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Anonymous writes...

1. Thanks for answering my questions about the Quarrymen's motivation -
and for pointing out about how they wouldn't have been aware that the
gargoyles were sentient beings. Which brings me to a question-cum-theory about one
of the main reasons for TGC's failure. The first two seasons had Xanatos and
Demona, two complex and intriguing characters, for their main villains,
and did a good job accordingly (plus some good supporting villains such as
Macbeth - also a complex and intriguing character, and one who quickly
became a favorite of mine - Thailog, Jackal and Hyena, Sevarius, and so
on). TGC had for its main villains the Quarrymen, who were done (after "The
Journey") as a bunch of flat, one-dimensional characters with no real
depth to them - I liked the fact that you'd chosen to give them some variety
(some being mercenaries like Banquo and Fleance, others being terrified citizens
like Vinnie or Billy and Susan's mom), but in TGC, they nearly all seemed
to have been recruited from the local "Thugs R Us". Do you think that the
way that your successors handled the Quarrymen (both making them cardboard
villains and the main villains) could have had much to do with why The
Goliath Chronicles failed?

2. A query about Jon Canmore/Castaway. When I first saw "Hunter's Moon",
I was very distressed at the way that the initially most sympathetic Hunter
wound up turning into an insane gargoyle-hater at the end. But then,
after watching it a few more times and studying Jon's actions, I found myself
wondering if his fall from grace hadn't actually been carefully prepared
for. His suggestions to his siblings that maybe Goliath and his clan
weren't evil had a rather half-hearted feel to them and he allowed Jason
to easily quell them. He spared the clan at the ruins of the clock tower,
but THEN proceeded to publicly frame them on the news at Jason and Robyn's
request, without (as far as could be told) protesting about trying to turn
the public against the gargs, now that he knew that they weren't the
monsters that the other Hunters believed them to be. During the fight at
the dam, Jon was just standing around looking miserable, while Elisa was
making an active attempt to get Jason and Goliath to stop their feud. In
fact, Jon's only pro-gargoyle action was a negative one (not killing them
at the clock tower), whereas Elisa and Jason (after he finally saw the light)
took a much more active stance (Jason actually taking a shot for Goliath
in the cathedral) in trying to stop the slaughter. (Not to mention that, in
"The Journey", Vinnie also actively resisted Castaway's efforts to kill
Goliath and Elisa). So.... am I reading too much into this, or was Jon's
rather passive behavior during his "pro-gargoyle" behavior purposely
designed that way, to show that he was weak (to fit in with his
transformation into Castaway)?

3. Another commentary rather than question, mainly. I've also been
working out why Thailog is such an effective villain, and I think that it's more
than just that he's cunning and malevolent (though he's definitely both).
He's also a clone of Goliath, and looks and sounds almost exactly like
him. But his moral character is very different from Goliath's - in contrast to
Goliath's nobility and honor, Thailog is scheming, power-hungry, and
duplicitous. So there's a matter of a very chilling incongruity. Was
this part of what you had in mind when you created the character?

Greg responds...

1. Todd, "failure" is one of those hot-button words that I don't
much like to throw around. Many people regarded the second season of
Gargoyles as a failure because it didn't meet those people's financial
expectations. Many people regard the World Tour as a failure because it
went on too long or whatever. I don't agree with either assessment, but
it's all subjective.
So let's not talk about failure. But now that I'm past the
disclaimer, I do agree that the villains on Goliath Chronicles were not that
well-handled, and I think the handling of the Quarrymen was particularly
problematic. You, as usual, are dead-on in evaluating what I was trying to
do with them. My successors took a different route.
2. Todd, people are going to start to think that either (a) I'm
paying you to write this stuff or (b) you actually are me writing under a
pseudonym. Again, you're dead-on correct. Jason was a strong man. Strong
in his prejudice. Strong in his resolve to change once he came to that
conclusion. Jon was a weak man. I'm gonna botch this quotation about the
banality of evil, but it goes something like, "All it takes for evil to
thrive is for good men to do nothing." That's Jon Canmore. I hope we built
him so that his transformation -- though shocking and tragic -- was
believable. If you're any indication, then I did my job.
3. Very much so. To me, the creation of a great villain depends on
making that villain a true counterposing force to the hero. Each villain
has to make us feel, at least in that individual story, that he or she is
the ultimate nemesis. This is accomplished not simply with opposition, but
by juxtaposing similarities and contrasting them with opposition. Let's
look at Batman for a moment.
a. Batman and the Joker both operate in strange, even garish
costumes, outside the law. But the Batman represents ORDER, the Joker
CHAOS.
b. Or... Batman is a man with two faces. Bruce Wayne and the Bat.
Two sides of the same coin. Personify that, and you have TWO-FACE. Now
you've got two characters who share a bond, and yet are as different as
night and day.
c. Batman was created to inspire fear in criminals. The Scarecrow
exists to inspire fear in decent people.
d. Batman is a man seduced by the darkness in his soul. Catwoman
is that seduction brought to life.
e. Batman strives to find order out of chaos, Ra's al Ghul strives
to establish his own order in place of human freedom. To me, these have
always been Batman's best villains, because they each speak to his soul.
Anytime I thought about working with any of the others, it was always more
of a struggle.
f. Take the Riddler. As fun as he can be, he was never my
favorite. The best I could come up with was to piece out a segment of the
Batman mythos, i.e. Batman is supposed to be the world's greatest detective.
Thus we pit this man of answers in a battle of wits against the world's
greatest questioner. (Not bad, but not great either.)
g. Penguin always stumped me until I saw the movie BATMAN RETURNS.
Now, I didn't care for that movie much. I thought it was a mess. But the
one truly brilliant addition to the Batman mythos was the notion that the
Penguin was a monster. Batman has a monster inside him. And he puts on a
monstrous aspect to give that monster reign. Tim Burton's Penguin was born
to that misshapen life. Suddenly, the villain worked for me.

Now. Return to Gargoyles. And specifically to Goliath. I
attempted to make every villain succeed in that manner. Thailog is of
course, obvious for the reasons you stated, but hopefully that resonance
carries through to all our antagonists. Goliath is the ultimate medieval
bastion of gargoyle morality. David is the ultimate modern stand-in for
human amorality. Demona was once Goliath's great love. Now she's his
greatest enemy because she turned away from the very things that made her
love him. Goliath is a gargoyle from another time. Macbeth is a human from
another time. Goliath is steadfast and serious, Puck is out there and in it
for the laugh. Goliath is thought of as a beast. The Pack are supposed to
be hunters. But their animal names and their actions make it clear who the
real beasts are. Etc. All this was very conscious. I'm glad it worked for
ya.

(GDW / 7-21-98)

Response recorded on July 21, 1998