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Comments for the week ending August 18, 2024

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MORRAND AND ALGAE - Thank you for your responses.
Todd Jensen

RE: Jeanne d'Arc

And yeah, Queer Catholic* that I am, I certainly hope Greg would be a bit more respectful of the Maid of Orleans. Though, I suppose I can't really blame the Bard of Avon too much for his national biases.

*Tho wikipedia informs me that St. Joan is also venerated in the Anglican communion. My, how times change.

Algae
You are loved.

TODD> Put me down as another who appricates your content, Todd. If I don't respond as often as I should, it's more because I don't usually haven't anything really substantive add beyond general kudos.

But, I really should be doing that regardless.

Algae
You are loved.

Todd: Like I said below, I enjoyed it. "Gargoyles" connections aside, I don't think I've ever actually seen all of Shakespeare's plays lined up and reviewed next to each other like this before (even Wikipedia doesn't do that). Sometimes prudence counsels us to sit back and listen rather than speaking. It seemed to me, at least, to be such a time.

Also to go do field research, and in fact your posts encouraged me to go catch a community production of "Pericles" yesterday, out in the middle of a picnic ground. We got a heavy rainshower a little after the knights' revels in the second act, which shut down the play for a few minutes, but did give us a spectacular rainbow, an impromptu performance of "Here Comes the Sun" from the cast as they huddled under the trees, and swarms of dragonflies as we went into the fourth act. (And, my goodness me, did the production lean into the fourth act. They did a hilarious job of playing up what's got to be some of Shakespeare's naughtier work. I wound up sitting next to the stage manager, and I think we were the only ones laughing at "able to freeze the god Priapus," dirty old men that we are, I guess.)

Anyway, back to topic: the only connection I can think of right now with "Pericles" might, maybe, be Nashville, but it's a tenuous one at best: why he is named after a ship is yet to be explained (I think), but I could see a parallel with Marina in "Pericles" being born upon, and thus named after, the sea. I don't think the timing works out quite right for that, but, spurious or not, it's a fun story to think about.

morrand - [morrand276 at gmail dot com]

Thanks, Bishansky.

The main thing that concerned me about my posts, though, was that there were only a few posts from other people in between (sometimes, no posts at all, or only "bot-posts"), which led me to wonder whether the subject matter might have scared a lot of the regular posters into silence, fearing that they'd be unable to contribute because they weren't familiar enough with Shakespeare. I'm hoping that it was more a case of "It just happened to be a week when almost everyone was busy with other things".

Todd Jensen

TODD> I am loving this week in Station Eight! And I thank you for this, Todd! While the fandom has expanded, I still feel like this is the only place to get this type of conversation.

Most of the newer fandom spots, they're not talking about Shakespeare and how it would mesh with "Gargoyles". They're talking about which Ninja Turtle each gargoyle would be friends with. Which Marvel superheroes they should meet, etc. Now, I'm not down on Marvel (well, not the classic comics... I am so over the MCU) or TMNT. I enjoy those things. But seeing them mesh with "Gargoyles" outside of a goofy lark like a Radio Play is just nothing that I am clamoring for.

So nope, I am not clamoring to see Brooklyn and Raphael go for pizza. I don't need to see Xanatos and Tony Stark go at it. But I am really salivating at the thought of seeing Ariel and Caliban. I've been waiting over twenty years to see "The Weird Macbeth"; when Greg Weisman first told us about it at the 2001 Gathering, it just sounded like the coolest thing in the world to me; and it still does.

So thanks, Todd! Thank you for being a treasure in this fandom!

Greg Bishansky

Sorry again for the double post, but here's the last part of my Shakespeare reprint (with a few additions to reflect "Gargoyles" events since then):

TWELFTH NIGHT: Will most likely provide quotes and namesake characters. I don't think Owen will play a Malvolio role, of course, though I've a soft spot for Malvolio, having played him twice (school productions both times, not professional theatrical performances). [We did get a Malvolio namesake in "Dark Ages: Alliance", of course. His partnership with a "Benvolio" reminded me of my own introduction to "Twelfth Night", through a collection of Shakespeare retellings for younger readers by a Bernard Miles; the "Twelfth Night" adaptation gave Duke Orsino a steward named Benvolio as a foil to Malvolio, though he had just a brief role. The adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", by the way, particularly stood out to me; Miles gave it a sort of "Wizard of Oz" flavor. Here, Bottom and his fellow amateur actors are English villagers in Elizabethan times; Peter Quince likes to tell Bottom and the others the Greek myths he's read about in his spare time, including the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur, and that of Pyramus and Thisbe. During these storytelling sessions, for a bit of variety, some of the other members of the group tell stories about the fairies, such as Oberon, Titania, and Puck. They decide to put on a retelling of the Pyramus and Thisbe story for their village; the night before they're due to stage it, Bottom has a strange dream in which he and his friends go to ancient Athens under Theseus to put on "Pyramus and Thisbe" there, leading to the events in the play; when Bottom wakes up at the end, there are a few plants from the wood near Athens in his bed, to give a tone of "Was it a dream or not?"]

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA: One of Shakespeare's early comedies, not all that popular, and with strong signs that he had a lot to learn when he wrote it. The title characters are two young men named Valentine and Proteus, who start off as friends; unfortunately, Proteus is attracted to Sylvia, the young lady whom Valentine is wooing, and proceeds to betray Valentine so that he can get her - thereby betraying his best friend and his own girl-friend Julia, in the process. He takes after his New Olympian namesake in duplicity and unscrupulousness - except that at the end of the play, under Valentine's chiding, he reforms, something that I can't imagine the Proteus of "Gargoyles" doing (the Proteus of the play's own repentance comes across as unconvincing, one of the flaws of the play); I don't see him as an influence on the Proteus of "Gargoyles", though, but rather as both derived from the original Proteus of Greek mythology (who was a shape-shifter, but not a duplicitous one; it's easy, however, to interpret shape-shifters as false and treacherous).

The best part of the play is a sub-plot about a servant named Launce who is saddled with a dog named Crab, the worst-behaved dog in all literature (and maybe even of all time). Crab does everything from stealing food to lifting his hind leg next to Sylvia's skirt, as we find out when Launce tells him off for all his transgressions; needless to say, Crab is not the least bit sorry about them. (I once saw a stage production of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" that added a lovely, though probably unintended touch; when Launce was talking about how Crab had stolen chickens from the duke's kitchen, Crab - played by a real dog on-stage - licked his chops at that moment. One moment in it that was clearly intended; Launce, in his first appearance, is talking about how everyone in his family is sorry to see him head off on a journey except for Crab - when he states that even the family cat was weeping at his departure, he covered Crab's ears before he said "cat", to make sure the dog wouldn't hear it!) I hope that Bronx, Boudicca, Fu-Dog and their fellow gargoyle beasts are far more well-behaved than that.

THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN: Another little-known play; it didn't even become recognized as canon until lately, and seems to have been a collaboration written near the end of Shakespeare's career. It's an adaptation of "The Knight's Tale" from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", about two young noblemen named Palamon and Arcite, contemporaries of Theseus, who fall in love with the same lady, Emilia, Hippolyta's younger sister. Not likely to get directly into "Gargoyles" - though we know that Greg's fond of Theseus.

THE WINTER'S TALE: Also most likely will get in via quotes and namesake characters; I remember Bishansky giving an enthusiastic review here of a production of this play he'd seen a few years ago, with Keith David playing the part of King Leontes. (Incidentally, the part at the end of the play where Queen Hermione is posing as a statue is thought to have inspired the scene in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" where Hermione is petrified by the basilisk; at least, Rowling's admitted that her Hermione was named after Shakespeare's Hermione.) [Of course, I've mentioned before my suspicion that the Perdita of "Young Justice" was named after the one of "The Winter's Tale", all the more in light of the artificial snowstorm in the episode that introduced her.]

[One other Shakespeare allusion we got in "Gargoyles" from Dynamite Comics was the hint that Shahrazad was the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, which made me realize that I hadn't considered Shakespeare's non-dramatic works when writing the original version of this, back in 2009. I can certainly imagine one or two lines from the Sonnets coming in as well at some point. Besides the Sonnets, Shakespeare's non-dramatic works include two "verse-narrative" poems, "Venus and Adonis" (about the love-story of Aphrodite/Venus and Adonis in classical mythology) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (a dark tale from the early legendary history of Rome), and a few other poems such as "A Lover's Complaint", "The Passionate Pilgrim", and "The Phoenix and Turtle" (the turtle of this poem, by the way, is a turtle-dove, not a shelled reptile).

