If you're an elf fan, I'd recommend watching the full video before getting too angry haha, there are ~layers~ to this take. Also, I've got an extra-special companion video to where I take you through my 'ULTIMATE ELF TIER LIST!' Catch it exclusively on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/curiousarchive-the-ultimate-elf-tier-list
*a goblin and a elf eating tacos* Goblin: wow we should eat here more often, it’s such a good time. Waiter: hi is everything doing alright today? Elf: yeah guess you could say TACO ABOUT A GOOD TIME Waiter: *GET OUT* !
@@Raycheetah People are always getting Tolkien's stuff wrong. Tolkien didn't write dwarves as some kind of stereotypical race of short grumpy Scotsmen either. We're also told that elves were often mirthful and sang and laughed a lot. Elrond is described as kind and of good humor. Edit: fixed typos
I love how Friren Beyond Journey end explores elfs. There are three elfs we meet trough out the show, and they all share one common trait related to their (near) immortality, they are all sloths. Friren is the obvious one, since they make fun of her being lazy and wanting to sleep in, but Fern constantly has to remind her that she does not have time to spend a year in a village just loafing around, she is mortal. And it makes sense that she would get mad at Friren for disregarding her lifetime so casually, because Friren raised Fern in what to her was a sleepover at Heiter's place. The next one we meet is Kraft, the traveling monk, who casually bunkers down with the party over winter, then casually brings up that he is a legendary hero of ancient history, then leaves like nothing ever happen, and like he would meet up with them some other time. And then the last one is Serie, the arch mage who might as well have invented magic, yet refuse to take on an apprentice because they will all just die anyways, yet she took Flamme (Frirens teacher) under her wing, only to have her fears proven right, as just as fast Flamme came to fame and ascended to the legends, so did she vanish without changing anything, Flamme did not get killed, or fell to illness, no it was time that took her. Then at the end of the school arc, Serie meet Fern, the descendent of her choice to train Flamme. Fern beckoning in the age of Men, showing that Elfs were no longer the strongest mages, showing Serie the impact Flamme had by teaching Friren, who then became the teacher of Fern. In a sense, Friren: Beyond journeys end, is not just an exploration of Friren learning to value life, but how time is always progressing, even if to an Elf, everything stay the same.
4 actually. Idk about the show but she was shown in the new chapters of the manga. She's dead though. Also Serie still continued to take in apprentices after Flamme died.
Sir Terry Pratchett on elves “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."
There was another aspect to Tolkien's Elves that stopped them from being insufferable: they were just as fallible and prone to faults, flaws and failings as 'mortals' were. They are just as prone to greed, to jealousy, and anger as we are. They are also prone to overindulgence in things like alcohol, too. And whilst they were apparently immortal, and immune to disease, they weren't immune to fatal injuries, inflicted in battle or received entirely by accident. In this, Tolkien was very clever, for whilst some of his elves acted as if they felt superior to everyone else, what happens to them makes it clear they were far from it!
Lore wise Elves might be gifted to be immortal, but their souls aren't, their souls are bounded to the earth even when they die. While men who are mortal, but their souls are Immortal when they die, their soul goes to the unknown. This indicated we shouldn't be jealous of what others possess
They still live too long for that. A billion things can kill you, taking out age related diseases still isnt going to make your average lifespan in the thousands.
Legolas is hundreds, if not thousands of years old (depending on source/reddit people theories). I'd hardly say his combat prowess is "effortless" - he's likely trained for many lifetimes of regular humans. And if you lived through the literal rise and fall of civilizations, watching people make the same decisions that lead to their downfall over and over, you'd probably be pretty sick of people too.
Their life span is a narrative choice that adds into the overall idea that Elves are literally conceptualized to be superior for no other reason than... "because they're Elves".
Im pretty sure in the book it says that the humans (Aragorn and Boromir) manage to kill more orcs than everyone in the fellowship, including Legolas, and Legolas is on the same level as Gimli with the whole kill count competition. So all of Legolas matrix struff comes from the movies.
Fun fact: in the book gimli is able to run long distances without tiring bc dwarves have greater endurance than at least humans, if not elves. It's a bit of nuance that i would have liked kept in the peter Jackson films
PJ also kind of flipped Legolas and Gimlis personality from the books whereLegolas is the funny comic relief and Gimli is more stoic and serious. I think PJ perpetuated the idea of elves being stoic and serious but is completely opposite in the books. Elves wear their emotions on their sleeves, they are absolute drama queens and love to sing and be silly (and also be kin slaying psychopaths)
I remember describing how Rings of Power doesn't understand hoe Tolkien's Elves work; the Elves of Middle Earth don't appear arrogant or stand-offish because of any innate feeling of superiority (most of the time) but because when you have an immortal being that is at least 2000 years older than any mortal they interreact with they have already been there, done that (usually several times) and got the tee-shirt. Thusly even when addressing a council of the wisest and most venerable humans, to an elf it's like talking to children that are having a squabble in the sandbox. I think Hugo Weaving did a great job portraying thins; when Elrond is talking to someone he's not unkind but you can tell that he's handling these people differently, speaking a lot slower, more articulated, and not an ounce of irony to be had vs when he's talking to Gandalf that all drops because the adults are talking now.
Something I like about Tolkein's elves is well, I can understand why they have the attitudes they have. It can be summed up quite well with this quote from Adventure Time: "Everything repeats over and over again. No one learns anything because no one lives long enough to see the pattern." The elves are *frustrated,* they are tired of mortals always making the same mistakes repeatedly within a single elven lifetime which combined with how they see how the magic of the world has withered away within living memory is going to impact their attitudes.
The Alfheim Gazetteer was pretty good at this also. Something like, the humans of Darokin might think a matter is of urgency; but the long lived elves in the Republic's territory might figure it can be put off tomorrow - or next week, or next year. Many of them remember a time before Darokin and they obviously survived that.
Very true Elrond was there '3000 years ago' when men were super chad Numenoreans and saw first hand that even they barely cut it - it's understandable that he'd say men are weak now when he saw them in their absolute prime
yet they refuse to take accountability. "I am so much smarter than you, but I will jealously guard my knowledge instead of sharing it with you, yet I will call you stupid for not knowing it." is it no wonder everyone hates them.
@@KossolaxtheForesworn would you share the secrets of industrial chemistry to the warring states of the Middle Ages, or hide it from them in fear that they would just kill one another far more efficaciously?
The thing with Tolkien's elves is that they're basically just what humans would be like if they were immortal. All their skills and weird magical creations are not some inborn specialness, they're the result of a person being given effectively infinite time to train up one particular skill. The elves of Lothlorien can't bake Lembas because they're special and they have special ovens and their special elf hands make the best bread around, but because that particular baker has been baking and refining their craft for thousands of years, to the point where "normal bread" became "bread so good it will sate you for a month and burn those who are evil if they try to eat it". Same for their smithing, it's not because they have special elf magic, but because their smiths have been smiths for millennia, and in some cases, learned from the literal god of smithing. So it's not that an elf is born superior, but that an elf has unlimited time to become the best version of themselves they could possibly be. The fact that they're not inherently better is exemplified by how Thranduil treats the dwarves in the Hobbit, for example - he's a major jerk for no reason except pettiness. Or Arwen, who chooses the gift of men, sacrificing her immortality for the sake of love.
Yes and no. It is implied in Tolkien’s works that Elves are more powerful than men, especially in the earlier eras they literally fought with Gods alike. Tolkien intended for them to become a guide for humanity, basically like a big brother for them. But that doesn’t mean all of them are automatically born with power or as exceptional as the prominent figures, like you said their heightened talents are honed with years of perfecting their craft as well. Not to mention them living and learning from the Valar during their early years. Feanor the creator of Silmarils and Tengwar script himself is born with talent, but not with the knowledge and skill of a powerful craftsman at birth. He was a student of Mahtan - a great smith who learned from the God of Smiths himself - first before becoming one if not, the greatest elven smith to have ever lived. They just had a huge upper-hand compared to humanity.
Well they also have supernatural attributes like Farsight and they can use their own hair for bowstrings as examples. Not only that but they’re given specific favor and rewards from the Valar. They more or less had metaphorical silver spoons so they always had higher standing to others, they also have innate magical ability that even lowborn elves possess.
More like humans were what Elves would be if they had short lives, only caring for short term goals, or just trying to be part of something much greater than themselves most of the time.
Speaking of dwarves and elves, I imagine that they are highly derived descendants of stem testudines and non mammalian therapsids (either Therocephalians or non mammalian cynodonts) respectively.
It's funny how Dwarf-loving redditors favorite race is one of the most boring and bland Fantasy races of all time. Fantasy races are literally all the same in basically every game or story and I am sick of seeing them. Writers need to gain some creativity and make new races, or at the bare minimum, try and make your Dwarves and Elves unique. This one TH-camr came up with a brilliant and unique version of Dwarves that are infinitely better than the drunk Scottish midgets we are forced to interact with. They didn't look human, when they sat down, they'd fold up into what looks like a pot. Creativity is desperately needed in Fantasy right now.
I really like the way The Dragon Prince approaches elves beyond just having unique designs (four fingers, different horns and types of ears, etc). They are born with a connection to their magic system, and humans are not, but not all elves are natural mages or particularly care, and they have a variety of jobs (blacksmithing, Moon elves using their illusionist powers for being assassins, guards, etc). There's civil wars and critiques of their staunch isolationism, and while some elves live incredibly long, it's not the norm and varies from type to type
Breath of the wild Link is an olympic athlete on freaking drugs. Bro wakes up from a 100 year slumber and immediately start running all over the place, jumping like a madman, fighting the first monster he sees with a fucking stick, and climbing mountains. Like if you did what Link did in a day, you'd end up feeling sore for a month. Dude is absolutely BUILT DIFFERENT.
@@qwertydavid8070well said, nobody ever said Link has the Triforce of Wisdom 😂 the dude has two main powers, connected to each other: saved games - you cannot kill him in a way that matters - and the absolute _balls_ that come with that knowledge: “Courage”
@@Alexander_Grantreading this i will give you a fun fact: dwarfs in norse mythology were often synonymous with svaltarfars so black elves meaning that elves and dwarfs are potentialy at least in origin one and the same
@@diooverheaven6561 I think it's more just a fun conversation for me, but that is an interesting fact. Dwarf Fortress did it to me, it's always been funny to me. I've never really delved into mythology all that much. One of my favorite things that came from that is that one picture "I am angry. ANGRY ABOUT ELVES." I don't take it as seriously as a lot of people do.
@@Alexander_Grant for me it's also just fun things. I will also say that name for dwarf- krasnolud is interesting because it came when Polish translation of Hobbit came out as you see original word was krasnoludek wich now is used for more for red cap from dnd. You see "krasnolud" roughly would translate to "red man" and "krasnoludek" to "red little man".
Fun little fact concerning the love of Space Elves: The origin of the word "Eldritch" is actually 'Elvish' or 'Elf Land', which points more to the older, fae-elves from folklore fittng the "alien" trope pretty closely - mysterious otherworldly beings, strange powers, lights in the skies and utterly different morals and goals
Many of elven tropes are fears of extremes, xenophobia, losing ourselves through the march of time, an inability to create new connections due to differences between ages, immortal or not. Elven writing is essentially an exercise in "How might we handle... becoming more, would we do so with grace and humility, or fall victim to hubris and arrogance, devolving into isolation and madness?" It's not about them, it's about us, and where humanity is headed. Many forms of fantastical media can act as lenses by which we express our own worries, often about questions we cannot answer without experience.
Shadowbane was a mmorpg that had a very cool take on Elves; they were evil enslaving dickheads. They called their kingdom The Immortal Empire or Deathless Empire or something like that. That their lifespan automatically made them superior and they subjugated any they could.
That's a fair take, though I do feel as they are humans amd humans are empirically really bad at actually expecting how things turn out that the reflection is often really shallow? Or at least flawed in several ways
The Pathfinder take on Elves is interesting. They are not quite immortal but very long lived. When a magic catastrophe almost destroyed the world, the Elves retreated to another. When they returned they found out that not only did many races survive but their old homeland now belongs to various other races. Which left them quite bitter and isolationist with a faction arguing about causing another world wide catastrophe just to cleanse the land of everyone else. Not all Elves are this level of bitter and selfish, but the ones who choose to live among other races see friends and loved ones pass away almost in a blink of an eye. An Elven child sees their friends grow up and become adults while she will remain a child for many more years.
I think you put it perfectly. Fantasy serves to explore the potential of humans under fantastical circumstances, even if that means they'll be depicted as a fantastical species. Aa a writer, this really resonates with me and I'll keep this in mind.
Ever since my first box of plastic Warhammer fantasy Dwarves I have know "There is nothing as sure in the world as the glitter of gold and the treachery of elves."
Warhammer Fantasy is actually where this idea of asshole Elves comes from. The specific way GW copied Tolkien became the standard for western fantasy. Thats why so many settings have Elves and Dwarfs at odds. Because of the War of the Beard in Warhammer Fantasy. Maliketh isn't just a treacherous asshole, he's so treacherous he created an Elf/Dwarf conflict in all of western fantasy. Yeah, Tolkien had some friction between the two, but the classic "Dwarfs and Elves hate each other" thing is all Warhammer.
@@ASpaceOstrich not really. the conflict between elves and dwarves is an ancient one reflecting the battle of good vs evil or light vs darkness. in the Prose Edda - Snorri Sturleson's accounts of Norse myth, and the Poetic Edda - an independent collection of Norse mythical poetry, the dökkálfar/svartálfar ("dark elves", underground dwellers from whom "modern" dwarves are derived) and the ljósálfar (light elves) are constantly at war. Sturleson was *definitely* projecting Christian values onto the myths as he compiled the Prose, but still. these works were 700-1000 years before Warhammer, and are based on much, much older archetypes.
@@PanEtRosa Yeah, but nobody in modern fantasy writing is basing their Elves and Dwarfs on that. They're basing it on Tolkien and the general modern cultural idea of those. That modern cultural idea is largely defined by the tropes codified in Warhammer Fantasy.
I like Tolkien Elves because they're basically older, wiser, biologically immortal humans that in spite of their great age and wisdom, are still prone to the same pettiness, selfish and misguided behaviour as their "little brother", i.e. humankind. And while human suffering is tied to our short, mortal existence, elves suffer because they are physically bound to the world, a world that is constantly changing faster that they can adapt to it, in spite of their futile attempts to preserve what they love, causing them much sorrow. It's why the intimate relationships between humans and Elves is so rare, and so painful. It's nuanced - the relationship between humanity and elves. And Elves are just another flawed form of life capable of goodness or great acts of evil just like humans.
This is why Arwen's love for Aragorn is considered a death sentence to her people. As all other elves move on to the Undying Lands where time stands still and world doesn't change, Arwen stays behind, and lives with Aragorn as his Queen. She is destined to die young by Elven standards due to her deep connection to Aragorn. While he is of Numenorian descent and will live a long life, he will die, and soon after so will she. It's such an interesting facet of Tolkien's Elves that not many people seem to point out.
