fantasy races

The problem with fantasy races is that inevitably there almost has to be some narrative function to them being different races, but the moment there is an actual underlying difference that matters you’re already screwed up any real world analogy the story might want to make. The only way To actually have it work is to have it be just like irl a mere social construct that isn’t actually based on anything other than convenience, but if that’s how you write fantasy races then why are you writing them in the first place after all? Why not just set your story in the real world (or for that matter a fantasy human world). The only actual fantasy races that fully manage to avoid this problem, i think, are the ones are fundamentally inhuman and aren’t meant to be relatable to the audience. Aliens in the proper sense. I personally really wish there were more stories that tried not to humanize and relate but just experiment honestly with irreconcilable contrasts.