Why no female dwarves??

[Darej]

well...here is a iron clad answer for the OP and why all dwarves have beards..

Turbine does not license the hobbit/lotr IP from CT/Tolkien Estates...they got it from M.E. Enterprises/Saul Zaentz Company.

Turbine has to answer to them about lore...they told Turbine what can be bent...and what cannot.

SZC said no gender selection at creation and no beardless dwarves.

End Of Story.

[Maihgread]

The problem is the main conclusive argument for beards is in HOME. Everything else is obscure. So, if you decide you don't want to include HOME as a source (which is perfectly valid,) there is no real debate. No debate that can be proved at any rate. We can bandy about what they mean or don't mean by garb and looks/sounds like, but there isn't any proof either way because we aren't talking about history. We're talking about fiction. Unless somebody has a working Quija board to get in touch with Tolkien, this one's out of decision making reach.

This is what I said in essence several posts ago. It basically comes down to an individual interpretation of two words used in one source that is accepted by all involved in this debate. That is all it is. We are not debating something that can be quantified beyond all measure of doubt.

[Miyu]

LOL poor dog

Why aren't there any male elves.

Or dwarvish elfish offspring. I'm sure they hook up every now and then.

[Macfeast]

If one consider HOME a valid source, then there's no need for debate as proof is available that females have beards.

If one don't consider HOME a valid source, then it comes down to the oft-quoted passage from the appendixes, and how everyone interprets it.

As we all have different opinions on whether HOME is valid, and different opinions on what the appendixes mean, this seems as close as we're gonna get, imo.

[Northman]

Fact: Dwarves simply spring out of the ground.

Yes?

No?

No.

[Hurlbut]

Maihgread.

As BIGeyedBUG pointed out. If you drop "and in garb if they must go on a journey" from the following quote
"They are in voice and appearance [comma] and in garb if they must go on a journey [comma] so like to the Dwarf men that in eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart."

You get this:
"They are in voice and appearance so like to the Dwarf men that in eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart."

What does that tell you?

[Lohi]

I'm not against printing random things Tolkien wrote but there has to be some sort of standard to apply to what "counts" and what does not in terms of lore and what Tolkien "really" meant. I've had this debate over what "counts" many times over the years.

Is it really that important though? This isn't the Bible or the Constitution :-) But on the other hand, like the Bible or Constitution, there is a lot of additional commentary. Someone might claim that the Federalist Papers aren't "canon" but they're invaluable to Constitution scholars.

For the extra writings, what I think is useful is that you can see what Tolkien was thinking at the time. It may not be "official" that female dwarves had beards, but it's clear that Tolkien himself had this idea for at least some period of time.

[Haakvorn]

Take a dwarf character; dress "him" in a cosmetic dress; give "him" a female name. Voila! Female dwarf. Role play the lady appropriately.

Didn't Tolkien say female dwarves dress the same as male dwarves? So they shouldn't wear dresses because male dwarves don't wear dresses.

[Shukar]

Didn't Tolkien say female dwarves dress the same as male dwarves? So they shouldn't wear dresses because male dwarves don't wear dresses.

If you scroll up, you'll find this quote a couple of times:

"They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the Dwarf men that in eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart."

So when they're chilling at home (like Thorin's Hall and Moria), they can wear dresses.

Plus, who told you that male dwarves don't wear dresses?

[BIGeyedBUG]

Plus, who told you that male dwarves don't wear dresses?

Point scored!

[Darej]

Plus, who told you that male dwarves don't wear dresses?

male dorfs dont wear dresses silly man....

thems kilts they be awearing

[Mithangol]

I have thought long on this also. And I have come to a conclusion that Dwarves are asexual like aphids, {that is, born pregnant. kidding of course,} or are concieved by the conciousness of Aule who made them.

[Darej]

I have thought long on this also. And I have come to a conclusion that Dwarves are asexual like aphids, {that is, born pregnant. kidding of course,} or are concieved by the conciousness of Aule who made them.

ive held that belief for a long time as well...though i prefer to think of dorfs as a race of Pats...




this ^^^ is what i think when i encounter a dorf in game....

