ElfQuest

(This is part of my Elfquest re-read. There will be spoilers.)

I can't think of any character in this entire series who more strongly merits their own post, with the possible exception of Two-Edge.

Winnowill is a villain, and the story makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. When we see Strongbow being psychically tortured at the end of The Forbidden Grove, his tormentor is shown only as a silhouette -- but the fact that she speaks telepathically tells us she's an elf. And in case you had any doubt as to whether you should still give her the benefit of the doubt, her sending gets its own special mark, a malevolent red and black star. It takes the characters a while to confirm that she's the great danger Savah warned Suntop about, but the reader knows from the start.

But saying that she's a straight-up villain doesn't mean she's inherently evil, in the "dyed in the wool" sense. From Lord Voll we get tantalizing hints about the Winnowill of the past -- I would have loved to see a short-run series of backstory about the early days of the Gliders. She was probably ambitious from the start, and likely somewhat manipulative, but those aren't the same thing as the unrelenting malice she exhibits in the present day. No, her spirit has been warped over the millennia: by the isolation and ossification of the Gliders, by the lack of any real purpose to her endless life, and by whatever happened to her when she vanished underground for a time. If memory serves, that's when she met the troll by whom she conceived Two-Edge, but whether she herself suffered any trauma or was only ever the inflicter of same, I don't recall.

Everything that's wrong with Winnowill is, for lack of a better term, a human problem. By that I mean she's not supernaturally corrupted or anything like that; her flaws are the same flaws real people have in the real world. Arrogance. Hunger for power. Lack of empathy. A desire to cause pain, simply because it demonstrates her power and it's the only thing she finds interesting anymore. Where magic comes in is with the suggestion that she could be fixed . . . if she wanted to be. But when it comes to a choice between allowing Leetah to change her and stepping to her almost-guaranteed death, Winnowill chooses death. I find myself sorely tempted to request Winnowill fanfic next Yuletide, because I think it would be fascinating to see the inside of her mind.

That impulse surprises me because, although I very much like Winnowill's role in this volume, overall I find she demonstrates the same problem exhibited by villains in many other stories: the more the plot focuses on her, the less interesting I find the result. She's great here, okay in Siege at Blue Mountain and The Secret of Two-Edge, largely unnecessary in Kings of the Broken Wheel (Rayek's own choices are far more compelling), and then she just . . . keeps going. It's partly a function of the otherwise intriguing worldbuilding twist that killing her would accomplish jack, and might make things worse: then they'd have to contend with her spirit, which would be no less dangerous and a lot more difficult to hit. As I recall from later canon, she does wind up dead and Rayek has to serve as her prison, but I don't think the problem she represents ever got resolved; nobody manages to de-toxify her spirit. I really wish they would, because there's a point at which she starts to feel like a drag on the story to me.

Before that point, though, she's a fantastic villain. I love her conversation with Leetah, when she tries to use the secret of the Wolfriders' heritage as a lever to force them out of Blue Mountain before they can threaten her control of the place. Her menagerie of pet humans is incredibly twisted. And Two-Edge -- well. He may wind up getting his own post; we'll see.

I also have to make mention of Winnowill as a specifically female villain. Taken in isolation, her gender and behavior might bother me a lot, because she's very much the stereotype of the femme fatale: beautiful, seductive, manipulative, and so on. In fairness, I should say the fact that I don't have a problem with that probably owes something to the age at which I read this story; I was a lot less critical about that sort of thing when I was twelve. But I also think it owes a lot to the larger context of the story as a whole, because Winnowill is only one female character, in a cast that features a broad array of contrasting figures. Leetah as Winnowill's "dark sister" is particularly noteworthy -- there's a whole metaphorical layer there about how we associate "dark" with "evil," but Winnowill is the pale one of the pair -- but also Dewshine and Aroree and Moonshade and Clearbrook and Nightfall in this volume, many others in the series as a whole. We don't have to excise the femme fatale from our narrative lexicon; we just have to make sure she isn't the only option on offer.

(This is part of my Elfquest re-read. There will be spoilers.)

When humans appear in Fire and Flight, they are quite simply and straightforwardly the enemy. They capture and torture Redlance; they burn the forest because they believe that's what their god wants. They fear and hate elves, and elves fear and hate them right back.

But it doesn't remain that simple.

