The EQ Alternaverse ((PART 1))

yeah, i mean, lots of elves are jerks, not just bearclaw--i just think smacking your kid around isn't okay, and tbh i kind of wish the story had addressed cutter's issues with his parents more. like if nothing else, they died when he was pretty young, and in a traumatic way--combine that with bearclaw's dickish behavior but some genuine feeling as well (joyleaf loved him after all), and u have a recipe for a super confused lil elf chieftain

i mean considering the setting ur gonna have characters who don't exactly get the 'best parent of the year' award lmao but idk i guess i just want it to be explored more (heck, i think it'd be interesting even to see bearclaw explored more)

lmao i said i didn't want to get off topic, look how wildly off topic i got...XD

(on the other hand now that im thinking about cutter i think it'd be interesting to somehow have swift and cutter interact with each other and have it be, like, serious, because they're both tam but have wildly different life experiences. also parallel dimension stuff is my jam)

wingthing wrote:

yeah, I totally get Bearclaw as a very morally grey character or a study of the failures of good intentions when yoked to a restricted world view. I can sort of see him as a very tragic figure.  But I can't for the life of me understand the "Bearclaw was a grand old trickster elf" viewpoint.

That would be Ret-conning. Unless Cutter is so touched in the head that he fondly imagines the abusive alcoholic's spirit following him protectively on his quests.

It would also explain the near beatification of Joyleaf, the woman who was content to let her chosen (!) lifemate beat on everyone ELSE so long as he didn't touch HER.

Maybe the Wolfriders coming to an end is a good thing.

Eh, it's not retconning, is it? I remember Treestump (well, he's always been slightly touched lmao) in EQ talking about how Bearclaw had a 'merry heart' or something, and a good head for dream berries. It was when Leetah was spying on them for the howl when she was still denying recognition. They were talking about how awesome their chiefs were. Granted, that was BEFORE the story of Bearclaw's Smack-An-Elf ways were shown...
And then Clearbrook was all, Joyleaf was his better half and they complete each other as all life mates do, blah blah blah.  And Leetah was like thinking to herself, Jeez, you guys have lived in the forest for waaay too long, you're all so unbelievably naive. (Boy do I miss old Leetah.).

Then again, during that howl, Cutter was also talking about how old Savah was, and there was no reason the Wolfriders shouldn't live that long *AHEM*...oh, little chieftain, you were so young then.


On another note: It's always struck me as rather odd how Leetah, a healer, never picked up on the mortal blood thing in canon EQ. It took Winnowill telling her for her to 'get it'. You'd think after centuries of healing immortal elves in the Sun Village, she'd recognize that something was 'off', but she didn't. Hmm.

Kaza999, in Wingthing's Survivor series, there's a lot of hilarious interaction between Swift and Cutter, with them being on rival sides, and pissing each other off by throwing around their soul name back and forth and essentially hobbling each other. Granted, it's not serious...but it is seriously funny

aw man i loved the survivor serious, it was hilarious! i should do a reread sometime...but the idea of swift and cutter in a serious meeting is still v fascinating to me XD

well, i think a lot of the retconning could be put down to wendy not thinking that far ahead--maybe she had an idea of what bearclaw and joyleaf were like and their character got more developed over time. after all in original quest we only see bearclaw and joyleaf mentioned by other people, it's not like they show up themselves or anything. i figure u could put leetah not noticing something weird about their blood to that, too--a lot of times authors worldbuild on the fly, so some things introduced later will be inconsistent or a little weird with stuff introduced earlier

personally i think i would have liked a bearclaw that was more like how the other wolfriders saw him--more of a puckish trickster type, maybe gruff but not as much of a jerk as he turned out to be.

Zadzi wrote:

Eh, it's not retconning, is it? I remember Treestump (well, he's always been slightly touched lmao) in EQ talking about how Bearclaw had a 'merry heart' or something, and a good head for dream berries. It was when Leetah was spying on them for the howl when she was still denying recognition. They were talking about how awesome their chiefs were. Granted, that was BEFORE the story of Bearclaw's Smack-An-Elf ways were shown...

That's what makes it a ret-con. It was shown one way and then latter written in a contradictory way.

Quote :

On another note: It's always struck me as rather odd how Leetah, a healer, never picked up on the mortal blood thing in canon EQ. It took Winnowill telling her for her to 'get it'. You'd think after centuries of healing immortal elves in the Sun Village, she'd recognize that something was 'off', but she didn't. Hmm.

You've misread or mis-remembered that part of the story. Leetah knew and had known from the first time she had healed Redlance. She had kept it secret to protect the innocence of the Wolfriders and because she was afraid the other immortal elves would react as negatively as she had at first. Winnowill was using it as leverage to make Leetah have Cutter and Company leave Blue Mountain.

