Five Races: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''Learn now the lore of Living Creatures!

 

Many fantastic settings attempting a universe will end up using 'races' of people. This is less in the spirit of being different species and more an easy way to soapbox or [[Planet of Hats|describe different points of views]] and aspects of normal people; or, in a game world, simply to give the player a wider range of choices. At least one has a good chance of being from a [[One-Gender Race]]. These usually include:

 

* Mundane ([[Humans Are Average|Human]]): [[Audience Surrogate|What the modern reader most identifies with.]] The least magical race, usually enjoys simple pleasures instead of adventuring, a la Tolkien's [[Hobbits]]. Usually the [[Jack of All Trades]] of the races. This is usually the role cast for humans, unless you have...

* High Men ([[Our Elves Are Better|Taller Elf]] or [[Humans Are Special|Human]]): Usually a historical or [[Witch Species|fantastic interpretation]] of what humans are or want to be, at least in character. A setting that doesn't have elves as Fairy or High Men simply doesn't have elves [[Morrowind|*cough*]]. If the [[Precursors]] still exist in a [[Speculative Fiction]] setting, they might fill this role if [[The Federation]] isn't heavily idealized.

* Cute ([[Hobbits]]/Moogle/[[Our Gnomes Are Weirder|Gnome]] etc): The fifth, increasingly common group, and becoming more popular in modern gaming. They may seem weak, but have a sort of closer-to-Earth spiritual purity and inner strength that allow them to succeed in the face of adversity. [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|Or not.]] Tends to either overlap with Mundane (to produce [[Hobbits]]) or Fairy (to produce gnomes), but usually designed with a larger dose than usual of [[Fun Personified]].

 

 

If the heroes in this setting form a [[Five-Man Band]], there will typically be one of each race represented, since each race can usually "map" to one of the five slots better than any of the others. (Humorously enough, this often means that the Dwarf in the party fills the role of [[The Big Guy]].)

 

See [[Square Race Round Class]] for the deliberate subversion. The [[Fantasy Axis of Evil]] is the [[Evil Counterpart]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' has humans (mundane) mermaids (fairy), and Ancients (high men) in the categories. Panthalassa and Suiyou don't seem to fit anywhere, except maybe as another mixture of fairy and high men.

 

== Fan Works ==

 

 

== Literature ==

* When one looks only at the magical beings in ''[[Harry Potter]]'', giants are Stout, goblins are Fairies, Wizards are Mundane, centaurs are High Men, and House Elves are Cute/Hobbits.

* [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn]]'' has four (or five depending on how you count) heroic races that more or less fill these roles. Humans are of course Mundanes, the Sithi occupy both the Fairies and High Men role, Trolls are Cutes, Niskies are both Fairies and Cutes, and Dwarrows (the underground cousins of the Niskies) are both Stouts and Cutes. And of course there's a corresponding [[Fantasy Axis of Evil]] for the [[Big Bad]]'s allies.

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' may be the [[Trope Maker]] here, with Elves (High Men), Dwarves (Stout), Ents (Fairy), Humans (Mundane), and Hobbits (Cute). However, the situation gets a bit murkier once you look deeper into the mythology, with several alternative arrangements and even subsets of the races themselves.

** Alternatively, the Elves are the fairies and the role of High Men is filled by the Númenoreans.

** The Elves themselves are subdivided, with the High Elves (the Noldor and to a lesser extent, the Teleri) filling the High Men role and the Grey and Green Elves (The Sindar and Laiquendi) filling the more Mundane role. The Vanyar who play little part in the books might be the Fairies. The the Avari might fill the Sixth Ranger or Fallen roles, but play almost no part in the stories (though some would have become the forerunners of the Orcs at the hands of Morgoth).

** Actually, the humans are nearly every race depending on who we're talking about: Witches = Fairy, Wizards = High Men, Watchmen = Stout, Moist (a late addition) = Cute, and the Mundane are the other characters who tend to get seen only once or twice.

* [[David Weber]] specifically invokes the trope name in his ''[[Bahzell]]'' series. Aligning the five races with the trope isn't all that straightforward though

** Also of note in the series are the Half-Elves. They would consider themselves the '''High Men''' of the setting but no one else does because they only maintain their uniqueness when breeding with full Elves or other Half-Elves. If they interbred with the far more numerous humans their Elf traits would be swamped by the far more numerous humans and as such they aren't considered a proper race.

* Terry Brooks's ''[[Shannara]]'' has these as well, though the origins are different for most. Except Elves, which are the Fairies, and seperate from humans though inter-breedable, Dwarves, Trolls, Gnomes and others are all off shoots of humans. Dwarves and Trolls share Stout, Gnomes and most humans are Mundane. Elves are literal fairies, as well as being the High Men, the latter shared with the Druids. He seems only to lack the Cute, though the Gnomes of Storlock might count, as might the Elves.

