Why do Some People Vociferously Dislike JRRT's 🧝Elves?

[Gloranthan]

I don't mean to quarrel with anyone's preferences in fantasy beings here, I am just wondering why so many people in fantasy fandom have a very dismissive/negative view of elves specifically as Tolkien wrote them (or as they perceive them). I certainly don't see elves as perfect, they made a lot of mistakes, so I don't get the 'Mary Sue' perception some have cited. A lot of the elve's biggest projects were Bad Ideas, but they pursued them with a passion that is enviable, if not wise. They have a lot of genuinely good qualities (from my perspective, depending on the individual elf) and are interestingly different from historical human beings. If elves were real, and anything like Faenor, I feel I would personally like them, though perhaps fear their potential (one of the downsides of virtue is that it can be used to bolster vice).

The idea of a breed of creatures who are humanlike but taller, more handsome, and more enduring goes far beyond elves - even Cimmerians and Captain America might be called 'para-elves', just as some Norse heroes become posthumous 'elves' judging from some tombs. The Tolkien elf includes some notions of Adamic humanity, in addition to Norse and Celtic fae-creatures, and I think this was a very clever combination on Tolkien's part.

What is it about the elves that seems to bug some people?

Michael Moorcock is one of my favorite fantasy authors, and he had some rather biting criticisms of Tolkien and Robert E. Howard - he wrote Elric as anti-Conan and anti-elves, but his resultant character is actually deeply informed by both of these. Later in his life he said that he had been overzealous in his criticisms, and given how much his fiction depends on reworking their tropes it would be hard for him not to relent on these points.

I personally really like elves as fantasy creatures, especially when they are presented as something like demigods or great spirits (not a big fan of twee fairy versions); The Broken Sword is probably my favorite version of them after Tolkien.

I've noticed a fairly similar pattern of criticisms regarding Superman. It seems as though some people find the idea of someone who has strong natural talents and a fairly benevolent disposition inherently offensive, or something. Like everyone with power 'should' be Grimdark 40K characters. This has puzzled me for a long time, because I am indifferent to some elves, love others, but have never found them intrinsically offensive. Sometimes they're 'overused' as a 'default fantasy race' but that's got more to do with authors not using them well than the elves themselves.

 

[Deimos]

...

What is it about the elves that seems to bug some people?

Envy.
Elves are almost 7 feet (at least 2m) and are immortal unless killed, and are beautiful or studly (or both), and have very cool weapons and do cool things (good or bad).
The envious people are probably around 5ft-10", and are neither studly nor beautiful, and are going to die after living in the little cottage behind their kid's house and without doing any cool things (good or evil) at all, except maybe coming in 4th in the local pickleball tournament.

 

[Gloranthan]

Envy.
Elves are almost 7 feet (at least 2m) and are immortal unless killed, and are beautiful or studly (or both), and have very cool weapons and do cool things (good or bad).
The envious people are probably around 5ft-10", and not studly or beautiful (or either), and are going to die after living in the little cottage behind their kid's house and without doing any cool things (good or evil) at all, except maybe coming in 4th in the local pickleball tournament.

This attitude, if/when true, triggers my Harrison Bergeron senses. Disliking people who are dismissive of me because they think they're more important is understandable, but I would never want to dislike someone for genuinely being better than me in some way. I live to encounter people who are more intelligent, more muscular, etc. than me, and whether they got it through "luck" or hard work doesn't make much of a difference (and some biologist would contend that working hard is a hereditary trait, anyway). I like things that are strong, beautiful, etc. and I don't compare myself to others in that way. I guess this is just a personality thing. I wish the world were filled with people better than me. I would hate for the entire species to be held back because I have some flaws.

I often imagine how cool it would be to talk to Superman. He seems like a nice guy.

A somewhat related subject is misuse of the term 'Mary Sue'. It means a character who is author self-insert who breaks the existing story. It is basically inapplicable to anything that isn't fan fiction. It includes characters who are inexplicably perfect as well as those who use a tortured past as an excuse to be a jerk. It does not apply to any character who happens to be very good at things. I doubt most of the people using this term have any idea what it actually means, and it's not 'a character I dislike because they're really good'. By definition, no one in an original setting (such as Middle Earth) can possibly be a Mary Sue, because there is no pre-existing framework for Mary to ludicrously disrupt. It's also rather subjective, though certain cases will get broad agreement.