This is why I love the Silmarilion so much. [SPOILERS] It's the tale of extremely powerful and wise immortal beings being worse than any human in the story because of something as simple and human as greed. Feanor and his sons are such fascinating and nuanced characters, the traditional spiteful, petty elves, except they're that way due to their own actions. Then there's the opposite side of the coin with Finrod sacrificing himself, a king of a great and prosperous elven realm sacrificing himself to save some dude he'd just met. All of which being enhanced by who they are, lines of kings get complicated, whole realms hang entirely on one guy, but can still last and prosper, some turn to eternal wandering or are given sisyphean tasks, like Earendil. Tolkien proved how much you can do with elves and their inherent traits, they really don't have to be boring.
I think we often look past the flaws of Dwarves and the like because their flaws are more relatable and close to home than those of elves, whose perfections and imperfections are both on totally different scales to humanity. Dwarves are jealous and spiteful, and stubborn as all hell, but they’re also loyal and honest to they’re core
Hypocracy gets people especially worked up, and more often than not, the flaws of elves are rooted in a belief in their own superiority, ie the belief that they aren't flawed at all.
Dwarves are the blue collar workers of the fantasy world, often with a lot fewer fantasy elements to the point of sometimes not even having magic at all, so even humans with all their wizards can come off as more fantasy than dwarves. While elves, like the video says, are the 1% elites, the best at everything and more. Its no wonder so many people choose them and why i dont like people that do.
I mean it's also a kind of unfortunate zeitgeist ignorance that stems from legitimate campaigns of info at the time. Like dwarves are affiliated often with a mining town imagery that actively had a lot of the actual owners sanitize or mitigate the work conditions, murders, disease and famine to draw more people to their work sites and to supress unionization efforts with a mixture of rugged individualism and "you aren't like those others you will strike it rich". Which worked well for helping to obscure the risk of being killed if you got lucky and then spending all your money on the company store to repay your debt when you did or lose it due to not having ready transport anywhere else Hobbits meanwhile have a mixture of being ordinary but inna very historically specific way of like actually pretty upper class English citizens. So it doesn't seem like the ideal of or for them really spread out much? There isn't as much of a easy cultural throughline for Hobbits to get flanderized.
I'd really love it if fantasy leaned more into the idea that regular people just cannot comprehend fey presences, so elves read like an alien encounter.
A lot of the more recent depictions of elves, in mainstream or even more niche media is that they are just another humanoid race. Pointy ear humans and not their more interesting fey and nature aligned aspects. I guess it's easier for an author to just make another human but slightly different so less effort has to be made for an interesting culture. Elves get the short end of the stick since this characterization is much more annoying than for example dwarfs (ROCK AND STONE BROTHERS). A well-written elf in a fantasy story could do wonders but a badly written one could sink the ship for a lot of people. I like elves so i wish they had more fun interpretations in media.
I think it stems from a desire to do something new and interesting with elves, and move away from them being super tropey. But it turns out doing something new and interesting is *hard*. Occasionally there's standout cases like Divinity's cannibal memory-tasting plantoid elves, but most are forgettable. I also think it's possible that the surge in the popularity of RPGs (tabletop and otherwise) has an influence - everyone wants to play *their* super special character without feeling limited, so the aggregate of all those characters trends towards elves basically being a visual aesthetic and not much else.
Yeah I think a lot of authors aren't aware of either the historical foundations or the actual implications of stuff like nature or being so long lived. Like Tolkien is notable in how he came up with the foundations first and then was actively relating them to a whole cultural mythos alongside the other races. So instead we do the easier thing and just kind of affiliate hem with our anxieties and concepts of a uper class and the dwarves of a lower class usually.
@@cass7448 a friend and I once had a thought that if elves are literally bound by soul to the land, they should be more animalistic. so the elves in our homebrew setting were animals that evolved with magic to speak for their kind who couldn't speak for themselves, and who adopted humanoid features because they served as liaisons between humans and the wild. another concept I saw in a story I read online ages ago was that elves were humans who had been possessed by nature spirits. they were innocent and playful rather than.... tired of immortality and of the world in general. I think there's still plenty of room for interesting ideas about elves! all it takes is for people to step a little outside the mainstream.
In defence of Legolas. I like it when elves are more skilled at anything, BECAUSE they had ages of experience in it, which isn't easy to showcase properly, but it's perfection that was deserved through hundreds of years 😅
I agree, from the mortal’s pov the elves are “good at everything”, but it makes perfect sense that after thousands of years of training and wars they would be OP
Also, Tolkien’s elves are generally only really good at one thing they’re passionate about. If you take an elf who is a master chef and press him into combat, he’ll be just as outmatched as a human. Also, the bodies of elves (and the physical raiments of the Ainur) are still made of normal matter. They aren’t like Superman or whatever. A battalion of orcs that crawled out of the ground a few weeks ago will overwhelm all but the strongest elf warriors.
Yeah, it would be awkward in my opinion if someone who's trained as a warrior for centuries would not fare a lot better than someone who picked up a weapon a couple of years ago.
And even "younger" elves would been taught by other elves, with centuries of experience. This is also why I don't elves being nobility is accurate. In general, it's not a matter of a few elves living a lavish lifestyle. Elves are insular, largely collectivist, and highly driven towards excellence, which is why everything they produce feels so monumentous.
Bruce Lee: *_" I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced that one kick 10,000 times. "_* Legolas: Perfected every single angle with his bow a 100.000 times.
You know what fantasy race is underutilized? Giants. Most of the time they are just “oh duh I’m a big dumb stoopid guy raaaaa!” Which still works for them. But I like it more when they act like normal people, just bigger. One Piece is a good example of this because most of the giants act normal, they’re just bigger. And they have a cool Viking/Norse vibe to them that I like.
That’s why I like giants in Warhammer Fantasy, wherein they used to be like kaiju-sized goliaths who were also highly-intelligent, immaculate craftsman, but owing to disasters involving ogres and a small gene-pool slowly degenerated into horrifically inbred belligerent drunks. They’re one of the most tragic tales in all of Warhammer Fantasy.
i tried something like that, my idea was that giants were effectively superior to humans in every way, bigger, stronger, smarter, all that. but they had one big weakness; they were solitary by nature and fundamentally incapable of forming anything resembling society. because of that any progress a giant made was largely lost when they died, while humanity were able to pass on knowledge to future generations and grow in a way the giants psychologically couldn't
I would also add Yetis to this. They're often like just feral animals in fantasy settings, but I would love to see a setting where Yeti's are a civilisation in their own right with their own history and culture. A people who took a slightly different route, like Neanderthals.
DnD actually has some interesting dynamics to Giants and their society. Though very rarely have I found a fiction to really get into the dynamics of giants
I think Adventure time does something similar with the characters of Billy and Canyon, they’re not giants in the modern sense, but they fill out more of a Gilgamesh-style culture hero, giant in the way ancient people conceptualised them, someone so big and heroic and legendary that they must be much bigger than normal people, and their size lends a feeling of greatness and mythology to their actions, even if they are just basically normal people
One thing people often overlook about Tolkien's elves is that their attitude towards mortals is more out of jealousy than anything else. It's a bit like the star athlete child who has never been in trouble with the law and has a promising career ahead of him being mad that his parents give all their attention to his flunky younger brother who's in and out of jail. The elves are perfect and immortal but they are tied to Middle Earth until its end. Meanwhile humans get to go hang out with daddy Eru when they die.
Was going to say the same thing. Elves are to the n-th degree in all temporal and physical things, but men have greater strength of soul: tenacity, passion, courage, etc. Elves are the firstborn, but Men are the favorite of Eru and that shakes their self-perception to its very core
@@tiagobelo4965 What misfortune? Have I forgotten something as I don't remember the elves really having a misfortune on their birth. Morgoth didn't really start mucking about for a while after.
@@grimjoker5572 see the Fictional History section of Wiki's article on "Elves in Middle Earth" for a good summary. it was fracturing and resentment among the elves that led to Morgoth.
To be fair Legolas did not have effortless skill its just that any and all training for his skill was finished thousands of years before the Lord of The Rings. Also, the hatred that Elves and Dwarfs have in LOTR is justified by a long history of both sides doing some pretty bad things to each other. So basically they both have good reason to distrust each other.
like the eldar of warhammer. train a thousand years to be master of skill, only to die instantly by getting shot in the face by a 15 year old guardsmans lasgun.
This is a trope i dont like, the idea that elves are so skilled because they have so long to train. You do not get infinitely better at things, you suffer diminishing returns, the best chess players in the world are not the most experienced, they are routinely trounced by far far younger players but so far no fantasy setting seems to even try to address this fact.
@@KossolaxtheForesworn This is literally one of the reasons knights died out; crossbows/guns just one shot your fancy elites; so fancy elites just become a waste, no matter how good you are you're one stray arrow from death
Tolkien Imo was the only person to do elves right without compromising elves aura of perfection. He literally spent decades trying to decide on how to represent them.
Tolkien made elves almost divine but they were not arrogant and could make mistakes. Like he said in the video the main characters in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were hobbits who represented everyday people without mythical powers and didn't have unmatched battle skills.
@@orangesilver4568 Tolkien's Elves aren't arrogant? Hmm, I dunno about that one my man, as there are plenty of arrogant Elves in Tolkien's Legendarium.
This is why I like the scandi way of distinquishing elves - we have "Alf" which are the small dumb kinda christmassy, or the ones who live on farmsteads, elves and we have "Elver" which are the perfect beautiful elves. We also called them "Ellefolk", but they were more eerie.
icelandic? in swedish like the rest of scandi we have the same distinction though the words seem almost flipped. "Alver" for the serious ones, "Älvor" are fairies. And "tomtar" for the christmas elfs/gnome-like, that could e silent helpers if properly gratiated and also do bad shit like making your animals sick or diseased for perceived slights in older folklore ..
That whole immortality curse is honestly a fairly cancerous idea. By that logic, better not get attached to anyone older than you, less healthy, or more risk taking or self sacrificing. Because the pains of loss are that great, and even lifetimes aren’t enough to stop each new relationship from getting more and more painful or less and less special. Or because life will get boring, in which case, we better start just signing off this mortal coil somewhere in our twenties, because people can already binge the top 100 works of art/media their attention spans can withstand, spoil themselves, and proclaim that society is dead because nothing feels new and good anymore.
I'd also like to bring up the Eldar from Warhammer 40k in this discussion. They are very much stereotypical elves, but with the added twist that not only are they going extinct, but they are literally eternally doomed because of their past behaviour.
Sams thing about going extinct can be said as well about elves from Witcher books In books elves are doing guerrilla warfare to have their own country, as well as big problem is their fertility. For some reason when elf tries to have kids with and elf it doesn't work for most of the time, but with humans it works perfectly This results in elves having almost no kids, their numbers are dwindling, and they are treated like trash in human cities
They were so perfect in every way, they defeated all of their enemies, solved all of their problems, and created a utopia for themselves. Then they got bored...
Sure they are going extinct, but they are just as arrogant and call you slurs any chance they get ("mon-keigh" is the name of an old species the Aeldari have exterminated before humanity emerged, and in their current language it's just used for any inferior species in need of exterminating).
I have never been a big fan of elves and dwarves but Frieren: Beyond Journey's End depicted them in a newer light that I really like. The elves in the show are not stuck on petty pride or past legacies but they just wandered around the world seeking knowledge and helping others. The dwarves aren't obsessed with mines or past legacies but proved themselves to be powerful warriors and extremely loyal friends.
Funfact in the books Hobbits are also very much superior to Humans. They too live longer than Humans and age much slower. The Hobbits are depicted as much wiser & mature and less innocently youthful like in the movies. And if you look closely they do have pointier ears. It all comes together. Pointy ear supremacy!!!!! Ray zysm!!! 😆
As you get older, you do realise that what matters most is the comfort of your home, resting by the fire with a belly full and good company by your side!
I do actually like them a lot when they are more unique and not just better humans with pointy ears™... The 40k Aeldari, warhammer fantasy elves, elder scrolls Mer and Divinity original sin ones all fall into the category of "actually interesting" for me.
Having different kinds of elves that all make fun of or outright hate each other is an underused trope, when the posh arrogant elves are a specific group of stuck-up ones that are broadly disliked by other elves lets you have the universal target of justified contempt while not having an entire species just be inherently annoying.
Dungeon Meshi also makes the fear of longevity one of Marcille's biggest facets as a character - she's a half-elf who ages differently from both regular elves and humans. She's already outlived her father, and frequently has nightmares of being chased by a monster that signifies the death of all her loved ones. Her status as a half-elf also causes her grief with the Canaries, who assume the worst in her for not being a full-blooded elf.
Eldar from Warhammer 40K are this trope played with self-awareness, now that I think of it. They murder-orgied so hard at the height of their empire that they spawned a god of actual toxic perfectionism and hedonistic addiction, so their entire species is responsible for a good chunk of why the setting is so grimdark. And even in the 41st Millenium, they regard other species the way you would regard a chimpanzee, with one entire faction of Dark Eldar literally feeding off the psychic energy given off by torture.
pretty much how Elder scrolls elves are half the messed up shit is their fault and the other half is Nords or redguard genociding them for it or just out of necassity. they not Birthed a God but the Deadra do use Elves for most of their evil Plot or are the ones serving the deadra Interests. Altmer/Ayleids being the Worst and us Dunmer being second worst elves Snow elves are Probably third but Nords wiped them out.
I immediately think of Marcille from dungeon meshi and how she is a capable and terrifying over powered presence when away from her friend group, but amongst people she cares about and can be vulnerable around she is far more “human” and fallible, she shows obvious flaws despite being an elf who really shouldn’t have any. Especially around her crush falin
Elves in dungeon meshi aren't as perfect as you would think. Spoiler alert: The leader of the canaries, Cuz of his former flaws condemned himself sorta. Non-related and unasked for : marcille has no crush on falin and I will die on that hill!!
Idk I see a throwaway comment supporting a ship and two bozos jumping ahead to complain that it was shoved down their throat. The comment was hardly forcing shipping down your throat. Triggered by a random shipper smh. Ofc it’s not canon, it’s just a throwaway comment. Let then have fun.
Gentlemen, I love elves. Gentlemen, I... love elves. Gentlemen. I... SO LOVE ELVES. I love Altmer. I love Dunmer. I love Bosmer. I love Dwemer. I love magic, I love trees, I love cannibalism, I love technology, I love calling people n'wah. On the Summerset Isles, in the streets of Blackreach, in the trenches of Morrowind, on the prairies of Valenwood, on the tundra of Skyrim, in the desert of Alik'r, on the seas of Pyandonea, In the sky beyond Oblivion. I cherish each and every Elves on this Kalpa.
Elves are fantastic, they induce Fantasy Elves are terrific, they induce Terror Sir Terry Pratchett has my favorite lore on Elves and why we feel we should like them and why we also are repulsed by them.
In lieu of sounding like the ultra nerd of the troupe, Elrond is actually a full elf even though he was born from the union of two half-elves. The reason why is that he (and his twin brother) where given a choice by the Valar to either have the Fate of Man or the Fate of Elves. Obviously, Elrond chose the fate of the elves. Funny enough, his twin brother (Elros) became the first King of Numenor. This means that Aragorn is his great, great, great.........great, great nephew. Make out of that what you want regarding Aragorn's marriage with Arwen.
