Elves vs. Dwarves: Finding the Good in the Unlikely Rivalry

Joshua Noel: 00:01:14

eries for our annual theme of: 2025

Our theme of being polarization, the series being finding the good, where we are going to see some of these polarizing things in our fandoms. You know, we had science and Faith. We had Jackie Chan versus Bruce Lee, and today we have elves versus dwarves.

Not just in the Lord of the Rings, Arda, Middle Earth, whatever. We're going to talk about just in general, because it shows up in a few different fandoms.

And there's some interesting reasons for why I think that we might have a fun conversation with.

And when I say we, I, of course mean myself, Joshua Null, not of Darwin folk, not of importance, but the one who is of importance, the great wizard Nick Polk. The. See, I want to say Black, but, like, I don't want to, like, since this isn't video, I don't want to, like, mislead people.

I'm talking about his beard specifically, because that's how wizards get their.

Nick Polk: 00:02:16

Oh, like Nick the Black. Like the beard.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the beard, specifically.

Nick Polk: 00:02:20

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:21

Yeah. Also of Jack Black fame. That's where Jack Black took his name from Nick, actually.

Nick Polk: 00:02:26

Yeah, from me specifically. We go way back, me and Jack Black. You know, you're talking about.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:31

You're.

Nick Polk: 00:02:32

You know, you're important. You're just. You're just embodying the. The. The hobbit virtue of humility.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:41

Well, what's funny is, like, like, I play off like the, like, oh, I'm humble. I'm the dummy.

But then, like, if y' all pay attention, I build this lore where I'm, like, we're creating a cult around Nick Polk, who's also great friends with Jack Black. And TJ helped God create the universe.

And if you pay attention, I'm really setting myself up where, like, all of my friends are like gods for some reason, so that naturally, you guys have to assume that I must be, like, at least a demigod.

Nick Polk: 00:03:07

I mean, you draw us all together. So who has the real power?

Joshua Noel: 00:03:11

You know, that might be Trip, the great podfather, but true, true. I kind of wish he was here for this. Should we stop and call him?

Nick Polk: 00:03:21

He would probably jump on. Dude, he would nerd out so hard.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:25

Well, now that we're already off the rails, if you listeners are on a laptop and you're like, man, I want to rate and review this nonsense. Go over to Podchaser, go to GoodPods, their websites. It's going to help the show a lot. Specifically one of those two.

It helps with search engines like Google because it likes those for some reason. But if you're on your phone, good news, you could still help, rate, review, comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

That's where most people listen to podcasts. And if you interact with us on those apps, it bumps us up in the algorithms, makes other people think we're important.

And they'll be like, wow, there's a whole pantheon here of podcast hosts. And like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you never knew. You never knew. Until you rate and review other people, they'll never know the greatness of Nick Polk.

So you guys, you got to do it so that when I bring Nick on, I talk about how great he is. I'll have a lot of comments about. Yeah, he's totally right about that.

And of course, you can also sponsor our show on Apple Podcast Captivator Patreon. Today we're going to shout out Russell Gentry. He's one of our supporters. We really appreciate it.

And if you guys want your own shout out again, Apple podcast captivator patreon, $3 a month and you can get your own shout out at the beginning and end of the episodes. But what I've been geeking out on recently is what we're going to be talking about next. I'm going to go first to see if.

Because I already told Nick about some of this, I'm going to let our listeners know. And because I'm being sporadic, so I need to give Nick time to catch up with my sporadic ness during the May the fourth weekend.

For whatever reason, Steam naturally had a May the fourth sale, which was cool. So I got like Fall of the Jedi or Jedi Survival, both of those games. Then Middle Earth was like, we need to compete for some reason.

So then there was Spring in the Shire sale and I got both Shadow of War and Shadow of Mordor. And then on top of all that, I got Battlefront 2. Start, like the old original Battlefront 2. And I got it all for like $25 on sale, like, together.

And I'm like, man, each of these usually are like 60 bucks. This was a great day. I haven't played all of them yet, but I'm geeking out on the fact that finals are over.

I have all these games thanks to sales, and I have something to go do. But yeah, Nick, what about you?

Nick Polk: 00:05:30

Yeah, you got Two of the heaviest hitters there, man. Star wars and Lord of the rings for freaking 25 bucks. Kind of crazy.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:37

Yeah. And it's stuff that I haven't even played yet because my PS, I've never got a PS5.

And my PS4 got to a point where it was so loud it was unbearable to play games anymore. So now I got a steam room catching up.

Nick Polk: 00:05:48

Yeah, my wife this year, she bought me an Xbox, the new latest Xbox, because I had an Xbox One like the original VCR1, and it just wasn't cutting it anymore.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:00

Not nice, but.

Nick Polk: 00:06:01

Yeah, but what I've been nerding out on a couple things. One was that it was recently free comic book day. I've never been, but I'm a big Diablo fan, and Diablo 4 is doing like a comic series.

And so they had a free comic to announce their upcoming run that they're doing. That's kind of happening after the events of the latest DLC in Diablo.

And then I watched Gilmore Girls for the first time all the way through, so I got super nerdy.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:32

We got an episode on that soon too, so.

Nick Polk: 00:06:35

Good. I. I wrote a post about it on Tolkien Pop, you know, so I got. I got extra nerdy with it as well because they. Surprisingly.

Lots of Lord of the Rings references in Gilmore Girls.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:46

Yeah, there's lots of everything references in Gilmore Girls. There's so many.

Nick Polk: 00:06:51

It's just like a flagpole or flagship for.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:56

Yeah. In the fall last year, I learned the term, like, thawing. So it's like Noah Khan is thawing right now.

And like, guess Gilmore Girls every fall, like, like they're thawing and you're like, oh, yeah, now it's time to get into it. So maybe in the fall we'll do like a. We'll do a big episode and geek out. Two bearded men talking about Gilmore Girls. That'd be great.

Nick Polk: 00:07:15

More bearded men need to talk about Gilmore Girls.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:18

Yeah. Because, I mean, let's be honest, Luke is the most goat just maybe ever.

Nick Polk: 00:07:24

Yes, 100%. Could not agree more, man.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:27

So with all this out of the way, we got to get to the main topic.

