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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kronovan" data-source="post: 9883971" data-attributes="member: 6775134">Well actually - neither Tolkien's Dark Elves (Moriquendi), nor the original Svartalfr of European-Norse mythology were inherrently evil. Tolkien's Moriquendi were just those elves that hadn't answered the summons to Valinor to behold the light of the Two Trees. From my readings of Tolkien's writings, the only Moriquendi who was cast as evil was Eol in the Silmarillion, but it's clear that he's an outlier. There are the Orks, which the Silmarillion tells us were Elves that were originally captured, tortured and ultimately corrupted by Melkor. But that's another story.The Svartalfr in the Norse sagas (as written down by Sturluson in the 12th cen.) are quite nebulous re. good & eveil. Unlike the Light Elves (Ljosalfr) who lived in Ljosaflheim on the World Tree above Midgard, the Svartalafr dwelled in Svartalfheim which was below. The Ljosalfr are equally powerful and just as dangerious and other than where they reside in the Yggdrasil/World Tree geogrpahy, there isn't much different between them. It's only in later folklore that writers began to equate the the Svartalfr/dark elves with evil, but that mostly occurs in the 20th century. Note, I'm not using the correct vowels for the Tolkien and Norse names, only because my Sindarin and Norse spelling is fading with age.  <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🥴" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f974.png" title="Woozy face    :woozy_face:" data-shortname=":woozy_face:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />An interesting note re. Tolkien elves - the Woodland Elves in Rankin & Bass' The Hobbit, were dark skinned. That cartoon was made just 3 years after JRR Tolkien's death when his son Christopher was newly in charge of the Tolkien estate. Licensing was a tricky thing then and much of the content had to be vetted by Christopher. So it appears that as far as Christopher was concerned, skin tone of Elves wasn't really an issue.My bigger issue with the art in recent WotC publications, is that a good majority of the subjects are attractive, if not down right beautiful. It's as if only the beautiful persons of their cultures could possibly be heroic - yes I'm aware there're some exceptions. Considering the pyschological and social concerns around negative body image and how some social media is amplifying it these days, to me that's of equal concern. Personally, I'd like to see some art that portrays heroes that are less attractive, but I'm betting I'm very much alone in that. The Queen Yolande in the LGG that I posted earlier, is a less attractive, yet noble & charismaic depiction of an Elf that I prefer to the majority of those I've viewed in recent publications.</blockquote>

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