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REPLIES 2003-06 (Jun)

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Vanity writes...

When early man first met a Gargoyle was he just compelled to kill it? Did early man's superstitious and early proto-religous notions convince him that gargoyles must be evil? I would think that early man would be scared of the much more physically dominant gargoyles, however; mammoths proved no match for early humans. Of course I'm also curious as to gargoyles' reaction/response when early man first starting walking about.
Which specie of man first encountered gargoyle (Homo neanderthalis, Homo erectus, Homo sapien..ect..)?

Archeologists have definately found early man developing weapons crafted of wood and stone and bone. This would help offset the physical inequality between man and goyle. When did gargoyles borrow or invent tool making for themselves. Being 'rational' beings I would think it wouldn't take long for them to realize that the spears humans threw at them really hurt!!

I hate to ask a billion questions like this but....

You have said that gargoyle evolution predates mammalian evolution so Gargoyle evolved before man. So given the seemingly headstart in evolution how could they just let man rule the world.

Why does it seem that given the rough lives of gargoyles, which they had no better that early man; did they not invest themselves in art, music, and architecture. When even some of the earliest men developed tools, made art, evidence of instruments presumed by archeologists as perhaps made for music. They began religous elements as burying the dead and trying to preserve the elderly. (Evidence of this espicially advanced in Homo neanderthalis, of which old men have been found with multiple injuries{perhaps gargoyle induced} indicating his being taken care of by the neanderthal family even at the high risk way of life that the neanderthal lead). What accounts for early man's eagerness to "learn-adapt-evolve" where gargoyles seemed content just to use or mimik man's achievements?

Greg responds...

1. Not necessarily. I don't think early man could kill a gargoyle. That took practice.

2. I think fear -- not necessarily superstition, but old-fashioned, this thing is bigger and stronger than I am fear -- would have been there.

3. And Mammoths were something of a match for man, certainly they were dangerous prey. And they weren't nearly as intelligent as a gargoyle.

4. Since, my theory is that Gargoyles pre-date modern man, the answer is, all of them, I believe.

5. I don't have dates for this, but I'm not sure that gargoyles ever truly adopted the spear. Yes, it hurt. But they had better defenses (and offensive strategies) given their physical natures than to adopt spears.

6. Note - I don' mind a billion questions. Just wish you'd NUMBER them, for easier reference. (EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION!)

7. Well, they didn't just let men rule the world. They were largely asleep when man began to take over. Gargs tended to trump everything that came before, including man. But a man with tools, ultimately trumped the Gargs.

8. Who said they didn't? Who's to say that some of those artifacts you speak of weren't gargoylean. And were just attributed to man by human archaeologists who know no better.

9. No, not burying the dead, because gargs have their own tradition, the Wind Ceremony, ashes to ashes or dust to dust.

10. Again, you're assuming facts not in evidence. The fact that they didn't use clothes or weapons or have sophisticated shelters, none of which they physically required, is hardly proof that all they did was use or mimic man's achievements. The first time you meet the gargoyles, in 994, the species is, sadly, already in decline. What you know doesn't speak to what there was or might have been once upon a time.

Response recorded on June 16, 2003

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matt writes...

1. do the Mayan Pendant Wearers ever get sunburns?

2. why did you decide not to give/make all the Mayan Clan with the lower snake-like bodies?

3. is it just coicidence that Zafiro (1996) looks so different from the other Mayan gargs? (reptile facial features, feathered wings, snake body) are those features more common in the Mayan Clan or more rare?

4. did you ever figure out where you would have Jade and Turquesa journey to on their trip home from Avalon? where would they go?

Greg responds...

1. I've never given it any thought? Any biologists out there with a theory?

2. I wish I had, frankly. That's a mistake I think we made. We wanted to really tie Zafiro in with Quetzacoatl, and I was so focused on him, that I didn't think to do the same with the others. I like their upper body designs a lot, but I wish I had had the art guys give them snake lower bodies too. I've decided that the majority of the slaughtered Mayan clan were lower-snake types. And when the new batch of eggs hatches the hatchlings would reflect that fact.

3. See above. After the fact, I think they're more common. But I'd like to see a mix of lower Zafiro with (for lack of a better term) upper Obsidiana, etc. Or upper Zafiro with lower Jade. You get the idea.

4. Yes.

Response recorded on June 13, 2003

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Anonymous writes...

1.What goddesses/gods(you said they could change their gender) were Mab worshipped as?
2.What gods/godesses were Oberon worshipped as? Puck? Titania?

Greg responds...

I haven't done the research on this yet. I have a few notions in mind, and there's probably more out there that would work, but I haven't done the research yet.

