[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, Tolkien was ripped off by any number of hack*cough*authors, few of which had the creative and researching abilities to encompass the depth and breadth of Tolkien's Middle Earth. D&D who borrowed heavily from Tolkien and a great number of other authors perpetuated this to a degree, and, along with myriad other influences, managed to create a cultural "model" of a "typical fantasy world". Tolkien's elves, dwarves, and dragons don't themselves fit their own steriotypes. Tolkien's elves are more like biblical angels than they are anything else-for instance, they come from Tolkien's version of heaven and they can be corrupted (ala fallen angels) into orcs, while dwarves use swords and magic as often as axes and technology, and they were the very first race, and dragons were basically manufactured by Morgoth as war-machines.