Elves... Why can't they be evil? Why not once? They are always just Poets/Singers/Fairness/Lahdeedeedah/GreatWarriorsthataherocanfallinlovewith/Blah/Boring/Cliches/Annoyances/Fair/Alwayssomethingelse...

If one is feeling particularly bold, you might think to look at where Tolkien got his inspiration from.

Now, I can only speculate but I suspect that he drew at least some of his ideas from the elves found in Norse Mythology (Scandinavian/Odinism).

The elves of Norse mythology have survived into folklore mainly as females, living in hills and mounds of stones. The Swedish älvor. (sing. älva) were stunningly beautiful girls who lived in the forest with an elven king. They were long-lived and light-hearted in nature. The elves are typically pictured as fair-haired, white-clad, and (like most creatures in the Scandinavian folklore) nasty when offended.

If a human watched the dance of the elves, he would discover that even though only a few hours seemed to have passed, many years had passed in the real world. (This time phenomenon is retold in Tolkien's Silmarillion when Thingol watches Melian dance. It also has a remote parallel in the Irish Sidhe.) (Copied from Wikipedia).

I uncovered this old mythology whilst reading the Icelandic sagas, it also makes sense given that he based his Elvish language off of a dead European language.

So anyway, I just thought that if someone would like a "fresh" perspective on elves that they might look back to old mythology (before it was popularised).

In particular the "Malevolent" Elves described in later passages, if you're looking for evil elves.

Another thing:

The original German elves (Old Saxon alf; Middle High German: alb, alp; plural elbe, elber; Old High German alb, by 13th century) are thought to be light creatures who lived in heaven during the era of Germanic paganism, and may have included dark elves or dwarves underground (as understood to be similar to the álfr of Old Norse mythology).

Oh lawdy is that more Tolkien I spy? Not knocking Tolkien at all, I love his work and personally believe that drawing from history is a great way to produce believable fantasy.

Oh! Oh! And I just discovered this little tidbit:

The first appearance of modern fantasy elves occurred in The King of Elfland's Daughter a 1924 novel by Lord Dunsany. The next modern work featuring elves was The Hobbit, a 1937 children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Just thought I'd share that.

Also I just recalled, if anyone here is also into fantasy webcomics that they should take a look at Looking for Group (www.lfg-comic.com).

The Authors portray the Vulii (Evil All-conquering elves) really well, as much as you don't get to see much of them at this point in the story.

You mean just like World of Warcraft's blood elves?

Sorry, the minion just has a bit of a dislike for the popularity of that webcomic, and how people always appear to insist that it's origional. While well ploted and well drawn, the minion can assure you there is nothing remotely new there. While it can be argued that there is nothing new in the world, though it borrows enough from a recent webcomic (8-Bit Theater) and it's World of Warcraft birth to make the minion compare it's results to the Others and the Sixth Sense. Both of which would be wonderful on their own, if they had a ten year time gap between their making.

I like elves, i like the description of the Sea Elves:)

Good one:"

I've no illusions of LFG being original, however it demonstrates my point rather well.

Elves can be rather evil, not just the drow; in fact I'd rather like to see the drow portrayed as the good side.

And perhaps have the "High" Elves portrayed as dull, domineering, vain megalomaniacs. (Much like WoW's Blood Elves; However they're under the belief that what they're doing is right, for example the captive Naaru in their main city.

Of course, I'm not big on the elves myself anyway; in fact I pretty much avoid anything that smells like elf unless its heavily recommended.

As much as I don't give too much credence to rumour, its just a lot simpler to go with what other people recommend sometimes.

As far as originality goes, with 6000 years of history and the number of fantasy writers in that time being legion.

The only thing that can REALLY be new these days is execution (execution, noun; a mode or style of performance; technical skill, as in music.).

Though, I would like to be surprised and proven wrong about that previous statement.

Well, i do like elves, but i think it's down to originallity again:)

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