Stereotypes

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

However, the other day I was reading this (admittedly a tremendously fantastic work of literature there...can't I read something just for kicks and giggles too... )

I forgive you.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Take dwarves for example...where in the world did the stereotype that the dwarves are a bunch of pickled alcoholics come from? It must have come from somewhere but I don't find anything in Tolkien's work to point to as the genesis of this notion.

I believe the whole 'party-hearty' dwarf stereotype arose from various roleplaying games (like Dungeons and Dragons, for instance). This is partly attributable to Tolkien, but only in the sense that he borrowed names from Norse (Icelandic) lore, and there is a whole mythos of the dvergar in the Poetic Eddas. Hence, many roleplayers associated dwarves with those hard-living marauders of old, Vikings (and any stereotypical drawing of a dwarf warrior certainly has the appearance of the commonly misconceived picture of a Viking -- complete with the horned helmets which no one actually wore). And so, the idea of a mead-drinking, beserker dwarf is perpetuated.

Of course, Tolkien certainly added the patina of greed to dwarfdom, but that has always been there, as anyone who is familiar with Alberich the Nibelung in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen will recall. Wagner in turn borrowed liberally from earlier Germanic and Norse material regarding dwarves hoarding gold. And dwarves (and their cousins, Kobolds) have always been associated with mining and the Norse dvergar for crafting (Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, Odin's ring, Draupnir, and his spear, Gugnir, etc.).

Currently, of course, every roleplaying dwarf seems to have picked up a heavy Scottish brogue as well as the drunken, belching boisterousness of Gimli from the LotR films. I guess it is now a requirement for dwarves to use the term 'laddie' and recite malaprop-ridden broken bits of Robert Burns poems. Amusingly, Tolkien said in an interview with the BBC that he'd constructed Khuzdul like a Semitic language. If anything, a dwarf might sound more like Topol in Fiddler on the Roof. Oyveh!

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

For elves, they are commonly pictured as being arrogant and aloof to the point of utter superciliousness, but to my reading Tolkien's elves are not like that, although I suppose this may be the way they read to other people.

Actually, there is much elvish aloofness and callousness in the Silmarillion. One only has to read passages wherein Caranthir, Celegorm or Curufin speak to get the sense that these were in no way kindly or well-meaning elves. Eol was another quintessentially malevolent elf, and let's not forget Saeros or Thingol (whose rudeness actually got them killed). Even Feanor, for all his brilliance, was arrogant and malign (slaughtering the well-meaning Teleri and stealing their ships was certainly not the work of a mirthful and benevolent elf).