The Final Quest

Yeah, that's one of the top posts on Tumblr. It has the most notes of almost all the eq posts on that website. The only one with more notes is one that links to that one.

The problem is that while many POC probably DO relate to the Sun Folk, the Sun Folk couldn't stand in for all POC cultures on earth, and trying to imply that they do is pretty offensive.

I just readed the link you gave us Lunakat.

Wow....this is really upsetting. I did not see this coming at all! I thought they made the Sunfolk mainly because they were against racism! That the color/that ethnicity doesn't determined how a person is! That Love is not about the color of the skin!

I'm really disgusted by the facebook comments! Blackface!? criticize a girl for playing Cutter?! WHAT THE HECK!?! Then seeing that Richard and Wendy avoid once they found out their ethnicity?! What the heck is this?! Why?! I did not expect this from people like them at all!

They wrote so much wisdom, and yet ... they lack SO much!

I was also quite disappointed with the whitewashing of Teir. When he was introduced he had a strong Native American vibe and was clearly quite dark. Once Wendy took over drawing him he became vaguely olive skinned at best and the whole vibe was toned down severely. I can't help but feel that his parentage was decided retrospectively. Now he's just another generic white elf.

Teir is still olive...and remember, he is the child of Kahvi ( pale, lived in the snow for some thousand years ) Windkin, who is the son of pale Dewshine and pale Tyldak, so the only colour Teir had is from his days in the sun/ Windkin living in sorrows end? I bet they knew who's son he was before they brought him in the story.

There isn't so many elf tribes to pick from yet, Wolfriders living in forrest, up at night = pale, Go-backs = far up north, pale, gliders = live inside a mountain with no windows, pale, Wavedancers living under the sea = pale, yellow, blue. Sun villagers = lived in the sun, nice bronze. Maybe the next tribe is darker, maybe they are green.

I have a friend from Eritrea, he was so dark when he came to Norway in the first place, now...paler, kinda normal.

Why must we scream RACISM for that small comment Skywise made? We don't even know what it meant/what will happen/will anything happen?

Blackbird wrote:

Teir is still olive...and remember, he is the child of Kahvi ( pale, lived in the snow for some thousand years ) Windkin, who is the son of pale Dewshine and pale Tyldak, so the only colour Teir had is from his days in the sun/ Windkin living in sorrows end? I bet they knew who's son he was before they brought him in the story.

Then why was he originally portrayed as darker skinned/Native American inspired? Teir wasn't created by WP, and it was only when WP took over drawing the character that he changed. And - in my opinion - became a lot less interesting.

I don't know.  I guess I've been reading the Final Quest much less critically than all of you.  I've really liked it so far! There are a lot of interesting things going on.

In fact, I think it's because you have all been so critical of the Final Quest that I haven't posted here much lately.  It's what I have wanted to talk about, and no one here really seemed to want to until just now. But now without warning the official Scroll of Colors has just been snatched away, so here we are!

Anyway, I'm getting ready to go to the coast for our 27th wedding anniversary, so there's not much time to explain why I DO like the Final Quest.  I hope we can talk more when I get back.

As for the racism, yes, it's upsetting.  I've been reading a lot about this issue lately in other contexts.  Here is a very good view on the topic of why good people like the Pinis can find it so difficult to take a harder look at these issues:

 White Fragility

I've learned lately that almost everyone is a little bit racist, including myself.  And part of the problem is that we tend to write people off when we perceive racism, so that it becomes such a source of shame that people become unwilling to look for it in themselves.  "Racists are bad, evil people, and I'm a good person, so I can't be racist. Therefore I can't listen to you pointing out to me where I might be."  That's not working.  The fact that "racist" has become a deadly insult is working against solving it.  So I'm not horrified at reading the article.  Sad, but not horrified.  And this might very well be why the Scroll got closed down anyway. It's just too upsetting a conversation.

As a POC, I could probably go for days on racism, and what I've dealt with from both sides.

I'll just say this.

Right now there is a huge demand for more variety and diversity across all media, not just comics.  If EQ is becoming guilty of "whitewashing" well...

As for cosplay and blackface, this has become more and more hot button.  Especially with people cosplaying Michonne from The Walking Dead, and far too often, you guessed it..!

It's hard enough for us to get up the nerve and confidence to play a character that doesn't match our skin tone (or gender).  We usually more or less end up having to play characters we "look like" few and far between as they often are.  In the past I have done Storm, Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats, Sailor Pluto, Michonne, and Ember. I considered Foxxy from Drawn Together because she is the most spectacular animated Blaxplotation sendup ever.

But I've got a LOT of characters I love that DON'T look like me.

This year I decided "Screw it!"  I plan to cosplay a white male character for this next comicon because I happen to love the character and it's an easy costume to pull off between low budget and what's in my closet.  Blonde haired, blue eyed. Not once did I wonder how much pale concealer I should use to match his skin tone.

