In the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series, there are many descriptions of dwarves. But there isn't any mention of female dwarves. Are there any in-universe mentions of female dwarves? If there aren't, then how do they reproduce? Is there any explanation from Tolkien?
123446
I may have missed it with the 3D, but I could have sworn I saw what I suspect was a lady Dwarf or two running from the Erebor in the beginning of the Hobbit, but they didn't seem bearded.    If dwarf women aren't bearded, then was Aragorn just kidding in the Two Towers (movie) when he intimated that they all had beards?    It's also stated by Tolkien in appendix A to The Lord of the Rings that female dwarves appear identical to males and we can assume they are also born with beards, just like their male counterparts.
78285
This is coming from someone who has only briefly read the books a while ago and mostly remembers the film.  Elves are immortal. But they are depicted at different stages of aging. Do they just age up to a certain point and then stop? Or is the aging process just ridiculously slow?   Do they have a childhood? If so, do Elves reproduce similar to mortal men?
61718
In Dwarf Fortress you can have hundreds of Dwarves, animals, goblins, etc in game at any one time, each with their own complex AI and pathfinding routines. My question is how does this not produce noticeable slowdown? Does each Dwarf run in its own thread?
102980
In Middle-earth, Elves were born as Elves, Hobbits as Hobbits, and so on. Were the Wizards born as Wizards, or were they young men that somehow evolved as they matured into Wizards?
58619
I've been watching The Hobbit Extended Edition, and saw the scene where the dawn light inundated the three trolls, who promptly turned to stone. What I have to wonder is, why do the trolls turn to stone when exposed to sunlight? I'm aware that not all do so, but why these ones? Is it something to do with their origins or nature?
103659
I have found some examples but I am not sure if any of them are right. Are there any concrete examples of Tolkien numerals?
103025
There seems to be a bit of a gap between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. While we know the outcomes from The Hobbit to Lord of the Rings, we don't know what happened between them. Did Tolkien ever novelize this?  Connecting the two movies together, I've pieced the following sub-plots:   Saruman becomes corrupted by peering into the Palantír of Orthanc at some point after The Hobbit Gollum gets captured by Sauron's army Legolas leaves his homeland, in search of a ranger of some importance Tauriel is banished from her homeland Bilbo returns to the Shire, and finally relinquishes the one ring on his 111th birthday to Frodo   What doesn't seemed joined by the books or the two trilogy films:   How did a powerful white wizard like Saruman become enchanted/corrupted by Sauron What was Gollum doing before he was captured Where was Thranduil during the events of Lord of the Rings What happened to Tauriel during Lord of the Rings What happened to the remaining company of dwarves after The Hobbit Who now resides within Erebor What happened to Radagast during Lord of the Rings
85588
So, I know that there is a race in Lord of the Rings of Peredhil  (half elf). Also, in the Hobbit (film trilogy, not book), there is a romance between a dwarf and an elf.  My question is, how do man/elf or dwarf/elf offspring work? Can they not be born? Are they born infertile because they are from parents of two different species? Are elves, dwarves, and men only different "races" of one single primordial species, and can thus reproduce any number of ways? To my knowledge, this isn't addressed in the books or films.
94385
I was looking at the map of Middle-Earth and it made me wonder. Does Middle-Earth refer to the time frame in which the LOTR stories took place, or does it refer to the area in which the LOTR tales unfold? To help clarify what I'm asking: Is the rest of Tolkiens' unmapped world Middle-Earth too, or is Middle-Earth the era?
8211
In order to hatch a dragon in A Song of Ice and Fire, the eggs must be heated to an incredible temperature, as shown when Daenerys' dragons are hatched. So why aren't there any other dragons?  Eggs can be found (albeit rarely) in the Shadow Lands by Asshai and one can assume that other people have eggs. So why haven't any of them, even accidentally, been hatched by their owners?  Is there an in-universe reason?    I've read all the main books, watched up and including Season 6 and read The World of Ice and Fire so "spoilers" are fine.
16195
Every time that I see a question here about Lord of the Rings, people talk about different ages and an extensive knowledge of characters that had no place in the story of the Lord of the Rings. Most of this information seems to be related to a time long before the events of Lord of the Rings took place.  Where is all of this coming from? What are all of the stories that connect to The Lord of the Rings?
103040
During my recent re-reading of The Two Towers I was struck again by a question that has bothered me since I was a youngling: What on earth is up with the Entwives?  Treebeard says they went away in the distant past and just... got lost?  Did Tolkien ever make mention of them again, or is this one of those unsolved mysteries of Middle Earth?
50441
I know Tauriel is a Jackson created character, but I wondered if anywhere in the legendarium there was fodder for the story arc between her and Kili.  I do not have access to all my books for the time being and recall stories of love between men and elves in the Silmarillion and Appendices but don't remember any such stories between elves and dwarves and wondered if there was any basis of inspiration for this aspect of their relationship within Tolkien's works.   This movie, of course, departs even further from the original than those made before it, but as a story unto itself, I can still appreciate the ride, so if there is no Tolkien basis, what inspired Jackson, Boyens, and Walsh to create this particular arc?  Is there interview info or anything?
30798
This is a question that's been bothering me for the last couple of days:  How is it that the hobbits of the Fellowship were able to survive such cold temperatures throughout their travels without having any foot protection?   I know it's said that they have thick "leather like" soles, with ample amounts of hair for warmth but still, I don't understand how that could provide much more warmth than for instance a regular leather shoe. On top of this I know that multiple days (or even weeks) of their journey was spent crossing mountain ranges, which, near a summit would have a temperature far below freezing. This combined with the assumption that they only have the warmth of shoes on there feet would have presumably resulted in some level of frostbite. But to my knowledge there is no such mention of these problems in the novels or movies aside from the odd "It's cold".  Anyways, I'm just wondering if anyone has some form of explanation to this phenomenon or do hobbits just have really durable feet?
73491
Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a story for children. However, I've never seen a specific age mentioned. Did Tolkien intend the story for young children or for teens?   What reading level should a child be at to understand and enjoy The Hobbit?
21125
It is  that the three Elven rings were not made by Sauron. The  on the One Ring, made by Sauron, was in  related to its power, even if we cannot say if it was by fancy (it makes for a nice trick :) ), if it was required by the spell or whatever: it is just like that. What is clear is that when Sauron put it on and the Elves understood the plot, a lot of action started rolling.  Now my point is: the ring poem (while being great, of course) seems slightly inaccurate.  We know that it is a verse "long known in Elven-lore", as Gandalf explains to Frodo in Shadows of the Past.  Was it written by the Elves? Why am I even asking, since Elves clearly love poetry and songs? Because:   It explicitly mentions, at least two times, the (translation of the) evil inscription on the Ring. It is describing the actions and the purposes of the Lord of the Rings: but the Lord only gave out the Seven and the Nine, but not the Three which were exceptional: he had power over them because they were "made" with the same techniques but he had not planned them, they were made independently and one can imagine that they "caught him by surprise".    So, isn't it a bit strange that the verse long known in Elven lore seems to place the Three on the same footing, as if the purpose of the One Ring had been from start to rule them all?  Isn't a bit strange that Elves used for their verses the very words of the spell (which were surely regarded as very evil: in our world it would be similar to quote in a poem words spoken by some dictator...)?  P.S. Yes, it is conceivable that Sauron would make some rings for the Elves, to keep them under his control: but this still had not happened and things went in a different direction.
109427
I never made it through Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, but it may have the answer. We know there were good men and bad men in Middle-earth and there were good Wizards and bad Wizards there too...  Did Tolkien ever provide a example of a good Orc in any of his writings?