Bad Moments from Favourite Characters

It's nice to see moonshade doing something different, but it wasn't built organically at all. She just took a sudden 180 turn.

kathleen3.0 wrote:

It's nice to see moonshade doing something different, but it wasn't built organically at all. She just took a sudden 180 turn.

That's absolutely true.
I kinda excuse it with her suddenly realizing she suddenly has...options.

i liked the route Moonshade went with but i can agree it was a bit...abrupt. but i LOVED that panel when newly immortal Moonshade is revealed! it just seemed like her eyes were...different. and it was the gorgeous Moonshade i fell in love with in OQ.

also Shadowpath if you are adopting the Cutter/Newstar ship, i demand what if babies! we need some what if blood of chiefs up in here! in seriousness though i think i'm going to start a new thread for suggesting crackpairing ideas and discussing them.

Vaeri wrote:

also Shadowpath if you are adopting the Cutter/Newstar ship, i demand what if babies! we need some what if blood of chiefs up in here! in seriousness though i think i'm going to start a new thread for suggesting crackpairing ideas and discussing them.

*In an overly dramatic Knight voice*
COME MY SKETCH BOOKS! WE HAVE 'WHAT IF CHILDREN' FROM CRACK PAIRINGS TO DRAW!

I actually don't think it was presented as sudden at all. There was a lot of build up to it in the Prologue. I liked Moonshade's transition- because I related to it. I'm definitely older than Kathleen- and I think I'm older than Shadowpath. I've hit that point in life when the things that seemed most important to you- your career, your lifestyle, the people you know-- suddenly lose meaning. And you have to find it again.

That's what happened with Moonshade. For me, the key moment in explaining what she was going through happened during her conversation with Chitter. Chitter asked why it was important to do things well, and if she loved what she did. Moonshade said "I used to." That summed it up for me. It really wasn't important to her to weave or do any of the things she was doing. It was just habit. And she was tired. And the world was a violent place- and she had just seen too many bad things. One more confirmed for her that it just wasn't worth it anymore-- not when there was an alternative.

This is a transition that happens to people. It doesn't happen when you are young.

Edit: I'm like 29.

Lunakat wrote:

 I've hit that point in life when the things that seemed most important to you- your career, your lifestyle, the people you know-- suddenly lose meaning. And you have to find it again.

That's what happened with Moonshade. For me, the key moment in explaining what she was going through happened during her conversation with Chitter. Chitter asked why it was important to do things well, and if she loved what she did. Moonshade said "I used to." That summed it up for me. It really wasn't important to her to weave or do any of the things she was doing. It was just habit. And she was tired. And the world was a violent place- and she had just seen too many bad things. One more confirmed for her that it just wasn't worth it anymore-- not when there was an alternative.

THAT! THAT! That's what I've been thinking for forever when it comes to Moonshade.

I'm thirty-one, I'm not a baby!

And I still say it's too abrupt. I've seen people go through these transitions, there's usually some kind of build up. Even if you don't see it yourselves, those around you see it. I'm not asking for much, just if they were going to do that shift, they should have spent more time on her disenchantment in the holt first.

Honestly, most of the time, when I'm appalled by a character's behaviour, I'm actually appalled by the writing. Like, even Rayek's decision to attempt genocide via time travel wasn't really horrifying to me personally, because it made sense based on the story(the story, to this day, sort of makes me snort.)

Most of the time, the character's decisions make sense in terms of the story and when they don't, it's because someone snorted the white powder before they started typing.

Honestly, I don't think Moonshade's change was that sudden and random.

She was clearly upset about something as far back as during Shukopek's birth.

Then the 20+ year timeskip happened - during which she, in the scene with Chitter and the bird, again seemed upset - and after the timeskip Ruffel died, which seems to have been the final straw for her.

Between the Special and issue1 of Final Quest there must have been another timeskip of around 20 years. My guess is that during that period she gradually began spending more and more time in the Palace, and less and less time in the Holt. When Strongbow went to talk to her in the beginning of issue3 he did say "You have been hiding in the Palace more and more." not "You haven't left the Palace since Ruffel died."
Then when the Palace moved away to (become) Blue Mountain she went with it, but at least once returned to the Holt for a "spring break" with Strongbow.

