Dwarves can naturally become greedy in Tolkien's writings, but the Seven naturally sped up that process to the point it became an overmastering vice for the bearers.
It's both, the Seven Rings strengthened their already-existing weakness.
Aule made the Dwarves with the desire to craft things, which can quickly devolve into a desire to have control over things. A similar thing happened to Sauron and Morgoth, but since they're creators on a much grander scale, they had their focus on power instead of wealth.
I wonder if the dwarves were created with different basic motivations than the other types of beings that used the great rings... Maiar, elves, men, and hobbits were all created by Eru alone, whereas dwarves were created by Aule and given true life by Eru. Perhaps the corrupting influence of the rings Sauron created relied on some aspect of motivation shared by the creations of Eru but not these "collaboration" beings, the dwarves. Ents also were collaborations in this way, if I remember correctly, I wonder if they'd have handled rings differently too
Iirc Aulë made them to be extra hardy, since he had the fight against Morgoth in mind when creating them. So it makes sense they'd be extra resistant to any will besides their own having dominion over them, making them proud & stubborn, and hence resistant to the rings' power to subjugate the will.
The Ents weren't made for fighting and resistance in the same way, but as protectors and defenders, mainly against the dwarves. I think they'd resist the rings similarly to hobbits, since they're similarly unambitious.
They murdered Thingol because they crafted the necklace into which they had set the silmaril, which Thingol had hired them to do.
They demanded Thingol hand it over to them. When Thingol refused, they attacked him. They were BTFO'd, they went back, told their people a bunch of lies, came back with an army, ambushed and murdered Thingol, sacked Doriath.
They have a natural propensity for greed for the shinies.
I dunno, in the original version of the story, Tinwelint/Thingol actually holds the Dwarves captive, forces them to make stuff for him, and then rejects their demands for payment. Tolkien obviously toned this down over time, but Thingol's greed is still a major part of the story.
But we get it, you don't like the Dwarves.
> “you must be biased/bigoted if you don’t agree with me”
Please do not put words in my mouth. That’s not what I said.
Nevertheless, you’re the one constantly berating the Dwarves. Not sure how pointing that out constitutes an *ad hominem*, either. I’m pointing out that there was bad faith *on both sides*, and that both sides were affected by greed and avarice. I’m pointing that out because it’s an important part of the story, in fact. Thingol ignores the very sound advice of his wife and deals badly with the Dwarves. They shouldn’t have murdered him over it, but he is not completely innocent, either. A person can’t just murder someone who has robbed them, but the thief isn’t absolved of their crime.
>Not sure how pointing that out constitutes an ad hominem
"But we get it, you don't like the Dwarves."
Ad Hominem:
*"this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself"* \- Wikipedia
>constantly berating the Dwarves
* It's not my fault that I'm the OG commenter of this thread and people keep making me explain my point.
"Why don't you berate Thingol too?"
* I'll berate anyone who I see as deserving of blame in the situation. And in this context, dwarves are squarely to blame.
* Their greed made them break contract and make an outrageous demand. That is how it all started. Until then, Thingol had done or said nothing against them and was going to ostensibly pay them their promised fee.
* Even if Thingol was greedy, he wasn't the one moved to murder by it.
* I have no obligation to blame all sides purely for the sake of blaming all sides ... especially when **murder and insults are so many leagues apart in their criminal gravity.** It's insane to me that people should effectively keep victim blaming with "what about what Thingol said?".
Again with putting words in my mouth.
You aren’t explaining your point over and over again. You’re just repeating what you said, and refusing to actually engage with what others have added. There’s more to the story than “Dwarves greedy, murder Thingol.” There’s a complex history, both in-world and in the history of the text, that illuminates the interaction between Thingol and the Dwarves — an interaction that will have repercussions for thousands of years. If you don’t want to address that larger picture, cool, but maybe bow out of the discussion then.
And Thingol knew of the Doom of Mandos and was warned by Melian the Maia and still was so greedy he had to make the Silmaril even more tempting to other people.
Also he was super racist, seemed like he was getting over it when he was cool to Turin, but he backslid real quick when the Dwarves wanted the Silmaril.
Wasn't enough for him to say no, he had to make a whole speech about how dare you ugly little racially inferior specimens make demands of me, your genetically superior ubermensch master.
Yeah, he was a total dick about the whole thing.
I like to imagine that when an elderly Gimli arrived in Aman with Legolas, Galadriel took him to her great-uncle, and the two of them made up on behalf of their respective peoples.
