Unclear Description: Our Elves Are Better

First time making a TRS thread, sorry if I mess anything up:

Our Elves Are Better was recently brought up in Image Pickin', as the current image does not portray snobby/better elves. However, the trope's scope was decided to be unclear on whether the trope is more "elves as a Superior Species" or "different types of elves and what they have in common", which is not helped by the long description that tackles both.

• Arguments for the former: The name says it all. Snobby, elitist elves are introduced in the first paragraph, well before it gets into common types and portrayals. The Playing With page (which, granted, is not always the most accurate) uses this assumption.
• This is an Our Monsters Are Different subtrope, which is largely about the latter, and the bulk of the description describes several types. As said in Square Peg Round Trope:
  Our Elves Are Better gets interpreted in different ways. One is focusing entirely on the "better" part, using it for Superior Species even if elves aren't involved at all. Another is that the title is literally about elves being portrayed as superior (or at least being smug toward everyone else), leading some tropers to think there is a more neutral Our Elves Are Different article out there somewhere (the Blue Rose article at one time linked to both Our Elves Are Better and Our Elves Are Different). Its own Playing With section describes the basic trope as "A race of different elves is superior to most inferior races." All of this ignores that the trope should simply be about there being different kinds of elves in fiction.
• There is a third option espoused by the laconic and playing with pages (and I guess the description): there are many types of elves, but they are still a superior species.

Looking at the discussion, it appears that this confusion has been going on for some time. The archived discussion (pre-TLP) is ambiguous as well.

That said, the IP discussion was tabled until someone could bring this to TRS, which didn't happen... until now. With 2548 wicks, square root of which is 50.47, I checked 51, using four criteria:

• Elves are superior: By "superior" I included both "they are objectively better" (eg. they are more intelligent, more cultured, more beautiful, better in a fight, etc) and "the belief that they are better, regardless if this is true".
• Different types/portrayals of elves: This is where entries that talk more in depth about the types and traits of elves go, regardless of whether or not they are "better". Some entries could be interpreted as being "better" (eg. saying the elves are "strong"), but without context on that I put them here. Some entries are also weak on traits (eg. just categorizing them as wood elf).
• Both: Entries that talk both about the types of elves and the superiority.
• Lacking context: Self-explanatory.

Wick check for Our Elves Are Better

Results:

• Superiority: 13/51: 25.5%
• Types: 21/51: 41.1%
• Both: 9/51, 17.1%
• ZCE: 8/51, 15.7%

This trope also has a well-used (500+) redirect as an Our Monsters Are Different subtrope, Our Elves Are Different. I did a crude wick check for it (15 wicks) as well.

Results: (EDIT: I missed one when I first posted so these have been changed)

• Superior: 1/15: 6.6%
• Types: 9/15: 66%
• Both: 4/15: 26.6%
• ZCE: 1/15: 6.6%

I believe Our Elves Are Better is being used for two different but overlapping concepts: "elves are better, or believe themselves to be so" and "there are many types of elves in fiction". As pointed out in the IP thread, the name contributes to this. Per Everything's Worse with Snowclones, emphasis mine:

Our X Are Different: This family of tropes focuses on how certain fantasy creatures are portrayed differently by each work that uses them; it is not a place to simply list works that include creature X. For that reason, not using the snowclone seems to cause trope decay and Zero Context Examples when we've studied the tropes. Despite being a snowclone, the tropes work better with the naming pattern than without it. This is not true for variations on the pattern that don't use the word "different".

I offer two potential solutions:

• Split the trope into "haughty elf" and Our Elves Are Different. (FWIW, we have Can't Argue with Elves for races that believe they are always correct or better, and Superior Species).
• Keep as one Our X Are Different page, but deemphasize the haughtiness and simply list it as a commonly used trait. I would also support a rename to Our Elves Are Different.

Thoughts?

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 17th 2020 at 5:31:39 AM

Sorry for the wait, ~Synchronicity.

Wick check looks good, so opened for discussion.

