Dwarf: Encyclopedia II - Dwarf - Dwarves in modern fantasy fiction

Dwarf - Dwarves in modern fantasy fiction

Dwarf - Tolkien's dwarves

Traditionally, the plural of dwarf was "dwarfs", especially when referring to actual humans with dwarfism, but ever since J. R. R. Tolkien used dwarves in his fantasy epic novel called "The Hobbit" or "There and back Again" and the subsequent three-volume novel, The Lord of the Rings, the plural forms "dwarfs" and "dwarves" have been used interchangeably. (When discussing Tolkien's universe, though, only the latter should be used.) Two other plural forms, dwarrows and dwerrows, were also suggested by Tolkien, but he never used them in his writings, apart from the name 'Dwarrowdelf', the English name for Khazad-dûm or Moria, a calque of the Westron name Phurunargian. The Dwarves' name for themselves was Khazâd, singular probably Khuzd.

The Dwarves were created by Aulë, one of the Valar, when he grew impatient waiting for the coming of Children of Ilúvatar. Ilúvatar gave them life after speaking to Aulë about what he had done and seeing that he was both humble and repentant.

Dwarves are long-lived, living at least four times the age of man, but are not prolific breeders, having children rarely and spaced far apart, and having few women among them. Dwarvish children are cherished by their parents, and are defended at all costs from their traditional enemies, such as giants, goblins, and orcs. A longstanding enmity between dwarves and elves is also a staple of the racial conception.

Dwarf - Dwarves in Artemis Fowl

In the Artemis Fowl series, dwarves are short, round, and hairy, and have large, tombstone teeth, unhingible jaws, sensitive beard hair, suction-cup-like pores, luminous and hardening spit, and are incredibly smelly. They are sensitive, intelligent, and have tendancies for being criminals. The most famous one is Mulch Diggums. Dwarves are also known for loving gold and gems, tunneling, and the dark. They are very sensitive to the sun and can burn in mere minutes. They absolutely hate fire.

Dwarf - Dwarves in The Inheritance Trilogy

In the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini, Dwarves are short, bearded, short beings who dwell in the Beor Mountains in Alagaesia. They like to live in the open air, mentioned when Eragon visits Tarnag in Eldest. They speak a rough language and have a talent for smithing and stonework. They are separated into clans, each city is ruled over by the appointed clan. Tronjheim, the dwarves capital, is governed by Dugrimst Ingeitum, the smithing clan. They have a religion, controlled by the clan Dugrimst Quan. In it each race of Alageasia was created by a god. The dwarves themselves were created out of living granite by the god Helzvog.

Dwarf - Dwarves in subsequent fantasy fiction

The Dwarves of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game are closely derived from the Old Norse stereotype popularised by J.R.R. Tolkien, although a few unique variants on the theme exist. In Warcraft the Dwarven archetype is taken to the extreme in emulating the highland miners of the British Isles replete with Scottish accents and inhabitting the Brittonic sounding kingdom of Khaz Modan. Dwarves in the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game are also accomplished smiths, but their distrust of magic dates to the Elf-Dwarf War, where the Dwarves caused many atrocities by misusing magic. Their descendants have since sworn to never use magic.

Dwarf - Female dwarves

A long standing source of interest (and humor) comes from the allusion of Tolkien to female dwarves having actual beards or simply diguising themselves as such. In addition to being rare creatures they are perhaps not often featured in many fantasy milieu for this reason. A more cynical suspicion is that female dwarves lack sex appeal and consequently are of little interest to fantasy fans (stereotypically young men).

In the Discworld novels, Terry Pratchett says that this is a major problem for dwarves, and states that the point of dwarvish relationships is to 'tactfully find out which sex the other one is under that beard '.

In a notable departure from convention, dwarven females in the Korea-produced Lineage II massively multiplayer online role-playing game are very comely, young-looking women (almost girls, actually), a shocking contrast to the grizzled, old look of male dwarves.

In Eldest, they appear as commonly as male except in Tronjheim due to the presence of the Varden, and therefore, warfare.They are wide and burly.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dwarves in modern fantasy fiction", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki