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The vivid mistrust and ill - feeling between Elves and Dwarves is well - documented , not just inThe Lord of the RingsandThe Hobbittrilogies , but also in the Amazon seriesThe Lord of the Rings : The Rings of Power . It ’s common knowledge to even the most casualThe Lord of the Ringsfan that Legolas and Gimli are not on the best of terms when they initially team up to join Frodo in the Fellowship , and their gradual development from strangers to rivals and , finally , to friends over the course of the story is one of the most illustrious arc of the moving-picture show trilogy . While the antagonistic nature of Legolas and Gimli ’s relationship is central toThe Lord of the Rings , the genuine understanding for the Elf - Dwarf feud is mostly glossed over . J. R. R. Tolkien publish a fleshed - out history of relations between the two races elsewhere — not in thesix originalLord of the Ringsnovels , but rather inThe Silmarillion .
In Ancient Middle - earth , midget and Elves actually got on jolly well at first , for the most part maintaining a favorable coolness , but occasionally coming together and cooperating to a degree during the First Age . It was King Thingol of the Teleri Elves who first made echt bond with Dwarves and , impress by their abilities in construction and craftsmanship , commissioned them to build his capital city of Menegroth . Thingol and his Dwarf allies also fight together against their mutual foe , the Orcs , who were under the tilt of Sauron ’s predecessor , Melkor . As is distinctive of midway - earth history , however , problems began to arise over a specially valuable piece of jewelry .
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The Silmarillion Explains The Dwarf-Elf Rift
As a price for his daughter ’s hand in marriage , Thingol demands a Silmaril , a coveted Elvish jewel renowned throughout Middle - earth , and that lends its title toTolkien ’s posthumously releasedThe Silmarillion . Thingol then recruits the Dwarves of Belegost to craft some slice of Elvish treasure into items of jewelry , the greatest of which is a necklace called the Nauglamír , which Thingol subsequently request his Silmaril be set into . Having created such a stunning slice with such a rare wonder at the center , the Dwarven smiths lay claim their universe as their own and deny to turn over it over , causing Thingol to acidify and insult the gnome , take for them an inferior race .
These words and the Smith ' greed spark a battle within Thingol ’s capital letter and only two dwarf survive the clash . After escaping , however , this duo set off others of their sort to war by recount an exaggerated rendering of event , and this finally results in Thingol being assassinate by an ambush of Dwarves and his kingdom being loot . inquisitively , The Rings of Powerignores the Silmarilsand skitter this part of Middle - terra firma history , which is a ignominy as it explains why the Elves and Dwarves have been on frigid price ever since , though it ’s probable that many have draw a blank exactly why by the Third Age .
While the decease of Thingol and the claiming of the Silmaril is the key crusade of bad blood between these two races in center - world , it could be argued that Elves and Dwarves were always destined to be at odds with each other . Elvish folk were originally created by the God of Tolkien ’s world , Ilúvatar , while the dwarf were given life by the lesser Aulë . This as such sets up the races as a higher-ranking and deficient mintage , since Ilúvatar did n’t make the Dwarves out of choice , but merely allowed them to exist out of forgivingness .
Although the story of Thingol is a lesser - have intercourse Tolkien tale , thethree Elven rings of powerare conversant toThe Lord of the Ringsviewers , and so is the idea of a widespread fight because of greed , a lust for treasured things , and a handful of personal treachery . The War of the Ring was trigger off in much the same circumstances , and while it ’s not necessary to acknowledge the story of the battle to enjoy Legolas and Gimli ’s arc , it ’s perhaps significant that their friendship comes about as a result of trying to put down a highly respect gem when their races originate fight after the creation of one .
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Rings Of Power Sheds New Light On Why Dwarves And Elves Hate Each Other
WhileThe Lord of The Ringsdidn’t explicate much about the Dwarven and Elven feud , Amazon’sThe Rings of Poweractually dive into it deep through King Durin ’s story about the origin of the Dwarves , explaining more about why they dislike extremely low frequency . Even though the prequel series has notoriously infract aside from canonical Tolkien traditional knowledge , The Rings of Power ’s Dwarven line tarradiddle , as told by King Durin III , is actually faithful to the source material . In fact , for the first time on screen , it tackle how the Dwarves were created by Aulë and not Ilúvatar . It ’s just a abbreviated moment in the series , but Durin goes into detail about how Aulë disobey Ilúvatar by make life , and how it was only through Ilúvatar ’s mercy that the midget even live and are blessed with awareness . This is all important because it ’s essentially why the Elves first wait down on the Dwarves — the very origin of this ancient and antecedently unexplainedThe Lord of the Ringsconflict .
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