Who would you save?

Throughout ElfQuest's history, we've seen many elves (and others, such as humans, trolls, etc) all perish at the cruel hands of creativity.

Who is the one character - EXCLUDING

SPOILER?:

- that you would save?

As many Trolls as possible, of course... Actually, I wish that the Old Maggoty clan had not been pared down to two people at the start of the Quest. Maggoty even mentioned one child who had a lifelong injury. What happened to Oddbit's parents, aunts and uncles? Who were Maggoty's and Picknose's elders?

I wish Smelt had somehow turned up alive, and at least given his son a sense of pride in his Trollish heritage. Two-Edge's fantasy about becoming a full Elf in Leetah's hands is patently offensive to us Trolls.

Good question! Playing god and choosing a live for a second chance. Or resurrect a plague to save someone else: I choose Winnowill, so that Rayek could be free.

To me, the most emotional, gut-wrenching death was that of One-Eye.

That one was so utterly devastating.

But the one I would save, ironically, was someone who was a bit of a minor character.

It would be Vaya. Her sacrifice was so noble. But it robbed Pike (at the time) of being happy. Granted, as we know, he'd go on to move on ... but that that time, I really liked Vaya, and her spirit.

I'd save Winnowill as well, mostly because I much prefer the idea of her being alive and grappling with the consequences of her own awful choices rather than stuck in her dear dogged suitor until she can return his feelings.

And I'd save Two-Edge, even though he's not dead, because I grok the pain of surviving an abusive parent and I just want him to avoid the whole mess.

(Also I'd save Voll because I have to stay on-brand and also he's pretty and I want to see what he, Kahvi, Cutter, and Savah would do if put in a room together.)

Add me to the coalition to save Winnowill.

Suppose she were returned to life without ANY Elfin magic, including the ability to send?

I've mentioned this before, but I tend to side with Winnowill for one simple reason:  She broke no laws.

Take for granted that the High Ones had a set of rules for living together on a spacecraft.  These were mostly constructive rules (although they crash-landed in the wrong time because they didn't treat the groundlings as equals.)

The surviving High Ones fled the primitive humans and established themselves as a community.  They gave birth and probably taught their offspring the same rules and values by which they lived in the Palace.

In order to save everyone, Timmain gave birth to Timmorn, ancestor of the Wolfriders.  As the first Wolfrider chief, he started a tradition of rules by which the Wolfriders would live.

Other Elves split off from the original group, forming their own communities and establishing their own sets of rules and sense of morality.  Keep animals in pens, or let them go free?  Heal the severely wounded, or cast them aside?

The Trolls formed warring kingdoms, each subject to their own king's decisions.  The Preservers continued to fulfill their original function, and to do whatever the Elves told them to do.

Meanwhile, the primitive humans weren't writing the Magna Carta or Robert's Rules of Order.  They were still living in scattered tribes, each having its own set of unwritten rules, some of which were in conflict with those of other tribes.  Worship Elves, or barbecue them?

By the time the Gliders met the Wolfriders, the World of Two Moons was still in anarchy.  There was no federation of humans, nor of Trolls.  Cutter and Skywise had only gotten so far as to try to FIND other Elves, not try to unite them under the common cause of survival.

There were no laws in place to prevent Winnowill from doing whatever her creative mind inspired her to do with humans, with Trolls, with Preservers, with other Elves, or with the Palace.

Who has the right to judge and condemn her?

I would definitely save..

Cutter thought he had the right to judge and condemn her and to condemn Rayek too  (before Rayek took the palace away. Ok, after that it was inevitable), and I barely remember: Surge too, wasn`t it?

That was one of the courses, why I don`t like Cutter very much. The  broad-shouldered Conan elf who thinks he can make decisions how other elves may or must be and what they may do or mustn`t  do. What he accuses Rayek of doing , he does himself too. But what Cutter does is ok, he has the legitimacy of his tribe. Since he does not need to check his view of things, since the majority agree with him blindly because he is number one. Very easy for him. It would be different if he were alone against a bunch of elves who did not agree with him.

Yeah, Lord Voll is another darling, who would deserve to be saved.

Trollbabe, I adore this point you raise! Winnowill is so very beyond the pale that the other elves literally don't have a frame of reference to judge her by. They don't have any law to judge her by purely because they naively assumed no one would be a big enough bastard to even ATTEMPT half the things Winnowill does casually of a Tuesday evening.

