PCoquelin's insightful EQ questions

I decided that since PCoquelin mentioned VARIOUS interesting questions to such a broad spectrum of the ElfQuest series, the "Discovery" section would be the best place to discuss them! ^_^

So let's "discover" some answers amongst each other!

PCoquelin wrote:

By the way, I just have NO idea in which section of this site here I could present that lil' try of mine.

There's something I could NOT openly expose in the official site: how SURE I am, now, that we, the readers of Elfquest, have been presented, all along, only a TINY part of the big picture. How the elves we've come to love have explored but a very small part, both of that world of two moons' geography, but also how little they are aware of its history. I'll expose it here first with some preliminary but fundamental questions :

. What became of "the Hunt" and Timmorn Yellow-Eyes?

. What became of Two-Spear's tribe?

. What became of those elves who did NOT follow Voll, all along his millenias of guidance?

. Where did Savah's family of refugees come from? From which EVOLVED elfin population?

. What did Winnowill seek to protect Voll from?

My point is this: somewhere on the world of two moons, many, many, MANY elves have gathered, for MILLENIAS, and organized themselves into a CIVILIZATION, and they have made sure to both DOMINATE humans AND to protect themselves from the prying Black Snake's efforts.
There exist EXTREMELY GRIM WAYS to do so, thanks to elfin magic, the grimmest ones being:
. Mental control (think about what Rayek and Savah could do)
. Fire magic (think about how RARE it is, among the elves Wendy presented us)

Wendy herself confessed there WILL be a "FINAL" quest, and I strongly fear its outcome will be extremely unpleasant.
Because what will happen when SOME elves who've learned the hard way to COPE with humans, even through occasional warfare..
..meet a MULTITUDE of very well organized elves who have been treating humans as HOPELESS SLAVES and who are convinced THEY can and WILL become the MASTERS of that world?

Feel free to post any thoughts at anytime  

My question would be then have those other elves found a way to "break" from the palace draw. And also... with so many spirits of so many kinds in the Palace, wouldn't it make just as much sense with going out as going in? Looking to the spirits within the Palace as a place to start looking OUTSIDE of it? Find the "who are you?" individuals.... and go from there.

Quote :

a way to "break" from the palace draw.

I'm pretty sure there DOES exist at least one way to do so, since..
..both Winnowill and Rayek found it.

Think of it as the absence of love.

Here's my two acorns...

I just hope my own suspicions that I've had for years isn't the case at all...

But the more I dwell on how many centuries have passed since the High Ones first crashed upon the Abode to the time of Ember now being a chieftess, I can not believe that others of the "High Ones" who were out traveling the vast universe and stars never realized that some of their travelers went missing.

The High Ones had impeccable sending abilities *before* crashing upon the planet that diminished their powers to an extent. They possessed such high intellect to create and build a *craft* that traveled through space and visiting other worlds....

So I'm left to believe that the High Ones didn't have some sort of GPS or OnStar *magic* to keep tabs on their fellow travelers in case of an "emergency" so to speak?

They are highly intelligent beings... which I'm sure had the common sense to think ahead that during these journeys to "unknown" worlds, and to "unknown" dangers, that there will most likely be a chance that they run into a problem and need help by their fellow kind.

I can't fathom that *Other High Ones* never learned of their missing kin, or didn't bother looking for them.... so I have to wonder... maybe *Others* did....

.....maybe they left after discovering what became of their fellow travelers

... or...

....maybe they stayed on the Abode, in secret, all this time

OMG I KILLED THE THREAD WHEN IT JUST GOT STARTED!!

  

pat pat. Welcome to my world...

As for the cryptic " Careful what you wish for ", I am pretty sure it refers to this scene that initiates the Quest :

My wild speculations began here

And there I tried to address the specific question of the Scroll of colours, that Richard wanted to have us discussing...

Sorry if Im out of line or misunderstanding something, Im literal minded and didnt see some of the questions actually answered, and if Im being annoying, just ignore me.

Being on my phone its hard to edit, so Ill make my responses with a ##

Kindredsoul wrote:

I decided that since PCoquelin mentioned VARIOUS interesting questions to such a broad spectrum of the ElfQuest series, the "Discovery" section would be the best place to discuss them! ^_^

So let's "discover" some answers amongst each other!

PCoquelin wrote:

By the way, I just have NO idea in which section of this site here I could present that lil' try of mine.

