Needs Help: Our Dwarves Are All The Same

I made a post a few months back on Trope Talk about Our Dwarves Are All The Same and I was told, and I quote: "Either the OP needs to start a TRS with detailed evidence of misuse, or can it." Well I sat on this for a while but I've finally decided to do exactly that.

I'm going to start by establishing, with as little ambiguity as possible, exactly what my grievances with this trope are. The previous thread went in circles specifically because I did not make clear what my problem with this trope was. For absolute clarity, I'm going to list several points that describe the ways in which Our Dwarves Are All the Same is in need of fixing, as judged by TV Tropes' rules on trope pages and trope naming. After this will also be included a Wick Check.

Our Dwarves Are All the Same is a trope in need of repair. I cite these reasons as evidence. The format for these reasons will be a short phrase describing my grievance as a heading, followed by a quote from the relevant Adminsitrivia section, and lastly by a lengthier description of how I think the guideline I have cited applies to the point I'm bringing up in plain text.

The title of the page, the information that the page's title is supposed to convey, is that dwarves are not very different from one another. This is despite the fact that the page is divided into three sections, describing degrees to which dwarves in fantasy are different from one another. The first section is for dwarves that are "the same". The second section is for dwarves that are "divergent", and the third is for dwarves that are not "the same" in the slightest, although it's also a section for parodies of the first section (as I'll mention later, the entire organization of the page is just awful). The first section, at least, does follow the trope as described by it's title, but the latter sections are gross misuses; the second folder ranges from subversions to downplayed examples of the trope while the third folder ranges from averted examples to...not examples at all. No other trope pages have seperate sections for the ways in which a trope is played; we just have entries by genre with "subverted", "averted", etc. before them. I attribute this to a fault in the trope's central concept. The trope page should simply contain examples divided by medium (Anime, Literature, etc.) and any dwarf character mentioned that is not "the same" would count as a subversion, aversion, etc. Of course that alone is not a solution to the problem, because the very nature of what is or is not a straight example of the trope is unclear.

Our Dwarves are all "The Same". "The Same" as what? Other dwarves. So, in essence, the title of this Trope is "Our Dwarves are Dwarves". You could boil that down to simply "Dwarves". This is a double violation of the cited snowclone problem above: Our Dwarves Are All the Same is, in essence, simply a list dwarves (which my next point is also about), and using a word other than "different" is discouraged. The Trope should simply be titled Our Dwarves Are Different.

This is far and above the most blatant issue with this trope page. Not only does the very first entry (going from top to bottom) contain a subversion, but literally all but one entry in the Anime & Manga tab under the supposedly "derivative" category includes information about some manner in which the stereotypical dwarf is not being conformed to. No one seems to be in agreement on what a dwarf character in fantasy has to be in order to count as "the same", or how far away from it they have to be to be playing with the "Sameness". This is the the main thing I gathered from the Wick Check. It's probably because the "Sameness" is undefined, which leads me to my final point.

This is the logical conclusion of all of my previous points. Because the trope's name and description do not adequately describe parameters to define the trope, it's impossible to give it wiggle room within those parameters. Because the title is a tautology, the concept that it's defined by is circular logic. Finally, because the Trope Title is inconsistent with the trope page's actual content, it gives no indication of the scope of application of the trope's concept. For example: say there is a fantasy setting with dwarves that have scottish accents, big braided beards, stout bodies that are about four feet tall, a fondness for drink and industry, and preference for axes and hammers...but other than that they resemble people of Persian descent instead of the more typical Nordic. What relationship does this have with the trope? Is it played straight because they check off the majority of dwarf stereotypes? Downplayed, also because they check off the majority of dwarf stereotypes? Averted, because they don't check off every single dwarf stereotype, and therefore are, by definition, not the same as other dwarves? If a specific dwarf is not the same as all the other dwarves in a setting but is very similar to dwarves in other settings, is that a subversion or a double subversion? If a dwarf is not at all like the Tolkein-inspired stereotype, does that even count as an aversion, or is that simply not the trope at all? Whether or not someone could think of decent answers to these questions on their own isn't the point, because that's already happened. One person might define one group of dwarves as "averting" the "sameness" when another person would call it playing it straight, when the two groups of dwarves are almost identical. The problem is that Our Dwarves Are All the Same does not give anyone assistance to answer any of these questions whatsoever.

