Long living Elves don’t make sense to me

[Amok]

imagine the saggy ballsacks on old elves... they probably use that shit as flails

 

[RootBeerBert]

in what sort of dragon ball world are you putting elves into exactly? also their long lived trope and everythign related to it comes from Tolkien himself, so go blame him for making the staple of fantasy book elves, i'm sure he'll listen your rant about how they should all be super saiyan god blue level of power after living so long because yes while he's inside his grave

Who said anything about dbz? This is just something that confuses me in all fantasy stories with elves. This also isn’t something I’m angry or passionate about that makes me want to blame someone over, just something I’m curious about.

 

[AliceShiki]

Aren't elves often put as the race with the best magical capabilities and whatnot?

The other people in this thread are right. At some point your physical condition peaks. You can't overcome the limitations of your body and fighting techniques have a ceiling that you'll reach at some point.

If you then add magic to the equation and put no real ceiling on it though, then the long-lived race will naturally be stronger on this end~

 

[Ninini]

Fuck elves, but not in the sexual way, they are filthy, horny beast

 

[Anon2024]

The primary purpose of elves in fiction is for lewding.

They live long lives to fulfill that purpose, either by orcs, humans, werewolves, maybe vampires… and certain brain functions have to be limited to prevent trauma.

that is all for today.

 

[aattss]

Who said anything about dbz? This is just something that confuses me in all fantasy stories with elves. This also isn’t something I’m angry or passionate about that makes me want to blame someone over, just something I’m curious about.

I think they were referring to power scaling, with how in stuff like shonen or power fantasy stuff there is no limit to how powerful someone can get, so the difference between a mook and an OP person of the same age is that the mook is slower at power growth rather than missing some sort of trait that's necessary to become OP and if the mook had infinite time their power would continue to increase with no limit until it reached that of the OP person.

 

[T.K._Paradox]

Elves who live hundreds of years are nonsensical to me because of how overpowered they should be but aren’t. Like an Elf who’s been training for hundreds of years but loses or only matches up to someone who’s only been training for few does not make sense to me. I could understand if long living Elves weren’t talented (something I plan for my story) but when they’re portrayed as geniuses it makes even less sense. Any thoughts?

Even if you are a highly trained fighter, you may have the experience in training duals and such.

Compared to someone that is has been training for only a few months or years, but in life or death experience.

As that opponent in question may just be able to be just that much more physically superior.

Or it perhaps the opponent manages to leverage the elves weaknesses against them.

 

[longer]

Even if you are a highly trained fighter, you may have the experience in training duals and such.

Compared to someone that is has been training for only a few months or years, but in life or death experience.

As that opponent in question may just be able to be just that much more physically superior.

Or it perhaps the opponent manages to leverage the elves weaknesses against them.

Isn't there a thing in swordfigthing where untrained fighters sometimes beat masters because no one knows what to expect from them

 

[T.K._Paradox]

Isn't there a thing in swordfigthing where untrained fighters sometimes beat masters because no one knows what to expect from them

Yes actually, because they tend to be more unpredictable.

The thing about becoming a renowned swordsman people tend to want to study underneath and learn how to preform and therefore counter your moves.

Compared to some amateur that has not definite swordsmanship at that point and is probably still feeling out his style.

 

[NotaNuffian]

Yes actually, because they tend to be more unpredictable.

The thing about becoming a renowned swordsman people tend to want to study underneath and learn how to preform and therefore counter your moves.

Compared to some amateur that has not definite swordsmanship at that point and is probably still feeling out his style.

It reminded me of a story where two women partaking in a sword duel to the death for a man, lucky bastard.

One is the housewife who had never touched a sword until the duel while the other woman (the mistress) had practice before.

The housewife won in the end because she went ham and was fearless even when grievously wounded.

"It is not about the size of the dog in the fight, it is about the size of the fight in the dog."

 

[Ai-chan]

Elves who live hundreds of years are nonsensical to me because of how overpowered they should be but aren’t. Like an Elf who’s been training for hundreds of years but loses or only matches up to someone who’s only been training for few does not make sense to me. I could understand if long living Elves weren’t talented (something I plan for my story) but when they’re portrayed as geniuses it makes even less sense. Any thoughts?

Think of Brady, he's an elf. He has lived 38 years. He has not achieved anything of note, doesn't really have any ambition and lives life by the day.

