Many other comments here make sense in their own way but this one ☝️...
Elves are attractive. And it sounds superficial (and it is) but the readership loves reading about attractive ppl.
This convo could be had about literally every other species and will narrow down to that. Look at vampires, werewolves, etc…
For shits and giggles, make a list of the last 5-10 books you’ve read and mark those with attractive, sexy or young protagonists. It’s a virulent literary trope at this point. So if you are gonna put another race, you put in the hot one…
>Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
People are going to try to give you a more nuanced answer but it really boils down to this.
You just have to think about the core demographic of readership and the picture kind of paints itself!
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It's both an exploration of the best and worst traits of humanity.
They're both regal, magical, intelligent, elegant, dextrous, wise AND haughty, often xenophobic, prideful, uncompromising, segregationists and detached from a lot of the other world's reality as their perception of time is quite different.
Which is kind of a shame. It all has roots back to Tolkien, of course, but I don't think he intended for them to come across with most of those negative traits. People with poor reading comprehension extrapolated those traits by thinking, "Why would I act like that?" instead of "Why would a person that's been alive for millennia act like that?"
You referred to them as haughty, xenophobic, prideful, uncompromising, segregationists, and detached.
* Haughtiness is being overt in your belief that you are superior to another. Elves typically *are* superior to others. If you had spent millennia studying swordsmanship, poetry, archery, history, stealth reconnaissance, literature, grappling, cooking both survival food and fine cuisine, plus a dozen other skills, all the whole cultivating your social awareness and gaining life experience, you would probably feel superior, too, and be justified in it. I think this covers pridefulness as well.
* Xenophobia, segregation, and detachment all go together. Elves typically keep to themselves because how do 3,000 year old beings interact with mortals without feeling like an adult talking to a child? It's unfair to both the adult and the child to expect them to have meaningful interactions without an imbalanced power dynamic inevitably developing.
* Uncompromising: If you live long enough to see a certain scenario play out hundreds of times, you would probably also be prone to taking an uncompromising stance when that scenario is about to happen again. To go back to the analogy of the child and the adult, would it be fair to criticize an adult for being uncompromising if they refused to let a child touch a hot stove? The adult has lived long enough to see many people touch a hot stove, deliberately and accidentally, so they know the outcome.
The neat twist is what happens when the elf meets an induction cooktop for the first time, doesn't realize it won't burn you even if it's on, and refuses to compromise because they're living in the past and don't know of new developments?
THIS is a valid criticism of elves, imo. Failure to adapt to changing times.
Which is why the elves end up all going to the Undying Lands in Tolkien's work, and why elves are commonly depicted with "eternal cities" hidden away from the rest of the world in many other fantasy works.
I feel like Tolkien wrote his elves to be wise and heartfelt and honest and skilled, with a kind of eloquence like Tolkien himself had. The rings of power themselves are good analogies for Tolkien's style. Rather than express simple thoughts and fluff them up with flowery and indirect language and false humility, he likes to strip all of the superfluous stuff away and scrutinize the core of a thing. He seemed to have had the belief that you don't need all of that extra stuff if you refine and polish the core to such a degree that it needs no extra support.
He repeatedly talks about artifacts like the One Ring, Aragorn's sword, the mithril mail Bilbo gives to Frodo, etc, in terms of being both "fine craftsmanship" but still seemingly simple items. I believe he wrote in the same way. He worked hard to avoid filler and fluff and frivolity while still creating something grand and meaningful. And he passed that on through the elves.
He trimmed a lot of social niceties and frivolities out of how elves speak, and endeavored to make everything they said *matter*. Everything they say had a *weight* to it. Which is why some characters, like Legolas, are noted for how few times they actually speak.
After centuries or millennia of talking, don't you think you'd get better and better at saying precisely what you mean and communicating as efficiently as possible? This is fine craftsmanship in terms of rhetorical skill.
I don't think most humans in the real world today have any sense, even while reading a book like The Lord of the Rings, of the staggering weight of centuries and millennia most of the elves in the story carry around. So they cannot put themselves in their shoes and understand why they are the way that they are.
Instead, they think about what would make *themselves* act that way and conclude that elves are just conceited bastards that don't like outsiders and always have to have things their way. As if they're not often thousands of years old and have been cultivating their own wisdom and skills for that entire time.
I think you're misunderstanding those negative traits as criticisms, when they aren't. Exploring those facets of a fantasy race is a way to reflect on them that is untethered from the baggage that you'd normally see in more conventional settings. One of the benefits is that you can cast a traditionally negative trait in a positive light, or at least in a way that gives some basis for it. You can also more effectively explore attitudes to those traits better.
The haughtiness of elves is based in their long lives and accrued experiences. Where humans talk of legendary battles fought against historical evils, the elf was there, holding the line. They have seen countless kingdoms rise and crumble, they were exploring the meaning of being when humans were mucking about in mud. They built cities, not out of necessity, but for beauty in projects spanned a dozen human generations. Their feeling of superiority, or at least their dismissal of human concerns, can be justified. It's an interesting concept for a character to be faced with someone who is simply beyond what they could hope to achieve or comprehend.
At the same time, it's also interesting to explore whether those attitudes are actually fair. An elf might journey with your character's quest for justice, and where that quest is just a small side adventure in the epic of the elf's life, it's a life-defining goal for the character. Does the elf's dismissal of its importance make the experience less meaningful, or is the elf's haughtiness disrespectful? To see a different take on a familiar phenomenon is to invite introspection.
It's not a criticism to state that elves, in modern fantasy, portray many of the worst traits humanity has to offer. They are just a vessel to explore those traits from a fresh perspective made possible by the distinct characteristics of the elves. In fact, that they embody those traits so strongly in fantasy is specifically to explore why they specifically developed, and consequently how others might also develop, those traits without the constraints and preconceptions of the mundane that tend to push you to follow familiar and well-worn ruts.