Finally, after the 10-year timeskip of issue10, she had Leetah cleanse her wolfblood.

I always thought Strongbow came off as an ungrateful jackass at the start of OQ...9,I think it was.

Luna, how old are ya? I'm now picturing a cat with greying muzzle meowing at the internet.

I'm probably older than all of you, and I do abrupt changes constantly (leaving marriages, countries, and situations) and if I consider it abrupt, it's freakin' abrupt. We know she was frustrated and saddened. Going to the palace seemed like a time-out or a retreat and I always saw it as her hiding there until she figured out what she wanted. We never got what the hell she was doing there. Maybe she was communing with the dead.
You lose your passion for what you love, you find something else. Or you don't. Moonshade was somewhere in-between and that's the problem. She wasn't passionate about being a tanner anymore but she also never expressed real passion about being in the palace either. None of us know what she was doing in there besides sitting around in the palace, wearing a pretty dress. She drops what she was once defined by in the tribe (tanner) to go hang out in the palace but we don't know what she's doing. Then again, we never really get to see what anyone is really 'doing' in the palace, besides a couple of key characters. Mostly it's standing around in a circle. Fine. Okay. But if you're going to take such a major character and make her transition into something so different, show us - don't just tell us - WHAT her quality of life is like, what is making her happy now? It just screams as an unresolved character crisis as it's written now. I mean it still reads that way. Just because she shows up in a couple of scenes with others in the palace doesn't resolve anything. She's become background noise in the story, essentially, which is sad. I mean, really, where is she with all of this Cutter stuff going on? Is she so removed now that she cannot even sense the real pain in the tribe? In her former chief? Come on.

How do we know that Moonshade completely gave up the tanning?
Sure, for a time she got tired of it, but maybe by striking up a (new) friendship with Ahnshen she refound her passion, perhaps by starting to use preserver silk in her work. Just as much as I love her preserver silk dress, I love her leather clothes with preserver silk sleeves she wore in issue 10 and 11.

As for what she's doing. She's learning how to read the Scroll, she's spending time with Crescent, she's having monthly spa-days with the other girls. Okay... that last one was my own invention...
Her spending time with Crescent actually leads me to one of Strongbow's bad moments. In issue3, during there talk when goes "Neglecting your living, breathing daughter!"
Yeah... you know; Your living, breathing, adult daughter. Freetouch very likely is older now than Crescent ever was. She doesn't need her mother.

Besides, maybe she couldn't fully transition towards here new life before she'd given up her wolfblood. Problem is; she spent way too long waiting, hoping that eventually Strongbow would change. While he was hoping that she would come "back around".

And let's be honest, if Freetouch needed or wanted her mother right now, she would have asked. And hell, in a few panels later Freetouch is saying that her mother just has to do whatever makes her happy. Moonshade would do anything for her daughter.

And also- consider that the build up to thi in story time was something like forty years-- right?

Redhead Ember wrote:

Her spending time with Crescent actually leads me to one of Strongbow's bad moments. In issue3, during there talk when goes "Neglecting your living, breathing daughter!"

Oh ouch.
I think I'm going to make a post that collects 'Strongbow being as ass'.

I can't help but think Moonshade has kinda...cut her ties to the wolfriders, in more ways than one. Whatever is happening to them, happens to them. Cutter has plenty of people to go look for him.
She's has her own problems, and now she has time to figure them out. I...think she's allowed to do that.

Strongbow's kinda sorta acts like she's no longer there anyway. (At least that's what I got from the comics? Might just be me?)

We don't know anything for sure about what Moonshade is doing. All that's being thrown out here is guesses. Guesses are fine for minor characters - not so good for major characters. She's been leading up to change for years now, true, but her arc stopped back in the beginning of FQ as far as I'm concerned, when she was dissatisfied with everything. Her move to the palace just reads to me as another plot device. Oh she's unhappy? Move her to the palace. It doesn't come off as organic or seamless at all, even with her changing essentially in some way internally. It's like she's having a midlife crisis or something. Which is believable. But it's not like she had any passion burning inside her and moved toward it. She gave up and went to the palace. She gave up - resigned. Seeing her walking away after Ruffel's death toward the palace was an act of resignation, not of joy. She turned to that place because she didn't know where else to go. So, see, this is why I have a problem with it. Then she is trying to get Strongbow in there. Well, fine, make a better case than how awesome the lighting is there, Moonshade. Because living in the palace just seems to goddamn boring. And that's the other part of the problem.

