Gargoyles/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Note to tropers: Before you ask anything, please read the Word of God FAQ to make sure your question hasn't been answered already.

Why is their 1994 ahead of ours?

  • Okay, this has always bugged me. But they are specifically in the year 1994, and yet their technology is years ahead of our technology in the year 2010 to whenever. Has there ever been an explanation about this?
    • Well... Xanatos...
      • ...planned for the future to arrive faster so he could make even better plans against the Gargoyles. Of course, it worked.
    • Or just the fact that the presence of a big company led by a genius (Xanatos Enterprises and before it, Cyberbiotics) and devoted to in large part inventing and selling cutting edge technology managed to push things past what we had in real life. After all, Xanatos does market most of the stuff he or his company makes, apart from really juicy stuff like the Powered Armor that he keeps for himself.
    • Consider that one of the Hunters was using a spear and net equipped glider in 1495, centuries before the first fighter plane was invented. I guess the world of Gargoyles has always been a little bit ahead of ours in some areas.
    • Also, Xanatos and his people are completely amoral and won't let little things like ethics stop their experiments. I remember one fan at a con imagining Sevarius reading the newspaper: "Oh, look, they've cloned another sheep..."
  • Genre convention. Fictional worlds like this always have technology decades ahead of the real world. The 90's DCU had teleporters, the original TMNT 'toon had mad scientists up the wazoo, and Jules Verne had time machines.
  • Their 994 was also ahead of ours, given the presence of stone fortresses like Castle Wyvern (which in real life couldn't have been built prior to the Norman conquest in 1066).

Does Elisa sleep?

  • Elisa sleeps during the day as the gargoyles do. She's a night shift detective (as are most of the people she works with like her partner, the other various cops, and her superior). She visits the gargoyles during breaks and between shifts. Remember the clock tower is right above the police station so it's not hard for her to check in on them. The episode "High Noon" makes it clear that she sleeps mornings and afternoons.
    • Keep in mind that she's also a detective and not a beat cop. Depending on her assignments and caseload there could be a couple of weeks where she's busy all the time and doesn't get to see the Manhattan Clan and others where she has practically nothing to do.
  • But then does anyone else sleep ?. 99% of the action in this show takes place during the night. That means 90% of the cast has apparently decided to follow the Gargoyles-style and sleep during the day. From Xanatos to the Yuppie Couple, everybody is apparently goddamn insomniac.
    • We usually see yuppie couple at the beginning of the night or with a throw away line about what they were up to. Xanatos is a harder one to understand. He's Ceo of a company and supposedly would need to handle some of the day to day operations of said company. The only think I can think is maybe he has some chemicals in his suit that make him stay awake all the time. :P As for some of the other characters that pop to mind: Macbeth is stated to follow the gargoyle lifestyle, as are the hunters, Owen probably does not sleep, and that's about it :P
    • Xanatos simply plans to stay awake, and it happens. :p Seriously, though, maybe he's using a modified sleep program of some sort. There's all kinds of them out there that claim to leave you feeling rested and alert for more hours per day. He may be only sleeping 4–6 hours per night, supplementing this with diet and naps throughout the day.
    • I am pretty sure there are plenty of days between episodes and therefore adventures; people like Xanatos and Macbeth have plenty of time to catch up on their sleep in between with, say, a 12-16 hour snooze and simply pull all nighters when they need to, sometimes for a couple of days in a row.
      • This troper has actually heard that some CEO of big companies end up doing just this.
        • This Troper sleeps from about 2PM to 8PM, not everyone has "normal" schedules. Xanatos might just take 2 hour naps through out the day. I can see it now; it's 10 AM and Owen wakes him up from a 2 hour nap for 6 hours of Gambiting. Then another hour nap, etc.
          • So he's an ubermensch?
            • He's Xanatos so yes. Or it could be 2 stages of sleep. For a couple weeks this Troper got his 8 hours in 2 4 hour blocks. Once your body adapts to a schedule then you function normally until you hit that magic hour your supposed to go to sleep at, THEN you suddenly get sleepy.
            • So long as you get a minimum of six is what I've heard, however it can't be REM as that is still too 'active', and you lose a bit of the affect if woken suddenly. Many 'in the field' agents and soldiers and the like are trained to make do on as little as 3 or 4 in case of a sudden assault or other emergency. Ditto also emergency/disaster relief crews.
    • There is a throwaway joke in one episode about how Xanatos never seems to sleep, Good thing Owen doesn't actually need to sleep because he's magic.
      • Actually, Greg Weisman has said that when a Child of Oberon takes on a form, they have all the limitations of that form. So Owen does need to sleep.

Why is it that sometimes artifacts that the gargoyles are holding when they go to sleep turn to stone as well, and sometimes they don't? Hudson's sword, for example, seems to switch between stone and metal when he sleeps.

  • The Roman spell that was cast on the entire Gargoyle species from the reign of Caesar Augustus to preserve their clothing from being destroyed when they awaken out of their stone state dictates that anything that a Gargoyle considers a prized personal possession, clothing or a personal weapon that remains on their person at all times, is technically considered part of their bodies in the terms of the spell. That is why Hudson's sword turns to stone, but a object he does not handle all the time, like a container he never handled before but was happen to be holding at sunrise, stays normal.
  • So why does the knife occasionally stay metallic? Is there an in-story reason or is it just sloppy animation?
    • Pretty sure that's sloppy animation. The show has good artwork and fluidity, but doesn't seem to care too much for details; notice reused generic gargoyle models and Owen pressing the same button several times in a row when supposedly operating a computer.
        • Either that, or Hudson has a love/hate relationship with the sword.
        • It's an animation error but an in-universe has been given. Hudson only acquired his sword in one of the pilot episodes. Since he hasn't had it long, how much he considers it his varies from day to day.

It was established that gargoyles gain energy from sunlight while sleeping -- so why is it that they never seem to suffer ill effects as a result of sleeping under cover?

  • First, that theory of Anton Sevarius' is only a theory based on the indirect study he has done on the species. No one has ever conducted any experiment to test it out to see if it holds water, so Sevarius could be wrong all along.
  • Word of God seems to have accepted that they absorb sunlight when they turn to stone. The best answer I can think of is that it doesn't need to be direct sunlight. Indirect sunlight in the shade will do as well. Also, take into account that the Manhattan Clan had 1,000 years worth of absorbed sunlight built in their system.
  • So how does that work with Demona? Since she changes species at sunrise and sunset, she no longer turns to stone during the day, and thus no longer gets a solar recharge. That means she'd have to get all her energy through basic caloric intake, which according to Sevarius would require her to be eating several times her body mass in protein every day, like an enormous winged shrew. Why isn't she shown to be either slowly starving to death (Which, since she can't actually starve to death, would be really unpleasant) or eating constantly?
    • Because Sevarius based his calculations on the assumption that gargoyles are true fliers, which they aren't. Because the assumption is false, every single piece of work he's done that depends on it is also flawed. "Ms. Destine" no doubt has a large appetite, but not nearly so large as Dr. Sevarius believes. And remember, gargoyles can and do eat.
    • Word of God also says that Demona sustains her energy through "magic" now that she no longer absorbs sunlight by day. It could be her own magic or part of Puck's or the Weird Sisters' curses (and keep in mind, the Weird Sisters' curse makes it impossible for her to die of starvation or exhaustion).

In "Temptation," Goliath is placed under a spell that forces him to obey the commands of anybody holding the pages containing said spell.

It quickly becomes clear that when given contradictory commands, Goliath drops the old command in favour of the new one (such as "grab her", and "let's go home".) The spell is "broken" with a command "I command you to act for the rest of your life exactly as if you were not under a spell"—but the characters show no concern that somebody may later get ahold of the spell and give new commands. What happened to it? Did they destroy it? Hide it? What?

