# Does Middle Earth hold up to close scrutiny? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 18, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647 "2014-02-18T20:33:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/41 "2014-02-19T17:36:28Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > The noticeable lack of ethnic diversity has always bothered me. Since the “default” coloration of mankind is some shade of brown (and it was even when Tolkien was writing) then the majority of the people in Middle Earth should be some shade of brown.Middle Earth demographics don’t reflect that fact (neither do Peter Jackson’s films). This to me is one of the fundamental ways that Tolkien **deliberately** limited the perspective of his fantasy in order to give it the ring (no pun intended, heh) of an actual ancient saga of Anglo-Saxon peoples. On the one hand, the people in this saga clearly think of their story as being hugely significant for the whole world across timeless ages (hello, the disaster of Numenor even changes the physical shape of the world!). On the other hand, from a broader perspective their story is ultimately a tale of petty chieftains squabbling over a region that could fit between New York and Chicago, in which “swarthy” peoples from the eastern and southern regions are so exotic as to seem barely human. Inside the Middle-earth world, the story’s universal; outside that world, it’s much more limited and contingent on a particular ethnic perspective, and the lack of ethnic diversity is one of the “tells” revealing that. I think this was a brilliant stroke of craftsmanship on Tolkien’s part. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/42 "2014-02-19T17:44:14Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > This to me is one of the fundamental ways that Tolkien **deliberately** limited the perspective of his fantasy in order to give it the ring (no pun intended, heh) of an actual ancient saga of Anglo-Saxon peoples. > > On the one hand, the people in this saga clearly think of their story as being hugely significant for the whole world across timeless ages (hello, the disaster of Numenor even changes the physical shape of the world!). On the other hand, from a broader perspective their story is ultimately a tale of petty chieftains squabbling over a region that could fit between New York and Chicago, in which “swarthy” peoples from the eastern and southern regions are so exotic as to seem barely human. > > Inside the Middle-earth world, the story’s universal; outside that world, it’s much more limited and contingent on a particular ethnic perspective, and the lack of ethnic diversity is one of the “tells” revealing that. I think this was a brilliant stroke of craftsmanship on Tolkien’s part. While the stories are entertaining, I would hardly call any of Tolkien’s work “brilliant.” He was just fortunate enough to be born and have lived and written at a time when his works could be easily translated into a mass market for wide consumption. That’s LUCK. Not brilliance. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/43 "2014-02-19T17:53:27Z")
The only issue would be the way the forests were portrayed in the movies, but let’s take a look at The Amazon and the North American forests when the Europeans arrived. They were basically Human engineered parks. Fruit and nut trees abounded everywhere. Berries were commonplace. It is estimated that as much as one third of the eastern (US) forests were Chestnut trees. I would strongly expect a forest that the Elves have been living in for several thousand years to be similar. Wide meadows filled with root and seed vegetables, a heavy percentage of the trees bearing fruits and nuts. They don’t need modern style agriculture, they have everything they need in abundance. The forests being cut down thousands of years ago and not coming back? Yeah, that’s an issue. Earth examples show that is not the case. Forests come back with a vengeance within a couple of hundred years at most. Goblin Town and the Wargs? Now that’s a serious fucking problem. The Goblins may subsist on the same fruit, nuts and roots that the Elves do, but they do need meat and those Wargs definitely need it in abundance. The only suggestion I can make is a feast/famine boom and bust cycle, where periods of raiding by large numbers is caused by the fact that their population has grown to outstrip their food sources, forcing them out of the mountains to raid other lands. Feeding Eriador doesn’t seem to be an issue, they have the Lake and all of it’s surrounding communities to bring them food. Feeding the Blue Mountains doesn’t seem so unlikely either with the Shire very nearby. Moria, on the other hand, is a serious conundrum. There don’t seem to be any agricultural communities anywhere nearby. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/44 "2014-02-19T18:08:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think you’re not paying enough attention. Everything that Tolkien says about elves’ interactions with the natural world, especially with growing things, reflects powers that mortals consider “magical”. Their foods are incredibly delicious and abundant and sustaining, and their garden earth is super-fertile. Why would anybody even start out from the assumption that feeding an Elvish community requires the same amount of ordinary agricultural land and labor that it would take to feed a pre-industrial human community? They ride horses, not flying carpets. They use swords and spears, not beams of light. They do require food of some kind - they can’t live on air. They are depicted as being somewhat magical, but that magic has limits. Tolkien doesn’t state that they get their food magically - this is just an extrapolation from the fact that he _doesn’t_ show any fields. