Goliath

Goliath was the leader of the Wyvern Clan and the Manhattan Clan.

History

Goliath was hatched with his rookery in the year 938. By the year 971, he was already one of the more noteworthy young warriors in the clan. In that year, Prince Malcolm made his alliance with the Wyvern Clan; during that time, he bestowed the name "Goliath" upon the gargoyle, comparing him in strength and battle-prowess to the Philistine giant who fought and was slain by the young David; on a darker note, the name also evoked the fear that most humans held towards gargoyles, given that its original was one of the best-known villains in the Bible. Thus, even by 994, Goliath was the only gargoyle in the clan to bear a name, and it is likely that even he did not view it as anything more than an odd human label. ("Awakening" Part I)

At that time, he and the female gargoyle later to be called Demona, then known only as his "Angel of the Night", were also growing to notice each other, which would lead in time to their becoming mates. In 975, they parted the Phoenix Gate between them as a token of their love for each other. ("Vows") They had definitely become mates by 987, when the egg that Angela would hatch from was conceived. Goliath's love for Demona may well have been deeper than hers for his, however, since even then, she was, to a certain extent, using him for her own goals (in particular, her growing hatred of humans), though Goliath never suspected it. ("Long Way to Morning")

In 984, the clan leader (who would later be known as Hudson) was blinded in one eye by the Archmage, and abdicated from his position of leadership, appointing Goliath (who was already his second-in-command by then) to take his place. ("Long Way to Morning") Goliath led the gargoyles faithfully for the next ten years, defending the castle from its enemies. While human antipathy towards the gargoyles grew steadily in Castle Wyvern during this time, particularly after the death of Prince Malcolm and the accession of Princess Katharine, and many of the gargoyles, particularly Demona, came to resent it. But Goliath steadfastly continued to protect the humans, understanding that they treated the clan as they did because they were afraid of it and it seemed strange and alien to them, and hoping that relations between the two races would improve in time to come. ("Awakening" Part I)

By 994, however, Demona and the Captain of the Guard had had enough of the gargoyles' poor treatment, and decided to betray Katharine and her people to Hakon and his Vikings. However, Goliath unwittingly helped foil their plan; when they urged him to take all the gargoyles away to pursue the Vikings, he refused, feeling that it would leave Castle Wyvern open to attack in their absence. Instead, he took just Hudson with him. The Captain consequently had to change his plan to have Hakon attack in the daytime, resulting in the massacre of the clan. Goliath and Hudson returned to find the rest of the clan dead, except for the Trio and Bronx (whom Goliath had sent down to the rookery for getting into a fight with some of the humans) and Demona, who had fled the castle to hide herself. Goliath believed her to be among the dead, however, and was grief-stricken. ("Awakening" Part II; "City of Stone" Part I)

He quickly led the other surviving gargoyles to the Vikings' camp, for the purpose of both rescuing the humans and avenging the slaughter of his clan. While the other gargoyles were fighting the Vikings, Goliath cornered Hakon and the Captain of the Guard, with Princess Katharine as their prisoner, at the edge of a cliff nearby, and learned of the Captain's treachery. When he lunged at them in their fury, Hakon and the Captain fell off the cliff to their deaths; Katharine fell as well, but Goliath rescued her. In his absence, however, the Magus, believing the Princess to be dead, had cursed the other gargoyles so that they would sleep, locked in stone, "until the castle rose above the clouds". Because Hakon had burned the page with the counter-spell on it, the Magus was powerless to undo what he had done. Goliath, filled with grief and despair at being all alone, first entrusted the clan's eggs to Princess Katharine, and then asked the Magus to cast his spell upon him as well.

A thousand years later, Goliath and his clan were awakened by David Xanatos, when he purchased Castle Wyvern and moved it to the top of the Eyrie Building in Manhattan, New York City], thus fulfilling the terms of the spell's undoing. ("Awakening" Part II)

Xanatos and Demona had carried out this scheme together, hoping to use Goliath and his clan for their own ends, and began by duping them into stealing three computer disks from Cyberbiotics, which they had deluded Goliath into thinking had been stolen from Xanatos. Goliath was temporarily overjoyed at discovering that Demona was still alive, but that joy faded as he gradually came to discover how she had changed over the centuries. Also, the same night that the gargoyles awoke in New York for the first time, Goliath met Elisa Maza, who had come to the castle to investigate the disturbances caused by the initial clash between the clan and the Xanatos' thugs. He rescued her when she fell off the top of the castle wall in fear of him, and the two of them soon came to become friends, particularly after Elisa risked her life to protect him in his stone sleep from the Commandos in Central Park. It was Elisa who revealed Xanatos's true nature to Goliath, warning him in sufficient time that he was able to foil Xanatos and Demona's attempt to destroy the clan with their new Steel Clan robots, once it became clear to them that the gargoyles would not be quite so useful to their schemes as they had originally intended. ("Awakening" Parts II-V)

