Fantasy Authors: Haven't We Had Enough of Elves and Dwarves?

Since J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings exploded into popularity in the late 1960's, the epic fantasy genre (as it's come to be called) has become a franchise that publishers, book promoters, and booksellers alike all instantly recognize and trust as bankable. One can't help but notice this popular niche any time one walks into a bookstore. Certain fixtures - elves, dwarves, fierce dragons, medieval garb, glowing wands and staves, and wizards' robes and pointy hats - adorn nearly every cover (many of them painted by the much in-demand Darrell K. Sweet).

Alas, the stories and setting within these books often fall into familiar arcs, as well. If the true aim of fantasy has always been to provide escape - to help our minds to burst passed their accustomed bounds and, in the process, instill us with a sense of wonder - then it seems that a good majority of the books written in the genre have failed of that purpose.

Tolkien gave us the prototypical fantasy quest in The Fellowship of the Ring, with its odd (for the time) array of traveling companions: four halflings, a wizard, two fighting men, an elf and a dwarf. How many fantasy novels have arisen since to echo this scenario? Better yet, how many fantasy novels have you read that didn't revolve around at least two or three of these character/ racial types? Elves and Dwarves, once so mythical and wondrous, have become almost mundane fixtures in works that are supposed to thrill us with a plunge into the unknown.

Both are intriguing and even highly symbolic (if you wish to read these sorts of stories as allegories) races. Tolkien didn't invent them; they've maintained their presence in myths and fairy tales (particularly in Europe) for ages. He did, however, make a certain linguistic alteration, substituting the plural "elves" and "dwarves" for the proper "elfs" and "dwarfs"; and it's not too hard to see how nearly every fantasy writer in Tolkien's wake has adopted these literary conventions as well.

These two races, mind you, have a lot to tell us about ourselves. Elves typically embody our more aesthetic nature, our idealism, appreciation of artistic expression, and spiritual leanings. They are usually very aware and intuitive; we assume that they are more spiritually evolved than us. In reading about their history and origins, th connection that they have with some divine source (like the Undying Lands across the sea in Tolkien) we can sense some of our memory of the world of spirit that we left behind as we were born into this world.

Dwarves, on the other hand, are very earth-bound. They are as grounded as any race can be, living, literally, in the ground and devoting themselves to working with the most dense and earthy of substances: rock, dirt, roots, precious stones. Between these two races, then, we can sense our highest spiritual ideals while still keeping our feet firmly rooted to the ground.

They lose their power to inspire, however, when they become overly familiar. And with a slew of fantasy series and role-playing games built up around them, this is certainly the case today. Let's ask our modern fantasy writers to thrill us again by embodying the ancient, mythic truths in new forms - and give the elves and dwarves a rest.