These archetypes appear in almost every fantasy setting. Generic person, pointy ear person, beard person, green person, short non-beard person (call them hobbits, halflings, gnomes, whatever), and dead person.
What incarnation of these various races do you like the best? Was OG Bilbo the pinnacle of what short people could be? Should orcs actually be sentient fungi? Should undead be stylish vampires living in California, or a mindless force of evil? Tell me your favorites.
Andy Serkis for all categories.
Humans - Kind of hard to mess-up. I think some genre authors can sometimes try too hard to âspice upâ humans. That said, one thing I love about Warcraft is that humans are descended giants, rather than ascended apes. Itâs pretty fresh. But sadly modern humanity is kind of bland in WoW. Theyâve done a bit to alleviate that with KulâTiran humans, but I wish there was more. Humans can feel generic at times.
Elder Scrolls humans are pretty cool and unique, as many things are.
Elf - No one has done it better than Tolkien, Iâm sorry. As a boy, I read the Hobbit and watched and read LotR, and Dwarves were my boys. (And then humans, and then hobbits, and finally elves.) Elves were too perfect, too graceful. Boring and unrelatable. That all changed when I delved into the Silmarillion and wider lore of the Tolkienverse. I learned of Feanorâs rebellion, his rivalry with Fingolfin (and Fingolfinâs undying, passionate fraternal loyalty to his brother), Feanorâs burning of his ships, the march of Fingolfin and the others across the Helcaraxe. The Oath of the Sons of Feanor that brought such ruin to the Noldor. The first Kinslaying at AlqualondĂ«. Etc., etc. I learned that the perceived âperfectionâ of the elves was actually a hard-won caution born from facing great evil and tragedy. The remaining elves in Middle-Earth were not these perfect, unknowable ubermensch, they were incredibly âhumanâ characters that had experienced great sorrow and trauma and trying to heal from that, and prevent other incidents like it from happening to the younger races.
Dwarf: Again, Tolkien. I especially love the origin story of the Dwarves. I find it so beautiful. After Eru Iluvitar informed the valar (his sub-âgodsâ or higher angels, for lack of a better term) of his plan to create living beings with souls (elves and humans), the vala Aule, the vala of craftsmanship, was so inspired by his fatherâs plan. To create something so beautiful as new life, and watch it grow? In his love for his fatherâs vision, Aule excitedly runs off and creates dwarves.
Eru sees what Aule has done and commands him to destroy the dwarves. Aule realizes that he has been presumptuous, and, in his horror agrees. He never wanted to supplant his father, he only wanted to be like him because he loved him so. What follows is a beautiful exchange between the two. Which starts with Aule speaking to Eru, about the dwarves:
I offer to thee these things, the work of the hands which thou hast made. Do with them what thou wilt. But should I not rather destroy the work of my presumption?â Then AulĂ« took up a great hammer to smite the Dwarves; and he wept. But IlĂșvatar had compassion upon AulĂ« and his desire, because of his humility; and the Dwarves shrank from the hammer and wore afraid, and they bowed down their heads and begged for mercy. And the voice of IlĂșvatar said to AulĂ«: âThy offer I accepted even as it was made. Dost thou not see that these things have now a life of their own, and speak with their own voices? Else they would not have flinched from thy blow, nor from any command of thy will.â Then AulĂ« cast down his hammer and was glad, and he gave thanks to IlĂșvatar, saying: âMay Eru bless my work and amend it!â
But IlĂșvatar spoke again and said: âEven as I gave being to the thoughts of the Ainur at the beginning of the World, so now I have taken up thy desire and given to it a place therein; but in no other way will I amend thy handiwork, and as thou hast made it, so shall it beâŠ
This origin really colours the dwarves throughout the rest of Tolkien lore. Created by a crafter âgodâ out of love, and spared by mercy, itâs easy to see why the dwarves are such good and noble creatures, but also with Morgothâs tainting of the world, how they could sometimes be turned to greed and excess.
Orc: I gotta give this one to the Elder Scrolls. The âconventionalâ wisdom is that the orcs were once the high elven followers of the high elven war-god Trinimac. Trinimac was defeated, âeatenâ, and defecated out by the daedra Boethiah, and transformed into Malacath, . Trinimacâs followers were transformed as well, into orcs. Orcs in TES are so rich. Theyâre loyal and ferocious fighters, expert craftsmen, and generally some of the least prejudiced people in TES. But they also sometimes adhere to very rigid gender roles and have fairly brutal forms of tribal succession. Theyâre not just mooks to be slaughtered but nor are they these perfect ânoble savagesâ who paint with all the colours of the wind. In a word, theyâre very, well, human.
Hobbit/Halfling/Gnome: This one is kind of hard. I want to give the point to Tolkien, because the hobbits in his universe are such good, wholesome people. And I love their resilience and willpower. Frodo and Bilbo kind of got downplayed in the movies, but in the novels its made pretty clear that these guys have WIS and CON out the wazoo. Gandalf (or maybe Elrond) mentions that fully grown human men die within hours of being stabbed by a Morgul blade, even with the use of Athelas/Kingsfoil. Frodo lasts seventeen days.
But OTOH, I donât like the Hobbit origin story in Tolkien. Theyâre just Humans that evolved differently because reasons. I love Tolkien and I love how his Catholicism influenced his world-building, but I think it limited him at times, because everything has to by definition come from Eru, based on the Christian-based ruleset Tolkien used to build his world. I wish he gave them their own unique origin, as with the Dwarves.
Also fun fact regarding Tolkien, the Noldor Elves were based on gnomes. They were expert craftsmen (on-par with dwarves) who lived underground (Nargothrond) or in places hidden by magic (Gondolin). Of course theyâre 7-foot-tall graceful elves and so not âtrueâ gnomes, but based on the gnomes of folklore. So in that sense I guess itâs another point Tolkien on this one?
That said, Warcraft Gnomes are super cool and have a great origin story. I love how they built Mimiron a body. So cute.
Undead: Gotta be Warcraft. The Forsaken are super intriguing. Sympathetic but yet some of the most Machiavellian and brutal people. Thereâs a great duality there and the aesthetic is great.
Ooh, cool question. Here we go:
Humans - Terry Pratchett does a good job
Elves - J.K. Rowlingâs house elves - think Dobby
Orc - Warhammer
Dwarves - LOTR
Undead - probably zombie lore from pre-Night of the Living Dead eras.
Gnomes/Hobbits/Halflings - UhhhâŠWillow? (although I think they were actually referred to as dwarves?)
Hmm, letâs think.
For humans, probably WoW? I basically like all humans, though, and will never see them as Boring Generic Guys.
For elves, I definitely like Tolkien elves; Iâm not super big into Tolkien lore but I always thought they struck a pretty good balance between âelegant, nice-smelling humanâ and âweird, alien fey creature.â Dying from basically depression is Super Elven in my book. That said, though, I will always have a special place in my heart for Dragon Age elves.
Definitely Elder Scrolls dwarves, and Iâm not just saying that because Iâve just crossed the baby step of spending more than 100 hours in Skyrim.
As much as saying this would clock me as the wrong sort of person, all the orcs I put in my settings are basically WH40k orcs. Iâve always had this perception that orcs were basically just bigger goblins that frowned more, and making them into basically football hooligans is pretty far divorced from that.
If I had my way, they would all still be hobbits and live in holes in the ground, but I somehow suspect the Tolkien estate wouldnât appreciate that. D&D only got away with it because it was the 70s.
For undead, wellâŠdoes Dark Souls count?