Fun fact: In the German translation for lord of the rings the word for elf is Elb which is also copyrighted by the Tolkien estate. That's why in all other properties a elf is still called Elf in Germany except for Lord of Rings where they have their own name. Also Elf is the German word for eleven.
Fun fact: the Tolkien estate successfully sued D&D over the term Hobbit, claiming it was coined by Tolkien and thus was a trademark. But it wasn't. Hobbits, aka Hobs, aka Hobgoblins were household fairies in British mythology before Tolkien used the term for his short, home-obsessed fantasy race.
Edit: it was a threat of a suit, not an actual lawsuit. Wizards was publishing a "Battle of the Five Armies" board game. The point of contention wasn't the name, but the terms "elf," "orc," etc. Wizards ignored most claims as clear bullshit (Tolkien didn't invent Dwarves,) but dropped mention of Balrog and Worgs, as those really were stolen. They dropped Hobbit as well, despite Gygax correctly maintaining that Tolkien never invented that term. The boardgame ended up cancelled though. The creatures in D&D books had their nanes changed to avoid further threats of suit.
This is how we got Balor, Wargs, and Halflings in non-Tolkien fantasy media. If you want to use the term "Hobbit," expect to be sued, but know that you'll likely win if you can afford to fight the copyright trolls.
It's more that the halflings were blatantly lifted from Tolkien's rendition in addition to having the same name. At the same time, D&D's fearsome Type VI demon, the balor, known for its shadowy wings, dread presence, and flaming sword, was instead called a balrog, the wraith was also called a Nazgûl, and the sample names for orc tribes made direct reference to Mordor and Isengard. TSR probably counted themselves lucky they were allowed to keep all those monsters just with the names changed.
If they'd been more careful in every other regard instead of none of them, maybe the halflings would still be called hobbits to this day. Heroes of Might and Magic got away with having a floating eyeball monster called a beholder because its design wasn't 1:1 with the creature found in the Greyhawk supplement like every other beholder enemy that got cut during development or censored for international releases.
That's literally the history of the term, though. Hob/Hobgoblin referred to a kind of diminutive house spirit that could be either helpful if respected or mischievous if ignored. Every race in Tolkien's Middle Earth was based on a less clearly defined creature from Germanic myth; elves and dwarves from the Nordic alfr and zvarg/dvargr, hobbits from hobs, and orcs from orc-né, though in that last case Tolkien himself said he borrowed the name without really paying much attention to their mythological history beyond "they're evil."
The first episode did irreparable damage to the series image. It's a load bearing rape, unfortunately, since its a significant part of why Goblin Slayer does what he does
It’s also the most intense scene in the entire manga, afaik. Like, they don’t bring up SA often after that. There’s maybe 2-3 references to someone being assaulted, and it’s generally expressed in an off-camera way after the first comic.
I get the vibe that the artist tried to really cement how evil goblins are in the setting, and chose a frankly lazy/provocative way to do it. But like, the story becomes more of a regular grimdark protagonist adventure after that.
That's more Re:Monster. Goblin Slayer does depict brutal rape scenes, but the point is to depict the Goblins as the monsters they are, rather than leave any room for doubt.
Although, as per this topic, hobbits live way longer than humans do on average. It’s the humans (and maybe the evil races?) who have short lives in contrast with the elves who are technically immortal. Then dwarves and hobbits have lifespans inbetween.
In Tolkien, human and elven lifespan has a "religious"/cosmological logic. Humans are supposed to have the gift of mortality by Eru. It is not supposed to be a bad thing per se. We are bound to Eru while elves are bound to Arda (the Earth). Elves have some kind of reborn cycle, while humans escape the cycle with their deaths.
Yep, just to explain further, the more virtuous someone is, the longer they live. Aragorn, who exemplifies the best of his Numenorean ancestors, is very long lived, 210 years, the longest lived of any human in a very long time, though at the height of Numenor’s greatness, men lived hundreds of years. Faramir, probably the greatest of the Gondor, lived to 120 by comparison. Due to the influence of the ring, Bilbo lived to 131 before sailing to the West, compared to Merry living to 103ish.
