Editing Elf (section)

=Elf History=
==Myths And Evolution==
To sum up the history: "Everyone in the northern Old World kinda maybe sorta had the same creature, but evolved their own variations on it, then kept swapping ideas and offshooting other mythological creatures until we wound up with [[gnomes|toymakers]], [[fey|fairies]], [[dwarves|bearded drunks]], and perfect assholes who shoot arrows".

For the long version: Elves are one of the oldest western European myths, having roots in Germainic folklore (meaning "pretty much all of the northern half of Europe") which extends into the pre-Christian era, and at the earliest points of the written record there was already some fairly distinct differences in everyone's version. Thus its almost impossible to pinpoint an origin or original variation due to most Europeans not being big into writing shit down before the Romans, most of them having incomplete languages so they pretty much abandoned whatever they had before being introduced to the Greek alphabet, and the few that could write down their folklore rarely wrote shit down on anything lasted being buried for a few centuries in some forgotten bog aside from the rare grave marker or weapon inscription. 
While the name is synonymous with Germanic/Scandanavian folklore, the archetype is quite common under different names, such as nymphs, faeries, and other creatures that tend to get lumped together under the name "fair folk." Of note, unlike most modern incarnations, they weren't called this JUST [[Mary Sue|because they were pretty]], but because you should call them nice things lest they [[Asdrubael Vect|fuck]] [[Malus Darkblade|your shit up]] [[Eldrad|with dickery]]. Generally speaking, if it's a magical human-like being from folklore of a country touching the Baltic Sea (as opposed to a talking animal or somewhere like the Mediterranean or whatever), it probably goes back to Elves.

Of some note: It's widely speculated that the idea of the Elf is a combination of two real world phenomena: People finding stone arrowheads from the stone age, which would inspire the question "why would you use stone if you had access to even low-quality metal?" (RL answer: "Because at the time, any metal was too valuable to use on something you could lose easily, and was too hard to work with") and distorted memories of other tribes and hominids, similar to what happened to turn a Rhino into the [[Unicorn]]--in particular, Neanderthals were historically claimed to be the inspiration behind elves by some naive folklorists.

The basic evolution of the idea as far as we are aware goes like this: 
* ''Roman:'' Some historians connect the origins of Elf myths to the Romans, who had myths about the spiritual explanation for misfortune and guerilla warfare they dealt with in the far northwestern reaches of Europe (kind of like World War 2 "gremlins" being blamed for malfunctions in aircraft among superstitious pilots). Some further connect it to a tactic possibly used by the Celts against the Romans, dressing children and small adults in mud and leaf camouflage and using them to sneak into Roman camps to steal supplies and weapons to use against them.
* ''Scandinavia:'' In Norse mythology, the nature of Elves changed wildly based on the author's use of them, and the gradual evolution of the viking myths as they became more and more influenced by the groups they raided certainly doesn't help. We basically know all of the small details and none of the big ones, and the things they can be but not the things that they cannot be. In most texts, they are similar to how the Greeks used the word [[Daemon]], a reference to most kinds of non-god spiritual beings that tells you very little about what said being is or does other than it not being human. In some texts, Elves includes the Vanir gods and not humans, or humans and not gods, made even more complicated by the fact some Vanir (nature gods) are also Aesir (human-centric) gods. One text divides them into svartálfar (Black Elves), dökkálfar (Dark Elves), and ljósálfar (Light Elves). The lord of the land of the Elves is the god Freyr, one of the most popular Norse gods and the twin brother of Odin’s wife Freya (which throws some water on Odin and Thor as a [[Humanity Fuck Yeah]] gods, with Thor’s uncle being one of his close friends). Some humans are reincarnated as Elves when they die, some Elves are demigods who are worshiped as someone more likely to answer your prayers than the gods themselves (this actually persisted even after vikings largely converted to Christianity; imagine praying to Legolas because Jesus is too busy for your shit). Elves are sometimes a type of Dwarf, or Dwarves are a type of Elves. There are references to paying tribute to Elves, the sun being an Elven creation, Elves wander the countryside and can be seen in mornings, and Elf men lust after human women while human men lust after Elf women and the descendants of such unions are often heroes. Unfortunately Elves aren't actually the focus of any surviving stories, and as a result, there are only minor references to them that we no longer have much context for. The only thing that's really concrete about viking Elves is they're pretty, all have magic, and are great to have on your side. 
* ''Germany:'' German myths use Elves as tricksters who are a blight on humanity, causing mischief and disease like a type of fairy rat. Elves also behave like several Greek countryside feyfolk by seducing or raping human men and women. Dwarves are distinct from Elves, but Dwarves can behave like them and use Elf magic against humans. According to the viking writings about German folklore, Dwarves and Elves are basically the same thing and are powerful magical beings that play major parts in heroic stories; in particular the character Alfrikr/Alberich is a Dwarf who's name translates to a connection to Elves (there's interpretation on the meaning shared between the translation of his Old Norse and German names; he could be "power of Elves" or "Elf power", meaning he could be their king or a magician trained in their magic) who appears in a number of heroic poems (we'll discuss him more below). That being said, the vast majority of German Elf myth keeps them as humanoid evil magical beings in league with Satan, being described the same way that the Greek [[Satyr]] was albeit with the ultimate evil as their leader. They have are the servants and lovers of witches, they are among the beings you can blame for everything from milk turning sour to mental/physical illness to bestiality (maybe all three at once if they're doing it right!).  Dwarvish-Elves had a lot better reputation in Germany before the works of Richard Wagner, who made them both very Jewish and very evil (there’s a reason the Nazis loved him so much). Although love of Wagner’s orchestrations persists, the cultural perception of the stories he adapted have shifted back towards the earlier versions with the Dwarf-Elf as a sidekick rather than instigating antagonist. 
* ''Britain/Ireland/Scotland:'' Elves in British folklore are fairly synonymous with fairy myths. Elves are often trickster spirits like in Germany, and breed with humans like in the Norse accounts, but British Elves are gone into in depth as having their own kingdoms and politics, using humans as wet-nurses for Elf royalty and Elf nobility forcibly abducting/raping/marrying human maidens. Thus British Elves are less trickster spirits or types of lesser divine beings and more another race of mortals living in the realm of fairies and playing by fairy rules. Scottish and Irish folklore both kept Elves in the trickster fey position. The Brits took the ljósálfar/dökkálfar distinction one step further by creating the [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Seelie]] and [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Unseelie]] courts; elves of the Seelie Court were [[Eldar|“generally” nicer]], as in they'd reward you if you did them a favor and would warn you if you accidentally offended them (assuming your stupidity, pride, or short-sightedness doesn’t turn the reward into an accidental punishment), and would play mostly harmless, lighthearted pranks. <s>Sort of like [[Eldrad|that one knife eared...]]</s> ''No, not really...'' Elves of the Unseelie court were usually assholes that would visit harm on travelers and would hurt you just because they felt like it. [[Dark Eldar|Sort of like these knife eared little shits]]. The Scottish also had the Sidhe, which both refers to various magical beings as well as being the word for the places that the Aos Sí feyfolk live. Sidhe/Aos Sí myths influenced the British heavily in regards to Elves/fairies, which they spread back to the French and Germans. 
* ''Slavs:'' Pan-slavic mythology is a bit problematic due to two major reasons - one is the fact that the Slavs were/are a diverse group of ethnicities and cultures that were/are connected broadly by only some cultural elements and language, thus one can't exactly pinpoint a "slavic elf" and because many myths and beliefs were shared with the germanic tribes. The second reason it's relatively difficult to distinguish the slavic elves is because their mythology generally folded them with other mythological beings - a good (and closest clear equivalent) would be "Vila" - which had the characteristics of fairies (but without the diminutive size), nymphs and elfettes whilst also having a penchant for living in sky-castles and fighting alongside human heroes (Slavs know where it's at - magical fairy-elf warrior monster girls ftw!).  Additionally, many beings that could be designated an elf were also tutelary deities, muddling the issue even further. However, the male of the species - "vilenjak" could be understood as basically an elf (and is usually translated as such when dealing with english). It is interesting to note that among the slavs, the more north one goes, the more various elven and fay beings become weird and outright malicious, while the southern slavs seem to sway towards the image of the elves and fairies that became the fantasy standard today.

