The No Elf Club

What the heck, real life?

So Arbitrary and Zizlak are on board with me for this whole hating-elves thing, and I agree with them — we need to make it official.  So sign up for the No Elf Club to show your support of fantasy racial hatred against the scum of the snooty realms here!  Or somewhere else!  Just say no to Legolas, Keeblers and Drizzle (or whatever his name is, don’t care to look it up).

For my part, here’s a respost of an old WAAAGH! article I did on Why I Hate Elves:

Let me explain, since some of you seem “confounded” that I’m not a fan of these fantasy staples. You might be, and that’s fine for you, but this is Syp Space, and in Syp Space, Syp’s Succulent Sayings Soothe Swell. ish.

First of all, elves are to the light side of fantasy as vampires are to the dark side. That is to say, they’re brooding, tall, arrogant, basically immortal, and not too fond of humans. Snobbish, pretty much. Elitist. Far more racist than the other species. Cold and usually emotionless, which is where Star Trek’s elf — Mr. Spock — got his whole dealie from.

When they show up, it’s usually to do one of the two following things: (a) give humanity a lecture about how we’re using trees for fuel and how we’re rending sweet Mother Earth to shreds without a pause, and (b) to show everyone up. You can shoot a bow? Goodie — elfie can shoot one a billion more yards than you. You have spent your entire childhood learning the secrets of the forest and how to track prey? Pshaw — elfie has a GPS made out of tree sap and squished bugs that can give turn-by-turn directions.

So that’s a good start, right? Gee, I can’t IMAGINE why I might hesitate to fall at their feet in adulation!

Then you have the elf love of All Things Nature. Ugh. Now, I appreciate the vistas and quirks of God’s creation just as much as the next suburbanite who kills spiders intruding inside their home, but elves tend to go to the Nth degree with their tree-hugging, flower-flinging naturefest. In fact, they love nature so very much that I’m surprised that any elf babies are ever conceived, if you get my drift.

As a fantasy staple, elves have just been done to death. Tolkien, D&D, Warhammer, Warcraft, almost every MMO that offers a selection of multiple races. Heck, even City of Heroes has elves! Elves have proven so overwhelmingly popular that they just dominate any game they’re included in; I guess people just love being tall and willowy and deadly with a bow and arrow (elves don’t have a lot of people in the service industry).

Even dark/night/evil/Drow elves aren’t that far off the beaten cliche — they tend to be shadowy assassins, all mopey and arrogant and probably wearing an eyepatch like the unjolliest pirate in the world.

We all know how certain classes (rogues) tend to attract certain types of players (loot-stealing jerks); elves tend to attract some very scary cross-sections of the player demographic. Namely, the “Please get me out of this ROOM before I stab myself in the EYE because this renaissance faire reject won’t shut up about how Drizz’t and his 99 Ears has attuned his heart to the core of the forest and can sing the song of the butterfly!” demographic. Now, that’s stereotyping and all in good fun, but I’ve generally found that elf players tend to scare me and/or repel me with an intense self-absorbed fascination of how Awesome they are.

Plus, and lets face it, how many truly “cool” elves are there? Orlando Bloom we’ve mentioned, but we’ll also dismiss. Keebler? Santa’s Helpers? Dobby? Please.

That’s why I’m not a fan of elves, and I haven’t even mentioned how a pack of feral elves came into my house on Christmas Day and ate my dog. Happy day, no matter what side I pick in WAR, I get to kill me some!