Dís/Her Husband

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Pairing
Pairing: Dís/Her Husband (sometimes Dís/Her Wife)
Alternative name(s):
Gender category: Het (sometimes Femslash)
Fandom: The Hobbit
Canonical?: Implied
Prevalence: Low but not rare[1][2]
Archives:
Other: Dís's husband (or wife) is not explicitly canonical, only implied[3]
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Dís/Her Husband is a semi-canonical ship from The Hobbit fandom. It is based on the existence of Dís's sons Fíli and Kíli. In a few works, Dís had a wife instead of a husband.[4]

This is generally a pre-canon relationship. In almost all quest-period and post-quest fanworks, Dís's husband is deceased. The movie promotional materials say he has disappeared[5] or died, and the fact that he's not on the quest is usually taken by fans as confirmation of his death.[6][7]

Origins

Nothing concrete is known about the father of Fíli and Kíli.[3] Shortly after the release of An Unexpected Journey, fans began to speculate about his personality and Dís's relationship with him, as well as why he wasn't on the quest. Most assumed he was dead.[8]

In most prompts and works, the relationship between Dís and her husband was positive and it is handled as a love match, but a few works posit an arranged marriage and negative experience. One hobbit_kink prompt explained:

I tried to got through all the prompts, and I don't think I've seen this one yet. I don't know much about Fili and Kili's father, but was inspired by a fic that had an idea that Dis was in an arranged marriage with a less than savory character.

I'd like to expand on that, with details of Fili's early life. Maybe the other dwarves don't realize how badly Dis and Fili are being treated until Kili is born. Fili can't stand to see his brother mistreated, so the truth is revealed when protective!Fili comes out and is possibly injured badly in the process. I'd especially love to see Thorin's reaction and protective side when it comes to his nephews. Whether their father dies/leaves/pops up again when they are older is up to you!![9]

Common speculations also included his relationship with other members of the family:

Seriously, just anything where Thorin and Dis' husband are just like best friends who work together and hang out and drink on occasion because they are besties and they enjoy each other's company.[10]

Dis's husband is not always dead. Greater Adventures by hotdwarflovin[11] mentions him in a throwaway comment as still being alive when the quest begins. The humorous The Panting of the Dwaves by Jimiel[12] has him living in the reclaimed Erebor. This is a relatively rare interpretation, but it's not unknown, and it's generally justified by the lack of information.[4][12]

Fannish Tropes

Since Dís's husband (or wife) is entirely a fan-constructed character, the tropes involved in the ship are variable. A few common fanon elements have emerged about their relationship.

  • Víli - This is by far the most common fanon name for Dís's husband. Madame_faust took it from the Poetic Eddas and was probably the first person to use it in a fanwork.[13] Other fanon names often rhyme with Fíli and Kíli, though not all do.
  • Widow - Dís's husband is usually dead before the quest begins. Common causes of death include fighting at Azanulzibar, a mining accident,[14] or suicide.[15]
  • True Love - Most works have Dís and her husband as a love match, often outside class lines, kin lines (as in, he is not one of Durin's Folk), or other usual boundaries.
    • In some works, Dís's husband is a commoner. The exile from Erebor allows them to marry because it changes Dís's status and makes for a much smaller number of dwarves overall. In The Princess and the Goldsmith's Son by Sassaphrass, he is a goat-herder and at the very bottom of the social order.
  • Arranged Marriage - In a few works, especially earlier ones, Dís's marriage was arranged because she's royalty. Sometimes she was even abused by her husband.
  • Ur Family - In some works, Dís's husband is closely related to Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, explaining their presence on the quest.[16][17]

Reactions of Other Characters

  • Thorin Oakenshield - In some works, when Dís first begins courtship, Thorin objects or views her choice with suspicion, usually out of a desire to protect his sister. Dís generally knocks some sense into him, or her husband turns out to be so friendly even Thorin can't hate him, as in madame_faust's Worries Go Down Better with Ale than Without.
  • Dwalin - In some works, Dwalin loves Dís and watches her marry someone else, leaving him heartbroken.[18] In a few works, they later go on to have a romance once Erebor is reclaimed.

