What's with the female dwarfs? They have breasts-and-beards..

[Radhruin_EU]

I think you are making assumptions with his argument. Tolkien never said female dwarves were flat chested.

The post I was replying to had suggested that female Dwarves would need to have breasts in the same way human women do (permanently, in other words). The answer is that no, *that* was an assumption and there's no reason they should, because it doesn't work like that among our fellow mammals, not even our near relatives among the great apes. So even if Dwarves were 100% real, there'd be no reason why Dwarf-women should have breasts except when they're pregnant or lactating and the rest of the time they could be flat-chested, making it all the more believable that they could be as indistinguishable as they were said to be. People tend to downplay it because it doesn't suit them, so they look for reasons it couldn't work - well, that's one less.

You're downplaying it yourself, it's not just that they looked male but that they sounded that way too. The resemblance was meant to be a lot closer than you've allowed for there; certainly we should go by what Tolkien said but take full account of it and don't just look for reasons to shoehorn in something more conventional.

"For the Naugrim 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."

- HoME vol. 11

[Dunncas]

He also apparently envisioned a world without asians in it, and the eastern parts where men with brown skin dwell, as evil. So be careful just how much you read into every single word he put down. Overreading throwaway lines can get you into many tricky corners.

there's also evil men with white skin in the east, there's no reason to corner ourselves into a modern american worldview

[Dunncas]

"For the Naugrim 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."

- HoME vol. 11

I think there's nothing more to say

[Mirhaen]

Won't be the best adaptation for long if devs keep paying lip service to the setting, or as you put it making compromises

Yes, I agree, but than also it might not exist at all today without compromises. It's not perfect in all aspects but they evidently trying to stick to it.

He also apparently envisioned a world without asians in it, and the eastern parts where men with brown skin dwell, as evil.

If you are to write a book even today, let's be honest, do you think you would be able to tell your story in your own world, and to including everyone, and in a manner that everyone would approve of? That would be an impossible task.

[Witch0King]

there's also evil men with white skin in the east, there's no reason to corner ourselves into a modern american worldview

Congratulations on missing the point entirely!

[Kaeneth]

And how did he described them exactly? Almost not at all. We have very few descriptions, and yet they have to be presented somehow, hence developers used some imagination.

There is not just one lore but many when it comes to Tolkien, so it is very much personal preferences or going by scholars as to what ones want to consider being the lore. His work is unfinished, he never stopped working. The information is scattered all over different places.

Someone who read for example LOTR only, would not necessarily think that Dwarven women are bearded at all.

"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".

It is from mentioning appearance that some might concluded, had they thought enough about it, that Dwarven women probably have beards. One had to also read Of the Naugrim and the Edain for further confirmation, where it's said that the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike.

On another side, I am reading that in the Nature of Middle-earth Tolkien clearly indicates that only dwarf men have beards. I can't confirm that as I didn't get my own copy of the book yet.

What I'm trying to say is, most of us are just musing on a subjects. The work is unfinished. The game is adaptation of the books and in my opinion the best adaptation we have thus far. It is visual, hence things had to take shape in some manner and imagination needed to be used. As ever was the case, some will like it, some wont. For some will ruin game experience, for others won't, and I'm happy for the first group and sad for the second. We all had to make some compromises to be here, even developers no doubt.

I'm not sure how those quotes and references from the writings are supposed to be helping your case. If anything it's that exact quote that cements that the interpretation of female dwarves in Lotro is incorrect. By all means be creative, fill in the gaps, have imagination when designing things Tolkien didn't clearly or wholly describe. Nobody is disputing that necessity. But he does describe, quite clearly as you just quoted, that dwarf men and women are not distinguishable. The female dwarves in Lotro, posted in this thread are very easily distinguishable in voice and appearance. Thus they are a bad interpretation, and an objectively false one. They aren't filling in some unknown, but rather directly contradicting what Tolkien describes. Instead that creativity and the interpretations that spring from it, should be working to make dwarf females that fit with the descriptions Tolkien gave to us. Not work against it.

I've not gotten my hands on The Nature of Middle-earth just yet, unfortunately. If there is indeed something in there that states concretely that dwarf women are beardless, then sure I would say there's then a case to be made. If that's not in the book however, then regardless of how scattered notes or information are, we're yet to be presented with any information that would lead us to believe female dwarves look feminine in the same way that women or elf maidens would. We are only directly presented with the opposite, that they look and sound identical to dwarf men. True Tolkien's overall lore is scattered and unfinished, and must be put together like a puzzle coming from different spots, but it's not as if there's a bunch of scattered, contradicting notes on how dwarves look. The notes may not all be in the same place, but they work coherently with one another so that we can have a pretty decent idea of at least how dwarves should generally look. The player character models tend to do a pretty good job there, the new dwarf female NPCs don't though.

