I second what Bishansky said, Todd! I was lurking here for decades before I posted, and have always enjoyed your posts greatly. You've also directed me toward some texts I might not have read otherwise.

One other thought on Blanchefleur in Green: I recall there being the implication that she has some form of precognition, making her an even more potentially intriguing character. I wonder if we'll see that detail in 'Gargoyles.' (I recall how during the video call in "Acquisitions," although Fleur remains silent, Peredur seems to take some nonverbal cue from her, and my reading was that the other two defer to her, to at least some extent.)
Craig
posted @ Sun, Mar 9, 2025 2:38:23 pm EDT from 69.118.30.106

BISHANSKY - Thank you.
Todd Jensen
posted @ Sat, Mar 8, 2025 8:28:38 pm EST from 68.99.93.213

Specially enjoyed Robyn and Dingo's back and forth especially:
- Robyn stating that he was recruited so as to get Matrix to come along.

- Robyn puzzled by him not being too nervous about being back in the US where he's a felon and his retort that the hunter herself in contrast is guilty of blowing up a police station.
Antiyonder
posted @ Sat, Mar 8, 2025 8:01:49 pm EST from 68.119.3.1

TODD> You are a treasure for this fandom, lots of great people bring their unique knowledge to the fandom and, niche as "Gargoyles" may be, it's a very big tent property. One of the reasons why I love "Gargoyles" is because, quite frankly, it has everything. It's versatile enough for Vinnie's pie gun, Hyena's claws, Oberon and Titania, Jacob's Pillow and everything in between.

Keep bringing your perspective and your knowledge. It's greatly appreciated. It's been thirty years and I can't begin to catalogue the material you educated me about, and the directions you've pointed me in.
Greg Bishansky
posted @ Sat, Mar 8, 2025 7:42:38 pm EST from 67.189.200.184

CRAIG - Yes, I had a similar overall response to "Bad Guys"; the "team of secret agents carrying out covert missions" wasn't quite as much my sort of thing as "medieval mythical beings awaken in the modern world and adjust to it", but the individual members (particularly Dingo and Yama - not to mention that Fang's quite amusing) did interest me a lot, and I was curious to see how they'd respond to each other. (Particularly the cases that Antiyonder brought up.)

And that was a great comment on Matrix inserting himself into Dingo; I hadn't given any thought to how that fits in with Dingo being the one member of the Pack who didn't want to undergo body-alteration upgrades, but it's a neat touch. Thanks for sharing that with us.

On Blanchefleur: I was planning to simply give a summary of her story in Roger Lancelyn Green (with a few comments on the changes that Green made from the medieval romances featuring her), but you've mentioned having read Green's book, making the recap feel redundant. The important part for me was that in the medieval texts, Blanchefleur was simply Percival's lady-love, with no links to the Holy Grail (Percival delivers her from a nobleman seeking to seize her and her lands), while Green made her the Grail Bearer and part of Carbonek's household - and then had Percival marry her at the end of the Grail Quest and they rule over Carbonek together (including the "made a little light" part I quoted in my previous post, which I thought tied in well with their founding the Illuminati - whose name is derived from the Latin word for "light" - in the Gargoyles Universe).

What stood out to me even more, as I was re-acquainting myself with Percival's story in both Green and Chretien, was that he comes across as a naive, reckless youth, constantly acting on immediate impulses and often getting into trouble, and certainly ignorant of the ways of the outside world. It struck me as quite a contrast with the fact that, in the Gargoyles Universe, the man is now heading up a secret society with a very crafty style of operations - an organization that includes such devious figures as Xanatos and Thailog. Apparently he's changed quite a bit in the past fifteen hundred years (though he still looks and acts a bit of an innocent, especially in contrast with the much more menacing-looking Duval).

MORRAND - Thank you for sharing all that with us. I hope I haven't been intimidating you with my posts (which do have a tendency to come across as rather scholarly; I get really excited about much of this material, such as medieval history and legend). I'm glad you particularly liked the Magnusson quote; I thought it tied in very well with the revelation of the Stone of Destiny's true nature - that the Spirit of Destiny can speak and act through any stone, anywhere in the world, so that it's not so special after all.
Todd Jensen
posted @ Sat, Mar 8, 2025 7:18:00 pm EST from 68.99.93.213

Todd: Your discussion of the "Stone of Destiny" story illustrates well, I think, why I find this place just a little intimidating. Not a complaint at all, understand, but (as ever) getting to see how deep the roots go is a bit, er, well, "mind-blowing" may be the best I can come up with. I don't remember half of what you mention for "Rock of Ages," probably for about the same reason (or maybe I just breezed through too quickly), and a sure sign I need to go back and dive into it again, and look closer this time.

Pardon the anecdote, but this (the "Clan-Building" chapter) is about the point where I got back into the storyline again, and as ever it was a late discovery.

By 2013, I'd pretty much figured the whole franchise was done, finished, a visceral memory but a memory only, of a cartoon that had run for a couple of seasons and then generally been forgotten by everyone. The idea there might still be an active fandom seemed preposterous, and, without actually having checked, I figured anything that did exist would probably not be worth learning more about, so I didn't bother looking. And so, when the comic came out initially, I didn't know about it. And at the time, if you'd have told me Greg Weisman was involved, I would have shrugged. That meant nothing to me then.

It was not quite by accident that I found out about "Clan-Building": that was a success of some algorithm or another recommending the second volume of the trade paperback to me while I was searching for the DVDs. (The reason I was looking for the DVDs at all is something I'm still irrationally embarrased about.) A bit of poking around online finally got me the DVDs and the first volume of the trade, and helped me get a bit more caught up.

It did not get me tuned in to what else was going on, though, so I never heard about "Bad Guys" at all at the time and still hadn't heard of it until just this past year or so (and I'm going to be dodging spoilers the next week or two from the look of it, but that's my own fault). And if I had, I probably would have avoided it anyway at the time for really terrible reasons.

See, some recent discussion elsewhere online reminded me of the somewhat ridiculous lengths that BVTV went to in merchandising their properties, and "Gargoyles" certainly wasn't an exception. For quite a while, I had a small "Gargoyles" popcorn tin that I'd gotten at the drugstore contemporaneously to the original broadcasts, a Christmas 1995 offering, probably. Why anyone thought the show's audience would also be that into popcorn tins was a mystery then, and remains one to me now. Anyway, had I found out about "Bad Guys," even that late, I think I would have instinctively written it off as more marketing nonsense and not worth seeking out. It wasn't and it was: I get that now, but I didn't then.

The "Stone of Destiny" story, to come back to the topic, did inspire a swing through Britain about that time, coincidentally right before the vote on Scottish independence, and put a visit to see the real thing squarely on my itinerary. Magnus Magnusson's read on it that Todd quoted seems about right (though it was displayed quite reverently at the time I visited for an "undistinguished chunk of rock") but it was still a highlight to see something from the comic that was an actual thing in this reality as well. (Amusingly, the "chunk of rock" went on to re-enter my feed a couple of years later: https://www.loweringthebar.net/2016/06/indycampers-not-allowed-to-call-queen-elizabeth-to-testify.html The Stone's reaction to that shenanigan could have been fun to listen to, and for all I know may yet be if the in-continuity stories keep up through 2016.)
morrand - [morrand276 at gmail dot com]
posted @ Sat, Mar 8, 2025 6:01:41 pm EST from 108.69.72.60

Like Todd, I'm not as big a fan of the more conventional action-adventure stories as some perhaps. Even so, while Bad Guys wasn't my top pick out of the potential spinoffs, most of the individual characters involved were compelling enough that I was excited to see more of them (and, as Antiyonder notes, the combinations of personalities lend themselves to great drama). And then of course, there's the Illuminati angle, which becomes explicit a bit later. "Strangers" definitely didn't exactly sell me on the series on a first read. It's mostly just pure action, and I honestly found the gimmick of using the song lyrics throughout the story distracting and difficult to read. (Admittedly, I hadn't seen W.I.T.C.H., and had to find a video of the song online so that I could have a frame of reference...but even then, it just felt like a clunky choice.) "The Lost" and "Estranged" definitely got me much more invested in the series. If there's one moment in "Strangers" that I really like, it's the revelation that Matrix has to insert into Dingo's spine, which...OUCH. It's sort of fascinating that Dingo does end up giving up some of his bodily autonomy after all, despite resisting doing so when his former teammates did in "Upgrade."

