Bad Moments from Favourite Characters

Sometimes even your favourite characters does or says things that makes you go "Seriously? That was not okay!"

I'll give some examples of moments that made me feel that way:

Nighfall's behavious towards Rayek in HY8. Okay, I get it that you're mad at him for what he did to Cutter, but he is trying to make ammends. Bit awkwardly and clumsy, yes, but he's trying. He made a catch and want to share it with you, no need to treat is as spoiled meat.
Of course you could argue that she's simply showing him that "You're not getting off the hook that easily, it'll take time for us to forgive you." But it just seemed like she wasn't even going to let him apologise.

Ember's attitude towards/about humans in vol. 1 of Final Quest (issues 1-6). First her reluctance to even letting Khorbasi rescue anyone, then her initial hostile reaction towards seeing the human cubs.
But at least it seems she warmed towards them afterwards, what with learning Tingeh's name rather quickly, and not making any comments about Khorbasi's inability to count.

Awesome idea for a thread, Redhead Ember !

I remember that scene in HY8 with Nightfall and Rayek after he made that kill, I was peeved at Nightfall too. While she's always been one of the most protective ones toward Cutter, I thought her attitude in that snippet was unnecessarily mean.

There's also the scene in HY (forgot which number off the top of my head) where Leetah is talking about recognition to Ember and Pike is right there and she's all, Only recognition makes a cub truly special (I'm paraphrasing). She sort of backtracks and tries to say Pike is special too etc., but it felt a bit ... well, cruel. Leetah used to be one of my favorite characters too, so my mouth kind of hung open at how it 'sounded' when she said it. I know what she 'meant' but jeez. It didn't sound very graceful!

And Cutter is also one of my faves, and there was the scene in KotBW in the palace where Rayek was freaking out about getting everyone in there and being very adamant about 'setting right the great wrong' (before essentially kidnapping Cutter's family and Trinket). Rayek says, What are we immortals supposed to do? And Cutter says, Go crazy, it seems.
I thought that was sort of uncalled for....Cutter sounded like he was contemptuous of immortals (hey dude, your lifemate's immortal too, remember?). I realize he was angry at Rayek and with good reason. It just sounded kinda bad though :/

Well the first that comes to mind is Kahvi's opinion on Teir compared to her female offspring. Up to that point, I had thought Kahvi is a feminist, an advocate of strong womanhood, a role-model... but with that judgement, that Teir was not good enough because he was a boy, Kahvi stopped being a feminist and became simply a man-hater. Assuming one gender is better than another is not feminism. I was really dissappointed with this.

Note that I'm not saying Kahvi should have raised Teir as her own. The way she was behaving, having him adopted by others was probably best for all concerned.

Rayek's worst moment is kinda screamingly obvious, so I won't mention it. Though I do wonder how I would have felt had I been following the comic at the time, instead of reading the collected GN later.

A bad moment that comes to mind is when he decked the Go-Back girl back at the beginning of "Siege at Blue Mountain." I understand the stress he was under just then but that was just vicious and unnecessary.

There's also the "I won't be parted from Winnowill" moment in FQ but frankly, that whole scene is just so weird and then it's laughed off. I just can't buy it at all.

Zadzi wrote:

There's also the scene in HY (forgot which number off the top of my head) where Leetah is talking about recognition to Ember and Pike is right there and she's all, Only recognition makes a cub truly special (I'm paraphrasing). She sort of backtracks and tries to say Pike is special too etc., but it felt a bit ... well, cruel. Leetah used to be one of my favorite characters too, so my mouth kind of hung open at how it 'sounded' when she said it. I know what she 'meant' but jeez. It didn't sound very graceful!

Don't get me started on THAT scene! Considering that Tyleet is just as "non-Recognition" as Pike, Ember was being pretty tactless even bringing up Pike in the context of "non-Recognized" cubs. Not that tact has ever been her strong suit.

Speaking of Ember - my "favorite" bad moment for her: BOTH times she blithely advocated a life for Teir without his animal bonding. I could *almost* forgive her in HY when she basically makes him choose between exile and his powers (although she should have revoked her edict the MOMENT the Palace appeared, instead of just letting Teir walk off). But in Wild Hunt when she threatened to have Mender burn out Teir's powers and drive him off? That was Bearclaw-level of evil, right there!

