I have noticed that there is a lot of elf hate out there in the gamer community. I am curious as to why. Is it because of game balance issues, or because of a resentment toward certain elves in fiction?
I'm actually in the realm of elf-haters, though it's not really hate but a lack of respect. The whole realm of FRPG and Fantasy fiction is overrun with them, I feel elves have been done to death and are 'too easy' to play. Play them if you want to, it's cool with me I'm not against playing with someone who plays elves, but do something different with it, like show me the one elf born with deformaties and psychological issues who is a chain-smoker and an alcohalic!
I personally prefer something with a physical mality, halflings are short and weak. Gnomes are a&&@~+*s. Dwarves are ugly and unsocialable. Orcs are uncomely and likewise unsociable. Huamans are the middle ground and can go either way. Elves are cliche, pretty boys/girls, sociable and decent combatants --it's 'too easy' in my eyes. Heck even warforged --while I personally am 'against' eberron warforged are a pretty basic idea of a golem that's socially involved-- don't have souls and have that nagging flaw of...not having souls (The 'no souls thing' is sort of an inside joke, I apologize for those of you confused by my repeated mention of it).
In short. Elves are fine if you do something new with them. Elves can go to hell if you play the cliche elf. And I don't mind admitting I've played racist characters...Self-proclaimed "elf-hating" characters.
I remember in 2nd edition DMG there was an optional rule about using wish on a level-maxed demihuman to turn them into a human and therefore erase their level caps. So humans had a single awesome advantage...but not really. Who woulnd't want to play an elf?!
As to Tolkien, it's a well known fact that he was 90% academic and 10% amateur creative writer. One of the reasons that Peter Jackson's movie is so successful is because it picks up Tolkien's slack in the characterization department. I've never been an admirer of christian theme (descent from perfection) but I love the way Tolkien combines it with more exotic themes like the Norse theme of hopeless valor ("If this is to be their end, then I would have them make such an end as to be worthy of remembrance!")
That being said, I am now reading LotR for the third or fourth time (haven't read it in since before the movie) and I will always love Tolkien's work including his angel-elves. Even before Liv Tyler, Arwen Evenstar was one of my favorite characters...give me the night over the day anytime!
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[QUOTE=]Sebastian wrote..
Elves are credited with making exceptional weapons and armor (elven chain, various elven blades patterned after LotR), yet they don't otherwise have an affinity with mining/smelting. They are masters of arcane arts, but live in forests were druids would be more appropriate.
Absolutely on the nail; blah, blah, elves are the protectors of the forests and the natural world, blah, f*%&ing blah.
So that’s why they invariably have Fire Orb, Scorching Ray and Fireball memorized to the exclusion of everything else?And as for weapon crafting; come near my lathe with that hair and you’ll be sorry!
[QUOTE=]Mark Lentini wrote..
…and can find a secret door by walking near it. Are there a lot of secret doors in the woods?
This is a seriously irritating ability. It is a meta-game back-door for the DM, to allow the PCs to “find” the path to the next bit of dungeon. If this is so important, there are better ways of fudging it; the talkative plea-bargaining prisoner, tracks leading to a ‘solid’ wall, etc.
Unfortunately, it is also a meta-game tool for the players, who send the elf to sprint a lap round every room.If you want elves to be good at spotting secret doors, then fine, give them a bonus. But force them to make at least a cursory examination.
[QUOTE=] Sebastian wrote…
Elves are also annoying if you think characters shouldn't be able to level so fast within game time. For an elf to go from 1st level to 20th level in a year of game time is the equivalent to elves of a human going from 1st level to 20th level in a week.
How long (game-time) are the Adventure Paths supposed to take? I got to level 2 in a day!
See Order of the Stick where Vaarsuvius takes great offense that he/she/it took 100 years to get his/her/its wizard credentials, but Elan simply chooses an easier initial class, then takes a level of wizard after a week of adventuring.. pure genius![QUOTE=]Dead DM Walking
I hate the "flavors" elves come in. Seriously. Humans might very well be the most adaptable creatures in D&D. At least, that's what the flavor text says. But elves move into an area, and within 2 generations, they have completely changed their racial modifiers. How does that make sense? What's the difference between a "Wild Elf" and a "Wood Elf" anyway?
The difference is that by having 13 varieties of elf, you can pick one with the favoured class you want, thus negating one of the major reasons for playing a human.
Duh! Were you asleep during Munchkin 101?...;-PI once played with a guy whose elf had a stupid name with too many syllables…Cleralalilioloraloloralarolllorrabottlejibberjabberwammalammadingdong or some other such balls. His roleplaying angle was that he was exceptionally young and naïve (for an elf), but all I remember about the character was that he ended up being nicknamed “Cletus the Foetus”, and the other players kept offering to change his nappy and strain his food for him.
[QUOTE=]Jeremy MacDonald wrote..
Your starting elf is 100 years old or something. He has already seen two generations of humans be born live their entire lives and die. He has also not learned a damn thing - hell he's less skilled then a 18 year old human. One would presume that its just natural that he is mentally retarded but that's about to fall by the wayside - as in the next 8 months he is going to go on a big adventure, become an arch mage or some such. And then he goes back to elf home and realized that normal elves really are utterly mentally retarded. I mean you have an elf that's 900 years old but being only 5th level our old elf is clearly an utter incompetent. Let the upstart show Mr. ancient doofus how you craft an item 'cause in 900 years this expert has apparently learned squat. What a utter looser an apparently this old geezer is held in esteem by the elf village. Man they must all be blind. The whole game mechanic is already busted but no where is that made so starkly clear as with elves. A 900 year old creature should be held with veneration most of the time and not with scorn.
Seriously, now…
I don’t see a problem with elves being long-lived, as long as we don’t make every stage of their life proportional to a human (this applies equally to dwarves, gnomes etc).1000 years is stupidly long; drop it to half of that, and have them reach puberty at a similar age to humans.
Extend their span to middle age at say 80-100, then the rest can be all old age and venerable.
It’s not quite as appealing to have a dotage of 400 senile years.
This lifespan could be natural, or it may be that it is only achievable via magic/lost science/jealously guarded fountain of youth, etc.
Away from their carers, these elves could wither and die at any moment.
The NPC elven community would then be out of the picture, looking after a massive geriatric population. These elves may be wise and have seen the march of years, but if you want their knowledge you have to seek them out, and poke them with a stick to rouse them from their hibernation.
This model solves several problems; it explains why 1st-level elves are not walking encyclopaedias, nor do they have more skill ranks than other races, why there are no 50-year olds in diapers (ugghh…), why elves have the similar drive to seek fortune as other races (only a 60-80 year window of opportunity), why an adventurer need not be an outcast (he/she needs to prove themselves worthy of saving), allows for the possibility of individual aged sages and oracles without requiring that the whole race have access to this lifespan (maybe the magic/technology is limited, and only the wisest may qualify). It also explains why elves have not ‘taken over the world’, but have limited themselves to isolated pockets guarding impenetrable forests, since they cannot leave their honoured ancestors to go roaming the planet.
[QUOTE=] Knight Errant Jr wrote..
Also, we assume that if a gold elf, for example, constantly refers to humans as balding apes, tells wizards that everything they know they stole from elves, tells human females that they are cows compared to elven beauty, etc. that he must be neutral or evil. What if this same elf, despite his veiws of elven superiority, would still give his life to save a "lesser" race, because he believes in their potential and because its the duty of the "betters" to defend the "lessers?"
