>>96258672
it didn't really start like that, elves as far back as Tolkien had elf cultures that favoured the axe (though i suspect it would be a daneaxe). i've seen morecock's melinoboreans depicted with axes.
I think it's a matter of design.
axes are direct, they're unrefined straight forward, weapons associated with labour, peasants and barbarians.
Dwarves get it for that reason, labour, practicality, straightforward. same with orks, they're crude, they serve double duty, the skill cap for them is lower and they generally do not make sense in formation fighting unlike spears.
Sword however are a sign of office, a nobles tool, a weapon usually reserved to kill other men, generally more expensive to produce than the others, until later periods. it's a tool associated with duelling, skill, individuals.
elves also through the sylvan elves are tree lovers, fierce defenders of nature, and a refined, slightly alien culture that prefers quality over quantity.
when they go to war it's spears, and often now a light plate rather than the chain envisioned on the defenders of gondolin (which now beyond the western seas have passed away), bows and swords. because those are not complicated to produce, don't have associations with work, brutality or deforestation, nor are they weapons that verge on peasant tools like billhooks of lochabler axes.
though they really should use poleaxes, polearms are cool, though I think you'd need heavily armed elves to make that work.
fucking elf landsknechts, that'd be nice.
