I’ve been thinking a lot about the fall of Khazad-dum to Durin’s Bane. And honestly I’m very angry with how the Dwarves are blamed for this: that they were greedy and so they got what was coming. That’s more or less how the narrative on this goes. I’ve seen this thought in analyses I’ve read and it’s pretty plain in the books. Look at this quote from Gandalf:
“The Dwarves tell no tale; but even as mithril was the foundation of their wealth, so also it was their destruction: they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Durin’s Bane.” (Fellowship of the Ring)I’m not saying that the mining of the Dwarves didn’t cause the Balrog to reappear (whether the mining woke him up from sleep or made it possible to escape from where he was). But I’m angry at they way it’s talked about. No one knows better than the Dwarves the calamity that waking the Balrog was. But instead of talking about how it was a tragic accident, people talk about how it was the greed of Dwarves that caused it and I take serious issue.
First off, how could the Dwarves have known the Balrog was there? Do you think they would have kept mining in that direction if they knew? How were they supposed to know how deep was too deep? It would have been bizarre for them to all of a sudden be like “ahh yes, we’ve dug deep enough, no more mithril mining for us.” I don’t think the other races of Middle Earth, especially Elves, would appreciate that (I’ll talk about this a bit later).
So it comes back to greed and the idea that coveting something so much will ultimately lead to your downfall. It’s a popular trope (the trope is literally named Dug Too Deep and I’ll give you one guess at the trope namer) and honestly, it’s a tired one. Almost everything bad that has happened to Dwarves has supposedly happened out of their greed, at least according to outside perspectives on the events. A dragon came to Erebor resulting in a huge number of deaths and the subsequent exile of the survivors? Yeah, all because King Thrór was too greedy and coveted riches too much. Thorin and his nephews died in Battle of Five Armies? Definitely because Thorin got too greedy with the gold in the mountain and coveted the Arkenstone too much. A Balrog reappeared and drove the Dwarves of Khazad-dum out? Well, you can see where I’m going. The idea that bad things happen to Dwarves simply because they were greedy is not a unique idea and it is also an antisemitic one.
Another thing that irks me is how sort of high and mighty people of other races get when talking about it. Like I mentioned before, you get the feeling that people don’t really sympathize with the fact that a hell demon just appeared in their home and killed dozens of their people, including their king, and drove the survivors out of a place sacred to their people. Honestly, what the fuck? How can you reduce that level of horrifying tragedy down to “they were greedy and that’s why this happened”?
And beyond the seeming total lack of sympathy for the Dwarves, consider the fact that there was probably a huge market for mithril. We know the Elves wanted it:
“Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim. The Elves dearly loved it, and among many uses they made of it ithildin, starmoon, which you saw upon the doors.” (Fellowship of the Ring)So of course the Dwarves were mining for more. Lots of people in Middle Earth wanted it. It probably brought in a lot of wealth, and I’m going to argue that prosperous Dwarven colonies increase the prosperity of surrounding settlements. Look at how while Erebor was wealthy, men in Dale were also prosperous based on trade. Even the Elves of Greenwood were probably better off while Erebor was prosperous. But besides that, why would the Dwarves randomly stop mining for mithril when there was such a demand for it? It wouldn’t make sense and I have no idea how that could really be called Dwarven greed. Besides, who is giving these weird retellings about how their greed for mithril caused the Balrog to wake up? Not Dwarves, that’s for sure, and throughout the books other races continuously have poor opinions of the Dwarves and treat them terribly. So I’m extremely skeptical of this idea.
Basically, I seriously mistrust anything an Elf or Man has to say about Dwarves and take it with a huge grain of salt because they have continuously demonstrated an unfounded disdain towards them. How can they blame the fall of Khazad-dum on the Dwarves getting greedy for mithril when they themselves were creating a large demand for mithril? How is it that all they can say about the fall of Khazad-dum is that the Dwarves were greedy? So many Dwarves died. The ones that didn’t lost their home. All Dwarves lost a sacred place. Citing greed as the reason for the Balrog every time the story is told is heartless, misguided, and antisemitic.
Tolkien either stated or implied that Dwarves were primarily interested in their Crafts. From that, the absolute worst you could really say is that they worked hard so they could spend their money on good hobby supplies. How is that a bad thing? Hell, sounds like the basis for a pretty decent economy and some happy citizens, IMO.
that moment when Aule, one of the Valar, a godlike being of Middle Earth, so important that only the King and Queen of the Valar are above him, creates the earth and everything precious in it and then creates a people who he teaches how to get all that precious stuff out of there…. and somehow they are greedy and bad and wrong. because they do what a god literally created them to do.
And do we even have mithril objects mentioned that were actually used by the Dwarves? Other than the doors to Khazad-Dûm and there an Elf had a hand in building them.
never over that tidbit
Dwarves are alt-Jews and I love them. “Work hard and make money and spend it on art supplies” is basically my life.