If he really did spout this crap in any game I’ve played in, he’d find his lifespan wasn’t quite as long as he expected…
This is closer to the mythological roots of the European elves, who share a great many traits with the drow. Though not all evil, they were mistrusted, and placated, rather than loved and looked up to. They were accused of stealing human babies for their own ends, replacing them with ‘changelings’, who were not ‘quite right’.
Elves are constantly referred to in literature as a “fey/fay” race, who inhabit their own otherworldly realm, but in D&D, they do not count as members of the Fey type.
One explanation for their long lifespan, is that time flows slowly in Faerie, so an inhabitant may remember a historical event with great clarity, but be unable to recall the events of last week since he was away from Earthly realms.
This is illustrated most famously in the story of Rip van Winkle, who falls asleep under a faerie mound, and awakes an old man, whose family are long gone.
[QUOTE=]The Green Ronin Advanced Line of books has rules in it for allowing an elf, dwarf, etc. PC to take slightly more "powerful" racial traits at the cost of an increasing level adjustment. You may not even have to allow all elves to take these abilities, but just rule that some elves are "throwbacks" to their fey natures, or their holy natures if you want to follow Tolkien more closely.
This might also be why half-elves are looked down on, since they represent a further dissolution of standard "elven" traits.
I like this idea; it allows for the possibility of powerful racial traits, whilst limiting their availability, and their frequency to those players who have experienced characters, and who wish to spend levels and xps
It saves creating a new race, and creates a ‘racial’ prestige class, whose existence can be delayed or dictated by the DM, till dramatically appropriate, rather than being a bunch of modifiers the players can demand at level 1.If this option is used, those elves who pass the trials could change their type to Fey…
[QUOTE=]Vatnisse
Norwegian elves would indeed be the best - welcome aboard!
Norwegian elf-maidens…yumm!
I can imagine opening my parcel from the Norse Elf Mail-Order Bride website, and getting the keyboard player from Lordi..gaaah! She looked like Tarja Turunen in the photo!
Yeah, elves are irritating. Except in eberron. Then they're cool. But as my friend noted when I was giving them a presentation on Eberron: "All the short races are cool. The gnomes are like the CIA, the dwarves are bankers, and the halflings are nomadic, dinosaur riding barbarians. The elves, meanwhile, are obsessed with their ancestors, the humans are blah, and the orcs are weirdy-beardy druids. Long live short people!"
In my (Home Made) campaign world, Elves are loathed by all - there is in fact a state of cold war between them and pretty much every other race on the planet. The Elves have been working on global conquest for many centuries now, and as i set each new campaign group on the same world, about a hundred years after the previous group, some of the longer term players are starting to realise how the elves are going about this - controlled tree planting.
Seriously - if you live for several hundred years, whilst all those about you are dead within a hundred, you can see how the forest expansion is working in your favour, and none of the short lived individuals around the place are any the wiser - they just assume that the old maps were badly drawn.
Non-confrontational, so it keeps the risks low, but definately has long term gains.
It also explains why they are continually harassing non-Elven logging camps.
Of course, it makes life tricky for half-elves, who tend to be arrested as spies by both sides.
It is because of this that 'Elf' is pronounced 'Pointy-Eared Git - Pah' by my players.
reggie
I'm still at a loss for why so many people are so against elves. The stereotypical presentation is really that grating? What books are you reading? I'm in the camp that says most D&D novels are juvenile and crap, and thus shouldn't necessarily be taken as something that must dictate your world. Since when did all elves become panzies and @$$holes?
First- the panzy perspective. Where does this come from? Because they love nature? Uhm, guess what, they should! Call me a tree hugger if you want (My family does have a Timberstand Improvement business), but if you look at history, those people who have "rejected" nature (Western cultures) are also now contributing to what is the destruction of our planet. Things like polution and global warming are a fact, not hype, and if left unchecked, will make a world in which your descendents have little to no chance of life, since we were so bright as to turn our planet into Venus (a big ball of Carbon Dioxide and Sulfuric acid, where greenhouse gases, the same ones we are pumping out at a psychotic rate, hold in so much heat that the surface of the planet is 800 degress), just because a corporation didn't want to spend the million dollars (typicially, this cost would be an exaggeration; and besides, has hundreds of millions) to put a new filter on a plant. Or worse, when they dump chemicals into a water supply (don't kid yourself, it happens all the time), because it's cheaper. Now little Timmy down the street is going to grow up retarded because you wanted to save a buck. Then there's the ever popular nuclear tests (thank God we stopped those), where we detonated them in the oceans, thus revoking any chance that part of the Earth would escape the cancer-causing radiation that we apparently found so attractive at the time. Not to mention the hundreds of species of plants and animals that are perishing from the Earth at a constant, alarming rate, which could, in just a few decades, threaten our entire food chain, and thus bring the Oh-So-Mighty humans down with it.
So excuse me for missing the point where caring about the planet you live on is a bad thing, or that it makes you weak. And, racist? Uhm, let's think about this one two. Humans blow things. We blow them bad. We have time and again throughout history, with wars of genocide and destructive actions that benefited only the highest elite, who themselves were too short sited to see that the gain was only temporary, and who often drove their kingdoms to ruin or rebellion, loosing everything they had gained, making it pointless and futile.
And, Western cultures often seem to have this blatant disregard for the power in the natural world, despite disasters like volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. It wouldn't take much for this planet to go through some very minor changes that would wipe us from its face, and leave it free to return to its natural state over the next few million years, which is nothing on a geological scale, so we shouldn't be assisting in anything that could lead to that, yet we do constantly.
In typical D&D, human cultures are portrayed as having the same drives, motivations, and often vices as our real world.
Now, elves are standing there, watching this. Not once, not twice, but always, on a continual basis. Eventually, they get the idea that humans are a bit loopy, and should be dealt with carefully, as they obviously aren't right in the head, sicne they never learn from their own mistakes. Can you see where they might get an attitude towards humans? It was handed to them!
Also, what do humans do with a forest anytime a community gets close? Log it, cut it, burn it, plant corn (or whatever crop you have). Great for humans, not for elves. So that's why they defend their lands, the same as any human kingdom with a hostile neighbor. They lead with warnings, then warning shots, but will go to lethal means if necessary. That's not racism, that's self-preservation. Even an animal lover will sometimes realize that, if that dog is rabid, and it comes towards me, I'll have to defend myself however I can, though I may not want to.
Now, about their lifespan- why are you assuming they all have the drive to do anything at all? Or that it's impossible for an elf to be 50 years old and still of childlike mentality?
If you live 800 years, the appeal to get something done today, tomorrow, this week, this month, this year, drops off dramatically. You can take the time to travel around your homeland, write some amateur poetry, do whatever, which isn't lazy, it's a different culture and an entirely different mindset. Why isn't every elf 25th level? Why isn't every human? We've already seen that a human can go out and adventure and reach that level by their 30s, so why don't they all? They don't want to. It doesn't make any sense. So, while elves might be slightly higher in their commoner, aristocrat, and expert levels overall, there really isn't the super-elf problem if one doesn't insist on them having the same drive to get things done as a human.