Humans are arguably the strongest race. In most fiction we outnumbered them 100 to 1 and can advance so quickly we can achive the same level of power in 20 years that an elf in 200 We are scary because we adapt faster than magic you take a human out of its environment and in 100 years there is a village You do the same to another race and they are still arguing about who can sit closest to the water
@@diveblock2058 'weakness' in Elrond's statement, was clearly implying individual fortitude, lack of mental & physical immunity... petty, pitiable, corruptible, fleeting, infirm... 1-on-1 elves have us beat, but it's precisely because we never do 1-on-1 that humans thrive to surpass the other races. weakness is our strength, that we have to rise against our weakness with ingenuity, industriousness & by throwing our lives at the wall till it sticks... human survival is costly, we basically sacrifice ourselves en masse to the maw of the universe, in an effort to beat our clear disadvantages with raw human wave tactics.
When you said you were doing the Silmarillion, i choked and had to check the length of the video to make sure i hadn't signed up for a 6 hour lecture. XD i read that thing in high school and enjoyed it more than most of Tolkein's other works. It was a lot, but i didn't expect it to be an easy read. I also didn't expect to like it more than his more popular stuff. Passing the reading test afterwards was a feat of triumph im still proud of years later. Elves are a mess. Hahaha. They reflect us just as accurately as the Dwarves and the Hobbits in his work. I am glad you bring up scifi as well as fantasy and how we use the same archetypes (even the pointed ears) without calling them elves. Their struggle with their longevity and perfectionism is something we can empathize with. Ill have to go check out your nebula video, next.
This video should have also mentioned the Eldar of Warhammer 40k. They're the perfect example for the "I hate elves" topic, as they are a dying race, yet they pretend to be the strongest (and can't be blamed for it). I think it would have been interesting to mention them
It's odd because Warhammer Fantasy did it better. Because in that the elves can back up (most) of their haughty claims. But why can't Eldar ever succeed bleeds into problems with GW not letting Eldar get any Ws.
also because the Eldar basically caused everything after the war in heaven after they 'banged' so hard they literally created Slaanesh and opened the eye of terror so Chaos could start corrupting the universe.
Yeah basically everything since literally the dawn of time is their and the necrons' fault.. humanity wouldn't have gotten to off those who just wanted to be left alone if the Eldar didn't pull a Big Bang 2 - Erotoxin Jiggalo
Impractical terms those are not mutually exclusive. If you take a 75 ft giant who is shrinking and a 6-ft man who is growing the giant can be both diminishing in power and also still greater than the man, at least for the time being. Obviously power level comparisons between different factions in the WH40k universe can get very tricky (I'm trying to ascertain the actual strength of things like Necrons, Tyranids, and so on is very difficult) but from a narrative perspective it is possible for the Eldar to have been greatly diminished from their previous peak of power but still perhaps more powerful and knowledgeable than the other races. That said I think traditionally it is understood from a lower perspective that the Imperium as a whole is by far the strongest faction, within the confines of the galaxy, but is obviously never fighting with all of its strength concentrated but instead spread out over thousands of star systems with only the faint influence of the distant Emperor ever usually around, but theoretically able to crush any particular opponent - set aside those that are entirely within the warp - if it actually set its mind to it
@@taloscal This right here. Also, friendly reminder the Dark Eldar not the craftworld Eldar are the ones more who resemble the degenerate state of the Eldar dominion before The Fall.
I'm reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time after reading the Hobbit for the first time, and it's striking how the elves in Tolkien aren't at all like how other fantasy works depict them. Tolkien's Elves are in between lesser gods and demigods, and they tend to act surprisingly friendly with the Hobbits and company, sometimes even acting a little silly and more humorous
It's their opinion, I love elves and their variants very much, although the truth is that I don't consume many fantasy worlds so I wouldn't know very well what elves are like in other worlds.
before I get to the video my take on elves is ultimately this: Most people use elves out of obligation to tropes instead of with intent for them regarding their own story or world.
"Elf" has become easy shorthand for wise, beautiful, long-lived magic men. I don't think anyone feels forced to include them, it's just easy to use them if you need some magic race in your fantasy work, even if doing so comes with some baggage you'll now have to include as well.
My favorite rendition of "elves" in fantasy literature was in Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" series (I believe that was the name). The elf-analog in that series was an entirely alien species to humans. They really did feel like some different, almost immortal creature rather than humans with pointy ears. The way they viewed humans was really interesting, almost like how a human would view house pets that could talk. Some viewed humans with contempt, while others developed attachments, but _never_ anything romantic.
@@clowncargaming8046 In the lore someone did "research" and basically called em elves because of their pointed ears, I believe. A real "this plucked chicken is a featherless bipedal, therefore I present to you a man" moment.
yeah the forest elf/woodelf depiction is and always will be my fav like heck yeah give me a band of famer gatherers bopping through the woods sounds like a preem spot to take a break mid hike
The Elder Scrolls' depicition of elves will always be my personal favorite depictions. They're imperfect and flawed which is what i personally prefer when it comes to fantasy races, something grounded.
but they are right. Yes the hate for every other race is just not cool, but elves are the only spirits who maintained their memories from before the creation of the earth (nirn in tes) so they are way more qualified to say if the mortal plane is a good or bad thing: men don't even remember a time before it!
I would point out that once you've read the Silmarillion, that bit with Galadriel resisting temptation from the One Ring has a LOT more oomph. She was present at the Kinslaying (though I don't think she personally did any slaying, she was still there, she was still part of the responsible group, and she continued to follow that group instead of turning back). She saw the destruction of several elvish cities and kingdoms, saw the end of Beleriand and of Numenor. She has that vision of "all shall love me and despair" is absolutely a truth within her, and stems directly from the things she has seen and done and the people with whom she shares a bloodline. But the line right AFTER that vision: "I passed the test. I shall diminish, and go into the West...and remain Galadriel." She's one of the very last of the ones bearing the punishment for the Kinslaying and everything else. She's finally being granted the chance to TRULY go home. Every speck of her wisdom comes from the mistakes she made, the mistakes her cousins made. She has outlived even her own kind by a significant amount: no one else among the elves of Middle Earth has lost so many loved ones as Galadriel has. Her serenity in the face of the mountains of grief that lay across her shoulders is, to me, the least believable thing about her. And yet - with all of that said: Galadriel, and every other elf of Middle Earth, feels a slight envy for Men. For the elves know their fates, they know what happens when their bodies die, they know, on a level beyond doubting, what their place is in creation. Men have a different fate - and no one, not the elves, not the Valar, and certainly not Men themselves - knows what it is. To the elves, the Men are the special ones!
I always felt that Tolkien's elves were boring because they seem to have everything, but I didn't know they were naturally immortal until recently, and then I thought...why would these guys ever fight, or be warriors at all? If a race is naturally immortal, life and self preservation would be infinitely more precious than for mortals, so they would be more interesting if they were made natural cowards or traitors because of that
There is a reason (actually several reasons) for it: basically they were tricked into it. An evil deity introduced the concept of creating weapons, fighting and killing to them and then manipulated some of the more temperamental elves to point those weapons against their brethren. This, coupled with the fact that that same evil deity later tried, multiple times, to violently subjugate every single one of them, led them to pick up warfare and get more and more used to it, both for defensive and offensive reasons.
I love Elder Scrolls elves kind of because they lean into every different aspects with some insane twist added. Altmer (High Elves)? They're arrogant and great at magic, but they're overconfident and... also literal Nazis. Bosmer (Wood elves)? Amazing sharpshooters, love nature and they're agile, but they're also obligate carnivores and eat their dead as a show of respect. Dunmer (Dark Elves)? They're sneaky, good mages, and skilled warriors. Typical perfect elf... except they worship demons (daedra), live in inhospitable hellholes and they only exist because they were cursed by their chief deity. They are complex, unique and their cultures interact with the world perfectly despite retaining some of those stereotypes spread across their species. (Also I know Orcs are also technically elves in the Elder Scrolls but let's ignore that)
Its funny how while orcs are almost always depicted as the evil and corrupt race in fantasy and elves are the good and pure race, Elder Scrolls Orcs are probably the most chill and hospitable of the merfolk. I'd be friends with an Orc over an Altmer any day.
You forgot the average Dunmer, especially on Vvardenfell or in the south, is no better than a Thalmor justiciar. Dunmer are real, proper bastards. Only province on Tamriel with slavery. House Dres can burn.
The Bosmer are obligated to eat dead people because they made a pact with the forests of their homeland to not let flesh rot there, and they're so big on abiding by the pact they sometimes starve themselves so they can eat more dead people.
Even the Dwarves are elves: mysterious, ancient, almost beyond mortal comprehension, and separate from day-to-day life. And may have made really big "Tolkien elves" mistakes and are gone because of it.
"Also I know Orcs are also technically elves in the Elder Scrolls but let's ignore that" Why ignore that? That's an insane twist! I thought we liked an insane twist? 😅
I personally love Elves but I completely understand the hate. They are always made out to be these ethereal and flawless beings who are pretentious and believe they are better than everyone else. When do you see an Elven character or civilization that isn’t super fancy and high class? Most Elves portrayed are always the high class elves that we never see what “lower class” elves would look like. I saw a post once that said Legolas’s Elvish was actually very informal and could be compared to hillbilly talk amongst elves and I think that’s hilarious because the informal side of elves is never explored. Show us hill billy elves, or elves that are just normal people that don’t believe they are better than everyone else. The people want variety, show us the different status between sun elves, wood elves and other types. How do their cultures impact their life style? What elven races are considered top class and which aren’t? Just adding variety and straying away from the stereotypes would really boost the reputation of elves
You want girlfailure elves? Look no further than Sousou no Frieren! Meet Frieren! She's more than 1000 years old! She's the famed mage that helped defeat the Demon King! She still got tricked by mimics constantly! Her apprentice has to wake her up and feed her in the morning or she will sleep till noon! She's a loot goblin! She loves humans and their potential! (no like seriously this manga goes out of its way to drill into you how much more cooler humans are compared to elves) Other elves that had appeared in the anime include: one that is your typical better-than-thee elf that got called out in universe for her callousness (she gets better promise) and one that has been completely forgotten by history despite him saving the world once and now he turns to religion as his last anchor to keep going. Elves in SnF are really flawed. Like the series is hinged on how flawed they are. It started because of Frieren's apathy toward time and connections, something she's actively trying to overcome. Elves are also not portrayed as ethereally beautiful either; at least no one ever made a comment on or got impress by the elves' appearance. Their main quirk is their near immortal lifespan and how that affects their psychology. And contrary to most, it is because of her long life that Frieren admires humans so much. Here are people that would never live to a fraction of how long she had, but they have accomplished so much more than her. Because elves have the mindset of "we can delay things for decades, centuries even, for we have time" but humans don't, and so humans make the most of what little time they have, and they accomplished so many things. Anyway, WATCH FRIEREN! Or read! Just check it out I love it so much :,D
@@k.t.4613 THAT sounds like interesting interpretation of elves. Especially the “oh we have time, we don’t need to rush things” is such a cool concept for elven lifestyles. Like, Elves do have hundreds and hundreds of years to live (depending on the story it can differ) so why would they try to rush things? Also an elf being a loot goblin is so funny lol. I like to imagine elves are secretly hoarders because after living for so long they would just accumulate so many things and not want to part with them 😭
Even in the Lord of the Rings books, Lindir, an elf, said, and I quote, "To sheep other sheep no doubt appear different. Or to shepherds. But Mortals have not been our study. We have other business." They directly compared the other races of Middle Earth to farm animals, and if that doesn't say a lot unto itself, I don't know what does.
Small amount of context, Lindir was being asked to determine what parts of a lengthy poem were written by Bilbo, and what parts were Aragorn's. He couldn't tell, which Bilbo was teasing him about. This doesn't really change your point, but it sounds worse out of context.
@anthonylarocque7975 TBH it's not that bad at all when you think about it. This isn't the equivalent of a white guy saying "all Asians look alike." Elves and Hobbits are quite literally different species. In our world the closest equivalent would be a human not being able to tell two aliens apart. You probably wouldn't be able to tell the aliens apart if you don't interact with the species often, but with humans you can tell their faces apart at a glance because you're wired that way.
During my final exams, I had an oral exam in Polish on the topic "The figure of an elf in culture" ^^ If I remember correctly, and it was a dozen or so years ago xD, I had the beginning of a speech focusing on Nordic, Germanic and Celtic mythologies. From that I moved on to "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Then Tolkien of course, Sapkowski due to nationality and the topic of racial problems in "The Witcher Saga" ^^ I don't remember if I got into computer games, but I don't think so... In short, I had an awesome topic on my final exam ^^
Dark elves (a.k.a. Drow) in the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons and Dragons aren't very chill. A lot of the them worship one of the most evil gods of the setting (Lolth) and are cruel.
Dude I personally like the pre Tolkien elves of European folklore. They are terrifying. Like Tolkien describes they are incredibly beautiful/ethereal beings, but at the same time they steal children, ruin people’s lives through evil trickery, spread diseases ( elf shot), and even practice human sacrifice ( like depicted in the story of “Tam Lin”). They are the things that go bump in the night, harassing, kidnapping or murdering. Kind of a break from the stuck up, always morally good, pretentious fantasy elves we’ve grown accustomed to.
Many of those faerie, however, have morphed into other modern fantasy tropes. Goblins, brownies, redcap, trolls, pixies, so on and so forth were all bundled up under 'elf' or 'fey' or what not. Heck, in some mythos, dwarves were just another type of elf. I think part of the challenge is that modern 'elves' - and other fantastical creatures - have been so codified by Tolkien, Dungeons and Dragons, and following works that to claim that an elf being anything other than those things is either considered subversive, or rejected as 'incorrect', as opposed to, well... a needless categorization of something that doesn't even exist.
I'm actually incredibly glad for this, because I absolutely despise such depictions of fae. The concept of an alien other being reduced to such bs caveman level fears is gross and tedious.
to be fair Altmer are responable for half tamirel problems, Dawn era mortal plus Lorkhan/Shor race VS Elves and their Gods, Merethic era Nedes enslaved by Elves Ayleids, Three Banner war Manimarco Elf/ God Molag Bal, Arena Jagar Tharn Half elf and Elf evil dicator, Morrowind Papa Dagoth Ur and Evil cultist Tribunal/Wife Elves, Great War and thalmor war crimes Elves, Atlmer and Dunmer Enslaving Goblins and Other races Elfs, and Skyrim Alduin the World Eater Elven God of Time and the End need i list more since their a lot more i didn't cover. to be fair man has done bad as well but not nearly as bad as the elves at most human have genocided really bad elves and maybe attack the Orc a few to many times, and nearly Thanosed Elves with a Giant Robot. Twices......
@@AAZ-yu5ss Only if the Dragonborn doesn't get involved. The Thalmor want the Stormcloaks to wage a prolonged war that drains and weakens both sides. The Dragonborn showing up and sending the Empire packing within a year so Skyrim can get to work rebuilding.(Or I suppose the opposite, and crushing the Rebellion early, if you're an Imperial Milkdrinker) is far from the ideal outcome for the Thalmor.
