Why do people like elves?

[Deleted]

Why I like elves in general? Well, if not Tolkien's books, I wouldn't be now who I am. And I always loved Tolkien's Eldar - especially Noldor people, supernatural elves, based on Alfar from norse mythology. Masters of secret knowledge, powerful, wise, ancient. This is why I started loving elves.

Then came Pratchett and his "Lords and Ladies". Those elves were different. Still ancient (even prehistorical), but far less wise. Beautiful, but their beauty was tricky, and that wasn't "inner beauty" like in case of Tolkien's elves, but only an effect of charm. And they were "pagan" to the core. Their Queen was typical "Snow Queen" living in glacial palace and kidnapping human boys just for fun, and their King was a Horned God with huge... well, some personal part of the body. And with huge horns, of course. He and his elves was living under the big prehistoric barrow den. Barrow den shaped in form of big fallus visible from air. So, Pratchett's elves were pagan - and I love that.

So, what will born, if we would cross wise, highly civilisated and heroic Eldar with cruel, savage yet still charming Pratchett's Lords and Ladies, give to that even more pagan influences - ancient greek, celtic, and even native american - well, I think the effect would be the Night Elves. They are connection of everything I love in elves in popculture, and they lack everything that I hate. Plus they are looking awesome: above two meters tall, athletic people with long, pointed ears, dark skin, tattoed faces and glowing eyes. With sharp canine fangs, claw-alike fingernails. Their females are like Amazons hunting in the woods, almost invisible in the night because grace of their goddess allows them to hide in the shadows, and their males can grow huge beard, sometimes even horns on their heads, and they have powers over the nature - they also can turn into wild beasts, like bears, panthers, ravens. That is freaking awesome.

On the other side, there are High and Blood Elves, too. But for me, those cousins of thr Night Elves are still pretty similar to them in their character. Well, maybe Night Elves are based on powers of Nature, and Blood Elves prefer powers of Arcane - and they prefer flying city parts instead of buildings made of living tree - but their character is in fact similar. Both are sophisticated, xenophobic, arrogant assholes. And I love sophisticated, xenophobic and arrogant assholes, if they have a reason to feel that they are superior over other races. Elves, both types, for me - have that reason.

Also one of great and fascinating feature of Warcraft elves, is, that they are closely connected with trolls - another great and very unique Azeroth's race - and my second favourite race in whole Warcraft. But this time, ugly trolls don't came from beautiful elves but vice versa - elves are descendants of trolls. And that is great. Because sophisticated and civilised assholes certain about their superiority over other races are nothing but the children of savage cannibalistic tribesmen. Even elven beloved demigods are just renamed trollish loa, once being fed by bloody sacrifices. And that is really great, seeing blonde-haired, pretty High Elf ranger in silk cloak and soft, leather boots, fighting his golden ornamented sword against Aztec-inspired, scary, cannibalistic Amani troll with elven skull on the stick, and knowing, that they are in fact cousins. Far cousins, yes - but still related.

[Deleted]

Ancient martial race, masters in combat, repository of knowledge and history due to being around for so long. Night Elves also wield some of the strongest magic around via druidism, and their matron Goddess empowers them with all manner of boons and protections. And they are 7 ft tall and purple: striking imagery.


trolls are digital vomit. The most disgusting race on Azeroth. The Forsaken are better looking and don't smell half as bad as the filth that is the primitive pondscum trolls.

Funny you should say that, seeing as elves evolved from trolls..

[Army Dreamer]

Because of how their females look.

[Deleted]

Funny you should say that, seeing as elves evolved from trolls..

Exactly this. They even still worship the same deities. Trolls just call them "loa" and elves "demigods", but this is the same type of deity/supernatural being.
This is just like a difference between us and people living in the jungle of Africa or Amazonia for example. We are different, we have different priorities and beliefs, and the jungle people can be really scary or disgusting for us, civilised people living in big cities - we, for example, deny cannibalism or cruel initiation traditions - but we and they are still humans and we act and think in similar way, because our biology is the same, our hormons work in the same way, et cetera. It's just like in "Heart of Darkness" of Joseph Conrad - where people from Europe realised that without civilisation they and African tribesmen are very similar in their core of humanity.
Similar situation is with elves - their biggest biological difference between trolls is much longer lifespan, natural magical talent and maybe lack of big tusks. Rest is mostly cultural thing.

It's also important to remember, that trolls aren't stupid - their IQ is generally the same like human one, or maybe even higher. Trolls are also able to create powerful civilisation: look at all the empires they created long before Night Elven empire have raised. They was building large cities in times when first kaldorei was still running half-naked in the forests (well... they still do this).

It's also interesting that kaldorei evolves from Dark Trolls - while other tribes of troll were aleady civilised, Dark Trolls always was the most wild and primitive in whole their specie, for other trolls they were just like cavemen. It's also fastinating thing that superior race of trolls (later called "elves", who became superior over all mortal races) evolved from the wildest, "cavemen" type of trolls.

