Elves Versus Dwarves



Many stories will have animosity between a beautiful, highly advanced race or civilization, and a much more gritty, industrial-like force. This theme of Harmony Versus Discipline is very common, regardless of the genre.

In many fantasy fictions these roles are filled by Elves and Dwarves. Elves are tall and slender, Dwarves are short and stout. Making a physical difference like this is a common way to point out that the two groups are meant as a Foil of one another.


 * Elves use swords and bows, weapons requiring flexibility and grace, representations of elegance. Elegance is power. Dwarves use axes, hammers and crossbows, which are primarily about direct (or in the case of the crossbow, mechanical) application of force. Strength is power.
 * Dwarves will sometimes use muskets or revolver-style pistols and various Steampunk machines and tanks, all representations of industrial might. Technology is strength. Elves will focus on magic and spirituality and evince disdain for material things, or to be more interested in their elegance than their utility. Beauty is strength.
 * Elves live in pristine woods or elegant castles, emphasis on light and natural beauty, openness. Dwarves live in great halls and impregnable fortresses that are usually underground, emphasis on artifice and containment.
 * Elves are often portrayed as being masters of diplomacy, small talk and doubletalk, able to go on for hours without giving a straight answer. Dwarves are typically as straightforward as the grille of an oncoming semi.
 * Elves dress fancily, sing elaborate songs and are embodiments of beauty and style. Dwarves are often unkempt, sport long beards and hairs, and dress in either simple leather, undyed wool - or steel, and write prose on runes.

We've given a lot of information here about the specific races, Elves and Dwarves, but the core of this trope is not about them. It is about how that plays out in lots of stories that have no Elves or Dwarves in them at all. In historical fictions/fantasies you will find Aristocrats versus Barbarians, for example, which could be exchanged for Elves and Dwarves quite easily. Science Fiction will have some variation on Eloi and Morlocks, or a Crystal Spires and Togas race versus Humans, or a primitive but nature-oriented race versus Humans. In a contemporary business setting, it will be Marketeers versus Engineers. A lot of the modern retellings of the classic Cowboys and Indians western sagas have been presented as this sort of "spiritual barbarian vs. industrialized civilization" meme.

A common subversion is for the Elf and the Dwarf to better understand each other and their respective cultures. The Dwarf may gain a new respect for the Elf's culture and deep learning, while the Elf comes to appreciate the Dwarf's craftsmanship and hard work. Also expect both sides to put aside their differences and team up against a third greater enemy (classically Orcs, Goblins or another similar violent, evil and destructive race). This subversion is also present in the two major source material for modern fantasy: Norse mythology and JRR Tolkien. In Norse mythology, there were Dwarves with "Elf" in their name or as part of an honorary title. Dwarves still didn't get along with elves, though, to be fair, they rarely got along with anyone. In Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion", there were times when the Elves and Dwarves got along so well, the Dwarves used the Elvish tongue for ceremonial purposes.

Compare with ninjas vs. pirates—although the latter is a recent Memetic Mutation while this trope is Older Than Radio. Likewise the horror-oriented werewolves vs. vampires. Comedy will show this one as Slobs Versus Snobs, Big Guy, Little Guy, or Fat and Skinny. It can sometimes manifest as a form of Fantastic Racism. Don't expect to see a dwarf/elf hybrid due to Hybrid Overkill Avoidance and both sides being very squicked at the prospect.

Anime

 * Record of Lodoss War makes good use of this trope in playing up the initial dislike between the aged, bitter dwarf Ghim and the flighty elven princess Deedlit. Character Development leads them both to understand the other better.
 * Averted really hard in Queen's Blade with Ymir, the dwarf princess, with the elves, who befriends a lot with them, as long she doesn't try to sell steel weapons to them, since it's implied to be forbidden for them to use those weapons.

Comic Books

 * The elves and trolls in Elf Quest closely fit this dynamic - although those particular elf tribes are not particularly cultured, and the two groups aren't above cooperating against a common enemy. The trolls of Elf Quest are little different from standard fantasy dwarves.

Film

 * The classic silent film Metropolis has a leisure class living above ground in luxury, while workers both live and work below ground.
 * In James Cameron's Avatar, the Na'vi are amazing natural archers, have a deep empathy for their environment, are not ones to really mess around, and are tall, slender, and lacking in body hair. The Humans are incredibly skilled at craftsmanship, construction, and engineering, utilize big guns, mining machines, and high impact weaponry, live in dark multi-layered cities with lots of technology and little vegetation and natural light, mostly lack a spiritual connection with their world, and are rather gung-ho and upfront, not to mention short, stocky and hairy, when compared to the Na'vi.