And I'm a couple of days late to the party, Todd, but I'd love to take you up on your offer of further thoughts on Green's take on Blanchefleur and the Grail (I offered a few thoughts of my own last year when I reread Green, and you responded, but I'd certainly love to hear more of your perspective, as I find Fleur one of the most intriguing and enigmatic characters currently).
Craig
posted @ Sat, Mar 8, 2025 4:15:30 pm EST from 69.118.30.106

Even if BGs' premise didn't thrill me, the cast struck me as one that would be interesting and entertaining.

Fang, yeah put him on a cast with a gargoyle who takes honor very serious. And just having a gargoyle on a team with a hunter who is still reassessing her view on that race.
Antiyonder
posted @ Sat, Mar 8, 2025 3:47:22 pm EST from 68.119.3.1

Todd> I'm a bit on the opposite end because "Bad Guys" is one arc I was not only looking forward to but one I'm hoping we'll see more of in the future.

I've mentioned the saying before about a quality series that can have stories that don't feature the main cast and we certainly get that here. There's also Greg's early work in comic books which shines here and there in Gargoyles even if it's fairly different from his work on Spider-Man or the DC universe. Our heroes have collected a miniature rogues gallery of sorts and with that comes other story telling possibilities.

Gargoyles doesn't have much in the way of static characters and this arc delves into what's going to happen with characters who have made the decision to turn to the side of good and what that means for their future. Dingo and Matrix might be doing well as Australia's new superheroes but that doesn't mean their actions are just brushed away. All go more into the trope of villains turned heroes later on but here we see that redemption isn't as easy as just turning over a new leaf. Someone is going to make our "heroes" work for it.
Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!
posted @ Sat, Mar 8, 2025 2:54:38 am EST from 135.180.3.149

MATTHEW - Thanks for sharing that information about the Stone of Destiny, a lot of which was new to me, at least.

There was one thing I forgot to mention in my review of this story, though I'd been planning on bringing it up. I found myself imagining Hudson and Lexington informing King Arthur about why Goliath hadn't come to London with them, and Arthur finding the part about "recovering from a wound dealt him by his scheming illegitimate son" very familiar.

I've decided to follow the proposed order of comics stories from Greg Weisman, and so started on "Bad Guys" - the first chapter, "Strangers".

"Bad Guys" never grabbed me as much as the other spin-offs when I first found out about them; it seemed more "conventional action-adventure" than the others, which was less my sort of thing than the "medieval and myth" elements of "Gargoyles" that some of the other spin-offs (particularly "Dark Ages" and "Pendragon") seemed likely to hold. (Though that focus made it the one that seemed most likely to be adopted; I was certainly not surprised to find that it was the one that came closest to being made, complete with the leica reel shown at the Gatherings.) But it was still set in the Gargoyles Universe, and I'd found the leads (such as Dingo) to be interesting enough that I decided, when the comic came out, to give it a go. And I thought it was well-done.

The Tazmanian Tiger, Dingo's opponent at the start of this chapter (after the opening action sequence adapted from the leica reel, of course), has struck me from the start as likely to be a future member of the Pack. So much about him matches their style, from his name (with a more exotic approach than the Pack's other "animal names", since it's taken from an extinct species) to his "committing crimes for the thrill of it" - and to top it off, he's battling a former member of the Pack. I wouldn't be too surprised if he brings his thylacines with him if he joins the Pack (presumably when it becomes the Ultra-Pack); I can imagine the rest of the Pack welcoming them now that the gargoyles have *two* gargoyle beasts (probably with some upgrades for Benjamin and Natasha so that Bronx and Fu-Dog can't render them extinct all over again).

I remember that when this issue came out, there was some excited discussion here about the thylacines as real extinct animals, and even speculation over whether they'd turned out not to be extinct after all or had been "brought back" by mad science. (Later on in "Bad Guys", we'll find out it's the latter - with Sevarius being the one responsible, of course.)

Dingo's now become a genuine super-hero in partnership with Matrix, and you can tell that he's really liking being the real thing rather than just playing it on television. (I liked the touch about him wanting to take care not to harm the thylacines - just leash and muzzle them.) He's also clearly become popular with the public. (I got a particular kick out of their take-off on probably the most famous catch-phrase about a super-hero's arrival - see the "Favorite Lines" below.)

When Hunter/Robyn Canmore arrives, we get Dingo's original name, Harry Monmouth, revealed. I'll say more about it when we get to Chapters Five and Six, but I liked that choice for his name.

Hunter's arrival is, in a sense, reality catching up with Dingo; his change for the better hasn't altered the fact that he's committed several crimes with the rest of the Pack in Manhattan. (I especially liked the touch of Matrix being shocked - about as shocked as an AI can get, at least - about discovering that Dingo violated law and order, the very principles that Dingo had taught him about.) Only Hunter has different plans for him (if using the threat of prison as a way of getting him to help)....

In short, an enjoyable start to "Gargoyles"' first spin-off, concluding with a hunt for a tengu (and I guessed at once who that tengu was)....

FAVORITE LINES.

AUSTRALIAN #1: Look! Up in the air!

AUSTRALIAN #2: It's a giant kookaburra!

AUSTRALIAN #3: It's a bloody missile!

TAZMANIAN TIGER: It's Dingo!


DINGO: Bounty hunter?

HUNTER: Just a Hunter.


MATRIX: We accept your offer to pursue law and order.

DINGO: We do?

MATRIX: We do.
Todd Jensen
posted @ Fri, Mar 7, 2025 6:47:56 pm EST from 68.99.93.213

"Rock of Ages" is an interesting story where the various factions agenda's clash against each other and the end result is that no one gets exactly what they want. Having the Stone of Destiny not only be self-aware but one that doesn't align to any person good, evil or in-between is a fantastic twist. For all the plots and schemes and efforts made up by genius billionaire tricksters or shadowy immortals, it's all undone by the Spirit of the Stone that informs them that they could no more control it than they could control the turning of the earth. It's a nice subversion of the Xanatos Gambit and a good reminder that there are forces out more powerful than that of our usual antagonists and they don't care about any of their machinations.

A little bit more about the Stone of Scone. I mentioned before that not long after "Pendragon" aired the Stone was properly returned to Scotland, what I didn't mention was that not long after it was returned a radiocarbon dating showed that the Stone goes back to the early Devonian Age, roughly 400 million years old. And while the Christmas theft of 1950 is fairly well known what isn't as well known is that there was another attempted theft in the late 1970's. Fearing that the Stone could be substituted with another, the Abbey's Surveyor of the Fabric arranged to have a small lead tube containing fabric from the original authentication document inserted into the stone and sealed off with wax.

So in order to fool the Illuminati, Xanatos would not only need to get a stone that looked like the original, could date back to the Devonian Age, and replicate the authentication that was done in secret. And while the Spirit of Destiny can just zip off to some new stone, geologically and culturally speaking the theft would be a big loss.
Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!
posted @ Fri, Mar 7, 2025 5:18:06 pm EST from 135.180.3.149

"Curiously enough, once the 'symbol of nationhood' had been officially returned to Scotland, it lost all its potency as a symbol and became just another ordinary and undistinguished chunk of rock" (Scotland: The Story of a Nation by Magnus Magnusson, Grove Press: New York, 2000, p. 690-91).