We also got a possible allusion to one of Shakespeare's acting colleagues in "Dark Ages: Alliance". I have a theory that Mack Kemp was named in part after Will Kemp (or Kempe), a noted comedian in Shakespeare's acting company, who is even thought to have been the first person to play Bottom, Falstaff, and Dogberry in "Much Ado about Nothing" (Dogberry makes a big indignant to-do about being called "an ass" at one point in the play, by the way - if he'd also played Bottom, this could have been intended as a casting gag); he later left Shakespeare's company to do a morris-dance from London to Norwich, as a publicity stunt.]

Todd Jensen

JURGAN - Thank you for your comments. I agree that looking for these parallels between "Gargoyles" and Shakespeare's plays can be forced at times - though I decided, since I was almost done with the reprints, to complete it.

TIMON OF ATHENS: One of Shakespeare's least-known plays (Greg Weisman once said that he's not familiar with it), and apparently never finished. Timon is an extremely wealthy and generous man in ancient Athens (approximately the time of the Peloponnesian Wars), who, unfortunately, is too generous; he's used up his entire estate in acts of philanthropy and is even heavily in debt, while ignoring all the warning signs (he doesn't have a good head for balancing the books). Then the creditors show up, Timon discovers the state of his financial situation, and asks all the people he'd helped for assistance. They refuse, and Timon is so shocked that he snaps, leaves Athens in a fury and settles in the wilds outside the city, cursing humanity on a level perhaps equal to Demona on humanity in "Temptation". When he accidentally discovers gold, he sees it as the perfect weapon for his revenge on humanity, bestowing it on everyone who comes by in the hopes that it will lead them to ruin. (Timon is briefly jolted from his cynicism and misanthropy when his old steward shows up at his door - he doesn't want gold, just to continue serving and helping Timon out of loyalty to him. Timon has to admit that not all humans are corrupt, though he turns the steward away.)

TITUS ANDRONICUS: Greg once wrote a ramble on this play, after seeing a movie adaptation of it (complete with the remark that "Tamora Queen of the Goths" - one of the play's characters - would make a great name for a "Gargoyles" character). Beyond Tamora's name, I don't think it's likely to contribute much to "Gargoyles". (For those who aren't familiar with it, it's an especially gory play set in ancient Rome, involving the trials of the title character, a great general disgraced by his ungrateful Emperor, who seeks revenge for his wrongs - one of his enemies is the afore-mentioned Tamora, and Titus murders her sons, makes them into a meat pie, and gives it to Tamora to eat. Yes, she eats it - perhaps mercifully, Titus runs her through immediately after telling her what the ingredients are. Tamora's not the main antagonist, though - just a pawn of the real antagonist, Aaron the Moor, who's almost a precursor of Iago in his gleeful scheming; when he's caught at the end of the play, he says he's not sorry for all the crimes he committed - he's sorry he didn't get to commit more. Greg once posted a cast list for a radio play he did for a never-made series he'd proposed called "Doc Shakespeare"; one of the characters in it was named "Aaron Moore".)

[I might add that Titus actually dresses up like a chef when presenting the "human stew" to Tamora - though probably without a chef's hat, since that hadn't been invented yet in Shakespeare's time. (Somebody once did a parody of Shakespeare's plays which, when it reached "Titus Andronicus", did it as a cooking show.)]

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA: Shakespeare's take on the Trojan War, an astonishingly cynical interpretation that demolishes almost everyone's reputation in the war, Greeks and Trojans alike. The title characters are a couple of lovers, a Trojan prince named Troilus (younger brother to Hector and Paris) and a young woman named Cressida whom he's fallen in love with; unfortunately, just as Cressida accepts Troilus's advances, she's delivered to the Greek camp (her father was a Trojan priest who can see the future, realized that the Greeks were going to win the war, and decided to desert to them so that he could get on their good side - and he wants his daughter back) - and, to make matters worse, transfers her affections to a Greek soldier named Diomedes almost as soon as she's arrived. Troilus, discovering their love-making, is horror-struck; he tries telling himself for a while that it's not really Cressida, that the real Cressida is faithful to him, but then realizes "Oh, who am I kidding?" He tries to get revenge on Diomedes in the following battle, but fails and is in a state of absolute frustration by the final scene of the play.

The sub-plot is a retelling of Achilles' withdrawal from the Trojan War as in the "Iliad", but with some debunking touches. Achilles withdraws here, not to protest Agamemnon's high-handedness as in Homer, but because he's become so conceited over his reputation as the greatest warrior among the Greeks that he won't take orders from anyone. Ulysses suggests bringing Achilles back into the war by having the Greeks turn all their attention to Ajax (the second greatest warrior in the Greek army) and ignoring Achilles; when Achilles asks Ulysses why everyone's just passing him with scarcely a glance, Ulysses explains that since he's no longer out on the battlefield, he's become yesterday's news, while Ajax, who's still fighting in the Trojan War, has replaced Achilles in the Greeks' esteem. But Ulysses' plan backfires, for now Ajax becomes so puffed up with praise that he refuses to fight in the war as well. Achilles is eventually brought back into the war when Hector slays Patroclus, as in Homer, but instead of chasing Hector three times around Troy and slaying him in single combat (Homer's version), waits until Hector, worn out with fighting, takes off his armor to rest, then sics his soldiers upon him to cut Hector to pieces, while standing back and supervising.

I'm certain that, if we get enough new stories, Greg Weisman will tackle the Trojan War legend at some point, but I think he's far more likely to consult Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" than "Troilus and Cressida" for that story.

Todd Jensen

""Henry VI Part Two" has its own piece of notoriety; in one scene, during a peasant revolt, one of the peasants says "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". It's become one of Shakespeare's more popular lines since then, even though the lawyers have been frantically pointing out that this line was delivered by one of the villains."

Slacktivist made a post a while back (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2016/09/27/the-first-thing-we-do-lets-kill-all-the-lawyers/) talking about how that line is a compliment to lawyers, since the implication is that they, as a profession, are devoted to the rule of law and so cannot condone treason. Lawyers have a somewhat different connotation today, but a modern analog might be a presidential candidate who plans to purge the Justice Department of impartial attorneys and replace them with hacks who are personally loyal to him. I'm speaking purely hypothetically, of course. (Actually, I don't know how accurate that is- I've not read the play, a "peasants' revolt" is someone different from a plot by those in power.)

"Dracon having clever lawyers who are able to get them out on bail or give them shortened sentences (though Dracon's lawyers must have given up on him by "Turf")"

I think it's fair to say that those lawyers do not represent Anthony Dracon, but rather the Dracon Family. When the Family decided Tony was a liability, the lawyers no doubt followed suit. They might have "encouraged" him to accept a guilty plea and get the family out of the news, so long as he did not cooperate with prosecutors. I'm sure Tony got offered some juicy deals if he'd testify against his family; given that Dino tried to have him killed in prison, he may yet take up such an offer.

" (To be precise, it ends with Elizabeth I's birth and christening, with Henry disappointed that she's a girl at first - as in real history - but, unlike real history, he warms to her after one of his advisors is momentarily able to see the future and tells him that she'll grow up to be one of England's greatest monarchs ever.)"

I was under the impression that this speech was written to curry Elizabeth's favor, but it looks like she died before it was performed. I suppose she still had a popular legacy, though.

"KING LEAR"

Is it possible that "Three Brothers" was inspired by Lear? Maybe that's too general to be an allusion- children fighting over who will inherit the throne is all over history. Likewise there are quite a few examples of kings killing children to eliminate future rivals, I'm surprised that would be played as so shocking. (And it's something at least two rulers in Gargoyles refused to do, to their eventual detriment. It is odd how Gargoyles clearly treats mercy as a good thing, yet in practice it often backfires.)

“sans [fancy English for "without"]”

So “fancy English” is just literally “French.” That tracks. Actually, the idea of eschewing “fancy English” was a theme of George Orwell, most notably in “Politics and the English Language.” Could be he was a fan of the play.

