Talk:Cheery Littlebottom

I've been trying to find the referent for ages, without success, but the BBC several years ago screened a documentary about a lonely lady dwarf looking for love on Roundworld. She was a victim of the achondroplasmic disorder that makes dwarfs on Roundworld, and she was also a compellingly attractive 3' 11" blonde. I really wish I could find photographs or at least links to stills from the TV show, as she is (to me) exactly as you'd expect Cheery Littlebottom to look without the beard...--AgProv 03:19, 12 September 2010 (CEST)

I would feel justified in using this lady's image here to illustrate the point (or if BBC copyright prevents, posting a link to images) as she has already indicated a willlingness to live life in the open subject to public view. But while I have found other images of dwarfesses on the Net that have a certain "Cheery-ness" to them, I am reluctant to post as I suspect I'd be intruding on their privacy - these images would come from family web-sites or other personal pages, for instance.

Oh, and achondroplasmia is the most common, accounting for 70% of instances of dwarfism, although nearly 200 conditions and genetic disorders can bring it about. Apparently one in 20.000 people in Britain and the USA are touched by dwarfism in some way (I'm thinking of comic actor and writer Andy Hamilton here for some reason). See here[1] for interesting information. --AgProv 03:36, 12 September 2010 (CEST)

Dwarves, however, don't think of dwarfism as a disorder or condition (unless as the natural condition). It's perfectly normal for them: people who need seven-foot ceilings are weird. - --Old Dickens 04:59, 12 September 2010 (CEST)

It's an interesting philosophical point, though. If we take Great Britain as a starting point, its dwarf population is approx. 3,000. (one in twenty thousand of fifty-five million).

Therefore a deviation from the norm rather than a separate ethnicity or social grouping. But if at some point in the past, achondroplasmia had been very much more prevalent in the population, along with other gene-markers such as enhanced longevity and the gene for facial hair in women... would this have provoked a separation of two humanoid species that shared a common ancestor? And the shorter and moree vulnerable of the two species saw what Cro-Magnon Man did to Neanderthal Man, learnt a lesson about realpolitik and retreated underground before the same happened to it, deciding to evolve better weapons and protective armour as additional insurance...--AgProv 10:11, 15 September 2010 (CEST)

But do not the Ancient Texts tell us that in Middle Earth as well as the Discworld, the Dwarves were there first? (Sounds like a thesis for some original fiction, though.) --Old Dickens 00:00, 16 September 2010 (CEST)

Which holds out the possibility that I have it exactly wrong, or it depends on where you're standing and how high your eyes are off the ground... what if achondroplasmia is the norm for humanoid races, and human beings have some sort of inherent genetic shortcoming leading to shorter lives, excessive tallness and far less facial hair in females...--AgProv 14:03, 16 September 2010 (CEST)

According to the dwarves, they came at the same time (see Tak), but this is unreliable since they also say that trolls came slightly later, when in fact they are believed (in The Fifth Elephant and maybe others) to be the first sentient species on Discworld. --Confusion (talk) 07:21, 1 January 2014 (GMT)

Illustration

I question the suitability of the drawing here, only because Cheery appears too old. There's a good depiction by Lillian Ripley with high-heeled boots, plaited beard and leather skirt. I don't know how we'd acquire it. --Old Dickens (talk) 04:14, 26 October 2018 (UTC)