Final Quest #11

It's purpose was to demonstrate Korafaye's character.

His children will lead the local humans in a fight against the navy, but get destroyed in a "even humans who love elves get ground under the elf hate machine". Thats been a common theme since "before" fire and flight (ie Wolfrider! and other prequels).

Redhead Ember wrote:

Naah. I think it was just an old man. Besides; Timmain was shown with the Wolfriders just before that scene.

I think it was just what it was; a random encounter that didn't really mean anything. Not all meetings are important, and not everybody has a big role to play.

Heh. Perhaps the at the end of my comment did not properly convey my sarcasm over the latest issue of Timmain changing her form into Cutter claiming to be "one all long, donchyaknow?"

We don't really know where that is going yet. I'm not going to jump to the worst possible conclusions.

Trying to think of somewhere they could be going with Timmain-Cutter that wouldn't be ridiculous… trying… trying… failing.

But it's so funny to think of the worst possible conclusions. I had to laugh every time at Tymbers comments...

good point.

Maybe when she locked minds with Winnie at the end of Shards, or later when Rayek stopped by or maybe because of the 'sinister energies' of Blue Mountain, Timmain's soul got tainted. Just don't believe anything she says

When she morphed into Cutter's shape, it seemed like she also sports a chief's lock. Does this mean, she will be physically hurt, when someone cuts it off?

I find it interesting that when Timmain shifted to look like Cutter, she still resembled herself in the face.

Did she? I thought her face looked like Cutter's.

Superficially, I guess they had the same expression. But then I started looking back, and I noticed that they have similar eyes. Maybe that's where you see it? I don't like eye contact, it's too overwhelming, so I never notic d before.

Lunakat wrote:

Did she? I thought her face looked like Cutter's.

Well, that's just my opinion.

You mean... she looked like Cutter, but like a Timmain version of Cutter? I could see that...

Sifra wrote:

But it's so funny to think of the worst possible conclusions. I had to laugh every time at Tymbers comments...

Don't encourage him!

Wait. That's me you're talking about!

Don't encourage me!

Multi-Facets wrote:

I find it interesting that when Timmain shifted to look like Cutter, she still resembled herself in the face.

You know why?

Because at one time, everyone in ElfQuest had a very distinct look; from their face to their body. Dewshine, for example, had a thin face and thin body; while Nightfall, had a rounder face, and larger hips; and Leetah was a little more thick and chest heavy; and now? Now they ALL look like Cutter. So all of them look like Cutter in the face to me.

Tymber wrote:

You know why?

Because at one time, everyone in ElfQuest had a very distinct look; from their face to their body. Dewshine, for example, had a thin face and thin body; while Nightfall, had a rounder face, and larger hips; and Leetah was a little more thick and chest heavy; and now? Now they ALL look like Cutter. So all of them look like Cutter in the face to me.

That started as early as the OQ, though. She basically went more and more Barbie doll for the girls as time went on(nineties Barbie, not 2000s era, or current era(don't ask me how I know this stuff.)). The boys all look like Cutter. But you can can see that starting as early as the fourth book, and even as far back as the third.

The guys have all beefed up, too. Way back when, Cutter was unusually bulky for an elf. If you look back at earlier versions of Skywise, Strongbow et al., they look lean and fit, but not especially muscular. Now they mostly look nearly as beefy as Cutter.

Agree re the  gradual genericization of the characters' features.  One of the Gatherums had a wonderful little chart of the the female characters and their face shapes/eye angles that really showed just how unique each character design was originally.  

In retrospect, I think Wendy might have been creating visual links between Cutter and Timmain a bit earlier than the big reveal. During my first read, I got really hung up on the panel at the bottom of page 6 where Timmini looks over her shoulder and playful asks Skywise which explanation he'd like to hear.  I liked the line, but the cheekiness was so shocking coming from her.  But doesn't it sound like the kind of playful banter you'd expect Cutter to say to Skywise?

Also, I might be crazy, but her eyes in that panel have an aqua blue tinge, as opposed to her normal whitish silver.  The color strongly evokes Cutter for me, in retrospect.  Something about her cheekbones and little smirk remind me of Cutter too.  I didn't like the image of her in that panel initially because it didn't seem to look quite like her somehow, and I found it confusing.  She doesn't look like the same character design in the bottom two panels on that page.  The left-hand panel just seems so much softer.  But now I think it might have been a little bit of a visual hint of what was to come.

If some of Timmain's and Cutter's feature resemble each other in that particular issue, it'd be no surprise. But do they ever in pre-Final Quest issues?

I thought somewhere in that FQ video trailer there was a shot of Timmain sitting and Cutter reluctantly about to merge his hand with hers and Skywise is looking at them nearby with concern.

Not really sure if they (Timmain/Cutter) look alike to me at all and in general it only seems in the past couple of issues that they're somewhat having physical resemblance to each other. Timmain is a shape changer so obviously she's the one who is looking more like Cutter. If Cutter is looking like Timmain, it's done deliberately to drive the point home that they are somehow more connected together.

