"Mr Spock an Elf?" Topic

I was talking to a friend recently about similarities between Vulcans and Minbari and he said 'They are all Elves anyway'. Would you class Mr Spock as an Elf?

Ok the Vulcans like Elves/Eldar have very deep feelings and extreme emotions, but have chosen to contol them.

And of course don't forget those pointy ears.

Your average elf is not green.

I have read plenty of accounts where Elves are high spirited types as well.

And worst of all, most elves have long hair…

No.

Humans have lots of characteristics in common with chimpanzees, does that make us chimpanzees? It's a matter of perspective, perhaps a radically different creature would think the differences between humans and chimps were so much less significant than the similarities as not to be worth noticing but from a human perspective the differences between elves (of which there are many versions) and Vulcans are much more significant than the similarities.

Vulcans owe more to Nietzsche than the Otherworld.

would agree that minbari are more like elves (although not in look).

Vulcans do look a bit like them, but act totally different….

Spock was a "Green Blooded Hobgoblin" according to Doctor McCoy.

YouTube link

Your average elf is not green.

Neither are Vulcans…

…most elves have long hair…

So did I… once.

Vulcans do look a bit like them, but act totally different….

Ah, but we know that Vulcans have overcome and controlled their [powerful] emotional side.

Vulcans owe more to Nietzsche than the Otherworld

But surely that is a pattern of thought, rather than a racial trait?

Perhaps they were more like elves in the past? Perhaps this is the future for the jolly, light hearted, happy-go-lucky elf?

And goblins were warped Elves according to Tolkien..

I would have to say now that you mention it, yes Minbari do remind me of Elves…. including the whole.. Humans taking their place in the galaxy story line..

I am sure the writers borrowed like any good writer from their favorite stories and fiction.

In the first version elves were just weird, their motivations outside the ken of mortals, they could be savage or jolly, mischievous or just plain crazy from a human point of view. Tolkien made elves serene, except perhaps when in a battle frenzy but even then their fury was controlled, they were angelic. They were never obsessed with rationality, the reverse if anything is more characteristic.

Vulcans use an idea from Nietzsche, that personality has a Dionysian/Apollonian dichotomy and that ancient Greek philosophers repressed their Dionysian (wild irrational) side by becoming hyper-Apollonian (rational, controlled) but that the Dionysian wild man was always peeking out around the edges and had to be exorcised from time to time.

Vulcan character centers on this repression. There's nothing repressed about elves (at least it's not a theme in any pre-Star Trek elves), they are what they are by nature, they let it all, what there is of it anyway, hang out.

Vulcans are a naturally-evolved humanoid alien race with a copper-based circulatory system, which gives their skin a greenish tint. Elves are a magical race with strong ties to the realm of Faerie, whose bodies are imbued with magic if not outright magical.

It is my opinion that despite external similarities, Vulvans are not Elves.

Ok, I'll have to trounce my friend with all of that next time I see him. I must admit that I thought he was wrong.

Vulcans are space elves (the green blood is a vestige left over from when Vulcan had forests)

Klingons are space orcs

Romulans are space drow

Andorians? Well, as Freud once said, sometimes a blue man is just a blue man.

Wyatt

By Roddenberry's own admission, he wanted Spock to evoke images of Satan rather than elves. So much so that he was worried (correctly) that the network censors were going to have a problem with it.

The story goes that it came down to he had to pick between the Satanic-looking science officer, or the preposterous (!?!) idea of a woman as XO.

> Neither are Vulcans…

He is wearing makeup to fit in…

>>And worst of all, most elves have long hair

Yup, Vulcans are Elves:

Long Haired Hippie Elf Freak…

Sure…

What did Spock kill in that picture?

It looked like big chunks of meat when I first look at it.

I think those are supposed to be crystals. Elves love Crystals.

Aloof, haughty, undersexed, knowledgeable in all kinds of lore, good at combat but not quick to fight, eldritch powers, long life span… yup, he's an elf.

I can absolutely see Mr. Spock using a bow with ribbons.

By Roddenberry's own admission, he wanted Spock to evoke images of Satan rather than elves.

Well that seals it, Vulcans are definitely Elfs. Santa, that jolly old elf, has been accused of being Satan in the authoritative source of a Jack Chick tract.