Well, let me say, if you guys want more of the Finding the Good series, we're doing this, like, picking sides and then finding the good in the other side. There's a link down below in the show notes for the entire series. Check that out. But for now, today's topic is Elves versus Dwarves.

And it's going to be a fun one because I learned a little bit doing some research for this I'm like, oh, this is some interesting history.

Elves and Dwarves have a long history of rivalry and other things that we're going to discuss in several different IPs though, like it's not just like Lord of the Rings inheritance cycle. I think we've already mentioned that one or you mentioned it before. Zero something. It's got it.

You see it in Dungeons and Dragons, you see it in a few different places we're going to talk about. Mainly I'm probably going to pull from Lord of the Rings.

The inheritance cycle and Elder Scrolls will probably be the main ones that I pull from, just because that's what I'm most familiar with. But Nick might have some other interesting ones before we get into anything else.

What are some of the ones that you're most aware of and where do you think this conflict has started? I actually developed a theory through research, but I want to hear from you first because you're smarter than me and have a better beard.

Nick Polk: 00:08:40

Well, like I said, I'm kind of a one trick pony where Tolkien's legendarium is kind of my main thing. And so I'm not really as familiar with a lot of the like, expansive universes.

You know, there's a couple other ones like Avatar, the Last Airbender that I am. There's no dwarves in that. I don't know if it's a real conflict, but I know the Witcher series, there's like.

I think it's more of just a like ecological reality where I think dwarves were old and they don't reproduce as fast. The elves and the Witcher, you know, series are just faster at producing. And then of course, humans reproduce way faster than both of them.

And therefore elves are like on the decline. Dwarves are even like scarcer.

And I know that because of the elves reproduction rates, they kind of like push Dwarves out, I think in the history of the Witcher. But besides that and Tolkien, that's kind of all I got for elves and dwarves, except for the conflict I think probably comes up.

It probably has its roots in Norse mythology, the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. Right?

Joshua Noel: 00:09:54

Yeah. I want to throw my theory by you and see if you think I'm right or if I'm stupid.

Also, side note, I just remembered another one I can put out there and delicious. In Dungeon, you see it again where one of the characters is a dwarf and you have an elf and they kind of talk a little bit about the rivalry.

It's not like main Headlight, but like it's common enough knowledge that even in, like, anime version of fantasy, it's still something that's present that elves and dwarves don't always, you know, love each other that much.

Nick Polk: 00:10:20

Right.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:21

Which for some reason always ends, we'll get to this later. But it always ends up with like a fun elf and dwarf being friends because they're not supposed to like each other.

Like, I don't know, like, it happens always. It's like we only establish this conflict so that we can have an entertaining buddy sequence. Like, I don't know, man.

Nick Polk: 00:10:37

I just love that. That's like racial reconciliation and fantasy is always the elf in the dwarf.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:44

Yeah. It's beautiful. It's great. Okay, my theory from Mind you, like, maybe five minutes of Google research.

So this, this is not like deep knowledge or anything, guys. It looks like in Norse mythology, because, like, I know that Tolkien pulled a lot from Norse mythology.

There's this really weird thing where all dwarves really were. Where just like you had like tree elves and, you know, irregular elves and dark elves.

They were like, associated with dark elves, but they were like the elves of the earth, like under earth. That's what elves were. They were just dwarves. So it wasn't like they weren't depicted as short, little grubby men.

They were just like elves, but underground. And they were associated with dark elves. So they were like.

Because it's like under earth, the underworld kind of association, you know, back when we thought heaven was up above and hell was down below, they're down below, so these must be the bad guys. And to kind of see that evolve.

And I think if I'm right about this is where Tolkien's pulling from, what Tolkien does, making the dwarves not just the little bad guys because they're under the ground actually is super cool when you think about it.

Nick Polk: 00:11:48

Oh, it's great. You know, and I think people don't know and like, a lot of that underground elves, the distinction, you know, I don't think was so hard and fast.

Like, there's leprechauns and brownies, you know, dwarves, elves were kind of in the same category of like weird kind of evil spirits at the most and tricksters at the least.

Like you said over time with like the invention of like the Shakespearean or like the Victorian era, fairies who are like, you know, kind of trickster, positive nature spirits. Tolkien kind of took those elements and transformed them. And then, of course, modern fantasy has done the rest.

Oh, and goblins, goblins were also kind of in the same category as dwarves, elves and leprechauns and stuff until Way later.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:35

Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to think. I don't think there are any dwarves in Beowulf, but there's some, like, similar stuff, like what you're talking about.

And I know Tolkien pulled a lot from Beowulf, too, so.

Nick Polk: 00:12:44

Oh, yeah. Usually hugely.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:46

Yeah. So. So it sounds like I might not be totally off base.

So what I'm picking at that I think is interesting, that I want to hear, like, Nick's wisdom about one of the things. And this is where, like, again, I don't know a lot about Tolkien, so I can just say whatever and then have Nick correct me afterwards.

And I love this.

Some of my understanding is, like, Tolkien, one of his problems with his own work was kind of to do with, like, some of the ogres or the goblins kind of stuff, because it's like he had this theology as a Catholic that every thing was created good.

So what was interesting to me is what you see is, like, usually dwarves in Norse mythology, they were kind of bad because they were underworld or tricksters, you know, something. But they were associated with the dark elves. And here he has where. So ERU iluvatar, the main God, creates elves and humans directly.

Dwarves are still under the ground. They're not created directly from ERU Iluvatar, they're created from Aule because shenanigans, then they're given their life by Auru Iluvatar still.

So they're not. So.

So you still kind of have this kind of, like, distinction of maybe they're not quite as good as human and elves, but they're still giving their life from aerial Illuvatar, and they're still seen as good, I think, for the most part, in Arda. Right?

Nick Polk: 00:14:05

Yeah, totally. Yeah. It's part of it is that for. For those who don't know, Aule is a sort of, like, God figure, lower G God.

And in Tolkien's universe, there's a capital G, God who creates everything. But he creates the gods and the angels first. Kind of weird. And then he's like, all right, gods and angels, help me create the rest of the world.

