racial characteristics

i find it odd that with the myriad of mythological sources available to western civilization our community seems to have a basic agreed upon persona for each racial class. if we choose the brothers Grim we see that there was little distinction between dwarves and elves, however dwarves were very distinct creatures in Norse mythology such as that from Snorri Sturluson who's poetry formed the basis for many of the germanic middle high German poetry such as the nibelungenlied. and can be seen fairly intact through Richard Wagner's Ring cycles written between 1842 and 1874. these mythological examples have little in common with the English Arthurian  legends which involve more fey and druid like creatures. and of course none of these share the tong and cheek expressions of Shakespeare's depictions. yet it seems that the J.R.R. Tolkien Lord of the Rings characterization is almost unanimous in fantasy circles even over other contemporary authors such as C.S. Lewis.

i dont know much of tolkiens stuff, i place all mine after the Warhammer universe

bansisdead wrote: Im a tree hugging, beer guzzling, vegetarian ork...

My own interpretation of Tolkien is that it is very much based on white chritianity.  There is a god, lluvator, who is the creator, he has a host of angels called ainur (forgive my spelling) who aid him in creating middle earth, some of these ainur (the Valar) go to middle earth and create life (the children of lluvator humans and elves.  Dwarves were adopted kids created by one of the valar and given life by lluvator)) and guide it, one of these Valar named Melkor thinks he should rule this domain, he is a bit bad, corrupts the Valars work, spreads hatred, creates orks and gobos, corrupts maiar (lesser ainur) into balrogs and other evil spirits, hires sauron blah blah.  Minus the sauron, orks and balrogs it sound very much like some of the stories in the bible.
  Tolkiens ideas seem to be based on his own devout religious ideas, I believe.  I would even go as far as to say his concepts are racist, as all the goodies are white, whilst he himself describes the baddie humans as swarthy (of dark complexion)  and then theres the women...I think tolkiens ideas are a reflexion of societies own ingnorance.  Tolkien lovers, pls dont be offended as this is only my opinion, based on his works.