Final Quest #24

[quote="faeriegirl"]Richard said this on FB, wanted to drop it here:

Elfpop wrote:

No, she couldn't have. Think about every time you've seen Leetah do a major healing. When Cutter got gored by the troll spear in the war with the northern trolls. When she healed Shuna (the girl) of her disease. When she healed Shuna (the adult) of the sword wound. These healings all took time - in some cases lots of it - and energy (lots of that too). By the time Leetah had finished healing adult Shuna, she was spent, exhausted. She couldn't have healed a minor bruise at that point. Healing isn't snap-your-fingers magic, and as Wendy has said, Leetah wanted very much to save Cutter, and would have if she could. But she couldn't. Her strength in the moments following Cutter's passing lies in her acceptance of that inescapable truth.

Point taken, though I think for someone who once declared she would fight death as an enemy, some more thoughts/dialog from her on this point (her acceptance, I mean) would do well. After all, people who haven't read the OQ don't know what growth that quiet acceptance means from her.

Also, THAT'S WHAT THE BLASTED PRESERVERS ARE FOR. Dagnabit. Too late by the time Leetah got there but why didn't he let Rayek call for the preservers?

Timmain says something like "You happy Wolfrider, you can be here with me* and anywhere else you like to" when the news of Cutter's death break in. Whatever that's supposed to mean, I don't think Cutter's soul became the unborn child.
Ugh, please no
Timmain giving birth to the reborn splinter of her own soul? Skywise "bro-recognising" Timmain's soul's splinter, but he has to wait until he gets the real deal. Then he can finally shag the vessel of the -almost complete- soul of a his great-great-great granny, fathering the next vessel of his "Gilf"s soul's splinter. Hopefully he doesn't recognise his own daughter, eh?
Timmain is probably just as bad for the story as the palace. Maybe that's the reason why she is so well-loved...
Tim-Tam must be one of the worst story choices in fiction








*Girl, when did he even claim he wants to be with you? Why should he?

Miss Gillespie wrote:

*Girl, when did he even claim he wants to be with you? Why should he?

Timmain's always been a narcissist. She just doesn't bother to hide it like she used to.

Mr. J. Ackass wrote:

No, she couldn't have. Think about every time you've seen Leetah do a major healing. When Cutter got gored by the troll spear in the war with the northern trolls. When she healed Shuna (the girl) of her disease. When she healed Shuna (the adult) of the sword wound. These healings all took time - in some cases lots of it - and energy (lots of that too). By the time Leetah had finished healing adult Shuna, she was spent, exhausted. She couldn't have healed a minor bruise at that point. Healing isn't snap-your-fingers magic, and as Wendy has said, Leetah wanted very much to save Cutter, and would have if she could. But she couldn't. Her strength in the moments following Cutter's passing lies in her acceptance of that inescapable truth.

Good point, Elfpop! And remember cubs...the fact that just before Kings of the Broken Wheel when Leetah simultaneously healed an elf and a FLIPPING HUMAN who were both mortally wounded which took many hours to complete was actually just a dreamberry wine infused gag of Pikes who as we all know, loves a good joke! Especially concerning how skilled she was at healing humans in those days!

The fact that Leetah would be unable to heal that one elf she loved more than life itself after she just healed Shuna is complete poppycock! Again, the fact that she once healed even worse damage to a human and an elf AT THE SAME TIME is again, just dreamberry dust! Like you know...that time she kept trying to heal One-Eye over and over again until she transferred some of her magic to him...it's not like circumstance could push her into a deep reserve of her incredible healing powers!

Argh...this man...so much I could say about him that I've kept to myself for many years...but I will not. I am so done with this comic.

IceTooth wrote:

Mr. J. Ackass wrote:

No, she couldn't have. Think about every time you've seen Leetah do a major healing. When Cutter got gored by the troll spear in the war with the northern trolls. When she healed Shuna (the girl) of her disease. When she healed Shuna (the adult) of the sword wound. These healings all took time - in some cases lots of it - and energy (lots of that too). By the time Leetah had finished healing adult Shuna, she was spent, exhausted. She couldn't have healed a minor bruise at that point. Healing isn't snap-your-fingers magic, and as Wendy has said, Leetah wanted very much to save Cutter, and would have if she could. But she couldn't. Her strength in the moments following Cutter's passing lies in her acceptance of that inescapable truth.