Reread "Rock of Ages", the conclusion of the Stone of Destiny story, today.

Xanatos definitely showed here that he's still as great a trickster as ever. The real scheme to steal the Stone of Destiny was to secretly switch it for a duplicate while everyone was staring at an empty shoebox; the attack by Coldsteel, Coyote, and the two Steel Clan robots (technically, one Steel Clan, one "Iron Clan" left over from "The Gathering") was all just a decoy, to keep the gargoyles, Macbeth, and King Arthur from suspecting what his real ploy was. (And, of course, he planned to give another duplicate to the Illuminati and keep the real Stone for himself - until he found out something about the Stone that would take away the purpose of that ploy.)

So the Illuminati do win a victory of a sort, achieving their goal of stealing the Stone of Destiny. Not that it's a loss for our heroes, who succeed in defeating the robots - with some further benefits for the gargoyles, to be discussed below. And it's not as great a win for the Illuminati as it first seemed, after Peredur discovers the true nature of the Stone of Destiny (as Macbeth, King Arthur, and Xanatos had all also done earlier) - that the force behind it can speak and act through any stone anywhere in the world. Meaning that the Illuminati now simply own a stone. (And this shows that the seeming contradiction in Shahrazad's tale in the previous chapter wasn't one after all.)

But Peredur also learns from the Stone of Destiny that King Arthur has returned, two hundred years ahead of schedule (suggesting that he was originally meant to return in response to the Space-Spawn invasion of 2198 - shades of "Camelot 3000" here), which will certainly demand a major change to the Illuminati's plans. This was a particularly good touch, I thought. The revelation of the Stone's true nature is, as I said, a great moment, but some readers could have easily interpreted it as "So what was the point of it all?", that nothing was really at stake in this adventure. But it led to the Illuminati discovering about King Arthur's awakening, which will have major consequences - so it did have a major point.

And it also had important consequences for the gargoyles. The Manhattan and London clans become better acquainted as a result, with stronger ties - especially for Lexington and Staghart, who will become a long-distance couple. And Coldstone and Coldfire are reunited with the Manhattan clan (though they won't fully rejoin it until the end of Chapter Twelve).

The "time and date" captions now add places to them (making them even closer to the "Young Justice" captions, though those are still a few years away at the time this story was written).

One touch about this story that I particularly liked was getting two snippets of information about what Macbeth was doing in the period between 1057 and the mid-1990's - and it wasn't all hunting Demona. He took part in the Battle of Bannockburn alongside his fellow Scots (incognito, of course), and also participated in the 1950 theft/recovery of the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey. It shows that he wasn't utterly consumed by his feud with Demona; other things stayed alive in him, such as a love of his homeland. (Indeed, Macbeth at Bannockburn almost played the archetypal role of the "legendary king of long-ago who returns to aid his country in its hour of need" - only doing so in secret rather than openly.)

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THE STONE OF DESTINY - AND PEREDUR: Shahrazad's tales about the Stone of Destiny continue to be based on actual history (occupying a larger role here than in the previous two chapters). Edward I did indeed carry off the Stone of Destiny to Westminster Abbey in 1296 - exactly seven hundred years before its return to Scotland. His Warwolf was a real siege engine (though the story took a slight liberty with it; Edward made use of the Warwolf a bit later than his seizure of the Stone of Destiny, when he was besieging Stirling Castle in 1304. We'll be encountering Stirling later, by the way, though under the Gaelic version of its name).

The story that the Blarney Stone was really a piece of the Stone of Destiny bestowed upon an Irish ally of Robert the Bruce's is an actual tale, that I'd encountered while waiting for the "Clan-Building Volume Two" trade paperback to come out; I was eagerly researching the Stone of Destiny legendand discovered it. The tale so delighted me that I hoped it would be mentioned in Chapter Nine, but thought that it might not (it didn't seem as crucial as, say, Edward I carrying it off); consequently, I was pleasantly surprised to find it when that chapter at last came out.

(One moment that I'd half-expected but didn't appear in Shahrazad's tale was James VI of Scotland being crowned as James I of England on the Coronation Chair - Stone of Destiny within it. The Scots made no serious attempt to recover the Stone after squelching the English attempts to conquer Scotland; it was said that they believed that wherever the Stone was, there would rule the King of Scotland, and it's been suggested that maybe the Scots saw the Stone as a sort of "time bomb" that would lead to their kings ruling over England.)

The 1950 taking of the Stone from Westminster Abbey (including it getting broken in half) did indeed take place (though Macbeth's role in it was Greg Weisman's invention. I highly recommend those who'd like to know more about it to read the account of it in "Magnus Magnusson's "Scotland: The Story of a Nation" (which I quoted from at the start of this review; the whole event reads like the synopsis of a "comedy heist" (some of the things that actually went on in it make the cry of "Scotland forever!" that Macbeth had to hush seem tame), though they did succeed in getting the Stone out.

Arbroath Abbey was indeed where the Stone was taken; it's long had a hallowed role in Scottish history. It was here, on April 6, 1320, that the Scots, still at war with England to preserve their independence (even six years after Bannockburn) drew up the Declaration of Arbroath, a sort of Scottish counterpart to the Declaration of Independence, including this statement: "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up except with his life".

We get our introduction to Peredur and Blanchefleur in this chapter - and also see Duval on-stage for the first time. Duval remains a mystery for now (both his full identity and how he came by his cyborg status - but Peredur and Blanchefleur are adapted from Sir Percival and his love (and in some versions, wife) Blanchefleur from medieval Arthurian legend.

Percival first appeared in Chretien de Troyes' verse romance "Perceval or the Story of the Grail", the last of his Arthurian romances (an earlier one of which introduced the story of Lancelot and Guinevere's love affair into the legend). He never finished it, so we don't know how it would have ended. The Grail in it is simply a wonder-working object, of some importance to the story, but not yet linked to Jesus Christ. Percival comes across as a reckless youth fired with the thought of becoming a knight and making several costly blunders in his pursuit of the goal, though gradually learning wisdom (he feels a bit like a forerunner of Taran in Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain", who also has a series of misadventures in his longing to become a hero, but comes to understand the true nature of heroism by the end of the series). Since Chretien never finished the poem, other writers tried finishing it for him, with various theories about how it would have ended - though Percival wound up becoming a sort of "runner-up" in the Quest for the Holy Grail after Sir Galahad was brought into the story. There was also a Welsh adaptation of the story, called "Peredur" (from which the Peredur of "Gargoyles" received his name), though it takes a different turn there, with Peredur's mission eventually being to put an end to the act of a band of witches who had inflicted harm upon his family.

The crucial version of Percival's story, from a "Gargoyles" perspective, is the retelling of it in Roger Lancelyn Green's "King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table". Green made a few changes to the story which have attached themselves to the Peredur of "Gargoyles". First, he hinted that Percival was the son of Sir Gawain by the Lady Ragnell (whose name the comic spells "Ragnal"), reared in secret. This was presumably inspired by Gawain being the father of a hero known as the "Fair Unknown" who had some strong parallels to Percival's story (both are brought up in secret but come to Arthur's court, seeking knighthood); it particularly contrasts with Malory's version, which makes Percival the son of King Pellinore, whose family was at odds with Gawain and his family (Gawain even slew King Pellinore). Greg Weisman's full name for Peredur (which the Stone addresses him by), Peredur fab Ragnal, Welsh for "Peredur son of Ragnal", reflects this. Also, while Blanchefleur was depicted as Percival's love all the way back to his introduction in Chretien's poem, it was Roger Lancelyn Green who made her a maiden charged with the keeping of the Holy Grail at Carbonek. (I'll go into this in more detail later, if anyone's interested.) And at the end of Green's account of the Grail Quest, Percival and Blanchefleur are married and rule together at Carbonek; Green says of them "when the last battle had been fought [the Battle of Camlann, where Arthur slew Mordred but was mortally wounded and carried off to Avalon] and the realm of Logres [a name specifically bestowed upon Arthurian Britain, symbolic in Green's story - and works which influenced it, such as Charles Williams' Arthurian poetry and C. S. Lewis's "That Hideous Strength"] was no more, Percivale's kingdom made still a little *light* in the darkness of a Britain conquered and laid waste by the barbarians" (the emphasis on the word "light" is mine). The "Gargoyles" version differs from Green's in that Peredur and Blanchefleur are still keepers of the Holy Grail (Green followed Malory in having it taken up to Heaven at the end of the Grail Quest and Galahad's passing), but Green's description still seems almost like the foundation for the "Gargoyles" take on Peredur and Blanchefleur.

