elves can breathe magic and live in harmony with nature and use uncanny powers

but a human can pick up a table

all meaningful manual labor in the elf world is done with groups or with magically expensive constructs

human strength is equivalent to like five elves and they can just do it

elves have very light weapons, that are fast and usable at their elven strength, but if you go up against a human, they might have this thing called a "claymore"

and if you block it your elfblade will snap like a twig

Fae can't abide by iron

not because it magically weakens them

it's just

heavy

yeah

an elf, watching a human cut down a tree, with great feeling: "what the fuck"

There was a thing I saw about vampires

where the vampires were really scary and powerful

but only mentally

They could enthrall you with their eyes

but in a straight up fight they had the exact same strength as a regular human

usually a bit less

So if a human could resist their psychic powers then the vampire had zero plays left

A truly determined human fighter being low-key one of the scariest fuckers in the entire setting?

"he wears full steel at all times and carries a sword as long as a man is tall, and he's never been known to miss with it"

a human fighter can do shit with sheer muscle that elves would assume is just obviously impossible

"you mean he picked the lock?" "no, I mean he knocked the door down"

"you can't do that"

"Tell THEM that"

"WELL THE DOOR'S ON THE FLOOR SO YANNO"

elves are magical beings, so they exist half in reality and half in the spirit world

humans are one thousand percent RIGHT HERE

Leaning into that 5E Fighter energy of "You attack how many times?"

A fantasy version of those "Aliens find humans terrifying" thing

yes

furiously scribbling notes

Elf: "I stabbed a human in the stomach but it just pulled my sword out and broke it in half with its bare hands, then kept on coming!"