Talk:Halfling

Untitled

"The word 'Halfling' was also from a line in a Shakespeare play, referring to a midget, a boy sized man. " Mmm, I doubt this enough to move it here till someone with a Concordance to Shakespeare can verify or deny. I suspected it because if it were really in Shakespeare, it would be in the Shorter O.E.D. eh. (The line was contributed anonymously by IC 66.42.112.41. Wetman 06:30, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

we could definately use a picture in this article --Nerd42 17:26, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Made one. Let's hope it does good. --Ifrit 04:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Tolkien

I'm puzzled why the article says it's another word for hobbit, as I don't remember the term halfling appearing anywhere in either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. FeralDruid 09:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I did some checking and Boromir uses the term three times during the Council of Elrond. FeralDruid 02:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

According to Appendix F, they called themselves Hobbits, but Men called them halflings. Daibhid C (talk) 02:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Folklore

There's absolutely no connection between Hanner Dyn the Half-Man and halflings that I can see. And where does "halflings were thought to be 4'9"-5'0" come from? Thought by whom, when? Daibhid C (talk) 02:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

There aren't any connections, and as they were invented by Tolkien (unless we count a word found in the Denham Tracts then it must mean fictional characters, however Halflings/Hobbits are a lot shorter than that, and that would be the size of a Dwarf. This article is pretty ridiculous to be fair. It needs a lot of work and that section removed! Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 02:27, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Hobbit copyright

About "Hobbit" trademark and "Dungeons & Dragons began using the name halfling as an alternative to hobbit for legal reasons", I've seen the "citation needed" on this page and finaly found the original US Registration certificate from the United States Patent and Trademark Office I guess that's a fair citation, even if there is no sign of Dungeon & Dragons. Dtapesar (talk) 21:05, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

That citation isn't valid for that statement (that the term Halfling was chosen due to the Hobbit name being trademarked). GimliDotNet ^{(Speak to me,Stuff I've done)}

re: (rather old) move proposal

Looks to me like this article's talkpage hasn't been touched in awhile, let alone the article itself, so I don't know how many eyes are on it at this point, but I think there's merit in either deleting this or merging its content with the Hobbit article... Aside from its apparent, yet-to-be-sourced etymological origins outside of Tolkien's work, this just looks like a list of crufty uses of the term/race in various media, and I'd see more encyclopedic merit as it just being referred to in the Hobbit article for what it is-- just an alternate name for hobbits, both in Tolkien's work and other works (which I see it already does, so that makes this article a little redundant, doesn't it?) BlusterBlaster^kaboom! 18:51, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. The terms are different. In Tolkien's work, "halfling" is an alternative term for "hobbits", but this is not true in works by other creators. Not only is the word "halfling" much older than "hobbit", but "hobbit" is exclusive to Tolkien's work, whereas "halfling" is widely used throughout many different works of modern fiction outside of Tolkien, and to describe beings quite different from Tolkien's conception. —Lowellian (reply) 05:00, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

(Wow, I didn't even remember making the above post, that's back when I first joined...) Eh, I dunno Lowellian, at least judging by the use of the term in other stories listed on the article as it is right now, it seems to me like most authors/creators/whathaveyou seem inclined to use the term "halfling" to describe creatures very analogous to hobbits in their own mythos without actually being able to use the term "hobbits"; they're not really all that different from Tolkien's description half the time-- humanoids that are very short in comparison to other races, often cast as good lockpickers or thieves, generally good alignment, etc.

But it all really boils down to sources in the end, not opinion, and the article is sorely lacking in the former. I'll try to find some when I have a spare minute, but I'll admit I'm at a loss for where to look for independent sources talking about the difference between halflings and hobbits in literature and other media. ^BLUSTER⌉⌊_BLASTER 11:44, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I've removed the tag. The discussion seems to be going nowhere. Yes, more refs would be good; but RS for fantasy fiction are hard to find. -- Elphion (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Disambifying per AfD

I brought this article recently to the AfD, and there was strong support for disambiguating this article. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Halfling. I would convert it by myself and move some text elsewhere, but I am not sure what to do with the popular culture section, as I was pretty much alone in wanting to get rid of it. WP:PRESERVE. The popular culture section could be saved from disambiguation by moving it into a separate list, but splitting this article even more is most likely a very bad idea. Disambiguation would be helpful as there is no clear primary topic here, as was argued at the AfD discussion page. WP:PRIMARYUSAGE. Ceosad (talk) 01:25, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

There is already a discussion of the spread of Tolkien's notion into SF&F and games at Hobbit, and this material could go there. Frankly, though, I think the current split works better: Hobbit for Tolkien's notion, Halfling for what it has transmogrified into. In fact, this article would be a reasonable target for off-loading non-Tolkien developments from Hobbit. -- Elphion (talk) 15:35, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

@Elphion: That sounds reasonable too, as the Hobbit is a long enough article. The non-Tolkien stuff on the Hobbit feels somewhat weird or out-of place, and it probably should be moved or offloaded here, as we already have this (PoV) article. The whole halfling thing is often all about derivations from Tolkien's work. Perhaps some hatnotes could be thrown around to get the same effect as the disambifying would have. Any objections if I move the popular culture section from the Hobbit here and rewrite the articles somewhat? I guess I should ping the people who were at the AfD too.

Davey2010, NinjaRobotPirate, Coolabahapple, KTo288, Borock, ansh666, Ivanvector, Praemonitus, Nyttend, VMS Mosaic: Sorry for the spam, but since you folks joined the AfD, I think you could have some input here too, so that we can resolve this thing properly. Should we disambify this (with mentions about other appearances), or should we move the non-Tolkien stuff from the Hobbit here? Ceosad (talk) 05:09, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I would probably lean toward moving the non-Tolkien stuff here. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:03, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

As long as the useful elements are available somewhere, I have no particular preference. Praemonitus (talk) 15:45, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

On the AfD page I suggested making this page a formal disambiguation page: "Halfling can refer to..." I think that's better than saying it's another word for hobbit. In that case "Halfling" and "Hobbit" should be merged and then there would still need to be two disambiguation pages, one for each word. Borock (talk) 18:01, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I finally moved the non-Tolkien content here. Ceosad (talk) 16:28, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Just voicing my opinion that Halfling should be a disambiguation page, as it is a word with a meaning in English that pre-exists its use in fantasy. ~ Aliveness Cascade (talk) 21:30, 4 February 2021 (UTC)