And yes, Strongbow was a jackass. He's always been a jackass whenever there's any kind of change. It's just how he is, doesn't make it okay, of course, but it's not completely out of character for him to be this unyielding.

Also, even though Moonshade does seem to have cut off her relationship with the wolfriders, I feel like there's something off about it. When Leetah removed her wolf blood and Strongbow flipped his lid, Leetah went, She's still Moonshade. But see, she's really not, not anymore. She's not having a relationship with her tribe anymore. Sure, her name is Moonshade, but she's just become another faceless palace elf with flowing pretty dresses. There's no meat to her anymore, nothing substantial. And all it took was one act of resignation to make her this way. I tell you, getting older makes you have these transitions, true, it makes you get tired. But choosing to live in this place because you're tired is like taking up residency in a spa. You're supposed to get rejuvenated at some point. You're now immortal so at least tell us what you're doing in the palace now, Moonshade. Are you painting Savah's toenails a sparkly Palace Pink? Are you offering free massages to the dead? Are you reapplying palace glue to Timmain's 'tenderest parts' and making sure her hair continues to strategically stick there? ...What exactly is going on with her? No one knows for sure. That, ladies and gentlemen, is my main problem with Moonshade's transition. She used to piss me off and then she became one of my very favorite characters. I am so upset she's been tossed aside into a faceless pile of clone elves.

Zadzi wrote:

And yes, Strongbow was a jackass. He's always been a jackass whenever there's any kind of change. It's just how he is, doesn't make it okay, of course, but it's not completely out of character for him to be this unyielding.

Marry me.

She says what she's been doing. Right there in the beginning of issue3.

First, when she came to greet Strongbow, she told him she'd been in the Scroll Chamber, looking at Timmain turning the Scroll.
Then, during their talk, she told him that she has been learning things, among them how to be closer to Crescent's spirit.
We'll never know exactly what else she's been learning, because Strongbow decided to be an ass, but I'd say it's safe to assume she's been spending some time looking at the Scroll. Why else would Windkin come to her? Sure, it was because he couldn't relate to the Sunfolk anymore, but he must've had at least some belief that she could actually help him with his question.
Not only that, when they're in the Scroll Chamber she's the one to reveal the thing about the Palace's aura. She's the one to tell Windkin to send his feelings out so Kahvi.
So basically she became a Timmain Translator.

Startear wrote:

Marry me.

We shall exchange vows at the holt and bring back Cutter

Redhead Ember wrote:

She says what she's been doing. Right there in the beginning of issue3.

Yeah, yeah, she SAYS. I'm tired of the saying and not the showing. That's my point. It's a MAJOR life transition, isn't it worth a few scenes of her actually DOING? Like how awesome would it be, to get a couple of panels of Moonshade reading the scrolls? That's some important character development right there. It would be impressive to *SEE*. To see her processing all that info, etc.

But what's happening to Moonshade and Strongbow isn't really important to the overall story. It's just a small Family - or Couple - Drama in the midst of the main story.
Sure, it could be interesting to see more of what she's been up to, but we don't need to see.

It's important. She's major character. She and Strongbow represent something major - therefor it's important to show. It's not just a 'couple drama' - like I said before, they represent something solid and firm and rooted. To write their breakup is commentary on something else in the story arc. It's not just about it being 'interesting' to see what she's doing. It's a lot more, it's commitment to a major character and showing her reading the scrolls or whatever else would at least SHOW why the palace is so damn appealing to her. To anyone, really. I mean it's like the Ritz Calrton for the elves. So of course it's awesome. But when your wife who always loves camping just is like, I'm sick of this crap! I'm wanna stay at the Ritz Carlton! You can't blame her for it. But you'd wonder why the hell she's like, living there. She never said she wanted to stay at a 5 star hotel before. Jeez.

And I'm sorry you don't agree *shrug*. This is just how I see it.

