“We have heard tell that Legolas took Gimli Glóin’s son with him because of their great friendship, greater than any that has been between Elf and Dwarf. If this is true, then it is strange indeed: that a Dwarf should be willing to leave Middle-earth for any love, or that the Eldar should receive him, or that the Lords of the West should permit it. But it is said that Gimli went also out of desire to see again the beauty of Galadriel; and it may be that she, being mighty among the Eldar, obtained this grace for him. More cannot be said of this matter.”
– Appendix A, The Return of the King
This is wild. The idea that Legolas took Gimli with him into the West, to the blessed realm of Valinor beyond the sea (basically the Elf equivalent of the afterlife) is BONKERS. That shouldn’t be possible. It breaks all the rules of the universe. And Professor Tolkien knows this, because he’s the one who wrote the rules in the first place.
I can’t stress enough how big a deal this is. For so many reasons:
1. The last time someone tried to enter Valinor without permission, it nearly destroyed the world.
When the last king of Numenor (the great island nation where Aragon’s ancestors came from), sailed an armada into the West to try to steal eternal life by force, God broke and reshaped the world to stop it from happening. God ripped Valinor out of the earth and hid it, which sunk Numenor beneath the ocean in a giant tidal wave like Atlantis, and then he took the rest of the earth, which used to be FLAT, and bent it into a round globe, so ships would always sail in a circle back to where they started. Only elf-ships can find the hidden path which continues in a straight line, where the flat earth used to be, up and out of the atmosphere of the curved earth to reach the ancient West of Valinor. So yeah: kind of a big deal. The Powers-that-be take that shit seriously.
2. Dwarves were not part of God’s original Plan.
So, in Tolkien’s world, there are many “gods” with a lower-case “g”, but only one GOD with a capital “G”. The all-seeing, all-wise creator of the world is Eru Iluvatar: The One, the Father-of-All. The great Powers entrusted with governing individual aspects of the World day-to-day are the Valar. The Valar are not technically gods; they are actually created beings more like archangels, but in practice they function almost exactly like the pagan gods from Greek or Norse mythology. Tolkien’s world is ultimately monotheistic at the top level, but with that old-school polytheistic flavor in the middle bits.
Elves and Men are the Children of Iluvatar. They were the two races of thinking, speaking beings planned from the beginning and created solely by Iluvatar himself. The Dwarves were not. The Dwarves were made in secret by Aule the Smith, the god of crafting (like Hephaestus or Vulcan), without getting permission from Iluvatar first. Iluvatar allowed the Dwarves to exist and put souls into them, but insisted they had to wait for their turn, after the awakening of Elves and Men, before they could awaken into the world.
Elves believe that when Dwarves die, they turn back into the earth and stone from which they were made. However, the Dwarves believe that they will sleep beneath the earth until the End of the World, and then finally Iluvatar will make them honorary, adopted Children and they will help Aule rebuild the world after the Last Battle.
All of that is a long way of saying: Only Elves are allowed entry into Valinor. Men are forbidden to set foot there, even though they are Children of Iluvatar. If Men can’t, then Dwarves definitelycan’t.
The idea of Legolas rucking up to the shores of Aman in a rowboat with a living Dwarf onboard, and then just looking Mandos and Manwe in the eye and saying, “Hi I’m Legolas, this is my friend Gimli: He goes where I go. Let us in.” – It’s mind-boggling. I love it.
Within the rules of the cosmology, there’s no rational explanation for why that should be allowed, other than Tolkien wanted it that way. I think Tolkien just liked Legolas and Gimli’s friendship so much he couldn’t bear to separate them, and just thought, eh, I can break my own rules this once, to give them a happy ending. I love it.
On this day in 1961 Graham James MacTavish was born. He portrayed the character of Dwalin in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy. He was one of the Dwarves that traveled with Bilbo, Gandalf and Thorin on the quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from Smaug. Happy birthday!
In even the darkest places, you can find light shining through. The dwarves from Snow White spend their time in the dark mines but have brightly gleaming gems and, more importantly, the warmth of each other’s company.
Transparent Thorin Oakensheild colouring page :) I had good fun making this and might make other colouring pages if y'all like it too. feel free to post your coloured versions as long as you tag me!
Six runes… would they too become a word she’d hate forever? No. She refused to accept it. Of course the quest was hopeless, but she would not lose another man she loved. She had big plans for their future, for their son, and they all depended on that one word. He had given her the badly crafted bracelet just before walking out the door. Probably a last minute project. It was not like him to give her presents and she told him so in a mocking voice (hoping it would lighten up the mood). “It’s not a present. It’s a promise!” He had said. And now there she was, staring at the word. “What does it say, mother?” Death, she thought. Future, she hoped. But that was not what was engraved onto the beads. It was just the name of a place, just a mountain like so many others, and yet it meant so much more. Maybe one day it would even mean happiness. For now it just spelled “Erebor”.
The dwarves have found a new ore in their latest tunnel, and slowly the miners who have been exposed are entering into comas.
The orcs who frequently try unsuccessfully to raid the city have stopped coming recently, but now goblins trying to make peace have taken their place.