There's something I could NOT openly expose in the official site: how SURE I am, now, that we, the readers of Elfquest, have been presented, all along, only a TINY part of the big picture. How the elves we've come to love have explored but a very small part, both of that world of two moons' geography, but also how little they are aware of its history. I'll expose it here first with some preliminary but fundamental questions :

. What became of "the Hunt" and Timmorn Yellow-Eyes?
##Not sure, just assumed they became more and more wolflike and aged to death, or met some other "natural" end. I had also heard the hunt rejoined the wolves and caused the wolfbond/ sending ability, hiwever this may have been forum speculation.

. What became of Two-Spear's tribe?
##I understood that they became the Gobacks after willowgreen removed the wolfblood from the tribe (shortly after Two spear fought Kahvi and left her in that pool).  They lost all magical ability, as well as recognition, sought out the Palace, were stopped by the Trolls i  the frozen mountains and we find them again later in the Quest.

. What became of those elves who did NOT follow Voll, all along his millenias of guidance?
##Im inferring this: I understood that perhaps the early "Vol" may have been "Voll". The "high" elves were wanderers for a while before any tribe existed, Savah's mother was somehow an origional High one that shared lineage with the wolfriders (not sure if this implied that Timmain was her mother or if it was one of the other firstcomers). Tracing the path from the Frozen Mountains, passed Blue Mountian and the Burning Wastes, down through the Father Tree Holt, with all of the split offs of these settlements Id believe that various high ones and their direct decendents became the charter members of these communities, and perhaps died off through various hazards and whatnot over the 10000+ years before we meet the groups.  It is a HUGE amount of time in a dangerous world.

. Where did Savah's family of refugees come from? From which EVOLVED elfin population?
##See above, but as far as the evolve part, it seems that Savah identifies herself as a daughter of a High One, and she is depicted as being dark skinned... this would not normally back up traditional "evolution" as such, however the Elves were origionally all shape changers, and as they traveled through the desert it would make sense the simple adaption to having higher, more protective tannin levels would be logical as a self protection.

. What did Winnowill seek to protect Voll from?
The world, Im sure, at first, especially if the above is true.  There was some iplied protection from the world in Winnie's monologues here and there, which implies to me that perhaps some members of the early BM group were hurt or killed.  Later, it would seem likely that she was protecting him from himself, as he appeared to have tendancies to fly off and explore on his own... she was very fearful of the children and the preservers "waking him" from the slumber she had imposed on him (much like the stupor she kept the rock shapers in).


My point is this: somewhere on the world of two moons, many, many, MANY elves have gathered, for MILLENIAS, and organized themselves into a CIVILIZATION, and they have made sure to both DOMINATE humans AND to protect themselves from the prying Black Snake's efforts.
There exist EXTREMELY GRIM WAYS to do so, thanks to elfin magic, the grimmest ones being:
. Mental control (think about what Rayek and Savah could do)
. Fire magic (think about how RARE it is, among the elves Wendy presented us)
##Zarahan Fastfire was the last of the fireshapers among the wolfriders (who's who).  I know it isnt a popular belief, but it does seem as though much of the magic in EQ is genetic, and further perhaps with dominate and recessive levels.  It may be that fireshaping was recessive and a "proper" combination occured to allow Rayak to energy shape, or its some other mehanic we havent been told.

Wendy herself confessed there WILL be a "FINAL" quest, and I strongly fear its outcome will be extremely unpleasant.
Because what will happen when SOME elves who've learned the hard way to COPE with humans, even through occasional warfare..
..meet a MULTITUDE of very well organized elves who have been treating humans as HOPELESS SLAVES and who are convinced THEY can and WILL become the MASTERS of that world?

Feel free to post any thoughts at anytime  

Below there is comment about a "distress beacon" or "gps" tieing different ships together or at least why didnt one notice the group on WoTM...  I cant say I know the Pini's spin on it (nor do I care at this point), but it seems to me that the ships are time-transcendant, and 20000 years is a small blip in the universe of billlions of years.  We dont know how many ships there are nor what happened to them, but it may have been that there just wasnt another group within a few hundred million light years or millenia to notice them.

I agree, though, Im intrigued by the history we dont know, especially that of the Trolls prior to us meeting them. We know about the rebellion and the crash, and can imply times and a few other events, but there are huge gaps.

I thought the reason the High Ones crashed on the Abode in the first place was that "in all [their] travels" they "had never come across other of [their] kind"? They had been traveling for who knows how long without finding other coneheads- and crashed because they recognized their own beacon from the past and thought they were being signaled by their own kin... or something like that. Which means they didn't have some interstellar broadcasting ability to keep track of one another- they just sort of drifted apart and got lost.