Now, some elves leave their homes and go into human lands, eventually adopting the fast-paced living and becoming very powerful in short amounts of time. These are the exceptions to their race, just like every PC is an exception. Why would they do this? The same reason someone skydives, perhaps- for a rush. Some elves might desire that, and these are the ones that become adventurers. After getting their rush, they either return home to live at a normal pace of life (after the campaign is over) or they are rejected as outcasts by their elven society for their actions if they come from a strict land. Either way, problem solved.
Now, aging and learning. Is a dog retarded since it can't speak? Is a gorilla an idiot because it can't drive a car? No, it's a racial limit on their mental abilities. Elves develop slowly. This is the same thing, a racial trait. An elf might act like and eight year old for a decade. Why is this a problem? Why is this considered retardation? Is it something other races, like humans, would laugh about and chide them over? Yes, but the elves would most likely take this in stride since humans are whacko anyway, and if they want, the elf can be at their harasser's grand-child's grand-child's funeral and laugh all he wants.
After reaching maturity, and elf's mind changes so that it can learn as fast as a human, but they lack the drive.
And as to the "crunch not meeting the fluff," how exactly is one to put the abilities and achievements of a social collective into statistics an individual? I'll give that it was done with humans via the extra feat and skill, but not with any other race, including dwarves, which are often viewed to be at least equal to human advancements if not in excess of them, and they don't get anything pointing towards that other than a bonus to some crafts, which wouldn't accurately represent the extra few decades they have to train and learn of a human. They also live longer than humans, and thus should be facing the same problems as elves, but no one attacks them.
The fact is that, in typical D&D, elves were one of, if not the, first humanoid races, and with their long life-spans, were able to pioneer and cultivate many aspects of society that remain in the game today, across cultures. Could humans have done it better if they had come first? Perhaps, but they didn't in most worlds, so the credit of being the creators (and thus, the masters, since they could easily withhold secrets and knowledge) of any given thing still goes to those who created it, which are typically the elves.
Now, I can understand that a lot of people dislike elves because of what they were (munchkin wet-dreams, apparently) in older editions, and because of how some people treat/describe/play them, but the argument that therefore elves are a poor race doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
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Frankly, I don't really have strong feelings for them either way. It is true that in Tolkien they are a tad god-like, and as such don't work too well when brought down to earth as a D&D race. But the essence of the elves (and dwarves) comes from Norse mythology, rather than Tolkien, so I don't think he can be blamed for all this.
I quite like two representations of "elves" (for want of a better term) in two books, both of which are pretty dissimilar from Tolkien (though not utterly so, as they stem from similar cultural roots): "The Dragon In The Stone" by Alan Scott and "The Broken Sword" by Poul Anderson. Cuddly tree-huggers they ain't.
I suspect the dislike comes from this primary source: a basic backlash against a race that, on most levels, is simply superior to humans INCLUDING (crucial here, I suspect) better looking, so they just amplify your inadequacies as a person (not that I have any, of course). Ever known a girl (or guy) who you really fancied but who was unobtainable? Did it make you feel good? Now imagine a race made up of people like that.
In game terms, I think elves work best as a non-PC race with an ECL addition, to give them extra powers or whatever and make them seem more god-like. I also think they probably work best as a plot element rather than as just a bunch of guys wandering around, with random PCs. "Tolkien" elves are mysterious and unfathomable and powerful, and really should be a sort of "non-outsider outsider" race (effectively, a "monster") rather than a PC race, if that flavour is to be preserved. Of course, you can just do what Eberron did, and change them radically from the traditional forest folk they have become in D&D.
But all said, I'm not bothered by elf PCs - it's part of the game, and as such a tradition. Up to the DM, really.
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wrote:
Vattnisse
Norwegian elves would indeed be the best - welcome aboard!Norwegian elf-maidens…yumm!
I can imagine opening my parcel from the Norse Elf Mail-Order Bride website, and getting the keyboard player from Lordi..gaaah! She looked like Tarja Turunen in the photo!
ROFL!! Ouch... This is just too funny.
Re the Biblical stuff, I think you have your Oxford dons mixed up - that's C.S. Lewis you are talking about there. Tolkien said something along the lines of "I dislike allegory wherever I smell it" so I think seeing LotR as a Christian allegory is wide of the mark. The Narnia stuff is intended as Christian allegory, but if there is anything deliberately Christian in LotR I can't see it, unless you want to strain - Aragorn a Christ figure? Hmmm. Doubtless the overall Christian milieau is in there, but it is probably in most artistic endeavours by Europeans.
It's not as simple as "Aslan = Jesus" in Lewis' work. Tolkien's beliefs as a Roman Catholic are reflected in his work, which presumes that the world is in a state of degeneration from its initial, perfect state of grace; all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the world is falling further away all the time.
It's not allegorical, because there is no correspondence between individual characters in The Lord of the Rings and persons or concepts in history or Christianity, but Tolkien's world is deeply rooted in his own religious ideas about the world - and quite apart from a dislike of his class politics, I reject these ideas quite strongly and find them very disagreeable in fiction.
As for those class beliefs themselves, it doesn't matter to me whether his work reflected the prevailing views at the time. After all, so did Birth of a Nation, albeit much more poisonously. It's yet another unpleasant aspect of his work for me.
If you like the way he writes, fine. If you like what he wrote about, fine. If you like the world he created, fine. If you like those elements in your D&D, fine. But I don't - and I'm glad that official D&D materials are increasingly moving beyond those limitations, while still supporting the "traditional" way to play.
Hey amybody remember Dark Sun elves. They were tall, tan and ran real fast accross the desert. I thought they were cool.
They were still hippy gypsies consttantly on the move. exploiting any opportunity that might present it self.
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Re the Biblical stuff, I think you have your Oxford dons mixed up - that's C.S. Lewis you are talking about there. Tolkien said something along the lines of "I dislike allegory wherever I smell it" so I think seeing LotR as a Christian allegory is wide of the mark. The Narnia stuff is intended as Christian allegory, but if there is anything deliberately Christian in LotR I can't see it, unless you want to strain - Aragorn a Christ figure? Hmmm. Doubtless the overall Christian milieau is in there, but it is probably in most artistic endeavours by Europeans.It's not as simple as "Aslan = Jesus" in Lewis' work. Tolkien's beliefs as a Roman Catholic are reflected in his work, which presumes that the world is in a state of degeneration from its initial, perfect state of grace; all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the world is falling further away all the time.
It's not allegorical, because there is no correspondence between individual characters in The Lord of the Rings and persons or concepts in history or Christianity, but Tolkien's world is deeply rooted in his own religious ideas about the world - and quite apart from a dislike of his class politics, I reject these ideas quite strongly and find them very disagreeable in fiction.
As for those class beliefs themselves, it doesn't matter to me whether his work reflected the prevailing views at the time. After all, so did Birth of a Nation, albeit much more poisonously. It's yet another unpleasant aspect of his work for me.
If you like the way he writes, fine. If you like what he wrote about, fine. If you like the world he created, fine. If you like those elements in your D&D, fine. But I don't - and I'm glad that official D&D materials are increasingly moving beyond those limitations, while still supporting the "traditional" way to play.
OK, though I don't necessarily see the fallen-from-grace thing as a particularly Christian thing - my understanding is that he prefered an age in which the older, pagan tales had more resonance - he was a translator of Beowulf, for example, and read the Kalavela (I never get the spelling of that right, but nevermind). I also would be more inclined to see his reaction to that as being a rejection of industrialisation rather than a simply religious thing - I think your analysis is a bit glib, though stimulating.