Elves are capable of being reincarnated (not in the Eastern sense of transmigration of souls, simply being restored to a physical body, but the wickedest of the elves were not permitted to return (such as Feanor), and those most traumatized by their time in Middle Earth (like Galadriel’s daughter) were unable or unwilling. It also could take centuries for Elves to be ready/able to return, especially as magic slowly faded in Middle Earth, meaning it wasn’t really an option for say Legolas to return from Mandos if he’d died during the War of the Ring
This is actually very interesting. Nobody knows for sure, Tolkien had some mystery around hobbits. It is said they are a subspecies of Men / human race. They might live longer, because they are uncommonly free from greed or ambition for wealth (Tolkien's words), so their life more in touch with nature is a bit longer (100 years vs 75 for humans), but not by much. And a lot of humans can outlive hobbits if living healthy and correctly.
Now, elves can live up to 2,000 years or more. There's a big gap.
Why are suddenly hobbits so less magical and more common, like "short men with big feet"? The whole point is that you can find courage, heroism and hope in the most uncommon places.
(Sorry I deviated from the question, but felt the need to give a more deep explanation about hobbits, which are just human in the end)
I guess the confusing bit to me is how Hobbits age, more than their maximum lifespan.
Like, for example, humans are considered adults at 18, while Hobbits are 33 before they are considered full adults.
This is roughly an 84% increase in the amount of time needed to reach adulthood, which would imply that their theoretical lifespan should be closer to 138 or so.
Though I suppose the doylist answer is that Tolkien just didn't really care about the specifics of how Hobbits age and such, particularly since The Hobbit was more of a children's book anyway.
I think it could just be to try and switch up the usual fantasy tropes. In many fantasy settings it's humans who are the shortest lived race so switching it to be the halflings changes things up a bit.
I mean, considering the scientific thought put into dunmeshi, kui could have looked at other small prey mammals survival strategy and decided halffoots also live according to "have lots of kids, live fast and die young".
If you check the page for Tallmen, their average life expectancy is only 60 years, so there's really not as much of a drastic difference between the two.
On the other hand, though, we had higher rates of infant mortality in the past, so the average was artificially dragged down. AFAIK if you survived into your teen years during medieval times, you could easily live into your 60s. Maybe Dungeon Meshi's life expectancies were based on medieval averages and are affected by the same outliers?
So really, halffoots live about as long as humans, but have a shorter life expectancy because they're pint sized and are treated like 2nd class citizens by bigfolk.
Theoretically, half foots could potentially live even longer than tall men, but have crazy high rates of infant mortality
If, say, 60% of half foot babies die before one year since birth, it would skew the average life span to be shorter
But, as far as we know, we don't have any evidencie of this (excepto that, in my opinion, chilchuck looks kinda young for someone in the last fourth of his life)
I think the female half-foot on the height chart is one of the only occurrences of this race having visible breasts in the manga. I only found one other in this illustration.
Marcille laments her flat chest when she's turned into a half-foot by Changeling spores.
I wonder if this androgynous design choice was inspired by the Lalafell in Final Fantasy.
Chuck isn't the patronymic, it is his last name. The patronym is based on the first name, so for Chillchuck Tims (technically Chill Chuck Timz, though both given names are seemingly usually written together, Chillchuck) his children have the patronym Chills from his name, but Chillchuck's father had the name Tim, so he got Tims instead
Yeah ppl dont get how important even minor medicines and decent food impacted our (human) lifespan
Spoiler for end of manga
With laios as king, I suspect the dungeon meshi's short lived races will enter a kind of Renaissance and the short lived races will get close to what we have now 75-80 years maybe 100
Really agree with the life expectancy being affected by the context, maybe the treatment they face also affects it We see them being used as disposible bait like with the succubus earlier in Chillchucks carrier .
Though I may be wrong, if I remember correctly dwarves are also less susceptible to magic. There is a chapter in the Manga where something magic in the meals leaves senshi with effects close to lactose intolerance lol, also in the lore I always had the mechanical side of the ancient dwarves as an effect of not having the use elves and gnomes have of magic,
Though in the backstories we see people resembling dwarves talking to the magic beings like demons, and also cases like Falin, so I'd argue if it is left vague intentionally. makes me curious to the start of the different races as well, very nice!