The fact that this much variance between fantasy universes exists shows that the trope is inherently flawed. Dwarves aren't all the same, it's simply a false statement. Dwarves are different from one another and are different in one depiction to another in some subtle ways and some obvious ones. In Lord of the Rings, dwarves go armed and armored into any situation. In the Witcher games, you meet plenty of unarmed dwarves in plain clothes or even formal wear. In Warhammer, Dwarfs never shave. In Neverwinter Nights 2 and a lot of other Dungeons and Dragons licensed material, dwarves sometimes have beards without mustaches, implying that shaving is allowed. In Overwatch, Torbjorn has a cartoonishly gigantic upper body to the point that his hands almost reach his feet at rest. In Warcraft, Dwarves have slightly more human proportions and their hands rest just above their knees. As mentioned above, Khal from the Dungeons and Dragons comics was ostracized for being a poet, but in Lord of the Rings every single one of the dwarves in Thorin's company was a musician.

Although I admit it could be said that dwarves are more similar to one another (both in one fantasy universe and between different ones) when compared to humans, elves, or halflings, the traits they share are not the sharing of traits in and of itself. I can't think of a single example of a dwarf who explicitly prides himself on being hard to tell apart from other dwarves. Dwarves in fantasy are often proud of upholding longstanding traditions, sure, but that's not the same thing.

If the idea that dwarves are all the same is brought up at all, it's usually as a parody of the tendency for dwarves in poorly written fantasy fiction to have no characteristics outside of stereotypes that Tolkein established with Gimli and Thorin Oakenshield (or, being perfectly honest, stereotypes that John-Rhys Davies established when he played Gimli.)

Our Dwarves Are All the Same should be replaced with Our Dwarves Are Different. The description would list both typical dwarf personality traits and typical dwarf cultural traits in easily digestible bullet points (instead of starting with Example As Thesis like it is now) to give a clear and specific identity to the trope that the entries could be compared to. The other information is mostly interesting fluff about linguistics and Tolkein's writing process, so leaving it in seems harmless enough.

Our Dwarves Are All the Same is a fundamentally broken, unhelpful trope that is simultaneously vague and too rigid to use. It doesn't help describe how dwarves in fantasy fiction behave or are characterized, and it doesn't clarify at what point it would be considered unusual for them not to behave/be characterized in that manner. Because it doesn't define any kind of meaningful state that dwarves in fantasy exist in, the trope page is simply a dumping ground of entries regarding dwarves in fantasy in general, and that is not a trope.

I apologize for the fact that "dwarf" doesn't sound like a word anymore.

Opening and clocking.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I'd say clarify the trope description to be about stereotypical fantasy dwarves - you know, beardsx,battleaxes, mining, love of booze, and so on. The question is whether to keep the list of subversions. Should it be a separate section like it is now, or should there only be one example list with subversions marked as such? I'm in favor of getting rid of the "too strange to classify" section and the bad dwarf puns.

edited 16th Jul '17 3:27:04 PM by PegasusKnightmare

I agree with this. I'm not sure about the rename, but I don't have strong reasons to say it shouldn't happen.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

To be perfectly clear, I don't trust OP. The "wick check" lists at least one page this page doesn't wick to, which makes it seem like it's fishing for inconsistencies. The post admits that dwarves are more similar than other fantasy races, which suggests the tope name is accurate. It lists the LotR films as establishing the stereotype, which is just wrong.

The description of the trope, while it could use a bit of retouching, doesn't seem unclear at all to me. I think the categorisation should get gone. It doesn't really add anything other than confusion. At most there could be an Aversions folder, but with actual aversions rather than just examples that have a couple different traits.

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I would take this a step further and say that instead of the confusing (and terrible-pun-having) categories, it should be organized similarly to Our Elves Are Better, where the various dwarf "types" are listed in detail, so that individual examples can be checked against the trope.These definitions would simultaneously be more distinct yet less strict than the existing entry, allowing for a much stronger definition in general. Here's a simplified mock-up of how I think this would look:

