# Petty Dwarves & Melkor



## Confusticated (May 8, 2004)

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## Elfarmari (May 9, 2004)

Nóm said:


> 1) Why would these be hateful to everyone? Also, why rebellious, or deformed? Hate of all things is a characteristic of orcs and evil people, not dwarves.


To be honest, I've never given much thought to petty dwarves, but your failed orc theory does seem to make sense to me. Maybe the petty dwarves were the products of Melkor's experiments who, escaping and finding their way home were rejected by the other dwarves. This would explain not only their origin, but also their hate for all other creatures. Melkor would have probably told them many lies about Men and Elves, and their rejection by others of their own race would have sparked more hatred. Melkor's lies may have led to their first attacks on the Elves, and the Elves reaction to these attacks (to hunt the Petty-dwarves like animals) would not have helped.

Melkor went to great lengths to corrupt Elves and Men, and was remarkably successful in various ways. He brought into being the race of Orcs and brought about the first Fall of Men. Unfortunately we don't have the kind of information about Dwarves as we do about men (in the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth and other writings).


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## Confusticated (May 15, 2004)

Yes, it was their hate that I found most striking and caused me to consider Melkor as a more direct cause. It just isn't normal for people to be hateful towards everyone like that.


Yes we don't know much about the dwarves. I was just thinking recently about how no one around here ever asks why Dwarves didn't get to be immortal, or if they ended up getting the Gift of Men. Poor guys get over-looked a lot of the time I think.


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## Gothmog (May 15, 2004)

It is possible that the petty dwarves were caused by Melkor attempting to turn them into some kind of orc and failing in this. The Dwarves were infact very much different from Elves and Men. Looking in the Silmarillion we can find a reason as to why Melkor could have less success with altering Dwarves than with the other peoples.



> It is told that in their beginning the Dwarves were made by Aulë in the darkness of Middle-earth; for so greatly did Aulë desire the coming of the Children, to have learners to whom he could teach his lore and his crafts, that he was unwilling to await the fulfilment of the designs of Ilúvatar. And Aulë made the Dwarves even as they still are, because the forms of the Children who were to come were unclear to his mind, and *because the power of Melkor was yet over the Earth; and he wished therefore that they should be strong and unyielding*. But fearing that the other Valar might blame his work, he wrought in secret: and he made first the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves in a hall under the mountains in Middle-earth.


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