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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shayuri" data-source="post: 7650483" data-attributes="member: 4936">Comments stemming from the origins of D&D elf from LotR aside, I've always seen elves as being the fantasy version of the Ancient Race Now In Decline/Extinct. In almost every setting, their civilization is one long past its heyday, with ruined cities strewn all over and magical secrets now lost and a few modern survivors clinging to a backwater, regressed parody of their former glory. They are almost always portrayed as the elder forerunner of humankind, and that their decline paves the way for human ascendence.And they are so very human. They ARE idealized versions of us in many ways, or are generally presented as such...and their reaction to their own idealization is just what ours would be; snobbery and attitudes.I feel like the fantasy genre loses something by adhering so closely to that well-trodden path...but elves ARE very well suited for being that fading echo of glory...the living embodiment of a Golden Age now past. Things were better back then, they say. We were there; we know. There was magic everywhere, and peace and merriment, and people sang and danced and everyone was an elf and it was awesome.But that was then, and this is now. Could be worse, we guess. It could be orcs rising to take our place as masters of the world.I think human beings really like to think in these terms. I don't think elves were shaped into their current forms intentionally to suit that...I think it happened rather naturally, deriving first from the source material, and then evolving through iterations because of how popular that basic relationship made them.And I think part of that popularity is not just how cool they're supposed to be, but also the fact that they're fading away. They affirm us. They show us by their existence that yeah...you may never be as cool as an elf, but you're just now in the FUN PART of being a people...thriving and growing and expanding and dominating. So really, you're better off. And we may be cool, but we're also full of ourselves. So really, go humans.</blockquote>

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