Our Dwarves Are All The Same: Too Subjective?

Hey everyone, I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. I'm here for three reasons: one, I wanna gripe a little about a trope page that bothers me, I want to talk about why I think I should even say anything, and as a new poster I would like to know what the best destination for this thread would be. I'm talking about "Our Dwarves Are All the Same".

Everything You Wanted To Know About Changing Names says that one of the reasons that a Tropes' name should be changed is if, "The name seems unnecessarily subjective—that is, it's outright spiteful or laudatory, but the trope isn't a YMMV item. Sometimes the trope itself is unnecessarily subjective; in that case, it's better to first discuss what to do with the trope." Spiteful might be a bit too strong, but I think that Our Dwarves Are All The Same (let's just call it ODAATS for the sake of sanity) is an inherently judgemental trope, and is inconsistent with the other pages in the "Our Monsters Are Different" index. The reason I think this is important to bring up is because Tropes Are Not Bad. I dislike the idea of a judgemental trope concept.

Contrast ODAATS with Our Elves Are Better. I don't think it would be insane to assume that the original creator of that trope page probably does not legitimately believe elves are actually better than other non-humans or even humans from a meta-textual stand point, in a way that would imply that including human, dwarven, etc. characters in fantasy fiction is automatically a lesser choice. The idea is that the concept of elves being better than everyone else is part of their identity in-universe, and on a meta level across various fictional universes. In other words, the title of the trope refers to what the trope is about: Our Elves Are Better is a trope page about fantasy fictions' use of elves, and how they are characters with superiority complexes. Elven characters who do not behave this way are usually described as aversions, subversions, deconstructions, or defiances of the trope, because "being better" is the concept around which tropes about elves typically revolve. That's why we have a whole page to talk about how the trope is followed or not followed.

Imagine if the trope page was titled "Our Elves Aren't Interesting", or "Elves Make Better Characters". It would be ripped to shreds immediately. And yet, the blatantly subjective, unfair judgement of "Our Dwarves Are All The Same" is completely fine. I think it's safe to assume that no one who is actually interested in story telling, especially fantasy story telling, honestly believes that the reason a writer would put a Dwarf in a story is because of that defining characteristic of being "the same". To imply superiority of inferiority of a trope in it's title seems counter to everything this website is about.

The problem is two fold though: not only is the trope page itself judgemental, but I believe that even if it were acceptable for a trope page to contain inherent judgement (which is inevitable to a degree, but definitely not as much as ODAATS has suffered from), the judgement being made is incorrect. There are so many dwarf characters who do not neatly, or even slightly, fit the "sameness" described. The hypocrisy is visible on the trope page itself, in that two of the three categories on the page are for how not "the same" some dwarves are. The second category is about "divergent" examples and the third is for examples that don't fit at all. None of the other "Our Monsters Are" type pages have this bizarre organization; played-straight, averted, subverted, and every other kind of example is all in one list, organized by medium. In other words, if dwarves really are "all the same", why are there so many examples of dwarves that "aren't the same" that you have to make two entire categories on the page declaring that "dwarves are all the same"...DEDICATED TO DWARVES THAT AREN'T "THE SAME"? The page itself is a paradox.

More importantly, not only can I think of many dwarven characters who are not "the same", but most of the ones I can think of are just as different from "the same" as some of the non-played-straight examples on the more objective "Our Monsters" pages. Off the top of my head I can think of more than five dwarves that aren't "the same", and each of them diverts from "the same" in a different way. Twaikin downplays it by being a gruff, stocky tough guy who likes digging, but has no beard and also lacks some of the other traits like fondness for drink or being unpleasant and short-tempered. Suikoden V also had two named dwarves, Bergen and Zunda, who were quite different from the mold, and the Dwarf Camp had several female dwarves, and even dwarf children. Varric is an intentional attempt to defy and invert most dwarf cliches in and out of universe (As in, both the writers of Dragon Age II and Varric himself are trying not to be a "typical" dwarf). Khelgar Ironfist is a deconstruction, as he begins the story embodying only the negative traits associated with his kind, and the other dwarves of his clan hate him for it. Sagani is a complete aversion, displaying basically none of the dwarven stereotypes except the more-or-less required characteristics like shortness. More recently, the film version of TheHobbit went far out of it's way to play it in basically every direction at once, with characters ranging from played perfectly straight like Gloin (who, arguably, justifies it via Strong Family Resemblance) to almost completely averted, like Kili.

