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[WB] A Query: Why Are Elves so Popular? Besides Pornography?

Because they're different, yet not being different enough to alienate. They are epitome of tender beauty in Tolkienesque fantasy worlds (which is most favorite as it is known even to the people who aren't into folklore all that much).

Yet, there are versions of elves in older folk tales and mythos, that are far far away from Tolkien elves, but people first of all imagine that Pointy eared, sexy, slim, agile beings
 
Sync said:
Image result for star trek vs tolkien 700 × 2545

Because I had to put that in. :)

Otherwise...elves take the noblest elements of humanity and make them nobler. As has been suggested already, elves are simply a better, ideal human. They've gone past industrialisation into magic and harmony; they've done with most illnesses and diseases and learned to extend lifespans; they're more attuned to their surroundings. They take the time to learn and understand, where humans tend not to do so as much. They perfect things, where humans tend to settle - but longer lifespans give you that capability.
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I think Q is more - God, or Devil, rather than Wizard, other than that, pretty accurate.
Yes, of course Star Trek took folk archetypes as basis for their aliens. I don't think it's a secret to anyone.
 
I mean, if Elves make a setting better for you then yeah, I do it all the time. No reason they can't be an alien race.
 
That's not so odd, Warhammer 40k does Orcs and I believe the Eldar races are elves now that I think about it?
 
Saber Arturia said:
Elves in a general sense are very pretty humans who are just 'better' at everything more or less.


For some 'Masculine'/Machsimo style male elves, there's Faenor & Fingolfin from the silmarillion at least. (The latter being such a fucking badass that he gets one hell of a metal ballad about him challenging his settings version of Satan and crippling him permanently). And then there's Tyrion from the Warhammer fantasy universe setting.
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I swear to god Elves in the Silmarillion are just manifestations of every Sabaton and manowar album. Masculine and bloodthirsty A.F. mock a silmaril elf for not having a beard, motherfucker will just skin your face off and ask when it'll grow in.
 
I for one find the stereotypical take on elves (and dwarfs for that matter) to be pretty boring at this point, and thus really appreciate anyone who can put a novel spin on their culture. The best example of this I can think of is the "Dragon Age" series of video games, which turned the elves into a broken civilization divided into two parts. The "City Elves" (the majority) tend to be impoverished outcasts living in slums full of poverty and crime, while the "Dalish" live in small nomadic groups trying to keep elvish culture alive in a manner akin to stereotypical Gypsies. In a similar vein this series' dwarfs, while still proud, stubborn and greedy, are not particularly noble at all and are known for being conniving and duplicitous. YMMV, but I vastly prefer this sort of stuff to repackaged versions of Legolas and Gimli (or even worse Drizzt) over and over again.
 
Azure-Yuki said:
My guess would be that, at least in pop culture, elves are an idealized perfected version of humans. They have all the traits that make people human but just...better.

Examples:
1. The universal fear of death is basically not a thing with elves because they are either extremely long living or immortal depending on the fantasy.

2. Never appear to become sick or ill through natural causes.

3. Are almost always depicted as beautiful/flawless (depending on the elves). By contrast there are dark elves for those who need to feel edgy.

4. Typically are shown to be more in touch with nature than man and coexist with nature. They also seem to have 'figured out' how to have civilization and still be one with nature. Whereas in the real world there is the feeling that humanity as become detached to nature through are use of technology and we are actively hurting nature with what we do. Big theme in Tolkein's universe of course.

5. Elves can basically do everything humans can, just better. Elves are often seen in fantasy as being amazing archers and spellcasters.

By contrast, notice something that is NOT associated with elves. Macho styled masculinity. Elves are seen as 'perfect' but not in the muscular feats of strength way. They are usually slim and dexterous. My hypothesis is that this reflects the fact that fantasy culture is highly linked with nerd culture and that most nerds, while usually stereotypically male, were not the masculine sort of males. Or at least, male nerds did not see themselves as such. Most people who were considered nerds back in the day, usually were not the athletes and such. They valued other traits. Therefore, the elves took on traits that reflected what they valued. At least that's my theory.
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Honestly I think this is a great summary of the most general and widely-accepted reasons. We as humans tend to view ourselves as the 'bland vanilla' whenever it comes to Fantasy or Sci-Fi, largely relegating to what makes humanity 'special' as a sense of limitless thirst for knowledge, adventure, and just not giving a shit that everything else in the setting is basically objectively better than us. Ergo, the more extreme traits in both a good and bad capacity, kinda get shunted off to other races and pushed to even more extreme limits.

