Awakening Part Two

"Awakening: Part Two" is the second televised episode of the series Gargoyles, and the second episode of Season 1. It originally aired on October 25, 1994.

• Producer: Frank Paur
• Co-Producer: Greg Weisman (Uncredited)
• Story: Eric Luke, Michael Reaves
• Teleplay: Michael Reaves
• Story Edited by: Michael Reaves
• Directed by: Kazuo Terada, Takamitsu Kawamura
• Animation by: Walt Disney Animation Japan
• Backgrounds by: Studio Fuga
• Additional Production Facilities: Nakamura Production, Thai Wang Production

Summary

Main Plot

Goliath and the other survivors, seeking revenge, attack the Viking camp. Goliath is robbed of his revenge when both Hakon and the Captain of the Guard fall from a cliff to their death. The Magus blames the gargoyles for what he believes is Princess Katharine's death, and casts a spell that locks them in their stone sleep "until the Castle rises above the clouds." Everything now taken from him, Goliath convinces the Magus to freeze him in stone alongside his clan. A thousand years later, David Xanatos takes what remains of the Castle – including the gargoyles – to the top of the Eyrie Building in Manhattan, breaking the spell. Later, they repel an attack on the building by a group of commandos.

Subplots

Goliath confronts Hakon and the Captain on the cliff, and Hakon blames the Captain for destroying the clan. Driven mad with fury, the Captain attacks the Viking leader, causing both of them to fall. They knock Princess Katharine over, and Goliath saves her instead of carrying out his desired revenge. After Goliath and the Princess return, the Magus feels true regret for turning the others to stone, but can't return them to normal because Hakon had burned the counter-spell.

Katharine tells Goliath that she will take her people away to King Kenneth's kingdom, leaving the Castle forever. Goliath asks her to watch over the gargoyle eggs, to which she agrees.

Xanatos puts on an act to the gargoyles, pretending to want to help them, but really wanting to use them for his own purposes. He informs them of how he broke the spell after acquiring the Grimorum Arcanorum containing the Magus's story of the gargoyles' curse. The gargoyles agree to stay at the Castle, though Goliath swears to never trust humans again.

Elisa Maza vows to find out what the commotion on top of the Eyrie Building was all about.

The Story

Previously on Gargoyles

• Recap: ("Awakening" Part One)

Act One

As Goliath mourns for his love, the elder gargoyle examines a bowstring and realizes that the Castle's defenses were sabotaged. The three young gargoyles and the beast emerge from the rookery to the sight of their home in flames. The gargoyles regroup and confirm that the six of them are the only survivors of the massacre. Goliath decides to take his remaining gargoyles to rescue the captured humans and take their revenge on the Vikings.

"I've been denied everything..."

At their camp, the Vikings celebrate their victory. The refugee boy Tom tries to comfort his weeping mother. He tells her that his friends the gargoyles will rescue them, but she replies that the gargoyles were destroyed. In a cave above the refugees and their captors, the tied up princess and Magus glare hatefully at Hakon and the Captain of the Guard. The Viking and the Captain discuss their plans to ransom the pair and Hakon taunts the Magus by burning pages from his spell book. At the sound of a roar and yells from the Viking troops, Hakon and the Captain run out of the cave to see the surviving gargoyles approaching. They exchange blame for the gargoyles' arrival. Hakon grabs hold of the still bound princess, intending to kill her, but she breaks free of his grip and runs. Hakon and the Captain give chase while the Magus yells for help and rubs the ropes binding him against a rock. Goliath catches sight of the two men chasing the princess and soars after them while the other gargoyles rout the Viking camp. As the gargoyles drive the Vikings away, the Magus appears on the cliff above. Thinking he is too late to save the princess, the Magus turns his rage on the gargoyles, whom he blames for provoking Hakon to kill the princess rather than ransom her. He flips open his spell book and casts a sleep spell that turns the five gargoyles to stone.

