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I'm making astounding progress in terms of reading lately. I finished Essays Written in Idleness, and then I Am a Cat. Next I tore through Shinsengumi: the Shogun's Last Samurai Corps, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I suppose it whetted my appetite for battles and glory and tragedy, because now I'm flying through a reread of Katharine Kerr's Deverry books, and enjoying them fully as much as I did the first time (which was some years back, during high school). Daggerspell's behind me now, and I'm fast approaching the halfway point in Darkspell. Which means that soon I'll be placing an order with Amazon to get my hands on more of them.
There's much to admire about them. The setting is rich and realistic, a Celtic kingdom modeled on old Wales. The focus is on nobles and princes and the warriors that make or lose their destinies, but there's no shortage of politics to lend urgency to the battles. The magic is well thought-out and far from omnipotent. The characters are deep, each with their own motivations and involved histories. And it even has a race of elves that I can stand, and even like-- I can't tell you how rare that is, because normally I despise elves in fantasy books. They tend to be self-involved, arrogant, annoyingly perfect, insufferably smug, and so holier-than-thou that I pray for someone to come and take them down a peg. And no one ever does, more's the pity. If I lived with elves, I'd constantly be rigging low wires all over the place, just so that I could see them trip and fall on their faces.
Deverry has the Elcyion Lacar, and while they might have some of the above listed qualities, there's enough about them that isn't perfect that I can accept and even like them. No shining, pearly, unlivable cities for them-- they're nomads, traveling with herds of horses and living in painted tents. They may scorn human cities as cramped and dirty, but that's not surprising when they live in a vast open space and never stay in one place long enough for sewage to become a problem. Marvelous craftsmanship, yes. Superior technology? Hells no; they don't even have wheels. They use travois to haul their stuff. Beautiful? Yes. Graceful? Yes. Superior archers? Yes. Perfect? Not on your life. They feud and argue and sleep around just as much as the humans do. They're real, that's what it comes down to for me.
Trying to recall another set of elves I've liked . . . the Sithi, "the Peaceful Ones," from Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy comes to mind. They're a little closer to the classic annoying elves, but they still have enough reality to them for me to like them. Overall, I'd say the situation there was the equivalent of taking a scullion from a castle in barely-medieval France and dropping him in the royal court of Heian Japan. If the royal court liked trees a whole lot. Although I haven't read those books in a long time; perhaps I should turn to them after I finish with Deverry.
I liked the elves in Judith Tarr's Hound and the Falcon trilogy and accompanying books, largely because while they themselves were far beyond human, and had a good measure of perfection to them, they lived entirely immersed in the human world. They were fully human in terms of their personalities and their emotions. Beautiful and magical, yes, powerful, but by no means above or detached from that which is normal.
To put it bluntly, I like the kind of elves who can eat too much rich food at a feast and must spend an hour or two in the loo afterwards.
Perfect societies of any sort rankle with me; I could never accept Star Trek (a human society without money or exchange of any kind? Come ON) for much the same reason I can't accept most elves. Perhaps it's a failing on my part; elves are supposed to be a different species, and I'm always wanting them to be human. Which means they must be fallible, capable of pettiness and stupidity as well as breathtaking beauty. That a society should exist out of reach of those sins that humanity is constantly beset by is not a society that I can accept in my heart as true.
And come on, the tripwires would be an excellent idea. You'd laugh, too. And if the elf who fell over laughed as well, I'd swear blood kinship with him and buy him a beer down at Kuttaro. Or even some girly, elf-y fruit-flavored chu-hai. As long as he can put up with me teasing him for drinking the sugary stuff.
There's much to admire about them. The setting is rich and realistic, a Celtic kingdom modeled on old Wales. The focus is on nobles and princes and the warriors that make or lose their destinies, but there's no shortage of politics to lend urgency to the battles. The magic is well thought-out and far from omnipotent. The characters are deep, each with their own motivations and involved histories. And it even has a race of elves that I can stand, and even like-- I can't tell you how rare that is, because normally I despise elves in fantasy books. They tend to be self-involved, arrogant, annoyingly perfect, insufferably smug, and so holier-than-thou that I pray for someone to come and take them down a peg. And no one ever does, more's the pity. If I lived with elves, I'd constantly be rigging low wires all over the place, just so that I could see them trip and fall on their faces.
