A Moment For Dwarf Feelings

[grav_ity]

I'm about 2.5K into the next part of ELF FEELINGS, so obviously it was time to take a moment and tell you some of my thoughts about dwarves.

(I am failing really hard in my TOLKIEN thing. This should go with THE RETURN JOURNEY or maybe when I get to the appendices at the end of LotR, but WHATEVER. So much for being linear!)

So!

Thranduil is kind of a jerk in the movies, and I’m totally fine with that. I know his backstory and I can understand it.

I’m kind of curious about Dain, though. In the movie, he refuses to help (even though the geography of that meeting makes, like, ZERO sense), and since Thorin is something of a grudge holder, I’m wondering how that’ll play out.

Because Dain is kind of awesome!

At Azanulbizar, he kills Azog, in revenge for killing Nain, his father! And earns the name “Ironfoot”! For…kicking something. I FORGET THE DETAILS.

Anyway, he gets better. He looks through the front gate at Moria and SEES THE GODDAMN BALROG, and then he’s all “Um, guys? Let’s just call this one and go home.” And everyone listens to him! Because he’s epic, even though he’s just 32 and it’s his first campaign.

Oh, and then in the LOTR, he faces down a Ringwraith (possibly the Witch-King himself) MORE THAN ONE TIME, and refuses to give up any information on Biblo, instead dispatching Gloin and Gimli to Elrond, because DAIN IS A TALKER.

In the HOBBIT, the most characterization we get of him is that he “dealt his treasure well”, and is a good king, but at the end of LotR, he stands with Brand (Bard’s grandson, and King of Dale), and is cut down defending his body at the age of 252.

Gandalf recounts this to Gimli (in the appendices), and the pair of them can’t even really bring themselves to be sad, because Dain was SO AWESOME and SO OLD and his death was SO PERFECTLY EPIC, just as he was in life.

And then his grandson was the final reincarnation of Durin, and led the dwarves (finally) back to Moria. This is what dwarves do when they are not overshadowed by rings. Rings can’t turn them, which I think is excellent, but it did serve to make Sauron hella pissed at them, and that’s what really brought down Thorin et al. Malice and magnified greed.

So I’m kind of curious to see what Billy Connolly and the writing team do.

Comments

[amenirdis.livejournal.com]

You have Dwarf Feels! I can't judge. I'm having Elf Feels!

Dain is indeed awesome.

I get Thranduil, and I see why it's important to see an elf who isn't entirely a nice guy. I mean, part of the point of view of LOTR is that this is what the hobbits think of the elves, and since they're talking about Elrond, Legolas, and Galadriel, it's kind of a distorted view. Just like their views of Rivendell and Lorien. I mean, it's not that elves don't have kitchens. Or middens. Or places where food is grown. It's that the hobbits never see that part. I'm sure Elrond has storerooms too, even if they don't drink enough in Rivendell to empty THIRTEEN CASKS for a single feast! Lorien has kitchens. And somewhere that people use the bathroom. And places where cloth is made and ways to keep warm in the winter. It's just that the Fellowship sees nothing but lovely pavilions. IF that makes sense?

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

My dwarf-feelings run to meta, this movie, instead of fic like they did last time.

That said, my elf-feeling fic has a strong dwarvish presence, so there's that.

ANYWAY, one of my favourite extended scenes in the first Hobbit movie is the bit where Lindir and Elrond talk about how messed up the kitchen and baths are, and then walk around a corner to find all the dwarves naked in a fountain. I mean, mostly it's because Elrond's face is great, but also: practicalities. I did, as a kid, wonder how practical tree-houses were for going to the bathroom!

More importantly, it's interesting that Thranduil is the only elf holding territory without a ring to help him. And it's the biggest territory! And yeah, Cirdan gives up the ring to Gandalf, but still. He's far away from Sauron at that point, and Sauron is firmly busy with other stuff. So yeah: Thranduil's understandably bitter and proud.

Not to mention the part where dwarves killed his grandfather, and his father was horribly killed during the Last Alliance.

And he gets to be the drunk one, who has STORAGE ROOMS.

[amenirdis.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the extended scenes because I bought the Hobbit on Amazon for streaming instead of the DVD. Worth buying the DVD for instead?

Oh wow, I want to see Elrond's face! Hee!

That's a very good point about holding territory without a ring. He's got only small magic and bows to hold off the giant spiders et al. So yeah. I wonder if Thranduil knows where the rings are? Or guesses?

