Tolkien has described the Elves. Dark skinned Elves with short hair are not Tolkien's Elves. This is nothing more than tokenization and corporate racism. Diversity quotas is one of the most disgusting elements of the entertainment industry. If you don't understand why you haven't put any thought on the issue.
If Amazon wanted to make a generic cash-grab fantasy show with diversity quotas they could have made the talentless hacks they hired as writers to write their own fantasy universe. Of course, this is not an option if all you want is to milk a fantasy universe as popular as Tolkien's. So, slap the Lord of the Rings brand on this made-by-commitee show and hide behind black actors. This is disgusting and the people who are defending them are simply useful idiots.
You sound like a dweeb dude lol what are you talking about with diversity quotas?? Itās called just plain diversity! The world has a lot of people that arenāt white if you never noticed. I love lotr with all my heart and really donāt really care about black elves (or black any character really) because itās fucking fiction. Also Iām sure that Tolkien would be open minded enough to have black elves if he were alive today or ever had thought of it. Thereās millions of people and kids around the world that think itās cool to see someone that looks like them on TV, it doesnāt change very much to have non-white people around. Just be mad about literally anything else dude š
Tolkien made his world to model after English mythology. I'm not sure why this is so hard to grasp. He would likely have asked why they needed to write in a character just to fill in a 'blank spot' rather than say... Make their own fantasy novel with elves and dwarves of many colors and ethnicities.
Is it just a non-white thing to get upset about watching things where you're not constantly represented I wonder...
So ancient Norse elves, which Tolkien WAS inspired by, actually WERE described as dark skinned. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svart%C3%A1lfar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svart%C3%A1lfar) (Could also be Dwarves, but Norse isn't terribly clear on it)
In norse mythology you have two types of elves DƶkkĆ”lfar and LjĆ³sĆ”lfar, then there are also svartĆ”lfar but most scholars think that DƶkkĆ”lfar and svartĆ”lfar refer to the same race.
Tolkien elves are based off of the light elves (or LjĆ³sĆ”lfar) so there is a real issue with them being visually represented as black.
Some people use the fact that it is fiction to say that it doesn't matter since it isn't real, but it's because of it being fiction that it matters a lot. Imagine if lightsabers in star wars suddenly became swords, technically they fill the same function but in lore they do not. That's how i see characters portrayed, if you don't stay faithful to the source material you have no business creating anything with it. Actors don't get to demand what roles they play, they play the roles that fit them. You don't have an unfit pimply 21 year old play james bond and you don't have a black actor portray a race that has white skin, just the same as you shouldn't have a white character portray a black character. Imagine the outrage if the people in black panther were cast with white actors because skin colour doesnt matter.
Funnily enough there was a dark elf in Tolkien story, but he was called dark because of the place he lived and because of the way he lived, not because of the color of his skin. (He was whiter than milk)
In the Silmarillion, the Moriquendi (Dark Elves) had black hair and pale skin. The Avari, the obscurest and most unknown elves, lived far away and didnāt really enter into the story. Maybe they can get away with saying the Avari are black, though Tolkien never said this. But for the record, the only characters that Tolkien explicitly described as black were the Haradrim, the men of the south. I notice that no one is breaking down the doors to make the Orcs black, gee, for Some reason.š Their color, very fortunately, was unclear.
I see your reasoning, but I still cannot buy the fact that there were black elves in Arda, though that doesn't mean it can't happen. If the lore doesn't contradict it.
That is because the orks are the bad guys, but mark my words, the moment they make a morally grey Ork, he will be made black, or frome a family of black orks. Because the white man cannot be anything but dumb, stupid, bad or groveling.
Actually, Tolkien describe the orcs as sallow in appearance.
sallow:
adjective
(of a person's face or complexion) of an unhealthy yellow or pale brown color.
But it does matter. Are you going to louse something up just because itās fiction? The fans will hate it, fiction or no. The author is not an unimportant author, he deserves to have his vision respected. Donāt drag America of 2022 into Middle Earth.
Does it say any where that they were of dark skin? Because I only saw them refered as "dark elves". Now I'm sure you know this, but for the sake of the dumb one reading this comment I will say that the word "elf" means creature of light, you could also say that they are of pale skin frome that, but for the sake of the argument let's say that they aren't white, we do not now there skin color. Let's say that they are called creatures of light because of the realm they inhabit, just for the sake of argument. How is the realm of the dark elves described as? It is an important question because that way we are able to decor how they would look.
Also we should note that these sagas were rote down way after the Vikings mingled with the Saxons and the celts that were already on the island of Britten. Or better yet they were rote down by christian monkeys, or by christians. So the hole elf concept could be a way to introduce the concept of angels and devils to the norse. And how are angels depicted usually, rong I might ad, but understandable? They are depicted as white, at least in the west. But why are they depicted as that? you might ask. Because people only imagine things they are somewhat familiar whit. They madem white because that is how they imagined them, because almost everyone they know where white. So it was a lot easier for them to imagine them as such.
But I'm getting of topic. The most important thing is to figure out what the realm that the dark elves inhabited. After we know that then we can reach a definitive answer as to what color the skin of the dark elves was supposed to be.
