Punchinello writes...

<<Well, let's start with the "buffet"/game-playing writing style. I think it's awful. >>

I agree.

<<Having said that, I have this friend, a garg fan who's now a pretty darn successful writer. When I read her first book, I felt that the first half of it was written in that way. As if rolls of the dice determined who each character was, what he or she could do and what happenned to them.
When I asked her about it, she confessed (if that's the word) that I was dead on. The first half of the book was her almost literally setting to prose a game of D&D that she had played.
I don't recommend doing that, but look at the result. The second half of the novel, inspired as it was by the first half, was wonderful. And she's moved forward with these characters into other books as well. >>

When I indicated that I thought this game-players writing style could be exploited profitably, I wasn't really thinking of more mature, conventional writing emerging from it. Although, that obviouly works too. I was thinking, if you were writing something, for instance, where there was a consistent theme of game-playing, then maybe you could exploit it as a device. I'm thinking of game-playing themes more along the lines of George Perec than dungeons and dragons. So maybe there would be subtle games embedded in the text. But at the same time, maybe there could be a section of the book, or a certain character, which you treat in the game-players writing style. Sort of in the way you could mimic the writing style of the Victorians. I have given no serious thought to what properties make game-player writing read the way it does. But it _is_ recognizable. You've identified it, yourself.

<<But your second question is more serious. Does this process in fact impair the reader/audience. Forget that some of these guys will never be great writers, will this make them bad readers?
I don't know. But my guess is that it's the same (or similar) percentage of people who would have been bad readers in the first place. The good ones will transcend. The others won't. That's my hypothesis.>>

I suppose so. It's just that I keep on detecting subtle trends in the way people in our culture think about things. And I worry this game-players thing will worsen. It's like that business of an incomplete idea of "sentience" invading popular culture. It seems ridiculous to speculate that the idea migrated into the culture from star trek, but if you observe carefully, you can see it. I think people in our culture, are less and less informed by critical thinking today.

Ten years ago, for instance, I don't think I saw game-player writing anywhere. Now, even before this conversation I had, in which we began to put a name to this thing, it seems pervasive. I think the novelty has become the institution. Consider that twenty years ago, aspiring authors could not have seen this in literature. Today, I have waking nightmares that the kid who would have been the next Paul Auster is going to become intellectually deranged when he picks up a dungeons/dragons book for the first time and gets the idea that "this must be how people write."

I'm probably thinking of something along the lines of memes here. Ideas enter the culture and become dominant over time. Usually, stupid ideas. They begin to define the way that people think about things and even the way they value things. It doesn't just erode our intellects. It can erode sensible ethics. Consider this...

I saw an episode of star trek recently, and it really alarmed me. The premise was that the characters travel to a planet where the human population reproduces exclusively by cloning. For some ridiculous reason they could no longer continue cloning themselves, so they ask the characters to donate genetic material so their culture can survive. The characters hostility to the idea is so irrational that I wouldn't know how to describe it. And when the clone people sneak away some of their genetic material to make clones of them anyway, a demonstration of some of the most demented rationalization of science fiction occurs.

The characters go to the lab where their clones have already developed into full grown reproductions of themselves, and use their death rays to obliterate them. And I should be clear that these were not blastocysts in test tubes. These were obviously fully grown and autonomous people. And this is all treated by the authors as though it were the most natural thing in the world. It's simply understood that being cloned "diminishes you" as a human being, and that their absurd indignation was somehow righteous. Precisely how this diminishes a person is never elaborated upon, and I'm sure that the authors never even thought about it. They assume, with remarkable vacuousness, that the cloned people in the lab do not possess any type of intrinsic worth. I know that star trek authors have never picked up a science text, but the poverty of ethical thinking here, compelled me to think they had never read a book or had a thought about anything.

Of course, it's just a silly TV show. Right?

And yet, it's conspicuous that the range public debate about bioethics is defined by these concepts. I'm not talking about the range of debate in the literature of science or philosophy. That remains very isolated from the public forums where most people in our culture consider these issues. In popular magazines and network news journalism, the dominant logic is that a person is rendered somehow, "lesser" by having been cloned. The idea has been in ascendancy for a decade despite the depth of it's ignorance. The people who define and limit public discourse about it have certainly never thought about it critically. Their positions frequently contradict themselves and more frequenly rely on popular myths and emotional appeals to people's superstitions.

