Wendy Pini Hints At More Elfquest to Come

It was Kimo himself who uttered that line. Telling his tribemates that "Now's my time."
As for no mourning shown, we saw Tyleet, Dewshine, and Freetouch mourn over his body at the Father Tree, then everything went crazy. They had no time to mourn properly before the Father Tree blew up, Shuna was stabbed, and Cutter died.
Afterwards we definitely saw them mourn, at the "Farewell Ceremony" for Cutter there was loads of mourning.

Redhead Ember wrote:

As for no mourning shown, we saw Tyleet, Dewshine, and Freetouch mourn over his body at the Father Tree, then everything went crazy. They had no time to mourn properly ...

That's exactly the problem some of us have with FQ. There is rarely time for charming background, showing slow build up of a relationship or ... mourning that's more than "one pge and forgotten". The many little moments that helped to get familiar with characters and were seen in bits and pieces for a long time, even connected storylines - that was part of what has drawn me in ad kept me spellbound.

I can SEE what you are talking about, Redhead. I still find scenes and moments that touch me. Enough things to love and be happy about. But ... it's like a snapshot from a video clip - done-shown-gone - and ready for the next sensation. I miss the silken almost invisible threads that were woven through the old stories.

Miss Gillespie wrote:

@Kindred: But each Final Fantasy instalment is one enclosed story (at least until 10, then I stopped playing), from what I can see now they're just milking the name

Yeah I know, I should've used the  emoji to represent my sarcasm in my previous statement

IMO, One Eye received a far more grand mourning and howl over his sudden passing than any who died in FQ.  Not only by Clearbrooks's ceremonious moment of slicing her hair during the heat of the battle, but a whole entire page of gorgeous art where the entire tribe howls together for him, plus several scattered panels (in one issue) that shows how his death continued to effect her.

But like I said, that's just my 2 cents of the "value of lost life" Elfquest used to have. That same sense just felt completely lost to me in FQ because of the rushed factor.

Redhead Ember wrote:

And "Rebels"; well, that's one of those storylines written during the 90es with no influence from the Pinis. I take anything written by them as higher canon that stuff written by others. Though, someone on Facebook had a really awful theory; the Rebels find a body in thorn wrapstuff, right? Maybe it's Yun... I mean; she would be dead by that time...

I highly doubt they ever published anything without giving it a thumbs up. That's basic brand building. You do not publish something with your name on it without making sure it's in line with your brand. Rebels and Jink are not merely fan fiction, it had the Warp logo slapped on it, the stories are canon in the compendium and I don't think it the story is labelled as "insane ramblings of Reef", yet.

Wendy ret-conned a story line, that was published after she supposedly came up with her ideas for Final Quest.

Well, either this, or they published Elfquest stories by other authors without checking what they publish first. That's sloppy and stupid

Redhead Ember wrote:

Afterwards we definitely saw them mourn, at the "Farewell Ceremony" for Cutter there was loads of mourning.

That kind of sums up my issue with the whole mourning. Because they made it seem like the mourning is all for Cutter, and not any of the others... that really rubs me the wrong way.

Cutter gets a pedestal-bier, Moonshade's body is nowhere to be found, Kimo was hidden somewhere out of the way. They're ignoring all non-Cutter dead elves...
All the text and images focus on dead Cutter. Nothing at all indicates that the mourning was also for the others... at least that's how I read it.

Moonshade's body went with the Palace to the Starhome.
Yun took Kimo's body to Newstar and Ohler.

We saw them mourn for Moonshade at the end of issue 22 (right after it happened), and at the beginning of issue 23. Most interestingly - in my opinion - is the fact that we also saw the Go-Backs mourning. They are, if any, a tribe that has a rather relaxed view on dying; one of them even tells Teir to let the Go-Backs do the dying, as they don't take it as hard as the Wolfriders when they lose a tribesmates.

We saw Shuna mourn for Kimo, and - as mentioned - Tyleet, Dewshine, and Freetouch were seen mourning at the foot of the Father Tree, then... ka-BOOOM!
Afterwards we first saw Yun getting the message about what had happened, and Dart's horrified reaction. Then, after Cutter's death, we saw some of them discuss what to do with Kimo's body, Shuna deciding that it should be his mother's decision, and Yun taking him to Newstar and Ohler.

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Embala wrote:

That's exactly the problem some of us have with FQ. There is rarely time for charming background, showing slow build up of a relationship or ... mourning that's more than "one pge and forgotten". The many little moments that helped to get familiar with characters and were seen in bits and pieces for a long time, even connected storylines - that was part of what has drawn me in ad kept me spellbound.

