You are speaking my language. Your references are on point.
But yes, everyone knows Rule of Cool trumps any logic.
You are speaking my language. Your references are on point.
But yes, everyone knows Rule of Cool trumps any logic.
Okay not so much a trope, but a race, but I hate fantasy elves. They’re dime a dozen, hair-in-the-wind flowin’, camps in the forest havin’, mysterious magic usin’, 7”0 measurin’, low population havin’, “I hate all humans!” believin’, knife-eared havin’, weird cheekbone havin’, stupid ritual havin’ sonsa bitches. Pelinal Whitestrake was right but they took him too soon
Didn’t think I’d wake up to long-winded elven slander today XD
I do agree though, elves - in particular Tolkien elves and elves that are heavily based off of them - have been done to death, already. I tried to shake up the formula once by having a race of elves who live in a hugely hostile region and have become extremely survivalist warrior folk out of necessity - if their arms aren’t as big around as your skull and 50% of their skin isn’t just hardened scar tissue, they probably weren’t born in the homeland and therefore wouldn’t last two minutes!
The problem is not Tolkien, the problem are who tried to copy past him but enterly missing the point:
Tolkien’s Elves are the last survivors of an ancient race who passed through a serie of betrayals, intrigues and tragedies that wouldn’t be out of place in Game Of Thrones.
So why the Elves are good and wise? Because all rotten eggs are dead.
Why they lecture humans? Because they made the same mistakes before.
Also Elves envy humans for their short but intense life.
Most of writers post Tolkien lack of all that. As result, post Tolkien Elves are either annoying mary sues or bastard racist (with the unfortunate implication that racist are right), sometimes both or an in beetween.
It’s not slander if it’s true
The Elder Scrolls did it right because the arrogant elves are clearly full of shit, but the High Elf culture actually has its merits like every other culture.
The only good elf is a dead one
Tolkien Elves are ALSO full of shit, considering, e.g., they engaged in multiple genocides and forged the Rings of Power (therefore giving Sauron the means to control people).
I mean, people sing praises to Galadriel, but she’s a total asshole who left literal paradise because she checks notes wanted to rule over people.
Also, y’know, the entirety of Feanor’s bloodline.
(except, of course, that the only being in the Tolkienverse that has freedom of choice is Iluvatar, so he’s the asshole and everybody else is just a bunch of robots, and that is why The Silmarillion is terrible)
Elves always have been and always will be the greatest fantasy race in all of fiction. I love playing as elves, drow in particular. Looks like this is the first thing we disagree on. Shame you’re so wrong on it.
Yeah, they’re people, they make mistakes. The Elven society had a lot of assholes in it, so what? So does ours.
All the elves that migrated to Middle-Earth are assholes. The non-asshole elves STAYED in the western lands (or got genocided by the asshole elves).
I mean, Legolas was good.
Wow, I hope you’re not this generalizing towards other things, fictional or not.
Dwarven Superiority
Lol, no. Legolas is one the Mirkwood Elves, an entire kingdom of elves who get their kicks by getting travellers lost until they either die of thirst, starvation, or spider. What you mean is that Legolas wasn’t suicidally stupid, so he thought it might be a good idea if the One Ring got melted, which is a different thing.
If you don’t agree, take it up with Tolkien, who literally had a god curse the entirety of the elves that migrated to Middle-Earth for being assholes.
Probably a Biblical reference. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and mixed it in with the mythology of other cultures he studied for his work.
Possibly yes, but also possibly not, because the christian god analogue is Iluvatar (a.k.a., the one dude in the entirety of the Tolkienverse who has agency), not the Valar, who are sort of like… the seraphim, I guess?, and it’s one of them that does the cursing.
Personally, I’m a pretty big fan of Dwarves. I like the culture centered around architecture and invention and the cool mountain complexes.
Greatest video of all time.