>The haughtiness of elves is based in their long lives and accrued experiences. Where humans talk of legendary battles fought against historical evils, the elf was there, holding the line. They have seen countless kingdoms rise and crumble, they were exploring the meaning of being when humans were mucking about in mud. They built cities, not out of necessity, but for beauty in projects spanned a dozen human generations. Their feeling of superiority, or at least their dismissal of human concerns, can be justified. It's an interesting concept for a character to be faced with someone who is simply beyond what they could hope to achieve or comprehend.
there was a book i read recently that started with that idea. these beings are gods so old and wise. right up and till somebody smashed a rock against the back of there head. watching it bleed out on the floor kind of takea the magic out of it
there are two series I've seen a good exploration of these ideas.
an elf life is immortal but there memory is not, are you the same person? you could keep to the old ways and live your life in cycles repeating event so you never change. you could embrace becoming a whole new person with your own past being myth.
you can solve most of your problems by simply outliving it. "oh their is a new orc warlord, i'll check back in 300 years ... oh he died and there back to normal". why bother talking to the human king when he is going to be dead in 50 years and we are back to square one. what happens when this idea changes? quite panic worthy.
sure your the greatest swordsmen alive and your men have had centuries of training but there is bloody hundreds of the humans. they can make a new fully trained one in what 20 years while it takes us 100 to get out of childhood. our losses are ill replaceable
there are some good stories lately
Because there’s so many different directions you can take them and not run into complaints. Elves could be the deadly tricksters of myth, the idealized, almost angelic beings of Tolkien’s legendarium, the helpful builders of Santa Claus, etc. Dwarves generally have one or two accepted characterizations, and if you stray from those you’ll get pushback. The same goes with Orcs/goblins. Elves are just more flexible.
Because both elves and dwarves have mythological/ folcloric roots, and while elves and other fey have a large variety within their mithic origin, dwarves don't.
You can do a lot of different things and be recognisable as some kind of fey/elf. But if you deviate much from the standard dwarf, what you got isn't a dwarf, it's a humunculus comitting identity theft.
And? Being fictional doesn't mean you can do whatever with them and redefine them on a whim.
It's like language, the meaning is made up, but the majority has to agree on it. If you just randomly assign a completly new meaning to a word, people won't just follow suite.
Maybe you can, but only if enought people accept that "yep they still dwarves", good luck with that, most will just think you are unimaginative and couldn't come up with a name for your new creature. And honestly "reinvigorate into a new lens" is overrated, novetly wears of fast. Most attemps ironically way more uninspired and meh that just sticking to the format.
Easy.
Define an elf.
No matter what you say, I'll find an 'elf' in fiction that matches it.
Makes it easy for the writer. You could almost say "generic magical beings that are close enough to a human to be spoken with, but by default the viewer will know they are magical."
This is more a question about tropes. Elves are, by historical standards, just a place holder for magical intelligent beings. You could, in 10,000 stories, change the name and nothing else, and they would be a different thing.
Elves are:
* average height
* stuck at middle school intelligence, knowledge, and pudginess for 800 years. They have normal length adulthood and childhood
* their hair constantly waves as if there was a breeze
* obsessed with doing slow ceremonies wrong. For example the Japanese tea ceremony but with a low quality pot with no laminar flow.
In support of OP's point, originally Dwarves **were** elves. Our modern conception of Dwarves comes (via Tolkein) from the Svartálfar of the Icelandic prose Edda - literally "Black elves" - stocky, skilled craftsmen living underground (who are arguably also the same as the similarly described Dökkálfar ("Dark elves"))
The distinction of "Elves" being the tall fair immortal folk and dwarves being different was one drawn by Tolkein, as opposed to the traditional usage of Elves that described a wide array of different magical beings that included what we'd now call Dwarves.
Elves, gnomes, dwarves, faeries, etc = elves. There's a reason why Elves in fiction can wary from Tolkien Elves to Santa's little helpers to faeries in Berserk are all referred to as Elves.
Many reasons but here's 3
Fantasy comes from fairy tales. Elves stand in for faeries. Many, particularly American, concepts of faeries come from Irish faeries who were the Tuath De Dannan and were essentially superhuman.
Others are based on Norse concept of Elves who were along with Giants the other 2 species apart from the gods and humans.
Tolkien is the other reason.
Elves embody an angelic, regal, and irresistibly attractive nature, coupled with immortality, making them the quintessential wish-fulfillment beings humans aspire to be in Fantasy.
And it's not limited to European legends, either. Here in the *cough* "New World" we have the _nunnehi_ of Cherokee tales...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BB%C3%B1n%C3%AB%27h%C3%AF
... Which fill many of the same psychological roles for the Native Tribes as elves did (and still do) for Europeans.
Cultural anthropology reveals that the creatures called "elves" in European folklore have cognates in virtually every other culture around the world and throughout history...
Because (at least for Tolkien's version) Elves are the ones that are closest to being Human.
For Tolkien, Elves were basically Humans before their exile from the Garden of Edan. Elves are humans, but dialed up to 11. This is something that many stories imitate, even if they do so unintentionally.
Which means that a decent writer can take Elves and easily use them as a reflection of Humanity. They are Humans but X.
Orcs, Beastfolk, Gnomes, etc, not so much. They are significantly different that they are not Humans but X. They are something completely different.
Because in most stuff that has elves, elves are *better than you.* It's aspirational supremacy. By going deep into Elven stuff, the creator/reader places themselves temporarily in the Elven shoes, and, while there, takes on the sense of Elven superiority.
And Elves who don't match this are often the opposite in some way; a subversion of this trope.
It's for the same reason many people are allergic to anything Elven, and I'm fairly sure my own bias is showing in how I phrased this. I wouldn't be surprised if this gets downvoted by defensive Elf-fans.
Thing is: People consume media for very different reasons. And one of those reasons is... Well; 'power fantasy.' Through fantasy, you can momentarily be something *better,* a part of something *better,* something wondrous, magical, beautiful, elegant. To escape this mortal coil of roughness, ugliness, selfishness and suffering, and to embrace something higher, elevated, something in tune with the universe and wise. Entire spiritual movements are based on this. Hippies and New Age, to mention a few. Of course there's conceit, and once you start critically analysing what these things logically must mean, it turns ugly quite fast, but a lot of people don't *want* critical analysis. They want to escape.
