The Gaming Den

When did this trend start? Was there something in Tolkein's works that gave this impression to begin with?

OgreBattle wrote:When did this trend start? Was there something in Tolkein's works that gave this impression to begin with?

Dwarves come from "the North" because they are Scandinavian. British people give "Northerners" accents from Scotland. It's the same reason that the Vikings in How to Train Your Dragon talk with Scottish accents.

If more Sword and Sorcery stuff was made by Americans not hearkening to European sensibilities, Dwarves would talk like they were from Minnesota or Canada.

-Username17

Don'che'know.

mushroom syrup and deep beavers

Anything in Tolkien thats gives this impression? Other than having Dwarves live in the "highlands", live in clans, be known for their hard drinking, dour temperament and hot temper, plus they are notoriously miserly and known for fielding berserkers in battle.

So its pretty clear WHY the association began. As for when, Warcraft has always featured scottish dwarves and that was out in '95. Possibly Warhammer contributed in the 80's, they've always gone for real-world analogs to their fantasy races.

Red_Rob wrote:Anything in Tolkien thats gives this impression? Other than having Dwarves live in the "highlands", live in clans, be known for their hard drinking, dour temperament and hot temper, plus they are notoriously miserly and known for fielding berserkers in battle.

So its pretty clear WHY the association began. As for when, Warcraft has always featured scottish dwarves and that was out in '95. Possibly Warhammer contributed in the 80's, they've always gone for real-world analogs to their fantasy races.

Dwarven Berserkers is something that came later, out of Warhammer. Games Workshop has always made no secret of making close analogs of their various fantasy races to regions of the United Kingdom. Orcs are from Liverpool, Elves are either from Ireland or Wales, Dwarves are from Scotland, Halflings are like Cornish or some shit but no one cares because no one gives a rat's ass about GW Halflings and no one outside the UK can be fucked to remember what English stereotypes of the Cornish or Umberlish people are.

-Username17

So who are the Geordies?

Halflings.

Tolkein's dwarfs are often supposed as Jewish analogues, rather than Scottish.

'cause of funny hair, big noses and a love for gold?

I was gonna go for the Semitic roots of the Dwarf language, but if you want to go there...

i don't know about language, so optical clues are the only thing i have to go by.

One of the Greyhawk novels by Gygax has a dwarf merchant who's...pretty heavily Jewish. The narration kept talking about his big noise and his accent seemed almost a parody of Yiddish.

Ancient History wrote:Halflings.

Tolkein's dwarfs are often supposed as Jewish analogues, rather than Scottish.

This actually came up at my table the other day! I asked why Dwarves were such borderline-offensive Jew expies and someone else (possibly my girlfriend, can't remember) said they were actually offensive caricatures of the Scottish.

In the movies, Tolkien's dwarfs are obviously Scottish - because they were made with the modern mindset that all dwarfs are Scottish.

The halflings all have West country accents (as in, West England, "Oh, oi've got a brand new combine harvester, oi'll give you the key").

Hmm, so if I'm ever forced at gunpoint to play WHFRP, I'll definitely play a Halfling, and speak like Ross Noble the entire time.

The Scottish dwarf meme also gains traction from the stereotype of scots as engineers and industrialists.

So thinking on the Warhammer==UK thing, now I'm curious. I figured the Ogres were supposed to be expies of the Mongols ("they look Mongolian", no idea of the culture). Last I checked, Mongolia doesn't exist in the UK.

Likewise, Lizardmen are basically supposed to be Aztecs/Mayans who made it to the current day?

Who would the Skaven be? My housemate posits that they are the government of the UK, and I could see David Cameron as a Grey Seer or Verminlord.

Don't forget the chaos dwarves who are from that beloved area of the British Isles, "Sumeria".

One of the old Scottish stereotypes was that they were greedy and miserly. That's why they made Scrooge McDuck Scottish, to play on that stereotype. With that in mind making Dwarves Scottish makes a bit more sense.

It might be worth note, Tolkien's dwarves are jewish expies. He all but said so. Check out the wikipedia article for all the evidence, there is a shitload.

BearsAreBrown wrote:It might be worth note, Tolkien's dwarves are jewish expies. He all but said so. Check out the wikipedia article for all the evidence, there is a shitload.

Actually, he didn't all but say so. He DID say so in his notes and writtings to Christopher.

Basically the Dwarves started out as a bunch of vikings in tolkien (see how they act in the hobbit) but when he was doing more and more stuff for the simirlion and expanding his world to include myths and legends of places near europe and not just northern europe he decided to stick the dwarves with a whole crapload of reworked "hebrew peoples" customs and features.

So Tolkien dwarves are viking jews (which sounds like a mel brooks joke) and warhammer dwarves are viking scotts.

Koumei wrote:Who would the Skaven be? My housemate posits that they are the government of the UK, and I could see David Cameron as a Grey Seer or Verminlord.

....

Is this a real question?

The skaven are communists. This has been clear since the first skaven book. They are stalinists-maoist filthy commie stand ins.

Look read the skaven short stories, they all read like the secret of NIMH meets 1984. They are a police state run by a shadowy group of "knows-better-than-yous" who place a minimal value on the life of their subjects.

Now, before somebody blows a gasket remember that warhammer is a world of caricature and parody (and supposedly gritty realism however this is only true if connan the barbarian sets the standard for realistic).

There are lots of other midly offensive caricatures. Americans = dark elves is an arugment I have seen made although to get beyond merely a geographical it relies on high elves = english people.

When they decided that all the chaos people were norse and started giving them scandanavian names instead of nonsense names that seems pretty bad to me too.

The necromancer Henrich Kemmler seems to be in very bad taste especially because they tried to adapt some elements of his backstory to make him more like his realworld SS namesake.

Also for a hobby that is nominally decidedly middle-upper to upper class giving the Orcs an accent that is generally considered to be low(er) class and then extnesively pushing their bludnering stupidity seems a little heavy handed. Its about as subtle as an american company making the bad guy of a piece speak in eubanics while wearing armor made of watermellons and weilding an oversized chicken leg in one hand and a comically big jug of malt licquer in the other.

The game is really BAD about stuff like this.

I always figured that orks were supposed to be soccer hooligans.

souran wrote:Its about as subtle as an american company making the bad guy of a piece speak in eubanics while wearing armor made of watermellons and weilding an oversized chicken leg in one hand and a comically big jug of malt licquer in the other

I take it you haven't seen many rap music videos?

Prak_Anima wrote:I always figured that orks were supposed to be soccer hooligans.

I think that you can pick between soccer huligan, union layabout, gangly tall tradesman with short fat bumbling assistant, or "person from a typical Guy Richie film." Regardless if it screams "stereotypical english working poor" then its sufficiently Orc/Ork ish.

It wouldn't be so bad that most Orc/Ork's have the military competance of Tony Robinson's Private Baldrick if they were shown to be lead by the appropriate Blackadders. Instead its just stupid poor people playing at soldiers.

That just reminds me of my favourite portrayal of Orks, Souran, Mary Gentle's Grunts book, where they find cursed modern military hardware and start becoming Royal Marine stereotypes, while still having the mindset of an orc.