Let's not forget Skywise's declaration that all elves should embrace immortality and come live in the Palace. He said it when he was deliriously happy, so I'm guessing he meant well, but a lot of people commented he sounded kinda like Winnowill. I can't say I really disagree.

Yeah, Ember's had some choice moments, hasn't she . That thing with Tier was really messed up. She was also playing both Mender and Tier off each other during Wildhunt in a few scenes. When they all had to huddle in with the trolls for a while so they wouldn't be caught and went hunting (Flam, Mender, Tier, Mender), and Ember basically tells Tier that maybe his balls aren't as big as Mender's.
http://elfquest.com/read/index.php?s=WH&p=268

wingthing wrote:

Speaking of Ember - my "favorite" bad moment for her: BOTH times she blithely advocated a life for Teir without his animal bonding. I could *almost* forgive her in HY when she basically makes him choose between exile and his powers (although she should have revoked her edict the MOMENT the Palace appeared, instead of just letting Teir walk off).

For me the worst part with that whole thing was not so much making Teir make that horrible choice. Sure, it was a terrible thing to do, but at least she was knew it and was feeling horrible about it. No, for me the worst part is the fact that they'd even ended up in that situation in the first place. As Teir himself put it; "You could have chosen to use Leetah's powers from the beginning!" Not only would that have saved Teir from having to make that choice, and saved Ember herself from forcing him to make that choice, but Dewshine almost died because of it.
But of course, it seems Ember's early stint as a chieftess - during HY - was pretty much marked by her flashing between coming up with some brilliant ideas, and being completely unable to think...

Yeah-- ember was not the best leader. Average at best.

To be fair, Ember was 16. They never should have made her leader at the time anyway. They should have picked someone to be chief (or had a council!) while Ember studied under them or something.

Back on topic - How about that moment in the Original Quest when Strongbow said "To the human's cookfires with what she wants. I say he should just take her!" I know Wendy has tried to downplay it but how is that anything but rape?

Suppose Cutter's reasoning was something akind to "I wasn't much older when I became chief, and I managed."
And now I'm imagining Ember attending Chief's School, makes me wonder who would teach what subjects.

Ember's never been a truly great leader, but I loved seeing her trials and tribulations and growth in HY and Wildhunt. I think Cutter's a tough act to follow as Chief, period.
Scouter was such an asshole though when he tried to take over! That whole storyline reeked of Two Spear / Skyfire parallels (maybe a bit too heavily).

manga wrote:

Back on topic - How about that moment in the Original Quest when Strongbow said "To the human's cookfires with what she wants. I say he should just take her!"  I know Wendy has tried to downplay it but how is that anything but rape?

Yeah, that was a bit rapey wasn't it. Good thing Strongbow wasn't the one recognizing. Rayek would probably be dead and Leetah raped, the village ransacked several times over, etc.

Zadzi wrote:

Yeah, that was a bit rapey wasn't it. Good thing Strongbow wasn't the one recognizing. Rayek would probably be dead and Leetah raped, the village ransacked several times over, etc.

Oh, Strongbow could try...

No, Leetah would not have been raped. Remember what she did to Rayek the time he tried to?

Strongbow would have been, um unmanned. And Rayek would probably have blasted him as well.

Worst moments?

When Scouter and the entire tribe left Ember bleeding in the snow.

When Mender played games with human girls' lives and futures merely for an experiment.

When after the War for the Palace everyone just left Two-Edge standing there with his feet encased in rock.

When Kahvi told Rayek the child wasn't his and that it was dead.

When Timmain invaded the soul of an elf just being conceived and replaced it with her own.

Others have already been mentioned here.

Yes she would be.

KR Wordgazer wrote:

And Rayek would probably have blasted him as well.

You mean he'd make a orange float and pelted him with it?

Shadowpath wrote:

Yes she would be.

KR Wordgazer wrote:

And Rayek would probably have blasted him as well.

You mean he'd make a orange float and pelted him with it?

Is that what a "blast" is nowadays?