In my previous post I mentioned the way the story opens up to depict side characters as fully three-dimensional people. There were humans on that list of characters, and the same deepening process happens to their species as a whole. We don't just get good humans here: we get good humans and also bad ones, humans who are good for different reasons and bad for different reasons, humans who think elves are awesome and humans who think they're scary and humans who really just wish they could find a place to live where there aren't any elves at all.

It happens in three stages. The first, of course, is when a family of humans -- starving and near death -- arrive outside Sorrow's End. The decision not to kill them is Cutter's, but the reason he makes that decision is because of Redlance: having been victimized by humans so badly, Redlance wants to know the reason. Because of him, Aro has a chance to tell the human side of the story. Does it erase all badness from them and turn them into angels? No, of course not. But it, well, humanizes them. They, too, suffered from the destruction of the forest. They're in the desert because they wouldn't abandon Aro's brother when he lost his mind -- an impulse that would resonate strongly in a Wolfrider's heart. Their motives are understandable, even when they aren't likeable, even when the elves have paid the cost of their fears again and again.

Cutter's decision isn't necessarily a merciful one. Sure, the Wolfriders don't kill the humans. But driving them out into the desert is almost certainly just a delayed sentence; Cutter doesn't give them any water or food or shelter, and they don't look like they'll make it very far. We aren't yet at the stage where harmony and friendship are possible, even to the extent of supplies -- let alone permitting the humans to rest there for a while before continuing their journey. His actions aren't really admirable . . . except insofar as they're an improvement on what he would have done seven years ago.

Nonna and Adar constitute a nice little inversion of that scene. Cutter, sick and delirious, stumbles upon their home, inadvertently putting his life in their hands much like the lives of that family were in his. But Adar's people, having never seen elves, aren't a priori hostile to them, and Nonna comes from the Blue Mountain tribe, which (we'll see next volume) literally worships them. That isn't a good balance, either; Cutter later regrets having to deceive Nonna and Adar, performing his expected role of "spirit" rather than being able to relate to them normally. But it saves his life in this instance, because Nonna shows a lot more mercy than he did: she not only takes care of him, but goes to great lengths to avoid violence when first Cutter and then Skywise threaten them. The family in the desert made Cutter see humans as people; Nonna and Adar make him see humans as people who aren't automatically enemies. People who might even be friends.

Which brings us to Olbar's tribe. I love Olbar: he's the most complex human character we've seen yet, because unlike the others, he changes during the course of his appearance. He's caught between conflicting forces, with the Bone Woman's fearmongering and thirsting for power on one side, his criminal and outcast brother on another, Nonna and Adar returning from exile and forcing his hand, the loss of his daughter Selah to the Forbidden Grove, and then these "spirits" showing up and blessing his people but are they spirits really? He's the final piece of the transformation: humans started out as the enemy, became people, became people who could be nice, and finally became people who could change. After Olbar, it isn't possible for Cutter to view humans as a monolith. Any conflicts he has with them going forward will be conflicts with individuals, with groups, or with the forces that keep elves and humans from being able to reach some kind of equilibrium -- not with the species as a whole.

The flip side of this will be the introduction of an elf as a villain. But that will have to wait for Captives of Blue Mountain, and I have one more post I want to make about The Forbidden Grove before I'm done.

(This is part of my Elfquest re-read. There will be spoilers.)

I suspect I'll wind up making several posts about Recognition during the course of this series, because it's such an interesting and complex topic: a spontaneous soulbond, with bonus reproductive instinct. You can spin a bunch of different stories out of that, and the Pinis hit quite a few of them; in fact, I'm not sure there's any point in what I consider the main canon (the first eight volumes, up through Kings of the Broken Wheel) where they play it completely straight. Cutter and Leetah come the closest -- but before I get to that, let's talk about Recognition itself.