Gamebooks

 * Both played straight and subverted in the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, depending on where exactly you go in the world of Titan. It's noted that many dwarves and elves really don't get along, but it tends to be more due to misunderstanding rather than outright antipathy. The subversion comes when canon also notes that there have been several notable adventuring team-ups between elves and dwarves, and both races have a certain respect for the love the other has for nature/the earth. The Zagor Chronicles series of standalone novels further fleshes out this trope when the dwarf Kagand explains to the dwarf Stubble (who comes from another world) that, while dwarves and elves have slain enough of each other in wars over the centuries, they actually live in harmony in places like Darkwood. This is a mild form of Culture Shock to Stubble, as the dwarves and elves on his own world have a deep-rooted dislike that goes back centuries.

Literature

 * H.G. Wells' The Time Machine features the Morlocks (below ground) and the Eloi (above ground), two subspecies of humanity, in the year 802701, making this Older Than Radio. Unlike the more common form of this trope, however, the Eloi are neither highly advanced nor highly intelligent.
 * Not to mention that the Eloi may be nothing more than the Morlocks's humanoid cattle.
 * Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice has the Hard on Soft Science conflict between the "dwarfs" (mathematicians, engineers) and the "elves" (psychologists, mostly).
 * Although they hadn't come to blows in a long time, Elves and Dwarves seemed to have a lot of distrust towards each other in Lord of the Rings. It stemmed at least partially from an ancient war between a particular dwarven city and the Elves of Doriath, one which eventually contributed to the downfall of both areas, and also between a general severing of ties between all the races that made them much more mystic and thus suspicious to each other. Character Development subverts this in the case of the elven Legolas and the dwarven Gimli, who both come to understand each other better and become Friendly Rivals, then Heterosexual Life Partners.
 * Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is also likely the source for this trope. Tolkien set many standards which have made their way into modern fantasy especially after being further popularized by other pop culture phenomenon such as Dungeons and Dragons. Prior to Tolkien's work elves and dwarves were not usually seen as being distinctly separate kinds of beings in most mythology. Often they were synonymous with other fey creatures who inhabited either the woods or the water or mountains. Tolkien created different categories for these beings and made them more humanoid than they were previously in mythology.
 * In Katherine Kerr's Deverry novels, many of the Mountain Folk (dwarves) believe the Westfolk (elves) are all thieves, and enchant their weaponry to glow when they come into contact with elves (this is how it's revealed the main character is a Half-Human Hybrid). Any antipathy the Westfolk have to the dwarves is mostly a reaction to this attitude.
 * Averted in Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Cycle, where Dwarves and Elves are on the whole pretty good friends. They even get along fairly well with humans, and both races have a Honoured Enemy thing going with the Dark Elves.
 * In the Timothy Zahn book The Green And The Gray the two races, Greens and Grays, are basically Elves and Dwarves respectively and yes, they've been at war for centuries.
 * Played with in three of the worlds from the Death Gate Cycle. In Arianus, the Elves are The Empire and the Dwarves are an oppressed slave race that serves them; in Pryan, the Dwarves generally don't like anybody, but there doesn't seem to be any particular animosity between them and the elves; in Chelestra, the two races are shown to be staunch allies who may indulge in mockery of each other but have great respect for each others' abilities.
