History Main / CantArguewithElves

* Hilariously subverted in ''TalesOfMU''. The elves are immortal, wise, good at EVERYTHING and generally peaceful, but also arrogant as all get out and often absolutely batshit insane. They resent the weariness of their too-perfect lives and usually end up killing themselves. The major half-elf character in the story hates her heritage and everything to do with it.

*** They had a thousand-year technological headstart, it's not something that humans can really blame them for.

Strangely, the humans are not allowed to take offense, demand politeness, defend themselves or -- heaven forbid -- mock the elves right back. If anyone tries, the elf will sniff disdainfully and utterly destroy the human's argument, proving the elves right yet again. When you have entire species of [[MarySue Mary Sues]], it is this trope.

* The ''LordOfTheRings'' are edging on this. While the elves and some non-elven characters act like this, there are also many hints that the elves are just bigots who can't handle being outshined by humans.

* The movie ''LordOfTheRings'' could have named this trope, portraying Elves as uber-perfect while humans are crap.
** Especially during Elrond's "I was there when the strength of men failed" speech. In which he [[SelectiveObliviousness does not note]] that he could have [[spoiler:shot Isildur in the leg and]] thrown the ring into the volcano himself. Seems the strength of Elves failed, too.

Strangely, the humans are not allowed to take offense, demand politeness, defend themselves or -- heaven forbid -- mock the elves right back. If anyone tries, the elf will sniff disdainfully and utterly destroy the human's argument, proving the elves right yet again.

* In ''{{Thundercats 2011}}'' this is thoroughly [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] with one grovelling LizardFolk prisoner stuck in the [[StockPunishment stockades]], who fearfully cautions his more [[DefiantToTheEnd defiant]] compatriot that they'll be killed for their defiance when the latter begins to loudly ''[[DiscussedTrope discuss]]'' this trope in front of young {{Catfolk}} Prince Lion-O, a NobleBigot raised on the idea that CatsAreSuperior. Both curious and something of a CulturalRebel himself, Lion-O asks the more aggressive Lizard to elaborate on his issues with the Cats. The Lizard launches into a full-blown MotiveRant[=/=]ScrewYouElves speech bitterly ranting about the Cats systematic monopolization of resources while his people go hungry. [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] in that Lion-O [[actually]] ''listens'', and later [[PleaseSpareHimMyLiege convinces his father]] to free them.

[[folder: Western Animation]]
* In ''{{Thundercats 2011}}'' this is thoroughly [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] with one grovelling LizardFolk prisoner stuck in the [[StockPunishment stockades]], who fearfully cautions his more [[DefiantToTheEnd defiant]] compatriot that they'll be killed for their defiance when the latter begins to loudly ''[[DiscussedTrope discuss]]'' this trope in front of young {{Catfolk}} Prince Lion-O, a NobleBigot raised on the idea that CatsAreSuperior. Both curious and something of a CulturalRebel himself, Lion-O asks the more aggressive Lizard to elaborate on his issues with the Cats. The Lizard launches into a full-blown MotiveRant[=/=]ScrewYouElves speech bitterly ranting about the Cats systematic monopolization of resources while his people go hungry. [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] in that Lion-O [[actually]] ''listens'', and later [[PleaseSpareHimMyLiege convinces his father]] to free them.

* Sort of lampshaded in ''TheObsidianTrilogy'' by MercedesLackey and James Mallory. The first human protagonist, Kellen, does quickly come to admire elves and elven culture, and these elves are fairly varied and polite and, well, ''human'', as elves go. He does take minor offense when an older elf telling him some ancient history implies that humans did something or other because it's a natural human failing. A later human protagonist on the same side flatly dislikes elves for their formality and their absolute perfectionist attitude, though since they're all fighting a war he tries to keep it under wraps. It's actually a saying in that 'verse that you can't win an argument with elves, since they'll just change the subject.

** Minbari are hardly perfect but they only seem to have ''interesting'' vices. They commit extravagant acts of violence but none of their CrystalSpiresAndTogas cities seem to have problems with smog, homeless, or random muggings. As far as we can perceive anyway...
** Warrior caste Minbari seem to be more [[TheBully oafish]] then being examples of this trope. Shakiri is hardly InHarmonyWithNature or any other virtue. Neroon is mainly a loudmouth but he does have courage and combat skill. Some Religious caste Minbari may be closer to this trope though Delenn and Lennier who are the main ones seen, are amiable enough and get along with humans well. Worker caste are almost never seen. This is appropriate at the high political level B5 takes place-but it also implies that Minbari are CantArgueWithElves ''with each other''.