In most myths Elves were seen as pagan, repelled by Christianity (like Vampires). The sign of the Pentagram was considered the "Elf Cross" and could be used as a symbol on jewelry or decoration to ward away the ill-intentions of Elves (in theory that would mean Elves not wanting humans to bother them would use the sign of the Christian cross).
[[File:Robin "Puck" Goodfellow.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Yep, ol' Billy Shakes was writing about Elf self-insert OCs too. Causing the costume prosthetic ear industry is a lesser mentioned influence he had on the modern day.]]
During the Renaissance period and the Enlightenment, Elves were used to add a sense of wonder to stories such as in William Shakespeare's ''Midsummer Night Dream'', or a touch of eroticism such as in the popular ballad ''Elveskud'' where a female Elf seduces a young man to be her husband (in most variations he resists her and she murders him with pestilence, likely to keep it PG-13). Just like how in the modern day you can circumvent rules regarding violence on television by using non-humans and blood colors other than red, you could get away with a lot of shit that uptight religious folks would (literally) burn you at the stake for by just substituting a human for a pointy-eared human. It should be noted that, as far as we know (it can be argued of course), the trope of Elves having pointy ears comes from ''Midsummer Night Dream'' through the Fey spirit named Puck, who later would be known as Robin Goodfellow in Shakespeare's ''Grim the Collier of Croydon'' and would appear in other pieces of English literature from other authors. Puck is a servant to the fairy king and queen Oberon and Titania, and is generally portrayed like a [[Satyr]] (which are usually portrayed with pointy ears like a goat). As fairies and Elves became staples of English art and folklore, Puck's pointy ears showed up more and more and in further and further cultures. 
Interestingly, its possible that Shakespeare derived the fairy king and Puck's master Oberon from the French Auberon, himself derived from the aforementioned German Alberich, and Shakespeare's Puck retroactively influenced the German change of Dwarfs from bit parts in the stories of great heroes to rapist goatmen that want you to shag a regular goat. Which is a pretty good summary of how Elf myth evolved and cross-pollinated. Of course it gets more complicated too, since Alberich is also likely the inspiration for the character Elegast, a Dutch character who is the king of the Elves and a friend of Charlemagne's (yes, '''THAT''' Charlemagne) who after proving his loyalty marries ol'Charly's sister, a story which may have influenced both later variations of Arthurian myth as well as Robin Hood. Alberich could change his appearance but was generally depicted either as an attractive bearded warrior or as a small child, his preferred guise for mischief which Puck/Robin inherited. On the other hand, Richard Wagner's operas used Alberich as a recurring character, influenced by the evil that Germans had come to associate with Elves and appears as a gross old hermit that is absolutely cram-packed full of all the anti-Semitic content Wagner could pack into one character before it spilled over into others and served as the catalyst for much of the misfortune in any of the stories he's in, giving a huge boost to pop-culture Dwarves being gold-obsessed dirty old men. 

A kind of war of words was waged around this time between authors from various European countries for ownership of the concept of Elves by famous figures such as Jacob Grimm (of the Brothers Grimm) and Hans Christian Anderson, each of whom carried Elves further away from sexual human-like beings and further towards what we know today as fairies (as in the thing your daughter might run around the house in plastic butterfly wings pretending to be, not the cruel, thieving, kiddie-raping variety that was known to pagan holdovers in earlier European myth.) 

By the 1700s, elves appeared in song and literature to add a sense of beauty to descriptions of the wilderness, an idyllic version of the countryside full of magic and mystery. This continued into the Victorian era, where small diminutive humanoids were added to pictures of toadstools or tree branches, helped further by the widespread appeal of fairy tales and the reprinting of the works of the aforementioned great authors into children's storybooks with thousands of illustrations by different artists. Some folks, notably Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes) actually believed these to be real, to the point that "believes in elves/fairies" was the 1800s version of "believes aliens are living on Earth" and was just as common. Martin Luther himself (as in the one who kicked off the whole Protestant revolt/Reformation thing) believed in them too, but a much more [[grimdark]] variety, that is, creatures of the devil, in whom he had a quite vigorous belief, [[What|once lobbing an inkwell at the old chap's head]], the resulting stain still being shown to tourists in [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|Wartburg]].
[[File:The King Of Elflands Daughter First Edition.jpg|thumb|right|100px|Its not as expensive as it should be given the significance, but a first edition copy of TKoE'sD costs about as much as a Hot Toys Legolas doll or the start to a Warhammer Elf army.]]
The return of the man-sized elves came with the 1823 American poem ''Twas the Night before Christmas'', describing Santa Claus as being "a right jolly old elf"; this kicked off an artistic evolution, a key figure of which was cartoonist Thomas Nast, who created the visual and folklore for Santa Claus as an Nordic-esque elf who is identical to a human, helped by child-sized elves of the Danish "shoemaker elf" variety (they are called "nisser" in Danish).

