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Post by Desi Baggins on Mar 13, 2005 11:05:53 GMT -6
Thorin has managed to call in some help from Dain. Bard and the Elvenking even think that if they let Dain get to the mountain Thorin could call in even more dwarves from else where, but never do Bard and the Elvenking think about calling in more Elves and Men to help them. Why is this? Where the relations of men and elves not as strong as the relations between dwarves?
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Post by Stormrider on Mar 16, 2005 7:39:27 GMT -6
Considering there were only 13 Dwarves against all the Men and Elves, I think it was fair of Thorin to call in Dain and his troops to even up the odds.
I don't think the Men and Elves wanted to have to go to battle against the Dwarves at all. They only wanted payment for damages and to regain their own treasures that Smaug had taken from them long ago.
With Bilbo giving the Arkenstone to Bard to trade for his rightful share for damages, they were hoping Thorin would trade up fair and avoid a war between the three races.
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Post by Andorinha on Jun 24, 2011 9:34:53 GMT -6
A Scarcity of People?
Hmmm, as we've been discussing the situation of "population" on Vanye's Adventure of Bilbo topic, there just may not have been many more Men in the neighborhood of Laketown. Maybe way out East you would eventually find more Men, but would they be Easterlings, as like to attack the Laketown Men as not?
Tolkien does say that even the western margins of Mirkwood were pretty much depopulated, and that it was only recently that some Men had started moving back into that area, the Woodsmen. But even the Woodsmen sound like they were settled in scattered holdings, and none too populous.
I suppose the only other Elves in the region might be those of Lothlorien, but we have no direct knowledge that the "Golden Wood" even existed back in 1927-37 when The Hobbit was written? We know Rivendell was there, but it never sounded heavily populated to me, and would take a long time to get the news back to Rivendell, and a longer time to send a force all the way east to help out in what would become "The Battle of Five Armies."
Even for the Dwarves, I think Dain brings with him only 500 "trusty-hardy" Dwarves, so I wonder if there were just not many Dwarves left in Middle-earth either? 500, not a large army, scarcely a British batallion in size...
The only group that seems to have great numbers available, is the Goblin horde.
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Post by Stormrider on Dec 23, 2012 8:44:52 GMT -6
Those nasty goblins sure do multiply!
Thorin tells Roac and any other messengers strong enough to send word out to "our kin in the mountains of the North, both west from here and east, and tell them of our plight. But go especially to my cousin Dain in the Iron Hills, for he has many people well-armed, and dwells nearest to this place. Bid him hasten!"
According to Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-Earth, pages 76 and 77, The Grey Mountains are to the North and don't seem that much farther than the Iron Hills to the East. Although the part of the Grey Mountains directly North may not be the area that Dwarves reside in--they may be more Northwest in that mountain range which would make them further away.
Yes, the lands around The Lonely Mountain do look very devoid of any human, elf, or dwarf life for the most part.
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Post by Andorinha on Dec 30, 2012 5:49:38 GMT -6
RE: "send messengers to our kin in the mountains of the North, both west from here and east." (The Hobbit, chpt. XV, p. 233, my emphasis)
Hmmm, wonder what Tolkien had in mind here? Were there dwarves in the northern Misty Mountains, or were there supposed to still be dwarves up in the Grey Mountains? Certainly, by LOTR times, JRRT never mentions any dwarves save those of the western ranges of the Blue Mountains, those of the Iron Hills, and the newly re-established Erebor group, though later Balin tries to re-settle Moria, and even later Gimli sets up a colony near Rohan in the Glittering Caves...
There had been dwarves in Gundabad, Grey Mountains, but by the time of The Hobbit, that was a Goblin hold, I believe. So, to whom is Thorin referring?
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Post by Stormrider on Dec 31, 2012 8:24:57 GMT -6
I always had the impression that out of all the Races of peoples in Middle-earth, the Dwarves were not that many in number anyway. I guess there weren't all that many Hobbits either. I always felt there were many Elves, many Humans, and tons of Orcs, but not as many Dwarves and Hobbits. It seems to me that the Elves were continually on their treck to the Grey Havens to go back to Valinor and I guess that is why I felt there were many of them. Humans were meant to continue on in Middle-earth so Tolkien planned for them to be many in number anyway. And orcs were just plain multiplying fiends!
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