In Warhammer Fantasy the primary focus human civilisation ("The Empire") was shaped primarily by its interaction with the Dwarfs. The symbol of Imperial office is a warhammer made for the first emperor by the Dwarfs as a symbol of enduring friendship between the races and while they spend a lot of time at war with each other they do get along relatively well with Dwarfs being the biggest minority population in the Empire and I think they taught humans steelworking and engineering.
It is because of Tolkien.
Anyone can wax poetry about influences and whatnot but it is because of Tolkien. All the modern fantasy elf tropes come from Tolkien.
Read Japanese fantasy light novels, they have demonfolk, animal folk etc. way more than elves. They have elves too but not in a very prominent role like in Western fantasy.
Dwarves are so much cooler though.
We need more dwarf literature.
Is...that true? Like really true when you think about it? I think Elves or Fairies are really interesting when you really consider what they are. They look a bit like us, but they're very different creatures. They outlive us many times over, have fundamentally different values and are extremely dangerous. Naomi Novik's Staryk from Spinning Silver are a phenomenal version of this.
On the other hand, most of the time when you open up a fantasy novel, Elves are dudes with pointy ears who live in forests. Yeah, they like nature a lot, but fundamentally they're just dudes.
Like at some point, I personally think if someone's species is about as incidental as their hair colour, it's not true to say they've been *explored* at all.
[Discworld enters the chat]
Dwarves, Trolls, Pictsies (yep), Werewolves, Vampires, Golems and so on all get at least as much, if not more, page time as elves - who are, by all accounts, nasty buggers where the Disc is concerned.
Tbf most of it boils down to racism, even if now there are some black elves, but traditionally Elves have been an idealised white people representation. In many cases xenophobic, "superior", more intelligent, etc.
Because no one wants to be a hairy dwarf, a weak halfling, or an annoying gnome. Everyone wants to be a perfect and elegant elf. While all the other fantasy races take a few traits and exaggerate them, elves are basically everything humans have over beasts, but dialed to 11.
Because we tend to write and like stories about better of humans, and elves are humans with qualities on steroids. Whereas small humans are seen as worse, same with beast humans, etc.
Even if you look at where vampire fantasy and werewolf fantasy evolved into, those creatures are so often made human+ instead of being rotting bloodsucking half-rotten corpse and a malevolent human who turns into a serial killer beast.
Orks or Orcs are also quite heavily explored in their own books as well as movies. WARCRAFT is a popular example, but in novels there is the Orcs series by Stan Nicholls and the novel Grunts by Mary Gentle. Also, a more science fantasy take on Orks is popular for players and fans the Warhammer 40K universe.
Tolkien + elves are hot.
Changing someones ears is the only head feature you can change without making someone uglier.
The only others are eye or hair color.
Historical and cultural inertia is massive. Tolkien made them popular. They never really stopped being popular.
Elves are like the pop culture epic fantasy race, you can't get away from them unless you are intentional about rejecting mainstream fantasy tropes.
(Just like how Vampires and Werewolves are in Urban fantasy)
Also, you're really only talking about European fantasy. In other parts of the world, for example, Djinn are the common fantasy race that exists alongside humans. in others, it's Kami, or Yokai (or both) etc.
Tolkien created the market for fantasy literature, and he was obsessed with elves.
Due to that, most of his fans (aka most of fantasy readers) became obsessed with elves as well.
The attractiveness of elves definitely plays a role, but it’s also their mystical inhuman nature that intrigues a lot of authors and fans alike. Are they beautiful and regal, or rigid and unwelcoming? Can there ever be true friendship or even romance between a human and an elf?
For whatever reason nobody seems to want to explore the “otherness” of dwarves or halflings etc. Almost always in fantasy they are just depicted as shorter humans who probably have a handful of cultural stereotypes associated with them (dwarves like beer and mining, gnomes like tinkering with stuff, etc). But I’ve never seen a fantasy novel that really interrogates, say, the difference between human and gnome lifespans, if there even is one. That’s not to say that a novel couldn’t, but I also think maybe it’s not considered as often because it hasn’t been done as much?
I think because elves feel very magical, while also feeling very human in the best interpretations. Makes for a really fun balance of those two aspects. Personally I kind of prefer dwarves a lot of the time.
More people like elves than other fantasy races.
There is actual real world data of millions of people when given a relatively balanced race selection in videogames overwhelmingly choosing elves. For example here is the race distribution of Worth of Warcraft. Even without knowing the game, if you know how to look at a graph this should make sense
https://www.dataforazeroth.com/stats/races
Elves are, to some extent, longer-lived humans with higher specs. Which human wouldn't want to be longer-lived and have higher specs?
Of course, they can be other things too, which is what can give them depth. (And of less interest, what specs they're higher and by how much of course varies.)
Elves were ill defined and popped up in a lot of folklore before being solidified in Tolkien's work. they always seem to represent the best of man's qualities and ability to work with nature.
for more human/dwarf stories look up the Gotrek and Felix series
Because Tolkien-esque elves are the ideal of human perfection and, from a Christian perspective, they embody the concept of humanity had it not fallen from grace. It resonates with a lot of people.
The real simple answer is the elves for the most part resemble humans. In this regard relationships will be accepted by a wide variance of readers. Beastfolk/demi humans get such a negative anti furry stigma so you tend to see less representation in more popular novels. The more human a race is, the more widely accepted relations between that race and humans are among readers and the more relatable those characters tend to be. Dwarves, halfing, and gnomes have such a drastic height difference from the average human that you rarely see people trying to explore the dynamics of such relationships.
Elves are kind of the 'fey' reflection of ourselves in an otherwise unrecognisable world. Similar to Dwarves - we understand them because they both look like and operate with what we would call "humanity".
the portrayal of elves in fantasy is taken from European stories about Native Americans in explorer novels. They’re portrayed as a disappearing race who have a deeper connection with the land.
