Tim writes...

City of Stone 1 ramble:

The Revelation about the Weird Sisters double agent motiviations was a thrill to read. It worked on me exactly like you said it did...did you have a camera inside our heads? Those are still the most wonderfully mysterious fey ever...I loooove Kathie Soucie's voicework.

In the top 5 of the most heart and gut wrenching scenes ever, Demona turinng to stone with a tear in her eye, the massacre finding scene (I thought "COLDSTONE!!!" when she picked up the piece of face) and her tearful goodbye to Goliath and any hope of a non-vengeful life.

1. Eggs: I never gave any thought to the eggs, but once they were shown driven away, it just opened up a whole new subplot to wonder about.

2. MacBeth, I was wondering about, he was neither a hero, nor a villian, something grey in between, which is always the best character. Young Macbeth and Young Gruoch certainly had to grow up fast. Loved the battle scene between Young MacBeth the Hunter and his "Nooooo!" Bodhe seemed to be a shrewed negotiator...probalby would make a good ambasador.

3. I really thought that was how Demona got her immortality, from the Grimorum. Why the heck not? Xanatos seemed to be desperate enough to trust her. Either he would have used the spell on Fox if it worked on him, or he didn't love her enough to ask her about it...wouldn't he have tested it on somebody first?

4. Yeah, Owen being caught by the spell was a bit cheating...but that's okay. :) Never even thought about the "tricky one" comment until I saw the Gathering. Once again, love the latin spells, gives the show authenticity, plus latin sounds just really darn cool and mystical.

Overall, the fact that this show provides wonderful backstories for the "villians" in a FOUR PARTER episode just goes to show why this is on nearly everybody's top 5 best episodes list.

Questions: 1. What did Standards and Practices think about the implications of Goliath and Elisa's relationship by the end of the series?

2. Who came up with the brilliant idea of the access code being "ALONE"? That just fits so well. Thanks so much for these episode rambles!

Laura 'ad astra' Ackerman writes...

A recent comment on the final scene in Hunter's Moon III brought a question to mind. Being typically human I had not realized Goliath putting Elisa's hair behind her hair was an equivilent to kissing- I just saw it as an intimate gesture. Is Elisa conscious of the meaning of stroking hair to to gargoyles?

Tanika writes...

Hello, Greg!

I was recently reading a Nigerian folktale, "Nana Miriam," (in the book "Not One Damsel in Distress," bu Jane Yolen) which reminded me of some questions I had about "Mark of the Panther," and brought up some new ones.

1. Specifically, two of the characters in the tale are named Fara Maka and Kara-Digi-Mao-Fosi-Fasi. What is the relation of those people/names to the character of Fara Maku and the city of Kara-Digi? (Were those the correct spellings of the names in the episode?)

2. Was the tale of Anansi and the panther woman an actual folktale, or did you (or someone else) write it for the show?

3. If it was written, what elements, such as the character of Anansi himself, were drawn from actual legend?

4. If it is an actual legend, what elements, if any, were changed or adapted to suit the purposes of the episode?

Thank you . . . this is something I've been wondering about for some time. :)

Aaron writes...

Okay, I've been trying to find a way to ask this without tripping over the original ideas restriction. Here goes:

In Metamorphosis, Sevarius says something like: "Aren't you surprised we managed to pull it off at all? It took months of forcing the early test subjects to escape without the gargoyles encountering even one."

What's he talking about?

(The Guppi) writes...

Why'd Cyberbiotics have a hidden underground base? ('Doesn't everyone?' Right. :P) So why and when did they abandon it?

(The Guppi) writes...

[1] The first time I watched _Possession_ I pretty much took it for granted how much Coldfire and Coldsteel resembled 'Desdemona' and 'Iago'. It makes sense when you're used to half-baked comic book logic (not to disrespect your own fine work in the field), but Gargoyles takes great pains to create a more, erm, well-done and realistic (or at least snarkily pseudo-scientific :P) universe. On later viewings, I was compelled to contemplate further. The techniques used in creating the Steel Clan wouldn't apply here, I think. The techies at Scarab Corp. (or wherever) probably had lots of old security tapes of Goliath to pore over as much as they liked, but it's hard to imagine how that'd work with the Legionnaires. Was the likeness of design only in animation, then?
[2] Likewise, with the the WWII statue in London, which off-the-bat was recognizable as being of Goliath and Griff. Was its sculptor working solely off of Sir Douglas' accounts? (Pilots are generally more observant than the average bear, and from the impression he made on you as a kid, he musta made one heckuva eyewitness. It still is kind of a stretch, though...)

Aaron writes...

Hmmm, you did your ramble on Vows over a month ago, but I'm a little bit behind on Ask Greg. Okay, a very huge giant little bit.

Anyway, I have always wondered if a couple of scenes in Vows are in-jokes or not.

1. Xanatos' proposal. Two people alone at opposite ends of a huge table. A bit of a ref to a similar scene in the first movie of the modern Batman franchise?

2. The confrontation at the meat warehouse. Eerily similar to the climax of the second Predator movie. (Which I think Rachael Ticotin is in, now that I think of it) Gary Busy is tracking the Predator through a meat warehouse, wearing some kind of armored suit, weilding a weapon meant to disable, not kill the Pred, which also has a flashlight mounted on it, like Xanatos' dart gun. Of course, the Pred's not nearly as merciful to Gary...

Although it'll be quite belated by the time you get this, here's wishing you and yours a happy holiday season.

Ambrosia writes...

In The Gathering I, the trio and Hudson are watching a TV report by Travis Marshall on Alex's birth. Q: When was this filmed? As soon as he was born, he was taken to see his grandparents (and Vogel). After they've fawned over him a while, the whole Titania and Oberon thing happens and then they only have an hour to prepare for Oberon's attack. Second Q: Was the report staged primarily to get the attention of the gargoyles and possibly their help?
Thanks, Greg!

Netlady writes...

Wow, you know, that 'What did titania whisper to Fox' should have it's own little archive, it's asked so often. But seriously, I have a really, really cool sound system and I cranked the sound up to the max-And I could tell you exactly what I heard, but I don't think I will.

Which leads to my questions:

Why do you avoid the question so much? And on a scale of 1 to 10, how much to you enjoy keeping your fans guessing? 'Cause I find it hilarious. :)

Andrew Hume writes...

1) When the Archmage used the Eye Of Odin, the Phinex Gate, and the Grimorum was he more powerful than the Weird Sisters.

2) In Avalon part 2, the future Archmage told the past Archmage to use Avalon as a base for when he took over the world. If the wierd sisters found out about this would they have become enemies of the Archmage.