Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

Hello Greg,

From watching The Gathering and other episodes with the Children of Oberon in it, and from your reveals on s8, it appears to me that the Third Race have a feudal-like system, with Oberon as the high king (more or less), and others as his subjects or vassals. I think you have said that there are various "subsets," such as the Aesir and the Egyptian gods.

Do these "subsets" or "pantheons" have any political or social reality in Third Race society? What I mean is, are they just convenient catagories for mortals to refer to this or that Child of Oberon as belonging to a mythological category, or are they actual groups who associate(d) with one another as such, who have something political, social, or cultural in common with one another?

Thank you.

MasterGhandalf writes...

Regarding Oberon:

1. Do the Third Race as a whole view Oberon as their most powerful member, or do they follow him for other reasons (royal bloodline, his overthrowing of Mab, etc.) Are there any who might stand a chance of overthrowing him, or would even want to?

2. Is Oberon regarded as a tyrant by his subjects? Obviously neither Puck nor Banshee wanted to go to the Gathering, but what is more general opinion of Oberon's rule?

3. Several of the Third Race are venerated as gods by mortals (such as Anubis and Odin), while Oberon himself, so far as I'm aware, has never been the object of a major religion. Is he at all irritaded by this, or would he even care?

Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

Hello Greg,

I've looked all over the archives and I did not find an answer to this. Once, somebody asked you why Anansi chose to be so big and ungainly, presumably since this form gave him trouble when fighting the gargoyles in "Mark of the Panther." You answered: << He ate a lot and gloried in it, I guess. And changing may not be as easy as you make it sound.>> Reading that, I realized that it has never been established explicitly whether shapeshifting is something that all of the Third Race can do. Anansi himself does shapeshift later, but only after getting stabbed. If it was very easy for him to change into a tiny form and run away, I would expect him to do that once pleading and offering bribes didn't work, instead of sitting there and getting stabbed.
Here's the original question: http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/search.php?qid=3095

So are all of the Third Race able to shapeshift, or just some or most of them?
Are all of them able to assume mortal forms (like Owen), or can just some or most of them do this?
And are they all equally good/skilled/versatile at shapeshifting?

Thank you.

Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

The question in the last queue about whether Fox and David can vote after getting out of prison, and my own thoughts about the Third Race and Oberon's Law against interfering with mortals, has led me to this question: What does the Law of Oberon prevent and what does it allow, in terms of Oberon's Children participating in human politics? Do Anastasia Renard and Owen Burnett have U.S. citizenship, or if not could they get it if they wanted it? Can they vote? Can they get any more politically active than voting? (Leaving aside whether they actually want to do any of these things.)

Thanks.

Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

Greetings Greg,

I still don't have time to write out my thoughts about Bad Guys, let alone watch and read the Gargoyles medieval flashbacks marathon like I planned. They'll probably have to wait until graduation and winter break. But I still have so many other questions I want to ask you about Gargoyles!

I wonder often about the Third Race in the Gargoyles universe. You have revealed a lot of information about the gargoyles, since obviously they are the focus of the whole series, and less about the Third Race. I wonder how similar to or different from mortals they are, psychologically. The Third Race include the gods of various polytheistic religions, and at least in Greek, Norse, and Egyptian myths, gods are depicted as having pretty human psychology, and the same emotions as human beings. They are also depicted as having cultures very similar to their worshippers. Of course, myths were created by mortals and "few things are accurate." The Third Race also includes beings like the Fair Folk and/or the Fae. In fiction that I have read about Faerie folk, they aren't often depicted as psychologically similar to human beings. For example, in the book "The Moorchild", the Faeries (called Moorfolk) seem quite different from human beings. They raise their children communally, and also seem to entirely lack the emotions of love and hate. They don't even seem to form any emotional ties to one another, perhaps not even what humans would necessarily call friendship. The book convincingly and successfully depicts beings that are, in some ways, very alien from human beings. Other depictions (like in the table-top role-playing game Exalted) make the Fair Folk even more alien.
In the Gargoyles show and comics, gargoyles clearly have a similar psychology to humans: although they have some differences which make them more than just humans with wings, they're pretty similar to us in most ways. They obviously feel love and hate, for example, and although their family relations are structured differently, it seems pretty clear that they love and care about their children, parents, and siblings. I think in a past response you said that none of the races in the Gargoyles Universe are designed to be all that alien, not even the actual aliens, and that it should be possible to relate to all of them with some effort. So far, as individuals, the depictions of the Third Race make them seem more like the gods of myth, not necessarily following human moral ideas and sometimes being whimsical, but having a mostly human-like psychology. But except for the glimpses of the relationship between Titania and Oberon, and Titania's relationship to her human family (when however she was mostly in a human body, presumably full of human hormones and neurotransmitters) there wasn't a lot of interaction between the Third Race in the show, and obviously their society wasn't the focus.

