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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9045750" data-attributes="member: 6790260">But they aren't called elves. That's the key thing here. &quot;Elf&quot; meant a tiny little sprite thing until Tolkien came along. Prior to Tolkien, &quot;elf&quot; did not mean what it means today. Prior to Tolkien, &quot;orc&quot; wasn't even a word people used in Middle English, let alone Modern. Prior to Tolkien, the word &quot;warg&quot; did not even exist. Dwarves are more complicated, as sometimes they are more people-like, but most of the time they were people-shaped plot devices prior to Tolkien (which isn't a knock against them, plot devices are important writing tools, but they rarely rise to the level of being characters in their own right.) Etc.I'm not saying he invented the concept of &quot;pretty otherworldly human-like being,&quot; because that would be trivially obviously a really stupid thing to say. What I'm saying is, if we're declaring &quot;Poul Anderson invented the idea of 'elf' as D&amp;D uses it,&quot; that seems to be contradicted by Tolkien having published his initial work years earlier. That is, according to Wikipedia, Three Hearts and Three Lions comes from expanding a 1953 novella Anderson wrote for Fantasy &amp; Science Fiction Magazine, so the core ideas predate the publication of The Lord of the Rings, but were still nearly 20 years after the publication of The Hobbit. With the in-text references to words Tolkien himself coined, it's impossible to argue that Anderson wasn't influenced by Tolkien.Anderson built on the idea of what &quot;elf&quot; meant, that was developed by Tolkien. Tolkien rooted his elves partially in the Old English tradition of fae beings, though that is not the only influence. Elements specific to his construction--that elves are extremely long-lived but still somewhat mortal, that they are innately magical without strictly trying (hence the elf race-as-class is a fighter/mage), that they pine for a lost period of greatness from which their culture has fallen into decline, etc.--linger on even today, despite the complete removal of some of the reason for these features. (There is no Valinor for D&amp;D Elves to depart to, but if you look at other universes beyond just D&amp;D, you'll find nearly every version of elf, e.g. the Mer of Elder Scrolls, the various subspecies of Elf in World of Warcraft, and others besides, you'll find there's almost always a lost, glorious homeland or a long-ago fallen empire tucked away in their mythos.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9045750, member: 6790260"] But they aren't called [I]elves[/I]. That's the key thing here. "Elf" meant a tiny little sprite thing until Tolkien came along. Prior to Tolkien, "elf" did not mean what it means today. Prior to Tolkien, "orc" wasn't even a word people used in Middle English, let alone Modern. Prior to Tolkien, the word "warg" [I]did not even exist[/I]. Dwarves are more complicated, as sometimes they are more people-like, but most of the time they were people-shaped plot devices prior to Tolkien (which isn't a knock against them, plot devices are important writing tools, but they rarely rise to the level of being characters in their own right.) Etc. I'm not saying he invented the [I]concept[/I] of "pretty otherworldly human-like being," because that would be trivially obviously a [I]really stupid thing to say[/I]. What I'm saying is, if we're declaring "Poul Anderson invented the idea of 'elf' as D&D uses it," that seems to be contradicted by Tolkien having published his initial work years earlier. That is, according to Wikipedia, [I]Three Hearts and Three Lions[/I] comes from expanding a 1953 novella Anderson wrote for [I]Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine[/I], so the core ideas predate the publication of [I]The Lord of the Rings[/I], but were still nearly 20 years after the publication of [I]The Hobbit[/I]. With the in-text references to words Tolkien himself coined, it's impossible to argue that Anderson wasn't influenced by Tolkien. Anderson built on the idea of what "elf" meant, that was developed by Tolkien. Tolkien rooted his elves [I]partially[/I] in the Old English tradition of fae beings, though that is not the only influence. Elements specific to his construction--that elves are extremely long-lived but still somewhat mortal, that they are innately magical without strictly trying (hence the elf race-as-class is a fighter/mage), that they pine for a lost period of greatness from which their culture has fallen into decline, etc.--linger on even today, despite the complete removal of some of the [I]reason[/I] for these features. (There is no Valinor for D&D Elves to depart to, but if you look at other universes beyond just D&D, you'll find nearly every version of elf, e.g. the Mer of Elder Scrolls, the various subspecies of Elf in World of Warcraft, and others besides, you'll find there's almost always a lost, glorious homeland or a long-ago fallen empire tucked away in their mythos.) [/QUOTE]

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