  • Most likely, yes, they destroyed it.
  • Also, this was as far as I remember the only command that stated how long he should do it. Maybe, if Demona said something like "Hunt Brooklyn until he's dead", a contradictory command would do nothing.
  • Shouldn't Elisa's method of breaking the spell have made Goliath immune to all magic spells? As we see in later episodes ("Grief" and "Eye of the Storm" come to mind.) This is not so.
    • Spell one compels Big G to act normal. Spell two compels him to act differently. Maybe one out-compels the other?
      • My guess: Spell one is compelling Big G to act as he normally would, so he's acting like he normally would if bespelled by spell two.
      • No doubt some spells are more powerful than others, and apparently Third-Race magic is more powerful than human magic. The Grimorum was an artifact of human magic, so presumably all of the spells in it were human magic as well; but IIRC the spells placed on Goliath in "Grief" and "Eye of the Storm" were Third-Race magic and could have trumped the Grimorum's magic.
    • The spell from "Temptation" controls how he acts. It can't make him physically immune to magic.

Why do Goliath's clan show concern for Demona's safety whenever they work together, to the point of risking their own lives to back her up, when they know perfectly well that Demona cannot die unless killed by Macbeth?

  • To quote the Aladdin sequel, you'd be surprised what you can live through. The immortality spell might not necessarily mean they're Made of Iron and heal instantly when injured. So if she wasn't killed, she'd be maimed or burned or skewered or who knows, maybe even lose a limb. To protect "is the Gargoyle way."
    • They don't know that. Also Word of God says Demona and Macbeth are not given immortality according to the spell. They are given eternal youth as long as they both live, but if one dies they both die. That they will not die until one kills the other is not part of the spell, but a prophecy.
      • Actually, it might be part of the spell or a prophecy.
    • Eliza kills Demona at one point to save her and Macbeth from each other. She heals up fine. There are a few instances where one dies and comes back because they weren't killed by the other.
    • Word of God also says the Weird Sisters were forced to reveal the bond between Demona and Macbeth offscreen after their defeat in Avalon. However, given that Canmore actually briefly kills Macbeth in City of Stone, only for him to return to life along with Demona, i'd say it's pretty impossible for anyone to kill Demona and Macbeth but themselves.
    • But the weird sisters were manipulating things according to the archmages plans all along. In that case the weird sisters actually healed them. They might have even been responsible for making sure they didn't die until the archmage screwed himself.
  • In Ask Greg, Greg often says that the Gargoyles don't have blind faith that the no-dying-until-they-kill-each-other clause is 100% foolproof.
    • Which makes sense, because while they know about the spell, I do not think the Sisters ever sat down and explained the mechanics of it to the Clan. And if they had, would YOU trust those three?
      • ^ What the above says. The show never escalates far enough (or rather it can't) into full-on gorn territory to figure out what Demona can survive. Considering beheading was a common end for a defeated foe in the old days, and she most certainly had to be surprised at least a few times (referenced by one of the hunters mentioning she's been defeated a few times yet still manages to come back) it is likely so long as the head's close by this is survivable to some extent. Piecing herself back together after some loony chav is wearing batwing-skinned shoes and has ingested part of her, might be a bit harder to get past. So there's probably an upper limit to it and the gargoyles feared getting smushed by a roller coaster might've put her over the top.

If Maggie doesn't like fighting, then why the fuck did she hit Brooklyn in "Metamorphosis"?

  • Because Maggie is just very catty like that. *ba-dum-ching!*
  • I always figured it was the reflex of a frightened and possibly traumatized person who had been through a lot recently.

In "Vows," Demona uses the Phoenix Gate to take her younger self to right after the Wyvern Massacre to try to convince her younger self to... use the Phoenix Gate to prevent the Wyvern Massacre.

Why not just do that herself? Sure, it wouldn't have worked, but it doesn't even occur to her to just use the Phoenix Gate to try to stop the Massacre directly herself when she doesn't learn "history is immutable" until the end of the episode.

  • You're assuming that was her intent. She might have been trying to get Teen-Demona to leave the Wyvern clan altogether, to become some kind of Dark Messiah to the rest of the gargoyles in Scotland/England/Earth/wherever. All it looked like Present-Demona was trying to do was get Teen-Demona to hate humans the way she does.
  • She always knew history is immutable since the beginning of the episode, she's known it for hundreds of years. She said she remembered Goliath's words about remembering vows, and she mentioned that she knew firsthand the flames would attract another, which was of course, future Goliath. So she surely remembered talking to herself, and thusly knew that the clan would die no matter what, and that she'd end up sharing the Phoenix Gate. So why do it at all? It worked, not instantly, but it settled in during twenty years, as during that time past Demona devised a plan that would get rid of the humans on the castle which is exactly what her future self told her. Her clan still died, but future Demona probably doesn't care about them anymore.
  • But she tells Goliath, "You may have prevented me from altering the past, but you failed, too! ... Obviously, history is immutable." To me, this said she planned to somehow change the past when she planned to go back in time.
  • I think the speech Demona gave to her younger self must have played a part in making her who she was in the future. Present-Demona obviously remembered hearing that speech, so perhaps she wanted to insure that events stayed the same by giving it. Or, she just knew history was immutable, and figured she didn't have any choice but to eventually give the speech anyway.
    • Or Present-Demona /did not/ remember the speech until after she went back and gave it.
  • You know what is way worse? The Archmage. He got out of that pit and gathered all sorts of arcane items, including the Gate, only because...he used those items to go back in time, saved himself, got himself the items, and then taught himself what to do. NO FIRST CAUSE.
    • In the Gargoyles universe all time is simultaneous and immutable. There doesn't need to be a first cause because the entire loop all exists together as a single event. it's like the old paradox of going back in time to meet Martin Luther king only to be dismayed because he's having trouble writing his "I have a dream" speech. So you write it from memory for him. So you got the speech from TV/school/books. but the TV/school/Books got the speech from him, but he got it from you.The speech didn't really come from anywhere. Gargoyles is 100% consistent on this too. When you get used to the way time travel works in the series this kind of thing makes a weird sort of sense. (Note: "Watchmen" and "The Time Traveler's Wife" and "The Terminator" [but not necessarily its sequels] among others use this same model for time Travel.)
    • Both of these instances make Journeymen the world over cry. Not the apprenticeship-thing, I mean the time-traveling Dr. Who in diving bell suit guys. If both occurrences had been with other people, it would work...Perhaps even swapping the two of them, though that would drastically change the plotline of Vows, it would be far less thinky-hurty. As it stands, how would time be immutable if you could easily avert it with one or two actions? More accurately, there would either be a dimensional split between the two timelines, or memories upon return would change slightly. (The gate being a Fae artifact, there are probably limitations set in stone by magic. You are not allowed to change history THAT much...but you could potentially move the tracks a little.) Without theoretical magical interference, it should be quite simple to tell the Captain that Hakon has no intention of keeping his promise, and so as soon as the vikings chased off the Magus, they would be trapped inside as the gate closed, the Captain could blockade the doors to the castle walls, and then he could wait for the Gargoyles to emerge. Something must happen that either stops the newly enlightened Demona from telling the captain anything, or it barred her from seeing him or the other Gargoyles until the attack.
    • Because when the moment comes when the time traveler could hypothetically take those 'one or two actions', circumstances will conspire to make sure there's some reason they don't. Every. Single. Time. That's what Stable Time Loops are all about.
    • Many of those involved in stable time loops discussed here are also more emotional characters. They come to where they need to be because of a lack of emotional control, especially Demona. What's really interesting is the way Xanatos plays it. It's almost like he was Leaning on the Fourth Wall the entire time, with the way he expected his plan to work. Complete chicken&egg question. And the smugness in the explanation seems over the top, even for him. Definite bit of a winknudge in this troper's opinion!
    • Also note: the Gate isn't a Fae artifact. Well, that's not clear anymore. Originally, Word of God said the Gate was eternal, but when the comic where Brookly begins timedancing was actually published, it was shown breaking open and releasing a Phoenix. But we can assume the Phoenix is eternal.

Why did Xanatos save Goliath's ass in "The Cage"?

  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You
  • Well, he has revealed himself to Talon that he's evil so that not only he will save Sevarius, but also Goliath. For the latter, Xanatos has let him live so that they can keep on fighting with each other and that's what arch enemies are for.
  • "The Cage" happened after "Eye of the Beholder" (in which Goliath saved the life of Xanatos' fiancee) and "City of Stone" (in which the Manhattan Clan helped Xanatos break Demona's spell after her betrayal). Xanatos probably realized by then that Goliath was more useful to him alive than dead, making Derek's desire to kill Goliath... problematic.
  • All true, but also keep in mind that he went there to save Sevarius, not Goliath. He didn't even expect to find Goliath: "Oh, hello Goliath. Didn't even notice you there."

