Tolkien fans: whose fault was the rift between the Dwarves and the Elves?

Cafe Society
1

I started to quote that bit from Lord of the Rings when Legolas & Gimli (before becoming platonic life partners) each blame the others’ people for the 6500-year-old rift (only to be told by Gandalf that both sides suck), and then to make allusions ot the fall of Doriath and Mîm the Petty-Dwarf and a ton of of stuff. Then, as seems to be happening more and more often of late, I thought Fuck that shit. Nobody cares.

Anyway…whose fault would you say the rift between the Elder and Adopted Children of Iluvatar was?

Show your work, of course. Both serious & silly answers are welcome, but anyone who alludes to the Ralph Baski film will be forced to watch said atrocity until he claws out his own eyes.

2

I’d blame both sides, actually. The Elves used to actually HUNT Dwarfs in Beleriand before they realized that they were actually sentient. And the whole thing with the Nauglamir and Thingol’s murder really made the whole subject of racial relations very, very frigid.

3

The Elves taught the Ents to speak, but didn’t realize the Dwarves were sapient.

Sssssuuuurrrrreeeee.

4

Well, yeah. It was a pretty lame excuse for the masters of language to come up with.

5

Trees were cute. The naugrim were unlovely. Elves were deep into the “Truth equals Beauty” paradigm.

6

So what I’m hearing you say here is that John Keats was somehow responsible. Is that what you meant?

I suppose there’s some merit to that argument. His movements during the First Age are largely unaccounted for, and every single line of Endymion reads like Morgothian propoganda.

7

Interestingly, I’d have to say I think the elves fucked it up more. That’s because they had the advantage of meeting with and sitting at the feet of the Powers for ages, and they still ended up acting like dicks to the dwarves. Thingol, Feanor’s sons, etc. were most notable in this regard. They should have known better.

The dwarves meanwhile, got instructions from a single Vala, got stuck with a language they could use to crack rocks if they lacked other tools, and were dumped off in isolated pairs in far-sundered places in Arda. The deck was stacked against them in the “Grace and Beauty” department, yet they tried their best.

In short, I blame the Curse of the Noldor. And hence blame the elves.

8

From Bored Of The Rings, copyrighted by Havard Lampoon or somebody.

It’s as good an explaination as any.

9

While both sides were at fault, the Elves really should’ve known better. Though, if the Elves had always acted as they should, the books would’ve been much shorter and duller…

10

The published works make it pretty clear that the blame lies entirely with the dwarves, what with the whole attempted theft of the Silmaril and all.

Of course, the catch is, the published works all tell only the Elvish account of the incidents. Doubtless the dwarvish accounts would tell a different story, and a fair assessment would require both.

But then, you have to ask why we don’t have any dwarvish accounts. One might blame it on the vagaries of chance that destroy so many ancient documents, and call it luck that we even have one side’s story… But while Elves keep their important stories on paper or similarly fragile materials, dwarves carve anything of importance into rock. Nor would it be translational difficulties, since the Dwarves adopt the language of the Men they live around for everyday use, keeping Kuzdul secret, so the Dwarvish accounts should be much more easily-translated than the Elvish. The lack of Dwarvish accounts can only be explained by someone actively suppressing them, and while I’m not going to point any fingers, it doesn’t exactly look good for the Elves.

11

In the fantasy I read, conflicts are often caused by a secret third party that has manipulated circumstances to set parties A and B against each other. I’m not wise in the way of the Silmarillion, but is there some shady character (other than John Keats) who could have caused the dischord?

12

When you spend all day hacking into a freakin mountain you kind of realize how impermanent your 300 odd years are. The mountains are permanent, gems are permanent. is there really any point in inscribing down "Cavern 345/26b had a minor leak that was patched."or “Bubba paid his taxes today”? The rocks are their own existence and memory, and the minds dwarves are an appropriate place for the memories of a dwarf -kind.

13

I can’t do any better than Qadgop’s explanation. Although there was plenty of blame to go around later, when both sides vied with each other for escalating vengeance, I think we mostly have to lay the original blame at the Elves’ feet.

14

Well the Elves tried to cheat the Dwarves and the Dwarves tried to keep the Silmaril and boy was Thingol foolish to get involved with the Silmarilat all and then even dumb to have the Dwarves work on it.

So to me, the Dwarves are more guilty but Thingol was very foolish.

15

It was probably Pippin’s fault.

16

Are you saying he was a fool? You have to, y’know, say it right.

17

:: glares ::

18

Well, it looks as if the only really bad thing the Elves did to the Dwarves was to hunt Petty Dwarves before they understood that the Dwarves were sentient, and make war on the Dwarves when they killed Thingol and took the Necklace.

And it looks as if the only really bad things the Dwarves did was to kill Thingol and steal the Nauglamír (the Necklace of the Dwarves) set with the Silmaril, then sack the city of Doriath when the Elves retaliated.

My point here is that long after those events, the Dwarves and the Elves had friendly enough relations to trade fairly extensively, and for Celebrimbor and/or the other Elven Smiths to give seven rings to the Dwarven Kings. Yeah, the Elves kinda-sorta blamed the Dwarves for awakening Durin’s Bane, and Tharanduil did throw Thorin and his party into prison. But really, the relationship by that point was more like that of the English and the French: both on the same side and willing to trade for mutual benefit, but not really loving one another all that much. I’m not sure it constitutes a rift.

The Dwarves were always a very insular, secretive people, so that the only Dwarves we ever see are craftsmen and warriors. By the Third Age, the Elves had become very insular and secretive as well. The Elves of the Third Age are kind of faded: not as heroic or studly as they were in the First Age, but also much less driven by their passions, so that you no longer would see a Kinslaying or any of the other great crimes committed by some Elves in the First Age. Maybe they just became too tired, too detached. You would never see Elves of at least the late Third Age waking up trees and teaching them to speak. They had withdrawn into themselves.

So the Dwarves didn’t trust the Elves because they had some bad history, but mostly because they didn’t trust outsiders at all. And the same holds true for Elves. Both races felt pretty comfortable with Hobbits because they didn’t feel at all threatened by them. Dwarves had lived among Men long enough that some of the rough edges had rubbed off, but you still didn’t see Dwarves really trusting Men. And Elves trusted only the Numenorians among Men, and even there they weren’t any too sure (and with good reason).

So I think the rift, such as it was, was born of bad history on both sides contributing to the natural secretiveness and distrust for the Other that both races had by the end of the Third Age. As for the fault wrt the bad history, there’s plenty of blame to go around. I suspect that the Elves rather looked down their noses at the Dwarves, while hiring them to do their literally dirty work (mining and crafting), and I’m sure that rubbed the Dwarves very raw.

But what the Dwarves did was very wrong. The theft of the Necklace and the slaying of Thingol could be attributed to a few bad apples, but they sacked Doriath, and that’s very bad. I don’t see the Elves having done anything quite as bad as that to the Dwarves. You can say that the Elves should have known better, but the fact is, the First Age Elves were very much ruled by their passions, and sitting at the feet of Power doesn’t seem to have changed them significantly for the better. By the Third Age, the Elves had calmed down a lot, but with what appears to be wisdom also came passivity.

Now, please explain to me why I’m wrong, because frankly I don’t know what I’m talking about.

19

No, but there’s plenty of point in inscribing something like “Thingol reneged on his contract to get us to craft a fitting setting for one of the three most beautiful gems in all of Creation”. Like I said, they carved the important things into rock.

20

And those important things have made it into history. :slight_smile: Just because all the romantic and procedural chaff didn’t make it doesn’t mean they were erased. Let those flaky elves record what they want, that doesn’t mean it matters