@@AAZ-yu5ss not really, so many people forget that Skyrim as a Hole could invade cyrodiil and fully take it over if they wanted to, so long as the other province Don't get to much involved Skyrim has bean it own Empire Twice Rulling Skyrim Highrock and Morrowind, and then again Skyrim Cyrodiil High rock Hammerfell. people Forget that the Nord are the second best foot soldier in the Entire Empire second Only the Redguard/Orcs from a gameplay stand point. Current Era and Third era Imperial tactic are based on Nordic warfare training and kavirir teaching past down since the second Era.
This is kinda why I loved Frieren, being both an long lived being in some ways and in others a child. We only meet 2 other Elves in the first season of that series and the interactions between Frieren and her own race is barely above apathy and a "Yeah, see you in a century or two probably" before parting ways. One of the two elves we meet in the story even says how their race is slowly going extinct because theyre so long lived they dont feel the need to reproduce and that he thought they'd all already essentially died off. The three elves in featured in the season do also showcase the Specials treatment of elves, with Frieren and Serie being some of the best mages in their world, but Frieren barely even cares about that and would rather spend her time studying folk magic that people in small villages create. Then you add in that the whole plot of that show is Frieren realizing that her immortality has isolated her from those she was supposed to care for and it was to late to fix it so she goes on a journey to essentially become more human. Then it spends a LOT of time talking about how amazing Frieren finds humans and their ability to rapidly adapt as she is the one who states to an even longer lived elf that "The Era of Humans has arrived." Something I also noticed in that show is that their depictions of demons always lack that little white highlight in the eye anime use to show "life" basically, and the only other non-demon character who has that is Serie, the longer lived elf who if you ask me seems to have lost all the actual joy in life. Seriously if you havent checked out Frieren Beyond Journey's End and you like anime and fantasy, then it deserves some of your time.
The elves in frieren is not just a fancier version of human like how is portrayed in some shows . The focus is on their immortality, the fancy elvish part is not the focus. I think It is mostly how anime portray elves they are nature loving hippy but they are not really fancy they live very long but they don't really care things outside of their circle, they are more like fancy hobbit more than western elves like elves in skyrim.
@@anotherbacklog My other favorite depiction of elves are the ones in Dimension20 Fantasy High where they how effing weird and annoying high elves can be.
4:00 "Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I found, I found it is the Small Things everyday Deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay simple acts of kindness and love." - Gandalf
Elves in Frieren are my favorites, they are practically extinct, and implied to live for tens of thousands of years. The only reason they are better than humans is because they have more experience and practice, other then that and the ears, they are no different form a normal person
Elves, to me, have had this glass cannon nature to them since i became aware of their existence, yes they outclass almost everyone and everything in most things, but the way they seem to be on the verge of imploding when their culture comes face to face with the ever increasing changes of the world around them despite their calm and noble demeanor as well as how longevity seems to end up with different types of stagnation and nihilistic despair.
im glad as an elf enjoyer you also noticed the glory of dungeon meshi. I swear dungeon meshi is some of the best world building around. (the best to me personally)
1:06 i have never wanted to get the curiosity stream/nebula bundle more than just now. I made a list of my 5 all time favorite pieces of media as a recomendation to someone else. Frieren was on it and so was your series on Serina. This simple knowledge of the video is the best pitch for it i've yet seen.
Japan steals and ruins western fantasy and mythology. Frieren is another example of what happens when japanese steal and uglyfy things that don't belong to their culture.
I hope that some day you will release a video comparing different magical systems and how magic seems to have gone from more soft to hard in recent years. I'm thinking about magic systems created by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn), Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time), Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko (Avatar: The Last Airbender), but also Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) and Christopher Paolini (Eragon).
The thing you notice when going through Dungeon Meshi about the elves, and a lot of this has to do with the subtle world-building, is that you don't know a lot about them despite one of the main characters and one of the main antagonists for most of the story, are both elves that lived most of their lives among short-lived races (the catch-all term for sapient races in the world of dungeon meshi is "humans", this includes, among what we would call humans are called tall-men, half-foots the halfling/hobbit equivalent but have very short lifespans, dwarves, elves, gnomes which are different from half-foots, and sometimes because of fantasy racism, ogres, kobolds who are dog-people, and orcs; but we're splitting hairs). By the time we're introduced to an entire party of elves, they seem almost alien. They're all in uniform like an army unit, most of them are women, other characters reference "the elves of the west" in fear (as if they were talking about the KGB or Secret Police; which isn't entirely inaccurate), one of them is dark almost blue-skinned with golden eyes (which we haven't seen from an elf yet; the Mad Mage Thistle has brown skin, but all other elves we've seen, all 2-3 of them, and including most of this new party, are white-skinned with blonde or lighter-colored hair), and they've come to directly meet with the Lord of the Island (basically the highest authority around) to request, or rather order, that he hand over the island to their country. Two side-characters personally know and have had experiences with these specific elves and what they do. What we knew about these elves up to seeing them in negotiations is that having them show up would be the worst-case scenario for our main characters and everyone else. It's not that they think they're better than everyone else, they genuinely believe it. They know they're untouchable. That going against them would trigger a war, and they want that because they know they'd eventually win; the elves can live up to 400 years, double the span of the other long-lived races. Even if they can't overpower their enemies with whatever magic they have at their disposal (which the last war between elves and dwarves, they almost did win), they can surely outlast them in a battle of attrition. To them, it'd be like waiting-out a child throwing a tantrum; more of a nuisance than anything.
the only Elves I've ever loved have been the Night Elves from W3/World of Warcraft. They're unusual to your usual elf by being kinda feral, bizarre looking, and mysterious as opposed to just elegant, holier than thou, and swoopy.
Tolkien Elves are actually really cool, I just wanted to say. They are not just elegant and holier than thou. Tolkien described them to be beautiful, learned, wise and magical, sure, but also they're philosopher-warriors, taller, stronger, more "fell" than mortals. An Elf lord in armor is enough to drive fear in the hearts of other races. They look physically imposing and beautiful at the same time. Their women are taller too, Galadriel is 7 feet tall and was "of Amazonian disposition." They often sing, joke, laugh, dance in the starlight and make merriment. When people are in the company of Elves for a while, they begin to feel a sense of happiness and cheer, in fact. I feel like as much as I liked the Peter Jackson movies, he made them a little too one-sidedly stiff and ethereal.
@@Fear_the_Nog ??? I'm confused how Tolkien Elves, considered the trend-setter for almost all fantasy elves, aren't the exact image of annoyingly perfect pretty elves
@@magpie1466 Because they aren't. The so-called rest of the fantasy elves don't at all follow Tolkien's depiction of them much actually. Tolkien's Elves are culturally extremely diverse. Some are more like the Christmas elves in terms of how they act and behave, while others are more like tragic Greek heroes, still others like Norse gods and goddesses, and many are like the kings and queens from the Old Testament Bible. On the whole, they behave more like the Celtic Fair Folk or the stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann of Irish myth than what we think of as typical modern fantasy Elves. They don't have pointy ears or straight long hair for one, that was a Peter Jackson aesthetic. They are physically beautiful, but not "effeminate bourgeois fancy" and generally not annoying, but more depicted as sharp-eyed, forthright and happy. An Elven man in Tolkien's books looked more like an ancient Celtic/Anglo-Saxon hero a la Beowulf than some fancy-pants who snaps their fingers, lol. Tolkien said that his Elves are the same race as mortal humans biologically, so the whole being crazy long ears thing is not true for them at all. They looked like Mortal Men, but were generally fairer, paler in complexion, taller and stronger, and retained their youth forever. What made them distinct from Mortals was their spiritual fate, which was bound to the Earth and immortal, while Mortal souls depart the Earth upon death.
@@magpie1466 Because the trend setter for all of fantasy is actually Warhammer Fantasy. Games Workshop copied Tolkien. Everyone else copied Games Workshop. All modern fantasy tropes can be seen in Warhammer Fantasy, while only vaguely appearing in Tolkien. Because Warhammer is the *trope codifier* for modern fantasy.
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If you're an elf fan, I'd recommend watching the full video before getting too angry haha, there are ~layers~ to this take. Also, I've got an extra-special companion video to where I take you through my 'ULTIMATE ELF TIER LIST!' Catch it exclusively on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/curiousarchive-the-ultimate-elf-tier-list
Have you heard about Subnautica 2 & Rainworld: The Watcher?
I hope that video has more about The Dragon Prince in it.
*a goblin and a elf eating tacos*
Goblin: wow we should eat here more often, it’s such a good time.
Waiter: hi is everything doing alright today?
Elf: yeah guess you could say TACO ABOUT A GOOD TIME
Waiter: *GET OUT* !
Xenoblade series has space elfs in High Entia and Indoline and both are a deconstruct of elves.You should analyze it.
Honestly, a valid part 2 for this video is a breakdown of the space elves of Warhammer 40,000.
"If dwarves live underground, why do they like axes so much?"
"Because elves live in trees."
😂😂😂
According to Tolkien, it was the elves who invented axes, not dwarves. =^[.]^=
...a pickaxe is also an axe
@@Raycheetah People are always getting Tolkien's stuff wrong.
Tolkien didn't write dwarves as some kind of stereotypical race of short grumpy Scotsmen either.
We're also told that elves were often mirthful and sang and laughed a lot. Elrond is described as kind and of good humor.
Edit: fixed typos
I’m posting this as my FB status with zero context. 😂 *yoink* thanks. 🙏
I promise I won't get political at the great feast
12 mugs of Black Mountain Ale later:
based and dwarfpilled
ROCK AND STONE BROTHER
(Drunken) "Now, I'm not racist, buuuut..."
@@bradleyadams5252 grrr! these k**fe ears
Stone pilled af
Elves will see you turn an Orc into mist with a 4 barrel blunderbuss and say:
"That dwarf does not have the skill to use a bow"
what color is the mist though?
@@QujoGiotalo*distant guitar riff*
@@QujoGiotalo Bait used to be believa-
Got to hold on that sense of superiority
HOLY SHIT , IS THAT THE RED MI-@@QujoGiotalo
I love how Friren Beyond Journey end explores elfs.
There are three elfs we meet trough out the show, and they all share one common trait related to their (near) immortality, they are all sloths.
Friren is the obvious one, since they make fun of her being lazy and wanting to sleep in, but Fern constantly has to remind her that she does not have time to spend a year in a village just loafing around, she is mortal. And it makes sense that she would get mad at Friren for disregarding her lifetime so casually, because Friren raised Fern in what to her was a sleepover at Heiter's place.
The next one we meet is Kraft, the traveling monk, who casually bunkers down with the party over winter, then casually brings up that he is a legendary hero of ancient history, then leaves like nothing ever happen, and like he would meet up with them some other time.
And then the last one is Serie, the arch mage who might as well have invented magic, yet refuse to take on an apprentice because they will all just die anyways, yet she took Flamme (Frirens teacher) under her wing, only to have her fears proven right, as just as fast Flamme came to fame and ascended to the legends, so did she vanish without changing anything, Flamme did not get killed, or fell to illness, no it was time that took her.
Then at the end of the school arc, Serie meet Fern, the descendent of her choice to train Flamme. Fern beckoning in the age of Men, showing that Elfs were no longer the strongest mages, showing Serie the impact Flamme had by teaching Friren, who then became the teacher of Fern.
In a sense, Friren: Beyond journeys end, is not just an exploration of Friren learning to value life, but how time is always progressing, even if to an Elf, everything stay the same.
Yeah Frieren is so damn good
4 actually. Idk about the show but she was shown in the new chapters of the manga. She's dead though. Also Serie still continued to take in apprentices after Flamme died.
@@RubyCat_7 LALALALALA!!! I CAN HEAR YOU!!! My ear cannot hear SPOILERS!!!
Elves
@@Fixti0n It's not a spoiler she was only seen once(?) and only mentioned like 2 times -_-
Sir Terry Pratchett on elves
“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."
HELLO FELLOW DISCWORLD FANNNNNNNNNNNN
The Great Terry
That sounds like something you would say about mythological Fairies which include the Sidhe (celtic elves).
Pretty sure Santa did. And jerk elitist tall elves were long forgotten before Tolkien revived them for his elitist propaganda.
@@Queenaxolotl777 it's in The Long Earth too, one of the stories Pratchett started before Colour Of Magic took off
“Go not to the elves for counsel - for they will say both no and yes.”
Frodo Baggins
Legendary.
Ah yes, clearly elves support [the political party I disfavor].
"Never ask an elf for help; they might decide you're better off dead, eh?"
Orik the dwarf
And generally for good reason.
@@zeekeno823
Orik: "Fuck elves."
Eragon: "Understood."
There was another aspect to Tolkien's Elves that stopped them from being insufferable: they were just as fallible and prone to faults, flaws and failings as 'mortals' were. They are just as prone to greed, to jealousy, and anger as we are. They are also prone to overindulgence in things like alcohol, too. And whilst they were apparently immortal, and immune to disease, they weren't immune to fatal injuries, inflicted in battle or received entirely by accident. In this, Tolkien was very clever, for whilst some of his elves acted as if they felt superior to everyone else, what happens to them makes it clear they were far from it!
And yet at least one elf has died and been resurrected.
@@Tasorius Lore wise all Elves in Middle Earth will be but some are gifted with it sooner than others based on their deeds.
Lore wise
Elves might be gifted to be immortal, but their souls aren't, their souls are bounded to the earth even when they die.
While men who are mortal, but their souls are Immortal when they die, their soul goes to the unknown. This indicated we shouldn't be jealous of what others possess
@@lordforages8319 Their souls are still immortal. They are just tied to the land.
They still live too long for that. A billion things can kill you, taking out age related diseases still isnt going to make your average lifespan in the thousands.
Legolas is hundreds, if not thousands of years old (depending on source/reddit people theories). I'd hardly say his combat prowess is "effortless" - he's likely trained for many lifetimes of regular humans. And if you lived through the literal rise and fall of civilizations, watching people make the same decisions that lead to their downfall over and over, you'd probably be pretty sick of people too.
Just look at what one life time has done to Lewis Black.
Their life span is a narrative choice that adds into the overall idea that Elves are literally conceptualized to be superior for no other reason than... "because they're Elves".
Im pretty sure in the book it says that the humans (Aragorn and Boromir) manage to kill more orcs than everyone in the fellowship, including Legolas, and Legolas is on the same level as Gimli with the whole kill count competition. So all of Legolas matrix struff comes from the movies.
@@Sre171 the book is pretty awful
@@sl9wdive The fellowship?
POV your drunk dwarf uncle at thanksgiving
Hey he’s nice when he’s not drunk.
@@gmg9010and when is that ever going to happen?
dwarf uncle dropping racial comments at thanksgiving
@@Pohdian never we dwarves are rarely ever not drunk.
POV?
Fun fact: in the book gimli is able to run long distances without tiring bc dwarves have greater endurance than at least humans, if not elves. It's a bit of nuance that i would have liked kept in the peter Jackson films
Unfortunately, Peter Jackson say dwarf are for comic relief and elves are for deus ex machina
PJ also kind of flipped Legolas and Gimlis personality from the books whereLegolas is the funny comic relief and Gimli is more stoic and serious.
