Dwarves don't sell novels

[Turjan]

I don't think too much faith can be placed in the origin of character names. In the Nibelungenlied, Alberich is neither an elf nor a king.

But he is an elf king, the typical envoy of death.

 

[Zander]

Looking at my copy of the Nibelungen, I must say: You are wrong.

All the English translations I've seen including this one call Andvari/Alberech a "dwarf". When his position is given, it is treasurer or guardian of the treasure, not king of Nibelungland (a position that does exist in some tellings but not ascribed to him). I would be interested to know if both the calling him a dwarf and the treasurer/guardian are mistranslations.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

From what I know of European legends regarding dwarfs and elves and the like, there really wasn't much distinction between them in any way analagous to the way they are defined in game- that is, as distinct races.

Whether whom you were talking to was a dwarf, elf, goblin, etc., depended more upon their attitude and intent towards you than an actual race. Essentially all Fey of some stripe, the divisions were, in a sense, more political. Creatures like goblins were those who had been warped by dealings with darker powers, for instance, whereas elves were linked to high magic, and dwarves and gnomes were associated with smithing and creating things of permanence.

IOW, one man's dwarf was another man's elf or goblin...

 

[Hussar]

While the dwarves (or dwarfs) in the Grimm story are about the size of a seven-year-old and do live in a cottage in the woods, they are good, very orderly (lawful?) and work in the mountains looking for precious metals all of which suggests beings that approximate D&D dwarves more than gnomes or elves. Moreover, in other tales, the Grimm brothers have small but mischievous creatures called elves, so at least as far as the Grimm brothers are concerned Dwarf ≠ Elf.

Rumplestiltskin was good and lawful? He worked in the mountains? He was against magic? Whoa, that's a very different story than what I read.

 

[Turjan]

While the dwarves (or dwarfs) in the Grimm story are about the size of a seven-year-old and do live in a cottage in the woods, they are good, very orderly (lawful?) and work in the mountains looking for precious metals all of which suggests beings that approximate D&D dwarves more than gnomes or elves. Moreover, in other tales, the Grimm brothers have small but mischievous creatures called elves, so at least as far as the Grimm brothers are concerned Dwarf ≠ Elf.

Actually, this illustrates the problem of your last question to me nicely, and it's more or less the answer. The Grimm brothers are familiar with elves, because one of their publications was the collection "Irische Elfenmärchen" (Irish Fairy Tales, 1826). The literal translation would be "Irish elf fairy tales", if you take "fairy tales" as a set expression. The word "elf" is not really used much in German, except when stories from other countries are told. In German, dwarf, gnome, hobgoblin (kobold) or 100 other expressions are used for the exact same concept: a mostly small magical being living below the earth or in a mountain, which also describes the Irish elf concept perfectly. Also, the typical English versions, like brownies, are covered within this range.

Add to this that, in Germanic tradition, smithing is inherently magical, and you will see why dwarves are considered magical. That's also the reason why Alberich is considered magical. In translations from German to English, the German words for "small magical being", whatever this may be (they all mean basically the same and are used interchangeably), are then often replaced by the word "elf".

This book, "Irish Fairy Tales", deals in detail with the naming of the little people. The Grimm brothers pointed out that they only used the non-German word "elf" in their stories, because this had been introduced with popular stories from England at the end of the 18th century. Then they explain the German version "alb" or old Nordic "alfr" as just meaning "ghost", take the Nibelung Alberich as prime example for an elf and point to the fact that even in the Edda (they don't say which one), one of the dwarves had the name "alfr".

They explain the differences between light elves and dark elves in the Nordic mythology, but then take the dwarf Alberich as a prime example of a mixture of both elven concepts. This shows that you are definitely wrong with your opinion of the treatment of dwarves and elves by the Grimm brothers. They saw the terms as interchangeable.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

All the English translations I've seen including this one call Andvari/Alberech a "dwarf". When his position is given, it is treasurer or guardian of the treasure, not king of Nibelungland (a position that does exist in some tellings but not ascribed to him). I would be interested to know if both the calling him a dwarf and the treasurer/guardian are mistranslations.

Also dann... here we go.

Alberich is called a "Zwerg", which translates to dwarf, however, as some other posters have already remarked, the distinctions between Dwarf and Elf are not that clear in the origninal mythology. Alberich comes (If I recall my classes on old german correctly) from Alb (Modern translation would be Elf) and Rich, which can mean rich or honorable. He is reffered to as a king of an underground kingdom (Which is consitent with the elemants that come from the northern tales), and also as a protector of a hoard of magical treasure, some of which he created himself.

While we're on the topic of translations, the german translation of Tolkien's 'Elf' is 'Elb', which is coser to the original 'Alb' and refers to a creature closer to the both the irish Tuatha de danna or the scandinavian underground races that were the inspiration for the elves that Tolkien called Gnomes in this first versions of the tales that became the 'Silmarillion. We know them today as the Noldo. According to Tolkien's corrispondence with the orignianl translator of the Lord of the Rings, he preffered the worc 'Elb', and expressed the sentiment that we wished he had thought of that word himself.

