ElfQuest

A long-running graphic novel series about a quest, by elves, for elves, which was started in 1978 and ended in 2018 with the "Final Quest" 40 years after its launch.

Wendy and Richard Pini, founders of WaRP Graphics (now just Warp Graphics) created a world of short, pointy-eared humanoids who face the consequences of constant wars on their planet. The norm for comic books during that time was mostly super heroes, fistfights and explosions. ElfQuest surprised the market with its strong focus on character drama and pathos, discussing topics such as polyamory, racism and genocide right from the start.

The story starts off when a tribe of elves called the Wolfriders, led by the young chief Cutter, are forced to flee from their home. As they travel the land, they encounter the desert-dwelling Sunfolk elves, the childless Gliders, the pragmatic Go-Backs, the sea-bound Wavedancers and many more friends and adversaries of different species. Over the course of a plot that spans tens of thousands of years, the Wolfrider families and their loved ones come to uncover the secret of their otherwordly ancestry.

After many years of successful publication, the creators decided to let other authors and artists step in. Some of these stories are considered Canon Discontinuity due to Executive Meddling, but for the most part, the canon was continued by "new blood" and took off into many different directions. Wendy Pini eventually returned to the series.

The main series concluded with the four volume series 'The Final Quest' that ran from January 2014-February 2018 which was ahead of the series' 40th anniversary. A new series, ElfQuest: Stargazer's Hunt began November, 2019.

The full series has been re-published many times over, although the original hand-drawn pencils and organic colors were never redone. For computer-colored versions of the entire series, go here: It's all online. (Beware Death By Archive.) On January 11th, 2024, it was announced that an Animated Adaptation was in the works by Fox.

The series provides examples of:

• Abduction Is Love: Cutter abducts Leetah the first time they meet, mostly because of Recognition's influence, and neither he nor his tribemates let her go for some time. In keeping with this trope, she's not as upset as you might expect and later falls in love with him.
• Aborted Arc: Future Quest to avoid spoilers for things planned for earlier in the timeline; the first Wavedancers series (because of a dispute with the artist and writer hired by Warp for the story), Mender's Tale (at least completely available in script form now) and Recognition for business reasons.
• The Ageless: The Elves, Trolls, and Preservers do not die of old age as long as they're either pureblood or a hybrid between any of those three.
• Air Hugging: in the first novel. A bit strange because Cutter and Redlance are implied to have sex with each other elsewhere, but all in all quite justified when one considers that Redlance was very badly injured.
• Alien Sky: Obviously, since this is the World Of Two Moons (later "Abode"), not Earth.
• All There in the Manual: The songs of the A Wolfrider's Reflections album (and accompanying songbook, which you can check out for yourself on the official website) includes details in the lyrics for some of the out-of-focus and backstory events that don't appear in the comics, like Bearclaw winning Joyleaf's bracelet in the same dice game that got him New Moon, and the fact that Door and Brace were made by Winnowill as a punishment for insulting and attempting to overthrow her, respectively.
• All Trolls Are Different: Short, muscular (or fat), green-skinned metalworkers who live underground ( and have large noses, and are untrustworthy).
• Alternative Number System: The elves use base 8 because of their Four-Fingered Hands.
• And I Must Scream: Deconstructed. The nature of Elven magic ("think-do") allows elves to suspend their physical life in order to enshrine themselves in flow-state, trancelike attention to a magical task, and that's how much of their Sufficiently Advanced Technology is meant to work. The different tribes tend to view the practice differently depending on how far they've deviated from the firstcomers' culture and what method is used to sustain the body; the Wolfriders naturally find the rejection of the physical world as horrible as the trope suggests but recognize the survival uses of Wrapstuff, while the Gliders seem to view it as ascetic devotion to one's own arts for the good of all and treat the practice with reverence.
  • One-Eye: Badly injured by the Northern Trolls, his soul unable escape due to him being bound in Preserver wrapstuff near the moment of death, dying yet unable to die; wrapstuff suspends the occupant in time until it's cut away or shredded enough.
    • He does endure it patiently, waiting for his lifemate Clearbrook to cope sufficiently with her grief to cut the cocoon and let him go.
  • Brace, both Doors, and Egg have their biological functions suspended to almost nothing by Winnowill, all so they can use their magic to perform specific tasks, either continuously or on command.
    • Brace continually reinforces an arch, preventing an internal weakness from causing it to collapse. Why the multiple rockshapers among the Gliders haven't just renovated the area in the past millennia is never explained in the comics, but the songbook tells us that Brace is in that state because Winnowill uses it as punishment for trying to usurp her power. Knowing that Blue Mountain is a many-layered egg with the outer shell being the core of the mountain itself, this means that Brace is caught in a Sisyphus-like state of constantly having to negotiate his stoneshaping between Egg's constant shaping of the entire mountain and the structural integrity of his arch, which we see is connected to the base of a great two-story chamber in the heart of the Gliders' home. In other words, if he ever stops shaping that archway, that balcony will crumble and the reshaping inner shells of the Egg, controlled by a will that can't sense other people, will churn the rubble like rocks in a tumble dryer with all the Gliders trapped in their tunnels.
    • Female Door controls the only land way in or out of Blue Mountain. Instead of having to hunt her up every time someone wanted to use the door (which is not that often in the first place), apparently Winnowill thought it was a great idea to have her on duty all the time.
    • Male Door controls the door in Winnowill's quarters that keeps her human servants (who she actually seems to like) out of the rest of Blue Mountain. Since this Door witnessed Winnowill's relationship with the troll and knows of Two-Edge's existence, his "freezing" may partially be to shut him up; death would simply release his spirit, leaving him free to tattle.
    • Egg's duty is to levitate, maintain and reshape the Great Egg, six, later eight, layers of baroquely shaped stone that tells the history of the elves as far as the Gliders know it. While such a thing would require frequent attention, it's not explained why he needs to be on duty all the time; Aroree describes him as 'the pride of the Gliders' and talks about getting lost for hours in contemplation of the sculpture itself, but we never see anyone actually do it.
  • Winnowill is trapped in Rayek's body after the Djun chops her head off, since having her spirit rampage through the Palace, and through it, across the world, is not an acceptable alternative. She doesn't like being trapped inside a mind, with no ability to personally experience the physical world, at all.
• Animal Motifs: All over the place, but most in keeping with the spirit of the trope is the fact that the main characters are modeled after animals for the Pinis' designs, some of which are referenced in-universe:
  • Cutter is a bantam (a type of chicken). Savah calls him a fighting cockerel a few times.
  • Skywise is a fox, and frequently shows foxlike traits like trickery and playfulness.
  • Leetah is a cat, particularly in some of her more graceful moments and somewhat haughty demeanor.
  • Winnowill is a snake. Her hair is reminiscent of a cobra's hood, and she's frequently referred to as a "black snake". She's occasionally drawn in conjunction with spiders, in some of her less-than-virtuous moments.
• Animated Adaptation (Never made it to the air.)
• Anti-Magic: This is Venka's power, which made her one of the strongest weapons the Wolfriders ever had against Winnowill.
• 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.
  • Before Cutter and Strongbow had to kill humans to rescue Redlance at the beginning of the series, Cutter hadn't even been sure it was possible to do so; this implies that this trope had previously extended to Ape Shall Never Kill Other Species Of Ape.
• Arboreal Abode: While the Wolf Riders lived in the Holt they made their homes in the Father Tree, which had been hollowed out by Goodtree.
  • Later on, during Kings of the Broken Wheel, they take this even further by having Redlance shape their dens almost in the canopy, to avoid ever being discovered by humans.
• Arms and Armor Theme Naming: Strongbow's son is named Dart, and Dart's son is Bowki (combining his father's name with his erstwhile friend Geoki). The line can be extended to four generations if you use "archery" rather than "weapons" as a theme: Strongbow's mother was named Trueflight.
• Astral Projection: Some elves, like Savah and Suntop, have an ability to "go out" of their bodies. In Savah's case this ends up getting her spirit trapped by Winnowill when she detects this.
• As You Know: ALL OVER Discovery. It's also what makes the catch-up scene near the beginning of the very second story, Siege at Blue Mountain, somewhat clunky. The Pinis managed to avoid it, mostly, in the third story, Kings of the Broken Wheel.
• Author Avatar
  • Nonna and Adar, and later their adopted kids (who are 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. Wendy's initial plot included killing off Skywise early on, in the ninth issue, but when she mentioned it, Richard reportedly said "You can't do that, he's my elf."
  • What tipped the scales was the fact that Skywise was the nearest thing his tribe had to an astronomer, since that was also Richard's hobby.
• Babies Ever After: Practically every story arc ends with one elf pregnant: Rainsong has recently given birth in the very first issue, Leetah is pregnant at the end of the first arc, Dewshine and Kahvi at the end of the first Palace war, Nightfall after the elves move to the new continent, Tyleet (Nightfall's daughter) at the end of the arc before the second Palace war, Krim at the end of the second Palace war, Behtia after the little Palace war, Dodia after the Forevergreen quest, Moonshade after The Searcher And The Sword, Brill after Discovery and Venka after The Final Quest.
• Babies Make Everything Better: Played utterly and completely straight, usually. Justified by the elves' tiny population and slow rate of reproduction (between the two year pregnancies and most elves' inability to conceive without Recognition, a couple with three children is considered absurdly fertile). Rare exceptions include:
  • Winnowill, whose child is half-Troll. It's an especially unique subversion, since Winnowill gave birth to him after the Gliders became infertile. For her to have borne a child should have been a huge positive event for them, if not for his being half-Troll, and Winnowill tortured him into insanity to protect her secrets.
  • Skywise, whose initial reaction to seeing his daughter Yun is somewhat of an "Oh, Crap!". He's visibly relieved when Yun immediately says she doesn't expect him to act like a daddy. They quickly become friends.
  • Also somewhat subverted with Pike, being the child of Rain and Rain's first lifemate. As a wolfrider, he should technically have been born as a result of Recognition, it being the only way for wolfriders to have children within the tribe. However, Rain was a healer, and managed to use his powers to force conception, resulting in Pike. All sides agree that the experiment should be considered "tampering with nature too much", and although it's never really revealed whether or not Pike has anything wrong with him, Leetah expresses (carefully worded) concern over his ability to ever Recognize someone himself.^note Recognition is a successful test for genetic compatibility and Wolfriders only breed when that compatibility is perfect; Leetah's fear is that being born outside of Recognition makes Pike genetically unfit to breed. However, the process is repeated by Leetah on purpose when she helps Nightfall and Redlance conceive, using the Palace's magic amplification to complete the experiment and to force both conception and Recognition. Apparently that worked much better, since Tyleet ends up with a soul name and ability to Recognize.
  • Ember and Teir. She's not that interested in becoming a mother, and when they Recognize in the middle of a pitched battle, it seriously complicates things at the worst possible moment. They end up having the magic-users suppress their Recognition until they're ready for it some time down the line.
• Badass Normal
  • The Go-Backs, who don't do any of that magic stuff. They just fight bears. With spears. They die often, but they make a lot of babies without even needing to Recognize. When a young Go-Back does turn out to have telekinetic powers, Kahvi tells him in very clear terms to cut it out (until it later proves useful).