“ (Mistress Page and Mistress Ford - best described as an Elizabethan version of Lucy and Ethel)”

Or perhaps Mary and Finella?

“OTHELLO: This one definitely got in, via the ColdTrio. (I still think it's a bit of a pity that the mention of Xanatos and Fox's evening out being to a production of Verdi's "Otello" never made it into the televised version of "Possession"; it was so utterly appropriate.)”

The ColdTrio’s connection to Othello is somewhat superficial, basically only reflected in “Legion.” Othello’s jealousy doesn’t come up often, and Iago in Shakespeare’s play does not explicitly lust for Desdemona. There are some similarities in the recent comics between Coldstone/Othello and Shylock, since Coldstone is now being forced to assimilate with human society while secretly plotting revenge. I don’t remember if Shylock was stated to be part of a Jewish community in Venice (as Coldstone has the Manhattan Clan) or if he was the only Jew in the city.

“as much difference between them as between, say, Demona and the Archmage.”

The Archmage does have some similarity with Richard III. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some sort of physical deformity. And the time loop sequence in Avalon II could be seen as an aside to the audience, since no one else witnesses it.

A lot of this is intentionally forced. For several scenarios, I was thinking “is there a Gargoyles character that might somehow be crammed into this?” And while that can be fun, it can also make a show feel hacky and derivative. I remember some years back, someone in this comment room posted a pitch for a superhero show and it came off as just a stew of references with no original thought. Greg likes his references, but they’re just sprinkles on the sundae. I’m sure his first priority will be making sure they work for this story.

Jurgan - [jurgan6 at yahoo dot com]

The bots are not fooling anyone with those "link to a business that is probably just a scam" signatures.

ROMEO AND JULIET: We know that Terry and Sphinx are intended as Romeo and Juliet counterparts, and that Queen Mab (probably Shakespeare's best-known perpetually off-stage character) will be showing up as Oberon's mother and predecessor. And we got two quotes from the play in the library scene in "The Journey". [Of course, "Here in Manhattan" expanded on this. First, it gave us another "Romeo and Juliet" pair from the streets of New York - not the first time this has happened, but with a background closer to that of "The Godfather" than of "West Side Story", and also we had the dying Renard quote from the Prologue.]

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW: Greg Weisman once mentioned having mixed feelings about it (he didn't say why, though I suspect it's over the whole "is Petruchio's shrew-taming brutal?" controversy). It recently occurred to me that there might be a slight parallel with the events already in "Gargoyles"; the shrew's name is Katherine, and Princess Katharine was initially decidedly shrewish towards the gargoyles, but in the course of the series changed her attitude towards them, to the point where she became a loving foster-mother to thirty-six gargoyle hatchlings (and gave Demona a real taste of "Don't Mess with the Momma" in "Avalon Part Three"). I think it's just a coincidence, though. [Greg Weisman has confirmed it was a coincidence, in fact.]

THE TEMPEST: This one will obviously have to get in at some point, after "Macbeth" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" did; and we know from Greg that Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban will all be showing up in "Gargoyles", though we know almost nothing about their depiction in the Gargoyles Universe (apart from Prospero taking up magic again after breaking his staff and drowning his books, surviving into the modern world, and being ready to try experimenting on whether humans and gargoyles can have offspring, like Sevarius - an unsettling possibility, though Shakespeare's Prospero himself does have some dark aspects - and that Caliban would, in some form or other, have a role in Brooklyn's TimeDancing). More than this, I'm not prepared to guess at. (Angela's response to the outside world in the Avalon World Tour does evoke Miranda's "O brave new world!" tone, as well - and both Angela and Miranda were brought up on remote magical islands.)

[Of course, since then, Prospero has appeared on-stage at last (it's been long enough since "Gargoyles Quest" #2 came out that I think we don't need spoiler tags for this), with Ariel and Caliban's off-stage mention confirming that he's *the* Prospero rather than a namesake (as in "The Face in the Frost"). With the additional touch that he's headquartered on Bermuda; many Shakespeare scholars believe that one of the inspirations for this play was a shipwreck that occurred off Bermuda in 1610. "The Tempest" was the Shakespeare play I was most hoping to see feature in "Gargoyles" in the event of a revival ever since its initial ending; any series that has brought in the witches from "Macbeth" and the fairies from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" *has* to include "The Tempest" as well. We got an indication as well that Prospero's a Tolkien buff; the notion of his reading "The Lord of the Rings" is certainly an amusing one.]

Todd Jensen

This review of the Gargoyles: Dark Ages comic from Dynamite is fantastic! You’ve captured the essence of the series and highlighted what makes it a must-read for fans of the franchise. The detailed analysis of the storyline and characters really brings out the depth of the comic. Thanks for sharing your insights!
spray foam insulation Richmond - [insulationcontractorsrichmondva at hotmail dot com]

I was sitting back and enjoying this thoroughly already, but then, my goodness. "An Elizabethan version of Lucy and Ethel." Well, keyboard needed cleaning anyway.
morrand - [morrand276 at gmail dot com]

JURGAN - Good thought on that line. I hadn't seriously analyzed it before, though it's probably the only Shakespeare allusion in "The Goliath Chronicles".

OTHELLO: This one definitely got in, via the ColdTrio. (I still think it's a bit of a pity that the mention of Xanatos and Fox's evening out being to a production of Verdi's "Otello" never made it into the televised version of "Possession"; it was so utterly appropriate.) [Since then, we've got the "ur-Othello" - as I call the version of the play put on by the traveling players in "Dark Ages: Alliance". I wonder whether the brief summary of it includes any hints for how Coldstone's partnership with Demona will turn out.]

PERICLES: One of Shakespeare's lesser-known romances (it didn't even make it into the First Folio, and seems to have been a collaboration), though Greg Weisman is fond of it, saying that it really turns him on. Pericles, the hero of the title (only a namesake of the Athenian statesman, by the way), gets involved in a series of adventures, including winning the hand of a princess named Thaisa in a tournament, only to lose her some time after their marriage when she apparently dies during childbirth while they're in the middle of a storm at sea (she really went into a coma) and is given a sea burial in a coffin which floats to a nearby town, where a skilled doctor revives her. Pericles leaves their daughter (the same infant that Thaisa gave birth to during the storm) Marina (no relation to Ms. Sirtis) with friends; Marina grows up there, and overshadows their own daughter, prompting the aforesaid friends to try getting rid of her (their behavior being even more despicable because earlier in the play, Pericles had brought them great quantities of food when their city was struck by a heavy famine). Fortunately Marina is rescued, reunited with her father, and both of them with Thaisa afterwards. I don't know as yet whether any of that might be adapted to the Gargoyles Universe, though you could, if you're straining really hard, call for a comparison between the father-daughter reunion in this play and Goliath and Angela's reunion (if you can call it that when Angela and her siblings were still eggs when Goliath parted with them) in "Avalon" and the ensuing World Tour.

[This is only a very tenuous link to "Gargoyles", but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Shortly after "Gargoyles" ended, there was a sit-com called "Just Shoot Me", whose lead was played by Laura San Giacomo, Fox's voice actress. I only saw a couple of episodes, but one was a sort of "King Lear"-parody, where Laura's character was hoping to get tickets to a performance of "King Lear" at Stratford from her father, but a couple of co-workers manipulated him into getting them instead - based on the opening of "King Lear" with Laura's character in the Cordelia role and her scheming co-workers in the roles of Goneril and Regan. (With a fun scene after that where Laura's character is explaining about the story of "King Lear" to a friend in a restaurant, and more and more people at the nearby tables are listening in with rapt interest.) Near the start of the episode, Laura's character was praising Shakespeare's work "except for 'Pericles', and I think he phoned that one in". (The scheming co-workers copy that remark when getting the tickets from her father, but mangle it from "Pericles" to "Hercules".)]