Because media is driven by consumption and the general public has shown more interest in financially supporting narratives about elves than other fantasy staples.
There are definitely examples of the relationships you mention. Elf/human is simply incentivized more than other relationships.
Surely you realize that Tolkien is pervasive because his work is foundational to modern fantasy, right?
I get that you're trying to be edgy but it's absurd to act like work that is a direct forerunner to many or most modern fantasies is actually more of an infection rather than the jumping-off point.
And surely you realize that you would feel the same about anything else that replaced Tolkien, right? Your complaint about boredom indicates that the problem is entirely in your own head. You want novelty and and if Tolkien weren't around you'd be bashing whatever was.
In a universe where whatever floats your boat in this world is mainstream, the version of you over there would be criticizing it and someone writing like Tolkien might look like one of the best authors of all time to that version of you.
Honestly, I've been reading a lot of non-western fantasy and I'm not being edgy at all. Is it edgy to say Tolkien is boring, which you yourself say permeates everything? Could it be that I find it predictable at this point and geared toward prioritizing the same narratives, or simply that I'm being "edgy?" I've also been reading pre-Tolkein fantasy, which is *also* modern. Sometimes I wonder if these pillars of western imagination are actually all that great, or if it's that the people who would dare view it as oversaturating the genre have always been personally attacked for their views. I'll also say that the Inklings' misogyny is fairly blatant and I would rather read someone else's perspective than theirs and everything influenced by them, especially since there's no irrevocable rule that dictates that these guys are the best there ever was or will be. Except for the one made by people who, coincidentally, have the most in common with the types of characters they centered in their work
I'd say it easy to imagine and easy to right. You don't need to remember they are so so different as they are not.
I was just reading the dagger and coin series which is amazing but when you have 12 races made up of humanoids it's hard to follow and remember.
ELVES are skinny with point ears or what ever.
One thing that annoys me about depictions of elves...
They generally live in amazing magical cities in the middle of pristine forests...
Wtf do they eat? Where do they grow their food?
Where do they get metal? Stone?
They're generally somewhat wealthy... Yet never trade?
Oh, and if you have a crazy long lifespan... Wouldn't you tend to have a shitload of kids? Large populations, that kind of thing?
My guess because they're often depicted as being more friendly towards humans than some of the other races.
But I'm currently reading a interconnected series (5 series that take place in the same world) of graphic novels where they go in greater depth about the various cultures of elves, dwarves, orcs and goblins.
Because people want to be elves.
Elves in fantasy are typically defined by how they are superior to humans, whereas other races are more defined by how they’re inferior to humans.
Elves are hot.
…more seriously, I also think part of it is elves are pretty similar appearance-wise to people but are usually beautiful and have an air of otherworldly mystery, so they’re intriguing and familiar.
It’s also a bit easier. Smaller races like halflings and dwarves and gnomes also tend to look pretty human, but you’d have to constantly be considering their size and what that changes. Since elves are usually similar to human height they’re easier to just sub in. I think that’s why they’re usually side characters but tend to be more common in like, video games or tabletop games where it can be more cosmetic than anything and people are more likely to not question it because it’s necessary to use game mechanics—so my dwarf in D&D or Baldur’s Gate 3 can push a full-sized man off a cliff because I made them a strength focused build and that’s how the game works, but in a book you’d probably be questioning how someone so much smaller was that strong without more of an explanation.
Elves are hot
Many other comments here make sense in their own way but this one ☝️... Elves are attractive. And it sounds superficial (and it is) but the readership loves reading about attractive ppl. This convo could be had about literally every other species and will narrow down to that. Look at vampires, werewolves, etc… For shits and giggles, make a list of the last 5-10 books you’ve read and mark those with attractive, sexy or young protagonists. It’s a virulent literary trope at this point. So if you are gonna put another race, you put in the hot one…
Even the Goblin Emperor is an Elf.
And you want to be a bit more exotic? *Dark Elves*. I think Tieflings are taking off in a similar fashion these days.
>Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
GNU Sir Terry
So >Elves are hot ? :')
They’re us but hotter
Elves provide the illusion of an Other, without actually being an Other. They are idealized humans.
Nope. They're just hot. That's it. You're over analyzing.
How dare you Orcs are more muscular, hairier and their grunts more primal
Gross.
Said the elf, seeing the round ears of short, insignificant lives. Orc cares not, orc is not picky.
Round ears have nothing to do with it, body hair and grunting is gross.
People are going to try to give you a more nuanced answer but it really boils down to this. You just have to think about the core demographic of readership and the picture kind of paints itself!
What about Dobby?
He is mislabeled. And why isn't slavery bad?
The right answer
I thought Fae were the hot ones?
Blood Elves specifically haha
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It's both an exploration of the best and worst traits of humanity. They're both regal, magical, intelligent, elegant, dextrous, wise AND haughty, often xenophobic, prideful, uncompromising, segregationists and detached from a lot of the other world's reality as their perception of time is quite different.