I could go on and on, but instead I'll reiterate on why it's important to acknowledge that the tropes a character embodies are neither positive nor negative: there's a reason fantasy writers like dwarves. One of the reasons is that some people who like fantasy stories like dwarves. Making your character a dwarf is not an inherently negative concept like The Scrappy. To call them "the same" implies that that it is. It discourages appreciation of specific character types that no one has a right to call "bad". It also discourages analyzing character beyond dismissive claims of "samey-ness", instead of just analyzing a character based on their aesthetic traits, their actions, and their behaviors.

I propose not just a title change, but an actual rewrite of the trope page to be less about how dwarves are "the same", and instead to focus on what those "same" traits are, why they are so prevalent in pop culture, where they came from, and how other content creators play with them. This is just my two cents, but I would propose "Our Dwarves Are Stouter" as the new title representing this concept. I think someone could come up with something better.

If you actually read this long and rambling speech, then I thank you sincerely for hearing me out. If you think I have a point here, I'd appreciate your help getting this post where it needs to go. I had assumed that "Trope Repair Shop" is what I'm aiming for, but I wanted to play it safe and not get shot down by misplacing it. Any other feedback on formatting, spelling, grammar, etc. that is actually constructive will be very welcome. Thanks again!

edited 27th Feb '17 11:09:27 PM by pocketlint60

Yes, this would be a TRS topic.

Anyway, I don't think you have a point, as I don't agree that the trope name is too judgemental, unfair, or subjective. We're talking about descriptions and portrayals here, not opinions, so I'm not sure where the subjective part comes from. I also have no idea how "the same" equals "inferior" in any way, or that it's offensive. The trope isn't titled "Our Dwarves Aren't Interesting", or "Dwarves Make Worse Characters", so that's not a valid comparison.

I find it fitting, as for one, dwarves often do have a typical way they're portrayed (and pointing out exceptions doesn't show anything other than that there are exceptions), and two, they're often said in the story to be hard to distinguish from each other, which includes the typical joke that non-dwarves can't see the difference between a male and female dwarf.

Now, the sorting on the page could probably use some work, but I think that's a different question, and one that wouldn't need TRS.

"dwarves often do have a typical way they're portrayed (and pointing out exceptions doesn't show anything other than that there are exceptions),"

Wouldn't that be the same to many other fantasy races? What makes dwarves so noticeable in their "sameness" that other races don't show? (Genuinely curious here)

Maybe the name is offensive because our other pages about fantastic things' portrayals use "different" in their name, and "same" is the exact opposite of the word? IDK.

The trope title isn't negative, nor is the trope itself. The title does seem to be a snowclone in the vein of Our Elves Are Different, but the trope just discusses how dwarves are usually presented in a certain way.

@Getta The difference is that dwarves are so often presented in the same way, as opposed to the wide range of ways people present elves or vampires or trolls or whatever other monsters.

Exactly. All fantasy races, from trolls to dwarves, are presented in various ways. However, to take those two opposites, dwarves are much more often presented in very similar ways in many works, while trolls are much more often widely different, sometimes even within the same work. But on the whole, each fantasy race has a lot of similarities between works, or it wouldn't be categoriesed as a race trope. Each fantasy race also has differences between works, sometimes very subtle, sometimes you might not even recognise it as the same race. What the trope names reflect are the overall patterns. For dwarves, it's just that their differences are on average less than for other races. Nothing more than that.

"Same" being offensive because it's the opposite of "different" only makes sense if "different" is inherently something good. The easy argument to that is that tropes exist only because of things being the same in enough ways to create patterns. If everything was different, no one would recognise anything, and stories would require a lot more exposition and explanations to make sense.

Also, just to point it out (not in response to anything in particular, but I think it's relevant to the topic), the snowcloned names for the Our Monsters Are Different index are there because they work. That kind of name promotes better written examples, probably because there's an implicit question in how they're different, or the same.

Yeah, this was exactly my point. My argument isn't even that dwarves aren't all the same, it's that the idea of their identifying trope being that they're all the same is inaccurate, because the lack of difference between any given two dwarves isn't the defining dwarven gimmick in fantasy fiction. It's true that dwarf characters tend to be pretty same-y, but I think it's unfair to say that only dwarves are that way; plenty of elves are "the same", but we have a word describing that sameness: "Better". Whether or not dwarf or other non-human characters are uninteresting or interesting because of this is a completely opinion based debate, but the fact remains that ODAATS takes a side in this debate in it's nature, and that bugs me. It is inherently negative to say dwarves are "all the same" because that's not supposed to be what a dwarf is. You could argue that literally every non-human trope page could be titled "all the same", but instead the trope pages are titled based on what that "sameness" is. Elves are all "better", gnomes are all "weirder", etc. Dwarves should be something like "tougher" or "stouter", or even something like "shorter", which even then I don't think fits well because of gnomes, halflings, pixies, and so on. My point being that the gimmick that defines the dwarves is not sameness, and to say so is backwards logic. The trope should identify with what that "sameness" is, mainly the whole deal of dwarves being stocky, short people warrior people, the same way every similar trope does.

