Petty Dwarf Storylines

Marielle

Marielle

Well-Known Member
Earlier this season, the execs expressed interest in developing storylines for the Petty Dwarves, culminating in their recruitment by Sauron and eventual slaughter in one of the upcoming battles, leaving Mim and his sons alone. I don't have a full story in mind, but I have the rough beginnings of one, I think, that shows the purpose and process of outlawing dwarves, their appeal to Sauron, and long-term effects of the alliance.

What if we give Telchar a rival smith? She (did we decide Telchar would be female or not?) would clearly be the superior smith, but the other should be good enough that he resents the commissions/attention/honor given to Telchar. The rivalry could become more and more bitter, until the dwarf-smith looses it over some perceived or real slight (him getting bumped off his forge so Telchar could work on something for the King, perhaps?) and in his rage he strikes down Telchar with his hammer.* There's a trial, and he and his (already living?) children are exiled in perpetuity for the murder of a fellow dwarf. He/they wander in the unforgiving mountains, harassed and desperate, until Sauron appears.

Promising to value his work as it deserves, Sauron commissions the dwarf-smith to improve the weapons and armour of his orcs, and to make a "gift" for Morgoth -- Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld. The smith recruits other exiles, making a proto-factory system of dwarves smithying away for the orc armies.

I don't know yet how this leads to their collective deaths, which probably, in this case, wouldn't be on a battlefield. But the increase of quality in orc metalwork would be a consequence the other dwarves would rue, especially if the elves and men, recognizing the work as dwarf-craft, begin to distrust all dwarves, at least a little bit.

Could this work? Does anyone have other, better ideas?


*Personally, I have a soft spot for the "genius/master taken before his time" trope. I love the quasi-romantic wistfulness of "oh, what they could have achieved, if only...!" I also think it should be Telchar who's murdered because we have the character, so no need to invent a new one, which we have already given the audience a few episodes to come to like.
 
Well... I'm OK with a few individual Petty-Dwarves being traitors (Mim was) and one of them could be a master smith commissioned to make something cool. I'm not certain that Grond should not be the work of Morgoth or Sauron, since they're better craftsmen than any dwarf or Noldo.

But I'm not OK with the entire society being wiped out in open battle by siding with Morgoth. That's much too far from what Tolkien wrote. Did the Execs really say we have to do that?

The Petty-Dwarves hated Elves because Elves took their homes, and in fact had hunted them nearly to extinction before they met the other Dwarves and realized the Petty-Dwarves were people. It was the Petty-Dwarves fault to begin with, by ambushing the Elves whenever possible for absolutely no reason, and never ever speaking to them. But that history is central to who the Petty-Dwarves are and who Mim is, and why they hate Elves so, so much. It isn't just because their homes were stolen, it was because they started a guerilla war against the Sindar, and lost. They were already almost extinct by the time the Elves took met the Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod, and then they lost their mansion (Nulukkizdin = Nargothrond).
 
Faelivrin said:
Well... I'm OK with a few individual Petty-Dwarves being traitors (Mim was) and one of them could be a master smith commissioned to make something cool. I'm not certain that Grond should not be the work of Morgoth or Sauron, since they're better craftsmen than any dwarf or Noldo.

But I'm not OK with the entire society being wiped out in open battle by siding with Morgoth. That's much too far from what Tolkien wrote. Did the Execs really say we have to do that?

The Petty-Dwarves hated Elves because Elves took their homes, and in fact had hunted them nearly to extinction before they met the other Dwarves and realized the Petty-Dwarves were people. It was the Petty-Dwarves fault to begin with, by ambushing the Elves whenever possible for absolutely no reason, and never ever speaking to them. But that history is central to who the Petty-Dwarves are and who Mim is, and why they hate Elves so, so much. It isn't just because their homes were stolen, it was because they started a guerilla war against the Sindar, and lost. They were already almost extinct by the time the Elves took met the Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod, and then they lost their mansion (Nulukkizdin = Nargothrond).
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I don't think that anyone, including the hosts, even suggested an entire society be wiped out by siding with Morgoth.
 
But that's what Marielle just described: the Petty-Dwarves are recruited by Sauron and then everyone is slaughtered in battle on his behalf, except Mim and his sons. Everybody except Mim is all-encompassing.