* While not that explicit, the Nox from ''StargateSG1'' seem to display this type of behaviour. A super advanced race of peaceful tree huggers who live in harmony with the environment: absolutely fine in and of itself. But despite their few appearances they display an irritating habit of judging people for perfectly reasonable behaviour. While this does irritate the humans a little, they tend to act as if the Nox are almost right to virtually condemn them for having the temerity to want to live and have no choice but to be prepared to fight to do so. Giving the glaring fact that humans ''don't have'' the Nox's powers of invisibility and resurrection.

* While not that explicit, the Nox from ''StargateSG1'' seem to display this type of behaviour. A super advanced race of peaceful tree huggers who live in harmony with the environment: absolutely fine in and of itself. But despite their few appearances they display an irritating habit of judging people for perfectly reasonable behaviour. While this does irritate the humans a little, they tend to act as if the Nox are almost right to virtually condemn them for having the temerity to want to live and have no choice but to be prepared to fight to do so.

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->''"The name's Jim Raynor, pal. And I won't be talked down to by '''anyone''', not even a Protoss."''
--> ''StarCraft'' finally says what we'd all been thinking

[[OurElvesAreBetter Elves are better]]. We all know that. They are also verbose about it and in a most poetical, lofty, insulting way.

->"I don't understand your fixation with the yellow metal (for elves, it falls from the sky in abundance)."
->"The trees sing to me, mortals (and of course, not to you)."
->"I see, you are tired. You tire easily (we, more dignified, prefer a heat stroke to breaking a sweat)."

Now, in some works there seems to be a trope that, not only do magical races [[CulturalPosturing rub in their superiority]] directly or subtly, the humans ''never take any offense, demand politeness, defend themselves or mock the other back.'' Real humans would do that and we would mean it. The crowd who consort with magical races even more so. Nobles, kings and war lords would call off a meeting if they felt like it – or risk a war for insults to their honour.

Sometimes the trope is somewhat justified because the very-special-race is more powerful or the humans are already in a pinch but if they thought about it: When the hordes of the EvilOverlord are already camping in the human's lawn, how long will it take until they reach the elves?

This also gets parodied and averted a lot and [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]] will never accept insults, [[ElvesVSDwarves especially not from elves]].

This is when an entire species has the OmniscientMoralityLicense. Things get even worse when [[TheWesley the author agrees with them]]. Contrast with ScrewYouElves, when you can argue with them.
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'''Examples:'''

* The ''Memory, Sorrow and Thorn'' books by Tad Williams. The Sithi can't help coming up with subtle put downs, condescending behavior and reproaches about old injustices done to them by ancestors who have been dead for centuries and their highbred human allies never pay back in their coin.
* Occasionally happened in ''LordOfTheRings''. They were a bit more jackass-ish in ''The Silmarillion'' even though they had less cause to be proud of themselves.
* The Elves of the ''InheritanceCycle'' are [[strike:rather like this]] ''FREAKING MADE OUT OF THIS TROPE''. And [[WriterOnBoard none of the characters ever call them out on this]].
* The more recent [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] Vulcans do this too, often to their direct (human) superiors. Guess what would happen in real life. Admittedly, even Spock got a good line in once in a while:
---> '''Spock''': They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous...in every way, splendid examples of ''homo sapiens'', the very flower of humanity. I found them quite refreshing.
---> '''Kirk''': I'm not sure, but I think we've been insulted.
---> '''[=McCoy=]''': I'm sure.
* Vaarsuvius in The ''OrderOfTheStick'' probably counts - he/she snarks wonderfully verbosely. Although mostly at [[JerkAss Belkar]], and that seems reasonable enough. Possibly because Belkar's kind of a huge racist himself.
** Vaarsuvius' arrogance is actually more to do with being a wizard than being an elf, and more due to a general personality clash between Belkar and Vaarsuvius than anything else. (S)he ''is'' wonderfully verbose about it, though...
* In the ''Tairen Soul'' books the Fey are so self-righteous and brash, that the "evil/stupid" humans are on the verge of cancelling their alliance. The strange thing is: The author is completely with the Fey on that. They are a race of {{Mary Sue}}s and the author seems to think it is their natural right to be arrogant. The "good" humans are the ones who don't take offence at being treated with condescension.
* Though he doesn't mean to, Cairne Bloodhoof (of ''WorldOfWarcraft''), leader of the tauren, tends to treat humans, dwarves, and gnomes the way he would treat a child, because he regards these races as immature. In his defense, Cairne himself is ''really'' old, characters with more maturity are hard to find, and all the smaller races must seem child-sized to him. But a lot of his chidling comes from the fact that those races aren't as spiritual as the Tauren.
** It should also be noted that humans, dwarves, and gnomes are his ''racial enemies,'' the Tauren being a member of the Horde. This is more a manifestation of friction than a cause of it.
* The Houyhnhnms of ''GulliversTravels'' are about as bad as it gets. There is some debate over whether Swift intended them as the bunch of pricks that they are.
* The elves of the ArtemisFowl series constantly remark upon their superiority to humans (whom they refer to as [[UnfortunateImplications "mud people"]]). At the same time, they are shown somewhat broadening this characterization after first being tricked by DiabolicalMastermind Artemis, and then seeing good in humans following Artemis' HeelFaceTurn.
** And seeing how their own people can be raging maniacal planet destroying psychopaths. Bit hard to take the high ground after that with a straight face (not that they don't incessently).
* The Minbari of BabylonFive have a bit of this trope going. It's not universal--they get shown up for hypocrisy and closed-mindedness often enough--but with the exception of occasional throwaway villains, nobody ever seems to truly hold them responsible for ''waging a war of extermination against a vastly weaker species''. It's especially {{Egregious}} when we discover the reason they stopped was [[spoiler:their discovery of Minbari souls in human bodies]]--not because, y'know, they were about to commit genocide.
* Played utterly and completely straight in ''ElfQuest''... until the main tribe meets ''another'' race of elves who are taller, purer, older and more magical. And arrogant to boot.

