Talk:Middle-earth peoples

Ungoliant
If Tom Bombadill is here then so should Ungoliant be? And if the eagles, then so should the spiders like Shelob. Fig (talk) 23:10, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added most of the other creatures that possess sentience and/or the ability of speech. Not sure how we're defining "peoples" but if these seem out of place, perhaps the article title could be changed to "Middle-earth races." I feel this information should be kept together somewhere, as it is a good resource. Rajah1 (talk) 17:11, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't understand why dragons are here.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Shape-shifters
I'm very disappointed that the Shape-shifters were deleted. If Tom Bombadil is allowed there, wich is a humanoid. Then they should be allowed too. There are some references that he is possibly more a bear than a man.

Beorn

''"What is Beorn? In The Hobbit Bilbo calls him a man, yet he was able to shapeshift into a bear. Something doesn't jive there." (-Thingol)

Gandalf gives quite a description of Beorn in The Hobbit:

''He is a skin-changer. He changes his skin; sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. I cannot tell you much more, though that ought to be enough. Some say that he is a bear descended from the great and ancient bears of the mountains that lived there before the giants came. Others say that he is a man descended from the first men who lived before Smaug or the other dragons came into this part of the world, and before the goblins came into the hills out of the North. I cannot say, though I fancy the last is the true tale. He is not the sort of person to ask questions of. At any rate he is under no enchantment but his own. He lives in an oak-wood and has a great wooden house; and as a man he keeps cattle and horses which are nearly is marvellous as himself. [...] I once saw him sitting all alone on the top of the Carrock at night watching the moon sinking towards the Misty Mountains, and I heard him growl in the tongue of bears; 'The day will come when they will perish and I shall go back!' That is why I believe he once came from the mountains himself.''


 * Sorry but that is nothing but original research. Beorn is described as a man with the ability to shape-shift into a bear. There is no evidence he is a distinct species. There is also no evidence his descendants maintained the ability. GimliDotNet ( Speak to me,  Stuff I've done )  14:36, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Dragons
Deleted the last part that said dragons were mostly died out.

In letter 144, Tolkien wrote this:

''Some stray answers. Dragons. They had not stopped; since they were active in far later times, close to our own. Have I said anything to suggest the final ending of dragons? If so it should be altered. The only passage I can think of is Vol.I p. 70: ‘there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough’. But that implies, I think, that there are still dragons, if not of full primeval stature….''--84.197.216.217 (talk) 16:45, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

