Who stays, who goes? Your opinions.

manga wrote:

The High Ones hadn't even joined in eons. Why do we think the Palace is going to boost reproduction?

I'm with you, Manga.

On a related note (Go-backs and breeding) I think I can spot Yun's mother in issue #8. Could be another relative, too, of course.

wingthing wrote:

I'm a little surprised, considering how many elves we've seen over the years who desperately want children - Brill, Nightfall, Tyleet, Teir , Vurdah - that more elves aren't asking Leetah to try to force Recognition in the Palace like she did before. I'm surprised Strongbow hasn't brought it up as a means of "fighting back" again the human scourge.  

But then, I would have thought if Shenshen wanted to midwife so badly, it would have been much easier to just go live with the Go-Backs... so who can predict elfin logic?

It's interesting to me that Forced recognition seems to have been a retcon. It's implied that when Leetah does it in "The Cry From Beyond" that its the first time she's done it, then suddenly in Hidden Years, Pike's the result of forced recognition(although I always took that as forced fertility to produce a child as Go Backs do, it seems to have been made a result of Rain experimenting with recognition in later comics), then elves suddenly make references to it from time to time. Two healers together seem to spark recognition, apparently, but it seems strange to me that there weren't more in that case, or even some spontaneous recognitions when Leetah met up with the Wavedancers(if two healers together make for increased recognition, why aren't th wavedancers the most populous elves?).

I doubt Strongbow would even consider forced recognition as a form of population growth. We all saw how he reacted toEmber and Teir using births control, lol.

I don't think that would have occurred to ShenShen at all. First off, elves in general don't seem to have much imagination, secondly, the Go Backs aren't there. ShenShen is more of a here and now person, so I think it's likely she would have beenthinking the most local source of pregnancies.

Of course, she's also sort of coming in with an arrogant attitude. Most people living the way humans of that era do aren't the type to have midwifery specific needs. You would give birth at home, maybe with your family, and only call in a medicine woman or man if absolutely necessary. Grannies were the most likely to handle births.

kathleen3.0 wrote:

Of course, she's also sort of coming in with an arrogant attitude. Most people living the way humans of that era do aren't the type to have midwifery specific needs. You would give birth at home, maybe with your family, and only call in a medicine woman or man if absolutely necessary. Grannies were the most likely to handle births.

Yeah, I think Shenshen is gonna be in for a rude awakening with this latest project of hers. Helping one human give birth in no way prepares her for the cultural and physical differences between elf and human reproduction.

wingthing wrote:

I'm a little surprised, considering how many elves we've seen over the years who desperately want children - Brill, Nightfall, Tyleet, Teir , Vurdah - that more elves aren't asking Leetah to try to force Recognition in the Palace like she did before. I'm surprised Strongbow hasn't brought it up as a means of "fighting back" again the human scourge.

Hmm... the feeling I have is that the Palace didn't play a part in Nightfall and Redlance's "forced" conception. I mean, it boosted Leetah's powers to the point where she *could* do it - but Nightfall and Redlance had had "heads together" about it when they didn't even know that Rayek could fly the Palace at all. So I think Leetah must have known, like Rain, that it was something a healer could attempt, something that she could attempt. The Palace just happened to be an external factor that made Nightfall and Redlance decide to go for it.

But my sense is that the Palace does not increase or boost Recognition in any way - that it's like a kind of Blue Mountain. The High Ones, like the Gliders, had stopped reproducing altogether. And the Palace, thus far, has only made it possible to "turn off" a Recognition where it had already sparked - as in Ember and Teir's case. Maybe.. that's why Leetah didn't seem all that confident when she said that hopefully Ember and Teir could have their second try at this. She *wants* to believe her powers and Mender's can undo what has been done - but wouldn't it be dramatic if it turned out that Ember and Teir can't Recognize anymore?

I can't shake off this sensation that Surge and the Broken One might not have been completely out of their element to call the "Pah-lass" a trap... but perhaps I'm seeing too much into this?

I've always found it improbable that forcing conception seems to be a lot more difficult than changing someone on a genetic level (removing Wolfblood), which both Leetah and Winnowill have done with seemingly little effort. I mean really, removing Wolfblood is actually altering the basic DNA and you can't get much of a harder task than that. And yet apparently it's almost impossible for a healer to do something the Go Backs do randomly all the time...

ChristinaRaibert wrote:

I can't shake off this sensation that Surge and the Broken One might not have been completely out of their element to call the "Pah-lass" a trap... but perhaps I'm seeing too much into this? Shocked

I think you're probably spot on, Christina.