And he's like, by the way, I'm going to create some other children of mine, elves and. And human, so watch out. And Al is like, man, I can't wait that long. So because he is not a.

The omnipotent deity God, he can only make these kind of meat puppets and can't control them, or he can only control them so they don't have their own will. And so Illuvitar is like, what are you doing, dude? Like, you're trying to be like me. Not. Not allowed. And Ali's like, oh, I'm so sorry.

But then because of Ale being like, repentant and just trying to create and wanting to. Wanting to. Has a desire to like, be with something, to share life with. Iluvatar basically gives them life and then adopts them.

And the way that the Dwarves view the end of the world, they believe that they're going to be with Aule, creating the new Arda after its destruction.

Joshua Noel: 00:15:24

That is so interesting. That's going to make. There's some fun connections with that and what happens in the inheritance cycle with Dwarves too.

But for now, I'm going to stick on Arda for a little bit. Because this is interesting because you're mentioning how he tried to create, but he couldn't really do it on his own.

And basically, ERU Iluvatar is like. Or can we just say Illuvatar? Is that fine?

Nick Polk: 00:17:25

Yeah, that'd be fine.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:26

Okay. Iluvatar is like, hey, man. Wanting to create, that desire is good, but you ain't me. But then he blesses it anyway. But repentance, you know, whatever.

And I think that's what we see the Dwarves do in the story of Arda, right? Like, they're constantly trying to create. And then you see them starting to tear down trees. And then Aule's girlfriend, I don't remember her name.

So right now it's girlfriend. Yeah, yeah, that's one sexy lady. But she was like, yo, what about the trees? And that's how the Ents end up coming to be.

But, like, what you see is like, the Dwarves are kind of made in the image of Aule almost because, like, they're wanting to create, but in their doing that, they're not doing it perfectly. You know, they're not doing it as maybe ERU Iluvatar would have wanted. Where I think the elves, you see working with nature a little bit better.

And then humans are flawed because, well. Well, we're humans. So when we write stories that involve humans, it's like, yeah, screw them, they suck.

Humans historically haven't liked ourselves very much.

Nick Polk: 00:18:25

Yeah. And even the elves, this kind of draws up from the beginning of their conflict.

The Elvish name for the Dwarves is Nagrim, which means the stunted people. Basically, the people who are too short.

Joshua Noel: 00:18:40

Call them short people. And now I'm going to play the song. I think it's from Rolling Stones. The short people got no reason. Have you Heard this.

Nick Polk: 00:18:51

Are you talking about, like, can't get enough satisfaction, but instead of short people?

Joshua Noel: 00:18:56

Oh, I don't think so. Okay, keep talking. Tell me, why did Illuvitar make humans and elves? And I'm actually.

I actually am going to look up the song and play it, I think, because it's just so freaking funny.

Nick Polk: 00:19:07

Yeah. I mean, Illuvitar created humans and elves because he wanted creatures to enjoy and participate and partner with him in creating.

Joshua Noel: 00:19:19

Why both? Why not just the elves? Because the elves seem like they're more godly anyway. Right.

Nick Polk: 00:19:24

It's. Honestly, it's more of Tolkien. Tolkien wanted to explore what it would be like to be a human with e. With basically immortality. And the elves are.

Joshua Noel: 00:19:36

They're Time Lords.

Nick Polk: 00:19:37

Yeah. Tolkien kind of says that they're the same species as men. That's how, you know, some of them can get married and have kids.

But I think it's more of Tolkien basically doing a thought experiment with.

Joshua Noel: 00:19:49

Interesting.

Nick Polk: 00:19:49

Elves and immortality.

Joshua Noel: 00:19:50

Yeah. So more generically then in Arda, and I think this tends to be true over the course of most things. The elves live longer than other species.

They're more sophisticated. You know, they like intellectual conversations. They're probably eating vegetarian meals and maybe having some wine. And then your dwarves are.

Mead, mead. More pints. And then they're digging, they're working, they're building with their hands, but they're also good craftsmen.

So, you know, they're built almost like industry, but not in the same way that we see Sauron and all the other characters that Tolkien kind of writes as the bad guys. Dwarven industry is more working with the Earth instead of against the Earth, I guess is how you would say it. And I think that's for both species.

It's kind of true. Across the fields, maybe.

Nick Polk: 00:20:36

Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:38

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions, but here's my favorite Dwarf song now, because. What did you say they're called by the Stunted People?

Stunted People. Okay. So it's actually Randy Newman. Short People.

Nick Polk: 00:20:51

Even better. Even Fre.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:53

So funny.

hort People", by Randy Newman: 00:20:57

Short people got no reason Short people got no reason Short people got no reason to live. They got little hands.Little eyes I don't know why it's so.

Joshua Noel: 00:21:14

My dad's side of the family are all kind of short.

And for some reason, one of my aunts, because I was only allowed to listen to Christian music, with two exceptions being Disney music. And then these mixed CDs that my aunt would make me so that I had some semblance of culture.

Nick Polk: 00:21:35

Right.

Joshua Noel: 00:21:36

For some reason, she put that on one of the CDs. So every time my dad was getting on my nerves. My dad's been shorter than me since I was in middle school.

I would play this song because I just thought it was so funny.

Nick Polk: 00:21:47

Now you play it. I had forgotten about that song, but I'm pretty sure someone at work showed me that song.

Joshua Noel: 00:21:52

They got little hands and little feet and they go around telling great big lies.

Nick Polk: 00:21:56

You know, Little eyes.

Joshua Noel: 00:21:58

Yeah. Yeah, that's a. That's. That's the Dwarves. No, I'm just kidding. Dwarves are not going around telling lies. That's not what they're known for.

But some of the other ones. So inherited cycle. This is for. For me, I never thought of Doors as particularly religious.

Usually when I encounter them in stories and stuff, they're just like little men who want to work. You know, hi ho, hi ho, off to work we go. And then we're going to have some meat. And meat.

But in the inheritance cycle, you also see that they're deeply religious. They're willing to lay down their lives for their religious beliefs.