  • Lehrigen: He's human. And he learns enough tracking and woodlore to put him on an equal footing with the elves. He even picks up their language somehow.
  • Tyleet's adopted son Little Patch, thanks to being raised by the Wolfriders from birth.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: Strongbow kills Kureel. Later, in the Final Quest arc, he plays it even more straight, when he actually grabs a gun and kills a human warlord with his Improbable Aiming Skills.
• Battle of Wits: Subverted in the very first story arc. Cutter and Rayek are supposed to have one of these when they're tasked with finding and retrieving their weapons from a crevice. Rayek MacGyveres together a grasping tool from the beads he's wearing to skillfully retrieve his dagger, while Cutter... lucks out with the magnetic lodestone Skywise gave him, which is attracted to his sword. Rayek is understandably furious about this.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Averted with elves. Winnowill is a stunner and about as malignant as you can get, whereas bent old Ekuar is probably the most selfless elf ever. But played pretty straight with humans — you can generally gauge how much of a threat a particular human is going to be by the ugly-factor.
  • In the case of elves, at least, the trope itself is present in their culture, partly because of their belief that elves don't kill their own and partly because being attractive is just sort of the default state of elven appearance in general. Cutter learns the hard way that an elf can be every bit as bad as (or worse than) a human through Winnowill, and Leetah is genuinely surprised to find out that humans aren't ugly monsters.
• Belated Happy Ending: For Ahdri and The Broken One. Aurek, too.
• Better as Friends: Shuna thinks she and Kimo would have been a couple if they'd been of the same species. It's unclear whether or not Kimo agrees, but regardless, they end up being best friends (she also seems to be in denial about the fact that Kimo is Dart's lovemate).
  • Cutter and Nightfall. As the youngest children in the tribe, it seemed like they would end up together, but Nightfall soon became Redlance's lifemate. After Leetah is kidnapped, Redlance and Nightfall invite Cutter to become their mate for as long as it takes, but never see him as their lifemate. Both before and after that long period, the four of them frequently share a bed; Nightfall and Redlance stated that they thought of Leetah as a part of their family after she used her healing magic to help them conceive.
• Big Bad: Winnowill.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Go-Backs' first appearance.
• Big "NO!": Leetah's reaction when Ekuar verifies that Rayek has kidnapped them some ten-thousand-odd years—well beyond Cutter's possible lifespan—into the future.
• Body Horror: What Winnowill does to many of her victims, twisting their forms into monstrous shapes. At least in Tyldak's case, however, she changed him at his request. A poor little one-winged animal we see in one panel, apparently used for practice, didn't appear to get that courtesy.
• Boisterous Bruiser:
  • Pike isn't that big (even for an elf), but he fits the rest of it.
  • Kahvi also qualifies.
  • Treestump too, when he's in a good mood.
  • And Chot. Oh, Chot.
  • Bearclaw too.
  • Most trolls seem to qualify after a drink or two.
• Bold Inflation
• Bond Creatures: The wolves and giant birds. Justified with the wolves, who have a trace of elf-blood just as the elves have a trace of wolf-blood. Some of the more "mixed" wolves (like Blackfell) have rudimentary telepathic abilities.
• Boob-Based Gag: A quick gag. Leetah heals a young human girl, and the girl's mother gives Leetah one of the girl's dresses (Leetah's own clothes had been torn to shreds in an earlier accident). The dress fits well enough in most ways, but the little girl is, well, a little girl. Leetah is a grown woman, a mother, and unusually buxom for an elf. Unsurprisingly, her boobs get squished, a source of quiet amusement to both her and the human mother.
• Brats with Slingshots: Ember, when she's younger. She's still using a slingshot when she's 16, but moves on to a sword. Still hunts mice with it, though, saving her half of the tribe from starvation.
• Breather Episode: "The Dreamberry Tales", where Cutter and Skywise have a run-in with some trolls, is more humorous and less serious than the other chapters of the Original Quest.
• Brutal Honesty: The elves tend to practice this. Very rare exceptions happen, such as Zhantee keeping his crush on Leetah a secret, and Ember shutting out Suntop from her mind when she loses a battle to Scouter. These are generally Played for Drama.
• The Caligula: Two-Spear had shades of this, and became known as the "mad chief" to the generations after him.
• Call of the Wild Blue Yonder: In Volume 2 issue 4, in the Windkin story, it is implied that the "grandfather" has actually flown (as a child, with Windkin providing the means) while his little grandson hopes that he'll one day get to fly too.
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • The Rebels/Jink/FutureQuest, especially the first, might be this way due to Ahdri still resting in wrapstuff in the cave on the Bridge of Destiny in The Rebels, but being rescued from the Troll caves below the Holt in The Searcher and the Sword.
  • Also, the first Wavedancers series.
  • In Wolfrider, Wendy prefaces a chapter with the statement that other versions of the events have been written before — and that a legend can be told in many ways. The version of events in Wolfrider is generally considered the only one that's canon, because it was written and drawn by Wendy.
• Cannot Spit It Out: One rare example — Zhantee keeps his love for Leetah a secret, likely because Leetah is lifemated to their chief, Cutter. He's open about his respect and admiration for her, but never says that his feelings are romantic. When Cutter finds out, he tells Zhantee that they could have been a threesome centuries ago if Zhantee had only told him. Too bad this is moments before Zhantee dies.
• Can't Argue with Elves: Played utterly and completely straight... until the main tribe meets another race of elves who are taller, purer, older and more magical. And arrogant to boot.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Done with exquisite care and attention to such details as Ember strongly resembling Leetah—not merely in coloring, but in facial features—but with Cutter's nose; or Dart having his father's features, but his mother's eyes.
• Censor Shadow: Used quite a bit, thanks to the elves' lack of modesty. Shadows, clothes, scenery, and conveniently positioned arms and legs have all made appearances as censor bars. A notable example comes in "Hidden Years Part 1", where we get a full-frontal shot of Strongbow, with the (in)appropriate bits obscured by a shadow.
• Character Development: Many elves, most notably Rayek. He always stays arrogant and self-absorbed, but does come to realize just how much pain he's caused Cutter and the tribes. After he decides to save the world, rather than "improve" it according to his own design, he lets Cutter take his revenge on him and becomes a full-on ally in the second Palace war. And then, when Big Bad Winnowill unleashes her full power, he traps her soul inside his own mind without hesitation — knowing full well that as her "jailor", he will have to live in agony, solitude and constant vigilance for all eternity.
• Chekhov's Skill: Did you remember that Rayek could seal the spirits of the dead in his own mind and body? Neither did Winnowill.
• Chessmaster: Two-Edge.
• The Chief's Daughter:
  • Ember goes through a classic trope-fulfilling phase once she reaches puberty. She starts dressing in a leather bikini, wants to meet boys from outside the tribe, and spends most of her time sulking and talking to her wolf-friend. Some years later, though, she becomes chief of her own tribe, and turns out to actually have leadership qualities.
  • Also fitting the trope: Rahnee (who spends a lot of time rebelling against her father) Goodtree (who goes on a Vision Quest before she can properly become chief), Shuna (chief Cutter's adopted human daughter, who tries really hard to be exotic and elfin when she starts meeting human men), Vaya (who dies in battle, but not before she finds a boyfriend outside the tribe and defies chief Kahvi's wishes), Kahvi herself (who didn't get along at all with her chief father Two-Spear and left the tribe in a huff), and Venka (Kahvi's second daughter, who... actually gracefully evades the trope).
  • And don't forget Leetah herself. She's the exotic daughter of one of her tribe's two spiritual leaders, she starts her role in the plot being kidnapped by (and falling in love with) the white main character, and the entire first story arc is about two men fighting over her: the white hero 400 years younger than her, and the proud dark-skinned hunter she grew up with that she was about to get "engaged" to. Guess who wins.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Mender and Ember, when Ember is desperate to lose her virginity. It doesn't last (Cutter, who isn't keen on Ember getting intimate with some stranger, actually asks Skywise to take care of it — but Skywise refuses, because he knows Ember is looking for someone outside the tribe).
• Conlang: Gradually built over the course of the series as the depiction of Elf culture evolved; the Wolfriders and the humans of the woods speak the same language in the first volume, and Wolfriders themselves have two separate names (the soul name and the tribal name), with the former being implied to be more closely derived from the native elven tongue. Over the course of the story it becomes consistent enough for the names to have a discernible translation. "Leetah" is "healing light" and "Tyleet" is "healer's gift", and "ek" is "rock", for instance.
• Cool Old Guy: The series has a few examples.
  • Savah, one of the oldest living elves, who helped found Sorrow's End centuries past and is its unofficial matriarch, with all the inhabitants being her descendants. Called the Mother of Memory by the Sun Folk, she preserves their history and gains knowledge through astral projection, along with being capable of other small spells. Her personality is unfalteringly serene, compassionate and wise.
  • Likewise, after some initial misunderstandings have been cleared up, Lord Voll of the Gliders, who is even older, endears himself to the Wolfriders in much the same way. Unfortunately the trolls kill him.
  • Then there's Ekuar, the wizened old rock-shaper, who retains his charm and wit despite having survived centuries of mistreatment by the trolls.
• Crystal Spires and Togas: Pretty much everything to do with the High Ones and the Firstborn.
• Cuddle Bug: Tyleet, Shenshen, Pike, Skot, Nightfall and Kimo. Kimo and Shuna take to platonically sleeping together in order to keep Shuna warm during winter.
• Darwinist Desire: The desire to mate with whoever is the strongest and fittest to produce stronger children is the basis for Recognition, but it's a completely unconscious telepathic urge that takes no account of personal preference or pre-existing relationships.
• 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: Eyes High.
• Death of Personality: This is effectively the fate of One-Eye's body when he is killed in the prelude to The Palace War. After Leetah tries to heal him and only manages to heal his empty, soulless body, it is kept in Preserver webbing for many years until his lifemate, Clearbrook, accepts that he's not coming back and so cuts the webbing and allows his body to die.
• Decapitation Presentation: After Kahvi decapitates Guttlekraw his head gets displayed on a spear.
• Debt Detester: This is ostensibly Rayek's reason for helping Leetah to save Cutter's life after the disastrous battle with the snow trolls. In reality he probably did it out of compassion, though he'd never admit it.
• Did You Die?: In a Barry Blair story featuring an Indiana Jones style adventure. At the beginning of Part 2 one of the people the hero is telling his adventure to says something like, "So what happened next? I want to find out if you got killed or not."
• Different as Night and Day: A community version of the trope showed up early. The Wolfriders are a tribe of fair-skinned hunters who preferred the night in their original homeland, while the Sun Folk were a dark-skinned community of peaceful desert farmers who preferred the day. However, once some misunderstandings were resolved, both tribes find that they complement each other well and merge surprisingly easily.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Two-Edge's father was killed by his mother Winnowill.
  • One-Eye's left lying in a coma for years after he's struck on the head by a troll, before finally dying, leaving his son Scouter behind.
  • Rayek fathered Venka with Kahvi, but then she told him the baby died and wasn't his. Until they meet years later, he doesn't know she exists.