It's a nagging feeling... but it gets stronger with every new issue. All the insistence on childbirth and the Palace has something definitely eerie to me. Even in the Special, Moonshade (who we've later seen is drawn to the Palace's aura, like the Sun Folk) was all angsty while Shuna was delivering her baby. It's like the Palace is turning in this super-aseptic (sp?), sterile place where magic users are completely attuned to their powers (Blue Mountain.. *very* Blue Mountain). Shenshen is another example; it's like she feels she *must* leave the Palace's whereabouts if she wants to "shine where she loves" - even though the Sun Folk are probably the second more numerous tribe after the Go-Backs, and you'd think quite some new births had occurred already. Maybe it is a form of ultra-creepy "birth control" that the Palace performs on its inhabitants? With the elves being so powerful magical being it'd be very difficult for any of them to die, except of old age. So once their environment becomes safe enough (and few are safer than the Palace, where their magical powers are also boosted up to the ninth level) they stop having children.

When one thinks about it... both Sun Folk, Gliders and WaveDancers lived in reclusion and safety for millennia, and in all three tribes, the birth rates were much lower than among the Wolfriders or the Go-Backs, who "let danger" into their holts. Maybe I misremember but didn't an installment of FutureQuest imply that some younger elves - "cublings" - had settled in a "holt" on another planet and didn't want to move back into the Palace? I'm getting truly scared by that crystal castle now...

wingthing wrote:

kathleen3.0 wrote:

Of course, she's also sort of coming in with an arrogant attitude. Most people living the way humans of that era do aren't the type to have midwifery specific needs. You would give birth at home, maybe with your family, and only call in a medicine woman or man if absolutely necessary. Grannies were the most likely to handle births.

Yeah, I think Shenshen is gonna be in for a rude awakening with this latest project of hers. Helping one human give birth in no way prepares her for the cultural and physical differences between elf and human reproduction.

True, tho, unlike other elves, I think she'll be more open to cultural differences(she learned from Old Maggotty, for example), so maybe she'll apprentice herself to a human healer.

As far as the Palace acting as a birth control, it does almost seem to put everyone who enters it into a kind of stasis. I think that there will be more conflict over it.

don't forget SHenshen also has had some experience with Shuna. She will also have Shuna there to help at the beginning. Now hopefully she won't get into any trouble along the way.

Not get into trouble? I'm counting on her getting into trouble. The girl just signed up for a world of hurt- the story had better deliver!

I hope she doesn't have too much trouble learning the various languages she will need to know.

ChristinaRaibert wrote:

It's a nagging feeling... but it gets stronger with every new issue. All the insistence on childbirth and the Palace has something definitely eerie to me. Even in the Special, Moonshade (who we've later seen is drawn to the Palace's aura, like the Sun Folk) was all angsty while Shuna was delivering her baby. It's like the Palace is turning in this super-aseptic (sp?), sterile place where magic users are completely attuned to their powers (Blue Mountain.. *very* Blue Mountain). .

Well, Blue Mountain was supposed to mimic the Palace. I totally get what you mean. It's kind of creepy. Think about it- it's powered by the dead. Eerie as druck. Also- travelling for eons in the Palace was what made the High Ones consider simply "abandoning" their bodies for good.

"For us, sleep and the stars is the answer!"

It's not only the High Ones who considered that.

Stagnation is bad for the elves in more than one way, it seems.

manga wrote:

"For us, sleep and the stars is the answer!"

It's not only the High Ones who considered that.

Stagnation is bad for the elves in more than one way, it seems.

But thematically it's always been an ever present threat, hasn't it?

Yup. Wendy has said she put too many kids into the Sun Village in book 1 and in the novelization of JtSE, she ret-conned and made it clear that with Rayek assuming all the risks for the Village and Leetah healing every little bump and scratch, Sorrow's End was beginning to stagnate and had a declining birthrate.

Yeah, I don't recognize that as canon. The kids are obviously there. Maybe they had had an unusually abundant harvest for some decades that spurred some fertility(more common in nature for fertility to spike when there are enough resources to support them). I always figured that Blue Mountain represented one end of the fertility spectrum and the Go Backs the other. There's more than enough room for both the Sun Village and the wolfriders to be in the middle.

Wasn't there a minor Elf character, in one of the novels, who went through menopause and THEN Recognition?

When I think of Moonshade making decisions, I recall when Strongbow was snatched up by the Glider bond-bird. She allowed herself to be taken, probably without hesitation.

manga wrote:

ChristinaRaibert wrote:

I can't shake off this sensation that Surge and the Broken One might not have been completely out of their element to call the "Pah-lass" a trap... but perhaps I'm seeing too much into this? Shocked

I think you're probably spot on, Christina.

Yeah. Couldn't help but thinking about the "Pah-lass" bit when Ember called the Palace a "deadly trap" in issue 6 of the final quest.