Goliath catches up to the princess, the Captain, and Hakon at the edge of a cliff. Realizing that the Captain was the one who betrayed Castle Wyvern, Goliath vows to kill his former friend and the Viking leader. The Captain protests that he never meant for the gargoyles to be shattered while Hakon tries to blame the Captain for the massacre of the clan. The Captain turns on Hakon and their ensuing scuffle knocks all three humans off the side of the cliff. Goliath manages to save the princess while the Captain and Hakon plummet to their deaths. "I’ve been denied everything," roars Goliath. "Even my REVENGE!" While the princess struggles with what to say to her rescuer, Tom rushes over and tells Goliath he must come and help his friends. All three return to the Viking camp to find the other five gargoyles turned to stone. The Magus plans to do the same to Goliath until the princess steps out from behind the gargoyle. Goliath demands that the Magus reverse the spell, but the page with the counter spell was burned and the terms of the spell curse the gargoyles to sleep until the Castle rises above the clouds, a seemingly impossible feat.

Back at Castle Wyvern, Goliath sets the stone forms of his friends on pedestals around the highest tower. The princess and the Magus tell Goliath how sorry they are for the harm they have done. The princess intends to leads her people to a safe haven with her uncle the king. Goliath asks two things of the pair: that they watch over the eggs in the rookery and the young gargoyles who will soon hatch from them, and that the Magus cast his spell one last time. The humans agree to both requests and Goliath is left frozen in stone with the remainder of his clan, seemingly forever.

Act Two

"We're together again"

Centuries later, a man stands before the long abandoned Castle. He rushes up the stairs of the highest tower and pulls ivy back from the face of the stone Goliath. "Magnificent," he observes. He tells his servant Owen to make an offer for the Castle. Owen cautions his boss, "Mr. Xanatos" that the costs associated with his plan will be high and workers may be hard to find since the locals believe that the Castle is haunted. Xanatos waves aside his concerns, saying "Pay a man enough, and he'll walk barefoot into Hell." This proves to be true as crews are soon at work dismantling the Castle stone by stone and shipping it from Scotland to its new home atop the Eyrie Building in Manhattan.

Xanatos arrives at the newly transported Castle via helicopter just before dusk. As the Sun sets and a fierce thunderstorm rages, cracks form upon the surface of the gargoyles' stone forms. All six gargoyles break free of their stone skin and Xanatos rejoices at the success of his plan. The gargoyles celebrate their awakening, but are soon shocked to see their unfamiliar modern surroundings. Xanatos approaches Goliath.

Inside the Castle's Great Hall, Xanatos explains that the clan has been asleep for a thousand years. He learned of the gargoyles and the spell cat on them from an ancient book where the Magus recorded the story. He had the Castle moved to the top of his skyscraper in hopes that it would fill the requirement for the Castle to "rise above the clouds" and break the spell. The small green gargoyle asks about the eggs in the rookery. Xanatos replies that the eggs are gone and the six gargoyles are not only the last of their clan, but the last of their kind. Xanatos offers the clan his friendship, but Goliath is understandably skeptical. Before Xanatos can make his case, he is interrupted by the noise of a helicopter outside. He goes to investigate and tell the gargoyles to stay inside where they will be safe. Outside, a group of commandos descends on ropes from the helicopter. They quickly surround Xanatos, weapons drawn.

Act Three

"Trust me."

The gargoyles have come to investigate the commotion. Seeing their home under attack, they engage the commandos in battle. During the fight, the gargoyles encounter such modern weaponry as tasers, lasers, grenades, and gas canisters. Xanatos retrieves a laser rifle from a hiding place in the wall and uses it to send stone falling down on a commando who is threatening Goliath. Goliath is later knocked off the side of the building by a grenade. He barely manage to catch himself and climb back up the skyscraper and Castle walls, leaving deep claw marks in his wake.

As the battle rages, one of the commandos slips away and returns with a briefcase. Their goal achieved, the commandos send up a flare to alert the helicopter which retrieves them. The gargoyles marvel at the weaponry they have seen and the thing that carried their foes off, which the old gargoyle is certain was a dragon, but the green one identifies as some kind of machine. Xanatos thanks the gargoyles for their help and expresses his hope that they will stay in the Castle and help protect it from his many enemies. Goliath agrees to this, but makes it clear that he and the others will never trust humans again.

