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Hobbits: Difference between revisions
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* David Weber's ''[[The War Gods|WarGod]]'' series plays up the thieving, cowardly image for its version of Halflings. Except the Marfang Islander halflings who are brilliant sailors and brave to what the other races consider reckless insanity. They've all got small horns on their foreheads as well to set them apart physically.
* The Fiia of Ursula K. LeGuin's ''Rocannon's World'' fit this trope to a T, being a small child-like race that just wants to enjoy a simple communal life free of care and fear.
* The Athsheans of ''The Word for World is Forest'' are also something like this (they are assumed to look rather like Ewoks, only green). They're a peaceful bunch until [[Humans Are
* Jody Lynn Nye's ''An Unexpected Apprentice'' features the race of "smallfolk", who are Tolkien's hobbits in all but name. The sole difference that This Troper can see is that instead of having large, hairy feet, the smallfolk have no toes.
* Subverted by Michael de Larrabeti in his ''[[The Borribles|Borribles]]'' novels, in which the eponymous human-offshoots are urbanized, adventurous, scruffy, and tough; they live in a world much like ours, but with fantastical elements. They share stereotypical hobbits' small size, stealthiness, distaste for authorities, compassion for animals, and tendency to steal whatever's not nailed down.
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** Starting with Third Edition, halflings got a major overhaul and became much less Tolkienesque; in the process becoming more adventurous and less innocent; the default subrace became the ''lightfoots'', who were portrayed not as jovial homebodies but tricksy nomads [[Your Mileage May Vary|some have alleged to being]] [[Unfortunate Implications|unfortunately similar]] to [[Roma|gypsies]]. Over time they have physically become "sexier" and less hobbitlike, to the point that some now see them as [[Our Elves Are Better|short elves]]. The "cuter", more provincial traits of the "old" halflings were mostly given to the [[Our Gnomes Are Weirder|gnomes]], who were described as living in cozy burrow-towns.
** ''[[Eberron]]'' took it even further; some halflings are ''[[Rule of Cool|dinosaur-riding barbarians]]'', even though they still get the inoffensive dragonmarks.
** Nowhere went further than ''[[Dark Sun]]'', which featured savage, jungle-dwelling cannibal halflings—about as far from Tolkien's hobbits as you can get. Not [[Ass Pull|to]] [[Your Mileage May Vary|mention]] {{spoiler|genetically engineering near universal mutation of every creature. Creating magic based on either killing the world, or killing people en-masse. Actively orchestrating the extinction of any other sentient race. And doing all this to fix the problem of having brutally screwed the world up in the first place.}} Except not really. The spoilered bit above was mostly the work of {{spoiler|the setting's [[Bigger Bad]], Rajaat, who was himself the [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|sole evil member]] of a race of mystical caretakers of the world (not halflings). He did intend for halflings (Athas's first sentients) to be the sole surviving humanoid species, but they themselves had no idea, and his main pawns were [[Humans Are
** Even in Second Edition, the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' setting's version of hobbits were the Kender, a race of adventurous kleptomaniacs.
** [[Mystara]]'s halflings have some well-hidden magical aptitudes that work only in their homeland, which explains why such little guys haven't been conquered recently. They kick out their misfits and thugs (yes, there are such things), who head off to become swashbuckling pirates. These things happen when you let Ed Greenwood write your country's game supplement.
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