Deverry has the Elcyion Lacar, and while they might have some of the above listed qualities, there's enough about them that isn't perfect that I can accept and even like them. No shining, pearly, unlivable cities for them-- they're nomads, traveling with herds of horses and living in painted tents. They may scorn human cities as cramped and dirty, but that's not surprising when they live in a vast open space and never stay in one place long enough for sewage to become a problem. Marvelous craftsmanship, yes. Superior technology? Hells no; they don't even have wheels. They use travois to haul their stuff. Beautiful? Yes. Graceful? Yes. Superior archers? Yes. Perfect? Not on your life. They feud and argue and sleep around just as much as the humans do. They're real, that's what it comes down to for me.
Trying to recall another set of elves I've liked . . . the Sithi, "the Peaceful Ones," from Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy comes to mind. They're a little closer to the classic annoying elves, but they still have enough reality to them for me to like them. Overall, I'd say the situation there was the equivalent of taking a scullion from a castle in barely-medieval France and dropping him in the royal court of Heian Japan. If the royal court liked trees a whole lot. Although I haven't read those books in a long time; perhaps I should turn to them after I finish with Deverry.
I liked the elves in Judith Tarr's Hound and the Falcon trilogy and accompanying books, largely because while they themselves were far beyond human, and had a good measure of perfection to them, they lived entirely immersed in the human world. They were fully human in terms of their personalities and their emotions. Beautiful and magical, yes, powerful, but by no means above or detached from that which is normal.
To put it bluntly, I like the kind of elves who can eat too much rich food at a feast and must spend an hour or two in the loo afterwards.
Perfect societies of any sort rankle with me; I could never accept Star Trek (a human society without money or exchange of any kind? Come ON) for much the same reason I can't accept most elves. Perhaps it's a failing on my part; elves are supposed to be a different species, and I'm always wanting them to be human. Which means they must be fallible, capable of pettiness and stupidity as well as breathtaking beauty. That a society should exist out of reach of those sins that humanity is constantly beset by is not a society that I can accept in my heart as true.
And come on, the tripwires would be an excellent idea. You'd laugh, too. And if the elf who fell over laughed as well, I'd swear blood kinship with him and buy him a beer down at Kuttaro. Or even some girly, elf-y fruit-flavored chu-hai. As long as he can put up with me teasing him for drinking the sugary stuff.
Ok, I have to rant here (it's not directed at you, honest)
Good god. Who on earth writes these perfect elves? That's really ridiculous, and a failing on the author's part. I think the thing with elves is that they have to be perfect in the sense of their physical appearance, and they have to feel remote enough so that people know "Heck yeah, they're a different species," but then upon a closer look, one realizes that they are, in fact, not perfect. And if caring about personal hygiene is being girly instead of having common sense, I'll just turn homosexual right now.
Maybe people have issues with Tolkien's elves, or else just made very erroneous assumptions. So they are wise and beautiful beyond the measure of man. So they only take one mate until the mate dies (dwarves & albatrosses do the same). So they don't sleep around. The latter makes perfect sense--they're immortals. They lose the drive after a while, and there wouldn't be any biological need to rut and reproduce constantly like humans. Yes, for the elves there is something beyond sex. But does that mean they have no flaws? Does they mean they don't lust after certain things? Hardly. Genocide existed in the early part of their history, lusts and deceits and all that other stuff everyone's always giving them so much bunk for not having. You want petty? They were killing each other over 3 pieces of rock. Yes, three beautiful, enchanting pieces of rock that made you happy when you looked at them (the Silmarils), but they were still 3 pieces of rock. The only difference is, a bunch of elves lived through those, and continued living, until by the time LotR came around, they are exhausted and sad, and yes, a helluva lot wiser, because as immortals they don't forget the horror. Galadriel probably still remembers the day her uncle led the massacre of their kin because the latter wouldn't lend them ships. So why does everyone have problems with her learning from her bloody mistakes? (These people would also do well to remember that the LotR story is told from the hobbits' perspective. The hobbits don't see that many freakin' elves, and when they do, it is in the elves' last & most powerful strongholds, where only the more powerful and more responsible, & wisest have remained. Of course they only see the "good" side. And of course they're in awe. Heck if I met an elf of LotR, I'd probably start crying, because beauty moves me to tears.) I'd like to remind everyone that most of the "OMG ELVES" lines come directly out of Sam's mouth, and Sam's been worshipping the idea of elves since he was tiny. Honestly, you think he's going to worry about being objective? The other, non-hobbit races have nothing but suspicion, and certainly to them, elves are not all perfect and flowy and yadda yadda yadda. This is a damned long parenthetical aside.)