edited 28th Feb '17 12:48:16 PM by pocketlint60

As I mentioned before, I think dwarves looking the same within a work is a pattern.

I don't agree that dwarves being the same is their identifying trait, though. Surliness, stoutness, hairiness, drunkiness, toughness, honor, smithing, craftsmanship, living underground, etc. Those are "dwarf things". Even if dwarves are all the same (and I gave tons of examples showing that not to be true), it's the thing that they all have in common that defines them, not the sameness it's self.

The jokes about dwarves being the same is usually a satirical commentary on how dwarf characters are very often poorly written Gimli rip offs without many defining characteristics. It is an inherently negative thing, and the page contains an arguable judgement about an entire trope. In addition, it's hypocritical because that very page contains tons of examples of dwarves that are not "all the same".

edited 28th Feb '17 2:12:29 PM by pocketlint60

The trope isn't about how "being the same" defines dwarves. It's about how dwarves tend to be portrayed in a certain way across various works.

Well that's the thing though, is that it's not. Two thirds of the page is dedicated to dwarves that aren't. There is more written on that page about how dwarves aren't the same than there is about dwarves that are.

The description remains very on-point throughout the paragraphs. The only thing I can see to confuse you are the three sections for examples.

That separation, however, is not something I recall on other Our Monsters Are Different pages. I'm not sure who thought they were a good idea, or why. The last category might work as an Averted Trope list, but there's nothing to inform the reader it should be treated that way.

If you're arguing for "identifying trait", then just about none of the other names work. Trolls aren't defined by being different. Elves are far more often defined by a magic or nature connection. Gnomes aren't defined by being weird.

And it's not an inherently negative thing. That's just your subjective opinion, so stop presenting it as an absolute truth.

But if you want to follow the standard procedure for chaning names, come back with a proper wick check showing that the name promotes misuse or underuse. "I don't like it" isn't a valid reason to change a name on a page.

edited 1st Mar '17 1:56:38 AM by AnotherDuck

There are dwarves that are different though, they are not all the same

Like the dwarves in Elder Scrolls are a race of elves and are as tall as other elf races, the only similarities visually are that the men had beards. Tolken Dwarven women have beards yet most others including Warcraft do not.

edited 1st Mar '17 7:44:50 AM by Memers

There are trolls that are the same across several works, and elves that are worse than human baseline. Your argument does not apply only to the Dwarf trope.

(Also, I've never heard of Tolkien giving any of his female dwarves a beard, mostly because I've never seen him reference a single one. The movie trilogy (by Peter Jackson, not the original) makes a joke, but that's not Tolkien's joke.)

edited 1st Mar '17 9:07:21 AM by crazysamaritan

The War of the Jewels ("The Later Quenta Silmarillion: Of the Naugrim and the Edain", written ~1951),

And my point was they really should be written in the same vein, talk about their differences, going 'the same' route just leads to ZC Es.

edited 1st Mar '17 9:37:50 AM by Memers

First, thank you SO MUCH for the quote.

Second, can you do a Wick Check to show there's an unusual number of ZCE?

A lot of the examples on the page itself amount to just 'x is the usual dwarf archetype', which is basically a ZCE with a bit of word cruft.

edited 1st Mar '17 10:13:20 AM by Memers

A lot of the examples on every trope page amount to ZCE with a bit of word cruft.

Frankly, the fact that dwarves in Work A fit the stereotype of dwarves in fantasy literature isn't a particularly interesting piece of information.

Non-human race stereotypes are only interesting if the use of them in a particular work is notable for its variation, for being called out within the work itself, and so on. That Tolkien's Dwarfs (he preferred that plural) established the stereotype does not make them an example of the stereotype.

The key problems with the "Our [Race/Species] Are All [Different/The Same]" tropes are that:

• Most people want to use them to list any occurrence of [Race/Species] in a work, regardless of whether they fit (or do not fit) the stereotype addressed by the trope.
• They require the establishment of a baseline stereotype against which appearances of [Race/Species] are to be graded, when that may be entirely arbitrary.

