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the lord of the rings - What happened to the Hobbits and the Dwarves after the Elves left?


From what I understand, The Lord of the Rings is written as the mythic past of our own world. We are constantly reminded that the race of man is becoming more and more prominent. At the end of The Return of the King the Elves leave Middle-earth to the humans. But what about the other mythical races, primarily the Hobbits and the Dwarves? Did they die out?



Answer



According to the prologue of the Lord of the Rings under the section Concerning Hobbits, the Hobbits are still with us today, but "now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find."



In Appendix A of the Lord of the Rings under section III, Durin's Folk, the following is mentioned as a possible reason for the lack of Dwarves:



It is because of the fewness of women them that the kind of Dwarves increases slowly, as in peril when they have no secure dwellings. For Dwarves only take one wife or husband each in their lives, and are jealous, as in all matters of their rights. The number of dwarf-men that marry is actually less than one-third. For not all the women take husbands: some desire none; some desire one that they cannot get, and so will have no other. As for the men, very many also do not desire marriage, being engrossed in their crafts.



There's no mention of the ultimate fate of the Dwarves, but it's easy to infer that Dwarves could not maintain a positive population growth rate.


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