I think PJ perpetuated the idea of elves being stoic and serious but is completely opposite in the books. Elves wear their emotions on their sleeves, they are absolute drama queens and love to sing and be silly (and also be kin slaying psychopaths)
We dwarves are known for sprinting
@@thegoblonoid Feanor did nothing wrong
@@aphato2770you misspelled "everything"
I remember describing how Rings of Power doesn't understand hoe Tolkien's Elves work; the Elves of Middle Earth don't appear arrogant or stand-offish because of any innate feeling of superiority (most of the time) but because when you have an immortal being that is at least 2000 years older than any mortal they interreact with they have already been there, done that (usually several times) and got the tee-shirt. Thusly even when addressing a council of the wisest and most venerable humans, to an elf it's like talking to children that are having a squabble in the sandbox. I think Hugo Weaving did a great job portraying thins; when Elrond is talking to someone he's not unkind but you can tell that he's handling these people differently, speaking a lot slower, more articulated, and not an ounce of irony to be had vs when he's talking to Gandalf that all drops because the adults are talking now.
Basically act like stubborn ancient elderly who are clueless on how "modern" younger race/people act
@@hafirenggayuda Not even remotely what they typed.
@@hafirenggayuda no, they act like elder siblings who are watching you make all the mistakes they've made a dozen times before.
So… basically they appear arrogant because they have an innate feeling of superiority?
@@mjameshenryNo, it's because they've already done this hundreds of times that the oldest and wisest humans, seem like children in comparison
Fantasy social media sounds hilarious, and I kind of want to see that.
Goblins and kobolds, stealing memes together
@@predatitor4183Mischievous
Something I like about Tolkein's elves is well, I can understand why they have the attitudes they have. It can be summed up quite well with this quote from Adventure Time: "Everything repeats over and over again. No one learns anything because no one lives long enough to see the pattern." The elves are *frustrated,* they are tired of mortals always making the same mistakes repeatedly within a single elven lifetime which combined with how they see how the magic of the world has withered away within living memory is going to impact their attitudes.
The Alfheim Gazetteer was pretty good at this also. Something like, the humans of Darokin might think a matter is of urgency; but the long lived elves in the Republic's territory might figure it can be put off tomorrow - or next week, or next year. Many of them remember a time before Darokin and they obviously survived that.
Very true
Elrond was there '3000 years ago' when men were super chad Numenoreans and saw first hand that even they barely cut it - it's understandable that he'd say men are weak now when he saw them in their absolute prime
Gotta love Marceline's quotes
yet they refuse to take accountability.
"I am so much smarter than you, but I will jealously guard my knowledge instead of sharing it with you, yet I will call you stupid for not knowing it."
is it no wonder everyone hates them.
@@KossolaxtheForesworn would you share the secrets of industrial chemistry to the warring states of the Middle Ages, or hide it from them in fear that they would just kill one another far more efficaciously?
The thing with Tolkien's elves is that they're basically just what humans would be like if they were immortal. All their skills and weird magical creations are not some inborn specialness, they're the result of a person being given effectively infinite time to train up one particular skill. The elves of Lothlorien can't bake Lembas because they're special and they have special ovens and their special elf hands make the best bread around, but because that particular baker has been baking and refining their craft for thousands of years, to the point where "normal bread" became "bread so good it will sate you for a month and burn those who are evil if they try to eat it". Same for their smithing, it's not because they have special elf magic, but because their smiths have been smiths for millennia, and in some cases, learned from the literal god of smithing.
So it's not that an elf is born superior, but that an elf has unlimited time to become the best version of themselves they could possibly be. The fact that they're not inherently better is exemplified by how Thranduil treats the dwarves in the Hobbit, for example - he's a major jerk for no reason except pettiness. Or Arwen, who chooses the gift of men, sacrificing her immortality for the sake of love.
Yes and no. It is implied in Tolkien’s works that Elves are more powerful than men, especially in the earlier eras they literally fought with Gods alike. Tolkien intended for them to become a guide for humanity, basically like a big brother for them.
But that doesn’t mean all of them are automatically born with power or as exceptional as the prominent figures, like you said their heightened talents are honed with years of perfecting their craft as well. Not to mention them living and learning from the Valar during their early years. Feanor the creator of Silmarils and Tengwar script himself is born with talent, but not with the knowledge and skill of a powerful craftsman at birth. He was a student of Mahtan - a great smith who learned from the God of Smiths himself - first before becoming one if not, the greatest elven smith to have ever lived. They just had a huge upper-hand compared to humanity.
@@weirdreportthumanity +
Well they also have supernatural attributes like Farsight and they can use their own hair for bowstrings as examples. Not only that but they’re given specific favor and rewards from the Valar. They more or less had metaphorical silver spoons so they always had higher standing to others, they also have innate magical ability that even lowborn elves possess.
Who wants to introduce this TH-camr to the aldari of 40k
More like humans were what Elves would be if they had short lives, only caring for short term goals, or just trying to be part of something much greater than themselves most of the time.
the average dwarf made this video
THOSE DAMN KNIFE EARS! :Λ)
Speaking of dwarves and elves, I imagine that they are highly derived descendants of stem testudines and non mammalian therapsids (either Therocephalians or non mammalian cynodonts) respectively.
THOSE DAMN LEAF-LOVERS
First thought I had when i saw the thumbnail lmao
It's funny how Dwarf-loving redditors favorite race is one of the most boring and bland Fantasy races of all time. Fantasy races are literally all the same in basically every game or story and I am sick of seeing them. Writers need to gain some creativity and make new races, or at the bare minimum, try and make your Dwarves and Elves unique. This one TH-camr came up with a brilliant and unique version of Dwarves that are infinitely better than the drunk Scottish midgets we are forced to interact with. They didn't look human, when they sat down, they'd fold up into what looks like a pot. Creativity is desperately needed in Fantasy right now.
I really like the way The Dragon Prince approaches elves beyond just having unique designs (four fingers, different horns and types of ears, etc). They are born with a connection to their magic system, and humans are not, but not all elves are natural mages or particularly care, and they have a variety of jobs (blacksmithing, Moon elves using their illusionist powers for being assassins, guards, etc). There's civil wars and critiques of their staunch isolationism, and while some elves live incredibly long, it's not the norm and varies from type to type
They're also literally interdimensional colonizers who did a trail of tears on all of humanity. Not usually an elf hater, but DAMN.
Link isn't just any feral dirt boy, he's OUR feral dirt boy!
Breath of the wild Link is an olympic athlete on freaking drugs. Bro wakes up from a 100 year slumber and immediately start running all over the place, jumping like a madman, fighting the first monster he sees with a fucking stick, and climbing mountains. Like if you did what Link did in a day, you'd end up feeling sore for a month. Dude is absolutely BUILT DIFFERENT.
@@qwertydavid8070well said, nobody ever said Link has the Triforce of Wisdom 😂
the dude has two main powers, connected to each other: saved games - you cannot kill him in a way that matters - and the absolute _balls_ that come with that knowledge: “Courage”
@@qwertydavid8070
Link: "I live to see another day, and I'm going to make everyone suffer for that!"
Hobbits: Oh boy, that second breakfast sure is tasty
Dwarves, three ale in:
Elves: "lol dwarves are ugly and stupid amirite?"
Everyone Else: "You say that about everyone, and wonder why we all hate you"
Is it a jeer at elves or a jeer at dwarf fans?
No because disliking everything (especially elves) is the entire personality of dwarf mains online
@@pougetguillaume4632 Dwarvs>Elves every time.
@@Alexander_Grantreading this i will give you a fun fact: dwarfs in norse mythology were often synonymous with svaltarfars so black elves meaning that elves and dwarfs are potentialy at least in origin one and the same
@@diooverheaven6561 I think it's more just a fun conversation for me, but that is an interesting fact. Dwarf Fortress did it to me, it's always been funny to me. I've never really delved into mythology all that much. One of my favorite things that came from that is that one picture "I am angry. ANGRY ABOUT ELVES." I don't take it as seriously as a lot of people do.
@@Alexander_Grant for me it's also just fun things.
I will also say that name for dwarf- krasnolud is interesting because it came when Polish translation of Hobbit came out as you see original word was krasnoludek wich now is used for more for red cap from dnd. You see "krasnolud" roughly would translate to "red man" and "krasnoludek" to "red little man".
Fun little fact concerning the love of Space Elves:
The origin of the word "Eldritch" is actually 'Elvish' or 'Elf Land', which points more to the older, fae-elves from folklore fittng the "alien" trope pretty closely - mysterious otherworldly beings, strange powers, lights in the skies and utterly different morals and goals
Many of elven tropes are fears of extremes, xenophobia, losing ourselves through the march of time, an inability to create new connections due to differences between ages, immortal or not.
Elven writing is essentially an exercise in "How might we handle... becoming more, would we do so with grace and humility, or fall victim to hubris and arrogance, devolving into isolation and madness?"
It's not about them, it's about us, and where humanity is headed. Many forms of fantastical media can act as lenses by which we express our own worries, often about questions we cannot answer without experience.
Shadowbane was a mmorpg that had a very cool take on Elves; they were evil enslaving dickheads. They called their kingdom The Immortal Empire or Deathless Empire or something like that. That their lifespan automatically made them superior and they subjugated any they could.
That's a fair take, though I do feel as they are humans amd humans are empirically really bad at actually expecting how things turn out that the reflection is often really shallow? Or at least flawed in several ways
@Dwarfurious Why is "The elves here are evil actually" on its own a cool take? Also a case of "Fantasy evil = Slavers" which gets done so often.
The Pathfinder take on Elves is interesting. They are not quite immortal but very long lived. When a magic catastrophe almost destroyed the world, the Elves retreated to another. When they returned they found out that not only did many races survive but their old homeland now belongs to various other races. Which left them quite bitter and isolationist with a faction arguing about causing another world wide catastrophe just to cleanse the land of everyone else.
Not all Elves are this level of bitter and selfish, but the ones who choose to live among other races see friends and loved ones pass away almost in a blink of an eye. An Elven child sees their friends grow up and become adults while she will remain a child for many more years.
I think you put it perfectly. Fantasy serves to explore the potential of humans under fantastical circumstances, even if that means they'll be depicted as a fantastical species. Aa a writer, this really resonates with me and I'll keep this in mind.
Ever since my first box of plastic Warhammer fantasy Dwarves I have know "There is nothing as sure in the world as the glitter of gold and the treachery of elves."
It’s written in the book of grudges and elves continue to add unto it!
Warhammer Fantasy is actually where this idea of asshole Elves comes from. The specific way GW copied Tolkien became the standard for western fantasy. Thats why so many settings have Elves and Dwarfs at odds. Because of the War of the Beard in Warhammer Fantasy. Maliketh isn't just a treacherous asshole, he's so treacherous he created an Elf/Dwarf conflict in all of western fantasy.
Yeah, Tolkien had some friction between the two, but the classic "Dwarfs and Elves hate each other" thing is all Warhammer.
@@ASpaceOstrich not really. the conflict between elves and dwarves is an ancient one reflecting the battle of good vs evil or light vs darkness. in the Prose Edda - Snorri Sturleson's accounts of Norse myth, and the Poetic Edda - an independent collection of Norse mythical poetry, the dökkálfar/svartálfar ("dark elves", underground dwellers from whom "modern" dwarves are derived) and the ljósálfar (light elves) are constantly at war. Sturleson was *definitely* projecting Christian values onto the myths as he compiled the Prose, but still. these works were 700-1000 years before Warhammer, and are based on much, much older archetypes.
@@PanEtRosa Yeah, but nobody in modern fantasy writing is basing their Elves and Dwarfs on that. They're basing it on Tolkien and the general modern cultural idea of those. That modern cultural idea is largely defined by the tropes codified in Warhammer Fantasy.
Were the Elves to apply their analytical minds to engineering, they would surpass the Dawi in decades
I like Tolkien Elves because they're basically older, wiser, biologically immortal humans that in spite of their great age and wisdom, are still prone to the same pettiness, selfish and misguided behaviour as their "little brother", i.e. humankind. And while human suffering is tied to our short, mortal existence, elves suffer because they are physically bound to the world, a world that is constantly changing faster that they can adapt to it, in spite of their futile attempts to preserve what they love, causing them much sorrow. It's why the intimate relationships between humans and Elves is so rare, and so painful. It's nuanced - the relationship between humanity and elves. And Elves are just another flawed form of life capable of goodness or great acts of evil just like humans.
Yeah bunch of milfs
This is why Arwen's love for Aragorn is considered a death sentence to her people. As all other elves move on to the Undying Lands where time stands still and world doesn't change, Arwen stays behind, and lives with Aragorn as his Queen. She is destined to die young by Elven standards due to her deep connection to Aragorn. While he is of Numenorian descent and will live a long life, he will die, and soon after so will she. It's such an interesting facet of Tolkien's Elves that not many people seem to point out.
@@ShadowReignhartAnd to take in, people just stay with the surface level : humans but better.
This is why I love the Silmarilion so much. [SPOILERS] It's the tale of extremely powerful and wise immortal beings being worse than any human in the story because of something as simple and human as greed. Feanor and his sons are such fascinating and nuanced characters, the traditional spiteful, petty elves, except they're that way due to their own actions. Then there's the opposite side of the coin with Finrod sacrificing himself, a king of a great and prosperous elven realm sacrificing himself to save some dude he'd just met. All of which being enhanced by who they are, lines of kings get complicated, whole realms hang entirely on one guy, but can still last and prosper, some turn to eternal wandering or are given sisyphean tasks, like Earendil. Tolkien proved how much you can do with elves and their inherent traits, they really don't have to be boring.
@@plebisMaximus and then there's Beleg
Hobbit: "Lovely weather eh?"
Dwarf:
I think we often look past the flaws of Dwarves and the like because their flaws are more relatable and close to home than those of elves, whose perfections and imperfections are both on totally different scales to humanity. Dwarves are jealous and spiteful, and stubborn as all hell, but they’re also loyal and honest to they’re core
Hypocracy gets people especially worked up, and more often than not, the flaws of elves are rooted in a belief in their own superiority, ie the belief that they aren't flawed at all.
Dwarves are the blue collar workers of the fantasy world, often with a lot fewer fantasy elements to the point of sometimes not even having magic at all, so even humans with all their wizards can come off as more fantasy than dwarves. While elves, like the video says, are the 1% elites, the best at everything and more. Its no wonder so many people choose them and why i dont like people that do.
I mean it's also a kind of unfortunate zeitgeist ignorance that stems from legitimate campaigns of info at the time. Like dwarves are affiliated often with a mining town imagery that actively had a lot of the actual owners sanitize or mitigate the work conditions, murders, disease and famine to draw more people to their work sites and to supress unionization efforts with a mixture of rugged individualism and "you aren't like those others you will strike it rich". Which worked well for helping to obscure the risk of being killed if you got lucky and then spending all your money on the company store to repay your debt when you did or lose it due to not having ready transport anywhere else
Hobbits meanwhile have a mixture of being ordinary but inna very historically specific way of like actually pretty upper class English citizens. So it doesn't seem like the ideal of or for them really spread out much? There isn't as much of a easy cultural throughline for Hobbits to get flanderized.