I mentioned before that the Wolfriders have a serious birthrate problem, and this extends to basically all the elves except the Go-Backs (who have managed to ditch Recognition entirely; I don't recall if we ever find out how). The instinct that drives Recognition is based on genetic matching; some magical instinct looks at another elf and says "yep, you'd make a good kid with me," whereupon the two of you bond at a psychic level and feel an urge to get it on. Savah says in Fire and Flight that "Recognition insures that your offspring will number among the strongest and most gifted of our race" -- which would run the risk of elitism, the special super-awesome Recognition-born children vs those who happen the normal way, except that apparently Recognition is just about the only way elves can have children. Out of the seventeen Wolfriders in the present day, only one (Pike) was born outside of it, and that's considered a noteworthy thing. Later on, Nightfall and Redlance will need Leetah's magical assistance to have a kid. Now, something I read -- I don't remember where this was; probably in an interview or something from the Gatherum or maybe even the RPG -- said that the Recognition instinct gets less selective the older an elf grows, which is why an elf can turn around one day and find themselves bonded to a person they've known for centuries. But essentially, without Recognition, you're unlikely to reproduce. And only the Go-Backs, who have ditched the impulse entirely, seem to have more than about two kids max.

When your birthrate is that low, your species is going extinct. I don't care how long you live: if your replacement rate is that abysmal, then you'll barely maintain population in good times, and bad incidents will whittle you down one bit at a time. Madcoil took out six elves who had only four children among them. Shale and Eyes High both died after a single kid. Rillfisher left only Dewshine behind, and Treestump hasn't Recognized anybody else since then. This is especially a problem when your super-picky reproductive instinct may wait for three or five hundred years before deciding, okay, I guess that person will do. That's three or five hundred years in which you might get killed without having any children at all.

So: Recognition is narratively fascinating, but logically kind of dumb. You'd either need to just run with the elitism, keeping Recognition-born children in the minority and having most being conceived the normal way, or you need Recognition to be way more active in an elf's early years, so they have a better chance of reproducing before something takes them out. And either way, most of these elves need to be like Woodlock and Rainsong, bringing more than two kids into the world.

Of course, the story is less interested in the pragmatic implications of Recognition than it is in the narrative aspects. Which is fine, because that's what I'm ultimately interested in, too. :-)

I'm sort of astonished that I have yet to write soulbonds into any of my fiction, because they're one of my favorite iddy tropes. A permanent psychic connection to another person! Guaranteed to cause angst on the way to a (probably) happy conclusion! The angst is a key part; if soulbonding meant instant and uncomplicated harmony with the other person, it wouldn't be nearly as good story fodder. Clearbrook says that Bearclaw and Joyleaf "completed each other -- just as any two who have Recognized one another should," but a) that isn't always the case and b) even when things do settle down to a happily-ever-after, the road there isn't necessarily smooth. In fact, I can't recall any instances in the main canon of Recognition leading immediately to a good partnership. We have plenty of happily lifemated pairs, but all the ones I can think of who form their bond during the course of the story run into at least a little trouble.

Like Cutter and Leetah. Because the Wolfriders are (generally speaking) the protagonists of this series, a lot of their behavior ends up being positioned, or at least read, as "good" -- but on the topic of Recognition, their basic attitude is shown to be straight-up wrong. They're used to obeying their instincts without a lot of reflections, so Cutter, once he realizes what's happened, sees no reason he and Leetah shouldn't just get together right away. (Strongbow, in his least admirable moment ever, argues that Cutter should stop worrying about what Leetah wants. I apparently edited that out of my memory, and will probably go right back to pretending he never said that, because I usually like Strongbow.)

But Leetah sees plenty of reasons to hold off. And unlike Cutter, she's more than able and willing to delay, to control the impulse driving her toward this total stranger. In the classic way of romance, they both need to change before they'll actually be a good match for one another. Cutter needs to grow past his hotheaded impulsiveness, to show respect for Leetah's point of view; this culminates in his abject surrender to her will for Dewshine's sake after the stampede. (As if Leetah wouldn't have healed her anyway -- but Cutter doesn't understand that yet.) As for Leetah, she needs to learn about the Wolfriders and their ways, to see Cutter's positive qualities as a leader, as exemplified by the Madcoil story. But things don't click for them until she speaks Cutter's soul name out loud, which brings the epiphany she needs: the soul name, being an encapsulation of the individual's essence, helps her understand him in a way that nothing else could.

It's interesting that Cutter doesn't receive the same kind of key. Leetah doesn't have a soul name; that seems to be peculiar to the Wolfriders, because of their dependence on sending (telepathy) -- even though the Gliders and the High Ones use sending a lot, and don't appear to have soul names. I don't know why the Pinis made that decision, though I could make up reasons. Soul/true names are another fun trope, and this story mines them pretty thoroughly, too -- Cutter and Skywise, Nightfall and Redlance, Strongbow closing Timmain out of his mind to keep himself safe. That may wind up being another post.

