#absolutely infuriating how executive dysfunction has been kicking my ass the past few days because I want to answer more asks!!!

[bookwyrminspiration]

I sent an ask earlier today but I have more to say, so here I am. I don’t like how the elves’ and other species’ views on humans keep being brought up and then except for Nightfall, it isn’t really focused on. I think it’s a really interesting perspective to explore and am wondering about your thoughts about it

welcome back then! I do think the overall perception of humans is an absolutely fascinating subject, so thank you for bringing it up! It's mostly highlighted from the elves perspectives (as our main character is an elf living in elf-land) but rarely, and it's almost always used to show just how different the Lost Cities are (and superior to elven eyes)

as a general rule, the elves think humans are dumb and that elves are better in every way possible. When they're brought up things are siad like "I can't believe humans believe that" or "humans really think this?" though these are general summaries as these moments are rare and scattered throughout the series so I won't go looking for them specifically at this moment in time. Might later to reference though! My point is that casually, elves think humans are dumb.

They were literally demoted from their intelligent species classification. They're no longer considered intelligent, though that is a whole other complicated thing I have many thoughts on. That says a lot! As humans aren't intelligent, i'd may go so far as to say they're treated like animals now. When broaching the human overpopulation problem, some elves suggested creating a habitat to put them all in, which sounds kind of like the sanctuaries humans provide for animals. And generally the tone of voice is like "haha that's idiotic and I think it's funny," which reminds me of how humans laugh at animals when they do something dumb and can't figure out what's wrong (think like a dog trying to walk through a door with a stick in its mouth that's too big to fit through)

Humans have been clearly established as less intelligent than humans--Sophie didn't just skip six grades for no reason. So it's possible this air of superiority originated from the assumption that humans not being as smart as elves=they're dumb, when really there's a variety of other things they can be and are. This may be exacerbated by the lack of contact, as there's no human that can stand up for human intelligence, so elven fantasies and assumptions can get very out of hand.

Now, I've been referring to them as "dumb" for a while, but it's a lot more complicated than that depending on who we're talking about. The kotlcrew have more of a lighthearted perception of them as they're still learning about the world and their experience in learning new cultures is limited. So hearing about humans they have that child-like "haha weird!" before you start learning to appreciate differences. But if we're talking about people like Forkle, there's more of a distrust of humans than thinking their dumb. it's more like he thinks their intelligence is misguided--creating things like nuclear weaponry and items of desctruction--when they could be doing beneficial things and communicating.

That's a big one, actually! Elves are surprised by the diversity of humans. Elven society is just one big clump. There's very little variation between them and they all follow the same customs and laws; everyone Sophie's met has had a similar presence. Meanwhile two people from neighboring countries in the human world are completely different, not to mention people across the world! So part of it could be that they literally cannot conceptualize how different humans are and how vast their cultures are--except for Sophie, who's lived it.

But! Not all of their observations are to be dismissed as pompous arrogance. Mr. Forkle actually made a valid point about how humans dump problems onto next generations, and did so without touting elven superiority--instead, he said elves had a similar problem (but in the opposite direction). I think he has the most realistic view of humans and their cultures and issues than any other person we've met so far, including Sophie. She lived in the human world as a child with responsibilities, she didn't have the time and likely didn't have the interest to take note of those things. Meanwhile Forkle was there specifically for her and for reasons relating to politics and social issues. So he's had both the most exposure and the most time to reflect, giving him a more nuanced view.

but this doesn't really come to a head except in Nightfall, likely because there are no humans in the story until Nightfall! I'm not counting those first few chapters of the first book because there wasn't really overlap between the elven and human world. But in book six we have Sophie's human sister in the Lost Cities and everyone is actively looking for her human parents, so the topic of humans is more relevant then. Aside from then, the focus is primarily on humans when Shannon wants to make the Lost Cities stand out, as its a way we as readers can compare this fictional world to something concrete that we understand.

But I would be interested to hear more about them from an elven perspective! Or for there to be a more complex perspective from someone aside from Forkle--there is that brief interaction with Tiergan, but I don't want to draw on this post too long so I focused on Forkle instead.

great topic!! cultural views are absolutely fascinating, so I loved looking at this one!