Part of what makes dwarf women so interesting and curious in general is that they're so few, so rarely scene, and that we don't know exactly when we even see one. When you take their rarity and unique dwarven qualities away that don't apply to other races, then you cheapen their "mysticism", for lack of a better term, and they just become as normal as females of any other race. It's not as interesting as it was before.

I totally agree that there's a lot about Lotro that has adapted the books very well, and I'm quite happy that's been the case. I just want to see it stay that way, and it's for that reason that I can't support overtly feminine dwarves. I think the Stout-axe race was a pretty good compromise as I certainly have no issue with players playing as one, I just think we need to follow what Tolkien wrote as closely as we are able. There's no doubt compromises have to be made for the sake of the game and gameplay for it to work, but I don't think this is one of those cases. I wouldn't say these female dwarves ruin the game for me, but they certainly ruin certain bits of immersion and take me out of Middle-earth for a brief moment, making it feel like some other world fantasy.

He also apparently envisioned a world without asians in it, and the eastern parts where men with brown skin dwell, as evil. So be careful just how much you read into every single word he put down. Overreading throwaway lines can get you into many tricky corners.

[Radhruin_EU]

There are always exceptions to the rule. Eowyn defied the norms, and female warriors appear at various points, if I'm not entirely misremembering, a woman was chief in the beginning of 'the children of hurin'.

Eowyn was defying her father's will rather than the norms (she'd already been trained, remember - a warrior culture training its noblewomen to fight in defence of themselves and their homes isn't unusual) and yes, there was previous form for warrior women among the Edain (you're thinking of Haleth, there). But that's Men, and not all Men at that.

Realistically speaking, if humans defied these norms, then why wouldn't dwarves?

Because Dwarves had to deal with a wildly skewed sex ratio (only about a third of them were women) and their society couldn't help but be powerfully influenced by that. They were very traditionally-minded and the idea of women fighting could simply have been taboo, much more powerfully so than in other cultures. So I don't think you can draw a parallel straight across like that.

Another way to look at LotR is like a period-piece. If so we have to refer to Tolkien's world-view in the period he lived. Gender equality has changed quite a lot since then. In more modern times, women have a more active role in warfare.

It's not just Tolkien's world-view, it's deeply engrained in our culture (and not just ours, either). Modern times are different because weapons and the way wars are fought are different, but there are still good reasons to keep women off the front lines. And even in LOTR, finding Eowyn apparently lifeless on the battlefield didn't exactly do wonders for Eomer's frame of mind, did it?

Then suddenly he beheld his sister Éowyn as she lay, and he knew her. He
stood a moment as a man who is pierced in the midst of a cry by an arrow
through the heart; and then his face went deathly white; and a cold fury rose
in him, so that all speech failed him for a while. A fey mood took him.

'Éowyn, Éowyn!' he cried at last: 'Éowyn, how come you here? What madness
or devilry is this? Death, death, death! Death take us all!'

Then without taking counsel or waiting for the approach of the men of the
City, he spurred headlong back to the front of the great host, and blew a
horn, and cried aloud for the onset. Over the field rang his clear voice
calling: 'Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world's ending!'

- RotK, 'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields'

It's easy to say on the face of it, that dwarven females didn't go to war. However, realistically looking at it, I'm sure there were some female dwarves fighting during the fall of their kingdoms/end of their lives.

Fighting in desperate last-ditch defence of hearth and home isn't the same as going off to war. Tolkien noted that unless Dwarves had a secure place to live they had trouble maintaining their numbers (and we have the example from the First Age of the Petty-dwarves dying out because they had no place to call home and the Sindar were hunting them) so we have a pretty good idea what would happen to the Dwarves if they didn't do their damndest to keep their women safe, and so doing that would be how they adapted to the situation around them. Find a secure place, fortify it, and have the more expendable young, unmarried male Dwarves undertake the risky business of having dealings with the outside world.

It's traditional for RPGs to make exceptions for player-characters but not necessarily NPCs (this is where LOTRO lost the plot). Tolkien chose to make not going to war characteristic of female Dwarves in a way that he doesn't for anybody else, and I can't see any real reason to set that aside.

[DavidmeetHal]

there's also evil men with white skin in the east, there's no reason to corner ourselves into a modern american worldview

I agree with this 100%.

The name of the game is Lord of the Rings Online, not American Political Correctness.

[Mirhaen]

I'm not sure how those quotes and references from the writings are supposed to be helping your case.