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/45 "2014-02-19T18:15:52Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > While the stories are entertaining, I would hardly call any of Tolkien’s work “brilliant.” I think you missed my point. I’m not trying to evaluate Tolkien’s works on their merits as literature, and I’m not arguing that the works or writing themselves rank as “brilliant”. I’m just saying that from the standpoint of what he was trying to do in creating a sort of “English peoples’ saga”, I think it was a brilliant idea to deliberately limit the saga’s perspective in the ways that he did. In short, the Middle-earth people’s lack of awareness of human ethnic diversity isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. A brilliant feature, in my opinion, since it accurately reproduces an important “blind spot” that the hypothetical authors of an ancient “English peoples’ saga” would actually have had. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/46 "2014-02-19T18:23:53Z")
My fanwank is that Elvish agriculture is not easily visible to humans. The forests of Lorien and Greenwood are not wilderness. They are vast orchards. Between the trees, what looks like a grassy meadow, is actually a field of grain. That clump of shrubbery over there, has vegetables underneath. Everything that grows in an Elvish kingdom is either edible, or a medicinal herb. It is designed look like an uninhabited wilderness, but it is as natural as a bonsai tree. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/47 "2014-02-19T18:45:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But the history of Middle Earth spans something like 7000 years. In the great battles of the Silmarillion, the standard weapon was the steel sword. In the great battles of the War of the Ring, it was still the steel sword. The steel sword, in that world, lasted at least 7000 years, and there’s no indication it was new in the early battles, or going out of favor in the later ones. > > In our world, by contrast, 7000 years ago we were just starting in on leather. Metallurgy of any sort didn’t show up until less than 5000 years ago, and steel not until just over 3000 years ago. Steel swords admittedly had a pretty good run, but they were still starting to be replaced by the Next Big Thing two and a half millennia later. I thought the Elf Rings were being used intentionally to stagnate Middle Earth (to prevent it from “diminishing”, IIRC). To stop change and to leave things exactly where they were. And that was the point of Galadrial’s rant when she was offered the One Ring–that she could freeze everything where it was or go into the West and let everything be “diminished” (ie: progress). I never understood why the Elves were the good-guys (other than by comparison to Sauron) given that. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/48 "2014-02-19T19:46:03Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > The noticeable lack of ethnic diversity has always bothered me. Since the “default” coloration of mankind is some shade of brown (and it was even when Tolkien was writing) then the majority of the people in Middle Earth should be some shade of brown.Middle Earth demographics don’t reflect that fact (neither do Peter Jackson’s films). What about the Southrons, or men of Harad? Aren’t they depicted as “Brown” in both book and film? We have no idea of the relative demographics of Harad vs. the North. Anyone adventuring around in Europe during the Middle Ages would also not find the majority of the population “some shade of brown”. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/49 "2014-02-19T19:52:50Z")
The Elf Rings may be the answer to this question. They’re explicitly named as the only thing that allows the Elves to remain a power in Middle Earth, but their exact function is unclear. I think it would be in keeping with the tenor of the books if the main function of an Elf Ring was to keep elven lands at peak fertility. While the rings exist, elf lands don’t know droughts, or blights, or deep snows, or poor harvests. While they still hold their power, this is enough to make the wilderness around the elf cities fertile enough to support the populations. This could also help explain the stagnation. There doesn’t appear to be such a thing as a poor elf. There aren’t any tenements in Rivendell. If there’s no need in elven society, there’s no impetus to invent. This also changes the equation on how much food is necessary to support an elven city, too - elf cities have a much lower population density than human cities of similar sizes. I’m also partial to **mbh** ’s idea: that elven agriculture looks like untamed wilderness to humans. Plus, elves aren’t human - while their diets are plainly similar, they may be able to live off food that humans can’t. If an elf can live off oak leaves, then that forest is the equivalent of a wheat field. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/50 "2014-02-19T20:04:30Z")
Isn’t it also possible that elven metabolism is such that they don’t require the same daily diet as a human? Perhaps their digestive systems are 100% efficient…is there any record of an elf excreting? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/51 "2014-02-19T20:22:47Z")