-I.T.

 

[Endur]

However, this reference is about the main character. Last I recall, the main character of a Lord of the Rings wasn't a dwarf. Halflings are close to humans, and changelings can easily be (at least as far as the cover goes), so I don't think it's that much of an issue. Still, making the main character someone the reader can identify with is a good point.

errr, The Hobbit anyone ... 13 dwarves and a halfling.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

errr, The Hobbit anyone ... 13 dwarves and a halfling.

And who was the main character?

 

[Infernal Teddy]

And who was the main character?

Ein Saarländer! ;P - The Necromancer, of cause!

 

[I'm A Banana]

WotC is not obliged to do anything but it would make a great deal of commercial sense if they did adhere to "often-used stereotype". D&D became popular in part because it appealed to the "purity of concept" that you at once deny and accept exists.

Point 1: I accept that you believe it exists, but reject it's actual existence. It has no value outside of your own mind. I believe there is a "common stereotype," but I believe that D&D's interpretation of the stories is part of the reason this exists -- it's why dwarves, elves, and gnomes are all different.

Point 2: It would actually NOT make commercial sense to adhere to these steotypes. D&D3e has changed or violated or revolutionized or tweaked a number of their creatures and concepts to better fit the game and the modern audience, and has been the best-selling edition ever. The only way it would make commercial sense is if WotC's brand of halflings sold less than hobbits -- if their version negatively impacted sales and the common stereotype positively impacted sales, then this would be true, but throughout D&D, the opposite has remained true. D&D dragons, for instance, are really nothing like classic medieval dragons, yet books on D&D style dragons continue to be one of the best-selling subjects in 3e.

Certainly, being the first RPG was an advantage. After that though, it wasn't until 3.x that D&D was highly regarded for its mechanics. Indeed, much of the mechanics that distinguish 3.x from earlier versions existed in other RPGs first. For the best part of its history, D&D's mechanics were behind other RPGs, not ahead. So if D&D was mechanically clunky, why did it continue to be the most popular RPG? There were certainly challengers. In the early 1980s, for example, Runequest was seen as a potential rival. One of the reasons (perhaps the primary reason) that Runequest and those other RPGs failed to dethrone D&D was that D&D represented a more core (or, if you prefer, stereotypical) fantasy. The fantasy in D&D was already known to the greatest number of people. Whether or not those people labelled the elements they found in D&D that they were familiar with as "mythology", "epic poetry", "modern fantasy" or whatever wasn't relevant. What was, was that those elements were familiar and could be easily incorporated into D&D's fantasy. Indeed, D&D's ventures into non-core fantasy settings such as Spelljammer and Darksun have not been as popular as their core fantasy settings such as Greyhawk and FR.

That's a pretty unfounded assumption, there. I don't think anyone can attribute D&D's success either in whole or in majority to any one aspect of D&D, but I can definately declare that it isn't because D&D was more true to the stereotype. Heck, even the NAME of D&D comes from things that aren't taken very much from the stereotype -- dungeons (which are a game environment) and dragons (which, in D&D, don't resemble any real-world myths whatsoever). That (and many other examples, such as 3e being the strongest-selling edition yet, despite changing much of 2e and 1e, the fact that old myths are inconsistant, etc.) shows that only a small part, if any, of D&D's success was because of familiarity with the elements of it's fantasy.

Your point about Spelljammer and Dark Sun is not attributable to one point of either of these settings. Rather, the history on the issue suggests that these settings splintered the buyer base, which is too small to be splintered successfully. So it's not that they weren't successful, it's that they didn't make D&D as a whole successfull because the people who played DS wouldn't buy SJ.

It is a well known dictum in psychology that people like what they're familiar with. If WotC want D&D to thrive, they could do a lot worse than having halflings with hairy feet.

You're confusing comfort with enjoyment. People are comfortable with what they're familiar with. It's safe, it's known, it's controllable. If people payed for that, then horror movies and roller coasters wouldn't make economic sense.

But D&D has never been marketed or designed with other people's comforts in mind. It's a game that relies on one player to throw dangerous challenges at the others, after all -- comfort is not part of it's offerings, and never has been.

Not only that, but comfort only panders to a market interested in comfort -- the old and tired, by and large. WotC's strategy is to grow D&D by hooking youth on it, and youth goes to see horror movies and goes on roller coasters, so it's not comfort they're interested in -- it's excitement, danger, change, and difference. They don't want what they've seen before, they want something fresh and thrilling.

A very small but indicitive part of which is removing the hair from the halfling's feet, pulling up their hobbit roots and making a race that desires to go out and have adventure, rather than one who would sit at home and smoke pipeweed 'till they died of old age. A little more Tookish, to use a bit of ol' T-bag's lingo.

It only needs to be familiar enough to be relatable, and the idea of a small stealthy thief is definately familiar enough to be relatable.