There's also the problem that the Elves should not distrust or hate Dwarves until the fall of Doriath.

The idea about one particular exile being somebody who murdered Telchar can work, although it would have to happen after she makes the Dragon-Helm. That's over 158 years after Finrod is established in Nargothrond.
 
Ok, I think in this case they may be imagining the Petty-Dwarves as a much smaller group than you are. I'm not quite onboard with slaughtering Petty Dwarves wholesale (though the elves do hunt them). Keep in mind that this was an idea tossed out for consideration over S04, and likely to evolve as we guide it. Nothing set in stone yet.

As to Elvish distrust of the dwarves prior to the murder of Thingol... I'm not sure we need to have their relationship be without bumps before then. They are very different groups which think very differently, and in ways which could easily lead even to violence. There is no doubt in my mind that the Green-Elves mistrust the dwarves. The Sindar may trust them to a point, but that trust probably has limits.
 
Huh. How many did you think of them as?

They aren't one of the Seven Kindreds, but they must have been numerous enough to have a mansion of their own at Nargothrond, far larger than at Amon Rudh. So a few thousands, at least. I think it's plausible, given that the Seven Kindreds increased to [large unknown #s] from one Father and Mother each. That took millennia, but the Petty Dwarves have been around since the Great March times.

By Season 3 they're less numerous, perhaps less than a thousand. Things obviously go very badly for them after the Fifth Battle, and they're going downhill before then.

Despite what Mim did, he wasn't friendly with Orcs, or allied with them.

I agree the Sindar and Dwarves aren't as friendly and happy together as later at Eregion and Khazad-Dum. But I think they'd be outright estranged, if not worse, if a whole tribe of hundreds or thousands of Dwarves openly sided with Morgoth.

We will get to tell the story of that happening in the Last Alliance. I'd rather tell a different one with the Petty-Dwarves. Marielle's idea can still work, on a much smaller scale.
 
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Faelivrin said:
Huh. How many did you think of them as?

They aren't one of the Seven Kindreds, but they must have been numerous enough to have a mansion of their own at Nargothrond, far larger than at Amon Rudh. So a few thousands, at least. I think it's plausible, given that the Seven Kindreds increased to [large unknown #s] from one Father and Mother each. That took millennia, but the Petty Dwarves have been around since the Great March times.

By Season 3 they're less numerous, perhaps less than a thousand. Things obviously go very badly for them after the Fifth Battle, and they're going downhill before then.

Despite what Mim did, he wasn't friendly with Orcs, or allied with them.

I agree the Sindar and Dwarves aren't as friendly and happy together as later at Eregion and Khazad-Dum. But I think they'd be outright estranged, if not worse, if a whole tribe of hundreds or thousands of Dwarves openly sided with Morgoth.

We will get to tell the story of that happening in the Last Alliance. I'd rather tell a different one with the Petty-Dwarves. Marielle's idea can still work, on a much smaller scale.
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I think the concern you raise is valid, and I think we will continue to discuss all of this as we get ready for S04.
 
Faelivrin said:
But that's what Marielle just described: the Petty-Dwarves are recruited by Sauron and then everyone is slaughtered in battle on his behalf, except Mim and his sons. Everybody except Mim is all-encompassing.
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I said that because Corey mentioned that Mim and his sons are called the last of the petty dwarves. Everything else was my assumption
 
Ah, OK.

I think the nasty situation in Beleriand after the Fifth Battle is the easiest explanation for why Mim & sons were the very last of their people.


Here's an idea: since Telchar is going to die after Glaurung comes along, the dwarf who kills her and is exiled for it is... not actually one of the Petty-Dwarves. Given the way those people hate everyone else in the world, what if they don't welcome this new exile to join their people, and the new exile is snobbish towards them? This isolates the new exile even further, leaving him more open to the temptation of the Enemy. He's got literally no friends at all, and then Sauron comes along...
 
MithLuin said:
It strained credulity that the Sindar - who live in Doriath - would not have already known of their existence. And kicking them out of two cave systems to be taken over by elves seemed redundant. And so, we are saving them for Nargothrond. We are introducing the dwarves in this Season.
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I want to address this because the question and Exec decision (no, the Petty Dwarves can't be kicked out of Menegroth, how would the Elves not know they were there) arose from everybody forgetting what Tolkien actually wrote about the Petty-Dwarves.