RICHARD II: The first of Shakespeare's "Wars of the Roses" history cycle from the point of view of internal chronology (though Shakespeare wrote the Henry VI plays and "Richard III" many years before he wrote "Richard II"). Richard II is a vain and conceited king, who so hopelessly mismanages England that his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, finally leads a rebellion against him. Bolingbroke overthrows Richard easily, partly because most of the English are so fed up with Richard's misrule that they'll gladly support Bolingbroke, partly because Richard's response to learning about the revolt is, not to try putting it down, but to enter a heavy bout of self-pity, saying things like "For God's sake let us sit upon the ground/ And tell sad stories of the death of kings....", to the exasperation of the few faithful followers he has, who urge him to do something. (Indeed, at times it seems less as if Bolingbroke's deposing Richard, and more as if Richard's pushing the crown onto him as part of his reveling in angst.) Bolingbroke becomes King as Henry IV (the same Henry IV who'll have Prince Hal as a son; in the last Act of the play, he's shown worriedly discussing Hal's hijinks in the taverns with a few advisors as a set-up for "Henry IV Part One"), and Richard is locked up in a remote castle. However, Richard's last few friends try to free him and depose Henry; the scheme fails but Henry is so alarmed that (in a scene that Shakespeare or his sources evidently stole from Henry II and Thomas Becket) he wishes aloud, without really thinking, that someone would solve the Richard problem. One of his knights overhears him, and eager to please, goes to the castle, kills Richard, and presents his body to a horrified Henry - who, instead of thanking him, banishes him from the kingdom. The play ends with Henry IV, shaken over having helped bring about Richard's murder, vowing to make amends by going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (as anyone who's read or seen the "Henry IV" plays knows, he never makes it there).

If "Richard II" has any influence on future "Gargoyles" stories, quotes from the more poetic speeches is the most likely form it'll take. Though Richard has three advisors (two of whom get executed by Bolingbroke; the third one survives for a while longer) named Bushy, Bagot, and Green - names that seem almost perfect for some trio of minor characters.

RICHARD III: Like "Henry IV Part One" and "Henry V", one history play that needs no introduction. If "Gargoyles" ever does handle Richard, it'll be fun to see what take Greg Weisman uses on him: Shakespeare's version (the villainous, scheming hunchback who likes gloating to the audience about his schemes) or the more recent "maligned by the Tudors" interpretation popularized by such works as Josephine Tey's "Daughter of Time". (I've already mused on the possibility of Macbeth meeting Richard; it's especially appropriate with both plays being about guys who scheme and murder their way to the throne and then lose it - though Shakespeare's Macbeth is more complex than his Richard III - as much difference between them as between, say, Demona and the Archmage.)

["Richard III" still hasn't featured in "Gargoyles" as yet, but did get a quote in the "auditions" scene of "The Spectacular Spider-Man" as well - a bit describing Richard as a "bottled spider". You just know that, if they're going to do a crowd of Shakespeare quotes in a Spiderman series, that one would have to get in.]

Todd Jensen

"Xanatos's "To be or not to be" in "Angels in the Night" (most of us won't, though)"

It's very telling, to me, that TGC used that quote. It's like they knew fans were expecting a Shakespeare reference, but they didn't know how to do it subtly and instead picked the most obvious Shakespeare quote in existence.

Jurgan - [jurgan6 at yahoo dot com]

ED AND BISHANSKY - Thanks.

The "This Day in History" Desk Calendar gave Macbeth's defeat by Canmore for today's historical event.

On to more Shakespeare plays in connection with "Gargoyles".

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR: This one includes Falstaff (plus Bardolph, Pistol, and Mistress Quickly in supporting roles - though the Mistress Quickly of "Merry Wives" has little more in common with the Mistress Quickly of the "Henry IV" plays than her name, being here an employee of the local doctor rather than a tavern-keeper), so some elements of it could eventually get into "Gargoyles" (most likely through "Bad Guys", of course). Indeed, we saw that play mentioned in "The Spectacular Spider-Man", when Aunt May and Anna Watson were planning to see it before it was called on account of attack from the Sinister Six; I still wonder whether Greg might have chosen that specific Shakespeare play for the episode because he was working on "Bad Guys" at the same time.

Of course, the Falstaff of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" differs from that of "Henry IV" in a dramatic way, being far more easily duped; I've mentioned before that Falstaff buffs often regard that play much the same way that most of us regard "The Goliath Chronicles". [Which isn't fair to "The Merry Wives of Windsor", since it was also Shakespeare's work, rather than Falstaff being handed over to a new playwright less familiar with him.] One theory is that it stems from the genre difference; in the history plays, Falstaff serves as a means of puncturing the pretensions of the nobles fighting for power, but there are none about in the domestic comedy tone of "The Merry Wives of Windsor", which naturally means a different role - in which the Merry Wives of the title (Mistress Page and Mistress Ford - best described as an Elizabethan version of Lucy and Ethel) get the better of him. (Falstaff, short of money, decides to make love to them because their husbands are rich, and sends them both identical love letters; Mistress Page and Mistress Ford note their striking similarity and comment that he's probably got a thousand of those letters at home, all with "Insert Name Here" blanks. Needless to say, they have no interest in taking him on as a lover, but decide to pretend to so that they can play a series of pranks on him, such as getting him to hide in a laundry basket that they then dump into the river.) Since the play seems to be set during Elizabeth I's reign rather than Henry IV's, I've sometimes speculated that there might be a "Black Adder" phenomenon at work here, though Shakespeare probably didn't have that in mind.

Near the end of the play, Herne, the leader of the Wild Hunt in English folklore, is mentioned, and I wouldn't be too surprised if he shows up in "Gargoyles" someday (again, thanks to the "every legend will get in, in time"), especially since we already know that one off-stage Shakespearean fantasy creature (Queen Mab) will be showing up. [After noticing the major "hunting" theme in "Gargoyles" during my rewatch of it in 2019, for the 25th anniversary - one that certainly gave new significance to me of the "Disney Afternoon" phase ending with "Hunter's Moon", I feel all the more now that Herne the Hunter will need to appear in "Gargoyles" at some point.]

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM: Like "Macbeth", this play needs hardly any explanation. Oberon, Titania, and Puck are now well-established characters, though we don't know as yet if the Bottom incident really did take place in the Gargoyles Universe or not. (I've sometimes speculated that, if it did, Puck had something to do with Shakespeare finding out about it.) We know that Greg Weisman sees the little Indian boy whom Oberon and Titania were quarrelling over as a half-human son of Oberon's, though we don't know if he'll ever appear on-stage in "Gargoyles". (We also know that Theseus, who appears in this play, is one of Greg's favorite legendary characters - and got an off-stage allusion in "The New Olympians".)

I haven't seen Season Two of "The Spectacular Spider-Man", but I know that "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is involved in it - two plays in a row on this list that show up in "The Spectacular Spider-Man", and in the same order as on my alphabetical order list. Weird, isn't it? [Since the original post, I did get to see Season Two, complete with the "Midsummer Night's Dream" thread (including such features as Oberon and Titania now being green and blue respectively, Flash Thompson being cast as Bottom, donkey-head and all, and - appropriately, I thought, for a Spiderman series - Cobweb's role getting enlarged.]

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: We know that Greg likes this play, though most of the ideas he's mentioned having for it were for "non-Gargoyles" ideas. Though we also know that Greg sees Brooklyn and Katana as having a relationship much like Benedick and Beatrice's (though probably not as deliberate influence, since it's a common concept - I remember that his original comparison was to Sam and Dianne from "Cheers"). The play also features another bastard, Don John, who's in the same "scheming villain" mode as Edmund and Thailog, though unlike them, he's more of a plot-device character set up to explain why Claudio thinks that Hero's unfaithful to him, who then disappears (to be arrested off-stage after his scheme gets out) once his role is done.

Todd Jensen

Keep them coming, Todd!

I love that the fandom has expanded in recent years. And while there are more places to talk about "Gargoyles" now, Station Eight remains the only spot for content like this - thanks almost entirely to you.

Greg Bishansky

Don't apologise for a second, Todd, your posts are gold. If and when I get a sec, I'll try to properly reply but I absolutely love reading them.
Ed

Sorry for the double post. More of my thoughts on Shakespeare's plays in "Gargoyles".

MACBETH: This one is obvious, of course - one of the biggest Shakespeare plays in "Gargoyles", with ties to Macbeth, Demona, the Weird Sisters, and the Hunters. (We even have the namesake figures of Banquo and Fleance.) We know that Greg had planned that "Weird Macbeth" two-parter, in which the cast is stuck doing "Macbeth"; I've sometimes wondered whether that story could bring in the famous theater superstition about "Macbeth" (it would *have* to get into "Gargoyles" at some point, obviously, particularly in light of the "every legend gets in eventually" rule - it's a modern legend, but so are the Illuminati and the "ancient astronauts" theory about the stone heads on Easter Island). [The original post included some wondering who'd play the Witches, but the evidence we've had since then suggested that the Weird Sisters would be most likely playing their Shakespearean counterparts, and are probably behind the whole play.]