Note that the "Gargoyles" take on the Holy Grail breaks from the familiar "golden goblet" version to make it a humble wooden bowl, more likely to have been used at the Last Supper (a point also taken by "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade").


FAVORITE LINES.

HUDSON: Aye, lad, but it's a mighty big world, and even the banished and the badduns eventually return to the clan.


KING ARTHUR: Perhaps... perhaps this is all unnecessary. I don't think we need to guard the Stone.


MACBETH: Macbeth to Coldstone: convoy's stopped, and Xanatos is here.

XANATOS: Well, it's a momentous occasion, and such a lovely day.

MACBETH: Safe to say he's up to something.

COLDSTONE (as he and Coldfire pursue Coldsteel and Coyote): Yes, safe to say.


COLDSTEEL: Now that we're machines, don't you love these exhilarating daytime battles? No nasty organic gargoyles to even the odds.

COLDFIRE (ramming him in the mouth with her head): Consider the odds evened.


COYOTE: Out of David's respect for Goliath, I am programmed to inflict only as much damage as necessary to reach our objective. But I define the parameters of "necessary".

COLDSTONE (thrusting his arm-blaster into Coyote's screen): Define this.

STONE OF DESTINY (to Macbeth): Thank you, Macbeth mac Findlaech, but the effort was pointless.

(to Xanatos): Pointless, David Xanatos, to substitute yet another stone to fool the Illuminati.

(to King Arthur): Pointless, Arthur Pendragon, to waste time protecting any particular stone.

(to Peredur): Pointless, Peredur fab Ragnal, to have gone to such extremes merely to possess a rock.

(to all four):Do you think the spirit of destiny can be contained in one vessel? {A long list of its various identities follows.} I am the Rock of Ages! Do not dream of possessing me, mortal.


STONE OF DESTINY: Hey.

HOLY GRAIL: Hey.
Todd Jensen
posted @ Thu, Mar 6, 2025 7:57:51 pm EST from 68.99.93.213

Keith David is among the VAs that are going to be involved with Gremlins The Wild Batch:

https://www.animationmagazine.net/2025/03/gremlins-the-wild-batch-returns-to-max-with-new-episodes-april-10/
Antiyonder
posted @ Thu, Mar 6, 2025 3:23:44 pm EST from 68.119.3.1

MATTHEW - I'd forgotten about the white stag's links to Richard II (probably all the more fitting, since he featured in Shakespeare - though there haven't been any allusions to that play yet in "Gargoyles"), focusing on the white stag's role in Arthurian legend, but, yes, that is a good point. Thanks for bringing it up. (Richard might not have been the most auspicious connection to the white stag, of course, given his reputation as a vain and inept king who wound up getting deposed - though he has been thought to have invented the handkerchief, which is a mark in his favor.)
Todd Jensen
posted @ Thu, Mar 6, 2025 8:31:08 am EST from 68.99.93.213

The initial trio of the London Clan drew upon the Queen's Beasts as Todd pointed but the rest draw from heraldic beasts which makes for an interesting theme for this species of gargoyles. Constance means "steadfastness or resolute" which is pretty appropriate for a boar as anyone who knows will tell you those suckers are stubborn. Staghart being a white deer is also pretty appropriate, deer are an important figure all across the world but the White Stag is very much a figure of European importance. Two white stags were actually on the coat of arms for Richard II, making it another appropriate choice for the London Clan.
Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!
posted @ Thu, Mar 6, 2025 3:57:40 am EST from 135.180.3.149

CRAIG AND MATTHEW - Thanks for your comments.

I reread the next chapter of the Stone of Destiny story, "Rock and Roll", today.

We open with our first look (pointed out by Griff) of Knight's Spur, the London clan's home. The name certainly has an "Arthurian" tone, and I wonder what led to it, especially with the hints we've had that the London clan's forebears were familiar with Arthur during his original reign. I'd also like to know a bit more about its history. It mostly looks like a relatively recent stately home - seventeenth or eighteenth century, maybe - though with battlements for the gargoyles to perch on in one scene. "Pendragon", if the spin-off gets made, would probably be the best route to find out more about it.

Shari/Shahrazad continues to tell her tales about the Stone of Destiny (nearly all based on the actual legends about it - with one significant exception) to Thailog. When her account of the Stone's past seems to contradict itself (Moses giving it away to Gathelus and Scota on the eve of the Exodus, but also having it available during the wanderings in the wilderness to provide the Children of Israel with water), Thailog eagerly points out the discrepancy; it's tempting to imagine him here trying to get back at her for the ending of Chapter Six (especially the way he's smiling as he does so), but she remains unrattled. (And we'll find out in the next chapter that it wasn't really a discrepancy, but a hint to the Stone's true nature.)

The last chapter's cliffhanger made it look as if there'd be trouble between Macbeth, Hudson, and Lexington on one side, and King Arthur and the London clan on the other; fortunately, things soon get sorted out, and we get acquainted (alongside Hudson and Lexington) with two new London gargoyles: Constance and Staghart. (With the little in-joke of their nicknames being "Coco" and "Amp" - and Hudson, on top of it, addresses Constance as "lassie" at one point.)

Constance and Staghart's designs match the basic concept of the London clan, but this time drawing on something other than the Queen's Beasts (the inspiration for Leo, Una, and Griff). Constance is modeled on a wild boar (technically, for her, a wild sow), which often turned up in Arthurian legend and medieval tales in general as formidable adversaries. Most prominent among these was the great boar Twrch Trwyth or the Troit Boar, whom King Arthur was depicted as hunting in the early Welsh tales about him, and which the story of "Culhwch and Olwen" goes into particular detail about, making it the big moment of the story. (For those not familiar with it, in "Culhwch and Olwen", Culhwch, a young cousin of King Arthur's, wishes to marry Olwen, the beautiful daughter of the irascible giant king Ysbadadden, but Ysbadadden initially refuses to agree to it since he knows that he will die the day his daughter marries. He keeps throwing poisoned spears at Culhwch and his companions, but they catch them in mid-air and throw them back at him until he finally, grumbling about the injuries they've dealt him, agrees to the wedding, if Culhwch can perform a series of impossible tasks, including winning an enchanted comb, scissors, and razor resting upon Twrch Trwyth's head - how they got there, the story doesn't say, as the only tools capable of giving Ysbadadden a decent haircut for the wedding-day - and a lot of sub-quests for gaining the materials, hunting dogs, etc. necessary for the hunt. Arthur and his men - here portrayed as more like tall-tale heroes than the familiar knights - carry out the tasks, with the hunt of Twrch Trwyth and his offspring coming as the climax. They get the comb, razor, and scissors, after which Twrch Trwyth breaks away from them, jumps into the sea, and goes swimming off in the distance with two of the great hounds in pursuit of him; none of the three are ever seen again.) This is, in fact, one of the great hunting stories of legend (I read a comparison of it once with three other such tales, the Calydonian Boar in classical mythology, "Moby-Dick", and William Faulkner's "The Bear" - more on that another time) - though I suppose we're all hoping now that in the Gargoyles Universe, Twrch Trwyth wasn't a "boar-gargoyle" like Constance.