 

[Deimos]

This attitude, if/when true, triggers my Harrison Bergeron senses. Disliking people who are dismissive of me because they think they're more important is understandable, but I would never want to dislike someone for genuinely being better than me in some way. I live to encounter people who are more intelligent, more muscular, etc. than me, and whether they got it through "luck" or hard work doesn't make much of a difference (and some biologist would contend that working hard is a hereditary trait, anyway). I like things that are strong, beautiful, etc. and I don't compare myself to others in that way. I guess this is just a personality thing. I wish the world were filled with people better than me. I would hate for the entire species to be held back because I have some flaws.

I often imagine how cool it would be to talk to Superman. He seems like a nice guy.

"Tis sad, but most people are petty when it comes to the intelligence, talents, and gifts of others.
Always has been that way (read your Homer...or Shakespeare... and anything about today's celebrities), always will be that way.
Someone very wise (and I think sometime ago maybe 15th C. ) said "Comparisons are odious"
"Odyous of olde been comparisonis, And of comparisonis engendyrd is haterede.

 

[Gloranthan]

"Tis sad, but most people are petty when it comes to the intelligence, talents, and gifts of others.
Always has been that way (read your Homer...or Shakespeare... and anything about today's celebrities), always will be that way.
Someone very wise (and I think sometime ago maybe 15th C. ) said "Comparisons are odious"
"Odyous of olde been comparisonis, And of comparisonis engendyrd is haterede.

Humans are sniping, hierarchical social creatures - someone with talent threatens to take the spotlight/girlfriend/money that we imagine we might have without their presence. This makes sense, from a psychology or evolution standpoint, but I think it behooves us as sentient beings to get over it. Society is not a pie we have to divide up, with stronger animals getting the bigger share. A truly cooperative society makes everyone better off, and others having talents we don't extends and intensifies the division of labor and specialization. If the best people are in any given position, the resultant production allows everyone else to be better off. The 'tribal jungle ape' mentality is really inappropriate and people seem to refuse to give it up. Or simply be unable/oblivious to how it skews their perceptions. Again, this is probably a personality thing. It never occurs to me to compare myself to others and feel good/bad based on the results.

I think this is actually a good in-universe explanation for why characters would dislike elves, but it's pretty sad as a real-world explanation, given that elves don't even exist. I suppose they could be projecting the resentement they feel towards people who are 'better' (in their own eyes) onto a fictional version.

 

[Ent]

Disliking people who are dismissive of me because they think they're more important is understandable, but I would never want to dislike someone for genuinely being better than me in some way. I live to encounter people who are more intelligent, more muscular, etc. than me, and whether they got it through "luck" or hard work doesn't make much of a difference (and some biologist would contend that working hard is a hereditary trait, anyway). I like things that are strong, beautiful, etc. and I don't compare myself to others in that way. I guess this is just a personality thing. I wish the world were filled with people better than me. I would hate for the entire species to be held back because I have some flaws.

An intriguing discussion to which I can add little, because the root cause has been identified and cited.
Regarding the above, you do realize the extreme minority this puts you in do you not, sir Gloranthan??

Humans are sniping, hierarchical social creatures

I must say you are far too generous toward the fundamental nature of the human.

A truly cooperative society makes everyone better off,

Would that history had shown us such a society. But this is a thing of imagination and hope, the race incapable of achieving and delivering it.

I do not speak as Ent here, but as the human behind Ent, with long decades of study and observation of and into the human animal--its being, behavior, capability and potential..!

There are some few exceptions to the rule among the beasts of course who see the issue.

Long discourse could be held regarding those who have striven historically, and continue to strive today, to help the 'man-beast' think differently than societal/historical exposure and misguided educational systems train them into. Such efforts have been, by and large, entirely fruitless.

Yet we must not give up home, or truly the race is ultimately lost.