 * The Star Trek: The Next Generation Expanded Universe novels A Time To Love and A Time To Hate feature two rival alien races called the Dorset and the Bader. The Dorset are a race of tall, thin artists; the Bader are stocky builders and engineers.
 * Also in the Star Trek Novel Verse, the rivalry between Huanni and their offshoot race the Falorians. Huanni are graceful and ethereal as well as emotionally expressive, Falorians are stockier, stoic, disciplined and historically a labour class.
 * The Elves and Dwarves in the Inheritance Cycle add another twist to this: the Elves are generally very scientific, while the Dwarves are religious. Note that this has nothing to do with technology: the series is strictly "swords & sorcery." But for example, the Dwarves worship Stone, believing that they came from it and return to it in death, and one of their priests mentions why they know that stone is alive: coral reefs, which grow over the decades. The hero is suitably impressed with this, until he meets the agnostic Elves who posit that there is no evidence supporting any gods or supernatural beings, and that the coral are just the accumulation of billions of tiny dead sea creature fossils.
 * In Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series there is considerable tension between the fading, magically oriented Inapt races and the rising, technologically oriented Apt ones, especially between the Moth-kinden and the short, stocky Beetle-kinden.
 * Subverted in a short story from Dragon, in which a dwarf community built under a gigantic tree is revealed to be even more spiritually attuned to the tree than the elves who worship it on the surface. The dwarves tend its roots with loving care, and are grateful to it for holding the roof together and guiding them to water. When it gets sick, the elves just worry about what its illness forebodes; the practical-minded dwarves seek out and correct the problem with the tree's taproot.
 * Randy Waterhouse in Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson divides the world into Elves (ingenious, calculating and highly motivated people, like his business partner Avi), Dwarves (hard-working "plodders," like himself), and Men (everyone else outside the realm of nerds that he inhabits).
 * Subversion of this in R.A. Salvatore's The Cleric Quintet and some of his later Drizzt novels, which feature Pikel, a rather eccentric dwarf (he dyes his beard bright green) whose ambition in life is to become a druid (to the sheer horror of both the elven monks he goes to for training and his brother Ivan, who is the epitome of everything blunt, earthy, and dwarvish). However, Pikel's affinity for nature and his druidic abilities eventually end up creating quite a rapport between certain dwarven and elven settlements.
 * In the Discworld book Soul Music, Glod the Dwarf acts a bit hostile to Imp at first when he thinks he might be elvish.
 * Also in Lords and Ladies, it is mentioned that dwarves and trolls would kill an elf on sight, but for a good reason.
 * Dwarves and trolls are hereditary enemies. Dwarves mine, which involves smashing rocks to get valuable minerals out of them, and trolls are basically animate rocks with valuable minerals in. This despite the fact that both races are Stout.
 * This runs all through the Green-Sky Trilogy, despite the fact that the Kindar (willowy, overly-diplomatic, tree-dwelling vegetarians) and Erdlings (stocky, plain-spoken, underground-dwelling hunters) are simply two separate human cultures.
 * In Star Ways by Poul Anderson, humans and alori are like that. Alori are edenic and nature-loving. They are also xenophobic and will go to almost any length to preserve their Hidden Elf Village. Humans are restless, domineering and ambitious, and technically dependent. On the other hand, they never intended to attack the alori; the alori consider the humans a threat for existing because their machine based culture seems hostile to nature(the Alori are rather like the Naavi from Avatar in some ways). There are two main human cultures shown, the Union which emphasizes rationality and individualism and the Nomads which are clannish and honor-bound. These two have tense relations but not irreconcilable.