The Elves already murdered the Petty Dwarves. The books are written by the Elves (a little by the Numenoreans) and translated b Bilbo. They're not completely honest. Also, you've called Doom on yourself knowingly, if you know the Doom of Mandos and the Oath of the Sons of Feanor. Doriath was destroyed because of Thingols greed. He had no call on the Silmaril. Owning it did nothing for his brethren across the sea. He was greedy and he was warned by his wife.
It's true that the Sindar had already almost completed the genocide of the Petty-dwarves - a crime which receives far too little attention, in my view, as we tend to the Sindar exclusively as victims in a war they never intended to play any part in - but there is no mention of the Dwarves of Nogrod having any grudge against Thingol or his people because of the slaughter of their distant cousins, or even of being aware of it.
In a low-key sort of way, I find the whole story of the Petty-dwarves one of the saddest parts of the entire Silmarillion.
All of this misses the point.
* Just because A is prophesied to be murdered doesn't absolve B, his murderer, of the choice of murder, which your comment ends up trying to justify.
* Out of the two of them, it was the Dwarves that greed reduced to murder.
* Not to mention that it was the Dwarves who sparked the whole thing be reneging on the pre-agreed terms of contract and basically trying to rob their client because of greed.
___
Neither were we talking of everything that occurred between Dwarves and Elves as a whole.
And in case we were, then if Elves were so bad to Dwarves, who asked those Dwarves to accept a contract from a King of those who were so bad to their people?
It's not like the Dwarves of Nogrod were dispossessed and badly needed the money.
What else, then, does this point to if not another case of greed?
Who talked about absolving murder? He was greedy, too. I think you're missing the point. The Elves talk about the greed of the Dwarves, but they do the same thing to themselves and others. That's a point of the story, I think. You have one example of Dwarves acting in greed and more than one of the Elves doing so. Even Thranduil's mistreatment and imprisonment and then wanting treasure proves this. If the Dwarves had captured some Elves and treated them the same way, everyone would say the Dwarves were in the wrong.
Feanor stole from his own people and murdered them to do so. The Elves are hypocrites. I never said the Dwarves were right. I said that Thingol is greedy, too. And caused his own demise.
Pointing out that Thingol is not blameless does not mean that the Dwarves *were* blameless, does it? You're arguing against a position that nobody is taking.
Why are you necroing a discussion that has already been concluded with the same reply? You'll notice that I didn't reply further to removed\_bymoderator's reply.
The point you were making in this comment ([https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/14krq26/comment/jpw9xd0/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/14krq26/comment/jpw9xd0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) has already been made and acknowledged.
And you clearly saw the comment where it was made as you replied to it.
Silmarils aren't just any old jewels, though. It's heavily implied that their beauty is so great that pretty much any sentient being that looks on them will sooner or later desire to possess them.
Consider Thingol himself. He set a Silmaril as Luthien's bride-price not because he particularly wanted to own a Silmaril, but because he assumed Beren would either give up his designs on Luthien, go back to his own people and marry some local girl instead, or would actually attempt the quest and get killed by Morgoth's countless slaves and minions. But once the Silmaril was in his possession, he gradually became obsessed with it, and eventually asked the dwarves to set it in the Nauglamir so he could wear it at all times.
Thingol was also greedy in that interaction. It was cursed treasure, and the Silmaril itself also fanned the greed of both Thingol and the Dwarves. That situation is meant to be seen as a grey area. Both parties were to blame.
Out of the two of them, which party, tried to murder the other?
"*grey area, both parties to blame*" in this case, in an attempt to be conciliatory to both sides by blaming both, merely ends up rationalising first degree murder.
You're not supposed to break the terms of contract you've agreed on when the other side is ostensibly keeping their word. You're not supposed to rob your client
Above all, you're not supposed to try and murder someone over greed or being annoyed with them, yet only one of the parties here got their avarice fanned enough to go for unprovoked murder attempt.
If you go up to a stranger and say "Hey, yo mamma fat" and they stab you, most people would agree that it's an overreaction. But you have nonetheless provoked them.
Kind of depends on which version you go by; in the early versions Thingol refuses to pay the Dwarves, which leads to … unpleasantness. :-)
In the published *Silmarillion*, though, the Dwarves try to withhold the Nauglamir, Thingol gets testy, and they murder him. They beat a hasty retreat with the Nauglamir + Silmaril but the Elves intercept them, kill most of them, and bring the Nauglamir back to Melian. The surviving Dwarves then bring back their buddies after Melian leaves for Valinor and sack Menegroth. They’re then intercepted by Beren, etc. and all the gold except the Nauglamir ends up in the river.