==Modern Era==
The first modern Elf story that defined the fantasy trope that any fa/tg/uy worth their salt would know is actually not JRR Tolkien's. It was ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'', written by Edward Plunkett, better known by his title Lord Dunsany, in 1924. It showcases the full return of the classic Nordic Elves. In it, a human king is given an order by his subjects that they want their next ruler to be magical. The king sends the prince to marry an Elf woman, and he enters the mystical realm of the Elves where he wins the heart of the Elf princess. She returns with him to rule the humans as queen, but is unhappy and longs for her family and returns. The prince sets out to return to her side but would die trying to find the entrance in vain, so his bride begged her father to enable them to be together. The Elf king uses his magic to draw the entire human kingdom into the Elf lands, uniting the two races in one dynasty over one kingdom. They all lived happily ever after. 

This story didn't really influence anything that /tg/ know of directly, since nobody gets whacked with swords in it; but its worth mentioning that Plunkett beat Tolkien to the punch.

===Tolkien===
Tolkien grew up fascinated by mythology, but thanks to most of the pre-Christian pre-Roman British culture being lost he always felt disappointed that his own people would never have the amazing mythology of the Norse or the Egyptians. As a result, he spent much of his youth creating his own, which became a lifetime project. Tolkien's non-fiction scholarly pursuits in the study of language and translation of various classical texts from early European history helped him greatly in his endeavors, allowing him to essentially reverse-engineer a semi-plausible fictional mythology. Tolkien himself was a very devout Catholic, and as a result his work shied away from being heavily pagan, taking a note instead from how the Norse mythology gradually changed (Odin becoming less warlike and wiser, Loki changing from clever trickster to villain, Baldur transitioning from unimportant victim in a story about arrogance to being a literal resurrected nice guy everyone loves after the end of the world). Tolkien's fiction borrows heavily from many feyfolk in European folklore which, as previously mentioned, basically can all be fairly called elves. The actual word "elves" was reserved for his [[Mary Sue|favorite]] beings in the setting.

A recurring theme in his work is the importance of music and passing on stories (because many of the pieces of ancient history we have today were exactly that, stories told by a storyteller or a song sung in celebration or remembrance, thus the appearance every dozen pages or so of verse which varies, shall we say, a great deal in quality.) Tolkien entrusted his many, many, ''many, many,'' '''many, many,''' '''''many''''' semi-organized (putting it politely) volumes of notes from a lifetime of work - including enough for many stories - to his own son Christopher, along with the control of the canon. Christopher Tolkien has spent most of HIS life trying to decode his father's intent, decipher scribbled notes, and try to figure out which of a hundred versions of one text is the final copy; to this end he published several volumes of collected stories, the last being Tolkien's most important work ''Beren & Luthien'' (which was already released in a very abridged form in ''The Silmarillion''.)

In the Tolkien setting, there is ''([[Tom Bombadil]], as well as)'' one omnipotent god called Eru Iluvatar who used aspects of his own personality to create lesser beings, mistakenly worshiped as gods by mortals, called Ainur. After creating the Ainur he conducted them to sing, the first sound that ever existed. One of the Ainur named Melkor refused to participate in Eru's melody and began singing his own tune, confusing others into harmonies and dissonances between the two conductions, although the vastly more clever Eru trolled Melkor; the second piece became a single greater song no matter how hard Melkor fought to create an independent one. That song not only created everything that ever was or ever will be, but its echo is literally destiny and the great plan of Eru for all his creations and their creations and so on. Eru gave the Ainur their own free will at this time and gave them the knowledge they needed to understand his plan (but not all of it, for nothing is omniscient other than himself.) He then fucked off to watch his plans unfold (which is basically all he does for the rest of time as far as anyone knows), while the Ainur sorted themselves into Valar (the strongest, and the rulers) and Maiar (the weaker ones which serve the Valar.) The Valar set themselves to finishing the world according to Eru's still-echoing song - with the exception of Melkor, who followed his own by fucking up the works of the others and  creating volcanoes and dark deep places, not knowing that Eru had planned for that shit during the singing of the great song.

[[File:Timeline Of Tolkien Elves.jpg|thumb|center|200px|This is your cheat sheet for the following section.]]

While the Ainur helped to create much of the world during the Music of the Ainur, Illuvatar alone created two special races using the secret fire; the firstborn were the Elves, who awoke before the creation of the Sun. The first to awaken were three married couples: Imin and Iminyë, Tata and Tatië, and Enel and Enelyë. As they traveled from the eastern region where they awoke towards the west, they found six other married couples of Elves, which Imin and wife claimed as their subjects; then nine couples which were claimed by Tata and wife; and finally twelve [[Waifu|wives were claimed]] by Enel and wife. The sixty total Elves followed the rivers on their journey to the west (not ''that'' one) and focused on poetry and music as they went, [[Derp|despite not yet having developed a language]]. They discovered eighteen more stargazing couples, whom Tata claimed, and another twenty-four singing pairs who joined Enel's group. At the end of Elf Genesis, there was a grand total of 144 Elves (so ''much'' less incest). Elf numerology as a result is based on two, three, six, twelve, and 144. Here, the Elves created the first spoken language and named themselves Quendi.

Melkor first discovered the Elves and sent minions to harass them, which took the form of great horsemen resembling the Valar Oromë. This was done so that when the real Oromë discovered them, some Elves hid or fled. These Elves were later collected by Melkor, and seeing the terrible influence he had on Elves, the Valar finally waged war in order to basically put the fucker in time-out. The Elves who didn't flee from Oromë sent three ambassadors to visit the Valar, and returned with tales of a literal Garden Of Eden that all Elves were invited to. Most Elves did leave, with the exception of the Avari who refused to leave Middle Earth; this came to be called the Sundering Of The Elves. During the Great Journey the Elves passed by Melkor's dark lands and grew afraid, returning to live with the Avari. 

