Dwarves in Tolkien

[jack]

Someone recently linked to a helpful flowchart for visually recognising the different dwarves in the Hobbit movie. Although it was more like O(N/2) than O(log(N)), and I doubt it's very easy to refer to in the middle of an action scene.

However, they were never very differentiated from each other in the book, either. I remember:

Thorin was the in-charge one and had a surname.
Balin occasionally acted as a back-up to Thorin?
Bombur was the stereotypically fat one.
Dori got roped into carrying Bilbo
Fili and Kili were the young ones
Bifur, Bofur, Nori, Ori, Dwalin, Oin and Gloin seem to only be distinguished by being someone's brother or father.

Are there any distinguishing features between the dwarves I've missed? I can even remember which of Mablung and Damrod is which, but I never noticed anything particular about the dwarves.

Comments

[andrewducker]

I believe that that's at least part of the reason for the extended running time - actually fleshing out the Dwarves to have their own personalities and to be distinguishable.

[gerald_duck]

From my perspective, the most significant thing you've missed is that Gloin was Gimli's father.

[catyak]

You could distinguish those who survived the battle from those who didn't.

D

[jack]

True, but didn't Thorin and Fili and Kili die and everyone else survive? They were already distinguished. Mirabehn is right that Ori and Oin died with Balin in Moria, though, which I guess distinguishes them.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Oin and Gloin were the fire-lighters, I remember that.

[jack]

Good point! I saw that on the list at wikipedia and expected no-one to remember which ones it was, but if someone does, I'm going to count it as a distinguishing feature. We're doing fairly well now, even though most of the differences are little ones.