Which Elves are more appealing?

[King_Cagn]

Wherever a writers boarders into high or dark fantasy and want to incorporate elves into the story, they either have the 'anti-social' ancient elves that somewhat lost their grand immortality, hate humans and feel like they were robbed of their land or they have the empirical race of elves that end up being tyrannical, hate humans and always want tax from them. Hahaha...

I was wondering which type of elves are more appealing to you, or which elves you'd like to see in worlds.

 

[Jabrosky]

I like the imperialist elves myself. Aren't elves stereotyped as a good race anyway?

 

[King_Cagn]

They're stereotyped as the, 'great race before humanity came along and messed it all up', ...

 

[McBeardstache the Hairy]

I prefer neither stereotype. I like to have my own reasons for how my races interact with each other. In my WIP, I have Elves as a proud warrior race who were never greater than the other races, contrasted by the diplomatic and machine minded dwarves and the politically diverse and secretive humans.

Stereotypes are rarely a good thing to fall into. When used well they can be a boon, but one should always try their best to create something new when the opportunity arises. That's my philosophy.

 

[Alexandra]

I don't care for stereotypes, elven or otherwise. The elves in The Songs... are immortal but they are not numerous (long-living creatures tend to have low birth rates); elves are believed (erroneously) to have an affinity for magick; elven Great Houses are usually matriarchies but there are a few upstart patriarchies. My elves are not by default aloof, imperialist, great warriors or mysterious; each elven character is a unique individual, each Great House has its own character. None of my elves look like Legolas or Galadriel from the LotR movies however Liv Tyler's Arwen could pass.

 

[Gurkhal]

I like Tolkien's Noldor the best and would use them as basis for any elves that I would write about. Basically good guys but deeply flawed.

 

[Abbas-Al-Morim]

I prefer neither stereotype. I like to have my own reasons for how my races interact with each other. In my WIP, I have Elves as a proud warrior race who were never greater than the other races, contrasted by the diplomatic and machine minded dwarves and the politically diverse and secretive humans.

Stereotypes are rarely a good thing to fall into. When used well they can be a boon, but one should always try their best to create something new when the opportunity arises. That's my philosophy.

I find it ironic that you speak out against stereotype, but your races do conform to standard tropes. I don't mean to criticize your creativity, but it's just something I noticed. Elves are often portrayed as elegant warriors with a proud - almost arrogant - attitude. Dwarves are rarely diplomatic (you deviate from stereotype here) but they are universally portrayed as great builders, craftsmen and engineers. And humans are often seen as diverse, with individuals taking some of the good and bad traits of the other races but without a clear characteristic for the race as a whole.

It seems to me stereotypes are quite hard to avoid. I think it's best to study what stereotypes there are and to use that information to put your own twist onto it. That's just the way I see things.

I also tend to stay away from giving my races "(semi-)universal traits". I find it important to make a distinction between race and culture.

 

[McBeardstache the Hairy]

I find it ironic that you speak out against stereotype, but your races do conform to standard tropes. I don't mean to criticize your creativity, but it's just something I noticed. Elves are often portrayed as elegant warriors with a proud - almost arrogant - attitude. Dwarves are rarely diplomatic (you deviate from stereotype here) but they are universally portrayed as great builders, craftsmen and engineers. And humans are often seen as diverse, with individuals taking some of the good and bad traits of the other races but without a clear characteristic for the race as a whole.

It seems to me stereotypes are quite hard to avoid. I think it's best to study what stereotypes there are and to use that information to put your own twist onto it. That's just the way I see things.

I also tend to stay away from giving my races "(semi-)universal traits". I find it important to make a distinction between race and culture.

Seems I wasn't quite clear. I said I like to give my own reasons for why races interact. Each trope I use has its own back story for as to why it's present. Unlike just straight stereotypes, which provide no explanation for why a race behaves the way they do.

There were many other instances of deviation, such as humans being the most powerful practitioners of magic as opposed to Elves, Elves essentially being the best warriors in the world and having relatively no culture or magical influence, dwarves have incredible intellect but virtually no physical strength and are actually normal sized. However, I did not wish to create a wall of text.

I still believe that stereotypes should be avoided when they can. Creative thought is always better than borrowing traits.

 

[Saigonnus]

I think like humans, elves and dwarves and orcs etc... are better portrayed as neither "good" nor "bad" but a mixture of the two; basically there will always be some of each race that is "evil", some that are "good" and the rest being simply normal folks just living life. I find it unrealistic to assign general traits for a race that should be diversely portrayed just like humans typically are, or as I've mentioned before in other posts, to stick them in a stereotypical geographic location. Doing so limits the creativity of what is possible within a species. If all elves are so aloof/insular and live in forests that provide everything they need, what reason would they have to leave? or trade with the other races? even associate with them in general?