Airportman writes...

Hey, Greg

This is my first post here, and it's quite lengthy. I've been looking through the archives, and I'm pretty sure this question has never been asked before. But if it has, I honestly don't know what category it would be filed under. It's mainly about who knows what throughout the course of the Gargoyles story.

Nobody in the audience knew anything about Demona and Macbeth's relationship and former lives prior to "City of Stone," but who in the Gargoyles universe, if anyone, knew anything? I've been watching my taped episodes recently and this really stood out at me this time. It's always been the one thing about the show that bothers me.

It really sticks out in "The Price," when Hudson says, "Believe it lads, Macbeth's dead." Later in the episode, Lexington seems genuinely convinced that Macbeth actually is dead, which leads me to believe that he doesn't know about Macbeth's background by that point. However, later in the same episode, Hudson explains to Xanatos, "Demona and Macbeth are immortal. Has it brought them happiness?" Was Hudson simply feeding a line to Lexington? Was Lex not supposed to know about the whole Demona/Macbeth thing? It's wierd, because Elisa also knows about it by the time of "Sanctuary."

That leads me to another question: how does Hudson know? And Goliath for that matter? Who was it that told them about Demona's history? It couldn't have been Xanatos, because he didn't know either until "City of Stone," or he wouldn't have been fooled by Demona's excuse for living so long. I'm actually not too sure Xanatos ever finds out.

I could only think of one way that it could work. Here goes:

In "Temptation," Demona says to Brooklyn, "It's a long story, centuries long." I was thinking that Demona may have told her story to Brooklyn at that point, and that he later told Goliath, who told Hudson and Elisa. In that case, was this privelidged information that Goliath only trusted Elisa, Hudson, and Brooklyn with? This would explain Hudson's behavior in "The Edge," and give Brooklyn a shoe-in for Second in command, but it would not explain Brooklyn's puzzlement about Macbeth's identity in "Enter Macbeth," unless Goliath had told him not to tell Lex and Broadway. However, Goliath clearly has no clue who Macbeth is at that point. Could Brooklyn have told him later? Lex clearly knows about Demona's immortality by the time "Hunter's Moon" rolls around, so I was thinking that Brooklyn may have decided that it was necessary to tell Broadway and Lex everything when he was leader.

I don't think Macbeth would have told Broadway his story in "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time," when Broadway was tied up in his jet or at his mansion; the timing seemed all wrong.

So I guess what my question boils down to is this:

When did the clan first learn about Demona's past, and her relationship with Macbeth, and am I on the right track with the whole Brooklyn idea?

By the way, Gargoyles is my favorite show. It still amazes me how you were able to weave such an intricate story about such real characters, and teach real life lessons about vengeance, tolerance, family, reconciliation, and so much more, all within the confines of a childrens' cartoon. This was truly a story that made full use of its own medium, and made strong points about life. I believe that Gargoyles is probably the most beneficial and educational childrens' programming I have ever seen, in terms of teaching life lessons, and I too am completely disgusted that Toon Disney won't air "Deadly Force." Thank you for reading this long ramble of mine, and also for providing the best television program to date.

Lord Sloth writes...

I now have a list of questions to for you about love. ahhh

1. Does Hyena love Jackel?
2. Does Jackel love Hyena?
3. How serius are Hyena's feelings to Cyotie? Is she madley im love with him, or just mildly attracted? Either way, it's kinda gross
4. How does Cyotie feel toward Hyena? He seemed up for they idea of "making sparks fly".
5. Does Fox love Anistasia(before and after the Gathering)?
6. Does Halcyen still carry a torch for Anistasia? And does he now know that she is Titania?
7. Does Titania love fox?
8. Does Puck love Alex?
9. Does Oberon love anyone besides Titania?
10. Does Dracon dream about Elisa and him being together?
11. Was Brooklyn attracted to Demona before "Temptation". He seems to go after the most females.
12. Does Iago feel in love with Desdemona, or is it a strong sexual attraction, or is it just to hurt Othello?
13. Was there a time when Desdemona had feelings toward Iago?
14. Does Vinnie have a special someone (besides himself), or does everyone think he is too wierd?
15. Has Thailog ever felt love, even in the slightest way?
16. Was Malcolm and Elaina's wedding more out of love, or convenience?
17. Do Banquo and Florence have a thing for each other?
18. Does Cagney have a special kitty friend, or just Elisa?
19. Has the Magus been yerning for Kathern all of his life, and never told her how he felt? If yes., thats pretty sad.
20. And, somewhere deep deep down, both Goliath and Demona both yern to again be one, now and forever. Right? I better be. And this would have been shown in latter episodes besides dark ages right?

I'm sure you can see from my questions that I am QUITE the softy. And I love how Gargoyles uses this topic so often. Great job!!!

Todd Jensen writes...

Since you and Entity recently (as of July 20th) had a brief exchange about Xanatos's characterization, I thought that I'd give a thought of my own about him.

