Everybody's Halflings

Just think about it logically

The name "Halfling" raises some confusion. For most, the simple fact that Haflings are about half as tall as a human is enough, but is there some other meaning? In truth, Halflings are not their own race, nor are they a phenomena unique to humans. Halflings are basically, half people. It's fantasy dwarfism; having nothing to do with actual real life little people, of course. But in this case; they are "half" a person.

Scholars disagree what this means exactly. They have a soul, a physical body, and a mind- mostly capable of beings of any given race; but they aren't "all there". They tend to see things a bit simpler- more like children. They're a bundle of simple stereotypes and drives- based on the race that spawned them. The reason Halflings are so laid back, love to live in rolling green farms, smoke weed and drink ale all day while the rest of the world passes them by is because they are only halfway to humans- the great longing to find the secrets of the universe, the search for passion and meaning- absent. Only the bare minimum of cultures. Wholesome, fulfilling, but simple.

But why do only humans seem to have these "Halflings" associated with them? Well, that's not actually true. Every race does.

Elves have halflings, they are called Gnomes.

Orcs have Goblins.

Dragonborn halflings are Kobolds. You may ask where dragons fit into this, and that's simple, dragonborn are actually Halflings of them. So Kobolds are half of a half, which is why are objectively not people and it's okay to break into their warrens and kill them for their shiny stuff.

Dwarves don't have halflings because dwarves are already halflings. Think about it; they basically act as stereotypes already, only caring about beer, mining, and forging with silly accents? Dwarves are the Halflings of the ancient great progenitor race of Giants, who once forged weapons for the Gods; now made silly and gold obsessed with cave-driven evolutionary adaptation. Also explains why they don't have darkvision; Giants live on the surface.

Sometimes the process works in reverse, at least in terms of size. The Halflings of Hyenas are actually Gnolls, which sounds weird until you consider how stupid and one-note Gnolls tend to be compared to the advanced social systems of hyena packs. Just look at the success rate of hyenas; they clearly have more going on upstairs then a fucking gnoll.

Drow have halflings too, and those are those weird little dark imp looking darkling creepy crawly gollum looking things you see sometimes in media but doesn't really have a specific overarching name but are totally common enough to be a fantasy race.

Ents have dryads. (Or those could be Halflings of trees?)

And those little magical pixie/fairy type creatures you can catch in jars and are generally helpful and nice? Those are the Halflings of the True Fae. The "halfing" aspect of them shaved off all of the extremely dangerous subtly and depth to what the Fae are like. They just give gifts and helpful little spells instead of actually ruining your whole family line while "helping" you with a problem.

What about Ogres? They tend to be pretty humanoid, just bigger. Are they doublelings? No, they're halflings too. Just of something way bigger and way, way worse.