Anti-Dwarves

[Farael]

Well Alatar, there seems to be a mixup here, or I'm not understanding things correctly. You say:

Originally Posted by alatar

So anyway, to show what I mean, here is a somewhat short list of example dichotomies (note that some of the 'opposites' are not of the same species but serve a similar function):

Valar (Manwe) - Valar (Melkor)
Maia (Gandalf) - Maia (Sauron)
Elves - Orcs
Ents - Trolls
Humans (Aragorn) - Humans (Mouth of Sauron)
Hobbits (Sam) - Hobbits (Ted Sandyman)
Dogs (Huan) - Wolves (Red Maw)
Horses - Wargs
Eagles - Fell beasts
Army of the Dead - Wrights
...

However, you don't take "Dwarves-Dwarves" as an answer. Yet Valar-Valar, Maia-Maia are set there as opposites. Ok, so they are exceptions as they are higher beings. But then we have hobits-hobbits and I can't say that Sam and Ted Sandyman are as polar opposites as Elves-Orcs. Sandyman, even if a fool, was just that. Misguided and wrong, and possibly had a seed of "evil" in his heart. But he was still a hobbit and wouldn't have done unhobbit-like things (such as murder)

Finally, we have humans (Numenor) and humans (black numenoreans)... but what's the difference between that example and Dwarves (Good) and Dwarves (bad)? True, the black numenoreans were corrupted by Sauron, there's a house of men who was bought off by Morgoth... but what is "evil"?

To be actively corrupted by the "bad" guys, or to act in the bad guys' favour? Certainly, Boromir was not evil, but his ringlust was an evil feeling and it cost him his life. Conversely, we are told that the Easterlings were evil, and yet Sam wonders if they were trully evil to the last man or if they were misguided and lied to.

So if a house of dwarves is told that the Longbeards (who are fighting for the alliance) said that their halls are ugly and their beards are too short, and they decide to join in with Sauron, are they not just as "evil" and just as "opposite" as the Black Numenoreans, who were tempted with OTHER lies?

So if we say Sauron "Created" the Black Numenoreans, we can say that he "created" the evil dwarves as opposites of the good dwarves. It's just a different strategy he must've used after learning he could not corrupt them with "outside" influences like a ring.