Aaron writes...

City of Stone, 1-4 mini-ramble.

There so much to address here, I should really dig out my tapes before attacking it, but...

A few things still stick out.

I remember the first time I watched it, and thinking something didn't quite add up with what Demona was saying. Before the advent of mass media, exactly how would Demona get enough people together to make a spell like the one she sold Xanatos on worthwhile?

I remember being really impressed with the scene where MacBeth goes skysurfing, or whatever you want to call it, with the line wrapped around Demona's leg. Really good showcase of exactly how determined, not to say completely mental, MacBeth is at this point. Can you imagine how much it would hurt if Demona did succeed in shaking him off? Even if you're immortal that's gotta suck.

And of course, I did love the double punch D&M give Goliath. (But then, I'm a Demona fan, so watching the big purple guy take one usually amuses me)

matt writes...

in "Heritage", does Raven call Natsilane a bratty Chief, as in a brat, or a Bradi Chief, as in the name of Natsilane's tribe when he says, "If the B.... Chief won't fight me, the island is mine!" i can see why Raven would say both, but i'm leaning toward the latter.

LSZ writes...

Do gargoyles need to bathe, or are body odours etc disposed of via stone sleep?

Jim R. writes...

I'm still a little baffled about Timedancing Brooklyn and the story behind him. You state that when Goliath threw the Phoenix gate into itself without a mind to guide it, it would be forever lost in the time stream. Then you went on to say that it lands in front of Brooklyn.
1. Why did you choose Brooklyn?
2. When does it land in front of him, in what time?
I was reading through the archived responses about this, and you say that he never lays a finger on the gate.
3. But how is it possible for him to travel forty years leaping in and out of random time shifts the gate creates? The gate is just a talisman, without a mind or the incantation it really can't go anywhere, which leads me to my next question.
4. If Brooklyn is susceptable to random time shifts, how long does he or can he stay, in one time?
5. Why couldn't he lay a finger on the gate? I mean surely he would eventually find out how the gate works in some time, grab it, speak the incantation, and boom! he's back home again in his own time exactly when he left. Brooklyn isn't that stupid, he surely would have had some pre-existing knowledge from Goliath about the dangers of the gate.

Please. Maybe you could explain this whole Timedancer mess in better detail or in a nutshell, or at least point me out someplace online I could go to read more about it in further detail.

matt writes...

you've said before that unless their bodies are destroyed that the Coldtrio will live forever, so will any or all of them be around in 2198?

matt writes...

i just want you to confirm that Gabriel is definetly Othello and Desdemona's biological child, cuz lately there has been talk of Iago having a child on Avalon and Gabriel has some features, the large brow ridges and the small horns on his chin, that we've only see in one other gargoyle, Iago. so, if Iago has a biological child on Avalon, its not Gabriel, right?

Slow writes...

Re: High Noon

I have to say that I was very confused about the three Desdemonas. Until someone mentioned it in Ask Greg I just figured it was the writer wanting to do strange and surreal stuff inside Coldstone's head. The animation was so good I never would've noticed the colour mistake. If it wasn't for this venue, I'd never have known.

"This is diverting." "You don't know the half of it."

Sure, I laughed when I first heard the line accompanied by the expression on Coldstone's face. But when I watched the episode again a few years later, I thought that Macbeth's response may have been a hint (subconsciously, maybe) that the entire situation was a diversion (staged to get the talismans). Am I wrong to think that Mac may not have been as interested in the girl-fight as it sounded?

Erin Peretti writes...

I am absolutely fascinated with your comment that Gargoyle's MacBeth was more historically accurate than Shakespeare's (obviously ommitting Demona and immortality).

What parts were more accurate?

I know this is a pain, but would you happen to know where I could find some historically accurate accounts of Macbeth? His home, his full name, whether Duncan was the perfect king potrayed in the play, etc....

What research materials did you use when writing Mac for Gargoyles?

Is Glamis castle in Scotland really Mac's castle, as I have been told?

Thanks so much!!!

Todd Jensen writes...

A question about Xanatos as portrayed in "Future Tense". This was the last episode in the series where Xanatos was the antagonist (even though it may not count as such, given that it turned out that it wasn't really Xanatos). And what recently struck me about it was that here Xanatos, for once, was acting in a manner more like a conventional cliched cartoon villain than he did anywhere else in the series. He took over Manhattan by force, enslaved the population and plunged them into poverty and misery, had the city patrolled by Mutate soldiers on the ground and Steel Clan robots in the air, murdered his own son without even an ounce of pity or remorse, and was plotting to seize control over the entire planet. All very evocative of the stereotypical super-villain that one would expect to find in a more conventional animated series.

Also, in this episode, Goliath did (momentarily) "destroy" Xanatos (or the Xanatos Program masquerading as him) in the cyberspace battle (just before it turned out that it was really Lexington operating the Xanatos Program behind the scenes), in what could count as their final battle.

So, was "Future Tense" designed, in part, to trick the audience into thinking that "Gargoyles" was going to end with a more conventional showdown between Goliath and Xanatos, a more stereotypical "final battle", before going on to reveal, almost immediately afterwards (given that "The Gathering" was the story that came immediately after "Future Tense"), the real manner in which the Goliath/Xanatos conflict came to an end (through the two making peace after the gargs helped Xanatos against Oberon)? A kind of "tricking the audience raised on more conventional adventure cartoon series" method similar to that used in "Leader of the Pack" (where it initially seems as if Xanatos is out for revenge, but it turns out that it wasn't the real Xanatos and that the real one had very different and much more practical goals)?

Todd Jensen writes...

In "Monsters", was Sevarius working for Xanatos or himself when he was at Loch Ness? He had the Xanatos Goon Squad along with him to help him out, but nothing that he said really confirmed that he was working for Xanatos; he appeared to be after the Loch Ness Monsters more to satisfy his own personal interest in genetic tinkering than from any interests that Xanatos had.