General Thoughts on Fantasy Races

[TheBryceKrispy]

This topic is racial.

Everybody knows the five races of Fantasy that were popularized by Tolkien. You know, Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, Elves, and Hobbits/Halflings. They are classics and staples of the fantasy genre, specifically High Fantasy and Heroic Fantasy. Well, quite frankly, I'm are tired of them.

I have nothing against Tolkien and fantasy races isn't one of those turn-off tropes. When I see it in fiction I don't stop watching/reading. It can be done well. My main problem is the real world racial parallels and when the five races becomes Races of Hats. A race of hats, for those who don't know is a race with one defining characteristic. Example; the noble Elves, stubborn Dwarves, evil Orcs, E.T.C.

If you implied one character trait to a group of people in real life, it would be a stereotype. And yes, it is fiction and not all fiction is grounded in real life. Its specifically that Orcs-are-all-evil one that really makes people question the real life origins of these fantasy races. A race of evil? Now, is this to say all fantasy races are racist? It's just that the complexity of fantasy races aren't widely explored and its much easier to apply one character trait to a race and call it world building. But come on, what even is Evil anyways?

Once I read on the internet that Tolkien hated the Orcs being evil and showed them as great farmers. I read that on the internet, so it may not be true. And, if I recall correctly, I think it was a YouTube comment.

Why can't there be more nuisance in Fantasy Races? Isn't that more interesting than what has previously been done? And why can't we diversify past Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Halflings, and Humans? There are other fantasy races.

[liamhernandezlucas]

I think it's worth noting that Tolkien hated allegory and didn't write the orcs as a separate race as much as a different species.

One key detail being that the orcs are the offspring of elves that have undergone extreme torment and experiments at the hand of Mordor. (as far as I can remember, and the same was implied with Ents becoming Trolls).

Ironically, a lot of the bad implications that come with fantasy races have begun when writers wanted to portray the orcs as more humanlike, making the hats that much more apparent.

I don't mind the Tolkienesque races, but they do get tired quickly, especially when most writers treat them the exact same way.

As for alternate fantasy races, I find what Granblue Fantasy did really interesting. They don't have the regular elves or dwarves, but instead they have these:
Harvin: Short childlike pointy eared creatures which often become craftsmen and merchants but not strictly. It's hard to tell the children from the adults, unless they're bearded.
Draph: People with cow ears and horns, often stronger than the average human. The women are short but staunch and the men are very large. Seen in many professions, partial to heavy lifting and physical combat.
Erune: People with animal ears and various animal traits, partial to magic and agility.

A real fun thing about these is that whereas they have biological differences and cultures which impact their path in life, they still have vastly different personalities and aspirations.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

@jensrichard77 and I are working together on a project that uses some known fantasy races, and some new ones to add a twist to our story.

And in my own solo work, I have a plethora of different fantasy races. Many of mine are variations on normal themes.
For example I have some known as War Elves, they're elves, but instead of being portrayed as nature loving hippies with elegant clothes, they're warriors and have a berserker rage.

Plus I've got dinosaur people, bird people...all sorts of animal people. Even a bee person. There really aren't enough Insectoid fantasy races tbh.

I just like designing cool races, because...humans are boring. Not much to it beyond that really. Also I don't really write the characters personality to fit to a racial stereotype, I write them based on the role they fill for the story.

[surenlicious]

I feel you here fully. Which is why my novel has my own original races, haha! I grew tired of seeing the same stuff over again, I ain't doing that. XD

They're the Vritra (dispersed pieces of the primordial Dragon that gifted life the Sentient Mind), Garuda (progenitor of the Living Flesh, sculpted the physical body from its feathers) and Beriach (the Bones of the World, he is the broken sentience of the planet reduced to serve as the house of the Flesh and Mind) specifically. :3

[yansusu]

I think a lot of this depends on whether there are reasons given in the story and also a bit on interpretation of what exactly it would mean for a whole race to have one trait.

Like, for me, 'one defining characteristic' doesn't necessarily mean that all people of that race are like that but that, on average, a lot of them are.
I think that this occuring wouldn't be too strange. Even in real life, we have something like that when you look at how people of different regions are commonly behaving/characterized. Certainly, it won't mean all of them share the same trait (or share it to the same degree) but quite a few of them do.