As for the question of whether the race/species stereotype tropes are "good", I would refer the OP to Tropes Are Tools. They exist and we document their usage; we do not apply value judgments to them, at least not against what would be considered good/bad in Real Life. Also see the "is/ought problem" in formal philosophy.

Edited to add: To repair this situation, we need to address some questions:

• Are "Dwarf", or "Elf", or "Hobbit", or "Troll", or "Tree-person", or "Vampire" (to give us some diversity from Tolkien) tropes?
• If so, what objective criteria establish the pattern that the trope is based on?
  • The use of the name? By that distinction alone, "Black person" and "Coca-Cola" are tropes. Too broad, we can't use it.
  • The set of stereotypical attributes that make up a member of the categorized group? Okay, but if so, then won't most examples be non-examples, since they don't fit all the stereotypical attributes? If Work B's vampires sparkle in the sunlight and don't drink blood, are they really vampires?
  • The variation from some hypothetical generic standard for the group in question? This seems to be what we're going for in the "Our X Are Different" set of tropes.
  • The derivation of the race/species from some archetypal version that we identify, such as elves being based on Tolkien elves? In this case, the inspiration is the example, not the race/species itself.
  • The calling out in-universe of the repetitive nature of the stereotype? That is a much more meta concept that should probably be lumped into a single trope. It also excludes most examples.
• Since the use of monsters and non-human races in media is so varied, do we force all such tropes to identify a Trope Maker or Ur-Example that uses of it must be graded against? Who gets to decide? Tolkien may be the most common referent for fantasy races in Western literature, but not in Eastern.

edited 1st Mar '17 12:05:28 PM by Fighteer

We've had multiple TRS threads for Our Monsters Are Different, as well as individual subtropes. They've been repeatedly proven to be very healthy with minimal ZCEs, though I don't believe anyone ever did a wick check for Our Dwarves Are All the Same specifically. This thread is turning into a TRS, with attackers and defenders and the whole thing, but it's not a TRS thread, and there's still no wick check. So far there's been no evidence against the trope besides "I don't like it." That's not enough to do anything major to the trope—or worse, all the other Our Monsters Are Different tropes.

Now, if you just want to do some minor description cleanup or merge the Our Dwarves Are All the Same examples into one list (I think the current configuration encourages ZCEs), we can talk about that. But anything bigger needs a wick check before it can proceed any farther. In fact, if the thread keeps going the stealth-TRS route, it will get locked.

Agreed. I probably shouldn't have written all that. I see no problem established other than "I don't like it".

Well IMO I think that any dwarves, elves, gnomes, orcs, etc as examples in their respective tropes are fine however an example needs to go into detail on they do or do not follow X aspects of the stereotype.

And not file them into categories that make absolutely no sense, IE This page's

• These Dwarves are Rather Dwarivative
• These Dwarves are More Dwarvergent
• These Dwarves are Too Parodic or Bizarre to Have a Suitable Pun

And examples should never be

• The Mountain Dwarves in Dungeon Crawl are standard issue.
• The Dreamland Chronicles Just look at them (insert link to picture here)
• The Seven Dwarves in Once Upon a Time. Grumpy gets the most screen time for some reason and fits the trope to a T.

Explain what they are and if they follow Tolkien or Snow White varieties or something entirely different.

Answer are they a Proud Warrior Race? Are they miners? Tinkerers? Do they live underground? Are they short? Do they create lavish underground structures? Motivated by greed? Do they say 'something-ho' a lot? Do they use only axes? Do the women have beards? etc

All these are possibly traits of dwarves and only one or two actually follow every single trait, there is no 'standard issue', every single one is different.

edited 1st Mar '17 8:07:43 PM by Memers

Conclusion: they aren't the "same" in practice?

They have common very interchangeable traits but they are certainly not 'the same', the title lies. Most will follow either the Snow White or the Tolkien outline of them but they don't follow them entirely cookie cutter.

Like most who follow the Tolkien one do not have their dwarven women with beards or have them on a massive hunt for wealth to the point they mostly ignore the world around them. (The ring's corruption did it to them simmilar to what it did to the human kings.) Most don't have a natural resistance to magic as well like Tolken Dwarves.

World Of Warcraft dwarves follow Tolkien mostly but only resist frost magic, invented guns, women do not have beards and actually did originally come from stone which was a legend about dwarves among the humans in Lord Of The Rings.

edited 1st Mar '17 8:11:29 PM by Memers