Final Quest #15 - Delayed.

SPOILER

Nitpicking...

Drawing realistic animals was never a strength of Wendy, but why did she never use a reference for the pony. Just look at it in the first panel...
Also, it's nice to see how Leetah goes with the trend of thicker eyebrows
The part, where everyone puts of their clothes is pretty pointless. And why do they start to cuddle with rotten smelling elves? Also, why did they bring new clothes for Cutter, wouldn't finding him first be more important ("Let's go on a rescue mission for him, but let's pack these leathers first")?
I think the fungi looked scared, when they heard Savah's name, maybe they are not the rest of her old group?
Moonshade is wearing smart clothing, it can adjust to the size and height of its wearer
And Door looks really feminine, doesn't he?

SPOILERS

Jay! Chot! I hope Jethel will follow soon.
Why do they have to get naked? It seems pointless, but I do not object...
I still like the fungus elves. I had hoped for a bigger role for Redlance in this, too. Maybe that's yet to come?

I suppose Newstar made Cutters new clothes. She is also a tanner, I believe...

I am glad Moonshade decided to go back to her old form. She looked like crap as a high one. I have given up on their relationship, too. Yes, they are like a teen soap opera. My eldest daughter is driving me crazy watching that stuff.

There are some posed in the comic that looked kind of awkward to me.

I like Pike's angry face. Looks really cute!  

Maybe Moonshade's big break through is the ability to shape her clothes and not just her body?

The naked love-in seems pointless but I liked seeing Leetah be firey and tear her life mate away from the Fungazoids.

I think it's neat but a bit improbable that the Fungazoids know Savah. It's been previously said that she was a child when Sorrow's End was founded. How are they supposed to remember her 15,000 years later?

I wish we had seen more of what's happening with Rayek, Ekuar and Two-edge. I guess I'll have to wait.

I was afraid that Rayek's brief visit to the Palace was meant to be "and here's why we're not going to see him for the rest of the story.". Tbh, I kind of wish it had. Though I do like seeing Ekuar standing up to him. I've felt for a long time now that looking after Rayek in "Rogue's Curse" has done a lot to bring him out of his mental fog.

Speaking of mental stuff, I'm not impressed with Ember saying Teir should have thrown a child off of a cliff. If it's supposed to be a sign of her mental scarring, why does everyone else shrug it off?

I'm a little tired of the back-and-forthing with Strongbow and Moonshade but also interested to see how it shakes out. I'm kind of losing patience with those who keep insisting Moonshade should drop Strongbow and keep going. Marriage is not about your personal fulfillment. It's about being a partnership. I don't think she should abandon her studying (beyond the fact that I'm not very impressed with what we've seen of Palace life in general) but this is much more than "teen age romance angst." "Do I abandon the life, friends and beliefs of centuries and deliberately go where my life mate cannot follow?" is a very different set of questions from "Gee, will we be able to stay together if I go to college and he stays in our hometown?"

Of course you are right, manga. But Strongbow and Moonshade have been at it for about ten years now (according to the storyline) and I feel like their storyline doesn't bring anything new anymore. It's just the same thing over and over again and it seems to be going nowhere. That's how it reminds me of a teen soap. At this point I would be more interested in a break up story. I would be more interested in seeing that happen to them. But that's just how I feel about it.

manga wrote:

She had a successful career and a valued talent in the community. Now she spends her days staring vacantly at colored lights.

The whole letter made me laugh
"Wounded Wolf"  eh eh!

manga wrote:

I'm a little tired of the back-and-forthing with Strongbow and Moonshade but also interested to see how it shakes out. I'm kind of losing patience with those who keep insisting Moonshade should drop Strongbow and keep going. Marriage is not about your personal fulfillment. It's about being a partnership.  I don't think she should abandon her studying (beyond the fact that I'm not very impressed with what we've seen of Palace life in general) but this is much more than "teen age romance angst." "Do I abandon the life, friends and beliefs of centuries and deliberately go where my life mate cannot follow?" is a very different set of questions from "Gee, will we be able to stay together if I go to college and he stays in our hometown?"

Well... isn't it kinda "teenage romance angst" by High One standards, though? Even by Sun Folk standards. Moonshade is what.... 1000 and some change? That ain't that much to her new peer group (Savah, Ahdri, Sun-Toucher, etc). I can see them basically phrasing her choice in "go to higher learning or stay in your hometown with your childhood sweetheart" terms.

... considering how long elves can life when they aren't living hand-to-mouth, and how considering you can now actually swap tribes if you like, I'm amazed there aren't more elfin divorces. When you're spending *millennia* with the same person, it's only natural a certain number of couples would grow to find themselves incompatible.