(One "Macbeth"-related scene that we'll never see. Demona somehow gets a gargoyle beast named Spot, but he turns out to be thoroughly undisciplined. He rampages through her house, demolishing the furniture and chewing up several priceless centuries-old spell books and other magical artifacts. At last, Demona has had enough; she opens the front door and shoves the gargoyle beast through it, saying, as she does so - no, that one's way too obvious, and cliched.)

[It feels particularly appropriate to post on "Macbeth" today, since August 14 was the date that Macbeth defeated Duncan in battle in 1040. And August 15 is the anniversary of Macbeth's defeat by Canmore.

Since I posted the original comments, of course, we've gotten a bit more "Macbeth" into "Gargoyles", via the names of Culen's thanes in "Dark Ages: Alliance", all named after thanes in Shakespeare. And I think it appropriate that the one whose namesake had the largest role in the play among Culen's supporters, Cawdor, had the biggest role in the story, as the one who slew Verity. (It's tempting to imagine his death at Hudson/Mentor's hands being captioned "Execution is done on Cawdor.")

Incidentally, I have a book on Scottish history and culture called "A Scottish Miscellany" (by Jonathan Green, Skyhorse Publishing) which had a chapter on Macbeth, that discussed the difference between the play and history, and even included a bit about the "Curse of the Scottish Play". It also included the historical Macbeth's family tree, which should particularly appeal to "Gargoyles" fans, since it went back all the way to the "Once Upon A Time There Were Three Brothers" era, covering practically every historical figure who got into the "Gargoyles" stories set in the tenth and eleventh centuries.]

MEASURE FOR MEASURE: Another of Shakespeare's problem plays. In this one, the Duke of Vienna decides to go away for a while on holiday and asks one of his nobles, Angelo, to take care of things in his absence. Angelo, an extremely upright and strict man (so upright and strict that people claim he has ice-water in his veins rather than blood) decides that it's time to crack down on all the vice and immorality in the city, and starts hauling people in for trial. One of these is a young man named Claudio, who was engaged to a young lady named Juliet (Shakespeare often reused names). Unfortunately, the wedding was delayed while their relatives argued over the dowry, Claudio and Juliet got tired of waiting - and now Julia's pregnant. Angelo decides to sentence Claudio to death with a "No excuses!" attitude, even though Claudio fully intends to marry Juliet just as soon as the dowry arguments are over. Claudio's friends, alarmed, beg his sister Isabella, who's about to enter a nunnery, to plead to Angelo for mercy - unfortunately, she's just as puritanical as Angelo (in her very first scene, she's asking the abbess at the nunnery about the discipline for the nuns - concerned, not that it might be too strict, but not strict enough), and only reluctantly agrees. Doubly unfortunately, Angelo, to his consternation, finds himself attracted to Isabella, and finally tells her in private that he'll pardon Claudio, if she'll sleep with him. Isabella refuses in disgust and outrage. Claudio, when he learns of her decision, initially applauds it, but then thinks about the horrors of death and begs her to reconsider; Isabella gives him a fierce tongue-lashing and says that she hopes Angelo does indeed execute him. And at this point, the Duke, who hadn't really gone away on holiday and is lurking about the city in disguise, hears about this and decides to get involved....

I don't think that this play is likely to get into "Gargoyles" much beyond a few quotes; then again, I don't even know what Greg thinks of it. As far as I know, he's never mentioned it at "Ask Greg".

[Since then, "Measure for Measure" has gotten a reference in one of Greg Weisman's productions, though "The Spectacular Spiderman", in this case. A quote from it appeared in the "audition scene" in Season Two: "it is excellent/ To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous/ To use it like a giant".]

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE: I've mentioned before Demona and Shylock having an archetypal similarity, though I think it a coincidence. I don't think we'll be seeing her demand a pound of flesh from anyone, at least - nor do I think that, in the story where they debate whether to give Goliath a trial or not, his lawyer will be named Portia.... But we may get a few allusions to or quotes from "The Merchant of Venice" in future "Gargoyles" stories; we'll have to wait and see. [Of course, the "Portia" speculation has been ruled out now that we've got the actual "Goliath's Hearing" story, where his lawyer was male, and the female lawyer involved was the prosecutor.]

Todd Jensen

MATTHEW - Thanks. Incidentally, I should have written "intended" rather than "attended" in the last paragraph on "Julius Caesar" (the one in brackets); I don't know how I slipped up on that one.

KING JOHN: Another of Shakespeare's lesser-known history plays. Like "Henry VIII", it leaves out the things that the title character is most famous for: in John's case, the Magna Carta and his going after Robin Hood during his Prince John days. (Though their absence may not be so surprising. In Shakespeare's day, the Magna Carta wasn't seen as that important; it didn't secure its position in the minds of Englishmen as a great guardian of liberties until a few decades later, during the clashes with Charles I that led to the English Civil War and his beheading. And the notion of Robin Hood as a contemporary of Richard the Lion-hearted and John is a relatively late development in his story, probably popularized by Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe".) Instead, the play focuses on the struggle over the English throne between John and his little nephew Arthur, the son of John's older (now deceased) brother Geoffrey, whom many people see as the rightful King of England. John finally captures Arthur, locks him up in a tower, and then privately tells one of his henchmen, a man named Hubert de Burgh, to dispose of the boy. Hubert, however, in a manner almost reminiscent of the Queen's Huntsman in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", can't bring himself to do it, and so only pretends to the king that he killed Arthur. John, upon receiving the news, gathers his barons together and, with a suitable display of crocodile tears, tells them that poor little Arthur has just died. He tries to make it sound as if Arthur died from natural causes, but the barons are understandably suspicious, and unwilling to serve a king who would murder a child, even a child who's a major rival to the throne. John starts to suspect that a dead Arthur could be even more dangerous to him than a living Arthur, and proceeds to (once the barons are out of hearing range) tell Hubert off for killing the boy; when Hubert protests that John told him to, John retorts that kings often say things like that that they don't really mean (something he ought to know about, in light of the case of his father and Thomas Becket). Hubert finally admits that he didn't kill Arthur, and John, instead of being angry at him for disobeying orders, is relieved, telling Hubert to run after the barons and tell them the good news, in the hopes that it might rekindle their loyalty to him. Unfortunately for John, Arthur is planning to escape from the tower at that moment, but misjudges the distance from the tower window to the ground when he jumps and breaks his neck. The barons find his body lying there and are horrified, naturally convinced that his uncle had something to do with it. At that point, as they're gathered around Arthur's body, Hubert runs up to them, saying "Good news, everyone! Arthur isn't dead after all - hey, what's everyone staring at? Oh." After this, the barons desert to the French king who's making plans to invade England to place either Arthur or another of his relatives (if Arthur is dead) on the throne in John's place - uncomfortably aware that it's helping a foreign invader, but even that sounds better than serving a king who'd (they think) murder a child.

The most "Gargoyles"-relevant part of the play is the character of Philip Faulconbridge, one of John's chief supporters. We know that Greg Weisman's fond of the bastard archetype, and Faulconbridge is one of Shakespeare's leading bastards (in the literal sense), alongside Edmund from "King Lear". The difference is that Faulconbridge is a much nobler figure than the scheming Edmund; he's the illegitimate son of Richard the Lion-hearted, who's clearly inherited his father's military prowess, and added onto it a wry sense of humor. During the battles that John fights, Faulconbridge participates with a lot of gusto and valor (more so than John, who's portrayed as weak and cowardly); in particular, he's one of the few English leaders who doesn't desert after Arthur's death (at one point telling off the English barons who sided with the French king, saying that while he's not too happy about Arthur's death either, going over to a guy invading England is even worse - fortunately, the barons finally come to their senses and return to John, after discovering that the French king has plans to get rid of them once they've outlived their usefulness - another example, like the Wyvern Massacre, of the dangers of bringing an outside enemy in to solve an internal dispute). Shakespeare even gives Faulconbridge at the end one of his best-known patriotic speeches: "This England never did, nor never shall,/ Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,/ But when it first did help to wound itself./ Now these her princes are come home again,/ Come the three corners of the world in arms,/ And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,/ If England to itself do rest but true." As I said, given Greg Weisman's interest in bastards, it would be fun to see what he might make of someone like Faulconbridge.

