season here in two back-to-back weekends: accompanied with some stunning preview adverts of Demona blasting the stone humans).

Just one reply:

You said…
"But the gate stays open long enough for him to go with. Did it ever occur to her to go somewhen else other than 994? I guess part of it could be chalked up to dim memory. It was over a thousand years ago. And Demona lived through that 1000 years. Even for a very significant event in her life, it must still be very hazy."

Apart from the shock factor of the castle still burning (in this episode) and Goliath in stone, I think this would have meant most to Demona. But another possible explanation is in your outline:
"But choosing requires incredible concentration. Otherwise, the chooser's emotional or mental whim of the moment may cause the gate to drop everyone off at Burger King instead of Fort Knox."

Seeing as how Demona claims to have a clear memory of Goliath's 'inspirational' presumably this is the thought that would have dragged her to 994.

I really like your explanation of the Gate's changing size as being due to its 'time valve' function. Was this something you ever planned to develop or at least mention out loud in the series? I guess we'd get some hints from what you've told us about 'TIMEDANCER' so far.

Todd Jensen writes...

One other interesting feature about "Vows" that I forgot to mention in my ramble last night. When Goliath is talking to Hudson in 975, he indicates that he is afraid that Xanatos went back in time to 10th century Castle Wyvern to plot some sort of skullduggery against the clan then. But in fact, it turns out that Xanatos's real purpose for being there is to receive the coins from Prince Malcolm, not because of the gargoyles, and that it's merely a coincidence (insomuch as anything in the Gargoyles Universe can be considered a coincidence) that he received those coins at the old home of Goliath and his clan.

I mention this because it brings up one of the interesting features of Xanatos that makes him different from the conventional "main villain" in an animated series. Most such "main villains" focus their schemes almost exclusively on settling their feud with the protagonists, to such an extent that it often results in the rest of their objectives failing because they let themselves get sidetracked by their obsession. But Xanatos didn't. A lot of his schemes turned out to be, from his own perspective, only marginally involving the gargoyles, while really focused in a different direction ("Leader of the Pack" is a good example of this, where it turns out that Xanatos's real interest was in getting Fox out of prison rather than in defeating the gargoyles), and in fact, he often accomplishes a lot of his objectives (the ones that didn't involve capturing Goliath and Co. - or, later on, becoming immortal). Other antagonists in the series do strike me as thoroughly capable of letting themselves get sidetracked by the feud to the detriment of their other goals (Demona, the Archmage, and the Pack spring immediately to mind in such a category), but Xanatos seemed more inclined to focus his attention elsewhere than on the clan.

At the same time, of course, Goliath always seemed ready to take an angle towards Xanatos as though he really was the "stereotyped master-villain" above, automatically assuming that Xanatos's schemes were directed towards the gargoyles (as per the case above) or even initially thinking that he was behind somebody else's scheme (as when he initially believed that it was Xanatos rather than Macbeth who stole the Scrolls of Merlin). That helped make Xanatos's break with "cartoon tradition" all the more noteworthy, in having Goliath's perception of Xanatos being closer to how such a conventional villain acted than Xanatos in person actually was.

Revel writes...

Regarding your "Vows" ramble

I think More's the pitty is kind of like Ignorance is bliss. You've just heard it so many times no one knows who origninally said it.
(my opinion of course)

Todd Jensen writes...

My ramble/reply to your ramble on "Vows".

I very much liked this one. We got the time travel story at last (as I mentioned in my ramble/reply for "Lighthouse in the Sea of Time", I'd read that there was going to be time travel in the second season of "Gargoyles", but initially mistakenly believed that it would be in the "Lighthouse" episode because of the "Sea of Time" part of the title). I've always been fond of time travel stories, particularly ones sending the characters into the historical past, and this one I very much enjoyed, particularly since it led to more "10th century Castle Wyvern scenes" (one of my favorite parts of the series). I also noticed the care used (both here and throughout "Gargoyles") with how time travel doesn't change history but is simply part of the already extant history (which makes all the more sense to me since I've been working on a fantasy novel for some time now, begun before "Gargoyles" ever came out, which made similar use of time travel, with even a time loop or two similar to those in "Avalon Part Two" and "M.I.A." - which helped me understand those episodes better, but that's another story). Certainly that kind of time travel helps make certain that there's no cheating.

I also liked seeing the Archmage again, and hearing the mention of the Eye of Odin (without realizing the full significance of that part, though). One interesting piece in this episode is that Hudson seems to already suspect, by 975, the Archmage's true nature (given the bit where he comes to the aid of Young Demona near the end).

I was half-expecting the Hudson of 1995 to mention Goliath's showing up in 975 at the end, after Goliath returned to the clock tower; he didn't, but his behavior in the modern day does make more sense in light of his meeting the present-day Goliath back in 975.