Compare him to Cajones, he's a gnome. He has only lived 21 years. He is already the CEO of a small startup that is under negotiation to be bought by a much larger corporation for the price of 40 million dollars. He is determined to succeed because he has Huntington Disease, which means he will lost his intellect much earlier than everyone else and live like a vegetable for the rest of his life.

When you have a long life, you feel like everyday is just another day. You have no aspiration for what you want to do and you have no motivation to change yourself. You have the belief that, "Meh, why must I do anything today? There's still tomorrow." And this will repeat day after day. You do not feel like you should change and at some point you just stop trying to be better.

Ai-chan would know because Ai-chan has been an elf for over half a century, before Ai-chan was killed in a war against a fanatical human cult.

 

[UnknownSaint171]

Elves who live hundreds of years are nonsensical to me because of how overpowered they should be but aren’t. Like an Elf who’s been training for hundreds of years but loses or only matches up to someone who’s only been training for few does not make sense to me. I could understand if long living Elves weren’t talented (something I plan for my story) but when they’re portrayed as geniuses it makes even less sense. Any thoughts?

Elves have high magic talent and long life spans but due to that they have low production (Births)
It's depicted differently in Novels depending on Genre, but in Medieval novels very short life spans...
Look at Emperor Domination Spirit Race for example. Highly Talented but flaws too

 

[AryaX]

Not only it takes effort to acquire new skills, knowlege, ability, it also take continuing effort to hold on to what you've already gained...

The more you have, the more time you have to allocate to maintaining what you've got, lest it all waste away...

And no matter how long you live, there is only so many hours in a day...

 

[newage23]

It would make sense if the world view was more perfect, but still most of the stories portray elves as noble, artistic and arrogant thus making them weaker than short lived species

 

[Comiak]

There's also the natural trade between age and physique. For an elf to last THAT long of a life would require them to have a body that's low maintenance and sustains on very little, similar to plants. Most of them look like skin-wrapped skeletons because of this, which is why you see them usually depicted with bows and arrows and other discreet weaponry that doesn't need anything above 5 STR to operate.

Mfs are tree huggers because anything harder than a light gust of wind would render their eleventy-hundred years of life, experience, and knowledge, moot in a single swipe.

Bows require a lot of strength to use, games have it backwards. Someone with 5 STR will not be able to even shoot a 15 pound draw weight bow let alone warbows that are over 100 pounds.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

After seeing this thread a second time, I got a random thought. Ultra-alpha chad as fuck Elves.

After centuries of peaking at the martial arts they do away with the redundancy and create fantasy MMA. Now they have an entire society of Connor McGregor's and Valentina Shevchenko that can literally cast fist. The entire world is filled with half-elf spawn after they cucked the entirety of existence. Bringing about more of the species/races that can stay with them longer and further avoid mental atrophy from the loneliness.

 

[Shard]

Seconding the point about bows. They really do require a hell of a lot of strength to use, to the point where archers can be identified by the way their skeletons are deformed from the continual strain they put themselves through. Anyways, on to the point of the thread... It is actually possible to do elves very well considering their age, but most tend to use them as a plot device to make their other races look how they want. Consider the aspect of total skills learned, for example. Sure, you might hit the physical peak of swordsmanship, but why not train in daggers, spears, throwing knives, spiked armor, bladed shields, etc? If your world has magic as well, why not train in magic and combine that with physical combat? A master spearman is bad enough, but add in haste, sudden gusts of wind, surprise fireballs, illusions, random gravity fluctuations/pure force attacks... Suddenly that scrawny little ancient elf is a horrifying force in combat.

If your average elf is half as intelligent as a human, and trains half as hard, it doesn't matter much if they have been around for a thousand years, even their relaxed training and poor learning will result in far more skills than a human simply due to the sheer amount of time. And perhaps they don't just train to the peak that most experts do, but instead spend time training their reflexes and subconscious to react to vast numbers of situations without having to focus on it. Likewise, the amount of time they could spend training would allow them to find ways to utilize odd combinations of weapons that are simply too tricky for normal use.

The standard elves most stories use, however, are pretty silly, in my opinion. Basically they shouldn't even be around anymore most of the time, as races that breed faster can match or exceed their skill, meaning they should have been out-competed long ago.

Anyway, enough tired rambling from me, hopefully there is something useful for folks in the mess I wrote.