So, does Demona never ever sleep after Puck's spell? She's gargoyle by night, and human by day. Is it Puck's magic that keeps her awake?

  • Who says she needs to stay awake in both forms? She could choose a time to sleep.
  • Actually, maybe she doesn't need to sleep, at least not every night. When you're immortal, all the rules about what it takes to keep your body healthy and alive (like sleep) go out to the window. True, she's not invincible, but no matter how hurt she gets, she can't exsanguinate, suffocate, etc; no matter how long she goes without eating, she might be in pain, but she can't starve; there's no telling how much (or little) going longer without sleep than what would kill a normal human/gargoyle could damage Demona's body or mind since, unlike mortals, staying alive doesn't depend on her health.
    • Pure, utter, Fetish Fuel to certain groups of people... * cough*
  • Word of God is that Demona sleeps for a few hours as needed (usually in the day), and she gets enough to keep her energized, but probably not enough that it does her mental stability much good...

During the thousand year sleep, why didn't Goliath or any of the clan suffer from erosion damage at all?

  • Well, they don't actually turn into stone, but merely an organic substance that seems like stone. That might account for some of it. Also, it was a magic spell.
  • Like the above troper mentioned, the "stone" is organic, and as such can heal from the (very slowly induced) erosion damage.

Is Lexington a child, or is he just short?

  • He's just short. He's the same age as Brooklyn and Broadway.
  • As said he's the same age, roughly, as Brooklyn and Broadway. But by Gargoyle standards they are all children. they were in their early (Lexington) to late (Brooklyn) twenties at the beginning of the series and gargoyles aren't considered adults until into their thirties.
    • Close but not quite. Due to the way gargoyle breeding cycles work, the Trio all hatched on the same night. By the time of "Hunters' Moon" they're roughly biologically equivalent to nineteen year old humans.
      • According to World of God Goliath is a mere 29, Angela is 19 and Hudson is 59. I think it's safe to say either Word of God clashes rather badly with the undisputable cannon or Goliath was severly mistaken about how quickly Gargoyles age by comparison to humans. Because if the Trio are in their early to late twenties and are the biological equivalent of teens Angela should be the biological equivalent of a pre-teen and clearly she's supposed to be if younger than them only slightly. She certainly isn't supposed to be a prepubecent nine year old about whom a bunch of teenagers are having clearly sexual fantasies.
        • I just went onto the Ask Greg site. He says Goliath and Demona are about 30 biologically, which means in real time they're about 60. Angela is 19 in Gargoyle years, but in real years she'd be 38.
  • Why does he look so much younger in mirror episode?

If Gargoyles heal after turning to stone, why didn't Hudson's eye ever get better?

  • Stone sleep regenerates disease and light to moderate wounds, but not serious ones like lost limbs. Presumably, his eye was damaged beyond regeneration. Odd that his scar around the eye never healed, though - but scars are cool, I guess.
  • This troper distinctly remembers the stone sleep healing what would have otherwise been serious and even fatal wounds, like the episode where Hudson is stalling Demona after she incapacitates Goliath with such a wound.
  • I always viewed it as a really good nap. They heal very similar to the way we do. Sometimes, some injuries don't heal completely or properly. So, no regenerating whole limbs and scars are left.
  • The injury was originally caused by a magic strike from the Arch Mage, so that may have something to do with it not healing.
  • Or possibly Goliath's wounds could have been healed if he could only survive long enough for natural healing processes to occur and the sleep speeds that up, whereas Hudson's eye damage was the kind that no amount of time will heal. Likewise, in the not-canon third season, he starts to go blind in his good eye. Most forms of blindness are not self-healing.
    • Although not canon, that's one of the episodes this troper wishes were so. It was really really damn good despite no wise men at the helm. Also, we got to see Robbins again, whom I really wish would become an ascended extra. He could probably join Macbeth on the talk show circuit to defend Gargoyles.
      • Hopefully Weisman will add it to the comics at one point, but with more intelligent antagonists. He HAS mentioned liking it IIRC, possibly the only one of Chronicles he did.
      • The full story is a little more complicated than that. Suffice it to say that all of the Chronicles are personally painful for him to watch, and more to the point he hasn't actually seen any of them other than "The Journey" since the late Nineties. But he doesn't hold the overall low quality of the season against the new creative staff, who were placed under ridiculously tight deadlines and cost-cutting measures as a result of Executive Meddling, and so he slipped a line from the episode into canon as "a nice tribute to all the hard work that the TGC crew put in, with little thanks or reward."
  • Think of it in the context of the other key events of the episode: the Archmage's power at this time belied his name, and he was clearly desperate and barely able to support himself on his own. After the attack costs him his eye, Hudson retires from active leadership, allowing Goliath to succeed him. Look at the frayed fringe on Hudson's wings—possibly like the eye, they may not be a sign of discontinuity, but him simply getting old, and his recuperative abilities fading.

What is that thing around one of Fox's eyes? I assumed it was makeup, until the werewolf episode and her eye still had the blue thing around it in wolf form.

  • Given that it's been hinted that Fox has led a fairly wild life, it could be a tattoo. (Which she could conceivably use makeup to cover up if necessary.) For magical purposes, that might make it a valid part of her body...and arguably a symbol of her true inner nature, which could explain why the Eye of Odin (which generally seems to enhance just that) didn't change it.
  • I was always under the impression it was a birthmark, and most likely a sign of her inherent fey heritage.
  • Word of God says it's a tattoo.
  • That always confused me—it looked metal to me, and an actress/businesswoman with a bionic face was a little out of place.

Why didn't Goliath just use the Phoenix Gate to return to Manhattan as soon as he left Avalon? In later episodes he says he wants to see it all through, but he didn't have such an attitude when first venturing from Avalon.

  • Goliath had reservations about using the phoenix gate. Eventually he destroys it so no one can.
    • He didn't destroy it, he just put it beyond anyone's reach. But yeah, like he says the episode M.I.A., he swore never to use the Phoenix Gate and only used it when he had no choice left.

Does it bug anyone else how disproportionally skilled a fighter Elisa seems to be?

For someone who has no special training (at least that we know of), she's successfully taken on opponents that should logically be able to wipe the floor with her. One can fanwank that the Gargoyles have given her some training offscreen (although, I feel, not enough to take on Demona), that still doesn't explain the commandos in "Awakening", particularly since Xanatos isn't the type of guy to anything but the best. A subtle case of Power Creep, Power Seep?

