This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Do the elves in 8-Bit Theater count?
- I'm gonna say no.
Ununnilium: Okay, The Sandman is awesome, but IMHO, it's way overstating it to say that it brought the trope back all by itself.
Semi-Known Troper: Removed the Elder Scrolls and Warhammer examples as they are evil Tolkien Style elves, rather than actual faires.
Skazka: The fairy queen in Tam Lin didn't exactly banish him to a horrible fate. She took him on as a lover. In some versions they were planning on making him their human tithe to hell, but it's quite possible he's just being a drama queen. Or that it's all some horrible scheme to get his hands on Janet as a replacement. Or the baby... :: sidesteps quietly into Wild Mass Guessing area ::
Zephid: Removed
- Who can forget "A Midsummer Night's Dream"? While those fairies aren't evil, they are definitely arrogant and manipulative. The normal fairies aren't too bad, but Oberon and Titania are masters of trickery. Making this...Oh, who cares. Something about a book.
Fast Eddie: Pulled too-long quote. Again. Please see Administrative Policy.
- Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.—Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
Various Things: Maybe shorten it by just including the first six lines? The line seven sentence works better in context in the novel than it would as part of a brief T Vtropes page quote, and the last bit is just an explicit restatement of what the first six lines imply. The first six lines are easily enough to get the gist of what bits of the quotation are relevant to this article.
...Or then again, I dunno, maybe I'm just clutching at straws in a vain effort to get one of my favourite Pratchett quotes onto the page in some form. ;)
This Irish troper would like to point out, for anyone thinking of changing the "Seelie and Unseelie Court" line in the article body back to including the word 'Gaelic,' that the idea of two courts has never figured in any of the fairy myths here. Irish fairies were far too mad to be that organised.
Man Without A Body: That was the Scots fairies. Scottish people are Gaelic, too.
Daibhid C: Okay, where do the SERRAted Edge Sidhe fit into this trope? As far as I can remember they were Tolkeinesque elves in racecars. A bit of a reference to them coming from an Otherworld, but nothing about them being inhuman beings whose motives we couldn't even guess at. (I could be wrong, I stopped reading when "banshee" was given the etymology "bane of the Sidhe".)
Nobodymuch: They're far more influenced by Emma Bull than Tolkein. They've got the Seelie and Unseelie courts, the Seelie ones steal children (but children they think are being neglected or abused) and they have a tendency to take on whatever characteristics ascribed to them in a Human song about them.
Mystery Man 23: About the D&D 4e example, lack of a good alignment isn't exactly unique to the fey. The vast majority of monsters in the Monster Manual are unaligned or evil, and in fact, the closest thing to a good alignment in the book is when it says a monster can be of "any" alignment.
Also, elves and eladrin are counted as fey, and since they're a player race, they could easily be of any alignment. In fact, to be technical, fey is considered an "origin", not a type. The types are animate, humanoid, beast, and magical beast. Hence, you can have a "fey humanoid".
Jesin: Umm, about the "idea of blue as a number" analogy, I would like to point out #0000FF. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Anon: Cleaned up the entry about A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Indian boy wasn't kidnapped - his mother was a mortal servant of Titania who died in childbirth "And for her sake do I rear up her boy, And for her sake I will not part with him."
Some Guy: I've overhauled the definition for the sake of brevity and clarity. Most of the information on the page I removed is far more appropriate for Useful Notes about The Fair Folk than it is for the regular definition. A brief history and description of narrative role is all that should be on the basic trope page.
Majin Gojira: Until such a page is created, I say we keep it around. This is a wiki afterall.
Some Guy: You do realize that the entire "page is created" process basically consists of going to The Fair Folk, copying in the information I deleted, reorganizing it so it looks coherent, and adding a The Fair Folk link to the main page, right?
Majin Gojira: Ah, but I am also quite lazy.
