First of all, the series title properly has no space: ElfQuest. Also there is no
Word Of God on whether the "Q" should be capitalized or not, although it's usually big in the logo.
Secondly, it's a quest, by elves, for elves, so the title works out
pretty well either way.
Wendy
and
Richard
Pini, founders of
WaRP Graphics (now merely Warp Graphics), put together a comic book full of manga-inspired "elves," or short, physically childlike humanoids. It came out in 1978, when everyone bought comic books for the super heroes, fistfights, and explosions, and nobody bought them for the character drama and pathos (at least minus the explosions). Of course, the series quickly gathered fans, because there was nothing else that came close to its gorgeous graphics, elegant characterizations, and explosion-less storyline.
The Plot:
Cutter leads the Wolfriders, a small tribe of elves (18 total, counting the one still in the womb) who bond to wolves as friends and mounts. Cutter is young, but has led the tribe since the death of his chieftain father six years ago. They're a simple folk, who hunt what food they need and dwell in relative harmony with the forest and with each other. They have a small amount of magic among them, which includes certain talents (their healer, who died with the previous chief, could, well, heal; Redlance, another elf, can coax plants to grow the way he wants them to) and the ability of each tribe member to use
sending, or telepathy.
The nearby human tribe knows little of the
actual magic of the elves, but believes them to be evil spirits, and considers it their sworn duty to painfully kill any elves they encounter. When they actually try to
burn down the forest they live in to kill the elves, the Wolfriders flee underground, to the great displeasure of the trolls who maintain the tunnels.
The troll king promises to show them the way to a beautiful new land with no humans, but tricks them by trapping them next to a desert with no way back into the tunnels. With no other choice, the tribe travels north across the desert, hoping to find some shelter (and water) before the hot sand takes their lives.
What they find is the Sun Folk, a hidden tribe of dark-skinned elves who live out in the sun (a red flag to the nocturnal Wolfriders) and know little of destruction or desperation. Cutter, still stung by the betrayal of the trolls, decides to just storm in and take what they need without asking. Only thing is, during the raid he caught the eyes of a beautiful elf woman named
Leetah.
And by "caught the eyes of" we mean
Recognized. This is key. Turns out the elves' latent psychic abilities include a thing called
Recognition, which is literally
Love At First Sight... except without the love. More like extreme lust, centered on the couple's
psychic need to produce offspring. Those who resist Recognition grow ill, even to the point of near-death, until they finally give in and go have sex. At that point, the offspring is guaranteed and, in the best cases, the call of Recognition will eventually step aside for love.
Having never encountered Recognition before, Cutter acts on impulse and
kidnaps Leetah, swooping her up onto his wolf and riding off along with the rest of the tribe. Eventually, cooler heads prevail and the village's elders (who seems positively ancient to the Wolfriders) clear up the situation. However, this incident along with certain other details (such as her other suitor, egotistical hunter
Rayek), makes Leetah less than willing to let him court her, but in the end they get together, and so ends the first graphic novel. The two tribes join together and are pleasantly surprised that they might be
Salt And Pepper, but they get along and complement each other very well (except for Rayek, who goes into a major sulk and heads off on his own adventure). For instance, the Wolfriders learned many new skills and powers from the seemingly impossibly old Elders of the village and the Sun Folk basically gained a small army of largely agreeable
Warrior Poets. Regardless, the Wolfriders settle down into their safe new home.
The second graphic novel starts with the appearance of humans. Dang. Guess this place isn't the safe haven the Wolfriders thought it was. But it gets Cutter to thinking: Maybe there are other elves out there. And with that bee in his bonnet, even his beautiful wife and two young children aren't enough to keep him from heading out. His best friend,
Skywise, joins him, and they trot out into the wild, hoping to find other tribes and, as is Cutter's shining dream, to unite all elves the world over.
Not that it'll be that easy, especially as
everything the story established about their story world gets turned upside down for our heroes and nothing will ever be the same. For the details, go read the series.