When you're a kid, you like Goku, in your teens, you prefer Vegeta, when you're an adult, you prefer Krillin...
@solonuo2280 Hell yea 🤣
The problem is that Elves have lost the fey aspect. Rather than being a hidden parallel civilization, they’re just an insular non-human Atlantis.
We need more capricious elves instead of wise stoics! Give us more violent and non-human elves!
heh, in warhammer fantasy they literally are from atlantis
I'd really love it if fantasy leaned more into the idea that regular people just cannot comprehend fey presences, so elves read like an alien encounter.
Aka elves have gotten WAY too generic in their perfecrion
@@Phantom86d Let me tell you about a little IP called the elder scrolls
A lot of the more recent depictions of elves, in mainstream or even more niche media is that they are just another humanoid race. Pointy ear humans and not their more interesting fey and nature aligned aspects.
I guess it's easier for an author to just make another human but slightly different so less effort has to be made for an interesting culture. Elves get the short end of the stick since this characterization is much more annoying than for example dwarfs (ROCK AND STONE BROTHERS).
A well-written elf in a fantasy story could do wonders but a badly written one could sink the ship for a lot of people.
I like elves so i wish they had more fun interpretations in media.
ROCK AND STONE
I think it stems from a desire to do something new and interesting with elves, and move away from them being super tropey. But it turns out doing something new and interesting is *hard*. Occasionally there's standout cases like Divinity's cannibal memory-tasting plantoid elves, but most are forgettable.
I also think it's possible that the surge in the popularity of RPGs (tabletop and otherwise) has an influence - everyone wants to play *their* super special character without feeling limited, so the aggregate of all those characters trends towards elves basically being a visual aesthetic and not much else.
Yeah I think a lot of authors aren't aware of either the historical foundations or the actual implications of stuff like nature or being so long lived. Like Tolkien is notable in how he came up with the foundations first and then was actively relating them to a whole cultural mythos alongside the other races. So instead we do the easier thing and just kind of affiliate hem with our anxieties and concepts of a uper class and the dwarves of a lower class usually.
@@cass7448 a friend and I once had a thought that if elves are literally bound by soul to the land, they should be more animalistic. so the elves in our homebrew setting were animals that evolved with magic to speak for their kind who couldn't speak for themselves, and who adopted humanoid features because they served as liaisons between humans and the wild.
another concept I saw in a story I read online ages ago was that elves were humans who had been possessed by nature spirits. they were innocent and playful rather than.... tired of immortality and of the world in general.
I think there's still plenty of room for interesting ideas about elves! all it takes is for people to step a little outside the mainstream.
Basically why the Netflix witcher elfs suck
They work so hard making presents for all the children every christmass and this is how you repay them
Dungeon meshi has such a great world building especially the relationship about each fantasy races. Im so happy you brought this up as an example!
In defence of Legolas. I like it when elves are more skilled at anything, BECAUSE they had ages of experience in it, which isn't easy to showcase properly, but it's perfection that was deserved through hundreds of years 😅
I agree, from the mortal’s pov the elves are “good at everything”, but it makes perfect sense that after thousands of years of training and wars they would be OP
Also, Tolkien’s elves are generally only really good at one thing they’re passionate about. If you take an elf who is a master chef and press him into combat, he’ll be just as outmatched as a human. Also, the bodies of elves (and the physical raiments of the Ainur) are still made of normal matter. They aren’t like Superman or whatever. A battalion of orcs that crawled out of the ground a few weeks ago will overwhelm all but the strongest elf warriors.
Yeah, it would be awkward in my opinion if someone who's trained as a warrior for centuries would not fare a lot better than someone who picked up a weapon a couple of years ago.
And even "younger" elves would been taught by other elves, with centuries of experience. This is also why I don't elves being nobility is accurate. In general, it's not a matter of a few elves living a lavish lifestyle. Elves are insular, largely collectivist, and highly driven towards excellence, which is why everything they produce feels so monumentous.
Bruce Lee: *_" I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced that one kick 10,000 times. "_*
Legolas: Perfected every single angle with his bow a 100.000 times.
You know what fantasy race is underutilized? Giants. Most of the time they are just “oh duh I’m a big dumb stoopid guy raaaaa!” Which still works for them. But I like it more when they act like normal people, just bigger. One Piece is a good example of this because most of the giants act normal, they’re just bigger. And they have a cool Viking/Norse vibe to them that I like.
That’s why I like giants in Warhammer Fantasy, wherein they used to be like kaiju-sized goliaths who were also highly-intelligent, immaculate craftsman, but owing to disasters involving ogres and a small gene-pool slowly degenerated into horrifically inbred belligerent drunks. They’re one of the most tragic tales in all of Warhammer Fantasy.
i tried something like that, my idea was that giants were effectively superior to humans in every way, bigger, stronger, smarter, all that. but they had one big weakness; they were solitary by nature and fundamentally incapable of forming anything resembling society. because of that any progress a giant made was largely lost when they died, while humanity were able to pass on knowledge to future generations and grow in a way the giants psychologically couldn't
I would also add Yetis to this. They're often like just feral animals in fantasy settings, but I would love to see a setting where Yeti's are a civilisation in their own right with their own history and culture. A people who took a slightly different route, like Neanderthals.
DnD actually has some interesting dynamics to Giants and their society. Though very rarely have I found a fiction to really get into the dynamics of giants
I think Adventure time does something similar with the characters of Billy and Canyon, they’re not giants in the modern sense, but they fill out more of a Gilgamesh-style culture hero, giant in the way ancient people conceptualised them, someone so big and heroic and legendary that they must be much bigger than normal people, and their size lends a feeling of greatness and mythology to their actions, even if they are just basically normal people
A human being mad at perfect beings is so human I love it
One thing people often overlook about Tolkien's elves is that their attitude towards mortals is more out of jealousy than anything else. It's a bit like the star athlete child who has never been in trouble with the law and has a promising career ahead of him being mad that his parents give all their attention to his flunky younger brother who's in and out of jail. The elves are perfect and immortal but they are tied to Middle Earth until its end. Meanwhile humans get to go hang out with daddy Eru when they die.
Was going to say the same thing. Elves are to the n-th degree in all temporal and physical things, but men have greater strength of soul: tenacity, passion, courage, etc.
Elves are the firstborn, but Men are the favorite of Eru and that shakes their self-perception to its very core
they may blame that on the misfortune of their birth
@@tiagobelo4965
What misfortune? Have I forgotten something as I don't remember the elves really having a misfortune on their birth. Morgoth didn't really start mucking about for a while after.
@@grimjoker5572 see the Fictional History section of Wiki's article on "Elves in Middle Earth" for a good summary. it was fracturing and resentment among the elves that led to Morgoth.
Tolkien's Elves are far from perfect.
To be fair Legolas did not have effortless skill its just that any and all training for his skill was finished thousands of years before the Lord of The Rings. Also, the hatred that Elves and Dwarfs have in LOTR is justified by a long history of both sides doing some pretty bad things to each other. So basically they both have good reason to distrust each other.
like the eldar of warhammer.
train a thousand years to be master of skill, only to die instantly by getting shot in the face by a 15 year old guardsmans lasgun.
Also legolas was a prince.
This is a trope i dont like, the idea that elves are so skilled because they have so long to train. You do not get infinitely better at things, you suffer diminishing returns, the best chess players in the world are not the most experienced, they are routinely trounced by far far younger players but so far no fantasy setting seems to even try to address this fact.
@@KossolaxtheForesworn This is literally one of the reasons knights died out; crossbows/guns just one shot your fancy elites; so fancy elites just become a waste, no matter how good you are you're one stray arrow from death
@@Dwarfurious Might wanna go look up the history of plate armor there before you give takes on things you don't know anything about.
Tolkien Imo was the only person to do elves right without compromising elves aura of perfection. He literally spent decades trying to decide on how to represent them.
Because he was the one who first developed the modern fantasy elf.
Tolkien made elves almost divine but they were not arrogant and could make mistakes. Like he said in the video the main characters in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were hobbits who represented everyday people without mythical powers and didn't have unmatched battle skills.
@@orangesilver4568 Tolkien's Elves aren't arrogant? Hmm, I dunno about that one my man, as there are plenty of arrogant Elves in Tolkien's Legendarium.
@@orangesilver4568
*Feanor would like to know your location*
Let it be known that dark elves and dwarve are synonyms
(Both come from norse mythology)
This is why I like the scandi way of distinquishing elves - we have "Alf" which are the small dumb kinda christmassy, or the ones who live on farmsteads, elves and we have "Elver" which are the perfect beautiful elves. We also called them "Ellefolk", but they were more eerie.
icelandic? in swedish like the rest of scandi we have the same distinction though the words seem almost flipped. "Alver" for the serious ones, "Älvor" are fairies. And "tomtar" for the christmas elfs/gnome-like, that could e silent helpers if properly gratiated and also do bad shit like making your animals sick or diseased for perceived slights in older folklore ..
@@Spikklubba Scandinavia as in Denmark, Sweden, Norway. ^^ But yes. Danish tomtar are nisser :3
Forget those knife ears! Take the dwarf pill! Rock and stone!
Obligated to shout Rock and Stone
DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE?!!!
DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE!?
YEAAAAAAH ROCK AND STOOOONE
ROCK AND STONE!!!
Alright, who let the dwarves on youtube
Aye we let ourselves in. If you have an issue with that, why don't we take this outside, hammer to hammer
Oh be quiet you pointed eared leaf lover
SHUT UP KNIFE EAR
No one let them in, they dug through the walls.
FOR ROCK AAAAANNNNNNDDDDD STONE
Bro is here literally shitting on Elrond for 21 minutes because he watched Elf Bowling: The Movie. I feel you, man.
That whole immortality curse is honestly a fairly cancerous idea.
By that logic, better not get attached to anyone older than you, less healthy, or more risk taking or self sacrificing. Because the pains of loss are that great, and even lifetimes aren’t enough to stop each new relationship from getting more and more painful or less and less special.
Or because life will get boring, in which case, we better start just signing off this mortal coil somewhere in our twenties, because people can already binge the top 100 works of art/media their attention spans can withstand, spoil themselves, and proclaim that society is dead because nothing feels new and good anymore.
Dwarfpilled
*Deep Rock Galactic quotes intensifies*
ROCK AND STONE!!!
Rock and stone
The ancestors approve
@@LudwigTheLongbeard took only 7 seconds to find the Rock and Stone i was looking for
I'd also like to bring up the Eldar from Warhammer 40k in this discussion. They are very much stereotypical elves, but with the added twist that not only are they going extinct, but they are literally eternally doomed because of their past behaviour.
Also, they're heavily paranoid and never trust any other race. Which is actually understandable reaction for wh40k inhabitants
Sams thing about going extinct can be said as well about elves from Witcher books
In books elves are doing guerrilla warfare to have their own country, as well as big problem is their fertility. For some reason when elf tries to have kids with and elf it doesn't work for most of the time, but with humans it works perfectly
This results in elves having almost no kids, their numbers are dwindling, and they are treated like trash in human cities
They were so perfect in every way, they defeated all of their enemies, solved all of their problems, and created a utopia for themselves. Then they got bored...
@dracons 3257 and for the most part they boast and are just as boring e snotty as the players who field them :P
Sure they are going extinct, but they are just as arrogant and call you slurs any chance they get ("mon-keigh" is the name of an old species the Aeldari have exterminated before humanity emerged, and in their current language it's just used for any inferior species in need of exterminating).
Pelinal Whitesnake is that you
I think he went further than "kinda"
@@zaccarr1774Still didn't go far enough
The Doomslayer of elves
@@zaccarr1774 Bro even went so far as to think the Khajiit are Elves & try to kill them 😭
Not nearly as gay *or* racist
I have never been a big fan of elves and dwarves but Frieren: Beyond Journey's End depicted them in a newer light that I really like. The elves in the show are not stuck on petty pride or past legacies but they just wandered around the world seeking knowledge and helping others. The dwarves aren't obsessed with mines or past legacies but proved themselves to be powerful warriors and extremely loyal friends.
the Elf fan to Dwarf fan to Hobbit fan pipeline is real
For me it's more like a trolley that goes back and forth.
Orc fan from day one. ZUG ZUG
Funfact in the books Hobbits are also very much superior to Humans. They too live longer than Humans and age much slower.
The Hobbits are depicted as much wiser & mature and less innocently youthful like in the movies.
And if you look closely they do have pointier ears.
It all comes together. Pointy ear supremacy!!!!! Ray zysm!!! 😆
As you get older, you do realise that what matters most is the comfort of your home, resting by the fire with a belly full and good company by your side!
I do actually like them a lot when they are more unique and not just better humans with pointy ears™...
The 40k Aeldari, warhammer fantasy elves, elder scrolls Mer and Divinity original sin ones all fall into the category of "actually interesting" for me.
And we purge them all equally for this 🫱🏻🫲🏿
I love Warhammer Fantasy Elves too [continues incinerating the enchanted forest with Irondrakes]
Having different kinds of elves that all make fun of or outright hate each other is an underused trope, when the posh arrogant elves are a specific group of stuck-up ones that are broadly disliked by other elves lets you have the universal target of justified contempt while not having an entire species just be inherently annoying.
@@Neoth40k Just wait until you find out about your blueberry sons totally not girlfriend
@@swedneck That’s how I imagine the Bosmer view the Altmer (Or the Thalmor atleast) lol.
Dungeon Meshi also makes the fear of longevity one of Marcille's biggest facets as a character - she's a half-elf who ages differently from both regular elves and humans. She's already outlived her father, and frequently has nightmares of being chased by a monster that signifies the death of all her loved ones. Her status as a half-elf also causes her grief with the Canaries, who assume the worst in her for not being a full-blooded elf.
LAST ONE TO ROCK AND STONE IS A POINTY EARED LEAF LOVER
You know its a good day when you got food ready and curious archive uploads
Eldar from Warhammer 40K are this trope played with self-awareness, now that I think of it. They murder-orgied so hard at the height of their empire that they spawned a god of actual toxic perfectionism and hedonistic addiction, so their entire species is responsible for a good chunk of why the setting is so grimdark. And even in the 41st Millenium, they regard other species the way you would regard a chimpanzee, with one entire faction of Dark Eldar literally feeding off the psychic energy given off by torture.
pretty much how Elder scrolls elves are half the messed up shit is their fault and the other half is Nords or redguard genociding them for it or just out of necassity.
they not Birthed a God but the Deadra do use Elves for most of their evil Plot or are the ones serving the deadra Interests.
Altmer/Ayleids being the Worst
and us Dunmer being second worst elves
Snow elves are Probably third but Nords wiped them out.
Slaanesh was always there. But yes, what they did caused Slaanesh to fully manifest.
These guys were always so scary to me. Like they can actually show you fate worst than death. And they derive big pleasure from it. Nasty guys.
@@thesocker7920that is due to the warp time spaghetti
@@jacob_dcdnthey are alike the qu and gravitals in the arts of flesh change
I immediately think of Marcille from dungeon meshi and how she is a capable and terrifying over powered presence when away from her friend group, but amongst people she cares about and can be vulnerable around she is far more “human” and fallible, she shows obvious flaws despite being an elf who really shouldn’t have any. Especially around her crush falin
Elves in dungeon meshi aren't as perfect as you would think.