* The [[Bas-Lag Cycle]], which includes ''[[Perdido Street Station]]'' and [[The Scar|its]] [[Iron Council|sequels]] are a notable aversion, with [[Loads and Loads of Races|more bizarre fantasy races than you shake a stick + 1 at]].

** Nonetheless, it's not hard to make those races with a prominent role in the first novel fit this trope, with cactacae (gruff and hard to hurt) as the Stout, vodyanoi (watercraeft powers) as the Fairy, Garuda as High Men (note that they're socialists like the author), and khepri as the Cute (very Woobie-ish despite the bug heads).

* ''[[Vurt]]'' uses robots for stout, humans for mundane, and dogs for cute. (Not talking dogs or anything, but they're an honorary race because they can interbreed with some of the others.) Depending on how you look at it, "vurts" (beings that were created in virtual reality but escaped into the real world) occupy either fairy or high men, and shadows (never explained except that they're humanoid and telepathic) take whatever's left over. However, unlike most of the above settings the boundaries between the groups are relatively fluid, with five common two-way hybrids (counting cyborgs), five three-way hybrids, and five four-way hybrids, plus a theoretical fiver that has yet to come into existence.

** ''Pollen'', another novel by Jeff Noon in the same Verse goes into a little more detail, explaining the origins of beings like the Shadows who would clearly fill the Fairy role given their psychic powers. Intelligences from Vurt tend to be more like demigods and so fall outside of the normal 5-race categorisation.

** Helmacrons!

*** [[Cute but Cacophonic]], sure. Plus they want to conquer the universe despite being less than an inch tall. They are hilarious though also [[Not So Harmless]].

 

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' has five major races. While some of them align with the archetypes above reasonably well (Human-Mundane, Vorlon-Fairy, Minbari-High Men), Narn-Stout is a bit of a stretch, and the Centauri definitely aren't Cute. (Although it's worth noting that the initially toadying Vir is a good example of Cute among a generally unCute race; Ivanova's "strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places" in her voice-over in the finale, as the camera shows Vir, practically defines the essence of the Cute. The Regent, with his quavering voice and ditzy kindliness, is an even better example of Cute.) Still, it's five races.

*** If gnomes are consider Cute, when you consider the gnomish love of ceremony for the sake of ceremony and of illusion for the sake of trickery, the Centauri make a perfect fit. (For example, they loved tricking humans into believing they were a lost Centauri colony, and they cheat at cards just for the fun of it.)

* In ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', Klingons serve as Stouts, humans are High Men, and Vulcans are Fairies.

 

== Mythology ==

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** From the 3.5e PHB races, we get:

*** Dwarves are Stout, because they're [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|all the same.]] Also Half-Orcs, though they're human-sized.

*** '''High Men''': the soratami, or cloudfolk. Besides generally being quite good at everything they do, and literally living high in the clouds, [[Break the Haughty|they think they're better than everybody else.]]

*** '''Fairies''': the foxfolk, or kitsune-bito. They have a lot of clerics and archers. They're physically smaller than humans.

** Of course, Magic generally tends toward having ''six'' races in any given setting, one for each colour plus humans (who appear in all colours).

*** '''Mundane''': Kithkin (basically short humans)

*** '''Stout''': Giants, although they were more of a secondary race. Among the five primary tribes, the Merfolk (Merrow) were a sort of intellectual variation on the Stout archetype.

*** '''Fairies''': [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Fae, singular "Faerie"]]. Also pretty damn evil.

*** '''Cute''': Goblins (or Boggarts, as the local variety were called) are probably the closest thing, being silly comic relief-types, as goblins often are in Magic.

** Two new races were introduced towards the end of Xevoz, to reinforce the fantasy element; one of them is very similar to the Mundanes but magically empowered, making them something between High Men and Fair Folk.

* ''[[Shadowrun]]'' also has five races, though they break down a bit differently: Stout (dwarfs), High Men (elves), Mundane (humans), Low Men ([[Our Orcs Are Different|orks]]), and Big Mean [[Future Slang|Fraggers]] ([[All Trolls Are Different|trolls]]). Fairy is reserved for somewhat further-out races, and anything Cute was either killed off a while ago or is now starring in some twisted simsense flick.

** Tomb Kings & Vampire Counts - these don't really follow the standard Race issues, as some of them are highly magical but not particularly Fairy-like, while others are tough and capable warriors but don't resemble Mundane or High Men in any other way, and most of the Stouts are special units and not part of the standard army.

