Khazad Culture?

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Ringulf
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Khazad Culture?

Post by Ringulf »

Just a bit of insight and Artwork from a favorite of mine: James Turner Mohan. His continued interpretation of Middle Earth, the Dwarves in particular, give me great hope that PJ does not have the final word on definitive concepts and visual culture in ME. I believe that other cultural interpretations are in fact valid and refreshing!

You can view his work at:
http://turnermohan.deviantart.com/

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The Battle of Azanulbizar,
by TurnerMohan
Watching

"That was the beginning of the War of the Dwarves and the Orcs, which was long and deadly, and fought for the most part in deep places beneath the earth… Both sides were pitiless, and there was death and cruel deeds by dark and by light. But the Dwarves had the victory through their strength, and their matchless weapons, and the fire of their anger as they hunted for Azog in every den under mountain."

--The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A: Durin's folk

The war of the dwarves and orcs is Tolkien's grimmest episode; the moral lines of who's right and who's wrong (usually so clear in the many conflicts throughout Middle-Earth's long history) becoming all but lost in the ten-year campaign for vengeance against Azog the orc and, seemingly, his whole race by extension. The dwarves are, at this time, a displaced and desperate people; humiliated by the loss of Erebor to an enemy they can't hope to fight, and forced to endure poverty and the scorn of men, and when their king, the heir to the Father of their people, turns up murdered by some self-proclaimed orc-king - in what used to be their great ancestral home no less - their response strikes me as a venting not only of their grief and anger at the killing of Thror, but at all the woes which had beset them. The war masks seemed a good way to present the dwarves - ostensibly the good guys - as the orcs might see them during this long genocide; impersonal faces of steel, cold, hard and ruthless. How far does Tolkien mean to go with a line like "both sides were pitiless?" Do the dwarves indiscriminately slaughter orcish women and children in the aftermath of these brutal underground melees? What do the orcs do to any dwarves they manage to capture alive? When the two forces go head to head for the last time before the doors of Moria where the blood-feud all began, it's an orgy of unsparing, unappeasable race-hate. The dwarves win the day and Azog is killed, but less than half of them that marched into the valley of Azanulbizar live to walk back out, and among the dead are the king's cousin, his close kinsman Fundin, and his younger son, along with countless others of the younger generation, all to avenge an already old king of a questionable mental state who chose to wander the wild with no armed escort. Durin's heir or no, it might have served Thrain better to have done nothing.

this is the fourth in a series of ten illustrations I'm doing for an Italian-language audiobook of the "Durin's Folk" section of the Lord of the Rings appendices, it's also a collaborative piece (my very first, to date) with the very talented Sergio Artigas artigas.deviantart.com/ who I recently met in person after our many years of trading ideas/concepts/musings here on the deeves. We're both big time dwarf-fans and working with him on this was a tremendous pleasure. I can only hope we get the opportunity to do something like it in the future.
I am Ringulf the Dwarven Woodsman, I craft leather, wood, metal, and clay,
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Elleth
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Elleth »

Gosh he does good work.

I LOVE his Numenoreans!

I'm curious on the whole "angular" Dwarven aesthetic. Did that start with WETA? Or earlier somewhere? I can't say it *totally* feels right, but I do prefer it I think to the "short Vikings" take.

Anyhow - I don't think the angular aesthetic was deliberately meant to convey it, but I do like to think it's an artifact of their separate creation by Aulë. Their brains are just wired a little differently that the direct children of Eru Ilúvatar, so something in those hard angles of artifice make them happy. :)
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Udwin
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Udwin »

I don't know the origin of the "geometric = dwarvish" AESTHETIC (I suspect Lee/Howe/Weta), but it's worth noting that Dain's 500 in The Hobbit are specified to be bearing round shields, so the angular look isn't entirely Tolkien-accurate...though I like your theory regarding its' relation to their unique creation!
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Greg
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Greg »

I could see a more authentic dwarven kit using a lot of angular artistic embellishments without reinventing the wheel (ie. still haveing round shields, curved axes, etc.) Ornamentation without changing what clearly functions well. Take a round shield, make it all crazy jagged, and suddenly your opponent has every means of wrenching it out of the way, for example. I liked how it was done on Gimli. What functions was there, but the art was angular and had its own cultural feel, without being ridiculous.
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Mirimaran
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Mirimaran »