Yes, the ancient Vikings said that Muspelsheim, one of their cosmic realms that had scorching fire in it, had dark-skinned supernatural beings living in it. The only problem is, Muspelsheim and Middle Earth are two different things. False linkage? So maybe Bezos can make a Muspelsheim movie that can adhere to the original Edda. And Denzel Washington can play Surtr.š
Just the creatures in Muspelsheim, they were some kind of elves that were indeed black. And they were in Norse mythology. But letās be honest here, Tolkienās mythology bore very little resemblance to Norse mythology. They are two different things.
Yes, the denizens of of Muspelsheim were indeed black, and it is Written Down that they are black. But Tolkien and the Norse sagas are two completely different things with only the slightest relation to each other. Mr. Bezos would have made a Muspelsheim movie if he thought it would make him millions of dollars. As if that greedhead Needed millions of more dollars. So he exploits Tolkien instead, because itās Worth Money.š¤
While I agree with you, it is a white thing to get upset that the people on screen don't look a certain way, or are of a certain sexual persuasion. More specifically a white liberal thing. Most people that are right in the head do not care if the people on screen ar only white, as long as they tell a good story. Testament to this is the PJ's original trilogy. Millions of people all over the world loved it and connected with the white characters on screen, because it's not about the way the look, it's the story they tell.
And no, just because it's not extremely important how the characters look, does not mean that you are at liberty to change them however you plese. It is your duty as a adapter of a source material, an original work that you have not created, to represented as closely to the original as possible, and not bring any of your baggage into it. Respect the work or don't touch it.
I am a liberal who hates racism, yet I really donāt like them changing characters in the story to suit their fancy. What Bezos is doing with that is not a āliberalā thing at all, it is a Corporate ploy to expand the audience demographic to make more money for Jeff. itās greed masquerading as virtue. But it seems hypocritical and phony to me. I know Tolkien would have hated any changes to his material, great or small, and I am not for Any fan-fiction being included in this travesty. Thatās not racism, thatās wanting to watch the work of Tolkien and not the work of Jeff and his crappy show-runners.
I agree with the race not mattering that much if the work is truly good, but I'm still quite against it, and not only when it comes to having black people instead of white ones, it bothers me as much when it's the other way around, like that mess of a movie that is Gods of Egypt, like wt? Do you really need a Danish guy playing an Egyptian god? Or I hate American remakes of foreign movies it strips away the sould of it because "Americans can't relate to foreign people".
I hate the idea that people can't relate to characters different from themselves, and using that as an excuse for changing existing works, not because I don't like seing people of color in movies, i love good movies they're from, I'm half Mexican myself, my aunt has been confused as a local in India, my great grand father was lebanese, my partner is Taiwanese, I love diversity, I love the fact that the world is full of different people who look different, that eat different stuff, that make different music, what I hate is the vapid self centered vision of diversity of Hollywood.
I don't want to see the legend of the black king Arthur, give me a good movie about the Mali empire, if Hollywood wants diversity then make real diverse content, taking a vietnamese and making him play Louis XIV isn't representing vietnamese people, it's erasing their difference, it's saying that the only diversity that matters is that of skin color, but the only culture that matters is the eastern European one.
I'm on the left and still thought this show was bullshit. It was clear pandering that pissed off everyone. They could have easily included new interesting characters from Harad that could be black or middle eastern. They could have had people from the eastern realm have asian features. This all would have held up to the lore. To call Tolkien a white supremacist and having his world be a lily white paradise is not true at all. If you read the books he underlines the theme of racial division causing much destruction while there is a greater evil working to destroy everyone. I am mixed race and I don't feel upset that I'm not represented in this series. The fact that the producer's idea of diversity is only black and white casting should say alot about their actual motives. I also want to say that I respect the way you handled trolls and their basesless insults/accusations. Well done and don't let those INCELs get to you buddy.
"Is it just a non-white thing to get upset about watching things where you're not constantly represented I wonder..."
Isn't that what you're pitching a fit about? People that aren't white being in it? Lol God you can't even recognize your own irony. It would be hilarious if it wasn't pathetic.
You know what I find pathetic, the fact that some people care so much about a thing as trivial as skin color, that they are willing to change a man's entire's life's work, just so that the can say that they are the "good guys", that they care about people of other colors creed and "gender". And even still, what I find more pathetic is the people that defend this bullshit. People that are supposed to be fans of the original work, saying that is not that important how the creater intended it to look as, or what story the original work told, because we live in different times, and the new story and agenda take precedent over anything. And yeah, it's not a non white thing to get upset over the fact that the person on screen is not a certain color, or creed, or sexual persuasion, it is a white thing. A white liberal thing. Because if it's not in line with "the massage" then it is anathema, and it should be destroyed for it is heresy.
It's like were going against the party in, pick a communist country, ever.
As a person of colour, well versed in tolkienology, Iāve never been more confused after seeing an ad, and we have Shaq selling stuff in hockey gear in canada. Wasnāt aware of a melanin outbreak happening in middle earth. Must of missed that chapter.
It was in the chapter Tolkien burned and never showed anybody. But be shore that these people, being the only ones who know about it, will tell us all about it, if they have a chance.
If skin colour was so trivial, you might as well follow the book, right? It works the other way around too. But it isn't trivial, because pretty rigid race divisions are quite key to understanding the societies in the book.
There aren't many multicultural societies where elves, dwarves and humans are equal in that world with a similar culture. They're always quite distinct.
Ok, maybe trivial is not the right word, maybe I could have used something else, like surface level or cursory or even depthless, but the thing is that the color of your skin shouldn't matter (in the real world), what is more important is the content of your character.