And they believe that if they died as long as they were buried in rock with the earth, that they would go to be with their God and kind of be able to help rebuild stuff in an afterlife. So it's kind of interesting that Tolkien has that, too. Tolkien was obviously first. Inheritance cycle is going to pull a lot from Tolkien's ideas.

Nick Polk: 00:22:48

Which one? Which is the inheritance cycle again?

Joshua Noel: 00:22:51

It's Eragon. Eldest. I can't remember the other two or three books. Really good, though. They're really good. I listened to them on audiobook.

I never actually read them. It was funny. This is one of the most irritating things maybe ever. My brother was obsessed with these books when he was a kid, right.

And he wrote the author back, like, before. I think the second book came out.

So this is like back when Christopher, whatever his name is, was basically not well, like, he wasn't that well known. So he wrote my brother back. My brother had this really long, nice handwritten letter from this author who's now, like, super famous. And he lost it.

And I'm like, dude. Like, that was. Well, you know, he was like, oh, just some author I liked. It was just a guy. No one will remember him.

And I'm like, right, Matt, dude, dude, you messed up. But, yeah. So beyond that, in Elder Scrolls, this is going to be another interesting thing with the Dwarves. Elves.

I feel like pretty much the same everywhere. Like, I don't find Elves as interesting, which might tell you guys where I'm going to go here.

But in Elder Scrolls, they're not actually dwarves, they're like the Dwemlin or something like that, right? Yeah. Have you played Elder Scrolls?

Nick Polk: 00:24:03

Yeah, I played. I played a little bit of Oblivion, a little bit of Morrowind, and I played Skyrim the most.

Joshua Noel: 00:24:10

Yes.

Nick Polk: 00:24:11

So I know that when you go into those dungeons, like, they're not really anywhere. Right. Because you basically fight their, like, little contraptions that they made or whatever.

Joshua Noel: 00:24:20

Yeah. They're like a forgotten lost race that were the Dwemer and. Yeah.

Which the cool thing about, like, the contraptions that you're talking about is like, it's all kind of a steampunk vibe. I feel like. I love the architecture, but, yeah, the Dwemer were actually like dark elves that lived under the earth.

So like, that's going way back to like the Norse stuff again. But they weren't just elves, they were just associated with the elves. They were still their own creature.

Nick Polk: 00:24:46

Right.

Joshua Noel: 00:24:47

We don't know a lot about them on purpose. I think Elder Scrolls just thought it would be funny because they didn't die off, they just gone. Don't know why.

It's just a mystery game has been going on forever. You think they would have given us something about it? Nah.

Nick Polk: 00:25:01

Tolkien calls that textual ruins or. Sorry, he doesn't call it textual ruins. There's this Tolkien scholar who talks about. Because there's things in Tolkien that are unexplained.

And you're like, why is this lost civilization here? You're just like, I don't know. It's called textual ruins. The ruins are there and it makes it like.

It increases the depth of the feeling of realness, you know?

Joshua Noel: 00:25:23

That's great, dude. All right. I've played D and D, like, twice. I don't know a lot about it. Can you tell me anything about, like, how elves and dwarves are.

Are depicted there? Do you know much about it or.

Nick Polk: 00:25:34

Literally know nothing about the.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:39

Yeah.

Nick Polk: 00:25:39

The lore behind deity? Very little. I've played multiple times. I know very little about the lore.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:45

Yeah, well, as.

As far as, like, when you play and stuff and the way they do interactions, is it still basically the same as Lord of the Rings as far as you can tell, or, like, how they relate to each other or is it just kind of whatever the GM feels like that day?

Nick Polk: 00:25:58

I have literally no clue.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:59

Cool. I'm sure Magic the Gathering probably has history too. I know I don't know it. And since you didn't mention it. I'm assuming you don't know.

Nick Polk: 00:26:07

No, I play it, but they're kind of separate, I guess. I feel like elves are more prominent. I don't think there's a lot of dwarf cards comparatively speaking to how prevalent elf cards are.

Joshua Noel: 00:26:22

Gotcha. All right, so I think for the purpose of our conversation then will keep. Elves are pretty much static. You know, they're, they live a long time.

High culture philosophy, you know, that kind of stuff. We're not going to do the version of Dwarves that are basically bad elves under the ground.

I think for this we'll stick with like what more people are familiar with from like delishin and dungeon, the inheritance cycle, Lord of the Rings, that kind of stuff. So we'll take with like just like the normal short people who like to work in mines and eat meat, drink mead. We're going with these versions.

Nick, you got to pick side elf or dwarf. Where are you going?

Nick Polk: 00:27:00

You know, I'm probably still gonna go with the elves. You know, I do, I love Dwarves. But you know, elves, I feel like just have comfier, you know, dwellings. I feel like it's gonna be cooler.

I feel like the food's gonna be a little more, you know, upper, you know, quality and they have awesome libraries. And Dwarves are not, are not prone to write things down very often.

Joshua Noel: 00:27:31

Yeah, see this is, this is where I'm in conflict. I love to read, I just do. I'm a big reader but like personality wise, everything else, man. Give me some meat, give me some mead.

I want to be like that one scene in the first Hobbit movie where we're just like throwing crap around, singing songs. It's like, oh yeah, like, because they're not like, I don't like to me, they don't betray like toxic masculinity. They like to sing and stuff still.

They're just like, we're down, we're getting dirty and we're gonna have a good time. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? I don't need the long life sophistication. That kind of like whatever. I don't want to eat a vegan meal.

I want to eat meat, drink some beer and sing cool songs by a campfire. But I also want to read. So like, like that's where I'm like, the inheritance cycle is really what won me over.

Whenever I see like these dwarves who are also highly religious, I'm like, it's hard for them to have some of these beliefs if there isn't something written down. Like some formal system here. So maybe I'm like a high priest dwarf in inheritance cycle. I don't know.

Nick Polk: 00:28:31

I like that. I like the high priest, the cleric dwarf there.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:35

Yeah. Like we. Now we're gonna throw in. Yeah, yeah. So, like, if you were an elf, what. What class would you be?

Nick Polk: 00:28:42

Oh, man. If I was an elf, what class I would. Would I be? I would honestly probably be an archer just because I would have a higher chance of surviving.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:55

That's probably what I'd be.

