People of The Rocks: Dwarves "on the lines of" JRRT

In the fantasy novel I'm drafting right now Dwarves or Dvergar play a big role in the plot. I'm basically looking at the Dvergar being a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of medieval Jews. Before you get the wrong impression, here's what I mean. Think JRRT's dwarves; they speak a language resembling Hebrew and have an ancient homeland they are exiled from.

Then add: "and live in various countries where they are tolerated and often outright hated by locals and are restricted in their jobs and where they can live and rumoured to do horrible things to local children as part of religious rites (which is a lie)."

They also mostly have a matrilineal religion where they believe that God(in the fantasy-world sense) chose them to be the guardians of rock and stone and gave them specific religious laws to follow. So they call themselves "People of The Rocks" in their own language. That's my take on Dwarves.

They're also (like every other non-human humanoid race) indistinguishable from humans and able to intermarry and have children with humans who can also have children with partners from other humanoid races. They also don't all look the same either. The only thing that distinguishes a Dvergur from a human is the fact that the Dvergur can see in the dark and walk through stone (and sometimes change shape or become invisible if they know magic) In fact in this setting races are closer to real-world races than separate species. Every humanoid race can interbreed with another humanoid race, and their children are mostly not infertile.

That said, there are a number of Unfortunate Implications in doing something like this (ie dehumanisation) and I haven't really fleshed it out yet.

Is there anything problematic in what I've outlined?

edited 11th Feb '14 6:00:45 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

bump

Someone's going to have a problem with anything that you do. If you like it, then go for it and to hell with the implications.

There are some legitimate reasons to be offended when non-human ethnicities have huamn cultures; it's easy to make them a stereotype— which is why there's such a thing as Space Jews.

Seconded. As long as you make a legitimate effort to not offend anyone, then you shouldn't obsess about implications. Someone is gonna hate anything you do, so write for the people who'll like it.

That being said, I would add elements to their culture that differ from those of the Jews- try to make them FridgeBrilliance-y parallels, rather than outright expies. No need to hit anyone over the head with it.

I think "Someone will always be offended, so ignore the implications" is a dumb argument.

Of course not everyone will be happy with what you write, that doesn't mean you shouldn't look for advice on how you want come across as, especially when you're writing touchy issues like race.

Exactly what I said.

How so?

Because certain racial stereotypes have been used to claim that non-White people are inferior or "Others." Like the "Madame Butterfly/China Doll" which I as an Asian woman find very annoying.

Gah. Sorry.

'Don't worry about unfortunate implications' is a dumb argument, and not what I was aiming for, although looking back at what I said it sorta reads like that. You shouldn't worry about implications as long as you've made a good effort to avoid them. Don't ignore it and perpetuate stereotypes, but don't freak out and avoid the topic.

As for trying to avoid stereotypes- well, look up historic stereotypes of Jewish people, especially from the time period you're drawing inspiration from, and try to subvert or avert them. Give all your dwarves different personalities, and maybe indicate culture splits, that they aren't a completely monolithic race? I think that might be the biggest potential pitfall: implying that humans have many cultures drawn from many different inspirations on your part, while dwarves only have one culture based off of that of a religious minority.

Not sure if I'm reading this post correctly, but there are many different Jewish cultures depending on where people live. My idea was to base Dwarven cultures on different Jewish cultures (except that they all live in a) rock-cut houses or 9B) underground and are generally physically sturdy with generally the same religion, they aren't all that similar.

edited 9th Mar '14 3:11:03 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

Race as in dwarves. And exactly, they aren't a monolithic culture, so the dwarves shouldn't be either.

I really need to quit while I'm ahead, don't I.

Exactly which is why Dwarven cultures in this Norse-cosmology inspired world are based on different Jewish cultures. Based on the fact that dwarves, elves, etc are implied to have different languages even in Norse beliefs and myths:

(Context: Thor questions the dwarf Alviss on names for the sky in different languages)

and various cultures within religious and ethnic groups, as well as the ethnic groups themsleves, have different languages and dialects, this makes a lot of sense.

EDIT: Just reread your post. Oh I get it now.

edited 11th Mar '14 7:55:59 PM by MorwenEdhelwen