  • Skywise fathered Yun with a Go-Back woman during the orgy on the night before the Palace War and he didn't know about her for years.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Trolls' demands for retribution after discovering the origins of their kind and the elves. The High Ones kept the Trolls as servants in their spaceship when they left their dying planet, and the Trolls sabotaged the ship and killed the pilots to crash it. Following that, they kidnapped, tortured, and enslaved three elven children, sealed up the Palace, and both Greymung and Guttlekraw attempted to wipe out the Wolfriders and the Go-Backs for the crimes of needing shelter from a forest fire and existing, respectively.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The "Kings of the Broken Wheel" arc did this to A LOT of characters.
  • As did the war at the Djun's palace.
    • "Siege at Blue Mountain" fatally dropped the entire mountain of the title with all of the Gliders (except three or four who escaped) inside it.
• Droste Image: The cover of "Bedtime Stories".
• Easily Forgiven: Rayek collapsed the Go-Backs' lodge on top of their Chief, Kahvi, and banished the rest, calling them magic-less degenerates, as Disproportionate Retribution for not protecting his mentor Ekuar and his daughter's "death" (whether or not the Go-Backs were to blame for these things is another matter); Treestump and Clearbrook watch him do it, and don't give him any more than a mild scolding.^note It's understandable that they are hesitant to antagonize Rayek after seeing him unleash his powers and also because without him, they have a very long and arduous trek back to the tribes, but still it's a bit jarring.
• Elfeminate: Most male elves are pretty androgynous in appearance, aside from those who have facial hair.
• Embarrassing Rescue: In the Trial of the Heart, Rayek could not resist showboating to mock Cutter when his acrophobia got the better of him on "The Bridge of Destiny," an artificially formed narrow bridge joining the tops of two dangerously high facing cliffs. To do so, Rayek arrogantly strode on to the middle of that bridge for his derision, only to slip, fall and then barely held from falling to his death by his fingertips. Cutter conquers his phobia to rescue Rayek, who finds it a terrible ultimate humiliation.
• Emotionless Girl: Venka can appear to be this, as can Moonshade. Both are a lot deeper than they seem. Venka is simply intensely calm and responsible, and Moonshade is entirely devoted to her lifemate, the two of them living together in emotional isolation from the rest of the tribe.
• Eternal Sexual Freedom:
  • For the elves. Not so much for the humans. Deliberate Values Dissonance ensues when human girl Shuna is adopted into the tribe.
  • Little Patch faces something of an inversion; being raised among the Wolfriders, everything he knows about sexuality comes from them, and as he reaches maturity, he wants to join in with the Wolfrider ladies in... well, joining. While Aroree is willing to teach him, it doesn't work out because "our bloodsong is pitched much higher than they can bear", leading him to try rejoining the human people nearby.
• Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Sex is never shown explicitly, but it clearly happens often and the elves enjoy it a lot.
• Everyone Is Bi: According to Word of God, all elves are bisexual. Although some of them seem to have a strong preference: Dart is mostly gay, Skywise is mostly straight, etc.
• Face Your Fears: Cutter and Rayek have to do this during the "Trial of the heart". Cutter had to face his fear of heights crossing the "Bridge of Destiny," but initially lost heart. As it turns out, Rayek then failed his own challenge at that moment when he recklessly stepped on to the bridge to gloat: his fear is of loss and not being the first in all things. Ergo, if Rayek had stayed where he was and perhaps showed some respect for Cutter's turmoil, he would have won. Instead, Rayek decided to showboat and then got himself in deadly danger when he slipped and provided Cutter a most spectacular opportunity to conquer his own fear when he then saved Rayek out of principle.
• Fairy Companion: Petalwing, right down to annoying the hell out of the elves with its "helping."
• Family of Choice: Cutter and Skywise become "brothers in all but blood" when young, even going as far as to share "soul names", something normally reserved for immediate family or reproductive mates. Their relationship is somewhat strained during The Palace War and when Skywise wants to stay in the Palace after, but is never broken while they both live.
• Fan Disservice: In Brothers in All But Blood, we're treated to the sight of female troll Oddbit undressing for bed. Of course, it's fan service for Picknose, who walks in on her.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Winnowill is very prejudiced against the Wolfriders, due to them having a trace of wolf blood (and their wolves having a trace of elf blood, for that matter). She's unwilling to accept that Timmain's life as a wolf, bearing the elf-wolf children that would become the Wolfrider's ancestors, was her way of adapting to the new planet.
  • Averted when it comes to "traditional" racism: no one on the entire planet cares about skin color. The only time it comes up is in the first prose novel, "Journey to Sorrow's End", when one reason Cutter doesn't trust the people of Sorrow's End is because "they're dark, like humans". Once he finds they're allies and even friends, bias based on skin color never comes up again in any of the collective works.
• Fantasy Contraception: Elves cannot reproduce without Recognition (aside from a few exceptions).
• A Fate Worse Than Death: When Winnowill decides she would be stronger as a spirit, Rayek interrupts her suicide by trapping her soul inside his own. He dooms himself to live in solitude forever, never sleeping, with the woman he loves trapped inside him, ready to kill him (or worse) if he ever so much as nods off. He immediately leaves for a life of solitude, realizing his fate is too horrible for anyone else to have to look at (his mentor/father figure Ekuar follows him, though).
• The Fettered: Venka. Calm to a fault, extremely dedicated to her task of cleansing the world of harmful magic, and always with grace and Heroic Resolve. Her dream sequence even depicts her holding a knight's shield. When the Go-Backs see her for the first time, they instantly ask her to become chief (justified—she's their old chief's daughter).
• Fiery Redhead:
  • Redlance is an inversion because he's usually very quiet and shy. Although not when it comes to sex, according to the novelization.
  • Ember, a dark-skinned redhead with a hot temper, though she's usually in control.
• Final Solution: Siege at Blue Mountain—part of Winnowill's plan involves killing the Wolfriders' immortal souls as well as their bodies (admittedly there are less than twenty Wolfriders, but they're still an entire race of elf-wolf hybrids).She fails, naturally.
• Flashback: Used at the start of the tale to explain the reason behind current events, while also giving part of the elves' origin story.
• Flight of Romance: Skywise is falling for Aroree anyway, but their romance is strengthened when Aroree takes him for a ride on her giant bird.
• 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 Retcon 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.
• Friend to All Living Things: Teir.
• Gambit Roulette: Two-Edge. He even declares himself a forger of destiny. His plan to pit the Elves against the Trolls for control of the Palace depended on King Greymung playing dice against Bearclaw, wagering a particular weapon and losing, the Wolfriders gaining a lodestone, surviving the journey to Sorrow's End, having children, making peace with humans on their way to Blue Mountain and rekindling the passion of Lord Voll, and surviving their first encounter with Guttlekraw's trolls. He even implies that the Wolfriders being forced into the troll caves and the tunnel of golden light was factored into his plans, because he was prepared to push them out of the desert if they stayed there too long. And when all is said and done, it's a subversion because despite all that ridiculously intricate planning, it still failed. The Elves and the southern Trolls made an alliance to fight the Northern trolls. Without a fair battle divided by race alone, he can't decide whether he's more elf, or more troll.
• Genki Girl: Shen-Shen is the series' earliest example. Her niece Ember quickly catches up. Dewshine and Aroree also counted as Genki Girl archetypes at the start of the series, although both become traumatized over the course of the story: Dewshine simply matures into a calm, happy woman, but Aroree's spirit is permanently broken after witnessing her tribe's chief die.
• A God Am I: Winnowill, Rayek in his middle phase, and the Djuns (warlord Grohmul and his son, Angrif) all have some disturbingly unhealthy megalomaniac traits. Subverted in Grohmul Djun's case, as he proclaims himself to be divinely omnipotent to the populace, yet is himself well aware it's not true though he hopes the palace shards will change that.
• Godiva Hair: Timmain and Winnowill's long hair covers their breasts.
• Going Native: Many, many examples. Leetah becoming a Wolfrider to be with Cutter is the most prominent one. Any of the Sunfolk or Gliders that join the Wolfriders, the Jackwolfriders or the Forevergreen group count; Suntop taking on a Wavedancer appearance to be with Brill; Shuna (a medieval human) being adopted by Wolfriders; Little Patch, Winnowill and later Mender exploring human society (since the elves consider humans savages, and vice versa); Lehrigen becoming a woodland stalker to hunt elves; Rayek living as a Go-Back for a while; and last but not least, the Jackwolves living around Sorrow's End mating with the Wolfriders' wolves. And now Leetah's sister, Shen-Shen, takes the appearance of a human to fulfill her desire to deliver children.
• Go Mad from the Revelation:
  • Cutter temporarily in The Final Quest. The fact that he and Timmain share the same soul - to a point where they actually can hear what the other thinks outside of regular sending, and the implication connected to the sharing of soul names between him and Skywise (who actually recognized Timmain via Cutter), sends him off the rails completely. At least for a time.
  • Later in Stargazer's Hunt, Timmain reveals this to Skywise. He doesn't quite go mad, but has a rather severe breakdown over it. Unfortunately, just as he's coming to terms with it, his daughter Jink decides to help him... by erasing all his memories of Cutter. Things go downhill from there.
• Good Powers, Bad People
• Gonk: All but a handful of human women. Might be interpreted as how they look to elven eyes.
  Bone Woman: GAAAH!! Begone, I command you, beast-eared demons! Turn your evil eyes away from us!
  Skywise (sending): I - Is it a troll?
  Cutter (sending): Can't be! Trolls aren't THAT ugly!
• Gratuitous German: Joellyn Auklandus likes to use German words as (the basis of) character names, e.g. "Tier" means "animal".
  • A lot of the "archaic" English terms the series is sprinkled with (holt, fell..) are old/basic enough that they are the same in German.
  • The name "Angrif Djun", of the human warlord, is obviously derived form the German word Angriff (meaning attack-most appropriate).
• Grand Finale : After 40 years, the main series ended with the four-volume series The Final Quest by wrapping up loose threads in the series long run.
• Green Aesop:
  • Almost all the way. While most elves are tied to nature and depend on it (with "the restless ones" as the most extreme example), humans have a tendency to mess with nature in unhealthy ways. This goes back to the beginning of the original quest, where the human shaman orders a cleansing of the forest, burning it to the ground. Later, humans are not above trying other methods in the same vein, forcing the elves to fight, not only for their way of life, but for the preservation of nature itself. The natural, cyclic order is a strong, recurring theme in the series.
  • In The Rebels, the team encounters an unusual species plant when they're on a space station getting supplies. Their guide tells them it's a combination air cleaner and food and resource provider, even providing materials that can be synthesized into plastics. It can grow anywhere, as long as it's cultivated. The seeds were given to the humans' forebearers... by an elf.
• Groin Attack: Krim performs one on a human warlord, complete with Bond One-Liner.
• Happily Married: Many, many couples. Cutter and Leetah are the most prominent example. Moonshade and Strongbow are interesting as well, as the only couple who are exclusive in their intimacy with each other, and none of the other elves really understand their relationship — but they're completely happy.
  • It makes perfect sense when you consider that Moonshade and Strongbow are arguably the most wolf-like of the Wolfriders, and wolves mate for life.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: In the original Quest and on a tribal level more than an individual one, due to the nature of magic and elves in the setting.