Although Xanatos was sent to prison in the immediate aftermath of the Steel Clan's defeat, he still owned the castle, and Elisa urged Goliath to leave it with his clan and find a new home. ("Thrill of the Hunt") Goliath refused, unwilling to leave his last link to the 10th century, but after the gargoyles were attacked there by Macbeth, and Lexington, Brooklyn, and Bronx were temporarily captured, he finally gave in and moved, reluctantly, to the clock tower, though vowing to someday return and win the castle back from Xanatos. ("Enter Macbeth")

Despite his anger and grief at having had to leave Castle Wyvern, Goliath settled into the clock tower soon enough. During his first winter in New York, he began to learn more about Elisa's work as a detective and her vow, as part of the NYPD, to protect the innocent citizens in the city from criminals. Realizing how much this echoed his own vow to protect the castle, Goliath used this as inspiration to redefine his role as a protector, taking a new oath that henceforth, he and his clan would protect the inhabitants of New York, both human and gargoyle, particularly through foiling criminals. ("Reawakening")

Goliath took to his new role well enough, but remained torn in his heart; he still had his old feelings for Demona, despite her having turned evil, and longed to have her back with him, but was also developing new feelings for Elisa (feelings which grew stronger when Puck temporarily transformed her into a gargoyle). ("Vows"; "The Mirror")

Demona took advantage of Goliath's "torch-carrying" for her by tricking him into giving her his piece of the Phoenix Gate, which to him was only a token of her love, and using it to transport herself and Xanatos to the year 975, accidentally taking Goliath along with them. Goliath became involved in an effort by the Demona of the present to subvert the Demona of 975, and urged the younger version of Demona to not follow that dark path, but remain true to her vows of love.

Unfortunately, his hopes of changing Demona for the better in the present failed, since history is immutable; after discovering that the Demona of 1995 still had abandoned her love for him in favor of her hatred for humanity, he had to face, at last, the fact that they would never be together again. ("Vows")

Goliath had other adventures following his first journey to the past. He met Halcyon Renard, the CEO of Cyberbiotics, and with his help, learned to finally take responsibility for his part in the Cyberbiotics raid. ("Outfoxed") He also discovered the existence of Thailog, a clone of him made by Xanatos, who was even more villainous than Xanatos ever was; Goliath viewed Thailog (with a little help from Elisa) as his son and made the effort to reach out to him, which Thailog contemptuously rejected. In the time to come, Thailog would become one of Goliath's most deadly adversaries. ("Double Jeopardy")

Late in 1995, a grown-up Tom came from Avalon to New York, and warned Goliath of the Archmage's attack upon Avalon. Goliath, Elisa, and Bronx accompanied Tom there, to meet the Avalon clan for the first time, including Angela, the biological daughter of Goliath and Demona. After Goliath defeated the Archmage, he, Elisa, Bronx, and Angela left Avalon to return to New York. But since Avalon sends one, not where one wants to go, but where one needs to be, it took a long time for them to return there. ("Avalon" Parts I-III)

Goliath had more adventures during the "Avalon world tour" of a personal nature. He encountered the ghosts of the Captain of the Guard and Hakon in the Archmage's cave, and finally made his peace with the Captain. ("Shadows of the Past") He used the Phoenix Gate to take him back in time to 1940, to rescue Griff in the Battle of Britain and bring him forward in time. ("M.I.A.") He also briefly donned the Eye of Odin in order to battle Odin, but came dangerously close to becoming corrupted by it, only saved by Angela's intervention. ("Eye of the Storm") But perhaps the most important thing that happened to him during this odyssey was his acknowledgement of Angela as his daughter. He was reluctant to do this when he learned of their biological link, for it ran contrary to the "gargoyle way", and so rejected her urges to accept her as his child for a long while. ("Monsters") But in the end, Diane Maza persuaded him to reconsider his treatment of her, and so he acknowledged her at last, to her joy. ("Mark of the Panther")

As the four companions neared New York at last, near the end of the world tour, Goliath had one last, horrendous, adventure, when Puck visited upon him an illusion in which they had returned to New York, but forty years in the future, by which time Xanatos (or, more accurately, a traitorous Lexington masquerading as Xanatos) had taken over the city, and was preparing to take over the entire planet from there. Puck's motive was to trick Goliath into giving him the Phoenix Gate; Goliath finally realized, almost at the last moment, what was going on here, and to prevent future attempts to seize the Gate, threw it away into the timestream, hoping that it would be lost there forever.

