Why So: Anti-Elf?

[Silas13013]

Because elves are elitist assholes rubbing their superiority in our human faces. Talking with nature and communing with the trees, damn hippies. I rue the day we ever ally ourselves with such creatures!

~ Sincerely every human in a modern "dark" RPG, which is all of them

I actually think that has a lot to do with it. Elves in the games are usually looked down upon as either second class citizens or elitist assholes who try to control everything. Unless you happen to play as an elf, a lot of the game context will paint them as "bad" in some way. As for why the developers do that, I really couldn't say. It might just be the "in" thing right now.

 

[KingHodor]

Sadly enough, Iorveth from "The Witcher 2" is the only badass-looking elf (not to mention being a badass as a character) in the history of videogame elvenkind that I've ever come across. That's saying something, isn't?

 

[Enslave_All_Elves]

because elves are spindly and weak!

also the "we're good at everything but our civilization was destroyed" thing is fucking old. if you're so wonderful elves, you wouldn't be camping out in a tent in the woods with your supposedly superior weapons and magic.

 

[bz316]

I don't really "hate" elves per say, but I have two problems with them: 1) they've appeared in pretty much every "dungeons and dragons"-esque fantasy ever made for the past 50 fucking years, and 2) thanks to Tolkien, their portrayal is simply that they are less shitty versions of humans, giving them a dickish attitude and very little that it unique about them (seriously, they're just humans with better eyes and longer life-spans. boooooring...). Even in Dragon Age, they're portrayed as some kind of mythical super people who lost their powers and now suck as much as humans. It's basically the Atlantis myth with pointier ears. Give us something new fantasy genre!!

 

[Danzavare]

When I can I avoid playing humans, so elves are generally my go-to race (Since I don't play the other stock races, dwarves or orcs). In most games I've played Elves are ranged/magic based, which I suppose would irk a lot of players that play melee characters. Beyond on that I can't think of anything else, they're basically humans with better figures and pointier ears. :/

 

[viranimus]

I LOVE elves. But only the correct elves. IE: Dark/blood or typical evil variations.

So naturally I WOULD hate high/wood/half/night/elvaan or any other typically "good" variation. They tend to embody hypocrisy more than anything else, and as such should be smeared into a pulpy paste on the nearest solid but jagged object.

 

[bz316]

Also, they're supposed to be immortal and super intelligent, yet in their thousands of years of life not one of them thought to invent a steam engine, gun, or printing press. What the fuck do they do with all that time?!?!

 

[Tharwen]

Because if I try to sell them my wooden mugs they go all huffy and refuse to give me my booze!

...then I just pull the lever.

 

[DoPo]

I'm not sure that's fair. You have stories in which they are depicted as cruel and capricious, yes, but plenty of others in which things would have been fine if they weren't provoked in some way.

We have stories, but the Mary Sue stories prevail. If the author(s) feel generous we might get dark elves who are the same as the other elves, just hate humans and other stuff. And even then: Drizzt and all of his clones.

I'd certainly like to see more fairies capable of cruelty and malice, yes, but this would actually make them less alien, not more. Being nice all the time is very inhuman. It'd certainly help them be more relatable.

Look up the True Fae from Changeling the Lost. You could say they are cruel. You can never say they are less alien.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Why does the internet hate elves? Because dwarves hate elves. Think about it.

What does a stereotypical dwarf look like? Beard, short/chubby, lives underground, no women in sight (or at least not recognizable to other races), holds grudges for thousands of years.

What does the stereotypical gamer/nerd look like? Neckbeard, chubby, lives in a basement, no woman in sight, holds grudges against EA and such for years.

Notice a similarity there?

You may be on to something there.

 

[Qitz]

Because they're boring.

EVERY damn fantasy game shoe-horns them in and they're just so damn plain. All they ever seem to have for them is "Oh their purty elfey mystic things" and that just gets boring. It's funny that the men and woman both look the same but they're pretty much the default "Must Have" race.

Give me a walking Slug who throws GooBalls at people or something.

That said, they make a wonderful fuel.

 

[DrgoFx]

My hate isn't so much in Elves themselves, but rather the people that played them in ALL the MMOs I played. They've always been fanboys of something I didn't like, mainly Final Fantasy. Aside from that, I don't mind elves. I have a Half-Elf bard on DDO. For Guild Wars 2, I plan to have a Sylvari Thief. The Sylvari aren't elves, but they represent them in a way. The beautiful, human like race that seems to have more mages than warriors. The main thing that separates them is that they're plant-people and are actually so young that none have died of natural causes and Elves are typically the oldest race.

EDIT:

I find this appropriate

 

[DRes82]

Why is there: a colon.

Usually to poop with.

Yes, but the movies made up for that with Liv Tyler being Arwen... mmm.. Human/Elf relations >.>

Yes! I thought I was the only one that thought that Liv Tyler was absolutely beautiful in her portrayal of Arwen.

OT: I don't hate elves, but I never play them in games. I always end up with a Half-Elf. They have the best aspects of two different races. Elves are just too...brittle.

 

[HellbirdIV]

I've always loved Elves mainly because they are arrogant better-than-thou super-perfect.

I got into fantasy - like, really into it - by reading Lord of the Rings after the first movie came out and introduced me to the genre proper (before that I only lightly touched on fantasy through games like WarCraft II, Diablo II and Heroes of Might and Magic III and was much more of a sci-fi kid) and I really always felt that the Elves in that setting were... Well, "right". Everything about them clicked and seemed to really make sense.