Because I don't have the case, nor I tried to base my opinion in lore, not even to muse on the subject. The sole purpose of quotes were to show how info can be scattered around. My only point, if you read all my comments, was that we all had to put up with something in the game, and that our sensitivities are so very different that each one of us is willing to put up with something else, we all cherry pick one thing or another and make some compromises to play the game. Same in arguments. And to that extended I said I don't mind seeing Dwarven females as shown at the moment. It doesn't bother me, I think they done it in a good taste. Yes I get that some do mind and understand from where that comes from. What I don't understand is why someone would come to beat me up with the lore as I never spoke of the lore to begin with. And what lore even? Not like there is just one, nor there is general agreement about it. There are many people that won't place the Silmarillion in the cannon for example, because it was unfinished and published posthumously. You see where I am going with this, I hope? I know better than to argue about the lore.

I've not gotten my hands on The Nature of Middle-earth just yet, unfortunately. If there is indeed something in there that states concretely that dwarf women are beardless, then sure I would say there's then a case to be made.

Me neither, I stated it clearly. Was saying what some other people said that got the book and read it. Info can be find online. There seems was also interesting notes on incarnation, or more precisely importance of body preservation. Anyway, I rather check that myself, and my copy is arriving in January so won't need to wait too long

[Radhruin_EU]

Was saying what some other people said that got the book and read it. Info can be find online.

Or you can do what I did just now and nab it on Kindle so it's easy to search

The relevant line from that book about beards has it that "All male Dwarves have them" in passing in a footnote and that appears to be it. Presumably the people who like to imagine beardless female Dwarves also imagine them putting on huge and completely convincing fake beards whenever non-Dwarves are around so they can't be told apart just like LOTR says

Fun fact: apparently those of Numenorean royal descent aren't meant to have beards on account of their Elvish ancestry. Alas for the movies!

[Mirhaen]

Fun fact: apparently those of Numenorean royal descent aren't meant to have beards on account of their Elvish ancestry. Alas for the movies!

As we didn't have enough troubles with Círdan already Heard we got dancing bears also!

[Cherokeerose]

They have female dwarves in the movie The Huntsman that actually look feminine and no beards. This is the way female dwarves should be portrayed as in the movie The Huntsman.

[Radhruin_EU]

As we didn't have enough troubles with Círdan already Heard we got dancing bears also!

Having looked that up, yes, we sure do. I won't spoil it for you but it's such a weird and random thing. There's a ton of other stuff about Numenor.

Fun fact: apparently the Numenoreans invented crossbows! Now there's a thing.

[Mirhaen]

Having looked that up, yes, we sure do. I won't spoil it for you but it's such a weird and random thing. There's a ton of other stuff about Numenor.

Fun fact: apparently the Numenoreans invented crossbows! Now there's a thing.

I'm looking forward to read it. Found a complete pdf file and I'm super tempted :/ lol

Glad you enjoy it. What's your take on it? As far as I understood, those are notes? Anything definitive, notes during process, thinking on various subjects, or wish to implement, polish, or change some ideas? Probably bit of all.

Apologize to OP for getting off the subject

[BigLotroFan]

The way dwarves were originally handled in the game was the correct way. Those devs got it right. No male or female. Just dwarf. They all look a certain way. Let the player roleplay to their desires. The recent directions are to appeal to the non tolkien fan or those that simply don’t place much worth on being true to the lore in an attempt to make more money.

I think it is a mistake. However I also like such things as rune keepers shooting lightning which I know many purists hate.

[Radhruin_EU]

Glad you enjoy it. What's your take on it? As far as I understood, those are notes? Anything definitive, notes during process, thinking on various subjects, or wish to implement, polish, or change some ideas? Probably bit of all.

Yeah, it's an assortment of background material, some more thought out, some just him thinking about stuff and jotting it down as he went, some interesting little nuggets here and there. Also a bunch of contradictions, as per usual. The general effect's like having an extra volume of HoME,

[Kaeneth]

Fun fact: apparently those of Numenorean royal descent aren't meant to have beards on account of their Elvish ancestry. Alas for the movies!

Well at least now there's some accuracy to be had on Denethor's character.

Fun fact: apparently the Numenoreans invented crossbows! Now there's a thing.

That's really interesting as well since I don't recall any other mention of crossbows anywhere else. I never really considered them too out of place, but it's nice that there's now at least some mention of them.

I need to get my hands on a copy and read it. I've just been catching up on some other stuff recently. Finally got around to reading The Great Tales of Middle-earth in their own book releases which was a lot of fun.

