Tolkien's Dwarves: More Human Than the Humans

There is something ethereal about the dwarves of Tolkien's legendarium. At first glance, you might pass over them as short, stubby, hot-tempered idiots, but if you really delve deep into their lore and their history you'll find something that poignantly mirrors our own history, making them more relatable then the actual humans in Tolkien's works, hence the title. To start, I'll give a brief and extremely simplified version of their history and legends. 

The dwarves were created by Aule, and were one of the first mortal races to walk Middle-earth, but Eru Illuvatar (Basically God) sent them to sleep once more because he wanted the Elves to be the first to wake. After the elves awoke, the dwarves awoke for the second time. There were seven dwarves at first. One of them was named Durin, and Tolkien basically ignored the others and focused almost exclusively on Durin and his children. Durin wandered over the mountains until he found a lake, where he saw stars in the water over his head like a crown. He built a city under the mountains here, , named Khazad-Dum, where his people lived for ages, mining, trading, and fighting against the various dark forces that don't really come into the point of this narrative. However, before the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit ever took place, The dwarves delved too greedily for treasure and awoke a Balrog (Tolkien's equivalent of a demon), which slew nearly all of the dwarves living in Khazad-Dum. The dwarves were scattered all over Middle-Earth with their treasures, the dragons following and pillaging most of the exiles. The dwarves however still held on to the belief that Khazad-Dum would be retaken, and their ancient glory would be theirs once more. Pivotal to this belief was their legend that said Durin would be reincarnated seven times and had only been so six times. So the dwarves kept living in exile, waiting for Durin to return. 

Tolkien did not mean to write an allegory, yet the story of the dwarves is strikingly similar to our own. We once had glory. We were created in "the image of God". We were unblemished, without sin, but then we "delved too greedily" and disobeyed God's commandments. We fell into darkness and sin, but we still had hope. Because we knew that Jesus would come, saving us, and allowing us to eventually have the glory that was given to us once more.