I'm sorry, I know I should add SOMETHING to the conversation, but this is just... ARGH!! Alatar, I don't know what's worse, your joke or the fact that I laughed about it :p

I've given this some thought and I've given up the idea of the Easterlings being Anti-Dwarf's, if anything they're Anti-Gondorian.

I'm still not going for that Anti- Dwarf is the Anti- Dwarf, because, like I said before, you can use that kind of logic with any scenerio. Probably Goblins with be the next likely source for me.

The more I've thought while reading the Sil, the more I've decided that Tolkien was never explicit with what he had Melkor do with the dwarves. Guessing then we can conclude that he mixed them in with his orc race, or used them to make a specific subspecies of orc/goblin, as seen in the Hobbit.

I'm coming into this rather late, and I don't really have anything to contribute, but I would like to say that I do like the idea of dwarves being their own worst enemies. It makes a great deal of sense, on many levels.

Please explain, because for some reason I don't see the sense in it.

As a race, the Dwarves are the odd man out, since they were not in Illuvatar's originally expressed plan for the world. As the "Other" race, they are rather separate from the original Children of Illuvatar; the system of parallels that can be applied to Elves and Men doesn't fit the Dwarves because they stand apart from the other races in terms of their origin.

I get the feeling that you just have trouble accepting that the noble, tough race of Dwarves could turn to evil. No, you can't use that logic with any scenerio. There are no good counterpart to the Orcs(anti-Orcs) and there is no evil counterpart to the Elves(very very few Elves ever served the enemy). And there are no 'anti-Hobbits' either(very few bad Hobbits). The only places you can use this logic are for Men and Dwarves, because in both cases the Enemy managed to corrupt a good many of them(Haradrim, Easterlings and Dwarves of Eastern Houses).

Maybe I am a little ignorant of the truth, but I don't think of number of "Anti-Dwarves" is any larger than the number of elves that are evil.

I'm not sure that the concept of "anti-dwarf" necessarily entails dwarves fighting for Sauron or Morgoth. An anti-dwarf, in the way we have used the term here, I think more concerns the dwarvish tendency to be self-serving and greedy that dominates the wicked dwarves, and is the weakness of good ones. Dwarves are not necessarily worse than any other race as a whole; but if one was going to identify the worst enemy of a good dwarf, it would be a bad dwarf, whereas the worst enemy of an elf is an orc.

Ok, I think I can settle for that answer. Thanks Gwathagor!

Yes, Dwarves are strange folk indeed! What will we ever do with them?

But of course!

Strange! They are hardy and quiet, not strange. We love them.:p

Yes, strange, weird, crazy..... But so am I, and people love me! I like dwarves too. Don't mess with the dwarves or me for that matter!:p

Well said, I'll stop mess'n with you now. ;)

Good. You might have got it good!(but you know that I would never do that to you!;))

Ahem! Chat skwerlz are drawing nigh here - expect some posts to disappear into the Void soon.

A moderator-recommended New Year's resolution: no public chatting! :)

Not so much 'worst enemy,' as for dwarves it may be dragons (for elves it may be balrogs, as stated by - I think - Legolas in FotR), but what would have Melkor raised up as a 'counter?'