Retconning, or one hell of an unreliable narrator! Maybe the entire tribe had a variant of Stockholm Syndrome.

No shit, I need to reread, I though Leetah just did't see the mortal blood thing. Thanks for clearing that up, Manga.

Yeah is retconning just another term for unreliable narrative? Because I know my writing teacher would've whipped my ass sideways through not just a metaphoric wall had I done that.
It's like if you space something out enough over the years and it's fantasy writing, the rules change somehow. Me no like lol.

Wingthing, you don't do that!

some authors are better at continuity than others--i find that the more authors are involved and the longer period of time the work goes on for, the more likely a retcon or continuity error is (ohh boy eq's lore inconsistencies don't hold a candle to some of the nightmarish lore tangles other series have XD)

Hey guys. Leetah always knew. That's why Winnowill was able to make her cry and promise to try to convince Cuttwr to leave Blue Mountain in Book 3. The Wolfriders loved Bearclaw-- even though he probably smacked them all around some-- because in their culture and their world, you had to be a little tough to survive and getting knocked around a little by your chief was not a shockingly offensive thing-- it was part of life in their tribe and its hierarchy. The way I always saw it, if you couldn't take that-- how were you going to take down a bear? Or fight off a wild animal? Or get through a tough winter? You'd just cry, curl up and die.

That's why the Sunfolk were such a contrast.

Sure, but the Wolfriders are presented as the one and only tribe, which is always on the right side of history. They hold the truth and they alone. When Rayek calls their traditions "cruel and savage" a better knowing Leetah corrects them, their traditions are "simple, true and beautiful" (or something like that).

I think the later stories are retconning a lot, or at least, the lessen the impact of the original story quite often (Winnowill performing abortions, Teir being the son of Kahvi, and Windkin). Which is why, most of us have a canon of their own, right

Actually-- I don't think so. Not completely. I think that the Wolfriders have often been presented as a mixed bag. Especially if you read any of the Blood of Ten Chiefs stories-- those collections really showed them to be internally conflicted and struggling with their collective identity. Granted, they are the protagonists, and Cutter is the main character-- so, as readers, we are supposed to empathize with them, follow them through the adventure, and see the story from their perspective to a certain extent. But they aren't shown as flawless. They make a lot of mistakes. At least, I think, that's true in the first six graphic novels. After that-- yeah. It gets a little heavy handed and moralistic. I do agree that the later stories do a lot of retconning-- but the first six graphic novels are more balanced.

Like- for example... Before Skyfire, they were all pretty brutish-- weren't they? And they had some nasty internal divides. The Wolfier elves were  sort of... stupid, frankly. Except when it came to hunting. They couldn't understand basic concepts like time. They had trouble reasoning. I'm sure they couldn't really do math. And they were contemptuous of the Elfier elves. And the Elfier the elves, the more contemptuous they were of the Wolfy ones. Or the more timid and scared. They were also sometimes cruel-- to humans or each other or animals. The first real code of conduct they had was developed by Huntress Skyfire-- but only after she fought her own brother to take over. And they fought because of sibling rivalry, general pissiness and jealousy. And also because he was kind of insane. (It seemed like maybe a quarter of them through preceding generations would turn out to be insane.) And while I can't remember who Rellah mentored (in the family tree thread)-- i do remember that she was fairly bitchy.

After that-- they began living by some necessary rules. But it took them gemerations to learn how to make clothes. They never really did master fire. They never used wheels. They seem to have mostly mated away the craziness-- but not completely. I mean-- there was Mantricker (not totally stable), Wreath (not stable and not the best mother), Bearclaw (also lacking in the frontal lobe department. Even their happy reminiscence of him includes him kidnapping a baby.)

Cutter turned out pretty balanced. But he is a product of generations of mating away the crazy. And even he makes some pretty bad decisions (for all that he's supposedly Timmain-- whattheheckever.) He raids the Sun Village-- because he can't understand that other elves could be culturally different than him due to circumstances. ("They have no wolves, no tree houses, and they live in the sun as men do." Oh really? Have you looked around lately? You think you are gonna find wolves and trees here?) He makes some terrible mistakes in Blue Mountain and with Olbar's tribe by being naive. Skywise is racist. So is Strongbow. (They have their reasons, but still.) and they still don't cook their food. Any of them.

I find it very telling that the stories that presented the Wolfriders in the most balance, realistic light as a hunter gatherer society were those stories that Wendy and Richard did not write. They've always pushed the "just right bowl of porridge" narrative, as Sun Girl mentioned way up-thread. The Sun Folk are too soft, the Go-Backs are too cruel, the Gliders are too weird and emotionally disconnected... and all were isolated and doomed to stagnation were it not for the Wolfriders.

