Some races

xtifr · Post by **xtifr** » June 9th, 2005, 9:57 am

turin wrote:.The idea of elves being anything other than winged fairies was thought of by Tolkien also

No, actually, Tolkien merely went back to a more traditional view of elves - it wasn't his invention. The tiny, fairy-like elves were the invention of the Victorians. Before that, elves (and fairies, for that matter) were much more like Tolkien's (except darker, and more dangerous). Tolkien also wasn't the only author of his era to harken back to an older vision of elves - Poul Anderson, quite independently, rediscovered the traditional Norse elves for his early (but fairly influental) fantasy, The Broken Sword - Anderson's elves, in fact, were even more traditional than Tolkien's, being ruthless and soulless, beautiful but cruel, although still loosely allied with men against the trolls and giants.

Modern fantasy has pretty much joined in with Tolkien (and Anderson and a few others) in restoring Elves to their former size and glory, but has also tended to confuse the Norse Elves (or Alves or Alvir) with the Celtic Fairies (or Faeries, or Fey, or Sidhe (pronouced "shey")). They're actually completely unrelated, and I'm happy te see Wesnoth sticking to a more traditional Norse/Tolkienesque mythos.

Dwarves, by the way, are also from Norse mythology, where they were known as the Svartalves (or Svartalvir) which basically translates as "Dark Elves". So Wesnoth doesn't really need a separate race of Dark Elves - it has the real, original Dark Elves already!

(I think Turin already knew that last, but I thought others might be interested.)

Post by **turin** » June 9th, 2005, 2:54 pm

Hm. Never heard of "The Broken Sword", but it looks like an interesting book.

unsung · Post by **unsung** » June 9th, 2005, 4:40 pm

turin wrote:Hm. Never heard of "The Broken Sword", but it looks like an interesting book.

cruel elves? I'm buying it!

unsung · Post by **unsung** » June 9th, 2005, 4:42 pm

turin wrote:Oops, forgot to bust the most erroneous myth: Dwarves being naive. They are an extremely crafty, suspicious and xenophobic race

yes, they are most of those but they arent quite xenophobic very close to xenophobic but still not quite there.

Cuyo Quiz · Post by **Cuyo Quiz** » June 9th, 2005, 9:59 pm

In my philosophical research, i ofund an explanation for dragons, their various characteristic and abilities ( i mean, flying reptilian-like creatures that can do magic, change forms or hvae some hideous kind of breath? ).

They are pretty much chimaeras, they may or may not be natural, but they seem to be chimeric creatures, combining so much things.

And...get to wikipedia and search for elf, you'll find a nice assortment of cultural sources.

Kamahawk · Post by **Kamahawk** » June 10th, 2005, 1:05 am

I don't realy think dragons are a composite of other creatures. In a wierd way they are to natural to be so and they have to many uniquenesses to be made even from other fantasy creatures.

MadMax · Post by **MadMax** » June 10th, 2005, 3:10 am

Kamahawk wrote:I don't realy think dragons are a composite of other creatures. In a wierd way they are to natural to be so and they have to many uniquenesses to be made even from other fantasy creatures.

I have heard of dragons being called 'great worms', implying that they were thought of as worms or snakes.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » June 10th, 2005, 9:08 am

Kamahawk wrote:I don't realy think dragons are a composite of other creatures. In a wierd way they are to natural to be so and they have to many uniquenesses to be made even from other fantasy creatures.

No statement can be made about dragons in general that applies to all dragons.

szopen · Post by **szopen** » June 10th, 2005, 9:19 am

Poul Anderson lived in similar period as Tolkien? :-O I thought he was generation later. I just LOVED Broken Sword. It had sooo... so wonderful atmosphere.

He also wrote another one about elves, about them being christianed and ending in Bosnia or Croatia... It was even better.

Eldmannen · Post by **Eldmannen** » June 11th, 2005, 5:21 pm

I just played a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) and got the views of how these races are, and I like it. I never read any books, and havent played much other MMORPG's.

I see people here are much more educated than me in these fields and have played many games and read many books and know alot about fantasy races.

For me, it's still pretty hard to get used to this, of how you think because I played a RPG game for 3 years, and always thought I had a pretty good idea about races, now you guys says all that is wrong.

szopen · Post by **szopen** » June 13th, 2005, 7:47 am

Eldmannen wrote:I just played a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) and got the views of how these races are, and I like it. I never read any books, and havent played much other MMORPG's.

He's so sweet, isn't he.

Post by **Jormungandr** » June 13th, 2005, 9:35 pm

Eldmannen wrote:For me, it's still pretty hard to get used to this, of how you think because I played a RPG game for 3 years, and always thought I had a pretty good idea about races, now you guys says all that is wrong.

It's fiction. "Right" and "wrong" don't even apply. One version of a fantasy race can be more or less faithful to author X or tradition Y, but that means nothing unless that author/tradition is being deliberately mimiced.

Na'enthos · Post by **Na'enthos** » June 15th, 2005, 12:35 am

Eldmannen wrote:I just played a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) and got the views of how these races are, and I like it. I never read any books, and havent played much other MMORPG's.

I see people here are much more educated than me in these fields and have played many games and read many books and know alot about fantasy races.

For me, it's still pretty hard to get used to this, of how you think because I played a RPG game for 3 years, and always thought I had a pretty good idea about races, now you guys says all that is wrong.

Look at what Jormungandr posted. It's fantasy.. and moreso this is about a game which isn't (or needn't be) tied to a view regarding fantasy stemming from other sources (Tolkien, D&D, etc..).

Thus saying 'I think it should be this way because that's what I'm used to' or '..because it's like that in those books/games/etc' is a viable opinion.. but Wesnoth is project which simply unites several things the devs want in the game. Therefore, whether it's realistic or not.. whether it goes against all other fantasy or not, it's how it is and it has undoubtably been talked about and approved of (by the majority of the ones who matter

).

So.. I'd say approach Wesnoth as a different approach to fantasy if you will. Try to keep an open mind.