• Mountain Dwarves: "Typical" dwarves; the most common type. Based on Tolkein's dwarves and their derivatives. Braided and decorated beards. Honor, especially family honor, is extremely important. Fondness for alcohol. Usually wears chainmail as armor, sometimes never seen without it. Loves booze. Hates or at least is suspicious of arcane magic but usually alright with divine magic. Lives underground in halls of stone. Excellent blacksmiths, masons, and gemcutters. Greed is a common vice. Norse and Semitic (primarily Jewish) influence. Hates trees. Staunch traditionalists. Most likely to not get along with elves.
  • Cultural Examples: Middle-Earth's Khazad, Warcraft's Clan Bronzebeard, The Witcher's Dwarves, Forgotten Realms' Shield/Gold Dwarves, Warhammer's Dwarfs.
  • Individual Examples: Gimli, Thorin Oakenshield, Khelgar Ironfist, Bruenor Battlehammer, Magni Bronzebeard, Zoltan Chivay, Yarpen Zigrin, Harsk, Bardin Goreksson.

• Wild Dwarves: Less civilized dwarves; essentially Mountain Man meets Barbarian Hero as a cultural trait. Frequently shirtless (or Fur Bikini for the women). Often heavily tattooed. Usually wearing furs as both armor and clothes. More likely to have unadorned beards without braids or other styling. Frequent practitioners of shamanistic or druidic style "nature" magic. More liberal and less traditional than Mountain Dwarves; often they are outcasts or left willingly. A common variant is the "arctic" dwarf; they live in the cold north and have Inuit influences. Sometimes, these dwarves are not a separate culture but rather are feral warriors of the Mountain Dwarves, similar to Viking Berserkers. Most likely of all the dwarf varieties to be friends with elves, except for the "berserker" types, who are just as likely as Mountain Dwarves.
  • Cultural Examples: Warcraft's Clan Wildhammer, Forgotten Realms' Wild/Arctic Dwarves and Battleragers, Ashes of Creation's Nikua, Pillar's of Eternity's Boreal Dwarves, Warhammer's Slayers.
  • Individual Examples: Sagani, Falstad Wildhammer, Shardra Geltl, Gotrek Gurnisson, Thibbledorf Pwent.

• Dark Dwarves: Evil Counterpart race of the dwarves. Common backstories include mass enslavement and/or experimentation. They often have demonic heritage. Cruel slave drivers. Excessively greedy. Backstabbing and dishonorable. Often live even deeper underground than the Mountain Dwarves. Usually characterized by dark and unnatural skin tones such as gray or purple. White hair is common. In contrast to the religious Mountain Dwarves and the spiritual Wild Dwarves, they are often atheistic and hate their gods. Frequently make use of arcane magic, which often puts them at odds with other dwarves. Although they also hate elves, this isn't as pronounced as it is with the Mountain Dwarves because they hate everybody else. Despite all this, they are sometimes subject to Dark Is Not Evil.
  • Cultural Examples: Forgotten Realms' Duergar, Warcraft's Clan Dark Iron, Warhammer's Chaos Dwarfs, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup's Deep Dwarves,
  • Individual Examples: Dagran Thaurissan, Urgraz, Astragoth Ironhand.

After this would be the examples, all in one list organized into tabs by medium. There would be none of those bizzare categories with their terrible puns. The straight, averted, subverted, and everything in between entries would all be together, separated only be medium of origin, just like damn near every other TV Tropes page in existence. Here are some examples of...examples, and how they would change as a result of all this.

From The Witcher - Geralt's Other Friends, Lovers, and Allies:

OLD:

• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Played with. In the games, he has all the standard dwarf tropes with the Scottish accent, preference for axes, and love of booze, but he has experience in a lot of other not so dwarfy things as the Hidden Depths entry above shows.

The problem with this is that Zoltan's relationship with this trope is "played with" because of the ways in which he is characterized by things that aren't part of the trope at all. Although certain characteristics are part of the trope, doing things that aren't covered by the trope at all isn't even averting it, it's just not relevant to the trope in the first place.

NEW:

• Our Dwarves Are Different: Dwarves in the Witcher fall under the classic "Mountain Dwarf" type, and Zoltan is no exception, although he is a downplayed example in several respects. He does have a Badass Beard, but it's short compared to dwarves in most fantasy fiction. He does love alcohol, but so do most characters in the series. He doesn't hate elves at all, and actually supports the Scoia'Tael more than most of Geralt's friends. He wields an axe in the first and third Witcher games, but his signature weapon, Sihil, is a sword.

This version of the example describes in more detail his relationship to stereotypical dwarf characteristics, while leaving out the parts that don't relate to it. Here's an example of the opposite:

From Neverwinter Nights:

OLD:

• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. He doesn't even have a beard!