  • The Wolfriders are very young by elf standards (even Treestump), but they outclass every other elven culture, physically, spiritually, or both, with the explanation that their culture has been fighting humans since the tribe began. Timmain pretty much declares it when she explains the origins of the elves. She gave birth to Timmorn Yellow-Eyes in wolf form, and although it made them mortal, it made them native to the planet, lifted the spiritual interference that hinders magic users, and gave them an innate social structure.
  • The Sun Folk are peaceful farmers who can't send or fight, with only Savah, Rayek, and Leetah capable of any magic at all, and even Rayek has no skill against a conscious opponent since he stuns his prey when he hunts.
  • The Gliders have powerful magic and nearly all of them can fly, but they're physically fragile; the Chosen Eight are skilled in combat, but the Wolfriders are able to successfully fight them off even while unarmed.
  • The Go-Backs have been fighting a war against a clan of vicious trolls armed with superior mechanical weapons for over a hundred years, but the Wolfriders are stated to be worth three Go-Backs each, even when using unfamiliar weapons. They also have no magic or Recognition, and only Kahvi can easily send. (It's implied in some of Kahvi's backstory that a previous chief, the one before the one Kahvi succeeded, suppressed the use of magic as useless.)
  • The Wolfriders themselves have the distinction of being the only tribe that has been consistently breeding through Recognition (which ensures the resulting children will have the strongest possible combination of their parents' genes) and dying often enough for their numbers to need replenishing, meaning they've gone through several generations of genetically-ideal pairs of parents producing genetically-ideal children. The Sun Folk rarely have children and the Gliders have none at all unless you count Tyldak because they have healers to tend accidental injuries and don't engage in combat. As nomads, the Go-Backs died often enough that they adapted to breed without Recognition; as such, they breed more often, but have no subconscious draw to a mate who will produce the best possible children. That doesn't stop Kahvi from choosing Rayek to sire her daughter, though, and Venka is one of the most potent and uniquely-talented magic users of all Elvenkind.
• Harmful Healing: Healing relies not on regenerating flesh so much as on reshaping it—a bit like Vicissitude. The Big Bad happens to be the most powerful healer alive. Draw your own conclusions.
• Harmless Electrocution: Averted. Ruffel and Skywise head off for some sexy-time in the rain. Poor Ruffel gets up and starts dancing, and... well, terminally discovers it was actually a thunderstorm.
• 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, inducement of child conception, and some other applications.
  • The Gatherum notes that the attempted move to an Animated Adaptation required the loss of healing powers, since the "lay-on-hands" thing offended the Media Watchdogs.
• Healthy in Heaven: As long as Clearbrook kept One-Eye's body bound in wrapstuff and refused to let him go, his spirit still wore an eye patch. Once she finally got past her grief and let him go, his finally-free spirit is shown to have two eyes once more.
• Heel–Face Turn: Rayek, Two-Edge, Chot, Yun (who was never much of a Heel anyway), and Kahvi (to the Sunfolk). Gibra hoped that Haken would make a Heel–Face Turn as well — although we don't find out what happened to them, it's implied that Winnowill is their daughter.
• Heel Realization: Rayek suffers a massive and acute Heel Realization just as he's about to kill all of the Wolfriders (for the greater good, he thinks). It's triggered when he meets his daughter Venka for the first time, who was trained her whole life to stop him. She refuses to, telling him that it has to be his own choice. It should be noted that the grief he felt when he was told Venka died at birth was his impetus to begin the sequence of actions that culminated in in his Heel Realization. The connection is brought home when she calls him "father" for the first time and he half collapses against a wall.
• Held Gaze: This comic book saga has a specific name for this trope: Recognition (which is practically a Lampshade Hanging of sorts for the supernatural version of the trope). "Soul meets soul when eyes meet eyes"; which is a powerful biological urge to mate that pretty much guarantees healthy, gifted children. Recognized Wolfriders instantly know each other's soul name/psychological "password". The original, immortal space travelers had almost forgotten childbirth entirely until they crashed on the new, dangerous planet. Even then they weren't very prolific. Recognition unconsciously uses their telepathy to "scan" for the best biological match, and compels those two to bear a child with their best traits. It's not love, although the soul-link that's created makes that easier if they choose. This plays havoc with elves who aren't fond of their Recognized partner at all, and gets Played for Drama with Dewshine and Tyldak, who are horrified by each other. In many other cases, the elves and their existing romantic partner(s) welcome their new soulmate, either in a temporary arrangement to raise the child or as a permanent relationship.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Strongbow:
    • Strongbow has one after he kills Kureel and only recovers after he begs Kureel's soul for forgiveness.
    • He also has one when he realizes that his conservative way of life was entirely based on nothing — there was no original "Way" to preserve, because the elves were alien explorers who crash-landed on the planet. Their entire culture was simply a temporary way to survive. Strongbow... doesn't cope very well with the information, and tells the elves to just let him die right there.
    • In the conclusion of the Final Quest arc, Strongbow, who advised strongly against the pragmatic Go-Back suggestion on arming themselves with human firearms, grabs one himself to avenge the death of Kimo, killing a human. He instantly collapses, acknowledging that he may have killed the Way in the process.
  • 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.
  • Moonshade after Crescent dies. Telepathy plus parent-child bond means she feels her child's pain and terror. (Strongbow is affected, but is stronger psychically, as Winnowill notes elsewhere.)
  • As well as Eyes High when they kill Shale. This is the dark side of the bond of Recognition, especially combined with lifemating -the surviving mind feels the trauma when the other one dies.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Redlance in the Final Quest. It nearly kills him. Later in the same story ark: Cutter, when he understands that the survival of Shuna is necessary for the preservation of peace on the world of two moons. He lets himself wither away while Leetah saves Shuna, only for Leetah to arrive a moment too late.
• 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.
• Hidden Depths: Moonshade and Strongbow. Of all the wolfriders, they're most strongly connected to "The Way" and thus most resistant to change, and they're also the most quiet (Strongbow almost never speaks and Moonshade is arguably the stealthiest). They're also the most intensely emotional, and the reason they don't share lovers like the other wolfriders is because no one else can handle it.
• Hijacked by Ganon: It's Winnowill. It's always Winnowill. Or her son, or her father, or her lovemates, but she's always connected to it somehow.
• Horn Attack: Both Mad Horns (woolly rhinos) and the Go-back's elk can perform them.
• 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.
• Hot-Blooded Sideburns: Cutter gets an awesome pair.
• Howl of Sorrow: The Wolfrider elves and their wolves share communal howls when one of their number dies, or when the elves are commemorating the dead.
• Human Sacrifice: The first arc starts with the humans attempting this on first one Wolfrider and then on the whole tribe. The Forevergreen arc also has the Hungtsho make these on Door and Windkin's behalf, whom they view as gods.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: particularly in Mender's Tale and with Firstborn Newbreed in Jink.
• I Know Your True Name: Wolfrider elves are telepathic and all possess "soul names", the knowledge of which gives another elf access to the owner's most intimate thoughts and feelings. Having an evil person such as Winnowill know yours is very bad.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Leetah has never seen death before when her friend Thiro suddenly dies from an animal attack. She realizes that because of her healer magic, the villagers had grown careless; but also that because she was so confident of her abilities, she was never prepared to deal with serious injury. To understand death, she ends up stabbing herself on purpose and healing her own mortal wounds, and becomes a stronger and more responsible healer by doing so.
• Ice-Cream Koan: "In the meantime — if time can be said to have meaning..."
• Idiot Ball: The Wolfriders cross the desert to give Cutter the dire portents his young son Suntop is carrying, then flub it at the 10-yard line by dismissing him as exhausted when he screams at them to not rest on safe-looking land, and not hunt what they're hunting.
• Illegal Religion: Once he starts getting delusions of grandeur, Gromul Djun bans worship of the humans' deity Threksht, and making offerings to or idols of the Hidden Ones (i.e., the elves in the forest) while also declaring himself to be a god, whom they alone must worship. After this and some other outrages, it's not long until they rebel.
• Important Haircut: Clearbrook cuts off her braid at one point. It's especially significant because One-Eye, her lifemate, loves her long, silver hair, to the point that when he finds out she's been given (horror of horrors!) a glamorous new hairdo, he thinks she's been tortured.
• Improvised Zipline: In an early storyline Cutter undergoes a trial during which he has to find his way down a steep cliff in a cave. He makes a rope by unlacing the legs of his breeches, but still has to make a bruising jump down the last several feet. And then trips over his unlaced breeches.
• Inertial Impalement: This is how Redlance got his tribe name in his Back Story. He later repeated it with an attacking troll just before the Castle War.
• Inhumanly Beautiful Race: Most humans feel this way about elves, although the original character designs were much more imp-like.
• Interspecies Friendship: The Wolfrider elves and their wolves, partly because they can exchange feelings telepathically, and partly because they're related by blood.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • Timmain, first with her wolf-mate, and much later — when she's decided to live as a wolf forever — as Skywise's lifemate. Later she returns to her elf form and becomes his lover. Firstborn elves with wolf blood are also stated to have mated with wolves, and the entire wolf pack has traces of elf blood (some, like Blackfell, could even send).
  • Two-Edge is the result of Winnowill's seduction of a troll. Not so much "romance" as a twisted game on Winnowill's part, though.
  • Two-Edge himself develops a crush on Venka. She doesn't return his feelings, but does try to respect them. In Final Quest, he finally gets some lovin' when Ahdri reveals she's attracted to him.
• I Sense a Disturbance in the Force:
  • Used often. Most elves have some prescience. Savah, Winnowill, Suntop and some others can use remote viewing.
  • The trope's most famous tearjerker moment in the series was when Pike sensed his lifemate Skot had died in the war. The scene is meaningful especially because Pike and Skot couldn't Recognize: they were both males, Skot's tribe doesn't usually have Recognition, and Pike is thought to be incapable of Recognition, because he was born out of a magic experiment. The fact that Pike was able to sense Skot's death regardless of any of that means they were as close as Recognized lifemates.
• I Surrender, Suckers: The human warlord acknowledging defeat in the Final Quest. He is not very honorable about this.
• 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, in a heroic version of the trope (also a variation of Sealed Evil in a Duel).
• Jerkass:
  • Scouter doesn't start out like this, but he becomes one over time. He gets some character development very late in the series when he Recognizes Tyleet, shares his soulname with Dewshine and becomes a father. It almost redeems him as a character... and then he challenges Ember for her chief's lock. His jerk-level is reduced pretty much back to normal once he and Ember talk things through, hug it out, and he returns to his old self.
  • Trolls in general — schadenfreude and insensitive comments are the norm in their culture. Several do have hearts of gold, if you can put up with the constant grumbling and snide remarks.
• Keeping the Handicap:
  • At the end of the first series Kahvi hits Cutter with her gauntleted fist in order to prove a point. Although Leetah could heal the scar, Cutter decides to keep it to remind him of the lesson.
  • Sun-Toucher, Leetah's father, has gone blind after looking at the sun too long too often but refuses to let his daughter restore his sight because he's quite comfortable getting by on his remaining senses.
• Kissing Cousins:
  • Scouter and Tyleet. (Scouter and Nightfall (Tyleet's mother) are cousins; Scouter's father One-Eye and Nightfall's father Longbranch were brothers. This makes Scouter and Tyleet first cousins, once removed.)