During the battle, the scenes from the first episode's prologue play out: the flashes of explosions in the skies above, the falling debris with mysterious claw marks, and the arrival of Detective Maza on the scene. Her fellow detective asks Detective Maza what she thinks is going on. She doesn't know, but she is determined to find out.

Featured Characters and First Appearances

Gargoyles	Humans
Goliath Mentor (Hudson) Caesar (Brooklyn) Alexander (Lexington) Charlemagne (Broadway) Bronx	Mary Tom Magus Princess Katharine Captain of the Guard Hakon David Xanatos (First Appearance) Owen Burnett (First Appearance) Bruno (First Appearance) Female Commando (First Appearance, No Lines) Elisa Maza Morgan Morgan

Places	Objects	Magic	Miscellaneous
World Trade Center	Hudson's Sword Particle Beam Weapons	Sleep Spell	Xanatos Enterprises Construction Frame Xanatos's Helicopter Strike Helicopter Commandos (First Appearance)

Quotes

• "Magic spells, ha! Makes me glad I can't read." - Hakon

• "You're a dead man, Hakon."

"Maybe, but not before you!" - Katharine and Hakon

• "All of my kind are dead. And now, you two will join them!" - Goliath

• "I've been denied everything, even my REVENGE!" - Goliath

• "Now I am truly alone." - Goliath

• "There is something you can do for me, Magus. Cast your spell one more time." - Goliath

• "Pay a man enough, and he'll walk barefoot into Hell." - Xanatos

• "The eggs in the rookery?"

"Gone, I'm afraid. You are the last of your kind." - Lexington and Xanatos

• "There is much we can do for each other, Goliath."

"Such as?" - Xanatos and Goliath

• "They're attacking the Castle, that's all we need to know!" - Hudson

• "Are you a viking?" - Lexington

• "Without you and your friends, who knows what those thugs might have done?"

"Someone I once trusted said the same thing to me, and then destroyed my people." - Xanatos and Goliath

• "What do you figure that was all about, detective?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." - Morgan and Elisa

Tidbits

Hudson acquires his sword during the fight with the Vikings in their camp at the start of this episode; however, occasional animation errors would portray him as already having it in scenes set before this battle.

As Hakon burns the page from the Grimorum with the counter-spell on it, he comments sneeringly, "Magic spells, hah! Makes me glad I can't read!" It is tempting to wonder if this line of his (linking his pride in his illiteracy to the act which will ensure the gargoyles' entrapment in stone sleep for the next thousand years) could have originated, in part, out of Greg Weisman's well-known belief in the importance of literacy (which would come, of course, to the fore in "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time").

In the original version of "Awakening", it was the Magus who made the offer to place Goliath under the sleeping spell, as the best way of making amends that he could think of. Gary Krisel, one of Greg Weisman's higher-ups, argued against this, suggesting that instead Goliath, as a result of his absolute devastation over being alone now, should make this request of the Magus. Greg and his colleagues at once accepted this suggestion, realizing that this dramatically improved the story.

Greg Weisman makes a brief "voice-actor cameo" in the episode as one of the commandos, uttering the line "Nice mask".

This detail was possibly unintentional, but Xanatos's remark, "Pay a man enough, and he'll walk barefoot into Hell", is immediately succeeded by a close-up of the feet of one of the workmen dismantling the Castle (though they're in robotic boots rather than bare).

Goliath grabbing onto the flagpole only for it to break was done to demonstrate a difference between the clan and a Caped Crusader.

Xanatos's surname is derived from the Greek word thanatos, meaning "death"; ironically appropriate, since we will learn in Season Two that one of Xanatos's chief goals is to defy death by attaining immortality.

VHS/DVD Release

• Gargoyles The Movie: The Heroes Awaken
• Gargoyles: The Complete First Season

See Also

• Greg's Ramble
• Extensive Synopsis and Review
• Voices from the Eyrie Deep Dive

<< Previous Episode: "Awakening: Part One"

Next Episode: "Awakening: Part Three" >>