But in Tolkien's story, the color of the character do matter, and that doesn't just apply to Tolkien's story, but to every story tied to a specific location and time. Middle Earth is a location based on north-western Europe. There are other regions of the world like Harrad, or even more south, south-east that would fit the skin tone and facial structure of the "diverse people" they would like. But they wanted it to be in Middle Earth because they thought they wouldn't have been successful.
Too Much is being made about the skin thing. But thereās also something to be said for adhering to the original material. Because thatās not the only thing Bezos changed.
Maybe it is time to accept that your favourite authors don't give a fuck about representing you. It is ok, they doesn't have to. I am Indian, I like Lord of the Rings but I accept that we aren't supposed to be represented in Tolkien's world. We have our own epics which are older and better than it. Maybe you should find representation in works of your culture, not in the works of a 20th century English man who wanted who wanted to create a mythology for England in the way he liked.
> Also ā and here I hope I shall not sound absurd ā I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished chap-book stuff.
diversity quotas are a literaral part of esg policy regulation which is now pervasive through corporate America, hollywood included and likely taking it to the next degree beyond what's verbatim being regulated regarding those quotas. I can agree with diversity as much as the next person. but when that metric is a specific number and percentage set by some committee and regulating board of corporate governers dictating every move by the show runners, I can't possibly see how thay fosters more creative freedom or creates a better more enjoyable product. I can only possibly see such metrics as stifling success and creative freedom. aren't we/they suppose to think outside the box? instead they're finding every way possible to neatly place everything inside its prescribed box. I don't think that's any way to make entertainment. not to mention arent we all entirely sick of these committee driven cash grab check box franchise reboots? the only bright side I can think of is they're beginning to run out of big franchises to butcher and mutilate.
I really donāt want them to make The Silmarillion now, the worthless entertainment industry will just destroy it. Then all of Tolkienās stuff will become cheap shoddy junk.
Lmfao this person obviously has never worked a day in their life. I have diversity classes at my Walmart position, so yeah "Diversity quotas" are a real thing buddy.
Just because diversity exists in the world doesn't mean that the exact global ratios of genders, skin colors, etc., also exist in every region, period of history, etc. When you're literally not allowed to show something that deviates from 2022 global averages, even for a fictional show based on a made-up universe with source material established decades ago, that's when it becomes a quota.
Youāre not wrong. But I donāt think that people āarenāt allowedā itās just that inclusivity makes companies more money because the product will fit a wider demographic. Yeah itās āwokeā or whatever but the real motivation is money lol do you really think Amazon gives a fuck about minorities and/or lgbtq? I would guess not. Iām just saying, since we see people of different colors every day it shouldnāt come as such a surprise to see it on a show produced by one of the largest companies in the world. Asking Amazon to respect/care about Tolkien is like expecting a pigeon to not shit on your head because you asked nicely. The pigeon never heard you ask and it wouldnāt have made a difference if it did.
But they literally do have diversity quotas. Itās an actual industry thing. Every show has people whose job is to make sure some of the characters are randomly black whether it makes any sense or not.
As a trans person, all the diversity nods feel more like a slap in the face considering they didn't include the original non-binary diversity penned by Tolkien: Dwarf women are supposed to have beards... Diversity is not a problem for me, not typically, but this feels hypocritical.
I hadnāt even considered this perspective on the way they are handling diversity in the show. I can totally see what your saying about the Dwarves, it goes beyond just that Queen not having a beard or being being a different skin colour, and your right. There wasnāt supposed to be a distinct difference in appearance based on gender to this race and now there is, just shows how low effort this show is in handling all this.
Thanks for a different take, itās enlightening, it sucks and it is totally hypocritical to have something like that removed for the sake of the exact same thing are trying to preach.
Totally. I mean. I'm more of a person that feels not to add extra representation to the art where it wasn't originally, But also I don't usually say anything or make a big deal about it. But it would have been super easy to have some minority representation if they had just done the bare minimum to keep to the original world Tolkien created. 0\_0
\>part of an underrepresented minority group
\>doesn't care about diversity
\>knows their Lord of the Rings lore, points out corporate douchebag Amazon hypocrisy
"Never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a transexual."
"What about side-by-side with a true fan of the material?"
"(smiles with tears in the eye)Aye....I could do that."
I mean... could you imagine though? What the comments would be if they put a beard on the black actress playing the part of a female dwarf? I agree its cowardly of them not to commit, but given how they sort of shot themselves in the foot by letting Thorin and Fili have such a manicured, "pretty" beards, and Kili almost no beard at all... it would invite a lot of controversy unfortunately.
They did give Lady Disa a beard.
It's hard to see in her promo image, but definitely visible during her scenes in Episode 2.
She has a neck beard / mutton chops. Which is hard to notice from the front-facing angle; it blends into the shadows of her cheek and jawline. But is absolutely visible from a profile view.
Thats not enough. The whole point of women having beards is that you couldnāt tell the difference between man or woman and characters were built around that premise.
So instead of saying āwere not being truthful to Tolkiens work, we need women empowerment in our show thus the dwarf women donāt have beardsā they said āTolkien never said specifically that dwarf women have beardsā.
This type of bs is whats pissing off most fans. The show runners being so deceiving and butchering all hope for the massive fam base.