Now, as for what reasons would be possible to have these traits make sense in a fantasy setting ... I could imagine that the environment the people of that race grow up in, their history and the culture that has developed over time or even religion could be one.
History, culture, and religion could, for example, make certain traits more desirable. Thus people who have them might be in more prominent positions (and more often shown in a story making it seem like all people of that race have the trait) and might be more desirable as partners thus passing on their traits more often to the gene pool while people who don't have them might as well pretend to have them as far as it's possible so as to not get into trouble or just to make their life easier.

Personally, I actually do have some races with certain traits that all of them have in one of my stories but those are either physical traits or the result of a curse that was put on the race as a whole and won't spare anyone. Other than that, they all seem pretty human in that they have their own personalities outside of the race.

Speaking of the latter: I think this is the main reason why races in fantasy stories often get assigned specific traits. They're supposed to be different from humans. Because if the elves aren't noble and the dwarfs aren't grumpy, then why the fuck aren't all the characters just humans of different kingdoms? Just for the visuals? (Of course not but if looking at it in a simplicistic way, you could see it like this.) So in a sense, this kind of characterization might be a legitimization of the race even being there in the first place for some authors.

[IdiotWithPencil]

If you implied one character trait to a group of people in real life, it would be a stereotype. And yes, it is fiction and not all fiction is grounded in real life. Its specifically that Orcs-are-all-evil one that really makes people question the real life origins of these fantasy races. A race of evil? Now, is this to say all fantasy races are racist? It's just that the complexity of fantasy races aren't widely explored and its much easier to apply one character trait to a race and call it world building. But come on, what even is Evil anyways?

Most of this is people taking from the movies instead of the books, in the books the orcs are basically elves who have been tortured/corrupted by the evil that is that universes satan, so it stands to reason that they act evil, they are basically demons, broken beyond repair, also the orcs' culture of savagery is explained in detail in the books where they expect betrayal and are a might makes right more than purely evil race, which frankly is understandable for the broken husk of a mind they all have. Like of course the orc is gonna betray you they expect you to betray them if they don't do it first

and yes fantasy races should be more nuanced, I really hate what most people do with fantasy races, elves are all stoic or assholes, orcs are pure evil or just misunderstood, dwarves are basically the drunk blacksmith all the time, it really gets quite tiresome.

Also notice that most races are basically humans with one key featured change orcs with pig noses, dwarves small humans, elves sharp ears, hobbits big feet, and small stature, etc,
where are the ents, dryads, fairies, and most Moster races?
hell the closest shakeup in high fantasy came from japan with reincarnated slime and goblin slayer

[Luminosophy]

I think this is why I found myself just preferring fantasy cultures over whole new races, because introducing new ones often just ends up with a much worse trope in the end: "Humans are boring, physically incapable and stupid", while still being played off as like "well they're like, super hard working, so that makes up for having zero capability when faced with the superhero-esque feats of their co-inhabitants". As if non-humans are incapable of having the same kind of grit.

And tacking on random horns and funny ears on otherwise plainly human bodies just doesn't really excite my imagination nor immerse me in this whole new race. May as well just paint their skin blue and call it a day, it's less work to draw them.

[Aims]

And why can't we diversify past Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Halflings, and Humans? There are other fantasy races.

You can make your story as diverse as you want, you can even make up your own races/species.
For example, both my stories have species/races/fantastical creatures that I either made up or reinvented from the classical stuff.
Just go wild...

[jensrichard77]

@jensrichard77 and I are working together on a project that uses some known fantasy races, and some new ones to add a twist to our story

Indeed we are.
Elves are the lesser here and Goblins are only evil when controlled by an Goblin Shaman.
They all try to live in harmony.

Togeter with Rabbits, Wolves, and Foxes.

You are going to love this take on the classic in a new way.

And soon. The entire Tapas will know the name

Bunneh The Rabbit

[indagold]

You know not every story has to be a deep gritty twist on tropes that have intense meta narratives about moral and ethical implications of letting fairies do more than just fart healing glitter.

