Elves, Dwarves and Orcs Over Done?

[HareBrain]

Anyone who wants to see how the tropes can be refreshed could do worse than take a look at the elves, trolls and dragonewts in the old Gloranthan Runequest RPG system. I've not come across anything as inventive since (especially the religious/anthropological aspects), but I think there's still room for more.

 

[Luiglin]

Thinking about it, there does seem to be a movement in the trope (if we take Tolkien as the granddaddy of it all.)

His orcs were, I believe, unredeemably evil, cannon fodder and a bit one dimensional (IMO - I admit that I haven't read the Silmarilion. But have listened and read quite a lot of stuff from people who have.)

In a lot of current works, in many genres, as been pointed out, many varieties of Orcs come across as a more rounded and complex.

As for Dwarves, didn't they start out as Middle Earth's Jews? I wonder when the trope shifted them to having Scottish ancestry*? It's a weird appropriation 'cause I can't think of much old Scottish lore on dwarves - I think of them more as Germanic entities.

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* It's the mean Scot, hording their gold, meme, innit?

Evil is always a matter of point of view. Orcs are evil, they kill and slaughter so we must kill and slaughter first. So who's the evil ones there? Read I am Legend by Richard Matheson - brilliant example of this in a story.

The Silmarillion adds a touch of pity to orcs. They were creation's of Morgoth who took elves and twisted them into something else. Saruman does the same in LotR with the Uruk-hai merging wild Dunlendings with orc stock.

As to the Dwarves and Jews part I've never reached that image. Blame the Scottish variation and to some extent orc cannon fodder cliché on Games Workshop.

 

[goldhawk]

Thinking about it, there does seem to be a movement in the trope (if we take Tolkien as the granddaddy of it all.)

His orcs were, I believe, unredeemably evil, cannon fodder and a bit one dimensional (IMO - I admit that I haven't read the Silmarilion. But have listened and read quite a lot of stuff from people who have.)

That's the problem with having evil as a noun rather than an adjective; it ends up being one dimensional.

As for Dwarves, didn't they start out as Middle Earth's Jews? I wonder when the trope shifted them to having Scottish ancestry*? It's a weird appropriation 'cause I can't think of much old Scottish lore on dwarves - I think of them more as Germanic entities.

Dwarves have Celtic roots, as do Scots and Germanic people.

 

[The Big Peat]

Tolkien was pretty explicit about the Dwarves being partially inspired by Jews.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Dwarves have Celtic roots, as do Scots and Germanic people.

I disagree. Dwarves, as per modern trope ( i.e. mining little people with beards, living underground, hi-ho, battle axes etc...), definitely have Germanic/Norse roots only.

However I would be interested if you have any evidence of this in the Celtic myths of us Atlantic seaboard people. (I can't think of anything that's close)

All cultures have 'little people' somewhere in their myths - but Irish and Scots tended to view 'dwarves' as Lepruchans or Brownies, which in behaviour are different entities really. And loads of fairy and elf lore of course.

 

[Joe Loomis]

Thank you all for the replies.

The follow up for this question is...

If a writer changes the dynamic of the races will they alienate readers. Like...

Elves being evil and Orcs being more neutral.

Dwarves being racist aggressors and Orcs being shamanistic nomads.

Etc.

 

[EJDeBrun]

Thank you all for the replies.

The follow up for this question is...

If a writer changes the dynamic of the races will they alienate readers. Like...

Elves being evil and Orcs being more neutral.

Dwarves being racist aggressors and Orcs being shamanistic nomads.

Etc.

This is all in how you do it. Ursula Vernon wrote a nice little novella using the same themes called Nine Goblins (not Orcs but same difference really) and it's about the Goblins etc etc and really doesn't make anyone seem particularly evil. She's funny, so that helps a lot.

Diana Wynne Jones has also played on these themes as well, specifically the elves in Dark Lord of Derkholm. I think you could do worse not checking out her Guide to Fantasyland which really gets into all the nitty gritty stereotypes and preconceived notions of Fantasy races.

And I don't see why you can't have the above scenario? I mean POV and all, from peaceful farming Orcs perspective Elves who massacre them would be evil.

Also, how did Star Wars get into this conversation? LOLOL. Can't go anywhere without the Skywalkers getting involved... Next thing you know we're going to start talking about the race characteristics of Porgs.

 

[Luiglin]

Thank you all for the replies.

The follow up for this question is...

If a writer changes the dynamic of the races will they alienate readers. Like...

Elves being evil and Orcs being more neutral.

Dwarves being racist aggressors and Orcs being shamanistic nomads.

Etc.

It's your tale, tell it like you want. There is no right or wrong, just like there's no spoon in the Matrix. If you can make it work so that's it's 'believable' then, I'd argue, that's all a reader wants. Well I do anyway. Someone gave Runequest RPG as a good example of this well founded reworking to which I agree.

 

[The Big Peat]

Thank you all for the replies.

The follow up for this question is...

If a writer changes the dynamic of the races will they alienate readers. Like...

Elves being evil and Orcs being more neutral.

