On the unconcernedness of dwarves
Jun. 8th, 2015 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatThis has always worried me. Thirty years ago, Balin and the others go to Moria, a place known to be riddled with dangers, to settle it. For a few years, encouraging messages are sent back to Erebor. We later learn that the entire lot of them were wiped out five years later. By the time of The Lord of the Rings, therefore, there have been no messages for 25 years.
Now, I accept that this is world without Skype and social media. This (below) is not a possibility.
It also appears to be a world in which only the hobbits have been enterprising enough to establish a postal service. (Also a world in which only hobbits know about umbrellas and pocket watches. This is profoundly Suspicious, but for now, all that concerns us is the postal service.) I accept that the dwarves might accept that everyone was far too busy mining mithril to send any letters for a year or two, or that the letters got lost en route. But twenty-five years? Twenty-five years in which nobody went, "okay, this shows beyond all doubt that something has gone very wrong. Let's send out a search party."?
Granted, Glóin was worried about Balin when we meet him at the Council of Elrond. Movie Gimli is not. When faced with 25 years of silence from fellow dwarves who have headed into Great Danger, Movie Gimli seems to think that they've all been far too busy feasting to bother writing. Even when they go crunching over corpses in the pitchy dark as a terrifying tentacled beast rages behind them, he acts as if he is expecting Balin and co. to suddenly switch on the lights and jump out, going "Surprise!" At least Book Glóin admits that the silence is troubling.
But have any of them ever thought to send search parties? Has anyone even sent a messenger of their own: one with a letter saying, "er... you don't seem to have written for a while. Was it something we said?" (Maybe they feared it was something they said. Maybe after the first year of silence, they went, "Oh no! They don't want to be our friends any more!" and wallowed around angstily for a few decades, as their hurt pride kept them from making any more overtures. But somehow I doubt it.) After the Fellowship has failed to cross Caradhras and Moria becomes a real possibility, Gimli looks eager, but he doesn't seem to have spent the entire journey south clamouring to go there in order to find out what happened to their absent friends.
No, everyone just seems to sit there, thinking, "strange, we haven't heard from them for a while. Oh well...," and carrying on.
Why?
Now, I accept that this is world without Skype and social media. This (below) is not a possibility.
It also appears to be a world in which only the hobbits have been enterprising enough to establish a postal service. (Also a world in which only hobbits know about umbrellas and pocket watches. This is profoundly Suspicious, but for now, all that concerns us is the postal service.) I accept that the dwarves might accept that everyone was far too busy mining mithril to send any letters for a year or two, or that the letters got lost en route. But twenty-five years? Twenty-five years in which nobody went, "okay, this shows beyond all doubt that something has gone very wrong. Let's send out a search party."?
Granted, Glóin was worried about Balin when we meet him at the Council of Elrond. Movie Gimli is not. When faced with 25 years of silence from fellow dwarves who have headed into Great Danger, Movie Gimli seems to think that they've all been far too busy feasting to bother writing. Even when they go crunching over corpses in the pitchy dark as a terrifying tentacled beast rages behind them, he acts as if he is expecting Balin and co. to suddenly switch on the lights and jump out, going "Surprise!" At least Book Glóin admits that the silence is troubling.
But have any of them ever thought to send search parties? Has anyone even sent a messenger of their own: one with a letter saying, "er... you don't seem to have written for a while. Was it something we said?" (Maybe they feared it was something they said. Maybe after the first year of silence, they went, "Oh no! They don't want to be our friends any more!" and wallowed around angstily for a few decades, as their hurt pride kept them from making any more overtures. But somehow I doubt it.) After the Fellowship has failed to cross Caradhras and Moria becomes a real possibility, Gimli looks eager, but he doesn't seem to have spent the entire journey south clamouring to go there in order to find out what happened to their absent friends.
No, everyone just seems to sit there, thinking, "strange, we haven't heard from them for a while. Oh well...," and carrying on.
Why?
