PREGNANT LADIES IN COMBAT SITUATIONS
Why is Dewshine fighting the Palace War? She's not even a month pregnant. Leave out the possibility that a troll gores her in the abdomen and kills them both. What if she trips and the embryo detaches, hmm? So much for Recognition ensuring the survival of the species. And before anyone says  "They needed every Wolfrider," let's remember that not only Redlance, but several Go-Backs stayed behind. And several of those Go-Backs looked very fit and healthy. So why did they insist on dragging a pregnant woman into a deadly battle?! It doesn't matter that Dewshine wanted to fight for the cause - you tie her up in a bag if you have to! It's called a "delicate condition" for a reason.

THE SHARDS WAR IS HELL!
You're a doll Cutter (well, not in my opinion, but I'll be open-minded) but you're no warleader. You send the only living High One to go look after Ember when in fact it turned out (predictably) that she'd come in handy in the Shards War. A good thing Skywise and Timmain made it back in time, hey? Cutter also sends Leetah to go babysit Ember, when in fact Leetah would have been invaluable as a healer. Mender's a good healer, mind you, but Leetah is the only one with the hope of curing Winnowill. What are you going to do with Winnowill, anyway? Everyone said they can't kill her. Okay, so then what will you do? No one seemed to know. Maybe Timmain would heal her - or maybe Venka would "blast" her into a dimwit, or... what? Come on, people, you need a battleplan! Of course, serendipity and illogic are all a part of war, and of good storytelling. But even wolves don't run into a hunt (or in this case a war) with a "what the hell" attitude. You're Wolfriders - not Go-Backs!
 

WOLFRIDER - WHAT THE DRUKK?
Now, I admit, I am freakishly anal about timelines. But I think the timeline insanity of Wolfrider! is enough to make anyone cringe. The first part makes a lot of sense, but when you read the small type in the narrative boxes you learn that an astounding four years passed between Madcoil's creation and the time he actually showed up, thus making Cutter much older than the 17 he was supposed to be when Madcoil attacked. It's even worse in the DC manga editions - I think someone pasted "Troll Games and Soulnames" in the wrong place. According to the timeline now, Nightfall had a fully developed chest and an active sex life at the age of eleven! Throw in Nightfall's appearance during the Madcoil attack (she was supposed to be back at the Holt) and toddler Newstar standing next to Rainsong when Rainsong was supposed to pregnant with Newstar! Ouch, man. No wonder Bearclaw's so angry throughout the whole series.
 

 
TEIR AND THE MASTER OF THE SHAPECHANGED
 Yo. There is something freaky going on over at Howling Rock. First everyone loves Teir except Skywise, who seems to be almost completely out of character. Then Nightfall later says that originally everyone liked Teir at the start except Skywise and Leetah. Leetah? Leetah liked Teir. She said "There's nothing bad about him at all." Then they suddenly decide that "yeah, Teir's evil." Then they decide - after Teir nearly dies in a tangle with the shapechanged - that "Yeah, Teir's a good guy." Then Ember decides "Yeah, let's abandon Teir to the Master of the Shapechanged. It's him or us." Then Ember decides "No, let's save him." Then Ember decides "No, let's exile him." What the hell is going on? This ain't an estrogen spike - this is a plot hole!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, SKYWISE!
So, Skywise has a wonderful surprise at the end of the Shards War. Ohmigod, he has a daughter. So he runs to tell Scouter and Dewshine. And Scouter and Dewshine go "Oh, yeah - Yun. Yeah, we knew her in Sorrow's End. Oh, I guess we forgot to tell you." Why did no one mention Yun to Skywise after HY #4? Leetah and Ember both probably met Yun, or at least saw her, in Sorrow's End. Scouter and Dewshine both knew Yun, and they had lots of time to tell Skywise. Now, I know Yun is very blasé about the whole "I have a father" thing. She wouldn't go to Scouter or Dewshine and say "Mention my name to him, would you?" But why didn't Scouter and Dewshine volunteer the information? Why didn't Savah introduce Yun to the others and say "These people know your father"? No matter how blasé Skywise pretends to be about being a dad, I think he would have wanted to know about his baby girl.
 