We stand on the precipice given today's technology. Tomorrow does not bode well for mankind.

There is no surprise in the nature of man being visited upon a fantasy Elf as quickly and surely as it is visited upon everything else.

 

[Gloranthan]

Regarding the above, you do realize the extreme minority this puts you in do you not, sir Gloranthan??

I'm well aware, though I tend not to spend time with people who exhibit these traits. I am very particular about who I will let in my life, and it usually starts with 'no drama' and 'more interested in ideas and things than people'.

 

[Ent]

I tend not to spend time with people who exhibit these traits

My hope would be in time, you might spend much time with them. Certainly, use the opportunities you do have to help.
The species cannot evolve without example. It is a kinesthetic species like all others.
Without you its chances are reduced.

You see - it takes little effort to decline. It takes great effort to improve. Man is not given to hard work wherever it can be avoided.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I wasn't aware of such a dislike of Tolkien's elves in fantasy fandom, but my involvement was decades ago. I guess I haven't been keeping up -- but it would seem many of these people never got around to The Silmarillion.😄

As for Mary Sues, yes, the term did originate in fanfic -- specifically Star Trek fanfic -- but has long since migrated and expanded, to include even characters by published authors.

We can agree with the various definitions or not, but we can hardly enforce our own on everyone else.

those who use a tortured past as an excuse to be a jerk

I'd say Thomas Covenant qualifies. 😉

 

[Ent]

I'd say Thomas Covenant qualifies

Ah. I'll have to check back in on that. I didn't recognize a 'tortured past' as being contributive. I just perceived him as an incurable jerk from the outset.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Perhaps it could be a "tortured present". He brings it up every chance he gets. 😄

 

[Ent]

Perhaps it could be a "tortured present"

It definitely was present torture for me when I was reading it..!!

 

[Sons of the Woodland King]

What is it about the elves that seems to bug some people?

I have a great example to (sort of) answer this question. I believe liking/dislking Elves all comes down to (like most things), a matter of taste in literary characters. There are those who like their protagonists flawed and relatable, and those who prefer them ideal and someone to aspire to. My sister is the former and I am the latter. Our personal favorites break down as follows:

She likes Batman, Iron Man, Aragorn/Men, and is constantly complaining about Mary Sues.
I like Superman, Captain America, Legolas/Elves, and I may be guilty of writing characters that have Mary Sue qualities.

The dichotomy can also be illustrated by Lord of the Rings vs. Game of Thrones, both of which I am a fan of.

Game of Thrones is pretty much a cesspool of extremely flawed characters; it is so difficult to find someone to truly like or root for because just when you think they're "pretty good", they turn around and do something utterly scandalous or stupid. And the fans of the books/series celebrate this, because "it's realistic"! I do like GOT, both the books and the HBO series, but I find it so exhausting and sometimes felt like I needed therapy after watching certain episodes. There are NO happy endings in GRR Martin's works.

LOTR on the other hand, has plenty of "perfect" ethereally heroic characters to idolize and look up to, who make us feel uplifted and inspire us to be better. The Elves especially embody the ideal we wish for ourselves, even though we are closer to Men. In LOTR, it is extremely easy to identify who is good or bad, and good ultimately triumphs and everyone is happy in the end. This just isn't everyone's cup of tea.

We who like Elves seek to be inspired by ideal figures. People who dislike them prefer to stay grounded in realism and find more relatable heroes.

 

[Gloranthan]

I have a great example to (sort of) answer this question. I believe liking/dislking Elves all comes down to (like most things), a matter of taste in literary characters. There are those who like their protagonists flawed and relatable, and those who prefer them ideal and someone to aspire to.

My problem with a lot of flawed characters can be twofold:

1) They're not really flawed. Batman is 'just a human', who is impossibly smart, physically fit, able to heal like freakin' Wolverine. He is, objectively, a superhuman with magical technology protected by enormous plot armor. He gets injured occasionally, but it never matters. He just comes back, better than ever, next week. It's basically impossible to write a flawed or even believable action hero in a serial, unless you're willing to kill him off at some point, because humans are fragile and cannot get into fistfights with crocodiles and shot at every day if they want to be healthy. My suspension of disbelief just don't go far enough to say 'Batman is just a normal guy, I can be like Batman if I work real hard'. No one who has ever lived could be like Batman, at all. In every area of his life he is impossible. He's even unreasonably attractive!