So the main questions in my mind about this subject are these:

1. Do the Children of Oberon have the same emotional range as human beings, including emotions such as love, hate, shame, compassion, gratitude, jealousy, indignation, etc.?

2. How much detail of their long lives do they remember? Do they generally have better memory than humans, or is their memory only about as good as a human's? Does someone as old as Oberon have only a fuzzy recollection of things that happened 3000 or so years ago, or does he remember 3000 years ago (such as the events of Midsummer Night's Dream) as clearly as he remembers 30 years ago? Humans (and presumably gargoyles) have limited neurons in the brain for forming memories and synapses, and synapses that are not used regularly are trimmed away to make "room" for more useful connections, leading to loss of memories and skills that are less frequently used. But since Children of Oberon are made of pure magic, I don't think they even have neurons.

3. In their long lives, do the Third Race tend to get bored any more or less often than mortals do, or about as often?

Thanks!

Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

Greetings Greg,

I have another question about the New Olympians, halflings, and the Law of Oberon (related to what Random Fan asked about the Law). In the Gathering, Oberon showed that his law is applied and interpreted differently for different halflings. Fox is too human because she has grown up with a mortal life, so the Law applies to her as to a mortal. But Titania has permission to interfere in Alex's life, perhaps because he is newborn and has not yet grown up to be human, but has the potential to be or become something else.

How does Oberon interpret and enforce his law in relation to the New Olympians? Are (or were, before the Gathering) the Third Race permitted to interfere in the lives of New Olympian halflings, or does Oberon view them as mortal and therefore not open to (unsolicited) interference?

Thanks.

Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

Greetings Greg,

On the subject of halflings, I have been wondering for a long while how halflings that are part human and part animal (like the New Olympians) are born. My understanding from the archives is that a member of the Third Race can only breed with a mortal by assuming a truly mortal, flesh-and-blood body of the same species as the mortal they want to breed with. If this is correct, how does a mortal, with a Child of Oberon in a truly mortal body of the same species, end up with a child which does not look like the parents? For example, if a human and a Child of Oberon in a completely human body, like Anastasia, had children, how would the children look like anything except normal human beings? Or if a Child of Oberon took on a mortal horse form and mated with a mortal horse, wouldn't the offspring all look like normal horses? For example, how were the first centaurs, or the first minotaurs, born?

Thank you!

Random Fan writes...

It seems the more I read the archives (now that I've discoverd them)the more questions I have. The one that plagues me now is about an answer you gave in response to whether Halflings have to adhere to the no medeling rule.
Greg responds...
The rule is magically enforced. Oberon doesn't need to know about you to enforce it. You don't need to know about Oberon to have it enforced. But -- as we've seen -- loopholes abound. The trickier you are the easier it is to find loopholes. Bloodline -- or blood purity, so to speak -- has nothing to do with it.
My qustion then is how doesthe rule affect Halfling human relations? Because I havent heard anything about New Olimpus breaking the rules by becomeing part of the U.N, or An older Alex being a big wig in the 2198 spin off. What are a Halflings limits?

Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

Greetings Greg,

I have a few questions for you about the Third Race and language. Since the TV show never depicted non-English languages for technical reasons, and Avalon apparently translates in some way when it sends visitors to the mortal world, I do not assume that what sounds like English is necessarily English.

1. What language(s) do the Children of Oberon speak amongst themselves on Avalon? Do they speak a language (or languages) of their own there, or do they speak only human languages?
2. Do the Third Race have any languages of their own?
3. Did the Third Race ever have any languages of their own?

Thank you once again for answering fan questions!

Allen writes...

Hey, I've been following Ask Greg on and off since 2001. This is only my second post. Just wanted to say I appreciate you sustaining the fanbase.

1) Were halflings like Merlin or The New Olympians invited to go to Oberon's Gathering? I would think that Oberon's determination in attempting to bring Alex meant that The Gathering would not be limited to "full" fae. But I could be wrong. What's the truth, Greg?