Dwarven Reproduction - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Kalimac · 12-31-2003, 02:35 AM

Knight of Gondor - I don't think we're all discussing it from hormonally-crazed teenagerness. I'm an old married lady of twenty-four and find this sort of question academically interesting (as did Tolkien, in some wise - at least, he laid down quite a number of rules about elvish reproduction, so obviously he considered it as well).

Finwe - you're right about having to have a *lot* of children; they're starting at a tremendous disadvantage with 1/3 of the population automatically out of the reproductive running. However, there are a fair number of sets of brothers among the dwarves in "The Hobbit" and if we threw in, say, one sister for each set of brothers we'd be looking at a guesstimate of 3-4 children per couple. (I wish there was more to the dwarf genealogies in ROTK). Not bad, but also not great. And Thorin Oakenshield seems to be an only.

Saucepan Man, good catch with the long lifespans - hadn't considered that before. I guess I just imagined dwarf gestation as taking a long time - maybe because dwarves seem to take their time in general (you can't tell me that those halls in Moria took a day less than five hundred years to carve out, and even that would be working at a good clip). But they'd still have to have enough children to keep running all those mines and halls, and they'd probably have about 100 years for producing them. They probably started post-100 or so, though - in "The Quest of Erebor" Gimli talks about how at sixty-odd he was considered a mere stripling, not old enough to go with his father, and Fili and Kili are in their nineties and seem to be young-bachelor types.

As for the hobbits...who knows. They seem to alternate between having one child and having a minimum of half-a-dozen. And of course none of them seem to consider marrying until they're in their mid-thirties (Rosie was 35, I think), so that would argue a longer development stage than humans have.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 3:37 AM December 31, 2003: Message edited by: Kalimac ]

12-31-2003, 02:35 AM	#36
Kalimac Candle of the Marshes Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Flyover Country Posts: 780	Knight of Gondor - I don't think we're all discussing it from hormonally-crazed teenagerness. I'm an old married lady of twenty-four and find this sort of question academically interesting (as did Tolkien, in some wise - at least, he laid down quite a number of rules about elvish reproduction, so obviously he considered it as well). Finwe - you're right about having to have a lot of children; they're starting at a tremendous disadvantage with 1/3 of the population automatically out of the reproductive running. However, there are a fair number of sets of brothers among the dwarves in "The Hobbit" and if we threw in, say, one sister for each set of brothers we'd be looking at a guesstimate of 3-4 children per couple. (I wish there was more to the dwarf genealogies in ROTK). Not bad, but also not great. And Thorin Oakenshield seems to be an only. Saucepan Man, good catch with the long lifespans - hadn't considered that before. I guess I just imagined dwarf gestation as taking a long time - maybe because dwarves seem to take their time in general (you can't tell me that those halls in Moria took a day less than five hundred years to carve out, and even that would be working at a good clip). But they'd still have to have enough children to keep running all those mines and halls, and they'd probably have about 100 years for producing them. They probably started post-100 or so, though - in "The Quest of Erebor" Gimli talks about how at sixty-odd he was considered a mere stripling, not old enough to go with his father, and Fili and Kili are in their nineties and seem to be young-bachelor types. As for the hobbits...who knows. They seem to alternate between having one child and having a minimum of half-a-dozen. And of course none of them seem to consider marrying until they're in their mid-thirties (Rosie was 35, I think), so that would argue a longer development stage than humans have. <font size=1 color=339966>[ 3:37 AM December 31, 2003: Message edited by: Kalimac ] __________________ Father, dear Father, if you see fit, We'll send my love to college for one year yet Tie blue ribbons all about his head, To let the ladies know that he's married.