 

 
THE UNSINKABLE WINNOWILL
Elf Quest really needs a new villain. Winnowill rocked in the Original Quest, and we plumbed the depths of her psyche in Siege at Blue Mountain. By KoBW... she was getting a wee predictable. By Shards... she needed some new dance steps. And by Rogue's Curse her villainy has decided to farce. How many new ways can you try to take over the world, Winnie? Yet the writers seem incapable of killing her. Healing her never works because Leetah says "she must finish it herself." What the hell? The Wolfriders went into the Shards War with no plan to rehabilitate her. Now that her soul is captive in Rayek, you'd think Leetah could finally heal her. But no, she leave Rayek to wander the world with a cheap villain and predictable storyline. Why not? Because it would violate Winnowill's elfin rights to be forced into treatment? Frankly, I think Rayek ought to get a power of attorney. Winnowill either needs to be rehabilitated or snuffed out-of-sight and out of mind.
 

THE INSIDIOUS EVILS OF WRAPSTUFF
You know, I always thought Leetah was being a little twit when she was wailing about wrapstuff being a "living death." But maybe she's right: wrapstuff is evil. Consider Ahdri. She was sealed in wrapstuff by one of the Preservers at Sorrow's End. During the course of the next two to three years, her cocoon is abducted by misfit trolls. When Treestump and Clearbook find her, however... it becomes clear that something's not quite right. For one, Ahdri seems perfectly conscious in wrapstuff and aware of the passage of time, something that shouldn't happen in wrapstuff - unless Cutter et al suffered ten thousand years of conscious white noise (ouch!). Or is she? Ahdri says she's been in wrapstuff for ages and ages. Noooo... it's only been three years, tops. And um, Ahdri was fully clothed before she was wrapstuffed, and she's either naked or wearing a very low bra while she's in the cocoon. So wrapstuff traps you in sensory deprivation now, instead of just putting you to sleep. And screws up all your memories. And eats your underwear. Add to that Sunstream mysteriously growing a foot while inside wrapstuff, and yeah... looks like Leetah was on to something after all.
 
STAGNATION IN SORROW'S END
What's up with that huge hole in the fabric of Elf Quest? Three issues of Hidden Years does not do five hundred Wolfrider years justice, and the Sun Folk had to tell their story in about three pages of New Blood. 10,000 years and that little happened? Except for the giant mountain walls, the village doesn't change a bit. Is that particularly believable. In the first 10,000 years of EQ Savah's people went from forest dwelling proto-Wolfriders to iron age farmers, a reasonable evolution of culture. In the second 10,000 years they did what... learn a new and interesting way to make moth-fabric bikinis? Strange... then they did that at Blue Mountain it was called deadly stagnation. That human attack couldn't have come at a better time - the Sun Folk can finally start thinking outside the box. But you would think Windkin and all those Wolfrider descendants of Wing and Dart would have cracked the whip a bit and created a new culture. For a village "seeded with Wolfriders" Sorrow's End sure looked like the same old, same old.
 

 
TIMELINE TANGLES OVER AT CREST POINT 
Wolfrider! not withstanding, there are two great timeline snafus in ElfQuest. The first involves the timeline around Siege at Blue Mountain and Kings of the Broken Wheel. At the end of Siege of Blue Mountain, Cutter says it has been ten years since he took the Wolfriders to Sorrow's End. That makes sense. Seven years between Book One and Two, and three years between Book Four and Book Five. But then in Kings of the Broken Wheel, Rayek tells Leetah that she and Cutter have been lifemated for eleven years! I don't really think a year elapsed between Siege at Blue Mountain and Kings of the Broken Wheel. But these are small pickings compared to the Wavedancers saga. During the Wavedancers series, it has been several generations - maybe even a century or more since the Shards War. Ardan Djarum, the evil sea captain, is said to be a many-times descendant of Grohmul Djun. But when The Discovery came out, suddenly all those events are in the distant past. Did Ardan Djarum steal a time-machine? Of course, Richard Pini himself has said there's a good way to explain it all away. We're still waiting on that one, but I've got my own theory...
 
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