Live Action TV

 * Star Trek: The Original Series:
 * "The Cloud Minders" had graceful and scholarly humanoids living in a literal flying city, while brutish and mentally limited miners dug tunnels with simple hand tools underground. It's later revealed that the two are== actually the same species, but the miners are exposed to a mineral that affects the brain.
 * In the episode "Journey to Babel", Vulcans and Tellarites have a classic elf-dwarf relationship, with Sarek of Vulcan a rather witty Legolas and Gav the Tellarite a doomed variant of Gimli.
 * Cardassians and Bajorans have a sort of dark elf/drow and dark dwarf enmity going on. The Bajoran slaves were even
 * The long-standing rivalry between the haughty, arrogant but unfailingly cautious Romulans and the Proud Warrior Race Guy Klingons.

Mythology

 * The relationship between fairies and mortals is sometimes portrayed as a Magic Versus Technology fight with fairies despite all their magic being afraid of Cold Iron. In some ways they are Not So Different and regularly kidnap each other, abuse each other's weaknesses, and occasionally fall in love with each other. Rather like two tribes, cities, or nations of humans who happen to border each other.

Tabletop Games

 * Played absolutely straight in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle fantasy battle game. The Elves and Dwarves carry residual hatred from the War of the Beard War of Vengeance that they fought long ago. The Elves are magic-wielding Imperialists, while the Dwarves miner-industrialists with relatively advanced technology (including firearms, cannons, and steam-punk helicopters). The conflict resulted because of the Dark Elves framing the elves for attacking a dwarven caravan, and the High Elven king at the time being a complete moron who had the dwarven emissary shaved, a dire insult to dwarves. So in a world where the forces of darkness constantly threaten to overcome the world, naturally they went to war against each other. At the end of the war, several thousand on both sides were dead, the elven king was killed by the dwarves... The elves won't forgive the dwarves because they won't return his crown, and the dwarves won't forgive the elves because dwarves keep a great big book where they write down every act anyone's ever done to annoy them, just to make sure they don't stop being mad about it.
 * It's Eldar Vs Humans on a galactic, genocidal scale in Warhammer 40,000, with the Imperium of Man squarely filling the dwarves' shoes. Though in this case, it's less about swords and bows vs axes and hammers than it is starcannons and hovertanks vs battle cannons and heavy, tracked monstrosities.
 * Though the 40k universe did have it's version of dwarves early on, the Squats. It didn't end well for them.
 * Dungeons & Dragons:
 * Since both dwarves and elves are standard hero races, they tend to be on decent terms, though usually not seeing eye to eye on much (typically more like eye to groin). The 3rd edition rulebook mentions that while dwarves and elves don't always get along, if one gets attacked the other will be the first to help them. Much like brothers. This was less the case in the 1st Edition, where the table for racial relations explicitly noted that dwarves and elves had a noted antipathy towards one another. Humans generally tended to be regarded neutrally by all the demihuman races.
 * Forgotten Realms elves and dwarves usually distrust and dislike each other, unless they are raised in places where elves and dwarves are allied (like The Fallen Kingdom and its remnants or Myth Drannor) or are very worldly (many adventurers and merchants). Of course, the Southern Gold Dwarves can be just as haughty and pretentious as the stereotypical insular elves, while adventurers mostly come from wandering Shield Dwarves already dealing with others all the time, and/or those who wanted to get away from clanhold rules.
 * Eberron has a really weird version of this between the halflings of the Talenta Plains and the elves of Valenar. Thing is, it's the halflings standing in for the elves in this trope - primitive, spiritual, attuned to nature, and generally cleaving to the Magical Native American idea, only they ride dinosaurs. The Valenar elves, in turn, stand in for the dwarves, being accurately described as land-based Vikings. The actual dwarves of the setting are geographically removed from both races and thus are neutral towards both.
 * In the Iron Kingdoms setting (where WARMACHINE and HORDES are set), the highly-industrialized titular Iron Kingdoms (the WARMACHINE factions) often find themselves at odds with the much more naturalistic Primal Powers (the HORDES factions). Of course, there's plenty of infighting among the Iron Kingdoms and the Primal Powers as well. Notably, this trait is actually averted by the setting's actual elves and dwarves, as the elves are rabid xenophobes who hate everyone, and the dwarves, while isolationist, are on generally friendly terms with all the other races.
 * The Jadeborn (with a hint of elfish traits) and the Fair Folk in Exalted don't exactly meet often enough to develop this, but their very natures are inimical to each other - the Jadeborn being about as close as you can get to being a representation of Creation and Order without being an Earth elemental, and the Fair Folk being a tiny piece of Chaos that for whatever reason decided to develop sentience.
 * Within the Jadeborn themselves, the Artisan Caste (the most elf looking of them) is typically prejudiced against the Worker and Warrior Castes, regarding the regulars as uncouth and brutish and the Enlightened ones as freaks and upstarts, while the other two Castes deride the Artisans as stuck-up, arrogant and a little bit crazy.
 * Played straight in Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game, with the Elven and Dwarven Empires having recently fought a war that lasted over 10 thousand years. As a consequence of the war humans now dominate the world and Dwarves swore off magic.
 * In Traveller the Darrians and the Sword Worlders could fit as elves and dwarves respectively.
 * In Banestorm: Dwarves and Elves both have a pantheistic religion but Dwarves relate to it through craftsmanship and Elves through nature. They don't have regular wars and feuds as a tradition(though they might have occasional tangles according to how events play out) but they do have differing philosophies and social structures.