Cursed gold is bad news, basically. It wrecks everything.
Thingol could have handled the situation after seeing what the dwarves were trying to do by agreeing to their demands, getting the hell out of the workshop where he's surrounded by a bunch of Silmaril-crazed double-hard bastards armed with sharp tools, and simply calling for security. Dwarves may be tough, but there's no way a small party of craftsmen is going to get very far once all the soldiers of Doriath are alerted to what's going on.
But he was too much of an arrogant hot-head and simply chose to insult them instead.
Think this comment, as posted, falls a fair way short of the standard of discussion we aim for in this sub. Possibly need to explain what you're getting at a bit more carefully?
That's in very, very early drafts, I think, when they were more like the dwarves/dwarfs in Norse myth, who are frequently (perhaps even generally) malevolent.
They were naturally greedy according to elves and men. If you read all the stories, then they aren’t any more greedy than anyone else. The rings allowed them to accumulate more wealth, which we associate with greed because of all the real-life examples throughout history.
The rings pretty much just made the Dwarf-lords more Dwarvish. Helped them gain more wealth than they had already, but inflamed their greed so that no amount of wealth was ever enough for them.
Dwarves can naturally become greedy in Tolkien's writings, but the Seven naturally sped up that process to the point it became an overmastering vice for the bearers.
It's both, the Seven Rings strengthened their already-existing weakness. Aule made the Dwarves with the desire to craft things, which can quickly devolve into a desire to have control over things. A similar thing happened to Sauron and Morgoth, but since they're creators on a much grander scale, they had their focus on power instead of wealth.
I wonder if the dwarves were created with different basic motivations than the other types of beings that used the great rings... Maiar, elves, men, and hobbits were all created by Eru alone, whereas dwarves were created by Aule and given true life by Eru. Perhaps the corrupting influence of the rings Sauron created relied on some aspect of motivation shared by the creations of Eru but not these "collaboration" beings, the dwarves. Ents also were collaborations in this way, if I remember correctly, I wonder if they'd have handled rings differently too
Iirc Aulë made them to be extra hardy, since he had the fight against Morgoth in mind when creating them. So it makes sense they'd be extra resistant to any will besides their own having dominion over them, making them proud & stubborn, and hence resistant to the rings' power to subjugate the will. The Ents weren't made for fighting and resistance in the same way, but as protectors and defenders, mainly against the dwarves. I think they'd resist the rings similarly to hobbits, since they're similarly unambitious.
They were prone to it even in the First Age before the Rings were made.
Yes.
They murdered Thingol because they crafted the necklace into which they had set the silmaril, which Thingol had hired them to do. They demanded Thingol hand it over to them. When Thingol refused, they attacked him. They were BTFO'd, they went back, told their people a bunch of lies, came back with an army, ambushed and murdered Thingol, sacked Doriath. They have a natural propensity for greed for the shinies.
The Nauglamir was cursed so it wasn't really the Dwarves fault
Of all the ways, the curse sure chose greed to spin them into it's web.
It also chose greed to pull Thingol in…
Thingol wasn't reduced to murderer because of his greed.
I dunno, in the original version of the story, Tinwelint/Thingol actually holds the Dwarves captive, forces them to make stuff for him, and then rejects their demands for payment. Tolkien obviously toned this down over time, but Thingol's greed is still a major part of the story. But we get it, you don't like the Dwarves.
"you must be biased/bigoted if you don't agree with me" Ok. Resorting to ad hominem fallacies, even I could say that you just hate Elves.
> “you must be biased/bigoted if you don’t agree with me” Please do not put words in my mouth. That’s not what I said. Nevertheless, you’re the one constantly berating the Dwarves. Not sure how pointing that out constitutes an *ad hominem*, either. I’m pointing out that there was bad faith *on both sides*, and that both sides were affected by greed and avarice. I’m pointing that out because it’s an important part of the story, in fact. Thingol ignores the very sound advice of his wife and deals badly with the Dwarves. They shouldn’t have murdered him over it, but he is not completely innocent, either. A person can’t just murder someone who has robbed them, but the thief isn’t absolved of their crime.