As for Staghart, he's clearly modeled on a recurring figure in Arthurian legend, a marvelous white hart or stag that appears at Arthur's court and leads his knights off on various adventures. (There must have been more than one of them, since a few of them were described as being slain in the course of those adventures.) Whether they were based on gargoyles from the London clan in the Gargoyles Universe is something we don't know as yet, of course.

Two features about Constance that make her stand out from the other gargoyles in the London clan. All the other gargoyles in it had names that reflected the animal they resemble; Constance's does not. Also, she has batlike wings rather than feathered wings like the other London gargoyles. Both of which might tie in with the speculation of Scottish gargoyles mingling with the London clan....

(And she certainly matches the wild boar's traditional strength - they were so tough that boar-hunters had to put cross-bars on their spears to keep the boar from running up the spear and goring them with their tusks before succumbing to the wound - in how she takes care of a Steel Clan robot by pulling both arms off - outdoing Beowulf with Grendel.)

Arthur and Macbeth swap tales over coffee - neither of them, presumably, noticing the "Nightstone" logo on the coffee cups. (So was it Demona's idea or Thailog's to go into competition with Starbucks?) The date of Arthur's wounding and being carried off to Avalon - 542 - comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain", by the way.

And a bit later, we have Arthur, Macbeth, and Hudson continuing to compare notes at Knight's Spur's library, including a bit about Arthur and Griff's quest for Merlin (no success so far) and how Arthur's researching what's been written about the two of them (including one of the obvious sources, Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur"). Hudson marvels over the books in a very fitting call-back to "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time" (fitting in light of the other two people in the room), and Arthur brings up that the familiar tales may not be quite accurate (something that Macbeth agrees on, perhaps recalling that play by Shakespeare....). We do see one difference with the familiar story in the form of King Pelles crowning Arthur - more on that below.

Lunette's name struck me, incidentally, since it's the name of a major female character in the Arthurian tale "Yvain". In that story, Yvain, one of King Arthur's knights, teams up with a lion whose life he had saved. I'd suspected for a while that in the Gargoyles Universe, the lion who became partners with Yvain was really a "lion-gargoyle" from what is now the London clan; seeing a London gargoyle named Lunette strengthened my suspicions (already formed before that issue came out).

We also find out more about the London clan, including their "only two eggs" policy (I wouldn't want to be the one who has to confine Constance when she's in heat), and, on a melancholy note, that they have no gargoyle beasts.

And we culminate in the return appearance of Coldstone and Coldfire - certainly appropriate with Coldsteel as one of the antagonists....

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THE STONE OF DESTINY'S TALE: The story of Moses striking water from a stone in the desert for the Children of Israel comes from the Book of Exodus, of course; I hadn't seen it linked with the Stone of Destiny's past until this issue came out. (Doing a little on-line research afterwards, though, I found out that the two had been identified as part of the Stone of Destiny legend even before "Clan-Building".)

The notion of the prophet Jeremiah and a princess of Judah bringing the Stone to Ireland was part of the legend of its past that I'd discovered before that issue was released. It seems to have been developed as a way of giving the Stone's backstory links to Biblical events once the Irish had become Christian (and particularly explains how the Stone got from Bethel to Ireland. Note that we get three prominent Old Testament figures in the Stone of Destiny story as a result - Jacob, Moses, and Jeremiah - with the question Craig raised of whether Disney would do such a thing nowadays. (Of course, Old Testament figures, being linked to two religions, might be "safer" than New Testament ones. On the other hand, Disney never did make that episode Greg Weisman proposed for "Hercules" in which Hercules and Samson crossed paths....)

The story about Cu Chullain (allowing a glimpse of a lead from "The Hound of Ulster") is apparently also an actual Irish legend, though I haven't tracked down the details about it yet. Having the Stone split in half by him provides a handy answer for how the Stone of Destiny could be the Lia Fail of Irish legend when the Lia Fail was also reportedly still in Ireland (though we'll get another explanation for that in Chapter Nine, of course).

Prince Fergus was an actual half-legendary half-historical figure who did indeed (reportedly) lead Irish settlers to Argyll and found the kingdom of Dalriada, around 500, and was said to have taken the Stone of Destiny with him (one account says that he asked permission from a kinsman who was the current chief King of Ireland to borrow it - and didn't return it afterwards, probably prompting that Irish king to vow never to lend anything to Fergus again). The part about the Stone becoming the Stone from the Sword in the Stone was "Gargoyles"' invention, though - if already introduced in the episode "Pendragon" and fitting the atmosphere of the Stone of Destiny (I have seen actual theories that the Sword in the Stone legend was influenced by the Stone of Destiny tales from Ireland). The team-up between Merlin and King Pelles is also the comic's invention.

Merlin's borrowing the Stone does echo an actual story about him, beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth. During the turbulent years before Arthur was born, a group of invading Saxons met with the British leaders to try to settle their dispute in peace; unfortunately, the Saxons had treachery in mind, and drew out concealed daggers to stab the British nobles, slaughtering nearly all of them. When Uther Pendragon's older brother, Aurelius Ambrosius, became King, he wanted to raise a memorial to the murdered British lords, but none of his master builders could think of anything grand enough, until someone suggested that Ambrosius send for Merlin. Merlin advised the King to use the Giants' Dance, an ancient ring of stones on Mt. Killaurus on Ireland, which had magical properties (for example, the giants who built the stone circle would wash them, then bathe ill giants with the water and so cure them of their diseases); Aurelius sent an army to Ireland to claim the stones, but his men were unable to move them. Merlin, after watching their efforts, stepped in and magically transported them back to Britain. (While some accounts make it an act of straightforward magic, the earliest surviving version of the story, in Geoffrey of Monmouth, had Merlin constructing machines that could dismantle the Giants' Dance and bear the stones to the British ships for transport back to Britain - apparently a case of advanced technology appearing to be magic - something that Goliath and his clan would have gotten from their early days in Manhattan.) These stones became Stonehenge (actually raised a few thousand years earlier, of course). The difference here is that Merlin takes only one stone - and he was borrowing it, with Fergus' permission, to return it afterwards; the Stone's "permanent" relocation to London isn't due for some centuries later.

The dating of Arthur's coronation (as well as Macbeth's) to Michaelmas was Greg Weisman's invention, fitting the major role that holiday has enjoyed in "Gargoyles" (all the way back to "Avalon Part One"). Malory's own timeline implies that Arthur was crowned on Pentecost instead. (Basically, when Arthur pulled the Sword out of the Stone on New Year's Day, a lot of the British nobles were unwilling to accept him as king, so they had to keep holding special "sword-pulling" events in which all the rival claimants pulled on the sword, but only Arthur could draw it out. These took place on various Church holidays: first Candlemas, then Easter, and finally Pentecost - even then, the nobles tried to suggest further tests, but the townspeople of London announced that they'd had enough of this and declared for Arthur so fervently that the nobles gave in and agreed to accept him as king. The "Michaelmas crowning", of course, could be interpreted as needing to wait for the next major Church holiday to do things properly, though the picture of Pelles setting the crown on Arthur's head suggests a simple ceremony, much simpler than coronations nowadays.)

