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Because of the idea itself, or because of the cheesy Tolkien metaphor he wrapped it in?
I didn't like it because he clearly isn't actually very familiar with Tolkien but insisted on making a tortured analogy put of it anyways. "Dark elves" are a Norse mythology thing, not a Tolkien thing.
Tolkien doesn't use the term "dark elf" from what I recall, but he has plenty of morally dark, morally ambiguous, and/or rebellious elf characters who could be characterized as "dark elves". In Tolkien, there is no race of dark elves, but then, in Yarvin's metaphor there also isn't. When he talks about "dark elves", he more or less means elites who defect from the blue tribe consensus, he's not talking about a race or ethnic group.
He does. There is a single character, Eöl, who is known as the Dark Elf, and a broader category, the Moriquendi (lit. 'Elves of Darkness' or 'Dark Elves').
In neither case does Tolkien mean anything like Dark Elves or Drow in the modern, D&D-influenced sense. The Moriquendi are merely those elves who never went to Valinor and saw the light of the Two Trees. (Those are the Calaquendi, or Elves of Light.) But there is no implied biological distinction, and certainly no moral distinction. For instance, Legolas is a Moriquendi, despite being probably the most famous example of the later Wood Elf archetype. The vast majority of elves are Moriquendi.
I wouldn't say Tolkien has Dark Elves in the D&D sense of an elven kindred who are evil. Tolkien is generally quite careful to avoid elves like that - there are plenty of morally flawed elves, but elves never side with Morgoth or Sauron, ever.
At any rate, none of this makes Yarvin's fantasy metaphor any less cringeworthy, though I suppose that is an aesthetic judgement, so make of it what you will.
I mean, there was Maeglin, son of Eol, but he was also horribly tortured to encourage his betrayal, so I suppose that could be considered a bit of an extenuating circumstance.
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I kneel before superior Tolkien knowledge.
Speaking of Tolkien knowledge, I find it interesting that /r/tolkienfans is one of the few subreddits I can think of that is relatively free from Reddit-ism. Perhaps in some way, one can give partial credit to the old Professor for that.
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I don’t think he was attempting to channel Tolkien with that; I think he was going more for Dungeons & Dragons, which notably has an iconic faction of dark (in both the physical and moral senses) elves. Although, as others have pointed out, the metaphor still wouldn’t work in D&D, as the Drow are not some secret subversive faction exerting influence on the high elves behind the scenes; they’re a totally separate culture, who live underground and kidnap people (including other elves) to feed to their spider goddess.
Taken as its own metaphor shorn of any attempt to fit it into another mythos, though, I think Yarvin’s dark elf thing is evocative and effective enough.
In D&D, drow are evil by culture anyway, not inherently evil. Good drow were prominent as far back as Drizz'zt was introduced, which is 1988.
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