The Elves who reached the western coast of Middle Earth were guided by Ulmo to the kingdom of Valinor, on a small continent called Aman where the Valar dwell while on the planet and not in Eru's realms. The last group to arrive was the Teleri, who were so curious about the wonders of the mortal world as they traveled that they stopped constantly.

Of the Elves that reached Aman, there were three groups ruled by the ambassadors who had been sent there by the Elves before the Sundering began: the Vanyar ruled by Ingwë, the Ñoldor ruled by Finwë, and the Teleri ruled by the brother of their ambassador named Olwë (because the real ambassador Elwë remained in Middle Earth among the Falathrim).

The "family" tree of elven ancestry so far is as follows:
* The '''Teleri''' are the ancestors of the Sindar, Falathrim, and Nandor/Laiquendi. They love the sea, and even during the Sundering many decided to island-hop and explore the watery parts of the world with the Maiar Ossë.
** '''Sindar''' are the Teleri who never reached Aman, but were given knowledge of the wonders of Aman by their king Elwë, who had been one of the elf ambassadors to Aman. Additionally, they were educated by Mélian the Maia, wife of Elwë, and thus received a partial measure of the gifts of Valinor. Elwë Singollo, or Elu Thingol in the Sindarin tongue, styled himself King of Beleriand, and all Telerin Elves acknowledged him as such. Thingol's realm of Doriath was the core of Sindarin power in the First Age, and something all future Sindarin lords such as Celeborn, Elrond, or Thranduil would seek to emulate in their own realms. They are called Grey Elves as they were more enlightened than their Avari cousins but still hadn’t received the full benefit of Aman’s blessings (or, more boringly, because of the name 'Thingol' (grey-cloak), or because the first Sindar the Ñoldor met were the tribe of Mithrim, or literally 'Grey-elves.' Did we mention Tolkien was a linguist?). They formed one of the more powerful elf kingdoms until it was destroyed, where the surviving Sindar decided to rule over the lesser Nandor, depart west to the Grey Havens, or linger in remaining Elven holdings such as Rivendell. Sindarin is the dominant elvish language used in Middle Earth.
** The '''Nandor''' are Telerin Elves who chose to remain when the rest of their kindred passed west of the Misty Mountains. They drop out of history until a group of them pass into Beleriand, led by an Elf king named Denethor (one of several characters of that name) when he heard Elves nearby had established a kingdom named Doriath. The Nandor settled the area of Ossiriand (later the Elven realm of Lindon, the only part of Beleriand left after the War of Wrath) until Denethor was later killed by Orcs, whereupon the Nandor became known as the Laiquendi, or Green Elves, and their kingdom absorbed into Doriath. The Nandor who did NOT relocate to Beleriand became known as Wood Elves, or Silvan Elves, and established their own kingdoms, which would later come under the dominion of High Elves such as Galadriel or Thranduil fleeing east. The average Tolkien moviegoer would know them as almost all of the non-speaking Elves seen in the Hobbit and LotR trilogies.
** '''Falathrim''' are simply Sindar who loved the sea so much they lived among the coasts of Beleriand, under the lordship of Cìrdan. After their realm was destroyed they established the Grey Havens, providing passage for Elves and a very select few Hobbits seeking to depart Middle-Earth for the Undying Lands.
* While it may seem that the '''Avari''' would be important later given they're given importance enough to mention, they aren't... for their own sake. They remain wild and feral, one of their number (Eol) is literally called a Dark Elf when he's namedropped later, though that might be due to his own [[Rape|evil actions]] rather than his race, as Tolkien never seemed to decide if he was Avari or Sindar. But the Avari (as such) are a dropped plot in canon Tolkien work. They may be evil or good, but their fate is 90% unknown.
** That 10% is a doozy. As strays from the path of Aman, many Avari fell prey to "the dark powers" - Melkor and his balrogs. Melkor twisted his captives into the first [[Orc]]s. Maybe. He might have changed his mind later. Thus exiting the scope of this article here.
* As you will see, the '''Ñoldor''' are something of the historical fuckups of the Elves. On one hand they are great warriors, great smiths, great artists, great lovers (in the non-sexual sense), and literally shaped most of the history of early Middle Earth. But on the other, they are the only group of Elves even slightly [[Fall of the Eldar|corruptible, due to their impulsive natures and desire to see and experience and learn.]] It's worth noting that according to Christopher Tolkien, the Ñoldor were originally supposed to be called the Gnomes, but Tolkien early on decided against it because he didn't figure people would be able to divorce the idea of the tiny jolly lawn ornaments from his elf Saxtons and used his skills with linguistics to create the more <strike>nerdy</strike> <strike>plz nerf number of words kthx</strike> respectable-sounding Ñoldor. 
* The '''Vanyar''', who all went to Aman, and never did anything interesting afterwards, except marry a bunch of Ñoldor princes and bear blonde-haired elf children.

After some time Melkor pretended to have reformed, but immediately set to work stirring up trouble again, starting by corrupting his caged Elves into [[Orcs]]. The Vanyar were uninterested in him or his promises of power and gain, the Teleri were useless in his eyes given they had little potential for warfare or interest in his non-ocean gifts, but the Ñoldor were corruptible in their unending desire for knowledge. It should be noted that Ñoldor do NOT learn to achieve power, but to understand; this ties into Tolkien's explanation of power and its role in determining good and evil. Tolkein literally stated in a letter once that anytime the word "power" is used and it isn't in deference or servitude to the divine creator Eru's plan (like Gandalf's power is) it is a sign of villainy, particularly if used for its own sake; this  rather reflects the philosophical perspective that learning is a type of prayer to better understand the divine creator's work (compare to Einstein's desire to understand the mysteries of the universe and his apprehension and regret for being a part of the creation of the atomic bomb). The Ñoldor simply took it way too far in their ambition, and Melkor thus gave them exactly what they wanted: [[Tzeentch|knowledge of all things he knew, but peppered with more than a few of his "suggestions" once they had come to trust him]]. One of the greatest revelations was that sometime in the future, the human race would be created, with the implications that mankind was the replacement for the Elves and Aman was a metaphorical kennel to imprison them in while mankind enjoyed Middle Earth.

