>>502245
Let me reiterate here: I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH ELDER SCROLLS. It is a good setting with good stories. The point I am arguing here would apply equally to ANY fantasy setting you could have brought up.
And since almost nobody seems to understand what I meant, let me try again.
A story can be literally anything. Whether it's realistic, fantasy, sci-fi, a great story, a terrible story, a smut story, whatever, it only has what it has because the original creator decided so. There is no more objective criteria than that for any thing included in any story ever written. The only difference is how well the writer uses what they put in, not to mention how overall well they write the story. The well-written setting of the Elder Scrolls has no more objective need for its furries than the terrible shallow fap fics, the Elder Scrolls just built a much more realized context for them. Still, it could have used Tolkien non-furry types like elves and dwarves instead and it really wouldn't be all that different, the essential backstory elements you listed would apply pretty much the same.
So to sum up: There is no "actual reason" for any anthros to exist in any story, it's just a creative decision that some stories implement better than others. Don't confuse good storytelling for objective justification for what's in the story.
>>502253
>>502533
At least two people understand what I meant.
>>502274
I get elves and dwarves being stand-ins for real-life groups of people in Tolkien's works. My point is that the actual specifics though - the obvious elven physical features and dwarven physical features that denote them - had no objective need to be pointy ears, short and beardy, etc. Elves and dwarves could have been cat people and mole people or something and served the exact same story purpose. They are only what they were because Tolkien decided, for his own creative reasons, that he wanted those specific features. (Which were drawn from existing mythology, but again, his choice.) And to be clear, I'm not saying that was a bad choice. Just a choice as arbitrary as making them furries or aliens or anything else.
And speaking of arbitrary choices, even deciding to put in stand-ins for the sake of commentary regarding racial and cultural tensions was a choice he made. He didn't have to put that in his work at all, he chose to. And it clearly totally worked, no question there, but again, stories only have what they have because of what the writer wanted to write about. In that regard, social commentary is no different from furries. Or magic, or politics, or gardening, or whatever. Nothing has any real reason to be in stories, the only question is whether it ends up being an entertaining story.