Yeah, I feel called out. I guess the votes don't lie.
ENW: "Ugh with the Tolkien!"
Also ENW: "Eeew,
anthropomorphic species? Gross!!!"
Also x2 ENW: "
Dragon people? Really? Compensating, are we?"
Also x3 Combo ENW: "Yuck,
tieflings, I'm not
nearly edgelord enough for THAT."
Rare and highly dangerous Also x4 Combo ENW: "Living rocks? Humans without noses? Robots?
Blech."
It's the definition of an unpleasable fanbase. The new options have to be non-anthro/non-furry, have prodigious precedent, absolutely no remotely undesirable implications, and yet still have a strong enough flavor to be distinct in their own right.
Nothing will
ever do that, and the only reason Tolkien's choices do is because he invented the genre. If he had taken more inspiration from Greek myth (since Numenor is clearly Atlantis), and thus had "
spartoi" (dragon-people) instead of elves and "
troglodytae" instead of dwarves, we'd be laughing at the idea that "elves" would ever make it in fantasy fiction: "What, really? The Thumbelina-style six-inch-tall folklore creatures*? As if. Or do you mean the ridiculous nature spirits from Shakespeare? Get real!"
Being part of the founding document of a genre is a hell of a boost.
*This characterization is actually almost certainly false, the result of 17th-19th century analysts misreading, misunderstanding, or outright speaking falsely about
Christian works depicting European pagan beliefs. Elves were almost always spoken of in ways that classified them as a
people, not as miniature sprites.