Response recorded on June 13, 2003

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Anonymous writes...

Regarding the Bad Guys spin-off what story arcs were you planning for the show?

Greg responds...

You got to be kidding me. Do you really think I'm going to respond to an anonymous post by outlining all the story arcs I have planned, as if it were a laundry list?

You're asking me to write a novel in this little ASK GREG response box. Ain't gonna happen.

Response recorded on June 13, 2003

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Anonymous writes...

Why is Mab "mad"?

Greg responds...

"Mad"-Angry or "Mad"-Nutso?

Response recorded on June 13, 2003

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Anonymous writes...

Will the Clone Wars happen in the future? You mentioned them in Future Tense.

Greg responds...

It was, of course, largely a throw-away. An in-joke reference to Star Wars and a quick way for Puck to explain his lack of knowledge of Thailog's relationship to Demona.

But -- without making too big a deal of the name "Clone Wars" itself, as I don't want to get sued -- we'd have ourselves some Clone Wars down the line, yes.

Response recorded on June 13, 2003

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Punchinello writes...

<<You idiot! Did you not read the no ideas clause on the main askgreg page or are you just pretending to be stupid!>>

I found this to be a remarkable statement.

Hello Mr. Weisman.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine recently about new kinds of conventions in contemporary fiction, (it was less a conversation than a herculean effort on his part to _educate me_ about some of these things which I should know more about) and the topic of literary devices imported from things that are generally considered banal or somehow inferior to literature came up. The Sunday funnies, technical manuals, etc. He brought up something that I thought you would find interesting. I wanted to find out if you had any reaction to this, as I gather that you consider introducing young people to literature very important and this is something which is (possibly) maligning the way in which they perceive it.

My friend explained the phenomenon of these "adventure card games" to me. I guess the pokemon fall into this category. (Horrifying little things) There are also all manner of these dungeons and dragons type games. Apparently a convention has developed among people who play the games of generating fiction using the cards. For instance, each player would represent a character internal to a story and the cards they play with would dictate the structure of a work of fiction they were creating and "acting out" at the same time. The interesting thing about this is that characters within this convention are frequently developed by means of a pre defined list of "character attributes." Once again, for instance, you would have a condition like

10 personality types. Pick one.
10 types of conventional behavior. Pick one.
10 types of hats. Pick one.

The idea seems to be that character development emerges from the intersection of these variables. Even though I'm certain that this kind of convention could be exploited towards an interesting end in literature, I found this sort of "amateur authors" version of writing very limiting, and the whole method of lists of typical character attributes seems to be an arbitrary convention that was being maintained for the sake of game playing. It's all very silly.

The reason I mention all of this is because my friend told me that he has observed a trend among many amateur authors and many young aspiring authors to use this same kind of convention when writing. He sees characters being treated as though the author were at a buffet, and the author were allowed one "feature" for each little spot on his tray. He sees this a lot. He teaches a creative writing class at the moment and has noticed this sentiment that people are coming into the class with, that if they string together a lot of trivia about a fictional person, a real character will emerge as if by magic. He sees them conduct this exercise a lot where they define a character with...

John lives in Wisconsin.
John works in the Madison public Library.
John likes his job okay.

He mentioned he sees this limiting perspective carry over into their observations of other peoples writing. This way of thinking seems to prevent them from really experiencing a character. It seems they can only define the character for themselves from within the context of this kind of trivia.

He asked me if I had seen this obsession over trivia instead of character anywhere else. I immediately realized that I had! It usually takes the form of...

Where did fox get her tattoo?
Who were Mab's parents?
Who were Oberon's parents?
Who were Titania's parents?
Who were anansi's parents?
Will Brooklyn have children?
How many children?
Will his children have names?
Will those names begin with a consonant or a vowel?

This is why some people so appreciate your continued participation with this board. I'm really just writing this because I would like to read any general reaction you have to it. However, I think I would not be alone in wanting to hear you comment on the kind of questions outlined above (of which you field many). I think I kind of resent the implication in some of these questions that, as the author, you should know the names and mailing addresses of all of Elisa's cousin's three times removed, along with their favorite foods and weight at birth. Is there something you think is essentially being missed with questions like these? Maybe if you were to share with your fans, the kind of dialogue you think is worthwhile and exciting, you would see the trivia questions replaced with more real dialogue about "Gargoyles."

Greg responds...

Well, let's start with the "buffet"/game-playing writing style.

I think it's awful.

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.

The second half of the book was MUCH better. She took a few of the characters from the first half and delved much deeper into their lives and their stories.

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.