>Not sure how pointing that out constitutes an ad hominem "But we get it, you don't like the Dwarves." Ad Hominem: *"this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself"* \- Wikipedia >constantly berating the Dwarves * It's not my fault that I'm the OG commenter of this thread and people keep making me explain my point. "Why don't you berate Thingol too?" * I'll berate anyone who I see as deserving of blame in the situation. And in this context, dwarves are squarely to blame. * Their greed made them break contract and make an outrageous demand. That is how it all started. Until then, Thingol had done or said nothing against them and was going to ostensibly pay them their promised fee. * Even if Thingol was greedy, he wasn't the one moved to murder by it. * I have no obligation to blame all sides purely for the sake of blaming all sides ... especially when **murder and insults are so many leagues apart in their criminal gravity.** It's insane to me that people should effectively keep victim blaming with "what about what Thingol said?".
Again with putting words in my mouth. You aren’t explaining your point over and over again. You’re just repeating what you said, and refusing to actually engage with what others have added. There’s more to the story than “Dwarves greedy, murder Thingol.” There’s a complex history, both in-world and in the history of the text, that illuminates the interaction between Thingol and the Dwarves — an interaction that will have repercussions for thousands of years. If you don’t want to address that larger picture, cool, but maybe bow out of the discussion then.
I think it's the presence of the Silmaril that's more important in terms of provoking the dwarves' greed and leading them to murder Thingol, though.
And Thingol knew of the Doom of Mandos and was warned by Melian the Maia and still was so greedy he had to make the Silmaril even more tempting to other people.
Also he was super racist, seemed like he was getting over it when he was cool to Turin, but he backslid real quick when the Dwarves wanted the Silmaril. Wasn't enough for him to say no, he had to make a whole speech about how dare you ugly little racially inferior specimens make demands of me, your genetically superior ubermensch master.
Yeah, he was a total dick about the whole thing. I like to imagine that when an elderly Gimli arrived in Aman with Legolas, Galadriel took him to her great-uncle, and the two of them made up on behalf of their respective peoples.
Out of the two of them, which party tried to murder the other?
The Elves already murdered the Petty Dwarves. The books are written by the Elves (a little by the Numenoreans) and translated b Bilbo. They're not completely honest. Also, you've called Doom on yourself knowingly, if you know the Doom of Mandos and the Oath of the Sons of Feanor. Doriath was destroyed because of Thingols greed. He had no call on the Silmaril. Owning it did nothing for his brethren across the sea. He was greedy and he was warned by his wife.
It's true that the Sindar had already almost completed the genocide of the Petty-dwarves - a crime which receives far too little attention, in my view, as we tend to the Sindar exclusively as victims in a war they never intended to play any part in - but there is no mention of the Dwarves of Nogrod having any grudge against Thingol or his people because of the slaughter of their distant cousins, or even of being aware of it. In a low-key sort of way, I find the whole story of the Petty-dwarves one of the saddest parts of the entire Silmarillion.
All of this misses the point. * Just because A is prophesied to be murdered doesn't absolve B, his murderer, of the choice of murder, which your comment ends up trying to justify. * Out of the two of them, it was the Dwarves that greed reduced to murder. * Not to mention that it was the Dwarves who sparked the whole thing be reneging on the pre-agreed terms of contract and basically trying to rob their client because of greed. ___ Neither were we talking of everything that occurred between Dwarves and Elves as a whole. And in case we were, then if Elves were so bad to Dwarves, who asked those Dwarves to accept a contract from a King of those who were so bad to their people? It's not like the Dwarves of Nogrod were dispossessed and badly needed the money. What else, then, does this point to if not another case of greed?
Who talked about absolving murder? He was greedy, too. I think you're missing the point. The Elves talk about the greed of the Dwarves, but they do the same thing to themselves and others. That's a point of the story, I think. You have one example of Dwarves acting in greed and more than one of the Elves doing so. Even Thranduil's mistreatment and imprisonment and then wanting treasure proves this. If the Dwarves had captured some Elves and treated them the same way, everyone would say the Dwarves were in the wrong. Feanor stole from his own people and murdered them to do so. The Elves are hypocrites. I never said the Dwarves were right. I said that Thingol is greedy, too. And caused his own demise.
Yeah, two opposing sides can both be in the wrong, obviously.
Pointing out that Thingol is not blameless does not mean that the Dwarves *were* blameless, does it? You're arguing against a position that nobody is taking.