  • She's a cop. In Fiction World, police frequently get unreasonable amounts of combat training.
    • In Real Life, some cops also study martial arts. Go to any good martial arts school and ask around. Plus, as a relatively petite female, it would have been the smart thing for Elisa to do.
  • Also keep in mind that Xanatos did not in fact want Goliath dead in Awakening; his commandos were plants to frame the rival company. They didn't have to be competent; their job was to either find a statue or be seen as hostile by the gargoyle. Using anybody capable of actually hurting Goliath would've been dangerous.
  • Well, you're assuming most gargoyles would bother learning any formal fighting techniques in the first place. Most of the time they seem to fight in a very primitive and "bestial" manner (in case of doubt, throw something large), relying more on their superior strength and speed than on any formal training. (Notice that the only member of the Manhattan clan we ever see regularly using a weapon is Hudson, who is older than dirt even by gargoyle standards. No doubt he's compensating for his fading strength due to advancing age.) Demona, being effectively un-killable, has even less incentive than the average gargoyle to learn how to fight properly.
    • Ehh...while I suppose there's enough evidence of that within the cartoon, there's also enough dialogue to suggest that we're meant to take the Gargoyles as superb fighters. There's Xanatos' comment that Goliath was "the greatest fighter that ever lived". Elisa's warning that Goliath had never actually beaten Demona, and the fact that Demona can hold her own against Macbeth, who does have training and experience. Heck, power and skill levels are all over the place in the cartoon in general—is that a trope?
      • As clan leader Goliath may be an exception to the rule. I imagine gargoyle society works in a very "pack"-like way, with the roughest, toughest m* ther-f* cker in the clan usually being the one in charge until someone else challenges them and forces them out (Demona herself advises Goliath to overthrow Hudson because he's too old and weak to lead). Also, most of the time when Demona overpowered Goliath she did so through trickery or using some sort of magic or high-tech gadgetry. Off the top of my head I can't think of an instance where Demona actually bested Goliath in single combat. I think Elisa's warning to Goliath was in reference to the fact that he'd never captured or killed her, only foiled her schemes. That said, I can't really think of an explanation for the Macbeth issue...
        • Every time this has come up in the series, it's been at the discretion of the clan leader. Hudson chose to step down in favor of Goliath, and Goliath chose to make Brooklyn his second-in-command due to his clear-headedness in that episode.
          • But we don't know if that's how it works all the time. Hudson was wise enough to know when he'd become too old to lead the clan like he used to and humble enough to let someone else take the reins. If Hudson were a little less intelligent and a little more prideful it could easily have gone the other way.
    • Elisa only beat Demona when she was in human form. Demona relies primarily on her gargoyle strength and agility to overcome enemies. She doesn't know how fight without that, and consequently gets her ass kicked by a police officer who's presumably had basic self-defense training at the very least.
  • One presumes, too, that the real life stigma of being a cop-killer translates into the Gargoyles' Manhattan. Fairly few characters ever intend Elisa bodily harm, much less death. Demona's the big exception.
    • Captain Chavez confirms that in "Deadly Force": "No one hits a cop and gets away with it. No one!"

The Weird Sisters' spell that gives Demona and Macbeth synchronized immortality uses the line "As long as one lives, the other shall live" to establish how one cannot be killed (unless one kills the other, of course). Could there be room for a loophole here?

  • Would they both die if, say, Macbeth killed himself?
    • Pretty sure Demona has to kill him. Eight hundred years of suicidal angst, you figure he'd have to have tried at least once by now.
  • Would they both die permanently if someone else killed them both at the exact same time?
    • No. They both "die" temporarily whenever one of them is killed while they're in close proximity, as shown in City of Stone IV. I don't think killing them both at the same time would change that.
  • Is there ever a point where they're fighting each other and one of them stabs/hurts themself to make the other go off balance?
  • The theme here is Shakespeare. I'd say one of them being hit by a poisoned dagger and killing the other right before dying isn't too far fetched.
  • Word of God: "Destiny is at play here."
  • Also worth remembering that the timeframe involved means Macbeth was raised Catholic, and suicide's a mortal sin. If he dies fighting Demona, at least, he can make an argument that he's stopping the immortal evil he unleashed. If he kills himself directly, he's giving in to despair. Not that this explains why Demona doesn't amputate his arms and legs.

Xanatos jumping on the lovely-hostage-Angela villain bandwagon in "Cloud Fathers"

Forget the fact that he's married at the time and his genuine love for Fox was shown to be a very important part of his character. He is not the type of villain who lusts after or flirts with hot captives! Where did that come from?! (Before anyone says it was part of his act, this was at the point where he was explaining to Goliath and Angela that this was all just an act.)

  • Well he did say this was his "first stab at cliche villainy", for what it's worth. Still, I imagine he was just messing with Goliath's head (remember, he was actually talking to Goliath at the time, not Angela). He may not be the kind of villain who flirts with hot captives but he's definitely the kind of villain who takes sadistic pleasure in the discomfort of his enemies.
  • A wild guess: Xanatos is subconsciously attracted to Goliath - he wears gargoyle Powered Armor shaped to have Goliath's face, and you could argue that Thailog is as much his son as Goliath's - and knows it, but he's still basically straight and devoted to Fox. And Angela is Goliath's daughter and has his coloring, and besides it would really bug Goliath, so... why not? Harmless fun.
    • Actually, I would argue that Thailog is more Xanatos's son than Goliath's - his personality is entirely shaped by Xanatos. I've always felt that Thailog was the primary catalyst for Xanatos's gradual change - being confronted with his own dark side made flesh; all of his vices with none of his few redeeming virtues (his capacity for love and at least vague sense of honour) was something of a shock for him. His comment "I think I've created a monster" is the first time we ever hear him express (what sounds like) genuine remorse.
  • What's weird about telling someone their daughter is lovely? I don't remember the exact quote, but...
  • Consider this: A man may go on a diet, but he will still look at a menu.
  • He sounds more like he's making casual conversation. The reason Goliath reacted badly was because his archrival was endangering his daughter, not because he complimented her.

Hudson's lecture to Demona about patience and age in "Long Way to Morning"

This piece of Fridge Logic hit me like a ton of bricks. One of Hudson's shticks in the series is that he is wiser and more experienced due to his age, and young people don't know how to wait and have patience. This is the central theme of the episode where Goliath is injured and Hudson flees from Demona until sunrise, telling her that he knows how to wait because he is old. The obvious problem with this, of course, is that Demona is much older than Hudson. Not only did she grow old in her own time before the Weird Sisters restored her youth, but she has lived for many centuries after that. She is much older and experienced than Hudson, despite having the physical abilities and looks of a gargoyle in her prime. So where does he get off lecturing her like she is just an impatient youth? If patience comes with age, she should have plenty by that point. Even if the gargoyles didn't learn about Demona's immortality until "City of Stone" (which they should have; didn't she tell Brooklyn about it in "Temptation?" Shouldn't he have said something?) it seriously undercuts Hudson's point.

    • A major part of Demona's character is that she hasn't learned everything she should have after being alive so long. In a lot of ways, she's still the same impatient, vengeful, deluded young gargoyle that she was back in Scotland.
    • Also, even given the knowledge in the abstract, the guy took a nap, woke up, and Demona seemed more or less the same age. Without any signs of her lifespan enforcing her centuries on this earth, it can be very easy to forget.
    • Both she and Xanatos lied to them. Remember, Xanatos told them that Demona was hit by the same spell and went through the same thousand year sleep all of them did. At that point, nobody corrected that piece of information, so as far as Hudson knows, she is younger than him. Though, as cocky as she is, one would think that would be the best time to correct him. "Fool, while you were sleeping, I fought the humans for centuries." or something.
    • One thing Brooklyn absolutely learned by the end of "Temptation" was "Don't trust Demona." I would expect him to assume her stories about fleeing from humans for centuries was another lie to convince him Humans Are Bastards. More importantly, aside from Demona's one line in "Temptation," the audience also had no inkling of her immortality by this point; we never saw her explain to Brooklyn, if she did, what "centuries long" meant. So, for all the Clan (Hudson included) and the viewers knew at this point when the show first aired, Demona is the same age she would be without the 1,000 year stasis, and Hudson is still the older and wiser...
    • ...But even when we all realize Demona has lived centuries longer than Hudson, I agree the point still stands that Demona hardly grew or matured at all during the extra experience she gained. 1,000 years later, she's still a homicidal psychopath trying to get revenge on people who no longer exist just because she can't admit that she herself is responsible for what she claims drove her to seek vengeance in the first place! (You'd think she'd at least eventually get Bored with Insanity.) Hudson is way ahead of Demona in maturity and patience; that she isn't with those extra thousand years is pathetic (in the context of the speech and episode, at least).
      • It's not just that episode, it's a major aspect of her character. She's stayed largely unchanged since betraying Macbeth because to do otherwise would force her to face up to her own part in all the crimes she blames on humanity. She's a perfect example of the aesop about those who don't learn from history.

Why do gargoyles always strike such awkward poses before turning to stone?

They're always rearing up with their wings spread out in a pose that looks like they're about to pounce on something. Given that they sleep perched on the edge of a building, isn't that a little... dangerous? What if they fall over?