(I've sometimes wondered what official name Arthur would have borne if he *had* become king, especially after reading Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories, set in an alternate universe where Richard the Lion-hearted passed the throne on to Arthur rather than to John; in them, Arthur, who proved one of England's greatest kings, soon became understandably confused with Arthur Pendragon.)

[While we've still seen no elements from "King John" in "Gargoyles", we have seen a more heroic treatment of the Bastard archetype (though with no signs of being derived from Faulconbridge in this play) from Greg Weisman in the form of Superboy in "Young Justice".

I might also add that "King John" contains a really great example of cold amorality in the form of Cardinal Pandulph, an ally of King John's enemies (thanks to John's clashes with the Pope, mostly off-stage but referred to). When John captures Prince Arthur, most of John's enemies, who were supporting Arthur's claim to the English throne, see this as a great blow; Arthur's mother, in particular, is absolutely distraught. Pandulph tells them "Actually, this could work to our advantage. John will most likely murder his nephew now that he has him in his power, his people will be horrified at the murder of a little boy, and we can exploit that horror and bring them over to our side."]

KING LEAR: One quote from this play already, in the form of Xanatos's "Reason not the need" line in "Vows" (a cheeky quote; in the original play, Lear's saying it to one of his daughters, and Xanatos is saying it to his father, reversing the father-child relationship). We know that Edmund is Greg's favorite Shakespearean character, and probably a subconscious influence on Thailog. I don't know if we'll see more of the play than that in "Gargoyles" (the King Lear story is based on an actual British legend going back to Geoffrey of Monmouth, though in Geoffrey's version, Cordelia restores her father to the throne and he lives in peace for three years before dying in bed; she still comes to a tragic end thanks to Goneril and Regan's sons being out for revenge, but after his death - another example, as in "Hamlet", of Shakespeare making the ending more tragic).

LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST: One of Shakespeare's lesser-known comedies (partly because of a lot of topical references to Elizabethan politics that have dated the play), though we know that Greg likes it and even did some (non-"Gargoyles") writing on it. The play's about a king and three of his nobles who decide to go into reclusion for a few years and quietly study; two of the nobles like the idea, but the third one, Berowne, the most intelligent and witty of the four, dislikes it (for one thing, the regimen calls for them to be up at dawn to study, while he likes sleeping in in the mornings). He points out one big problem: the rules say that they're to have no women around during this time, but the daughter of a neighboring king is due to arrive at court for an important state visit and they can't turn her away. "I'd forgotten about that!" groans the king, and decides he'll have to put the "no women" rule on hold to receive her. He and the princess proceed to fall in love with her, while the princess has three ladies-in-waiting, each of whom falls in love with one of the king's nobles and vice versa; in the best touch of all, the most intelligent of her ladies-in-waiting, Rosaline, falls in love with Berowne and vice versa.

One of the play's main focuses is on language; there are a group of comic relief attendants at court (such as an eccentric Spanish knight named Armado, who's almost a precursor to Don Quixote, and a pedantic scholar named Holofernes) who cheerfully mangle the English language with lots of long words (someone comments at one point that they've "been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps"). At one point, Holofernes comments disapprovingly of Armado's way of pronouncing various words (reflecting changes in the English language taking place in Shakespeare's time), about how he says "doubt" or "debt" without pronouncing the "b" in them, concluding with "This is abhominable - which he would call 'abominable'". In contrast, Berowne realizes in the course of wooing Rosaline that plain English works better than fancy English for the job, and so promises her that he'll only speak to her in plain English; he then proceeds to say "My love to thee is sound, sans [fancy English for "without"] crack or flaw". Rosaline points out to him that "sans" is one of those fancy English words he's promised not to use any more, to which Berowne sheepishly apologizes.

The play ends with Armado, Holofernes, and a few of their friends putting on a performance for the court of "the Nine Worthies of the World" (nine famous legendary or historical leaders of antiquity: Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Joshua, King David, Judas Maccabeeus, King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey de Bouillon, an early leader in the Crusades); it's on much the same level as Bottom and his friends putting on "Pyramus and Thisbe" for Theseus and Hippolyta in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", except with more arguments with their courtly audience. When Holofernes, for example, comes on as Judas Maccabeeus and introduces himself, the courtiers at once cry "Judas!" in disapproval, and refuse to listen to him when he protests, "No, not that one! I'm Judas Maccabeeus, not Judas Iscariot!" The most oddball casting of all for the performance was the role of Hercules (not in the above list of Nine Worthies; apparently there was a mix-up), who is played by Armado's little page boy Moth; Moth is clearly physically unsuited to the role, but they ingeniously solve that by having him play Hercules as a baby, and giving him a couple of toy snakes to strangle. (I saw a performance of "Love's Labor's Lost" once in which Moth was having an especially great time with that, constantly upstaging Holofernes with his stuffed snakes at every opportunity until Holofernes was thoroughly exasperated.)

As I said, we know that Greg really likes this play, but I don't know whether it'll find much room in "Gargoyles" (beyond maybe a couple of quotes).

[Five of the Nine Worthies - just over half - have now gotten at least mentions in "Gargoyles". King Arthur is the most obvious one, followed by King David (thanks to the David-and-Goliath allusions). Alexander the Great got referred to through Alex's name (and Thailog's "Alexander Thailog" alias), plus his name being bestowed on Lexington by Alesand - with Julius Caesar and Charlemagne's names going to the other two members of the trio.]

Todd Jensen

Good list, Todd. I'll admit I don't have the most extensive knowledge when it comes to Shakespeare's work (odd considering this fanbase).
Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!

Sorry, that was me; I seem to have gotten "logged out" somehow. It's been so long since such a thing happened that it took me completely by surprise.
Todd Jensen

CRAIG - I remember seeing "Chimes at Midnight" some years ago. (One part about it I remember was the narration being taken from Holinshed's Chronicles, one of Shakespeare's major sources.)

Here's more of my thoughts on Shakespeare's plays in a "Gargoyles" context, still taken from 2009 if with a few edits.

HENRY VI PARTS ONE, TWO, AND THREE: The "Henry VI" plays are among Shakespeare's least-known history plays (alongside "King John" and "Henry VIII"), and would be even less well-known if they weren't part of the eight-part "Wars of the Roses" cycle. The three parts of "Henry VI" and "Richard III" were Shakespeare's original tetralogy about the civil wars in 15th century England; later on, he wrote a prequel tetralogy: "Richard II", "Henry IV Parts One and Two", and "Henry V". A bit like George Lucas and "Star Wars", except that in Shakespeare's case, the prequel was much better than the original. (Note the comic relief in the two prequels: in Shakespeare's prequel, it was Falstaff, in Lucas's, it was Jar Jar Binks. That says a lot.)

At any rate, the "Henry VI" plays deal with how, after Henry V's death, England loses the Hundred Years' War (thanks partly to Joan of Arc - more on that below), and slides into the Wars of the Roses, which Henry VI tries to prevent but unsuccessfully. (I've felt tempted to compare him to E--n P-x in the past, but on further thought, decided against it, partly because such a comparison would probably turn everyone in the comment room against Henry VI, partly because E--n P-x *did* succeed in persuading the warring factions in his country to make peace, which Henry failed to do with Lancaster and York - maybe P-x was a better statesman than we assumed from his cliched lines and endlessly repeated name.) It doesn't help that Henry's wife, Margaret of Anjou, is all in favor of crushing the Yorkists who challenge her husband's throne with an almost Demona-ish level of bloodthirstiness (I've sometimes speculated that she was the inspiration for the Queen of Hearts in "Alice in Wonderland", especially since the Queen of Hearts prefered red roses over white roses).

