The episode I have just watched is “A Lighthouse In A Sea Of Time”, a very special episode about the importance of literacy. Unlike a lot of other VSEs though, “A Lighthouse In A Sea Of Time” (and the episode “Deadly Force”, about dangers of improper use of guns and the importance of respect and proper care of them) doesn’t come across as preachy, and as well as getting their message across they are also used as springboards for character development.

And if nothing else, “A Lighthouse In A Sea Of Time” gives us the following quote at the end, in-story as the forward of a novel a guest (and eventually recurring) character begins to write:

The written word is all that stands between memory and oblivion. Without books as our anchors, we are cast adrift, neither teaching nor learning. They are windows on the past, mirrors on the present, and prisms reflecting all possible futures. Books are lighthouses, erected in the dark sea of time.

If books are the lighthouses, then those of us who write are the lighthouse keepers. I don’t know about you, but I quite like that idea.

Ned and Chuck, the central couple in the prematurely deceased TV show Pushing Daisies, helped inspire me with regards to defining a few subtle traits that help key into the personalities of Delia and Daniel (the MCs of my first novel, Blood Bound). Dee and Daniel were very much formed by the time I really got into Pushing Daisies, but when I noticed vague similarities between the two sets (tall, adorkable and able to bring people into a state of second-life-ish vs short, bubbly and very much alive) another thing became defined.

I had already instinctively started to settle them into a colour scheme (Daniel in somber colours, like Ned, and Dee is brighter ones, like Chuck), but upon noticing the deliberate colour and style schemes for characters¹ I began to pay much closer to clothes and colours, and enhanced the difference in their personalities by looking to characters like Ned and Chuck (mostly Chuck) as ‘fashion models’ for Dee and Daniel.

It seems like such a simple thing, really, but until Pushing Daisies, I just didn’t see it.² So: inspiration/influence.

1. Yes, yes, I know, I was slow. I was clothes (and other stuff) dumb then.
2. Now though I have Seanne. She talks all about different things to do with filming like angles and lighting and costuming and filters it is all very very useful to hear.

One of these things was a little series called Gargoyles.

One thousand years ago, superstition and the sword ruled. It was a time of darkness. It was a world of fear. It was the age of gargoyles. Stone by day, warriors by night, we were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect, frozen in stone by a magic spell for a thousand years. Now, here in Manhattan, the spell is broken, and we live again! We are defenders of the night. We are Gargoyles!

The above quote was spoken by the central protagonist, the gargoyle leader Goliath, over the opening credits of the second season (the first season had no voice overs at all, merely music), and sums up the basic concept. In this Disney animated series, gargoyles turned to stone during the day, and became flesh at night and fought to protect their castle. After the massacre of almost all their clan, the few remaining members were cursed to be stone during the night as well, until the “castle rose above the sky”. Fast-forward to 90s New York, the spell is broken and the gargoyles awaken. And thus we have our story.

I won’t go into the whole story of Gargoyles here, but you can check out the wikipedia entry or the video by Nostalgia Critic for a humourous summary, complete with clips from the actual show.

So where does Gargoyles fit into my influences? Apart from being the first thing that started me off into liking things that can only move around at night (as Nostalgia Critic says above, “They’re like stone vampires?”), Gargoyles was also very well-written and heavily into ancient mythology, Shakespeare and science fiction. How many “kids’ shows” that you know of have Macbeth and Puck as characters, delves into Arthurian myth (and brings in Arthur himself), and discusses on bioethics, gun control, literacy and prejudice? Gargoyles definitely set my standards high when it came levels of characterisation, use of myth and research, and not talking down to the audience simply because they are children.

But I think the real effect Gargoyles had on me is that it introduced me to the concept of grey. And the best example of grey is definitely the character of David Xanatos (pictured on the right). In a conversation, I described him as grey “what with [him] being a bad guy and then a possibly good no wait back to wait what the hell is he doing now. Okay so he’s a – GODDAMNIT”. My conversation partner agreed. Although placed in the role of the villain, there are many, many occasions where he teams up with the good guys to stop a common enemy. He loves, he laughs. He’s grey.

And because of that sheer awesome that comes with being morally grey/having a million different shades of grey I think I am much more open to having characters with so many layers – I started writing them at a much earlier age than my peers, anyway. Most other villains I “encountered” were more black than grey, and after encountering the wonder of grey I started to reject them (or seek the potential for grey within them).

So when it came to creating characters of my own, it seemed natural that the greyness of vampires would attract me. After all, as the AVL says, “vampires were people too”. And the greyest of the grey is definitely my vampire king Athanasios. Although not a master of the gambit (he is much more straight forward), Athanasios does share a lot with in common with the other also death-named man – both of them have a close “assistant” – Xanatos has his personal assistant Owen, while Athanasios his lawyer/day person Matilda (unlike Owen, Matilda has no supernatural abilities¹). But as we agreed, there are also many differences – and I am not talking about the castle on top of a skyscraper that Xanatos has². It mostly comes down to the way the grey presents itself and the way they present themselves when not scheming/doing. Athanasios’s grey choices just tend to have results that are able to be looked up more positively than the results of Xanatos’s schemes³.

I’ve only noticed that my love of the morally grey character does in fact stem from watching Gargoyles as an itty-bitty now that I have been watching the DVDs this past week – the first time in over ten years that I have actually had a chance to watch more than half an episode. Athanasios is not Xanatos, but they are both cut from the same morally grey mold that Gargoyles was merely the first to expose me to.

Oh, and the whole stone vampires thing. That too.

 
If you’re interested in checking out Gargoyles or are an old fan whose interest has been rekindled, you can order the complete first season and the first half of the second via Amazon.com. Sadly, the release date for the second part seems to be “the twelfth of never”.

1. Unless you count these, of course. And yes, Catherine Tate is the most accurate choice for Matilda’s portrayal.
2. Athanasios would like to point that he could have one of those if he wanted, but he is not an “arrogant wanker” like Xanatos
3. And once again Athanasios wants to point out that this could also be because Athanasios is not an “arrogant wanker”. *facepalm*