Quote:
Originally Posted by mark12_30
In contrast, what we have in The Hobbit are a rag-tag assemblage of -- excuse me, but they admitted it-- coal-diggers and iron-miners. Thorin's thirteen are not all dwarves at the peak of their culture and glory. They are slummers; survivors; stubborn dreamers; and rather unlikely adventurers.
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I don’t think the dwarves are quite that bad off. Thorin refers to bad times in the past:
After that we went away, and we have had to earn our livings as best we could up and down the lands, often enough sinking as low as blacksmith-work or even coalmining.
But those days are past. Thorin refers to the present quite differently:
‘ … And even now, when I will allow we have a good bit laid by and are not so badly off’—here Thorin stroked the gold chain round his neck ….
Thorin seems to me to be referring to himself and his companions as being what someone being less casual about it would call extremely wealthy. Later in Appendix A III in
The Lord of the Rings Tolkien describes the life of the dwarves at this time:
So Thráin and Thorin with what remained of their following (among whom were Balin and Glóin) remained in Dunland, and soon afterwards they removed and wandered in Eriador, until at last they made a home in exile in the east of the Ered Luin beyond the Lune. Of iron were most of the things that they forged in those days, but they prospered after a fashion and their numbers slowly increased. But as Thrór had said, the Ring needed gold to breed gold and of that or any other precious metal they had little or none.
… There he [Thorin] laboured long and trafficked, and gained such wealth as he could; and his people were increased by many of the wandering folk of Durin who heard of his dwelling in the west and came to him. Now they had fair halls in the mountains, and store of goods, and their days did not seem so hard, though in their songs they spoke ever of the Lonely Mountain far away.
No reason is given as to why Thrór, Thráin, and Thorin did not join their folk with the folk of their kinsfolk in the Grey Mountains.