You don't really have time for charming background during a war! Not really that many charming background moments in issue 19 of the OQ either...

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As for Ahdri, well... no matter how much everybody might want to, you can't blame Final Quest for that.

Hi Redhead,

I get the sense that you're very passionate about this.

Would you say that you have no qualms about how Ember and Teir's seemingly easily denied recognition?

Also, I am curious how you view the concepts of Soul (and SoulName) and Spirit in Elfquest. I personally always considered they were separate concepts. FiQu seems to equate them. How do you see this?

Note: I'm not arguing with you on this. Just asking about your point of view.

Edit: What do you think the strong points of FQ are?

Ember and Teir:

Since I self-identify with Ember, and don't plan on ever having any kids myself - unlike Ember - I think it was really cool to see a loving couple deciding that "Hey! We don't have to let a random biological urge decide when we have children. We can do it in our own time."

Soul(name) and Spirit:

I've always seen them as being essentially the same.

Strong points of Final Quest:

That's it's Elfquest! It has the heart, soul, and mind of the stories we all love. It's about the struggle to find your place in the World, it's about love!

Redhead Ember wrote:

And "Rebels"; well, that's one of those storylines written during the 90es with no influence from the Pinis. I take anything written by them as higher canon that stuff written by others.

Unless there's been some back-peddling on Wendy and Richard's part, the Pinis themselves have more than once claimed they signed off on everything Warp published. Heck, they said that to my face once when I apologized for having "just" the Wild Hunt stuff for them to sign at SDCC a few years back. If you like Wendy's stuff better, that's cool; everyone's entitled to their personal taste. But there wasn't any rogue storytelling going on back in the 90's, just the Pinis being more hands-off while they chased a movie that never materialized.

Wendy also created the character designs for the Rebels. I'd be extremely surprised if she and Richard had no influence on the storyline.

Rebels, like so many other storylines, is just one of those "What-If" stories. Another one of the endless possibilities on the Scroll of Colors.
Maybe it was a dream. Anahvi and M'Ren perhaps, seems like we've seen them in Final Quest.
Yeah, it's on the DEQ page, but... so's King's Cross! So's that weird smurf-elves story. Really don't hope anyone will consider that in anyway canon.

And perhaps I was a bit too extreme when I said they had nothing to do with all those 90es stories, what I meant was that they aren't listed as contributors on the front page.

Are you guys really gonna be so focused on one tiny detail? All the rest probably happened. Or... will happen.

Redhead Ember wrote:

Yeah, it's on the DEQ page, but... so's King's Cross! So's that weird smurf-elves story. Really don't hope anyone will consider that in anyway canon.

That's a bit of a reach. King's Cross was designated as Worldpool story from the first. And the smurf strips, Looney Toons homages, "Things Not To Do In Elfquest" strip, and such were all clearly parodies and not meant to be taken seriously. The Rebels and Jink comics had no such distinction; they were very much written about as if they were supposed to be part of the EQ mythos, including by Richard Pini in the back-matter.

But you guys are acting as if they're somehow of a higher "canonical level" than SaTS.

Redhead Ember wrote:

But you guys are acting as if they're somehow of a higher "canonical level" than SaTS.

Folks are reacting as if the Rebels/Jink/FutureQuest stuff was presented as canon. Because that's how it was literally sold to the audience under the Warp banner: as the future of EQ, not a Worldpool, a what-if, or a fanwork. The notion that contributions to the EQ mythos not directly penned by the Pinis are less valuable or on some kind of lower level of canon is a matter of personal viewpoint, not something inherent to the work.

Red, the very fact that so many of us have issues with FQ, and that you feel the need to keep explaining it and defending it, shows the story was not well written. If it were it would stand on its own legs and wouldn’t need apologists to explain it.

Anduinel wrote:

Redhead Ember wrote:

But you guys are acting as if they're somehow of a higher "canonical level" than SaTS.

Folks are reacting as if the Rebels/Jink/FutureQuest stuff was presented as canon. Because that's how it was literally sold to the audience under the Warp banner: as the future of EQ, not a Worldpool, a what-if, or a fanwork. The notion that contributions to the EQ mythos not directly penned by the Pinis are less valuable or on some kind of lower level of canon is a matter of personal viewpoint, not something inherent to the work.