In particular, he convinced the most hot-headed of the Elves, Feanor, that his half-brother Fingolfin wanted his royal birthright, and the two nearly came to blows. To stir things up even more, he destroyed the Two Trees - Earth's only source of light at the time other than stars, mere fragments of which became the moon and sun - murdered Feanor's father Finwë, and stole the Silmarils, gems that Feanor had created using essence from the trees (which were now impossible to replicate). Feanor was so pissed that he swore revenge, no matter who stood in his way, including his own kin and the Valar. Well, oaths are a pretty serious deal in Middle-Earth, and Feanor did end up committing the first Elf-on-Elf murder; due to the Teleri refusing to provide him with ships, he took them by force in order to reach Melkor faster, and as a result his people were exiled from Aman in his quest for revenge - only for Feanor himself to get killed by Melkor before he had the chance to exact it.

Pretty much all of the worst Elves died in the wars against Melkor, so the ones that survived to the end of the Third Age were much wiser and mellower, though they also experienced intense sorrow since immortality means outliving everyone you knew. On top of that, whereas elves can't die of old age, they can whither away into wraiths unless they return to the undying lands, which nearly all have by the end of the LOTR trilogy. Many elves are actually envious of humans' mortality, calling it "the gift of men," since Illuvatar has a special fate for them that none but him knows of, whereas elvish souls are bound to Middle-Earth until the end of time.

So at the end of the canon stories, we have a pretty good structure of why Elves are the way they are, and it is 100% the setting they are in and the values of the beings who created them and raised their culture (Eru, Valar, Maiar). 
* Elves are the most aware of Eru's plan compared to any non-Eagle non-Ainur race. They know the basics of where their race will go and end up. So when humans start talking about destiny and fate, or choice in a conflict, the Elves know that they themselves are playing with a different set of rules than mankind, something very few humans know and less really understand. 
* Elves are not greedy or ambitious for power. Like a Hobbit, babbling brooks or really tall trees contain as much beauty to them as the finest gold and diamond crown, and with less literal appetite than a Hobbit the Elf has even less need for gold. Elves are also aware of the Tolkien rule that non-god power is evil. The only Elves with a hook to play to their baser natures are the aforementioned Ñoldor, who were hot-headed and knowledge-lusting - but the descendants of Fëanor's people have learned their lessons, and great leaders such as Thranduil and Elrond feel it's better to spend centuries in inaction than jump rashly into a fight. Elves such as Vanyar and Teleri have no desire to fight at all, to the point that regardless of stakes they cannot be drawn into war.
* Elves look at the achievements and failings of mankind, and their reactions are "yeah, we've been there". Particularly in the Ñoldor terms just above, Elves have already made every major mistake you can possibly make, and know in the case of Fëanor that assholes gonna asshole, and as a result are hesitant to involve themselves in anything shortsighted no matter how seemingly righteous. Contrast with Dwarves, a race who seemingly continues to repeat the same mistakes for stupid reasons (from an Elf perspective) and wonder why Elves never want to get involved. 
* Elves are generally extremely rigid in their psychology. They develop certain personality qualities, mindsets and obsessions which get set into stone. At most an Elf can be broken by tragedy or torture, leaving the permanently damaged being. This is part of why Elvish/Human relationships are problematic - total heartbreak for one party is an inevitability.  This does nothing to stop human-elf relationships, though.  Indeed, the elven songs seem to most commonly be about how great such a relationship is or how awesomely badass a half-human half-elf hero was.  If anything will preen your man feathers, it’s how the Mary Sue elves recognize and look up to man’s heroic and noble spirit.
* Elves are literally part of nature. Their afterlife is to continue to faff about while many reincarnate back into the world as mortal Elves, and no matter what happens, they can always uproot and fuck off back to Valinor. This means they are connected to the fate of the world as a whole and thus have high stakes to defeat world conquerors, while they are simultaneously disconnected from the smaller localized events such as the fate of kingdoms, including their own. Elves are intrinsically connected to the goodness of the world, and the mucking about of Sauron or random Orcs means little in the long term. Separating themselves from this natural world saps their strength, and in time would degrade them into what Orcs are today (I.E hobbit-sized sun-fearing cowardly humanoids that can only be whipped into a warrior culture by a powerful evil). 
* Elves value things that other races have mild appreciation to outright disdain for. The Falathrim prefer sailing around the coast to a literal Garden Of Eden. Laiquendi disregard the promise of gold, and instead would accept gossip, songs, and jokes as payment for services and lodging. While ideal friends of Hobbits and decent allies to many humans, Dwarves and ambitious men find Elves to act like mentally handicapped assholes. Exceptions exist, such as the warmth Gimli has towards Elves coming from his humble appreciation of beauty without the need to possess it, but in general greed and pride make you a poor bedfellow for an Elf (Beren/Luthien joke not intended, but true). 
* The race of Elves were planned by Eru as the first to dwell in the world, and teach the second race (humans) the ways they discovered, much like the first part of a song setting the tune and chorus that is echoed later in a different key. Elves view their own history like the way a person ages, their first era being childhood innocence but also being inferior to benevolent teachers while fearing powerful evils that would do them harm. In the second era their history reaches adulthood, being the primary force which shepherds their dependents (humans, to a lesser extent Dwarves) while being the main defenders standing up to the darkness. By the third era, the one where mankind is starting to take responsibility for the world and looking to stand alongside their former protectors as equals, the Elves are in their elderly years and preparing to leave the world; this causes them to fall somewhere between benevolent gift-giving grandparent and irritable veteran/teacher/“GET OFF MY LAWN”. By the fourth age their race is mostly gone from the world, leaving humans as inheritors with Legolas hanging out with Aragorn until his death and then taking Gimli across the sea as well.

===Post-Tolkien===
Like most ideas which Tolkien invented, or at least popularised, many authors tried putting their own spin on Elves in their own settings. Usually badly or at best, skubby.