King Pelles was a guardian of the Holy Grail (the technical term was "Fisher King") in Sir Thomas Malory, and a few of his predecessors - as well as in Roger Lancelyn Green's adaptations of the Arthurian legend (which I'll have more to say about when we reach Chapter Nine). His role in crowning King Arthur is Greg Weisman's invention. (I've found it tempting to imagine this as explaining, from the perspective of the Gargoyles Universe, one feature about Arthur found in some of the early writings about him - the Saints' Lives, which portray him in a hostile light as a tyrant who is repeatedly humbled by one early British saint or another. There've been various speculations over the reason for this depiction of Arthur, such as the "historical Arthur" having taxed the Church for his wars with the Saxons and becoming unpopular with it as a result. I'd thought that, from a "Gargoyles Universe" perspective, some of the churchmen might have been unhappy with Arthur's alliance with the gargoyles, but Pelles' role here provides another explanation. The Holy Grail was never an official part of the Christian faith - it seems to have started off as just another wonder-working object, more in the same category as Excalibur and the Round Table, to only later be depicted as the cup from the Last Supper - and it's tempting to imagine the official churchmen in Arthurian Britain regarding King Pelles as part of a heretical branch.)

King Pelles, according to Malory and Roger Lancelyn Green, ran into some troubles following Arthur's coronation, which indicate that the case of the Fisher King not acting in a manner befitting the guardian of the Holy Grail pre-dated Peredur founding the Illuminati. (Incidentally, in medieval French, the language of the first stories about the Holy Grail, the words for "Fisher" and "Sinner" were very similar, suggesting that the Fisher Kings' strayings offered an opportunity for word-play.) King Pelles had a brother named Garlon who could become invisible, and used that talent to go about murdering people (ride up to them unseen and run them through with his spear). One of King Arthur's knights, Sir Balin, finally vowed to put a stop to Garlon's deeds and tracked him to the castle of Carbonek, where he slew him in front of King Pelles. Pelles, who had apparently had no problems hosting Garlon at his castle despite the latter's evil-doing, sought to avenge his brother's death and attacked Balin, breaking his sword in half. Balin ran about the castle, looking for another weapon to fight King Pelles, when he came to the chamber where the Holy Grail was kept, alongside a sacred spear (often identified as the Spear of Longinus - which turned up, by the way, in the "Gargoyles"/"Spectacular Spider-Man" crossover radio play in the role that Odin's spear would take in "Gargoyles Quest"); he snatched up the spear (despite - in Green's version - a disembodied voice ordering him to leave the spear alone) and struck King Pelles with it, inflicting an incurable leg wound upon him and causing the lands around Carbonek to lie waste. (Balin soon afterwards came to an unhappy end; he got into a fight with another knight, and discovered only after they'd mortally wound each other that his opponent was his own brother and dearest friend.) King Pelles suffered long from his leg-wound, until he devised a plan to ensure his healing. He knew that Sir Lancelot was to be the father of the knight who would achieve the Holy Grail and heal him - and also that Lancelot was in love with Queen Guinevere. So, with the aid of an enchantress named Brusen, he tricked Lancelot into sleeping with his daughter Elaine (who was in love with Lancelot), believing her to be Guinevere; the offspring of this union was Sir Galahad, who would grow up to achieve the Grail and heal King Pelles. Thus, the purest knight in the story of King Arthur was begotten through decidedly impure stratagems that King Pelles had orchestrated.

St. Columba was an actual historical figure, a monk exiled from Ireland to Scotland after quarreling with the High King of Ireland for various reasons (for example, the High King's men had slain a man who had taken sanctuary in St. Columba's monastery; later accounts add an even more colorful reason which I'll share here later if anyone's interested) and did much to spread Christianity through Scotland. His encounter with the Loch Ness Monster is based on an actual story about him (though, technically, he met and tamed the monster at the river Ness which flows into Loch Ness, not the loch itself); it'd be interesting to get the Loch Ness clan's perspective on the event. His connection to the Stone is also part of its legend.

Kenneth mac Alpin, who appears in Shari/Shahrazad's final tale in this chapter, was indeed the first king of Scotland. One reviewer, back when this chapter first came out, thought he looked sneaky, and some of the stories about him fit this. For example, he once met with the Pictish leaders, whom he'd been at war with, to make peace with them, culminating in a feast. But Kenneth booby-trapped the Pictish chieftains' seats so that when they sat on them, they fell into pits underneath, after which Kenneth's archers finished them off, disposing of the opposition.


FAVORITE LINES.

THAILOG: You said Moses gave the Stone to Gathelus and Scota before leading the Hebrews out of Egypt!

SHARI/SHAHRAZAD (completely unfazed): The story is told...

{She smiles at Thailog in silence.}

THAILOG: Though who can say it it be true? Right. Continue.


CONSTANCE: You know, Griff, I don't believe we've been properly introduced to your Yank friends.

HUDSON: Hmph! watch who you're calling a Yank, lass.


HUDSON (stretching out a hand to Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur"): So many books... are any of them true?

KING ARTHUR: All things are true. Few things are accurate.

MACBETH: Aye. No bloody kidding.

{Hudson is silent.}


HUDSON: Any sign of life?

LEXINGTON: Nah. Quiet, bordering on dull.

COLDSTEEL: I believe we can rectify that, and still display no signs of life.


LEXINGTON: Dream on, you electric sheep!


STAGHART (as Coldstone and Coldfire make their surprise entrance): Anyone order up the kitchen sink?
Todd Jensen
posted @ Wed, Mar 5, 2025 7:58:09 pm EST from 68.99.93.213

Good rundown on the Stone of Destiny, I touched on it a little bit when it first appeared and its importance to Scotland. Seems natural that Macbeth would have a hand in its removal back in 1950.

Having Hudson and Lexington make the trip was an interesting choice. For the most part the world building of the series was mostly done through Goliath, Elisa, Angela and Bronx's perspective so it's nice that other members get to see some more of the world. It can be pretty common for characters to get stuck in their familiar surroundings so this shakeup is just what was needed. For Hudson it was a good way to move from a stagnation that easily falls on older characters or just older people in general. And Lex? Well, more to be seen there.
Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!
posted @ Wed, Mar 5, 2025 5:14:20 pm EST from 135.180.3.149

Thanks for the thoughts, Todd. The Stone of Destiny arc is still probably my favorite thing that's come from the comic-book era of Gargoyles. That's largely down to the rich mythological tapestry that Greg weaves. I wonder if he would be able to get away with including Judeo-Christian figures like Jacob and Moses in the story in today's Disney environment. I was pretty surprised by that at the time, but delighted by it, because those myths are obviously as rich for exploration as any other world myths. I know a lot of people were put off by the unconventional nonlinear story, and I can't blame them, but I really dig it. Admittedly, the delays between issues didn't help, particularly the 18-month delay between issue 8 and the TPB containing issue 9 for the first time. It was like sitting with a jigsaw puzzle where you're missing a third of the pieces and are just waiting to see what the picture looks like. The payoff was well worth it, but I can certainly understand that more casual fans lost interest or became frustrated in that period, which is a shame. This was just about the worst story possible to have that kind of protracted delay.
Craig
posted @ Wed, Mar 5, 2025 3:13:55 pm EST from 69.118.30.106

MATTHEW - Thanks for your analysis on Thailog. It struck me very recently that there was one thing I forgot to say about "The Reckoning" when I reviewed it; in light of Delilah, Thailog must really like living dangerously. Dumping Demona to her face is hazardous enough - and dumping her for a clone you secretly made of her even more so. But mingling her DNA with human DNA to produce that clone - and not just any human, but the detective whom Demona really hates - and telling her that - that has to fall under the category of "Do not try this at home!"

Reread "The Rock" today. The Stone of Destiny story is probably my favorite part of "Clan-Building". For a start, it has a strong "history and legend" element in it, through the Stone and Shahrazad's account of its past. (More about that below.) This was all the more welcome to me since "The Goliath Chronicles" had all but left that part of "Gargoyles" out, and I'd missed it; I was delighted to see a "Gargoyles" story once more making use of that.

But that's not all. We also get Xanatos scheming again (more about that in a bit), more of the London clan, the return of the ColdTrio, and even a brand-new Coyote robot. Plus, in Chapter Nine, we'll get to meet the Illuminati leadership, but that'll have to wait for a later post. Quite a lot for "Gargoyles" fans to enjoy.

