So when elves act high and mighty and humans get upset at them, aren't the elves kind of in the right? They're as smart as humans and live way longer. The only disadvantage they have is a lower rate of reproduction, which is still an advantage in non-war contexts because they can use their resources for longer periods of time.
>>46924113
The story usually elaborates that their perspective is flawed because they can't see the day-to-day details and also the authors are usually human.
This thread was a mistake
>aren't the elves kind of in the right?
Not every single time. Elves aren't infallible.
>>46924113Man ,Planetary would make for a great campaign.
They say science progresses when the Old Guard dies.
Also, it's extremely annoying when authors (a human) decide that means they can use elves as their biased and opinionated mouthpiece. Even worse is when the humans won't argue with them. That's why I give elves shit desu, and I assume it's the same for /tg/.
>>46924113
Not really. Starting age for an elf character is usually much higher than starting age for a human character, but they have the same level of ability. Elves waste their extended lifespans.
>>46924113
DON'T YOU DARE TO PAINT ANY RACE EXCEPT DWARFS AND HUMANS IN A POSITIVE LIGHT
ESPECIALLY NOT ELVESNah, you are right. But writers have to make them artificially shit or fail at something to balance it out
>>46924417
Dunmers are cool.
>>46924113
Basically people get bootybothered about elves because of unresolved issues around certain kinds of people in HS or deep seated resentment towards the welsh(largely for the same reason).
So they create massive strawmen to dismantle. And no one who is prettier than them can be as smart as them.
>>46924564
Everybody thinks Dunmer are cool. You don't need to like elves in general to like Dunmer.
Rolled 10 (1d20)
>>46924113
Test.
>>46924573
Wrong. End that shitty meme. See >>46924252 For the real reason. Nerds never care about the popular kids outside of a high school movie, they're too busy doing nerd stuff.
>>46924113
>So when elves act high and mighty and humans get upset at them, aren't the elves kind of in the right?
On the contrary. If they're such a superior species, they should understand the very basics of diplomacy, that is don't piss off your allies gratuitously (not to mention social conventions should be very easy for them to understand and assimilate).
Standard elves act uppity and then cry when it bites them in the ass at the end of the day.
Truly superior elves would act like fools to make people do their bidding without even knowing it, and reap the fruits of their act afterwards.
>>46924140
>The story usually elaborates that their perspective is flawed because they can't see the day-to-day details
Do they live in the day to day..? Do they live their lives in a kind of limbo between awake and asleep? Like somewhat more aware sleep-walkers? This seems, to me, like pure bs to justify HFY wankery..
>>46925697
>like pure bs to justify HFY wankery..
It is, but also a missed chance by common writers to make elfen psych a bit different and otherwordly. Eldar would be the best example for that done kinda right and explained well. By missed chance I mean that what this long life does to the brain, or if the brain of an elf is structured differently, barely comes up. Thousand years old elves are just a bit more stuck-up, that's all I get from popular fiction.
>>46924113
Elves are perfectly justified in acting high and mighty, but not for any of the reasons you mentioned.
>>46925697
Because you're obsessed with your hateboner for HFY.
>>46926090
HFY is terrible. It's the reason Elves and just about every fucking other fantasy race are never as good 'in action' as they're hyped up to be.
>>46926117
You've overextended the definition of HFY because something that can be called HFY doesn't really come up that often. Humans being balanced with the other fantasy races isn't that shitty meme. That's what you get for playing games instead of reading books. When the race is just plain better than humans they serve a narrative purpose this isn't the case in a TTRPG. Anyway, people go about it all wrong. Every race should have a serious pro and con instead of making them Human +1 then giving them some random nonsensical pro and con. There should be a race that dies when it eats chocolate, is what I'm saying, but can eat something we can't. You know, like how real species work.
>>46924113
Long lifespan does not mean they are right. There are humans much older than you who will swear till they're blue in the face that you walking the wrong way down the street every day is what makes their garden have bugs in it.
Not to mention that the biggest weakness elves have is a lack of a sense of urgency or importance of attention to small events, which is implied to be the cause of their nigh-universal downfall to coincide with the rise of humans, who know how to make clutch moments count instead of just watching disasters happen to them with the detachment of pampered royal.
If elves are so smart, why are they incapable of actual technological of societal progress?
Elves are far, far less intelligent than humans. They only look like they're comparable because over hundreds of years they manage to cobble together some set of responses which lets them effectively fool humanity into thinking they're sapient. They're like really well-trained parrots.
>>46924113
>because they can use their resources for longer periods of time.
Wat?