The High Ones descendants ended up in elf form, with no real technologies to speak of.. because the coneheads deliberately chose that form in order to masquerade as the creatures of human myth. (No prime directive there!) I sort of wonder, after all these tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years- how the other coneheads evolved. And what about the ones that left in technologically advanced ships? What happened to them? They could be incredibly different creatures by now.

PC wrote: "What became of "the Hunt" and Timmorn Yellow-Eyes?"

I think the Hunt evolved back into the Wolfrider wolves- didn't they? Some evolved into Wolfriders- and others mated with wolves, and their offspring evolved back into telepathic wolves. Timmorn was torn between being elf and wolf- and finally chose to be fully wolf in his mind. He disappeared. He might still be alive- but he was probably half mortal, so he is most likely dead by now.

". What became of Two-Spear's tribe?"
Didn't they turn into the Go Backs?

". What became of those elves who did NOT follow Voll, all along his millenias of guidance?"
That's an interesting question! There's some speculation that they might have been Savah's ancestors.

". Where did Savah's family of refugees come from? From which EVOLVED elfin population?"
Good question! Maybe the elves that didn't follow Voll?

". What did Winnowill seek to protect Voll from?"
The outside world that could and did kill him. He was an inspiring leader- but he was naive about the world. His dream was to resurrect the ways of the High Ones. Before building Blue Mountain, the implication is that he wanted to go after the true Palace. But he had no idea how dangerous the outside world was. Winnowil left in order to find the Palace for him- and found the troll who was sent to kidnap rock shapers. My understanding was that she nursed him back to health, and discovered, through him, that a troll army had taken over the Palace and was out to enslave elves. She sent the Preservers away so that Voll would forget his dream. She didn't want him to get killed pursuing it.

Lunakat wrote:

I thought the reason the High Ones crashed on the Abode in the first place was ...

.. that those who would far later evolve into trolls decided to mess with the landing process.

Notice that there may very well have been some other untold motives for such an extreme action...

Lunakat wrote:

... "in all [their] travels" they "had never come across other of [their] kind"? They had been traveling for who knows how long without finding other coneheads- and crashed because they recognized their own beacon from the past and thought they were being signaled by their own kin... or something like that. Which means they didn't have some interstellar broadcasting ability to keep track of one another- they just sort of drifted apart and got lost.

It might also mean MANY other things, among them :

. that EXACT "elfin" form comes literally from... NOWHERE, if you pay attention

. the words that I find to be the ones INSULTING THE MOST our intelligence are : " A new goal : experience ! " :
those beings ALREADY had an incredibly high level of experience, as a race, and we are presented THAT motive !? TSK..

. the firstcomers had ways to PRY upon humans and even to SPY them, since it's told they decided upon that form from legends and myths among humans

. it should be obvious that the Scroll of Colors CANNOT "see the future", considering how landing on a new planet is a terribly delicate moment - almost NO chance that they would NOT have used the Scroll to predict some dire event...

Lunakat wrote:

I think the Hunt evolved back into the Wolfrider wolves- didn't they? Some evolved into Wolfriders- and others mated with wolves, and their offspring evolved back into telepathic wolves.

True ...


... but most probably ONLY for a PART of the lupine descendants.
Notice the Wolfriders lived for millenias inside a tiny territory, before humans set the fire...

And did you even have some reflexion about WHAT WOLVES GIFTED WITH MAGIC ( Why ONLY telepathy, hmmmmmm..? ) would DO with such strange abilities? Seems like a source of terrible advantages in such a natural and savage world...

Lunakat wrote:

Timmorn was torn between being elf and wolf- and finally chose to be fully wolf in his mind. He disappeared. He might still be alive- but he was probably half mortal, so he is most likely dead by now.

No OFFICIAL clue on this, but.. I remember a " I meted no such fate " line, in the special issue dedicated to "Egg"...

Lunakat wrote:

Didn't they turn into the Go Backs?

Again : only PARTLY. The fate of the part that decided to follow Two-Spear's warring "madness" is yet UNKNOWN.
And if Two-Spear's blood was "cleansed", as hinted at in some of the related tales... even HE might very well STILL be alive !

Lunakat wrote:

There's some speculation that they might have been Savah's ancestors.

