Why are the elves always in decline?
The majority of fantasy fiction that features a race of elves, have the elves in the downward slope of their civilization. Dying out. Tolkien did this, the Dragonlance campaign of dungeons and dragons, R.A. Salvatore’s Demonwars series, Warhammer 40k has the Eldar dying out, World of Warcraft has them losing their society…etc etc. The list could go on forever. So why is this? Why don’t authors have the elves at the peak of their civilization? Why are they always dying? Why are they never a massive political and military power ruling everything around them? I don’t understand this trend.
It couldn’t be that they’re fragile. Invariably their civilizations have stood for centuries or even millenia. It’s just that when the reader chances upon the tale, it’s always the end of their society.
I’m not looking for books where this is different. My question was “why” it’s like this.
This is a very important question, and one that Tolkien, at least, wanted his readers to ask themselves. Most of the other “roleplaying” type of series you mention are based almost entirely off of Tolkien, therefore the ideas are essentially the same.
The elves stand for magic and natural beauty. The fading of the elves represents a “dying away” of that magic…a sad reminder of the fading of magic in our own world. Science has stripped the mystical and the miraculous down to the bare bones.
This belief in the fading of the magical and the mystical by the mundane, urbanized world is the intent behind Tolkien’s fading of the elves. The rest of those writers merely followed in Tolkien’s footsteps.
By the way, if you want to read about the elves at the peak of their civilization, read Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, or the new forthcoming book The Children of Hurin. Check out the link below for more info on that.
http://www.tolkien-online.com/the-children-of-hurin.html
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