Elf Quest/Headscratchers


 * The Hidden Years story Mouse Hunt. Slingshots. Not slings, slingshots, the Y-shaped toys that need a rubber band to work. Where does a mostly stone-age culture get elastic bands? Looks like series creators not considering how stuff works to me.


 * Haken's a guy. He's implied to be the ancestor of both Rayek and Winnowill, which explains a lot about their characters. It also makes things interesting when they're forced to share one body.
 * Haken's body, to be exact. Or more accurately, Rayek's body re-imagined as a High One by Winnowill (who lives in Rayek's mind), apparently based very directly on her daddy.
 * So Winnowill likes Rayek because he reminds her of Haken?


 * The scene at the end of Kings Of The Broken Wheel. Venka's been raised to stop Rayek. She has the full power to do so. Yet she stands aside because she wants him to decide on his own. Granted, he does make the right choice, but just the fact that she was willing to leave the genocide of her tribe and everyone else to the whim of an elf who was not exactly stable at that moment and had a track record of disregard for anyone who doesn't agree with him always bugged me. (Of course, she could have been lying and fully prepared to wallop him if he chose wrong, but nothing in the scene indicates this.)


 * In the Shards and The Hidden Years parallel storylines - just how much time is passing? Hidden Years implies that it's been months since Ember and her pack left. Shards implies that the Holt is chopped down just a short time after they leave, almost as soon as Ember's pack is out of Sending range (since there's no reason for them to not consult with Rayek at that point). There's no clear sense of time for how long they tunnel, but it can't have been all that long if Ekuar was tunneling right up to the point where his heart gave out. But once they're into the city, it seems like events only take a few days at the most.


 * Rayek seriously failed to think his time-travel plan through. If, then !
 * This was handwaved in the comic -- the palace nullifies time paradoxes for anyone inside.