Most of it is canon. The tiny detail regarding Ahdri isn't. That's just good, isn't it? Rather than being dead she's living happily ever after with Two-Edge.
As for "lower level" canon. I'm simply referring to stuff you can skip, and still understand the essence of the story, and stuff you can't skip.

Stargazer wrote:

Red, the very fact that so many of us have issues with FQ, and that you feel the need to keep explaining it and defending it, shows the story was not well written. If it were it would stand on its own legs and wouldn’t need apologists to explain it.

Luckily I'm not the only one who like it. Seems like it was just here there was a meeting during which it was agreed upon that Final Quest is terrible, unfortunately I missed that meeting...
What really confuses me is the fact that you're all acting as if Final Quest is majorly different from all the rest of the stories, as if it's taking everything we know and turning it upside-down.

Time out

This is back now. Please try to be civil to each other. All this bickering is just wasting time I don't have.

Discussions? Yes, go right ahead. Play nice.

Ember and Teir's Recognition just really missed the mark for me. It should have happened sooner.
But it wasn't just "wait until later", they apparently Never have their kid. That last page in #24 that showed "Cutlet" as a young teen, there was no teen or young cub shown that would be Ember's and Teir's. So they didn't just put it off, they never bothered with having a cub at all as far as we can tell.
That whole thing irked the hell out of me, the way they basically ruined Ember as a character in FQ as well as ruined Teir. I actually rather liked Hidden Years and Wild Hunt (although the art was all over the place). Tier was an interesting character with an intriguing backstory, Ember got to grow and come into her own as chief and they just sort of tossed all of that. Teir had interesting powers that they never used again after those stories and honestly I could see why Ember didn't want to have a cub with him when his FQ character was a giant whiny cub already.
I was just rereading it and they should have Recognized when Ember lost the Challenge to Scouter and Teir left the tribe to be with Ember. It would have gone better storywise as well because then when they were fighting Angrif in FQ Ember and Teir's cub would be old enough to fight and Ember would have really understood more why Scouter Challenged her when Pool was threatened. (Also- what about Pool and His powers? Why was that only important in Wild Hunt and after that they just didn't matter??)

I hear you! Wild Hunt is my favorite non-OQ EQ. There were so many great threads that could have been picked up and expanded on, and instead past powers are ignored, character motivations are completely rewritten, the Recognition Summer Special is just outright retconned and replaced with a shallow imitation, and now I have no idea whether all my favorite WH stories even "count" in EQ canon anymore.

They count to me dammit! After Moonshade, my favorites are Dewshine and Ember. Dewshine has always been a total badass who laughs at anyone who dares to dismiss her as "too delicate" for anything, and Ember feels a bit like "our" cub that we all watched grow up. HY and WH were like a dream come true to have all the focus be on them.
As someone who is in a poly relationship it has given me inexpressible joy watching the Dewshine/Scouter/Tyleet tribond build and grow. And for Dewshine to have the healing of the other two sharing their soulnames with her and her being able to willingly give hers to them was just so wonderful, such a powerful scene. Of all the things that got tugged around in FQ I'm really glad they left that relationship alone.
All of the stuff with Ember in FQ was a whole bunch of "wait, wut?" and "but y tho?" for me. Why of all the damn stupid things did she just STAND THERE and let herself be captured?? Like seriously what even was that? Why not lead the humans away from the others? Why didn't they have her try and lead the humans away and maybe get her wolf Patch shot out from under her. They've always made such a huge deal about anyone losing a wolf-friend that we'd have all understood her trauma. It would have made more sense why she wasn't somehow able to wiggle loose of two loops of rope casually draped around her (is she Cutter's cub or isn't she? He's wiggled out of ropes, strangleweed and even metal shackles!!) and why she had to be rescued like some useless fairlytale princess.
It would have made more sense in FQ if they had gone ahead and killed Teir and that the reason Leetah intervened was to spare Ember from going mad from thwarted Recognition. I mean, I liked HY/WH Teir but FQ Teir was such a wet blanket I wouldn't have cared if they'd killed him off. It's not like they used his powers for anything or that they ever bothered with fulfilling the delayed Recognition anyway. If Wendy had wanted to tell a "new" Recognition story why not tell us what happens to the survivor if someone is killed before fulfilling Recognition? Do they go all lust-crazy until someone manages to preg them up? Do they waste away unable to eat or sleep? It would have made more sense for Leetah to intervene if say her cub was going to die rather than just "Hey mom, this being knocked up for two years when our enemy is going to take 15 years to get here is kinda inconvenient, do something!".