  • As of The Final Quest, Ember and Teir. To make things clear - Teir is the son of Windkin, who is Ember´s second cousin - so Teir is her second cousin once removed.
• Klingon Promotion: You can win the chiefs' lock by challenging the current chief. The fight can be declared to be to the death.
• Language of Truth: Sending.
• The Last Dance: The Go-backs are really into this one.
  • During the battle with the trolls, Vaya knocks out her mother Khavi so she can sacrifice herself covering the elves' escape.
  • Skot rides a suicide mission to save Clearbrook and Treestump from Winnowill's mutated hounds, and holds them off till the burning drawbridge he's on collapses.
  • When Ember's tribe is battling Angrif Djun's army and needs to withdraw, Krim (who'd been wanting to do this sort of thing for a while but kept getting vetoed) and the human Lehrigen decide to charge the lot of them. She actually manages to Groin Attack Angrif before being struck down.
• Left Hanging: A number of plot threads over the years due to various series being Cut Short. Final Quest is attempting to wrap every single one up.
• Likes Older Women:
  • Cutter. Leetah was quite a bit older than him; at the start of the series he's 23, while she's around 600. However, when Leetah and her twin children are sucked away in the Palace and separated from Cutter, he and the other left-behind elves age 500 years, so when the elves are reunited, the age difference between Cutter and Leetah becomes insignificant.
  • Rayek and Winnowill. Winnowill is heavily implied to be firstborn (as the daughter of Haken and Gibra), making her close to 10,000 years old, whereas Rayek is about 700 or 800 years old when they first meet.
  • A milder example, often mentioned by the characters themselves, is Nightfall and Redlance. The prose novel "Journey to Sorrow's End" mentions Redlance is approximately three times older then Nightfall.
• Long-Lost Relative: Rayek and his daughter Venka, Skywise and his daughter Yun, Timmain and everyone (being the wolfriders' ur-ancestor).
• Maker of Monsters: Winnowill creates many horrible creatures over the years, to prey on other elves or humans.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: White forest elf Cutter ends up choosing black desert elf Leetah as his lifemate. This is never commented on by anyone in the comics (although, in a novelization, Leetah initially finds the pale complexions of the Wolfriders unnerving and Moonshade is chagrined at the thought of tanning) as skin color is considered purely an "evolutionary benefit" (the elves evolve fast) and just kind of pretty. However, the fact that Cutter has animal ancestors (and is mortal as a result) is considered absolutely disgusting by some characters, including Leetah's former boyfriend Rayek, who tries to separate them. On the other hand, one of the reasons the ElfQuest animated cartoon never took off was because the network demanded that this mixed marriage be changed, and the writers would have none of that.
• Mama Bear: Leetah, Timmain, and many others - most unexpectedly, Newstar.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Aroree tries to be this to her tribe, and most notably to Skywise. She gets emotionally broken soon after, though, and matures into a graceful, quiet, and melancholy Wolfrider.
• Marry Them All: A fairly common solution for elves who find themselves in a Love Triangle.
  • For example, Dewshine is delighted when Scouter Recognises Tyleet, and immediately welcomes Tyleet as her new lifemate, eventually even sharing her soulname.
  • It's stated some of the Sun Villagers practiced "triple" matings as well, and Savah proposes it for Rayek, Leetah and Cutter. Rayek says it would be impossible, however.
• Matriarchy: In the future stories, of the Patriarchy Flip variety, among humans at least (elves remain equal throughout). All humans' highest positions we see are filled by women, and though it doesn't come up often they scoff at the idea of men rising to that level.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Discussed. The Wolfriders are mortal (and like it that way), but the other elf tribes are not. Rayek very explicitly states that he considers Leetah and Cutter to be in a Mayfly–December Romance. Leetah doesn't agree.
• 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. Did the creators really expect readers to encounter "Picknose" as a character name and not mentally respond, "Does he have a brother named Scratchass?"
  • Names in the series are often meaningful in more than one way (Cutter is a swordsman, but also very direct; Treestump is resolute...and built like a fireplug). Those trolls are pretty damn crude.
  • Interestingly, if you look at the You Are the Translated Foreign Word and Theme Naming entries on this page, you come to realize that it's probable that all elves have meaningful names; it's simply that only the Wolfriders (and later the Wavedancers) who translate their names in-text. "Tyleet", for example, means "Healer's Gift" and was named after Leetah, whose name means "Healing Light". Something to do with the fact that they're the groups historically most endangered by humans, and thus with the greatest need for using Sending (and thus, to have a need for Soulnames), perhaps? Or, possibly, it's simply the fact that Wolfriders are quite open to changing their names to reflect life experience.
  • Even soul names appear to attempt a meaning in their sound related to a succinct description of the characters essence. Strongbow (Wyl/Will), Moonshade (Eyrn/Iron), Redlance (Ulm/Elm...he is a tree-shaper), Joyleaf (Dehl/dale), Cutter (Tam, the sound a drum makes and fitting as the chief/heartbeat of the tribe). In past generations you have a chilly, reserved healer of the Wolfriders with the soul name "Aiyse" (ice). This tendency doesn't always ring true with soul names, but it happens often enough.
  • Winnowill is a slightly more traditional expression of the trope. It's probably an elven name and has its own meaning in that context, but to "winnow" is to separate the worthwhile or valuable from the trash.
• Meaningful Rename: A Wolfrider's name will sometimes be changed if something significant enough happens to them to merit it; for example, Redlance's name was originally Redmark, but it was changed after he saved Bearclaw from a sabertooth by impaling it with a spear. One-Eye's name was Woodhue before his eye was gouged out by some humans. Chitter's name got changed to Freetouch after she kept herself from asking for healing for a baby bird, but still interfered with it herself.
• Mercy Kill: Skywise ends his mortally-wounded wolf's suffering after its throat is torn open by another wolf. After Tyldak was mortally wounded by humans, Kahvi slit his throat to end it at his request.
• Mercurial Base: Cauldron City, from the future arc.
• Merger of Souls: Redlance and Nightfall have their souls merged as an accidental side-effect of Nightfall's love bringing Redlance out of a Heroic BSoD. They get to keep their individual personalities, though.
• Mermaid Problem: Some of the Wavedancers are merfolk, with fish-like lower bodies. It's left unexplained if they can reproduce or have sex with those of human-like lower halves, and if so how. The elf lady whose lower half is a skirt of octopus tentacles really raises questions.
• Milholland Relationship Moment: Several. Notably Leetah accidentally yelling out Cutter's soul name in front of Skywise (he already knew), and Winnowill revealing Cutter's animal ancestry to Leetah (she already knew and doesn't mind, Cutter knew she knew and is actually proud of it).
• Mindlink Mates:
  • Elves are telepathic, but they can form an even closer bond where they undergo "Recognition" of each others soul and body's capability to mate and a need to mate. This leads to the affected pair mating like bunnies, so possibly the body is involved as well as the soul. This can also happen even if the couple don't like each other, or one is already in a relationship, which can lead to awkwardness. Or more often, threesomes. The Elfquest Gatherums have specifically stated that Recoginition is strictly for reproduction; the series indicates those who Recognize and lifemate are far more likely to have more then one child — or any child — than a non-Recognized couple. The only exception to this rule are the Go-Backs, who don't need Recognition to make more babies since they've essentially discarded most kinds of elf "magic".
  • Also, Skywise and Cutter recognized, even though they are both male, because they already shared a soul.
  • Nightfall and Redlance aren't technically Recognized, but when Nightfall had to heal Redlance's mind by bonding with him she managed to merge their souls permanently.
• Mind over Matter: Rayek, Egg/Aurek, and Trof
• Mind Rape: Winnowill is not a nice person. Neither are Haken and Madcoil, but Winnowill really takes it to the next level when she happens to be in the room at the moment Tyldak and Dewshine Recognize, and Tyldak speaks Dewshine's soul name aloud. Once she has Dewshine's soul name, Dewshine has no defenses against her powers, and even speaking the name aloud can cause her pain, which Winnowill uses mercilessly.
• Missing Mom:
  • Dewshine's mother died in the past due to being killed by a falling branch (she was deaf from a fever, and couldn't hear it).
  • Kahvi dies off page, as related by her lover Tyldak, though she hadn't seen her daughter Venka for some time already, being constantly off on adventures. She previously abandoned Teir too and was distant at best to her daughter Vaya.
• Mix-and-Match Critter: 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 being fused together when it was detonated after it got struck by lightning.
• Motor Mouth: Chitter, who also doesn't like telepathy and tends to demand the other elves speak their replies, to her father's amused chagrin. Strongbow doesn't like talking, but usually humors her on this.
• 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...
• Mr. Fanservice: Pretty much the entire male cast.
• Ms. Fanservice: Pretty much the entire female cast.
• Multigenerational Household: All tribes. The Wolfriders grow up very fast yet live for hundreds of years, and the other elves are immortal, so this is almost inevitable.
• Multishot: Strongbow does this a few times. Notable in he never tries it with more than two arrows, and the arrows are realistically drawn as not being as accurate as when he fires just one.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: This applies to pretty much all elf parents once their children reach adulthood, since none of them age visibly (aside from the male Wolfriders, who do grow facial hair).
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: Winnowill. Unusually for this trope, the elves were fully aware of it and intentionally avoided killing her, until a berserk Grohmul Djun intervened.
  • At which point Rayek's almost-forgotten Chekhov's Skill - absorbing souls into his own mind - kicked in, and he decided to trap Winnowill inside his own being. Damning himself to an eternal life of mental torture.
• My Fist Forgives You: Rayek challenges Cutter specifically to allow him to beat the living daylights out of Rayek as an apology for taking away his family for thousands of years.
• National Geographic Nudity: Most prominently in The Final Quest. Ruffel is shown topless, but her nipples are obscured, and later, Moonshade is shown stark naked after a night of passion with Strongbow, but partly obscured in the same way.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: A popular design in elf fashion. Special shout-outs to Leetah's floor-length duster from the second book (which is not worn with an actual shirt), Dewshine's strapless-and-plunging-neckline dresses that seem to casually ignore gravity, Tyldak's fur singlet thing that may or may not technically be his own hair, and pretty much everything Strongbow has ever worn.
• Never Be Hurt Again: In the Siege at Blue Mountain arc, this seems to be Winnowill's motivation for wanting to take all of the pure-blooded elves somewhere they can never be hurt again. For many of them it doesn't end well.
• Never Found the Body:
  • The rock-shaper Ahdri's "death" by arrows in the New Blood series.
  • Two-Edge, buried in the collapse of Blue Mountain. He got... worse, arguably, but not dead. At the least, he gained a measure of semi-sanity after his recovery, enough to stop speaking almost entirely in rhymes and riddles.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: All the time.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Cutter vs. Rayek. It's a considerably more brutal endeavor than most expressions of the trope due the nature of Elven culture, especially because all sides accept that it could easily turn into a fight to the death. Once Rayek realizes what he really did wrong in sending the Palace to the future, he continues provoking Cutter and refuses to call for healing so Cutter can work out his anger and, to a somewhat lesser extent, get justice for himself.
