Half-elf not knowing he's a half-elf

[HunterKiller]

Where's the half-elf option without the wannakillmyself gene?  Does that require an extra point of Karma?  :-P  Yes, that's rhetorical.

Everyone, independent of race, starts with base level of talent (nature).  Yes it varies from child to child but we all pooped ourselves at one time or another - we all started at relatively the same place together.  With experience comes growth (nurture).  Even in the womb you've experienced nurturing - different things you've been exposed to because of the mother.  If you can't take those things, the baby dies (and perhaps the mother too).  Nurture, by definition, is something that nourishes - sustenance.  If you're given enough duskhorn steak to keep your belly full, you're not going to be fucking starving for duskhorn steak, no matter whose cha cha you came out of.  If for whatever luck or situation or mistake you're treated like everyone else, you're going to pretty much consider yourself like everyone else, despite having ears that could be used to rake your lawn - if you've been made fun of those ears long enough though, then you've no longer been fed in that area (starving of approval because of the ears) and this part is what the documentation means about needing acceptance (trying to acquire sustenance in the area you're hungry for).

This is really the case with every race and very much true in real life.  What makes half-elves more susceptible to this notion is how they came to be, at least the notion in Zalanthas - usually by a freak accident or violent action.  Not a deliberate act, like a mul through breeding, for example or a couple of loving parents wanting to raise a child.  Half-elves are accidents.  I mean ewww ...  ?  Some dirty, stick-thin elf shot a loaf into some dumb human and the breed was the result?  They could'nt have meant for that to happen and if they did they're morons.  And there the breed is, the constant and obvious reminder to all - that unfortunate event happened.  Yuck!

Genetics govern things like having long legs to run fast, a wicked-strong heart to keep enough oxygen to keep those legs moving.  Yes genetics covers mental areas too - how quickly you learn, how well you remember.  I think of genetics as things that might show up in your stat screen.  It does not govern perceptions of others and perceptions of oneself, that's very much a sustenance issue - how much fuel you have in a certain tank.  And perhaps more importantly, perceptions never stay at one level for long.

What's good, though about thinking that genetics rules half-elven personnae is this is exactly how a zalanthan should think.  They should just boggle over the notion someone like that could feel good about themselves.  They should assume that no matter what environment that mud-blood grew up in, they'll feel like shit about themselves because they are shit.  To some they may even seem contagious - don't touch them or you may shit elven blood tonight!  Pity them, fear them - they're dirty, rail-thin little wastes of skin with blood you sure as shit don't want on you.  Racial bias and superstitions breed like mad in an intellectually-ignorant pool, and zalanthas is by most accounts extremely dumb in most respects we aren't today - not because they're stupid, but because they accept and embrace the notions and opinions of the upper, -educated- class.  Every society (and organization) leads from the top down, despite the (sometimes) unwillingness to do so.

What's also important to remember is that for the opposite coin nurturing is also true.  You take a hunter who by some strange accident ends up having to follow the orders of a dirty shithead breed, after long enough exposure that person's opinion of the breed may change.  From a vague social stigma to hardline practical exposure, it would be possible for that person's understanding to be fed - from an ignorant abyss to a full and satisfied understanding, suddenly that breed has earned respect through accomplishment.  This is why half-elves -have- to try harder to accomplish the same things of humans and every other race, they first have to climb over that wall of social faux paus and then have to climb the other wall of respect.  Few reach it, few -should- reach it.  And even when they do reach that point, they haven't reached that point with those who don't know them.

None of this is really all that different from real life.

- HK

[Angela Christine]

Although the struggle between independance and wanting to belong usually manifests in an angsty way, it doesn't have to.

If the elven arrogance is a dominant trait, it is conceivable that a half-elf could have a superiority complex rather than an inferiority complex.  He wants a place to belong, but everyone he has ever met is so fucking stupid.  After a while he just can't stand being around that bitch a single minute longer.  He has to get out, be alone for a while.  But like anyone else he gets lonely, he wants to have friends and be accepted.  So he tries to find a group to belong to, and once he gets accepted all their annoying little habits start to grate on his nerves and he needs to get away from them.  He can never find a group that he really feels he belongs with, but he thinks it is because something is wrong with the rest of the world, not him.

What?  It could happen.  :wink:  There is more than one way to roleplay a conflict between a need to belong and a need for independance.




Elves have a built in need to belong to a tribe.  And when they do belong to a tribe, they don't do it in a half-assed way.  The elf barely makes a distinction between his Self and his Tribe, he is the tribe, the tribe is him.  The only way they could be closer is if they developed a mantis-like hive mind.  A lone elf is not a happy elf.

Half-elves inherit a fractured version of that elven need to bond with a tribe.  They feel the longing, but they can't ever fulfill it.  Even if he looked like an elf, was thought to be an elf, and was raised in an elven tribe he will never quite *click* the way a real elf will.  It could be a psionic incompatibility.



Angela Christine