# Is the love story between a human and an elf too worn out?



## Vilkas The Mighty Wolf (May 23, 2012)

I've been thinking about the romantic interactions of my protagonist in the story, and of course I thought that the human-elf love story will fit perfectly.
But then it occurred to me that the human-elf love story shows up in a lot of fantasy books (LotR etc...)
so is it a little not-original idea to use?


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## Feo Takahari (May 23, 2012)

Love itself isn't too worn out a subject. Specific approaches to it may or may not be. Would you please explain your idea in a bit more detail? (In particular, what conflict, if any, threatens the relationship?)


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## Vilkas The Mighty Wolf (May 23, 2012)

The protagonist is a human that belongs to a kingdom that took over the territory of the elves and made the elves an inferior race under the control of the kingdom. The protagonist meets with the female elf on a journey to her tribe, but because the protagonist belongs to the kingdom, she is hostile to him at first.


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## Endymion (May 23, 2012)

Yeah, that has been used many times which makes it  not-original.


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## Feo Takahari (May 23, 2012)

Endymion said:


> Yeah, that has been used many times which makes it  not-original.



Eh, whatever. It's still writeable if you can do something creative with it. (Though I'm not sure why you're using "human and elf" as the distinguishing factors here. Isn't the distinguishing factor "from two opposing sides?" To put it another way, does it even matter that she's an elf, or would it work the same were she human, and merely of a different culture?)


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## Ireth (May 23, 2012)

One thing I've always wondered about human/elf relationships and the like is why, nine times out of ten, the elf (or equivalent member of a superior culture/race) is female while the human/inferior race guy is male. Take Thingol and Melian (elf/Maia), Beren and Luthien (human/half-elf, half-Maia) or Aragorn and Arwen (human/elf). Two of those three pairings have extensive angsting abut the immortality vs. mortality issue as well.

I myself am guilty of this in one of my RPs, where a human guy falls in love with a Fae woman. Then again, living in Faerie with her for a thousand years has made him practically Fae himself, so there's no angsting involved, and it doesn't exactly count as much as it did when they first fell in love. I've also inverted it with my male Fae/female human pairing in _Winter's Queen_, but then again, it's not so much a romance as a forced marriage with a bride who hates the groom's guts. Then there's my male vampire/female human couple, which is subverted when the vampire bites his wife in their wedding bed, and she promptly leaves him as soon as she turns into a vampire and wakes up.


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## T.Allen.Smith (May 23, 2012)

I've always thought that entertainment of any form leans in the direction of the female ideal & the imperfect male.

You see it in novels, movies, TV (Everybody Loves Raymond). It's a very common approach because it's easily identified with. 

That being said, it would be interesting to reverse the standard by having a female (imperfect) human in love with a elven (superior) male. Lots of potential for conflict there which moves away from the "But I will die & you will live forever" cliche.


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## Hans (May 23, 2012)

Vilkas The Mighty Wolf said:


> But then it occurred to me that the human-elf love story shows up in a lot of fantasy books (LotR etc...)
> so is it a little not-original idea to use?


Let me ask an other question: Is the love story between two humans, man and woman, too worn out? It has been done lots more time than Human/Elf.
The question that matters is: What do you do with the relationship? Are the characters interesting?
There are lots of possible stories with an Human/Elf relationship. One single aspekt of a story does not create/destroy originality.


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## Feo Takahari (May 23, 2012)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I've always thought that entertainment of any form leans in the direction of the female ideal & the imperfect male.
> 
> You see it in novels, movies, TV (Everybody Loves Raymond). It's a very common approach because it's easily identified with.



In general, the human is whichever gender the majority of readers are. Paranormal romances like _Twilight_ mostly have human females with nonhuman males.


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## Penpilot (May 23, 2012)

Has it been done? Yes. Is it worn out? No. Nothing is worn out if you write it well. If you want to do some trailblazing, I don't recall there being too man Human/Troll romances, or Human/Orc romances. What about Human/Ent romance? For the sake of taste, I'll draw the line at farm animals.


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## T.Allen.Smith (May 23, 2012)

Feo Takahari said:
			
		

> In general, the human is whichever gender the majority of readers are. Paranormal romances like Twilight mostly have human females with nonhuman males.



Although I was being general across all levels of media (not gender focused). Your point, Feo, is a good one and explains the prevalence of human male + elven female well.


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## Feo Takahari (May 24, 2012)

Penpilot said:


> Has it been done? Yes. Is it worn out? No. Nothing is worn out if you write it well. If you want to do some trailblazing, I don't recall there being too man Human/Troll romances, or Human/Orc romances. What about Human/Ent romance? For the sake of taste, I'll draw the line at farm animals.



Phil Foglio has done human/troll, and I've done human/orc. I haven't seen ent, but I've seen dryad a few times. As for farm animals . . . No comment.


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## Ireth (May 24, 2012)

I've heard of an elf/Ent romance in fanfiction... between Galadriel and Treebeard.  I've also heard of Boromir/Bill the pony. *shudder*


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## Aravelle (May 24, 2012)

I like to think pairings -or even writing itself- is a bit like a cooking competition- you can make the same dish as everyone else, but if yours is has a distinctness or unique twist on it, you really can't go wrong. Personally, I'm a total sucker for interspecies relationships, one of my own pairings is a mermaid and a human [at least, I think he is. ]. With some shame, I admit that I enjoy a healthy dose of angst. I think that you tread on thin ice when pairing a elf and human together, but it can be done right.


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## Penpilot (May 24, 2012)

Thinking on this a little, interspecies relationships are just a variation on the old star-crossed lovers story, eg Romeo and Juliet. Many reasons for why they can't or shouldn't be together but only one, love. Cue the tears and dramatic and sad music.