Nick Polk: 00:28:57

Because I don't. You're gonna be, like, a little bit boring. Yeah. Basically Legolas, for sure.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:01

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm your. Your cleric dwarf friend. Yeah. Here's the thing.

Nick Polk: 00:29:07

You'll bring the healing, you know, maybe bring in, you know, channel the God. I don't know. What's the. Do you know the Dwarven God? D and D is at all.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:15

Not in D and D. What's the.

Nick Polk: 00:29:18

Dwarven God for the inheritance cycle?

Joshua Noel: 00:29:20

Moradin. I might be saying that incorrectly.

The problem with inheritance cycle is, like, I hated the Eragun movie, so, like, I've only read the books, so I have that problem where I'm probably mispronouncing everything.

Nick Polk: 00:29:33

I mean, it's fair. The movie, you know, get it out of here.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:36

Yeah, it was. It was bad. It was really bad.

Nick Polk: 00:29:38

So it's a terrible use of Jeremy Lyon's talent.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:41

So true. All right, so we picked our sides. We kind of said, why a little bit.

Here's the thing, the gimmick for our finding the good series, you got to defend the other side. You got to say, what can you, in the deepest parts of you, if you were like, what is good about Dwarves?

As someone who chose the Elven side, what good do you see in Dwarven culture that you think you could glean.

Nick Polk: 00:30:04

From one of the best things?

Obviously, I'm going to use Tolkien as kind of my reference point, but in the Lord of the Rings, the legendarium, the history of Tolkien's universe, the Dwarves are one of the least corruptible races where when Sauron creates the rings to corrupt and control people, the Dwarves, you know, increases kind of their greed. But Sauron can't control them. And so they are kind of who they are.

They know what they want, they know what their life is about, and they're not going to be corrupted by outside influence. And I find that really respectable. And the elves are not that way.

They're a little more corruptible, obviously, men, even more so, because they're not immortal. Yeah, but the elves are Always trying to kind of keep making cool science stuff, keep learning. And Sauron takes advantage of that.

Joshua Noel: 00:31:06

That's something I didn't even know about my own side that I chose today. I know. I feel wiser already.

Nick Polk: 00:31:12

Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:31:14

Here's what I love. So I mentioned I love reading and stuff, but I think the thing, if I'm finding the good in the other side, I'm looking at. I chose dwarf.

I'm looking at the elven side. What do I love about this culture? What do I still find that we can gleam from elven culture, which, again, is fictional.

But still, their respect for language is so freaking cool. Like, they still speak the language of the gods.

Especially, like, I'm sticking with Arda mostly, but also, like, when you see how they name weapons or, like, how they like why they name things the way they do, why they write things the way they do, what they call their different halls. Like, they just have such a respect for language. And that's something I feel like I could do better.

You know, I know whenever I do, you know, I'm a little Bible nerd.

I usually just read the English, but every now and then when I decide I'm gonna read some Aramaic or Hebrew or something, I'm like, oh, wait, yeah, I do gleam more from looking at the language of this thing. And, you know, even if I read other religions like the Quran and I look at like the Arabic and I do, like a little word study.

You learn more from respecting original language, respecting why things name the way it is, the history of a word, you know, even in this, like, I didn't know anything about dwarf. And then you're telling me the old Elvish word and like, we got like a little fun song moment out of it.

And like, I'm looking at like the history of Norse and I'm like, man, if I just knew how much was packed into the word dwarf, I would have such a better respect for it. And I'm like, I don't know. So I guess that's my big thing with elves that I'm like, man, I love their. Their love of words.

Nick Polk: 00:32:36

Yeah. Oh, yeah. To. To. One other fun fact is that the elves. I can't remember who it is. So the.

The elfish script that we see in like Lord of the Rings and the normal stuff is. Was. Were created the out like the writing style was created by guy named Theanor who also loves to craft things.

One of the most dwarf, like, elves out of the history. But there was a person before him who wrote. Who created an Alphabet Writing system. And I want to say it's Pangolo is his name. Don't quote me.

I might be wrong on the name, but it was called the Kth. And the dwarves use the Kth for their writing and Lord of the Rings so their writing style is rooted in the elvish invention of legends.

Joshua Noel: 00:33:25

That's super cool, man. That's cool.

So this is a little bit random, but since you mentioned it, what I find interesting for me in Arda, Lord of the Rings kind of stuff, Dwarves seem like not anti magic, but they don't mess with that stuff. Delicious. In dungeon, the dwarf that's part of your main group there doesn't like magic at all.

And in the inheritance cycle though, Dwarves are really big on like ruins and stuff in the caves. So like they have like their own kind of like ancient Earth magic. And I like, I kind of like kind of like that vibe. Yeah, Yeah.

I wonder at what point they went from like these dark elf kind of mysterious magic stuff under the ground to nope, we build now. Or if like it was a little bit of both in Norse and then we just highlighted one and left the other out or what happened?

Nick Polk: 00:34:12

That's a great question. I don't know. Also I was looking up what if. So actually Feanor created the. Kirby. Sorry. So it wasn't the other guy, man, I, I honestly don't even know.

I, I think probably it had to.

Joshua Noel: 00:34:27

Do with probably Tolkien.

Nick Polk: 00:34:30

I think so.

Because what Tolkien does is that there was also, which happens throughout history too, usually stereotypes of certain fantasy races are connected to real life interactions with people of different ethnicities, nationalities. Right.

And so one of the most negative things and wrestled with is that he uses a lot of anti Semitic tropes at first in creating the Dwarves, which is actually pretty prevalent.

Joshua Noel: 00:34:59

And I'm thinking about even how they're depicted in the movies and stuff. And I'm like, I can, I can see it. Yeah, right.

Nick Polk: 00:35:04

And so to on top of that to say like, oh, they're evil, they're from the ground. There is sort of this implicit, you know, or inherent anti Semitism. And I think Tolkien tried to later in life bring that out and be like, okay.

He even talks about how the language of the dwarves is inspired by Hebrew, like actual Hebrew language. And so I think he's trying to like, he eventually tries to like elevate it, make the dwarves a good culture and whatever.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:36

Yeah, I actually, I kind of like that connection. And this, this isn't based on anything smart.