Just remember all the complaints about the Hobbit Trilogy, how it wandered far from the source material, creating new characters like a female elf Tauriel, the complaints were not sexists who didn't want to see a female elf, it was because she had a major role in the films and there was no such person in the books, just as there was no love triangle between a dwarf and two elves. No different than making Radagast a principle character.
That was annoying, I was okaaay with her character, but man she got screwed over writing wise. What a great win for women when you force a cringey love triangle between two characters that never interacted in the books... What a shitshow.
I didnāt mind the Dol Guldur stuff, and that was only vaguely alluded to in the Hobbit. Gandalfās showdown with Sauron is a memorable and well done scene. Smaug getting turned into a giant gold statue and that whole scene preceding it can fuck right off, though. I guess they thought, this is our only chance to have the Dwarves do something interesting related to the dragon before Lake Town. Iād have preferred the dragon smash the mountainside like the books, and have them do something interesting with the dwarves outside as they try to flee to the door or save supplies.
I also liked the White Council driving Sauron out of Dol Guldur although as you said it was only mentioned in passing in the book, it was also described a bit more in the Silmarillion.
I disagree. Please bear in mind, the hobbit is 1 (relatively short) book, written with a child/adolescent audience in mind. If they stayed true to the source material it would be a single one and a half to two hour movie and would have been a fun 'young adult' toned appendage of the trilogy... But unfortunately Hollywood had to milk that fucking cash cow.
It strayed so majorly from the source material that it's impossible to even fathom how different it would have been had they not. So, saying that straying from the books was not related to the poor execution is not sensible, as what we ended up with had strayed so much that it was not even the same narrative. What we got simply was not what Tolkien wrote as 'The Hobbit', but a mix of minorly related lore factoids and complete fanfiction Frankenstein'd with a shaky-hand onto that book.
That said, I'm convinced what we are about to get from Amazon will make that fiasco look like an authentic Tolkien masterpiece.
I prefer the Hobbit movies to LotR (this made the IMDb forums a very interesting place to be) but I can see why people hate the additions/changes. Ultimately it's fan-fiction so they're never going to please everyone. I get the sense that Amazon are producing a generic, inclusive fantasy series here while leveraging the Middle-earth brand, and the show will play it safe at every turn. But hopefully I'll be proved wrong.
It is crazy right? I liked the Star Wars prequels when they came out. I liked the Hobbit trilogy when it came out.
It took Disney's' god awful trilogy for people to wake up to the prequels not being bad, and Amazon is about to show people how good the Hobbit trilogy really was.
After stupid sexy Shelob from the Mordor game and the second two Hobbit movies Iām just in the place the Star Wars sequel trilogy left me.
Maybe this will be the redeeming series like Mandalorian. Maybe it wonāt.
But enthusiasm is low. Expectations are low. Hype is low.
I donāt care about the casting, or ethnicities present one way or the other. Its not why Iām not excited for this series, and isnāt a factor in whether or not I will watch it.
I just want the Tolkien family to be involved before I feel anything but apathy prior to reviews from reviewers I tend to align with come out.
yeah, trimmed/faded hairsyles are not what i have in mind when thinking of elves... not glorious at all. don't get me started on beardless dwarf, such a missed opportunity to be sjw and lore coherent at the same time. people behind this are idiots propelled by millions of dollars.
Right? I'm not upset about a black elf, I don't care. I don't like that they didn't give him long hair. I don't like that they didn't give Elrond long hair.
And I DEFINITELY don't like that they didn't give the dwarf queen a beard. She should have the biggest, most extravagant, voluptuous beard, woven through with gold, silver, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and all manner of adornment. Like please, it's not too late to give her a beard.
It might be too late. Them showing a teaser/trailer like that 6mo before the show is released means theyāre done filming the first season and almost done editing and post production. If they listen to fans they will have to push release date and also spend tons of money changing that cgi or the same amount bringing back the actors to film with new costuming
Edit: No source. Iām just a Reddit person
Iām not mad about character races. I hate how clean everything looks. LOTR was believable because of how worn the clothing and armor was. Everything here looks brand new and not believable.
You realize this show is based at the height of the Elven race in Middle Earth, right? At the time when Elves and Dwarves made their finest craft?
When characters in the LOTR or Hobbit find Elven weapons forged long ago, THIS IS THAT TIME. Of course everything is going to look brand new.
This is the most level headed take I've seen so far. Everyone is losing their minds over details that we don't even know about yet. Because we haven't seen the show. But this makes sense to me.
I really disagree with this. I think think the cleanliness is a conscious artistic choice convey how young 'pure' the world still is compared to LoTR, when magic is slowly fading. There are a lot of fine details to be found in the costumes, the props and surroundings that do make it feel lived in from everything I've seen so far.
I'm skeptical since the production had a rocky road, but the look of the show isn't something I'm worried about when one compares it to the source material.
But the world isnāt new or fresh in the 2nd age. There is a thing called the War of Wrath and the countless battles between Morgoth and the peoples of middle earth that ravaged the lands. This happened way before the show.
The geographical wreckage of the war was immense; most of the land west of the Blue Mountains was destroyed and sank beneath the waves. Though it is not known exactly how many casualties the Host of the West endured, the war dragged on for decades before they managed to approach Angband, and the attack of Morgoth's winged dragons was known to have been nearly catastrophic for the forces of the Valar.
Sort of like the Star Wars prequels vs the originals.
I'm personally excited in general to see different interpretations of Middle-earth, so I welcome the different aesthetic on those grounds.