And it gets worse. Something far more sinister has emerged from popular, misinformed dialogue about cloning. In popular disputes about it (I heard the notion resurface on CNN about a month ago) the question of "what kind of rights would a clone have" is routinely brandished about as though it were an intelligent thought. To practicing ethicists and scientists, this notion probably would not have even entered the dialogue if it had not been thrust upon them by popular culture. That the question is being asked at all assumes, uncritically, that there is something meaningfully distinguishable about a cloned person which would compel us to assign a different worth to them. A worth, lesser than a person who came into the world by conventional means.

I have a suspicion, that the people most vocally shrieking about the moral dilemmas of cloning, are actually theologically threatened by it. I have no evidence of this. But a few inferences they have made, have got me thinking that their theological picture of "personhood" follows a very rigid prescription, and their indignation may originate with some inept idea that a clone would not have a soul.

"Soul" becomes a good parallel to "sentient life." One is from religion and one is from science fiction, but both of them are shortcuts people use instead of actually thinking about the internal properties that imbue something with intrinsic moral worth.

I hope it's apparent why I think this is important. Magical thinking can be dangerous. The worth of a being can't reasonably be described in these terms. If the distinction between ruling class and underclass or the difference between pets and meat is being determined by distinguishing one as sentient or soul-containing, then we have not really distinguished anything. We're just making things up. We might as well assign moral worth based upon who has stars on their bellies.

I don't remember what Goliath's reaction to Thailog was precisely. I remember that he was alarmed by the prospect of there being another version of himself. How would you describe his feelings about the issue. I suspect since he would have no concept of cloning technology, his perception of it would be unique.

Storyseeker writes...

Please answer me something thats been going on between me and a friend... what is Thailog's colouring? I'm certain its blue because ive got all the episodes but so does my friend and she says he's purple. Pleaseeeee settle this matter?!

Zarok writes...

SANCTUARY

Ding Dong the queue is dead, well wounded anyway. I Know this is late but the asking function was closed down before I could post it and I've been awful busy lately. A well here it is.
I was interested to learn you had planned to use a Quasimodo character originally since Quasi is kind of a Gargoyle himself. I wonder if Quasi existed in the Gargoyle Universe, hey if you can have J.V.
I also was kind of disappointed you didn't give Demona's alter ego an angel themed name like Angelique like you planned in your memo. Would've made a great parallel with Angela and created another of those cool name parallels like Peter Maza and Petros Xanatos or Alexander Xanatos and Alexander
Speaking of thailog I have something to tell you that I think you'll like. When these episodes were first being aired on Disney Channel UK they seriously aired them out of order, skipping over most of the episodes between "City of Stone" and "Avolon" as well as a few pre-CoS episodes. They actually aired half the world tour before "Avolon" and even that before "Eye of The Beholder"! Luckily they sorted it out for the reruns but the point is that when I first saw "Sanctuary" I had not yet seen "Double Jeopardy" and it didn't hurt my enjoyment of this episode one bit. Sure there was some initial confusion over this Goliath look-alike (I thought at first that Thailog's "no way to treat a lady" line was Goliath's) but once the word clone popped up I immediately went "now I get it". More reason to believe that new viewers can get into "Gargoyles". In fact I think the World Tour was good at bring new viewers in, the episodes were much more stand alone

Nick writes...

Greg,

What episodes was Faloog in? (Not sure if I spelled that correctly, Goliath's clone). He was really cool, but I was only able to catch the first time he appeared.

Mary Mack writes...

Completely out of left feild...

I've heard you worked on Darkwing Duck, and you've said many times that Thailog's coloring was in part based on Negaduck's costume. Now, I'm likely the only gargfan who has ever dressed up as Darkwing Duck for Halloween(in the eighth grade, btw, and I'm a girl), so I hope a few off topic (well, off gargoyle) questions won't bug you too much.

What did you do while working on Darkwing? Do you have any standout memories from that show? Or any favorite characters? I'm guessing you wrote-- which episodes did you work on?

Thanks for reading! I wish I were going to the Gathering this year, but I'm using my savings to start my own business instead-- that way I'll be able to make it to G2K3 in New York without emptying my penny jar. The L.A. con ROCKED, and I regret missing out this year. My siblings, however, are going, and have been instructed to videotape everything for me. (So if anyone sees Blondewookiee or The Souldier without a camera, remind them I'm pining away at home!)

And in the spirit of guessing when you'll read this... Happy New Year! (Am I right?)

George writes...

Who is the Gargoyles Arch Nemisis?

Todd Jensen writes...

