Final Quest #22

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach, I approve.

Anyone want to help me do an MST3K reading of FQ?

manga wrote:

Anyone want to help me do an MST3K reading of FQ?

My god, this would be hilarious. Would love to, but wouldn't know the first thing about how to go about it.

Ok, so anyone interested in this project PM me. If you have ideas, great, if you just want in on the fun too, we can work with that.

The preview is up!




I don't know about anybody else but I find it hard to continue to view the elves as the good guys defending their homes when they are sinking ships full of women who are probably slaves or little better.

It was different when they were defending their right to live and their home. But now they have a whole galaxy to choose from and they seem like the bullies to me.

That was my reaction too Manga. The people in those ships aren’t soldiers, they are non-combatants. Deliberately sinking those ships is just murder.

Thanks for the heads up! Yeah, I agree with you about the deliberate sinking of ships.
Also
1. I always knew Brill was kinda boring and now that seems kind of confirmed. You can't even muster a little excitement about leaving when you're in such supposed obvious danger? Not just boring, but she's also a little silly.
2. Well, there goes my hope for Old Maggoty to smack Timmain.
3. I'm sorry, but the thing with kneeling before the trolls and saying 'we cannot do without you' almost feels like , Hey since we're leaving, we might need your help, so let's get this apology wrapped up. I keep thinking of how that troll was like a waiter or something in the palace in FutureQ, is this a thing for elves? They need to be waited on once they're in the palace or something, and it's got to be a troll? I dunno, guys. This just smacks a little of condescension.

Zadzi wrote:

Thanks for the heads up! Yeah, I agree with you about the deliberate sinking of ships.
Also
1. I always knew Brill was kinda boring and now that seems kind of confirmed. You can't even muster a little excitement about leaving when you're in such supposed obvious danger? Not just boring, but she's also a little silly.
2. Well, there goes my hope for Old Maggoty to smack Timmain.
3. I'm sorry, but the thing with kneeling before the trolls and saying 'we cannot do without you' almost feels like , Hey since we're leaving, we might need your help, so let's get this apology wrapped up. I keep thinking of how that troll was like a waiter or something in the palace in FutureQ, is this a thing for elves? They need to be waited on once they're in the palace or something, and it's got to be a troll? I dunno, guys. This just smacks a little of condescension.

Echoing everyone else's feelings about the sinking of the ships with the women. However, I believe that's a deliberate choice to show the elves aren't always good or right.

I think the trolls are needed to keep the Palace actually functioning at this point. There's no High Ones left but Timmain, and while she may have crammed a Science and Interstellar Travel Via the Palace 101 course into the Palace Dwellers, they don't have the experience to go with the knowledge. Granted, the trolls are more technologically advanced than the elves, but they haven't needed to keep the "old knowledge". So the Firstcomer troll is the only one who knows how to keep the Palace running.

^^^ That's a good point about the trolls , but now I'm even more annoyed because it makes the apology feel phony / hollow.

What does the Palace need to run? I though it was powered by spirits, crystals and good vibes. (Not entirely tongue-in-cheek.)

Though I do remember Timmain saying back in OQ that they'd designed the Palace/ship so that they needed the help of even their smallest critters.

Davrille wrote:

Zadzi wrote:

Thanks for the heads up! Yeah, I agree with you about the deliberate sinking of ships.
Also
1. I always knew Brill was kinda boring and now that seems kind of confirmed. You can't even muster a little excitement about leaving when you're in such supposed obvious danger? Not just boring, but she's also a little silly.
2. Well, there goes my hope for Old Maggoty to smack Timmain.
3. I'm sorry, but the thing with kneeling before the trolls and saying 'we cannot do without you' almost feels like , Hey since we're leaving, we might need your help, so let's get this apology wrapped up. I keep thinking of how that troll was like a waiter or something in the palace in FutureQ, is this a thing for elves? They need to be waited on once they're in the palace or something, and it's got to be a troll? I dunno, guys. This just smacks a little of condescension.