My point is that people get inspiration from all sorts of places. I get it from Shakespeare, for example, and Shakespeare got his from all sorts of other sources. A good writer can take something that begins as an exercise... maybe a worthwhile exercise or maybe a dubious one... and turns it into something real and meaningful.

The question -- your first question, I think -- is whether these writers ever grow out of the exercise or whether they become trapped in them. Well, the answer is obviously both. Some will transcend, as some writers always have.

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.

Now, bringing it more specifically to ASK GREG and the "trivia questions" I often get, well, I have mixed feelings.

In some ways, trivia is exactly what this forum is for. After all, just a minute ago I fielded a question from a guy who wanted me to lay out ALL the story arcs for Bad Guys. That's not going to happen, as I told him. This isn't a forum for storytelling. It's a forum for people to get a peak inside the box, (the box being my head).

And in fact, I know no zip codes, but I am a font of unrevealed trivia about the show. I do know more about these characters then 66 episodes has revealed. Some of it I like to keep to myself, some of it I like to tease. Some of it I don't mind revealing and have done so.

So a lot comes down to the intent of the questioner, and you can usually tell, if not in a single post then in the range of posts that that person submits. If I get 16 posts in a row asking something like, "Who is Maggie's father?" followed by "Who is Claw's father?" followed by "Who is Fang's father?" or if I get requests for laundry lists of things, "Name all the ancient heroes who have encountered Oberon," then you can bet that the questioner was looking for a question to ask, as opposed to trying to deepen his or her understanding of the show or character.

But sometimes a so-called trivial question can lead to just that. Look at your list above. Some of it seems stupid, but some of the answers to some of those questions would certainly lead to a better understanding. "Who were Oberon's parents?" Once upon a time, I hadn't revealed the answer to that. Eventually, I revealed that Oberon's mother was Mab. And that revelation, and the info I gave about Oberon's overthrowing of his mother, certainly lends something to one's understanding of his character. I haven't yet revealed who his father is. Not in the mood. But I would hope that learning that would also effect one's understanding of the character.

And again, I think you can often (though not always) tell by the question itself if that's what the questioner is seeking. A deeper understanding about some aspect of the show.

So sometimes, it does get annoying. But mostly I enjoy doing this. (I do think that doing a little a day has been a much better system than trying to do big batches of questions all at once. I get less annoyed when not burdened with the cumulative effects of annoyance.)

Do I wish this could be more of a forum for ideas and discussion? Well, yeah, duh. I've invited that in the past, and, P., I always enjoy reading and responding to your posts.

(Although what you quoted at the head of your post:

<<You idiot! Did you not read the no ideas clause on the main askgreg page or are you just pretending to be stupid!>>

I found this to be a remarkable statement.

is a bit lost on me out of context. I can't believe I wrote the first quote.)

Admittedly, we do have a problem with making this a forum right now. The FLOOD. The flood of submissions during a period when I all but ceased to answer questions (all around the time of 9/11 and following) created a backlog so immense that creating a forum is nearly impossible. Now it truly is impossible, as we have temporarily shut down the submission function. You can't respond to this response.

I'd love to try and solve this problem, and I've made suggestions. But ultimately this isn't my site, it's Gorebash's. Until he's ready, willing and able to initate a new system, we're stuck with me slowly catching up.

I hope that 18 months later you're still checking ASK GREG and reading this. I hope that you'll compose your response and hold on to it, submitting it when we finally get things back up and running. But even if you're not, even if you're long gone, thanks for raising some interesting issues.

Response recorded on June 13, 2003

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Anonymous writes...

1.Did you have any plans for Nought?

Greg responds...

Yes.

Response recorded on June 12, 2003

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Anonymous writes...

Were you ever planning anything for all those mythic heroes you introduced in the World Tour? Mind telling us your plans for them?

Greg responds...

Yes, of course.

Yes, of course.

Response recorded on June 12, 2003

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Anonymous writes...

1.Would you consider the golem to be an AI since it is artificial?
2.If you could rank the AIs of the Gargoyles Universe from most advanced to least advanced where does the Golem fit?

Greg responds...

1. Uh, I suppose... but certainly not in the sense that the term is generally used.

2. I'm not sure we yet have any true AI's aside from Matrix.

Does even Coyote 4.0 qualify? He's certainly sophisticated by robotic standards, but is he truly artificially intelligent?

Would you categorize Coldfire & Coldsteel as A.I.'s when it is the sorcerous possession of gargoyle souls that engenders their intelligence?

Am I missing anyone?

So far all I've got is Matrix, who, yes, is more advanced than Golem, if you even want to put Golem on that scale, which I don't.

Response recorded on June 12, 2003


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