Theater

 * The people in Belle Reve (Elves) and New Orleans (Dwarves) in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Video Games
"Oghren: We're taking the elf?! Oh, fine, fine. I see standards are just falling down all over the place. Zevran: I see. Are we now supposed to engage in some manner of archetypal dwarf-elf banter, my friend? Oghren: Nah."
 * In Knights of the Old Republic, the Echani and the Mandalorians. Both are a form of Proud Warrior Race Guy, but they go about it in different ways. Echani are famous for their graceful combat and finely crafted light armor and weapons, whereas the Mandalorians are well known for their powerful heavy armor and fondness for big, heavy, sturdy weapons. One memorable conversation with a Mandalorian mercenary on Manaan has him pegging the Echani as "Fey dancers wielding flimsy toy weapons not suitable for mandalorian children." The Echani are also regarded by many fans as physically elf-like for their lithe bodies and their features.
 * In Mabinogi, the elves and giants are at war. You never see any actual raiding, aside from reminiscences, but any elf or elf-aligned human in the giant village will be attacked on sight by the guards, and vice versa. There is also an option toggle that will cause any character of the opposing race with the same option enabled to be targeted and attacked like a monster. However, the elven healer Atrata and the giant blacksmith Taunes are old friends, suggesting that the war is not built-in.
 * Of course, Mabinogi giants are basically dwarves in every respect except for actually being short.
 * Scribblenauts has a classic example. While an ordinary "Elf" is no trouble, try putting a "Wood Elf" and a "Dwarf" next to each other.
 * In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind:
 * The dark elves of the series, Dunmer, are described as a traditionalistic, religious, racist, proud bunch. Some of them were also quite backstabbing, vicious, and nomadic, though that dependent on which house or tribe they belonged. They lived either out in the fields in tents for the tribes or preferred lavish houses grown via magic from super-mutated mushrooms and vines. The race of technology-minded "dwarves", the Dwemer, had all suffered a Critical Existence Failure after messing around with a Cosmic Keystone long before even the first game in the series so we know little about their nature directly, but their method of lifestyle is well-documented in subterranean Steampunk cities that repair themselves via a continuous automaton skeleton crew and security (which, notably, is a combination of both science and magic).
 * The Dunmer and Dwemer did play classical Elves versus Dwarves diplomacy up the point the Dwemer disappeared: generally at loggerheads, but quite willing to bury the axe and work together when a greater enemy showed up.
 * Amusingly subverted: according to The Elder Scrolls lore, any race that has "-mer" in its official name is descended from an ancient Elvish race called the Aldmer. Also, the Dwemer weren't that short...
 * The Elder Scrolls case is more of a subversion. The "dwarves", while seemingly atheist, they were a very spiritual people - so much that the aforementioned Critical Existence Failure happened in Both of them also base their technology on magic - the Dwemer even more so than their neighbours.
 * While the Dunmer/Dwemer case is more of a subversion, this trope is played straight with the human Empire playing the dwarves to the Dunmer elves.
 * In the game Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura this is mildly subverted. Dwarves and Elves don't particularly understand each other, but they aren't enemies... Culminates in a rather interesting (which has several opportunities to never be seen) conversation between Loghaire Thunder Stone (king of the dwarves) and Z'an Al'urin (a True Neutral Dark Elf), which humbles Loghaire but-quick.
 * The elves and dwarves (and gnomes) of Majesty won't settle in your kingdom if any of the other races are present. While the dwarves here are depicted as typical 'gruff engineers' the elves are far from mystical, magical, or wise, but are instead a bunch of hedonistic layabouts who bring vice to your city in the form of gambling halls and elven lounges.
 * Subverted in one mission in the expansion pack, when you find yourself asisting refugees from a war between the elves and the Greater Gorgons. If you last long enough, the second wave of reinforcements is a large party of dwarves.
 * Stonekeep features dwarves who are prejudiced against elves. And goblins. And trolls. And fairies. And various other green-skinned races. And dwarves who have been dishonored. Despite all this, the dwarves are not unlikable, probably because they have no problems with humans whatsoever. Dwarves make up the majority of your traveling companions early in the game, and one does nothing to hide his intolerance of party members from the above races.
 * The story of the NES game Faxanadu revolved around Elves vs. Dwarves, although it's because the dwarves had gone psycho and turned into demons.
 * In Overlord, it turns out that - a short while before your Awakening - the Dwarves and Elves fought a war of extinction. The Dwarves won, carting away the most valued treasure of the Elves, as well as several cartloads of elven slaves to work in their mines, and leaving the Elvish forest of Evernight to the mournful whispers of the ghosts. If you are so inclined, you can help the Elves regain their freedom, and their treasure... or you could kill them all and keep the treasure to yourself. Canonically the Overlord saves the Elves from extinction since they're still around in the sequel while the Dwarves are presumably devastated by the magical Cataclysm that turned the lands of the first game into a magical wasteland. The prequel Overlord: Dark Legend has Lord Gromgard, the previous Overlord instigate a war between the Elves and Dwarves by killing their leaders and framing the other side for it.
 * Averted in The Legend of Zelda. You'd think the dwarf-like Gorons and Elf-like Zoras would hate each other, but they are actually extremely close. Both species are generally on good terms with the long-eared humans called Hylians, too.
 * Seemingly played straight first in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, when the Gorons seem to hate the Hylians, but this later turns out to be a subversion: The Gorons were just ashamed for having problems with an evil curse on their leader, which is why they kept the Hylians away from their terretory.
 * In Class of Heroes, Elves and Dwarves don't get along with each other, thus making it harder for them to gain affinity points when characters of both races are in the same party.
 * Averted in Age of Wonders. The dwarves and elves are ancient and steadfast allies, especially against the human invasion. Nevertheless, the default relation between the two races is "Polite" (one step below the best, which is "Friendly").
 * Dragon Age:
 * Lampshaded with Zevran and Oghren in Dragon Age Origins. At worst, they're Vitriolic Best Buds. Awakening has this a bit, with Oghren and Sigrun pranking around uptight Dalish elf Velanna.
 * Much more directly lampshaded, and laughably subverted, when Oghren is in the party when you recruit Zevran