Echoing everyone else's feelings about the sinking of the ships with the women. However, I believe that's a deliberate choice to show the elves aren't always good or right.

I sure hope so. But I'm afraid it'll be glossed over as "well, it's war, what do you expect?" Despite the fact that, yeah, sinking a colony ship is straight up civilian massacre.

It especially seems very out of character for them to be cheering mass deaths. Go-Backs, maybe, but Wavedancers? When did they get so bloodthirsty?

Aaaand, once again this really makes me question why guns are so eeeeeeevil and "we'll be as bad as humans if we use them." Now if cutter was saying "Dude, the Way says we have to give humans a fighting chance against our WMDs of Reef and Rayek, so they get to keep their guns" I might understand it.

It would stupid, but I'd understand it.

maybe that's what they're try to go for: Trolls make the palace go round. There was this lever only a preserver could use. Even though that totally makes zero, ZERO! sense. Just use rockshaping to open walls, have the doors do what they did for Winnowill for millennia*. Rayek could time travel with the palace without the help of any preservers or trolls. What are the trolls supposed to do what the elves couldn't do themselves? Serve food? There is nothing technical about the palace. The elves didn't need a troll to make the shards become the palace again.
TimTam apologises to the first troll, that the high ones wronged them. A few issues later, she asks them to come back and pick up their old duties. Not a single thing changed then? quote Timmain OQ "for their own sake, not for ours, the trolls kept our floating shell in perfect order".

Yeah, Wendy planned out the whole story, from beginning to end.

When the elves see the drowning women, they will save them. Also, prove me wrong, but people on our world never used 'breeding women' to populate a new area. Yes, women rarely had many rights, but men don't want to descend from two-legged livestock or slaves. Those women on the ships are wives.







*What if Rayek hadn't had learned how to fly? The final issue of OQ would have been much shorter

the trolls are meant to be there to serve refreshments. Being cute with pointy ears is hard work yo.

Miss Gillespie wrote:

When the elves see the drowning women, they will save them. Also, prove me wrong, but people on our world never used 'breeding women' to populate a new area. Yes, women rarely had many rights, but men don't want to descend from two-legged livestock or slaves. Those women on the ships are wives.

It is my hope.too that when they see the struggling humans they will help. Especially Reef, who had enough compassion to forgive Winnowill for the millennia of torment she'd put him through. That fact is part of what makes his action so jarring to me.

Forgive me Miss Gillespie but do you not know much about history?  There have been many cultures where being a woman was little different from being a slave, whether they were married or not.  The men wanted sons they were confident were theirs and not only preferred their women meek and subservient but more or less demanded it.

There still are places like that. Saudi Arabia just this month declared it's no longer illegal for women to drive!

There are still men like that too, like the piece of human waste who convinced my 17-year old.cousin that getting pregnant would force her parents to let them get married. (He was in his 20s.)  He later moved her and their children thousands of miles from her family and kept her prisoner in his family's home until she was able to escape with her kids.

Some of those women may be wives. Some may be intended to become wives. I doubt very much that most of them have chosen that fate.

Ye-eah... especially considering the culture of the Djunlanders we've seen so far... being a wife would mean you get raped repeatedly by the same man, as opposed to many. I remember how both Grohmul and Angrif spoke about women. Two-legged livestock is exactly what they think women are.

(OT: but this totally reminds me of a line in A Game of Thrones where Dany says to the Dothraki warrior to marry the women they capture instead of enslaving them. I always wanna slap her and go "It's the same damn thing! You should know this! Two chapters ago you admitted Drogo has every right to share you with his bros if he wanted to!")

It did not surprise me to see Reef sink those boats, but the responses of the other sea elves surprised me. I don't have a good grasp of the Wavedancers, though. They are all pretty forgettable to me.