The question I love pursuing with all of these characters we would save is how exactly they'd throw a wrench in the plotline. Aside from my usual Faves, I like thinking about Vaya a lot. Her squaring up to Kahvi over the fate of the tribe, maybe?

I personally think that Voll and Cutter would butt heads fairly frequently had Voll lived. They are both very similar--passionate, driven dreamers who love their people--which could be good...or terrible. Because, as we see in the OQ, Voll and Cutter sometimes have wildly diverting ideas of what is the best course of action for their people.

While there's many who I'd love to save; Brownberry,Foxfur,Vaya,Ruffel,Longbranch,Woodlock,Rainsong and Wing,the one character that I would give preference to is female Door.

Arill3.0 wrote:

I'd save Winnowill as well, mostly because I much prefer the idea of her being alive and grappling with the consequences of her own awful choices rather than stuck in her dear dogged suitor until she can return his feelings.
And I'd save Two-Edge, even though he's not dead, because I grok the pain of surviving an abusive parent and I just want him to avoid the whole mess.
(Also I'd save Voll because I have to stay on-brand and also he's pretty and I want to see what he, Kahvi, Cutter, and Savah would do if put in a room together.)

Ah, but the question is - what if you could save ONE?

Which of the above would it be?

Trollbabe wrote:

Add me to the coalition to save Winnowill.
Suppose she were returned to life without ANY Elfin magic, including the ability to send?
I've mentioned this before, but I tend to side with Winnowill for one simple reason:  She broke no laws.
There were no laws in place to prevent Winnowill from doing whatever her creative mind inspired her to do with humans, with Trolls, with Preservers, with other Elves, or with the Palace.
Who has the right to judge and condemn her?

I see where you're coming from - because there were no laws.
And others coming in with their notion of what is right and wrong, and imposing it on others. (History has done this repeatedly)
But, in a sense of morals - I feel like the fact that the Gliders weren't even giving birth, or seemingly, enjoying life, seems like something was wrong. (And she was definitely behind all the manipulation).
Mind you, I am not saying, you can't bring back Winnowill - pick someone else - more so, the idea of her not breaking any laws.

PCoquelin wrote:

I would definitely save..

..Lord Voll.

He was a gentle soul, who didn't deserve to go out the way he did.

Yeee wrote:

Cutter thought he had the right to judge and condemn her and to condemn Rayek too  (before Rayek took the palace away. Ok, after that it was inevitable), and I barely remember: Surge too, wasn`t it?
That was one of the courses, why I don`t like Cutter very much. The  broad-shouldered Conan elf who thinks he can make decisions how other elves may or must be and what they may do or mustn`t  do. What he accuses Rayek of doing , he does himself too. But what Cutter does is ok, he has the legitimacy of his tribe. Since he does not need to check his view of things, since the majority agree with him blindly because he is number one. Very easy for him. It would be different if he were alone against a bunch of elves who did not agree with him.
Yeah, Lord Voll is another darling, who would deserve to be saved.

Cutter also LIVED more than any other elf, for sure - along with the original Wolfriders - and more so than any of them, except maybe Skywise, back in the original quest - when he encountered Rayek and Voll (more so Voll). Because while he and Skywise left the others at the Sun Village, Cutter and Skywise, endured much more trouble along the way - so I think he (and Skywise) had a perspective of what it is like when someone lives in their "bubble world" compared to how the real world was like.

Prism wrote:

While there's many who I'd love to save; Brownberry,Foxfur,Vaya,Ruffel,Longbranch,Woodlock,Rainsong and Wing,the one character that I would give preference to is female Door.

Interesting choice. Why so?

Well, if I can only pick one, then I'm going to switch tactics and pick Mekda. We only ever see those brief memories of Ekuar's and then the horror of her final day...who was she, what could she have been?

Would you want to save Mekda in her mental condition? People can be limbless and live long and happy lives, have careers and even start families. But what was left of Mekda's mind when Redlance encountered her?

I think it would be a very compelling story, to try and see if the other elves could help her come back from her trauma...she got the worst of it, that cannot be ignored, and I doubt she would ever be sunshine and rainbows.

An alternative would be to write up a fixit fic where she manages to escape somehow and met with another group of elves. Who? Where? How would she acclimate? Of course, we know so little about Mekda it would essentially be akin to writing a new character entirely.