I am British (can't tell if you are or not, but you seem to write from a different time zone) and personally I feel, in a romantic sense, "things ain't what they used to be" (though the rational part of me knows that the pre-industrial age was TOUGH for all except the aristocracy). We live on a heavily populated small island, which industrialised early. Yet I derive considerable joy from the English landscape, and don't like towns and cities much (though coming from London). I see this not in religious terms, but more as a desire to preserve the countryside without it being built over or converted to ugly industry.
I am not remotely religious (I'm not, my parents aren't, so I'm not rebelling against anything) yet I can see where Tolkien is coming from without resorting to religious notions of The Fall. (And the mythology of the Silmarillion is much more along the lines of the Volsung Saga than the Bible, in my view). If you are American, you possibly don't quite understand the way we (well, some of us) feel about the English landscape - that it is a finite resource under threat. (As an aside, a trip to Michigan a few years ago was interesting - every attractive vista had a power plant built on it - maybe anecdotal but it seemed to reflect the attitude prevalent at least there.) I would suggest to you that this, together with Tolkien's interest in history and particularly ancient European literature, had much more to do with Middle Earth than religion.
Anyway, you seem pretty vehement in your views so I doubt I'll change them, but thanks for the opportunity to debate. Re the influence of Tolkien in D&D, it is pretty obvious in the character races but that is probably about it. My personal preference is the non-Tolkien-esque settings like Eberron, since I think the more medieval settings (like GH and especially FR) are pretty dodgy Tolkien rip-offs that just seem cliched and create logical problems in-game, since the rules (especially the magic system) don't make sense when attached to the societal structures. But that's just my view.
Now, aging and learning. Is a dog retarded since it can't speak? Is a gorilla an idiot because it can't drive a car? No, it's a racial limit on their mental abilities. Elves develop slowly. This is the same thing, a racial trait. An elf might act like and eight year old for a decade. Why is this a problem? Why is this considered retardation? Is it something other races, like humans, would laugh about and chide them over? Yes, but the elves would most likely take this in stride since humans are whacko anyway, and if they want, the elf can be at their harasser's grand-child's grand-child's funeral and laugh all he wants.
You are comparing two different things. Animals not being able to speak has nothing to do with the animal's rate of development. It is a limit on the animals ability. Since retarded means slowed, delayed, or impeded. Compared to a human, yes an elf's development is retarded. Retardation has to do with the rate rather than the maximum.
Tolkien's beliefs as a Roman Catholic are reflected in his work, but Tolkien's world is deeply rooted in his own religious ideas about the world - and quite apart from a dislike of his class politics, I reject these ideas quite strongly and find them very disagreeable in fiction. .
I would have imagined that ANY writer's work would reflect his or her views on the nature of reality, and in fact are what turns a good piece of work into a great piece of work.
I don't believe the work of Dickens or Lovecraft, to give two examples would resonate with readers today, if their works did NOT reflect their beliefs.They probably wouldn't get PUBLISHED today ( Dickens would be considered too socialist, Lovecraft too nilhilistic, Tolkien would almost certainly have to remove a lot of his racial references )but thats a different story....
I can't stand Authors who claim to JUST tell a story...as if cutting the tale from it's emotional and personnal source, like a police report or a political statement, is somehow better or less tainted than a story shaped by a heartfelt and genuine point of view.
a case in point for me would be Heinlen's Starship Troopers - a superbly crafted novel that is both entertaining and fast paced built entirely around a political viewpoint I would strongly oppose.
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Tolkien's beliefs as a Roman Catholic are reflected in his work, but Tolkien's world is deeply rooted in his own religious ideas about the world - and quite apart from a dislike of his class politics, I reject these ideas quite strongly and find them very disagreeable in fiction. .I would have imagined that ANY writer's work would reflect his or her views on the nature of reality, and in fact are what turns a good piece of work into a great piece of work.
I don't believe the work of Dickens or Lovecraft, to give two examples would resonate with readers today, if their works did NOT reflect their beliefs.
They probably wouldn't get PUBLISHED today ( Dickens would be considered too socialist, Lovecraft too nilhilistic, Tolkien would almost certainly have to remove a lot of his racial references )but thats a different story....
I can't stand Authors who claim to JUST tell a story...as if cutting the tale from it's emotional and personnal source, like a police report or a political statement, is somehow better or less tainted than a story shaped by a heartfelt and genuine point of view.
a case in point for me would be Heinlen's Starship Troopers - a superbly crafted novel that is both entertaining and fast paced built entirely around a political viewpoint I would strongly oppose.
I concur - I've never read Starship Troopers (saw the movie, thought it was a hoot, but also understand it is pretty unfaithful to the source) but would be curious to - I absolutely disagree with fascism, but might be interested to see what he says and the ramifications. Arguably, "art" (for want of a better term) is meant to challenge, not re-affirm your views in a cosy fashion.
Now, aging and learning. Is a dog retarded since it can't speak? Is a gorilla an idiot because it can't drive a car? No, it's a racial limit on their mental abilities. Elves develop slowly. This is the same thing, a racial trait. An elf might act like and eight year old for a decade. Why is this a problem? Why is this considered retardation? Is it something other races, like humans, would laugh about and chide them over? Yes, but the elves would most likely take this in stride since humans are whacko anyway, and if they want, the elf can be at their harasser's grand-child's grand-child's funeral and laugh all he wants.You are comparing two different things. Animals not being able to speak has nothing to do with the animal's rate of development. It is a limit on the animals ability. Since retarded means slowed, delayed, or impeded. Compared to a human, yes an elf's development is retarded. Retardation has to do with the rate rather than the maximum.
Good point. I apologize for the poor analogy, but the essential essence of my statement is still pretty clear, I feel: Rationalizing D&D elves isn't so hard if you don't assume they have to conform to human drives and standards. They do learn slower as children, only later to overcome this "retardation" but continue living at the previous pace because it is what they know. It shouldn't really be considered retardation, as I see it, since they are a different race; they might learn slower early on, but I wouldn't call it "retardation" since it is a racial norm.
In they end, you can nit-pick it to death, since it IS fantasy, and thus at some point has to divorce itself from reality and logic (if it were divorced from reality but not logic, I would classify it more as science fiction). However, that line can be close enough to reality that, as I see things, only the most stubborn "elf-haters" or most anal retentive personalities would have cause to argue with it.
Also, many people here seem to assume that real humans always mature. They don't. I'm not talking about clinical retardation, but I'm well aware of many people who are going on 40 and still act like a teen in almost every way, shape, and form. So the thought that someone could act as an adolescent for a century or more doesn't seem so alien.
My girlfriend is not a big fan of Tolkien's elves from LOTR. She's read the books several times, and after seeing the movies she realized why they always bothered her.
Elves are quitters.
"Ooh, big evil is a-comin. Let's all pack up our immortal selves and sail across the sea. Sure, Frodo, we'll point you in the right direction, just don't come running back for help, 'cause we won't be here."
She's transferred that attitude to other types of elves, i.e. D&D, WoW, etc. Anytime someone mentions an elf, she just sniffs and mumbles "Quitters."
I don't feel the same way, but I'm whipped, so I know better than to say anything. ;)
Elves are quitters.
