Fourth Age of Middle Earth gaming

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

I think you would get an 'uncanny valley' phenomenon where people would just look alien.

Likely enough. But that isn't what the "elves vs dwarves" thing seems like. It seems more like Croats vs Serbs or whatever.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Likely enough. But that isn't what the "elves vs dwarves" thing seems like. It seems more like Croats vs Serbs or whatever.

So Elves and Dwarves are closely related ethnic groups divided by a history of religious sectarianism and competing nationialist ideologies?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

So Elves and Dwarves are closely related ethnic groups divided by a history of religious sectarianism and competing nationialist ideologies?

They are groups that have a racist hatred toward each other because of some past grudge. It sure doesn't look as if it's just because they have an aesthetic distaste for one another.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

They are groups that have a racist hatred toward each other because of some past grudge. It sure doesn't look as if it's just because they have an aesthetic distaste for one another.

Serbs and Croats are ethnic groups, not racial.

As for Elves and Dwarves, their mutual antipathy is stated to be founded in historical events. Note that following the Battle of the Five Armies, Men, Dwarves, AND elves of the North were on excellent terms.


Hans

[Anaraxes]

The Silmarilion is fairly clear on Tolkien's justification for the original of his traditional distrust between elves and dwarves. No other explanation is needed -- but that doesn't mean it's not fun to speculate, or spin off.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

more feud-like then "we think they look ugly"... an aesthetic distaste for one another

It's not a matter of overt repulsiveness, but discomfort -- like someone standing too close to you due to different cultural norms for personal space. Misunderstanding is also possible, where more sophisticated forms of expression depend on secondary cues like intonation, drawl, or accompanying expression -- a raised eyebrow, a twitch of the corner of a mouth -- to change the literal meaning of a set of words into something else -- sarcasm, irony, jokes, and so on.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

Serbs and Croats are ethnic groups, not racial.

As for Elves and Dwarves, their mutual antipathy is stated to be founded in historical events. Note that following the Battle of the Five Armies, Men, Dwarves, AND elves of the North were on excellent terms.


Hans

Also, it's not all Elves and Dwarves. The main grudge that we know about was between the Sindar (the Elves of Doriath, plus some) and the Dwarves of Nogrod, in the First Age Blue Mountains. The Sindar had a larger dislike of Dwarves in general because of that, though. The Elves of Mirkwood were mostly Silvan, but they were ruled by Thranduil, and he and his nobles were mostly Sindar out of Doriath.

The thing about Elven immortality is that they can hold a grudge for a long, long, long time, since they were the original parties to the grudge. The Dwarves aren't immortal but they do have a strong sense of history and family obligation, so they remember too.

Sometimes some groups got on pretty well. The Noldor of Eregion and the Dwarves of Khazad-dum, for ex, got on pretty smoothly, in part because they had complementary cultures and both revered Aule.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Sometimes some groups got on pretty well. The Noldor of Eregion and the Dwarves of Khazad-dum, for ex, got on pretty smoothly, in part because they had complementary cultures and both revered Aule.

It's also clear that Galadriel had a large measure of sympathy for the Dwarves, and not only for Gimli.

Bill Stoddard

[combatmedic]

Right, it's not all Elves and all Dwarves.

Tolkien's humanoid races mostly aren't monocultures.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

Serbs and Croats are ethnic groups, not racial.

As for Elves and Dwarves, their mutual antipathy is stated to be founded in historical events. Note that following the Battle of the Five Armies, Men, Dwarves, AND elves of the North were on excellent terms.


Hans

All metaphors fall apart when pressed. Fantasy races tend to act like ethnic groups, simply being less interbreedable.

[combatmedic]

The differences between the Elves and the Dwarves seem to me to be much greater than the differences between two groups of closely related South Slavs.


That's why your comparison threw me a bit.


YMMV

Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks are all pretty close from an outside perspective, despite religious and ethnic differences.


Don't tell my Bosniak ex GF I said that.