# Dwarves



## Sulimo (Feb 17, 2012)

Ever since I read a posted question on one of Prince of Cat's threads concerning Thrain, and his resistance to Sauron. This post got me thinking a lot about dwarves. This lead me to think about the characteristics of dwarves. 

One thing that stands out to me is how irregular Gimli is for a dwarf. The epitome of a dwarf would be Thorin Oakenshield, he matches all the characteristics presented by Foster that describe a dwarf: they could not be dominated by evil, were fair but not generous, held grudges, honest but secretive, not friendly with other races, had a tendency towards wrath, possessiveness, and gold-lust" (abbreviated Foster definition from the Complete Guide). 

This sounds like a race of beings that you would not like to be friends with, and further illustrates the humor of pairing a proper polite hobbit with a grumpy, greedy, and stodgy group of individuals. I love how Tolkien (Bilbo, these are his memoirs) continually makes excuses for the impropriety of the dwarves. Any decent people who read about there egregious breeches of etiquette (other Hobbits) would have to be reminded that the dwarves were still decent folk that couldn't help their nature. My favorite example is when Bilbo first goes down the passageway to see Smaug. 



> The best that can be said for the dwarves is this: they intended to pay Bilbo handsomely for his services... they would have done their best to get him out of trouble, if he got into it...There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much.


 The Hobbit Inside Information 183.

This really makes Gimli outshine the average dwarf. He seems to have all the positive dwarf attributes, and lack almost all the negative. However, this does seem to have grown as a result of being a lone representative of his race among a hodgepodge of the free peoples of Middle Earth. This is very different then Bilbo being a lone representative of his race among a hoard of dwarves. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I find the dwarf race to be quite intriguing, and just wanted to share my musings.


----------



## Dís (Jan 6, 2013)

I try to pick up this rather old thread hoping the interest in dwarves may have increased after the film's release.
We have to remember that Tolkien thought of himself not actually inventing all these facts about dwarves - and other races - but discovering them. For example, the description of the dwarves in The HObbit differs from that in "The Quest to Erebor" in the Unfinished Tales. The latter much more resemble the norse-warriorlike dwarves we now see in the theatres. Gimli is kind of in-between. The first handle to his character is that he is Gloín's son and thus a link to The Hobbit and Bilbo's story in the grander tale. He is not as clearly defined a character as the Hobbits, but neither, if you look at the books only, is Legolas. Still, Gimli represents the stubbornness of the dwarves more than once, at Elrond's council and afterwards before and inside Moria. But what he represents most, imhO, is the strangeness of the dwarf-race. They are not like other races, they are set apart. To be a part of the fellowship really makes the dwarves a part of the history of MIddle-Earth they didn't have before. Gimli is an ambassador, this is first openly claimed by Galadriel when she names the ancient places in their Khuzdul-names to him. The dwarves have not always been the "good guys" in middle-earth history, and while they were more openly opposed to Sauron than men, there also was always this strangeness upon them, not like the aloofness of the Elves who, after all, freely share their culture with all and sundry, only to withdraw with all of it to Tol Eressea if need be, but a separateness in origin and fate. The dwarves were not mae by Iluvatar and their fate is not fully known, nor is their language, their culture and even their women-folk. 
I also think, like Sulimo, that Gimli behaves warily for being in the company of other races who are more open and chummy towards one another. The hobbits are the majority! Boromir is the only pure-blood human, but Aragorn is human enough to understand him, while there is enough of the numenorean about him to chum with Legolas AND he grew up in Rivendell which makes him kind of a link between these races. Gandalf, of course, is unique. Gimli, on the other hand - how can he be sure that anyone in the company will understand him, his motives, his love for middle-earth, his enmity to Sauron, his race's enmitiy? He can't, so he has to be careful and prove himself to be worthy member of the fellowship.
He does so and in the end becomes a bit too un-dwarfish for me. His friendship with Legolas sets him apart not only from the other races, as becomes a dwarf, but from his own race. In wonder if he really went to Eldamar in the end with Legolas - and so does Tolkien. End of essay :*).


----------



## Eledhwen (Jan 6, 2013)

Dís said:


> The dwarves were not made by Iluvatar and their fate is not fully known, nor is their language, their culture and even their women-folk.


I attribute the fact that the Dwarves did not submit to the Ring as Sauron intended, to their being fashioned by Aulë, who was also Sauron's mentor. They were outsiders in more than culture; their mentality was constructed by an angelic blacksmith; their minds were tough and durable and guarded their spirits from enslavement by another mind. But the Dwarf Rings did have an effect. The children of Aulë had always loved the beauty of the metals and minerals of Arda and delved deep for them. Sauron's Rings turned this love into avarice. Thorin was very young when the Ring was passed from Thror to Thrain; but he will have been brought up with gold lust, beyond that of other Dwarves, as a family trait; with the Arkenstone at the pinnacle, shining like a Silmaril and binding him to its beauty. On this basis, his behaviour to Bilbo was somewhat restrained.


----------



## Dís (Jan 6, 2013)

That's a good comparison - the Arkenstone and the Silmarils. But it also underlines that the lust for a beautiful thing is not limited to the Dwarves. At the core of the wars that resulted in the destruction of Beleriand were the Elve's desire for the Silmarils. 
Still, I believe, that both, elvish desire for the silmarils and dwarvish desire for gold in general and the arkenstone in special has some merit compared to the ordinary human lust for riches. The average Tom, Harry and Scrooge McDuck doesn't care for one single jewel so much but rather for the quantity of those. Things they still may be, Arkenstone and Silmarils, but the love people like Feanor, Thingol or Thorin developed for them exceeds their material value and still resembles love more than lust. 
As for the Dwarves I think it's not just gold in itself, or even gems like the Arkenstone, but also the power they have over them. Being made by Aule they, the Gonnhirrim of old, the masters of stone, had the ability to create things indefinitely beautiful from stones, raw gems and ore found in mines. Things that came from darkness, dust and grime turned into things like the Nauglamir. This is power beyond mere domination the humans were after. The power to destroy at will is far lesser a power than that to create. The Dwarves knew they were creators and that made them proud and arrogant, of course, but not yet cruel.


----------