If people are listening and wondering, this is just like vibes, like the Hebrew language from what I've studied really does feel more earthy. Where I guess like the Greek and stuff of like the New Testament feels a little bit more sophisticated.

So kind of like this like, like the dwarves or the Old Testament, Hebrew, the elves or the New Testament Greek, you know.

Nick Polk: 00:36:02

Well, I think too, especially like the Old Testament and a lot of the, you know, the Hebrew Bible, the land is like one of the biggest themes that, you know, like you said, it's like feels earthy. And Tolkien, which his theory I think is wrong is that in modern day linguistics.

But he was writing and thought, and I think even in his day it was wrong. But he thought that language had inherent vibes in them.

So he thought words could literally sound worse than others and that it was potentially like the Platonic form of a word, essentially.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:38

See, the thing is, the problem with that is like, that's so subjective because, like me personally, I don't like hearing French. I don't know what it is. It just is. It's like supposed to be like this romantic language.

But I hear it, I'm like, nah, give me some German, some Russian, some Italian, you know, like Latin, Spanish, I love it all. For some reason, French is like the one language that I listen to and I'm like, I don't want to hear this anymore.

Nick Polk: 00:37:05

Go away before I taunt you a second time.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:09

I just offended like, like all these people who are listening to our podcast in France, because there are a few and I forgot about that. Sorry guys, this is French people. I don't like your language. Some Canadians do.

Nick Polk: 00:37:18

Oh, sorry.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:19

Listen, I'm sorry guys, I apologize. I'm an ignorant American dwarf priest.

Nick Polk: 00:37:25

Is Canada even a real country? Try. That's a South park reference.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:30

So, Nick, I do want to get at. Since we talked about Arda a lot, when you get into the Lord of the Rings movie, a lot of people might not understand why in that movie it exists.

Because I think that's most people's main point of reference is like Legolas and Gimli. Gimli's like dwarves or elves. You know what I mean? And Legolas is like dwarf. Sorry, in my mind, Legolas is like way worse nudie than he actually is.

Nick Polk: 00:37:57

Yes, the Dwarves.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:00

But so for people who aren't aware, like when Lord of the Rings starts, why is Gimli and Legolas like, where's that tension coming from?

Nick Polk: 00:38:09

Yeah, so for those who like, obviously, if you're thinking of like the Fellowship of the Ring movie, when they're at The Council of Elrond. And you know, Gimli says something, he's like, I'll die before I let the ring go into the hands of an elf or whatever. And you're like, what the heck?

Where is that coming from?

So in, in Tolkien's world, there's three ages, kind of like how we do BC and AD there's first Age, second and third, and there's a fourth age at one point. But these span kind of thousands of years for them. And then it goes all the way back to the first stage in the Legendarium where the stunted people.

Right, we talked about that already. The Elvish language is already like, oh, we're better than you because Illumitar created us directly and you had to get adopte. But later on.

So actually there's also lots of stuff so people bought. So there is stuff in Tolkien still that shows that Dwarves, some of them did side with Sauron at one point. And so.

Joshua Noel: 00:39:11

Oh, interesting.

Nick Polk: 00:39:12

And there's also evidence to show that elves thought that like, Dwarves were sort of like orcs in a way and they would literally hunt them for sport. So there's that. Oh, yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:39:22

I mean that. That would do it.

Nick Polk: 00:39:24

Yeah. And so one of the main conflicts that happens is that sometime in the First Age there is a Elvish king named Thingol, okay?

And he rules this realm in Middle Earth. And he makes a alliance with a dwarf kingdom called Nagarod. And they're amazing smiths, they create jewelry.

And he gets a Silmaril, which is an amazing magical jewel that gives you lots of power. It's very sought after. And he's like, hey, what's up, dwarfs? Come make me a cool necklace so I can put the Silmaril on and I can have it.

And the Dwarves are greedy. Everyone wants the Silmaril. The Thingol's also very greedy. This is what the Silmaril does to people.

And the Dwarves are like, cool, you better actually you give us the necklace because we made it, we don't want to give it to you. And Thenol insults them, they kill Thingol. The Dwarves killed the Elven King. The elves, of course, kill that group of Dwarves.

The Nagra dwarves now declare war on the elves and slaughter and kill the elves. And then there's another group of elves that come and kill the Dwarves.

And that basically sets off the rest of the history of the Dwarven and Elvish conflict in Middle Earth.

Joshua Noel: 00:40:48

Yeah, yeah. And there's crazy stuff because they're both like good guys too.

But like, then there's Times where like, you know, the clear bad guys, the Orcs and like Zauron and stuff happen and one side's like, well I'm not gonna help the other side. And then it just kind of perpetuates of the oh, you didn't help us, so now we're not gonna help you. It's very mature.

Nick Polk: 00:41:05

I'm pretty sure the first instance of murder is the elves committed first.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:11

So.

Nick Polk: 00:41:11

And it's against each other. So you know, like I said, there's, there's. Everyone's good, but not everyone obviously, but most.

The dwarves, elves and men, everyone's good for the most part. They just do naughty things sometimes.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:26

Yeah. And sometimes don't help. Not helping is really seen as super evil and in Middle Earth stories.

Nick Polk: 00:41:33

Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:33

And I think rightfully so. It's just hard for us to see it in our world because we're like, well why should we go help Ukraine? That's just gonna take away from me.

And we're just very self centered because all you see is the world here. You don't see what's happening in Ukraine and same thing Palestine right now. And America's been historically bad at this. But America is kind of like.

I'm trying to think of what it was, what is it when the elves didn't come for. There was, there's a. I'm blinking here. Imagine seeing Dwarf kingdom under attack. They're the last people standing.

Nick Polk: 00:42:09

You're talking about the, the prologue to the Hobbit movies. They do this thing where the dwarves need help from Smaug after he's attacking and the. And the elves run away.

That is a made up thing from the movie by the way.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:23

Interesting.

Nick Polk: 00:42:24

And it's not. And also Gondor not trying to help Rohan. Also not a real thing.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:32

I knew that one. I didn't know the first one. For some reason I thought that was in there.