[Broinfinn]

... So even if Dwarves were 100% real, there'd be no reason why Dwarf-women should have breasts except when they're pregnant or lactating ...

"For the Naugrim 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."

- HoME vol. 11

You... you think female mammals "only have breasts when they're pregnant or lactating?" I know it's been a few years, but you did figure this out, right? XD. Regarding being "indistinguishable by the other races" though, couldn't the same be said for elves? I mean, I'm a human outside of lotro with intimate knowledge of fantasy races, and elf men are still "so alike in voice and appearance that they're often mistaken for" elf women. XD

[Radhruin_EU]

You... you think female mammals "only have breasts when they're pregnant or lactating?" I know it's been a few years, but you did figure this out, right? XD. Regarding being "indistinguishable by the other races" though, couldn't the same be said for elves? I mean, I'm a human outside of lotro with intimate knowledge of fantasy races, and elf men are still "so alike in voice and appearance that they're often mistaken for" elf women. XD

Having permanently prominent breasts is a human trait (that's not how it works for female mammals as a rule, they show when they're pregnant or lactating like I said), and Dwarves are definitively not human so there's no reason Dwarf-women couldn't usually be flat-chested.

As for Elves: the Elf-men aren't supposed to be effeminate, we know that because people saying that used to wind up Tolkien and he went on a bit of a rant about it. And likewise I think we'd have noticed by now if the idea was that Elf-girls were flat-chested and looked like boys. Plus Galadriel was noted for having an unusually deep voice for a woman so there's the usual obvious difference implied there. So no, you can't say the same for Elves.

[DavidmeetHal]

You... you think female mammals "only have breasts when they're pregnant or lactating?" I know it's been a few years, but you did figure this out, right? XD. Regarding being "indistinguishable by the other races" though, couldn't the same be said for elves? I mean, I'm a human outside of lotro with intimate knowledge of fantasy races, and elf men are still "so alike in voice and appearance that they're often mistaken for" elf women. XD

You rezzed a 14 month old post for this?

[Broinfinn]

You rezzed a 14 month old post for this?

We still don't have a female sex phenotype for dwarves, so I'd argue that it's still relevant. I found this post through a google search, so why create a new topic when this one already exists and is indexed by google? They've slowly been introducing female dwarves since Moria starting with voice actors, and now a few dwarven npcs actually DO have feminine phenotypes. We can also play female Stout-axes, and they even now have a handful of feminine battle attack/grunt sounds. At this point it wouldn't hurt anyone to just take the dive and give us female dwarves. We can argue that "Tolkien said they look similar", and again, I'll point you towards elves lol. Second most common argument is that they 'don't go out in public.' A good 30% of the game takes place in locations primarily inhabited by dwarves, and according to lore, a good 30% of the (n)pcs in any given dwarven location should be female. Next is "They dress the same way as males when they go out, so you can't tell the difference anyways." While I agree that yeah, female dwarves with long beards and/or sideburns dressed up in frumpy clothes could easily fool most races that aren't familiar with them, you could also play the game for years without ever having to leave dwarven holds so that argument doesn't hold that much water. But then again, we can also dress our men of any race up in pretty pink dresses in game, so whatever floats your boat to the undying lands. Tolkien lore, history and etymology is like trying to argue the bible. Ultimately, all of it is subjective and open to interpretation from "it says exactly this" to "it doesn't explicitly exclude that," and people do argue what it doesn't say as fervently as what it does lol. There's a lot he didn't detail. There's a lot he did. There's also a lot of material that was never published/published posthumously that's generally considered to be brainstorming material and not canon. All we can do is our best, and I'm a firm believer that intent of the law holds more power than letter of the law, and that ultimately, the franchise belongs to the fans.

[Broinfinn]

Having permanently prominent breasts is a human trait (that's not how it works for female mammals as a rule, they show when they're pregnant or lactating like I said), and Dwarves are definitively not human so there's no reason Dwarf-women couldn't usually be flat-chested. ...