One thing that has occurred to me is that there was an intriguing paradox about Xanatos in his "feud" with the gargoyles. One advantage that Xanatos had over the conventional "cartoon super-villain" was that he was a level-headed, practical man who wasn't interested in revenge or pointless vendettas. And this, on one level, made him potentially a more challenging adversary for the gargoyles. Because as a result, he wasn't likely to get so distracted in carrying out his personal score with the clan that he'd make foolish mistakes which they could take advantage of and thereby win, the way that more conventional "master-villains" in animated series do (and which, elsewhere in "Gargoyles", the Archmage himself fell prey to, when he kept on making strategic and tactical errors in "Avalon" - such as not waiting until dawn to attack or in magically tormenting Goliath when he could just as easily have simply zapped him into a pile of dust). It removed the leading source of "mistakes that antagonists make" which can save the day for the protagonists.

But, ironically enough, this very trait of Xanatos's also may have helped the gargoyles in a way. For, since Xanatos wasn't a revenge-crazed man, he wouldn't be likely to be constantly pursuing the gargoyles obssessively in "conventional cartoon super-villain" style, and indeed, he didn't. He went after them because he had specific plans about what to do with them (using them as his agents for such operations as stealing the disks from Cyberbiotics). But that motive didn't take too long to be discarded, as it became increasingly aware to Xanatos that he couldn't make use of the gargoyles in that way ever again; in fact, I recently noticed, upon examining his actions closer, that in Season Two, despite his continued clashes with the clan, he had stopped attempting to actually capture and dominate them (the one exception being his capture of Hudson in "The Price", and then there was a different reason for that - the need to use Hudson as a guinea pig for the Cauldron of Life). So he no longer had a serious reason for capturing them, and consequently, didn't see the need to make those efforts. The only possible reason left for going after the gargoyles was that of revenge, and that obviously didn't interest him. So he had no reason to pursue them (and indeed, seems to have even been aware, as the ending of "City of Stone" makes clear, that leaving them more or less at liberty could be much more advantageous to him anyway). He could afford to leave them alone.

So I find it an amusing paradox that the very factor which could have made Xanatos a serious threat to the gargoyles actually helped to make him less of a threat than he might have been. He wasn't obssessively pursuing them on the basis of a pointless grudge. He went after them only when he saw a genuine need to, and there was increasingly less reason for him to capture or destroy the whole clan as the series went on (and good reason, on the other hand, to let them be).

Lord Sloth writes...

I am very sorry that Team Atlantis will not continue. It would have been great to have a continuation of gargoyles, if even in a small way. And on top of that, the Canadian Family channle just told me that they are going to stop aring Gargoyles. It a bad day today, I havn't gotten all the episodes on tape yet. Me and some others are sending E-mails, but I don't know what it will do. Anyway, I had a question here somewhere...

1. If Team Atlantis had come out, would the animation and character designs have been the same with the movie? I'm asking cause, Atlantis had some unrealistic porportions compared to the realistic ones in Gargoyles. So if they did a cross over, how would Demona and Fiona have been portraied?

2. Is it possible that Disney might go for team Atlantis again? Or when they scrap something, do they just want to take out the garbage and forget about it?

matt writes...

you've said that Samson was raised in a communal rookery with many eggs in the rookery, so how does he know that he is descended from Demona? did Demona tell him or does he just know cuz he resembles Goliath THAT much and that means he is almost definetly descended from him and Demona?

Lord Sloth writes...

Does Demona find attacking other Gargoyels fun, or more of duity? I didn't think it was fun, but when the Trio attack her in Hunter's moon 1, she fires at them with a maniacle grin. The same in Long way till Morning.

William Cain writes...

In the episode "Temptation", Goliath is placed under the a spell that makes him a slave to whom
Ever holds the Grimorum. OK. (A few point then my question and hopefully an answer.)
Point 1.The confines of the spell were that he would obey whoever held the book.
Point 2. In order to free Goliath from the zombie like state Elisa told him to act as is he was not placed under the magic spell.
Point 3. Demona took the actual counter spell.
I just don't feel that her having him act normal would cancel the effects of the magic as for him running around like a zombie yes but not the magic control its self but… I will leave that to you.
My question is if Demona was to take the book again could she take control over Goliath once more or are the effects of the spell no more?
Thank you for your Time
William Cain

Kelly L Creighton/Kya White Sapphire writes...

oh, heres one. someone asked about how much Demona could bench. you gave a smartass response. without giving specific numbers, i had always assumed gargs could basically bench twice the poundage as a human of similar mass. again that goes back to the "gargs are made out of different stuff than humans are" theory. please comment? *expecting smartass response*

Gipdac writes...

1) Do the Canmore siblings (The Hunters) know about Macbeth (What, with his still being alive and all)?
2) Have they, or any other Canmores, ever tried to hunt him?
3) Does Macbeth have any descendants living by 1996?
4) Do the Canmores (at least the ones descended from Jon) still hunt Demona in 2198?

Greg Bishansky writes...

Hi Greg, I have a few more questions about 2198, and Demona's role in it. Surprise, surprise ;)

How does she get along with the following characters?

1. Delilah?

2. Nicholas Natsilane Maza

3. Nokkar?

I would imagine that her relationship with the first two would be quite tense given their bloodline.