 * In Dragon Age II, Varric and Fenris are relatively cordial to each other. While Varric is one of the few party members that remains on good terms with everybody, Fenris is generally antisocial and quite antagonistic other members, particularly the mages (or at least the ones that aren't Hawkes). Varric adores Merrill, the party's other elf, nicknaming her "Daisy" and treating her like a little sister.
 * Noticeably absent in Mass Effect. The Asari are a fairly easy Elf equivalent, but there isn't really a clear Dwarf race. The best fits would be the very militaristic and civic-minded Turians, but they were invited to join the Council because of their military prowess & there's no history of major dispute between the two races. Or the Batarians, but they're more like intelligent Orcs or barbarians. And they don't really like anybody.
 * To a degree in Kingdom of Loathing; as part of a quest you can start and stop a war between the nature-loving hippies and the beer-drinking frat boys.
 * Heroes of Might and Magic:
 * The first three games avert this pretty hard, as elves and dwarves are parts of the same faction. However, the dwarves join the Academy in the fourth game, and gain their own faction in the fifth. Ufretin, the dwarf leader who arranged the rift between the elves and dwarves and the dwarves' integration into the Academy, did so because he felt the chaotic ways of the elves were too much at odds with the orderly ways of dwarves. Similarly, the centaurs, who had been allies of the elves in the previous game, join the Barbarian faction in IV; Tarnum comments that he wondered why the centaurs maintained an alliance with elves for so long, given their aversion to magic.
 * Played straight-ish in Heroes of Might and Magic 5, where dwarves war against dark elves.
 * The dark elves and dark dwarves of the old verse were unfriendly to each other. This may have more to do with the consequences of one race (the Elves) being enthusiastic traders and the other being xenophobic allies/servants of the Earth Elementals than this trope, however (certainly, the dark elves can only barely be said to fit the Elven archetype used in this trope).
 * Even though Thief has humans as the only civilized race, aspects of this trope show up in the rivalry between The Hammerites, whose religion embodies the concepts of order, technology and civilization, and the paganistic worshippers of The Trickster, whose religion embodies chaos, nature and magic.
 * Averted in Popful Mail with elven bomb-maker Slick and dwarven artisan Glug, who are the best of friends.
 * The Elves, who represent the element of Life, and Dwarves, who worship the element of Earth, typically begin with poor relations in Lords of Magic.
 * While both factions in Rift have elves, it's the faction that doesn't have dwarves in which this rivalry gets obviously played out: The Kelari elves are not on the best of terms with the bahmi (the imposing, blue-skinned, and decidedly non-dwarven stouts of the Defiant faction).
 * This tend to crop up in Dwarf Fortress, while they are not necessarily out and out antagonistic towards one another (unless you decide to instigate it). For the most part, your dwarfs are at least on good enough terms with elven civilisations for mutual trade (they can be useful for supplying cloth, training weaponry and tamed exotic animals, though, other than that, their wares are generally of subpar quality). That said, the elves will insult your dwarfs at any available opportunity, and will be appalled if you so much as try to trade them wooden goods. As such, with very few exceptions, elves are not the most popular race in the Dwarf Fortress community.
 * Averted in the Warcraft games. In Warcraft II and III, High elves and Bronzebeard dwarves went along well, and Wildhammer dwarves were very good friends with the former. Dwarves in general don't seem to have any problem with Night elves, and if they are ennemies of the Blood elves it's only because the latter joined the Horde (their rival faction) or the Burning Legion (who are ennemies to everybody).
 * There are some individual examples, however. Tarenar Sunstrike and Gidwin Goldbraids in World Of Warcraft's Eastern Plaguelands have a rivalry very reminiscent of Gimli and Legolas. Likewise, a night elf and dwarf in one of the Warcraft: Legends manga were verbally at each other's throats all the time.
 * The Alliance's ambassador to the blood elves (before they joined the Horde) was a dwarf, which you would think was an intentional aversion of this trope. Turns out, he was investigating things where he didn't belong and handing off blueprints of arcane sanctums to the night elves hiding in the area.
 * Lacking any actual elves in the setting and with the dwarves virtually extinct as of the first game, Guild Wars 2 has an excellent parallel in the conflict between the ancient, civilized, beautiful, magically gifted humans and the brutal, industrious, and militaristic Charr, where the humans are in serious decline and are in very real danger of extinction and the Charr are thriving. They're reluctant and wary allies in the game, courtesy of the de facto ruler of the Charr being unusually progressive and far-sighted (who also wants the traditional marker of the true leader of the Charr, which the humans stole centuries back), while the human queen has more than enough trouble on her hands without the Charr.
 * Lampshaded by descriptions of items in Dungeons of Dredmor, where there was such a war outside the dungeon.
 * Master of Magic has this, it's All There in the Manual - racial relationships table shows that Dwarves have maximal unrest penalty for Trolls, with High Elves, Dark Elves and Orcs sharing the second worst place in their hearts, while High Elves dislike Dark Elves most, but Dwarves are on the second place with Trolls - i.e. they dislike even Orcs less. For that matter, their rows and columns (because feelings are mutual) and Dark Elves vs. Trolls are the only cases of such high hostility.

