Final Quest #11

Embala wrote:

IF Timmain and Tam truely share one soul ... and given the fact that Cutter and Skywise ARE recognized - I's say YES, Timmain and Fahr are recognized for quite some time already.

But that's just my interpretation. Nowhere in #11 it was explicitly mentioned that Skywise and Tiimmain are recognized. It might be implied ... but it was not stated. Your view can be totally right as well, Tymber.

Words will not describe how furious I will be if they go with Timmain and Cutter are one body/soul type thing...

It will literally be the last issue of ElfQuest I pick up.

Ever.

A more natural approach might have been to have dart and kimo have a more obvious split - maybe even a falling out- over kimo's choice to go w shuna and more or less break up. Then have mender come in and pick up the pieces.

But like it or dislike it, this is an example of Wendy Pini listening to what fans want. We asked for an overt male-male pairing. We got it. Maybe kimo and dart have to be in separate places for the sake of where she wants to take the story. That wasn't her pairing in the first place.

I don't buy for a second that either Dart or Kimo will be important enough to the plot that they "have to be" anywhere. In my opinion, Wendy's changing this precisely because Dart and Kimo was not her pairing.

You think this is outright rebellion on her part, Sun girl ?
Not that I can't see it.... but I'm curious.
Damn, but that would be some reactionary writing.

No, I wouldn't call it rebellion, this is Wendy's comic and obviously she can do what the heck she likes. I do get a sense of her trying to downplay and diminish a lot of story lines and characterization that took place in the non-Pini-created series though. As if to indicate that none of that stuff was really important.

Okay, I think I understand what you mean.
But that still doesn't explain Dart's very recent schizophrenia of ew, you're no better than Winnowill, and then Let me share this deep memory with you. I mean, if Dart is so closed off emotionally and sees Mender as the dog he is (I actually like Mender now too, so it's not really an insult), it still doesn't work story wise.
I know they changed to bios to where now the two are official love mates. Goddamn, who's the ring bearer ? This thing seems all official, annoyingly.
I really don't like how the characters seem so externally manipulated in the story.

My theory is Wendy got so sick of fans begging for an acknowledgement of Dart and Kimo as a couple, she retconned their relationship into a friendship just to spite us - I remember how heated she would get on the scroll or Facebook iinsisting "there are no gay elves - elves don't have orientations - no, Dart and Kimo are not a gay couple, they are friends who have sex - huge difference!"

And then post-Masque she decides she does want a male-male couple (not friends with benefits, not part of a threesome or foursome) - well, she can't do Dart and Kimo after she went on the record saying they were just friends and we were misunderstanding her story. So, enter Mender, despite all the very good points raised about how out-of-left-field it is.

Wingthing, as usual you know exactly what I mean and express it better!

So it *is* rebellious behavior in some way. Reactionary behavior. It's sort of what I sensed, and Wingthing, you kind of confirmed it.
And I do remember the whole No no no, you poor idiots, there are no GAY ELVES. Elves have no specific sexual orientation! Kimo and Dart have nothing going on but oh wait, there's this couple now, teehee.

This is one of the hazards of being involved with the fan forums. Seriously. It's like they're picking and choosing what they want to use from the outside, in some way? I thought they had their own vision and the story laid out, what the hell!


I'm sorry, it just annoys me because where is the integrity in all of this ? It feels manufactured and now I feel kind of dirty and depressed, because this is EQ, dude. This was always a story which had its own life-force and that's what made it so cool. I'm so sad at the hollowness of the characters now. They're like marionettes.

Zadzi - reactionary is just the word to describe it! I guess I didn't think of it as rebellious because Wendy can't rebel against authority when she is the authority. Now I see what you mean, and I definitely agree.

Tymber wrote:

(Which makes me wonder - if Winnowill was so disgusted by the Wolfriders, how in the Two Moons, did she ever allow herself to breed with a troll?)

She wanted a new plaything.

This is kind of wierd coming from me, as I didnt discover EQ until the mid to late 90s, but EQ has changed over the years, and to a degree I dont feel it was always for the better.  I love the original quest. I live with Wolfrider and Fire and Flight as a defining moment of EQ history (which of course it is, but I mean it as "this is what EQ IS")... reading on through things, even through Shards the feel of the story was pretty close to this standard. EQ2 was one breaking point in the general feel of the universe, but this is explained away with various other writers interjecting their views and interpretations of the story,and as such is forgivable (even though, to this day, I still cant seem to immerse myself in Worldpool and the like as much as I can OQ and Wolfrider) (yes, I understand that Wolfrider may be a compilation produced later, but some of the stories were written during the earlier years).  