[darkone4587]

The prevalence of the Elves and Dwarves thing is mostly because their easy for an audience to accept because they are everywhere thanks to their popularity due to Tolken.
Now the whole race of hats thing is up to the individual writer. A lot of writers love using them as shorthand for various things, like using Elves as either nature lovers or smug rich types while Dwarves are often used as an industrial underclass.
Basically it's just easier so people use them all the time. Not saying it's a good thing, but it really just shows what happens when something reaches into the depths of the popular lexicon.

[rajillustration]

I think it really depends on how good the author is. A great fantasy author will make every race full of a lot of different nuances, dialects, and history so there is no hats like you mentioned. Also, they'll make sure that their fantasy races aren't just...our own human races but with a different name. A less experienced writer, however, will stick to old tropes that exist partially because there was a time when it was really hard to write about race directly, so Sci fi and Fantasy was a way to explore racism in a way people would read. We don't need to do this anymore, however. It's 2020.

[DiegoPalacios]

Gotta second @indagold here , not every fantasy story needs to be a "medieval Zootopia". Of course, it a story want to explore racism, cool, but is not an obligation.

Now, when it comes to choice of fantasy races for your world, what works may vary:

For example, in the case of parodies or deconstructions, keeping the classic fantasy races can work because people`s familiarity with them helps the story.

But when you want to create a unique world, yours will not stand out if it looks exactly like the others.

[Darth_Biomech]

Why can't there be more nuisance in Fantasy Races? Isn't that more interesting than what has previously been done? And why can't we diversify past Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Halflings, and Humans? There are other fantasy races.

Fantasy, despite it's name, is one of the most formulaic genres out there. Weird, huh? There's long list of "shoulds" for fantasy settings. So the answer is "there can be, but nobody cares enough to strife from the cookie-cuter Tolkien-DnD regurgitated copypasta"

[DukeOfOool]

The DnD-LOTR-copypasta genre, also known standart Isekai setting, is mostly boring, but can be cool and interesting if executed well. But as most athors use them in order to NOT do worldbuilding it get's boring real fast. If executed well these standart races are unique enough. It's mostly a worldbuilding problem.

For example dwarfes: Even if they're your standart mountain digging, beer drinking, stronghold building, armor smithing dwofs, giving them a unique pantheon of gods and believes/ unique architecture/ distinct look and funny little details can bring them to live.

The reason most of these races feel slapped on is because the author did indeed just slap then onto the story without any thought. I don't think something can be truly overdone, as the art of reimagination and redrawing is to change, but always come back to it's roots. Giving life to the story through detail.

I know I mostly ranted about storytelling not races, but I think nothing can be really wrong with simple ideas like those stereotypes( of fantasy races). It's how the author uses them.

[Legendofgenii]

I think this with computer games too. I don't like it when they stereotype the races - so an Orc would be a heavy, an Elf an archer or a dwarf wielding an axe - and usually a skinny pale character as a mage. Lol!

In my comic I am trying to use (not really new) different races. The main character is a Siren (Half human/Half bird) and I also have Aamami (Half Human/Half Rabbit) and the Gorn (Humanoid Gorillas). I don't think I'll feature elves, dwarves or Orcs, but there will be humans.

[GesuGesu]

Kobolds.

[abcde]

I think you meant 'nuance'?

IIRC, Tolkien struggled with the concepts of Orcs being inherently evil as that raises a lot of questions especially about nature vs nurture. If an orc is born evil, would they change if they're brought up in a kind environment? If they are incapable of being good, wouldn't that mean their villainy should be forgiven since they literally cannot go against their nature?

Easiest answer would be that creativity takes a lot of effort. When people realize how daunting the undertaking is, they default back to Tolkien's established template. Easy peasy! Sad but that's how it is.

[Snickerdoodles]

That's some really nice art. Where is it from?

[Zaboem]

I think my favorite fantasy race is the Shidhe from the Senzar roleplaying game. Shidhe are a fae species (as the name implies) which are descended from nature spirits. The neat aspect of the Shidhe is how their bodies are individualistic. A specific character might be six inches tall with fairy wings or be a seven foot tall scarecrow. The player chooses the Shidhe's shape. The Shidhe have infiltrated most of the other races to the extent that they have no culture of their own.

P.S.: I just realized that this discussion is basically Interspecies Reviewer: The Thread.