I was scrolling through twitter and I came upon a question that enthralled me. It was simple but purposed a very interesting observation. The person in question was Noir Enigma, a professional DM, (https://twitter.com/TheNoirEnigma) was noting that in D&D the non-human races all have pointed ears and then went on to speak about many of the odd differences between the races. This point about ears caught my attention because it felt like something that could be broken down based on what we know about evolution. So because I love world building and I am a big nerd that is exactly what I am going to do.
So, firstly, I would like to establish that the pointed ears that are present are present in the races trace their origins back to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It is unsurprising but needs to be established. The original description of elven ears in Tolkien's world is "more pointed and leaf shaped than humans" (The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games By Michael J. Tresca, page 34) which has a precedent in earlier myths across the world. So, since elves have pointed ears it makes sense that the orcs in Tolkiens world would have pointed ears since they were originally elves that were misshapen by the hands of evil. The strange anomaly that occurs is when hobbits, who are a fantastical race but not associated with elves within Tolkien's mythos, also have pointed ears. This more likely because of Tolkien returning to folklore of little people which were associated with the faerie, which elves also share some origin to. Still, these are present on these species purely to distinguish themselves from humans. It is a literary flair rather than a result of world building.
With that established we can move on to the main question at hand. Namely, how can the trait of pointed ears have come to be represented in so many species but not within humans?
To consider this it is best to look at species on earth that have pointed ears and understand exactly why that evolution came about. It is also important to understand that ear shape only plays a limited role in catching sound where it is actually all of the divots and contours of the ear that is truly doing most of the work. The thing about pointed ears is it is fairly common evolutionary trait but not within primates. Apes have rounded ears, the shape of their ears being so similar to humans is one of the points that Darwin made regarding evolution actually. Even most monkeys rarely have very prominent pointed ears. There are multiple reasons for this being the case like the ears getting in the way of arboreal movement and most primates having a diet that does not require them to hunt much. This difference, however, brings about a new question. What sort of environmental pressures would have required this change in ear shape?
One of the first questions that comes to mind in regards to environmental pressures is how are they going to feed themselves. I said before that because primates are mostly omnivores it makes sense that they are not requiring hearing for hunting since they sort of just eat what is available. For a creature that does need to hunt their prey it they will need to sense what they are hunting before it senses them. This is where I think an apt creature to look at is the caracal, who is widely know for their ears.
I mean look at this dude, cute as a button and deadly. Past this being an excuse for me to talk about caracals the ears have a shape that is very reminiscent of elf ears. They are very pointed and are not able to pivot much. The caracal is native to the African savannah where it hunts rodents, those longer ears are meant to be able to capture higher pitched noises of their prey. it has also been suggested that the large ears and tufts on them help with temperature regulation.
"So Richard, (you ask after appreciating the lovely picture I have provided you) what does all of this mean? What can we do with this information???"
Well, we can take these evolutionary pressures and situations of the caracal and see how well they apply to elves. When it comes to elves there are many renditions of them as being lithe and agile hunters whose arrows always fly true. What is important about this would be what they are hunting. If they are requiring the ability to hear high pitch sounds of their specific prey then that would explain their ears. Though it would make sense for them to hunt small game that might make sounds like this prey would not make up the majority of their diet, thus making it unreasonable to specialize towards hunting them. In addition to this creatures with pointed ears tend to require them to be on the top of their head to be able to pivot. For them to have fixed ears like us then it would be safe to presume that they would have had to evolve the pointed ears and then they would have had to evolve them into the position that they are now. That is a lot to go through but elves are an ancient species so it is not unthinkable. It would mean that they would need to have evolved from a different ancestor than humans... but let's pin that point and get back to that later.
Still, there is the possibility that rather than the type of prey they are hunting that it is the environment that they are doing it in that would cause the long pointed ears. This suggestion was one I had seen a few times while doing some research on the subject but it doesn't track. If we are to look at any predators that are within woodland or jungle biomes you tend to see more rounded ears since those are better at funneling sound to get more clear direction of where sound is coming from. Also, when it comes to environment relating to ear size usually that is based on temperature rather than capacity to hear. As was suggested about the caracal and is known about elephants large ears allow for greater heat dissipation but this is due to surface area. Elf ears are long and narrow so it doesn't make sense for them to be aiding in this fashion either.
So, considering that the ears of the elves don't really add much in regards to heat dissipation or even capacity to hear it then what reason could they have?
I believe that they existed as a secondary sexual trait that would have been used to distinguish the most fit breeding partner at some point in their evolution. This is mostly due to those ears being more of an inconvenience and are functionally there to distinguish them from other humanoid species. For most renditions of elves the elongated point is actually just cartilage, thus would not aid in hearing. It does make some sense that if a potential mating partner has damaged ears from a fight then it might not be as strong as others. This early evolution of elves might have even had further adornment of their ears with fur, like the tufts of the caracal, or bright coloration to further show how fit they are as a mate. Then over time, possibly due to growing communal behavior, this sort of adaption diminished as their ears went from the top of their head to the sides of their head. Eventually, the long pointed ears of elves would become vestigial, having no real role in the survival of the species. I personally like to think that the culture of ear piercing in elves is some ancient call back to those ancient days of their species.
Then we can consider that this early evolution of elves might have also been the early evolution of all the other pointed eared fantasy races. This is very much like how humans evolved along side neanderthals. The key difference would be that the common ancestor for both the fantasy races and humans would be even further in the past than that of neanderthals and humans.
So yeah, that is my breakdown of why fantasy races have pointed ears. I tried to do my best to strike a balance between science paper and blog post. I am certain that my explanations could have gone on longer but I didn't want to make this all about ear shape and