Anyway, this particular couple actually wind up in an excellent partnership, once they understand each other. Not every Recognized pair in this series can say as much . . . which is why you should expect at least one more Recognition post before I'm done with this re-read, one that focuses more on the problems baked into the concept.

That's enough for Fire and Flight, I think; I haven't touched on everything in it, but the other topics feel to me like I could save them for a later volume. So next up, The Forbidden Grove!

Hi, all! I recently started doing an Elfquest re-read, and decided to blog my way through; suggested I crosspost here. If you want to bookmark the index of all these posts as I make them, that's here, on my site. This is the first of the lot, apart from that introductory post.

Fire and Flight, the first volume of the series, could stand on its own just fine. It's the story of how a tribe of elves called the Wolfriders were driven from their home and found a new one; it's also a romance story for the protagonist, the Wolfrider chieftain Cutter. Both of those things find resolution here, so while the seeds of the ongoing story are present, you get a complete tale right out of the gate.

When it comes to interesting things to say about this volume, the first one that leaps out at me is race. Looking at it with my current perspective, the story doesn't open very well on that front. We get a brief flashback about how the ancestors of the elves came to the World of Two Moons and met with disaster, and . . . well. Tall, thin, pale Tolkien elves get bashed over the head by brutish humans who are a lot darker-skinned. There's a whole lot of interesting stuff going on with that backstory that will have to wait for a later post, but the visuals you get in those first few pages aren't great. In the present moment, thousands of years later, the humans look more anatomically modern (I'm going to do a whole post about the archaeological perspective on this series), but they're still fairly brown and primitive, and the elves are still pale and pretty.

But. If you continue on past that, things get a lot better.

For starters, I love the fact that our Tolkien elves have become short and (relatively) stocky and eat raw meat and ride wolves and howl at the moon. The Wolfriders are not their ancestors, and they've become a lot more primitive themselves, struggling to survive in a harsh world. The only reason they have metal weapons is because they trade with the trolls underground -- who, though not depicted in anything resembling a flattering light (they're green and lumpy and not remotely admirable), clearly have much more advanced technology than either the elves or the humans.

Where it really gets interesting, though, is when the Wolfriders cross the desert after the burning of the holt and find themselves at Sorrow's End. In 1978 -- the same year that Gary Gygax introduced the drow, those black-skinned concatenations of every evil outsider characteristic you can think of -- Wendy and Richard Pini gave us the Sun Folk, a settlement of civilized, brown-skinned farmer elves. Compared to them, the Wolfriders are straight-up barbarians. Made cynical and suspicious by their recent woes, the Wolfriders literally charge down into the village and raid the place, even to the point of carrying off Leetah (a direct reversal of the "brown animalistic barbarians will carry off the white womenfolk" trope). Is it subtle and nuanced? No, not really. But for 1978, it was pretty remarkable. And Elfquest still remains the only example I can think of where not only are there brown elves, but they're depicted as more civilized than their white cousins. Everything else either maintains the color quo (the Forgotten Realms now has non-evil brown-skinned wild elves, but they're barbaric compared to pale sun or moon elves), or just kind of flings around skin color at random (the Shannara TV series, which made no attempt at setting up any rationale for elven ethnicity).

True, the Sun Folk are depicted as weak in certain ways, and "weakness" is one of the standard Orientalist tropes for the Other. Rayek is basically the only hunter among them, and even he uses his hypnotic powers to stun his prey rather than chasing it down on wolfback like Cutter's people. Part of the cultural exchange that ensues features the Wolfriders encouraging the Sun Folk to be more proactive and aggressive. But it is an exchange; the Sun Folk teach things in turn, like history or the planting of crops and weaving of cloth. And, y'know, the not being an asshole. (More on that when I get to the post about Recognition.) The Sun Folk's pacifism and passivity are circumstantial, the consequence of living in a sheltered place with almost no threats, not anything inherent to them. Ultimately you get some Wolfriders settling down in the Sun Village because the culture there is more their speed, and some Sun Folk going off with the Wolfriders because the quiet life doesn't suit them. Both ways are okay. Both sides can benefit from the other. So while there are criticisms you can make, it is (sadly) still progressive enough to be noteworthy, even today.

If there are other good examples of racial diversity among elves out there, please do let me know.