There are authors who say to themselves, "Well, I'M not going to write perfect elves," so they just make them these shallow, arrogant, "OMG humans ALL suck" types, and then the poor neglected humans have to make one elf realize, "OMG NO! Actually humans are So Bloody Wonderful in our imperfection!" Then they rile on elves for being, *gasp*, not being human enough. Incapable of understanding humans because they are so "caught up in themselves." Well, I never! As if we humans cared TWO WHITS about species outside our own. And maybe it hasn't occurred to these humans or the author that, whoa, elves AREN'T humans! Why do the humans in these stories think they understand the elves so well, anyway? Oh yes, I'm sorry, because the elves are just arrogance embodied, of course.
Making them one big cesspool of flaws beneath a thin veneer of remarkable beauty and age, I'd like to point out, doesn't make them more interesting characters. It just makes everyone else in the story, as well as the readers, hate the elves' guts. Which I guess is the author's original intent anyway, since he or she could never stand them.
Re: Ok, I have to rant here (it's not directed at you, honest)
I am in perfect agreement with you in regards to hating those elves. I think the problem some people have is precisely what you've said: "elves are supposed to be a different species, and I'm always wanting them to be human." Of course, if you really wanted them to be human, you wouldn't put any elves in the story--what you and other readers really want is for them to be "elven." Good authors can make you realize the elves' utter inhumanity, but make you see why they deserve both the praise they receive and the complaints. The same, but very different, from humans. When that point is achieved, they go beyond the label of "human" or "elf" and become "well-rounded characters." Unfortunately, this is way too much work for some, so they just pull the "stereotypical elf" of arrogance and magic and spitefulness. Just freakin' once, I'd like to see a humble elf. There are arrogant humans and humble humans. When will the writers get it through their thick skulls that there maybe is not one kind of elf? There's not even one kind of BABOON within a species, and they're not even a sentient species!
Ok, that's enough out of me.^^; I like defending elves as a concept, so I jumped at the chance.^^; Hope it wasn't too incoherent.
when I see (edit)
I did expect to see a reply from you, knowing your fondness for Tolkien's elves. ;-)
re: edit-- It's only courtesy that I should spell his name right, don't you think?
Re: when I see (edit)
All of that being said, Fellowship is notorious for being slower than the other two. It took me two weeks to struggle through Fellowship, but 2 days to speed through TT and RotK (a book a day and very little sleep). If it weren't for the fact that I am against picking up a book and not finishing, I probably would have stopped before finishing FotR myself. I actually was pretty neutral on the Hobbit as well (I didn't actively dislike it; I save that for the crap, and that wasn't crap, it just didn't hold me); the tone was too childish and had none of the sweeping magic. But there also weren't much elves in there to be impressed by, in any case.^^;
I don't think I am riling against your point of view, so you don't have to defend yourself.^^; Rather I am just upset that people writing their own stories can't get creative enough to make all of their species interesting. If you "don't get" the elves of Middle-earth and you want to react against them, then for crying outloud, writing them like prigs is hardly the way to go about it. The elves don't deserve all the flak, and it is the fault of the authors who don't take the time to make them likeable, rather than the fault of the readers, who are perfectly entitled to their own opinions.
Yes, you can engage me on the topic of elves morning, noon, or night.^^ I am very predictable indeed. And anyway, I've always liked non-human characters much more, anyway. *cough cough*