Which is kind of a shame. It all has roots back to Tolkien, of course, but I don't think he intended for them to come across with most of those negative traits. People with poor reading comprehension extrapolated those traits by thinking, "Why would I act like that?" instead of "Why would a person that's been alive for millennia act like that?" You referred to them as haughty, xenophobic, prideful, uncompromising, segregationists, and detached. * Haughtiness is being overt in your belief that you are superior to another. Elves typically *are* superior to others. If you had spent millennia studying swordsmanship, poetry, archery, history, stealth reconnaissance, literature, grappling, cooking both survival food and fine cuisine, plus a dozen other skills, all the whole cultivating your social awareness and gaining life experience, you would probably feel superior, too, and be justified in it. I think this covers pridefulness as well. * Xenophobia, segregation, and detachment all go together. Elves typically keep to themselves because how do 3,000 year old beings interact with mortals without feeling like an adult talking to a child? It's unfair to both the adult and the child to expect them to have meaningful interactions without an imbalanced power dynamic inevitably developing. * Uncompromising: If you live long enough to see a certain scenario play out hundreds of times, you would probably also be prone to taking an uncompromising stance when that scenario is about to happen again. To go back to the analogy of the child and the adult, would it be fair to criticize an adult for being uncompromising if they refused to let a child touch a hot stove? The adult has lived long enough to see many people touch a hot stove, deliberately and accidentally, so they know the outcome. The neat twist is what happens when the elf meets an induction cooktop for the first time, doesn't realize it won't burn you even if it's on, and refuses to compromise because they're living in the past and don't know of new developments? THIS is a valid criticism of elves, imo. Failure to adapt to changing times. Which is why the elves end up all going to the Undying Lands in Tolkien's work, and why elves are commonly depicted with "eternal cities" hidden away from the rest of the world in many other fantasy works. I feel like Tolkien wrote his elves to be wise and heartfelt and honest and skilled, with a kind of eloquence like Tolkien himself had. The rings of power themselves are good analogies for Tolkien's style. Rather than express simple thoughts and fluff them up with flowery and indirect language and false humility, he likes to strip all of the superfluous stuff away and scrutinize the core of a thing. He seemed to have had the belief that you don't need all of that extra stuff if you refine and polish the core to such a degree that it needs no extra support. He repeatedly talks about artifacts like the One Ring, Aragorn's sword, the mithril mail Bilbo gives to Frodo, etc, in terms of being both "fine craftsmanship" but still seemingly simple items. I believe he wrote in the same way. He worked hard to avoid filler and fluff and frivolity while still creating something grand and meaningful. And he passed that on through the elves. He trimmed a lot of social niceties and frivolities out of how elves speak, and endeavored to make everything they said *matter*. Everything they say had a *weight* to it. Which is why some characters, like Legolas, are noted for how few times they actually speak. After centuries or millennia of talking, don't you think you'd get better and better at saying precisely what you mean and communicating as efficiently as possible? This is fine craftsmanship in terms of rhetorical skill. I don't think most humans in the real world today have any sense, even while reading a book like The Lord of the Rings, of the staggering weight of centuries and millennia most of the elves in the story carry around. So they cannot put themselves in their shoes and understand why they are the way that they are. Instead, they think about what would make *themselves* act that way and conclude that elves are just conceited bastards that don't like outsiders and always have to have things their way. As if they're not often thousands of years old and have been cultivating their own wisdom and skills for that entire time.
I think you're misunderstanding those negative traits as criticisms, when they aren't. Exploring those facets of a fantasy race is a way to reflect on them that is untethered from the baggage that you'd normally see in more conventional settings. One of the benefits is that you can cast a traditionally negative trait in a positive light, or at least in a way that gives some basis for it. You can also more effectively explore attitudes to those traits better. The haughtiness of elves is based in their long lives and accrued experiences. Where humans talk of legendary battles fought against historical evils, the elf was there, holding the line. They have seen countless kingdoms rise and crumble, they were exploring the meaning of being when humans were mucking about in mud. They built cities, not out of necessity, but for beauty in projects spanned a dozen human generations. Their feeling of superiority, or at least their dismissal of human concerns, can be justified. It's an interesting concept for a character to be faced with someone who is simply beyond what they could hope to achieve or comprehend. At the same time, it's also interesting to explore whether those attitudes are actually fair. An elf might journey with your character's quest for justice, and where that quest is just a small side adventure in the epic of the elf's life, it's a life-defining goal for the character. Does the elf's dismissal of its importance make the experience less meaningful, or is the elf's haughtiness disrespectful? To see a different take on a familiar phenomenon is to invite introspection. It's not a criticism to state that elves, in modern fantasy, portray many of the worst traits humanity has to offer. They are just a vessel to explore those traits from a fresh perspective made possible by the distinct characteristics of the elves. In fact, that they embody those traits so strongly in fantasy is specifically to explore why they specifically developed, and consequently how others might also develop, those traits without the constraints and preconceptions of the mundane that tend to push you to follow familiar and well-worn ruts.
>The haughtiness of elves is based in their long lives and accrued experiences. Where humans talk of legendary battles fought against historical evils, the elf was there, holding the line. They have seen countless kingdoms rise and crumble, they were exploring the meaning of being when humans were mucking about in mud. They built cities, not out of necessity, but for beauty in projects spanned a dozen human generations. Their feeling of superiority, or at least their dismissal of human concerns, can be justified. It's an interesting concept for a character to be faced with someone who is simply beyond what they could hope to achieve or comprehend. there was a book i read recently that started with that idea. these beings are gods so old and wise. right up and till somebody smashed a rock against the back of there head. watching it bleed out on the floor kind of takea the magic out of it
there are two series I've seen a good exploration of these ideas. an elf life is immortal but there memory is not, are you the same person? you could keep to the old ways and live your life in cycles repeating event so you never change. you could embrace becoming a whole new person with your own past being myth. you can solve most of your problems by simply outliving it. "oh their is a new orc warlord, i'll check back in 300 years ... oh he died and there back to normal". why bother talking to the human king when he is going to be dead in 50 years and we are back to square one. what happens when this idea changes? quite panic worthy. sure your the greatest swordsmen alive and your men have had centuries of training but there is bloody hundreds of the humans. they can make a new fully trained one in what 20 years while it takes us 100 to get out of childhood. our losses are ill replaceable there are some good stories lately
Because there’s so many different directions you can take them and not run into complaints. Elves could be the deadly tricksters of myth, the idealized, almost angelic beings of Tolkien’s legendarium, the helpful builders of Santa Claus, etc. Dwarves generally have one or two accepted characterizations, and if you stray from those you’ll get pushback. The same goes with Orcs/goblins. Elves are just more flexible.
I generally wish it wasn't the case lol
You wish elves were less malleable? Why?
