Are modern Elves really that based on Tolkien's?

[MithrandirOlorin]

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot. ... ed-on.html

It's commonly said that Tolkien's Elves are the inspiration for Elves in fantasy stories written since, in novels like the Dragonlance series, or Dungeons and Dragons and other Table Role Playing Games, which leads to Role Playing Video Games including JRPGs which in turn influences a lot of Manga, Anime and Light Novels that then get adapted into Anime.

The thing is, these supposedly Tolkien like Elves seem to me to be.... Demoted in terms of their importance to the Lore. They're now just another one of many Human like Fantasy Races, not Humanity's other half. They're Elves but they're not The Eldar. Tolkien's Elves are meant to be kinda similar to what Humans might have been like if Adam hadn't fallen. While in a lot of Anime they're basically just Cute Girls with pointy ears.

I suppose to some extent it's full circle, they're back to being more like the Ljósálfar of Norse Mythology. Tolkien's Elves are largely a product of combining them with certain beliefs about the Fae/Tuatha De Dannan of Irish Mythology. And some older Judeo-Christian conceptions of a hypothetical Pre-Adamic race (before compromising with Evolution turned hypothetical Pre-Adamic races into Cave Men).

I think the most interesting take on Elves in Anime would be No Game No Life, where I'm convinced they're an unflattering allegory for The United States. The reason I relate to Nilvalen so much is because she's an Elf who hates her own country. But as interesting as that is it's not very Tolkien like.

Who I do feel are similar to Tolkien's Elves are some fantasy races not called Elves. The Cetra in Final Fantasy VII. How the Amazons were presented in the Wonder Woman and Justice League films of 2017. There are others I think, but they escape my memory at the moment.

What's Problematic is how Tolkien's Elves can come off as similar to the Aryans of the racist theosophical ideas that inspired Hitler. But that's why I'd like to see Fantasy races with a similar mystical gravitas be depicted with more ethnic variety. You can already find a decent amount of Fan Art depicting some of Tolkien's characters as being more ethnic then he probably envisioned.

Fortunately we're unsure what human ethnicity the Cetra would most resemble, we only ever see Aerith, who's only half Cetra, and briefly her mother in a flashback. Westerners are inclined to see a Caucasian when we look at Aerith but the original Japanese audience might not have (Westerners have accused Anime characters of looking White when they were modeled after specific Japanese celebrities).

I've contemplated in any fantasy story I might write depicting the Ljósálfar as white looking but the Dökkálfar as Japanese looking and the Svartálfar as Nubian looking.

Now Biblically I don't believe in any Pre-Adamic Race, I oppose the Gap Theory. I've contemplated having the hypothetical Elves of any fictional mythology I'd create descend from Cain in order to deconstruct the assumption that descendants of Cain were inherently Evil. The problem is it'd also be playing into the rhetoric of Racists to associate any descendants of Cain with non-White especially Black ethnic features.

I know for certain that if I ever made any fiction set in the Pre-Flood world I'd depict the tribes of Enosh Ben Seth (from whom came Enoch and Noah's Family) as looking Middle Eastern.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Also, absolutely NOWHERE in any of Tolkein's works does it say elves have pointy ears.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Also, absolutely NOWHERE in any of Tolkein's works does it say elves have pointy ears.

Actually I made a post on the SIlmarilion Writers GUidl's Livejournal assuming that last year and learned otherwise.
https://silwritersguild.livejournal.com ... l#comments

oloriel

September 30 2017, 04:16:38 Edited: September 30 2017, 04:18:45

1. It is related to how Elves/fairies were depicted before Tolkien. Tolkien seems to have been content to follow the tradition.

2. In the Etymologies (published in The Lost Road, HoME 5), Tolkien wrote this:
"LAS1- *lassê leaf: Q lasse, N lhass; [...] (Some think this is related to the next and *lassê 'ear'. The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?human].)
LAS2- listen. [...]" (emphasis mine)
So yes, actually, Tolkien did describe them that way.
I have often wondered whether this is some kind of linguistic injoke on "lobe" and "leaf" (not actually related), or whether it is potentially a nod to Darwin, but haven't been able to arse myself to do the research.