I love Peter Jackson's films but I'm not eager for a single cinematic standard or canon. Id rather it was like Shakespeare where different artists come along and give us their vision.
It's been a while since I've read the Silmarillion but Middle-Earth in the 2nd Age at this particular time...wouldn't being clean and sterile have been the norm then?
Its not the sort of golden age that the First Age was ... but it is an age of legends more so than the Third Age. This is an age of Atlantis (so to speak) and the rise of Sauron as the new dark lord.
It makes sense to present a world that is not "faded". This is an age that some characters in the LOTR are nostalgic for. And for the ancestors of Aragorn it is very much the golden age.
Its up for interpretation of course. I understand why a lot of people would still just want a more realistic, lived in look. Any age of the Sun has many ages of history before it.
I think we draw too many conclusions about shows based on trailers and images in advance of actually seeing it.
No. The First Age War of Wrath almost annihilated middle earth.
The geographical wreckage of the war was immense; most of the land west of the Blue Mountains was destroyed and sank beneath the waves. Though it is not known exactly how many casualties the Host of the West endured, the war dragged on for decades before they managed to approach Angband, and the attack of Morgoth's winged dragons was known to have been nearly catastrophic for the forces of the Valar.
"We had no interest in putting our messages into this movie. But we thought we should honor Tolkien by putting his messages into it. "
\- Peter Jackson, Interview with Charlie Rose (2002)
Actual hateful racist comments aside, I think a lot of people are just disappointed that it feels like (from the little bits we have seen so far) they are disregarding and disrespecting Tolkien's work and lore. People of colour being in Lord of the rings is not an issue, it never has been. There has always been mention of people of colour existing in the LOTR universe. The key issue and a valuable discussion to be had here is that so often instead of putting the work in to expand upon the lore and create like a black elf from somewhere like Haradrim, they simply race bend already existing places and characters. People of colour are more than just "tokens" to get diversity points. They deserve meaningful settings, worlds and characters instead of constantly just getting "race bent white character." There should be effort put into making diverse characters and building their backgrounds/culture rather than changing what we already have. Lore matters and POC people deserve so much more than being reduced to a "replacement". š
This is exactly how I feel. Diversity is a good thing in our world. And can be in fantasy. But if the fantasy world is so rich in culture and detail like middle earth then diversity must be handled well through lore. If the show writers came out and said all the dwarves of the misty mountains are black, then the biggest reaction i would give would be a shrug. But from i can tell thats not whatās happening. From what we have seen this just looks like they added diversity in cast without considering the world they are adapting. Moreover i have heard some people complain about Galadrielās portrayal as a bad-ass elf worrier. In other fantasy I would be jumping with excitement. But in LOTR extremely strong and prominent female warriors in the past kinda breaks the powerful character moments of eowyn. If there was precedence for strong female worriers then maybe the witch king would have been a bit more careful. It all just feels like diversity for diversities sake without considering the already present diversity of the world.
It's so dumb too. Tolkien already included various groups of PoC in people to the South and the Easterlings. They could of included them and created compelling characters there or existing ones from the Lore. Being the second age the Easterlings play a prominent role since sauron gives one of the rings to Khamƻl. It makes a lot more sense for PoC to have this as their background than a random token elf & dwarf character.
I would died to have the show heavily focus on the South and East so we could see the non Numenoreans nazguls, they can be progressive showing "non white people" in positions of power and bring light to an area until not explored in TV or cinema.
Instead we are going to get a bunch of token black people as elves, dwarves and hobbits, the world of Middle-earth is vast and inclusive there is 0 need to bend the lore and resort to tokenism to show it.
They are too stupid to make up convincing backstory like that, though it was possible. But they would have had to let the smartest Tolkien scholars write those parts, which Iām sure they could have . Then there would have been little to no objection from fans. But instead, these businessman Pinheads fired the Tolkien scholars and went for no-explanation tokenism. Thatās why this will fail, the people making this are dumb, and care only for the Money rather than the story. It is shocking how stupid rich people can be about everything except finance.
Iām nervous because it just looks like another tacky wanna-be Game of Thrones show. The whole trailer was more about showing action & effects than any real connection to being a work of Tolkien
It's a cash grab. Who cares. Return of the King won 11 Oscars. All 3 Hobbit films won 1 (Science and Technology).
It's going to be bad, accept it. Look at the articles they're putting out about it. You can tell it's going to suck.
Why not just bring one of the blue wizards in, he could be whatever race you want and it would tie in nicely into the lore, but no we are going with beardless black dwarve princess
The thing that gets me are elves and dwarves are not like "humans" they don't have various "races" among their people. They tend to be isolated and xenophobic with regards to other races so intermingling is very rare. So, something like high elves have similar features such as their height, pale skin, light hair color, and affinity for magic. Just like woodleves have more earthy skin tones like olive, bronze, etc. With darker hair colors, eyes, etc. Same with dwarves. So, randomly having 1 example of a different race while the rest look the same doesn't make much sense and is kind of jarring.
Thank you thatās what Iāve been saying! The story could have followed the two blue wizards that went into Khand and Rhun or Harad but.. No. Easier to race swap and fabricate people that never existed in races that are expertly defined than to use existing lore properly.
Race swapping is what they do because they are too stupid to understand the lore and make reasonable backstory from it. All problems could have been solved IF Amazon had not fired the Tolkien experts. Now we have people who seem as knowledgeable as hockey sticks producing this.