I think the break between the 90s and the mid 2000s push (SaS, Disco) may have let WP clear her mind from the ratrace of the 90s, but IMO, it was for the worse. SAS was ok, though the pacing and artwork just didnt have the same feel as the older stuff, but Disco just felt cheesy, like EQ had sold its soul to Disney.  The FQ prequel has its moments of good, but there are still pacing issues and art that just doesnt feel right.  The FQ series is a step farther in this vein.  I said it before that the whole thing feels rushed, like the Pini's were told "ok, we'll print your story, but we can only guarantee it will be printed in its entirety IF you make it fit into 24 issues and dont dwell on the side stuff.  Our readership are all a bunch of ADHD misfits who only buy stuff thats flighty and fast paced, so none of this epic questing stuff you did in the past, get the story going, get it done, and we wont censor you.... much..."  Im not saying this is what did happen, nor do I feel the same way, its just a feeling I've had for a while, and rereading the prequel today seemed to reinforce this.  The prequel feels a lot slower paced and less rushed (though it does jump a bit still). It wasnt until halfway through the prequel that any publisher took notice and committed to publishing anything, and even then it was at the demand that WaRP stop posting the prequel for free... what other constraints did they demand "to make it profitable"?

(Sorry, Im in a wierd state. Feel free to ignore my soap box ramblings)

I will say, though, its not just the publisher as a cause of the changes.  They may have set guidelines (or not, this is all supposition), but WP still has the ultimate control of what gets drawn, and therefore what gets said in the comic.  To a degree, it may be that this is Final Quest as this is a last ditch attempt to get to "an" ending (I mean shoot, if she was 20ish when it started, she's 57ish now... how can someone be the same kind of writer and artist at those two different ages?) (Actually, just looked up wikipedia. Born in 1951... she is currently 61.  Started in 1978 at the age of 27?)  Point being, Im sure she doesnt have the same energy and focus she had back then, or the same opinions as she used to, and she is probably trying to put it to bed.

That said, there isnt any reason to change main staples of the EQ universe.  The healer that was pining away over Ember suddenly has had a seemingly lifelong desire for someone else, and a different gender at that?  Seems more like an agenda than plot development. In this case, it doesnt matter who wanted who in the past. Let the past be the past, develop a new present with a new love interest (or whatever) and let the reader warm to it as the story develops... dont just drop it and say "this is whats happening, and its suddenly been this way for a long time".  Drop agendas and soapboxes, and be a writer!  ( this has been the biggest lesson Ive learned in writing fanfic, because I used to have a plan or goal of what the main characters were going to do three stories down the road... and I was miserable. Ended up not writing for a few years due to burnout trying to jump through the hoops I set for myself.  Once I tossed the hoops, the plan, the outline, and just explored the writing abyss with my fingers via the keyboard, I could finally write again and be happy doing it!)

But possibly she is bound by an outside publisher, and can only do the best she can in the pages allotted.  SaS, Disco, Shards, Wild Hunt, the Prequel and the current series has only covered a span of around 50ish years (give or take, Im really not sure on this). By some reasoning, Future Quest happens another thousand years in the future, with a history that includes (supposedly) Cam Triompe and Jink (which was a concept character in the 70s by WP, so it isnt likely she'll be left out as non canon).  We're about halfway through FQ and we still have a confrontation with a human navy, a resolution of what happens when (if) the palace leaves, a resolution to Winnie's status, and perhaps a birth of Jink.  If Future Quest has any bearing on canon, the trolls still need to colonize the moons and other planets, then abandon them after building domes... far far too much to cover at even the current abbreviated pacing, and it still skips around a lot.


Today, I reread #11, and the thing that kind of bothered me was their commentary on who got there, who hadnt, who died... and the comment about the one who died trying to get there: "then they did make it!"

Uh... Im sorry? What?

If dieing and coming there as a spirit (to fuel the palace?) counts as "making it", then why doesnt "the call" just say "save yourself some time ans drink the kool-aid, wrap a plastic bag over your head, and fall on your spear for good measure, then you dont have to go to any effort fighting humans to get here!"

It's worth recalling that, with all the plot twists, character development and questing, the Original Quest did fit into 20 issues sum total.

The length of the story isn't the problem.

wingthing wrote:

My theory is Wendy got so sick of fans begging for an acknowledgement of Dart and Kimo as a couple, she retconned their relationship into a friendship just to spite us - I remember how heated she would get on the scroll or Facebook iinsisting "there are no gay elves - elves don't have orientations - no, Dart and Kimo are not a gay couple, they are friends who have sex - huge difference!"

