@Daosus: Very good points all around. I really can’t disagree with any of this.

I’m just saying that it would sometimes be nice to meet that Orc who is the lowest man on the totem pole. Or the guy who is an incredibly skilled weapon smith. I don’t know, I’d sort of want to see Orcs being shown as a race of people with their own customs, traditions, goals, aspirations, their own society and hierarchy of values. More often than not they end up being the generic faceless foe.

Oh, and I still have not given up on that idea of an Orc leaving his tribe behind to pursue study of science. :P

The reason that fantasy races are so stereotyped is because they really are closer to individual cultures, not entire races of people. And, more to the point, they represent what would essentially be called a “tribe” in human history — an extended network of perhaps 200,000 people, fully self sufficient, with their own language and customs. However, it’s a very small group, so drawing stereotypes about the group is actually fairly accurate. Of course, in fantasy worlds, these stereotypes are applied to 20 million people, which is flat wrong.

The orcs are the classic “people from the hills” culture. These actually existed throughout human history, and their real life counterpart answer many of your questions. For example: who cleans the lavatory trough at an orc camp? The lowest guy on the totem pole. Why are there never any women and children? Because you never see the orc villages. You only see orc warbands and makeshift war camps. Their villages are further back from civilization. Incidentally, this also explains why there never seems to be a shortage of orcs. Women are necessary to maintain population. Men, beyond a small percentage necessary to *ahem* get the next generation started, aren’t. Orc men fight, orc women make babies and get the next generation ready.

Also, many of the most war-like cultures on earth do NOT have the facilities or the technologies to make good weapons. They tend to be the marginalized people living in undesirable areas. Their poverty, combined with the wealth of nearby civilization is the impetus for their warmaking. Take a look at the Mongols — they couldn’t make cloth, silk or metal. They COULD make things from animal products, like bows, arrows, tents, horse saddles,etc. If you’ll look at the steppe people around China, you’ll see that as the various tribes became more sinicized, they got better technology.

@Etienne: Ah, interesting. I haven’t played Eberron but it does sound interesting.

Still, we are just taking one set of racial stereotypes and replace it with another. What I’m trying to get at is that we can embrace the standard Elf template and then populate the world with non-standard individuals. After all, isn’t this how human societies work.

Think about the stereotypes attached to your race, nationality and region. It is more likely or not that you and most people with similar background you know are in some way exceptions from that stereotypical “norm”. In other words, aberration seems to be the norm in most societies.

@Morghan Phoenix: Wow, I didn’t think about the age hing. Very good point. You are absolutely right, if you live for thousands of years, then at some point in your life you will probably pick up some rudimentary combat skills and learn to shoot a bow one way or another. You are right! Elves might be exempted from this on behalf of their longevity.

Ok, let me switch the argument around. Who cleans the outhouse in an Orc camp? How come we never see the women and children or orcs, goblins, kobolds and other evil races. Why can’t we ever observe their family lives?

Even the most war-like cultures do have non-combat related customs and rituals. I mean these races do seem to have some rudimentary societies, they manufacture weapons so they do have to have think about other things than just raping and pillaging, no?

[quote comment=”11541″]When you visit Rohan, you see the world famous Riders first and foremost, but you also see their peasants, servants, workers and etc. You visit elven settlement and every single elf has a bow, and a sword on him. There are like no “normal” elves who are neither awesome, not good at shooting or fighting. I mean who rakes the leaves in their gardens? Who bakes lembas?

[/quote]

you should keep in mind the age of the elves, I mean Elrond was in The Silmarillion, he’s at least six thousand years old. It would be pretty impossible to not be amazingly skilled after having lived for that long. I would also assume that their culture is one that would attempt to keep the mundane masked from outsiders, or possibly they’ve come to a point where they manage everything for themselves. nobody needs to be tasked with keeping up the grounds because everyone from a youngling to a lord does his/her part when it needs to be done.

Let’s see if that works now, unable to edit the post for what I forgot to include and I get a WP-SpamFree page when I try to post again on the same computer. So, trying it from the wife’s to see if it will go through.

Well, aside from the pacts with demons and the general idea that the “young races” are lab rats at best, not altogether that much. They love torture, have a tendancy to offer the souls of their enemies to their demonic patrons, and take the snobby elf stereotype so much further than even the worst of your tolkien elves.

You seem like you play/have played some D&D, I can’t help but wonder then, how come you have not checked out the setting piece of Eberron. Most standard fantasy stereotypes are broken (at least to a degree). Halflings are dinosaur riding barbarians, dwarves are savvy buisness men and some elves are horseriding, ancestor worshipping marauders just looking for a worthy fight. You ought to at least look it over since it seems most of your grief with fantasy has been adressed to some point in that setting.

@Morghan Phoenix: I had to look that term up. What are the core differences between a Melnibonean and a standard Elf?

@IceBrain: Yeah, probably. I never got through the whole Silmarilion so it’s possible there is some interesting stuff there. But then again Silmarilion is also an epic story – or a collection of epic stories about kings and heroes.

He does however describe hobbit customs and psyche at length in Hobbit. Only to subvert what he just wrote by introducing Bilbo Baggins who happens to be a non-standard hobbit.

@Dr. Azrael Tod: Heh, interesting. Still, it seems like the book did try to fit them into a niche of their own. That’s kind of what I’m complaining about.

When you visit Rohan, you see the world famous Riders first and foremost, but you also see their peasants, servants, workers and etc. You visit elven settlement and every single elf has a bow, and a sword on him. There are like no “normal” elves who are neither awesome, not good at shooting or fighting. I mean who rakes the leaves in their gardens? Who bakes lembas?

In Morrowind I usually played a Wood Elf thief/assassin. At some point most characters get decent at magic, so my elf can run on water, levitate, open locks from across the room and etc.

actually, there is a lot more fantasy then just tolkien out there.. but yeah, he set the standard and most people follow where he lead.
But still.. i could name you some Books that break with this schema, i even got a series on the shelve, telling nearly exclusively about a single guild of halfling warriors and theier war against some big evil. In this story they are famous for long-range sight and because of this famous archers.

In Morrowind i played an Dunmer Warrior most of the Time, sometimes more of a Battlemage, so that is not that much against these stereotypes

Actually, I think Tolkien made a general characterization of the races, not in Lord of the Rings but in Silmarillion, which describes the creation and early times of the Middle Earth.
But there are different personalities for each race, but only the Hobbits and Humans are well described.

Does it count if you pattern your elf after a Melnibonean?