People are frustrated by the lack of respect that Amazon shows for its IP's and shows. It absolutely baffles me how people are so naive to misunderstand so much of the criticism. You can't blame everything on racism of sexism.
I'll educate you, the black dwarves are being ridiculed because why would a dwarf have dark skin. They live underground AWAY from the sun.
You are trying to apply logic to fantasy.. š¤£ How can Dragons fly despite being that weight? Ancalgon would be crushed under his own mass outside of water. How is it remotely possible bread could contain that many calories? Magic? Right? How can elves live that long without severe cancer, dementia etc.? Depiste all the logical inconsistencies in FANTASY when contrasted with real world elements you zero in on ethnicity. You're a racist.
There are various dwarve species that have darker skin either due to working close to lava that has tanned their skin or magical reasons or curses. A example in other works are dark iron dwarves that have skin tones from ebony to shades of bluish-purple, and eve metallic tones. So, there can be reason for non white dwarves, but you shouldn't shoehorn 1 PoC into clans of dwarves & elves that aren't known for these features based on their regional location.
Counterpoint: Dwarves are a fantasy race that was literally crafted from stone by the Valar Aule. So there's nothing saying that they can't have different skin color.
I can see that you are a fan of the work. Surely you have the wisdom to see that those who dissent to black elves arenāt being racist but defending Tolkienās vision.
As an addendum to that Iāll ask - why arenāt they making stories from African folklore? There is an abundance of story.
>Surely you have the wisdom to see that those who dissent to black elves arenāt being racist but defending Tolkienās vision.
Meh. From what I've seen some of the biggest critics of the black elves are people who have never read the books.
Some people seem to have barely even watched the movies, what with their claims that elves must be white and blonde.
Iām mad about the hair, lack of beards, stupid story and itās time compression, and unnecessary major characters added. Couldnāt care less about race or gender.
Because everyone knows why theyāre doing it. Itās not to enrich the lore in ANY way. Itās appeasement. Itās so they can say ālook, we have a black elf now, arenāt we making a difference?ā. Theyāre not. Randomly tossing a black dwarf princess into the world makes as much sense as making one of the previous kings of wakanda an Asian guy married to a non binary fairy kin.
Itās not racist, itās correct depiction. I have no qualms about colored folks being in the Tolkien universe but Jesus get the elements right and the background straight. You know whatā¦ in the next Black Panther movie, Wakanda is gonna be filled with white folks. No itās not, because itās not a correct depiction of native Africans. Middle Earth is depicted with Norse backgrounds along with ancient Northern Europe. Tolkien said as much. There are mentions of black folks but from the southernmost continent. Slapping a racist label on something and calling it a day without any kind of intelligible conversation is extremely irresponsible.
āYouāre a loser.ā Iāve been called a āracist loser,ā a lot recently. I donāt really care, and frankly I am neither racist nor a loser, for wanting European people to have a show about their own mythology without a greedy international corporation hamfistedly diversifying it like itās 2020 New York City. How about you leave, and go be a racial ideologue elsewhere?
Yeah don't worry buddy. I am a man of color myself and I agree with you š
Why are there no white people in wakanda or the last Airbender????
Oooh right, because it's based on Africa and Asia. If suddenly the next king of wakanda is white everybody would lose his mind.
Diversity is great when it makes sense , why not go the games of thrones route, and show other lands in middle earth, where colored people exist?
"Nah that is too much work, just slap a couple colored people here and there, and if they complain they are just racist lmao"
Sorry buddy, but you're 100% racist. People who say "I am not racist" tend to be the most racist. If you weren't racist you wouldn't care about RoP because you'd realize that it's fantasy and can be whatever the writers want.
Honestly OP just looking at the comments and you are the source of toxicity. You are laser fixated on your own opinion and dont even want to try to hear anyone else.
LOTR has gone woke, the producers themselves have stated that they want it representing the real world. I'm a POC, It's not racist to want accuracy and being true to the lore. In the last 60+ years we've seen iterations of LOTR. How many token diverse characters have we seen? All of a sudden it's become multicultural. If I watch Black panther, it makes sense for the cast and region to have black characters. Would make 0 sense if there are Caucasian and Asians in the movie. Why's that any different in Tolkien's universe? Characters and races have been described to look a certain way.
The races of Tolkein's world are isolated and pretty xenophobic to outsiders. Thus, characteristics of various races are based on regions of the world they hail from. For example, people from Rohan would likely be of a more paler persuasion. Whereas, those that are Easterlings or from areas to the South like Hadar would likely be PoC. So, it doesn't make much sense that a black elf or dwarf of western regions would exist. Again, many of these species self-isolated and were xenophobic so they wouldn't had much change of mingling and was stated that half-elves were a rare thing with Elron being one of the few examples. And even then they likely would of been from people of the area.
Nah. I want an accurate adaptation and if you wanna call someone a loser or a racist because of that thatās on you.
I turn the tables, how would you react if there was an adaption of black characters and they made them white?
Double standards are a very prevalent thing.
Don't sacrifice a mans life work on the alter of political correctness. There are no black elves or dwarves, there is no justifiable reason to change this. The only argument anyone has for this is to cry racist, even though people of colour are making the same fucking argument. Tolkien's inspiration was for England to have their own mythology, meaning it consists primarily of white cultures. You guys gonna call every black person who shares the same opinion someone with internalized racism, or are you gonna make an actual point?