Yeah, the issue I have with it is that they are in limbo land, still. A decade. I know time doesn't work the same for elves but. This endless back and forth whether they are going to, or not going to? Is annoying now. I never liked Strongbow, never have in my whole life of reading Elfquest. (Which is like, eleven years already? My goodness!) And initially I was thrilled by the new development.

But now though? I feel like we all know this isn't working, and it should be broken off. Strongbow and Moonshade know it too. They had a good life together but it isn't enough anymore. It happens. They are nostalgic but it is time to call it what it is.

Time has come for them to move on.

I really LIKE Strongbow (and Moonshade) and ITA. It would've been more interesting if they broke it off and then missed eachother, or even if they stayed together and were shown to get cranky with their life, but this just hovering and maybe kinda breaking up is seriously getting old.

I want to know how Chot got captured by Door. Don't get me wrong, Door was a pupil of Winnowill. But I wonder how he overpowered Chot. And also, why is Chot wearing his old clothes? Last we saw him, he was wearing one of those "god-awful Blair loincloth tm."

I was thinking wendy hasn't bothered giving the poor guy some new clothes because she's going kill him off in that landslide she barked about.

*shudders*

I am so afraid of that happening. You have no idea.

I do. I wouldn't put it past her to be that petty.
I mean, she went out of her way to specifically state she hates that character.

Chot is the only elf who's actually a jerk. I mean, we have evil elves, we have misguided elves, he's the only one that's actually just unpleasant.

I feel like you guys aren't getting it. Marriage is not about "Oh, we've grown apart. Goodbye." Marriage is about "We've grown apart. What can we do to grow together again?" Anything else is not marriage, it's just long-term dating.

I wonder what Moonshade do all day in the palace...

manga wrote:

I feel like you guys aren't getting it. Marriage is not about "Oh, we've grown apart. Goodbye." Marriage is about "We've grown apart. What can we do to grow together again?" Anything else is not marriage, it's just long-term dating.

Manga, what are you talking about? who is saying that they are dating?
The only thing I am getting that is that this angst-y stuff is pretty dull when it is not going anywhere storywise. Ok fine thy have marriage problems. Personally, I think it isn't evn that thy have grown apart so much as Moonshade is exploring but frankly their communication in general just sucks. So it has gotten old to keep reading th same thing again and again with no progression. They are at an impasse. And that is fine! But we already know they are at an impasse. We do not need to keep seeing the bloody same impasse every issue. Well, I don't. Storywise, it is not working for me personally.

I get that seeing the same impasse is getting old. But there's so much more to this than the "leave him, already!" I seem to be hearing from some quarters.

manga wrote:

I'm kind of losing patience with those who keep insisting Moonshade should drop Strongbow and keep going. Marriage is not about your personal fulfillment. It's about being a partnership. I don't think she should abandon her studying (beyond the fact that I'm not very impressed with what we've seen of Palace life in general) but this is much more than "teen age romance angst." "Do I abandon the life, friends and beliefs of centuries and deliberately go where my life mate cannot follow?" is a very different set of questions from "Gee, will we be able to stay together if I go to college and he stays in our hometown?"

See, I think that is an apt analogy.  Sure, the timescale is different with the elves, but they're at the same impasse.  Moonshade is changing, her lifestyle is changing, she wants to live elsewhere, do different things.  Strongbow wants to stick with the status quo, he's happy in their "hometown" and can't imagine himself living anywhere else.  

In general, however, I agree with your further point that a marriage (or lifemating) should be about overcoming disagreements and not throwing the towel in at the first sign of trouble:

manga wrote:

Marriage is about "We've grown apart. What can we do to grow together again?"

 

But like Zadzi says, they've been rehashing this for a decade (and us along with them) and their conversations get them absolutely nowhere.  They keep talking at each other and not listening to each other.  You can't forge a compromise without listening.  I did not need rendition #1,467 of their stale debate...

Strongbow: We're great together!  Forget this junk and come back to me.  You're killing me and you're a bad mom too!!
Moonshade:  Look at what I can do!!! Wait...does this upset you???  I don't get it!

They are so dense, they are so boring.  I was on board with this plot development at the beginning.  But it kills me to see panel space wasted on them when there aren't any changes in their plot.    If you plotted their storyline on an axis, it would basically be a straight line from the moment Moonshade left to join the palace to the moment she gave up her wolfblood.  Now we're flat-lining again.  Other plot elements could use that space!

Strongbow and Moonshade are old favorites of mine.  It kills me to see their characters fed into the thresher like this.  Going by everything we saw up until FQ, they were a mature couple, with a deep understanding of one another (or at least Moonshade understood Strongbow).  Now they've lost all willingness to empathize with one another.  It's like the clock has been rolled back on their relationship.  Any halfway decent human marriage makes them look like a couple of 16 year olds at this point.