I guess I still don't fully understand what you mean by "that's now how it works for female mammals as a rule, they show when they're pregnant or lactating like I said." Even if you, personally, can't tell the difference between a male and female dwarf, elf, monkey or dog, they certainly can lol. But regardless, sexual dimorphism exists in just about every species. You mentioned apes, and while I'm no expert, I can generally tell the difference between male and female apes just by looking at them. Here's a handy chart showing the differences between male and female bonobos and chimpanzees, for your reference. (Spoiler alert, the biggest tip off is the breasts lol.) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNES4WSUQAAvLyB?format=jpg . Dwarves aren't men, no, but they're people, the same way that hobbits and elves are people. They're sentient humanoids with their own structures and beliefs and values and cultures. I'll put aside sexual dimorphism for a minute for the sake of playing devil's advocate, and focus instead on gender as a social construct. We can infer from the little we do have in writing that female dwarves *only* look like male dwarves when they're out and about among other races. If sexual dimorphism didn't exist among dwarves then there'd be no reason to play pretend, by way of dressing up like a male. Humans come in a HUGE variety of shapes and sizes. Elves, dwarves and hobbits come in a considerably smaller variety of shapes and sizes lol, but there we are. If you're going to recognize sexual dimorphism in monkeys, then it wouldn't hurt to give dwarves a female phenotype that "looks very similar to a male." Let bonobo's and chimpanzees be the template.

As an aside, in doing some digging on the topic, I stumbled content of a letter Tolkien wrote regarding female orcs/goblins. He recognized that even they exist, adding that we'd just have no reason to have encountered them as they wouldn't be soldiers in any army. He didn't describe them, but I'd argue that they're probably a lot less attractive than female dwarves. Unless we're talking about that bombshell Greta in Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Hubba hubba! XD

[Radhruin_EU]

We still don't have a female sex phenotype for dwarves, so I'd argue that it's still relevant.

The idea of female Dwarves looking or sounding obviously female by human standards really isn't relevant. Rather like asking for an ugly Elf wouldn't be; Elves don't do ugly, Dwarves don't do girly or womanly (by our standards). Plus those NPCs don't even have a consistent take on it and some look terrible.

No, you can't argue that Tolkien said they looked similar, he said they looked the same as far as non-Dwarves could tell and there's no way you can reasonably spin that into them looking feminine by our standards in themselves. (As opposed to what they're wearing, assuming Dwarf-women dressed differently when at home in a Dwarf-hall - but that still doesn't necessarily mean that what they'd wear would look feminine to us, just different to what male Dwarves wore).

Your point about Elves is just plain wrong as I said earlier and you're shooting yourself in the foot by keeping on trying to take that tack. You're also equivocating between the clear steer that Tolkien gave us in terms of how he imagined female Dwarves and how some people just don't like that and want something more conventional instead.

The way Dwarf-women looked is canon because it's in LOTR, so as far as that goes the other material is neither here nor there. What that other material does show is that Tolkien was consistent about it and wasn't kidding. He had his quirks and this is one of them - it's the sort of thing that gives Middle-earth its individual character. (And never mind all the people who seem to just want a typical high fantasy instead).

[TesalionLortus]

Rather like asking for an ugly Elf wouldn't be; Elves don't do ugly, Dwarves don't do girly or womanly (by our standards).

but that still doesn't necessarily mean that what they'd wear would look feminine to us, just different to what male Dwarves wore).

Yeah, that's why I'm fine with differences showcased in interesting, smart, original ways. Different cosmetic look and things females do that only dwarven males would outright recognize. Maybe they tend to wear their beards specific ways but they're still dense beards not afterthought. Maybe they put daggers or other things in their beards, like with Ragna the Fierce's model. Maybe they make their hairs specific way but not in a humanly feminized way. Maybe a very subtly different body shapes but not outright soft and feminine by any human standards and not much to show for in terms of boobs naturally, so probably flat chested for any purposes of the game (even if someone is being stubborn they have some difference that may be visible, like monkeys, this would still not warrant visible boobs underneath, because flat-chested is how it would still appear with clothes on). Just subtle differences = cool differences that would actually flesh out and standardized LOTRO's take on females, allowing for some cool cosmetic choices for female avatars, but without catering to people's silly desires for huge boobs, soft womanized shapes out of fashion magazines or evoking your friendly mature human grandma, like the model of Disa did, which was a bit over the top for my taste even though the general idea for the attire and beard/hair was nice.

Plus those NPCs don't even have a consistent take on it and some look terrible.

They should finally settle on specific takes rather than do this apparently at random according to fancies of different designers... Since they use base dwarf models, even Woses from the game have females that look more dwarven than some of these dwarven female NPCs they introduced...

[Daguest]

As much as I enjoy debates about fantasy race mammaries (who doesn't ?), I feel this is a lot of noise over nothing. IMO, SSG did the dwarves women properly. They were faced with a conundrum, make female close to lore while still introducing female in the story for multiple reason (ranging from avoiding sausage fest to allowing female/other player to identify more easily with characters). Longbeard look like male including the voice for the most part, while other clan have more female looking dwarves.

I think it was a nice solution, and certainly good enough for me. And that's coming from a lore nazi who hates deer mounts, RK/brawlers introduction and so on.