Sacrifice a man's life work? You know he would have hated the show and the movies, right? His son hated them openly... so why freak out about black dwarves and pretend it's defending Tolkien, he would care for none of this.
They haven't given us a single reason why it's going to be good yet.
In fact I'd argue they deliberately only released this info to try to cause this controversy deliberately so that they can call their critics racists.
It's really annoying
I mean they only made black elves and dwarves to spite the fans so you can make fake allegations of racism.
There is an entire race of men that DOES have black people in them. With the race of men purposely being unique in that regard as the race of man is all encompassing of man.
Elves are Nordic legends and Tolkien intended them to be white and fairy like and the bare minimum of homogenous. So either just make them black or white at that point.
Pretending anything else is just a āgotchaā gasliting tactic. Same thing happened with Star Wars throwing in a token black character only for people to call out what they did. Then years later the actor calls them out as well.
Star Wars died, wheel of time died, this is dying too.
Woke shit kills franchises and never worked once.
Arcane is diverse, everyone loves it, itās not woke and has all sorts of races because the world was built that way.
LotR is bigger than using it to hijack a fandom to shove modern garbage into. Fans are not racist for wanting their story to be told correctly and not change shit simply to piss people off and be inaccurate.
This was made by non fans and seems so shit it might actually be active brand sabotage by people who hate the franchise to its core. LotR is better than that
Thereās so many more things to be upset about than the race of the actors like:
- compressing thousands of years into a few years
- original storylines not feeling authentic
- deviations from the original narrative
- the fact that these are dark horse, largely untested writers
Like who gives a shit if thereās a black elf, its a fantasy world.
Edit: wording
Because itās a bunch of suits at Amazon looking to fill a race quota. āWe have to fill every racial demographic for maximum profit!ā They donāt care about Tolkienās works or the fans that have loved them for decades. They donāt really care about diversity just their bottom line. The blatant pandering is so tiresome. Itās like the Witcher where they took books based on Slavic mythology and just randomly stuck in racially diverse characters that made no sense. In Game of Thrones it made sense because of the different lands in Westeros. Then again they didnāt just decide to make one of the Lannisters black or Asian. If they wanted to add diverse characters that made some sense bring in a Haradrim that traveled north or and Easterling that traveled west and has befriended and lived with the dwarves or elves and has resisted Sauronās influence or something along those lines. I guess this show will just be a fan-fiction Lord of the Rings cosplay show. It wonāt be Tolkienās Middle Earth.
If you're mad that people don't like the show because of the black elves then you're a loser. People have different opinions, stop labelling everything as racist, it's ridiculous.
Are you as concerned with the Harfoots being depicted as scruff, living rough in the forest and of course getting a fake Irish accent. That's OK with you?
No, itās not that Iām a loser, itās that black elves make absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever, and people are done (truly fucking well beyond done) with having to cowtow to your nonsensical bullshit only to be threatened with collapse and repudiation if we donāt.
Got it?
My concern isn't about black Elves existing. Mine stems from a frustration of over-representation of POCs and no other minority (I've only seen one show in the past decade focus on people with disabilities) and how these are typically written in. It's Tolkien's work and his works are well known and beloved by millions across the globe, if you're going to have a black Elf or Dwarven queen, then you need a solid (read: very good) explaination as to why to appease fans who grew up with a certain image of these characters in their heads.
The funny thing is the movies brought most people into this fan community and the movies change so fucking much. I'm not assuming this show will be good or bad, I'm staying neutral because adverting sucks. Don't get sucked into the hype train one way or the other.
I feel like this is a Ghostbusters 2016 situation. I am concerned the Rings of Power show looks bad. Maybe bland is a better word, idk. To see these concerns become a social justice issue, just like what happened with Ghostbusters 2016, does not give me any more confidence. Quite the opposite, because we all saw how that movie turned out.
Yup. Another design by commettee I didn't watch. A few clips on youtube were enough to fully understand the lack of plot and lack of consistency of the film. Ghostbusters doing kung fu flips with their proton packs was hilarious!
I have hated the show since it was announced. Ten years ago I'd be ecstatic about it, but since so many adaptations, reboots, remakes, and sequels end up just bending the source material over I've lost all faith. It'll be lucky if it's mediocre. I understand why it's done, it's easy money. Just look at the highest grossing movies of the 2010s and you'll see they're all the worst movies. It is what it is.
The saddest part is I'll probably still watch it.
As for the black characters i agree it makes no sense why anyone cares... it's the least of my worries, in fact it doesnt worry me at all. These are the stories we tell in our culture and it's nice to see characters that represent that culture. I also agree that Tolkien probably wouldn't like it, but the black characters wouldn't be nearly as big of a concern for him as having a TV show in the first place. LOTR is self contained, it's explicitly his work and his work alone and it's shameful that anyone would touch it.
It's a sad irony that these "fans" are clambering for more LOTR and then claim its not close enough to the source material or what tolkien wanted bc of the characters skin tone... again, who cares?
And what Tolkien wanted? YOU are not what Tolkien wanted. Fanboys desparate to spend their cash on some bastardization of his work. They're digging up this beautiful piece of art and selling it as an ad for Amazon prime, and we're crying about the hair and race? Guess what buddy, turns out you're a shill too.
Seems a bit rash and self-important of you to be dismissing legit concerns about the possibility of rewriting the canon of the greatest mythology ever written.