I learned about the "King Lear" quote from a friend, and was amused to discover that in its original place in the play, it was spoken by Lear to his daughters Goneril and Regan; trust Xanatos to reverse the parent/child roles when he quoted it! :)

I was very interested to see Xanatos wearing an Illuminati pin and to have the Society's existence confirmed (doubly so with the Norman Ambassador). I can definitely remember what I thought upon seeing that bit: "I wonder what Matt would say if he could see this."

And yes, I was definitely surprised to see Xanatos getting married. (Maybe all the more so since the main antagonist of the aforementioned fantasy novel has some Xanatosian qualities - coincidental, since his basic character was worked out before "Gargoyles" ever came out - but is a very solitary figure, whom I definitely can't imagine ever developing genuine feelings of the sort that Xanatos had for Fox). Very daring, I've got to agree.

One interesting feature about Young Demona's visit to 994 (incidentally, that means that there were *three* Demonas existing simultaneously at that moment, the Demona of 975, of 994, and of 1995 - good thing that the 994-Demona didn't show up or things could really have gotten confusing:) is that she learns about the future Wyvern Massacre, which probably subtly influenced her towards eventually working with the Captain to betray the humans. It's been suspected by many fans that Young Demona might have believed that it was the humans native to the castle who carried out the massacre (note that 1995-Demona never says that it was an outside enemy who destroyed the clan - or, for that matter, that the reason why Goliath was turned to stone was because he begged the Magus to do it), so in her scheming with the Captain to avert the prophecy, she actually helped fulfill it. (A time-honored literary concept, of course, going back at least to Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" where similarly Laius and Oedipus's very efforts to prevent Oedipus's prophecied destiny of killing his father and marrying his mother actually help bring that destiny about). A very chilling concept.

I've seen the phrase "more's the pity" used a few times in works that I know that I've read before "Gargoyles", and even used the phrase at least once in something that I wrote before "Gargoyles" ever premiered, but I've no idea myself where it comes from. Maybe it's one of those general phrases with no single originator.

At any rate, I enjoyed the rambling - and am looking forward to the comments on "City of Stone".

Todd Jensen writes...

I just read your two recently-posted memos for "Eye of the Beholder" and "Vows". Thank you for posting them (and I'm looking forward to the "Vows" ramble/review).

These inspired three comments, which I thought that I'd post (though all three separately, of course).

This first comment is on the "Eye of the Beholder" memo. One thing that stood out to me is that in the memo, Xanatos mentions that legend had it that the Eye of Odin was literally that, but this doesn't pop up in the actual episode. Actually, I'm glad that it didn't, because I feel that it made the impact of Odin showing up to claim the Eye in "Eye of the Storm" more dramatic as a result. Up until that episode ("Eye of the Storm") aired, I'd assumed that the Eye was just given a fancy name borrowed from Norse mythology, so it was more of a surprise when it turned out to be the actual eye that Odin gave up to Mimir than it would if Xanatos had mentioned rumors about that in "Eye of the Beholder".

Todd Jensen writes...

A bit of a ramble on the Hunters, particularly the Canmore trio, inspired in part by your answer to my last question about them.

One interesting element that becomes apparent when you put "City of Stone" and "Hunter's Moon" together is that the Hunters did, oddly enough, become somewhat more likable over the centuries.

The initial three Hunters depicted in "City of Stone", Gillecomgain, Duncan, and Canmore, all struck me as among the nastier villains in "Gargoyles", with very little in the way of redeeming features. Gillecomgain might have had a bit of sympathy from us (the audience), given Demona's wanton attack upon him when he was a boy. (I believe that it was more a deliberate act of hatred than a matter of self-defense, given her "That'll teach you humans to betray us" remark, something that better fits a calculated action). But then he quickly loses that by not only vowing revenge upon her entire race rather than just Demona, punishing the innocent alongside the guilty, but also willingly becoming Duncan's hired assassin by 1020, and also willingly entering into a loveless marriage with Gruoch twelve years later. Duncan was a suspicious tyrant ready to murder anybody whom he even suspected might threaten his claim to the throne, even when that person in question was innocent of such designs (as Findlaech and Macbeth both clearly were) and Canmore clearly followed in his father's footsteps; while both didn't like gargoyles much, it does seem that a lot of their persecution of the gargs stemmed from the fact that they were Macbeth's allies.

But when we get to the modern-day Canmores of "Hunter's Moon", the "powermonger" angle has clearly gone. Apart from their war on the gargoyles, the Canmores come across as quite sympathetic, more like basically decent people trapped by a horrible family tradition. Jason clearly has enough nobility in him for Elisa to develop genuine feelings for him, and he for her. The Canmores of "Hunter's Moon" are in the wrong, but they come across more as misguided than as truly villainous. Which makes them all the more into tragic figures, particularly Jason and Jon in their different ways (Jason learns the error of his ways in time, but loses the use of his legs; Jon half-realizes that what his family has been doing is wrong and almost turns aside from the path, but in the end yields to it in his weakness and undergoes the transformation into Castaway). It's one of the elements, in my opinion, that makes "Hunter's Moon" so effective.