What's behind "Fantasy Races"?

Elves, dwarves, Moranth, Minotaurs, Tieflings…fairies, “fae”, dragon-kin…so what is all this stuff really about?

And hey gang, welcome back to the Imaginarium. I got lots of dreams, fantasy, and the mind stuff for you as always. So, as you all are aware by now, I like to show how dreams and all their interesting mysteries are connected very much to both mental health, AND to popular fantasy fiction, although fantasy fiction has for a long time now gotten the reputation for being frivolous, kids stuff, “escapism” (don’t get me started on that one), and just overall dismissible fluff. 

But I’m here to tell you that there’s something more to it. If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t have bothered working on a fantasy novel series for 30 years. I’ve only recently gotten to publish the first book in the 9 book series last year–King of the Forgotten Darkness with Rounfire Press–and book two, The Treacherous Fire, is of course being looked at by publishers. I’ll keep you posted on that. And for all you fans of book one, don’t worry, book two will get published one way or another. 

Whats up with "Fantasy Races"?

But anyway. Fantasy races. So I’ve had a few folks ask me, hey Dr. G what are all the fantasy races really about psychologically? I’ve taken a look at how fantasy settings have a deeper symbolic meaning, as does “magic”, and certain narrative tropes like the hero’s journey, which is often a symbol of a major psychological transformation–often coming of age–and all that.  But what’s  up with all the non-human critters? 

So the answer to that is actually pretty complicated.   And since I don’t want this video to be 3 hours long, I thought I’d touch on some of the highlights. The use of fantasy races–for lack of a better word–does actually predate Tolkien, though he really got things started on their modern trajectory. But lets start with folktales. Now, one of the greatest resources you could ever find when getting into folktales, is this collection by Hans Jorg Uther, the Types of the International Folktales. 

Anyway, here you have all kinds of strange magical creatures and non-human races, and of course plants, animals, practically everything else can talk. So does this qualify as a “fantasy race”? Well, not exactly in the way most people use the term now. But work with me here. What is a fantasy race anyway? (expound).

Folktales

So one major clue  is that in many folktales, these characters  like Rumplestiltskin, or the talking animals of the White Snake fairytale, or the many witches, fairies, enchnatresses, and everything else ranging from selkies in Ireland to korobokuru among the Ainu of Japan, are not typically encountered in the mundane world of the village or town, but in the “out there” world of mountain, lake, and forest. While some of them (like selkies) find their way into the human world, they have a non-human or ‘otherworldly’ origin that comprises the bulk of the story beats in those instances. 

So, if I were looking at this from a psychological perspective, say, if a patient brought me a dream about something like this, I would immediately go to how these creatures are representations of unconscious complexes and dynamics. (explain how dreams work). So you can see how closely the dream making process mimics fantasy story formation. So, the witch of Hansel & Gretel the fairy godmother of Cinderella (or in the Grimm’s version, the ghost of her mother). Ghosts, for that matter, are another great example of this same thing. I’ve seen it dozens of times in dreams reported to me–the ghost is clearly a part of that person that still lives in the dreamer and they’re having a conversation about it. Of course, ghosts could be real, too–I’m not ruling that out–I’m just saying there is a significant psychological component to this process, too. Ghosts and other revenant characters fall into this category as well. But the point is, in those cases, fantastical characters of a different fundamental type of thing from a human represents elements of the psyche that are very distant from the ego. Why? Because this is the best way the psyche can represent elements of the psyche that have a relative amount of autonomy, a significant emotional presence and power over the conscious ego, but they are clearly NOT the ego. So what’s a great picture of that? A non-human being with fantastical features.

What about Modern Stuff?

