Personally, I enjoyed that particular section of the game particularly, and I don't think I was alone

But wait, you missed a few of the choicest:
And of course, Lin's fluent cursing...
Quote:
Sissy long-haired creamy-skinned pointy-eared...
|
However...
In this particular case of dwarves and elves: The emnity between the two races has obviously and for several combined ancestoral reasons lasted for generations. Also, in a 'cat-fight', when insults fly, as was the case when Balin's crew chanced upon the Prince and his courtiers in 'Last Hope for Moria', almost anything would be picked on by both sides! Obviously, compared to the dwarves, hardy, stout and thought to have 'sprung from stone', the litheness, elegance and height of the elves of then-Mirkwood is a huge contrast. Indeed, the elves were standing up for themselves, with such insults as:
Is this a stereotype of dwarves? Well, yes. Their height is a fundamental point of their appearance and one which other races, including the readers/viewers, would immediately pick up on - possibly even the first one they would pick up on.
In the same way one of the first things to be noted upon in the case of the elves is their enduring 'vitality' and, lets face it, beauty. The elves are, as you said 'fair folk' - and this is immediately remarkable. The references to their appearance are usually, if not always, favourable. Take, for example, a description of Glorfindel in 'Many Meetings' from FotR:
Quote:
Glorfindel was tall and straight: his hair was of shining gold, his face fair and young...his eyes were bright and keen and his voice like music
|
The film has, of course, enhanced this stereotype: Orlando Bloom's having been cast as Legolas probably didn't help very much in 'combatting' this - but then, does it really need to be 'combatted' as such? The first description of Legolas was rather sparse, only a few lines:
Quote:
There was also a strange elf clad in green and brown, Legolas, a messenger from his father Thranduil, King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood.
|
That's it. One sentence for our first glimpse of Legolas, less than half of which actually concerns his appearance. More is given to Boromir, even - he gets a whole paragraph! And bearing in mind the sparseness of this first look at Legolas, is it really a bad thing that the film-makers decided to build Legolas into the elegant, fine-looking character who appeared in the films? This finery of appearance, as well as his elegance and litheness, is befitting to the race - look at the other descriptions of the other elves, like Elrond (see Many Meetings and The Council of Elrond for a few examples), Glorfindel (as seen above as an example), Arwen or even the Elf-kings of old, such as Gil-Galad. It may be a selective sample of the race, but it is the only one that we have - all the elves who we encounter, as far as I can see, are indeed, very,
very 'fair'. And Legolas is obviously wise, a thinker rather than simply a pretty boy - maybe he does come across as a bit of a fool sometimes in the films ("A diversion" - RotK. You all know what I mean - ah yes, all of the readers of the books cringed at that point

), but he is always noble and pure, as his speech and words are wise and deep (even more so in the books). So maybe we can look back at the immortal philosophy of Roald Dahl's 'The Twits' - those with bad thoughts begin to look bad and ugly and twisted, but if you have good thoughts and do good things, your appearance will reflect that accordingly.
(And for anyone who would like to see more of the insults exchanged in the RPG thread in question, look especially at page four at Will Whitfoot's first post - pure genius...

)
~Aman