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Oh, he knows.

I would just look the scenes up on youtube. There's only 10 minutes added, or something silly like that, so it's not HUGE.

[amenirdis.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if he knows Cirdan gave his to Gandalf? But I bet he at least strongly suspects that Elrond and Galadriel have two of the rings. Which may have something to do with his one-upmanship to Celeborn.

Though I think Celeborn genuinely likes Thranduil and respects him. I think he sees his flaws but also his virtues. And vice versa.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Oh, for sure. They hang out together for basically EVER after Galadriel leaves.

[amenirdis.livejournal.com]

That's one piece of movie canon I like better, that Celeborn went with Galadriel. Though I can see that he might hang around with Thranduil. THough I suspect he'd wonder if she was trashing the Blessed Realm.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was Weird and Tragic that he didn't go, because of what he says to Aragorn when they part.

But maybe, with the brain skyping, they have, like, a really great commuter-marriage? Where they live in different towns for extended periods of time, but have very deep and meaningful conversations when they're home from work? OR SOMETHING?

I also really like the idea that they were both in love with places, and as fond as they were of each other, they were both content to...respect each other's life wishes?

I have no idea. ELVES, I TELL YOU. They complicated stuff JUST FOR KICKS.

[amenirdis.livejournal.com]

Can they do the brain skype when she doesn't have the ring? I wonder? Do we know?

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I...

I'm going to go with YES, because Celeborn could brain skype on the trip back to Hobbiton from Minas Tirith, and he never had a ring.

(My whole world just about fell apart just now, so you know. DON'T TAKE AWAY THE BRAIN SKYPING!)

[shirebound]

the pair of them can’t even really bring themselves to be sad, because Dain was SO AWESOME and SO OLD and his death was SO PERFECTLY EPIC, just as he was in life.

I love how you say that. *beams*

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I have this perverse delight in putting my feelings about Very Scholarly Tolkien into VERY EXCITED INTERNET FANGIRL. :)

[eldanna.livejournal.com]

I always read it (likely wrongly) that although the dwarves weren't corrupted by the power of the rings like the Nine were, they did suffer some, and that's where the gold sickness originates from. But that's just my interpretation of canon. I do believe they never became Sauron's slaves, like the Nine were, but that they were impacted in other, less obvious, ways. After all, Thror was the last to rule with a ring, though Thrain had it after (he also had no gold, but he did rather stupidly decide to fight for Moria, so there's that - course, Balin does that too later on, so maybe Rings of Power don't play in here).

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

That's what I meant. It doesn't corrupt them, but it does make them more dwarvish (for better or worse), and it also pisses Sauron off (though that is only theoretical, in the appendices).

ALSO, Balin (line of Durin), goes after Thror's ring (which he must have been exposed to), and Dain is reluctant to let him go ("Council of Elrond"). I doubt Dain had much contact with the ring, or even the idea of it, since he didn't grow up Under the Mountain.

Just saying. Dain is the Line of Durin as it was MEANT to be. In the long, long game, he is going to be the one that everyone remembers (he, his son, his grandson), and Thorin will be a footnote.

[eldanna.livejournal.com]

Tis true. It did occur to me, somewhere along when reading the Hobbit, why the main characters (okay, the main dwarf characters obviously) all die. I remember getting to the end the second or third time (the first time I read it was a write-off, as I only read it to get to Fellowship of the Ring) and going 'wait, what? Why did you write an entire book about people who die?' And why do they 'die in a footnote?' basically, because the Battle of the Five Armies is like this huge thing that happens but isn't described really. And I was very confused. And then I read like everything else Tolkien wrote and went, huh, Dain, you totally got the short end of the stick in literature, but I like you.

And it's funny that you make that point about Dain not having contact with the ring, because yeah, he was away in the Iron Hills so probably didn't, and therefore couldn't be corrupted, and I always got the sense that the dwarves of the Iron Hills were more…dwarvish? Like that the Iron Hills wasn't this massive, massive enormous building project, but more…normal? If that makes sense? Like more Ered Luin was, for the dwarves that lived there before the Erebor survivors arrived.

So, in other words, we're thinking alike, as always.

And it totally pissed Sauron off. After all, the dwarves were Aule's creation, and that alone, the fact that they existed, must have angered Sauron, knowing he could never achieve something like that great, so he had to settled for Rings That Could Be Destroyed. And didn't work as well as he wanted them to.