As Azure says Elves are 99.99999999% of the time absolutely FLAWLESS and superior to a human in every conceivable, measurable way. Honestly in most generic fantasy settings about the only flaw/flaws you could say Elves have are overconfidence in spades and, arguably, a possible sense of apathy since they just.... never die. So they'll likely just become bored with mastering everything under the Sun or go the Eldar way of doing things and... yeah.

As far as their representation in more adult settings I mean honestly? I'd venture to say they're a kink in and of themselves by this point. When people can get off to something as small as where one body part goes where if you dangle a hypothetically perfect super-person who's absolutely flawless with a "unique" physical trait (pointed ears) then.... yeah it's easy to understand why they're popular.

Also to address Azure's "point 6" about masculinity I've had anecdotal experience of players confirming this in so much words 'I don't have to be big and strong, I'm just better because I'm an Elf'. Make of that what you will, obviously I'm not directly quoting.

I would also add that any sort of ElfxHuman or ElfxOrc Roleplay also touches on the long-held kink of 'taboo relationship' which is, in my experience, one of the biggest and most common kinks in existence. The pretty, dainty female elf falls for the rugged human rogue she has no business with? Remove the elf part and replace it with real-world 'good girl' and... well almost any guy that's considered beneath her and you've got the same thing. At that point the "Elf" race is basically just another way of saying "someone you have no business being with due to X reason". In general more aggressive/masculine characters like 'seducing/corrupting' and more passive/feminine characters like receiving such things. So the whole mindset of "I really shouldn't do this but for some reason I want it..." is found in every society of humanity. I'd even venture to say it's part of the human condition, with Elves just being a kind of embodiment of something we can't achieve, have no reason being with, but we get them anyways. Either through the power of DICK if it's a particularly smutty story or through other means in a more plot-oriented one.

This.... was longer than I intended it to be. So yeah... good post Azure. xD
 
That’s all very interesting @Blayze. I’d like to put in my own two cents as someone who has a complex steampunk fantasy plot with elves and humans on the verge of war.

I feel like I’ve been largely influenced by Lord of the Rings, as a lot of people are. But not in the sense that elves are perfect and ephemeral beings. Instead, they’re basically very long lived people with their near exclusive mastery of lesser dragon riding and magic (taught by the intelligent Elder Dragons) making them slightly arrogant. They have divisions between high elves, dark elves, and wood elves, and racism against humans, monstrofolk (basically anthropomorphs including monster girls, dragonlings, werewolves, etc), dwarves, and other creatures in the Ananki Confederation. So they have prejudices like people, and their skills only exaggerate that.

At the same time, an innovation given to me by a partner is elvish flexibility on gender roles. There are no male and female genders assigned to parts specifically- it’s whatever the elf feels works or doesn’t for them. Third gender elves are called erimdanaith (meaning between man and woman) and make up the majority of society, while the Ananki lands are a refuge for gender nonconforming folks from the Empire and the equally human ruled Alliance of Free States.

The key difference that they don’t realize about people, having successfully attacked human nations and made them pay tribute for hundreds of years using their magic and air superiority, is that what humans lack in natural talent they make up for with ingenuity. Like the Russian Empire, the Ananki rule over a large, mostly cold and desolate area with little arable land or warm ports, whereas the Caledorian Empire (a seafaring empire like Britain with influences from Germany and if I’m honest Dunwall from Dishonored) has discovered clockwork technology, whale oil, and steam power and that has made them a formidable force. Airships and airplanes have recently been invented that can counter dragons, they have built walking four legged tanks called Goliaths that pack a lot of firepower and armor (including being near totally resistant to dragon fire), guns and bombs are becoming more sophisticated, and controversial genetic research programs create philters that when drunk give people superpowers.

For various reasons that are too complicated to get into, the Ananki are trying to work behind the scenes to undermine the Empire from within, but it won’t work and a war will erupt. Once that happens, species who have been taught to hate each other for generations will be thrown together, and love will come from that as well as magic dies and technology becomes more powerful. That’s the interesting part of elves for me- an examination of gender roles, love across battle lines, racism, the role of tradition versus modernization, nature versus tech, things like that.

I care little for parts as long as the story is interesting. A plot that’s currently on hold has my male human soldier having sex with and then falling in love with a very muscular male elf who has a vagina, and gets made fun of it for it by other elves and humans.
 
Elves are popular because they literally are everything the general person wants to be. Most say it's because they're perfect, but that's not the case at all when you look at most elven characters. Seriously, look at them. Some closed minded xenophobic, self important douche bags who think they know everything better than everyone else because they've lived longer lives. Some are thoughtful, but due to the closed nature of their people and longer live spans, have yet to learn practical things that most short lived species would find common sense. They're not perfect, they're society expects something out of them and they're trained to reflect that same as every other fantasy race with orc valuing strength, dwarfs valuing smithing skills and beards, and so on.