Web Comics
"Dwarves: We're the Dwarven border guards. We guard the Dwarven borders. Our orders are simple. Black Mage: That must be a relief to you. Dwarves: We're to kill any Elves on sight without question. Which is fairly redundant, since any Dwarf would do that anyway. But a paycheck's a paycheck."
 * In 8-bit Theater:
 * The grudge is mostly explained as elves really, really disliking all the beards. Or, to be more specific, both races believe they rightfully own the Earth Orb. Notably not present in the game it's based on, however, which portrays the dwarves and elves as being friendly with each other.
 * Keeping with the tone of the comic, the rivalry is turned Up to Eleven with both sides gladly committing genocide on the other. The two biggest Sociopathic Hero-protagonists do their part since Thief is an Elf and Black Mage... just enjoys destruction.

"Ohforf: How nice! The drawing is a tree that represents the elves' love for nature, right? Tacobell: Oh, no, darling! It's a mushroom cloud. A souvenir of when we nuked the Dwarven capital city, at the end of beta! *giggles*"
 * It doesn't help that both species are portrayed as being highly xenophobic and Elves believe that all other forms of life (including some of the gods) were failed attempts at replicating their perfection.
 * In Dominic Deegan, they have the Halflings and the Dwarves going at it, with the pretty Halflings having fruited beers while the ugly Dwarves have more generic beers. That is what's presented at the nature of their conflicts, at least in the modern day.
 * Order of the Stick features rather few elves and dwarves long enough for the two to meet- except for the party members. Durkon, a proudly stereotypical dwarf cleric, and Vaarsivuus, The Spock and Insufferable Genius wizard, constantly bicker but respect each others' abilities nonetheless, both being powerful spellcasters.
 * Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic presents: the dwarven humour.
 * A story arc in Nodwick involved a war between the elves and the dwarves over possession of a certain artifact the dwarves claimed had been stolen from them two thousand years ago. It turned out to be a sword that, which forced them to declare a truce.
 * The Noob: it goes on in ClicheQuestTM, too:

Web Original
"The Elf [who has fallen in a hole]: Help me, I'm stuck! The Dwarf: She says we can leave her behind. The Elf: Get me out of here, it's slimy! The Dwarf: She says she wants us to make rocks fall on her to put her out of her misery."
 * In Le Donjon De Naheulbeuk (Dungeon of Naheulbeuk)), a French audio Affectionate Parody of tabletop RPGs and particularly Dungeons & Dragons, elves and dwarves famously can't get along. Each race takes its defining characteristics far, far beyond its limits, making the following more or less the norm:


 * In Tales of MU, a gnomish folk tale depicts elves and dwarves are the descendants of quarreling twin brothers, who grew into their current forms by attempting to emphasize their imagined differences.
 * The debate continues even onto YouTube in a segment of D&D PHB PSA. Elves, for those not in the know, cause cancer, and have tiny penises. Especially the women.
 * In Monster Girl Encyclopedia, it was Fantastic Racism in era of previous demon lords. Elves consider humans, dwarves and any monsters to be lowly creatures and loathe to make contact with them, so they rarely get far from their Hidden Elf Village. Dwarves feel insulted by this attitude and hate them back. Today, when many of elves and dwarves are succubi, they still tend to snipe at each other and fight over men. For some reason, succubi elves and dwarves usually target same men. Fortunatly, their "fighting" consist mostly of...snuggle up against the man, pinching him between them.