"Ooh, big evil is a-comin. Let's all pack up our immortal selves and sail across the sea. Sure, Frodo, we'll point you in the right direction, just don't come running back for help, 'cause we won't be here."
Interesting.
Their role is really more that of parents whose time has come to let go. Kind like parents visiting kids at college. The may offer some support, take you to dinner, but their role was in getting the kid to college. Now that they are there it falls on them to do the work.A less than perfect analogy given the psuedo angellic nature of elves but directionally I think it is pretty close.
But thats LotR I don't see the elves of D&D having to fill that role oer necessarily think they should. I think that is better determined by the DM in the set up he wants for the relations between the races - though the parental model leaves a lot of room for conflict.
If you like the way he writes, fine. If you like what he wrote about, fine. If you like the world he created, fine. If you like those elements in your D&D, fine. But I don't - and I'm glad that official D&D materials are increasingly moving beyond those limitations, while still supporting the "traditional" way to play.
I agree wholeheartedly, about Tolkien and that severing D&D from it's ties to middle earth is a good idea. Since when is it not OK to dislike Lord of the Rings anyway? Michael Moorcock hates Lord of the Rings too, and I personally think he is a far better storyteller than Tolkien. Not to mention that Elric is a more tragic, original and iconic character than any of Tolkien's. If you are interested in reading his opinion check this out
http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=953
In my estimation Tolkien was a brilliant and gifted scholar who was able to use his knowledge of linguistics to create a world that is unmatched in it's internal consistency. It's just a pity he wrote fiction like a scholar too, and like you Christopher I dislike his values. I much prefer Moorcock, Lieber and Howard, and to me the Nietzschean feel of the Conan stories is much more attractive than the "if only we all lived in nice little villages with neat lawns" message of Lord of the Rings. But the point is all of the above is my opinion on a book. It can't be "wrong." Is Michael Moorcock wrong when he says he despises the message Tolkien espouses and finds his prose style tedious and false? He's also a best selling and respected fantasy author you know, just like Tolkien...
It's perfectly possible to like fantasy and dislike Lord of the Rings, and there's nothing wrong with it. People should be allowed to stand up and say they don't dig LotR without being told they must be ill-educated or thoughtless. :)
Of course, the flip side of free speech is that anyone can come along and say they don't agree with you, that they like traditional values and that they like the LOTR, and that weather Gygax or Moorcock or anyone else likes Tolkien, the man did have a tremendous impact on fantasy as a genre.
I also find it interesting that authors that seem to be espousing non-traditional values seem to come across as more preachy in justifying their perspective than those that are more "mainstream."
Obviously Moorcock has some appeal, because he always gets listed as a respected fantasy author, but to tell you the truth, I had a much harder time wading through his prose than Tolkien's. On the other hand, I like a lot of Howard's Conan stories (though I tend to like the younger Conan, learning to be a theif and mercenary, and the older Conan, learning to rule, than the "middle" Conan that does everything well and saves the girl . . . habitually). Fritz Leiber is one of my all time favorite authors. I love Fafhrd and Mouser.
The point being, I don't just enjoy authors that present charcters that share similar values to me, but I do appreciate those who do and can tell a good story along the way.
I'm not saying this applies to any on the thread, but sometimes the anti-Tolkien thing strikes me as someone trying to prove that they are avant garde by showing that they can dismiss someone that the "establishment" sees as one of the "greats." I run into the same thing with Shakespear alot, where its cool to say that you don't like him, or that he didn't write his own material, or what have you. If they aren't your thing, thats fine, but I like them myself.
Fair enough. I understand what you are saying about the subversive thing too, it's the whole "your band sucks because everyone likes them, my band is cool because no-one's heard of them" thing. God, it's like the early 90's all over again! :D
I can assure you though that I'm not just being iconoclastic. I've never liked Lord of the Rings, even as a kid, though for years I felt I was unable to express this opinion as I grew up in a fantasy-loving family and I like the genre as a whole (I've been playing D&D since I was 10 after all...) I guess you could say I've recently realized that it's OK for me to think Tolkien was a boring old duffer, and now I can't stop telling people. So er... sorry about that :)
It doesn't bother me in the slightest that anyone else likes it. Some of my best friends and family love Tolkien, and I respect them and their intelligence greatly. I just expect the same in return, but usually people just accuse me of "not understanding it." And maybe I don't. *shrug*
And yeah, although I agree with Moorcock's opinion of Tolkien's work in the article I linked, I didn't like the way he expressed it. He seemed just a bit too smug and "I'm a socialist revolutionary" to me. He's a good fiction writer though.
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If you like the way he writes, fine. If you like what he wrote about, fine. If you like the world he created, fine. If you like those elements in your D&D, fine. But I don't - and I'm glad that official D&D materials are increasingly moving beyond those limitations, while still supporting the "traditional" way to play.I agree wholeheartedly, about Tolkien and that severing D&D from it's ties to middle earth is a good idea. Since when is it not OK to dislike Lord of the Rings anyway? Michael Moorcock hates Lord of the Rings too, and I personally think he is a far better storyteller than Tolkien. Not to mention that Elric is a more tragic, original and iconic character than any of Tolkien's. If you are interested in reading his opinion check this out
http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=953
In my estimation Tolkien was a brilliant and gifted scholar who was able to use his knowledge of linguistics to create a world that is unmatched in it's internal consistency. It's just a pity he wrote fiction like a scholar too, and like you Christopher I dislike his values. I much prefer Moorcock, Lieber and Howard, and to me the Nietzschean feel of the Conan stories is much more attractive than the "if only we all lived in nice little villages with neat lawns" message of Lord of the Rings. But the point is all of the above is my opinion on a book. It can't be "wrong." Is Michael Moorcock wrong when he says he despises the message Tolkien espouses and finds his prose style tedious and false? He's also a best selling and respected fantasy author you know, just like Tolkien...
It's perfectly possible to like fantasy and dislike Lord of the Rings, and there's nothing wrong with it. People should be allowed to stand up and say they don't dig LotR without being told they must be ill-educated or thoughtless. :)
I don't think that I, Kyr, or anyone else was suggesting you are dumb for not liking LotR. But the vehemence with which some people say they absolutely HATED it struck me as based on an emotional viewpoint rather than a considered analysis. But then, I'm not saying you aren't entitled to your opinions, and you express yourself with a bit more, um, politeness.
As for Moorcock - I love Elric, though he is basically Conan with teenage angst thrown in (which is why, presumably, he appealed to me so much as a teenager). As for his style - the early stuff is fun, but when he decided to become a "serious" author he really got, IMHO, utterly crap - impenetrable and pretentious. I also suspect that Moorcock's reaction to Tolkien is partly "politcal" - he was a leading member of New Wave SF in the 60s so he could hardly be seen to like such an Establishment figure as JRRT. I don't doubt his views are sincere, but then he has displayed distinct traits of being "up himself" all his life.
I don't think that I, Kyr, or anyone else was suggesting you are dumb for not liking LotR. But the vehemence with which some...
Thanks for the support - and you're right.
I am actually pleased that the thread has had so much play.As to the Tolkien hate - in case anyone cares - I don't think he is the be all and end all of fantasy writers. There are others who I prefer - none who I think are perfect.
