Elisa Maza is a plainclothes police detective working night-shift for the N.Y.P.D. It's the family business; her father and her brother are also cops. Among other things, Elisa is 25 years old, college educated and single. She is 50% Native American (Sioux) on her father's side, 50% African-American on her mother's side and 100% New Yorker inside and out. In fact, she's lived in Manhattan all her life, and she loves her town. She is athletic, self-sufficient and hardly a damsel in distress.
Elisa is smart, but impulsive. There have probably been no great tragedies in her life. And although she is sensitive to the fact that others have not been as lucky as she has and that the world can be a dark and dangerous place, her own consistent good fortune occasionally leads her to take reckless chances. She's young enough to feel immortal. (However, she would never do anything truly suicidal or even half-way stupid. Remember, smart first; impulsive second.)
Her job occasionally takes her undercover, and her life sometimes depends on her acting skills, as well as her ability to see when someone else is being less than candid. Elisa is suspicious of surface qualities. She's curious, inquisitive and hungry to learn. She always wants to dig deeper and find hidden truths. (She loved reading Nancy Drew Mysteries as a child. In fact, she's read so many mystery stories she's come to believe that the obvious answer can never be the solution, even though occasionally, it is.) But this ability to look beyond the surface is also one of the main reasons she and Goliath get along so well. She is one of the few human beings who does not see the monster, but the individual. A real person with hopes and dreams, with deep sadness and anger, with tenderness and gentle strength. Both of them treasure innocence and beauty (in all its forms). Both of them dislike hypocrisy.
If Goliath is an optimist, Elisa is a downright idealist. She offers him understanding and friendship, hope and a sense of purpose. She reawakens him to his dream of a golden age of human/gargoyle cooperation, and she shares that dream with him. She helps him redefine and widen his definitions of territory and community.
Their relationship is caring, even romantic, but platonic. (They're different species, and this is still a cartoon show.) She might put a gentle hand on his arm; she might even give him a big hug. For his part, he's not used to physical tenderness from any human. It's a bit intimidating. But he's very protective of her. Very gentle. And he has to be periodically reminded that she's not a fragile flower.
Although she's not thinking about it much right now, Elisa probably does want a husband and family someday. But given her chosen career and her night-shift hours, she's not meeting many eligible men. And those she does meet have a tough act to follow in Goliath, who would be the perfect guy for her if he were only human.