ELF
noun, plural elves  [elvz]

1.(in folklore) one of a class of preternatural beings, especially from mountainous regions, with magical powers, given to capricious and often mischievous interference in human affairs, and usually imagined to be a diminutive being in human form; sprite; fairy.
2.a diminutive person, especially a child.
3.a mischievous person, especially a child.

*****

No Spock is not now or was he ever an elf.

In an interesting twist, J Michael Straczynski was inspired by Tolkien and in Babylon 5 borrowed a lot from Tolkien's work, especially LOTR. Many of the LOTR inspired events in B5 are not hard to pick out (Rangers, Z'hadum, Sheridan returning from the dead, Shadows…)

So Minbari being compared to elves may not be that far off the mark at all.

"Aloof, haughty…"

Of course if you only list the ways in which two things are similar (and stretch things to fit) you will find them the same.

A die and a house have sides and are made and used by people, they are waterproof etc., does this mean there is no difference between dice and houses? Depends how much importance you assign to which similarities and differences. I'd say the the most important aspect of artifacts is their use, with sentient beings what motivates, what actuates them.

Elves are guardians of, almost expressions of the natural world. Vulcans are absorbed by the struggle of dominating their animal nature with rationality. The two could hardly be more different.

You can just as easily contrast Tolkien elves and Vulcans.

One likes nothing more than to sing, drink and make merry, the other is always repressed except when mating.

Pro-technology/anti-technology

One prefers to live in green forests by the sea, the other likes desert and sun-baked rocks.

Elves and Vulcans take a similar haughty attitude towards humans but for quite different reasons, the former because human insecurity drives them to acquisitive manipulation and destruction of nature the latter because they are too much given to be guided by emotion generally.

All elves have pointy ears, Mr. Spock has pointy ears, therefore Mr. Spock is an elf.
Tah Dah!

But seriously, although the parallels exist, as in any fiction (there are only so many archetypes, you know), Vulcans never evoked elvishness to me.
In fact, most startrek aliens only evoked "What, THAT's supposed to be an ALIEN?"

This is an interesting topic. I'd like to come at it from a different angle. So far everyone has approached it from the physical or cultural angle. I'd like to approach it from the story direction.

In most fantasy settings that derive from the Tolkienesque elves, the elves are portrayed as a long lived, mature culture, that is slowly being replaced by humanity. They usually serve as reluctant allies or mentors to the good humans.

In Star Trek, the Vulcans do similar things. They were in space long before the humans were. They live longer than humans (not to the degree elves do though). They helped usher the human race into the galactic community, fulfilling the same sort of mentor role that fantasy elves do.

In addition to these similarities, both elves and Vulcans hold similar views on humanity. Humans are hasty. Elves may be frivolous at times, but long life span means they don't make big decisions or change major aspects of their lives on a whim. Vulcans, though shorter lived, examine everything through the lens of logic leading to the same deliberate approach.

The result is that (from a strory telling perspective) the elf/vulcan serves as a foil to enhance the human traits of diverse thinking in situations that require adaptability. While the Vulcan/elf is physically and often mentally superior in some way, the human overcomes these disadvantages through pluck, hard work, and pure human-ness.

All of these similarities when enhanced with the decision to give Spock pointy ears, make for an easy connection between Vulcans and elves.

With all this talk of Spock and Tolkien, I couldn't help but recall this:

YouTube link

Deal with it ;)

Ahhhhhrg! Out vile jelly!

2.a diminutive person, especially a child

Spock was never a child?

Dan Wideman,
yup, and that was my point above about the Minbari story line..

Similar in Star Trek. The more I think about it, they are space Elf equivalents.

"I'd like to approach it from the story direction."

By such generalized criteria there's no difference between Tolkien elves, Vulcans and any number of supporting characters in any number of stories.

In any case it's again selectively placing importance on similarity and devaluing differences. Elves and Vulcans 'mentor' humans towards completely different, even divergent ends, the former towards harmony with nature the latter towards technological and scientific discovery more the domination of nature as Tolkien viewed it. There is also the problem of stretching out a similarity in the quite different way Elves and Vulcans think by choosing to focus only on their deliberateness. Then there is the complete breakdown in the physical/mental superiority angle. In Tolkien a typical elf isn't extraordinary physically or mentally, that's from D&D and the LOTR movie. Likewise Spock may be extraordinary mentally but the Vulcans as a people are no great shakes, they had a head start but human science caught up with if not surpassed them in short order.