Good point, Elfpop! And remember cubs...the fact that just before Kings of the Broken Wheel when Leetah simultaneously healed an elf and a FLIPPING HUMAN who were both mortally wounded which took many hours to complete was actually just a dreamberry wine infused gag of Pikes who as we all know, loves a good joke! Especially concerning how skilled she was at healing humans in those days!

The fact that Leetah would be unable to heal that one elf she loved more than life itself after she just healed Shuna is complete poppycock! Again, the fact that she once healed even worse damage to a human and an elf AT THE SAME TIME is again, just dreamberry dust! Like you know...that time she kept trying to heal One-Eye over and over again until she transferred some of her magic to him...it's not like circumstance could push her into a deep reserve of her incredible healing powers!

Argh...this man...so much I could say about him that I've kept to myself for many years...but I will not. I am so done with this comic.

Great question! Mind if I ask it on the EQ FB group and see what replies we get?
I'll phrase it: how does Shuna's healing now compare to the healing of Dart&human at the end of Siege? Leetah was a less powerful healer at that point in time I guess, plus now in FQ24 the Palace and Dre-Han add power... I am curious as to why it was possible for her to heal both fatally injured persons in siege but not be able to save her soulmate.
See http://elfquest.com/read/index.php?s=SABM/SABM08&p=22

The speculation that Cutter will be reborn as Timmain and Skywise's child got me thinking. I hope you enjoy the result.

Abode:
Leetah felt her heart slowing and allowed it.

Her breaths became shallower and she allowed it.

Her body was failing and she allowed it.

After many patient years the time had finally come.  The children she had bourn were long grown.  She had dandled on her knee their children and their children's children. The wisdom she had planted in them and in others flourished and enriched the lives of all the scattered elfin peoples, even the ones who lived among the humans.

So much change I've seen, she thought. She had seen it often enough now to recognize this too as part of the process and still she did nothing to stop it.  Now her earliest memories hung before her mind's eye and she drank them in fondly. The colors of the desert in Flood and Flower.   Her mother and father and little sister and their happy days as a young family. Savah, her predecessor as Mother of Memory, and her gentle guidance. Rayek and all the things that had drawn her to him even in the face of her Recognition to another... Which, of course, led her thoughts to Tam.

I am coming. She did not think or whisper or send it as much as will it into being. Tam, I am coming. She let go of her shell. Like a butterfly with wings of light she flew free.

Starhome:
**What do you mean he's not here?!**

for a minute Icetooth, i thought you were being sincere! until i saw what you captioned Richard as for your quote and it made me confused, then i fully read your post...and it made me chuckle.

faeriegirl, if you do post it on facebook, please let us know the responses you get! it often drives me nuts, knowing people try to inject some realism into the facebook page full of rainbows and sunshine, and i've heard the stories of people getting totally stomped over by the rabid bright and shiny fans.


but i'm never able to find this when i look over the facebook page. i've yet to see how truly rabid these fans are.

manga, that was pretty funny.

manga wrote:

I am coming. She did not think or whisper or send it as much as will it into being. Tam, I am coming. She let go of her shell. Like a butterfly with wings of light she flew free.

Starhome:
**What do you mean he's not here?!**

Bee-youtiful!

My phone somehow won’t let me quote.
So let me add some lol’s to manga’s story - beautiful piece of futurequest story! (If all futurequest is now imaginings - this counts as futurequest in my book! XD )

And yes I will wait a day to see if IceTooth replies, otherwise I think I’ll just post it in the FB group and see what happens. Whatever reply I get, I will post it here! In quotes if either of the “Elfparents” replies for sure.

Yes, Leetah healed Dart and Geoki at the end of S@BM, but she wasn't pregnant then. Most people I know IRL who have been pregnant tell me that constant tiredness is the first noticeable symptom of pregnancy.

Yeah but at Siege she didn’t have the Palace near (amplifies her powers), nor did she have Dre-ahn near (which, apparently, also makes healing easier or something).
So I’d think that those things cancel the pregnancy stuff out, at the least.

Is a pregnancy the same for elves as for humans? I don't remember having seen any pregnant elf who complained about it. I do remember we've seen elves in labor and it looked like it was not painful for them at all; they seemed to be having fun.

Basically,Cutter's death and Leetah not being able to heal it sounds like last-minute ass-pull and Richard is defending said ass-pull. Leetah was able to heal Geoki and Dart simultaneously minus the Palace (McGuffin) or Dre-Ahn (bigger McGuffin).

Question has just been posted.

