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Worlds of Design: Escaping Tolkien
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<blockquote data-quote="MostlyHarmless42" data-source="post: 8096146" data-attributes="member: 6845520"><p>Again, you are over simplifying and reducing what you call "flavor". There have been MANY different varieties that are largely different from one another. Even "nature loving" is an INCREDIBLY broad description. Does it mean you only love forests and trees? What about animals? Fungus? Rot? Death and winter?</p><p></p><p>The ubiquitousness is because people are shifting the goalposts as to what defines "elves" to suit their arguments. Again, would you call the Children of the Forest and the Others in Game of Thrones elves, fey, or dryads/forest spirits? All such examples are long lived nature loving beings at odds with humans harming the forests and represent aspects of nature. Such distinction of races only matters because we're conditioned to categorize them due to racial statistics and dnd game balances. In the broader terms of fiction such distinctions largely do not matter.</p><p></p><p>If those on your side of the argument present us with what a clear definition of what an elf <em>is</em> you cannot then proceed to shift definitions and dismiss other examples when given something radically different from said example. Claiming Night Elves/Blood Elves from Warcraft, the Children of the Forest from GoT and the Tolkienian Elves are the same is blatantly false unless you are using only the broadest definition possible for Elves.</p><p></p><p>The house "elves" of Harry Potter only feel different because they are not in fact elves, they stem from a different mythological source. You can argue that perhaps slavic house spirits (and slavic folklore in general) is less well known to western audiences, but I argue that is an issue of people not consuming enough fiction. I assure you <em>every</em> mythology is just as inundated with different works of fiction attempting to interpret their cultures myths and tales and has been since long before Tolkien ever put pen to paper. He is just the most well known to people who aren't actually fans of mythology or fantasy. This is literally <em>how</em> storytelling works and has been since the dawn of mankind and known recorded history.</p><p></p><p>And again, I argue that it is the execution of different mythological trappings that matters. It is not Tolkien but lazy or incompetent writers that is the problem. I've yet to see a response to this that wasn't just goalpost shifting on what defines an "elf"/"dwarf" or isn't just reductionist dismissal of incredibly broad different portrayals of the same set of races as the same in an attempt to just lampshade the point and deflect from the real issue at stake.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MostlyHarmless42, post: 8096146, member: 6845520"] Again, you are over simplifying and reducing what you call "flavor". There have been MANY different varieties that are largely different from one another. Even "nature loving" is an INCREDIBLY broad description. Does it mean you only love forests and trees? What about animals? Fungus? Rot? Death and winter? The ubiquitousness is because people are shifting the goalposts as to what defines "elves" to suit their arguments. Again, would you call the Children of the Forest and the Others in Game of Thrones elves, fey, or dryads/forest spirits? All such examples are long lived nature loving beings at odds with humans harming the forests and represent aspects of nature. Such distinction of races only matters because we're conditioned to categorize them due to racial statistics and dnd game balances. In the broader terms of fiction such distinctions largely do not matter. If those on your side of the argument present us with what a clear definition of what an elf [I]is[/I] you cannot then proceed to shift definitions and dismiss other examples when given something radically different from said example. Claiming Night Elves/Blood Elves from Warcraft, the Children of the Forest from GoT and the Tolkienian Elves are the same is blatantly false unless you are using only the broadest definition possible for Elves. The house "elves" of Harry Potter only feel different because they are not in fact elves, they stem from a different mythological source. You can argue that perhaps slavic house spirits (and slavic folklore in general) is less well known to western audiences, but I argue that is an issue of people not consuming enough fiction. I assure you [I]every[/I] mythology is just as inundated with different works of fiction attempting to interpret their cultures myths and tales and has been since long before Tolkien ever put pen to paper. He is just the most well known to people who aren't actually fans of mythology or fantasy. This is literally [I]how[/I] storytelling works and has been since the dawn of mankind and known recorded history. And again, I argue that it is the execution of different mythological trappings that matters. It is not Tolkien but lazy or incompetent writers that is the problem. I've yet to see a response to this that wasn't just goalpost shifting on what defines an "elf"/"dwarf" or isn't just reductionist dismissal of incredibly broad different portrayals of the same set of races as the same in an attempt to just lampshade the point and deflect from the real issue at stake. [/QUOTE]
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