#the beast is those realized suicidal thoughts. he cant get you or even TOUCH you unless you give up hope

[tumblunni]

okay HOLY SHIT

I just remembered that show Gargoyles that I loved as a kid, and I decided to rewatch it, and its SOMEHOW EVEN BETTER THAN I THOUGHT IT WAS?? Like holy fuck?? It has one of the best introductions to any show ever! Did I just never see the first episode as a kid, or did all the implications fly over my head when I watched it??

Okay so.. like.. I knew the PREMISE but I didnt expect it all happened in the least expected way! The friggin theme tune tells us that blablabla ancient magical guardian creatures fell under some sort of curse and now they’re revived in modern times, such and such, there you go a one sentence plot. BUT HOW IT HAPPENED HOW it happened oh GOD And like the show starts with a whole hour long flashback to the gargoyles back in olden times?? like thats a really bold move! usually in kids shows theyre like ‘you MUST establish the status quo/episode formula right away’. here we literally only saw two minutes of modern times america. TWO MINUTES! some person we dont know finds some mysterious monster. now lets throw that all away and spend a whole glorious hour establishing how much of an upstanding man that damn monster is, and how the universe treats him like shit. like weirdly enough it raises hype for the modern day episode formula even as it shows none of it?? it makes the audience think ‘WAIT WTF THEYRE NOT EVIL, OH NO WE ALREADY KNOW THE MODERN POLICE IS GONNA ATTACK THEM’ :< And then also we get ANOTHER HOUR AND A HALF of establishing the modern day status quo too?? theyre labelled on dvds and stuff as the first five episodes, but really this was just one big 2 and half hour movie premiere! i wish i could have seen it in its original form back when it first aired, i just remember that it was really hard to catch reruns of the multi part stuff cos toon disney had a lot of airing issues

anyway WHY IS THIS THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER?

okay

OKAY OKAY

Here’s our premise! We start off in some ambiguously set medieval kingdom where everyone dresses like a mashup of vikings and englishmen yet have scottish accents ok seriously thats kinda distracting And we’re introduced to this small castle kingdom that’s protected by mysterious guardian creatures of amazing character design. Like seriously i wish they didnt focus so much on this ‘all the main gargoyles have to look more human’ thing, the comic relief teenagers trio was my favourite and also THE COOL GRANDPA EYEPATCH GARGOYLE ok ok im getting offtopic So in this universe gargoyles are a sentient species of winged noble warrior doods, who just happen to have a problem of turning to stone in sunlight. And they protect these humans but the humans are all assholes who’re like WAH BUT THEY LOOK LIKE CHRISTIAN DEMONS THEY MUST BE EVIL even as theyre like.. mid-being-saved. Absolute dumbasses. And seriously YOU BUILT YOUR CITY ON THE GARGOYLES’S LAND! You should count yourself lucky their leader is Niceman Mc Patience who agreed to a peace treaty instead of kicking your ass. Seriously Goliath you kinda comprimised too much! It really fuckin sucks!! The gargoyles are like.. employed by the humans for no form of pay?? They get literally nothing out of it! Except less room to live in their own home, and constant degredation.

Okay so THE HUMAN CHARACTERS AND THEIR CONSTANT DEGREDATION

We’re introduced to the princess and royal vizier dude when the kindly knight captain is like ‘hey you should say thank you to the gargoyles, not me’, and she’s like HOW DARE YOU LET THE BEASTS INSIDE THE HOUSE! Like seriouslt the gargoyles arent even allowed to be seen by humans?? Theyre supposed to protect them every damn day but also should never speak and never have any form of rights as sentient beings. WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR DAMAGE, MEDIEVAL DOODS?? So yeah here’s our brief summary of the everyone here: * Fucking asshole princess who acts like you let your dog shit on the floor if you give a friggin sentient being and king of another civilization the basic courtesy of being allowed to STAND INSIDE THE HOUSE * Cliche evil vizier lookin dood who doesnt really have much personality shown yet except being a sycophant to her anti gargoyle shit, and like.. from his character design you totally expect he’s gonna be evil. *shrug* * Niceman mc guardman who treats Goliath like a friend and is being all activist for gargoyle rights amoung the court. But also he’s really low ranking apparantly, and doesnt have any power to affect change. It seems that he’s been treated like shit by these royals for a long time... * One innocent nice kiddo who wants to hug the gargoyles for saving him, but his jerkass mum is all OMG HOW DARE YOU TOUCH HIM HEY EVERYONE YOU SAW THEY TOTALLY ATTACKED US RIGHT Like seriously he just fuckin tries to start a conversation with the younger gargoyles, and is all ‘youre my hero!’ and they have a nice talk that establishes a load of worldbuilding like how gargoyle culture doesnt have any form of names and Goliath only has one cos the humans gave it to him. Screw you, worldbuilding interruption predjudice mom!

Okay so now we have our premise, and we see some mysterious guy in a hood sneaking out of the castle to ally with some raiders who wanna overthrow the country and steal all its riches. Also a minor scene of the teen and kid gargoyle group being sent to their room for 'causing trouble’ even though seriously the humans started it >_> So like.. we all know where this is going, right? Its a pretty big omen when you give us a contrived circumstance for the children to be the only ones who can be safe from this impending catastrophe... And the voice was very gruff and deep so its probably not the princess doing this shit, plus duh she already has all the power so why would she need to stage a coup? Really, the question now is just what vizier man’s motives are for wanting to betray her!