Why do you think anyone would have been able to rape Leetah, when she could pain-send?

I don't see Leetah as even possibly getting raped considering how Rayek would've probably killed Strongbow (hypnotizing him, staging him). I don't think Leetah even attempted self protection along the not-so-nice measures until she met Winnowill and later in KoTBW .
But I'm sure she was always capable of it.

KR Wordgazer wrote:

No, Leetah would not have been raped. Remember what she did to Rayek the time he tried to?

Um, say what now? That never happened. The only scene I can think of that is close is from HY#9 and they were in the middle of consensual sharing. He pushed for more - my impression was always that it was some low-level sending made possible by Leetah's magic - and Leetah ran away. She didn't have to zap him to get away and he didn't chase her (in the literal sense).

Zadzi wrote:

I don't see Leetah as even possibly getting raped considering how Rayek would've probably killed Strongbow (hypnotizing him, staging him). I don't think Leetah even attempted self protection along the not-so-nice measures until she met Winnowill and later in KoTBW .
But I'm sure she was always capable of it.  

Actually, Rayek's reminiscences of his childhood and early adult life include an attempt by him to get more from Leetah sexually than she wanted to give (which I think is a form of rape too)-- and that, as far as we know, was her first use of pain-sending. But it happened LONG before the Wolfriders ever showed up!

Edited after reading Manga's post-- maybe I'm remembering it wrong. But I agree that Leetah always could pain-send.  She just never did it before she had reason to. Maybe she didn't KNOW she could-- but an attempt by anyone to "just take her" would have caused her to figure out her powers in a hurry!

KR Wordgazer wrote:

Is that what a "blast" is nowadays?

*Shrugs* Considering his 'I can lift fruits and small boars, I'm amazing'- skill back then.

KR Wordgazer wrote:

Why do you think anyone would have been able to rape Leetah, when she could pain-send?

Could she do that back then?
She didn't display that much of defensive skill when Cutter abducted her. She what, bit him?
Even if she could do that back then, Strongbow could just have beaten her.

[quote="Shadowpath"]

KR Wordgazer wrote:

Is that what a "blast" is nowadays?

Well, ok, maybe he would have thrown a spear at him, then.

As far as Leetah and rape is concerned, see my comment above. Rape is different from just being abducted. Leetah would have found out she could pain-send.

I think that sexual scene in HY was when Leetah was doing 'initiation' to try and possibly get recognition going, and then she and Rayek were having sex and he was pushing for recognition... it didn't really seem sexual so much as mentally pushing himself into her head to force recognition while they were entwined. I never viewed it as rape...she ended up running off because 'recognition seemed too much' and was like blind instinct and a loss of control.
There's the control thing again! Healers are such freakin' control freaks

Here's a question: Could Rayek even have forced Recognition on Leetah? Wouldn't she have had greater chance of forcing it on him? She's the one with the ability to induce Recognition.
I honestly never read that scene as if he was trying to force Recognition, just that he wished for it very strongly and that in itself freaked her out. Let's face it; while he went too far by becoming possessive I'd say it's pretty clear that he was a lot more committed to the relationship than she was, just look at her behaviour right before the Wolfriders attacked; he practically proposed and she just treated it like some kind of game. In fact I guess you could argue that it was a pretty bad moment on her part, why not simply tell him that "Hey, Rayek. I just don't know."?

Redhead Ember wrote:

Here's a question: Could Rayek even have forced Recognition on Leetah? Wouldn't she have had greater chance of forcing it on him? She's the one with the ability to induce Recognition.
I honestly never read that scene as if he was trying to force Recognition, just that he wished for it very strongly and that in itself freaked her out. Let's face it; while he went too far by becoming possessive I'd say it's pretty clear that he was a lot more committed to the relationship than she was, just look at her behaviour right before the Wolfriders attacked; he practically proposed and she just treated it like some kind of game. In fact I guess you could argue that it was a pretty bad moment on her part, why not simply tell him that "Hey, Rayek. I just don't know."?

Yes, yes and yes to this. This is the way I have read that scene too and Leetah's "dangling" of Rayek for so long has been my least favorite aspect of her character.