Not quite. It might be a heavy case of Mary sue, but in most forms of media it seems that humans tend to have the most power, to subjugate and even dismantle the elven society. Elves are quite often seen as exceptionally powerful in their past, yet weakened at some point by various means. I'm other words, usually it's the ancient elves that are powerful while humans came and destroyed them, directly or indirectly. Some good examples: Elder scrolls - humans came along, fought off the elves, took most of their land and made them split into separate factions of elves. Some elves were cursed, becoming the orcs and dark elves, and others like the falmer and aldmer were driven to extinction. Dragon age - elven "gods" were sealed away by fen Harel, another elven diety, and their immortality stripped from them when he sealed the fade away. Then humans came along, largely destroyed their culture and enslaved the elves. LotT - elves created the power rings in an attempt to anchor their old power into the world, preseve their age. Humans have largely encroached on their lands and their civilization continues to diminish. When the one ring is destroyed so is a lot of their power as elves. They are more or less forced towards a few locations, namely back to the lands of the gods. They are still very powerful, but not nearly as much as they were in the past. Warcraft - (not as informed on this one) the elves are were one of the oldest and most magically powerful races, but certain events caused them to split into several subraces, splintering their power and creating more confict that largely destroyed their oldest societies. The only thing that seems to almost always be the case is elves are the best users of magic, and knew ancient and powerful spells in the past.