... EXCEPT

This is where the story gets fuckin great, and also where My Soul Is Pained

hey guess who was really the traitor? its.... nice guard man! fffffuck its sooo creepy when the princess is running for help and she’s like HEY THANK GOD YOURE HERE and then he has this big slasher smile and reveals his plan T_T And like.. he’s still.. not really evil?? Nobody here is evil, except the personalityless plot device raider guys who just exist to set up this circumstance. The princess is an ungrateful predjudiced asshole, but she’s beloved by her human subjects and i mean., she never actually does anything evil, she’s just rude and nasty. And the vizier was a complete red herring and actually all his mysterious shit was just him hiding a crush on the princess, so he breaks down when he thinks she’s dead :( And then guard guy also wasnt lying about caring about the gargoyles. he tried to get them to leave so that only the humans would die, but then like.. his ambition overtook that one shred of loyalty he had to his friends. He thought he could get through all this without having to kill them, but when the raider guy insists upon it he ends up agreeing rather than lose his chance at stealing the throne. And then its really slimy how he’s all ‘BUT I DIDNT INTEND THIS ORIGINALLY, ITS ALL RAIDER GUY’S FAULT’ after goliath shows up and cries over the corpses of his family, like seriously what the fuck dude dont try and weasel out of consequences for your actions. But still it feels like he was once a genuinely good guy who just gave in to his selfishness and abandoned his morals?? And i mean its super justified for him to be angry at how he was treated by the princess, and to want to affect change in this society. WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU!! Seriously its so fuckin surprisingly deep to have some guy who’s a fakeout hero in the first damn episode. And some guy who’s a villain just because he stooped to any means necessary to carry out his once-heroic ambitions. Instead of changing society for the sake of the people, he’s sacrificing all the people just to gain the throne, and forgetting why he ever wanted it! SERIOUSLY HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO BE EVEN WORSE THAN ASSHOLE PRINCESS

so yeah then the plot just goes in SO MANY UNEXPECTED DIRECTIONS to get to the same expected conclusion! Instead of just being cursed by the bad guys, the gargoyles were betrayed by the one closest to them, while those bad guys all died innefectually offscreen. And the curse wasnt even an evil act! It happens because of a REALLY COMPLEX GREY MORALITY SITUATION, where the princess and vizier were gonna be sold off for cash, but then because the gargoyles tried to save them the guard guy decided to just execute them instead. So after their triumphant rescue of all the villagers, they find the vizier man sobbing over his dead love, and then he tells them its THEIR FAULT IT HAPPENED. And he doesnt want to live without her, so he makes a really stupid reckless decision and decides to attack the last few living gargoyles. And like RIGHT AFTER he casts the spell on them, he finds out the princess is still alive and its all oh Fuck What The Fuck Have I Done So vizier man tries to undo the curse, but his book of spells got damaged in the fight and (OF COURSE) coincidentally the page about curse lifting is gone. Cue fuckin Everyone Crying. SO FEW EVIL PEOPLE IN THIS STORY SO MANY EVIL ACTS DONE BY THOSE WHO THOUGHT THEY WERE THE HERO like even the vizier and princess realize they were wrong about their anti gargoyle bigotry after they have to see the consequences of it here but its just WAY TOO LATE FOR THAT

and then yo the EVEN MORE UNEXPECTED AND SAD BIT cos our protagonist gargoyle was the only one who didnt get cursed thats unexpected and he basically COMMITS SUICIDE TO BE WITH HIS FAMILY THATS KINDA MORE UNEXPECTED Well its more like a g-rated suicide metaphor?? Everyone thinks the curse will never be broken, so he curses himself too cos he cant live without them. And its really depressing cos even though we know they all eventually get uncursed, so many others just straight up died and also theyll never see their human friends again and also the castle is all destroyed so the fate of the kingdom is really ambiguous too?? we just know that the now-redeemed princess and vizier are gonna do anything they can to protect their citizens and atone for what happened. and they take the last few gargoyle eggs that werent destroyed, and promise to raise them with all of the love and respect they nevr gave poor goliath... and seriously they never say whose children those eggs were but he’s like the only person left who could have given them a proper gargoyle childhood. So like its morally grey that goliath is choosing death together with the people he knows, rather than living and trying to ressurect his dying civilization. i absolutely wouldnt blame him for it though, its not like suicide is an active choice, he wasnt exactly in his right mind at the time! But its just REALLY NICE AND COMPLEX! And raises a lot of questions about what will happen to these new gargoyles who’re raised by humans, how different would they be if goliath and co met them someday? i really hope thats actually a plot thats gonna happen, i cant rememebr ANYTHING about this show lol...

so yeah theres all the FUCKIN COMPLEX DARK MORAL AMBIGUITY IN ANCIENT ENGLANDSCOTLANDGERMANYKINDA and it is AMAZING and it absolutely baffles me how they ahve such great plots when other parts of the writing are kinda awful standard disney cliches?? like seriously they wasted so much screentime on Comic Relief: A Fat Guy Exists. Seriously he just.. exists. They show these really slow and overanimated scenes of him just.. eating things. not even exaggerated or comedic. he ate one pie, lets all make fun of him for twenty minutes but man, no show in the 90s was perfect, lol! this is still pretty damn great! AND VERY EMOTIONAL

oh oh oh and i didnt mention THE OTHER CRYING BIT cos the guard guy gets a cliche disney villain death, the whole accidentally falling off a cliff due to his own actions, so the protagonist isnt morally responsible for killing a man but then what makes it a really unique scene is that THATS NOT THE MORAL STANCE THE SHOW TAKES goliath WANTED to kill that damn man or, at the very least, give him some sort of punishment for what he’d done goliath has a fucking huge despair moment over the fact this villain man died and he wasnt the one who did it “you took everything from me, even my chance at revenge” cue ugly sobbing as this buff ass demon man screams at the heavens and cradles the stone dust that was once his damn wife what the fuck show why are you doing this to me

ITS REALLY GOOD

#blunni thoughts