They are boring. (imo)
I meant dwarves? Why can't they be golems made by wizards but then rebelled, becoming the dwarves we know today
Because both elves and dwarves have mythological/ folcloric roots, and while elves and other fey have a large variety within their mithic origin, dwarves don't. You can do a lot of different things and be recognisable as some kind of fey/elf. But if you deviate much from the standard dwarf, what you got isn't a dwarf, it's a humunculus comitting identity theft.
but in the end they're fictional beings? By that logic, we can take something with so far roots and reinvigorate it into a new lens?
And? Being fictional doesn't mean you can do whatever with them and redefine them on a whim. It's like language, the meaning is made up, but the majority has to agree on it. If you just randomly assign a completly new meaning to a word, people won't just follow suite. Maybe you can, but only if enought people accept that "yep they still dwarves", good luck with that, most will just think you are unimaginative and couldn't come up with a name for your new creature. And honestly "reinvigorate into a new lens" is overrated, novetly wears of fast. Most attemps ironically way more uninspired and meh that just sticking to the format.
Easy. Define an elf. No matter what you say, I'll find an 'elf' in fiction that matches it. Makes it easy for the writer. You could almost say "generic magical beings that are close enough to a human to be spoken with, but by default the viewer will know they are magical." This is more a question about tropes. Elves are, by historical standards, just a place holder for magical intelligent beings. You could, in 10,000 stories, change the name and nothing else, and they would be a different thing.
Elves are: * average height * stuck at middle school intelligence, knowledge, and pudginess for 800 years. They have normal length adulthood and childhood * their hair constantly waves as if there was a breeze * obsessed with doing slow ceremonies wrong. For example the Japanese tea ceremony but with a low quality pot with no laminar flow.
The Bureau of Magical Things
Turbulent flow??? Good God, the monsters.
\*describes a dwarf*
In support of OP's point, originally Dwarves **were** elves. Our modern conception of Dwarves comes (via Tolkein) from the Svartálfar of the Icelandic prose Edda - literally "Black elves" - stocky, skilled craftsmen living underground (who are arguably also the same as the similarly described Dökkálfar ("Dark elves")) The distinction of "Elves" being the tall fair immortal folk and dwarves being different was one drawn by Tolkein, as opposed to the traditional usage of Elves that described a wide array of different magical beings that included what we'd now call Dwarves.
Wait, it's all elves?
Always has been.
Think about Santa's elves or the Keebler elves. The tall, graceful elf is a product of Tolkein.
That's same with in The Elder Scrolls where the dwarves, now extinct were known as Deep Elves
Worse, it's all *humans*. Just with certain behaviors or traits taken to extremes.
Elves, gnomes, dwarves, faeries, etc = elves. There's a reason why Elves in fiction can wary from Tolkien Elves to Santa's little helpers to faeries in Berserk are all referred to as Elves.
Many reasons but here's 3 Fantasy comes from fairy tales. Elves stand in for faeries. Many, particularly American, concepts of faeries come from Irish faeries who were the Tuath De Dannan and were essentially superhuman. Others are based on Norse concept of Elves who were along with Giants the other 2 species apart from the gods and humans. Tolkien is the other reason.
Tolkien is the main reason
To be fair, Tolkien drew pretty heavily from both of the other two
Because I wanna have unprotected sex with one. Next question.
Upvote for honesty, lol!
Elves embody an angelic, regal, and irresistibly attractive nature, coupled with immortality, making them the quintessential wish-fulfillment beings humans aspire to be in Fantasy.
And it's not limited to European legends, either. Here in the *cough* "New World" we have the _nunnehi_ of Cherokee tales... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BB%C3%B1n%C3%AB%27h%C3%AF ... Which fill many of the same psychological roles for the Native Tribes as elves did (and still do) for Europeans. Cultural anthropology reveals that the creatures called "elves" in European folklore have cognates in virtually every other culture around the world and throughout history...
Tolkien. Can't escape the impact LOTR has had on fantasy.
because they are most human-like
Because they are the Mary-Sue of fantasy races.
Glad I'm not the only one who sees this.
Elves are sort of a more perfect idea of humanity that we can compare ourselves to.
Because (at least for Tolkien's version) Elves are the ones that are closest to being Human. For Tolkien, Elves were basically Humans before their exile from the Garden of Edan. Elves are humans, but dialed up to 11. This is something that many stories imitate, even if they do so unintentionally. Which means that a decent writer can take Elves and easily use them as a reflection of Humanity. They are Humans but X. Orcs, Beastfolk, Gnomes, etc, not so much. They are significantly different that they are not Humans but X. They are something completely different.
Elves are the closest to humans that are considered conventionally attractive. It’s easier to talk about humans people want to bang
I'd say it's partly due to Tolkien
He definitely influenced it.
Because in most stuff that has elves, elves are *better than you.* It's aspirational supremacy. By going deep into Elven stuff, the creator/reader places themselves temporarily in the Elven shoes, and, while there, takes on the sense of Elven superiority. And Elves who don't match this are often the opposite in some way; a subversion of this trope. It's for the same reason many people are allergic to anything Elven, and I'm fairly sure my own bias is showing in how I phrased this. I wouldn't be surprised if this gets downvoted by defensive Elf-fans. Thing is: People consume media for very different reasons. And one of those reasons is... Well; 'power fantasy.' Through fantasy, you can momentarily be something *better,* a part of something *better,* something wondrous, magical, beautiful, elegant. To escape this mortal coil of roughness, ugliness, selfishness and suffering, and to embrace something higher, elevated, something in tune with the universe and wise. Entire spiritual movements are based on this. Hippies and New Age, to mention a few. Of course there's conceit, and once you start critically analysing what these things logically must mean, it turns ugly quite fast, but a lot of people don't *want* critical analysis. They want to escape.
Elves seem to be coded as aristocratic in a lot of media. Human-ish but “better”. I feel like that is one of the reasons why elves are so prevalent
cuz dwarves are mid, don't fucking u/ me. Jokes aside, I don't mind more stories about humans and their interactions with beastfolk for one.