(From what I remember, the Dothraki raped the women of the people they defeated, but it's been a while since I've read the books and I don't remember what the tv series made of it... Wasn't that witch midwife lady that was with Dany when she had her baby angry with her because the Dothraki killed and raped and enslaved her?)

Yep, it's a rape-a-torium after the Dothraki ride through. But they're all quite insulted at the notion of actually marrying the conquered women - both in book and tv. Not that it would really make ANY difference to the women whether they're being raped as chattel or as... well... chattel. As Manga pointed out, marriage has been synonymous with slavery where women are concerned for far too long across way too many cultures.

Why does Timmain look so heckingly thin

Are you really surprised? We've NEVER seen her eat in elf form. And... have we ever seen her eat in wolf form, for that matter?

wingthing wrote:

And... have we ever seen her eat in wolf form, for that matter?

Once, when Winnowill was finding the history of the Wolfriders within Cutter, way back when they first met the Gliders. Timmain was depicted as a wolf with her teeth in a dead animal.

She has always been thin. She was described as a "reed-slender beauty" when she lay on the for of the decrepit Palace after changing from a wolf for the first time.

Yes- we've definitely seen Timmain eating as a wolf. It was specifically depicted. Her killing and bringing food was part of the purpose of becoming a wolf. And the image of her eating was to show how very much she had immersed herself in that role. We didn't see her eat trolls with the rest of the wolves at the end of the war in Book 4 though-- a point was also made about that.

Seeing a character eat or not doesn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary either way. There are many bodily functions we don't get to witness, and I don't know about you guys, but I'm okay with that.

I also don't care that the elves are going to sink a human ship with civilians aboard. I like it better when the primary characters aren't catch-all good guys. In the past, the epves have been shown to have a range of moral complexity-- I mean, heck, the Gliders had human slaves. Rayek was not the nicest guy. Bearclaw wasn't super nice and Strongbow, Pike and Woodlock all wanted to murder a child, his grandpa (uncle? Whatever) and his parents-- before Cutter turned let them go  to probably starve in the desert. I definitely got the impression from this that they might have collectively killed some humans before (even if Cutter hadn't personally had much experience with it)... and Skywise reacted to a guy trying g to steal his necklace by cutting off a part of the man's body. Talk about escalating a crisis. The Go Backs ate Trolls and enjoyed a good muerderous battle. Kahvi was opposed to peace when first faced with it. Skywise enjoyed thieving and Bearclaw was an alcoholic. Pike is also a drunk on any good day. Should I go on?

The Gliders Also enslaved the Wolfriders and were full on racist. But that only happened because Strongbow (also racist-- or culture-ist if you prefer-- with just a dash of sexism at the time) couldn't listen to Suntop and not shoot that bird. And Surge had some serious codependent control issues. Cutter was a naive doofus at times. Aroree traded a baby in for her career, so she wouldn't have to stand up for herself and break any traditions. Because she figured the Mom could always make some more. And she's supposed to be a good guy.

The elves aren't morally superior.

So  why shouldn't Reef drown the human ship? What's in it for them in letting some human beings live?

(I'll bet Korafaye leads some kind of rescue though... little mermaid style)

manga wrote:

She has always been thin. She was described as a "reed-slender beauty" when she lay on the for of the decrepit Palace after changing from a wolf for the first time.

Right. And besides, all the elves are thin at this point. Have you seen Nightfall lately? At least Timmain has always been that way (like Dewshine-- unlike some other characters).

(Please forgive all my typos in the last two posts. I'm writing on my phone and it's a bear.)

Oh yeah.. and Mender raped a girl just to experience that. Go Mender! (He also loves to kill. How fun!)

Lunakat wrote:

Oh yeah.. and Mender raped a girl just to experience that. Go Mender! (He also loves to kill. How fun!)

Yeah, I've had no use for the character since I read that story. If Mender's one of the casualties of this whole mess, I won't be tremendously upset.