Oaken's Twelve: Nori and Dori

The three Dwarves Dori, Nori and Ori are, like Bifur and Bofur, somewhat lacking in the description department for the novel form of The Hobbit. Ori is the stand-out with his grey cloak and future history related in The Fellowship of the Ring, but of the other two we only know that Nori and Dori both wore purple hoods, played the flute, and of the two Dori distinguishes himself for his strength (he acts as 'porter' for Bilio on at least two occasions) and for being, by all accounts quite a reasonable chap. In An Unexpected Journey this translates to Dori losing his strength to the Dwalin, and being interpreted as  something of an effete Mancunian spinster, while the almost silent Nori in the book becomes Jed Brophy's sneaky potential kleptomaniac, with a not-too inconspicuous starfish hairstyle.

The other significant change to Dori, Nori and Ori in the movie is that they are all brothers - Ori's grey hood colouring being markedly tinged with lilac to rein him in with the others. Aside from similar names and hood colours, plus their arriving together there's nothing in the book at deliberately earmarks these three as brothers. True, Fili and Kili would be the nearest comparison for hood/name resemblance, but the oppostie seems true with Bifur and Bofur who wear the same colours and are, as mentioned earlier, cousins. For myself it's not an argument I'm wholly convinced by - every other detail of kinship in the book is specified, but not Dori, Nori and Ori. I'm happy to leave them as they are.

Figure-wise Dori and Nori here have had significant makeovers, with Nori acquiring a green stuff hood (three attempts, thankyou very much) for reasons that will become obvious in a later post, and Dori having some of his cloak cut away, and sculpted to be 'shredded' at its tails, as though by a snapping Warg at the bottom of a pine tree. It's Dori who comes to Bilbo's rescue in the book, allowing the Hobbit to climb to safety. I decided that such bravery had to come at some cost at least. I briefly toyed with the idea of weapon swaps to allow for knives for the pair rather than axes, but considered the change wouldn't be that noticeable in the end. Finally, as purple seems an unlikely colour for a Dwarven cloak, I've adapted it as indeed the movie designers did - a mulberry shade for Nori, and my own addition, something more like indigo for Dori. Matching good colours for Nori without making him look too clown-like in particular took some time and was frustrating, hence the delay with these two.

And that's the end of the double-acts of Oaken's Twelve!