Western Animation

 * In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, the plot revolves around a war between tree-dwelling Elves (a parody of the Keebler Elves) and Dwarves over who got what rights to sell food. The Elves, of course, got cookies, while the Dwarves get mushrooms, and have regretted it ever since. In the end, they compromise and make mushroom cookies.
 * "They taste like my cat!"

Real Life

 * In Ancient Greece, the rivalry between Sparta, which corresponds to Dwarves, and Athens, which corresponds to Elves. Spartans were considered to be heavily pragmatic and usually relied on military strength and the direct application of force, training their citizens to be hard soldiers at the cost of philosophy or open trade, and their straightforwardness is what made them distinct from the other Greeks ("Laconic" was named after the Greek term for "Spartan"). On the other hand, the Athenians were not so pragmatic. While their military power is much less famous than the Spartans (though still formidable) they had an advantage in the arts and diplomacy, with their culture still widely admired today, not to mention they were abundant in philosophers who speak in Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness. Of course, this is more like the Theme Park Version of Ancient Greece, since the two had more of a Friendly Rivalry than the way they're usually portrayed nowadays, and came to each other's aid multiple times.
 * Aside from the Peloponesian War....
 * The Middle Ages was like this. The countries of the Far East were Elves: the people were stylish, graceful and cultured, but rather backwards-thinking, insular, and had a tendency to view other cultures as barbaric. They also fought in battle with bows, curved swords, spears, exotic bladed weapons and light armour. In direct contrast, the countries of Medieval Europe were the Dwarves: populated with tough, hard-working people, if less educated and clean, and valued Undying Loyalty and Honor Before Reason. They fought in battle with heavy armour, armed with straight swords, poleaxes, maces, warhammers, crossbows, and primitive firearms.
 * Specifically, China (the name of which literally meant "Central Kingdom Under Heaven") regarded themselves as Elves and everyone else as Dwarves (in fact, a common Chinese slur used against Japanese translates as "eastern dwarves").
 * The North/South divide in the UK between the (now) poorer industrialised North and the richer South. With northerners seen as plain-spoken, down-to-earth and working class (or Northern Bastards) and southerners seen as posh, intelligent, educated, and generally upper or middle class (or Soft Southern Nancies). It is no coincidence that in many fantasy adaptations the Elves have posh, southern English accents, while those for Dwarves tends to be either northern (usually Yorkshire) or Scottish. And then you have the people living in the Midlands who are often counted in both camps...
 * Anglo/French relations, in a nutshell. The industrial English/British have been at odds with the artistic French for almost a millennium.
 * During The American Revolution, on the other hand, the colonists saw themselves as the tough, pragmatic and hardworking ones and the British as a bunch of posh elitists (a stereotype which has never really gone away).
 * Cats are seen as graceful, aloof, pretentious, and clever (Elves). Dogs are seen as strong, tough, loyal, hard-working, and finally: they dig (Dwarves).
 * The Mars and Venus Gender Contrast relies on something like this, with men being stereotyped as boorish oafs who love power tools (Dwarves) and women as smart, sophisticated and bookish (Elves). This is subverted more often than not with stereotypes like the Dumb Blonde.
 * The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Americans won The Space Race, had a high-tech volunteer army that relied heavily on precision weaponry (smart bombs, et al.), had the dominant pop culture which they used to spread their ideals far and wide, had a consumer culture that was the envy of the world, and were stereotyped as rich, vain and decadent (Elves). The Soviets had much bigger nuclear weapons (to destroy more area in one blow and make up for inaccuracy) and a much larger standing army, would probably have overrun Western Europe (before the nukes came out, at least) through overwhelming force had World War III broken out, followed an ideology that extolled the working classes, and were stereotyped as poor and oppressed, but hard-working (Dwarves). On a smaller scale, see Korea (North is Dwarves, South is Elves)