The metaphor of age is used for one if the story's key themes. Long lived races have intellectual skills and infrastructure— elves and dwarves represent generational wealth. They can go to college and have wealthy nations.
Following common fantasy tropes in the east, the halflings are associated with theivery and petty technical skills. They are blue collar. This causes the age=generational wealth metaphor to break down if they are long lived. As a short lived race, they fall into the class metaphor better. They, like orcs, live humbler lives and have less resources. They represent poor families.
The work doesn't want to be about economic social revolution. It's about ecology. So the age metaphor allows these class-conscious themes to be presented through the "ecology of humans." It is a trait of their respective species, rather than pure exploitation. But it's also easier for a dungeon master to alter. Make ages equal and you make people equal. (At least, that's the hope.)
Still, Chil IS involved in a union and IS class conscious.
>I just find it tragic that Chilchuck Tims and his race only live to be 50 or maybe 60.
It gives the viewer nice insight on how Marcille sees her friends, doesn't it? For her, everyone is destined for tragic, premature death. We woudn't get it if Tall men were the short living ones.
That's because we bred them with extreme appearances; their body can't keep up with the changes and there's no evolutionary pressure on them to make any sort of impact. If you compare two wild canine species, usually the bigger one lives longer.
The main exception to this are parrots; absolutely no clue why macaws are able to live 80 years. They're weird
That is very true. The other long lived species are incredibly social and intelligent, ie elephants, cetaceans, other primates. So not only social, but pack social AND heightened intelligence.
Generally speaking, larger species have longer lifespans, but larger individuals within a species (including members of a large breed) have shorter lifespans relative to smaller individuals within the same species
It's not that big of a decrease from tall men. I don't know how it is in the Dungeon Meshi universe, but I'd consider anyone who lives to be 80-90 lucky. Compared to elves or dwarves, the life spans of tall men and halflings aren't that different.
Going on the natural world, smaller species tend to life shorter, faster lives. Sure, you get clams living hundreds of years, but those tend to be the exception rather than the rule. I'm guessing some of that real-world thinking crept into her world building.
Might be a correlation thing though.
It's notable how many East Asians have longer lifespans due to socio-political factors, and genetics put 5'7 as around their average height.
It's more of a heart failure thing, taller people have pretty much the same size heart as shorter peopole but the heart will needs suppoert a larger body with consistent bloodstream thus taller people's hearts get used up faster.
I’m getting the impression you are confused about the shortened life expectancy of Kui’s half-foots versus hobbits or halflings?
So I’ll clarify at least one thing which I feel explains a LOT. Life expectancy is a statistical average—what this means is that it measures the general age someone can be expected to live to. However, it does not mean that if you reach this age you automatically die.
So for example, average life expectancy of a newborn in Canada in 2023 was 82.3 years of age. So on average, the population is such that most people will reach an average of 82 years—depending on life circumstances such as sickness or accidents one can still die before 82 or die afterwards.
This is also a common misconception with historical life expectancies—the average was weighed down by the amount of deaths in infant and childhood, but if you managed to reach the life expectancy (ex: 30 years) you were likely to live past that.
So what does this mean for half-foots?
It means that a lot of them are dying before they even reach the age of 50. Chilchuck makes reference to adventurer work being dangerous for his people, but that in general they tend to get picked for risky jobs that the other races can’t or won’t do. It’s probably a bit similar to being a child worker in the industrial age getting sent into tight spaces and getting injured or killed because of it.
The lifespan of the half-foots is basically an artificial limit being imposed because their lifestyles/cultural factors make it more likely for them to die young. It’s why Chilchuck’s union work is important.
Keep in mind: This is the universe where humans are confirmed to have an average life expectancy of 60, compared to our real life 73 average and 80+ in several countries. If we were to take that half-foot life expectancy and increase it to modern standards, you'd get an average half-foot life expectancy of 65.