• No Infantile Amnesia: Skywise; Teir (shown in Recognition)
• Non-Heteronormative Society: All elves are bisexuals, though most prefer the opposite sex from what's depicted. However, no one is ever shown to care or even notice if some elf gets it on with the same sex. Polyamory is common among them to different degrees, with many close friends also strongly implied to have sex as well, including if they're same-sex.
• Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: The series has two half elves.
  • Timmorn Yellow-Eyes is the son of a shapeshifted High One (elf) and a wolf. The conflicting instincts of "immortal shapeshifter" and "mortal being with no concept of past or future" in his heritage nearly drove him mad, as seen in this story. By extension, his descendants the Wolfriders all have some wolf ancestry as well.
  • Two-Edge was half-elf and half-troll. His mother Winnowill systematically broke his mind, to the point that he was so conflicted about his species that he staged a war between elves and trolls to decide it.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Wolves. Giant birds and preservers also qualify. Of course, the characters were never really human to begin with.
• Nonhumans Lack Attributes: Preservers have androgynous bodies without genitals or nipples. Justified, as they're apparently asexual and sexless.
• No Periods, Period: Elven females don't menstruate, so it's justified with them. However, as a human woman Shuna does, and this distracts the wolves to the point that they have her live apart from them while she's menstruating.
• Now I Know What to Name Him: Elf mothers communicate telepathically with their fetuses as seen with Eyes High (who named her son Skywise), Toorah (who named her daughter Leetah, "healing light", after sensing her healing powers), and Rainsong (who named her son "Mender" for the same reasons).
• Nude Nature Dance:
  • Leetah and Nightfall's forest dance in Siege at Blue Mountain probably qualifies, aside from its obvious sexual implications (it's actually foreshadowed by a mention in one of the novelizations, of couples doing that sort of thing).
  • Ruffel (one of Skywise's lovemates) tries in The Final Quest Special. It ends badly.
• Obsolete Occupation: Winnowill was a healer that went insane because, among other things, her people became so safe that she had no purpose anymore.
• Odd Friendship: Bearclaw and the trolls, Mantricker and Demontricker, Kimo and Shuna, Kahvi and Tyldak (who end up lovemates for a considerable period of time).
• Off the Wagon: Bearclaw coped with a lot of things by getting drunk off his face in the troll caverns.
• One-Night-Stand Pregnancy: Skywise slept with a number of female Go-Backs on the night before the Palace War began. It turns out much later that he got one pregnant, and she gave birth to his daughter Yun. He doesn't meet her until many years later. Notably, this was an intended purpose of the Go-Backs' orgy: replacing the warriors they would lose in the next day's battle.
• One-Steve Limit: The elves are named for their individual traits; sometimes looks, sometimes personality traits, but no elf has ever had the same name as another.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Strongbow and his wolf-friend contract "the Foaming Sickness" (Rabies) during a period when the Wolfriders have no healers (Leetah is lost in time and Mender is at the Sun Village with no way to travel such a distance). Instead, they take them to Old Maggotty to receive her herbal treatments. The treatment is arduous and likely to fail, and Maggotty remarks that it makes no sense. When Moonshade says "It's not about sense", Maggotty replies "Anything for family, eh? I guess I can fault you elves in all ways but that."
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Like most trolls, Picknose loves to gamble. But when Strongbow contracts rabies, he's not interested in betting on the outcome of the treatment.
• Open-Minded Parent: Most characters, because the elves have Eternal Sexual Freedom. A nice example is when main character Cutter realizes that his virgin daughter Ember (aged between 14-15) is sexually frustrated and asks his best friend Skywise to take care of it (Skywise refuses, but mostly because he knows he's not really Ember's type). The human characters are not particularly open-minded, though.
• Opposites Attract: Discussed by Aroree and Kahvi in regard to Kahvi's past relationship with Rayek. Aroree thinks their differences in background (she's "ice", he's "fire") were the problem. Kahvi disagrees though, saying differences make good sparks. It was his arrogance which she hated.
• Our Elves Are Different: As a whole, elves are the descendants of a race of spacefaring, incredibly powerful psionic aliens who were accidentally stranded in the world's Stone Age by the actions of some of their pets/slaves, the ancestors of the modern trolls. Elves resemble humans with fine features, four-fingered hands and long, pointy ears, which results in subtly different skull shapes. All elves have at least some potential for Psychic Powers, or "magic" as they call it, which most prominently manifests as a racial gift of telepathy, which the elves refer to as "Sending". Other psionic powers are less common and mostly revolve around psychokinetic manipulation of a specific material — a category of powers referred to as "Shaping". Elves capable of psionic biomanipulation, referred to as "Healers", are perhaps the most common of these gifted individuals. Other forms of magic tend to be uniquely specialized forms of Sending, Shaping or Healing, such as shapeshifting, levitation, and inflicting pain, paralysis or hypnotic commands. Elves live for extremely long periods, if they aren't fully immune to the effects of aging. They are extremely slow breeding; elven gestation takes two years, and elven women generally do not ovulate unless triggered by the spark of "Recognition", a biokinetic and telepathic trigger that activates when two elves with the potential to make a strong genetic mix encounter each other and their environment is receptive to rearing children — pregnancy can happen without Recognition, but it's called out as generally being very rare. Despite this, the elves have managed to survive in a hostile environment. The common fantasy element of distinctive elfin subraces manifests in ElfQuest as the "Tribes":
  • High Ones is the in-universe name for the original elves who first set foot upon the World of Two Moons. They were much taller than their modern descendants, being human-sized compared to the more gnome-like modern elves of ElfQuest, and much stronger in the arts of magic, but were frailer and less adapted to survive their foreign new environment. The first generation of the High Ones, called the Firstborn, were largely identical, but a bit more socially adaptable. The High Ones and the Firstborn are the direct ancestors of all other elves on Abode.
  • Wolfriders are our primary protagonist faction, and are nomadic hunter-gatherers who originally settled in forest environments. Thanks to their unique descent from a High One named Timmain, who took on wolf shape to better aid her fellow survivors in hunting and found herself giving birth to a half-wolf son, the Wolfriders possess lupine DNA in their collective genepool. As a result, they are definitively stated to be long-lived mortals, rather than unaging immortals like other, purer-blooded elves... although, since the only known Wolfriders to die of old age did so at around an age of 6,000 years old, the difference is rather academic to humans. These lupine genes can be purged by advanced Healer magic, although the one Wolfrider who underwent this noted that his senses felt duller as a result. They use their telepathic abilities to form psychic bonds with wolves, and their culture is largely based on lupine social patterns, with an emphasis on living in the now and avoiding both worrying about the future and dwelling on the past.
  • Sun Folk are the second tribe introduced in canon; a secluded village of peaceful farmers who settled in a remote desert oasis called "Sorrow's End". The only elfin tribe known to have practiced agriculture, domestication, and the softer metalcrafting.
  • Gliders are a small tribe of Firstborn who fled from the dangers of the outside world into a fortified mountain stronghold called Blue Mountain. There, they honed their magic to new heights and established a tradition of riding out to hunt on giant eagles, but also socially stagnated; by the time they are introduced in canon, there have been no births in their ranks for centuries. Over the course of the series, they are all killed off.
  • Go-Backs are a formerly nomadic tribe of reindeer riders and herders, actually related to the Wolfriders distantly by the disgraced chief Two-Spears, who discovered the ancient Palace of the High Ones and became determed to "go back to it". Unfortunately, the troll kingdom of King Guttlekraw had settled around the Palace and refused to give it back to them, plunging the two groups into a bloody and unrelenting war. Shaped by this conflict, Go-Backs are the most violent, aggressive and warlike of all the known elfin tribes. They even practice a limited form of cannibalism, devouring troll flesh just as readily as the trolls feed on elven casualties and captives. To compensate for their high-aggression culture, Go-Backs have rejected Recognition, suppressing and breaking it to the point that their fertility is extremely high compared to that of other elves. By extension, they're also the Anti-Magic Faction of the elfin tribes, as they view magic as a meaningless array of "fancy tricks" that just make you weak.
  • Wavedancers are a tribe who took to living completely underwater, using the powers of their tribal Healers to reshape themselves into amphibious lifeforms with gills and webbed digits. Some, the most well-regarded of the tribe, have gone so far as to have their lower torsos replaced with fish-like tails, making them resemble merfolk. There are actually two different takes on the Wavedancers; the first version, published by in a six issue mini-series by Black Mermaid Productions, were stricken from canon after a legal dispute with the Pinis.
  • The short-lived roleplaying game also offered some ideas for other elfin tribes to help stimulate the imagination of the gamesmaster to flesh out the world of their own. Specifically suggested were decentralized plains-dwelling nomads, which were fleshed out as the Plainsrunners (pureblood nomads who use domesticated jackals to hunt), desert-dwelling nomads who ride the camel/donkey-like zwoots, and seafaring elves. This latter tribe was built into its own sourcebook; called, simply The Sea Elves, they're a nomadic tribe of island-dwelling fisherfolk who use boats and telepathically bonded "wavedancers" (dolphins) to get around and hunt for food.
• Our Fairies Are Different: They're called Preservers and are descended from butterflies. They're still a bit insectile in form, with clawed hands and feet and the ability to spit silk webbing.
• Papa Wolf: Cutter in spades, Strongbow all of the time, Bearclaw when he feels like it, Scouter for his adopted son Windkin, and very unexpectedly, Woodlock. Recently, Sunstream as well.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Cutter's parents were both killed by the monster Madcoil.
  • Skywise lost his as a baby. First humans had murdered his father and then his mother died giving birth to him.
  • Nightfall's parents were also killed by Madcoil.
• Partial Transformation
• Passing the Torch: Skywise to his daughter Yun. Savah to Leetah.
• Perfection Is Static: The Gliders are an ancient society of Elves that have lived in seclusion for eons, seeking to reclaim the legacy of their High One ancestors. Their kingdom within the bowels of Blue Mountain has been perfected through their mastery of rock-shaping magic, creating a beautiful but ultimately static realm dominated with cold blues and greys. They live a peaceful and secure existence, but have become emotionally dulled and unable to have children. Even worse, the complete safety and static nature of their society caused Winnowill to slowly go insane as she realized her healing magic was no longer needed, creating the franchise's most twisted and dangerous villain.
• Perfect Pacifist People: The Sun Folk had lived in peace in their desert home for so long that Leetah's reaction to seeing Redlance's torture wounds was a terrible shock. However, she comes to realize that she herself made the naivete of her people worse by reflexively healing the slightest injury, inadvertently making a village full of wimps. To their credit when the situation changes, the Sun Folk accept the need to train to become tougher. As it is, they have no choice since Leetah and most of the Wolfriders have to leave and find Cutter and Skywise on their quest, but at least one of the remaining Wolfriders, Rainsong, has yet another child on the way and she knows he, who would be called Mender, will become a healer himself in due time.
• The Plan: Two Edge manufactures a war between Elf and Troll over a period of centuries just to figure out his identity, which then falls apart almost immediately.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Pike, for much of the series. He has a serious side, but he's never too serious. Also Choplicker when he's a cub (Ember's bond-wolf), especially when he is seen chasing his tail during a tense and emotional scene.
