Lindethiel wrote:
Anyway, we can debate artistic license and the bending of Tolkien's words to suit a modern audience till the cows come home, but that the direct root of the two topics we're deciphering. That is, Kili's beardless-ness and Gandalf and Galadriel... In actual fact, all 13 Dwarves have facial hair in some form or another. Kili's is a close juvenile stubble of course, but it's definitely facial hair. This could be the interpretation of his Dwarvish youthfulness? Me personally, I seem to remember Fili being the youngest in the book, and I'm more concerned with Kili looking the youngest. I could be remembering wrong though, of course.
Shame on me for not checking a web source, but the
Encyclopedia of Arda (who I assume would be correct about this much) notes that
The Hobbit seems to say Fili is the youngest -- but that the dates in
The Lord of the Rings rather speak to Kili being the youngest. But still, even granting that Dwarves live longer than regular Men, I think Kili was over 70 years old, which is plenty of time to grow something beyond stubble. Tolkien's Dwarves did not simply have beards of course, but long beards (LQS again)...
'The Naugrim were ever, as they still remain, short and squat in stature; they were deep breasted, strong in the arm, and stout in the leg, and their beards were long.' And we know that the Longbeards had beards that swept the floor before their feet (same source), their beards needing to be notably long compared to other Dwerrows.
And here's another interesting passage: however it is once again hard to tell if Tolkien rejected the following, or merely left it out of the final version of
Durin's Folk that appears in the book, for some other reason.
If considered as 'acceptable' (that is, not rejected) the description contains a bit more (well, even more than this actually):
'Dwarves remained young -- e.g. regarded as too tender for really hard work or for fighting -- until they were 30 or nearly that (Dain II was very young in 2799 (32) and his slaying of Azog was a great feat). After that they hardened and took on the appearance of age (by human standards) very quickly. By forty all Dwarves looked much alike in age, until they reached what they regarded as old age, at about 240. They then began to age and wrinkle and go white quickly (...)' Quote:
As for Galadriel and Gandalf, something that just occurred to me whilst re-watching this trailer just now, do the high Elves of Middle-Earth even know that the Istari are in fact Maia?
Galadriel knew Gandalf was from the West anyway, and considering Cirdan's words to Gandalf in Appendix B, and that he gave Narya to Gandalf to support him (Gandalf) in the weariness that he had taken upon himself, it seems arguable that Cirdan and Galadriel would have discussed a little more than merely from whence Gandalf came; or given Galadriel's insight in general, perhaps she herself divined something special about Mithrandir. From
Of The Rings Of Power And The Third Age:
'Even as the first shadows were felt in Mirkwood there appeared in the West of Middle-earth the Istari, whom Men called the Wizards. None knew at that time whence they were, save Cirdan of the Havens, and only to Elrond and to Galadriel did he reveal that they came Over the Sea.' And although the conversation wasn't necessarily about Maiarian status of course, there is also Galadriel's long discourse with Gandalf about 'goings on' in Aman, according to
The Elessar in Unfinished Tales.
In any case I think it would have been evident soon enough to the High Elves that Gandalf was not a mortal man, and I think, not an Elf -- or at least it was not the Elves who named him Gand
alf!