3. Also in a letter from 1938, concerning illustrations for The Hobbit:
"I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of 'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown)." (Letters of J.R.R.Tolkien, Letter 27; again, emphasis mine.)
So that's another instance of "Elves = pointy ears" and also explains why Hobbits tend to be depicted with them, too.

Hope that helps to determine why Tolkien's Elves are "traditionally" depicted as pointy-eared. As to when traditional elves and fairies began to be painted with pointy ears, I unfortunately have no idea.

Reply

jaredmith

September 30 2017, 06:02:35

So, Tolkien did intend them to have pointy ears. But never made that clear in the actual books. He was weird.

Reply

oloriel

September 30 2017, 10:44:45

He made it clear to the illustrators, which was probably good enough for him.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Today I learned something new! =o

But Mithr, I think the closest thing to Tolkein's perspective on elves is the elves in Dragon Age, honestly, but that almost mythologizes his take as a legnedary Pre-Fall elvenkind.

[MithrandirOlorin]

That the same as the Video Game series Chuck's been playing? I never got far enough into that to notice anything.

[AllanO]

Surely when we say this or that is based in Tolkien we just mean that he is responsible for the broad trope (possibly just the name). Halfings in D&D are clearly directly let's say inspired by Tolkien and some depictions share some traits but people have felt free to go off in all sorts of directions and tangents (the depiction of Halfings in some versions are very acquisitive and not the homebodies Hobbits are etc. then we get innovations like Kender in Dragonlance whose starting point is still halflings and so Hobbits by the transative property of basing things on other things).

So based on does not mean, has a lot in common with necessarily, just that there is a chain of causes leading from Tolkien to the later descriptions.

Beyond the name recurrent themes I would notice off hand is that elves tend to be longer lived than humans (even immortal), inheritors of an ancient civilization that surpasses the works of man in some or many respects (this civilization has often fallen), often closer to nature in some way, even sometimes being sort of archetypal noble savages (wood elves), pointy ears, more delicate and subtle bodies, a thing for bows. Some of these superficial features presumably come up in earlier depictions, but it seems like most people started putting them in because Tolkien had elves (and his elves had those things), even if they went back to myths for ideas about the depiction of elves.

Anyway this is all just a rather minor semantic point. It sounds like you have lots of interesting ideas about elves based both on trying to be more thorough going in picking up ideas Tolkien had and in terms of trying to diverge more completely from the pattern Tolkien suggested.

[ORCACommander]

there is a concept going around called post tolkien elves where authors are writing elves without ever having read the lord of the rings and its companion works but they have read elves based on the tolkiens elves and we are creating copies of copies with all the imperfections and deviations that implies. Case point: The Malazan Book of the Fallen

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I'd say Tolkien played a huge role in re-popularizing the traditional elf as wise, otherworldly, and ethereal beings, as opposed to elves as Santa's little helpers or a Disney-style comic relief type of race. But Tolkien was drawing on the much older writings, and there's a long tradition of elves in Germanic and Nordic mythologies. And Tolkien wasn't the only one writing about these kinds of characters- George MacDonald's fairies in Phantastes and his other fantasy comes to mind.

It gets to the point where something enters the public consciousness, and the original source of a traditional source can be obscured or forgotten altogether. Tolkien might not really be the direct source of modern elves, but without his influence I think they would look really, really different today.

there is a concept going around called post tolkien elves where authors are writing elves without ever having read the lord of the rings and its companion works but they have read elves based on the tolkiens elves and we are creating copies of copies with all the imperfections and deviations that implies. Case point: The Malazan Book of the Fallen

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm trying to get at.

[MithrandirOlorin]

MacDonald's works definitely need more attention.

[Rocketboy1313]

I would argue that it doesn't matter if the author writes their elves differently. And it doesn't matter if they, personally have never seen or read anything by or about Tolkien.

Middle Earth, along with Warcraft, Game of Thrones, and Harry Potter are the most prevalent and most well known fantasy presentations of their material. No matter what the author of any individual work intends, they will be measured against these things if they share even a passing resemblance. No human can compartmentalize information enough to escape making comparisons of things like this.

I like the religious interpretations of the elves you present here, and much like CS Lewis more people should try to mix and match fantasy and religious presentations of morality to help present it an audience, not even to proselytize just to educate and entertain.