Except I noticed Winnowill's reaction to Leetah's case ( " .. a far less damaged group " ), and... WE, the readers, were NEVER told much about Savah's origins. Which I have always found to be HIGHLY strange and suspicious. To say the least.
And the Sun-Folk had VERY specific arts and crafts, ones that do NOT resemble those of Blue Mountain's inhabitants...

Lunakat wrote:

The outside world that could and did kill him. (...)

Too easy an answer.
We're LED to believe so, but I'm more and more and even more convinced that Winnowill's motives were VERY different, very STRONG, and possibly even... very JUSTIFIED. In very different ways.
Notice how she INSISTED on the CIVILIZED ways of the Gliders...

Voll DID try, once ( " It has begun... Again. " - "Voll dreams his dream of old.. " ).
And he was NOT naive.
He simply ABANDONED the very idea of finding the Palace... and time ( and Winnowill ) did the rest about his dreams.

Lunakat wrote:

". What became of those elves who did NOT follow Voll, all along his millenias of guidance?"
That's an interesting question! There's some speculation that they might have been Savah's ancestors.

Meanwile the "Rebel" against Voll's ways is identified as Yurek in the bois on EQ.com. Should confirm that those whoe left formed the ForestDwellers ... and their last survivors ended up as the founders of Sorrow's End.

PCoquelin wrote:

Lunakat wrote:

I thought the reason the High Ones crashed on the Abode in the first place was ...

.. that those who would far later evolve into trolls decided to mess with the landing process.

Notice that there may very well have been some other untold motives for such an extreme action...

Well, yeah- the trolls made them crash- but the reason they went there in the first place was to look for others of their kind, because in all their travels they had never found another shell and they were curious. They noticed what turned out to be signs of themselves and thought they were signs of their lost kin. So... they must not have had a way to keep in touch with the other pods or that wouldn't have happened.

Unless Timmain was lying at the end of Book 4- but that would be highly unlikely since she was sending this directly to Suntop's head, and you aren't supposed to be able to lie while sending- right?

PCoquelin wrote:

It might also mean MANY other things, among them :

. that EXACT "elfin" form comes literally from... NOWHERE, if you pay attention

It didn't come from nowhere. They were imitating the images of beings they saw the humans carving and painting and otherwise depicting on the planet. They imitated human myth- and it turned out that they inspired that same myth when they crashed in that form in the past.

What Timmain says is that her people never ran across another space pod. I think that was what she meant.

PCoquelin wrote:

. the words that I find to be the ones INSULTING THE MOST our intelligence are : " A new goal : experience ! " :
 those beings ALREADY had an incredibly high level of experience, as a race, and we are presented THAT motive !? TSK..

That's a good point. I got the impression that they were so into "going out" that they were forgetting what physical being was like.. But maybe not?

PCoquelin wrote:

it should be obvious that the Scroll of Colors CANNOT "see the future", considering how landing on a new planet is a terribly delicate moment - almost NO chance that they would NOT have used the Scroll to predict some dire event...

I think you are probably right!

PCoquelin wrote:

...a WOLF sending to an elf ! )

... but most probably ONLY for a PART of the lupine descendants.
Notice the Wolfriders lived for millenias inside a tiny territory, before humans set the fire...

And did you even have some reflexion about WHAT WOLVES GIFTED WITH MAGIC ( Why ONLY telepathy, hmmmmmm..? ) would DO with such strange abilities? Seems like a source of terrible advantages in such a natural and savage world...

Yes! The wolves were probably very successful hunters thanks to their elf blood. Did you read the story about "No Name" in the anthologies? He was a throwback to the Hunt- and he was caught between elf and wolf. He kept trying to shapeshift into an elf, but couldn't. It was very tragic. I think he was like Two Edge- just a little crazy.

It always seemed that the closer the elves or wolves got to being half and half- the more mentally unstable they were.

PCoquelin wrote:

Lunakat wrote:

Timmorn was torn between being elf and wolf- and finally chose to be fully wolf in his mind. He disappeared. He might still be alive- but he was probably half mortal, so he is most likely dead by now.

No OFFICIAL clue on this, but.. I remember a " I meted no such fate " line, in the special issue dedicated to "Egg"...

What does that mean? "I meted no such fate"?

Timmorn's choice was in a story written, I think, by Richard Pini and published in one of the anthologies. Timmain finds him mentally unbalanced and emotionally torn. She gives him the choice to become more solidly wolf or solidly elf. He chooses wolf. She helps him shape in that direction- and the next morning he wakes up fully in the Now, and doesn't remember anything... but he's content and happy. He just trots off.

