Culture news The people of the Dwarves have almost disappeared in The Lord of the Rings and the reason is truly sinister
In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dwarves are the most absent race on screen. If Elrond accuses them of not being involved in the destruction of the One Ring out of disinterest, things are in reality much more complicated than that.
The Dwarves, largely absent from Lord of the Rings
In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, we mainly follow the adventures of Frodo Baggins whose goal is to destroy the One Ring in the Mountain of Destiny to eradicate the threat of Sauron. To help him in his quest, the community of the ring is formed in Rivendell, a city of elves, with humans, hobbits, elves and dwarves. To represent these people, it is Gimli who takes on the task… and he is the only dwarf we will see in the entire trilogy. But where were the dwarves during this whole adventure? Contrary to what Elrond, the master of the place, says, reality is more complicated than it seems.
During an exchange between Gandal and Elrond, the Elf describes the Dwarves as a people who hide in the mountains in search of wealth and are not interested in the problems of others. It is an inglorious portrait that the master of Rivendell paints here and which has long been taken at his word to explain the absence of Dwarves during the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In reality, the Elf is wrong all alongbut given the complicated relationships between the two peoples, this response is not surprising.
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A heroic people who enabled the defeat of Sauron
For us spectators, we had to wait for the adaptation of The Hobbit on the big screen to discover more about the people of the Dwarves. But yet, during the events of Lord of the Rings, they did not remain twiddling their thumbs, quite the contrary. In the writings of JRR Tolkien, we learn that the Dwarves refused the alliance proposed by Sauron and that in response, the Dark Lord sent his troops to attack the kingdom of the Dwarves with the great city of Erebor in line. In reality, the latter did not send just anyone, since it was the Easterners who were responsible for the assault, namely the largest army in Middle-earth with more than 200,000 men. And yet, it wasn’t enough to defeat the Dwarves.
Despite their numbers, the loss of their king and the city of Vale, the Dwarves accompanied by Men held firm and took refuge in the city of Erebor. Ultimately, the Lonely Mountain fortress remained impenetrable and the Easterners never really managed to gain the upper hand over their enemies. Better than that, with Saura’s forces too busy confronting the Dwarves, this allowed Aragorn to lead his assault on the Black Gate facing fewer troops, and above all to make Frodo head towards the Mountain of Destiny more easily. So, if the Dwarves were never really present on screen, they still played a major role in the history of Middle-earth.
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