This is a Zero Context Example. It implies that having a beard is the only identifying trait of dwarves, or that having a beard is what makes someone a dwarf. Since BRIAN BLESSED!!!!! isn't a dwarf (although the fact that he's never played one is a tragedy), the latter is obviously not true.

NEW:

• Our Dwarves Are Different: Averted. Grimgnaw lacks any facial hair, prefers his fists to axes or hammers, and trades the typical booming voice for a creepy, raspy one.

This example describes the ways in which Grimgnaw differs from the trope. Associating him with one of the sub-types is unnecessary, because he's already an aversion of the qualities common to all of them.

From Warhammer: Other Factions:

OLD:

• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. They are very different from the stereotype.

Again, Zero Context Example. Other than that, this example is actually fine as it applies to the current version of Our Dwarves Are All the Same, if only it actually described how they were different.

NEW:

• Our Dwarves Are Different: They fit the "Dark Dwarf" type: magic-using, evil outcasts who the other dwarfs hate. The only part of the trope they lack is the unusual skin color, but they make up for it by having orc-like tusks and protruding lower jaws.

This example refers to a specific part of the Our Dwarves Are Different page, so it isn't really labelled as a subversion, aversion, etc. It is playing the "Dark Dwarf" type straight. The part about the Babylonian influences is already covered under Fantasy Counterpart Culture and has nothing to do with them being dwarves (or dwarfs as the case may be), because "being similar to the Norse" is only a "Mountain Dwarf" characteristic. A comparison is also drawn between the "gray skin" part of the trope and the unusual, orc-like faces of the Chaos Dwarfs to show how they convey similar meanings (namely, they're visual indicators that the "dark dwarves" are twisted and evil versions of regular dwarves).

I hope all this shows how much clearer this trope would be if it was changed in a manner similar to what I've described.

edited 16th Jul '17 2:34:23 AM by pocketlint60

In response to Another Duck:

• Which wick are you talking about? Did I make a mistake somewhere?

• Although I do admit that dwarves are more similar to one another than most fantasy races, that doesn't undermine my point. My point is that the defining quality of the original trope is the lack of any variance. The description is contradictory because it seems to indicate that variance doesn't exist at all, which is also limitting to the trope. I understand that "Our Dwarves Are Very Similar" doesn't have the same ring to it but it's much more accurate.

• I did not say that the LOTR films began the stereotypes about dwarves. What I meant is that the LOTR films are some of the most popular movies ever made, and I don't think it's a leap in logic to assume that more people have seen the movies than read the books. So it's also not a leap in logic to assume that a lot of Tolkein-inspired fantasy fiction was made by people who saw the movies and didn't read the books. I was just trying to indicate that the films had a big impact on this trope. If nothing else, you have to admit that they probably popularized the Scottish accents.

• I think creating a separate folder for aversions is a bad idea. The vast majority of pages don't do anything even similar to that, and none of the "Our Monsters Are Different" pages do it as far as I remember. How about we just put straight examples, subversions, aversions, and everything else all together and group examples by their medium of origin...like almost every other TV Tropes page ever written?

edited 16th Jul '17 2:46:34 AM by pocketlint60

Yes. Your mock-up is very nice as well. The only mistake I see there is that Witcher seems to be two examples (dwarf culture) and (Zoltan the Dwarf) smushed into a single example line. Overall, this sort of reorganization is exactly what I think this page needs.

A Wick Check (link there) is expected to be a statistical representation of all pages that link back to the page. (wiki + link = wick, as well as Morgan Wick) From that page: "As to randomly picking wicks, this is because going in alphabetical order is more likely to run across the results of some clean-up attempt, and generally taking a wick's attributes into consideration will likely skew the results."

The wicks you've checked look cherry-picked. The process is supposed to go; hypothesis, design sample collection, collect and analyze samples, present conclusions. It looks like you had made a conclusion, then presented samples that matched your conclusion.

It is a leap of logic, because most of your wicks predate the movies. For example, Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura came out the same year as the films, so they couldn't have used the films as their basis.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Yes, their similarity does undermine your point. The point isn't that they're all exactly the same with absolutely zero variance. Saying they have to be exactly the same is like saying the moment you have two monsters that aren't different, the trope name is inaccurate and should change. The point of the trope is that they tend to be very stereotyped.

