Gimli

[Forkbeard]

If you were trying to get a friend or sister to go on a date with Gimli, how would you describe him?

[Lotesse]

Gruff, pugnacious yet not overtly so, secretly a romantic, built like a tank, excessively hairy with really piercing hazel eyes, no-nonsense, straightforward, slightly impatient as a rule, extremely loyal, a bit elitist for some reason, loves to drink all manner of beer & ale, passionate about his roots, and hung up on some crazy "white witch" they call Galadriel...

[CrazySquirrel]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

If you were trying to get a friend or sister to go on a date with Gimli, how would you describe him?

I would do no such thing. Small, hairy, not-really human and Ugh...

Now seriously.

By not-really human I mean that nobody even knows what becomes of their souls after death. Right? Perhaps they return to Aule, perhaps sease to exist entirely. They can't even become decent wraiths via their rings. Perhaps they have no fear? Hardly. More likely their fear are bound to their bodies. Body dies, fea also.

In ME everyone seems to be overly concerned about beeing with one's sweetheart for all eternity. Beren&Lutien, Aragorn&Arwen, you get the picture. What about dwarves? No human, elf or man has ever married a dwarf...

[Spock]

a short, bearded, hard working, stiff

[tolkienfan]

A strong, romantic warrior.

[Lotesse]

... with way too much bodyhair.

[rohirrim TR]

short with a extremely cool array of battleaxes and limited sense of humor

[Smeagol_fan]

Hmmm. Tough one.
If I actually wanted to convince somebody to date him:
Well, he's strong and can be a very loyal friend once you get too know him. He has an interesting collection of battle axes (as somebody said).
Not altogether convincing, but ah, well.
Corrected description:
Well, he's strong and can be a very loyal friend once you get too know him, though he's quite hairy. He has an interesting collection of battle axes (as somebody said). He seems to obsess over them a bit while also finding time for obsessing over a strange elf lady and counting how many orcs he killed, hoping to beat his friend, Legolas. He's also an extreme alchaholic.

Ok, then. yeah...

[Forkbeard]

Gimli son of Gloin is a unique character in the Lord of the Rings. Four of the principal characters, the hobbits, are “us”, the readers, in the sense that not only is the story told mostly from their perspective, but also in the sense that they are indeed every man. The other characters are “high”: of long, important, and distinguished lineage, heroic, and somewhat larger than life. Gimli fits both groupings. He is of distinguished lineage and is certainly heroic in every sense of the word. At the same time, when the narrative is no longer focused on the hobbits, it is Gimli’s perspective that we share, and it is Gimli who often voices what would have been our reaction to an event in the story.

Gimli is introduced into the story in the first chapters of the second book and the council at Rivendell, along with Boromir and Legolas. The last mention in the narrative is in Book Six: Many Partings where the fellowship is at long last sundered. It is Gimli who is given the last words and the last farewell at this moment.

Gimli exemplifies the high order of person in Tolkien’s world. He is descended from Gloin, one of the dwarves of The Hobbit, himself descended from Durin I, father of one of the houses of the dwarves, and the one mentioned the most often by Tolkien. Like Aragorn and Legolas, Gimli has a noble and long heritage to live up to. Unlike the others mentioned however, Gimli is not an heir to the kingdom or to the head of his house.

Gimli further exemplifies the heroic ideals in his complete loyalty to both lord and companion. His loyalty to his own people and lord is difficult to find in LoTR since Dain is not a character in the story. At the previously mentioned parting of the fellowship, however, Aragorn asks Gimli and Legolas to return to his kingdom someday, Gimli replies that he would so return if his lord allows him to.

