If it was an accident on the Pinis' part, then it was unconsciously, beautifully thematic that she's introduced in the same arc which reveals that the Wolfriders alone of the elf tribes are mortal. The series isn't explicitly asking the Tuck Everlasting questions yet—that happens with Kings of the Broken Wheel—but the reader can start thinking about them because they're implicitly drawn. What do you do with the time you're given? What meaning do you find for yourself if there's no urgency, if that time is endless? Protip: living inside an empty mountain in static imitation of an alien life you never lived yourself probably isn't it.
I'll get into some of this with my next post, which will be on the Gliders overall, and the notion that Winnowill isn't the only one of them with serious problems.
I had forgotten that she goes underground alone. What is said about that?
This (http://elfquest.com/read/index.php?s=OQ/OQ15&p=3) is the relevant page. It makes an interesting contrast with the references you dug up; Doylistically the Pinis probably changed their minds a bit as to how Winnowill's descent into madness happened, but from a Watsonian perspective, it shows how much Voll failed to understand her. Winnowill's twisting began long before she met that troll, when she started arranging accidents for the Gliders just so they would go on needing her gifts.
She says as much in Kings of the Broken Wheel when she blames the half-finished healing (attempted in both Captives and Siege) on Leetah, calling it nothing but torture. I think that is one of the reasons I am disappointed that she became a generic, irredeemable villain in later books; her earlier appearances imply not that she's not unsalvageable, but that she doesn't want to be saved. That's different and that's interesting.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Invidiana in Midnight Never Come was inspired in part by Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, and then again to realize she owed something to Winnowill as well. The book is of course based partly on a game I ran; in the game, Invidiana's problems weren't resolved in the Elizabethan period. So when the extended flashbacks that made up the bulk of the campaign ended and the game returned to the modern day, the PCs nearly got killed by Invidiana's modern-day incarnation, who bore them an undying grudge for restoring her heart (and therefore her conscience) but not doing anything to heal her, instead leaving her to suffer the guilt of her deeds for the next three hundred years.
The more I think about it, the more those incomplete healings to me feel like Chekhov's gun not ever quite firing. I will forgive Winnowill showing up in the Final Quest if the point of her doing so is finally to make good on that unfinished plot. Failing that, there's always Yuletide.
no subject
I'll get into some of this with my next post, which will be on the Gliders overall, and the notion that Winnowill isn't the only one of them with serious problems.
I had forgotten that she goes underground alone. What is said about that?
This (http://elfquest.com/read/index.php?s=OQ/OQ15&p=3) is the relevant page. It makes an interesting contrast with the references you dug up; Doylistically the Pinis probably changed their minds a bit as to how Winnowill's descent into madness happened, but from a Watsonian perspective, it shows how much Voll failed to understand her. Winnowill's twisting began long before she met that troll, when she started arranging accidents for the Gliders just so they would go on needing her gifts.
She says as much in Kings of the Broken Wheel when she blames the half-finished healing (attempted in both Captives and Siege) on Leetah, calling it nothing but torture. I think that is one of the reasons I am disappointed that she became a generic, irredeemable villain in later books; her earlier appearances imply not that she's not unsalvageable, but that she doesn't want to be saved. That's different and that's interesting.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Invidiana in Midnight Never Come was inspired in part by Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, and then again to realize she owed something to Winnowill as well. The book is of course based partly on a game I ran; in the game, Invidiana's problems weren't resolved in the Elizabethan period. So when the extended flashbacks that made up the bulk of the campaign ended and the game returned to the modern day, the PCs nearly got killed by Invidiana's modern-day incarnation, who bore them an undying grudge for restoring her heart (and therefore her conscience) but not doing anything to heal her, instead leaving her to suffer the guilt of her deeds for the next three hundred years.
The more I think about it, the more those incomplete healings to me feel like Chekhov's gun not ever quite firing. I will forgive Winnowill showing up in the Final Quest if the point of her doing so is finally to make good on that unfinished plot. Failing that, there's always Yuletide.