Then there is the problem of the various other characterizations of elves in other stories.

About *what* Elves are you discussing?
Due to populations intermingling and cultural cross-fertilization during the Dark Ages, 'Elves' (of Germanic / Norse origins), Irish Aes Sídhe and French Fees became became practically indistinguishable. In Medieval texts Fee people (Fee at first meant 'magical, so there were Fay people, Fay horses link , Fay swords…) appear as humans of dazzling beauty. Some with indeed embarrassing peculiarities (Melusine had the lower half of her body turning to serpents on moon days…), but otherwise looking 'abnormal' only by their beauty. Did Morgan the Fay have pointed ears?
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When did Elves got pointed ears? I don't believe they have in Tolkien? Elric of Melnibone only shows 'slightly pointed ears'. Certainly not in the Norse texts, the Elves present in Valhalla get no special description.

As men believed less and less in them, Elves / Fays became smaller, to be mistaken with brownies, lutins and korrigans (and even Dwarves -'Dwarfs' before Tolkien: Santa Claus' helpers, skilled craftsmen working underground, are 'Dwarves' -but the confusion is ancient, re. the 'Elves of Darkness' of Christian late Nordic texts and the Dwarf in the Rhinegold named 'king of Elves')
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy But did even the diminutive Victorian 'faeries' have pointed ears before Disney's re-interpretation as Tinkerbell? The image lacks resolution, but I see no pointed ears here:

Was Disney, who abysmally rendered Peter Pan

as a kind of 'Elf' link at the origin of those damned pointed ears? Spock dates from 1966 'only'…

Seemingly, 'Elves' were initially worshiped ancestors, so perfectly human-looking.
As for the longevity / quasi immortality of recent 'Elves', it can come from the common report that time flows at a different speed in the 'Faerie World': a man spent 'one year and a day' there with a beautiful Fee lady, but comes back 'on Earth' a generation of a century later.
Two 'parallel universes' connected through a few 'portals' (or 'Hell mouths', from a Christian pov, re 'Buffy'?), with divergent time vectors (cosine effect)?

[As for Dwarfs link , btw, 'who live under the Earth like maggots' but are outstanding goldsmiths and weaponsmiths, and whose name can be related to 'damaged' or 'bent / twisted', they can well come from pre-Norse graves with the bodies in fetal posture accompanied with weapons and rich burial treasures?
Along the same line, could frozen bears which, like frozen mammoths, decay fast when exposed to sun, be at the origin of Trolls?]

"It is my opinion that despite external similarities, Vulvans are not Elves".

Vulvans ?

"I see no pointed ears here.."

I agree but try selling that. If elves in Tolkien had an easily distinguishable physical characteristic as pointed ears several scenes and snippets of dialog would not make much sense. Not that he was a paragon of consistency or anything.

TheCount has the proof:

YouTube link

Vulcans would not be singing about Bilbo unless they were elves.

I find it interesting the topics that will break Mr Tom away from the sculpting table :)

"Vulcans would not be singing about Bilbo unless they were elves."

Judging by the rest of his discography Vulcans spend a lot of time in elevators as well.

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"I find it interesting the topics that will break Mr Tom away from the sculpting table."

I sculpt reclining and spend a good part of the day child-minding.

It's nice to construct arguments on subjects which aren't likely to get people upset unlike say the advisability of de-clawing cats, tipping, veganism, circumcision or whether 0.999… equals one.

"An elevator is…the logical choice in the absence of a transporter".

"It is my opinion that despite external similarities, Vulvans are not Elves".

Vulvans ?

From the planet Vulva?????????????????????????????

Vulcans have the famous neck pinch* (and also the lesser known Vulcan butt pinch.) Elves, they got nothin'….

* Their Romulan brethren, on the other hand, have no idea what to do with their fingers, but are rightly feared as proctologists….

From the planet Vulva?