[Itisamuh]

Because they're close enough in appearance to human that it's easy to relate to them, but they're superior in every way.

[Deleted]

Since this relates to WoW mostly, because elves appear mystical and mysterious while also having attractive looking characters.
Now, since I mostly like night elves, I also like them because they have strong females, they love nature and protect their own, they are friends with creatures of the forest and have wonderous cities. They're also nocturnal and blue.

[Ciddy]

I'm not one of those huge elf fans (always preferred dwarves myself), but I do think they're a very interesting race. The fact that some of them have been alive for 10,000+ years is really cool. I mean...can you imagine some of the stories a 10,000-year-old being would have to tell (assuming you get one of those who didn't sleep or live in exile for like 9,000 of those years, of course)? I also particularly love the theme night elves have going on, where they're nocturnal and live in the woods, and I love night elf architecture. I still think Darnassus is the most beautiful city in WoW.

I find the Draenei very interesting for that same reason. Now we're talking about a race with some people who are 25,000+ years old and have traveled through space + lived on multiple planets. Again...imagine the stories they could tell if you just got to hang out with one of them for a day or two.

And the night elf ladies are hot, so there is that.

[Luko]

You generally have 3 major types when it comes to your fantasy fans. You've got the people that lean towards the berserker / barbarian / HURR IM A MERCENARY lovers who cream themselves over unearthly huge weapons and battle screams. Then, you've got your emo dark kids who flock immediately for anything black, dead, dreary or sinister. You'll find them nuthugging your necromancers, dark knights, evil wizards etc.

The third has for some incomprehensible reason become the most popular in the last decade or so. I call these the Legolizzt kids. Dual wield ALL THE THINGS! Flourish in mid combat for NO REASON! Less armor the better! Pony tails everywhere! Can't be skinny enough. Must be able to dodge nearly any attack with the grace of a cracked out spider monkey and live forever outside of battle! These are the same people that will burst an artery trying to defend why the females of their race should be wearing some skin tight, wire wrapped underwear into battle.

The elf thing obviously falls under that third category.

[Wildberry]

Funny you should say that, seeing as elves evolved from trolls..

I think the keyword there is "evolved."

Either way, yeah, fuck trolls.

They don't have a huge statue of a Human out the front of their Building... Their favoured children are absolutely the Orcs. How anyone can even doubt that baffles me.

Yeah, Orcs are definitely Blizzard's favorite. I mean, we had a raid tier focused on taking down their leader and forcing them to step down from their position of power within a faction they started. We also now have an expansion dedicated to killing them and their biggest cultural heroes.

Sure sounds like Orc favoritism to me!

[Aeula]

You generally have 3 major types when it comes to your fantasy fans. You've got the people that lean towards the berserker / barbarian / HURR IM A MERCENARY lovers who cream themselves over unearthly huge weapons and battle screams. Then, you've got your emo dark kids who flock immediately for anything black, dead, dreary or sinister. You'll find them nuthugging your necromancers, dark knights, evil wizards etc.

The third has for some incomprehensible reason become the most popular in the last decade or so. I call these the Legolizzt kids. Dual wield ALL THE THINGS! Flourish in mid combat for NO REASON! Less armor the better! Pony tails everywhere! Can't be skinny enough. Must be able to dodge nearly any attack with the grace of a cracked out spider monkey and live forever outside of battle! These are the same people that will burst an artery trying to defend why the females of their race should be wearing some skin tight, wire wrapped underwear into battle.

The elf thing obviously falls under that third category.

I personally class myself as a barbaric savagery lover and yet I mostly play elves, don't paint all elf lovers with the same brush.

Then again WoW elves are somewhat different from the stereotype (Or they were...) you've got the blood elves who are a formerly very Tolkien-esque kind of race, with beautiful cities and abundant wisdom, then a tragedy happens and suddenly they've turned into a more dark, brutal race in a culture that is rapidly going away from those old values, they're addicted to magic, going by any means necessary to survive a world that refuses to help them. They join old enemies and adopt unsavoury ways to sate their magical addiction, it made them unique and interesting compared to the other increasingly generic races.
Sure 2.4 ruined everything about that with that horrible sunwell raid, but you can still feel a certain undertone of it, old habits die hard afterall.

I love the dark elves in the elder scrolls games for a similar reason, they push aside the steriotype and build something new and interesting.

[Kallisto]

They don't have a huge statue of a Human out the front of their Building... Their favoured children are absolutely the Orcs. How anyone can even doubt that baffles me.

Because having a human or anything that resembles a human (Dwarf or Elf) would not be imposing on the front of Blizzard HQ. It would just be one of thousands of human statues in California. With it being an Orc it is likely the only Orc statue or one of very few.

And the top mages being human makes absolutely no sense in lore. Humans don't live long enough to learn even a fraction of what an elf will learn. Arcane in high/blood elf culture is everything. It is Bliz insistence of Orcs and Humans being best at everything that changes it around. Blood Elves and Night Elves/Gnomes in warcraft should be the best casters. Humans should be jack of all master of none since they don't have long enough life or natural affinity to anything. Draenei should be top light users due to link to Naaru. All these stuff given to humans just so bliz can push the orcs vs humans that no one wants anymore.