** Skaven - The ratmen are also hard to define. They have a lot of magitek like a variation of Fairy, but are evil plague bringers. They have large numbers for melee but each is rather weak, but they are expendable so feel free to shoot into melee. All in all they are Mundane with some hints of the others. They might even be Cute if you have dark humor as they blow themselves up or 'accidentally' kill each other with such alarming frequency (and then blame it on their enemies rather than any fault on their own part) that their sourcebook itself advises you to laugh it off and move on. It's notable that Fantasy, being what it is, has absolutely no Cute races. The closest they get are the Halflings, who aren't a playable race (anymore thank Sigmar), and are more fat and lazy than Cute.

** Imperial Guard- Mundane

** Space Marines- High Men in general, though now subsets exist with the Chapter Codexes, the first real variation being the Space Wolves and Grey Knights (see below). It is unknown if future Chapters will produce more variants.

== [[Video Games]] ==

* ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' has this: Humans as the Mundane, Ronso as the Stout, Guado as the Fairy, Al Bhed as the High Men (they represent what Humans really are, when the roots of the Yevon religion are revealed), and the Hypello fill the role of the Cute.

** Fairy: Tarutaru (Highly magically inclined, depicted as close to nature, though not to the extent Mithra are)

** Mundane: Hume (While depicted as the driving intellectual force behind industrial development, this race is typically self-absorbed and prone to putting personal ambition over other concerns)

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' tries to give each side one of each category.

** The Alliance has '''Dwarves''' for Stout, '''Night Elves''' for Fairy, '''Humans''' for Mundane, '''Draenei''' for High Men, and '''Gnomes''' for Cute. '''Worgen''' overlap with both Stout and Mundane.

*** The only ones who really can't be pidgeonholed like this at all are the undead humans of the Forsaken - they have inverted, played-with elements of the Mundane, Fairy and Stout all at once.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' series typically has about 5 races starting with Ocarina of Time: Hylians (Mundane), Sheikah (High Men), Gorons (Stout), Zora (Fairy), and Kokiri (Cute with Fairy traits). In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|Majora's Mask]]'' the Dekus replace the Kokiri. In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|Wind Waker]]'' the Zora get replaced with the Rito (why, we don't know, given that the Zora are even more suited for an all-water world than anyone else), and the Deku/Kokiri are replaced by the Koroks.

** About the Zora in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|Wind Waker]]'', if the ocean is salty and the Zora were adapted to fresh water, the results would have been...horrifying. [[Inferred Holocaust|And fatal]].

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'' really screwed with this, retaining the Zora, Goron, and Hylians, but giving no mention of the Kokiri or Sheikah (unless certain decals are to be taken into account...), while the only remnant of the Gerudo is the desert and [[Big Bad|Ganondorf]] -- ([[Wild Mass Guessing]] speculates a Gerudo genocide.) To balance the scale, we are introduced to the Twili (banished to another dimension, resemble both Sheikah and Gerudo), the Yeti (of whom only two are known), and, most disturbingly of all, the Oocca, who occupy the line somewhere between Fairy and pleasant, innocuous [[Nightmare Fuel]].

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword|The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword]]'' has the Hylians (Mundane), Mogmas (Stout), Kikwi (Cute), Sheikah (High Men), and Ancient Robots (Fairy).

* The [[Phantasy Star]] Universe has this in the most obvious ways

** Humans are... humans

** Beasts are cute for most of their time, but warp into Stout as a super power.

** Gallians/beast tribe laguz are the Stout being [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]] (tigers and lions are [[Mighty Glacier]] whereas cats and wolfs are [[Fragile Speedster]].

** Serenes/heron laguz are the Fairy, being angelic, very magically inclined and also very fragile.

** Phoenicis/hawk laguz and Kilvas/raven laguz are a combination of Mundane (being the [[Jack of All Stats]] among the laguz) and High Men (compared to the beorc).

** Goldoans/dragon tribe laguz are the High Men, living isolated from everyone else and declaring themselves as neutral regardless of whatever happens to the outside world. They also have some elements of Stout (mainly on their dragon forms, which tend to be huge).

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' has Redguards, Orcs and Nords as '''Stout''', Breton as '''Fairy''', Dunmer and Imperial as '''Mundane''', Altmer as '''High Men''', Wood Elves as '''Cute''', and in addition, Argonians and Khajiits as '''Beasts'''.

** Redguards could also be counted as High Men, considering their pick of the attributes and martial skill, and their history of military and naval prowess.

** The Humans are, of course, the '''Humans.''' ([[Captain Obvious]] to the rescue!) However, due to their mundanity, and the way some of them value hard work, they may well also fill the '''Stout''' role.

** The Mr. Saturns are the '''Fairies.''' They're weird and quirky, and they may have magical powers. Maybe. They're an entire race of [[Cloudcuckoolander|Cloud Cuckoolanders]], so it's hard to tell.

** The Tenda are the '''Cute.''' And, as they will frequently tell you, they're shy.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'': Some are a bit of a stretch, but the playable races fall into these types.