  • Remember the first episode where the vikings were afraid of attacking the castle because of the gargoyles? I imagine it's some sort of psychological warfare technique to help scare their enemies, and they never shook off the lifelong habit once they woke up in the future. That, and Rule of Cool. Still, it does bother me, too, that that they seem to stand so close to the ledge while choosing positions which seem so imbalanced... I mean, yeah, they can be pretty sure they are not going to move in the 12 hours it's going to take for them to wake up again, but still.
  • They stretch as wide as they can to optimize their sun gathering surface.
  • It's also possible that when they turn to stone, the bottom layer of their feet molds together with the stone of the wall. Not enough that, say, you'd damage the gargoyle if you lifted him or her from the stone while they slept, but enough that the gargoyle isn't going to fall over easily.
  • Not all of them do it too, Goliath often sleeps crouched in a position reminiscent of "The Thinker" and other times even the trio sleep in more stable positions and rarely strike the same pose twice. It's probable that they just strike whatever they think looks "cool" based on their mood at the time. Hudson usually strikes the same pose leaning forward with his sword drawn.

Oberon puts all of NYC to sleep in "The Gathering." How does this not kill thousands of people (in planes, trains, automobiles, hospitals, etc etc)?

  • It did. Word of God says it did, and only in Oberon's mind could this be summed up as "a midsummer night's dream".
    • Oberon may have simply magic'ed things to work out. He is Oberon after all and that sort of thing seems well within his power.
  • The same thing can be asked of "City of Stone". Realistically speaking, simply having one of the worlds largest cities out of commission for five to ten hours two days in a row would be enough to cause a nationwide panic.
    • City of Stone actually did have several car wrecks in the streets. As for hospitals, City of Stone has the excuse of them being, well, stone. If they're made of stone, then whatever is killing them will be put into stasis. Sun rises, and the doctor continues work as usual, and doesn't think anything of it until he glances at his watch.
    • It's not physical damage I'm talking about. It's the fact that one of the economic centers of the world stops working from 7:00 p.m. to 6:00—remember, the story takes place shortly after Halloween—for two days. Just imagine the amount of airplanes JFK or La Guardia would have moved in that time, that it didn't. Best case scenarios, we're talking about dozens of planes that had to be rerouted—worst case, we had pilots or passengers turning to stone in mid-flight—instant broken masquerade. What's more, there's the uncertainty, the average yuppie couple has no idea that the event won't happen again, and will react accordingly. This is all glossed over.
    • And what people thought when they turned back and spotted the former statues Demona had smashed?
      • Or, for that matter, the ones who only suffered non-fatal injury?

Why didn't we get to see Gargoyle-Xanatos in "The Mirror"?

It would have been awesome!

  • Awesome for some, Fetish Fuel for others. Still, seconded like WHOA.
    • Because it would have been very suspicious that Owen wasn't there.
      • Not necessarily. the audience could presume Owen was off duty or performing some errand. (The first assumption would have been correct, of course.)
      • That. Although, a definite missed Moment of Awesome for Future Tense. Cyber Xanatos certainly could have done so.
      • Xanatos could simply have wondered where Owen was, too.

"The Mirror" is one of the best episodes in the entire series. But even with all the magical stuff, there's one thing I don't buy. When Demona fights the Gargoyles, she shoots out a shop window with a weapons display, providing the Gargoyles with swords, shields and axes with which to arm themselves.

  • Just how many shops in downtown New York have window displays of medieval weaponry? Real stuff too, not cosplay replicas. Of all the stores in all the city, Demona just happens to fire at the one that gives her targets exactly the sort of weapons they are trained to battle with.
    • I say chalk it up to Puck screwing around to make things interesting.
    • Um the entire city was "always gargoyles" while it was probably beyond Puck's power to completely rewrite the entire architecture I'm sure wares and fashion were adjusted.
      • No, they obviously weren't. All the former humans are still wearing human clothing (a few girls even smirk at the normal Gargoyles, who are still in loincloths). And inanimate objects in general don't seem to have been affected; a statue (which really exists in New York, btw) looked the same as usual, without changing from human to gargoyle. And Demona's weapon, a high tech gun, certainly didn't become a sword or anything.
  • I don't know about NYC in 1994, but there's a place that sells real and display weaponry in the main street of Sydney.

At the end of City of Stone, why didn't the jets set off the flammable gas?

Highly flammable gas, plus a flame of rocket propulsion should've equaled a big, premature explosion, killing Xanatos and the Manhattan Clan.

  • Xanatos probably arranged for NYC airspace to be closed.
    • Not those kinds of jets. The jets that let the Steel Clan fly.
    • Not hot enough or some other sort of strict catalyst.
    • Xanatos mentions that he has to blow up the entire Steel Clan just to get the gas to ignite, and needs the help of the Gargoyles as well in spreading the gas around.

Word of Gay

Isn't it kind of a bad idea for such an endangered species to have any homosexuals? They can only breed three times in their life, so every gay couple is six children that won't be born. Or if that bothers you, why did Greg establish they can only barely sustain their population like that? Or if that bothers you, why must they be universally monogamous?

  • We don't know how Gargoyles react to homosexual individuals... or asexuals. Or even if there is an uneven number of male and female gargoyles. For all we know, they might have a law of every gargoyle getting a mate of their opposite gender just for breeding purposes. If they happen to fall in love, well, kudos for them.
  • There's historical precedent for this, I presume Gargoyles handled it the same way as ancient pre-christian societies. Homosexuals were still bound by honour, family, and fealty to 'live long and prosper,' and would sleep with concubines, sometimes marry and keep the other man/woman on the side, or just take any undesirable member of the opposite sex to bear their progeny while they spent most of their nights with their true love. There was still much stigma against those who never ever ever wanted to touch a member of the opposite sex though, since they were seen as avoiding their natural duty. (It also didn't help that the Camp Gay leaders who did manage to rule for awhile were truly and utterly horrid and Depraved Bisexuals without the bi.)
    • That'd be a good thing to ask him, but so far it sounds like Greg has said they're definitely totally monogamous.. Goliath and Demona "divorcing" is a nearly unheard-of thing.
      • This troper personally asked Greg if gay gargoyles might mate (assuming an unmated female was present) with a female once every twenty years for the purpose of procreation. Greg responded that he doubted that would happen, since if the population is that low, one extra egg probably wouldn't make much difference.
  • You're forgetting one of the basic tenants of evolution. Every present-day trait is an adaptation for a past need. Turning to stone every morning is also inconvenient but they still do it because they needed some way to sleep safely. I imagine that homosexuality works the same way.
    • No, that's not how evolution works at all. Every present-day trait isn't "an adaptation for a past need;" I'd love to know what past need freckles were for, or what past need made it so that those of us with Irish skin practically burn to a crisp. Present day traits are traits that just haven't proven bad enough to prevent the people with those traits from reproducing.

If we assume, for the sake of argument, that homosexuality is a born-in trait passed on genetically, then it likely would have been bred out had it not been for people being forced to reproduce as their 'duty' simply because homosexual sex would obviously not lead to children.

      • Easy answer to the "Irish skin" part. The British Isles frequently experience cloud cover that blocks out the sun. The northern latitudes also mean that the winter days are short and people are going to be fully clothed pretty much all year round. That means the only people who won't get rickets (a bone disease which is a very powerful selective force since it can both cause a fetus to not properly develop and may also result in a girl's hips being deformed enough during puberty to make childbirth impossible) are the ones with very little melanin in their skin. Those same people are not as well adapted to sunny climates and burn easily as a result.
  • Sorry I mis-uh typed. When I said "traits" I was talking about things like eyelids and sleep patterns. Eyeballs need protection so over time eyelids came into being.
    • Again, that's not how evolution works. A species doesn't evolve things because they need them. They have random mutations. If a randomly mutated trait helps a given individual reproduce, then it's kept and passed on. If a randomly mutated trait prevents an individual from reproducing, then that trait is lost. It's not a case of a species subconsciously deciding, "I'm tired of my eyes getting poked all the time. Let's get to work on eyelids so my great grandkids can cover their eyes."

Hell, to use the example of the stone skin, Word of God is that it's an obsolete, and currently detrimental, trait of the Gargoyle species. It was a beneficial adaptation when they first evolved (they could sleep without any fear of being killed), but became a liability when men's technology advanced to the point they could break stone.