Zadzi wrote:

We don't know anything for sure about what Moonshade is doing. All that's being thrown out here is guesses. Guesses are fine for minor characters - not so good for major characters.

This, I agree with. But it is consistent with how all the major characters are interacting with the Palace. We don't really see them do anything there. Part of that might be that their interactions with the palace all take place on a magical plane that is very internal. But we did see Sunstream and Winnowil interacting on that level. When Savah "went out" though-- we mostly saw her just sitting in a chair and glowing. Maybe it's challenging to really depict something like that visually. What would Wendy show Moonshade doing, besides sitting down with her eyes closed? But I get what you are saying-- and I do think that there should be some creative ways to get around that, with a bit of trying.

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She's been leading up to change for years now, true, but her arc stopped back in the beginning of FQ as far as I'm concerned, when she was dissatisfied with everything.

I disagree. It think she has changed a lot since then-- and it has been depicted over a span of time.

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Her move to the palace just reads to me as another plot device. Oh she's unhappy? Move her to the palace. It doesn't come off as organic or seamless at all, even with her changing essentially in some way internally. It's like she's having a midlife crisis or something.

That's exactly how I read it. She's having the equivalent of a midlife crisis.

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Which is believable. But it's not like she had any passion burning inside her and moved toward it. She gave up and went to the palace. She gave up - resigned. Seeing her walking away after Ruffel's death toward the palace was an act of resignation, not of joy.

I see what you are saying. I can totally see how you would read it that way-- and in some ways I agree. But overall, I read it differently. Firstly, I don't think there was any joy to be found in Ruffel's death (well, obviously)-- but beyond that, Moonshade just wasn't finding joy in life anymore. That was the whole point. She didn't turn to the Palace for the same reasons, say, Skywise did... but that's okay. People take different paths in life for different reasons. And I think part of the reason that this character arc is included in the story is to show that decisions are complicated.

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She turned to that place because she didn't know where else to go. So, see, this is why I have a problem with it.

But that was exactly the point. She had lived her whole life according to "the Way"-- because it was what she grew up with and all she had known for most of her life. And she lived by what Strongbow wanted and needed. But it wasn't enough for her anymore. The Palace had offered her something in previous stories-- it had offered her a chance to talk to her dead daughter. I had the impression that Moonshade was just tired of all the death and danger that they lived with in sticking to their old way of life-- and it didn't feel worth it anymore to her. Because there was an alternative. They didn't have to keep struggling like this-- so why were they doing it? She really was just turning away and hoping for something better-- trying to find some alternative way to live-- and that was the only alternative.

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Then she is trying to get Strongbow in there. Well, fine, make a better case than how awesome the lighting is there, Moonshade. Because living in the palace just seems to goddamn boring. And that's the other part of the problem.

That we are seeing the Palace, basically, from Strongbow and Cutter's point of view-- so how can we like it?

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And yes, Strongbow was a jackass. He's always been a jackass whenever there's any kind of change. It's just how he is, doesn't make it okay, of course, but it's not completely out of character for him to be this unyielding.

You are right- it's perfectly in character for him. Because that's what he represents-- tradition and unwavering loyalty to tradition.

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Also, even though Moonshade does seem to have cut off her relationship with the wolfriders, I feel like there's something off about it. When Leetah removed her wolf blood and Strongbow flipped his lid, Leetah went, She's still Moonshade. But see, she's really not, not anymore. She's not having a relationship with her tribe anymore.

I disagree. She is still Moonshade. She has just changed. So she's not the same person she used to be... but she's still herself. People are allowed to change in life. Everyone does it. Strongbow was resistant to the idea that she had fundamentally changed. But Leetah is still right. She still is Moonshade. She's just different now. Allowing people to change is healthy. Refusing to allow that is not. She was still continuing to try to have a relationship with him-- but he wouldn't meet her half way. He wouldn't even try to understand the world she wanted to move into or give it a chance.