His loyalty to Aragorn is also a tie that is not easily broken. He unquestionably follows Aragorn after Gandalf’s fall. He and Legolas await Aragorn’s decision after the sundering of the Fellowship at the end of Book I and continue to follow him though Gimli’s feet might fall off in pursuit of the captured hobbits through Book 3. His loyalty there is never put to the test. Until Aragorn takes the Paths of the Dead in Book 5, Gimli follows this lord without question. Gimli says of himself that the only thing that held him on that road was the very will of Aragorn; “…not for any friendship would I have the Paths of the Dead.” (Aragorn as Gimli’s “leader” may be taken loosely, but is certainly to be set against the background of the Germanic comitatus: for example in Beowulf Hrothgar’s “shoulder-companion” Æschere, obviously a close-friend and what we would call a bosom buddy, is also one of Hrothgar’s thegns. Other examples from Old English and Norse literature could be used to illustrate this point. Chiefly though, one could turn to the Old English poem The Wanderer, a poem imitated and adapted by Tolkien in LoTR as the song of the Rohirrim riders in The Two Towers, wherein the speaker bemoans himself a friendless man because he has lost his lord and friend. Against this background then the conversation of Gimli and Legolas who follow Aragorn through the Paths of the Dead in part by his will, and in part for love and friendship, is illuminated by these examples. Gimli and Legolas during this time consider Aragorn their lord and friend as these Old English examples illustrate.)

[Forkbeard]

Gimli’s loyalty to his comitatus is best illustrated by his attitude toward the hobbits. At the beginning of the Fellowship’s journey, Elrond and Gimli exchange a “battle” of proverbs. Elrond has just enjoined the Company that each can only go as far as he wills, as companions on the way to assist the Ringbearer, but none is charged with remaining with Frodo the whole way to Mount Doom. Gimli is the only one to reply: “Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” Elrond replies and Gimli again responds “Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart.” Though Elrond has the last word, this brief exchange illustrates profoundly Gimli’s character. It is just this sort of faithfulness to companions that Beowulf’s men lack in the eponymous poem and whom Wiglaf roundly condemns for that lack of faith.

One of the more humorous moments in the LoTR comes in the The Two Towers when the sundered companions are reunited at the destroyed gates of Isengard. In the midst of the formalities, Gimli is beside himself and can not contain himself. He is correct in pointing out however that he with Legolas and Aragorn have followed the two hobbits Merry and Pippin across the breadth of Rohan, even when all hope was lost. Much later in the work, it is again Gimli who saves Pippin, pulling him by the foot out from under a troll during the final battle. Here too, friendship and loyalty are Gimli’s characteristics, a steadfast dwarf.

Gimli’s heroic prowess in battle needs little comment. Like Aragorn, Eomer, and Legolas, the prowess of the heroes in battle is comparable to the prowess of other such heroes in the epic literature on which Tolkien drew such as the Aeneid, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Song of Roland.

But Gimli is not simply another example of an epic hero in the LoTR. When the hobbits from whose viewpoint the story is told are absent, it is Gimli’s perspective the reader is given. This is largely true of the chapters detailing the pursuit of the Uruk-hai, and at least at the beginning of the tale of the Paths of the Dead. In these chapters it is Gimli’s fear, his weariness, his wounds, that dominate the narrative. It is Gimli who professes joy at finding Merry and Pippin at Isengard, and it is Gimli who is given the final farewell to the others. It seems that when the hobbits are not present, it is Gimli with whom the reader is to be bond.

One of the often noted for his relationship with Legolas the elf. During the Second Age of Middle Earth, dwarves and elves lived in proximity to one another. The Dwarvish kingdom at Moria had the elves of Eregion on one side and the elves of Lothlorien on the other. With the awakening of the Balrog and later the war of the dwarves and orcs relations between the two races soured. As with much in LoTR, the great friendship between Gimli and Legolas heals age-old sundering of peoples (other examples being Aragorn and Arwen). The friendship, beyond merely being in the same company together, does not seem to develop until Book 3 when the three hunters pursue the Uruk Hai and grows from there through the competition of orcs killed through various battles, to the promise to visit wonders together. Eventually, in the LoTR appendices, the reader is informed that Legolas and Gimli depart Middle Earth together and Tolkien in his Letters notes that Gimli was received in Valinor and was an exception. And so Tolkien healed the brokenness of the races.