What a fantastic artist! As for the aesthetic of the dwarvish culture, in this BTS on designing Middle-earth from the Fellowship of the Ring, Alan Lee says around the 25 minute mark that it was decided by the production to have geometric designs in Moria. Up until then I think besides the works of Lee and John Howe, most fantasy was dominated by the Dungeons and Dragons approach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoLkKDBEW3s

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caedmon
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by caedmon »

I believe the angular style was specifically developed by John Howe at PJ's behest. PJ not being satisfied with Howe's Viking/Russian interpretation wanted the dwarves stuff to be distinctive.
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Manveruon
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Manveruon »

I love Turner Mohan's art with a passion. I've been following him on DeviantArt for a long time, and he never fails to impress. I consider him right up there with Howe and Lee with regard to his skill, as well as the deep thought and consideration that is put into every one of his interpretations. I also enjoy the fact that he certainly takes cues from Weta, Jackson, et al. but still retains his own style, which has been shaped by a deep understanding and love of the Professor's works.
Greg wrote:I could see a more authentic dwarven kit using a lot of angular artistic embellishments without reinventing the wheel (ie. still having round shields, curved axes, etc.) Ornamentation without changing what clearly functions well. Take a round shield, make it all crazy jagged, and suddenly your opponent has every means of wrenching it out of the way, for example. I liked how it was done on Gimli. What functions was there, but the art was angular and had its own cultural feel, without being ridiculous.
I couldn't agree more with this statement. They did it really well with Gimli, but things got a little out of hand after that. I LOVE the angular Dwarven design language, but I think Weta became far too married to the idea as the production of the various films went on. It's clear from certain passages in the books that the dwarves weren't all about hard angles and geometric designs. One of the best examples of this being the case was the description of the pillars in the halls of the Dwarrodelf, which were carved in the likeness of huge trees. TREES. Like, the things we think of when we hear the word "elf". Considering Moria was founded when the Elves and Dwarves were still relatively cooperative, this could theoretically have been done with a sort of Elven motif in mind, come to think of it. But because Jackson and Co. decided to go with a more angular look, the tree designs were sadly left out. In the end, I feel a compromise between geometrical hard angles and more organic designs could have been achieved, but when you're working on telling a story this big in even a three-hour-long movie, and the production times are relatively curtailed, you have to simplify.

Otherwise, I've always thought that different dwarf tribes would probably have their own unique design motifs, peculiar to their regions and families, while still having an overall Dwarven aesthetic on some level. Perhaps some of them could have favored sharp, angular geometry, while others favored knotwork and zoomorphic motifs - though perhaps even those would have a slightly more angular design, overall. Still, if ALL Dwarves ONLY ever crafted things with hard, geometrical designs, it boggles the mind that they would be considered highly sought-after craftspeople by other races of Middle Earth, unless the people who commissioned them wanted the end result to be chunky and square-ish looking. Heck, Narsil was supposed to have been made by a dwarf smith, after all.

Anyway, just my random musings on it. Thanks for sharing, Ringulf! Good food for thought! I have been on a real dwarf kick lately. They're a fascinating people.
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caedmon
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by caedmon »

Manveruon wrote: I couldn't agree more with this statement. They did it really well with Gimli, but things got a little out of hand after that. ...

... Otherwise, I've always thought that different dwarf tribes would probably have their own unique design motifs, peculiar to their regions and families, while still having an overall Dwarven aesthetic on some level.
Not that it was highlighted, but this is implicit in the movies.. Narsil was dwarven work.
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Elleth
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Elleth »

I had forgotten about the trees under the mountain! That's lovely!

