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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 3570513" data-attributes="member: 1645">I'm confused.  Where have you seen this view expressed?  From what I've seen, people used to roll their eyes at elves in 1E and 2E -- and in Tolkien's works -- as too good, or as the master race.  They were tall, slim, cultured, etc., but they were on the decline, as we entered an Age of Men.I don't think Tolkien saw it this way, but we could look at his depiction of elves as a Romantic view of the Noble Savage.  Hunter-gatherers arguably had plenty of free time and a lifestyle that later hardworking peasants would envy.  They ate better than later agriculturalists too, growing taller and stronger.  (Aristocrats maintained much of that lifestyle, living in leisure, eating meat, and reserving the right to hunt "their" lands.)But they were on the inevitable decline, just like our elves.  Hunger-gatherers cannot maintain the population density of agriculturalists, so they can't muster much of an army, even if man-for-man the hunters might outfight the farmers.  So the tall, fit, frolicking forest-dwellers are displaced by peasants doing back-breaking labor.Do the bad guys always win real wars and dominate the globe?  Not so much.  Certainly strength and ruthlessness help in a war, but being evil isn't typically productive, and military strength can come from having the resources to spend.</blockquote>