In the notes that you recently printed for "Double Jeopardy", you mentioned in the outline, just after Thailog emerges from his box for the first time in front of Sevarius and his mercenaries, that this is the last time in the series that we would be seeing that particular band of mercenaries. Was there something ominous intended about this statement - as in, hinting at just what happened to them after Thailog got out?

Blaise writes...

DOUBLE JEOPARDY
The (currently) new ramble! Here's my own (which I also posted in the Comment Room).

After watching the "Previously..." recap and hearing Sevarius' mention about cloning, and then seeing the title, I pretty much figured out what the episode was going to be about. Consequently, I kind of knew that the gargoyle on the battlements at Xanatos' place wasn't really Goliath. Still, I was not quite prepared for Thailog, but we'll get to him later on.
The prologue is well written, and does fit in well with the established continuity...except for the date it's given in the computer files. Even allowing that Xanatos did not get released from prison until after Oct. 31, when did Elisa get shot, and how long before she was able to walk on crutches? Still, I'm willing to let it slide. Besides, it was cool how Goliath smashed the robot's head (you can see the red eye-bulb pop out).
The coloring error you saw, Greg, concerning Thailog's arm in the attack on Lex and Broadway, seems to have been corrected in later airings (at least it's black on my tape).
That was one thing that surprised me--seeing the flash in Elisa's windshield NOT being a copy of Goliath, but something with black skin, red eyes, and a white something (hair of course, but I only saw a glimpse).
I was curious as to what Sevarius was doing with the mercenaries, and why he seemed to be stealing from his employer. I think I may have decided to wait until the end to draw any conclusions.
When Owen mentioned the Emir, I remembered THE EDGE. I didn't expect the dude to actually show up in the series (I was still a bit naive (sp?)), and instead thought more along the lines that this would be a running gag in the series. A sort of background business thing that Xanatos would always be dealing with.
It is interesting to see Xanatos in a semi-vengeful attitude. It's just something you're not used to seeing from this guy. I liked hearing the list of his "enemies" for some strange reason. Just nice to know that Xanatos isn't so untouchable.
And Owen even gets to make a couple of digs at Xanatos--not just the one at the end, but the "plan you've neglected to mention" and cryptically referring to Xanatos Enterprises as "a certain large consortium" (sp?).
Even though Goliath laughed maniacally well-enough in ENTER MACBETH, I still got a kick out of Hudson's line. A little nod to the fact that Goliath has a tendency to be...stoic, perhaps.
And then we get another glimpse at Thailog. And he actually managed to look scarier than Goliath, IMHO. Not a bad trick. I hadn't thought until reading the memo that something...unpleasant may have happend to the mercenaries here. This new thought rather intrigues me (in a morbid sort of way).
The Gen-U-Tech traking bracelet makes a reappearance. Gotta love continuity.
Seeing the electronic log of Thailog's creation proved to be quite fascinating for me. Mostly because of the mention of "accelerating (sp?) the normally slow gargoyle growth process." I liked the added explanation here and the nod towards the coloring change. On the whole, it made everything easier to except, and allowed me to sit back and have fun watching the episode develop.
Like many folks, I loved the whole Xanatos-Sevarius confrontation. Neither is really aware of what the other is thinking, but believes they are. And when Sevarius started to cut loose (and then undercut it with the whispered question of his quality of performance) I laughed out loud. That and the look on Xanatos' face are still amusing (vengeful, confused...you see a lot of sides to Xanatos that you normally don't in this episode).
When Goliath finally meets Thailog...I did not expect Thailog to turn out quite the villain he was, despite knowing that he learned everything from Xanatos. Consequently, I was not expecting him to jump Goliath like that. But this made him a lot of fun. And I love the way Thailog sort of hisses out the "s" at the end of "All the old blocks."
When Thailog is talking to Xanatos and Sevarius in the hold of the oil rig, there is a loop of repeated animation that is very noticeable. The odd thing is, the lips actually remain more-or-less in sync with the dialogue.
I love Thailog's lines here. "And waste my life playing 'guardian angel' night after night to a decrepit city, infested with inferior humans?" Just his choice of words says a lot about this guy's outlook on the world. And to this day I keep playing his other line to Goliath in my head from time to time: "I considered caring about you. It took some effort, but I arranged for you to join this party because I planned to share the money with you. But our little...'family reunion' disappointed me, *father*! So I've decided to *hate* you, too." I just love how that throws some of the blame for what happens on Goliath. Man, with this and OUTFOXED, Goliath's been faced with a lot of his shortcomings.
I had no problem with Elisa slipping out of the manacles. I mean, those things weren't like police cuffs that could close in diameter to conform to a prisoner's wrists. Besides, Xanatos' comment was rather fun.
Actually, there were a lot of fun lines in this sequence, and the episode as a whole (of course, they've already been pointed out, so...).
I get a strange kick out of the fact that it's Sevarius who picks up on the idea that could save them all. It's always fun when the villains and heroes wind up on the same side for some reason.
Something I find very interesting whenever I watch this episode: when Elisa and Xanatos think Goliath might be dead, Xanatos actually moves to comfort Elisa! It's just endlessly fascinating to me that in a potential moment of loss, the proferred shoulder to cry on comes from the antagonist. That's one great thing about this series, character was never subverted for the sake of conforming to traditional "roles."
I actually did think that Thailog had died in the fire. I of course would have regretted it--he was a great character, and Keith David's mannerisms were so distinct from Goliath's that I half-wondered if maybe Thailog was voiced by someone else (a thought I had also had concerning Jim Cummings' differnt sound as Darkwing and Negaduck). However, it wasn't until the "reverse-Xanatos tag" that Thailog took an even greater leap upward in my estimation. Learning that Thailog probably survived and was (in Owen's words) "still out there, has the money, is as powerful as Goliath...and smarter than [Xanatos]." That was one of those "shock" moments, and immediately followed up by "Owen, I think I've created a monster." It felt to me like not only had a new villain been unleashed upon the world, but one greater than any that had come before. I actually like seeing the image of Thailog laughing (although recently, I've wondered what the effect would be if his transparent-face suffused the whole screen).
Rambling on Thailog for a moment--it was great how he moved beyond the stereotypical "evil twin" bit. Although his contrast with Goliath is a very compelling aspect of him, he is not confined to that one dimension. He has the tics that are very much his own, and he manages to assert his independence even more when he takes to wearing the armor.
I know, Greg, that you feel every villain should seem, in "that particular encounter" the hero's unltimate enemy. Still, I can't help but feel that the true rank of "archfiend" seems made for the likes of Thailog.

