Is it just me or do the TES elves have strange looking, rather ugly wing like ears? To me they look more like pixie ears compared to the more attractive Vulcan like elves in Middle-Earth and D&D. So, what's with TES' pixie eared elves? This is one in need of a mod, me thinks...

They aren't ment to be attractive.

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. 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.

Don't want to be condescending but Elder Scrolls isn't a Tolkkien clone like so many fantasy worlds are. In sense they are only called Elf to have us have some form of comfortable relation to them but in essence they are called Mer.

I hope you don't think Dwarves in Elder Scrolls are short rotund bearded men who like to swing axes and drink stale ale. Because the Dwarves (Dwemer) are actually mer(elves) themselves who are normal height.

The world of Elder Scrolls definitely isn't trying to be attractive in any means. So why would they have the really cheap "add small piece of spirit gum to the end of the ear" ears? Mer are meant to be more alien to us instead of normal humans with a prosthetic attached to the ears.

That wasn't my main point. My main point is why break from the traditional "Vulcan" like ears of D&D & Tolkien; especially Tolkien, who basically invented the genre! "Ugly" was just my opinion, especially since its not the sort of ears that elves are supposed to have. Those ears TES' elves have are pixie ears not elf ears.


It's ironic you should say that because I've just finished watching all three LOTR films again, twice in a row, and I can only say that most of Skyrim was ripped right out of those movies (Whiterun = Edoras, anyone?)!

Because in TES, elves are basically the "intelligent enemy race" to humanity. They don't play the role of the Vulcan or the traditional elf, where they guide and enlighten humanity on its path to glory, they play a role more like the Klingons, often attempting to exterminate mankind. It's fitting that they look a bit monstrous. This is the reason behind their ears, their prominent brow ridges, et cetera.

Which I just mentioned, Elder Scrolls isn't a Tolkkien Clone with the same elves and same dwarves and such. Elves aren't "suppose" to have any type of ears. Take Harry Potter Universe for example, Elves in J.K. Rowling's world are extremely small and very... emaciated. There is no rules set for elves, someone could make a world where elves are 12 foot tall monsters with 3 foot long fingers and can fly.

Elves in Elder Scrolls are Alien in nature to men as is EVERYTHING in the TES universe.

I never knew that. I knew that the Altmer were a bit isolationist at best and "Soviet" at worst, but I didn't see them as out and out "Axis". And I was led to believe that the Bosmer tried to get along with humans.

I think the TES elves have the best ears.

I think Elven ears need not be too big and not to point backwards or else they look silly.

Example of this is the Elf type races in Kingdoms of Amular. The game is rubbish all round, but the ears on the two elven choices look really daft.

The Bosmer aren't that bad, AFAIK. They have a habit of intermingling with men, and actually don't like it when they're taken over by the Altmer. It's mainly the Altmer (and Dwemer) that take it to such an extreme.

When I say pixie ears I mean http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/p480x480/36499_420356361308096_188800427797025_1569979_1355167406_n.jpg and http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ql7lwHIuzPI/T5hxLoOxIzI/AAAAAAAAAkI/Mk1AYH_q3d8/s1600/Illusions+Ears+Brownie.jpg. Terrible. Looks too "Wizard of Oz" fairy story. And yes, I have seen them looking like that in TES. If Beth wants to get away from that sort of stuff http://dkgoodman.com/blogpics/KirraFairy.jpg is more like it. More low fantasy, less silly looking.

Because the elves ears used to be knives. Well that's before Y'ffre got a hold of them.

Your last picture is basically the Breton ears, and I don't think you're getting it. They are SUPPOSED to have ears like that. Period. They didn't do it for looks, and they won't change it to look better. Those are the ears. Deal with it, or get some mods for it. They have like twenty billion of those mods to change the elf ears.

First thing first. Tolkien elves is not LOTR-Movie elves. Read the books, study the world.

Then the least important thing. Tolkien never described elves to have pointy ears.

Then the most important thing. BURN THE ELVES!!! BURN ALINOR!!!

You need to play more Morrowind, OP. That will flush any thoughts of TES=LOTR clone right out of your cortex, and help you realize any LOTR elements are a bad simplification made by later dev teams who were pandering to the lower common denominators to increase sales in a post peter jackson epic trilogy environ.

I thought humanity was the one exterminating the elves, with the Nords destroying Altmora, the Redguards and the Left-Handed Elves, and the Direnni and the Ayelids being exterminated, the Nords and Imperials trying to take Morrowind...

The Thalmor are just the backlash on an elven political timescale.

Humanity pre-emptively strikes against those murderous elves. That's what I did to that altmer family down the street...and the altmer family next to them, and that bosmer bum.

Yeah. One day Altmer looked at me funnily in local tavern. I burned down that den of Thalmor conspiracy. You can't be too careful with that kind of scum.

Go read Terry pratchett's "Lords and Ladies" and his "Wee Free Men." They are both very short, easy reads.

After that, come back and ask us about elves. TES elves fall somewhere between that end of the spectrum (which is where most mythic and folkloric elves are) and the Tolkien one.

I'm not sure I see any resemblance between the elven ears we have and those pictures you linked to. Those look like WOW ears.

I like the ears personally, they add flavor to the Elves i.e the Dunmer's drooping monster ears, or the Altmer's high, keening ears. Besides, the Elves are supposed to be different, not beautiful.

I like how the elves in Elder Scrolls are different than the typical, "ARENT ELVZ BUTIFUL! THEIR SO TALL AND PRETTY AND PRANCE AND THEYRE INMORTAL AND HAVE MAGIC POWERS ANDARE BETTER THAN MEN IN EVERY WAY!" Well...they kinda are, but the gaunt faces, large brow ridge and cheekbones make them more unsettling than anything else. Which is cool that it's different (same with Dragon Age elves; I think it's cool that they're an oppressed people rather than being better than humans in every way).

Bosmer eat people. Now, sure, the Bosmer are willing to trade and co-operate with men, but that doesn't change the fact that they're scary scary cannibals.
The extermination goes both ways.

The Aldmer and co have been slacking as of late. As Minotaurwarrior has been quoted as saying, the Aldmer stopped being winners after they exiled the Orcs.

Now, the Dunmer had a pretty good streak going against the Northern Men.

Essentialist Fantasy makes me sad.