So that’s the deal in the case of folktales. But what about more modern stuff? Well here is where culture–specifically western industrialized cultures–makes an impact. And this started with Tolkien. Whereas the dwarves and elves in Tolkien are still of this more classical mold, in that elves and dwarves are essentially land spirits and so work generally the same way non-human creatures work in fairytales, Tolkien really humanized them a lot. And his history of elves in particular contains a lot of his own view of how good and evil work, in humans, only he projected that onto his elf characters. Then, he had the elves leave middle earth, which is, I think, more to do with his own sense of disenchantment with the world. In the book “J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century”, Tom Shippey, his good friend and fellow scholar, explains this transition in Tolkien’s psychology. So now we are straying away from the more purely psychological, unconscious forces that you see in folktales, to the more refined and much more elaborated work of LOTR, where culture and the individual psychology of the author makes a major impression. This isn’t bad, it's just a major component of this whole issue we're talking about.

But all of this makes tolkien’s non-human characters a hybrid sort of thing. Part land spirit or deeply unconscious complex, but also deeply humanized characters, so they sort of become an “alternative human”. A “normal variant”. This idea took off majorly from there, with the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons, for example, where players could take on the roles of these ‘alternative humans’ and wear their skins for a while. But it’s important to recognize the major tradeoff that was made here. RPG races became more relatable and much more human, while retaining a few interesting variations and angles, but this move made them lose much of their “otherness”. No longer are these mysterious characters with impossible to understand motivations and powers. They became different styles of human. And THAT idea, became huge.

The Effect of Culture

And here’s why: our culture changed massively. Starting from the 1950s, in which wartime pressure and paranoia generated a LOT of pressure on people to “conform” and be “normal”, once that pressure let up, you saw a huge swing in this in the 1960s with all the “counterculture” movements. Hippies, and all their stuff, began springing up communes, Tim Leary became a super popular LSD guru, telling us all the tune in and drop out. Rise against the rat race and be whoever and whatever man. It was a weird time, and I remember thinking that even as a kid in the 70s. I think it’s no coincidence that this is when LOTR took off in popularity in the US, even though by then it was already almost 20 years old, having been published in 1954. That was when everyone wanted to be an “alternative human” and live among the trees of Rivendell, and “Frodo lives!” began to be written everywhere. And lets not underestimate the importance of a little movie called “Star Wars”, which is fantasy, people, let’s be real. It’s got wizards, magic swords, knights, and princesses…in space. It’s  fantasy, and it’s crawling with all kinds of weird non-human creatures. But even then, the creatures are in the mold of Tolkien-esque hybrid human and non-human characters. Now–let me be clear here, the idea of hybrid characters is not new. I mentioned the selkie, for example. There’s also many references in the Icelandic Sagas to characters with a “touch of troll blood” in their lineage, and this is used to explain their particularly ornery personalities. But the widespread fantasy race idea really began with the marriage of Tolkien and RPGs.

Then the 1980s happened. And all the sudden, the cold war, and the threat of nuclear annihilation made everyone paranoid again. And with the economic changes of that era, which saw massive deregulation, lowering of taxes, and the shift in cultural consciousness toward money, money, money, D&D now became “Satanic” and you had all of that satanic panic going on. But by then, the idea of fantasy and fantasy races had just gone underground. You still saw an explosion of great 1980s fantasy movies like Neverending Story, Legend, the Dark Crystal, and all that, and these all had weird non-human “races” in them. But after the dreaded Satanic Panic blew over and it proved to be all much ado about nothing, RPGs came roaring to the forefront like never before.

So much, so, that newer fantasy novels began to look at non-human races  like elves and dwarves as “cliche”, and so either did away with them entirely and stuck mainly with humans, like you see in things like Fourth Wing, for example, or they tried to create a bunch of new weird creatures, like Brandon Sanderson did in his Mistborn series. But like I’ve mentioned elsewhere, that itself was a  reaction to trope-ified elves, not the elves of classic fairytales. In any case, the “alternative human” idea has stuck, and it’s with us today now more than ever.