Elven aesthetics just mesh more with what humans like. We like nature, visually appealing things, and tend to want to maintain youth, beauty and vitality as we age. Elves do all of that, so for baby's first venture into fantasy, Elves are extremely easy to identify with because they are the race with the fewest amount of social and cultural blocks one has to work around outside of humans (One can just call them beautiful hippies and not be very far off and 90% of audiences will grasp what they are with just that). And people tend to have fonder memories of things they can more easily identify with. Simple as that.
 
I always figured it was about being long lived, generally attractive, and usually gifted with some form of magic. And with all that, they're usually still approachably imperfect in a lot of ways. Their perspective can still be comprehended unlike a lot of deities in various medias.
 
A race of beings similar in appearance to humans but fairer and wiser, with greater spiritual powers, keener senses, and a closer empathy with nature. Isn't that enough?
 
I personally like elves because of racial abilities as well as their asthetic. The delicate, slender build is something I enjoy looking at and working with, but the variations of elven races is what really sets them apart for me. Inherent magic, nature magic, healing abilities, communing with animals and nature, long ears, short ears, taller that usual, shorter than usual, normal human skin tones, wild skin tones, there are a lot of factors that go into making an elven character.
 
xanaphia said:
One of the most common pairings seen on here, is female elf X male orc, because both parts represent an exaggerated representations of the gender binary. Elves have idealized feminine traits: beautiful, graceful, delicate, slender. Orcs have amplified masculine traits: powerful, large, brutish, ravenous.
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This is so true.

For me, I really like the race, because from what I've been taught by games, books and movies, is that the elves are somehow always connected to magic and the mystical. The race almost always has some magical story. And yes, they are beautiful, can't deny that. But I always tend to search for a good story and elves as a race in the world tend to have a very exciting one.
 
I think it's been pretty well explained in this thread.

But one thing to keep in mind is that virtually all representation of Elves in today's fantasy genres are derived from Tolkien's vision, and his vision of Elves was explicitly that they were an idealized version of a superior person: wiser, stronger, more beautiful, more connected to the truth of the world, impervious to disease, impervious to enfeeblement.

So it's small wonder that people find them appealing, since they are 'better-than-humans-in-most-every-way' by design. After all, nobody is chomping at the bit to play non-Tolkienesque elves, like Santa's helpers or Dobby.
 
Shiver said:
I think it's been pretty well explained in this thread.

But one thing to keep in mind is that virtually all representation of Elves in today's fantasy genres are derived from Tolkien's vision, and his vision of Elves was explicitly that they were an idealized version of a superior person: wiser, stronger, more beautiful, more connected to the truth of the world, impervious to disease, impervious to enfeeblement.

So it's small wonder that people find them appealing, since they are 'better-than-humans-in-most-every-way' by design. After all, nobody is chomping at the bit to play non-Tolkienesque elves, like Santa's helpers or Dobby.
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Hopefully more and more people continue to deconstruct the “ideal” present in Tolkienesque elves, either by making many of them arrogant and self serving to the point that their ideal physical characteristics are simply vain, or having elves that don’t fit the ideal societal mold in elven society and challenging that, as I find that his portrayal of elves and orcs is...not racist but certainly teetering on the edge of reinforcing stereotypes (although not as much as the men who go into battle alongside Mordor do.)
 
CasualVelociraptor said:
Hopefully more and more people continue to deconstruct the “ideal” present in Tolkienesque elves, either by making many of them arrogant and self serving to the point that their ideal physical characteristics are simply vain, or having elves that don’t fit the ideal societal mold in elven society and challenging that, as I find that his portrayal of elves and orcs is...not racist but certainly teetering on the edge of reinforcing stereotypes (although not as much as the men who go into battle alongside Mordor do.)
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With this in mind, what Bioware did with the elves In their Dragon Age series should be required reading for one possible alternate take on the elven condition: elves did, once, many ages prior to the game eras, live in the heights implied by Tolkein, but they have long fallen from those heights and are now regarded, and treated, as less than second class citizen.
 
I play and DM for D&D, and the number of people who use them for everything is annoying. I hate the way they act -- they're better than everyone else, and they know it. Incredibly snobbish.
I only think they're 'the best' because people make them out to be in their interpretations, or people say they're perfect while missing out on how they might not be, especially in other kinds of fantasy. Like @Shiver example, Dobby.
I feel like the love for them based on their appearance and goody-two-shoes or 'charming trickster' personalities might be a bit shallow, and it really does ignore other kinds of elves. Especially if it's all framed in proportion to the amount of fanfare they usually get.

I know the thread is why they're popular, but I've got to say I personally dislike them.

edit: I realise I also have 'elves' as a hard no in my f-list, which is kind of funny.
 
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