> Barksism is a direct affront to us freedom loving,
> individualistic and free-market trolls, which is why we consume --
Elves are the finest free-marketeers in Glorantha! Why, after all, everything in an elven "market" is for free! ;-)
I think James makes some salient points, hidden in among his usual sparkling wit. ;-) To wit, elves aren't just another species of plant life, ready to backstab for their own little niche. Rather, they're literally anthopomorphisms of the forest's collective sense of self, and hence have a wider notion of "self-interest". Whether you think of this in mythic, or in evolutionary terms, or whatever, is a matter of taste, really.
> I'd side with you on the Elves sharing Human emotions, though. The vogue
> seemes to be that all non-Human societies are pretty darn alien,
> and that Elves wouldn't share human emotions.
I think this is true of all the (major, at least) Elder races; they just possess said emotions in considerably different quantities. This makes them alien enough to be going on with, for my money. Who can really truly relate to someone/thing who's (nearly) all Hunger and Cruelty, Raionalist Reductionism, or Fuzzy Feel-Good Communitarianism? With a dash of other emotions on the side, granted, especially in "imperfect" specimens.
> No more! I say it's time the Elves got a bad name, too. Buncha
> baby-mulching commie thugs. ;) More seriously, that it was recognized that
> Elves are just as "different" -- and as "bad" if you happen to be a Human
> in Glorantha -- as a troll or a dwarf. Elves do bad stuff to Humans, too.
Yup. I suspect that many Gloranthans _do_ have a more positive view of elves than the others, though. That's until they try to chop the local elf forest down for wood, or for farmland, or otherwise come into ecological conflict with them, whereupon they have a nice little war of racial extermination. The Dara Happan and Maslo situations both exhibit this "variable" quality in aldryami/human relations neatly. Humans haven't the same record of either co-operation or mutual annihilation with other races.
Not in a green suit,
Alex.
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