Racial Profiling: A Faerie Tale

I was copying out some old notes I thought you might be interested in. Here they are:

Humanity in Fantasy Fiction:

Humans are a constant element in fantasy fiction because they allow an instantaneous feeling of familiarity to the characters in a story. A minimal amount of effort is needed to understand physical limitations and mental outlooks. This is why unfailingly a human will be introduced as a main character in almost any novel.

Elves & Dwarves in Fantasy Fiction:

As soon as humans are introduced into a magical system, one has to wonder at their evolutionary counterparts on the Aethereal Spectrum. What would happen if humans relied entirely on magic? What would occur if they only used natural law? The common result is the inclusion of the elven and dwarven races; elves commonly symbolise magick while dwarves represent physical effort and ingenuity.

As a few authors suggest this tends to hamper creative thought, because writers forget that they can develop their own semi-human races to represent the Aethereal Spectrum. One does have to point out that under a logical outlook these races would look remarkably similar to elves and dwarves, though their cultures may vary vastly.

Dwarves / Scientific Dominance

Dwarves are typically ruled by a variety of guidelines that limit their characteristics:

• First and most obvious is the dwarven physique. They are short and heavy built, with a thick skeletal structure.

• Second is their reverence of the earth and metals. Dwarves have a dominant class that is composed of miners and smiths. Dwarves usually live below ground.

• Dwarves live in a clan community, usually ruled by a clan chief who becomes a dwarven king if his clan is the ruling clan over a group.

• Dwarves are strictly religious, with a firm and immutable set of laws which when broken are punished by exile. Given their cultural focus on family this could be seen as a harsher penalty than death.

• Dwarves do not regularly shave their beards, if at all.

• Dwarves typically use war hammers, battleaxes and heavy armour. The use of hammers and axes suggests that warcraft is only secondary to their nature, and emphasises that war is only considered under extreme conditions.

• Dwarves are often portrayed as quick to anger, loyal, insightful, stubborn and greedy. Many of these could be considered as ‘unwise’ or morally debatable characteristics.

• The lack of females among the dwarven tales should be noted.

• Runic or written magic is occasionally practiced by the dwarves.

• Scientific dominance places a strong need on evolutionary superiority. This suggests a strong level of cunning, physical maneuverability, endurance, and most importantly a respect for cultural law.

Elves / Magical Dominance

Elves are similarly restricted with a number of predominant characteristics:

• In physique, elves are thin and bear slanted features, noted as fair and beautiful. They are either taller than humans or a head shorter than them. They are described as having ‘sharp’ ears, most often thought of in the sense of ‘pointed’, but possibly misinterpreted from the notion that elves are considered to have highly astute senses, where ‘sharp’ would indicate their good hearing. Elves are known to be swift and agile.

• Elves have an affinity with forests and trees, most often neglecting metal and mining. Water is considered to be their element. Elves live in forests, valleys and glades, sometimes making a home in the tree branches themselves. Unlike dwarves, elves appear to have a class of nobles at the head of their state whose direct function is uncertain. Hunters are also mentioned more often than not.

• While some elves are solitary, others live in communities centred around a single lord, king (or queen), or hero. Others still make themselves subject to the oldest or wisest in their society. As opposed to clans, elves form factions which rarely interact with one another unless in war, either fighting over their differences or joining against a worse foe. Sea Elves, High Elves, Wood Elves, and Dark Elves are the usual groups, and usually come from a single civilization before revolution causes a splinter sect to move away^1.

• While not generally devoted to a single god or goddess, elves have a strong attraction to light, peace, love and life. Their morality within each faction is unquestionable, suggesting a strong willpower is present in all elves. Their laws differ among the factions, but there is generally a presence of order and fair trial associated with their race.

• Elves are almost always clean shaven. Even the men grow their hair long, and as elves range from a lifespan of a millennium to an infinity, many have hair growing past the waist.

• Elves mainly use bows (suggesting they are hunters rather than fighters) and swords where bows would fail (complimenting their natural agility). For armour elves resort to chainmail and leather, allowing for mobility and not demanding great strength.

• Elves are portrayed as noble, proud, empathetic, caring, wise and determined. They grow sorrowful in instances of personal failure, which they tend to openly admit to.

• Magic is an open practice among elves, as is art, present in the form of songs and craftsmanship. Magically dominant creatures are considered to be spiritually aware, in touch with nature and with their feelings. They are wise and learned, strong-willed and intelligent. Despite the physical superiority of others, they survive, breaking evolutionary laws.

 

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¹ When seen in contrast to the revolutions in other nations, elves appear kinder in their judgement. Dwarves are noted for their Clan Wars, where renegade factions will be wiped out to protect the social order, leaving no trace of any notably divergent culture. As always, human beings variate between the two options, allowing some cultures to survive while arbitrarily butchering others. This could be used to explain why open warfare is so common with the human race.