    • This troper read once in a site that the turning-into-stone-at-night thing wasn't even a natural characteristic of the gargoyles but a result of a massive spell placed on them sometime around 1 AD (this is a magically-ridden universe, after all). Of course, it might not be a official explanation and just well intentioned Wild Mass Guessing.
      • Turning to stone was always a biological characteristic of gargoyles. The spell mentioned was a "modesty" spell the Romans put on the gargoyles to make sure their clothing and personal items also turned to stone with them, because they were apparently tired of the gargoyles going around naked all the time.
  • One of the current theories of human sexuality is that the same genes that make a woman especially fertile make a male homosexual. This means that the daughters of the woman carrying the fertile genes would likely be very fertile, and the sons would likely be homosexuals. In this way homosexuality is never "evolved out" of the species. Since gargoyles only reproduce a set amount of times in their lifetime, this is probably not the reason for gargoyles, but my point is that just because a trait seems like it should have been bred out of a species doesn't mean it will be. Evolution is complex.
    • That theory could still work. Even though they only breed three times, being more fertile may help prevent miscarriages or help them actually get pregnant to begin with. and to answer the first question, yes, Lexington being gay would probably damage his endangered species. But that wouldn't stop him from being gay. If peacocks were to become highly endangered, the long tails on the males that stop them from flying well wouldn't just vanish. As stated above, the stone sleep was useful before the creation of tools. Once tools were created, it became a disadvantage, but the genes weren't there for the trait to go away. Animals may display homosexuality. If those species become endangered, it won't necessarily go away.
    • Lex could always donate his sperm to a female who was lesbian, widowed or just couldn't find/didn't want a mate.
  • Skipping the 'why are there gays?' question in favor of "why do they have such a ridiculously low birthrate and virtually universal monogamy?"
    • In Universe: Prior to the rise of human civilization, Gargoyles virtually never died by any means other than old age; not many things can harm them, and for those that do, the stone sleep takes care of anything that isn't "instant traumatic death". The big killers of human history - disease and injury - just don't apply to gargs. Given that, it's conceivable that they developed a birth rate that keeps the population stable, with very little wiggle room. It also helps explain why their population crashed so catastrophically when human civilization did take root; they're biologically incapable of bouncing back after widespread deaths.
    • Meta-wise: (a)Greg's more or less stated that gargoyle culture is a bit of personal wish fulfillment/idealization on his part. (b) He's not a biologist or a mathematician.
  • While it might not be beneficial for Lexington to be gay, considering that the main characters only know three female gargoyles (Coldfire doesn't count) means it would not cause too much harm, also gargoyles are not completely monogamous otherwise the Elisa-Golaeth-Demona-Thaelog-Deliza thing would not have happened so its possable that someone else could cheat to make up for it. Mostly the fact that Lexington is most likely to figure out how to clone gargoyles kind of balances it out. As for the possable advantages to Lex being gay, his mom might have had twins or it could be linked to his being a genious, which would benefit his clan by allowing him to create better weapons for the humans who protect his clan during the day.

Wouldn't Demona have died if "Operation Clean Sweep" worked?

So Demona got it into her head that releasing a super virus that would kill all of humanity (and only humanity) would be a great idea. But if Macbeth can only die if Demona kills him wouldn't she end up dying as well?

  • I'm almost certain Greg has answered this before, but in any case, I think the opposite is true; Demona is protected by the Praying Gargoyles, so Macbeth probably is too. However, there's the issue of Demona being human for at least part of each day...
    • Pretty sure I read that if the spell binding Demona and Macbeth interpreted the plague as a successful attempt to kill Macbeth, it would kill Demona too. If it didn't, both would be protected. Which actually happened would depend on whether Demona was actively thinking about and hating Macbeth when she released it.
  • The question is 'Would Demona care if it killed her?' She may consider her death worthwhile if it frees gargoyles from the dangers of humans.
  • Even if it didn't, wouldn't she die a horrible death every morning for the rest of eternity as a result of her plague?

If the Gargoyles break out of their stone forms every night, wouldn't they eventually shrink into oblivion?

When the sun rises, their bodies fade into stone. Then, at night, the Gargoyles break out of the stone as if it were layered on top of them. Unless they end up regaining that fraction of an inch of surface area each night somehow, their body mass would eventually diminish to the point that the layer of stone they'd break out of would compose their entire body, thus either killing them or condemning them to a permanent petrification.

  • It's possible that when they "turn to stone" they are simply growing a thin layer of rock over their skin, and that's what shatters. Still, they'd have to eat quite a lot to create enough rock mass for every time they sleep...
  • Simple. As they sleep they grow a new layer of organic skin (healing small wounds in the process), which pushes out to break the old layer of skin, which is now rock.
    • Besides, they eat. A lot.
    • Probably similar to humans too, just sped up very quickly. After all, the majority of dust is dead skin cells. It's as likely that during the day, they 'grow' as they heal/gain energy. The stone becomes brittle due to the day-long growth which lets them break through. The stone could very well also be similar to fat, urine, and other waste products.

So how does an egg of that size...

...come out of some hips like Demona's?

  • Probably the same way a human baby comes out of human hips. I guess that includes the pain... So we can only hope that the eggs come out smaller and eventually grow in the rookery. (After all, in the first episode we see that the rookery contains some well-tasting slime - "nutrition fluids"?
    • Word of God states that the shells of the eggs are leathery and flexible at first, like a reptile's egg, but they quickly harden once outside the mother's body.

Is Angela a Disney Princess?

I mean, Goliath is the lawful leader of the Manhattan Clan, and she is his biological daughter.

    • Well, there's the whole raised communally thing. Plus, Gargoyles don't use bloodlines to select leaders. The leader chooses a younger gargoyle as his/her second-in-command to be groomed for leadership. And Angela doesn't have an "I Want" Song. Every Disney Princess has an I Want song! If she did, I could see her having something like Belle's Reprise before she leaves Avalon and for after she's been living in the real world for awhile, something like "God Help the Outcasts". Just replace "Gypsy" with "Gargoyle".
      • Good point. Her song would've been great, maybe if they put it in shortly after she finds out she's Goliath's daughter and is angsting about wanting his love and affection.
      • Yeah, I could see that. In that case, her I Want Song would be something like "Proud of Your Boy", something like "I Can Go The Distance" and something like "Reflection".
      • That would be good. Her singing about trying to reconcile the Gargoyle Way with her human upbringing, and why she loves a man who is forced to withhold all fatherly love from her.
  • Not until they add her to the line, nope. And that line seems to be more about movies than series, anyways.
  • Hmmm...seems that you need at least three things to be a Disney Princess. The "I Want" Song, an animal sidekick (Bronx?) and a Pimped-Out Dress. Well, someone on Deviant ART made a good attempt.

Just how tall is the Eyrie Building?

  • Its height seems pretty variable, when compared against assorted NYC landmarks. This troper remembers at least one shot that showed it around half again as tall as the WTC Towers, but others seem to be all over the place. Is there at least a range of its maximum and minimum heights?
    • Well, it has to be "above the clouds", so I guess that gives us a minimum height if someone knows where clouds usually form. Say, for that matter, does fog count as "clouds"? Could the spell have been broken by lifting the castle up a few meters?
    • No, fog counts as fog. These spells work on an odd sort of semantics, that seems to be based on, "What would someone in the 11th century think of it?" Ergo, since when you see fog you generally don't go, "Hey, we're heading into clouds on the ground," it wouldn't count because it generally occupies a different classification in peoples' minds. When the spell was cast, "clouds" just meant "those big fluffy white things up in the sky".
      • Keep in mind, also, that this is Latin. Perhaps a Latin expert would be able to tell how precise the meaning of the word they use for cloud ("numos," I think?) is.
      • Not an expert, but they used "nimbos", which is objective plural of nimbus, which is specifically a raincloud. In order for the spell to break, the castle must rise above rainclouds.

