Illuminati

The symbol of the Illuminati

Illuminati - A mysterious secret society that manipulates the world behind the scenes. The head of the Illuminati is Mr. Duval, who is really Sir Percival, a former knight of King Arthur’s Round Table and the last Fisher King.

History

Percival/Duval founded the Illuminati Society in or around the year 642. By the late 10th century, it had already developed its current name and its logo, a pyramid with a fiery eye at its summit. (This same symbol also appears on the Great Seal of the United States, suggesting some sort of connection between the Illuminati and the Founding Fathers). The Illuminati’s overall history is as yet veiled in shadow (not surprisingly), but it is known that in 1924, they made Mace Malone go into hiding after he became their adviser on organized crime, to protect him from the syndicates.

In the 1990’s, the Illuminati became aware of the gargoyles’ existence through Xanatos, and began to hunt them, hoping to control them. Their first recorded attempt came when Mace Malone persuaded Matt Bluestone to lure Goliath to the Hotel Cabal; Matt helped Goliath escape and Malone became trapped in the hotel himself, but the Illuminati were apparently satisfied, enough so that they inducted Matt into the Society anyway.

After the gargoyles were revealed to the public, the Illuminati entered into a partnership of sorts with Jon Canmore, helping him to set up the Quarrymen under the alias of "John Castaway" and providing him with the necessary funding, for their own as-yet-unknown purposes.

Characteristics

Known members of the Illuminati, past and present, include Duval himself, the Norman ambassador who accompanied Princess Elena to Castle Wyvern in 975, David Xanatos (who is a lower-echelon member), Mace Malone, Martin Hacker, and Matt Bluestone (the last a novice at present).

As yet very little is known about the Illuminati’s methods for exerting control, although presumably much of this comes about through a combination of having members in strategic places (Hacker gives them at least one FBI member, for example, and Xanatos is one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world) and blackmail. The Illuminati are known to have a hold over organized crime through the secrets that Mace Malone gave them in the 1920’s, and use this to extort a share of the crime syndicates’ spoils, serving as a silent partner to organized crime as a result. They also operate the Hotel Cabal in New York as a device for breaking down the resistance of their prisoners and thereby wresting valuable information from them.

The Illuminati supply their older members, such as Mace Malone, with rejuvenation drugs that help prolong their life-span and recover or preserve a youthful strength and vitality.

The goals of the Illuminati are, at present, unknown. While they do reportedly control almost everything (Matt has claimed that even the President of the United States is their puppet), we do not as yet know what their purpose is in so doing. Percival/Duval originally founded the Illuminati in order to "make things right" - presumably in an effort to restore the ideals that his former liege lord King Arthur had worked for in the time of Camelot - although it is unknown as to whether this is still his objective.

The gargoyles are not the only people in the Gargoyles Universe who are due for clashes with the Illuminati. King Arthur and Griff will have a number of encounters with them during their quest for Merlin, probably connected to Duval’s true identity as Percival, and the Director will set up the Redemption Squad in part as a means of battling them. The Illuminati will also quickly become involved when the New Olympians reveal themselves to the outside world. Although the gargoyles, King Arthur, and the Redemption Squad will all cause the Society a number of setbacks, it will not be destroyed or broken up - at least, not in the present.

In 2198, when the Space-Spawn invade and conquer Earth, the Illuminati decide to throw their lot in with the invaders. They form a secret pact with the alien occupiers, agreeing to undermine any attempts by the conquered Earthlings to overthrow the Space-Spawn in return for the release of those of the abducted world leaders who were secretly Illuminati. It is unknown as yet as to whether Duval is still the leader of the Illuminati at this point, when they advance from mere manipulators to quislings.

Real World Background

The Illuminati Society is a concept that has been around even before the creation of "Gargoyles". While no doubt the belief in a secret society controlling events behind the scenes has existed for centuries, the particular name "Illuminati" dates from May 1, 1776, when one Adam Weishaupt founded a society by that name at Ingolstadt in Bavaria. The Bavarian Illuminati were Deists who saw themselves as truth-seekers; the Bavarian government, however, came to view them as a threat, and finally shut them down in 1785.

Rumor has it, however, that the Illuminati survived this attack, although going into hiding, and later on caused the French Revolution. In recent years, the notion of the Illuminati as still around and manipulating world events has become a popular one among conspiracy theorists, and even formed the basis of a Steve Jackson trading card game. Along the way, this popular image of the Illuminati used in "Gargoyles" came to absorb into its mythos both the Freemasons (drawing on the popular beliefs that the Freemasons are a sinister secret society that helped influence the Founding Fathers) and the Knights Templar.

The Illuminati’s pyramid and fiery eye symbol is a common element of its mythos outside of "Gargoyles", originating in the beliefs of many people that this design upon the Great Seal of the United States and the back of the one-dollar bill is the mark of a secret conspiracy connected to the foundation of the U.S. Duval’s true identity as Percival, a Grail knight and now Fisher King, may well be thanks to the connection of the Grail to theories about such societies.

The purpose of the Illuminati in conspiracy theories varies, although one popular one is that they plan to impose a Satanical dictatorship upon the world, in which Christianity will be abolished. (If the Illuminati is indeed led by Percival in his Fisher King role, of course, then such a goal for it is highly improbable).