And then post-Masque she decides she does want a male-male couple (not friends with benefits, not part of a threesome or foursome) - well, she can't do Dart and Kimo after she went on the record saying they were just friends and we were misunderstanding her story. So, enter Mender, despite all the very good points raised about how out-of-left-field it is.

Just because there aren't any 'Gay' (or 'Lesbian') elves doesn't mean there can't be male-male (or female-female) couples, and I'm not just thinking as part of a three-mating.
Dart was in a relationship with Shushen. And I don't think he minded that much having to share Serrin with Talmah.
It's very likely that Ruffel, Maleen and Vurdah were all involved before the Wolfriders turned up, making them a female-female-female three-mating.

But I guess it's kinda lucky the elves don't really have a concept of awkward, at least I don't think they have. Just imagine how it would be for Serrin otherwise:
"So, yeah... now my ex is together with my uncle. And before that he's also had sex with my aunt, and probably with my cousin. Oh, and my uncle's also been sleeping with my ex's sister... probably still is."

I never felt there was a real connection between Dart and Kimo (for quite some time his sole character trait was being a Dart-shipper), so I don't mind axing this relationship. While I like the Dart/Mender coupling per se (two gloomy-highthings), the way it was depicted was rushed without any development

Redhead Ember wrote:

Just because there aren't any 'Gay' (or 'Lesbian') elves doesn't mean there can't be male-male (or female-female) couples, and I'm not just thinking as part of a three-mating.
Dart was in a relationship with Shushen. And I don't think he minded that much having to share Serrin with Talmah.
It's very likely that Ruffel, Maleen and Vurdah were all involved before the Wolfriders turned up, making them a female-female-female three-mating.

I don't think that was quite Wingthing's point (correct me if I go wrong). We were seeing same-sex pairings all over the place in Elfquest, including the ones you mentioned. Many fans wanted Dart and Kimo in particular (probably because they were lovemates and soulbrothers already and therefore established as on an intimate enough level to take that step) to be identified as more than lovemates, as lifemates on the same level of love and commitment as, say, Cutter and Leetah. To have any same-sex couple shown on that level (not in a three mating) has not yet happened, although Wendy seems to be finally hinting at going there with Dart and Mender. But it hasn't actually happened.

I have to add that within both the major three-matings in EQ, that level of love and commitment is totally shown between the same-sex partners. I think that's why it seems so odd that there are no male-male and female-female lifemate pairs. Like, why wouldn't there be?

But do we actually know that Dart and Kimo were ever soulbrothers?
Sure, Kimo seemingly knew Dart's soulname in the Forevergreen, but it hasn't really come up since, so it could just be a mistake.

Kimo called Dart "brother" several times in the Forevergreen. They were very close then. I would not call it a mistake; Wendy Pini and Barry Blair just had different ideas, that's all.

The idea that Dart is schitzofrenic (mentioned by Zadzi) is very funny.

Trollhammer - Your post kind of hits on what I've been thinking is happening in terms of the change in quality and feeling of this series versus the original quest and how much that might have to do with them working for another publisher this time. For the original quest, issues were supposed to come out quarterly, but it seems like I remember waiting a loooooooong time between issues (although maybe I was just young and impatient.) Maybe Wendy still can do great art and has a great story in mind, but is having trouble dealing with having an external deadline placed on her. That's why we see lots of recycled art and odd scene shifts. Often when I write I don't do it linearly - I write scenes as they come to me so sometimes I'll have the end done before I even finish the beginning. Maybe Wendy is sticking in what she has done and having to put in filler because what should have come next is not quite ready.

Sure, could be that. But even if, Dark Horse would tell them beforehand and Wendy could've prepare; she could've finished the issues until #2 or #3 first 'to buy her time' or maybe just talk to the publisher.
I started reading Harrow Country, a horror comic published by DH, with a new issue coming out every second month, still it's hand-drawn with beautiful watercolour pictures. So no excuse for EQ

Done in a rush because there are a million things I should be doing... But I'm going on a vacation tomorrow and I was affraid I would forget about it if I didn't do it today...

XD ... I start to feel pity for MENDER! O.O

OMG It's schizoid Dart!!! I SO LOVE THIS, Sifra!

The relationship is off to a 'bumpy' start lol. They're going to need couples' therapy soon. Who would be therapist? We saw what happened when Freetouch tried to 'help' !