A Prayer for Winnowill

Ahh, those healers, the things they do...

Jink's a shapechanger, so she doesn't have to look like her parents... I don't know why she would change her skin colour, though. (But if she was born dark and hadn't changed it, she'd look like Storm from X-men and there'd be copyright issues! :P )

She could be born outside recognition too... we've seen it can be done. Tyleet.

I'm wondering about the wolfblood, too. Maybe her dreams are a result of it having been removed. If she could live in the Now, would she need to mindwipe her pains away?

Hey! Maybe she's Strongbow and Moonshade's daughter?

LOL! She doesn't have a name...

...and we do see Strongbow in a glimpse of the palace...

heheheh!

Naw, I think Strongbow and Moonshade's kid would be too traditional to be Jink.

I agree, also neither of them is a healer.

It's about as likely as the ones I mentioned earlier - Clearbrook's first child and so on...

I wonder why Timmain would be called healer... she is so much else besides! who said that? if it was Aurek, then it does make sense - Timmain was the one who healed him!

Jink said that to whatshername??? Tamia???

Something like that.

[quote:4b3b2ee678]Works. But there doesn't seem any push for Mender and Ember to be recognizing.[/quote:4b3b2ee678]


I'm theorizing that Ember and Mender Recognizes, but forms a threemating including Teir, because that's who Ember really loves. :)

After all, Teir did say that he preferred it when heart meets heart, instead of soul meets soul...

Heart meets heart. I like that, I like that a lot!

I think Mender should Recognize TImmain!

Well, someone better Recognize Timmain, I think the poor lady is lonely, everyone is too much in awe of her to fall in love with her! :P

I decided to go all the way back to the first post.

Some of you may know my general feelings for this most misunderstood of majestic mistresses as expressed in other places; I empathize with her, revile and revere her. Physically, she has always represented what I thought to be the pinnacle of ethereal, crystalline beauty, crowned with the exotic alien-ness of being elfin. In Wendy’s art, Winnowill is expressed in such theatrical repose, always angled to perfection, all silk and sultry serpentine sexiness.

Of all the characters in EQ, she is the most divine. Except that she's the most diabolical, in her heart and soul. It's a delicious contrast.

The over exuberance of her maniacal portrayal in the Shards and Rogue’s Curse series’ left my image of her slightly tarnished and befuddled beneath the over-reaching depictions of her mad grasps at power. Previously, Winnowill was expressed through deadly beauty as much as her manipulative exploits; her dramatic anti-healing abilities were matched only by her talents of deception and intrigue, subtle and powerful. In later series’ she was diminished in my eyes to an all-powerful vamp who’s magic was the focus of her character. From the never-ending flesh shaping to the “eating” of souls, I feel as if Winnowill became a caricature of her former self; a character expressed through the brute force of her powers and not her deadly and confused nature. Unfortunately, my extreme bias for Wendy’s art may have led to this perception as much as any flaws there may be in those story arcs.

Having read the later stories for the first time, after a break of many years, I felt I was looking at a completely different character. I guess we are left to assume that the "old" Winnowill changed (herself) almost completely during the huge period of time before Rayek reappeared with the palace. It was noticeable in Shards but it just got completely out of hand in Rogue's Curse.

Still, I can not shake the lingering feeling that Winnowill, as a true and integral character in the ElfQuest universe, has not been used to her full potential since the earlier books. As I have stated previously on these boards (with the secret hope that Wendy and Richard are peeking in) I am a firm believer in her ultimate forgiveness and redemption. I believe it was her spirit portrayal in the Lovemates calendar that became the foundations for this much-desired ending. I see her with Rayek, in such loving repose, in layers of regret, sadness and release. I long to see Wendy restore Winnowill as only she can and dream with tenderness the amazing grand finale that Winnowill deserves.

Well there's room for that. The ending story in Rogue's Curse, if we are not simply to conclude the whole volume was a mass of contradictions, does seem to indicate that she's changed some. I'm not quite clear on why the shard rejected her given that the full palace was described as "neutral" but she's got to know now she's excluded as long as she's evil focused on power and doing harm. When she recounts her story she seemed willing to face all the horrible things she had become and there was even a hint of her wanting to move on, to be more than she's been since her "fall".

So, as a final plea to the powers that be, I send this prayer now to all who dream:
May the fates tame this harsh mistress and expel the tarnish of a shattered psyche. May she finally find strength in this most foreign of worlds and in time, may that strength lead to forgiveness. May she return again to her youthful expressions of joy, beauty and ultimately love. May the family of her race forgive her in each their own way giving her the light she needs to finally find a true home. Peace be with her.

My guess would be she earns redemption and gets to live in the palace. It was a shame her body was killed off like it was, I would much rather have seen her working as an ally of the other elves, though one trusted about as much as Rayek - and let's face it Rayek is not exactly the most popular elf in the world.