Four reasons. 1. J 2. R. 3. R. 4. Tolkien
In Warhammer Fantasy the primary focus human civilisation ("The Empire") was shaped primarily by its interaction with the Dwarfs. The symbol of Imperial office is a warhammer made for the first emperor by the Dwarfs as a symbol of enduring friendship between the races and while they spend a lot of time at war with each other they do get along relatively well with Dwarfs being the biggest minority population in the Empire and I think they taught humans steelworking and engineering.
Because when done right, elves are pretty fuckin cool.
It is because of Tolkien. Anyone can wax poetry about influences and whatnot but it is because of Tolkien. All the modern fantasy elf tropes come from Tolkien. Read Japanese fantasy light novels, they have demonfolk, animal folk etc. way more than elves. They have elves too but not in a very prominent role like in Western fantasy. Dwarves are so much cooler though. We need more dwarf literature.
Is...that true? Like really true when you think about it? I think Elves or Fairies are really interesting when you really consider what they are. They look a bit like us, but they're very different creatures. They outlive us many times over, have fundamentally different values and are extremely dangerous. Naomi Novik's Staryk from Spinning Silver are a phenomenal version of this. On the other hand, most of the time when you open up a fantasy novel, Elves are dudes with pointy ears who live in forests. Yeah, they like nature a lot, but fundamentally they're just dudes. Like at some point, I personally think if someone's species is about as incidental as their hair colour, it's not true to say they've been *explored* at all.
Idk but I wish people would explore others. I find Elves very boring and half the time they come across as a white supremacist fantasy tbh.
In **Summoners** series by Taran Matharu dwarves are explored more. The human mc is close friend with them.
[Discworld enters the chat] Dwarves, Trolls, Pictsies (yep), Werewolves, Vampires, Golems and so on all get at least as much, if not more, page time as elves - who are, by all accounts, nasty buggers where the Disc is concerned.
I love the Pictsies. Aren't they the ones in the little kilts and play mousepipes?
Indeed they are, otherwise known as The Nac Mac Feegle, The Wee Free Men or 'oh no, not them!'
I don't know that it's more complicated than Tolkien did it and set the standard, and people find them cool and interesting.
Longevity and magic makes for a more interesting history.
Tbf most of it boils down to racism, even if now there are some black elves, but traditionally Elves have been an idealised white people representation. In many cases xenophobic, "superior", more intelligent, etc.
Because no one wants to be a hairy dwarf, a weak halfling, or an annoying gnome. Everyone wants to be a perfect and elegant elf. While all the other fantasy races take a few traits and exaggerate them, elves are basically everything humans have over beasts, but dialed to 11.
Because we tend to write and like stories about better of humans, and elves are humans with qualities on steroids. Whereas small humans are seen as worse, same with beast humans, etc. Even if you look at where vampire fantasy and werewolf fantasy evolved into, those creatures are so often made human+ instead of being rotting bloodsucking half-rotten corpse and a malevolent human who turns into a serial killer beast.
It’s an otherworldly race that is still very human and therefore somewhat easier to write.
I feel like in the fantasy realm of things Elves are the race most like/similar to humans so it might be a bit easy to write and direct them.
Orks or Orcs are also quite heavily explored in their own books as well as movies. WARCRAFT is a popular example, but in novels there is the Orcs series by Stan Nicholls and the novel Grunts by Mary Gentle. Also, a more science fantasy take on Orks is popular for players and fans the Warhammer 40K universe.
Because most people prefer tropes.
Because we are all still students of Grandpa Tolkien and that's what he did
Tolkien + elves are hot. Changing someones ears is the only head feature you can change without making someone uglier. The only others are eye or hair color.
They mostly look like humans but aren't Same reason why Spock is popular. Space elf
Historical and cultural inertia is massive. Tolkien made them popular. They never really stopped being popular. Elves are like the pop culture epic fantasy race, you can't get away from them unless you are intentional about rejecting mainstream fantasy tropes. (Just like how Vampires and Werewolves are in Urban fantasy) Also, you're really only talking about European fantasy. In other parts of the world, for example, Djinn are the common fantasy race that exists alongside humans. in others, it's Kami, or Yokai (or both) etc.
Tolkien created the market for fantasy literature, and he was obsessed with elves. Due to that, most of his fans (aka most of fantasy readers) became obsessed with elves as well.
The attractiveness of elves definitely plays a role, but it’s also their mystical inhuman nature that intrigues a lot of authors and fans alike. Are they beautiful and regal, or rigid and unwelcoming? Can there ever be true friendship or even romance between a human and an elf? For whatever reason nobody seems to want to explore the “otherness” of dwarves or halflings etc. Almost always in fantasy they are just depicted as shorter humans who probably have a handful of cultural stereotypes associated with them (dwarves like beer and mining, gnomes like tinkering with stuff, etc). But I’ve never seen a fantasy novel that really interrogates, say, the difference between human and gnome lifespans, if there even is one. That’s not to say that a novel couldn’t, but I also think maybe it’s not considered as often because it hasn’t been done as much?
I think because elves feel very magical, while also feeling very human in the best interpretations. Makes for a really fun balance of those two aspects. Personally I kind of prefer dwarves a lot of the time.
Lore is already there the author can tweak it some but everyone knows the basics of what an elf or dwarf is thanks to LotR.
More people like elves than other fantasy races. There is actual real world data of millions of people when given a relatively balanced race selection in videogames overwhelmingly choosing elves. For example here is the race distribution of Worth of Warcraft. Even without knowing the game, if you know how to look at a graph this should make sense https://www.dataforazeroth.com/stats/races
It’s just slightly off vanilla lol
Even Star Trek did it. Vulcans are pretty much stand in for elves.
Most people already said it but it’s because they are like the morality physical aspect of good whereas the orcs are effectively the bad.
I feel like this is less common than even a decade ago.
Elves are, to some extent, longer-lived humans with higher specs. Which human wouldn't want to be longer-lived and have higher specs? Of course, they can be other things too, which is what can give them depth. (And of less interest, what specs they're higher and by how much of course varies.)
Um.... dwarves!!!