'''Parodies and aversions:'''

* Thief from ''[[EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theatre]]'' is certainly pretentious enough. But all of the Light Warriors are jerks. And on [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2006/04/04/episode-681-of-civilizations/ this page]], Thief's arrogance is ''gloriously'' shot down.
* Justified and averted in Terry Pratchett's ''[[{{Discworld}} Lords and Ladies]]'', though. The elves cast a glamour to make people think they're wonderful, but if someone breaks through that then they're usually downright pissed off.
* In ''{{Shadowrun}}'' any magical creature was considered a lesser being in Japan because of national xenophobia. Meanwhile, back in the States, humans get plastic surgery to look like elves, and act haughty and arrogant enough to embarrass even the real elves.
* In the book "The Wizard, the Witch, and Two Girls From Jersey", the main characters are annoyed by the snooty Sylvan elves and their ridiculously long-winded poetry. By contrast, the Kiblar elves (basically {{Hobbits}} who are the Sylvan elves' servants) are humble and down-to-earth. The protagonists shame the Sylvan elves into helping them by asking if they're not as brave as the Kiblar elf who is on their quest.
* Jon from ''ErrantStory'' has mocked back more than once.
** Hell, recently he even shot one in the gut with his revolver while talking him down. Apparently Elven Plate Armor is not bulletproof.
* Averted so hard in Dwarf Fortress. They are routinely killed, drowned, burned, frozen, starved, fed to beasts, dropped from a great height, robbed and generally abused that no one cares anymore. And we like it that way.
* Jim Raynor from {{Starcraft}} doesn't hesitate to get up in the face of a Protoss who's mocking his offer of help in the face of a Zerg invasion, pal.
* In [[BaldursGate Baldur's Gate]]. Some Elven [=NPCs=] have the unfortunate tendency to come off as snobbish wankers, and the player (or, in his place, many of your party members) does indeed get the option of telling them where to stick it. The game does not punish you for this.
** Well, except for [[TheEeyore Xan]]. But really, who'd want to argue with ''him''?
* The Eldar in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' are quite openly disdainful of the incompetent Mon-Keigh of the Imperium of Man. Then again, they're openly disdainful of anything that isn't an Eldar; and everything else is equally disdainful back. And in 40K, 'disdain' usually translates to 'open fire'.
** Also done in ''Warhammer Fantasy'', though less extremely. Human characters have explicitly pointed out that the arrogant, self-superior elves are on the way to extinction and 'then all that remains shall be left for Man'. Also note the recent Nemesis Crown campaign, which involved dwarfs violating human territorial sovereignty to recover an artifact. They respond to all human inquiries with 'You're not a dwarf. You wouldn't understand. Stay out of our way.'. Unsurprisingly, the humans mustered an army to throw the dwarfs out. Except it turned that the dwarfs were right all along, the humans admitted they were wrong, and the trope was played straight. Even though the dwarfs only got the artifact because the humans turned around and helped them. The campaign is now DisContinuity.
* In the webcomic ''Dumnestor's Heroes'', one of the main characters is an elf who's been turned into a human. So far, he's been pretty useless to have around, and the other characters make fun of OurElvesAreBetter to his face.
* Somewhat justified in the ''{{Dragaera}}'' series; while Dragaerans do see themselves as superior to humans, humans who challenge this tend to have dramatically reduced life expectancies. Vlad Taltos has a bad habit of pushing the envelope as far as it will go.
* Completely averted in the ''Riftwar'' series where the elves are humble, helpful and completely on the side of the good guys. Not even the Dark Elves use this trope because, while they have nothing but disdain for humans, they prefer to demonstrate this disdain with pointy objects rather than a sharp wit.
** And further subverting the usual depiction of elves: ''[[ElvesVSDwarves they get along just fine with dwarfes]]''. Even the dark elves show respect for their dwarven enemies (in a WorthyOpponent kind of way).
* The sidhe in ''[[TheWorldOfDarkness Changeling: the Dreaming]]''. The fact that their return from Arcadia knocked over hundreds of years of commoner fae-established rule and set up a new "divine right of kings" was ''not'' met with loving acceptance. Even after the Accordance War was settled (yes, there was a ''war'' over the sidhe), commoner groups still look at "the pointy-eared freaks" funny, and the game makes it clear that just because a sidhe has ''a'' sense ''of'' rule, that doesn't mean he or she has ''the'' sense ''to'' rule.
* [[http://www.geneticanomaly.com/RPG-Motivational/slides/elves.html This demotivator]].
* The aliens in ''PlanNineFromOuterSpace'' treat humans with disdain, despite trying to make friends with them before the movie begins. This leads them to conclude that in order to get the humans' attention, they'll have to create zombies. Undoubtedly a ''highly'' advanced race, although the humans aren't particularly bright either. You certainly can't argue with the aliens, but mostly just because they have no debating skills.
--> "Now just hold on a minute!"
--> "No, ''you'' hold on!"
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This is when an entire species has the OmniscientMoralityLicense. Things get even worse when [[TheWesley the author agrees with them]].