Goliath returned to New York, to become involved in an attempt by Oberon and Titania to kidnap the new-born Alexander Xanatos. Goliath was unwilling to see even his greatest enemy deprived of his child, and so led his clan against Oberon to thwart him; they were defeated, but after Fox mustered up enough of her "halfling strength" to strike Oberon with a spell, Goliath used the incident to persuade the faerie rulers to let Alex stay in the human world and be tutored in magic. Xanatos, grateful to Goliath for this act, promised to do whatever he could to repay the gargoyles; Goliath was skeptical, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. ("The Gathering" Parts I and II)

Not long afterwards, Jason, Robyn, and Jon Canmore came to New York in search of Demona, and while hunting for her, came upon Goliath, Hudson, and Angela. Mistaking Angela for Demona, they attacked and almost killed her. Goliath angrily vowed revenge, and so began a terrible feud between his clan and the Hunters that resulted in the destruction of the clock tower, the exposure of the gargoyles to the public, and Elisa almost dying when a battle between Goliath and Jason inadvertently knocking her off the top of a dam. In the final battle with the Hunters at Saint Damien's Cathedral, however, Elisa finally arrived and managed to stop Goliath from killing the Hunters, and he, having come to his senses, quickly followed that with thwarting a genocidal scheme that Demona had developed to destroy all humanity. The gargoyles were trapped by the Gargoyle Task Force in the cathedral afterwards, and almost captured, but Xanatos came to their aid and gave them shelter at the castle, in gratitude for their having saved his son from Oberon earlier. In the immediate aftermath, Goliath and Elisa finally admitted the feelings that they had developed for each other, and she kissed him for the first time. ("Hunter's Moon" Parts I-III)

Goliath and Elisa were soon afterwards the first targets of Jon Canmore/John Castaway in his war against the gargoyles, but rescued by Vinnie. (Gargoyles #1)

Now that their love for each other had finally been admitted, Goliath and Elisa would have to decide what to do about it. The sheer physical difficulties of a relationship between a gargoyle and a human are so great that, initially, they would decide that it was impossible and opt for merely continuing to be friends; they would even go out on a "Halloween double date" for this purpose, Goliath with Delilah and Elisa with either Jason Canmore or Officer Morgan (the future is uncertain as to which of the two). However, in the course of the "double date", they would realize that this simply could not work, that they had to be with each other, and would have to overcome the obstacles somehow. Eventually, they would hold some sort of Commitment Ceremony, and further down the road, even raise a child together, presumably by adoption.

By 2198, Goliath will be dead, but we do not know by what cause.

Apocrypha - The Goliath Chronicles

Goliath and Elisa's relationship seemed to quiet down for a while, but Goliath still had many adventures, many of which involved the Quarrymen. Among other things, Goliath went on trial, his "son" Thailog became permanently petrified by a clone-degenerative virus, something that hit Goliath hard, he was sent into another dream world where he was human and married to Elisa by Titania, he was turned into a mind-controlled slave by the Illuminati scientist Dr. Nexus, and he nearly lost Elisa's trust when he was impersonated by an escaped Proteus. Finally, Goliath and the rest of the clan were lured into a Quarryman trap and thought dead by the entire city, with the exception of Angela and Bronx. They were being taken to face trial on charges of terrorism committed by the clan, but the Quarrymen attacked the train that was transporting them in an attempt to destroy them. Xanatos had saved the clan, and they rescued Angela and Bronx as well as the humans on the train, much to the humans' surprise. Goliath faced down Jon Castaway, and defeated him for the last time. The gargoyles saved the train, and the Quarrymen were sent to jail while the gargoyles were finally accepted.

Characteristics

Physically, Goliath is an impressive figure, a tall and powerfully-built gargoyle with lavender skin and dark hair. He is one of the mightiest warriors alive, and even his most formidable opponents cannot easily defeat him. He is also a bold and fierce gargoyle, and his wrath is something that can be terrible to behold. While a level-headed figure in general, and a good leader, he can be very stubborn at times (such as in his refusal to abandon Castle Wyvern), or sometimes even become bitterly vengeful (as in his feud with the Hunters). But he is no mere savage, and his emotions can be held in check by his strong sense of justice and morality. He takes his role as a protector seriously, and will willingly put his life in danger to keep New York from harm.

In another way, Goliath has shown himself to be something more than a fierce gargoyle warrior. He is literate, having been taught how to read by Demona back in the 10th century, and has a particular fondness for the classics, such as Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky. Mingled in with his gargoyle instincts is a thoughtful, philosophical nature; he often ponders about the world and how it has changed since the time that he grew up in. He also eagerly learns all that he can about it from Elisa. His wisdom and sense of hope have helped him endure the fear and prejudice displayed by humans towards gargoyles, not yielding to it as Demona has done, as he continues to understand that humans treat gargoyles thus because they are afraid of them, and hopes that they will change for the better in the future, that someday, their races will be at peace.