The original "sophmoric" comment was in response to what I interpreted as a complex of the use of gollum as form of "deux ex machina" which I thought was incorrect. And a greater complaint that Tolkiens epic characters were sidelined by "common man characters" to which my response was - thats not bad story telling - thats the story the author was telling, that was the point and the message of the book. I am totally cool wiht people not liking that. What I took isue with was the interpretation (at least as I read it) that that made the storytelling weak. Clearly it is not a story about the king or the wizard - but it was never intended to be. Again its cool if any reader doesn't like that but it doesn't make wrong for wanting to tell that story or extoll that viewpoint or flavor of morality.
For example I have read a few books by Kerouac, I loathed most of the characters and I am really pleased tht I don't have many people like them in my life, but I could still enjoy the story is was telling and the quality and style of his writing for what it was.
I am certainly not suggesting that all fantasy should be stories of the common man rising to the occassion (though I tend to like stories like that as I generally have a stronger identificatin with those sorts of characters, than pouting princes who no one understands). I have read a number of books about magical overmuscled adolescents that bring foes to their knees and (Moorcock's Eternal Champions all fall into this category - and I loved those books).
People IMO should read what they like most of the time, but should still be able to read items suggested by others and try to appreciate it for what it is rather than focusing on what it is not. And should add stuff out side of their normal reading a few times a year, history, science, biography, classics - or whatever is not normally on the reading radar. Some of my favorite books have been such experiments.
And people can dislike Tolkien, Lewis, whoever - but I think Aubrey was right, I think most backlash like what I've seen posted is from the, "I'm too cool for that stuff," school of thought - though very articulate.
I dislike certain authors too.
Doesn't mean they don't have good ideas.
I wouldn't want my game in Middle Earth - too bland.
I do think that one of Tolkiens gifts to the game (though unintended) was to set a standard for detailed coherent internally consistent world building - never seen another as stong.
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To bring the topic back to elves and (hopefully) to appease some of the haters out there, I don't think Tolkiens elves are the best model for a non level adjusted race in D&D.
I think that elves make for a good core race in a fantasy world. But I think the current collection of stats is an attempt to create LotR elves without a level adjustment and that effort falls a little flat. I don't think elves as written are unbalanced - I just think that they are trying to be something they can't be without a level adjustment.
All right, so elves are over-played.
And this constitutes some problem with the race? The fact that players use them a disproportionate amount engenders hatred for the race as a concept?
Granted, my group is elf-lite; we've only been playing a few years, and most people would choose human over elf any day due to their extra feat and skill, and a group-wide obsession with high Con scores that elves are completely antithetical to. I've provided most of the elven characters in my group's history when I play instead of DM, but that was simply because 1) They were wizards and I wanted the Dex bonus for AC and ranged touch attacks and 2) I found it an easier point to latch on to in making a story than a human, considering the extremely nebulous world that our DM had at the time (the detail level has been rising dramatically since then), which made it hard to choose a human since I knew nothing of the cultures within the world (I'm not sure the DM did either). The elven stereotypes thus allowed me to build a personality via the communal perception and understanding of the race.
That stated, I burned out on playing elves for a while. They became too mundane for me (I have one in his campaign currently, but we haven't played in almost TWO MONTHS... Micah, if you read this, GET A GAME TOGETHER!). Nevertheless, that didn't make me see the race as an element of the world in a less favorable light.
People's main problems with the elves (apart from things that they've mentally transfered from LotR) seem to be:
1. Life spans
Other races have unnatural life spans too, and I believe that that general thing is that they mature slower than humans. Plus, who says that the majority actually live to old age? most humans in medievil times died of disease or violence before 40 and DnD has certainly got a lot more ways to die of violence, what with the rampaging monsters, constant wars and random calamities etc. That said, most of the elves I've evr played have gone insane from living too long and boy were they fun to play. The class level problem applies to every other race as well, since it only takes like 4 years or something to hit twentieth level and the only ones with a chance in hell of having a problem with that are the Thri-Kreen, which is a shame since the bug people are fun to play.
2. Master's of Everything
Elves excel at magic, archery, woodcraft and blending swordsmanship with magic. Gnomes are Miners, illusionists, engineers, alchemists and pranksters. Dwarves are miners, blacksmiths, fighters, tough guys and sculptors. You get the idea, every race has it's specialties but they don't make them any better or worse. The average elf, for instance, can't take a punch whilst the average Dwarf has no talent for arcane magic. The races are balanced in DnD, they have their specializations but they have weak points as well.
3. Overplayed
That is the fault of munchkins/LotR fanatics and are we really going to let them spoil it for th rest of us?
4. Subraces
Elves aren't the only ones with subraces, looking through all my sourcebooks I can find 5 dwarf subraces, 5 human varients, 4 halfling subraces and 4 gnome subraces. The elves have 5 subraces, which is about the same as the other core races.
Elves are balanced, and besides, if people are asking why an army of 25th level elves haven't taken over the world yet, then what about the 2000 year old 60th level great wyrm red dragon sorcerer who should've overthrown them already? Simple answer: because most people aren't willing to face absurd danger on a daily basis and that's what adventuring entails, most people confront no more challenge in a 10 year span than the occaisonal episode of drunken disorderliness, they thus do not gain obsurd amounts of experiance. In "Real-Life" this translates as the simple fact that challenges are what really makes people get better at the skills they need to overcome those challenges. The only exceptions are wizards, who just have to study and learn, and clerics, who have to pray and fast and all that lark.
Sorry if that all sounds stupid, it's just my opinions and for all I know they could be worth less than a three pence piece ^_^.
I don't think that I, Kyr, or anyone else was suggesting you are dumb for not liking LotR. But the vehemence with which some people say they absolutely HATED it struck me as based on an emotional viewpoint rather than a considered analysis.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
I may not admire Tolkien as a writer of prose, but even if I thought he was the greatest pure writer since Shakespeare I'd loathe his work because I loathe his values.
You mentioned, earlier in the thread, that you felt a sympathy with the undercurrents of anti-industrialism and rural romanticism in Tolkien's work because you too are a Briton who laments the disappearing natural beauty of the land as civilisation encroaches upon it.
My position is different: I believe it's wrong to reject the progress of civilisation on that basis when you could, alternatively, seek to progress in harmony with the natural environment. In other words, I condemn Tolkien's suggestion that industrialisation is inherently bad. I once read an analysis of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion which suggested an undercurrent of feeling that nothing good could come of making things - that deliberate manufacture always carries within it the seed of one's downfall. A gross example would be the creation of the One Ring by Sauron, of course, but there were examples from The Silmarillion that I can't name off the top of my head.
I just happen to feel that sort of thing evinces a pretty abhorrently backwards way of looking at existence, and it makes me very displeased to read a novel that's saturated with that sort of attitude.
(Of course, Tolkien makes me unhappy and angry, yet George R. R. Martin's quite relentlessly pessimistic and grim stories delight me. I think maybe the difference is that Tolkien's worldview comes through in his stories as essentially based on extremely false and harmful premises, whereas Martin's story just seems to say "People can be really f%*&ing awful to each other and you just have to deal with it sometimes", which strikes me as being very true.)
Add to that his religious opinions which I firmly reject, and it comes down to this: even if it were the best novel ever written - which on technical grounds, I really have to opine it's not - I wouldn't enjoy it because it advances a set of theses about the world which just plain make me angry. I think they're extremely conservative in the worst way, even destructive.