"Henry VI Part One" has gained some particular notoriety in its depiction of Joan of Arc. Shakespeare and his audience were still smarting over losing the Hundred Years' War, so Shakespeare depicts Joan as not a saint inspired by angels (although she poses as one at first) but as a witch in league with the Devil, who deserts her in the end and lets her be captured by the English. She's not even an effective leader; every time Joan frees a French town from the English, the English speedily recapture it, followed by the Dauphin wondering whether he had the right idea in accepting Joan's help. She does succeed in defeating one of the best English generals, Lord Talbot - but because the two English nobles who are supposed to be bringing reinforcements to Talbot (the Dukes of Somerset and York, future leaders of the Lancastrian and Yorkist factions) hate each other so much that they refuse to work together, so the reinforcements never arrive. The worst part, though, comes when Joan's captured and sentenced to be burnt at the stake. Her old father shows up, grieving about her impending death, until Joan tells him "Get lost, you stupid ignorant peasant! I'm not your daughter; I'm descended from royalty." The old shepherd stares at her in shock, then walks off, telling the English "Burn that ungrateful little brat". Joan then pleads with the English not to burn her, and becomes so desperate that she finally claims that she's pregnant, naming one French leader after another as the father and never mind that she's dynamiting her "holy virgin" reputation; all she succeeds in doing is disgusting the English still further. This is probably why "Henry VI Part One" isn't performed too often nowadays, and if "Gargoyles" ever handles Joan of Arc (Greg once speculated that Demona might have been in France during that time, but hasn't worked out the details or even decided for certain), it'll certainly be the more conventional portrayal of her.

[Greg Weisman *did* get a Joan of Arc-reference in one of his non-"Gargoyles" works, when he named Rain's best friend in the "Rain of the Ghosts" books "Charlie Dauphin", though I doubt it was influenced by Shakespeare's version at all. Incidentally, the French royal family at the time of Henry V and Joan of Arc was named "Valois", though I don't know if they were related to a certain spear-wielding ally of Culen's five centuries earlier.]

"Henry VI Part Two" has its own piece of notoriety; in one scene, during a peasant revolt, one of the peasants says "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". It's become one of Shakespeare's more popular lines since then, even though the lawyers have been frantically pointing out that this line was delivered by one of the villains. I don't know if this line ever could be applied to lawyers in the "Gargoyles Universe"; we've had mentions of Xanatos and Dracon having clever lawyers who are able to get them out on bail or give them shortened sentences (though Dracon's lawyers must have given up on him by "Turf"), but they haven't shown up on stage. As an Assistant District Attorney, Margot Yale might count - though the "kill all the lawyers" sentiment would be overreacting, even for her. [Tobe Crest is probably the target of such sentiments from the Quarrymen now, of course.]

HENRY VIII: One of the last plays that Shakespeare ever wrote, and probably in collaboration with another writer. (It's best known for its opening performance burning down the Globe Theatre, when a cannon set off during one of its big moments of pageantry - there's probably more pageantry than drama in this play - accidentally set the theatre on fire.) Shakespeare tactfully leaves out the two things Henry's best-known for: his bulk, and his habit of chopping off his wives' heads; the play ends before Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn can go sour. (To be precise, it ends with Elizabeth I's birth and christening, with Henry disappointed that she's a girl at first - as in real history - but, unlike real history, he warms to her after one of his advisors is momentarily able to see the future and tells him that she'll grow up to be one of England's greatest monarchs ever.) If Henry VIII ever shows up in "Gargoyles", I don't think his portrayal will be influenced by this play at all.

JULIUS CAESAR: For a change in this post, a historical figure whose popular image *is* influenced by Shakespeare's treatment of him, unlike Joan of Arc or Henry VIII above (though Caesar's far closer to the norm than either Joan or Henry were). If the Ides of March ever gets brought into the Gargoyles Universe (maybe linked to Caesar Augustus, who has a small part in the play), there might be some influence from Shakespeare - but I suspect that the play's influence is more likely to display itself in quotes, as with "Hamlet".

[We now know that Brooklyn was called "Caesar" by Alesand during the trio's younger days, though that was more likely attended as a general reference to Julius Caesar, rather than a Shakespeare-inspired one - and definitely couldn't have been Shakespeare-inspired on Alesand's part.]

Anonymous

Terrific, insightful stuff, Todd. Particularly the "Arthur's bosom" parallel. Fascinating, and amusing to think bout.

I think you're probably correct that the Gargoyles Katharine wasn't a deliberate allusion to 'Henry V,' since Greg has said that the name was likely a typo by Michael Reaves. Still a cool coincidence, though.

For those who haven't seen it, I recommend Orson Welles' 'Chimes at Midnight' to any Falstaff fans. Welles slices and dices dialogue and scenes from the 'Henry IV' plays and 'Henry V,' and even a few lines from 'Richard II' and 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' to reconfigure the story as a tragedy centering on Falstaff. Falstaff was Welles's favorite character; by all accounts, Welles had a lot in common with Falstaff (mischievousness, ability to charm people, a streak of the con artist, troubles with food and drink), and he also apparently saw a lot of his late father's personality in the character. The film is a real labor of love, and includes a stunning portrayal of the Battle of Shrewsbury which apparently influenced Spielberg's war scenes in 'Saving Private Ryan.'

Craig

I'm still wondering if these businesses the bots are posting for are even legitimate ones, or scams.

Here's more of my old posts on "Gargoyles and Shakespeare" from 2009, with a few tweaks and updates.

HAMLET: This one's already had a few references in "Gargoyles", naturally - Ophelia's name, and three quotes ("There are more things in heaven and earth..." in "Heritage", "Alas, poor [Yorick/Goliath]" in "Future Tense", and "...who would 'scape whipping?" in "The Gate") - four quotes if you count Xanatos's "To be or not to be" in "Angels in the Night" (most of us won't, though). I don't know if Hamlet himself would ever get into "Gargoyles" on stage, of course; he was based on a legendary Danish prince named Amleth, who probably did exist in the Gargoyles Universe. (Amleth's story differs from Hamlet's in at least one major way; he defeats his usurping uncle without getting killed and becomes King of Denmark for several years. I don't know whether that's more serious or less serious than the tampering that Shakespeare did with Macbeth's story.) I wouldn't be too surprised if we see more quotes, at least, in future "Gargoyles" stories, if we get any - even relatively obscure ones like the one from "The Gate". [Since the original post, we've gotten in a bit more of "Hamlet" - Peredur and Blanchefleur's aliases of "the Player King and Queen" (used with the traveling band of actors whom Hamlet enlists for the "play within a play") and "Aye, there's the rub", used by Shahrizad in "Once Upon a Time There Were Three Brothers".]

HENRY IV PARTS ONE AND TWO: This one definitely got in, thanks to the last two chapters of "Bad Guys: Redemption". And Falstaff and his crew are the most likely people in the history plays to get into "Gargoyles", partly because they're relatively independent of the history covered in Shakespeare's plays (Falstaff's loosely based on two real knights in 15th century England, but only loosely), partly because of how famous Falstaff is (it's said that there've been more books and articles written about Falstaff than any other character in Shakespeare, except for Hamlet). We also saw Dingo get the Prince Hal role. I doubt, though, that we'll ever see him pitted against a Hotspur-counterpart in any future "Bad Guys" stories; that would probably be overdoing it.

[The two historical knights who were Falstaff's loose originals were Sir John Oldcastle and Sir John Fastolf. Oldcastle was a friend of Henry V when he was still a prince, but they later fell out after he became king; Oldcastle had become a Lollard (a sort of proto-Protestant movement) and tried kidnapping Henry V to enforce his demands, resulting in his execution. A sort of precursor-play to Shakespeare's "Henry IV" and "Henry V", "The Famous Victories of Henry V", made Oldcastle one of Prince Hal's friends whom he cast off after he became king, though without distinguishing him from the others; Shakespeare expanded on him, turning him into the familiar disreputable but very witty old knight. He had to change the name, though - apparently the historical Oldcastle had some prominent descendants at court who were not happy about their ancestor's portrayal - and renamed him "Falstaff" after Sir John Fastolf, a notable knight who had been accused - falsely - of cowardice during the latter part of the Hundred Years' War. (Shakespeare had included Fastolf earlier, in "Henry VI Part One", depicting him as a coward.) He did leave a hint of the original name behind when he had Prince Hal call Falstaff "my old lad of the castle". And, of course, this explains why the Falstaff of "Bad Guys" was called John Oldcastle in the flashback scenes to Dingo's boyhood.]