If the wolfriders only live a finite time because of their minimal wolf blood- and if they couldn't have lived long enough to see the Palace return without help... then Timmorn, who would have been much older and fully half wolf, must be dead since so much time has passed. He would have had an even shorter lifespan than Cutter and the rest.

PCoquelin wrote:

Again : only PARTLY. The fate of the part that decided to follow Two-Spear's warring "madness" is yet UNKNOWN.
And if Two-Spear's blood was "cleansed", as hinted at in some of the related tales... even HE might very well STILL be alive !

I guess he could. I didn't realize that they had split again as a group after splitting from the rest of the Wolfriders.

PCoquelin wrote:

Lunakat wrote:

There's some speculation that they might have been Savah's ancestors.

Except I noticed Winnowill's reaction to Leetah's case ( " .. a far less damaged group " ), and... WE, the readers, were NEVER told much about Savah's origins. Which I have always found to be HIGHLY strange and suspicious. To say the least.
And the Sun-Folk had VERY specific arts and crafts, ones that do NOT resemble those of Blue Mountain's inhabitants...

Savah's origins are pretty well known, aren't they? She was raised in a woods and driven from it by human violence. She crossed the desert with her family and her lifemate, Yurek. Yurek found them water under the rock in Sorrow's End and established the well. They founded the village- and she lived there ever after. Tragically, Yurek died creating the Bridge of Destiny (which must have sucked to have to look at every day, if you are Savah.)

As for their skills and lifestyles being different from the Blue Mountain elves- that makes sense. The SunFolk are many generations removed from Savah's original people. And they live in a desert. Their skills and abilities (weaving, farming, etc) are appropriate to living on a commune in a desert. They adapted to their environment.

The whole point of Blue Mountain, on the other hand, was to protect elves from their environment- so they wouldn't have to adapt- so that they could preserve the ways of the High Ones... as remembered by Voll, who learned about them from his parents. The culture inside Blue Mountain was bound to be different from the cultures and lifestyles of any tribes living outside the mountain.

PCoquelin wrote:

Lunakat wrote:

The outside world that could and did kill him. (...)

Too easy an answer.
We're LED to believe so, but I'm more and more and even more convinced that Winnowill's motives were VERY different, very STRONG, and possibly even... very JUSTIFIED. In very different ways.
Notice how she INSISTED on the CIVILIZED ways of the Gliders...

Voll DID try, once ( " It has begun... Again. " - "Voll dreams his dream of old.. " ).
And he was NOT naive.
He simply ABANDONED the very idea of finding the Palace... and time ( and Winnowill ) did the rest about his dreams.

[/quote]
But he was totally naive- as evidenced by his actions once he "woke up."

Lunakat wrote:

.. Timmorn, who would have been much older and fully half wolf, must be dead since so much time has passed. He would have had an even shorter lifespan than Cutter and the rest.

Except he's Timmain's son. More than probably gifted with shape-changing magic... even if it's not used CONSCIOUSLY.

And what does ANY animal try its best to do, even without conscience intervening?...



The Wolfriders we learned to know and love are accompanied with wolves that are, undoubtedly, descendants of Timmorn...

Tbh, I just think the High Ones weren't very bright.

The High Ones were certainly ageless.  Timmain has probably lived for millions for years, where the Wolfriders only a couple thousand yrs.

With all their vast knowledge, the High Ones were very naïve about many things and mistakes were made.

"Hey, did anyone notice that the little burrowing apes developed sentience?"

"Yeah, we just figured we'd keep using them as slaves and keeping them imprisoned in a limited shell of a world. It's fine!"

"Does anyone want to trade digits before we take off in our separate mini-worlds to explore the cosmos?"

"Naw, there's no possibility we could run into any need to communicate with each other in an infinite universe of possible dangers."

Naive is not the word.

kathleen3.0 wrote:

Naive is not the word.

Agreed. Remember what Winnowill told about some monumental joke the firstcomers had played on themselves ?...

Maybe that's what comes from feeling far more...

I've just had a good time in FB (Elfquest page).
Might illustrate to Wendy's possible attention the BEST she could expect from FB 'discussions'.

But since I reward only curiosity and imagination...

I'm not on FB PC! No fair. Pouts

Kathleen3.0 Those little burrowing apes grew and became Trolls. The High Ones sadly didn't recognized that they were becoming resentful of being used as servants. Or slaves if you want to go that far.

" It's a slave's right to rebel. "