I do still mostly like the WETA work - the elvish stuff especially. (except for the curvy swords, which as lovely as they are don't seem to fit)
They've certainly gone way too far a couple times though. Have you seen Kili's "chisel" arrows from the Hobbit films? I could even imagine them as small game heads... but in his "going to war" kit?
merf-kili-chisel-arrows-weta-foolishness.jpg
merf-kili-chisel-arrows-weta-foolishness.jpg (82.1 KiB) Viewed 20783 times

Still love most of their work though.
And yes Greg I think you're right about production times: plus I think there's often a tendency to (over) simplify things for an audience that needs to keep track of who's who.
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Mirimaran
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Mirimaran »

I wonder if the angular features were more of just their normal construction methods. Our own civilization is mostly right angles in buildings, etc. Seeing as how secretive they were, I doubt they'd display much more than basic aesthetics for anything made for Men. As for the trees, another wondering is if that is how dwarves see the world above them, in terms of geometrics and mathematics. Also, two asides, one is that dwarves made toys, and unless they invented the rubix cube :) I think they'd have a hard time selling just blocks :) also they made beautiful objects of gold, silver and jewels, and I am more than half certain Shire clocks :)

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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Eofor »

Posting this here as part of a weapons discussion rather than starting a new thread.

Dwarves and spears.

Is anyone aware of a reference to any use of spears by the Dwarves?
I am really struggling to think of a single one - we know they make them thanks to the discovery of the long abandoned spears of King Bladorthin in the halls of Erebor but I can't think of a single use.

Even when the Dwarves of Belegost fight and drive off Glaurung in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad they don't seem to be using spears but axes

But the Naugrim made a circle about him when he assailed them, and even his mighty armour was not full proof against the blows of their great axes; and when in his rage Glaurung turned and struck down Azaghâl, Lord of Belegost, and crawled over him, with his last stroke Azaghâl drove a knife into his belly, and so wounded him that he fled the field, and the beasts of Angband in dismay followed after him.
But the white fury of the Northmen burned the hotter, and more skilled was their knighthood with long spears and bitter. Fewer were they but they clove through the Southrons like a fire-bolt in a forest.
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Manveruon
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Manveruon »

Eofor wrote: Wed Aug 24, 2022 5:02 am Posting this here as part of a weapons discussion rather than starting a new thread.

Dwarves and spears.

Is anyone aware of a reference to any use of spears by the Dwarves?
I am really struggling to think of a single one - we know they make them thanks to the discovery of the long abandoned spears of King Bladorthin in the halls of Erebor but I can't think of a single use.

Even when the Dwarves of Belegost fight and drive off Glaurung in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad they don't seem to be using spears but axes

But the Naugrim made a circle about him when he assailed them, and even his mighty armour was not full proof against the blows of their great axes; and when in his rage Glaurung turned and struck down Azaghâl, Lord of Belegost, and crawled over him, with his last stroke Azaghâl drove a knife into his belly, and so wounded him that he fled the field, and the beasts of Angband in dismay followed after him.

Funny - I literally JUST read that section of the Silmarillion today, and yeah, you’re absolutely right - no mention of spears. How bizarre! They seem like an obvious choice for short-statured warriors. I could definitely see pole-arms in general being an extremely useful part of the Dwarven arsenal, but spears in particular are just so ubiquitous their absence is baffling.
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Peter Remling »

Why were the spears of King Bladorthin abandoned? Simply put, they weren't abandoned, they were stored. Spear usage get restricted indoors so they were probably just set aside (stored)in a chamber for a time when they'd be needed and simply forgotten. Figure that chamber as the "everything drawer" in your house. Do you know everything that's in that drawer? Aren't you amazed when you do actually look in it and find something you didn't know you still had? Out of sight, out of mind and they were just forgotten.
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by Elleth »

Related, I could imagine they got so used to fighting goblins in cramped little warrens off the main halls that longer arms mostly fell out of favor.
... or maybe the axes were so culturally iconic - in a literary sense - that anything else wasn't worth mentioning?

Dunno. Interesting question!
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Re: Khazad Culture?

Post by ForgeCorvus »

One thing to remember about any kind of knifeonastick is leverage, most fighting spears seem to be from shoulder high to just longer then you can reach up (5 to 8 feet on an average human male) so a nine foot half pike is about as long as you want to go..... This is for fighting in loose formation, especially if you have a hewing type spear. Long pikes are only really effective on mass and once the other guys are within your measure (the danger zone of the weapon) you're pretty much toast, this is why you'd have billmen to protect the pikeblock.

Now your average Dwarf isn't as tall as a man (between Four and Five feet), so his spear would be shorter to be in proportion. This is a biomechanical limit not a strength issue........ However, stick a choppy end on the same length pole and swing it around with your insanely wide shoulders and low centre of mass and you have something to bring all your favorate foes down to your level
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