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redonihunter6 days ago
Also, Tolkien’s elves were very much city dwellers during the First and Second Ages.

And they did not have pointy ears. Yet here we are, elves being tree loving, long haired, pointy eared, long living, tall, arrogant magic users with keen senses and high skills. That's the image someone gets, if you blandly tell them, your fantasy story will have elves.

Them being regular city dwellers like boring old humans breaks with the stereotype. And it breaks with the source material used for creating elves. It is humans that live in cities. All the non humans, the mythical creatures live elsewhere. Usually in the woods or mystical lands. Some underground. Swamps or even the sea. But not regular cities.

Sure, you can create a world, where humans, orks, elves, dwarves, goblins, halfings, lizards, fishpeople and whatnot all live in overground cities made of brick houses. But it kinda defeats the purpose a bit, of having all these different creatures in a setting. So instead you have dwarves building underground, elves growing treehouses, fishpeople carving corrals, halfings dig burrows and whatever gobos do.

(Interestingly enough, Tolkien's elves and humans were the same species. Elves just got the fate of living long and becoming graceful over time in a simplified explanation. So in ancient times Tolkien's humans and elves would do probably all the same things, like building cities.)

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Roma-bi76 days ago

people get a very simple image of elves, this doesnt mean there isn't a lot more to elves than they know, also elven cities do look quite different from human cities, take Silvermoon, or even Teldrassil, villages on a giant world tree. You also have the elves in dragon age who lived in cities that were built with materials but also magic. There is a lot of potential for city builders with elves

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Eldwood5 days ago

It is humans that live in cities. All the non humans, the mythical creatures live elsewhere.

Most Dungeon and Dragons campaign worlds that have elves and cities have elven cities. Warhammer has elven cities. Even Dragon Age had elven cities before the humans destroyed them. I’m having trouble thinking of any mainstream fantasy examples of elves who don’t and never have lived in cities. Maybe some tiny jrpgs where there a handful of cities on the entire world map. And dwarves stereotypically live in cities - it’s only in settings that deliberately go against the standard fantasy conventions that they don’t.

Elven cities typically don’t look like human cities, but have their own architectural style which may or may not involve tree houses. They’re still cities.

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redonihunter5 days ago

nd it breaks with the source material used for creating elves. It is humans that live in cities. All the non humans, the mythical creatures live elsewhere. ... not (in) regular cities

Human mythology about non-human creatures that are not animals, does not talk about them having regular cities in the human style.

Not even all human societies build cities for that matter. Smaller dwellings are not cities. And nomads do not have those either.

If you consider a non-human intelligent species with similar traits, for a story, you might of course project some human behaviour onto them. Including building and living in cities.

But the current cliche for a standard "Elf" is to live in the woods, in harmony with the woods. Maybe growing the trees to form a natural house. The favored weapon is a bow and the culture would be the guardians of the forest.

If you have desert dwelling creatures, that mine the hills for gold, and you call them elves, that will be asking for a lot of backstory, how they ended up there. Using the word "elf" invokes the known stereotypes and expectations in the reader/viewer/player. And the trope of elf, given no other information, will invoke things like wood dweller and guardian, agile, noble, long life span and even pointy ears. It does not invoke: lives in cities, just like humans do.

If you create a world where they do, it's a case of: that's how our elves live. They are different. Look. We made something original, but did not bother to come up with a name for these non-humans, that almost look like humans.

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Eldwood5 days ago (1 edit)

Human mythology about non-human creatures that are not animals, does not talk about them having regular cities in the human style.

Human mythology usually talks very little about how non-humans live, but even so it’s not that hard to find counter-examples. Amaravati for one. Also many ruined cities were once believed by the locals to have been built and inhabited by non-humans.

But we’re talking about fantasy elves, which have evolved to have their own set of tropes separate from their Norse mythology origin. And elven cities are one of those tropes, one that was there from Tolkien’s time and has been used almost universally ever since.

Not even all human societies build cities for that matter. Smaller dwellings are not cities. And nomads do not have those either.

Yes, and fantasy elves are almost never portrayed as similar to those human societies. Elves are not country bumpkins, that’s more of a halfling trope. They are not barbarians, that’s more of an orc trope. They are often the most “civilized” race in the setting, a model for what human society should be (in the eyes of the author). Which can mean being “closer to nature” in some sense, but in a civilized way that does not preclude building cities.

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redonihunter5 days ago
Human mythology usually talks very little about how non-humans live

Exactly! It is more about how they interact with us. Like swapping children for changelings or living under your house. Sitting on your chest while you are trying to sleep. Leading travellers astray in the woods. Whatever. They usually get the blame for something. Or explain strange things that happen.

Elfs in particular are stated to be small and mischievous, playing pranks and being cruel to humans. I would nowadays call those creatures pixies or at least fairies, because of the prevalence of Tolkien inspired elfs capturing the word.

They are not barbarians, that’s more of an orc trope. They are often the most “civilized” race in the setting

Yes. So much civilized that they gave up on "civilisation" and returned to nature to live in harmony with it. At least the wiki on generic elves does mention this notion whose key traits are being friendly with nature and animals.

I do not know exactly how and where it was popularized. Seems a bit like the pointy ears. Those got longer and longer over time, so now Elves have very long pointy ears, so people know they are elves.

So, just like people think of a generic barbarian, if you say "orc", people will think of a generic woodlands ranger and assume a wood-elf, if you say "elf". Unless of course you prepare the setting.

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