• Pointy Ears: All elves have these, because you can't have elves without pointy ears. Two-Edge, being half elf and half troll, also has pointy ears to represent his elf side.
• Polar Opposite Twins:
  • Suntop and Ember. She's the tomboy future leader of the tribe, he's a sensitive spiritual boy who prefers to live on the astral plane. She ends up with a tough spear-wielding warrior, whereas his lifemate is a sensitive sea maiden. According to the original ElfQuest Gatherum, this is one reason why the series never made it as a Saturday-morning cartoon: the network insisted that Suntop, being a boy, had to be the tough one and Ember the gentle one.
  • Grey-Wolf and Owl.
• Polyamory: Almost all elves are happily polyamorous, and jealousy is considered an exception to the rule. In the first story arc, Leetah Recognizing Cutter isn't a problem because she's already seeing Rayek; it's a problem because Rayek doesn't want to be part of a triad with Cutter. After the Palace was found, Pike, Krim and Skot become a lifemate triad without Recognition. Cutter comes to live with Nightfall and Redlance during The Slow Path when Leetah is gone. Dart has two lifemates for a while when he Recognises a Sorrow's End elf while in wrapsleep. Dewshine, Scouter and Tyleet eventually become lifemates as well and choose to share soulnames. Cutter and Skywise consider themselves Recognized lifemates as much as is possible for two elves of the same sex. Aside from steady relationships, almost all elves freely switch sexual partners when they want to — Moonshade and Strongbow being the only known exceptions.
  • Even Moonshade proves willing to offer an admirer a good time in a possibly non-canon instance in the Sun Village, and Strongbow's only problem with it is that her admirer is a bit stalkerish. It doesn't work out in the end because what her admirer really wants (that she become a gentle Sun Folk maiden instead of her fierce Wolfrider self) just isn't an option.
• Power Perversion Potential:
  • The healers. In the novelization Journey to Sorrow's End, it's explained that Leetah can compensate herself for the sometimes dangerous work of healing by learning "secrets" about her patients that she can unlock as a gift later, if she chooses. Winnowill probably also used this to manipulate Voll, Rayek, Two-Edge's dad, and maybe even Tyldak.
  • In one storyline, Leetah once joined Nightfall and Redlance while they made love (or was at least in the same room, it's left intentionally vague), using her healing powers to allow them to conceive (as they weren't Recognized, Nightfall and Redlance could not conceive without Leetah's assistance). By the time she's finished, she's so horny she can barely speak — she just gives Cutter this smoldering look that says "We are leaving the party right now."
  • In a later story (though speaking to an earlier time) Leetah is shown to have the ability to "encourage" Recognition in others and has sessions as an "Initiator" that involve lots of group sex or petting sessions. Rayek asks her to show him something she's never shown another and a later panel shows him having his mind fairly well blown. In later times, Cutter implies Rayek is not the only one to experience special "gifts" from Leetah's powers. Skywise states he has heard a rumor Leetah can (whisperwhisper) and Cutter replies "I'd be nutmash if she did that all the time. Couldn't walk straight, let alone be chief." It seems Mender has this ability from his healing gifts in some measure as well. When Mender joins the Wolfriders and he and Leetah are hanging out at the swimming hole with the tribe, it is noted yet again how Leetah and Mender's combined healer's auras are making everyone incredibly horny and as pages previous there were complaints of no recent Recognitions or pregnancies, it appears to be another example of "Initiation" to raise and encourage fertility.
• Precious Puppy: Choplicker in the original series: he's Ember's wolf companion and cuteness personified as a cub.
• Psychic Powers: Telepathy is something all elves can do (though the Go-Backs all mostly speak instead) including one Wolfrider character (Strongbow) who rarely if ever talks, relying on it for most of his communication. Healing/flesh shaping, telekinesis and other forms of shaping matter (rocks or trees) is far more, but does pip up among multiple elf characters. A few rare ones (such as Venka's blocking power) are unique however.
• Psychic Surgery: The healers' powers. The negative use is also shown, with corrupted former healer Winnowill, who creates twisted monsters, shaping them against their will. Others, like Tyldak, who she gives wings, asked her to do it though.
• Psychopathic Man Child: Two-Edge, the half-troll half-elf, acts very much like a child, with a penchant for only speaking in rhyme and a love of messing with those around him... even as he goads elves and trolls into a bloody racial war. His behavior is justified by his mom being Winnowill, who murdered his dad in front of him and spent his youth torturing him physically, mentally and telepathically. Leetah finally gets her hands on him
• Puny Earthlings: In a subtle way. Humans always seem to lack one quality to really make a character whom you would want to identify with: If a human is morally a good guy, they usually meekly admire the elves (Nonna, the Woodcutter). If they're proud, they're megalomaniacal (Grohmul and Angrif Djun, Aramak). If they're intelligent and skillful, they're also morally questionable (Lehrigen the bounty hunter) or duplicitous (Gifa, Pei-Lar). Human families never seem to be truly complete either. Either they're abusive, or the couple are not truly in love with each other, or they're implied to be barren (Nonna and Adar), or they cannot depend on each other (old Little Patch being abandoned). Those humans who have a good relationship with the elves, seem to reject their own species (Khorbasi and, to a lesser degree, Shuna).
  
  Exceptions to this trope in Elfquest are rare but not quite nonexistent. Adar (Nonna's husband and Richard Pini's literary stand-in) and Bolli (the Woodcutter's wife) stand out as skeptical and practical-minded folk who nonetheless are ready to work with the elves. The naval explorer Cam Triompe sees the elves with an advanced, almost anthropologist's eye, and in later stories is openly allied with two elves helping to fight off a local human despot.
• The Quest: It's right there in the title.
• Quest for the Rest: The Wolfriders, a tribe of elves, are forced to flee from their home. They decide to travel the world to seek out other elf tribes to unite them. They find Sunfolk, the Gliders, and the Wavedancers.
• The Quiet One: Strongbow and Tyldak.
• Railroading: The courtship trial for Leetah. There was pretty much no way Cutter was going to lose. Rayek points out that Cutter cheated at the test of wits, but no one cares. Savah rules Cutter the winner because he didn't know the lodestone would work for anyone but Skywise and he arrived back at Sorrow's End first. Ultimately, though, it was the test of courage that decided the issue - the moment Rayek lost face he knew he'd lost the trial. More importantly, Recognition means that Cutter and Leetah were forced by nature to have a child, no matter what her choice of lifemate would have been. Rayek at that point would not have been willing to raise Cutter's child, no matter what.
• Raised by Natives: Little Patch, Khorbasi, and to some extent Shuna (though she was almost full-grown when adopted by Cutter and Leetah).
• Raised by Wolves: Ironically, this only applies to Teir. Well, and Timmorn Yellow-Eyes, first chief of the Wolfriders.
• Rape as Drama:
  • During the first story arc with Cutter and Leetah dealing with recognition, there is some discussion where some of the more conservative Wolfriders note that, as far as satisfying Recognition's biological demands are concerned, consent is irrelevant. Their culture at that point is hard-coded that Recognition is something you give in to, period. However, Cutter is far too much of a gentleman to ever considering taking that option, preferring to reason with her with more patience than his father would have ever displayed. Leetah realizes that choice on his part, despite the great discomfort the urge imposes on anyone resisting the urge, says a lot about how much a considerate and civilized man he is.
  • Dewshine, later on, Recognises Tyldak and genuinely gets into a Mate or Die situation because of how emotionally incompatible they are. She consents to conceive a child with him, but it's far from a happy occasion. They eventually reveal to each other what fuels their mutual disgust — as it turns out, Tyldak can vividly see her as part wolf, and it terrifies him.
  • Rayek consents to sex with Winnowill, but only after a degree of psychological manipulation that turns it into Questionable Consent. Clearbrook, who is Forced to Watch from hiding because she's on a separate mission, is as horrified and disgusted as if she was witnessing a rape.
• Ready for Lovemaking: Female elves (especially Sun Villagers) have this down to a science.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni
• Redshirt Army: The Go-Backs in the last war arc. Lose something like 20 warriors out of just over forty, though their high-for-elves birthrate would have restored their ranks in time. On the plus side they took a lot of trolls with them.
• Reincarnation: Lehrigen believes this happens to human souls, though there's no evidence of whether this is the case.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Two-Edge, half elf and half troll, loves to rhyme, that's how he roll!
• Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Reason: Rayek is able to guard the spirits of all the elves who die in the destruction of Blue Mountain. The reason he is at Blue Mountain at the time, though? Hot sex with the Big Bad. Didn't start out that way, to be fair, but she was too much for him to resist.
• Rite-of-Passage Name Change: Standard among Wolfriders
• Romancing the Widow:
  • Treestump offers emotional support to Clearbrook after their friend One-Eye, Clearbrook's lifemate, is killed left in limbo. They quietly and sweetly move on to romance in the following years, with One-Eye's posthumous blessing.
  • When Cutter believes he may have lost Leetah and his children forever, he's invited by Nightfall and Redlance to "tree" (live) with them for as long as he wants. The rest of the tribe have sex with him occasionally as well during this time, to show their love for him and to comfort him.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Strongbow
• Screw Destiny: Denial of Recognition can be this trope, if the Recognized elves separate (Tyldak and Dewshine) or end up hating each other (Dodia and Door). Leetah attempts this with Cutter by demanding she be allowed to choose when and with whom she lifemates (Wolfrider's take it as a given that if you Recognize, you lifemate. Dewshine is a famous example of throwing this aside). She insists Cutter and Rayek go through the Trial of Hand, Head and Heart because both are pushing for her hand and she doesn't want to be railroaded by either, or by Recognition and hopes these trials will scare both off. She comes to respect, like and eventually love Cutter so she narrowly avoids this trope.
• Screw You, Elves!: This seems to be the default attitude of trolls towards elves, even the ones who ally with them.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Rayek made it worse.
• Sex by Proxy: Cutter sharing his memories of Leetah with Zhantee as a gift, including their romantic life.
• Sex Is Good: If you're an elf, fornicating like crazy has no negative consequences. Consciously averted with humans in a later story, when the Pinis got worried it was sending the wrong message about safe sex practices to teenagers.
• Sexy Man, Instant Harem:
  • Oh, Skywise. He has at least a few girls from every tribe: his three Sunfolk girls (Ruffel, Vurdah and Maleen), his Glider lovemate (Aroree), his main wolfrider squeeze (Foxfur at the beginning, at least one fling with Newstar when she was older and he revisited the Sun Village) and his confirmed occasional lovemate Cutter. Oh, and Yun's mom, whoever she is. It is implied he will someday mate with Timmain - the series' equivalent of a goddess.
  • Skot is a close second: one very sweet scene shows him randomly asking elves if they're up for some celebratory sex, and walking off carrying a giggling Shen-Shen over his shoulder. He's also one of the few elves to have two lifemates simultaneously (one female and one male).
  • And then there's Cutter, who during Leetah's absence was comforted by practically the entire tribe. Although that's more of a Broken Man Instant Harem.
  • Mender basically spends all his time between healing injuries as a gigolo. The Pinis actually listed one of his jobs as "sexual initiator." (This seems to be part of a healer's job in the Sun Village. Leetah filled the same role in her turn, though she seems to have retired when she had kids.)