** Cute - Quarians. While not exactly small, they're the least warlike race and are perceived as harmless. Also, Tali's accent.

*** [[Keet|Salarians]], [[Fun Size|volus,]] and [[Gentle Giant|elcor]] can also be thrown into the Cute category.

* ''[[Nethack]]'' doesn't follow the standard exactly:

** ''Humans'' are more High Men than Mundane: strong and balanced, can be any role (class), and are the only race than can choose their alignment. Their only major disadvantage is that without infravision, they are blind in the dark.

* Even in [[Cthulhu Mythos]]-inspired "[[Cthulhu MUD]]", you have mundane Humans, cute Zoogs, stout Deep Ones, high Yithians, and fairy Mi-Go. Keeping in mind, of course, that Yithians (despite being benevolent and intellectual) are body-jumping cone-slugs, the Zoogs are furry blue primates with tentacle-faces, Deep-Ones are fish-frog people, and Mi-Go (flying shrimp-fungus) are as evil, ugly and technologically-advanced as normal Fairies are good, pretty and, magical.

* [[Just for Fun]], let's attempt this with the Origins of ''[[City of Heroes]]''- almost purely aesthetic descriptions of how your [[Superhero]] got their powers...

** Fairy: [[Functional Magic|Magic]]- Most associated with otherworldly forces such as [[Our Demons Are Different|demons]] or [[The Fair Folk|fey]], magic is famously ill-defined but much like Technology, can come down to those who use magic itself (a la [[Doctor Strange]]) or those who are merely empowered by it (see: [[Wonder Woman]]).

** Mundane: [[Badass Normal|Natural]]- Characters of this origin are usually normal humans, [[Charles Atlas Superpower|keeping up with superfolks through sheer skill]]. Alternatively, they can be non-human but using powers that are entirely natural for their species. Two examples that exemplify each type: [[Batman]] and [[Superman]].

** Mundane: More or less normal Humans.

** Fairy: Fairies. The Sproutlings/Flowerlings are a mix of this and Cute, maybe with a little High Men thrown in.

** High Men: It's a bit of a stretch, but this can be seen in the Jumi.

** Cute: Lillipeas

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'': Any citizen of any race could be considered Mundane, but as for the characters of whole civilizations:

** Dwarf = Anyone who can swing a granite throne as a weapon would naturally be a Stout. They're also the most advanced, with technology that canonically reaches into the High Middle Ages and, with player influence, goes [[Clock Punk|even further]].

* ''[[The Legend of Dragoon]]'' has this too.

* ''[[Rift]]'' plays with the trope: There are arguably only four playable races, total (bahmi and dwarves—the respective Stouts of their factions—are distinct races, but [[Humans by Any Other Name|Mathosians and Eth]] are [[Humans Are Special|human nationalities]] and high elves and Kelari are [[Our Elves Are Better|elves]]), most of them overlap more than one category, and it'd be a stretch to call ''any'' of them Cute.

** The game features fairies as the game's '''Fairy''' race. Fairly straightforward. This also includes the Elemental Aura spirits, which are somewhat fairy-like in nature.

** Humans are the game's '''Mundane''' race. Unusually, they're not the one's we're supposed to identify with, as most of the game's humans take a background role.

* [[Game Mod]] [[Red Alert 3 Paradox]]:

** Cute: Design-wise, Empire of the Rising Sun, who overlap with Fairy by having [[Psychic Powers]].

 

== Webcomics ==

* In ''[[Triquetra Cats]]'', humans having colonized the solar system have come to develop into this: Earthlings = mundane/human; Martians = Stout/dwarf; Venutians = High Men/elf; Stationborn = Fairy/gnome; Outer System = Cute/Hobbit; [[Sixth Ranger|Antreyki]] = Proud Warrior Race/animal people

* Lampshaded somewhat in [[Our Little Adventure]] when Carissa touched on a theory where the human girl used the Magicant to create the first of four other races. These other four people were visibly unhappy about this in [http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0092.html this comic here.]

** Stout: Boudacians, Princess Mandie's race. If Mandie (and the arranged military alliance with Yugopotamia)is any indication, they seem to be a [[Proud Warrior Race]].

** Cute: The Gigglepies. [[Tastes Like Diabetes|Sickeningly so,]] [[Invoked Trope|intentionally.]]

* [[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]:

** Earth Kingdom as Stout, though they could easily count as Mundane due to their diversity and larger population.

** Air Nomads as High Men, particularly because they're all Airbenders. Bonus points for being nearly extinct at the time of the series.

** Water Tribe as Cute, for the underestimated (at least at the beginning of Book One) and [[Closer to Earth]] parts.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Otherness Tropes]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]

[[Category:Ensembles]]