Yes. Known galaxy-wide for the Kurukshetra battle-sized heroic encounter reported in the epic De Profundis Morpionibus YouTube link
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('Funeral Lament of the Bodycrabs: Death, Apparition and Funerals of Captain Bodycrab')
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This one for VSF players:

If regular Elves are 'Ego', and Orcs are 'ID', then there should be something analogous to represent the 'Superego'.

I suppose what interests me about this topic is it's philosophical, it's epistemological nature. What makes things similar and what makes them different? Of course there are similarities between Vulcans and Elves, there are similarities between armadillos and rocks but which similarities (and which differences) are essential and which are incidental?

Star Trek is essentially a future technological utopia, it sometimes develops in other directions, it is obviously a huge body of work with many contributors but that is the main thrust of it. We are shown some problem which afflicts us today, generally in the form of an alien creature or civilization menacing or in difficulties and we are shown how humans will solve this problem with our wonderful future technology.

The Vulcans, particularly Spock are a fundamental part of this disposition. They are there to demonstrate the folly of hyper-rationality. The point of them is ‘sure this gives you impressive powers but it leaves you deeply flawed and out of balance'.

LotR is an origin myth, to the extent it has a consistent theme it would be ‘put yourself in harmony with the world as the creator has made it, don't try to put yourself in his place'. Elves in this theme are not counter-examples but guides who are inadequate by themselves to get the job of suppressing disharmonious elements done. They serve to ‘bring humans along' so we can eventually assume our right place in a harmonious creation cleansed of evil.

Someone said Elves and Vulcans both mentor humans but this is not true, elves mentor humans, they show us the right path (they've had their lesson in the folly of hubris). Vulcans are allies, we don't learn anything from them or regard any of their fundamental advice as worthwhile. They serve only as a warning, the message is they should learn from us.

What interests me is that we are discussing the similarities between two fictional races…

"What interests me is that we are discussing the similarities between two fictional races…"

That's what keeps it an amicable discussion.

Ha! I love it when one of my topics causes such intellectual discourse! For me Spock has the arrogance and disdain for humans the typify an Elf, and when we put T'Pol in the mix, we really get Elvish snobbery!

Elvish is the King of Ork and Troll!

Priestley Elvish, then.

Teepol is a ® detergent.

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No pointed ears before Disney, so the most obvious (even if cosmetic) 'shared feature' of Elves and Vulcans does not even exist.
Melniboneans on the other hand…

In an interesting twist, J Michael Straczynski was inspired by Tolkien and in Babylon 5 borrowed a lot from Tolkien's work, especially LOTR.

Thanks, now I understand why I disliked B5 so much

Elves might be related to early Vulcans, before they adopted logic.

Think of them as Romulans, but with a sense of humor.

"Think of them as Romulans, but with a sense of humor."

Somehow I don't see Romulans hugging trees or worrying about how fuzzy little animals are getting on.

Elves are SuperEgo, not Ego.

As far as I know Elf blood is as red as humans. Vulcans, well we all know they have green blood.

And J Michael Straczynski has said most of his influence for Babylon 5 is from the Lensman series, but likely has borrowed from Tolkien like every one else. Although I never heard Gene Roddenberry admit to having been influenced or borrowed from any thing although he clearly has.

For sci-fi I'll admit I created an alien race with elvish features but gone a step further in a cosmetic direction to make a clear difference between them and Elves and Vulcans. They get dark pupilless eyes, not even any white in them. They mean well, but no one will ever completely trust an alien with eyes they can't read.

Just for the thread to reach 50 posts :)

With 'Elf' as with 'Orc' and even 'Magician'* Tolkien used a very old name with a totally new meaning (but did not mention pointed ears!). Why should we treat this modern new use of the word as more 'canonical' (as clearly done along most of this thread) than the 'historical' ones? Or more 'canonical' than other *recent* additions to the content of this 'blanket word', such as the Drows / Dark Elves (who, I confess, do have cat's ears Disney fashion and probably cat's eyes)? Pirotess as a character has more depth than Legolas…

--
* The 'historical' precedent of Gandalf, as 'white' magician tolerated by the Catholic Church, is obviously Merlin: the son of a demon and a nun, not a kind of demi-god. And not as 'lawful good' as Gandalf: this last would not have helped a lecherous Pendragon…