My “stealth agriculture” theory also includes the woodland animals. They keep herds of deer and flocks of bovids, the way Saami and Eskimos keep herds of reindeer. When they look like they are hunting, they are actually just culling the herd. After tending the garden for a few thousand years, they work out the ecological relationships, to the point where it looks like a natural ecosystem. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/52 "2014-02-19T23:30:45Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > For Humans, there were several races of Human, Dunedain, Numenoreans and Dunlendings. **By the time that LOTR came around, they had more or less started blending and even cross breeding with elves and orcs so Strider being pureblood was unusual**. The human lands of Rohan and Gondor, and Dunland are all mainly horse nomads and farmers with a couple major cities [think Mongols and Rus], and the northerners near Forochel are much like our Sammi, fishers and ranching semi-nomads. (bolding mine) Eh? The human/elf crossings happen in the early days apart from Aragorn’s own marriage, and for from being a pureblood, he’s one of the very few humans who _does_ have elves in the family tree, however distantly (as well as a Maia). I don’t think we have nearly enough information about food production in Middle Earth to say if it’s realistic or not. The Goblins of the Misty Mountains seem to make a living by raiding nearly villages (and catching fisheses), but who knows how the Wargs eat when they’re not joining in a Goblin hunt. How many are there? Are they there all year round? The area to the west of the mountains is described as ‘fertile’ (the company climb up pine trees, but it’s mixed deciduous further down), with woodmen and villages living there. It’s a vast area, so I don’t see why there shouldn’t be enough prey for quite a few smart, non-picky wolves. It looks like we see pretty well all the Wargs in the area at once, so presumably they spend the rest of the time widely spaced. Orcs and goblins seem to go through a boom and bust cycle, when the population is small, they mostly live in small groups, scavenging and attacking travellers, then when the population gets big they form proper armies and start raiding the neighbours. They appear to breed and grow fast, so neither Sauron nor Morgoth should have had to worry about feeding vast armies for long. By the way, I wonder what the technology looks like in the Undying Lands- are the Elves of Middle Earth a sort of Amish enclave? Are there no Elves around now 'cos they left Earth? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/53 "2014-02-19T23:43:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **nevadaexile** : > > The noticeable lack of ethnic diversity has always bothered me. Since the “default” coloration of mankind is some shade of brown (and it was even when Tolkien was writing) then the majority of the people in Middle Earth should be some shade of brown. What makes you think they aren’t? So far as I know, Tolkien never says anything about the skin color of the Hobbits, nor of Gondorians. The Haradrim, we’re told, are considered dark by the main characters, but then again, the Rohirrim are considered light. All that tells us is that the main characters consider “normal” to be somewhere in between those, but it doesn’t say where in between, nor how far apart the extremes are. And there is considerable racial diversity, just expressed in different ways than color. The Druedain are definitely what we would consider a minority race, but distinguished by body shape instead of by pigmentation. So, for that matter, are the Dunedain, though they’re a privileged minority. Heck, the Hobbits themselves are a minority: Tolkien made clear in some of his peripheral writings that they are, in essence, human, just of a different size. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Prize](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Sir\_Prize](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Prize)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/54 "2014-02-20T00:41:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The Elf Rings may be the answer to this question. They’re explicitly named as the only thing that allows the Elves to remain a power in Middle Earth, but their exact function is unclear. This could also serve as an explanation for why human technology did not progress. An undercurrent of pressure from the rings that prevented change. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/55 "2014-02-20T02:11:12Z")
Aside from the mysteries of orc ecology, orc reproduction also leaves some gaping questions (probably best left unanswered). It was suggested by Tolkien that orcs are debased elves, and so reproduce sexually, but we never see any females. IIRC, in _The Hobbit_ it’s mentioned that Gollum sometimes gobbles baby goblins. Jackson shows Saruman brewing up Uruk-hai in pits of slime, but that’s not in the books. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/56 "2014-02-20T05:12:09Z")
…and for all that Middle Earth _felt_ incredibly real. Many (not all) of the problems mentioned here are outside of the main camera’s frame as it were. I mean trade patterns and orc reproduction and even physiology isn’t something the casual reader thinks about, except in retrospect. Allegedly Middle Earth has a pretty detailed backstory outside of the main books. Presumably it involves detailed lore, but not state of the art social or natural science. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/57 "2014-02-20T05:43:06Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think you’re not paying enough attention. Everything that Tolkien says about elves’ interactions with the natural world, especially with growing things, reflects powers that mortals consider “magical”. Their foods are incredibly delicious and abundant and sustaining, and their garden earth is super-fertile. Why would anybody even start out from the assumption that feeding an Elvish community requires the same amount of ordinary agricultural land and labor that it would take to feed a pre-industrial human community? Keep in mind, too, that there’s no reason to assume that elves have similar metabolic needs as humans. In fact, Tolkien hints that they don’t: During their long night run in pursuit of the Orcs who kidnapped Merry and Pippin in _The Two Towers_, Aragorn and Gimli are exhausted, but Legolas is able to send his mind into “waking dreams” that are as restful as sleep to him. He runs all night and then, as they are dropping out of the barren hills into the grasslands of Rohan, says “Ah, the green smell! That is better than much sleep!” and start to run faster. (This is a further demonstration of Aragorn’s nobility - he’s able to resist the temptation to kick the smug bastard in the balls.) Elves, and for that matter dwarves, orcs and hobbits, may not need the same amount of food - and thus agriculture - that humans do. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/58 "2014-02-20T09:36:32Z")