“The dwarves of course are quite obviously - wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic.” - BBC interview
“I do think of the ‘Dwarves’ like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue…..” - in a letter
First off, how could the Dwarves have known the Balrog was there? Do you think they would have kept mining in that direction if they knew? How were they supposed to know how deep was too deep? It would have been bizarre for them to all of a sudden be like “ahh yes, we’ve dug deep enough, no more mithril mining for us.”
seriously tho
Imagine the next elven trade delegation showing up for mithril.
“Ah yes, I’m sorry to say we’ve none to sell you.”
“Did the precious metal run out? I need two ingots for a crown, another for the filigree on my grand daughter’s knife and I know for a fact that the Lord of the Blue is in the market for enough mithril to fashion a chain shirt for his son, the prince, which I’d hoped to buy here and gift to him.”
“Sorry, I truly have none to sell but it didn’t actually run out as such, we just decided that we’d made enough money so we don’t need any more. You’ll have to look elsewhere - perhaps melt down some of the mithril art you’ve already fashioned?”
The elves would be livid.
this sort of Tumblr Analysis really, really, really bothers me, in 2 ways:
- It does the “these consequences were Bad, so how dare you imply an action that I find morally innocuous had those consequences!” thing
- It does the “A character in-universe said that something happened for a given reason, and instead of assuming this character had a reason to say this that they did not go into at length, I will assume that the character is maliciously lying to me to prove my premise the character is maliciously lying to me, and describe a situation where the statement wasn’t true in order to prove the statement wasn’t true” thing.
Do you do this same shit when people die in coal mining accidents? “How dare you accuse the coal mining company of cutting corners to save money! People are DEAD, how can you be accusing them of greed!” and “Do you think the coal miners would have kept mining in that direction if they knew it would cause a cave-in? How were they supposed to know how deep was too deep? It would have been bizarre for them to all of a sudden be like ‘ahh yes we’ve dug deep enough, no more coal mining for us’.” Then you’d start blaming the power plants that buy the coal for how much they want it, casting the mining company as completely without agency and unable to affect how fast or how safely it extracts coal, as if it had no ability to say “Hmm, there might be a vein of coal here, but structurally the area is really dangerous so it’s not worth the risk.” You’d act like the only possible options were “do not mine coal at all” and “do every single thing in exactly the way the coal mining company does it now”, and because of those god damn greedy power consumers, the coal mining company just had no choice!
Does rephrasing it like that show you how nonsensical your argument is? Because it is nonsensical. Your argument is nonsensical. You’re assuming that because Gandalf didn’t go into detail, there must not have been a basis for what he was saying, and because the consequences of awakening the Balrog were severe and upsetting, it must be morally wrong to say that it happened due to actions you don’t find severe and upsetting.
I’m not a LotR expert, but there aren’t Balrogs buried under every mountain, are there?
Is “if you dig too deep you get balrogs” an established thing in Middle Earth that the dwarves should have taken into account, like mine collapses?
Although in fairness, if it is a thing that regularly happens, spreading the tale of Those Dumb Greedy Dwarves Who Got Eaten would definitely help encourage people to be more cautious next time. Even if it seems a bit rude to the dwarves.
Whether or not there are Balrogs under every mountain, Balrogs being under mountains is a possibility, and there’s literally no reason to think and several reasons not to think it’s an unknowable, unmeasurable risk.
Coal mining companies can say “There’s coal there, based on our geological knowledge and surveys, but it would be very dangerous to extract it and costly to do so with full compliance with safety protocols. But man, we really want to sell that coal to get money, so we’ll just have people mine it anyway and not spend time and money on safety!” and we can (rightly) say they are being greedy and their greed is endangering lives.
But we have to imagine, based on zero evidence, that just because Gandalf did not lay out in detail exactly how it went down (because I’m guessing Tolkein didn’t know that much about mining and wasn’t nearly as interested in the specifics of mining as he was in languages and food and landscapes), that it is completely impossible that the Dwarves said “There’s mithril there, based on our geological knowledge and surveys, but it would be very dangerous to extract it and costly to do so in a fully safe way. But man, we really want to sell that mithril for money, so we’ll just have people mine it anyway and not spend time and money on safety!” ?
I see where you are coming from @brazenautomaton but I have to disagree.
Certainly yeah, we should imagine there were in-universe explanations for why Gandalf and other wisemen are saying the Dwarves “should have known.” It does seem cynical to just assume everyone is making this up post-facto. And yes, coal companies have more proximate responsibility for the safety of their mines than the power companies who buy their coal; I get your metaphor.
But what is actually going on in this passage? And what we see is very cliche ideology, where the racial-figure is blamed for their excessive greed bringing doom upon their heads. The excessive greed here is very key - it’s not like they desired a bad thing, no, a normal amount of desire for mithril is healthy for the economy and Dwarf spirits. It’s only if someone wants it too much that they must suffer punishment.
And as I said, this is a very cliched ideological view of the world. Tolkien didn’t write a story where the Dwarves were caught in a terrible choice, and they needed mithril to fight some evil, but taking the mithril then awoke the Balrog. That’s heartbreaking. No, this is a morality tale about “be happy with the normal amount of stuff, don’t seek more than that.”