Edited to add: I don't advocate cutting and running from a marriage when times are tough or the parties aren't happy. Anyone who's happy all the time in their marriage is either insanely lucky or in denial. Healthy marriages hash out issues, forge compromises, and move one together. But if a couple can't communicate, won't bend, and make each other miserable for years on end, a shared history shouldn't always keep them together.

Shadowpath wrote:

I mean, she went out of her way to specifically state she hates that character.

I vaguely remember Wendy talking about this, but was she talking about Chot or just Jethel? Wendy usually likes the characters she created and has trouble connecting with characters designed and developed by other artists. Unless I'm mistaken, Wendy created Chot in that Hidden Years story where Kahvi, Tyldak, Yun, and Chot went to steal the little palace. I'd be shocked if she'd soured so completely on her own creation.

On page 11, it looks like Skywise has finally met an elf maiden whose hands he doesn't want all over him. >.>

ErinC1978 wrote:

On page 11, it looks like Skywise has finally met an elf maiden whose hands he doesn't want all over him. >.>

Wisp wrote:

Shadowpath wrote:

I mean, she went out of her way to specifically state she hates that character.

I vaguely remember Wendy talking about this, but was she talking about Chot or just Jethel?  Wendy usually likes the characters she created and has trouble connecting with characters designed and developed by other artists.  Unless I'm mistaken, Wendy created Chot in that Hidden Years story where Kahvi, Tyldak, Yun, and Chot went to steal the little palace.  I'd be shocked if she'd soured so completely on her own creation.  

From what I remember it was both. I only know what Startear told me.

ErinC1978 wrote:

On page 11, it looks like Skywise has finally met an elf maiden whose hands he doesn't want all over him. >.>

Maybe they're not visible female enough for him to want to plow them.

Wisp wrote:

See, I think that is an apt analogy.  Sure, the timescale is different with the elves, but they're at the same impasse.  Moonshade is changing, her lifestyle is changing, she wants to live elsewhere, do different things.  Strongbow wants to stick with the status quo, he's happy in their "hometown" and can't imagine himself living anywhere else.  

Timescale doesn't matter. Commitment is what matters. We are talking about immortals, as you point out, but I feel that just makes my point. What are centuries, millennia or epochs to them in the long run?  To look at it only as a matter of time and relative age means Rayek did nothing wrong when he separated  Cutter and Leetah in KOTB.  

wisp wrote:

In general, however, I agree with your further point that a marriage (or lifemating) should be about overcoming disagreements and not throwing the towel in at the first sign of trouble:

But like Zadzi says, they've been rehashing this for a decade (and us along with them) and their conversations get them absolutely nowhere.  They keep talking at each other and not listening to each other.  You can't forge a compromise without listening.  I did not need rendition #1,467 of their stale debate...

They are so dense, they are so boring.  I was on board with this plot development at the beginning.  But it kills me to see panel space wasted on them when there aren't any changes in their plot.    If you plotted their storyline on an axis, it would basically be a straight line from the moment Moonshade left to join the palace to the moment she gave up her wolfblood.  Now we're flat-lining again.  Other plot elements could use that space!

I think we're pretty well in agreement then. I agree totally that I'm ready for this storyline to be finished one way or the other. I just disagree strongly with those who seem to be advocating that Moonshade wash that elf right out of her hair.

wisp wrote:

Strongbow and Moonshade are old favorites of mine.  It kills me to see their characters fed into the thresher like this.  Going by everything we saw up until FQ, they were a mature couple, with a deep understanding of one another (or at least Moonshade understood Strongbow).  Now they've lost all willingness to empathize with one another.  It's like the clock has been rolled back on their relationship.  Any halfway decent human marriage makes them look like a couple of 16 year olds at this point.

I agree 110%. How did the couple who shared so deeply it was on a spiritual level that about broke Skot's brain come to this?  Let alone so quickly?[/quote]

ErinC1978 wrote:

On page 11, it looks like Skywise has finally met an elf maiden whose hands he doesn't want all over him. >.>

Well, if they smell like rotten compost like the story seems to suggest, I don't really blame him there. I know I wouldn't exactly want some stranger that was that smelly coming up and groping me.

manga wrote:

I agree 110%. How did the couple who shared so deeply it was on a spiritual level that about broke Skot's brain come to this?  Let alone so quickly?

Yeah, that fact makes this entire scenario more than a little weird. I'll admit, I've never been a fan of either of them (Strongbow in particular is actually my most hated EQ character) but for a couple that so frequently shared everything they had with one another--physically and spiritually--they seem to be curiously clueless about one another's thoughts and feelings here.

Seriously, do a lock-sending about this whole thing and let your feelings all out about this already, Strongbow and Moonshade. With everything laid bare, you can come to a conclusive decision about all this.