The Gliders got a bum rap, as far as I'm concerned. Sure, the tribe went to hell once Winnie took over, but look at all they achieved under Voll - a mutually beneficial trade agreement with humans, a society numbering in the hundreds or more, while no other tribe could manage more than forty or so, a cultivation of magic unseen on Abode since the Palace crashed. They probably even had flush toilets! And then Cutter and his crew showed up, "revitalized" Voll, and the whole society crashed within 3 years! There's a great lesson there, if only Wendy and Richard had cared to explore it a little deeper.

Of course, we of the Alternaverse know which tribe is "just right" - literacy, thriving cross-species economy, mixed drinks -  Pirates FTW!!

They did write the first four graphic novels. But yeah-- well, the Wolfriders are the protagonists. They are supposed to be the heroes. That's what kind of story this is. The whole point of the story was about how they learn to be balanced, learn lessons about the nature of prejudice and how to overcome their own prejudices, learn how to retain optimism while not being naive or letting their dreams control them, etc.. If they didn't learn those lessons-- it would be a different story. It wouldn't have the same arc. It would be dark and dystopic, I guess. But instead, it's heartfelt and uplifting.

What bugs me isn't that the Wolfriders find a place of balance by the end of the first story arc or two. It's the preaching nature of the current story-- and of Kings of the Broken Wheel. I felt like the first the sorry was nuanced up through Seige at Blue Mountain and the Secret of Two Edge. But after that, it got incredibly didactic and then characters really flattened out. It also got morally preachy in a simplistic way-- and that was annoying.

I'm not arguing the Wolfriders are civilised, they clearly are not. But being "refined and civilised" is, often enough, regarded as something negative, especially in our looking-for-meaning modern society. Those, who are not civilised and modern and developed are true to (their own) nature, in tune with the great spirits and blah blah

I haven't read the novels, but sounds like I should

Lunakat wrote:

They did write the first four graphic novels.

My point exactly. See the "just right bowl of porridge". Sure, the WRs weren't perfect, but they were presented as the best option. The real interesting deconstruction of the Wolfriders didn't really start until the Blood of Ten Chiefs stories.

Miss Gillespie wrote:

I'm not arguing the Wolfriders are civilised, they clearly are not. But being "refined and civilised" is, often enough, regarded as something negative, especially in our looking-for-meaning modern society. Those, who are not civilised and modern and developed are true to (their own) nature, in tune with the great spirits and blah blah

Or rather civilization is regarded as something negative by the authors, which colours the worldview of their fiction. The "noble savage" trope seems very much in effect in canon. Likewise, lack of civilization is not regarded as the one true-to-nature, in-tune-with-spirits way of life by Wingthing, which is why in the Alternaverse the Wolfrider Way is not always presented as the "right" way.

Are they "just the right bowl of porridge" anymore, though? They are the only elves (that we know of) who are unable to live in the palace-- except for maybe the fungus... and they don't seem to be doing that well outside of it anymore.

Considering that Final Quest is the biggest mess of retcons and preachiness yet, it's a fool's game at best to try and square any of its philosophical implications with what has gone before, IMO. I just leave FQ (and Discovery) out of my PerCanon entirely.

Lol. I hear you.

sun girl wrote:

Or rather civilization is regarded as something negative by the authors, which colours the worldview of their fiction. The "noble savage" trope seems very much in effect in canon. Likewise, lack of civilization is not regarded as the one true-to-nature, in-tune-with-spirits way of life by Wingthing, which is why in the Alternaverse the Wolfrider Way is not always presented as the "right" way.

We have people promoting raw or even paleo diets, because that seems closer to nature and therefore the right way. Homoeopathy is build on the mistrust towards modern pharmacology and the idea, that 'natural healing' is always better. Spa joints advertise with pictures of flowers and water and pretty women in linen clothes instead of guys in business suits and glass buildings. This "noble savage" trope, "the better wild" permeates not just EQ canon but our society as a whole.

I didn't accuse Wingthing of pandering to this trope

Modern pharmacology still exists and is actually used by a large proportion of the population of modern western society, particularly in comparison with homeopathy of all things, about which Wikipedia says: "Assessments by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the British National Health and Medical Research Council, and the Swiss Federal Health Office have each concluded that homeopathy is ineffective, and recommended against the practice receiving any further funding."
And why would a spa use pictures of men in business suits, I'm pretty sure flowers and linen dresses are an obviously better match for their services. Whereas men in business suits might be better used to sell whiskey for example.
But yes, "back to nature" is trendy this decade, if that's what you mean. This happened in the 60s-70s too. Probably why EQ is so strong in this trope.