>why use the name if they're going to be completely different?

Am I the only one that has problems understanding what OP is about?

>>53868411
As far as I parsed it, OP is complaining about people making/naming fantasy races after existing races/mythologies if they're going to be wildly different than the race they're named after.

>>53868449
Well nobody wants to acknowledge mermaids were just manatees, so clearly nobody cares about external consistency.

>>53868310
No fuck you.

Tolkiens elves has a lot of do with Alver, not Elfes.
Its like you fail basic epistemology

>>53868449
I thought it was the other way around?

>>53868575
Basic epistemology is an inherent human brain function, anon.

>>53868449

no, OP was complaining about people complaining about people naming fantasy races after etc. etc.

also i'm wondering what it would take for me to take that infographic seriously, let alone be able to understand it. like maybe being tied in a chair for a few weeks and fed an IV drip of mild acid while OP screams aloud from the Silmarillion over and over.

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>>53868310
though the question remains, albeit not in its rethoric form: why do people use the name elves or orcs to refer to things that are wildly different?

what are the elven or orcish aspects that are in the end mantained to connect them to the name in the first place? can we round up a maximum common denominator of what is an elf, orc and dwarf through all the representations we have?

>>53868720
>Standard Elf Traits: Pointy eared, arrogant, use bows. Often divided between mountain dwelling high elves, and forest dwelling wood elves.

>Standard Orc Traits: Ugly, warlike, hate elves, dislike humans.

>Standard Dwarf Traits: Short, bearded, like gold, good at mining.

Now, these aren't required. But these are pretty much what you can expect.

>>53868798
>mountain dwelling high elves
What.
>hate elves
I see them fighting against dwarves more often.

>>53868798
>Now, these aren't required.
you see, this is my problem: I was asking which are the characteristics that are ALWAYS found.

I understand the difficulty in taxonomy often falls in attempting to group origins on top of similarities, which may create inconsistencies; but considering we can't reliably analyse the origins of the memetic characteristics like we could with genetic ones, definitions that only consider similarities may be possible, I think.

>>53868720
>elf: humanoid, pointy ears, thin proportions, predisposition to the mystical
>orc: humanoid, brutish in either looks, ways or ends
>dwarf: humanoid, thick proportions

>>53868720
Elves: Tall and pointy-eared
Orcs: Big and Green
Dwarves: Short and Bearded


The only thing that connects the usage of these racial terms is the phenotypes they represent.

>>53868901
Probably just pointed ears, ugly, and short respectively.

(This does involve those races like Dwemer who are called Dwarves being acknowledged as having inaccurate names.)

>>53868869
Seriously, I think it's based on places like Rivendell.

>>53868945
>brutish in either looks, ways or ends
at first i thought you wrote "british"

and i didn't disagree

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>>53868798
>>53868945
>>53868968
>Standard Orc Traits: Ugly, warlike, hate elves, dislike humans.
>orc: humanoid, brutish in either looks, ways or ends
>Orcs: Big and Green

>tfw no one likes porcine orcs any more

>>53869666
Nah, I'd include porcine orcs as ugly. It's human-faced chauvenism.