2) MuhGrimDark is often as exaggeratedly silly as Disney-fied Fairy Tales are. Most people are not secretly cannibals who have dark secrets and visit the local prostitute every week. A lot of successful people are actually incredibly boring, and their flaws are petty, not grandiose or morbid. People with as many criminal habits as we see in Game of Thrones would just destroy themselves before they got that far, especially as all of them are like that. This is similar to the issue of combat/violence in GRITTY, DARK games like Warhammer Fantasy. Most people survive most battles, most people who die in battle get run through or clocked on the noggin, not dismembered. GrimDark is a parody of real life depravity, not a reflection of it.

I definitely like Superman more than any other superhero (I have at least 12 objects with his S on it in sight of me right now), but I don't mind a more realistic/historical sort of character, who has credible flaws and faces actual challenges. I even dislike when ongoing series authors turn a realistic character into an ubermensch because 'he's the protagonist, so he has to become better every book'. But in my experience most people don't actually like realistic novels. Look at Bernard Cornwell's historical fiction, his uppity commoners telling what's-what to Roman patriarchs. That is not 'historical fiction', that's the fantasy of a 21st century person who rejects hierarchy on principle. That commoner would get beaten with clubs by a slave, and it would be legal.

 

[Deimos]

I'm well aware, though I tend not to spend time with people who exhibit these traits. I am very particular about who I will let in my life, and it usually starts with 'no drama' and 'more interested in ideas and things than people'.

I saw this a long time ago...it was attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt (for whom I never really cared) and I think there's a lot of truth in it:
Great minds discuss ideas.
Average minds discuss [material] things.
Little minds discuss other people.

 

[Gloranthan]

I saw this a long time ago...it was attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt (for whom I never really cared) and I think there's a lot of truth in it:
Great minds discuss ideas.
Average minds discuss [material] things.
Little minds discuss other people.

In my case I attribute it to literal autism. My best friends are people whom I can have conversations with about obscure fictional universes, philosophy and particle physics. I find most other topics of conversation unengaging, and avoid them unless I have a practical need to talk about something (say for work, or directions). Even when I talk about 'the weather' it's going to turn into discussions of winter gear or the atmosphere. I don't really do 'small talk', social grooming banter is soooo boring to me. It's even sometimes frustrating to talk about things that are popular, not because they're bad, but because there's fairly shallow discourse about popular things (given how many non-nerds are 'into' it) - and they get annoyed about how I want to go into excruciating, critical detail about everything. Often times young people are more interesting to talk to than adults, because adults seem to vegetate and become worker drones at some point.

I talk about elves with some frequency 😆. And I can tie Superman into any subject.

 

[Sons of the Woodland King]

I talk about elves with some frequency 😆. And I can tie Superman into any subject.

 

[Gloranthan]

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I just checked my spreadsheet to see how many Superman comics (including Justice League, etc.) I have in storage. 1,924 - with many of those being omnibus and collected editions. Plus whatever is on DC Infinite. 732 are Pre-Crisis (my favorite), and some are Superman clones (Kalelogues) from other companies, but we all know they're Superman with his shield filed off. Also, 32 novels or non-fiction works about Clark.

I need to get my Elf collection expanded, but it's a couple dozen books on mythology plus fiction.

 

[Deimos]

I still think that, at base, it is envy.
"The big dog never says to the little dog: I'm just as good as you."

 

[Gloranthan]

I still think that, at base, it is envy.
"The big dog never says to the little dog: I'm just as good as you."

There's something to that, and I've heard that people writing fiction will sometimes resent their own fictional characters for having a romantic relationship with the studly hero they also made up - especially common with fan fiction. This is super weird to me.

I cannot emphasize enough how pleased (well, and utterly confused) I would be to meet a Tolkien elf. Heck, even the Broken Sword elves. Yeah, they're amoral and super dangerous, but they're way cooler than people (who are often just as bad).