An elvish diplomat has earned the dwarf king’s ear. The nobles are happy, but the rest of the dwarves are frustrated with the changes being made.
The Runeslab, an ancient magic-infused piece of earth that powers the dwarves’ magic, has gone inert causing all of their magic to fail.
When called on by the council for guidance, the spirits of the ancestors have been quiet. Additionally, weird noises have been heard around the city’s burial grounds.
A single dwarf from outside the city has apparently dug his way into the city, and now claims to be the queen’s estranged son.
The guard captain can beat any dwarf in a feat of strength, and doesn’t look a day over 100. The weird thing is, digging into city records show she’s held her rank for longer than any living dwarf has been alive.
One by one, dwarves wake up to see another house covered in giant fungi. The fungi only seem to spring up when the dwarves are sleeping.
In an attempt to get more trade, the dwarves have rerouted a river through a tunnel into their city. Trade is now booming, but the people who lived downstream are struggling to survive without their source of water.
At the end of a tunnel just dug by the dwarves they found a large chamber that is an exact replica of their city- except there’s not a soul to be found there. Construction as recent as last week in the real city is present in the replica.
Large cracks have started to show in the statues of prominent ancestors of a certain era, and no one is sure why.
Someone is painting large X’s on the doors of about 5 houses each day. At night, the inhabitants of one of the houses go missing and are replaced with piles of rocks, and the rest of the X’s vanish from the doors.
The dwarves have been training hippogryphs to serve as mounts, but occasionally a hippogryph will return from its flight without its rider, with several gem-like growths protruding from it’s body.
It’s a dwarven festival, but the ale appears to be missing! Weren’t the indigenous gnomes grumbling about a dumb, dwarf holiday?
A dwarf wizard has come out of a long solitary study with an uncanny control over spiders of all sizes. Many are put off by the horse-sized spider he now rides as a mount.
The daily, minute-long rumbling throughout the city would signal that it was halfway through the day consistently for the past 50 years, but last week it suddenly stopped completely.
A young dwarf child kept warning people to stay out of the tunnels but she can’t explain why. The next day, the tunnel flooded with lava, and no one down there made it out alive.
Earth elementals sprung up all over the city about a week ago. So far they’ve only stood in place where the rose, but today one started walking around aimlessly.
A would-be bard wants to escape the life of mining decided for him by his parents, but has no way to get to the bardic college. Furthermore, if he just leaves he will be seen as a disgrace, and so wants to fake his own death.
When the halflings lost their homes in the war, the dwarves happily took them in as refugees. Now, they can’t wait to get rid of the little nuisances.
The dwarf high cleric has recently lost communication with their patron deity. Rather than admit something is wrong, they’ve started decreeing their own agenda, saying it comes from their god.
A group of dwarf travelers have recently returned from a trip to a faraway land, bringing exotic fruit and wares with them. Everything seems fine, except the iris of their eyes are lime green and they can’t stop obsessing over the fruit they brought back.
Having recently opened their doors to outsiders, dwarves are torn between sticking to their traditional values, or adopting some of the ways of others who have visited and challenged their way of life.
Members of one of the noble dwarven houses have started to lose their ability to see in the dark, keeping lit torches and fires roaring at all times.
It’s revealed the gargantuan stalactite that sits above the city is actually a dormant monster, finally stirring awake. No one knows its intent, if it speaks, or how it will act.
hobbits: tiny houses, oversized sweaters, a good book, introverts, writing, gardening, staying up to watch the sunset, fuzzy socks, nice food, tending to keep things to yourself, playing instruments, just wants to live a peaceful life
dwarves: nights out with friends, lives out of spite, really stubborn, sneaking out of your window at 1am, loves animals more than their family, hot chocolate, karaoke parties, road trips, summer nights, cunning folk, believes in old legends
elves: getting lost in the woods, loves photography, wants to travel the world, neat notes, pretty handwriting, athletic, loves fashion, love astrology, curious, hunting, wolves, the smell of wet grass, very artistic, easily embarrassed
humans: messy bun, staying up til midnight, too little sleep, writing poems, loud laughs, loves music, camping, in love with the way nature works, driving at sunsets, determined, a bit of a mess, german shepherds, eye gazes
hobbits: oversized sweaters, honey, listening to music, traditional, flower fields, animals over humans, sunrises, finds nostalgia in everything, books, the joy of youth, old folklore, loves to paint, homemade meals, plants, thick socks
elves: mythology, loves nature, sharp features, ancient forests, loves to learn, intimidating, sharp tongued, archery, freckles, old notebooks, cottage in the woods, perfectionists, very determined, humour that only they get, autumn
dwarves: bruised knuckles, eye-rolls, either sleep for the week or sleep is for the weak, great music taste, extremely passionate, smarter than you’d think, abandoned cities, alcohol, doesn’t care about opinions, competitiveness
humans: always searching for adventure, messy hair, loud music, random road trips, loyal to the people they love, fire, midnight hours, black coffee, hates humanity, procrastinators, dad jokes, bloody noses, courageous, kind