Why didn't Demona lead the other Gargoyles away from Castle Wyvern

Goliath left her as commander. All she would have to do is say that she's worried about Goliath and Hudson, order the other Gargoyles to come with her, and and leave the castle. Then, when the vikings came, the Gargoyles will be alive, and Demona could get what she wanted

    • She was going to. She approached Othello and Desdemona and was going to tell them everything, but changed her mind at the last minute. (Something she has been kicking herself for for the past millinium.) Remember, if she tried to lead the other gargoyles away, someone would ask why and Demona would either have to fess up or lie like the dickens. (At the time, she wasn't a practiced liar.) There would be little sense in leading the entire clan away over a vague worry over just two members, who are both seasoned warriors.
      • Additionally, remember how reluctant Goliath was to take the fight to the vikings in the first place. Gargoyles' instinct is to defend, not attack. Any threat big enough to convince the gargoyles to leave en masse is likelier to get them to fortify like mad.

Why are the names so inconsistent?

Scottish gargoyles have no names initially, aside from Goliath and Demona. However, those names were given to them by humans. Then came the Avalon Clan, who have names. That's still consistent, given that they were also named by humans. However, none of the other gargoyle clans seem to follow the "no names" rule. The gargoyles belonging to the London Clan, Mayan Clan, and Ishimura Clan all have names. Why is this?

  • They have different cultures(Like the Ishimura Clan facing towards those who they protect) and additionally, they had 1000 years worth of cultural evolution/assimilation with human
  • The clans in London and Ishimura have regular contact with humans and so have picked up the habit. In the Mayan clan, only the four pendent wearers have names. It's just that, when we see the Mayan clan, the pendent wearers are the only ones alive.
  • Word of God: "Naming is addictive."
    • Makes sense. It's hard to go back to being nameless once you're accustomed to using names. The real question is how a species which communicates through primarily verbal means ever managed to get along without names in the first place. "Hey! Hey you over there! You! What? No not you, I mean him. Him! The one with the green skin. No not him! The one with the horns and the green skin. No not that one either! The one with the web-wings, the horns, and the green skin! Yes! That guy! Go over there and tell him the yellow-skinned white-haired gargoyle wants to talk to him. Yes I mean me, not the other yellow-skinned white-haired gargoyle over there. Fuck, we really need names."
      • It could be that they didn't had names in the sense we have them(Being named by our parents/guardians) but only had nicknames(Like the way L As Names evolved) but they never acknowledged them as such. "Leader", "Second in command", "Red one", "Short one" etc could be easily used, as Gargoyles are wildly different one from another
      • Except that's exactly how real names would have evolved in Gargoyle culture. So if that's the case, why didn't they?
        • We didn't see enough of them to evolve? it's possible that by the time Demona got herself named, the other gargoyles were already getting names, or since they live longer and are fewer than humans, naming evolved much more slower than in humans
          • You misunderstand the issue. Gargoyles as a species are at least as old as homo sapiens and their cultural history is similarly at least as ancient as ours. They should have started using proper names about the same time as they developed language skills. For instance, if they started referring to each other by physical description (i.e. "Red one", "Short one", etc.) then those descriptions would themselves have become their names and the naming tradition would have naturally become part of their culture. But gargoyles explicitly don't do this. Even as late as the Middle Ages, thousands of years after gargoyles have become accustom to living and communicating with humans, they still refer to each other merely as "friend" or "brother/sister". It would be one thing if the gargoyles' natural method of communication were non-verbal (scent signals? telepathy?). They would technically still have "names" in the sense that they would each have a unique designation, but they wouldn't be able to translate those names into spoken language so they would appear nameless to humans. But the series never gives this indication. Long story short: It makes no sense for a species that communicates verbally to not use names.
          • Greg Weisman himself actually has some interesting food for thought on this very notion, albeit in the form of informal musings rather than conclusive Word of God. Regardless of whether or not you buy his reasoning, the post is definitely worth a read.
    • Gargoyles don't seem to interact with all that many others, instead forming small groups with their rookery siblings and mentors so there's little need for names as they'll always be easily identified since it's obvious who they'd be talking about.

In the fandom what is with all the Brooklyn x OC romance fics?

I get that Brooklyn gets a lot of sympathy because he ends up as a Heartbroken Badass multiple times over the course of the series, but now that his mate, Katana, has been introduced in canon, why are there so few fics featuring her?

    • Having a canon love interest or mate has never stopped any shipper from deciding their ship was the "true" one, story progression, canon, and common sense be damned.
    • Also, Katana's personality was hinted at, but never really fleshed out. (Some fans weren't even sure if she knew how to speak English.) Plus, the fangirls all want to marry Brooklyn themselves, but since they can't, they have their Author Avatar do it for them.
    • Also also, Brooklyn and Katana's romance was only confirmed in the comics. Most fanfic writers are probably more familiar with the show, in which Brooklyn and Katana never even meet each other.

The Quarrymen luring the gargoyles into traps by relying on their heroic nature

  • In one episode the Quarrymen have a woman pretend to be in danger in order to lure the gargoyles into a trap. But wasn't the whole point of the Quarrymen that they thought the gargoyles were evil?
    • Doublethink
    • TGC doesn't count.
      • Agreed. Castaway in the comics is much smarter, but also refuses to admit the gargoyles may be capable of good.
        • Which makes sense as like Demona, Castaway needs a scapegoat for his mistake (crippling his brother), and the gargoyle race is it.
      • To back it up further, the show was never really consistent with itself. For one thing, the aforementioned finale has Castaway being a trusted citizen, even though an earlier episode had him arrested for driving a tank through the city.

Why does the previous generation's Hunter use a laser handgun in the flashback to his fight against Demona in 1980?

  • I thought it had been established that laser guns were new and expensive machines at the time the series takes place? The only explanation I can think of is that it was a very advanced, rare prototype that he somehow got a hold of to help him during his showdown (for all the good it did him).
    • How many times did a realistic gun actually shoot?
    • Could also be a pistol that was censored into it. The only time a real gun can shoot real bullets is if it'll miss, which was averted once in the Extra Special Episode specifically about NOT using guns in the first place.

Coyote is Two-Faced

Why? Xanathos repaired him not once but twice. But for some reason, the face continues to be "one-half xanatos, one-half Terminator" instend of just choosing one or the other.

    • Rule of Cool. The robot face is menacing and connotes power, while the human half reminds everyone who the robot represents.
    • In-universe, I always figured that Xanatos saw how the original Coyote robot was damaged, decided he liked the look, and so retained it for later models. Since these later Coyotes were never intended to pass as Xanatos himself, there was no reason to hide their machine nature anyway.
      • Besides, it lends to the private joke and Stealth Pun: Xanatos never used the Pack as anything more than stooges, and every time he interacted, he betrayed them on some level. Coyote really was two-faced.

Xanatos moving Castle Wyvern

  • Castle Wyvern dates back to at least the 10th century, and was the site of two battles during a Viking invasion of Scotland. That makes it an important historical site. Even if the British government was willing to sell the land and ruins to an American businessman, why would they allow him to take the castle out of the country?
    • "Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into Hell"—David Xanatos. (Yeah. He said "Hell" on a Disney cartoon. He's Xanatos, he can do that.)
      • To say nothing of the fact that, historical site or no, renovating such places is typically done by charity money, and Castle Wyvern is explicitly mentioned to be considered haunted in modern day—implying that virtually nobody goes there. If some rich American volunteers to rebuild and refurbish some dump in the middle of nowhere, then points out that his contract doesn't mention leaving the castle in the same place, is anyone really going to care too much?

What EXACTLY is Bronx

  • He's not a gargoyle. Gargoyles are inteligent and bipedal. He's shown roughly human level inteligence, at least the ability to do follow commands more complicated than you could give a dog not named Lassie. If he IS a gargoyle dog are their cat and bear equivalents? Goliath buys into Raven's lie of Gargoyles with extremely odd physical appearances rather easily and the London clan. . .frankly it's a bit difficult to buy them all as the same species unless just like they were turned to stone for a thousand years that at some point in the distant past they WERE stone and some spell (perhaps a bored Puck) made them into what they are today. Otherwise Bronx makes no sense nor does the English group.
    • Bronx is a gargoyle beast. He is to gargoyles what chimps are to humans. As for the London Clan and why Goliath believed Raven, Gargoyles have an incredibly varied phenotype and Goliath knows that. He knows that there are avianesque Gargoyles out there, even if he never met one personally.
      • Why would Goliath know this? It seems that even in his time Gargoyles were incredibly rare and Brooklyn and Lexington aside almost all the gargoyles we meet follow the same body and skull type.
        • Maybe not so much "knew" as "hoped". He really wanted there to be more gargoyles in the world, so when someone with wings who could talk said he was a gargoyle, he didn't much question it.