Spoiler alert:
The leader of the canaries, Cuz of his former flaws condemned himself sorta.
Non-related and unasked for : marcille has no crush on falin and I will die on that hill!!
Always gotta force your own headcanon on shit. Your kind really can't help yourselves.
@@doubledee8677 indeed
Fellas is it straight to literally bathe with your best friend? @@doubledee8677
Idk I see a throwaway comment supporting a ship and two bozos jumping ahead to complain that it was shoved down their throat.
The comment was hardly forcing shipping down your throat. Triggered by a random shipper smh.
Ofc it’s not canon, it’s just a throwaway comment. Let then have fun.
Gentlemen, I love elves. Gentlemen, I... love elves. Gentlemen. I... SO LOVE ELVES.
I love Altmer. I love Dunmer. I love Bosmer. I love Dwemer.
I love magic, I love trees, I love cannibalism, I love technology, I love calling people n'wah.
On the Summerset Isles, in the streets of Blackreach, in the trenches of Morrowind, on the prairies of Valenwood, on the tundra of Skyrim, in the desert of Alik'r, on the seas of Pyandonea, In the sky beyond Oblivion. I cherish each and every Elves on this Kalpa.
10/10 Helsing reference
I too love cannibalism. Lizards are fine too
I like elves when their immortality is both a blessing and a curse, like in Tolkien's books or Frieren
Slowly getting through Frieren and it's a really refreshing take on an immortal-ish character
Elves are fantastic, they induce Fantasy
Elves are terrific, they induce Terror
Sir Terry Pratchett has my favorite lore on Elves and why we feel we should like them and why we also are repulsed by them.
DISCWORLDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Ok knife ear
@@billnyetherussianspy3187your forced meme is kinda just cringe if you post it everywhere regardless of context.
No one ever said elves are nice.
ok "men are weak" actually hits harder when the elf whos saying is half human, he would know better than any elf
some elves live to watch their fathers die in battle; halfelves get to watch their fathers get senile.
In lieu of sounding like the ultra nerd of the troupe, Elrond is actually a full elf even though he was born from the union of two half-elves. The reason why is that he (and his twin brother) where given a choice by the Valar to either have the Fate of Man or the Fate of Elves. Obviously, Elrond chose the fate of the elves.
Funny enough, his twin brother (Elros) became the first King of Numenor. This means that Aragorn is his great, great, great.........great, great nephew. Make out of that what you want regarding Aragorn's marriage with Arwen.
Humans are arguably the strongest race. In most fiction we outnumbered them 100 to 1 and can advance so quickly we can achive the same level of power in 20 years that an elf in 200
We are scary because we adapt faster than magic you take a human out of its environment and in 100 years there is a village
You do the same to another race and they are still arguing about who can sit closest to the water
@@CG-yq2xy Brother, the average englishman has a way closer relation to their missus. Aragorn is fine
@@diveblock2058 'weakness' in Elrond's statement, was clearly implying individual fortitude, lack of mental & physical immunity... petty, pitiable, corruptible, fleeting, infirm...
1-on-1 elves have us beat, but it's precisely because we never do 1-on-1 that humans thrive to surpass the other races.
weakness is our strength, that we have to rise against our weakness with ingenuity, industriousness & by throwing our lives at the wall till it sticks... human survival is costly, we basically sacrifice ourselves en masse to the maw of the universe, in an effort to beat our clear disadvantages with raw human wave tactics.
When you said you were doing the Silmarillion, i choked and had to check the length of the video to make sure i hadn't signed up for a 6 hour lecture. XD i read that thing in high school and enjoyed it more than most of Tolkein's other works. It was a lot, but i didn't expect it to be an easy read. I also didn't expect to like it more than his more popular stuff. Passing the reading test afterwards was a feat of triumph im still proud of years later.
Elves are a mess. Hahaha. They reflect us just as accurately as the Dwarves and the Hobbits in his work.
I am glad you bring up scifi as well as fantasy and how we use the same archetypes (even the pointed ears) without calling them elves. Their struggle with their longevity and perfectionism is something we can empathize with.
Ill have to go check out your nebula video, next.
Oh, I LOVED the Silmarillion. Like an anthology of legends instead of a straight-forward story.
A little off topic, but I’d totally follow that Dwarf account giving a guide to types of rock.
And stone ?
@@arnaudfigon8532 ROCK AND STONE BROTHERS!!
This video should have also mentioned the Eldar of Warhammer 40k. They're the perfect example for the "I hate elves" topic, as they are a dying race, yet they pretend to be the strongest (and can't be blamed for it). I think it would have been interesting to mention them
It's odd because Warhammer Fantasy did it better. Because in that the elves can back up (most) of their haughty claims. But why can't Eldar ever succeed bleeds into problems with GW not letting Eldar get any Ws.
also because the Eldar basically caused everything after the war in heaven after they 'banged' so hard they literally created Slaanesh and opened the eye of terror so Chaos could start corrupting the universe.
Yeah basically everything since literally the dawn of time is their and the necrons' fault.. humanity wouldn't have gotten to off those who just wanted to be left alone if the Eldar didn't pull a Big Bang 2 - Erotoxin Jiggalo
Impractical terms those are not mutually exclusive. If you take a 75 ft giant who is shrinking and a 6-ft man who is growing the giant can be both diminishing in power and also still greater than the man, at least for the time being.
Obviously power level comparisons between different factions in the WH40k universe can get very tricky (I'm trying to ascertain the actual strength of things like Necrons, Tyranids, and so on is very difficult) but from a narrative perspective it is possible for the Eldar to have been greatly diminished from their previous peak of power but still perhaps more powerful and knowledgeable than the other races.
That said I think traditionally it is understood from a lower perspective that the Imperium as a whole is by far the strongest faction, within the confines of the galaxy, but is obviously never fighting with all of its strength concentrated but instead spread out over thousands of star systems with only the faint influence of the distant Emperor ever usually around, but theoretically able to crush any particular opponent - set aside those that are entirely within the warp - if it actually set its mind to it
@@taloscal This right here. Also, friendly reminder the Dark Eldar not the craftworld Eldar are the ones more who resemble the degenerate state of the Eldar dominion before The Fall.
I'm reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time after reading the Hobbit for the first time, and it's striking how the elves in Tolkien aren't at all like how other fantasy works depict them.
Tolkien's Elves are in between lesser gods and demigods, and they tend to act surprisingly friendly with the Hobbits and company, sometimes even acting a little silly and more humorous
It's their opinion, I love elves and their variants very much, although the truth is that I don't consume many fantasy worlds so I wouldn't know very well what elves are like in other worlds.
15:56 Elves are NOT like celebrities because unlike celebrities, elves don't touch children.
I mean, mythological feeric elves may have something to say
@@antuanyammine1537 I don't remember any fairy tales of Elves having Diddy parties.
Don’t 47% of all mystical beings have a weird fixation on children though?
Elves quite famously *did* touch children.
Erlkönig. Nothing more need be said
Brother has been digging too greedily and too deep
before I get to the video my take on elves is ultimately this:
Most people use elves out of obligation to tropes instead of with intent for them regarding their own story or world.
@@Nighzmarquls scottish accent dwarf #478321 would like to disagree
"Elf" has become easy shorthand for wise, beautiful, long-lived magic men. I don't think anyone feels forced to include them, it's just easy to use them if you need some magic race in your fantasy work, even if doing so comes with some baggage you'll now have to include as well.
@@pougetguillaume4632anyone who dosnt look at that as peak fiction has never spent time under a bench
My favorite rendition of "elves" in fantasy literature was in Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" series (I believe that was the name).
The elf-analog in that series was an entirely alien species to humans. They really did feel like some different, almost immortal creature rather than humans with pointy ears. The way they viewed humans was really interesting, almost like how a human would view house pets that could talk. Some viewed humans with contempt, while others developed attachments, but _never_ anything romantic.
Which dwarf took over the channel
KHAZUKHAN KAZAKIT HA
NGL, I think the most obnoxious part of elves will almost always be how they are either "my perfect waifu" or "my super cool gary sue oc."
Seriously. Like, oh boy, generic big-chested elf waifu with long blond hair #408. Character design~
@yamihikarilightdark9 but they're hot with big milkies and breedable bottoms???
I like elves that are a bit creature rather than just humans with pointy ears.
Hey. Don't call me out like that! 😂
On Elder Scrolls, even the dwarfs are elfs, thats why I love the series so much
THERES NO ESCAPE! NO RECALL OR INTERVETION CAN WORK ON THIS PLACE!!
TES probably has the densest elf lore I've ever seen and I love everything about it.
Even the Orcs (Orsimer) are elves. Just ugly and cursed.
Aren't the khajiit technically mer?
@@clowncargaming8046 No, beastfolk are native to Tamriel, elves are descendants of the Aldmer from Aldmeris.
@@clowncargaming8046 In the lore someone did "research" and basically called em elves because of their pointed ears, I believe. A real "this plucked chicken is a featherless bipedal, therefore I present to you a man" moment.
My favorite story that focuses on an elf is frieren beyond a journeys end. It’s a great watch
This video was brought to you by Deep Rock Galactic
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We fight for rock and stone!
IF YOU ROCK AND STONE, YOU'RE NEVER ALONE!
BUILDIN’ A DISPENSER!
wait, wrong engineer
FOR ROCKEDI ROCK AND STONE
18:54 "Master Chief? You mind telling me what you're doing in the Imperial City?!"
"Sir, giving the Thalmor back their fireball"
The Silmarillion focuses hugely on elves, and it still works, because it shows elves are capable of both great good and great evil.
Damn, Curious Archive is probably invited to a Mountain-home great feast. He's an honorary Dawi.
yeah the forest elf/woodelf depiction is and always will be my fav like heck yeah give me a band of famer gatherers bopping through the woods sounds like a preem spot to take a break mid hike
The Elder Scrolls' depicition of elves will always be my personal favorite depictions.
They're imperfect and flawed which is what i personally prefer when it comes to fantasy races, something grounded.
Elder scrolls is awesome
They’re also ugly as fucking shit hahahaha.
TES elves are the only elves I like.
but they are right. Yes the hate for every other race is just not cool, but elves are the only spirits who maintained their memories from before the creation of the earth (nirn in tes) so they are way more qualified to say if the mortal plane is a good or bad thing: men don't even remember a time before it!
"I love the nazis" is such a wild take.
I would point out that once you've read the Silmarillion, that bit with Galadriel resisting temptation from the One Ring has a LOT more oomph. She was present at the Kinslaying (though I don't think she personally did any slaying, she was still there, she was still part of the responsible group, and she continued to follow that group instead of turning back). She saw the destruction of several elvish cities and kingdoms, saw the end of Beleriand and of Numenor. She has that vision of "all shall love me and despair" is absolutely a truth within her, and stems directly from the things she has seen and done and the people with whom she shares a bloodline. But the line right AFTER that vision: "I passed the test. I shall diminish, and go into the West...and remain Galadriel."
She's one of the very last of the ones bearing the punishment for the Kinslaying and everything else. She's finally being granted the chance to TRULY go home. Every speck of her wisdom comes from the mistakes she made, the mistakes her cousins made. She has outlived even her own kind by a significant amount: no one else among the elves of Middle Earth has lost so many loved ones as Galadriel has. Her serenity in the face of the mountains of grief that lay across her shoulders is, to me, the least believable thing about her.
And yet - with all of that said: Galadriel, and every other elf of Middle Earth, feels a slight envy for Men. For the elves know their fates, they know what happens when their bodies die, they know, on a level beyond doubting, what their place is in creation. Men have a different fate - and no one, not the elves, not the Valar, and certainly not Men themselves - knows what it is. To the elves, the Men are the special ones!
I always felt that Tolkien's elves were boring because they seem to have everything, but I didn't know they were naturally immortal until recently, and then I thought...why would these guys ever fight, or be warriors at all? If a race is naturally immortal, life and self preservation would be infinitely more precious than for mortals, so they would be more interesting if they were made natural cowards or traitors because of that
There is a reason (actually several reasons) for it: basically they were tricked into it. An evil deity introduced the concept of creating weapons, fighting and killing to them and then manipulated some of the more temperamental elves to point those weapons against their brethren. This, coupled with the fact that that same evil deity later tried, multiple times, to violently subjugate every single one of them, led them to pick up warfare and get more and more used to it, both for defensive and offensive reasons.
I love Elder Scrolls elves kind of because they lean into every different aspects with some insane twist added. Altmer (High Elves)? They're arrogant and great at magic, but they're overconfident and... also literal Nazis. Bosmer (Wood elves)? Amazing sharpshooters, love nature and they're agile, but they're also obligate carnivores and eat their dead as a show of respect. Dunmer (Dark Elves)? They're sneaky, good mages, and skilled warriors. Typical perfect elf... except they worship demons (daedra), live in inhospitable hellholes and they only exist because they were cursed by their chief deity.
They are complex, unique and their cultures interact with the world perfectly despite retaining some of those stereotypes spread across their species.
(Also I know Orcs are also technically elves in the Elder Scrolls but let's ignore that)
Its funny how while orcs are almost always depicted as the evil and corrupt race in fantasy and elves are the good and pure race, Elder Scrolls Orcs are probably the most chill and hospitable of the merfolk.
I'd be friends with an Orc over an Altmer any day.
You forgot the average Dunmer, especially on Vvardenfell or in the south, is no better than a Thalmor justiciar. Dunmer are real, proper bastards. Only province on Tamriel with slavery. House Dres can burn.
The Bosmer are obligated to eat dead people because they made a pact with the forests of their homeland to not let flesh rot there, and they're so big on abiding by the pact they sometimes starve themselves so they can eat more dead people.
Even the Dwarves are elves: mysterious, ancient, almost beyond mortal comprehension, and separate from day-to-day life. And may have made really big "Tolkien elves" mistakes and are gone because of it.
"Also I know Orcs are also technically elves in the Elder Scrolls but let's ignore that"
Why ignore that? That's an insane twist! I thought we liked an insane twist? 😅
I'd love to see Legolas shred on a slope or see him fuck it up with a skateboard on a halfpipe honestly, I think that would be really cool
lord of the rads
This video was sponsored by Sauron's industrial company.
I personally love Elves but I completely understand the hate. They are always made out to be these ethereal and flawless beings who are pretentious and believe they are better than everyone else. When do you see an Elven character or civilization that isn’t super fancy and high class? Most Elves portrayed are always the high class elves that we never see what “lower class” elves would look like. I saw a post once that said Legolas’s Elvish was actually very informal and could be compared to hillbilly talk amongst elves and I think that’s hilarious because the informal side of elves is never explored. Show us hill billy elves, or elves that are just normal people that don’t believe they are better than everyone else. The people want variety, show us the different status between sun elves, wood elves and other types. How do their cultures impact their life style? What elven races are considered top class and which aren’t? Just adding variety and straying away from the stereotypes would really boost the reputation of elves
You want girlfailure elves? Look no further than Sousou no Frieren! Meet Frieren! She's more than 1000 years old! She's the famed mage that helped defeat the Demon King! She still got tricked by mimics constantly! Her apprentice has to wake her up and feed her in the morning or she will sleep till noon! She's a loot goblin! She loves humans and their potential! (no like seriously this manga goes out of its way to drill into you how much more cooler humans are compared to elves)
Other elves that had appeared in the anime include: one that is your typical better-than-thee elf that got called out in universe for her callousness (she gets better promise) and one that has been completely forgotten by history despite him saving the world once and now he turns to religion as his last anchor to keep going.