They are percieved as arrogant because they ARE better than humans, they are smarter, more beautiful, more magically powerful, live for thousands of years. With well-written characters you can have them come across as interesting despite the lack of obvious flaws and their exaggarated traits. The Silmarillion is just amazing in the first section when it deals with the dawn of Elves and the coming of war over the Silmarils.

It really needs to be handled carefully not to make the arrogant better-than-thou attitude be really grating and obnoxious, which is probably to blame for why people out-of-universe dislike Elves to begin with.

I'm a big fan of the Draenei in WarCraft and the Asari in Mass Effect who are both pretty much just space Elves (to an extent, the same applies to the Protoss of StarCraft and the Vulcans in Star Trek), because in the hands of good writers they provide such a stark contrast to the "down and gritty" setup that the more "Human-like" races tend to have.

 

[The_Waspman]

Huh? Elves are fine with me. It's dwarves I don't really care for.

This. So much this. While Elves can be annoying in that holier than thou way (Yahtzee's video of Kingdoms of Amlamlam sums up Elves pretty much perfectly - even though its the Fae in that), at leas they're not the bloody Dwarves. They're even more cliched than the Elves. At least Elves come in different flavours (Wood Elf, High Elf, Dark Elf etc), where as Dwarves just come in one flavour (Stone Dwarf). I don't want to spend years running round your boring underground cities (If dwarves live most of their lives underground, why are they all weather-beaten and rugged? Surely they should all be blind albinoes..?) doing quests to find different flavours or ore for you. I'd rather be fucking about with the Elves up in the open air. Sure, they're all snooty and up themselves, but at least they live in the fucking sun.

Captcha: Nut case. Who, me!?

 

[Terminate421]

I don't hate elves but of you call your game fantasy and all you have for another playable race is elves or dwarves then your game is pretty much shit in my eyes. You could craft entire worlds of species and you could only pick people who are short or have pointy ears.

 

[lacktheknack]

You clearly don't play Dwarf Fortress.

Outside of Dwarf Fortress, I tend to like the elves, but don't choose to play as one normally because they rarely fit what I want to be. (Exception: Elder Scrolls.)

 

[Sexy Devil]

Almost everywhere I hear mention of elves, it's in the negative sense. It feels like almost everyone hates elves in any setting, and I don't really get why. Is it because of how they are portrayed? I know I've seen more than my share of holier-than-thou High Elves and super-green Wood Elves, but I hate the archetype more than I do the species. Is it because they are so effeminate-looking? Really, I'm starting to feel like people are deliberately viewing them as effeminate just to mock them. Is it because of the "weak and frail" portrayals, meaning they are pitifully easy to squash? Who's to say you can't make a badass elf?

If you hate elves for some reason, please explain why. I sometimes feel like I'm the only person who likes to view them positively. Is it just that the anti-elf people are just a crapton more vocal about the matter?

I assume because "dark" fantasy has an unspoken requirement of racial oppression, and people would ***** if the humans weren't the ones in powers. Also oppressing dwarfs in games runs the risk of pissing off real dwarfs. And modern fantasy is too lazy to move away from Tolkien so they're stuck with elves.

Oh derp only gave the OP a quick once-over. I suspect it's probably somewhat WoW's fault. At one point a lot of idiots were picking Night Elves and that kind of gave them a stigma.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Who's to say you can't make a badass elf?

Well, I know of 1 badass elf...
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Cacame_Awemedinade

That being said, I love elves.
I prefer them over dwarves and definitely over goblins.

 

[lord.jeff]

I just wish people would portray elves like they're supposed to be. Underhanded sneaky bastards who will steal your children. World of Darkness has had the best portrayal of them so far. This unknowable eliminate which makes them totally alien. They're too busy going 'fuck you guys' to give a shit about your pathetic little life.

People too often forget that elves are evil and it's a problem, because now everyone expects them to be totally cool and awesome and sexy and wonderful and magical and wise and ancient and all that shit. They completely miss the whole steal your kid away leave a changeling in it's place and rase your stolen baby as a slave to their whims.

In fact it isn't just elves, its all fay-kind. No one knows their fay-lore anymore because people expect them to all be 'good fairies' well guess what. Fairies were evil little shits as well.

Fuck all the fay, no one actually understands any of the supernatural lore and legends. Too much of this god damn twilight-misinterpretation bullshit. Christ Edward Cullen wasn't even a vampire. He's a god damn Sidhe or however it is you spell it.

People are dumb.

Yours.

Arashi of Ordo 3. [supernatural enthusiast]

It's a good thing that it changed, look at how tired we are of the modern elf that have become common relatively recent, imagine how boring every story would be if we had to use the same old style of fay age after age. Also you had a lot of good fairies in old myth like the brownies or the fallen angels.

Just as with vampires, it's simply a question of oversaturation.

But more than elves I hate the whole "they're victims of racism" spin that every fantasy game has now. It's like developers think that by adding racism it gives a fantasy realm more credibility.

It's because the random genric evil god/something or other got over used and a new story motivator was needed for the lazy writer. I'm okay with elves, I just thing there getting overused and there always the same in every story, just like dwarfs dig and furry races are always tribal in fantasy. I'm even getting bored of dragons.