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## Justme (May 24, 2012)

Love stories can never be worn out, but I think one between historically incompatible races might be more interesting. Maybe a human and an Orc or Goblin.


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## Aravelle (May 25, 2012)

Justme said:


> Love stories can never be worn out, but I think one between historically uncompilable races might be more interesting. Maybe a human and an Orc or Goblin.



I thoroughly agree that it would be interesting, but is it appealing? I like the idea of it, but think I'd be a bit reluctant to read [of course, there are other factors that would play into that]. I'm not saying all interspecies and/or star crossed lovers have to be aesthetically pleasing, it's just... unusual, if that makes sense.


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## Jabrosky (May 25, 2012)

Ireth said:


> One thing I've always wondered about human/elf relationships and the like is why, nine times out of ten, the elf (or equivalent member of a superior culture/race) is female while the human/inferior race guy is male.


I've noticed that too and wonder why that is. I once wrote a very short story featuring an elf man in love with a human woman for a creative writing class, but the pair didn't last long due to the woman's husband finding out about his wife's infidelity. Unfortunately it wasn't my best story, as I really rushed it and had a very tight page limit to work with.


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## Cassia (May 27, 2012)

Just because others have used that you still can too.  Just make it have a twist...maybe someone finds out or something...


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## Steerpike (May 27, 2012)

Someone needs to do the ultimate star-crossed lovers story between a fire elemental and a dryad.


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## Feo Takahari (May 27, 2012)

I'm fairly certain I've seen fire elemental plus water elemental somewhere--maybe it was a B-plot in _The Woman Who Loved Reindeer_?


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## Kit (May 27, 2012)

I'm an Aries with Sag rising and I dated a triple Scorpio for a while- does that count?


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## Hans (May 28, 2012)

Feo Takahari said:


> I'm fairly certain I've seen fire elemental plus water elemental somewhere


I have written a short story about that last year. Actually it's a lake and a lava stream, but both represented by spirits.
I wanted to revise it again because critics brought up some valid points but haven't come around to do it yet. Is it ok to give a link here?


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## Feo Takahari (May 28, 2012)

Hans said:


> I have written a short story about that last year. Actually it's a lake and a lava stream, but both represented by spirits.
> I wanted to revise it again because critics brought up some valid points but haven't come around to do it yet. Is it ok to give a link here?



Once you've made the revisions, post it in the Showcase, and see if people think it's improved.


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## Hans (May 28, 2012)

Feo Takahari said:


> Once you've made the revisions, post it in the Showcase, and see if people think it's improved.


It is a German story so most probably will do no good posting it in an English forum. With a simple link i could write [German] into the link text so anybody who can not read that language and can not be bothered with a translation tool does not need to click on it.


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## Aravelle (May 28, 2012)

Kit said:


> I'm an Aries with Sag rising and I dated a triple Scorpio for a while- does that count?



...that's hot. XD


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## Kit (May 28, 2012)

Well, steamy at least.


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## Aravelle (May 29, 2012)

Hm, touche.


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## Devora (May 30, 2012)

To me, it's not what you use to tell a story, but how you tell it. Every writer, whether they admit it or not, consciously or unconsciously, use various tropes that have been played over and over again in almost every story, and many writers rehash the same stories that they've read over and over again.

I say a story's true merit is on how the writer tells it, not on the bits and pieces that he/she uses.


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## SeverinR (May 31, 2012)

Is a love story between a man and a woman worn out/cliche/ etc?

This is quickly becoming my pet peeve.

Before asking a question of the Fantasy Genre, ask it in real world.  

Are elves to cliche? Are Elf human love stories worn out? 
In the real world, do people still write about humans? yes, 99% of stories are about humans in the real life genres, so Fantasy humans(elves/dwarves/orcs/trolls/etc) can have endless stories also.
In the real world do people still write about star crossed lovers? yes. Do they write about rich men falling for poor ladies?yes.
royalty vs commoner romances?
If you can write it so as not to be a carbon copy of everything else written, it will not be the same worn out story, no matter what genre.

If you can write about humans, you can write about it with any other race ever thought of.


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## S J Lee (Jul 12, 2020)

ACTUALLY, Tolkien DID have a love story between a human woman and a male elf!
Finrod's (and Galadriel's) brother, Aegnor, was in love with Andreth, way back in the Silmarillion days. (the story didn't make it into the S, but it is in one of C Tolkien's many compendiums of T's "other" stuff - it seems almost fully finished
It's not a romance as such - but rather Finrod and Andreth, in Andreth's old age, teasing out the differences between elves and men...
Bottom line? They both knew they were in love, but nothing happened  
Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth - Tolkien Gateway

Andreth assumed its because Elves think humans aren't good enough, but F explains it is not so.
Aegnor would have stayed loyal til her old age and death - that is not the problem. BUT he knew he would pity her. AND he knew she would be angry with him for pitying her. And rather than have a love that ended in blame and anger, better not to marry at all. Andreth, now old and unmarried, is surprised. "But any human would have not worried about that - spending your good years in happiness would be worth any bad end."
"But elves don't think that way."
"Better he forget me and marry someone else long after I am gone"
"Don't be silly. He will never marry anyone else, not any more. You were his great love."

So - it's NOT just about male fantasies of the perfect, ageless beauty in a woman - or, it does not have to be.

All ideas have been done before - BUT the significance you imbue them with - your RIFF or TWIST - is your own


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## Penpilot (Jul 12, 2020)

Not trying to be the post policeman, but ummm... the OP was asked 8 years ago. I know some writers are slow, but if they haven’t figured it out by now, they probably never will.


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## S J Lee (Jul 12, 2020)

Ideas never die... more than just the OP are interested in the idea! The site brought it up for me to look at... so here we are!


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## ShadeZ (Jul 16, 2020)

Nope.


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