We're trying to get up the nerve to play characters who we don't look like.  Lighter people don't need to change their skin tone to look like us.  Just play who you love, and let the costume speak for itself.  

Not that I don't love dressing as characters I do match to.  It makes for great photo ops!

I think everyone has brought up good points here. I especially like the points that Krwordgazer and Dark Serval raised- as I think they cut right to the heart of the matter.

This is something that I've really been on the fence about for a while. I'm white- so that makes my understanding of this issue limited, since my personal experience with racism is going to be limited. I mean, sure, I've had individual people say racist things or behave in a racist manner toward me- who hasn't? But nothing culturally wide-spread or institutionalized- which, I think, is an important distinction to understand when talking about this issue- and something that people often fail to distinguish.

On one hand, I see where the Pinis- and the cosplayers- were coming from. And to a certain extent, I agree. I think intent matters. I don't think that there was any intent to be harmful- and that if, these people understood that what they were doing was offensive, they would have probably chosen to do it differently. I think the intent was to honor the characters and be true to the characters- and that an aspect of these particular characters is that they are not white.

I also think it makes a difference that the cosplayers are young, and (for the most part) European. I think that younger people (not all, but lots) have less of a grasp of historical context. And I think that Europe, as opposed to the United States, has a different understanding of what behaviors are racist and why- because, until recently, many European countries were much more homogenous than the U.S.. They also don't have the same history of slavery and exploited labor- because that, for them, was exported. (Thank you, colonialism.)

What strikes me as offensive here aren't the actions themselves- because I don't think there is any malicious intent to them- but the off-hand dismissal of the feelings and arguments of the people of color who are expressing that this offends them. That, to me, is the problem.

I think the original mistake was innocent enough. Somebody just didn't realize. The intent was well-meaning. However- actions, especially publicized actions, exist in a larger context. You don't have to do a lot of research to discover the very negative history of blackface- and how it was used as a way to denigrate, discriminate against and mock black people.

We study that as part of our history, here in the United States. Europeans may not. I think, in some European countries, people don't get it- as evidenced by Zwarte Piet. We had a whole, big argument on one of the earlier Scrolls about Zwarte Piet and whether painting yourself black and dressing up as him was racist. I mean- to anybody from the U.S., that character is so freakin racist- how can you miss it? But people from the Netherlands were passionately insisting it wasn't- because they love the tradition.

So here, we have people painting themselves dark to dress up in cosplay as an Elfquest character. And they don't mean anything bad by it. Okay. That's where we start. No one meant to be offensive. But when someone tells you that what you did offends them, because painting yourself dark to be a character connotes blackface- which has this long history of denigration and is a huge, racist no-no... you need to say, 'sorry! Won't do it again!'-- not continue to argue it's okay. Because the bottom line is, if people are offended, it's offensive. In the larger context, your personal intentions don't matter. You offended people because you were ignorant. That's excusable. But insisting that people's points of view don't matter and choosing to remain ignorant is not excusable.

What really irks me here is that people who are not white are expressing their discomfort with this- and the Pinis seem to be insisting that what they have to say doesn't matter. It seems to me, if you want to find out if something is racist or not- you ask the people most likely to be offended by it "is this racist to you?"- and if they say "yes," then it's probably racist. In this kind of scenario- I don't even know why white people are talking! How can you weigh in on this if you are white? Of course you aren't offended- you're freakin white! It's not a sensitive issue for you. What floors me is that people of color are saying "this offends me" and no one, in this little conversation here, seems to be listening.

ps- as a complete aside, Dark Serval, I think it's so utterly cool that you dressed up as Michonne from The Walking Dead. She is one of the most bad-ass female characters I've ever come across- and probably the only truly bad-ass female character on that show. Nice.

You make some good points Luna. I'm white so I'm not directly affected by racism. But it's obvious even to reasonably aware white people, that PoC were offended and the Pinis chose to brush that off like it didn't matter, like *they* had the right to decide what was offensive or not and everyone else should just shut up. I'm intensely uncomfortable with that.

When I was young, I liked to play Elfquest, and I wanted to be Leetah, I was white and blonde, why can't I be Leetah? In my eyes she was the prettiest elf, and I wanted her golden skin and beutiful hair. So if I was a cosplayer, and wanted to dress up like her, because I love the character, and maybe got some spraytan, and coloured my hair, I'm offending someone?

So maybe we Europeans don't have the same history of slaves and racism, and we don't have the same problems with racism as you in the us, you still think we should be scared to offend you all the time? You know, not all europeans aren't blonde and blue eyed either. and there is more ways to be discriminated than for the colour of your skin. There is always something to mad about, Elfquest don't have any overweight characters, few, strong, open gay characters, no one with downs syndrome, no elves took an abortion, oh, and there is NO ASIAN or asian-looking character, that's racism!! My point is, they can never make EVERYONE happy, it's a COMIC book, and they made it, not to please everyone.