It's all online.
Provides Examples Of:
- Aborted Arc - Future Quest to avoid spoilers for things planned for earlier in the timeline; Wave Dancers, Mender's Tale (at least completely available in script form now), and Recognition for business reasons.
- A God Am I - Winnowill, Rayek and the Djun all have some disturbingly unhealthy megalomaniac traits.
- Air Hugging (in the first novel. Strange because Cutter and Redlance are implied to have sex with each other elsewhere.)
- The fact that he had internal injuries and probably broken ribs had something to do with it.
- To prolong the discussion: Cutter and Redlance?? Seriously???
- According to Wendy Pini pretty much every pairing you can imagine has happened at one point or another. So yeah.
- Well, the elves are inherently bisexual, but most stick to a lovemate or lifemate. It's been established that Cutter and Leetah plus Redlance and Nightfall basically make a unit.
- Alien Sky - Obviously, since this is the World Of Two Moons, not Earth.
- Animated Adaptation (Ick. Let us not talk of this.)
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape - The "first" time this happens ("in the collective memory of the tribes" at least, and after several failed attempts), when Strongbow kills Kureel, he falls into a deep depression for over a full issue... whereas only a couple issues ago he emotionlessly drew his bow to kill half-elf Two-Edge without a hint of remorse - guy's a dangerous enemy, don't you know.
- Then again, he didn't actually shoot Two-Edge, and threatenening other elves with bodily harm (or thoroughly kicking their ass) is not exactly novel among the feral Wolfriders or Go-Backs.
- Author Avatar - Nonna and Adar, and later their adopted kids (who are
other WaRP creators named after various WaRP projects).
- In addition to this, Wendy has stated that while Nonna and Adar are the human counterparts of her and Richard, Cutter and Skywise are their elven counterparts (or at least they became that way early in the series - but not at the start, because Wendy's initial plot included killing off Skywise early on).
- Badass Normal (Cutter, and pretty much any other Wolfrider without magical gifts other than telepathy and animal-bonding)
- Big Bad (Winnowill)
- Big Badass Wolf
- Big Damn Heroes (The Go-backs' first appearance.)
- Biological Mash Up — Madcoil could well be the most Badass example of this trope in all of fiction - the result of a giant snake and a saber-toothed tiger fighting in an area tainted by stagnant magic and struck by lightning.
- Boisterous Bruiser — Pike isn't that big (even for an elf), but he fits the rest of it. Kahvi also qualifies.
- Bond Creatures (The wolves, and giant birds)
- Brats With Slingshots
- Cake Eater — Cutter. Leetah was quite a bit older than him.
- It's not as if nobody wanted her as a mate, though. She had at least two other suitors.
- Cast Of Snowflakes
- Chessmaster: Two Edge
- Crowning Moment Of Funny - The short stories of the New Blood Summer Special. (With Lethargic Ladhands being this troper's personal favorite.
- Crystal Spires And Togas - pretty much everything to do with the High Ones and the Firstborn.
- Deadpan Snarker - Skywise through most of the original stories. (To Cutter about Leetah rejecting recognition) "After all, what does it matter that you have a foul disposition? And the manners of a Troll? She's just the fussy type I suppose.."
- Death By Childbirth (Skywise)
- Different As Night And Day (Suntop and Ember)
- Embarrassing Rescue
- Estrogen Brigade Bait (the entire male cast!)
- Everyone Is Bi (According to Word Of God, all elves are bisexual, although this has shown up in the comic almost entirely with the women for some reason.)
- The problem with spotting this is that elves don't kiss - which this troper suspects is a deliberate piece of self-censorship to hide all the same-sex relationships from Moral Guardians.
- No m/m relationships? What about Pike and Skot? Or Cutter and Skywise? (Wendy explicitly stated that the latter two have had sex). And indeed, implied Cutter and Redlance?
- Pike and Skot and Krim. Cutter and Redlance and Nightfall. Just sayin'.
- And Dart and Kimo as well.
