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Old 04-06-2018, 04:40 PM   #71
Flyndaran
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?

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Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tellarite says "Tellarites were a stout humanoid species with an average body height shorter than that of Humans."

And if you showed me this picture out of context, I'd have said they're dwarves.
They were about the same size as other actors in the original series. But it looks like they made them shorter for later series. Star Trek is prone to flanderization something fierce.
Still shortish rather than dwarfish, IMO. But at least in your example picture from Enterprise they're in the ballpark a littler better.

I guess I shouldn't have just used one quick search with numbers as canon. I thought it was Memory Alpha, but it seems it wasn't.
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Old 04-06-2018, 06:05 PM   #72
DocRailgun
 
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Default Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?

In Enterprise, they are more or less the same size as the Andorians/Humans/Vulcans/ etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
They were about the same size as other actors in the original series. But it looks like they made them shorter for later series. Star Trek is prone to flanderization something fierce.
Still shortish rather than dwarfish, IMO. But at least in your example picture from Enterprise they're in the ballpark a littler better.

I guess I shouldn't have just used one quick search with numbers as canon. I thought it was Memory Alpha, but it seems it wasn't.
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Old 04-07-2018, 09:28 AM   #73
vitruvian
 
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Default Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
That's not the only one, but it is why I said "seems to be".


But even then, they aren't ugly...
Not necessarily...
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Old 04-07-2018, 11:21 AM   #74
vitruvian
 
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Default Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
Chaotic Neutrality did not fit with the Tolkien franchise well. The first edition of Broken Sword was written at the time(it was sent back because fantasy was out of fashion then) and had elves a bit like that.

Tolkien's elves do have Irish counterparts. Russian ones too. There were a few other's. If I remember reading Gurps Faerie "White Ladies" have some characteristics like that. The "Fair Folk" is subverted in Tolkien, as men of Gondor and Rohan think elves are like that.

Actually the predominant element of elves before the Victorian ones was not so much evil(that's as may be)but wildness and mystery. It is not so much that they are hostile as you cannot tell what they will be because they are to strange to you.
The other thing that was somewhat missing from Tolkien's version was the invisibility from normal sight and complete hiddenness of the homes of elves such as the alfar and Icelandic huldufolk. Although the woods stealth of Thranduil's people and the craft that went into making some of their strongholds at least difficult to find at least alluded to that, it wasn't like they could walk around completely invisible unless you had a tincture for your eyes to allow you to see them, as in the fairy ointment story type.

If you didn't want to go the route of making them fully spiritual creatures without a stable physical form, you could easily make a version of elves as a playable RPG race as essentially humans or closely related hominins that are natural or universally trained illusionists, employing glamour to hide, disguise, and/or embellish their homes, walk around unseen by regular humans, and similar tricks, so that they can coexist with human society but almost completely hidden. In some ways, they would not be dissimilar to the wizards and witches of Rowling's world, except for the extent of interbreeding and popping up in human families (although that too could conform to the changeling trope).
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Old 04-07-2018, 11:26 AM   #75
vitruvian
 
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Default Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
They weren't short that I remember. Wikis even list their species as slightly taller than human on average. The first individual we see in the original series was slightly short, but that's all.
And I don't think you can have Dwarves that aren't short.
The Norse may have; at the very least, there's no mention of them being short in the original myths, although they tend to be described as short and ugly once you get into Christian era legends.
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Old 04-07-2018, 12:14 PM   #76
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?

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Originally Posted by vitruvian View Post
The other thing that was somewhat missing from Tolkien's version was the invisibility from normal sight and complete hiddenness of the homes of elves such as the alfar and Icelandic huldufolk. ).
Note that Tolkien covered that with his "elves don't die but fade away" thing. So "modern" elves are usually invisible except possibly to a few unusually Sighted people.
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Old 04-07-2018, 12:23 PM   #77
vitruvian
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Note that Tolkien covered that with his "elves don't die but fade away" thing. So "modern" elves are usually invisible except possibly to a few unusually Sighted people.
Except if they are faded as opposed to physically still there but glamoured into invisibility, then they neither need the midwife nor are capable of putting out the eye to which she applied the ointment... ;-)

Although they always struck me as not nearly alien enough to become the fairies in Jo Walton's Amongst Others, either.
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