Ya know, apart from the fact that they’re overused, often portrayed as overgrown pixies, mostly overly cute and/or overly old and wise, and that they’re almost always really smug about how superior they are to everyone else (almost courting xenophobia, albeit very genteelly)… there’s nothing that wrong about elves.
So, to offset the Elf Hate that’s been poured out in various places (I’m looking at you, Syp, Spinks and Arbitrary!), I’ve decided to found GLEE: Great Love for Elves and Elvenkind. Just because.
Besides, what other race goes bad quite as stylishly as elves do, eh?
I loled =)
So… a Witch Elf from Warhammer?
I’ll join. Elves unite!
As I said over at Syp’s, I’m feeling more conflicted now (I was nice to elves in Dragon Age)…
I just want them to stop WHINING! Seriously, I will save them if I can slap them every so often ;p
Hurrah, sign me up!
Nothing personal but… “There is nothing as sure in the world as the glitter of gold and the treachery of Elves.” 😛
As a friend and player of the Elven race for nearly 25 years, I will ban together with GLEE. LOL
No Country for Old Elves!
We shall fight in the forests, we shall fight in the shopping malls, we shall challenge them to dance-offs and mock their clumsiness and lack of fashion sense. We shall never surrender!
Gilden Saerantii approves 🙂
Yup, the references is that old!
If all females elves are going to dress like that, then I will show them all the support the want!!!
Jaye: If they’re all going to dress like that, they’ll need it.
Is this a bad time to say that I accidentally wiped out an entire tribe of elves in Dragon Age. In my defense, they were gits.
Same here, although on the plus side I now have a legion of werewolves on my side who have the capacity to exponentially add to their army by biting those pesky elves on the way 🙂
My very first RPG character ever was an elven ranger (though not of the trite dual wielding, panther accompanied kind), and I’ve never looked back.
Personally, I don’t understand the hate. Everybody loves Vulcans and they’re basically the same thing, right?
Elves are hawt…it puts the lotion on, and puts it in the basket. PUT THE LOTION IN THE BASKET!!!!
LOL.
Sorry, no GLEE for me. To quote Terry Pratchett:
“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”
My point exactly!
Pratchett’s elves are indeed nasty customers. Not all elves are the same though. A few superficial things tend to be consistent from setting to setting (e.g. pointy ears, thin physiques, long life spans, often some degree of harmony with nature) but even within a given setting there’s room for a lot of variety.
The Drow in the Forgotten Realms are really not the same as the Gold elves. Honest. The Noldor of Middle-earth tended to be arrogant jerks a lot of the time, and had little in common with the Avari – they looked considerably different (e.g. the Noldor were much taller and, well, glowed), spoke different languages, and had completely different cultures.
It’s true that a lot of fantasy authors based their elves on Tolkien’s Silvan elves, but it’s also true that variety exists.
Some elves are good, and some elves are bad. Some elves are nice, and some are anything but nice. The same is of course true of men, dwarves, etc.
My very first exposure to Elves as we know it was Tanis Half-elven ( I know, not a full elf), and it sparked a love for AD&D Elves for as long as I can remember. Then I read LOTR and still loved them.
But once they jumped off the page and became a video game actuality for me, I soon decided Elves were not a good thing.
Good on paper, but not in practice. …..kinda like tassled spandex.
DUDE! Long time no see!
And thanks. Thank you VERY much for that mental image. Now I’ll be seeing an Elf in tasseled spandex all day.