I find it interesting that one tribe of Elves would produce three rock-shapers in the same generation, although the Gliders were a concentration of specialists as well.

Osek, Mekda and Ekuar would have needed different personalities in order to work together and enjoy each other's company. Who was the leader, who eventually would lead them into captivity? Was it Osek or Mekda? Ekuar doesn't seem to have a guilt complex about their collective fates, so I am going to assume it wasn't his idea.

Mekda could have been the leader, and therefore the most rebellious, ending up the most abused. Had she survived, under the care of the Go-Backs she could have recovered enough to send to the other Elves. She might have asked Ekuar's forgiveness for getting them all captured.

WOW HOW DARE YOU NOW I AM CRYING AGAIN.

But I think that is a solid interpretation of Mekda...I like the idea of her being a stubborn as bedrock. She and Kahvi would get on pretty well in that respect, maybe. Also it really is interesting that their tribe produced so many magic users...I'm wondering if Ekuar and his friends were once part of the larger group that eventually became the Gliders and Rootless Ones. aaand now I want them to have been childhood agemates with Voll and Winnowill because it makes me sad

Yeee wrote:

Cutter thought he had the right to judge and condemn her and to condemn Rayek too  (before Rayek took the palace away. Ok, after that it was inevitable), and I barely remember: Surge too, wasn`t it?

That was one of the courses, why I don`t like Cutter very much. The  broad-shouldered Conan elf who thinks he can make decisions how other elves may or must be and what they may do or mustn`t  do. What he accuses Rayek of doing , he does himself too. But what Cutter does is ok, he has the legitimacy of his tribe. Since he does not need to check his view of things, since the majority agree with him blindly because he is number one. Very easy for him. It would be different if he were alone against a bunch of elves who did not agree with him.

Yeah, Lord Voll is another darling, who would deserve to be saved.

not surprisingly, my father is indeed like that. Of course he was also police, a stereotypical Indra profession.

(If you ever encounter someone like Cutter in real life, almost always police or military. Very rare for this archetype to be a female comic book artist, in fact im sure thats the only time in the history of the universe...)

I would save Eyes High. Poor Skywise, not only does he never get to raise his two daughters, he never gets to feel what it feels like to have parents. The tribe looked after him well enough, but it seems to me no couple or family group specifically adopted him as theirs.

I brought this up on Cheipar's thread, but I don't understand why they didn't put him/her in wrapstuff. Everybody else ended up in wrapstuff eventually. I guess it was the Go-Back way, and Krim's choice.

Why, IceTooth of course!

I know there are many other Elves who either had their lives cut tragically short or died horribly and they would definitely be more worthy of being saved. But there was just something about IceTooth's character that always intrigued me...someone from the early days of the Wolfriders who saw so many of their legends firsthand. I never liked how after surviving for 7000-8000 years he just said "well I guess I'd better let this deer gore me to death so Khavi can lead the tribe!". His death was pretty stupid and pointless in my opinion.

I would have loved to have seen him survive and try and find out if any other descendants of the Wolfriders still lived. Seeing him sit with the Woflriders and trade tales of the old days with Pike would have been a real treat. Then again his entire story is a bit strange and worthy of criticism...so...he just went and played in the snow for thousands of years and none of the GoBacks ever noticed that the same guy had been leading their tribe for generations?

Rubbish.         

I see many I agree with, and with thr Palace and a (not limitless but potentially largish quantity of) pods that would theoretically have the ability to save any number of characters from the history of EQ, but... AsI said elsewhere without knowing about this thread, the name I dont see yet is Crescent. That scene was well crafted to give the reader a sense of how pointless her death was. Id still not want to change the story line as a time traveling troll, so Id nip her away before she came up out of the water and drop her off at Strongbow's doorstep in the middle of Final Quest (since theres no hurting that storyline )

As far as 'non-characters', it would be nice if some of the early proto-trolls seen in flashbacks could have some screen time. I get that Firstcomer (I think that was his name) is technically one of these, but to me there is so much difference between this character amd the little guys we saw in the early years)...

Quote :

I get that Firstcomer (I think that was his name) is technically one of these, but to me there is so much difference between this character amd the little guys we saw in the early years).

Here's an idea - hopefully I'm awake enough tomorroww to remembr my thought and to comment  coherently ...