As for why I like elves. Blood Elves/High Elves have the arcane addiction mixed with a slightly more savage than humans outlook. They look down on others yet back up their arrogance.

For night elves. You basically have a forest linked Amazonian society. The women who are meant to be better warriors ( or even Perfect)
than the orcs. The clergy of the Night Elves and the military merged so much that the priestesses rode into battle. They were wise, strong, gave no care, if you were in their territory your life was forfeit unless you had a very good reason. Then you had the men, wise, linked to nature. Even willing to do what is necessary to better their people (unless your name is Malfurion).

[Zathrendar]

Agreed with the above, there is little reason other than human/orc favoritism behind it.

I specifically like Night Elf. I don't really like generic elf in general like BE for example or elf in LotR.

They're emphatically not "generic". If anything, NE are closer culturally to typical elves than BE. BE descend from a very decadent, powerful race of elves, that is closer to settings like that in the cycle of the Eternal Champion than anything "generic", assuming that by this you mean the standard, vanilla 3.5e D&D elf; by that standard, Tolkien's elves wouldn't be generic either, though.

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Funny you should say that, seeing as elves evolved from trolls..

Much like we evolved from apes. Means very little taken in isolation.

[anaxie]

"great with (...) magic" "more intelligent than most humans"

Then why are all the best mages ever in Warcraft humans? Aegwynn, Medivh, Khadgar (to a lesser extent, Jaina, but her greatest feat was accomplished with the Focusing Iris.)

Guardian child of guardian who didn't return powers that were collectively bestowed upon her and apprentice of guardian who confiscated said guardian/demon lords spell book. Durrr dem humans

Jaina shacked up with the overseer of magic for the planet because dragon pussy is sandpaper

[anaxie]

I do miss the original take on the blood elves. One of the many reasons I've turned my back on WoW - at least for the time being - is due to how poorly they've treated the playable races. It's as if they've deliberately watered down any unique traits in favour of having orcs and humans steal the spotlight at every turn.

Blood elves are literally. In every expansion in bulk

Blood elves had great lore based against scourge demons and illidan. Prime defectors against garrosh and spearheading fights against the shadow council and legion.

Blood elves the original villains and greatest asset against the forces of darkness

Thanks for the genocide allianc . Should of never taught you bronze age fucks magic and let y'all s the d

[Wyrt]

Thanks for the genocide allianc . Should of never taught you bronze age fucks magic and let y'all s the d

It's ok, I'm sure some elf sluts will find some big strong human men to repopulate with.

[ButterBeast]

Same reason you like Orcs so much.

You enjoy hyper-muscled, slow-witted, ultra-aggressive, xenophobic uncivilized assholes the same way we like snotty, arrogant, beautiful jerks. Different strokes, different folks.

angry little kid lol take your meds.

Infracted

[Rhlor]

I love the lore of the blood elves and his characters

[Feanoro]

"great with (...) magic" "more intelligent than most humans"

Then why are all the best mages ever in Warcraft humans? Aegwynn, Medivh, Khadgar (to a lesser extent, Jaina, but her greatest feat was accomplished with the Focusing Iris.)

Try "the best mages we know about by name." Two of those are Guardians of Tirisfal, empowered by an entire council. Khadgar was taught by Medivh, then spent years learning from Adal. The intro quest in Shattrath flat out states he learned more in a few months there than in years under the Kirin Tor. All this to say, those three are exceptions. Jaina simply was hyped up because they liked their little "Orcs dindu nuffin" peacenik.

It's made clear in one book (title escapes me) that Aegwynn and any student mages learned from ancient Night Elven works like the Meitre scrolls. All canon material that touches on it explains modern mages are wildly behind the ancients, because that's the cost of not drawing Legion attention.

[Wyrt]

Try "the best mages we know about by name." Two of those are Guardians of Tirisfal, empowered by an entire council. Khadgar was taught by Medivh, then spent years learning from Adal. The intro quest in Shattrath flat out states he learned more in a few months there than in years under the Kirin Tor. All this to say, those three are exceptions. Jaina simply was hyped up because they liked their little "Orcs dindu nuffin" peacenik.

It's made clear in one book (title escapes me) that Aegwynn and any student mages learned from ancient Night Elven works like the Meitre scrolls. All canon material that touches on it explains modern mages are wildly behind the ancients, because that's the cost of not drawing Legion attention.

Yes, it seems to be more a product of Blizzard's over focus on humans than a lack of ability among elves, draenei, or other races with high arcane affinity.

Plus we've never actually seen what Rommath is capable of. He could well be on par or even more powerful than the other current super mages.

[Darmalus]

Elves are generally designed in the modern era as Human-Plus. Since most people would like to live longer, be more beautiful, graceful, skilled, etc. they fall in love with elves or the idea of being an elf.