Falstaff, Prince Hal, Bardolph, Poins (the original of the "Points" in "Bad Guys"), and Mistress Quickly were all introduced in "Henry IV Part One", the better-known and more popular of the two plays, which does a great job of balancing the Falstaff part of the story with the historical part of the story, partly because Hotspur is almost as intriguing a character as Falstaff and Hal, and certainly a worthy foil for the Prince. (I think that the scene where Hotspur is arguing with his ally, Owen Glendower, and poking fun at Glendower's claims to be a mighty wizard, is as funny as the Falstaff scenes.) In "Henry IV Part Two" (which introduces Mistress Doll Tearsheet and Pistol), the focus shifts almost entirely to Falstaff except near the end (when Henry IV dies and Hal succeeds him to the throne); the new rebellion (whose leaders are far less colorful than Hotspur) gets only a couple of scenes with a perfunctory feel to them. (It's also put down without a big battle; the King's generals offer an amnesty to the rebels if they agree to lay down their arms - and when the rebels do so, immediately arrest them and haul them off to execution.)

HENRY V: One of Shakespeare's best-known histories alongside "Henry IV Part One" and "Richard III"; it would probably be something of a stretch to include an Agincourt-counterpart in Dingo's future (though for a while, I've been finding myself picturing him saying "Well, once more unto the breach" in the middle of a fight on a future Redemption Squad mission), though Greg might find other material to mine for future stories. Noted for Falstaff's off-stage death with Mistress Quickly saying that he's gone to "Arthur's bosom"; while this is generally recognized as a slip for "Abraham's bosom", it's appropriate since the Falstaff of "Gargoyles" is a member of a secret society founded by a former knight of the Round Table, apparently (judging from Peredur's remarks in "Rock of Ages") to set things up for Arthur's intended return in 2198. There's a Princess Katharine in "Henry V", a French princess whom Henry marries, but I think that's just a coincidence (though the Princess Katharine of "Gargoyles" has some French blood in her, since her mother was from Normandy). [We now have another allusion to "Henry V" - a battle-cry in "Dark Ages: Alliance" clearly modelled on "God for England, Harry, and Saint George!"]

Todd Jensen

These are such intriguing figures! Originally designed as functional waterspouts, they’ve evolved into iconic symbols of protection and mystery in architecture. Their unique designs, often depicting mythical creatures or grotesque figures, add a layer of artistic depth and historical significance to buildings. It’s amazing how these stone guardians have captivated imaginations for centuries!
Water Damaged Drywall - [deluxedrywallsurrey at gmail dot com]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Here's the next part of my "Shakespeare in the Gargoyles Universe" thoughts.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS: One of Shakespeare's early comedies, about two pairs of identical twins constantly being mistaken for each other. Probably won't get involved (note that the television series took pains to, after the first act of "Double Jeopardy", to have Goliath and Thailog look distinctly different enough that this kind of confusion wouldn't apply to them).

CORIOLANUS: One of Shakespeare's lesser-known tragedies, set in the early days of Rome when it was still just one of several villages in Italy, all fighting each other. Coriolanus is the greatest warrior in Rome, but also proud and short-tempered. After a great victory over Rome's leading enemy, the Volsces (another Italian tribe), he runs for office (some things never change), but so alienates most of the Romans with his pride and cantankerousness that they finally drive him out of the city. Coriolanus, furious, joins forces with the Volsces and marches on Rome to get revenge, but his mother persuades him to spare the city. The Volsces, disgusted with Coriolanus for costing them a victory, hack him to pieces. Greg mentioned the play in a ramble on "Titus Andronicus", but I can't think of what else he might do with it.

CYMBELINE: One of Shakespeare's romances (the plays he wrote in his closing years, usually classified as comedies but with a more magical tone). It's set in Britain during the time of Caesar Augustus, and deals with Cymbeline (the then king of Britain) and his daughter Imogen, who is plagued with everything from an evil stepmother who wants to poison her (there's a familiar plot element), her son Cloten who's infatuated with Imogen and won't take no for an answer, and her banished husband Posthumus who's been duped into thinking that Imogen is unfaithful to him. One incident in the play, from the perspective of "Gargoyles", stands out; near the end, Augustus sends a Roman army to invade Britain, and the Romans almost win when an old soldier named Belarius and his adopted sons Cadwal and Polydore (actually Cymbeline's sons and Imogen's brothers - it's complicated) make a stand againt the Romans on a narrow road and turn the tide in the Britons' favor. Shakespeare borrowed this incident from a story in an old Scottish chronicle (also his source for "Macbeth"); in the original, a ploughman named Hay and his sons similarly turned the tide against a Viking invasion of Scotland in 976. Note that Hay's exploit took place during the alliance between Prince Malcolm and Hudson at Castle Wyvern (the very year after Prince Malcolm and Princess Elena's wedding and the big time traveling visit from Goliath, Demona, Xanatos and Fox), so it might fit into "Dark Ages" somewhere, if Greg is able to get far enough into that story [or, more accurately, get to write more "Dark Ages" stories beyond "Dark Ages: Alliance"].)

Todd Jensen

Todd > I recall reading these, as a lurker, back then. I very much look forward to reading them again with the updates.
Craig

TODD, I've known you for almost three decades now and you continue to be a godsend to this fandom!
Greg Bishansky

Todd: You are an absolute star. I'm so psyched to read this series. Also, your last paragraph of spoiler-spec is pretty genius (I hadn't thought of either allusion).
Ed

Second!
Matt
"And, thus, given no choice, we waited..." - Alesand, "The Reach"

First.

Fifteen years ago, I posted a series of comments on how each of Shakespeare's plays (discussed in alphabetical order) had either been incorporated into "Gargoyles", or how it might appear (or if it might even appear at all). I've decided to reprint these with a few edits - including updates on Shakespearean elements in the Dynamite "Gargoyles" comics.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL: One of Shakespeare's "problem plays" (three bleak "comedies", partly called because they don't seem to fit properly into either the comedy genre or the tragedy genre, partly because they deal with human problems); in it, a young woman named Helena, the daughter of a famous doctor, falls in love with a young nobleman named Bertram, who wants nothing to do with her because her father (despite his skill and renown) was a commoner. The king at whose court Bertram is attending is extremely ill, but Helena, who took many lessons from her father before he died, is able to cure him; the king is so grateful to her that he promises to grant her whatever she asks - and she asks for Bertram's hand in marriage, to his horror. Bertram and Helena are wedded, but Bertram leaves as soon as the wedding is over, to take part in a war abroad and announcing that he'll have nothing to do with Helena if he can help it; the rest of the play deals with Helena's (not especially ethical) schemes to bring him back to her. Goliath quoted the name of the play at the end of "Ill Met By Moonlight"; I don't think that it's likely to have any further presence in the Gargoyles Universe.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA: Based on historical events (Mark Antony and Cleopatra's love affair and the struggle between them and Caesar Augustus over the Roman Empire), and so could work in somewhere in the background of the Gargoyles Universe. We know that Caesar Augustus has a role in the Gargoyles Universe (though in canon-in-training) through the Humility Spell, though the play is set at the beginning of his reign and Greg's reported that the Humility Spell was cast near the end of Augustus's reign (four years before he died). Egypt's also been featured once in "Gargoyles" ("Grief"), though Cleopatra doesn't seem to have had that much affinity for it (she was a member of a Macedonian Greek family set up by one of Alexander the Great's generals, not an Egyptian). More than that I won't try to guess.

AS YOU LIKE IT: Would most likely get in via quotes and character namesakes. (I don't know if anybody remembers the Shakespeare episode of [the 1987] "Duck Tales", but at the end, one of the characters quoted the "All the world's a stage" line from this play - the most famous line in the play.)

[SPOILER] Cleopatra has, of course, received a mention in the most recent issue of "Gargoyles Quest" via her necklace, but there's no evidence as yet that this is tied in with "Antony and Cleopatra" beyond Cleopatra's name. Cleopatra is one of those famous people Shakespeare wrote about whose fame was independent of Shakespeare (alongside Julius Caesar, Henry VIII, King John, Joan of Arc, and the combatants of the Trojan War), rather than those who owe their fame to Shakespeare (such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, etc.).

Incidentally, I've a thought on the number 16 that Antoinette Dracon used at the auction. This was interpreted, naturally, as a "Young Justice" allusion, and it's certainly likely to have been intended as one. But it struck me that there's another possible allusion in connecting Antoinette to that number. Louis the *Sixteenth* of France was the husband of Marie *Antoinette*. [/SPOILER]

Todd Jensen