This story definitely made it clear that just because Xanatos had made peace with the gargoyles and offered them sanctuary at the castle, that didn't mean he'd given up his scheming. The "Goliath Chronicles", of course, assumed that he had, and looking over that, I can see why. In most adventure cartoons, the villain giving up trying to catch the leads would have to mean that he'd reformed, so I suspect that the new production team had assumed the same thing was the case here. Only, Xanatos's primary goal in the series wasn't to catch or get rid of the gargoyles, but to increase his wealth, power, and influence - and to gain immortality so that he could keep them forever. There was no mention in the closing episodes of his giving that pursuit up, and calling a truce with the gargoyles wouldn't mean renouncing it - especially since those plans didn't necessitate going after the clan. (Look at the last time in Season Two that Xanatos fought Goliath, "Cloud Fathers". Xanatos's goal in that one was to capture Coyote the Trickster; Goliath only got involved because he'd arrived at Flagstaff and found out what Xanatos was up to.) Similarly, here Xanatos's target is the Stone of Destiny, and the gargoyles only get involved because they decide to protect the Stone.

And Macbeth's their ally here, which I, again, enjoyed seeing. (He also mentions Banquo and Fleance having parted ways with him - we know, of course, that they've joined Castaway and are serving as officers in the Quarrymen.) It's certainly appropriate, given his ties to the Stone (being crowned on it, for a start - not to mention that this chapter reveals that he took part in the 1950 "theft" of the Stone from Westminster Abbey - more about that when I get to Chapter Nine), and all the more so when we find out who else is involved.

We also have some resolution of the elements in the Double Date story from Chapters Three to Five. A big one is Goliath and Elisa's reunion, ending in their joyful embrace. (A particularly lovely touch is that it's drawn as the reverse of their break-up scene in Chapter Three; this time, they're coming closer and closer until the big moment. Greg Weisman, incidentally, mentioned that Goliath is kissing Elisa while Elisa is stroking her brow-ridges, each one using the other's species' display of affection. It reminds me a bit of a "Doctor Who" episode I once saw set during the break-up of India and Pakistan in 1947, where a young couple, one Hindu, one Muslim, is getting married, and each one incorporates traditions from the other's religious beliefs into the ceremony as a mark of their love for each other.) And we get the revelation that Maggie is pregnant - complete with another lovely moment where Talon and Maggie are affectionately nuzzling each other at the news. (We also see Dr. Sato continuing to be established as another new human friend.)

Hudson and Lexington, two members of the Manhattan clan who often feel on the edge of things, have the London adventure here - with particularly big consequences for Lexington as a result. I liked the touch of how the other members of the clan wind up staying behind; Brooklyn, wanting to be away from Broadway and Angela so that they won't be reminding him that they found love and he didn't, decides to stay in Manhattan - only for Broadway and Angela to decide to stay in Manhattan to help him, meaning that he's stuck in the very mess he was trying to avoid.

This story is the one, of course, that jumps up and down the timeline, complete with little "date and time" captions (almost a forerunner of the ones we got in "Young Justice"), which makes for some initially confusing reading - but, as some reviewers have pointed out, there's some effective thematic flow here. The denouement in Chapter Nine certainly reveals why the story's taking that approach.

Shahrazad continues to serve as a storyteller for Thailog - and the readers - this time focusing on the tale of the Stone of Destiny (though she also works in the backstory for the ColdTrio). Including a moment where we see Thailog carrying her in an echo of Goliath and Elisa, and another where we see Thailog and Brentwood searching for something in a ruined building (St. Damien's Cathedral? Looking for the remains of the Praying Gargoyle?)

Xanatos incorporates the Coyote Diamond (introduced back in "Her Brother's Keeper") into the latest Coyote robot - I hadn't imagined that event taking place, but now it seems so logical that I'm amazed I didn't.

Coldsteel's comment on free will seems all the more familiar after that term cropped up with the Clones a couple of chapters before.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON THE STONE OF DESTINY'S TALE: With the exception of the ColdTrio part, Shahrazad's stories in this chapter are all based on actual legends about the Stone of Destiny or Scottish legend.

It's appropriate that the Stone's tale opens with Jacob, since Jacob was, like Xanatos, a trickster, ensuring a sort of symmetry for the beginning and end of its story. Indeed, the reason why Jacob was on the run was because he'd just cheated his brother Esau out of his blessing by disguising himself as him to their elderly (and apparently dying) father Isaac, duping Isaac into thinking that he was speaking to Esau and bestowing a blessing upon him, in a case of Old Testament-era identity theft. (Esau wound up on the receiving end of such a trick when he arrived at the home of his uncle Laban, whom he was fleeing to. He fell in love with Laban's daughter Rachel and agreed to work for Laban seven years in order to marry her - but Laban then secretly substituted her sister Leah for her at the wedding, and Jacob didn't find out that he'd married the wrong sister until afterwards - meaning that he had to work for Rachel another seven years.)

Jacob had one adventure on the way home, by the way, which seems of interest from a Gargoyles Universe perspective. On his way home to meet with Esau - and dreading what reception he'd receive from his brother - the night before they were due to meet, Jacob got into a wrestling match with a stranger who bestowed a blessing from God upon him and declared that his name was now Israel. There are two features about this stranger: first, he wanted to leave before dawn, and when Jacob, after receiving his new name from the stranger, asked what his name was, the stranger refused to give it, even responding in a puzzled-sounding tone in the King James Version - "Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?" Now, the stranger has traditionally been identified as an angel, and I certainly doubt that Greg Weisman or anyone else working on "Gargoyles" would have dared challenge that identification for fear of the controversy - but the combination of these two features raises an alternate possibility of what manner of being Jacob had been wrestling with, in the Gargoyles Universe....)

The tale of Gathelus and Scota, which Shahrazad focused on in this chapter, is an actual "origin-myth" for Scotland and Ireland, with Scota's name, obviously, being designed to explain where the name "Scotland" came from. (Such legends, where a bygone hero or heroine would be invented to explain how a certain land got its name, were common back then. Britain, for example, was said to have been named after Brutus the Trojan, a great-grandson of Aeneas, who led his people to Britain and settled there, supposedly the first humans to dwell in Britain. And we got another such "place-name-origin-myth" in this chapter, with the "Port of Gathelus" part.)

There are some variations of this story, I might add. Some versions, for example, make Gathelus not an Athenian prince but a Scythian (probably inspired by the coincidental similarity of "Scot" and "Scythian"); others give Scota's husband a different name, and gave the name "Gathelus" to their son instead. (One such version included the friendship with Moses, but handled differently. Here, Gathelus has been bitten by a poisonous snake and his father asks Moses for help. Moses not only heals the youth, but announces that God will give him a home where no snakes will ever live - namely Ireland, which has no snakes. It's a more accurate counterpart to the more familiar story of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland; Ireland never had any snakes to begin with.) For that matter, while the version that "Gargoyles" used had Gathelus and Scota fleeing Egypt before the Ten Plagues, at Moses' advice, another version shifted their departure to after the Exodus; after the Pharaoh (Scota's father) had drowned in the Red Sea pursuing the Israelites, the Egyptians feared that Gathelus would make himself the new Pharaoh and forced him to leave before he could do so, to keep from being ruled by an outsider.


FAVORITE LINES.

GOLIATH: I have been wounded twice in one week. I am healed - but not whole.


HUDSON: Aye, and the human security is tight as a drum. I'm nae convinced you could break in there with a battering ram.

MACBETH: You'd be surprised.

{Flashback to Christmas, 1950.}

MACBETH: All right, lads. Now or - .

OFF-STAGE STUDENT: Scotland forever!

MACBETH: Shhhhh!