"All living things were divided in that day"
Currently the main division of this article is between "Free peoples" and "Enslaved". Is the first meant to be "Free Peoples" [with capital 'P']? In any case the resultant article has odd placements: for example, Sauron is listed amongst the Free [P]eoples, the poor old Drúedain are neither free nor enslaved, and, last but not least, Shelob is listed among the Enslaved! In my view, changing the titles to "Free Peoples" / "Free Peoples and allies" and "The Enemy" (or "The Enemy and allies") would enable better focus and more consistency. What do others think? Jungleboy63 (talk) 11:09, 16 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I think the categorization into Free vs Enslaved should be removed. That division crossed species lines (some Men on one side, others on the other, e.g.), and is not an inherent property of several of the peoples (Orcs obviously excepted).  It's also not clear whether Tolkien meant to include Maiar among "living things" in that quote.
 * This article could serve as a replacement for several marginal articles (like Werewolf (Middle-earth), which has little additional information, most of it blatant OR). (Added: I have rewritten that article to eliminate the OR.)
 * -- Elphion (talk) 11:29, 16 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for your response and sage advice. I had envisaged modifying the relevant exceptions (e.g. under 'Ainur' or 'Maiar' to note that Sauron was one of the Enemy); one notes that the Valaquenta has the category 'Of the Enemies'. On the other hand I can see considerable merit in your own suggestion, although it seems to involve a much greater re-write of the whole article.
 * In any case I'm not aware that the term 'Free Peoples' has a readily-accessible explanation anywhere in Wikipedia, and this article is the logical place for it (either as a stand-alone section, or with an explanation added under the current heading).
 * One heading seems wrong to me, namely 'River-maids'. For a start, the River-woman was not a maid. Furthermore the heading excludes the possibility of males (not that there are any examples). I suggest 'River-sprits'.
 * BTW I fully concur with the fuller implications of my quote "All living things..." (another example is Ents); my intention was to draw attention to the article and its issues, rather than to make a categorical statement.
 * Regards,Jungleboy63 (talk) 11:11, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Duplication with List of animals
There is duplication here with the article list of Middle-earth animals. Creatures such as spiders, wargs, were-wolves and eagles are included in both articles, but they can hardly be described as 'peoples'. The main Middle-earth article distinguishes between 'humanoid' and 'non humanoid' races. i suggest we follow that distinction here, and delete the non humanoid creatures from this article (ensuring of course that they are included in the animals article). UtDicitur (talk) 16:54, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable. -- Elphion (talk) 18:08, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I have merged the material on non-humanoid races with the article List of Middle-earth animals and deleted it from this page as proposed above, as there seems to be no objection. UtDicitur (talk) 10:46, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose to merge Vampire (Middle-earth) into Middle-earth peoples. Tolkien's works include only a few references to vampires. Goustien (talk) 23:22, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge — not enough material to warrant its own article.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:46, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge Tolkien did not mention vampires at all in LoTR, so they are not major enough to justify a whole work on them. Until the LoTR TV show casts vampires this will remain the case, and using that arguemtn to stop a merger now would be a crystal action.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:33, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal — Radagast
[Moved from Wizards (Middle-earth)]:I propose that Radagast be merged here. Radagast is a minor character. He is mentioned briefly in The Hobbit. He is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings at the time of the Council of Elrond, and is never mentioned again. He is left out of the films of LOTR, though he has an expanded role in the films of The Hobbit. There is no need for him to have a separate article. The Blue Wizards are even less notable. They don't appear in the major works at all.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:38, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * As "Wizards (Middle-earth)" now redirects to "Middle-earth peoples#Istari (Wizards)", I propose that Radagast be merged to the same place.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:57, 20 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose Radagast is the common name for this character while he also answers to Aiwendil. The proposed title of "Middle-earth peoples#Istari (Wizards)" is comparatively unlikely and unfriendly to our readership.  By leaving the page under its present common name, we avoid unnecessary work and keep the topic simple and straightforward.  If it works, don't fix it. Andrew D. (talk) 21:07, 20 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Support the merge; there's not much here and we're delving very deeply into fancruft to get this amount of text. I'm not sure I follow Andrew D.'s point above (in part, I think, because there are/were multiple moves/merges in motion at one time); this is just a merge, so there could be a redirect. Users who enter Radagast into the search field would still end up at the correct place, it's just that that place would be located within Middle-earth_peoples or some sub-sub-section therein. Matt Deres (talk) 16:30, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. I don't understand Andrew's point.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:19, 21 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Merge Radagast may finally be moving from being a background character to a minor character with his enlarged role in the enlarged Hobbit films, but he is still not a character who is significant enough to justify an article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:34, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge, but not here. I agree that Radagast has notability issues. He probably would not survive AfD. However, this target is rather unfriendly: it buries any mention of Radagast in the middle of a subsection. Per point that we could restructure the article to have a Radagast subsubsection, I think this would hurt the overall article. I like that the article in it's present state gives a brief overview of each people. I feel that adding more granular divisions would make it rather unwieldy. I would prefer to redirect to List of Middle-earth characters. The list entry for Radagast even wikilinks to wizard, so interested readers could follow the link here! BenKuykendall (talk) 06:35, 6 January 2020 (UTC) Edit: this alternative merge would not be appropriate under the current inclusion criteria for the list. BenKuykendall (talk) 23:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That's a good point; I'd agree to that. Matt Deres (talk) 02:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That article is just a list, with links to individual articles.