This is another one of those episodes I really enjoy!

Todd Jensen writes...

Yay! A new episode ramble! Thanks, Greg!

Here are some of my own thoughts about "Double Jeopardy".

The opening one is a rather odd little memory. In the summer of 1995, I spotted an article on "Gargoyles" in a sci-fi magazine (whose name I can no longer remember) discussing what would be done in Season Two; among other things, it included a mention that Goliath's daughter would be introduced into the series. I was quite curious about that, and wondered what she'd be like and how it would be done. And then, when "Double Jeopardy" first aired, and Thailog was treated as Goliath's son in it, I wondered if the article had erred and gotten the gender of Goliath's offspring wrong. (Of course, I know now that it was Angela that the article meant, not Thailog, so that there was no mistake there except on my part.)

In light of the opening flashback, Xanatos must have already started building a whole new set of Steel Clan robots even while he was still in prison, before "The Edge" (especially given that I spotted a whole bunch of those robots in storage, alongside the one that was activated to attack Goliath).

I also liked Owen's "Is this a plan that you've neglected to mention?" line. He really sounded hurt there.

I was interested to notice Renard on Xanatos's suspects list for Thailog's kidnapping, alongside Demona and Macbeth. While I can easily imagine Demona or Macbeth being willing to engage in such a maneuver against Xanatos, I doubt, in light of his rigid code of integrity, that Renard would have done the same (although there is "Golem" to consider, coming up later in the season). Maybe Xanatos believed that the temptation of kidnapping his new gargoyle would have been too much for even his father-in-law to resist.

Sevarius's hamming it up with Xanatos ("Yes! You robbed me of my creation!") was one of the funniest moments in "Gargoyles" for me; certainly the funniest in the episode. (Don't quit your day job, Anton.) And I agree with you about the Dr. Antinori business, by the way. (Also on the subject of Sevarius's overacting, I couldn't help but think that some of his narration in the "clone files" that Lex and Broadway discovered felt almost like a parody of that in a nature documentary, such as the "time for it to leave the nest" line, though I don't know if it was intended that way.)