Sometimes the trope is somewhat justified because the very-special-race is more powerful or the humans are already in a pinch but if they thought about it: When the hordes of the EvilOverlord are already camping in the human's foreyard, how long will it take until they reach the elves?

* Thief from ''[[EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theatre]]'' is certainly pretentious enough. But all of the Light Warriors are jerks. And on [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=060404 this page]], Thief's arrogance is ''gloriously'' shot down.

* The Minbari of BabylonFive have a bit of this trope going. It's not universal--they get shown up for hypocrisy and closed-mindedness often enough--but with the exception of occasional throwaway villains, nobody ever seems to truly hold them responsible for ''waging a war of extermination against a vastly weaker species''. It's especially {{Egregious}} when we discover the reason they stopped was [[spoiler:their discovery of Minbari souls in human bodies]]--not because, y'know, they were about to commit genocide. ThisTroper wants to show them DoctorWho and then tell them, "YOU WOULD MAKE A GOOD DALEK."

* The Elves of the ''InheritanceTrilogy'' are [[strike:rather like this]] ''FREAKING MADE OUT OF THIS TROPE''. And [[WriterOnBoard none of the characters ever call them out on this]].

* The Minbari of BabylonFive have a bit of this trope going. It's not universal--they get shown up for hypocrisy and closed-mindedness often enough--but with the exception of occasional throwaway villains, nobody ever seems to truly hold them responsible for ''waging a war of extermination against a vastly weaker species''. It's especially {{Egregious}} when we discover the reason they stopped was [[spoiler:their discovery of Minbari souls in human bodies]]--not because, y'know, they were about to commit genocide.

* The Minbari have a bit of this trope going. It's not universal--they get shown up for hypocrisy and closed-mindedness often enough--but with the exception of occasional throwaway villains, nobody ever seems to truly hold them responsible for ''waging a war of extermination against a vastly weaker species''. It's especially {{Egregious}} when we discover the reason they stopped was [[spoiler:their discovery of Minbari souls in human bodies]]--not because, y'know, they were about to commit genocide.

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Now, in some works there seems to be a trope that, not only do magical races [[CulturalPosturing rub in their superiority]] directly or subtly, the humans ''never take any offense, demand politeness, defend themselves or mock the other back.'' Real humans would do that and we would mean it. The crowd who consort with magical races even more so. Nobles, kings and war lords would call off a meeting if they felt like it – or risk a war for insults to their honour.