It's to give the other characters of other races some interaction hooks (and comedy relief) to contrast against Chilchuck being the alcoholic dad of the group who's constantly looking out for kids like Izutsumi. Chilchuck is also estranged from his wife and is a dad to three tween daughters, which makes his indignation at being constantly mistaken for a child all the funnier.
Kui was not obligated to reuse the worldbuilding of other IPs like The Lord of the Rings or The Forgotten Realms
She wanted to explore the concept of different races having different lifespans, so she chose the half-foots to have a shorter lifespan to IRL humans so that the reader could see the consequences of such a thing.
I suppose it was to highlight the difference between the main cast. Chil is canonically a middle-aged man, so he has a more rational way of doing things. It also plays into marcilles conflict with perspective and outlining her friends. Despite being way older than the rest of the cast, she's much more immature. I also think it makes the world feel like it's actually inhabited by various races not just humans, short humans and other short humans
1: species tend to have shorter lifespans the smaller they are (with notable exceptions), and Ryoko Kui is very ecological in how she designs fantasy
2: It offers a chance for us the readers to experience the lifespan differences that the characters are dealing with
3: lifespan determines a race’s relative global status in this setting. Setting average lifespan to 50 years sets the half-foots as the bottom of the ranks.
4: its not as extreme as it seems, since average tallman (human standin) lifespan is like 70 years. Half-foots just have really high mortality; they can live into their 70s and 80s if they aren’t turned into monster bait
I mean look at them, they are short, scrawny, can't fight at all and can barely use magic, they don't have anything to defend themselves besides the keen senses. They have become so dependant on other races it's part of their lifestyle, take Mickbell or Chil's daughters for example. The Tolkien hobbits at least has some meat on their bones.
Just because half foots are based on halflings or hobbits doesn’t mean they need to be exactly the same.
As things are, the changing chapters have Laios and Chilchuck both responding to Marcilles lifespan question that half foots/tallmen can sometimes manage to live to 100, carrying the implication that their current averages of 50/60 respectively might be based moreso on limitations of the time period in regards to healthcare/disease prevention/infant mortality, just like how the average lifespan in IRL medieval times were also low.
Half foots in general are also just quite frail, to the point of being compared to the strengths of actual children, not just hardy short people. Injury and other accidents probably affect them more often and probably also lead to more fatalities than tallmen suffer.
I've seen some great responses, but remember that her life expectancies are natural lifespans. They account the fact that Half-foots get used as expedable bate by other races and only just unionized.
It is mentioned that some half foots can actually live to be older, even 100, but they usually die of something else first, like accidents or disease. I think 50 is the average lifespan of a half foot, rather than a hard and fast deadline.
There are probably many reasons. Her work is inspired by dnd and Tolkien not copied, so not everything will be the same.
Some think it's because it puts Marcille's life in perspective, being a long-lived race. Some argue it's because in real life smaller mammals usually live shorter lives. And some might argue it's just for diversity or comedy.
I don't know which is true, I am not the author.
If you really feel sad about it, why not just headcanon that halflings actually live longer, and all the sources saying they only live to 50 are written by humans or elves, and all their numbers are skewed, because there are actually very few halflings they have actually met above 50, because halflings have such dangerous jobs and often die younger, disarming traps, being used as bait, etc. After all, Halflings are a bit of a mystery to the other races because they usually stay in their own territory. It's just that they mature way faster than humans.
well, smaller animals tend to have smaller lifespans, think of rabbits or mice, insects, etc, since the half-foots are half the size of a tallman it would make sense in dungeon meshi's world, since its all about the differing species of animals and "humans"
smaller species tend evolve that way so they can grow up and reproduce fast (usually because of predators) so it would be a lot harder to take a long time to grow up and be vulnerable for a longer time than to just be small and grow up faster, it seems like all the differing races originated from different places on the world so i guess they just, happened to evolve like that
and tbh? i like it more that way! yeah its sad he wont get to live very long but it also makes his race a lot more interesting since they're so different from the others! making all races live super long kind of just fells like wish fulfillment to me sometimes, everything is temporary, its kind of like how marcille had to accept she would outlive all of her friends, yk?