Neither you nor I claimed you said those films began the stereotypes, so don't imply that. The words you and I used were "established".

Fiction is generally written by writers, and writers, especially those who actually get works published, tend to be avid readers. Fantasy authors are far more than likely to have read Tolkien's books than the average person.

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After giving this some thought, I realized that I have to admit to being wrong about two things.

First of all, you're right about the LOTR movies. I don't have an explanation or excuse, I was just plain incorrect. I made a statement about the influence those movies had that was simply false, and I even gave evidence that contradicted myself. Most of the dwarf stereotypes pre-date the films. In fact, John-Rhys Davies' Gimli was actually criticized for adopting many dwarf stereotypes that Lord of the Rings didn't include, but became popular in fantasy that came after. I apologize for making a completely inaccurate assumption about the origin of these stereotypes.

But you know what else I was wrong to say? That dwarves are more stereotyped. It's true that dwarves are stereotyped, heavily even, but not significantly more so than elves, orcs, ogres, halflings, or any other humanoid fantasy race. The differences between the Mountain Dwarves and Wild Dwarves that I outlined above are not less different than the differences between High Elves and Wood Elves. High Elves and Wood Elves are both commonly portrayed as skinny, pretty, pointy-eared archers who are good with magic and have superiority complexes. Mountain Dwarves and Wild Dwarves are both commonly portrayed as barrel-chested, butch, short-statured axe or hammer users with surly personalities. This is also true on an individual level; I can think of just as many dwarves who are none of those latter things as I can elves who are none of those former things. I can think of just as many beardless dwarves as I can bearded elves, in other words.

Herein lies the problem with Our Dwarves Are All the Same. Describing things as similar is not, in and of itself, a trope. It's what makes that similarity a trope. It's the same reason that we have a page for The South Paw, but we got rid of the page "Everyone is Right Handed". The former describes what certain people are, while the latter is what they aren't. "All The Same" is implicitly diminutive and limitting; it really only says what dwarves aren't without saying anything about what they are. This is exactly what my wick check shows: that there is no consensus on what way dwarves are the same. Some examples are purely literal ("these dwarves are the same because they're palette swaps"), some move the goalposts ("these dwarves are the same because they have similar personalities even though they have different appearances"), and some are circular logic that relies on out of context knowledge to make sense ("these dwarves are the same because there are other dwarves that are like them").

This is probably caused by the fact that the trope is defined by a gigantic number of characteristics. Even though it wouldn't roll of the tongue as well, a more accurate name for this trope would be "Our Dwarves Are All Four Feet High, Have Big Beards, Like Alcohol, Are Gruff, Hate Elves, Live Underground, And Like Axes". Contrast this with Our Elves Are Better again. "Better than you" is not the only trait common to elves, but it i's definitely the most important, core trait of them. Imagine if the trope was "Our Elves Are Feminine, Do Not Like Dwarves, Live In Secret Parts Of The Woods, And Think They're Better Than Everyone, So You Can't Argue With Them Which Means That A Lot Of People Dislike Them". Instead of that, we have separate tropes for all of those common traits of elves, and the page that is specifically about elves themselves is about the characteristic that, if removed, would make elves In Name Only. It's true that most dwarves like booze, but a dwarf that doesn't like booze isn't going to not "feel" like a dwarf just because of that. The Our Dwarves Are Different page should be about that core value that makes dwarves work, and nothing else.

The question is then, what is that trait? Well, let's look at a similar page for reference: Our Orcs Are Different. The "Tolkeinesque" and "Blizzard-style" orcs are, on the surface, nothing alike. The former are ugly inside and out, stupid, and have no culture. The latter are much more visually appealling, often very wise or at least savvy, and have a highly spiritual society. So how come the Blizzard orc became so widespread when it seems like it has so little in common with it's namesake? Because the thing that both types have in common is the real core trait: the primitive element. The Tolkeinesque and Blizzardish versions of orcs are a negative and positive portrayal, respectively, of a "savage" culture. They're the Gauls, Mohawk, Vandals, Maori, Zulu, Goths, and Mongols all rolled into one. That "savagery" is the one element that you can't remove from their identity without changing it completely. On the other hand, that hard definition is what makes it flexible; an orc who is cultured, civilized, and refined is notably different from other orcs because "other orcs" is a simple and well understood concept.