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Sure, her name is Moonshade, but she's just become another faceless palace elf with flowing pretty dresses. There's no meat to her anymore, nothing substantial. And all it took was one act of resignation to make her this way. I tell you, getting older makes you have these transitions, true, it makes you get tired. But choosing to live in this place because you're tired is like taking up residency in a spa. You're supposed to get rejuvenated at some point. You're now immortal so at least tell us what you're doing in the palace now, Moonshade. Are you painting Savah's toenails a sparkly Palace Pink? Are you offering free massages to the dead? Are you reapplying palace glue to Timmain's 'tenderest parts' and making sure her hair continues to strategically stick there? ...What exactly is going on with her? No one knows for sure. That, ladies and gentlemen, is my main problem with Moonshade's transition. She used to piss me off and then she became one of my very favorite characters. I am so upset she's been tossed aside into a faceless pile of clone elves.

I think you are making a fairly abrupt judgement here. We haven't seen much of what her life in the Palace is like-- as you pointed out. But we also have only had a few issues of her character living there. Versus entire graphic novels in which she is not living there. It doesn't mean we won't. The story just isn't centered around life in the Palace at this point- and Moonshade isn't the main character. She's an important secondary character who has alway existed to represent an idea and make a point.

Zadzi wrote:

It's important. She's major character. She and Strongbow represent something major - therefor it's important to show. It's not just a 'couple drama' - like I said before, they represent something solid and firm and rooted. To write their breakup is commentary on something else in the story arc. It's not just about it being 'interesting' to see what she's doing. It's a lot more, it's commitment to a major character and showing her reading the scrolls or whatever else would at least SHOW why the palace is so damn appealing to her.

But that's just it. They do represent something major-- and it is being shown. What's important about them isn't what she's doing in the Palace or why she finds it interesting. That would just be side detail-- important to her character maybe, but not to the point of them. They represent the concept of a transition. They have always stood by tradition and conservative Wolfrider values. They are the old way of doing things. Strongbow does not waver from that. But the world doesn't stay the same. Times change. The benefit of that firm rooting in tradition is the connection to the past and stability. But the crisis that can arise (and did arise for Strongbow at the end of Final Quest-- when he almost died rather than process his shift in understanding of the world and his place in it) -- is that the individual and the culture cannot accept change and evolve.

Moonshade has always been the traditional "stand by your man" kind of woman. She defers to Strongbow-- chooses Strongbow over her tribe (even when she thinks he's wrong)-- is united completely with him. Even her criticism of Leetah in Book 2 ("Your place is by your lifemate's side") affirm this. But now she is changing. She is recognizing, acknowledging and expressing her own needs and desires independent of him. And she isn't asking his permission to do it.

Of course this is going to be traumatic for him. That's the whole point. That the changes in the world around him have now invaded his closest, personal relationship. First his son-- now his wife.

This is a common trope. It very overtly reflects how many men in the 60s felt when their wives and daughters chose to go to college, have careers outside the home and/or social circles-- and began to vocally express their own views and beliefs, without asking permission of the man of the house. It's a huge adjustment for someone who is comfortable with how things have traditionally been-- to have to change his entire world view. But it happened across this country-- and it is happening to Strongbow.

It's basically the same phenomenon as illustrated by Midge leaving Bob in That 70s Show. I keep thinking about his moment of outrage when he realizes she hasn't cooked him dinner but is instead going out to interact with her feminist book club or college class or something. Same concept.

Eh, I mean, I feel bad for Strongbow and all, but not terribly. Like I feel bad for him because he's so stubborn and resistant. And it's not like I have a problem with Moonshade changing or anything. One of my favorite moments is when she was freaking out in HY when Ember was new chief. I loved seeing Moonshhade flip her lid. I am totally with you in terms of what Strongbow and she represent - tradition, etc.. My point is, if you're going to have their drama be so ongoing (as it was), then why not give the reader a glimpse into what she's doing? It's just bothering me so much that I'm not seeing WHAT she's doing and not only that, but who she talks to, etc.. Those would have been better scenes to me than her showing up every now and then to spend time with Strongbow.... I'm just stuck on this because it's one of my favorite characters and I feel she's gotten a bit of a weird treatment. On the one handed, she's been 'liberated' - yet on the other, I'd like to see the how and what of it, and it's been fairly nebulous.

Anyway, I do hope we see something with her in the future, doing her....thing.
I have a weird feeling that Strongbow is going to die, I don't know why. I know there've been scenes of a Strongbow-like character in Futurequest or whatever it's called, but I am not even sure it's him, really.