EQ Readthrough: Issue 17, The First War

[elf]

Issue 17: The First War
Questions for this issue:

• What do you think of the various reasons for agreeing to a war?
• ELF ORGY WOOT! (I know, not a question. But if we need questions to figure out how to comment on this, we have failed as a fandom.)
• How does armor change the elves' fighting styles?

Main OQR post with prompt questions
Note: These aren't mandatory questions; they're meta prompts. If you don't care for any of them, or want to tangent from them to some other topic, that's fine too.

Comments

[wanderlustlover]

I love this part of the quest. All the lines of reasoning are continuing to blur. They keep asking themselves each 'why are we doing this' and 'why a I doing this' and going onward even if the answers to the questions are wholly separate.

I like all sorts of images in this. The orgy still makes my heart ache at the couples, and the entire exchange of Leetah, Cutter, Rayek, and Khavi. (It's such a great comparison point for scene's later in Kings of the Broken Wheel.)

I'm always touched even by the go back children talking about how they don't 'deserve' to stay. Not because they aren't old enough or shouldn't be playing at love games or near the scene, but because they aren't the ones who will be going into battle.

We see so very much in little words in these issues.

[absque_setentia]

I like the different between the strange wolves and the pack we know, and the interaction between Cutter and Rayek. Poor Clearbrook still breaks my heart, though. And poor Vaya.

The orgy makes sense in the context (a sort of last chance to procreate for some, a way to make up for the lives lost the next day) and damn, it's hot.

[absque_setentia]

I love this part of the quest. All the lines of reasoning are continuing to blur. They keep asking themselves each 'why are we doing this' and 'why a I doing this' and going onward even if the answers to the questions are wholly separate.

Yeah, and at this point it seems like the quest itself has changed from "find other elves" to "get to the Palace no matter what". The Wolfriders are at some of their least Wolfrider-ish here, which might be the influence of the Palace, and it really is very interesting to see.

I'm always touched even by the go back children talking about how they don't 'deserve' to stay.

I think what surprises me the most about it is how it doesn't seem cheap or vulgar (though it did make me blush when I was a kid!) but actually says a lot about the characters and the Go-Backs as a tribe.