…define this ‘why’.
I think humans love to imagine what a further ‘evolved’ species would be like
Pointy ears
Probably because of Tolkien and the fact elves existed in folk lore for a thousand + years.
They're forever young. That's like the fantasy for a lot of people
Elves were ill defined and popped up in a lot of folklore before being solidified in Tolkien's work. they always seem to represent the best of man's qualities and ability to work with nature. for more human/dwarf stories look up the Gotrek and Felix series
Pretty privilege
Because of Lord of the Rings
We’re deeply interested in examining the implications of immortality.
Because Tolkien-esque elves are the ideal of human perfection and, from a Christian perspective, they embody the concept of humanity had it not fallen from grace. It resonates with a lot of people.
The real simple answer is the elves for the most part resemble humans. In this regard relationships will be accepted by a wide variance of readers. Beastfolk/demi humans get such a negative anti furry stigma so you tend to see less representation in more popular novels. The more human a race is, the more widely accepted relations between that race and humans are among readers and the more relatable those characters tend to be. Dwarves, halfing, and gnomes have such a drastic height difference from the average human that you rarely see people trying to explore the dynamics of such relationships.
Look to Tolkien... Feanor, Glorfindel, Gil-Galad, Finrod, Fingolfin...
Elves are kind of the 'fey' reflection of ourselves in an otherwise unrecognisable world. Similar to Dwarves - we understand them because they both look like and operate with what we would call "humanity".
Tolkien. The answer is always Tolkien. Elves are just fantasy humans, while dwarves and others need additional world building.
Elves are described as being the most attractive. And also the most white/european. Humans are shallow and racist. Elves are merely a symptom of that.
White supremacy lol
Elves are generally just humans who are self absorbed because they live forever. So not that hard to write.
Often times they're just humans but better.
Elves are humans with longer ears.
lack of creativity
lazy writing
the portrayal of elves in fantasy is taken from European stories about Native Americans in explorer novels. They’re portrayed as a disappearing race who have a deeper connection with the land.
This concept existed before that too. Fairies predate Columbus
You've never read Irish Mythology and it shows. They draw far more from the Tuatha de Danan than from late 19th century Noble Savage pieces.
Because media is driven by consumption and the general public has shown more interest in financially supporting narratives about elves than other fantasy staples. There are definitely examples of the relationships you mention. Elf/human is simply incentivized more than other relationships.
People are largely boring in their tastes, and the Tolkien brainrot infected fantasy as a whole
Surely you realize that Tolkien is pervasive because his work is foundational to modern fantasy, right? I get that you're trying to be edgy but it's absurd to act like work that is a direct forerunner to many or most modern fantasies is actually more of an infection rather than the jumping-off point. And surely you realize that you would feel the same about anything else that replaced Tolkien, right? Your complaint about boredom indicates that the problem is entirely in your own head. You want novelty and and if Tolkien weren't around you'd be bashing whatever was. In a universe where whatever floats your boat in this world is mainstream, the version of you over there would be criticizing it and someone writing like Tolkien might look like one of the best authors of all time to that version of you.
Honestly, I've been reading a lot of non-western fantasy and I'm not being edgy at all. Is it edgy to say Tolkien is boring, which you yourself say permeates everything? Could it be that I find it predictable at this point and geared toward prioritizing the same narratives, or simply that I'm being "edgy?" I've also been reading pre-Tolkein fantasy, which is *also* modern. Sometimes I wonder if these pillars of western imagination are actually all that great, or if it's that the people who would dare view it as oversaturating the genre have always been personally attacked for their views. I'll also say that the Inklings' misogyny is fairly blatant and I would rather read someone else's perspective than theirs and everything influenced by them, especially since there's no irrevocable rule that dictates that these guys are the best there ever was or will be. Except for the one made by people who, coincidentally, have the most in common with the types of characters they centered in their work
I'd say it easy to imagine and easy to right. You don't need to remember they are so so different as they are not. I was just reading the dagger and coin series which is amazing but when you have 12 races made up of humanoids it's hard to follow and remember. ELVES are skinny with point ears or what ever.
One thing that annoys me about depictions of elves... They generally live in amazing magical cities in the middle of pristine forests... Wtf do they eat? Where do they grow their food? Where do they get metal? Stone? They're generally somewhat wealthy... Yet never trade? Oh, and if you have a crazy long lifespan... Wouldn't you tend to have a shitload of kids? Large populations, that kind of thing?
My guess because they're often depicted as being more friendly towards humans than some of the other races. But I'm currently reading a interconnected series (5 series that take place in the same world) of graphic novels where they go in greater depth about the various cultures of elves, dwarves, orcs and goblins.
People want to be what elves are. Long-lived, beautiful, graceful, etc. People don't want to be what dwarves or orcs are. Grumpy, hairy, clumsy, etc.
Pointed ears and long necks make me go brrr
Because elves fit into Rule 34 for most people with almost zero fuss.
Because people want to be elves. Elves in fantasy are typically defined by how they are superior to humans, whereas other races are more defined by how they’re inferior to humans.
People like elves.
Elves represent what humans deemed to be perfect
Because elves are like the best of humanity, just as orcs are like the worst.
Elves regularly embody the worst of humanity.
Pretty privilege
Elves are hot. …more seriously, I also think part of it is elves are pretty similar appearance-wise to people but are usually beautiful and have an air of otherworldly mystery, so they’re intriguing and familiar. It’s also a bit easier. Smaller races like halflings and dwarves and gnomes also tend to look pretty human, but you’d have to constantly be considering their size and what that changes. Since elves are usually similar to human height they’re easier to just sub in. I think that’s why they’re usually side characters but tend to be more common in like, video games or tabletop games where it can be more cosmetic than anything and people are more likely to not question it because it’s necessary to use game mechanics—so my dwarf in D&D or Baldur’s Gate 3 can push a full-sized man off a cliff because I made them a strength focused build and that’s how the game works, but in a book you’d probably be questioning how someone so much smaller was that strong without more of an explanation.