Fantasy Race as "Alternative Human"

And here’s why: the idea of being an alternative human is itself a reaction to culture, more than anything else, I think. We are now a long way away from non-human creatures being symbols of unconscious, emotionally powerful complexes. And we have shifted strongly in the direction of non-human races being a symbol of me feeling like something other than a “normal” human. This is because modern society, as I’ve gone over in many other videos, is hyper-individualized. We are more disconnected from community and belonging than we perhaps ever have been as a species. Modern technology and digital society has splintered us all into ultra hyper specialized and individualized micro-”communities”, and I use the term loosely because it rarely comes with any sort of substantive obligation or connection beyond strongly expressed sentiment. And don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this, although I certainly see it’s effects on rising depression, anxiety, drug use, and self-harm behaviors that have increased over the last 100 years. That’s a subject I’ve covered elsewhere on my channel. 

But in any case, most people now growing up in our world have a very thin sense of identity and belonging. This feeling is not fun, and it does contribute to those things I mentioned, but fantasy and culture are ways in which I think the individual psyche is trying to deal with it. And fantasy races become an interesting response to it. I don’t feel like I really belong anywhere, so maybe I’m not really a “human” but I’m a something else. Then along comes RPGs and all that, and oh, I’m very “elfy”. Maybe that’s what I am! Or I’m this or that fantasy race. It’s quite common, I think. And I think it’s not a reflection of someone being just overly nerdy or whatever. And by the way, I remember when being called a nerd was a full-on insult. Nowadays the word just kind of means you’re a quirky kind of person who has niche interests. But back in the 90s it meant you were a worthless piece of crap that nobody wanted around. I’m glad it changed. Real glad.

Fantasy Races as Healing Ideas

Anyway, this idea of fantasy races being reflections of people’s craving for identity and belonging I think has reached it’s most recent apotheosis in the idea of the "tiefling". The tiefling is a wildly popular fantasy race in D&D, and let’s see if you can join me in figuring out why that is. First, the tiefling looks weird, and kind of intimidating because of “demonic” heritage. This is a callback to the satanic panic if you ask me. Oooh, you like D&D you must be of the devil and worship the devil! Gimme a break, Karen.

Ahem, anyway. No, you have here a character who has special abilities “normies” don’t have because of this dubious lineage, and because of that you’re seen as dangerous, viewed with suspicion, mistrust, and prejudice. Can you see it yet? I’ll keep going. Tieflings, of course, are born just a little different. And this is of course projected onto more concrete fantasy elements such as horns and claws and a tail and all that, but this is a symbol of feeling like you’re “born different, and in a way that so-called ‘normal’ people don’t understand, don’t like, and are suspicious of”. Yeah…so I think the tiefling makes for a very potent  image of being either neurodivergent, and/or feeling like the present cultural upbringing that you are in is a major mismatch. I see people, for example, who were raised in very religious contexts–again, nothing wrong with that–but some people just don’t seem to mesh with that, and unfortunately,  in more fundamentalist settings, there is no room for such people. If anyone ever  fit the mold for feeling like their external projection would look like a tiefling, that’s the kind of person.

The Deeply Emotional Core of the idea of Fantasy Races

But other people who feel the sting of a perception that they are not accepted would easily find comfort in role playing as a tiefling–but of course, this applies to the fantasy races as a whole. Even the more “conventional” ones like elves and dwarves. So, that’s my take on what  psychologically goes into the emotional fascination one might find themselves to have with role playing one of these fantasy races, while viewing “being a human” as boring, normie, conventional, or whatever. There’s two things going on here–a widespread and pervasively common sense among young people especially that they have no idea where they belong or who they are, and they react to this defensively with various techniques and methods, and this is combined with an overly homogeneous pseudoculture produced by mainstream media that is  obsessed with ‘being normal’--and of course, nobody can define what normal is, so don’t even get me started on that quagmire. Does this maneuver into fantasy “fix” the cultural problems we have? Eh, I’m skeptical. I do think it helps that we have these outlets. But unless you get to the real heart of the problem, which is the fact that we all come into the world craving belonging and identity, consumerized solutions to the problem will only be a way for a few people to make a lot of money by giving them temporary relief. But hey, the cultural changes needed to really fix the rising rates of mental illness are massive and unlikely to ever happen. So I’ll take relief wherever I can find it.

Catch you next time!

EG