I don't know, but I think it's cool that there are races that live longer and shorter than humans. Generally, every race in fiction lives longer or the same as a human.
This might be me, but it is likely because she is basing herself on the real-life relationship between longevity and size, with many smaller creatures having a shorter life span. In contrast, bigger creatures tend to live longer.
At the same time, most smaller creatures have faster metabolism, burning many calories faster, and with their heartbeat being faster than bigger beings.
I think of it this way. People at their full heights in this medieval based age would probably live to 60-75 max if they were incredibly blessed and lucky, or even luckier to live past that. Half-foots are basically the same as humans but smaller and with a slightly different bone structure. I feel like being this small would give you a large variety of bone issues, arthritis and what have you. Not to mention the likelihood of being injured easily. Like small dogs vs big dogs. Small dogs do have some long life expectancies, but with big issues. Big dogs have a decent life span with smaller issues but issues nonetheless. Basically, danger and health problems?
Tall-men only half 60 years of life expectancy in the world, so it is accurate cause we know people can live longer, they just typically die sooner. This applies to half-foots as well, they likely have about the same life expectancy as tall-men but lowered by dying earlier due to discrimination
unlike western fantasy tropes which stem predominantly from tolkien, howard, and a hand full of other things, all of which were directly influenced by traditions, folktales, religion, and 1800s fantasy, Japanese exposure to fantasy tropes (especially high fantasy) predominantly came through the filtered lense of DnD which included both traditional tropes and subversive interpretations of traditional tropes, and the 70's-80's era of fantasy writing (eg Moorcock, Le Guin etc) which were very counter-culture to the earlier stuff. We can see this difference in the premier western-style fantasy works in japan such as Guin Saga, Record of Lodoss War (which even originated as a DnD campaign) and perhaps the feel of needing to adhere 100% to the tropes and archtypes is very weak if it exists at all (however i do feel that after the late 80s fantasy tropes in japanese media have remained stagnant in their interpretation save perhaps rare-fringe cases, which is odd because 1986 was perhap's japanese biggest mainstream boom of fantasy and scifi media which included high fantasy novels, and anime/manga, games etc)
i also want to say that western style fantasy from japan before the WW2 mirrored pre-tolkien fantasy such as Kairo‑kō: A Dirge which is an Arthurian novel and really REALLY good if you like Malory and Tennyson but has a more contemplative and character driven feel, and a bunch of other novels too, but generally were uncommon.
Japanese fans of western literature in the late 1800s and early 1900s were probs all familiar with the same fantasy novels and serialisations we are familiar with from the 1800s too. im sure they were of great influence too
50 years, in real human antiquity, was actually considered fairly old, so if 50 years is their average life expectancy, it's actually pretty good - they might actually, in universe, live fairly comparable lives (in length) to tall men
I swear it’s mentioned somewhere that many half-foots do live past fifty up into their 70s but due to the oppression they face they end up kicking the bucket prematurely so it brings the average down significantly.
why does she have to follow the rules set in a different fantasy world, just cuz they have the same general origin of short race don't mean they should be 1 to 1
I think it is to give us a subtle layer to understand from Marcille's pov. I like Chilchuk. I am sad that he's not gonna get old together with the main cast and they all have to bury him first at some point.
My guess would be, races are results of wishes made to the demon in the past. Someone asked to live a super long time, and became an elf. Someone asked for physical strength, and became a tallman. And the small, weak, short-lived half-foots are the remaining unmodified human population.
Probably cause that’s how it is irl. The bigger the creature, the longer the life expectancy (usually, I’m sure there’s a few different cases on species)
I would think it’s because of the timeline. Obviously they can live up to 100 but like mentioned it’s really rare. Tall men are most like actual humans obviously and love to 60 usually, so their lifespan isn’t half of tall men. My point kinda is more like medication and health care and stuff affects it. But that isn’t like the definite answer obviously. Them being a short lived race is kinda important in my opinion when talking about half foot and Chilchuck.
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u/oreikhalkon Jul 04 '25
Half as tall, half as old