[alteswaldtrollen]

If you expand your textual basis to include the Silmarillian, which everyone should, then you find that both genders have beards:

"For the Naugrim [an elvish name for dwarves] have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike; nor indeed can their womenkind be discerned by those of other race, be it in feature or in gait or in voice, nor in any wise save this: that they go not to war, and seldom save at direst need issue from their deep bowers and halls. It is said, also, that their womenkind are few, and that save their kings and chieftains few Dwarves ever wed; wherefore their race multiplied slowly and now is dwindling."

The statement at the beginning is irrefutable when it says that dwarves are born with beards, "males and females alike." For arguments sake and laughs, this could mean one of two things. A. That they all really have literal beards at birth or B. Accepting that perhaps the males are born with beards, that those of the female gender at least must fashion fake beards in their mother's womb, affix them to their own faces, and thereby come out bearded. Option B is obviously foolishness and, coupled with the textual evidence above, makes the "female dwarves are not bearded" debate an exercise of willful ignorance.

Goodbye.

[Pipemajor]

Reading through this and a couple of other threads gave me an idea (well, that and the hydrocodone cough syrup). We could kill two birds with one stone and make winged female dwarves for use as flying mounts. This would potentially satisfy 2 groups of customers, and keep the recurrence of posts on these two topics down to a more manageable level.

[KaylesX]

Whether or not female Dwarves have beards, no matter how similar they looks to males from an outsider's point of view, there should be two different models. The differences could be subtle, different bone structure for females, different styles of beards. But only having one model for Dwarves... Turbine is either saying that female Dwarves aren't allowed out of the mountain or they're being just plain lazy. That's my two coppers.

I agree. Just because the genders aren't distinguishable to other races doesn't mean they aren't distinguishable at all - that could simply mean that the differences are so subtle that anyone who isn't trained to look for them won't notice them.

Sure, keep the beards. Make them similar in stature. But I don't think there's anything wrong with different beard and hair options for females (not extremely different, but something slightly new), or with something so small as different eye or lip shapes. I mean, do you really think that the other races of Middle-Earth spent their time cataloging the minute differences in appearances of all dwarves in order to determine the characteristics that defined each gender? Because I feel that they had more important things to deal with most of the time.

At any rate, it would be nice for there to be separate models, just so that one could be called "he" and one could be called "she" in the game.

[esdumby]

who said the current dwarves are male? all dwarves ingame are female. Why arnt there any male dwarves in game is my question.

[Cutholen]

Speaking for my friend Yngvi, you have real issues telling genders apart.

[Barkjon]

...because of the beards...

[Hellsbane]

Strictly from a lore perspective, i don't fault turbine for leaving out dwarven females. Simple and short reason, in LotR there are no dwarven women. Thats not to say they don't exist, they simply don't exist in the story line.

[Nimenthe]

So what if it's supposed to be hard for non-dwarves to tell females apart from males, that doesn't mean they look exactly the same. Someone had a nice example of a story from Iraq, where the local community was outraged after a picture of a U.S. soldier searching an Iraqi woman was posted, because they didn't realize the soldier was a woman. To them any person in combat fatigues = male.

Or, the argument from a different side: in the books it is mentioned specifically, and numerous times that to people unfamiliar with them the hobbits look like nothing so much as a human child, yet in game they look nothing like human children, they look like... hobbits.

For female dwarves, sure, keep the stout builds and long, luscious beards, but please also give us an option for more feminine features, and in-game mechanics that allow for females. Even for RPers, if you are say; in a kin, wouldn't those people know you well enough to call you 'kinswoman' not 'kinsman'?