You no doubt recall how I'd earlier pointed out the similarities between Thailog and Edmund (which I first began to notice after you mentioned Edmund being your favorite Shakespeare character); it occurred to me recently that Thailog also does have a certain similarity to Mordred, especially in many modern-day versions of the Arthurian legend, such as T. H. White. He's Goliath's "illegitimate son", just as Mordred was Arthur's, and his training by his other two fathers, Xanatos and Sevarius, does have (if you're out looking for the parallels) a certain echo of how Mordred, in White's "The Once and Future King", similarly gets trained by his mother Morgause. And the dynamics between Goliath and Thailog, with Goliath initially rejecting his son but then learning that he was wrong to do so, and now reaching out to him - but too late - do remind me of how in White, Arthur similarly initially moves against his son (trying to drown him at birth), but then understands that he was wrong to do so, also makes the attempt to reach out to him, but is coldly rejected by Mordred when he does so. (Come to think of it, Thailog also clearly lusts after both of Goliath's loves, Demona and Elisa, even to the point of combining them in Delilah, just as Mordred lusts after his stepmother Guinevere and attempts to wed her after he usurps his father's throne.)

I've mentioned before the element that I believe makes Thailog an especially great antagonist (the incongruous pairing of Goliath's physical appearance and voice with a thoroughly Xanatosian amorality - though I think that Thailog comes across as more malevolent than Xanatos does, which is also a good touch), so I won't go into that again. It's a bit of a pity that he only turned up twice more in the original series after that ("Sanctuary" and "The Reckoning"), although I suppose that if you'd gotten to do more episodes past "The Journey" that we'd have gotten a lot more of the guy.

The ending definitely surprised me; I was expecting Xanatos to reveal that he'd seen to it that he didn't lose the ransom money after all, but instead we got the revelation that Thailog had escaped with it and is out there, happily scheming away, to Xanatos's own alarm. (As I mentioned before, it's particularly of interest to note that this is the last time in the series that Xanatos attempts to make his own gargoyles - and after the way that Thailog backfired on him, who can blame him?)

It's great to have the rambles going again, and I'm looking forward to the ones to come.

Aaron writes...

Hi Greg. Long-winded question, so bear with me.

One of the recurring themes of Western story-telling is that those who "tamper in God's domain", to borrow a phrase, will be struck down for their hubris. After the enterance of Frankenstein into our collective consciousness, one of the "rules" for Western literature is that Frankenstein must always be destroyed by his monster, for his arrogance in playing god.

The reason I bring this up, is that Xanatos is a man who seems to like playing god. And he has left a trail of monsters in his wake.

I'll ignore Jackal, Hyena, and Wolf for the purposes of this question, since it could be argued that they were already monsters who merely allowed their exteriors to be altered to match their true natures. (Although, it could also be argued that those three were tempted by David and his offers of power and vengeance, but at the end of the day, I still think they all damned themselves willingly)

I'd go so far as to even ignore the mutates, because even though they become monsterous looking, they really don't fit the bill as "monsters". They're just ordinary people who, by virtue of making some bad character judgements, find themselves with fur and wings. (Although it probably doesn't help Xanatos' karma any)

But even ignoring those two examples, you still have...

1. Coldstone. Such an obvious Frankenstein archtype that you joked about it. (The "It's alive! ALLLLLLLIVE!" sequence remains one of my favorites from the whole show) Of course, you could lay Coldstone at least partially at Demona's feet as well, so we'll move on.

2. Thailog. Grown in a lab, created with a mixture of different people, (Goliath's body and temper, Xanatos' mind and ethics, Sevarius'... libedo? Whatever accounts for Delilah) he turns almost immediately on his "fathers" You could call Thailog Sevarius' creature rather then Xanatos' except that David is the force behind his creation, and that Anton, for all his mad scientist posturing, could be seen as no more then a lab assistant, an Igor to David's Dr. Frankenstein.

3. The Coyote robot series. Xanatos' most personal "creature", the one to whom he gave his face (well, half of it) and voice. Loyal (?) to David for now, but unless forming the Ultrapack is David's idea, he presumably goes indepentant eventually. That, and we know he sets his sights on galactic domination in 2198, presumably not with his creator's blessing. (Then again, I could be wrong)

4. The Matrix. Created so that David and Fox could reshape the entire planet at their whim. If that's not arrogance, I don't know what is. Admittedly, I don't think it's becoming sentient along the way was part of the plan, and it's inclusion here might be a bit of a stretch, but I thought it was an example of Xanatos' hubris, if nothing else.

So, I guess, after all that lead up, my question is this: Would the pattern hold true? Would one (or all) of Xanatos' "creatures" come back to bite him in the ass later? As Elisa said "I wouldn't want Xanatos' karma."

There is a second part to this question, but I'll submit it separately, in case it's viewed as an idea.