GOLIATH: About Halloween... I will not hold you to words spoken when you believed my life hung in the balance.

ELISA: Even if I want to be held?

GOLIATH: I know you care for me. That is not at issue. But what of the things I cannot give you... Picnics? Normalcy?

ELISA: We can have a picnic anytime, and normalcy's so over-rated.

{They embrace.}


MACBETH: Just stay alert.

{He looks about, then heads for the nearest London Tube station, gun in hand.}

MACBETH (descending the stairs): I'm probably on a wild-goose chase, lads, but in case I'm not, you'd better head this -

{Is seized from behind by King Arthur, holding Excalibur to his throat.}

MACBETH: - way.

LEXINGTON (as he and Hudson are surrounded by gargoyles): That could be a problem....
Todd Jensen
posted @ Tue, Mar 4, 2025 8:25:19 pm EST from 68.99.93.213

*feeling nostalgic for the old S8 chatroom*
:`(
odd sight
Gone but not forgotten.
posted @ Tue, Mar 4, 2025 9:11:02 am EST from 173.88.84.150

Rather appropriate that Shari/Shahrazad first demonstration of her storytelling ability would be to Thailog who clone or not, is a creature of the night. Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights kept herself alive as the wife of Shahryar by enchanting him with tales told all through the night. It also goes to show that while Thailog is as cunning as he is brutal and malicious, he's still new to the game that the Illuminati have been playing for centuries. He has all the strength of Goliath, the smarts of Xanatos and the cruel treachery of Sevarius, runs a multi-million dollar company entirely from the shadows and yet he's just one of many in the bottom rung of the Illuminati. His inability to see the long run just goes to show even with his adult body and brain he has the mindset of an immature teenager.
Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!
posted @ Tue, Mar 4, 2025 3:25:07 am EST from 135.180.3.149

The site seems to be moving slower this evening; I don't know if the bots have anything to do with it or not. I hope this doesn't last long.

I reread "Reunion" today. It serves as a sort of transition from the Double Date story to the Stone of Destiny story, helping to re-introduce the ColdTrio into "Gargoyles" - and telling the lost World Tour story that was originally going to be in the Marvel "Gargoyles" comic.

One feature of this chapter is that it marks the first time that somebody really gets the better of Thailog. Technically, he'd been defeated a few times in the sense that the Manhattan clan and other intended targets (such as Xanatos, Demona, and Macbeth) didn't get killed by him, but Thailog still came out gloating. This time, though he starts off still seemingly in charge (now dressed like a Roman Emperor and even having Shahrazad feeding him grapes; I guess this is *his* stab at cliched villainy), he winds up in a frustrated fury upon discovering that there are consequences of Goliath's adventure that he doesn't know about - with Shahrazad now being the one in control of the situation.

We also see Shari/Shahrazad telling a story for the first time - complete with her now-famous opener (which even made it into "Voices from the Eyrie" as a regular feature), "The story is told - though who can say if it be true" (I once checked to see if that opening appeared in "A Thousand and One Nights" - it didn't).

The skiff with Goliath and the others on board winds up in a cooking pot, a very unusual body of water indeed. (It reminded me of past discussions I'd come across about what the minimum size might be for a body of water needed to reach Avalon, like a bathtub, for example. I'd even seen amused speculations about Avalon sending the travelers to Brendan and Margot's hot tub, to their alarm....)

Master Dawa made a fun guest character, with more of a sense of humor than you'd expect from a mystic. (I've included a couple of his lines below.)

Angela figures out what much of the audience had apparently already done - that "Othello" and "Desdemona" are Gabriel's biological parents. Though Coldstone, naturally, regards the Avalon gargoyles in general as his rookery offspring, in the regular "gargoyle way".

And we get a neat little surprise - it looks as if "Iago" has taken over Coldstone, but then we find out that he hadn't, that Coldstone had faked the takeover in order to keep Goliath and the others away from him while "Iago" was still a problem inside him, so that "Iago" couldn't endanger any of the Wyvern gargoyles.

Naturally, to match the setting, we get hints that the yeti (the obvious mythical creature for the Himalayas) exist, though we don't get to meet any - just Coldstone disguised as one. (Shambahla, where the travelers arrive afterwards, is an actual piece of Tibetan myth, as well, a sort of utopian city hidden from the outside world.)

We also get a glimpse of the Manhattan clan at the very beginning, deciding they're not going to stay cooped up inside the castle (which would obviously limit the amount of storytelling if they had; you can't have someone breaking into the castle each episode), and Lexington still unhappy about Brentwood deciding to work for Thailog (thanks in part, I suspect, to just whose clone Brentwood is).

And we get an indication that Master Dawa and Sangpo are speaking in Tibetan, in contrast to the televised World Tour episodes where everyone spoke English (something occasionally commented on). It was probably easier to indicate that they were speaking in a different language while still making it clear to the audience what they were saying, in a written format.


FAVORITE LINES.

GOLIATH (either him or Angela; the voice balloon is coming from off-panel): I think we've arrived.

ELISA: Yeah, well, I think we're soup!


ELISA: I don't suppose you'd care to skip this adventure? See if Avalon needs us in Hawaii?


ELISA (in response to Sangpo's alarm): Doesn't seem too happy to see us.

GOLIATH: Humans rarely are.


MASTER DAWA: As for your fellow archers, their souls are fortunate that their bodies are such lousy shots.


SANGPO: What are they saying, Master? I don't understand?

MASTER DAWA: Listen with your heart, Sangpo. If that doesn't work, I'll translate later.


THAILOG: Avalon sends my father to redeem my uncle, and Goliath failed. Priceless!

SHAHRAZAD: Are you sure they failed?

THAILOG: Why? What do you know?

SHAHRAZAD: Only that seeds were sown that night, seeds which have yet to bear fruit.

THAILOG: What seeds? What fruit?

{He turns to stone - his Roman Emperor-style toga and tunic *not turning to stone, which will probably mean trouble when the sun set*.}

SHAHRAZAD: Hmmm..... It seems that's a story for another night as well.
Todd Jensen
posted @ Mon, Mar 3, 2025 8:04:12 pm EST from 68.99.93.213

Matthew the Fedora Guy> Man. Hope you don't go 4 keeping human/bot relationships off-limits ([SPOILER] i.e. Futurama [/SPOILER].XD
Antiyonder
posted @ Mon, Mar 3, 2025 1:55:51 pm EST from 68.119.3.1

And that would make me third. Sorry bots, you don't count.
Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!
posted @ Mon, Mar 3, 2025 12:56:51 pm EST from 135.180.3.149

The endless excitement of Survival Mode in Poor Bunny keeps players coming back for more, always striving to improve their survival time.
poor bunny - [kennethjoyce549 at gmail dot com]
posted @ Mon, Mar 3, 2025 11:48:02 am EST from 116.96.47.3

The Responsive Tap Systeam in Geometry Dash ensures that players are always in control, allowing for precise jumps and quick reactions.
Geometry Dash - [kennethjoyce549 at gmail dot com]
posted @ Mon, Mar 3, 2025 11:45:34 am EST from 116.96.47.3

Second. Again. Todd and I are on a strict schedule here, folks!

Looks like Greg confirmed in an interview that [SPOILER] Angelika is definitely a gargoyle rookling (not just some figment of Demona's imagination or a changeling or whatever) and also said that the upcoming series will cover about 200 years. That is about the lifespan of a gargoyle, so I expect that we will see Angelika go from rookling to young gargoyle, to adult gargoyle, to elder gargoyle, and then die. [/SPOILER]
Matt
"My daughter?! How dare you mock me! I have no daughter." - Demona, 1996
posted @ Mon, Mar 3, 2025 8:27:51 am EST from 204.184.178.1

First.
Todd Jensen
posted @ Mon, Mar 3, 2025 7:56:56 am EST from 68.99.93.213