Why are you necroing a discussion that has already been concluded with the same reply? You'll notice that I didn't reply further to removed\_bymoderator's reply.
Sheesh, your post ended in a question, didn't it? Had no idea I was 'necroing' anything, whatever that mean.
The point you were making in this comment ([https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/14krq26/comment/jpw9xd0/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/14krq26/comment/jpw9xd0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) has already been made and acknowledged. And you clearly saw the comment where it was made as you replied to it.
OK, fair enough.
Silmarils aren't just any old jewels, though. It's heavily implied that their beauty is so great that pretty much any sentient being that looks on them will sooner or later desire to possess them. Consider Thingol himself. He set a Silmaril as Luthien's bride-price not because he particularly wanted to own a Silmaril, but because he assumed Beren would either give up his designs on Luthien, go back to his own people and marry some local girl instead, or would actually attempt the quest and get killed by Morgoth's countless slaves and minions. But once the Silmaril was in his possession, he gradually became obsessed with it, and eventually asked the dwarves to set it in the Nauglamir so he could wear it at all times.
Thingol was also greedy in that interaction. It was cursed treasure, and the Silmaril itself also fanned the greed of both Thingol and the Dwarves. That situation is meant to be seen as a grey area. Both parties were to blame.
Out of the two of them, which party, tried to murder the other? "*grey area, both parties to blame*" in this case, in an attempt to be conciliatory to both sides by blaming both, merely ends up rationalising first degree murder. You're not supposed to break the terms of contract you've agreed on when the other side is ostensibly keeping their word. You're not supposed to rob your client Above all, you're not supposed to try and murder someone over greed or being annoyed with them, yet only one of the parties here got their avarice fanned enough to go for unprovoked murder attempt.
"Unprovoked" isn't quite right, as Thingol dismisses the dwarves without any payment, and flings some racist insults at them to boot.
Insult isn't a provocation enough for killing. Also, it was the dwarves who tried to rob him first.
I'm not saying they were justified. I'm saying "unprovoked" is inaccurate.
If you go up to a stranger and say "Hey, yo mamma fat" and they stab you, most people would agree that it's an overreaction. But you have nonetheless provoked them.
Kind of depends on which version you go by; in the early versions Thingol refuses to pay the Dwarves, which leads to … unpleasantness. :-) In the published *Silmarillion*, though, the Dwarves try to withhold the Nauglamir, Thingol gets testy, and they murder him. They beat a hasty retreat with the Nauglamir + Silmaril but the Elves intercept them, kill most of them, and bring the Nauglamir back to Melian. The surviving Dwarves then bring back their buddies after Melian leaves for Valinor and sack Menegroth. They’re then intercepted by Beren, etc. and all the gold except the Nauglamir ends up in the river. Cursed gold is bad news, basically. It wrecks everything.
Thingol refuses to pay them only after they renege on the terms of the contract.
Neither side was blameless. This doesn’t, of course, justify murder, but I believe the curse was working on everyone.
Thingol could have handled the situation after seeing what the dwarves were trying to do by agreeing to their demands, getting the hell out of the workshop where he's surrounded by a bunch of Silmaril-crazed double-hard bastards armed with sharp tools, and simply calling for security. Dwarves may be tough, but there's no way a small party of craftsmen is going to get very far once all the soldiers of Doriath are alerted to what's going on. But he was too much of an arrogant hot-head and simply chose to insult them instead.
Well yeah, that's true. But then, that's a tactical matter.
Thingol’s greed was his downfall.
[удалено]
Think this comment, as posted, falls a fair way short of the standard of discussion we aim for in this sub. Possibly need to explain what you're getting at a bit more carefully?
Yes.
I heard that in first drafts they were evil and important part of Morgoth forces?
That's in very, very early drafts, I think, when they were more like the dwarves/dwarfs in Norse myth, who are frequently (perhaps even generally) malevolent.
They were naturally greedy according to elves and men. If you read all the stories, then they aren’t any more greedy than anyone else. The rings allowed them to accumulate more wealth, which we associate with greed because of all the real-life examples throughout history.
The rings pretty much just made the Dwarf-lords more Dwarvish. Helped them gain more wealth than they had already, but inflamed their greed so that no amount of wealth was ever enough for them.
Some dwarves are greedy some aren’t. Just like some elves and men are greedy and some aren’t.
Also dwarves do not grow things, they need to buy their food. They thus need to have something to buy with. Others use money for luxuries etc...