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:47, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * that's a good point. At present most of the entries on List of Middle-earth characters are blue-linked. It looks like we've been systematically removing deleted articles and redirect from that list. I'm not sure this is a good precedent though: there are many Lists of characters in a fictional work across Wikipedia, and most of them do include non-notable characters. With the latest wave of AfDs on ME characters, it would be nice to have a good redirect target. BenKuykendall (talk) 19:37, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * this has been discussed before. I'm not keen on merging to an article that doesn't exist yet.--Jack Upland (talk) 20:23, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not keen on merging to an article that doesn't exist yet... fair enough. I've struck my !vote and started a separate discussion here. BenKuykendall (talk) 23:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Redirect/Merge but to List of Middle-earth characters. With the lists of Hobbits, Numenoreans and Elfs likely to get regrouped all into that list, we have an opportunity to use that list to include actual characters (but please not Queen Berúthiel.) So I think creating a short entry for Radagast there is justified.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:36, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge per nom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:4360:C05F:77B6:F943:FAE5 (talk) 16:32, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * : Radagast does stick out as easily the most minor character in the LOTR template. I'd Support the merge, and it seems there is in fact consensus to merge the article despite the confusion with other mergers going on simultaneously. Either way this needs to be closed out as it has been open now for over 2 months. I'll add a few lines to this article and I suggest we close with a merge, all the closer needs to do is to redirect Radagast here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Not sure who we get to close such proposals. I'll ask if that is needed. Carcharoth (talk) 13:31, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Since the outcome is clear I'll do the redirect now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:13, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge: but consider that perhaps a better target for this now, considering the February 2020 merge reversal and original target article being itself merged, would be Maia (Middle-earth). What do you guys think?  GenQuest  "Talk to Me" 16:35, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * No, I think that's irrelevant. I proposed that Radagast be merged to this page in November 2019. The fact that I proposed Wizards (Middle-earth) in August is irrelevant. The fact that the merge was reversed in February is irrelevant. In any case, I don't think we need a standalone article on Maia.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:08, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal -- List of Middle-earth peoples
I propose to merge List of Middle-earth peoples to Middle-earth peoples. Since Middle-earth peoples is already formatted as a list/outline, albeit with more details, I don't see the utility in having a separate list with no details. To complete the merger, some peoples (e.g. Valar and Maiar, varieties of elves, the Uruk-hai) should be expanded into subsections or subsubsections of the article as appropriate. BenKuykendall (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. This is just a pointless WP:FORK. I think this should be redirected speedily. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:13, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Support: this is a duplication.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:4360:A4E3:A07B:E47:3677 (talk) 04:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Rename to Peoples and Creatures?
This would make more sense since dragons are included.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:06, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Makes sense. Also trolls etc. Or maybe Sentient entities of Middle-earth, to avoid adding entries of non-sentient creatures here? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 06:00, 12 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose, for several reasons. Firstly, articles must have a single subject. "Locomotives of Utah" might well be a suitable article topic, but "Locomotives and wagons of Utah" is not. Secondly, titles should be compact; making them longer is basically making them worse. Thirdly, the "creatures" is wrong: we are *not* including all the rabbits, fish, cockerels, foxes and other noisy or edible creatures mentioned as living in Middle-earth. The article is about the species or races that people the continent, whether humanoid or not. Gulliver's world was peopled with dwarf Lilliputians and horses (Houyhnhnms) that keep humans as slaves, just as Middle-earth is peopled by Elves, Dwarves, Men, Dragons and all the rest. The title is correct as it is. Tolkien in fact used the term "speaking-peoples" so that is a possible alternative, but it's an unusual term and longer than the one we have, so I'd suggest we keep the title as it is. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:35, 12 August 2020 (UTC)


 * So, in other words, "peoples" includes any creature that can speak?--Jack Upland (talk) 09:32, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Tolkien thought so. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:16, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Treebeard traditional lay quote
The first line on the article is "First came the four, the free peoples", but on the book it appears as "First name the four, the free peoples". Is "name" a confirmed error? Manudosde (talk) 15:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It's just a typo in the article (or an instance of over-zealous over-correction, whatever). Fixed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:41, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Eagles, vampires and werewolves
If dragons are here, so based on their intelligence rather than humanoid form, then why not the eagles and (more briefly mentioned) vampires and werewolves? And, as another has suggested, Ungoliant and her race of spiders. 2603:7000:2BF0:4970:F98C:6ADF:89D2:B911 (talk) 07:29, 25 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Good idea. Not sure about the vampires and werewolves, they are probably just plot devices really, but the Great Eagles are certainly a people, and the Great Spiders are probably one also, if a suitable source can be found that says so. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:00, 25 February 2024 (UTC)