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Problems with elves
Aug. 18th, 2012 02:11 amAn unexpected stretch of history in the relationship between humans and elves in my flat-like-a-penny world seems to be developing.
So, elves aren't inherently either good or evil. There are mostly-good ones, mostly-evil ones, and in-between/neutral/morally-ambiguous ones.
I am moderately sure that for a substantial stretch of human history, humans basically only had interaction with evil and neutral/morally-ambiguous elves, with the result that having voluntary dealings with elves was seen as very questionable, probably blamable.
A more tentative sketch of how this came about:
In very early human and elven history, while not a lot of elves came to humanland, the range of elves that came was quite varied; you had mostly-good ones, mostly-evil ones, and ones somewhere in between. Humans learnt a lot from elves, and elves could do things humans couldn't; elves were strange and different and powerful. One result of this was that there was a tendency for humans to begin to worship elves. Different elves responded to this differently. Mostly-good ones will have done things like refuse and avoid worship; when people persisted in trying to worship them, they largely ended up withdrawing from humanland. Mostly-evil and some neutral/ambiguous ones in varying degrees tolerated, exploited, and encouraged the tendency for humans to worship elves. Some of the elves accepted and encouraged worship, and set themselves up as something like divine kings over subject humans. This problem may have been exacerbated by elves who had committed certain kinds of offences back in elvenland being exiled from their home realms in elvenland, and coming to humanland seeking power.
This led to a rather dark time in humanland; it's not yet clear how it ended, though I suspect it may have involved some of the mostly-good elves from elvenland briefly intervening and returning home. After that, the great power-hungry elven kingdoms in humanland weren't an issue anymore, but there was still a tendency for the elves that were around to be either more subtly evil, or at least not-exactly-good. So there was a wide mistrust of elves and of people with explicitly elven knowledge or dealings with elves. (However, I suspect that by this time the widespread worship of elves had stopped.)
Tentative biological tidbit: Possibly, elves can't reproduce in humanland (either any time they're in humanland, or after being there for a while), and humans can't reproduce in elvenland; this prevents elven sovereigns in humanland from easily producing heirs and developing an increasing foothold in humanland (though also they just reproduce slowly as a mostly-immortal species). It also makes it rather difficult for a human-elven couple to produce children (exact degree of difficulty depends on whether reproductive impossibility is dependent simply on being in the wrong land, or whether it only arises after you've been there for a bit.)
So, elves aren't inherently either good or evil. There are mostly-good ones, mostly-evil ones, and in-between/neutral/morally-ambiguous ones.
I am moderately sure that for a substantial stretch of human history, humans basically only had interaction with evil and neutral/morally-ambiguous elves, with the result that having voluntary dealings with elves was seen as very questionable, probably blamable.
A more tentative sketch of how this came about:
In very early human and elven history, while not a lot of elves came to humanland, the range of elves that came was quite varied; you had mostly-good ones, mostly-evil ones, and ones somewhere in between. Humans learnt a lot from elves, and elves could do things humans couldn't; elves were strange and different and powerful. One result of this was that there was a tendency for humans to begin to worship elves. Different elves responded to this differently. Mostly-good ones will have done things like refuse and avoid worship; when people persisted in trying to worship them, they largely ended up withdrawing from humanland. Mostly-evil and some neutral/ambiguous ones in varying degrees tolerated, exploited, and encouraged the tendency for humans to worship elves. Some of the elves accepted and encouraged worship, and set themselves up as something like divine kings over subject humans. This problem may have been exacerbated by elves who had committed certain kinds of offences back in elvenland being exiled from their home realms in elvenland, and coming to humanland seeking power.
This led to a rather dark time in humanland; it's not yet clear how it ended, though I suspect it may have involved some of the mostly-good elves from elvenland briefly intervening and returning home. After that, the great power-hungry elven kingdoms in humanland weren't an issue anymore, but there was still a tendency for the elves that were around to be either more subtly evil, or at least not-exactly-good. So there was a wide mistrust of elves and of people with explicitly elven knowledge or dealings with elves. (However, I suspect that by this time the widespread worship of elves had stopped.)
Tentative biological tidbit: Possibly, elves can't reproduce in humanland (either any time they're in humanland, or after being there for a while), and humans can't reproduce in elvenland; this prevents elven sovereigns in humanland from easily producing heirs and developing an increasing foothold in humanland (though also they just reproduce slowly as a mostly-immortal species). It also makes it rather difficult for a human-elven couple to produce children (exact degree of difficulty depends on whether reproductive impossibility is dependent simply on being in the wrong land, or whether it only arises after you've been there for a bit.)