One objective of Robert Zemeckis, Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary was to expand on the original poem as it has been recorded. "Beowulf" is generally considered to be a pagan tale written down by Christian monks, which for Zemeckis and Avary represented the possibility that the original story had been tampered with in order to better fit Christian sensibilities. They found this to be a reasonable explanation for critical elements to the story that are absent from the poem, like the identity of Grendel's father, why does he abstain from attacking Hrothgar, and the lack of proof that Grendel's mother had been slain.