the new chapter!!! it got me wondering, though….was there any particular reason dain gets to keep his peg leg, when others get their legs back?

I felt that this would be something that each Dwarf with a disability would consult with Mahal about, when he wakes them in the Halls. For some, like Nori and Bombur, it would be an easy choice. For others, not so easy.

I did a lot of reading. I REALLY didn’t want to perpetuate shitty ableism and make Dain ‘all better’ by removing such a huge part of his identity (that is in fact why I left a scar upon Bifur’s head as well). I asked a few people I know, and they said, yeah – not a cool thing to do. But it would be great to keep that facet of themselves whilst removing the negative aspects.

So I thought, okay: let’s keep Dain’s leg removed. But there will be none of the negative aspects of being an amputee: he can wear his peg indefinitely without any ill-effect, there is no pain or phantom-pain, he does not need to make any allowances for resting and wrapping the stump etc.

So, there are my thoughts.

how do the dead dwarves visit or speak to mahal?? is there a fixed place where they know where to find him (like that anvil room), and do they just rock up whenever for a chat or a drink? can mahal be with more than one dwarrow at a time, only because kili seems to be making sure that he occupies a large chunk of mahal’s time lolol? are the dwarrows generally interested in interacting with their maker?

It’s never the same twice.

Now and then, a Dwarf will set out through the Halls, and their feet will take them to a great golden door. Light spills out around its frame, and casts strange glowing shapes upon the walls and floor. The sweet clear sound of ringing steel can be heard from inside.

Sometimes the door appears only a couple of corridors away. Sometimes it is impossible to find. Sometimes it is open. Sometimes not.

Mahal makes himself available to his children. He has a very personal and loving relationship with all of them. Even so, the Dwarrows do not approach him without awe and trepidation. It takes a lot of guts to do as Kili does and continually pester a Vala.

So in Sansukh Kili’s continued lack of beard has been mentioned and I started wondering, does everyone’s hair stop growing in Mahal’s Hall? But what if someone accidentally burns off a chunk of hair in the forge or something? Do they forever have a bald spot or does it grow back to normal and then stop again or do they need to ask Mahal to fix it for them?? Plz this question has been plaguing me since I read Sansukh

Ahhh!

Well, life in the Halls is not TRUE life. Everyone is sort of… paused. They’re all on hold until the Second Song, when the world is renewed.

So, their bodies remain static, frozen, suspended. They are real bodies, so they need food and rest and warmth, they can be harmed and will heal, but they won’t really.. change.

This is why Frerin is stuck as an adolescent. Poor little mite.

sad thought. who looks after the dead babies and toddlers in the halls? presumably their parents would still be alive, so do their other family members look after them? is there like a daycare centre of them? or does mahal reforge their souls and give them another chance at life if he thinks they’re too young? but how young would be too young? or old i guess. sorry this is a sad ask :(

Oh, I have sort of answered this here. Short answer – yeah, they get reforged and sent back out into the world! 😀

if yavanna ever met thorin would she laugh or roll her eyes at his consistent brooding over bilbo? or just plain ignore it and him?

Hmmm. Welp, I think she would at first try to ignore him. Mopey little stoneling, glowering away. Does he ever even consider where the wood for his forge or his hearth comes from, how many of her beautiful creations must be destroyed so that he might have his amusements? I think not. Hmmph.

Then she would notice that he never stops in his self-appointed tasks. He is relentless; indomitable. He is as unstoppable as a landslide in his determination to see the lives of his people and his loved ones come to happiness and fulfilment, with no thought to his own contentment. She would see that Mahal has pity and love for him, and that Nienna sheds tears for him and for his fire and his thwarted hope. She would see that Irmo bent the stream of the path of dreams for him. She would see that he carves flowers and ivy into his cold metal ‘amusements’ – little tributes to her creations that never wilt nor fade. All for the love of this little child of the Shire.

And finally, she would begin to feel a small sprout of compassion uncurl, somewhere in her fierce heart.

dain-mothafocka:

My aesthetic for Mahal in Sansukh is Peter Mensah. Actually, my aesthetic for Mahal anyway is only ever Peter Mensah.

I mean look at this man and tell me to my face this isn’t the mighty smith Aule, the Great Forger of the Dwarves, with the deepest and strongest wisdom imaginable.