Elf and Asia culture

[xww]

Hey guys,When I was playing Elder Scroll 3(Morrwind),I found that there are lots of places that allude to Asian culture like Reincarnation，Dream of God，and Asian-style robe.It is strange to me as a Chinese to find so many Asia culture in a land of Elf. Because in fantasy culture circles of China and Japan,Elf is a a concept entirely of Western origin.

In fact，the word "Elf"itself is come form Norse mythology. And it is The Lord of the Rings, a novel which complete basic on Western Culture,which shaped the Elf of modern fantasy world.BUT today, there are ton of fantasy works like Warhammer,Warcraft,DND,and the Elder Scroll, relate Elf to Asia Culture. Some are intentional like High Elf in Warhammer Fantasy. Who live in a yin-yang island and uphold the concept of Balance. Or Night Elf in Warcraft 3 ,which use Torii (a holy symbol of Japan culture), to decorated their Moon Well.

Not to mention some……em……unfriendly stereotypes like high cheekbones, slanted eyes, mouse-like bread, clothing that confuses Chinese and Japanese styles, in some old school fantasy art like old DND book

Not to say I am offended.In fact lots of them are not hostile, and there are many Elf that just Norse Elf, But I am really curius about When and Why somebody relate a fiction so West to some thing so East,and why it become so papular

 

[SinghSong]

Hey guys,When I was playing Elder Scroll 3(Morrwind),I found that there are lots of places that allude to Asian culture like Reincarnation，Dream of God，and Asian-style robe.It is strange to me as a Chinese to find so many Asia culture in a land of Elf. Because in fantasy culture circles of China and Japan,Elf is a a concept entirely of Western origin.

In fact，the word "Elf"itself is come form Norse mythology. And it is The Lord of the Rings, a novel which complete basic on Western Culture,which shaped the Elf of modern fantasy world.BUT today, there are ton of fantasy works like Warhammer,Warcraft,DND,and the Elder Scroll, relate Elf to Asia Culture. Some are intentional like High Elf in Warhammer Fantasy. Who live in a yin-yang island and uphold the concept of Balance. Or Night Elf in Warcraft 3 ,which use Torii (a holy symbol of Japan culture), to decorated their Moon Well.

Not to mention some……em……unfriendly stereotypes like high cheekbones, slanted eyes, mouse-like bread, clothing that confuses Chinese and Japanese styles, in some old school fantasy art like old DND book

Not to say I am offended.In fact lots of them are not hostile, and there are many Elf that just Norse Elf, But I am really curius about When and Why somebody relate a fiction so West to some thing so East,and why it become so papular

Plenty of it can be traced back to D&D, which based their Drow/Dark Elves' culture heavily upon the Japanese accounts of the Tsuchigomo, themselves heavily identified with the Jōmon. Described as being "short in stature but long in limbs, with the temperament of a wolf and the heart of an owl, and living an uncivilized life", who refused to obey the imperial court and lived underground in burrows and caverns 'like spiders'. 'Tsuchigomo' roughly translates as "those who hide in the ground", and refers to the common practice among the 'Black Asian Jomon' aboriginal peoples of Japan of utilizing existing cave systems and creating fortified hollow earthen mounds for both residential and military purposes. This implies that the use of this name for renegade clans began essentially as a derogatory racist pun, becoming allegory, and over time after their passing (/genocidal extermination, depending on how one takes the tales of how they were overcome), became the basis for mythological tales surrounding a literal race of intelligent, occasionally anthropomorphic, monstrous and inhuman 'spider-people' (being the reason why Spiders are sacred to the Drow in-game).

The DNA of a few of the 'Black Jomon' people has been sequenced, enabling people to confirm that they were indeed dark-skinned (as one should expect of the original natives of the Japanese archipelago, given it's latitude and levels of insolation, comparable to those of North Africa, Iraq and Arizona), but still overly prone to sun-spots. Thus, it made sense for them (and in turn, the 'Dark Elves' based upon them) to shelter from the sun and prefer staying in the shade (as almost all dark-skinned peoples who live in deserts and/or near the equator do IRL). Living underground doesn't make one more pale-skinned unless you're white (i.e, no element of sun-tanning); anyone born with dark skin knows full well that they won't get, don't get, and never have gotten 'more pale-skinned' from being deprived of sunlight (just ask the myriads of enslaved black mine workers). Out in the open air though, with the sun blazing down from above, whilst dark-skinned people won't get sunburned as quickly, they're still susceptible to sun-induced damage, such as sun-spots, wrinkles and cancer; some of them (the Black Jomon included) even more so than the average White person.

Translating this to the depiction of 'Dark Elves', it still makes sense for the Dark Elves to live underground no matter how dark-skinned they are; perhaps even more so, the more dark-skinned that they are (implying that the levels of sunlight/solar radiation are correspondingly higher). After all, they live far longer than humans; and how haggard, wrinkled and blotchy do you reckon that your skin'd get after 200-300yrs, unless you took precautions to protect it from sun-induced damage (the easiest of which is simply to stay indoors)? And it's now also been confirmed by science that the Black Jomon had thin curly hair, with genetic markers indicating that they could, and often did, have brown and blonde hair shades as well, along with the potential for eye colors other than brown, much like Melanesians do (so even if it is "just a weeb excuse to have light-haired brown-skinned girls cause that's what they're into", their depiction actually has a fairly legitimate scientific basis). Along with an abnormally high tolerance for alcohol, and unusually wet earwax (which got carried into myth, leading to the Japanese Elf trope/double-entendre which depicts their ears as highly erogenous zones; and which also got lost in translation, leading the D&D team, and subsequent pop-culture depictions, to portray Elves as being more hedonistic and sexually depraved than humans). The more you know...

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I tend to base my elves on whatever their culture needs.
Some of my elves are British.
Some of them are Asian
Some of them are Gym bros who are all about them Gains.

Letting some big name author decide how I should write my Elves sounds...not fun?

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

That being said, nothing stopping you from following the 'classical' depiction of elves either. Again, your story, do what you want.
It's just I play a ton of RPG's and the ones that do have "elves" in them tend to be of the Tolkien variety.(Especially Skyrim games)

Mainly my point is, at the end of the day they're just wizened, long lived humans with pointy ears, do whatever you want with them~

Heck, you don't even need to call them 'elves' like Nintendo calls them Hylians but they're very clearly elves. Zelda has a few elf species too like the Minish, who are closer to pixies than proper elves.

 

[pmmg]

I was unaware of this, but SinghSong's answer seems like a good one.

I think its just cause its different, and people want to make them seem exotic and far away.

I have noticed the opposite. How much that comes out of that area of the world that seems very westernized. I think the world it just melting things together. An inevitable result of less separation over time.