Before you see The Hobbit, get to know the dwarves who take Bilbo Baggins on his epic adventure
Dwalin’s older brother, Balin, is the kindly old dwarf of the company. In the book, he has extraordinary vision and often keeps watch; in the film, he appears a bit doddering. Balin befriends the out-of-place hobbit Bilbo sooner than the other dwarves. After the events of The Hobbit, Tolkien says Balin disappears with a troupe of dwarves to retake Moria. We only discover his fate in The Fellowship of the Ring, when Gimli the dwarf finds Balin’s tomb and the skeletons of his kin.
Really love the movie and the entire series. Just can get lost in every single scene with the color and details and expressions. One word that describes this? BELOVED!
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Great movie..heres some behind the scenes pictures from the Hobbit http://bit.ly/V038dg
Great movie,found the project with a gift for the New Year, I hope that this is itwill be my kalabashki_net promising in principle, there are people whonot only think of themselves, and contributed to, even if not to me, butto someone lucky
This article is very poorly researched.
Tolkien (who authored LOTR and The Hobbit) intended the dwarves to represent the Jews of his time. In other words, they were always having their homeland taken from them, they were greedy, had the excessive beards/facial hair, had a similar style of writing, and were always "cut short" when compared with the rest of society.
As such, the dwarves in Tolkien's mythology were meant to be a veiled commentary on the Jews of Tolkien's day.
The writers and editors at Time Magazine need to do a better job at researching their subject matter BEFORE printing their articles, or posting them online.
References:
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@mrbomb13 The article is intended to be a quick guide to the 13 dwarves in the movie, not a research paper on Tolkien's writings, beliefs, and intents. If you want to get up on a soapbox and tell everyone what you know, go ahead, but don't claim the article is poorly researched because it doesn't include every little detail, as that would be a small book in itself. The purpose of the article is clear, and it fulfills that purpose. I humbly suggest you get over yourself.
@mrbomb13 Ah yes, because it's in Wikipedia, it has to be right.
Nevermind that Tolkien named the Dwarves after the Dwarves in the Volúspa, had them writing in Norse Runes, and their dragon is straight out of Norse mythology as well.
Of COURSE.
@Greekgeek @mrbomb13 As a former teacher, I would certainly agree that one should not use Wikipedia as a primary source.
However, as a researcher, one is certainly allowed to connect to the links for each Wikipedia article, and assess the validity of all source material for the given article. If you check the source material in the Wikipedia article, the Jewish influence on the development of Tolkien's Dwarves did indeed exist.
As you said, Tolkien did indeed incorporate Norse (and, more broadly, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon) mythology into both LOTR and the Hobbit. Many interviews with Tolkien (and his son) are online, and I would highly recommend watching them. There is even one wherein Tolkien himself says that Dwarves were like the Jews of his time, and based off them.
In case Wikipedia was not enough, here is an additional article to substantiate my point:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/%22Dwarves+are+not+heroes%22%3A+antisemitism+and+the+Dwarves+in+J.R.R....-a0227196960
The article is has Tolkien's Letters and writings as source material.