Yay. A few months on, I'm for a split/cleanup: move "arrogant elf" examples to either its own trope or Can't Argue with Elves, if we deem it close enough to that, and retool this into Our Elves Are Different.

Split them off for sure.

The "main" trope should be named Our Elves Are Different, in accordance to a bunch of other similarly-named tropes.

~𝕋𝕒𝕓𝕤 had also noted to me in a PM that there is precedent for yanking the "Our X are Y-er" snowclone: Our Nymphs Are Prettier was eventually unlaunched and retooled to Our Nymphs Are Different, and Our Gods Are Greater was renamed to Our Gods Are Different.

The elf superiority stuff can go stay under Our Elves Are Better while the elves being different can go under Our Elves Are Different. So in essence split.

I'm not sure how the "Elves are superior" trope is distinct from Superior Species.

It's an extremely common variant of it to the point that it's often referenced and even has a spin-off counter-trope of Screw You, Elves!.

The question is whether it needs to be distinct from Can't Argue with Elves.

Can't Argue with Elves isn't limited to elves though.

It's not, but its description and title are very elven-focused. If we split Our Elves Are Better, how would the purported "haughty elf" trope exist in relation to that? Would we have to rename it into something like a "proud species" supertrope? Or would it be better to move haughty elf examples there and create a new supertrope for all the non-elf examples?

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 25th 2020 at 11:58:54 AM

Neither Screw You, Elves! nor Can't Argue with Elves are actually specific to Elves, so I still don't see any reason why Our Elves Are Better and Superior Species need to be distinct tropes.

More to the point, are we distinguishing between "haughty species who thinks they are Superior Species" and "they are actually Superior Species"?

Edited by Adept on Apr 26th 2020 at 2:23:22 AM

"Haughty species who is correct in thinking they are a Superior Species (or at least it's difficult to disprove)" is Can't Argue with Elves. Screw You, Elves! is the counter-trope.

I don't see a need to spin off any trope from this. We've got them covered. Just renaming this to Our Elves Are Different should be enough.

Yeah, I support the rename. It's clearly a source of confusion and it's a breach of naming rules anyway. I don't think we need to split off a new trope here — Superior Species, Can't Argue with Elves and Screw You, Elves! already cover the "haughty species" trope, so I say just move relevant examples to there and mention in the elf trope's description that these are often used in relation to portrayals of elves.

There'd also need to be a general cleanup of the trope's examples themselves afterwards, especially the ones that describe the trope as being played straight, subverted or what else specifically in relation to haughtiness or superiority, but that can be dealt with when it comes.

Our Monsters Are Different is misused quite often as “(creature) appears in it”, rather then showing how the universe’s (creature) is unique when compared to others from it’s kind in other media.

No.

Edited by GeneralGigan817 on May 1st 2020 at 10:54:42 AM

I agree with what Discar said on the renaming and splitting proposals.

Do you have an alternate suggestion for the rename? As stated in the OP, Everything's Worse with Snowclones says the 'X are Different' name scheme is generally okay.

Would anyone object to having a crowner? It seems like the potential paths of action are pretty clear, although it's fairly early.

Bump, made a li'l crowner and hollering to hook.

What's the process to be done if the name already exists as a redirect? Should a mod move the page now? Should we clean the main page first before the move? And what are we doing with the Our Elves Are Better name? I think it should be a disambig, as it was already being confused for two different concepts since inception, and has a whopping 58k inbounds.

Anyway, for the cleanup, do I have these definitions right?

• Can't Argue with Elves: A species believes they are superior.
• Superior Species: A species is genuinely better.
• Screw You, Elves!: People stick it to the species that believe they are superior

Edited by Synchronicity on May 25th 2020 at 9:23:51 AM

I think so. And Our Elves Are Better can be a disambig for those three tropes.

Look right to me. I agree with making "Better" a disambig.

Do we have protocol for moving pages that already exist as redirects? Does it matter whether the move comes first or after example cleanup?

We should use Our Elves Are Better the same way we use all the other tropes in the Our Monsters Are Different index - use it to describe the general depiction of that species in specific works.