Lets also consider that of the three (!) women in all four books, the two elven ladies don't ever go to war, or do much besides be: (Arwen) a very distant and barely mentioned love interest and (Galadrial) a lovely but distant queen who doesn't leave her forest. The only human female mentioned is Eowyn and she is *expressly* forbidden to go to war, based on her gender, and has to *gasp* DRESS LIKE A MAN to sneak out there. Yet female elves and humans are no problem, because we live in the 21st century, people.

You know what other community has a heavy male to female ratio? Gamers! And as a lady gamer, it really bothers me that I get 25% less racial options than a male gamer.

[AlDolas]

I have been plying for quite awhile and have seen females of every other race but dwarf. Why is this?In the loading pic for festival when logging in I see hobbits , elves and man but no dwarfs.
Why are dwarfs being excluded.?

On a different note I think that bound objects should be useable by all toons a person has created, not just the 1 that obtains it.
That way if 1 of his/her toons can use it then they just have to put it in the shared bank account for their other toon to obtain and use it.

I hope I am not repeating what has been elsewhere in this thread - so many replies I did not read them. Nonetheless, according to the Silmarillion, Aule made the 7 Fathers of the Dwarves before the children of Illuvatar - Elves and Men - came to Arda. Tolkien said that the women were easily confused for the men, but I don't remember him saying that they had beards. However, there are more male dwarves than female dwarves, and the male dwarves actually have little interest in the females, preferring their crafts instead.

Even though dwarves live for centuries, they still have families as declared by the lineage. This must be a huge burden on the few women that there are, to keep their species alive.

On another female note, Ents lost the ent wives ages ago, and one never hears about female orcs. Orcs were once elves captured by Morgoth and transformed by him into orcs, just as trolls were a mockery of ents. Since orcs were elves, there must be female orcs, too. I suppose we never hear of them because orcs have more sense than men in not putting their women out to battle. I felt sorry the first time I killed a woman bandit!

[Silchas]

I did have a rather awful thought a while back after they inroduced the "new-style" Dourhands. Some of the new dwarves are wearing what I would call veils - ugly leather veils, but they look like veils none the less. I am wondering if they are Dourhand females. I started this by saying "awful" because most that I saw were bare-chested and did not look any different in that respect from the men.

[Beleg-Of-Doriath]

Tolkien said that the women were easily confused for the men, but I don't remember him saying that they had beards. However, there are more male dwarves than female dwarves, and the male dwarves actually have little interest in the females, preferring their crafts instead.

'Easily confused' doesn't cut it. They are nigh indistinguishable to other folk:

"They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart."

That would naturally mean beards and all.

As for the males not having interest in the females: that applies to alot of them but not all.

Even though dwarves live for centuries, they still have families as declared by the lineage. This must be a huge burden on the few women that there are, to keep their species alive.

I think that is overstating it a bit. Certainly after major battles it would have been tough but during peace time I don't see why their survival would have been that much effort.

Since orcs were elves, there must be female orcs, too. I suppose we never hear of them because orcs have more sense than men in not putting their women out to battle. I felt sorry the first time I killed a woman bandit!

Aye, there are Orc females, the text says that much at least (they 'reproduce after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar'). But why we don't see them probably has nothing to do with Orc compassion or caring. Personally I imagine make-shift vast houses or areas within Orc fortresses/domains cut off and reserved for the females solely for reproductive purposes.

As for the other part - where did the men 'put their women out to battle'? I think you must be thinking of the game there, not the books.

[Radhruin_EU]

For female dwarves, sure, keep the stout builds and long, luscious beards, but please also give us an option for more feminine features, and in-game mechanics that allow for females. Even for RPers, if you are say; in a kin, wouldn't those people know you well enough to call you 'kinswoman' not 'kinsman'?

Oh hell no. The whole point was that even the Elves, sharp-eyed though they were, couldn't tell female Dwarves from male if they were all dressed alike. The only way others could tell for sure was that female Dwarves only travelled if they absolutely had to and never went to war. That effectively rules out female Dwarven adventurers, which is why the game doesn't encourage the idea.

Feminine-looking female Dwarves would be about as appropriate as giving Elves purple skin and foot-long pointy ears