But this is why you're the Tolkien expert and I'm the guy who likes Tolkien, like you said.

Nick Polk: 00:42:40

The theme is there though. Helping people and being assistants. And like we see that we're like dang, that's really bad. And it creates conflict in the movies.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:48

Yeah, but we're go with the movie just so I can make the analogy. But like America are the elves a lot of the time. Right? Like Even World War II we did not want to be involved. We were just like letting.

Watching other people get attacked and we're like, well, what about our needs and what about, you know, our people? We can't afford to do this until it becomes on our shores and then it's like, now it's suddenly our problem.

We're the elves, you know, watching the Dwarves get attacked, but we just don't see it. So we can distance ourselves and be selfish. And we're still doing it today with Ukraine and Palestine and other conflicts and yay, America.

Yeah, yeah. You see, you see my Captain America shield? I love America.

Nick Polk: 00:43:26

Yay.

Joshua Noel: 00:43:27

And I will find the good in it. But actually, I like the elves a little bit better, knowing that that was a made up thing for the movie.

But so in a lot of different IPs, you know, we mentioned Legolas and Gimli. Like, that's the big one.

You see them kind of reconciling, becoming best friends, fighting together in the Lord of the Rings movies and books, in Delicious and Dungeon. Since I brought it up, I'll use it.

You know, Our dwarf character, whose name escapes me right now, really didn't want to trust magic, really didn't want to trust the elves. But when he came to a situation where he could either help the group by allowing the magic to assist him or turn back, he learns to cooperate.

He learns to, you know, work with the magic. And we have these big stories of reconciliation and the inheritance cycle.

The elves and dwarves don't like each other, but our main character, Aragorn, is being mentored from a priest in the Dwarven. Thank me. You know, he's going to the Dwarves and learning about philosophy, different stuff, and getting help from them.

But also he's training in magic from the elves. So we see this cooperation when it needs to happen, and it comes over and over and over again. It's just so common.

We pit them against each other just so we can have them learn to cooperate. Like we mentioned earlier. Nick, why does this keep happening in our fantasy stories?

Why do we keep wanting to pit them against each other just to make them reconcile and work together?

Nick Polk: 00:45:44

My assumption is probably that it has roots in Tolkien.

And it's probably also just a such a pervasive problem that's been a part of human history is that there's always been some sort of xenophobia, whatever it's informed by, and in, you know, a lot of these fictional worlds, that's where humans kind of have a safe split, safe place to wrestle with those questions. And, you know, if it's there and people want that in the world, you know, use elves and dwarves to create the conflict and show some reconciliation.

So hopefully that kind of reflects back into our own world.

Joshua Noel: 00:46:25

Yeah, yeah, it's Interesting.

So something sci fi does a lot that will pointed out for me that helps me is it often makes you ask how you treat the other or what makes us human compared to these other things. What I think fantasy does that's a little bit different with some of these races.

Is it like you talk about xenophobia, it makes us ask this question of why do we other not like, how do we treat the other. But I think a lot of times of fantasy, it's asking more why rather than how.

And I think part of it probably comes from what you were talking about earlier, where certain ones get grouped with some of these racial stereotypes like you remember talking about with the dwarves.

And I know you see that with some of the dark elves stuff and certain things that we're not going to go there Marvel, but we see some of this and I think because it's been used to depict race poorly, it's just really natural to use that same story that, you know, where we depicted things in a way that was evil. We now use that same story, reconciling the medium by asking why we do this in the first place.

Nick Polk: 00:47:27

Yeah, I think too, the elves are kind of like this on the other end that, you know, the elves are like supermodels, perfect, quote, unquote, perfect specimens. And dwarves, on the other hand, are like hairy, short, you know, not as attractive features.

And so I think it's a place where there is no such thing as the perfect person. Right. There's no like, that doesn't exist.

And so to have this weird happy medium in between through this reconciliation, you know, kind of, I think, trying to capture something that's more real.

Joshua Noel: 00:48:00

Yeah, yeah, I know all that's interesting.

So, you know, I think most of our listeners know that I also am part of another podcast, the Whole Church Podcast, and I care deeply about the church and church unity, that kind of stuff. I've been working on ecumenical stuff with that podcast for like eight or nine years now or something crazy.

Like basically a decade, like huge chunk of my life has been dedicated to this.

So when I see some of the stuff we see in these fantasy stories, I can't help but think of like, how the church in America right now is othering immigrants or how our progressive church in America is othering the conservative church in America that's othering the progressive because they're not real Christians.

You know, we're just using the like the true Scotsman argument back and forth because you're not a real Christian because you don't love immigrants and you're not a real Christian because you love gay people too much and you're not a real Christian because you know, like we always do this othering, we always do this like pushing people away. And the church has become so fractured. Like to me it breaks my heart and that's why I care so much about this.

But when I look at this stuff in fantasy and how frequently the conflicted elves and dwarves can come together, I gotta believe there's something the church can learn. Nick, what's your wisdom for the church from the elf dwarf conflict? That they need to look at one.

Nick Polk: 00:49:12

Of the things too.

And I'm going, you know, Tolkien has an essay called On Fairy Stories where he basically makes a whole argument about why fantasy is a legitimate art form. There's three main things he said it does it's function. Fantasies, functions. One, we go to escape because the world sucks.

Joshua Noel: 00:49:27

Yeah.

Nick Polk: 00:49:28

And we need, we need a breather. Two, we get recovery. So what that means is like things in the world where like man, life sucks.

But then we see Legolas and Gimli become best friends and go to freaking Ballinor together, which normally wouldn't happen. You're like, dang, that's awesome. I didn't know friendships could be like that.

Joshua Noel: 00:49:49

Yeah.

Nick Polk: 00:49:50

And then it's consolation where we're consoled, we're comforted by that. So that when we return to our world we have this kind of new set of eyes to try to manifest, you know, better realities in our world.

And so I think that this racial reconciliation between elves and dwarves, specifically in Tolkien, and probably influence in other, you know, intellectual properties, is that if we have fictional examples that do that, that do that, well, there's hope that we can do that in our world.

