>>53188368>>53189727I'll give a summary:
>Old Norse dark elvesIn ancient times, the word "elf" wasn't as specific as it was today. It was used more generally for some kinds of humanoid supernatural beings, there was even a story of a human king dying and being worshipped as an elf. Now, since "elf" was a pretty vague word it could also be applied to dwarves, like the dwarf named Gandálfr (Means "Staff-elf", literally where Tolkien got the name from.) This extended to the group known as dark elves, which was essentially another name for dwarves, the same little midgets living in the earth and master craftsmen that we all know and love.
>Tolkien dark elvesTolkien loved Norse mythology, so he referenced dark elves, but he made them separate from dwarves. In his version, dark elves looked exactly the same as other elves, the same light-skinned knife ears. The only reason they were called dark elves was because they never saw the light of his magical trees.
>DnD-inspired dark elvesDnD based a lot of its lore on Tolkien, so they ended up using the concept of dark elves and changed them around. Now they were dark as in they literally were black-skinned and evil elves. After DnD's popularity spike, modern fantasy basically started copying it along with the concept of dark elves but with different interpretations of what dark should imply. Sometimes their modern dark elves are basically just latino elves, anime prefers this style of dark elf. Other times they'd go with the all out black bondage gear elves which many consider to be the true modern dark elf.