Elves in SnF are really flawed. Like the series is hinged on how flawed they are. It started because of Frieren's apathy toward time and connections, something she's actively trying to overcome. Elves are also not portrayed as ethereally beautiful either; at least no one ever made a comment on or got impress by the elves' appearance. Their main quirk is their near immortal lifespan and how that affects their psychology. And contrary to most, it is because of her long life that Frieren admires humans so much. Here are people that would never live to a fraction of how long she had, but they have accomplished so much more than her. Because elves have the mindset of "we can delay things for decades, centuries even, for we have time" but humans don't, and so humans make the most of what little time they have, and they accomplished so many things.
Anyway, WATCH FRIEREN! Or read! Just check it out I love it so much :,D
@@k.t.4613 THAT sounds like interesting interpretation of elves. Especially the “oh we have time, we don’t need to rush things” is such a cool concept for elven lifestyles. Like, Elves do have hundreds and hundreds of years to live (depending on the story it can differ) so why would they try to rush things? Also an elf being a loot goblin is so funny lol. I like to imagine elves are secretly hoarders because after living for so long they would just accumulate so many things and not want to part with them 😭
Even in the Lord of the Rings books, Lindir, an elf, said, and I quote, "To sheep other sheep no doubt appear different. Or to shepherds. But Mortals have not been our study. We have other business."
They directly compared the other races of Middle Earth to farm animals, and if that doesn't say a lot unto itself, I don't know what does.
Small amount of context, Lindir was being asked to determine what parts of a lengthy poem were written by Bilbo, and what parts were Aragorn's. He couldn't tell, which Bilbo was teasing him about. This doesn't really change your point, but it sounds worse out of context.
@anthonylarocque7975 TBH it's not that bad at all when you think about it. This isn't the equivalent of a white guy saying "all Asians look alike." Elves and Hobbits are quite literally different species. In our world the closest equivalent would be a human not being able to tell two aliens apart. You probably wouldn't be able to tell the aliens apart if you don't interact with the species often, but with humans you can tell their faces apart at a glance because you're wired that way.
During my final exams, I had an oral exam in Polish on the topic "The figure of an elf in culture" ^^
If I remember correctly, and it was a dozen or so years ago xD, I had the beginning of a speech focusing on Nordic, Germanic and Celtic mythologies. From that I moved on to "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Then Tolkien of course, Sapkowski due to nationality and the topic of racial problems in "The Witcher Saga" ^^ I don't remember if I got into computer games, but I don't think so...
In short, I had an awesome topic on my final exam ^^
Zanny must be proud
Was so excited to see you cover The Awoken in Destiny as elves cause I’d never considered that.
So what i get is:
Forest Elves, Fish Elves and Space Elves >>> Assholes
Mountain Elves and Dark Elves >>> Pretty chill
Well, the Elder Scrolls Dunmer are not chill at all. They are so xenophobic they even discriminate against their own people.
Dark Elves in Warhammer are not chill at all unless you vibe with Slaneesh.
40k and Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves: "Chill?"
Dark elves (a.k.a. Drow) in the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons and Dragons aren't very chill. A lot of the them worship one of the most evil gods of the setting (Lolth) and are cruel.
@@jasperzanovich2504 Hooded figure: **Nods** "Skyrim belongs to the Nords"
Dude I personally like the pre Tolkien elves of European folklore.
They are terrifying.
Like Tolkien describes they are incredibly beautiful/ethereal beings, but at the same time they steal children, ruin people’s lives through evil trickery, spread diseases ( elf shot), and even practice human sacrifice ( like depicted in the story of “Tam Lin”). They are the things that go bump in the night, harassing, kidnapping or murdering.
Kind of a break from the stuck up, always morally good, pretentious fantasy elves we’ve grown accustomed to.
Many of those faerie, however, have morphed into other modern fantasy tropes. Goblins, brownies, redcap, trolls, pixies, so on and so forth were all bundled up under 'elf' or 'fey' or what not. Heck, in some mythos, dwarves were just another type of elf.
I think part of the challenge is that modern 'elves' - and other fantastical creatures - have been so codified by Tolkien, Dungeons and Dragons, and following works that to claim that an elf being anything other than those things is either considered subversive, or rejected as 'incorrect', as opposed to, well... a needless categorization of something that doesn't even exist.
That sounds a lot like fairies. Pick a lane, bro.
Tolkien Elves actually aren't just beautiful and ethereal. They're described as a combination of beauty and danger.
I'm actually incredibly glad for this, because I absolutely despise such depictions of fae.
The concept of an alien other being reduced to such bs caveman level fears is gross and tedious.
And given a kenning that calls the sun "elven wheel" they're probably in charge of the sun too
Average Stormcloak Rebel:
to be fair Altmer are responable for half tamirel problems, Dawn era mortal plus Lorkhan/Shor race VS Elves and their Gods, Merethic era Nedes enslaved by Elves Ayleids, Three Banner war Manimarco Elf/ God Molag Bal, Arena Jagar Tharn Half elf and Elf evil dicator, Morrowind Papa Dagoth Ur and Evil cultist Tribunal/Wife Elves, Great War and thalmor war crimes Elves, Atlmer and Dunmer Enslaving Goblins and Other races Elfs, and Skyrim Alduin the World Eater Elven God of Time and the End
need i list more since their a lot more i didn't cover.
to be fair man has done bad as well but not nearly as bad as the elves at most human have genocided really bad elves and maybe attack the Orc a few to many times, and nearly Thanosed Elves with a Giant Robot. Twices......
Ironic, considering their unwittingly helping the Thalmor.
@@AAZ-yu5ss Only if the Dragonborn doesn't get involved. The Thalmor want the Stormcloaks to wage a prolonged war that drains and weakens both sides. The Dragonborn showing up and sending the Empire packing within a year so Skyrim can get to work rebuilding.(Or I suppose the opposite, and crushing the Rebellion early, if you're an Imperial Milkdrinker) is far from the ideal outcome for the Thalmor.
@@AAZ-yu5ss not really, so many people forget that Skyrim as a Hole could invade cyrodiil and fully take it over if they wanted to, so long as the other province Don't get to much involved Skyrim has bean it own Empire Twice Rulling Skyrim Highrock and Morrowind, and then again Skyrim Cyrodiil High rock Hammerfell.
people Forget that the Nord are the second best foot soldier in the Entire Empire second Only the Redguard/Orcs from a gameplay stand point. Current Era and Third era Imperial tactic are based on Nordic warfare training and kavirir teaching past down since the second Era.
@@AAZ-yu5ss The Stormcloaks plan on fighting the thalmor after taking Skyrim, so they could easily aid the empire in case of another war.
Excellent video my man - you are among my few favorite channels on TH-cam right now. Keep 'em coming!
"feral dirt boy" is such a good way to describe Link
This is kinda why I loved Frieren, being both an long lived being in some ways and in others a child. We only meet 2 other Elves in the first season of that series and the interactions between Frieren and her own race is barely above apathy and a "Yeah, see you in a century or two probably" before parting ways. One of the two elves we meet in the story even says how their race is slowly going extinct because theyre so long lived they dont feel the need to reproduce and that he thought they'd all already essentially died off. The three elves in featured in the season do also showcase the Specials treatment of elves, with Frieren and Serie being some of the best mages in their world, but Frieren barely even cares about that and would rather spend her time studying folk magic that people in small villages create.
Then you add in that the whole plot of that show is Frieren realizing that her immortality has isolated her from those she was supposed to care for and it was to late to fix it so she goes on a journey to essentially become more human. Then it spends a LOT of time talking about how amazing Frieren finds humans and their ability to rapidly adapt as she is the one who states to an even longer lived elf that "The Era of Humans has arrived."
Something I also noticed in that show is that their depictions of demons always lack that little white highlight in the eye anime use to show "life" basically, and the only other non-demon character who has that is Serie, the longer lived elf who if you ask me seems to have lost all the actual joy in life.
Seriously if you havent checked out Frieren Beyond Journey's End and you like anime and fantasy, then it deserves some of your time.
Big difference is, western elves are often above average in everything, Frieren is below average in everything other than magic.
Japan steals and ruins fantasy and mythology from other countries.
The elves in frieren is not just a fancier version of human like how is portrayed in some shows . The focus is on their immortality, the fancy elvish part is not the focus. I think It is mostly how anime portray elves they are nature loving hippy but they are not really fancy they live very long but they don't really care things outside of their circle, they are more like fancy hobbit more than western elves like elves in skyrim.
@@anotherbacklog My other favorite depiction of elves are the ones in Dimension20 Fantasy High where they how effing weird and annoying high elves can be.
4:00 "Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I found, I found it is the Small Things everyday Deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay simple acts of kindness and love." - Gandalf
Elves in Frieren are my favorites, they are practically extinct, and implied to live for tens of thousands of years. The only reason they are better than humans is because they have more experience and practice, other then that and the ears, they are no different form a normal person
Elves, to me, have had this glass cannon nature to them since i became aware of their existence, yes they outclass almost everyone and everything in most things, but the way they seem to be on the verge of imploding when their culture comes face to face with the ever increasing changes of the world around them despite their calm and noble demeanor as well as how longevity seems to end up with different types of stagnation and nihilistic despair.
im glad as an elf enjoyer you also noticed the glory of dungeon meshi. I swear dungeon meshi is some of the best world building around. (the best to me personally)
1:06 i have never wanted to get the curiosity stream/nebula bundle more than just now. I made a list of my 5 all time favorite pieces of media as a recomendation to someone else. Frieren was on it and so was your series on Serina. This simple knowledge of the video is the best pitch for it i've yet seen.
Japan steals and ruins western fantasy and mythology. Frieren is another example of what happens when japanese steal and uglyfy things that don't belong to their culture.
Support Nebula, but absolutely not curiosity stream! They (probably illegally?) decided to simply stop paying the royalties they owe some creators!
I hope that some day you will release a video comparing different magical systems and how magic seems to have gone from more soft to hard in recent years. I'm thinking about magic systems created by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn), Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time), Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko (Avatar: The Last Airbender), but also Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) and Christopher Paolini (Eragon).
The thing you notice when going through Dungeon Meshi about the elves, and a lot of this has to do with the subtle world-building, is that you don't know a lot about them despite one of the main characters and one of the main antagonists for most of the story, are both elves that lived most of their lives among short-lived races (the catch-all term for sapient races in the world of dungeon meshi is "humans", this includes, among what we would call humans are called tall-men, half-foots the halfling/hobbit equivalent but have very short lifespans, dwarves, elves, gnomes which are different from half-foots, and sometimes because of fantasy racism, ogres, kobolds who are dog-people, and orcs; but we're splitting hairs). By the time we're introduced to an entire party of elves, they seem almost alien. They're all in uniform like an army unit, most of them are women, other characters reference "the elves of the west" in fear (as if they were talking about the KGB or Secret Police; which isn't entirely inaccurate), one of them is dark almost blue-skinned with golden eyes (which we haven't seen from an elf yet; the Mad Mage Thistle has brown skin, but all other elves we've seen, all 2-3 of them, and including most of this new party, are white-skinned with blonde or lighter-colored hair), and they've come to directly meet with the Lord of the Island (basically the highest authority around) to request, or rather order, that he hand over the island to their country. Two side-characters personally know and have had experiences with these specific elves and what they do. What we knew about these elves up to seeing them in negotiations is that having them show up would be the worst-case scenario for our main characters and everyone else.
It's not that they think they're better than everyone else, they genuinely believe it. They know they're untouchable. That going against them would trigger a war, and they want that because they know they'd eventually win; the elves can live up to 400 years, double the span of the other long-lived races. Even if they can't overpower their enemies with whatever magic they have at their disposal (which the last war between elves and dwarves, they almost did win), they can surely outlast them in a battle of attrition. To them, it'd be like waiting-out a child throwing a tantrum; more of a nuisance than anything.
the only Elves I've ever loved have been the Night Elves from W3/World of Warcraft.
They're unusual to your usual elf by being kinda feral, bizarre looking, and mysterious as opposed to just elegant, holier than thou, and swoopy.
SAME. The Night Elves are quite interesting compared to so many other modern elves (including the High Elves in Warcraft).
Tolkien Elves are actually really cool, I just wanted to say. They are not just elegant and holier than thou. Tolkien described them to be beautiful, learned, wise and magical, sure, but also they're philosopher-warriors, taller, stronger, more "fell" than mortals. An Elf lord in armor is enough to drive fear in the hearts of other races. They look physically imposing and beautiful at the same time. Their women are taller too, Galadriel is 7 feet tall and was "of Amazonian disposition." They often sing, joke, laugh, dance in the starlight and make merriment. When people are in the company of Elves for a while, they begin to feel a sense of happiness and cheer, in fact. I feel like as much as I liked the Peter Jackson movies, he made them a little too one-sidedly stiff and ethereal.
@@Fear_the_Nog ??? I'm confused how Tolkien Elves, considered the trend-setter for almost all fantasy elves, aren't the exact image of annoyingly perfect pretty elves
@@magpie1466 Because they aren't. The so-called rest of the fantasy elves don't at all follow Tolkien's depiction of them much actually. Tolkien's Elves are culturally extremely diverse. Some are more like the Christmas elves in terms of how they act and behave, while others are more like tragic Greek heroes, still others like Norse gods and goddesses, and many are like the kings and queens from the Old Testament Bible. On the whole, they behave more like the Celtic Fair Folk or the stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann of Irish myth than what we think of as typical modern fantasy Elves. They don't have pointy ears or straight long hair for one, that was a Peter Jackson aesthetic. They are physically beautiful, but not "effeminate bourgeois fancy" and generally not annoying, but more depicted as sharp-eyed, forthright and happy. An Elven man in Tolkien's books looked more like an ancient Celtic/Anglo-Saxon hero a la Beowulf than some fancy-pants who snaps their fingers, lol. Tolkien said that his Elves are the same race as mortal humans biologically, so the whole being crazy long ears thing is not true for them at all. They looked like Mortal Men, but were generally fairer, paler in complexion, taller and stronger, and retained their youth forever. What made them distinct from Mortals was their spiritual fate, which was bound to the Earth and immortal, while Mortal souls depart the Earth upon death.
@@magpie1466 Because the trend setter for all of fantasy is actually Warhammer Fantasy. Games Workshop copied Tolkien. Everyone else copied Games Workshop. All modern fantasy tropes can be seen in Warhammer Fantasy, while only vaguely appearing in Tolkien. Because Warhammer is the *trope codifier* for modern fantasy.
@9:56 and then we have the Aeldari in 40k who literally indulged in everything because of their long lifespan and ultimately birthed a chaos god