![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ljwritesI went and saw the last Hobbit movie, Battle of the Five Armies, over Christmas. As Christopher Orr of The Atlantic said: At least it's over now. That's literally the title of his review, and I cannot think of higher praise for this incoherent, boring, and just plain insulting series.
If you haven't figured it out yet there are going to be spoilers here, all right? The book has been out for the better part of a century and all. You have been warned.
Among the movie's many failings was the total lack of closure for world-moving events, among them the death of Thorin Oakenshield. I know, I know, it's a transparent ploy to get people to buy the director's cut, but since when does that excuse a director from putting out a finished product in theaters?
Walking out of the theater I felt a serious lack of closure, so much that the first thing I did back home was sit down and pound out a fanfic piece. My specific interest was in how the Dwarves, and specifically Thorin's companions, dealt with the end of Thorin's line and the ascension of Dáin Ironfoot--an extremely cool guy in his own right, though he's never front and center in any of the books.
The books never portray any conflict on this front, which may only be natural since Dáin was the most logical choice and seems to have been a good king. Nevertheless, his rise was a sea change when you think about it. Durin's Folk had been ruled by the direct line from father to son of Durin the Deathless for 1,200 years just in the records that there are years for, and who knows how many eons before that. Dáin was the first king not from that line, and his coronation came on the heels of a much-admired hero's death and the end of an ancient line. At the very least it's not out of line to imagine some internal turmoil if not a political one.
Hence my story, which was my attempt to give some sort of closure to Thorin's death from a Dwarf-eye perspective. I'm kind of amazed that this is my first LotR fanfic, since this was one of my earliest fandoms since I read the trilogy in my early teens. I do have ideas for a few more, though I should probably close out my earlier projects first.
Oh, and as regular followers know, the part about Dwarves cutting their faces was totally stolen from ancient Turkic funeral rites. It seemed to fit the mood, and Dwarves with all their hair and machismo are certainly metal enough.
Notes on Language
My conceit about language in Dealing with Dwarves is that these characters are all speaking the Dwarvish tongue Khuzdul, effectively making it a Translation Convention story. To give the flavor I decided to construct a few sentences in Khuzdul, mostly to do with names and titles which are after all what the whole story is about.
In writing the Khuzdul sentences I used this Khuzdul glossary for Tolkien's original Khuzdul words, and David Salo's Neo-Khuzdul to fill in some missing words. For some of my grammatical choices I referenced this analysis of Dwarvish, especially in writing "dûm mênu" for "your hall." This would not work for Indo-European languages, since "dûm mênu" means literally "hall you," but if I understand Magnus Åberg correctly it's grammatical for Khuzdul because possession in that language is denoted in the Hebrew way.
Even with the work of these scholars Khuzdul has a pretty limited vocabulary, so I ended up making some substitutions such as "Thakalbund," or "Steel Hill," for the Iron Hills. Heck, I had to get thakal from the Neo-Khuzdul glossary because there's no Dwarvish word for "steel" or "iron" in Tolkien's materials. And let's not even go into how I almost ended up naming Dáin the Lord of Orc Hill because I misread "orc" as "ore" in the Khuzdul glossary. Oops?
I also made up a word, shalum, which is transparently derived from the Hebrew shalom. Tolkien has been very open about modeling Khuzdul after Hebrew, and that's the template later scholars have used to analyze and expand on Khuzdul, so I figured why not.
I have no idea how well I did with the Khuzdul and no doubt I've made a ton of mistakes that will be painful for serious linguists or just people who are more careful than I am. I don't at all rule out the possibility that there are more Lords of Orc Hill lurking in even those short little sentences. I can only hope that anyone who spots such mistakes will be kind enough to correct me rather than laugh privately at my shame.
The story, Dealing with Dwarves, is available on Fanfiction.Net.
If you haven't figured it out yet there are going to be spoilers here, all right? The book has been out for the better part of a century and all. You have been warned.
Among the movie's many failings was the total lack of closure for world-moving events, among them the death of Thorin Oakenshield. I know, I know, it's a transparent ploy to get people to buy the director's cut, but since when does that excuse a director from putting out a finished product in theaters?
Walking out of the theater I felt a serious lack of closure, so much that the first thing I did back home was sit down and pound out a fanfic piece. My specific interest was in how the Dwarves, and specifically Thorin's companions, dealt with the end of Thorin's line and the ascension of Dáin Ironfoot--an extremely cool guy in his own right, though he's never front and center in any of the books.
The books never portray any conflict on this front, which may only be natural since Dáin was the most logical choice and seems to have been a good king. Nevertheless, his rise was a sea change when you think about it. Durin's Folk had been ruled by the direct line from father to son of Durin the Deathless for 1,200 years just in the records that there are years for, and who knows how many eons before that. Dáin was the first king not from that line, and his coronation came on the heels of a much-admired hero's death and the end of an ancient line. At the very least it's not out of line to imagine some internal turmoil if not a political one.
Hence my story, which was my attempt to give some sort of closure to Thorin's death from a Dwarf-eye perspective. I'm kind of amazed that this is my first LotR fanfic, since this was one of my earliest fandoms since I read the trilogy in my early teens. I do have ideas for a few more, though I should probably close out my earlier projects first.
Oh, and as regular followers know, the part about Dwarves cutting their faces was totally stolen from ancient Turkic funeral rites. It seemed to fit the mood, and Dwarves with all their hair and machismo are certainly metal enough.
Notes on Language
My conceit about language in Dealing with Dwarves is that these characters are all speaking the Dwarvish tongue Khuzdul, effectively making it a Translation Convention story. To give the flavor I decided to construct a few sentences in Khuzdul, mostly to do with names and titles which are after all what the whole story is about.
In writing the Khuzdul sentences I used this Khuzdul glossary for Tolkien's original Khuzdul words, and David Salo's Neo-Khuzdul to fill in some missing words. For some of my grammatical choices I referenced this analysis of Dwarvish, especially in writing "dûm mênu" for "your hall." This would not work for Indo-European languages, since "dûm mênu" means literally "hall you," but if I understand Magnus Åberg correctly it's grammatical for Khuzdul because possession in that language is denoted in the Hebrew way.
Even with the work of these scholars Khuzdul has a pretty limited vocabulary, so I ended up making some substitutions such as "Thakalbund," or "Steel Hill," for the Iron Hills. Heck, I had to get thakal from the Neo-Khuzdul glossary because there's no Dwarvish word for "steel" or "iron" in Tolkien's materials. And let's not even go into how I almost ended up naming Dáin the Lord of Orc Hill because I misread "orc" as "ore" in the Khuzdul glossary. Oops?
I also made up a word, shalum, which is transparently derived from the Hebrew shalom. Tolkien has been very open about modeling Khuzdul after Hebrew, and that's the template later scholars have used to analyze and expand on Khuzdul, so I figured why not.
I have no idea how well I did with the Khuzdul and no doubt I've made a ton of mistakes that will be painful for serious linguists or just people who are more careful than I am. I don't at all rule out the possibility that there are more Lords of Orc Hill lurking in even those short little sentences. I can only hope that anyone who spots such mistakes will be kind enough to correct me rather than laugh privately at my shame.
The story, Dealing with Dwarves, is available on Fanfiction.Net.