I guess Timmain is trying to tell Cutter that if he doesn't want to give up his wolf blood, he can continue to exist in the flesh as well, and occupy her (after he dies), and she can shape change into him from time to time...as a way to continue existing physically as well? But what would be the point of that, exactly?
Besides being some kind of Cutter relic for other elves?
If all the other wolf riders get their wolf blood removed and Cutter is the only one who refuses, then maybe it makes them feel better or something having that option. But wolf riders don't seem to really care about that kind of thing. It's generally stated by elves that 'our kind continues to exist even after we give up our bodies' , so I don't know what the point is of all this shapeshifting Timmain/Cutter stuff.

TBH, I don't think the visual clues were there even in earlier FQ issues, and certainly not in OQ. The OQ I can understand because, as I've said elsewhere, I don't think this was the original plan for Cutter/Timmain. There would have been no reason to give them any visual echoes at that point.

But presumably this idea was in place by the time of, say Discovery or the one with Shuna, as they prepared for FQ. I just took a quick look, and I don't see any resemblance before Issue 11. I wish I was surprised, but looks like another missed opportunity. Gah, going back through those early issues was not pleasant--so much wheel-spinning.

I wasn't a big fan of Discovery. I was slightly disappointed by it actually because it seemed like Eflquest: The New Age issue: Elfy elves in a pretty, sparkly structure floating around to discover other pretty, sparkly elfy elves. The shots of Sunstream in his fish shape really put me off, I found the colors really obnoxious. It was like being in a tie dye shop, and i just hate tie dye.

I re-read it so many times in hopes that my mind would change, but I largely remain unimpressed by it.

I just wanted to say that now I see a Timmain-like expression in Timmain-Cutter as well...
I agree that it is easy to resemble Cutters features because a lot of elfs look like him.
Zadzi: the word Cutter-relic stands out in your post. Now I'm thinking of drawing a comic in which Timmain teaches all elfs to shapeshift into Cutter because he's too fantastic to loose to death. Maybe they can even shape the palace in his image!

I don't remember much new age stuff in Discovery, but I have not re-read it many times. All I remember is elfs arguing with each other. I didn't care much for it, either, (I loved the searcher and the sword) and I was nearly blinded by Sunstreams fish-shape  but I loved the parts with Dart and Chitter in it.

kathleen3.0 wrote:

That started as early as the OQ, though. She basically went more and more Barbie doll for the girls as time went on(nineties Barbie, not 2000s era, or current era(don't ask me how I know this stuff.)). The boys all look like Cutter. But you can can see that starting as early as the fourth book, and even as far back as the third.

Stargazer wrote:

The guys have all beefed up, too. Way back when, Cutter was unusually bulky for an elf. If you look back at earlier versions of Skywise, Strongbow et al., they look lean and fit, but not especially muscular. Now they mostly look nearly as beefy as Cutter.

I thought in OQ, everyone still maintained their looks. Like Scouter by the end, still looked like Scouter; Redlance still had the rounder face, less muscular body. Strongbow was still, relatively thin in the arms. Treestump was the only other elf (besides Cutter), that was always portrayed as muscular (very lumber jack looking). But with SaBM and KotBW, you could see that the males all adapted the thin waist line that was very much Cutter's look.

And it's far more common now.

Zadzi wrote:

I wasn't a big fan of Discovery. I was slightly disappointed by it actually because it seemed like Eflquest: The New Age issue: Elfy elves in a pretty, sparkly structure floating around to discover other pretty, sparkly elfy elves. The shots of Sunstream in his fish shape really put me off, I found the colors really obnoxious. It was like being in a tie dye shop, and i just hate tie dye.
I re-read it so many times in hopes that my mind would change, but I largely remain unimpressed by it.

I know there was something mentioned; that Wendy experimented with whatever program she was using when she did the colors in Discovery. I think she made it entirely too bright and too "flashy."

Sifra wrote:

I just wanted to say that now I see a Timmain-like expression in Timmain-Cutter as well...
I agree that it is easy to resemble Cutters features because a lot of elfs look like him.
Zadzi: the word Cutter-relic stands out in your post. Now I'm thinking of drawing a comic in which Timmain teaches all elfs to shapeshift into Cutter because he's too fantastic to loose to death. Maybe they can even shape the palace in his image!

I don't remember much new age stuff in Discovery, but I have not re-read it many times. All I remember is elfs arguing with each other. I didn't care much for it, either, (I loved the searcher and the sword) and I was nearly blinded by Sunstreams fish-shape but I loved the parts with Dart and Chitter in it.

I strongly disliked DISCOVERY.

However, Searcher and the Sword felt like classic ElfQuest.

I was a fan of Searcher and the Sword

I really liked Searcher and Sword as well.

Sifra: Please draw that comic! I already know I'd be laughing for days about Cutter relics. The elves project a big Cutter hologram into space as a tribute to the blood of ten chiefs