If you're talking about resources like food and wood, more people means they can harvest more and thus have more. If you're talking about resources like metal then there tend to be enough of those to go around, so long as you have the workforce needed to harvest it fast enough to keep up with demand (again, more population is better).
>>46926117
>HFY is terrible.
Okay fine.
>Man sees flower.
>Flower is terrible.
>Man hates flower.
>Some people like flower.
>Man hates that some people like flower.
>Man screams about how much he hates flower.
>Man won't stop screaming about how terrible this flower is.
>Man screams at flower.
>People tell man he is being disruptive, unreasonable, and everyone would like him to stop.
>Man is infuriated because they don't understand how terrible this flower is.
>Man hates them for defending and apologizing for the flower.
>Flower is terrible.
>Man is worse than terrible flower.
>>46926515
What did he mean by this?
>>46926549
Sort of like this.
>>46926401
>If elves are so smart, why are they incapable of actual technological of societal progress?
Despite the obviousDepends on the settingI will just throw some random ideas out:
>magic
Magic is a science in itself and elves are often portrayed as the magical race, which use magic to solve a lot of their problems.
>no need
Elves are often long lifed, never sick, always fit. A lot of technological progress out of necessity isn't needed
>nature solves all problems
They magic/druids make homes out of trees, the woods provide everything they need, all the food grows on their trees faster than human agriculture ever could.
Aside from that, I can't think of a settingthere are probablaty somein which the elves are really portrayed as primitive. Even when they don't have some kind of industry, often you have elf-made swords that are special in some way, rare and valuable, elfen capes that every adventurer would like to have or other magic trinkets.Please don't be one of those faggots that says: "hurr elves are so shit, we humans developed nukes in my headcanon setting and bombed them to shit HFY!"
>>46924252
>They say science progresses when the Old Guard dies.
This is the big kicker that everyone misses.
Even if elves are a smart as humans, they are almost guaranteed to stagnate because leadership won't change hands but once every few /hundred/ years--in that same time, a human civilization will go through two revolutions and will be all the better for it.
I mean, Christ. Everyone complains how goddamn slow Congress moves, could you imagine if everyone on the board arrived to power in the 1800s?
>>46926580
Nah, not one of those idiots. It's just something I've noticed a lot - elven society isn't primitive, but it also hits pseudo-medieval and just stays there forever. Humans, on the other hands, either are a young race who just got there, or are noted as starting to shake things up and make new developments.
>>46926614
Slightly off-topic, but this is why Thanaphobes annoy the piss out of me. Ok, death sucks, and on an individual level I'd like being an immortal. But a society of immortals is a dead society, where we'd still running off of Roman law.
>>46925697
>Do they live their lives in a kind of limbo between awake and asleep? Like somewhat more aware sleep-walkers?
I do like this.
My long lived species appear very disconnected and scatterbrained to humans.
They seem capricious and unaware of their surroundings because their attention span extends for days and weeks at a time.
The mindset I imagine is very much like when I was on vacation, had no constraints on my time, slept and ate when I felt like it, lost track of hours and had no idea what day it was.
It's like staying up for days until it seems fantastically bizarre that the sun is up and people are going to work.
Larry Miller's disgust of early morning joggers in his bit of the 5 Levels of Drinking* is similar to an elf's distaste for humanity.
*There are 6 Levels if you live in a trailer park, but let's not get into that now.
>>46926660
>or are noted as starting to shake things up and make new developments.
To be fair, this is exactly where the setting stops. Warhammer fantasy is the only one where it seems to progress past the medieval. Here you have some of the humans, and also dwarfs, surpassing not only elves but also most other factions when it comes to technology. Though high elves are some of the best when it comes to magic, and everything aside from gunpowder and steam engines isn't primitive.
>>46926549
Flower = HFY
Man = HFY hating anon
I didn't think it was subtle.
>>46926573
Sorta, yeah.
But hateful, angry anons cannot see wisdom when it spoken in meme form.
Plus, I hoped the visual of a man screaming into a flower might send home how silly and unpleasant he appears.
>>46926699
>Yo Hey Vo.
>>46926224
I always liked the Dwarf fortress portrayal of Humans/Elves/Dwarfs.
Elves having the numbers and the skill backed up by the forces of nature. but no metal so poor armour and weapons.
Dwarfs having relatively low numbers of professional soldiers but they have the best armour and weapons and each one is a walking wrecking crew of training.
And humans occupying a gap somewhere in between with metal armour thats not quite as good as the dwarfs but better than the wood the elves use. And having larger numbers than the dwarfs but no creature support like the elves do.
This is more from the military side of things naturally.
On a slightly different note, did anyone else find it weird that the elves in LOTR have metal weapons and armour but no mines?