Related to this theme is the remarkable relationship of Gimli and Galadriel. The friction between the elves and dwarves is illustrated clearly when the Fellowship enters Lothlorien and in order to proceed Gimli alone is singled out to be blindfolded through the land. The reader is not informed as to why this must occur. Gimli naturally protests and is ready to back up his words with his axe. Later, before Galadriel, Gimli poetically praises Galadriel and on the Fellowship’s departure from the land the only gift that Gimli requires are locks of Galadriel’s golden blonde hair. Such asexual love is reminiscent of medieval Romance. A small step from Romance is the late medieval development of the love between man and woman in Romance as a spark of the love between the soul and God. In many ways Gimli’s adoration of Galadriel seems inspired and related to this latter expression, and some commentators have noted a parallel between Galadriel and Mary, the mother of Christ in late medieval Catholic devotion. These overtones are certainly present but the adoration of Galadriel serves as well to heal as much as anything else in the context of the story.

Gimli further is one of the most passionate of characters. One on the one hand he is ready to defend himself and his beliefs with recourse to his axe frequently such as the previously mentioned entrance to Lothlorien or again later in the exchange between Gimli and Eomer on the plains of Rohan over “the Lady of the Wood.” Gimli however is capable not just of anger and speaking with arms. He is also a poet. His words to Galadriel have already been mentioned. After the Battle of Helms Deep, Gimli rhapsodizes about the caves he has found in language so moving that even Legolas says that he would like to see these caves. And it is in the dark of Moria that Gimli begins to chant a tale reminiscent in tone of the dwarves’ song in first chapters of The Hobbit, but this chant moves Sam, fascinated by things Elvish, to express a desire to learn Gimli’s song. It is an interesting note that three warrior characters are also poets or at least sing: Gimli, Aragorn, and Legolas each is given a scene where they sing for the Fellowship. This is reminiscent of the Warrior-Poets of Old Norse tradition.

It is Gimli who in spite of danger and loss expresses the beauty of the Mirrowmere and takes Frodo to gaze on it. It is Gimli who marvels at the construction of Minas Tirith. It is Gimli who expresses his joy and frustration at finding Merry and Pippin. Throughout, Gimli the warrior is also a passionate dwarf and poet, fierce in battle, fierce in loyalty to lord and friend, fierce in appreciation of beauty.

[Spock]

...whew

[CrazySquirrel]

Now, you tricked everybody, Forkbeard!
What was your opening?

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

If you were trying to get a friend or sister to go on a date with Gimli, how would you describe him?

You specifically asked what one would say to A FRIEND OR SISTER to send her on a ROMANTIC DATE with Gimli

Now anything of your two-pages praise for the Dwarf (and well-deserved one) doesn't remedy the fact that he IS NOT A SUITABLE MATCH for a MORTAL GIRL.

"Unfair question" as Gollum used to say...

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by CrazySquirrel

Now, you tricked everybody, Forkbeard!
What was your opening?

You specifically asked what one would say to A FRIEND OR SISTER to send her on a ROMANTIC DATE with Gimli

Now anything of your two-pages praise for the Dwarf (and well-deserved one) doesn't remedy the fact that he IS NOT A SUITABLE MATCH for a MORTAL GIRL.

"Unfair question" as Gollum used to say...

Not really. The assignment I had was to do a character analysis, and the question I started with was an attempt to try and turn Gimli every which way to do the analysis. I just posted what I came up with in the end. And I'd invite comments on it too!

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by CrazySquirrel

Now anything of your two-pages praise for the Dwarf (and well-deserved one) doesn't remedy the fact that he IS NOT A SUITABLE MATCH for a MORTAL GIRL.

Ooh, I don't know... aside from being on the short side, Gimli is not that unsuitable. I've become really impressed with our little axe-weilder in my last LoTR-reread so I wouldn't really mind a date with someone like Gimli, as long as he doesn't take me to Orc-chopping Fest 2005 or something similar.

Very interesting analysis, Forkbeard. A nice read.

[Elf Music]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

If you were trying to get a friend or sister to go on a date with Gimli, how would you describe him?

Good things come in small packages?

[Curubethion]

Hmm...strong, dedicated, perseverant...and always ready to kill some orcs!

[agoroth]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

... with way too much bodyhair.

then no one go out with him. lol

[Spock]

You realize over a month went by without a post here? Most dull.

[rohirrim TR]

yes. its too bad, Gimli OWNS!