Other aspects of Human Character given Human Form:

In the fantasy genre, the addition of Halflings, Orcs and Gnomes are of equal worth to investigate, even though they bear little effect on the relationship between magic and technology (with the possible exception of orcs).

Halflings typically imbibe the spirit of human modesty. They are smaller than dwarves, scrawny and stealthy, with a love for simple things like food and shelter. In stories Halflings are the underestimated element which often becomes the most essential for success. They rarely use their own magic (however they make use of the spellcraft provided by others) and build only the simplest machines. Like humans they fluctuate between good and evil, however they are seldom drawn into open conflict with anyone.

Orcs are far more applicable to fictional illustration and social allegory:

• Predominately the orcish horde is composed of humanoid pachyderms, with thick skin ranging from black to green. They rely almost entirely on the element of physical strength, to a point of brutality. Their teeth are either malformed or inhuman, resembling fangs or tusks.

• Orcs are remarkable in that their physical morphology differs from minute (the goblin) to massive (the ogre). Among these variations there is a predictable hierarchy describable as ‘might makes right’.

• Orcs are indicative of the basest human culture, living in tents or yurts, drinking blood, headhunting, using bones and shamanistic rites, and living nomadically in tribes or war parties.

• They often bear monstrous abilities, such as gaining strength from the night, having a fierce bloodlust or even regeneration (trolls). However, few orcs bear the same magical talent as humans or elves, unless that magic pertains to demonology or vague shamanism.

• Orcish warfare is notable for their scorched earth tactics, usually attributed to their disregard for nature or to born-in malevolence.

• Orcish technology – especially that from Middle-Earth – is seen to revolve around causing pain and destruction. They are masters of siege weapons and torture devices, crude tools and wicked contraptions. Goblins are the most advances in the ways of mechanics (and their intelligence places them at the bottom of the social hierarchy). The importance of this predisposition to science while the remainder of Middle-Earth remained in a Norse-Medieval setting is applicable to Tolkien’s era, when conservative sciences and renewable energy had not yet begun. All science was seen to take its toll on nature, and therefore belonged in the desolation of the orcs. Dwarves are only one step above, serving their function as miners, but (on M-E) not as technologists. Their precise role as the spirit of human Ingenuity can only be recognised in the 21^st century.

Gnomes also occur across a variety of fantasy works, but less frequently than the others. They appear to be the product of an attempt to counter the image of the goblin with a techno-magical affinity attached to a race with similar size and personality.

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All very interesting... okay, if you happen to be 'me' it's interesting, and as I am the one who will read this more than anyone else I declare it interesting. Ha!

Okay. The point my notes are making is that although surrealism depends on symbols and associations, we don't have to let those be the same ones that other writers have used in the past. In fact I'd even go so far as to say it is our responsibility as human beings to look at more ways in which we could be different. One of these days an alien spaceship is going to land on a planet not too far from here and a human being is going to step out of it and discover a race of giant slugs, and when she does, it would be best for her to acknowledge the possibility of sentient life in even the most bizarre life forms.

That said, I have not strayed as far from the path as to create giant slugs or, to name a few I have encountered in the past; cactus people, gigantic translucent insects, legless super-special security guards, Yahoos, or extra-dimensional starfish. I have rather stuck pretty closely to the original outline adopted by Tolkien, but pushed the boundaries of the culture a little further.

Introducing (ba ba da da)

The Fey.

I have a whole book I have filled with ideas about fey and their magnificent territories, but I'll settle for telling you the basics as I still have several tens of thousands of words to copy out onto my computer before I can give you any indication of how well defined they are.

'Fey' are named so because they are doomed: like all living things, the fey must die. Unfortunately in their specific case, Fey can live for 1000 years. It is thus better to say that fey are doomed to die horribly.

As a species, they were originally human. After the discovery of magick, however, they slowly used its arcane processes to extend their lifespans and negated any natural inhibitors that prevented magick from working, such as iron and other bodily metals. They pretty much ripped all the metallic substances from their bodies and replaced it with Hexaemer, leaving them looking a bit like cancer patients.

As such, they are very pale, very thin, and their bones are hollow. Sounds kinda Elven, doesn't it?

Still, the fact that Hexaemer is their chief enterprise has afforded them certain distinct differences. A fey wouldn't be caught dead holding a sword - or rather it would, because the metal on the hilt would slowly disintegrate its skin. Fey aren't tree huggers like elves are, but they are soul huggers, and trees have souls. Thus there is one group of fey called the Ouwren who form a natural symbiosis with plants in exchange for the soul-energy (aether) they can provide.

Gah. The devil is in the details, and I shall provide more at a later date. Suffice to say in classic Sixth World style everything relates to everything else, but is completely different.

As a parting gift, have a look at what I've done to Gnomes.