Racial Issues

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My post concerns LOTR, not Forgotten Realms.

IIRC the "Axe" issue was not a problem between Dwarves and Elves, but rather between Dwarves and Ents(sp?).

According to Silmarillion, there was no war or hatred meant to be between Dwarves and Elves, but all the controversy started after Dwarves created Nauglamir - the Necklace of the Dwarves.

A lot of elven and Dwarven blood have been spilled, fortresses and cities fell, and neither of the races could forgive the other one.

Dwarves thought Nauglamir was rightfully theirs, because they created it.

Elves helped in the creation of the artifact, and they gave Dwarves the Silmaril to put in the Necklace -> hence all the trouble.

As it is pointed in Silmarillion, the Silmaril from the broken Necklace has been given to Earendil, who now bears it on his forehead.

 

it's fairly obvious that elves and dwarves find it hard to get along... they have nothing in common! Dwarves are all about hard work, gold, ale, the simpler, more rustic things in life, while elves tend to focus on the more abstract sides, arts, magic and all that. However, the two complement eachother quite nicely, when they get along.

 

The Elf/Dwarf conflict was also made worse in the Second Age, when the dwarves of Moria kept their gates shut during Sauron's invasion of Eregion, preventing elven refugees from finding safety; before then, the two countries had had a fairly friendly relationship. Many survivors from Eregion, including Galadriel, eventually made it into Lorien, explaining why they weren't happy allowing dwarves into their land.

 

Does anyone else ever get weirded out about how we talk about dwarf/elf/human/gnome race questions in fantasy settings in ways in which we'd never dream about doing with black/white/Oriental/HIspanic race topics in public?

I think it'd be amusing to run a campaign (PnP or NWN) in which a modern politically correct campaign was initiated in Forgotten Realms to get people to stop saying insulting things like "gnomes are short." They're sverfneblin, dagnabit! And they can grow quite large if given the proper nutrition!

 

That would be interesting. I wonder if we would be able to speake about thouse things if tricked ouseves into Talking about curent by running campaings as talking about them

am I making any sence here

 

Maybe if we could read what you said!

But really.
I think we should be able to speak openly about race and colour. The fact is that we ARE all different and people who just refer to everyone as the same type of person is more racist than those who can openly say "that guy is black" or "that girl is chinese".

Colour is not just skin deep. Science has proven it and when you look at sports it proves it. Most equine and swimming champions are white and most sprinters and middle distance runners are black or Hispanic.

I am perfectly happy talking about race and will allways look upon a black man 'as' a black man and a white man 'as' a white man.

 

It is quite true. We are the same species and everything inside us is the same, but our skeletal structure and other physical traits differ according to race, ie: amount of hair, average height. D&D takes differences like these and makes them more extreme, while making new ones as well.

 

A number of literary critiques of LOTR attribute most of the writings to the first and second world wars. The analogy often sited by this view is that the Orks and Sauron's forces represent the Third Reich, while the Dwarves and Elves are the English and French respectively. I believe that makes the Humans (Men) the 'Americans'. Still not sure whether I agree fully with this, since most of the world surrounding LOTR and the Hobbit was being developed way back when Tolkein was just doing translation work on old Arthurian texts and other works like 'Pearl'. But I do believe that the Elf-French and English-Dwarf analogy is pretty accurate, given the history (and the mythology) of the those groups.

 

All humans are the same specie of animals, but of course we are different races. To disagree would also be calling all who says there's a difference between collie and rottweiler (allthough they're both dogs) racists. Up here in northern europe, we're a germanic people. In the UK peeps are kelts and saxons and in the lands of black gold people are arabians.

We look different, we behave different and we have different qualities. Everything comes from the enviroment we live in.

 

Gnolyn,

People in Tolkien's day analyzed his work according to WW2, and he wrote explicitly in one of his prefaces that he didn't intend that analogy. I suspect, however, that because of the power of the events of the time that he subconsciously worked some of that in there.

Now, if the orcs had all been blonde....

BTW, interesting bit of info, Tal. Thanks. If you ever come across the original author who invented hobbits, post it. It'd be fascinating to see how Tolkien got ahold of the idea.