Firstly, I found the text that talks about the Petty-Dwarves, and reread it. In Quendi and Eldar the Petty-Dwarves were said to be living in "the highlands west of Sirion" but there isn't any mention that they lived in or knew of Menegroth. I had forgotten this and was incorrect/mistaken when I suggested having them start in the Thousand Caves. So, there is no need to mention them in Season 3 or connect them with Menegroth.


Secondly. On the subject of when and where they came to Beleriand and did the Elves know about them, I finally finished watching the podcast about S03 Ep05, and Corey's objection is not that the Petty-Dwarves can't ever be in the region near Doriath. His objection is that the Petty-Dwarves cannot enter Doriath after the Elves already live there, if the Elves are to remain unaware of their existence.

But there's a solution to this. Tolkien explicitly said the Dwarves got there before the Elves did. When the Eldar arrived on the Great March, the Petty-Dwarves already lived in Beleriand. None of the Elves ever saw them arrive, because they had already done so.

The Eldar did become aware of the Petty-Dwarves, after the latter ambushed and stabbed a bunch of Eldar in the Doriath region. The Elves responded by shooting a bunch of Dwarves (mistaking them for vicious animals in the poor light), who then subsequently hid from them.

So, what Tolkien wrote about this makes sense to me and I think we can (in Season 4) say the Petty-Dwarves were already in the Nargothrond area, before the Eldar even came into Beleriand, to avoid the whole question of how they snuck past the Sindar on their way to Nargothrond. I suppose they wanted to live in highlands so they didn't settle in lowland areas which could include Doriath. (Either they didn't want to settle Eryd Gorgoroth, or everybody who did was eaten by giant spiders and never heard from again.)


The passage in Quendi and Eldar also has something to say about what the original Nargothrond was like ("primitive dwellings") and the numbers of Petty-Dwarves ("small groups"). Of course that's vague. So they are not nearly as numerous as any of the Great Clans, and I may be overestimating their population. I don't know if "small groups" means thousands like I have been thinking, or only hundreds. I do still think it probably is intended to mean a living society, more than just a handful of families.
 
One way to set up the existence of the Petty Dwarves in this Season would be that when Beleg is making his journey from Sirion to Menegroth and finds the remains of an elf killed by Tevildo, we could have an allusion to inhabitants of the highlands. Either the elves can intentionally avoid the area, or they can pass by some clearly man-made structure that is designed as a 'keep out' message. So, there will be no petty dwarves on screen, but some sort of creepy vibe that the elves find distasteful might make the audience curious about who might live there.

To my knowledge, we are *NOT* intending to show any scenes of the elves hunting petty dwarves, but perhaps those accusations can be voiced at some point.
 
That would be good, because then the Petty-Dwarves don't come entirely out of nowhere in Season 4.
And yes, I was thinking that the past guerilla warfare would only be mentioned as an accusation, by Mim to Turin, and also when the Petty-Dwarves complain while the Great Dwarves are driving them out of Nulukkizdin.
 
Season 4 is now upon us, so it is time to revisit the stories we will tell about the Petty-dwarves.

We did include the allusion to them living in the area near Narog in Season 3; when Beleg is returning to Doriath, they pass by the land where the Petty-dwarves live. We will have them banished from the caves that become Nargothrond this season.

The idea of elves (ignorantly) hunting the Petty-dwarves is back on the table, but with the newcomer Noldor, not the Sindar, as the perpetrators. It has been suggested that the Fëanoreans in the east might do this. If so...we'd need a reason for the Petty-dwarves to be in their territory, and a reason for the Noldor to mistake them for creatures of Morgoth.

I think we are intending to keep the backstory of the Petty-dwarves as those dwarves who were banished from the dwarven strongholds for various crimes. They of course view their banishment as unjust and are bitter over it, but we do get to decide if we want to elaborate on those 'crimes' or have them play any role in the story.

Suggestions for Petty-dwarf storylines can be made in the Session 4.06 thread!
https://forums.signumuniversity.org...g-storylines-continued.3083/page-5#post-23948
 
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