• 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. In the space age-era series, Jink routinely switches from her elfin self to a more human-like visage, with ten fingers and no ear-points (Winnowill keeps up a similar alteration during Shards).
  • ElfQuest has flesh-shaping and shapeshifting. Winnowill (and Jink) exhibit flesh-shaping. Tyldak is the best example of flesh-shaping vs. shapeshifting. Winnowill pulled the flesh from his own body to create his wings. His wings are grossly misshapen fingers and skin-flaps in between. Timmain is a true shapeshifter. When she took on wolf form to learn to hunt and provide for her people, she said the form started changing how she thought until she was forgetting herself and even her fellow High One's could not lure her back to her old form. Timmain births Timmorn before giving herself over fully, finally, to her wolf form and lives in that form not even being aware she was once an elf until the Palace forces her elf form back onto her 10,000 years later. It could be that true self-shifting, and flesh-shaping that the flesh-shaper just happens to do to themselves, are distinctly different abilities.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: The female High One named Timmain regularly changed into the form of a wolf to hunt. She eventually forgot her true identity and came to think of herself as a wolf.
• She Is the King: Winnowill becomes "Lord Winnowill" after Lord Voll's death.
• 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.
• Shoot the Medic First: When Madcoil started terrorizing the Wolfriders, the first elf it killed was Rain, who was the tribe's healer.
• Shout-Out: Ekuar training Rayek is an obvious Shout-Out to Yoda training Luke in Star Wars.
• The Slow Path: The immortal elf Rayek kidnaps the family of Cutter, chief of the mortal Wolfriders, and takes them roughly ten thousand years into the future. His plan is to save the ancestors of all the elves during their initial time travel mishap (which sent them back into the past). However, this would prevent the Wolfriders from ever existing. Cutter has no idea when his (immortal) lifemate Leetah and their (mortal) children will ever appear again, and he knows that he will die after roughly six thousand years. The first five centuries are torment for him and his tribe, and they eventually decide to have themselves wrapped in a time-freezing cocoon. The immortal characters (including the troll king, whose daughter was also kidnapped) live the years out, as do a select few Wolfriders who dislike tampering with nature and who simply choose to live a normal life. The plot resumes ten thousand years later, when Cutter's lifemate and children finally see him again — after what, for them, has only been a few hours. Later chapters show that Cutter's time without his family severely traumatized him — he could simply not stop counting.
• Stable Time Loop: The High Ones decided to land on the World of Two Moons because they observed that the resident humans had legends of immortal beings with magical powers and thought others of their kind had settled there. They took on elfin forms in order to match the humans' depictions of these beings and be recognized as more of the same kind. But due to meddling by the proto-trolls, they wound up 20,000 years back in time...and became the inspiration for those same legends.
• Stalker with a Crush: Rayek to Winnowill. By his own admission, he still deeply loves her even when she's been torturing him from within his own mind, for four hundred years.
• Status Quo Is God: Invoked in-universe by Strongbow. When he learns that the elves are the descendents of alien explorers, and that his conservative way of life was based on false assumptions, he goes into a Heroic BSoD:
  Strongbow: If clinging to "The Way" was a kind of blindness — then I wish I had never been made to see.
• 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. Before him, Woodlock was the one to to this.
  • Played straight toward the beginning of the series, when Leetah expressed surprise that Dewshine was going to join in the zwoot hunt.
    Leetah: But - but it is not a maiden's place to -
    Dewshine: What? Why not?!
  • The Wolfriders, too, have this attitude in the beginning, when only the males take part in the fight with the humans, or the raid of the Sun Folk. However, it's a rational decision, since they have about twice as many male elves, and think they're the last elves in the world. Once they discover the Sun Folk, they go back to normal. What's interesting is that the Sun Folk presumably have the same "we must protect the females" mentality from when THEY had a severe shortage of females (they're all descended from Savah and one other) and have just kept that attitude long after numbers had evened out.
  • It's also the attitude of most of the humans, but since they're stone-aged tribes, that's not odd.
  • The warrior trolls all seem to be male. As far as the Northern trolls go, Guttlekraw explicitly states that "females" have no places except breeding and such duties.
• STD Immunity: Nobody ever mentions it, although the healers' powers could probably take care of anything that came up.
• The Stoner: Pike. His love for the mellow world of a dreamberry haze makes him excellent at telling colorful stories, and he became the tribe's historian ("Keeper of the Howl") because of it.
  • Justified in that dreamberries not only get elves high but also improve their memories - which the Wolfriders don't generally have much use for on account of living in the "Now of wolf-thought".
• Suddenly Ethnicity: Kahvi is revealed to have been born a Wolfrider (with her father having even been a chief Two-Spear). (Yun, too, but her half-Wolfrider heritage is not the main focus in her story.)
• Super Spit: If a creature is completely covered by the "wrapstuff" spit out by Preservers, they're put into a state of suspended animation indefinitely.
• Take My Hand!: When Rayek is holding on to the Bridge of Destiny by his fingertips, Cutter reaches down and calls for Rayek to grab on. Fortunately, Rayek's pride hasn't made him that stupid, and he accepts.
• Taking the Bullet: How poor Moonshade dies. When Strongbow goes hunting so he doesn't have to watch the palace take off with her, he finds himself surrounded by hostile gun-toting humans. She shows up to give him one last hug and throws herself in the path of the bullet intended to kill him.
• 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.
  • Partially justified in that the "talking" is often telepathy, though you'd think that would still be distracting in combat.
• Tangled Family Tree: As one could expect by the rules of recognition. Especially tangled when you consider Venka´s daughter Satreeka, born at the end of the Final Quest arc. Venka is the daughter of Kahvi and Rayek. She implies that her daughter is part glider, part go-back, part sun folk and part wolfrider, thus making Windkin the only plausible father - who also fathered Teir by Kahvi, Venka´s mother. That would be (almost) like siring a child by your lovemate´s daughter, or getting pretty close to an incestuous relationship. Teir would then be both brother and uncle of Satreeka. However, it's subverted after Venka reveals that her lovemate Mirff is Satreeka's father, and he's just a Go-Back. She took Satreeka's name from those of members in all elven tribes.
• Tearful Smile: Especially the magnificent cover for ElfQuest (original series) #16. You can see Leetah is tearfully happy about something, and after the disaster in the previous issue, you have to wonder what it could be.
• Thank Your Prey: Mentioned in Kings of the Broken Wheel #5
• Theme Naming:
  • Trueflight -> Strongbow -> Dart -> Bowki. Also Moonshade -> Crescent.
  • Rain -> Rainsong.
  • Sun Toucher and Toorah (ah = "light") -> Leetah ("healing light") -> Suntop and Ember.
  • All rock-shapers, except Ahdri (who discovered her powers very late), have the word "rock" ("Ek") in their name. Ekuar, Aurek, Osek... And then there's Rayek, the "child of the rocks".
  • One-Eye and his son Scouter. Although both have unrelated backgrounds for their names, the creators might have intended it as a a pun.
  • The twins Grey-Wolf and Owl.
  • Bearclaw -> Cutter
• These Hands Have Killed: Leetah does this after killing a troll in defence of her daughter.
• Time Travel: The Palace can travel through time, accidentally at the beginning of the very first series and end of the Kings of the Broken Wheel Arc (they're the same trip), and deliberately when Rayek takes off with it.
• Time Abyss: Several candidates, including (in no particular order) Two-Edge, Winnowill, Timmain, Ekuar, Lord Voll, Door...
• Translation Punctuation: Angle brackets were used in some of the later comics to indicate the use of a language other than elvish. Earlier comics used different shaped word balloons instead.
• Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction:
  • When the elves first travel through the troll's cave system, it's got buckets of glittering fist-sized gems just lying around. And apparently the gold veins in that area are rich enough to use it as pavement. This could be a case of Early-Installment Weirdness, though — troll caves in later stories are never shown so ridiculously wealthy.
  • This is subverted in the novelization of the first story arc. Skywise discovers that the stairs are gold-plated rather than made of solid gold.
• Underside Ride: In the original story arc, when the Wolfriders are surrounded by hostile trolls they attempt to escape by riding their wolves underbelly. The wolves then attempt to leap over the trolls, which seems slightly implausible with the elves lowering their centers of gravity.
• Vapor Wear: As of Final Quest, female elves living in the palace mostly tend toward translucent gowns and nothing else. Why they're bothering with clothes at all is a bit unclear at this point.
• Victory Is Boring: Once the Palace War is won, the Go-Backs don't quite know what to do with themselves. They still have their warrior culture, and want to fight something. This leads to them causing occasional trouble for the other elves.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Cutter and Skywise, plus some other male elves, wear nothing more than vests most of the time, which bare their abs.
• War Is Hell: The depiction of the elves' war for the Palace of the High Ones does not shy away from this trope.
• Weakness Turns Her On: It's stated in the novel that Nightfall and Redlance first got together partly because she felt protective of him.
• "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 shivering fawns. But it's your choice.
  • Strongbow only communicates using telepathy, and only speaks (whispers, rather) to Dart when he's truly proud of him. Then he unexpectedly has a third child who hates Sending... and loves talking. And they name this child... Chitter.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: If this is the right trope, it's deconstructed in Rayek. The darker side of Rayek's nature shares with Winnowill this alarming idea that "I really do know what's best for my people" coupled with "they can't make the right choice so I'll make it for them." Effectively, one of the greatest sins an EQ villain can commit is choosing to deny the free will of those around him, especially loved ones.
• Wham Episode: Issue 11 of Final Quest reveals that Cutter has half of Timmain's Soul. He doesn't react well.
• 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.
• Wrap It Up: The Final Quest series is going for a world speed record for Olympic Plot Thread Resolution.
• Wrong Assumption: Rayek thinks he's the story's dashing hero, first battling against the filthy savages who come to steal his destined lifemate, then saving the elven race by travelling through time, to Set Right What Once Went Wrong and be with aforementioned destined lifemate in perfect harmony forever. Everyone else disagrees.
• You Are Worth Hell: When Rayek makes himself into a living prison for Winnowill's soul, Savah immediately follows him so that they can Walk the Earth together for all eternity. Rayek is moved, but tells her she has no place in his new life. His mentor Ekuar follows him instead. It's also somewhat implied that Rayek trapping Winnowill inside him is not just to save the world, but also because he doesn't want to live without her — even as her living prison, he loves her, and would rather suffer a living hell for all eternity than be without her.
• You Are the Translated Foreign Word: Done only once, with Tyleet's introduction. In all other instances, we only see either the Elvish word or the translation. Tyleet, said to mean "healer's gift", was the first real key the readers got to the Elven language (Tyl = gift, Leet = heal-, from which could then be concluded: Leetah = Healing Light, Tyldak = Gift Of Wings). A minor example later on in the series is when Rayek refers to himself as the "Child Of The Rocks". It's a literal translation of his own name (Ray = child, Ek = rock). (Rock-shapers like Ekuar and his late friends Osek and Mekda also have the "rock" element in their names. Averted with Ahdri as her talent isn't discovered until later in life.) The Pinis said it took a while to come up with the name Tyleet, by combining elements of Tyldak and Leetah's names and then retConning the derivation of Tyldak as "Gift of Flight".