As for your talk about blackface, I do know about it, I don't like it, but that is not what that poor cosplayer was doing, she just wanted to look like Leetah, for crying out loud. If she was all pale someone would give her a hard time about that to. A cosplayer should get to dress up as their favorite character, even if the character is a different sex, race or whatever.

Everyone should stop getting so offended for everything. Choose your battles, giving a cosplayer with spraytan a hard time is not a battle.

@Blackbird- well, yeah, actually- that's the whole point.

(edited my response cus it was too long and overbearing!)

Actually, I think that if you want to play Leetah and you are pale-- just doing a pale Leetah is the way to go. People have done that, and I don't think anyone ever gave them a hard time about it.

Look- here's a pale Leetah and a pale Ember. It works:

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Elfquest-516683757

Can we maybe move the race discussion to its own thread? It's worth discussing but let's leave space in here for other aspects of FQ too.

Yeah- that's probably a good idea! I just copied and pasted Blackbird's last comment to this thread:

https://fathertreeholt.forumotion.com/t104-skin-color-how-much-does-it-matter#1606

So final quest, has anyone read #8?
I have order it, but it still will take some weeks to get it, so I was wondering about buying it online, is it worth it? any big things? ( I saw a picture of elf-ents on the stupid spoiler thread on facebook, but more than that? )

Blackbird wrote:

So final quest, has anyone read #8?
I have order it, but it still will take some weeks to get it, so I was wondering about buying it online, is it worth it? any big things? ( I saw a picture of elf-ents on the stupid spoiler thread on facebook, but more than that? )

I have. The elf-ents is the big thing, we see them when Sunstream sends out the Call.
Strongbow&Moonshade have a fight, the Go-backs are celebrating Kahvi's passing and preparing to go back to the Palace. That's the most important sidepoints, I guess.

KR Wordgazer wrote:

I don't know.  I guess I've been reading the Final Quest much less critically than all of you.  I've really liked it so far! There are a lot of interesting things going on.

In fact, I think it's because you have all been so critical of the Final Quest that I haven't posted here much lately.  It's what I have wanted to talk about, and no one here really seemed to want to until just now. But now without warning the official Scroll of Colors has just been snatched away, so here we are!

Anyway, I'm getting ready to go to the coast for our 27th wedding anniversary, so there's not much time to explain why I DO like the Final Quest.  I hope we can talk more when I get back.

Happy anniversary, Wordgazer! I hope you two have a great time on your trip.

By all means, let's have a discussion about the interesting things. I'm itching to see what things have been planned and how they tie back.

(Though I just went through Book 2 last night and was unable to spot any Ents.)

Though regarding Issue #8, CAN Venka actually say Khavi made the Go-backs what they are today? She left them 10,000 years ago.

Frankly the price is about the same as in a comic store. For me, it's about convenience. I switched from paper to ebooks because it's more convenient and easier to handle, also I don't have to worry about pets or kids getting ahold of them. Plus, I keep everything on my tablet or in the cloud, so my library goes with me everywhere I go. I wouldn't recommend it for smaller devices, tho.

Maybe Moonshade's just sick of Strongbow's crap. He's been a cantankerous old man since he was a kid, and I get the feeling she does love him, but she also stuck with him partially out of habit. And they've been through a lot together, Crescent, Blue Mountain, etc. but now she's actually had a chance to BREATHE and think and feel things. She's not stuck in survival mode, she's had a chance to do some courses, and take up hobbies(metaphorically speaking) and she's changed, but he's still the same old Strongbow. Loveable, of course, but, you know, maybe not what she wants, not anymore.

Frankly, it's one of the things about final quest that actually feels organic to me. Because relationships change, and people in them change, and maybe the relationship doesn't last past the change.

You know what I'd really like to see from the Final Quest? Some elves who are just like, "um, thanks, but no thanks" when it comes to the grand reunification plan. Some elves who are just singularly unimpressed when it comes to Sunstream's send(which struck me as mildly intrusive, tbh) and maybe a little irritated by the invasion of their privacy.

Like, "Yes, the Palace is very nice, but it landed in the carrots and YOU, Mr. Shoutsalot, are standing in my strawberry patch."

Overall, I very much like the final quest.
It's just... Every new issue, I dig in, really start... And it's over already.
I guess whenever I get a new issue I should start with rereading the previous one, or something.

I think it's either awful irony or bad planning that the two elves who most need off-planet are the ones who are going to be left behind.

There...I bought it online as well...and wow!! Ents!!! <3 But who is that handsome guy on the "horse"?