Do gargoyles have a favorite season?

  • Since gargoyles derive some form of sustenance from absorbing the sun's rays during the day and sleeping indoors is like skipping a meal for us, do gargoyles like the summer or winter more? In the summer they get to soak up the sun longer and would wake up more refreshed and energized, but the time spent awake would be much shorter. Contrariwise, the winter nights would be longer and so there's more time for doing things but the days are short (especially in Scotland) and they would feel a bit more lethargic upon waking. That's compounded by the fact that England and Scotland are normally pretty cloudy so unless gargoyles absorb UV rays from the sun instead of just heat and/or visible light I can't imagine their stone sleep is going to be nearly as rejuvenating as it would be for the Mayan gargoyles.
    • Could be if a gargoyle isn't refreshed enough by sunlight, they may make up for it by eating more or just physically relaxing. Much the way a young human going through a growth spurt needs to replenish their energy by eating or sleeping more. Goliath stated he was "Healed, but not whole" after his injuries sustained when Thailog crashed the Halloween party. Maybe with the days becoming shorter, Goliath was still recovering from his injury and couldn't do anything more strenuous than pick up Elisa for a kiss.
    • I suppose it would vary from gargoyle to gargoyle. Just like some humans love the summer because it means warm weather and beach parties, while other humans love wintertime because it means snowball fights and Christmas.

Gargoyles have no incest taboo

Think about it. We know for certain that Othello, Desdemona and Iago (the Gargoyles that made up Coldstone) are Goliath's rookerie mates. Clearly the the two men are fighting over her romantically and she's involved with Othello (the good one). Angela seemed to have been quite chummy with Gabriel. Unless the Gargoyles travel a lot more than is ever hinted at Angela is at best a second or third neice to the Trio and and worst a younger sister. It makes even more sense when you look at not just the Manhattan clan, but the Japan, Mayan, London and various groups Demona is shown with in flashbacks. It seems that female Gargoyles are absurdly rare.

  • Word of God is that gargoyles have some sort of scent markers that prevent close relatives from mating (and that Gabriel has an offscreen mate).
    • Which still does nothing to address how absurdly rare they seem to be. It's at best a three to one male to female ratio based on what we've seen. Saver perhaps the Avalon Clan is there even a clan and after Angela (a transplant from the Avalone Clan) does any group have more than a single female? Demona must have really gotten around in Ireland.
      • How would she be a sister or niece? Gargoyles hatched at the same time aren't siblings. And Demona was Goliath's rookery sister too.
        • How would she not be? Demona is one of three females shown in the Ireland clan. No reason why she couldn't lay several eggs over a period of time. It seems to be accepted that Gabriel and Angela are siblings and even if Word of God claims otherwise the fact that they are lovers is pretty solid cannon.
          • Gargoyles only lay three eggs total over the course of a lifetime and not at once. And we know Broadway is Hudson's son. Angela and Gabriel were rookery siblings, not blood relatives. And they were never mates.
      • The male-to-female ratio has very little to do with any aspects of gargoyle biology and a hell of a lot to do with the fact that the show was an action series aimed at pre-teen boys. If only there was a trope for it...
      • Also, gargoyles mate for life; with Goliath asleep, Demona never had a mate when she was a clan leader in Scotland (which I assume is what you mean by "Ireland") and therefore laid no eggs.
      • There are several male and female gargoyles in the Ishimura Clan, even if Sora was the only female given any focus (but only two males were). We only saw three members of the London Clan, with one female, Una, but their clan is much larger than three members. Only four of the Mayan Clan are still alive, and two are female.

Is it me, or is there a Status Quo Is God Mentality among the Gargoyles antagonists?

  • As much as a I enjoy the series, I do hope Greg Weisman can someday bring closure to the series. But I still feel this sense of Status Quo; Demona never seems to learn anything and according to Word of God, would probably be hateful long after Goliath and the gang have perished. Xanatos will always be scheming, just not being overly antagonistic to the gargoyles. Have the villains developed that much, or is it merely a "shift of priorites"? To be clear, it's not that being complex villains is a bad thing, but I'm just wondering how to achieve a sense of closure.
    • Well, Demona's arc is supposed to be tied up in Gargoyles 2198, a spinoff that seems unlikely at the moment to ever get made. Her problem- both in this case and in-universe- is that she's deep, deep in denial about who exactly caused her suffering. But Xanatos certainly developed over the show's run, even if it didn't lead to a true Heel Face Turn as much as a re-evaluation of his attitudes towards various other characters, and some of the other villains underwent pretty major changes (the Archmage died, Thailog got himself set up as a Corrupt Corporate Executive to rival Xanatos, Macbeth isn't even really a villain anymore, Coldstone's warring personalities got seperated into their own bodies, Castaway went from Hunter to founding his own gargoyle hate group, the Illuminati looked to have been taking a more direct role, etc.)
    • It's somewhat hard for Demona to change as not changinging is kind of her thing. She's gone a thousand years with little character development, aside from getting angrier, so it would take some serious big events to make her change now. Xanatos never really suffers for his set backs and in fact over time his efforts have rewarded him so why would he change them?
  • How come unlike other Disney shows, Gargoyles is not referred to with the Disney preface? I mean, it's literally not in the title of the series, which strange considering Disney's usual practice.
    • Gargoyles is a lot darker and more mature than most other Disney properties. It's possible Disney was afraid having their name directly associated with the show would damage their "family-friendly" image. And Greg Weisman might have thought that calling the show "Disney's Gargoyles" would have turned away older viewers who would see the word "Disney" and assume it was a light-hearted family romp.

Hunters, they make no sense!

The Hunters don't make any sense, there should either be a whole lot more Hunters or there shouldn't be any. Let's start with why there should be more. If the mantle is passed down to the next generation why hasn't it branched out into a fairly large organization by now? It's unlikely that whomever the Trios father was the very first Hunter in history to have multiple children. People had large families in olden times and considering how big a place the world is it wouldn't make sense for the Hunters to stay together either under those conditions three people searching three different locations makes more sense. After a thousand years of lets split up, then have kids who split up they'd be a fairly large group. Which would explain why the Hunter's in the past were able to find her on multiple occasions. There were a lot of people looking for her. If it works the way it's been explained however there shouldn't be any at all for two reasons. First Demona isn't stupid nor is she kind. I see no reason why she wouldn't have almost immediately after finding out that it passed to the next generation to simply kill a few kids. She would have saved herself a lot of trouble if right after she threw that Hunter off the Roof if she'd taken two extra seconds to slaughter three helpless children who were rushing towards the body. The other problem with it passing directly to a small group is that Gargoyles are sufficiently rare that I find it difficult to believe that Demona or even a living gargoyle was found frequently enough that you didn't occasionally go three or four generations without finding any proof that any such creature as a gargoyle even existed. If my grandfather spent his entire life looking for something that he couldn't find, and then my dad did the same I'd probably shrug my shoulders and walk away.

  • In order: A) People usually had large families in ye olden tymes. But there are always people who buck the trend. B) Even people who did have large families often ended up with much smaller families once disease, war, and infant mortality got to them. C) You're right, Demona isn't stupid. But that very point is probably why she didn't swoop down and kill the kids who rushed over to the body she threw off a roof. Swooping down and murdering a crowd of children is a good way to get yourself spotted and attacked by other passersby who could happen upon them, and then she's got an entire city of humans hunting for her. For that matter, why would she assume the kids were the family of the Hunter she killed? Why wouldn't she assume they were just a group of people walking the streets who came to see what all the commotion was about? D) The entire Hunter family was continuously tracking Demona for generations. Demona may be immortal but she still has her limits. She can only run so far, so fast, and she can't entirely avoid leaving a trail. Given that, why do you find it so implausible that every generation at least managed to catch sight of her at some point? Also, I think you greatly underestimate the power of propaganda. There are real life accounts of blood feuds (which is essentially what the Demona/Hunter conflict amounts to) that have lasted for many generations.
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