So, you know, I think a strong emotional reaction against Tolkien's works is pretty justified. Add to that the fact that there seem to be so many gamers who assume that The Lord of the Rings is the be-all and end-all of both fantasy fiction and Dungeons and Dragons, and you can begin to appreciate the vehemence with which I suggest that we might like to look outside the f$*!ing box.
Last time I checked....
....nature never pollutes EVER. Industry nearly always produces waste,often polluting waste which tends to be dismissed as often as a "price of progress" ....
...Tolkien served his country on the battlefields of World War 1, a truly "modern" war using all the destructive tools available to mankind at the time. Poison gas, machine guns, tanks, artillery. All used freely,on a scale never seen before,to wipe out whole armies in campaigns that mostly failed over battlefields barely wide enough to play a game of football. I'm sure he wasn't the only member of his generation to question the ends to which such manufacturing and the uses we put it to, were taking us.
....exactly were in LOTR are Tolkien's Catholic beliefs writ large anyway? I seem to recall no Christ figures in the books OR any organisations resembling the Church or it's teachings. I believe that the people of middle earth don't participate in any religious worship for fear of worshiping false gods or worse, worshipping real villians, such as Sauron, as gods.
Very ODD beliefs for a member of a faith that places paramount importance on the institution of the church and the dogmatic infalibility of it's leader....
...unless I'm reading all this wrong and you're a catholic ( like myself )and are complaining about his apparent ANTI-Catholic leanings...:)
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Last time I checked....
....nature never pollutes EVER.
Obviously, you have never been on the receiving end of a skunk's attack, or stepped in horse shit, or....
Industry nearly always produces waste,often polluting waste which tends to be dismissed as often as a "price of progress" ....
Earth first! We'll strip mine the other planets later.
Obviously, you have never been on the receiving end of a skunk's attack, or stepped in horse s~*%, or....
Had my rubber boot sucked off my foot in a "lake" of cow pats once. That wasn't good.
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I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
I may not admire Tolkien as a writer of prose, but even if I thought he was the greatest pure writer since Shakespeare I'd loathe his work because I loathe his values.
You mentioned, earlier in the thread, that you felt a sympathy with the undercurrents of anti-industrialism and rural romanticism in Tolkien's work because you too are a Briton who laments the disappearing natural beauty of the land as civilisation encroaches upon it.
My position is different: I believe it's wrong to reject the progress of civilisation on that basis when you could, alternatively, seek to progress in harmony with the natural environment. In other words, I condemn Tolkien's suggestion that industrialisation is inherently bad. I once read an analysis of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion which suggested an undercurrent of feeling that nothing good could come of making things - that deliberate manufacture always carries within it the seed of one's downfall. A gross example would be the creation of the One Ring by Sauron, of course, but there were examples from The Silmarillion that I can't name off the top of my head.
I just happen to feel that sort of thing evinces a pretty abhorrently backwards way of looking at existence, and it makes me very displeased to read a novel that's saturated with that sort of attitude.
(Of course, Tolkien makes me unhappy and angry, yet George R. R. Martin's quite relentlessly pessimistic and grim stories delight me. I think maybe the difference is that Tolkien's worldview comes through in his stories as essentially based on extremely false and harmful premises, whereas Martin's story just seems to say "People can be really f%~%ing awful to each other and you just have to deal with it sometimes", which strikes me as being very true.)
Add to that his religious opinions which I firmly reject, and it comes down to this: even if it were the best novel ever written - which on technical grounds, I really have to opine it's not - I wouldn't enjoy it because it advances a set of theses about the world which just plain make me angry. I think they're extremely conservative in the worst way, even destructive.
So, you know, I think a strong emotional reaction against Tolkien's works is pretty justified. Add to that the fact that there seem to be so many gamers who assume that The Lord of the Rings is the be-all and end-all of both fantasy fiction and Dungeons and Dragons, and you can begin to appreciate the vehemence with which I suggest that we might like to look outside the f%~%ing box.
Well, fair enough when all is said and done. I hoped maybe to show something that perhaps you had missed, but you will always be the ultimate arbiter of your own good taste, and your reasons are your own and rightly so.
I've not read the Game of Thrones stuff (though I have read some Martin and liked it) and in the end I prefer a more "human" approach to story telling (and as a person who has a fairly low view of human nature, I know where you are coming from). But I still think Tolkien has a lot going for him, even if most of your comments are perfectly reasonable criticisms. But hey, I think we disagree, so let's shake on it and respect each others opinions. :-)
Actually, things like leaf litter in forests and dead animals and plants are technically considered "natural pollution." The difference is that nature has developed ways to take care of it (scavengers, bacteria, and fungi) that take care of it and re-fix the nutrients and energy back into the eco-system. People haven't developed that yet. Also, nature can put out toxic fumes (volcanoes release super-lethal amounts of Sulfur Dioxide), but again, everything finds a balance, which really is on the edge of a knife, and here humans go poking it without even thinking... there in lies the problem. Humanity has no concept of how close we are to going right back to the dark ages, or worse.
However, that's just nature as far as biology is concerned. The fact is that "nature" is everything in the cosmos, which even if it is saturated with life (which is likely), life makes up a very small part of the overall and plays an almost negligble role, as far as the function of things go. One thing people fail to realize is that the cosmos is an extremely dynamic place, and something is always blowing up somewhere. :) Supernoves detonate and wipe out all the solar systems around them within several lightyears, gamma ray bursters sterilize whole quadrants of galaxies, and star system after star system is devoured by roving "super-massive" black holes. Meanwhile, our Earth sits there in a cosmic shooting gallery, surrounded by the paths of thousands of comets and asteroids capable of iping out our global civilization. There are only about 80 people world-wide searching the skies, which they can effectively scan about 3% of, for these things, and it's very hard to detect them early. If they get within Jupiter's orbit (about three weeks travel to Earth from there), there's nothing we can really do. And there's every likelyhood that the first warning sign we would have would be the blips on the radar screen seconds before impact...
What is all this in the elf hate thread for? Don't get me started on science, I can't stop myself!
Personally, my only problem with elves is that they're too run-of-the-mill for my tastes. I prefer and often have a playing group of:
Dwarf, Lizardman, Diabolus and two grippli.
Anyway, i know i could change elves's image in my campaign but my PC's have that standard image too thickly in their heads too embrace a change.
-More scalymen!
Personally, my only problem with elves is that they're too run-of-the-mill for my tastes. I prefer and often have a playing group of:
Dwarf, Lizardman, Diabolus and two grippli.Anyway, i know i could change elves's image in my campaign but my PC's have that standard image too thickly in their heads too embrace a change.
-More scalymen!
Just did up the stats for a mummified swarm-shifter lizardfolk druid/totemist NPC for my campaign. He's pretty nifty. :D
Last time I checked....
....nature never pollutes EVER. Industry nearly always produces waste,often polluting waste which tends to be dismissed as often as a "price of progress" ....
...Tolkien served his country on the battlefields of World War 1, a truly "modern" war using all the destructive tools available to mankind at the time. Poison gas, machine guns, tanks, artillery. All used freely,on a scale never seen before,to wipe out whole armies in campaigns that mostly failed over battlefields barely wide enough to play a game of football. I'm sure he wasn't the only member of his generation to question the ends to which such manufacturing and the uses we put it to, were taking us.