When copying Elves from Tolkien, many writers kept the differences between Elves and the other races of the world but without explanation as to why those differences exist, making Elves seem irrational and alien in their settings at best and as complete Mary Sue assholes at worst.  Where Tolkien’s elves started from scratch and worked their way up (making many terrible mistakes along the way) and worked hard to teach younger species to avoid their own mistakes (which largely worked and earned much respect for the elves) and were just plain genuinely likable  people, Post-Tolkien elves are often successful just because they’re elves, frequently knowingly keep advice and wisdom away from other species specifically because they seem to enjoy seeing younger species fail, and are often deeply unlikable as people.  The closest that gets to Tolkien is actually Warcraft.  Sure, their elves are still prone to being selfish and don’t really advise anyone, but they have the rest of Tolkien good stuff and their reason for not sharing wisdom is that they’re terrified of other species fucking up as badly as they themselves did.  And not participating in world-ending wars is excusable for them because they lived on the other side of the world and so didn’t know those species even existed.

* In a setting without a Fëanor expy fucking everything up in their pre-human history, Elves often come off as douchebags for not wanting to join great wars against evil and leave all the heavy lifting to mankind while a few of their adventurers go against this to do the magic or shooting arrows. Likewise, any Elf attempts at isolationism and neutrality often comes from an unearned wisdom that is rarely ever explained. 
* Without literally being taught by Mother Nature itself how to create a civilization, the tree-hugging stuff is just a dull trope without justification. A race that has the lifespan to watch mountains crumble should be more inclined to build out of stone and steel far more than wood and leather, and without the handwaving of "Elves lack man's ambition" the logic fails. 
** Some settings have tried to give other explanations for the tree-hugging (their magic is tied to nature, they began as a simple hunter-gatherer culture, etc.), but whether or not these explanations are actually satisfying is a different story.
* Elves exceed the human lifespan in virtually every setting they are in, if not being outright immortal. There is often no obvious downside to this presented for the individual Elf, which is strange because even vampires are like "everyone I know and love is dead" (an argument can be made this would be due to the mind of the formerly human vampire working still the same emotionally as a human, but the problem with that logic is it means that Elves wouldn't mourn things that live less long than them like dogs or their own children/kinsmen). By contrast Tolkien's Elves paid for it by having difficulty in politics with humans and Dwarves, and were unfortunately bound to Eru's plan taking away a large part of their free will as a race (not as individuals however). While in some settings they have to pay a personal price for it, such as Warhammer Elves and their shit afterlives where their gods are dead and/or assholes and their souls are tasty to Eldritch horrors, in most fiction they get off scot-free. 
* Tolkien Elves emotionally suffer from the mayfly problem of their companions dying, making all Elf/human romance invariably a tragedy (unless the Valar get involved, which only happened once) and having Elf kings still mourning the fall of ancient human civilizations to descendants who barely even know the legends of that era (like an Elf mentioning to the UK Prime Minister that he never got over the end of the Mesopotamians and speaking at length about how wonderful they were). In most settings any sadness felt from the death of human companions is in the future tense (which the story rarely gets to outside of an epilogue if at all).   This is also a critical difference in how the Tolkien elves view friends and humanity.  Tolkien elves view humanity (the species) as a dear friend and a sort of hybrid of younger sibling and child.  Heck, they don’t even blame humanity for the whole Sauron fiasco as that was causes by humans being too compassionate to execute Sauron after defeating him.  They see it more like “It sucks how that turned out, but we’re honored to know such a noble-hearted people.” 
* Elvish civilization is far older and more advanced than human civilization but is almost always on the decline, usually due to the slow death of magic in the world or just their low birthrate/slow maturation and some general cultural stagnation. Some settings attribute limitations in magic to the decay of Elves while humans emphasize on the seemingly limitless technology, which is why in most settings the industrial nature of the Orcs and Goblins is removed so as to not leave the question why humans aren't just as in decay from an even faster breeding science race. Of course the scientific innovations of humans is also in the future tense, not explaining at all why having the same technology Elves have had for thousands of years has put them so far ahead, barring perhaps gunpowder although oftentimes if the humans have it then the Elves have it as well (Warhammer Fantasy being the exception that proves the rule). 
* Elf science and industry hit a roadblock early on. In Tolkien's work the advancements of science are independent of the advancements of progress, the latter of which is just the pursuit of power (which is always evil) and the former being a beautiful and almost religious desire. Most settings simply decide that Elves stop at aqueducts and the winepress in the technological equivalent of the Iron Age and Rome expies, and even when technology is readily available from other races they ignore it since they've somehow attained the knowledge from magic millennia ago and didn't really do anything with it beyond make some trinkets. Most settings just get lazy with explanations, mixing in some of the other explanations on this list; "lack of ambition/more into magic". 
* Elves have the best magic and would never use the crass artifices used by humans and Dwarves, even if they are advanced in their own right. Their own shit is so ancient and powerful it is literally never used, or no longer belongs to them and instead is passed from dark lord to adventurer to dark lord to adventurer and so on. In Tolkien's work its because of one of his universal rules that everything old is as good as its going to get, and the longer time goes on and the older things get then the worse everything gets. The Elves at the height of their power could give demigods a difficult fight, and likewise the things they made was just as grand in scale. But the humans at the height of their own power were as strong and full of epic talent as the Elves of the present and the great artifacts ancient humans created are just as legendary as the Elvish goods and even more rare due to the tragedies that befell men in the later centuries. In most settings, Elves seem to have been born as a race straight into their current level of technology and magic while humans had to spend 5000 years figuring out fire and the wheel. Most settings just handwave it as "Elves can see magic, of course they're more advanced" which then leads back into the above problem of why they are stagnating while other races are catching up to and possibly even surpassing them.
* Elves are almost always haughty elitists who look down on other races, whether they're snobby High Elves, murderous hippy Wood Elves, or sociopathic Dark Elves (though in fairness, you're ''supposed'' to hate that last one). Any explanation of why they act like this usually relies on some of the aforementioned orphaned advantages, which makes it even worse since the Elves basically act better because they are better because reasons, but are getting their ass kicked by time anyway. Few of Tolkien's Elves are actually racist, and all of the ones that are were members of the royal families that were known for hot-headed temperaments, while Galadriel's court seemed to hold some stereotypes of Dwarves when Gimli surprises them by being the exact opposite of what they expected. If anything, the animosity is implied to be one-sided AGAINST the Elves in The Hobbit as the commonfolk Elves irritate the Dwarves simply with their springtime celebrations and being overly chatty. 