Dwarves being racist aggressors and Orcs being shamanistic nomads.

Etc.

Pretty sure I've seen at least three of the four already.

 

[goldhawk]

Evil dwarves have been done before. And there are many northern tales of dwarves being spiteful and mischievous.

 

[Overread]

You can change them up as much as you like; the conventions and tropes are there, but if you make your elves super evil that's totally fine. They can be futuristic cybernetic creatures; they can be nature hating industrialists; they can be tree huggers; they can be living plants etc... The conventions tell you where you start and are only a rough concept and guide; meanwhile your story is your own and thus it is your choice as to what you do and don't do with the creatures and characters.

As said above, do it well and people will like it.

 

[The Big Peat]

One thing I would say here to anyone thinking of doing this with the intention of trying to reinvent the wheel is Do Your Research. Which is kinda obvious, but its not just what you're doing, but Where.

Because fantasy literature fans are getting a lot of ideas about fantasy from a bunch of different sources and, in particular, Games.

And elves and dwarves and orcs and shizzle are out of fashion in literature but in Games, they're super in style. Something you might think is super innovative (my dwarves are technologically minded atheist elves!) might well have been done there; the game designers have been pretty wide-ranging and unshackled.

Read up on the lore of the Eldar Scrolls, Dragon Age and Warmahordes and I think anyone will get their answer on how much you can twist elves.

 

[AlexH]

I was just reading a new blog from David Farland and it reminded me of this thread: Making Better Magic Systems, Lesson 2 - David Farland

Here are a couple of paragraphs:
"A new reader who has never read Tolkien or any other fantasy work might feel a powerful thrill of wonder simply because he is encountering an orc for the first time. After he’s read for a couple of years, he might still enjoy the nostalgia of meeting up with orcs and trolls and elves again, and nostalgia can be a strong emotional draw in itself, but it isn’t as strong as wonder."

"Let me give an example. Years ago I was teaching a writing class and talked with a young writer about writing a romance novel that had a strong sense of wonder. She decided that she wanted to include a vampire as the love interest, and we talked about how to twist the vampire and make “vampires” her own. So she revisited the old idea of vampires fearing the sunlight (an idea that wasn’t seen until the 1930s, since it didn’t come from folklore, but from a black-and-white movie).

She eventually decided to make her vampires glow in the sunlight, rather than burn, as some modern writers have done."

He doesn't say in the blog, but I believe he's talking about Stephenie Meyer and Twilight.

 

[goldhawk]

"Let me give an example. Years ago I was teaching a writing class and talked with a young writer about writing a romance novel that had a strong sense of wonder. She decided that she wanted to include a vampire as the love interest, and we talked about how to twist the vampire and make “vampires” her own. So she revisited the old idea of vampires fearing the sunlight (an idea that wasn’t seen until the 1930s, since it didn’t come from folklore, but from a black-and-white movie).

She eventually decided to make her vampires glow in the sunlight, rather than burn, as some modern writers have done."

But to some people, sunlight is fatal. Just like rabies lead to werewolf myths, Xeroderma pigmentosum leads to vampire myths.

 

[Martin Gill]

His orcs were, I believe, unredeemably evil, cannon fodder and a bit one dimensional

The orcs in Middle Earth were corrupted elves who served Melkor or Morgoth I seem to remember, so they turned to evil. So yes, pretty morally binary in that they couldn't be redeemed, so killing them was the only option. I'm not sure where he came up with the idea for orcs.

As for elves and dwarves, Tolkien's versions are essentially plucked from Norse and Saxon myth - Dvagar and Alfar, or whatever spelling of the two you prefer - with a hint of the Tuatha de Dannan thrown in for good measure. As for Dwarves being Scottish, there's some Scottish and borders folk tales concerning dwarvish type peoples, but not in the same way as the Norse dwarves. There's a bunch of Northumbrian tales that tell of Dwarves, some of which are called Dreugar (a curiously Norse term, but then there were a lot of vikings in the north of England at one point), but the stories I know are all about the dreugar trying to lure travelers to their doom on stormy nights. There's similar tales if you go hunting through Orcadian or western isles myths, though again, the vikings conquered most of the islands from Orkney down to Mann at one point or another, so I'd bet on many of those being appropriated from Norse heritage and slowly changed over the years. The vikings do have the best stories, after all.

Personally, the primal myth nature of dwarves and elves, rooted in Celtic and Norse myth, really sings to me, but it works when these races are strange and alien and enticing and dangerous. I hate fantasy when strange races become pedestrian.

 

[Martin Gill]

the old Gloranthan Runequest RPG system

Ducks?

 

[HareBrain]

Ducks?

Don't diss ducks.

 

[Luiglin]

Don't diss ducks.

Reminds me of the fuzzy duck drinking game.

 

[sknox]

Oh, the dreaded Dissducks, who annihilate their enemies with the twin swords of sarcasm and insult.

 

[CTRandall]

@Joe Loomis This thread has given me the inspiration for a short story. I'm even going to try to fit in ducks (non-Gloranthan). Thanks!