Yes Leetah healed them both simultaneously but it took hours and she collapsed when she was done. It said the dust cloud from the fall of Blue Mountain was settling by the time she was done.

I think they could have done a better job communicating why she couldn't help but the idea that she had already expended herself on Shuna isn't totally out of nowhere.

Why no one called for the Preservers is still another question.

I don't think that elfin or trollish pregnancy is as complicated as human pregnancy. They have no morning sickness,no swollen feet or aching backs nor does labor seem that difficult or hazardous for them. Plus their milk seems to flow freely without any problem. No-one seems to be in any danger of bleeding out or hemorrhaging and miscarriages don't occur. If only pregnancy were that simple in real life.

I'd like to point out we did have an elf die from bleeding out due to birth with Eyes-high. Though this does seem to be a singular case...

Oh wait! Reanafel's mom died from birth as well. Just remembered that.

With Eyes -High,her bleeding out appears to be from holding back the childbirth for hours and I dunno if the Old Wavedancers are canon or not. Both instances are treated as anomalies rather than the norm.

The original Wavedancers have been written out as a crazy dream of The Broken One.

Don’t remember if this has been posted here before or not.
Anyway Wendy posted a week ago this message in the EQ FB group re: not healing Cutter.

"Since the speculation has come up multiple times: This is just Richard's and my POV. If you guys want to interpret it differently, your POV is just as valid as ours. The way Richard and I planned it, Leetah (already exhausted from healing Shuna) really was trying to get to Cutter in time to heal him. She would've if she could've. If you look at how the death scene plays out, everything's right in the moment. He passes the instant her arms go around him. There's no element of Leetah thinking about his choice (we would've addressed that if it was our intention for the story). But all of you are correct that Leetah's personal story arc of learning to accept death as a natural part of life, even if it comes out of the blue, enables her to bear the sudden and totally unexpected loss of her beloved lifemate without blaming herself."

Doesn’t really address the question of her exhaustion nor why Cutter thought she couldn’t be disturbed though.

Nor why they couldn’t call in the preservers.

Stargazer wrote:

Nor why they couldn’t call in the preservers.

Exactly.

 The answer is always going to be defended in some fim-flam way to defend how it was done.

Sloppy.

Half-assed.

Rushed

Period.

Which is WHY Cutter's death, and the scene itself, is so infuriating.

His ending deserved better. FAR MUCH better. Whether anyone is a Cutter fan or not, I think we can all agree to that much.

i think my boyfriend would disagree...he hates Cutter with a passion for reasons he won't explain to me very clearly, and when i told him Cutter was dead, he began laughing a bit maniacally and i quote yelled "the fucker's dead!"

...made me chuckle though. my boyfriend is only rudimentally into elfquest...he tends to remember Winnowill as "that glider bitch", and Leetah as "cutter's wife". it's actually kinda funny..XD but he was sympathetic to my rage over the ending of Elfquest. he just kept laughing at the fact Cutter died, but did admit his cause of death was pretty lousy.

he also to called Dre-ahn "the plot power device" or some trope like that.

also HA. i say HA to Wendy's facebook post. of course NOW it's okay for the fans to see the story they want, cause they're seeing it the way the pini's want.-_- gimme a break...Richard didn't consider the fans views valid over the "paler sunfolk" debacle on SoC.

Sifra wrote:

Is a pregnancy the same for elves as for humans? I don't remember having seen any pregnant elf who complained about it. I do remember we've seen elves in labor and it looked like it was not painful for them at all; they seemed to be having fun.

On top of that, with Leetah being a healer, any discomfort or complications she might be having would be dealt with easily. If she could quickly heal a broken femur while being stared at by an unknown human (in KotBW), a bout of fatigue or morning sickness ought to be negligible. Toorah certainly seemed to benefit while carrying Leetah.

Speaking of KotBW-- remember how, when she realized Cutter was holding her, she 1) healed him 2) basically brought herself back from the brink, and 3) healed critically-wounded Zhantee, who wasn't even in contact with her at the time? (= the one time she healed someone she wasn't physically touching, IIRC) Sure, the MacGuffin Palace was hovering nearby, but it does seem like an elf has to be in or near it for a little bit before s/he can draw on its power. Besides, if she could rock an epic heal-fest like that once, why was that suddenly not a possibility when said lifemate really was dying?

Edit: *snort* Like Prism said: ass-pull. W&R have done that so many times in FQ, I bet they have to bow their heads to fart at this point.