- Also, everyone is ambidextrous. Whenever a character holds anything, weapon or tool, it will constantly move from their right hand to their left and back again. Is there any name for this trope?
- Fetish Fuel (And we'll leave it at that.)
- Filk Song (Filk CD)
- Four Fingered Hands (Not out of laziness. Elves and trolls really do have four fingers. It took the authors at least a year to figure out that they should therefore count in base-eight, and by Ret Con they do. Cutter is the "blood of eight-and-two chiefs" now.)
- Freudian Excuse: To say that Two Edge has "mommy issues" would be a towering understatement.
- Get It Over With
- Godiva Hair (Timmain)
- Good Powers Bad People
- Happily Married - Many, many couples. Also several counterexamples, and several canonical couples who don't mind "sharing".
- Healing Hands - Healers in this series have the lay-on-hands ability to heal. With amplification, they don't even need to touch their patients, and they can heal multiple patients at once. The power has been expanded to include flesh-shaping (a painful process at times); DNA-altering; pain-inducing; and some other applications.
- Heroic BSOD - Strongbow has one after he kills Kureel and only recovers after he begs Kureel's soul for forgiveness.
- Let's not forget Cutter after Rayek rips his family away from him. He practically starves himself and, as he later admits to Rayek during their fight, the way he tried to cope with the grief made him think like a human - irreversibly.
- He Who Fights Monsters: The Go-Backs taking up some of the nastier habits of Frozen Mountain Trolls, particularly eating the flesh of their enemies.
- Horse Of A Different Color - Wolves for the Wolfriders (duh), "zwoots" (a sort of pseudo-camel) for the Sun Folk, giant hawks for the Gliders, and elk for the Go-Backs.
- Ho Yay (Cutter and Skywise)
- Human Sacrifice
- Humans Are Bastards - These humans are everything you don't want to be: cruel, Too Dumb To Live, ugly, superstititious and xenophobic. Later nuanced when the Elves meet good humans and very, very bad elves and trolls. The humans do still stay Puny Earthlings, though: Absolutely inferior to the elves in intelligence, dignity and abilities.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes - particularly in Mender's Tale and with Firstborn Newbreed in Jink.
- I Sense A Disturbance In The Force
- I Take Offense To That Last One — An ongoing sore spot. Rayek lost all three of the trials (head, hand, heart) to Cutter. Cutter won the trial of wits with a bit of Applied Phlebotinum, and Rayek won't let it go. "Strength and Courage you may have wolfrider. But wits, never."
- The Jailer: Rayek
- Language Of Truth: Telepathy
- Loads And Loads Of Characters
- Love Martyr: Rayek
- Manipulative Bastard: Two Edge
- Meaningful Name: Just about all the Wolfriders and most of the Trolls (Word Of God is that Picknose is named for his nose's shape, not for any unsavory habits that he probably has too). Justified in that elves pick their own names based on meaningful events on character traits.
- On first hearing the main Troll character's name, this troper's late mother reacted with "Picknose? Does he have a brother named Scratchass?" Were the Pinis really not expecting anything of the sort?
- Mental Fusion
- Mercurial Base: Cauldron City, from the future arc.
- Mind Over Matter: Rayek, Egg/Aurek, and Trof
- Mind Rape: Winnowill is not a nice lady. Neither are Haken and Madcoil.
- Moral Dissonance
- The Movie (They've been trying for decades — it's kinda like the Red Dwarf movie, leaving the fans waiting for a decade or more...)
- No Infantile Amnesia: Skywise; Teir (shown in Recognition)
- Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: Timmorn and Two-Edge
- Non Human Sidekick: Wolves. Giant birds and preservers also qualify. Of course, the characters were never really human to begin with.
- Now I Know What To Name Him: Elf mothers communicate telepathically with their foetuses.
- Old Master: Ekuar.
- Our Elves Are Better: Played dead straight 90% of the time, but when elves go bad, they go really bad.