>>46927077
Maybe they magic'd their weapons into being?
>>46926708
>My long lived species appear very disconnected and scatterbrained to humans.
Ooo, I like this. Reminds me of something I read about time perception as you get older...
>As a small child, summer vacation feels like forever because it's a sizeable chunk of your life
>As an adult, those same three months are such a small fraction of your lifespan that they are here and gone before you notice
Expanding on that, it makes a great case against relationships between humans and elves (or the ever-popular immortal vampires):
>Human, we're you the type to keep goldfish as a child?
>When your first goldfish died, it must have made toy sad. You learned about death and how nothing stays.
>But you moved on, didn't you? You got over it and bought another goldfish, because they're pretty and you like having them around.
>Do you remember their names? Can you honestly recall the name of each goldfish you ever cared for, and the dates when they entered and left your life?
>You can't. Its not that you don't care, but after long enough all goldfish start to look the same, and the impact each one had on you diminishes.
>That's what it means to be immortal, human. Tomorrow you'll be dead of old age, and try as I might I won't even notice.
>>46926614
Or worse, imagine all the guys who thought writing was shit and oral tradition was the only proper way were still alive and in power? You can argue that they might change their minds but that's probably centuries of delayed progress because someone got their panties in a twist over this fancy new recording method and I'm sure there would be some who are stubborn enough to never change positions.
>>46927258
Yes, this is good.
>>46926515
>hfy is a flower
>>46927676
Indeed, a most hated flower.
>>46924564
>>46924615
>>46927077
>On a slightly different note, did anyone else find it weird that the elves in LOTR have metal weapons and armour but no mines?
Heirlooms of a time in which they did mine, mostly.
>>46925534
>Nerds never care about the popular kids outside of a high school movie, they're too busy doing nerd stuff.
Yes, keep telling yourself that.
>>46927676
They're basically Petunias or Callery pear tree flowers
>>46924113
>lower rate of reproduction
>advantage in non-war contexts
no, anon, thats wrong
>>46924113
>Most people suck at doing elves
Pretty much all elves in contemporary fantasy are based on the surface traits Tolkien elves, yes even the edgy subversive ones.
Tolkiens elves really were better than humans in most respects, so they had a genuine reason to cocky. Despite this a lot of them were pretty chill and diplomatic and, in peace times, had respect for other races. Of course when they stop being cool they become monstrously destructive ass-holes and ruin everything for everyone. Worse still, they rarely learn from these failures.
They've seen how amazing things used to be and how bad they've gotten, and all they can do is morn the old ways.
Elves are the gentry or the ideal of the great old civilisations. Being an elf is being born into greatness, seeing it crumble and falling into despair, because how could anything ever live up to the glory of Rome? They are what we aspire to but also what ultimately hold us back.They are what are the realistic result of a "master race." Totally kick-ass for a while but ultimately stagnant and miserable.
Elves are a caution tale to remind us all why we start at level one. So that we can grow into our greatness, learning to appreciate the world along the way. If you start with near perfect there is no reason to seek out further wonder and nothing to look forward to but loss.
>>46928175
Are you projecting your own experiences on everyone else? Is that it?
>>46927258
It's a bit like Salarians in Mass Effect as well. They're short lived but get things done real quickly. To a long lived species we would appear similar. Of course this is bit fucked up by giving elves pseudo-sleep and shit. They really have no excuse slacking off when they just meditate for 4 hours.
>>46926549
Don't do drugs.
>>46928175
You would know, wouldn't you?
>>46928867
Fuck you got me.
>>46927676
It's more like a tuber.
>>46929571
Nerdy HS friends who couldn't get past HS grudges forced me to cut ties with a friend who got angry that I was hanging out with someone he used to envy at the time.
>>46928867What does that symbol mean?
>>46931926
One of the oldest successful memes. The joke itself is now the joke.Loss
>>46931870
>forced me
No one forced you. You played yourself. Should've dropped the shitter instead.
Anyway, it's my experience that a lot of nerds, me included, were too socially retarded to know who the popular kids even were at the time. If it wasn't outside of my bubble it didn't matter. What mattered to me was bad authors writing shit soapbox elves in their awful dimestore fantasy novels (and FOTM /v/idya). I learned to dislike elves through that until I got smarter and just learned to hate bad writers. Anecdotal Evidence vs. Anecdotal Evidence. Maybe it's a generational thing, I'm sure most school nerds now are too busy with Minecraft to deal with everything else.
>>46928867
Plus people forget that elves in Middle Earth came from the the First Age Elves, who were the saltiest, most pissed off motherfuckers to ever step foot on that continent.