Well, Legolas must weigh all of, what, a few grams, since he doesn’t sink into snow. Probably a breathatarian. ---
**Author:** ![Brynhildr\_Budladottir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Brynhildr\_Budladottir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynhildr_Budladottir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/59 "2014-02-20T10:40:40Z")
> [@Apocalypso](#): > > Didn’t we just have a thread on orc food? > Someone in that thread found a quote from LOTR saying that Sauron’s armies were supplied with food by the Southerners who allied with him. There’s also many references to lands to the east that were under Sauron’s sway. > Er, I don’t know. Reading The Children of Hurin and the Silmarillion, I got the impression that the elves (and some of the Men, to some degree) advanced very rapidly, guided by the Valar. But when all the trouble with Melkor/Morgoth started, things went south very fast. Beleriand got sunk, and a lot of Elves died, so that set things back quite a bit. Then Men were given Numenor and the wisdom of the Valar, but screwed that up. Sauron rose to power, then fell but didn’t die. There was a period of peace (2500 years, give or take), but the Kingdom of Gondor was decimated, fractured, and eventually fell apart, and much was lost. > Basically, I’m not seeing that much stagnation, more periods of advancements followed by setbacks. I think you’re looking at real human history, imposing that on ME and saying they’re stagnant because they didn’t develop electricity and the internal combustion engine in 7,000 years. The human race was much older than that before we developed the technological advances of this past few centuries. So I could argue that humans were “stagnant” for longer than 7,000 years (well, there WAS the transition from hunter gathering to argriculture). Further, Sauramon’s experiments with machinery and weapons/armor production on a massive scale would surely lead to major breakthroughs for Gondor and Rohan and lead them at least to an industrial age. > > Anyway, to address the OP: Tolkien painted ME as myths and legends written after the fact (I believe he actually explained some errors as mistakes on the part of the “historians”). He made it clear that there was a ton of stuff going on that was being glossed over to focus on the main story (for example the battles going on in the north between Sauron’s forces and the Elves and Dwarves are hinted at but the stories are not told). Anyway, the orcs (and most of the bad guys in general) are described as much smaller in the books than depicted in PJ’s movies, so they wouldn’t need that much food, and they’d presumably supplement their diet with humans, elves, and the occasional weak/sick orc. The population of ME, never huge to begin with, was (at the time of the War of the Ring) fairly small, having been decimated in wars and such. Again, Peter Jackson tried to give the impression of hugeness and massive amounts of people that (IMO) wasn’t entirely accurate. I don’t really see anything implausible in LOTR. There were farming communities that could support themselves (Bree, Rohan, Gondor), and those who relied at least somewhat on trading goods for food (Elves and Dwarves). I’m not seeing a problem with feeding everyone, at least not in Middle Earth… > > However, if you start delving into the Silmarillion, things get a bit more tricky. I’m sure there were some Elves that farmed, and many more that hunted and fished. But Morgoth’s armies made Sauron’s look small and weak. What was he feeding them? His fortress was surrounded by mountains, and if he raided the Elves and humans food supplies enough to feed his armies, then the Elves and Humans would have starved. Yeah, there were evil men in Beleriand under Morgoth’s service, but they didn’t seem like that much of an agricultural society (more army fodder), and in any case I doubt they’d have been able to grow enough food to feed Morgoth’s massive armies. I actually fanwanked this while reading The Children of Hurin by thinking that Morgoth’s troops, being created from evil and twisted powers, didn’t NEED to eat. Sauron, not being as powerful, did not have the ability to sustain his armies, so they did need food. Re the technological advancement: Exactly what I wanted to say. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Prize](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Sir\_Prize](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Prize)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647/60 "2014-02-20T17:22:01Z")
Men and elves where designed by god. Dwarves were designed by a Valar. Dwarf physiology may be more unusual than elves’. Dwarves may be able to sustain themselves on nutrition found underground, even if the food would not nourish men. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-middle-earth-hold-up-to-close-scrutiny/681647.md?page=4)