Fanworks

Archives

Example Fancomics

Example Fanart

Example Fanfiction

References

  1. ^ The first Dis/Her Husband work on AO3 was posted around December 22, 2012. By December 15, 2013, the ship had about 65 works there. By December 15, 2014, it had about 135 works. About half the works were also tagged with Bilbo/Thorin. Many of the tagged works are for a past relationship where her husband is already dead, but some works are specifically about how Dís met or lived with her husband, or have him surviving.
  2. ^ Dís/Canonical Husband on AO3 had 171 works tagged as of March 8, 2015. This was just over 1% of all Hobbit works on that archive, making this ship the 20th largest in the fandom, just below Bilbo Baggins/Dwalin and just above Thranduil/Original Female Character.
  3. ^ a b Dis by askmiddlearth says "We know basically nothing about Dis other than the fact that she was born in Erebor in the year 2760 of the Third Age, the younger sister of Thorin and Frerin. She was the mother of Fili and Kili. We don’t know when she died, or who her husband was."
  4. ^ a b "because when you really think about it, there's no PROOF that Dis's partner was a man...." This Feeling That Remains by khazadqueen, a work which has Dís with a wife instead of a husband. In this work, Dís's wife is still living when the quest begins, and it is she who gives Kíli the stone to remind him of his promise to return to her.
  5. ^ "Après la disparition de leur père, les neveux de Thorin Fili et Kili se sont énormément attaché à lui, car Thorin est devenu leur figure paternelle de référence." ~Richard Armitage Richard Armitage: À la coquête du royaume, interview in L’Écran Fantastique, November 24, 2012.
  6. ^ Dis's Husband by askmiddlearth, answering a question about bookverse: "Fili and Kili were born in the Blue Mountains, long after Erebor had been taken by Smaug, so he definitely didn’t die then, or during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. [...] But he’s definitely most likely dead, since otherwise there’s no reason for him not to be part of Thorin’s Company."
  7. ^ That's an interesting thought by Riven Delve, posted March 3, 2013. "In addition, it seems likely that her husband is dead since he doesn't follow Thorin on the quest (although movie Thorin could also have lost a spouse--he is old enough to have been married at the time of the sack of Erebor)."
  8. ^ Valuables by RunRabbitRun December 22, 2012. This was the first Dís/Her Husband work posted to AO3, and it assumed he died pre-quest. The story was written for a hobbit_kink prompt, though the original prompt only mentions Dís, not her husband.
  9. ^ Young Fili & Kili's father prompt posted to hobbit_kink on Jan 4, 2013.
  10. ^ Thorin and his brother-in-law were bros, prompt posted to hobbit_kink on January 29, 2013. This prompt was filled.
  11. ^ Work posted December 23, 2012.
  12. ^ a b "I did some research and couldn't find any concrete evidence of her husband being dead, so I decided to go ahead and keep him instead of figuring out who her current beau would be." ~end notes of chapter 2 of The Panting of the Dwaves by Jimiel. Posted June 29, 2014.
  13. ^ Worries Go Down Better with Ale than Without by Madame_faust, posted January 31, 2013. "I took the name Víli from the Poetic Edda where Tolkien borrowed his dwarf names"
  14. ^ Valuables by RunRabbitRun, posted December 22, 2012. Six Strains of Heartbreak by rata_toskr, posted March 18, 2013. Kith and Kin by madame_faust, posted March 10, 2013. In these three works, Dís's husband died in a mining accident.
  15. ^ Dis, Gen, hobbit_kink prompt posted December 23, 2012. In this prompt and the fill for it, Dís's husband commits suicide after the quest, due to hearing what happened to his sons.
  16. ^ "Dis is happily married to an OC that I made Bifur’s brother because Bifur couldn’t be the only dwarf in the company without a brother and I want the Ur family to be somehow related to the royal family just like the rest of the company." Overcoming Barriers by Aloneinthedarknes7, chapter 3 notes.
  17. ^ Kith and Kin by madame_faust, based on a hobbit_kink prompt posted March 10, 2013, asking for It seems odd that Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur are along for the ride when they're the only ones not at least distantly related to the line of Durin. "But they are -- through marriage. They're kinsmen to Fíli and Kíli's late father. So while it's perfectly true to say they're not of the line of Durin, they have a vested interest in the young princes. Bonus if their family has no connection to Erebor and isn't the least bit noble. Double bonus if, after growing up in Ered Luin where noble blood didn't change the fact that you had to get up every morning and work at a forge, the lads sometimes identify with their father's kin much better than they do with their mother's. After all, all those tales of the wealth of Erebor and the power they would have as princes is very theoretical to lads who've lived their whole lives in exile."
  18. ^ Papermachete's comics Lady Dis and Dwalin and This is a comic I did for the Mizimel Hobbit Anthology Fanbook, Bofur1's fic Nothing for My Feelings, and madame_faust's fic With Eyes of Honest Longing
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