In the same way that you can make your orcs blue instead of green and they'll still be orcs as long as that savage identity is part of who they are, you can make a dwarf beardless, or make him like elves, or make him dislike beer, or make him live above ground, and he'd still be a dwarf. So what can you not take away from them? Their stoutness. Merriam-Webster's dictionary has four definitions for Stout: Strong of character as in obstinate and uncompromising, physically strong as in sturdy and vigorous, forceful as in violent and powerful, or bulky in body as in broad in proportion to length. Dwarves in fantasy that aren't those things are exceptions that prove the rule just as much as an elf who doesn't think highly of himself, a gnome that isn't strange at all, or an orc that is civilized and cultured. That is the only thing that Our Dwarves Are Different should be about, not about the fact that a similarity exists at all.

All that being said, it is true that dwarves have other very common traits. The thing is though, those traits are separate tropes. Some of them already exist as separate pages and some don't. Some of the tropes aren't even dwarf specific. "Dwarves have Scottish accents" isn't a trope, that's just a specific application of Violent Glaswegian or Brave Scot. On the other hand, "Dwarves and Magic Don't Mix" is common enough that I think it deserve to be it's own trope. We already have one of these, actually. Dwarves have a tendency to be constantly, vocally proud to be a dwarf. That's why they're the namesake for "Have I Metioned I Am a Dwarf Today". What I'm saying is that dwarves have so many common quirks that they're worth several different trope pages instead of one that tries to lump them all together as if they are only notable in aggregate.

This is what I meant to accomplish with my wick check as well. Notice that the trope simply has too many meanings. These dwarves aren't the same because they use bows instead of axes even though they fulfill every other stereotype. These dwarves are the same despite the fact that the gnomes are the masters of craftsmanship in that universe, and the dwarves are best at business. This is despite the fact that these dwarves apparently aren't the same...when they share a similar association with banking. These dwarfs are the same, even though they have a defining gimmick that sets them apart from every other portrayal of dwarves out there (Revenge Before Reason to be specific). You can't call any of these conclusions wrong, exactly, it's just that they're all deciding, individually, how specific and how literal the meaning of the trope should be. It's the wiki equivalent of Calvin Ball.

So to summarize: dwarves are not all the same, and the only reason we treat them like they are is because that's what the trope is called. Various dwarves (both individuals and cultures of them) throughout fantasy have their distinct qualities either exaggerated or removed when being catalogued on TV Tropes to better fit the "sameness" definition. Even if they were all the same (which they aren't), saying so is not a meaningful trope itself, it's simply noticing that a trope exists. As a result of all this, examples leading back to Our Dwarves Are All the Same are not in agreement about what the actual trope is about, and basically every single wick I've cited defines "the same" to different degrees, meaning that the trope itself has no identity. A solution to this would be to change Our Dwarves Are All the Same to something along the lines of Our Dwarves Are Stouter, and create new pages for less core, but still common, dwarf traits.

I think my eyes are going to glaze over at the level of needless repetition in this discussion.

The key point I think of the trope name is that Dwarves tend to be depicted very similarly through out all sorts of fiction. Which is strange and notable.

Whether that's a good name or not I don't know, but Our Dwarves Are Different is not a good name since it's not common.

Also, how is that even a trope?

I've always felt the Our Whatever Are Different trope names are poor since if they are different, then why are they a trope?

Because they don't exist in Real Life and are instead a stock fantasy species.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Also, this particular snowclone has turned out to work well for how examples are written. As a whole, it's been brought up to discussion many times, but from what tropers have determined, it's a trope name family that works despite how some people think it shouldn't.

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The "...are different" iteration that is. Variations on that theme are more questionable.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

What I'm disputing is Dwarves being more similar. I simply disagree with that assumption. Dwarves have a distinct gimmick and do get typecast often, but not more than others. I can think of just as many non-stereotypical dwarves as I can elves, orcs, vampires, werewolves, etc. Dwarves being similar to one another isn't itself a trope for the same reason "Elves Are Blondes" isn't a trope: being seen frequently isn't enough to make something a trope. The common thing that Dwarves are is a trope, not the fact that something common exists. Namely, being stout in every sense of the word like I said.

As for the actual name "Our Dwarves Are Different", I used this for reference. Apparently using names other than "Are Different" is discouraged.

edited 31st Jul '17 9:49:30 PM by pocketlint60

Clock expired; closing.

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