- Psychic Powers: Including one character (Strongbow) who rarely if ever talks, relying on telepathy instead.
- The Quest
- Quest For The Rest
- The Quiet One
- Raised By Natives: Little Patch.
- Raised By Wolves: Ironically, this only applies to Teir. Well, and Timmorn Yellow-Eyes, first chief of the wolfriders.
- Ready For Lovemaking
- Red Oni Blue Oni
- Redshirt Army - The Go-Backs in the last war arc. Lose something like 20 warriors out of just over forty. On the plus side they took a lot of trolls with them.
- Sarcastic Devotee - Strongbow
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong - Rayek made it worse.
- Shapeshifting: Generally all elves with Healing Hands can change the look of their bodies if they're powerful enough, since they're basically shapeshifting to heal anyways. The most powerful can even shape other people.
- On the extreme end of the shapeshifting: Haken making himself look like a bone monster from a horror movie, Tyldak getting pterodactyl-like wings, and Sunstream getting changed temporarily into a beautiful fish-man. No, not merely a mer-man; a fish-man, giant fins all over and everything.
- Shirtless Scene - Lots of 'em, featuring almost every male elf, and a lot of male humans too.
- In particular, upon his arrival in the forest after a long desert trek, Cutter immediately rips off his shirt, tosses it up in the air and pins it to a tree branch with an arrow - all apparently without removing his vest. Is that badass or what?
- Small Annoying Creature: The Preservers, but especially Petalwing.
- Sobbin Women
Skywise: Um, you don't seem to be carrying much water..
Cutter: I'll explain later, on higher ground.
- Stay In The Kitchen — Inverted, when a wolfrider has to be left behind to guard the kids, it's going to be Papa Wolf Redlance.
- Strange Bedfellows
- Take My Hand
- Talking Is A Free Action - Especially combined with the extremely heavy captioning, can be very disconcerting to a younger reader. Looks like a manga (Kamui no Ken mostly), reads like 1970s super hero comics.
- Tearful Smile
- Thank Your Prey - mentioned in Kings of the Broken Wheel #5
- These Hands Have Killed - Leetah does this after killing somebody in defence of her daughter.
- Time Travel
- Time Abyss - several candidates, including (in no particular order) Two-Edge, Winnowill, Timmain, Ekuar, Lord Voll, Door...
- Well Done Son Guy - Most notably with Strongbow and Dart. When Dart stays behind for Training The Peaceful Villagers (Dart is about 12 years old at the time).
Dart: Father! I was sure you'd disapprove.
Strongbow: I do, you're wasting your time with these rabbits. But it's your choice.
- What Measure Is A Non Human - Initially, this applies to the elves from the perspective of the humans, who consider them evil spirits to be hunted down and killed in the name of their own great spirit Gotara. However, we see more variety as new tribes both human and elf show up, and though the protagonists' relationship to humans remains cautious out of necessity, they in turn are generally not overly comfortable killing even humans. Meanwhile, trolls do seem to rate somewhat lower than either elves or humans — they're uncomfortable allies at best, outright enemies of the elves at worst, and they're rarely if ever viewpoint characters despite having arrived with the elves' ancestors and thus presumably about the same amount of background history.
- The trolls do go up a peg over humans during the shard war, what with Flam's "You don't kill mumps (children), it just isn't done!"
Flam: You think mumps grow like mushrooms??
- Excuse me, in the first series, the Troll King, Guttlekraw, was quick to order an attempt to massacre the Go-Back elf children in response an Elf invasion. Elves might be "of one mind" but trolls sure aren't:
Picknose: They've changed, those trolls from the mountains.
- Xanatos Gambit: Two Edge manufactures a war between Elf and Troll over a period of centuries just to figure out his identity
- And then he goes even crazier than before once he realizes that the elves and trolls are actually starting to work together! Guess that doesn't exactly fit with his worldview.
- Well, watching his elf mother murder his troll father, then getting tortured by her until his sanity broke rather gave him a whopper of a complex to start with.