Yet, to my mind, Tolkien draws the wrong conclusions from these facts, and romanticises things which are just as problematic: British class divisions, rustic rural working life, and so on.
....exactly were in LOTR are Tolkien's Catholic beliefs writ large anyway? I seem to recall no Christ figures in the books OR any organisations resembling the Church or it's teachings. I believe that the people of middle earth don't participate in any religious worship for fear of worshiping false gods or worse, worshipping real villians, such as Sauron, as gods.
The cosmology of Middle-Earth is saturated with Tolkien's belief, derived from his understanding of Roman Catholic Christianity, that this world is Fallen and getting worse all the time, fixed on an inevitable progression from Grace to Sin. Each age is worse than its predecessor: its peoples less noble, its catastrophes more grave. I think that's a pretty awful way of looking at the world.
Thats a rather gross oversimplification of Catholic beleifs, and it seems to be getting further and further away from why people may or may not hate elves.
I have to admit that I found the world views presented in the forms of GRR Martin's Westeros or Micheal Moorcocks Young Kingdoms as being far more despondent than Tolkiens Middle Earth.
Martin freely admits to drawing on history for inspiration in his novels esp. the English War of the Roses. Westeros is a land were power is up for grabs and the powerful rarely restrain themselves from keeping and holding it.
Moorcocks view seems to suggest that the destruction of the entire of creation is acceptable in the pursuit of a personal quest for self realisation.
Tolkien's world by comparison offers hope. That evil can be overcome,that you can choose to be good instead of evil and that the worst consequences often come from not taking a course of action, either through ignorance ( such as the inhabitants of the shire ) or from a desire to not become involved ( such as the elves )
Thats a rather gross oversimplification of Catholic beleifs, and it seems to be getting further and further away from why people may or may not hate elves.
This thread has partly been about why I and others don't like Tolkien ever since I said so and someone asked why, finding it bizarre that a gamer would feel that way.
Please note: I did not summarise Catholic beliefs in any way, I merely noted Tolkien's interpretation of them as reflected in his work.
I think his analysis is deeply flawed, but it's all a question of interpretation so he's entitled.
From my point of view, I'm seeing the same things in his work that other people do - most of my analyses come from conversation with well-read fans of his work - it's just that what they like about his work, the rural romanticism and whatnot, is what I dislike it for.
I mean, it's not controversial to say that Tolkien had a romantic view of a rural English squire's life and relationship with his working-class underlings. Where I differ from people who like his work, I think, is that I find that romantic view troublesome, even offensive.
Trust me when I say I'm being restrained. I have another theory about people for whom The Lord of the Rings is their favourite novel as generally being people who don't read (or read quality literature) much, but I'm self-aware enough to realise that it's likely just bitterness on my part at Tolkien's popularity that leads me to perceive them in that way.
From a narrow perspective it seems like elves in their little forest town, are practically immortal compared to humans, are all physically fit and beautiful, live as one with nature, extremely skilled martially and with magic...bleah! Feels like you set foot into a magical happy happy forest critter cuddle fest. I know elves have their share of problems too in Tolkein and D&D but i have to aggree with others that it's too romanticized(idealized).
I'm always the one to like villains too if that explains it.
I think his analysis is deeply flawed, but it's all a question of interpretation so he's entitled.From my point of view, I'm seeing the same things in his work that other people do - most of my analyses come from conversation with well-read fans of his work - it's just that what they like about his work, the rural romanticism and whatnot, is what I dislike it for.
I mean, it's not controversial to say that Tolkien had a romantic view of a rural English squire's life and relationship with his working-class underlings. Where I differ from people who like his work, I think, is that I find that romantic view troublesome, even offensive.
Trust me when I say I'm being restrained. I have another theory about people for whom The Lord of the Rings is their favourite novel as generally being people who don't read (or read quality literature) much, but I'm self-aware enough to realise that it's likely just bitterness on my part at Tolkien's popularity that leads me to perceive them in that way.
Just for the record, while I do love the LOTR books, as well as C.S. Lewis' work (although I actually like The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters more than the Narnia books), I would say that A Canticle for Leibowitz or maybe Brave New World were closer to being my favorite books. Frankenstein is up there as well, as so many modern stories have the same theme as this novel without conciously realizing it.
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Trust me when I say I'm being restrained. I have another theory about people for whom The Lord of the Rings is their favourite novel as generally being people who don't read (or read quality literature) much, but I'm self-aware enough to realise that it's likely just bitterness on my part at Tolkien's popularity that leads me to perceive them in that way.
I think you are possibly making an assumption that LotR is people's favorite. It isn't mine, though I like it a lot (probably The Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart would be mine, though it is a bit silly to try and choose "the best"). And I don't think that by suggesting that people who like LotR are somehow ill-educated is a very helpful way to win people round to your point of view. I thought you didn't like the (in your view) religious underpinnings and class politics. Well, OK - that is something you are perfectly entitled to. But my level of education or range of reading has nothing to do with that. Snobbery, intellectual or otherwise, is not a very appealing trait.
I'll admit to only having skimmed a lot of this thread, so forgive me if I we already made this point.
Was it in 2e that Elves could NOT be resurrected? or was that an old house rule that I played with back in the day? Regardless, I maintain this rule in my own games today.
It cuts down on a lot of elven problems and answers some of those questions. Once their dead, thats IT.
After all, I'd like to see you try to live for hundreds (much less THOUSANDS) of years without getting in some freak accident. It happens to thousands of humans every day and we live to be about 75.
Y'know not to mention it's hard not to be more than a little gunshy if you know that if you die, that's all there is--no magic can bring you back to life, particularly if you're looking at a normal lifespan of hundreds of years. The longer a person lives, I'd say the more the thought of death horrifies them. Safe to say the same is true for elves.
So if there's no magical way to bring back an elf, it makes you wonder if elves could even become undead? It would be interesting if necromancy just didn't work on them at all...
Just a side thought.
Trust me when I say I'm being restrained. I have another theory about people for whom The Lord of the Rings is their favourite novel as generally being people who don't read (or read quality literature) much, but I'm self-aware enough to realise that it's likely just bitterness on my part at Tolkien's popularity that leads me to perceive them in that way.
To my great shame if you replaced LOTR with "Harry Potter..." in this paragraph you'd probably be me.....
Seriously though, LOTR is a book that places serious demands on a reader.If it's on someone's bookshelf beside any of Ms Rowling's or Mr Brown's fine novels then it is probably an unread copy.
If it's bookshelf company includes any Asimov, Heinlen, Martin, Herbert, Moorcock, Orwell, Bradbury, Dickens etc...., then chances are it's been read at least once, maybe more, and has a very definate position in that reader's list of Favorite/Despised books.
I think you are possibly making an assumption that LotR is people's favorite.
What I was referring to was the many people I have met who claim that The Lord of the Rings is their favourite novel but who aren't what I would call well-read by any means; when you don't read much, or when all you read is Tolkien and his legions of imitators, it's not hard to be impressed by the achievement in worldbuilding and epic story of the professor's work.
However, as I mentioned, I don't think that theory or impression of mine is sound. I'm just bitter.
I think J.K. Rowling is clearly a better writer than Dan Brown, and I enjoy her work for what it is while loathing his for what it is. ;)
Seriously though, LOTR is a book that places serious demands on a reader.
It certainly places a serious strain on my tolerance for awkward prose! (/snark)