When poorly handled, these post-modern traits are often significant parts of the reasons that many people straight-up '''hate''' Elves. And while many people blame the worst elvish traits on Tolkien, many of them simply aren't present in the books (outside of the aforementioned asshole who got his ass handed to him). Or they blame him for fantasy writers adhering to this self-imposed mold without looking into the source material or original mythology like the narrative version of a coloring book page of Legolas glued in the middle of a painting.. Many creators have tried to break free of this mold by going back to the trickster fey roots, with mixed results. Others just treat Elves as humans with a trade-off, in which case their advantages are greatly toned-down. This can make them more palatable to people put off by Elven Mary Sueness, but of course, for the Elf die-hards, this approach is likely less satisfying.

Small wonder that a resistance-movement arose to Bring Back The Real Elf. Poul Anderson went back to Scandinavian folklore for elves (and [[trolls]]) for ''The Broken Sword''. This was published in 1954, the very year ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' (finally) came out. Gygax owed at least as much to ''The Broken Sword'' as he owed to Tolkien. And, of course, [[Michael Moorcock]] proclaimed loud and long his preference for Poul's work.

===Elves and Dwarf Fortress===
Elves in ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' are notably different than elves in other settings. Essentially the polar opposite of the above descriptions, the RAGE they create isn't inspired by bishie Mary Suedom, but rather derived from primal fear and panic. They are terrifying figures of slaughter incarnate - sure, they may approach your fortress as a group of traders that get pissy if they notice you own a wooden anything because "lol nature boys", but they also are [[meme|actual cannibals]] who will kill and eat all your [[dorfs]] if they have their way. All that figurative rape usually focused upon elves in other fantasy settings will be [[/d/M|thrust upon your little Dorfy settlers]] and fortress, with little to no mercy.

The DF community's hatred of the elves is widely known across the net, with lurid tales of horror, gore and devastation of the tree-loving bastards celebrated in almost every occasion. There are several reasons why they're so despised, which shall be marked here:

*Elves are tree-huggers and are easily offended when they see objects made of or decorated with wood (they're able to create stuff by growing it, without harming a tree like other races). More than one fortress met its end because the dwarves offended the knife-ears too many times. Hurting a plant is unnaceptable to them.
*Elves are cannibals and eat their enemies.
*Elves are biologically immortal and never die of old age, like the goblins. This makes them a massive plague on the worlds they live in and gives them enormous numeric superiority when they attack, a fact that has destroyed entire dwarven civilizations. They also need such numbers because [[FAIL|their armor and weapons are almost entirely made of wood]] and tend to die in droves.
*Elves have no facial hair, which puts them at further odds with Dwarves. 

Culture-wise, Elves are the complete opposite of dwarves. The only known elf that isn't hated is Cacame Awemedinade, the Immortal Onslaught, who adopted the dwarven culture, became their king and a fearsome warrior who killed many of his own kind in revenge for his wife's death.

TL;DR '''BITCH THEY EAT PEOPLE AND WE ''HATE'' THEIR FUCKING GUTS!'''

===Non-D&D Roleplaying Games===
* In [[Warhammer Fantasy]], Elves are a race created by giant interdimensional space toads called the [[Old Ones]] to fight against a dimension of molestation/mucous/murder/mindfuck demons, but were <s>such a bunch of arrogant pricks generally prone to murdering each other over stupid shit</s> slow to reproduce and their inherent compassion (yes, really) soured into arrogance - so much so that they were rejected as failures and the Old Ones went on to create [[Dwarfs]]. Later on the Elves split into three groups, two of which are murderfucking insane, one of which is the true heroes of the setting that you want to lose anyway because most of them are such fucking assholes, due to their gods being dead or insane assholes. [[Awesome|They also ride around on eagles and on chariots pulled by giant lions]]. Its worth mentioning that Warhammer was the third setting to steal from Tolkien after D&D, and certainly took the idea further. Things got way the fuck crazier in [[Age of Sigmar]], which is basically the straight-to-DVD Warhammer 2: Electric Boogaloo.
* [[Warhammer 40000]] went with the name Eldar for their space elves (even though it was still ripping off Tolkien, especially since he invented the word Eldar), keeping them largely the same but in only two groups, neither of which are heroes (the setting really doesn't have any faction that truly qualifies anyway), and making them the origin story for the aforementioned molestation demons.
* In [[Shadowrun]] Elves are merely humans that mutated after the return of magic to Earth in 2012. They have long lifespans, although to varying degrees. Across the world they banded together and overthrew local governments to create their own "kingdoms" (keep in mind the world of Shadowrun is the lovechild of D&D and Blade Runner). Some Elves are effectively immortal unless killed, and a few in particular come from entirely different points in world history (keep in mind that everything we know that ever happened in our universe is known as the Sixth World...Harlequin is an Elf that's most likely from the Fourth...). Of course your average Elf player character is most likely between 20 and 60 years old, and physically most likely the same either way, as a homeless drifter orphan or the child of blue collar workers from a megacorp. Average Elf NPCs are low skill workers, street vendors, violent gang members, wageslaves, rent-a-cops, and corporate executives. Shadowrun Elves have the ability to see magic usually, some degree of feeling it, but an Elf is as likely to be able to use it as most other "races". 