Joshua Noel: 00:50:25

Yeah, man, I could shout hallelujah. And I think that's.

And if you guys love the Bible, that's a lot of the points of our apocalyptic literature and our prophecy literature and biblical work is like. Because yeah, life sucks right now. Let me tell you the future.

And a lot of times there's a lot of violence and crazy stuff in the Bible that I'm like, some of that I don't love. I don't agree with all of it. Right.

But the point of so much of it, especially like if you look at the Book of Daniel, which I'm really passionate about, is that there's hope. And I think if that's what you get from these stories, that's worthwhile.

Because I think one of the reasons why the church is so divided is because of Fear, we fear the other. Xenophobia again. Right?

We have this fear of like, oh, you're not really Christians and if people believe what you're saying, then all of a sudden they're going to burn in hell for eternity. Or you're not really Christians and people believe what you're saying, they'll never know the real Jesus and maybe legitimate fears. Right.

But if we let fear drown out hope, then reconciliation becomes impossible.

So I think seeing these stories of fantasy and having this hope of reconciliation can probably speak a lot more than us trying to hash out our arguments that we're never going to agree on anyway.

Nick Polk: 00:51:31

Yeah. And the blame is usually a lot.

We carry our groups and us carry a lot of the blame that we don't want to admit, because elves and dwarves, usually the conflict is rooted in both sides simultaneously, and then it just festers and grows, man.

Joshua Noel: 00:51:50

Good stuff. Well, did you have. I don't have anywhere to go with that. I think it's good. Poignant truth.

Did you have anything else you want to add about this or just about elves and dwarves in general before we head to our wrap up here?

Nick Polk: 00:52:04

No, I just said I alluded to Gimli and Legolas going to Valinor, which is basically kind of like heaven. And so there's this idea of like, we should all be heading to the Good place, a better world. Like, let's do it. Like it's there. We've got.

We've got examples.

Joshua Noel: 00:52:24

Yeah, yeah. What's up? Is it Baron and Luthien? Is that the story? I'm thinking of where the. The human and the elf are talking about eternity kind of stuff.

Nick Polk: 00:52:33

Oh, that is the Athrobath. That is Finrod.

Joshua Noel: 00:52:36

And I don't know, I'm terrible at names.

Nick Polk: 00:52:39

Andreth. Maybe it might be Andreth Finra.

Joshua Noel: 00:52:43

Google will know, guys, I promise. Google knows. Yeah. Well, all right then, let's wrap this up. I'm excited to just kind of jump in the end of this. And for our bonus question, right.

We always do a bonus question for our patrons or captivate listeners or Apple podcast sponsors. And today's a fun one. We're going to say the question simple. What good can be found in ogre society? It's a Finding the Good bonus episode. Yeah.

Where can we find the good in ogres? But before we get to that, we're gonna do some recommendations. Nick, do you wanna go first or do you want me to go first? Give you a little time.

Nick Polk: 00:53:17

I think you go first.

Joshua Noel: 00:53:19

Okay. This one I'm basically recommending this for Nick, because I told all of our listeners about this like a million times.

I feel like Hunger in the Dusk is a comic book series written by my favorite author, G. Willow Wilson. High fantasy. For me. It is my favorite fantasy, not written by Tolkien. Interesting.

Nick Polk: 00:53:40

Okay.

Joshua Noel: 00:53:41

A race known as the Van Gogh, which we're learning a lot about. Maybe they're not as evil as we thought, which is interesting.

Attacking ogres and humans and humans and ogres had to make an alliance of reconciliation because of that threat which is only threatening them, it turns out because of a bigger threat. It's so good. It's so good. And it's like the way the world's built out and the art is drawn. Like, I really think you would like it. I really do.

And she's also just a fantastic writer. But right now you can get like volume one, the graphic novel. And then like, I'll text you when volume two comes out if you like it.

Nick Polk: 00:54:15

Okay. I just got it on. I've got it on my search. I got it up here. Hunger in the desk. I got it.

Joshua Noel: 00:54:21

I found out Volume one also is available on Kindle Unlimited, if you have that. So that's. That's kinda cool. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, see you recommendation. It doesn't have to be specific towards me. I just. I'm like, I'm talking to Dick.

I wanted to tell him about this anyway.

Nick Polk: 00:54:33

No, I love it, especially with comics. You know, just digging into it.

Joshua Noel: 00:54:36

I know you're starting to get into it. I'm like, hey, this is one. Yeah. She's won an Eisner Award for her sci fi comic series, which is like. Yeah, so she's like the goat.

Nick Polk: 00:54:45

Okay, Willow. All right, Willow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:54:48

All right, man. What you got?

Nick Polk: 00:54:51

I think that, you know, I'm going to go a little older. I'm going to say go for the classics. I'm talking about the classic literature.

You know, I've kind of been making my way through some stuff as an English teacher. And I'm reading Gulliver's Travels right now, which is like one of the first satires in the Western quote unquote literary canon, if you will.

But it's fun, it's cool. There's a reason why there's things are classics. We should add more to the classics.

We should expand the Western canon or abolish it and just make things awesome. But they're worth reading and reading the class, you know.

Joshua Noel: 00:55:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Polk: 00:55:26

Check out. Check out a little, you know, Great Gatsby. Check out a little moby dick, go for it.

Joshua Noel: 00:55:31

Also, listen Catholic church, if you're listening. I'm not opposed to you making a Newer Testament. I think it would be great to have Old Testament, New Testament, Newer Testament.

And I'd read it depending on what you. I mean I would read it no matter what you put in there. Whether I agree with it or not would probably depend on what you put in there.

Nick Polk: 00:55:46

The Gospel of Joshua.

Joshua Noel: 00:55:47

No, yeah, there we go. There we go. It would be terrible, but do it anyway.

Well, guys, again, if you're on a laptop, please consider interviewing our show on Podchaser or GoodPods, one of those two websites. It's going to help our show gain recognition and make it easier to find in search engines like Google, which is where most people search for things.

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I love everything we've done so far. This one might be my favorite because I got to talk with Nick more on this one because I don't think he's been on any of the others.

Yeah smooches guys. Anyway, remember, we're all chosen people. A geek of priests. Yeah.