It is good and right to critique this. To say “Tolkien was writing from a society with antisemitic and pastoral ideology that blamed the corruption of civilization on the excessive greed of certain groups - and that harmony could be returned if people just stopped wanting more than was good for them - which informed the metaphors that populated his fantasy kingdom.” That doesn’t mean Tolkien was a bad man, or that LOTR should somehow be changed to reflect realistic economic/safety tradeoffs. It just means you can read LOTR, enjoy it, and practice some ideological criticism at the same time.
I don’t see a counterargument here. Why is it Inherently Wrong to say excessive greed causes bad things to happen? You just assert it, and don’t back it up. That is, in fact, a message that most people who sneer at how “reactionary” Tolkien is think that all media should be saying all of the time (not that YOU are saying this, I am saying, overall it’s an irony to notice). Why is it bad to say that now?
He didn’t write a story where the Dwarves were caught in a terrible choice. Why did he need to? Why does he have the obligation to write exactly the story you wanted, and it’s morally wrong not to do that?
“Don’t become so enamoured of the wealth you can gain that you ignore the dangers” seems like a perfectly cromulent and relevant message to me. Why is it wrong to say this? Why is it good and right to say that message is bad? People wanting things for the sake of wanting things and causing ruin because of this is a major theme in LOTR, but usually the thing they want is power. Why is it inherently wrong and condemnable to tell a story that is about that? Saruman, in his lust for power, despoils and defiles the land around him and creates monsters – was Tolkien morally deficient for that too, did he have the unfilled moral obligation to tell a different story where Saruman was also caught in a terrible choice?
It’s not inherently wrong to write a piece of art that says that, or any other message. The work exists, and we should not rail against whether exists or not, but we should study it to understand our world.
We should critique it, and raise how the various contradictions or absurdities in a widely loved series damn our society overall.
I’m glad he wrote this story, not a different choice, because it gives me insight into the early twencen conservative semi-romantic worldview. And to how modern fantasy fans also feel parts of that worldview. Which is a form of critique I feel @bisexualthorin was practicing.
Separately “don’t become too greedy” does sound like a perfectly normal moral message. That’s why we should question it. What is the line between normal, healthy desire and excessive desire? Is it possible to see that line from the inside, or only from the outside? If the latter, is it really just a case of people trying to rationalize a terrible catastrophe by saying “oh, that was their fault?”
By and large, ethical principles do not look for a normal amount. I think murder is wrong - I do not think a normal amount of murder is okay, but you get in trouble if you get greedy with your murders. I think love for all humanity is good - I do not think you can love your fellow human too much.
You get these accusations of “excessive greed” where there’s a selfishness or sin that society tolerates, but is trying to keep in control. We have the “greed is good” ethos of capitalism, but then if anyone wants money too much, we castigate them as some sort of imbalanced monster. This is ridiculous of us to do, and usually when society does it we’re blaming someone for something that wasn’t really their fault, but practicing a sort of distancing effect so that we don’t have to fear it might happen to us. “Oh, my mines will never get eaten by a Balrog, because I will never be too greedy or dig too deep when I supply my kingdom with mithril. I’m normal.”
(You see this most often when someone in your social circle gets in a car accident, and people begin nervously listing all the ways that person was a bad driver - “oh they were always driving too fast, etc.” Don’t drive too fast is an important safety lesson, but as an ethical lesson, we can not ignore that any of us might get killed when we get in a car and no amount of “normality” will keep us safe.)
Thoughts:
(1) “By and large, ethical principles do not look for a normal amount.” As an empirical matter of metaethics-as-actually-practiced, this is flat wrong, wrong enough that it’s worth taking a second look. Moderation-based ethics, as opposed to value-maximizing ethics, show up a lot in human society. Greek culture (and Aristotle as a textual exemplar) are famous for being obsessed with moderation, but really you can find similar thinking in, e.g., the scriptural codes of Judaism and Islam: do what is customary and appropriate, but don’t go overboard, that is reprehensible. The point being, you can’t really dismiss this kind of thing as a dodge, you have to engage with it seriously, it’s Legitimate Moral Discourse in the very most historically-grounded kind of way.
(2) I think this is the point where the High Rationalists start shrieking “shut up and do the math!” And in this case they’re right. It’s not “ridiculous” to acknowledge that doing something X amount has different consequences and different risks than doing the same thing Y amount – if in fact it does, which is often true – or to say that Doing the Right Thing may well entail keeping careful track of where the cost curve and the reward curve cross. “Don’t drive too fast” isn’t just a platitude meant to displace existential worry about road danger, it is a very sane recognition of the fact that the danger increases a lot as you start driving faster. “Don’t delve too deep,” similarly, can serve as an acknowledgement that returns diminish and risks skyrocket as you push harder and harder on your extraction technology. Figuring out exactly how to translate those vague statements into actionable lessons is hard, but no one said that ethical behavior is easy, and being dismissive doesn’t help.