===In Other Media===
* In The Legend of Zelda, there are these Hylian race which are just human with pointy ears with their most notable characters are the main character Link and the princess Zelda. They have strong affinity with magic and has rich culture, religion background with a goddess called Hylia protects them. They also have this weird telepathic ability which allows their pointy ear to transmit messages to any other Hylian in any space, realm, dimension and time (ha! Suck it, [[Tyranids|shadows of the warp]]!). Depending on the exact game, they tend to be about 50-80% of the cast, and you can usually only recognise them by checking the ears. There used to be normal humans in the far past, but the first Zelda (the reincarnation of Hylia) spread her pointy ears to her entire species. TL,DR: People in Zelda have pointy ears.
** There's also the Sheikah, who fit the bill more. They resemble Hylians, but have crimson eyes and silver-white hair. They weren't fully fleshed out outside of Impa intil Breath of the Wild, which revealed they once had a highly advanced civilization that had energy weapons, deadly as hell robots and mecha, but lost it due to the envy of the other inhabitants of Hyrule. While still a shadow of their former selves, the Sheikah still have other things. They're highly skilled in martial arts and they have a strange tendency to not stay dead, with the mummies of their ancestors being able to move and fight like Lord Kroak.
* Elves in [[Elfquest]] are the descendants of a race of time traveling shapeshifting aliens that attempted to visit humans during the medieval period, and took the forms of Elves from folklore while also reshaping their giant spaceship into the form of a crystal castle to approach the humans as friends; the pets of the Elf aliens, in fear, tampered with the control panel and sent the ship into the past as the Elves were preparing to leave, and instead greeted cavemen who promptly slew many of the shapeshifters and forced the rest into the wilderness. The descendants of the Elves each have different characteristics based on what happened after their ancestor fled as only the first generation could shapeshift, such as tall bodies and wings for those who dreamed of returning to their ship and taking to the stars again. All Elves are psychic, and form mating pairs based on subconscious links. The main cast are mostly from the deep forests, their ancestor turning feral in the wilderness and taking the form of a [[Furry|wolf]] (also, she [[Furry#Yiffing|fucked a wolf too]]). They behave like the <s>[[Wulfen]]</s>elf/wolf hybrids they are, are very short and have four fingers with very large eyes; their leader later finds a mate in one of the desert Elves, who retained more of the Elven alien culture and have the power to heal others. Stories include learning industrialization, kinslaying, that humans make good pets, where they came from, even more kinslaying, the medieval humans they were supposed to contact in the first place weren’t worth the effort, their ancestors were morons, and so on. 
* Elves in Warcraft were a type of Troll that was mutated by magical radiation coming from a pool of Titan blood (and possibly further altered by the intervention of a moon goddess).  This changed them, making them closer to humanoid (five fingers and toes and no tusks being the biggest changes).  Each subgroup can be defined mostly by how much magic they consider too much, with each preceding group from lowest to “never enough” being ousted by the preceding group.  The changes became more diverse as time went on, with the latter groups becoming closer to human than the former groups, and even spawning other separate races (Night Elves and Nightborne have fangs while High Elves and [[Edgy|Blood Elves]] don't).  The groups are Kaldorei -Night Elves (which had a group split off and become Shal'dorei - Nightborne), then some more Kaldorei called Highborne (which were made up of magic users and royalty) split and became Quel'dorei - High Elves, which also split with most supping on fel magic becoming Sin'dorei - Blood Elves.  Even then are mutations such as the Naga (merpeople/snake people who are Highborne mutated by the Lovecraftian-type Old God N'zoth), Satyrs (like the real-life mythological beings based on a Highborne mutated by Sargeras) and the San'layn (the setting's vampires, who are mutated undead Sin'dorei made by the Lich King).
* Elves in the [[Geralt of Rivia|Witcher]] franchise have a complex origin, but generally come in two varieties. 
** '''Aen Elle''' are Elves from another dimension, where they are constantly at war with Unicorns and the "White Frost", an apocalyptic scenario that is the destined destruction of all realities (one at a time rather than all at once). They're not exactly nice, but technically they're trying to save all worlds even if they kill everyone they meet while doing it. A major factor in the latter novels and the video games (less so in the first where they are the direct cause of the events you are dealing with, which you won't learn until the end of the second game). They don't particularly care about humans, monsters, or other kinds of Elves, they just want to wipe out the Unicorns and the White Frost plus all witnesses while generally being fairly pleasant and peaceful in their own dimension. 
** '''Aen Seidhe''' are the Elves native to the setting, although not originally. Elves, monsters, and humans arrived to the world from their own separate dimensions after the White Frost destroyed them during an event known as the "Conjunction Of The Spheres". Elves arrived first and created a civilization while warring with the natives, humans appeared later and destroyed many of the civilizations that preceded them including those of the Elves over time. Many humans and Elves believe themselves to be a native race to the planet and hate the other for being an unnatural invader, while other Elves believe themselves to have been created by gods and humans simply being an evolved ape whereas humans believe Elves to be disguised demons and humans to be the divinely created ones. Many events that would in other settings have cemented the bond between Elf and man, such as a human prince and an Elf princess falling in love, instead always end in tragedy and cause further discord between the races. The Witcher setting takes place in the Northern Kingdoms of an unnamed continent where Elves are treated worse than any other, having formed largely into guerilla warriors spread across the world called "Scoia'tael" that also include Dwarves, Gnomes, intelligent monsters, and some human outcasts such as Witchers (read: Geralt "GIT YER HANDZ OFF MAH ELFS AND WITCHES OR I'LL GUT YE" of Rivia). Scoia'tael attack humans constantly, usually retribution for casualties in a war they can't win due to Elves only being able to breed in youth while humans have most of a medieval lifespan to do so. Any time Elves don't join Scoia'tael they are found in the ghettos of human cities, which are subject to frequent ethnic purges either by mob or inquisition. Of course because its Witcher any time Geralt can side with some decent Elves you'll find out in the next game or novel they were slaughtered or were politically out-maneuvered back to square -1, the rest of the time there being little difference between the Elf and human assholes other than the humans generally raping before they murder the townsfolk. In one of the later novels of the series (Lady of The Lake) its mentioned that some form of magical door opened to another dimension, with many of the Elves choosing whatever is ahead of them over the bullshit behind them.
* Elves in [[Monster Hunter International]] are one of the few friendly species of monsters with a species wide PUFF exemption. They live in the "Enchanted Forest"... which is actually a trailer park and are every trailer trash stereotype at once. The US Government basically gave them a PUFF exemption and welfare in exchange for being on hand for consulting on magic (as they are one of the few outright magic users that isn't powered by demons or old ones) and like started acting like anyone else on gibmedats. They aren't officially supposed to cast magic, but MHI is known to bribe them with alcohol for some assistance under the table. One elf shows proficiency with a bow though takes offense, calling it a hurtful stereotype, when the local fa/tg/uy points this out. The next book shows another elf using a bow on their own volition when they have access to guns, so bow use may be truer than they admit. Supposedly the European elves aren't trailer trash like their American kin, but it is never shown.
* The Keebler Elfs, possibly the most famous elfs of the "old, shoemaker" style elfs. Keebler, a US brand of cookies, needed some pitchmen, and went with what we'd call a bunch of animated tree gnomes, which got called "elfs" because it was 1968 and advertising executives thought consumers were idiots (with some justification, admittedly) and Mr 1960s tie, crew cut and Ford-Fariline office man had only the dimmest understanding of mythology. Feel free to research them and bring them up next time you encounter an elfaboo.