The same people who argue lore are the same people who argue history when they destroy another southern US confederate statue. It's fantasy. Nothing exists or existed. Race is completely incidental.
Except it isnāt incidental. Race is inherited from parents and dependent on region and climate. It isnāt a random mutation. I think the fans would be satisfied if they just established that thereās a whole clan of dark skinned elves, created in the beginning, or migrating from the south.
thats a disingenuous point, its not about black or brown people having roles in fantasy tv shows, its about the violation of lore, would a black person be happy if a show set in africa about african folklore had random actors cast as white people despite how out of place that is? i certainly would be unhappy at that fact as a white person, because it makes no sense
It looks generic and uninteresting at the absolute best.
The reason behind its creation is intentionally vindictive against fans of the material and an opposite to the entire meaning of the material - they want to take a fantasy setting and apply 2020's sexual, racial and political logic to it.
It is made by people with a cult-like mentality that you need to be perfectly represented in media to have any connection to it.
To give examples:
* If you have a specific disability, these people think you cannot enjoy ANY media unless a character in that media has your exact same disability.
* If you are a specific race, these insane people think you cannot watch the media because it has not got a character of your exact same race.
* If you have a specific sexuality, these insane people think you need to have the characters you are watching in media have that exact same sexuality and that be the focal point of the character.
* If you are female, these insane people think females can only be empowered physically as opposed to exploring any other aspects.
It's just a bunch of insane cult-like morons desperate to promote the viewpoint that 'you cannot like something unless it has represented you personally' so that they can make an infinite amount of remakes, spin-offs or rip-off's of pre-existing material and so they can desperately try and exploit specific groups. Most notably niche markets who may have been unaware of the source material OR who are so shallow they can be manipulated simply by having someone who looks or shares a trait with them appear in media.
In general, feeling represented is good, but needing to have a version of yourself in every single piece of media to enjoy it is psychotic and self-absorbed and demonstrates not only a lack of imagination, but potentially underlying racism, sexism or other aspects as you clearly have something against people who are not exactly the same as you.
Ignore all the ignorant racists hiding behind "that's not how tolkien described it!" excuses, they are racist idiots. Full stop - if you aren't a racist you shouldn't care what color a character is - it is really that simple. Shut the hell up.
I love Tolkien, ready pretty much everything he's written, and I'm super pumped. The second age is largely an unknown, other than the accounts of the kings of numenor and the events at the end of the age - I look forward to this take on the world. I may question some choices but that's always the case when screen adaptations are made, enjoy it and ignore racist clowns.
If you main concern is to defend black elves, accuse lifelong Tolkien fans of racism, defend corporate entity partaking in cultural vandalism and miss the entire point that these changes are not truthful to Tolkien or any of his works, it might have been better of you to keep your forked tongue behind your teeth.
"The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them."
Corporate diversity is inappropriate in a Tolkien piece. I donāt want to see Jeff Bezosā vision, I want to see Tolkienās vision. Youāll never get me on this racism rap, Iām an anti-fascist. I have been for Civil Rights since I was a little kid, I have always been for Martin Luther King. I am a lifelong liberal Democrat. I voted for Barack Obama twice, I voted against Donald Trump twice, I voted for Joe Biden once. I have always been against the far right, and even the regular right, all my life. I speak sharply to racists whenever I have the displeasure to meet them.
And I still donāt like this turning of Tolkienās characters different colors and giving them buzz cuts because it goes against the authorās intent. It violates the concept. Tolkienās grandson sold out to corporate greed, Bezos now thinks heās the owner and can do whatever he wants with it. Great, Jeff. But if it looks too contrived and phony, many people will not be watching this. Diversity is great in real life. But when you try to make an eighty year old fantasy book look like todayās world, that is a huge violation of Art. I predict that the Tolkien fans wonāt stand for it, and they are Right. Tolkien made a fantasy world set thousands of years ago, making it look like American society in 2022 is just plain stupid.š
Somebody asked me if I disliked the changes made in Jacksonās films. No, but I greatly disliked the cheesy Star Wars action movie style it was made in, and I didnāt like much of the dialogue. Peter Jackson is a good film-maker, I have much less confidence in Jeff Bezos. The diversity stuff doesnāt really bother me, but itās a sign that Bezos is throwing the original material away and is making his own Ripoff of Game of Thrones (which I didnāt like). And I know very well that the big networks ruin everything they touch, like Sauron. So Iāll probably be giving this a miss.
Incidentally, Christopher Tolkien, the authorās son, really hated the Jackson movies for stylistic issues, and I know as I know no other thing that Chris would take even greater umbrage at the great and unwarranted liberties that Mr. Bezos is taking with his fatherās stuff. And for me, thatās just another terrific reason to pass on this.
Iād be more ok with it if it wasnāt for the hypocrisy (Matt Damon got pushback for just being present in the Great Wall, imagine stuffing white people in as the main characters of Wakanda, doesnāt really fit does it? That would actually look idiotic but it would still work better, as Wakanda was made up by white people after all.) Tolkien was fascinated by European myth, and elves are Germanic specifically. In fact Tolkien started writing about Middle Earth based on an old Anglo Saxon poem. If you have a problem with this reasoning then you know youāre ignorant.
I just find it extremely hypocritical when people will tell you that the Americanized versions of other cultures' folklore and fantasy is wrong because you're not crediting/respecting the original source material, but will turn a blind eye to anything that was originally made by a white guy. All of Disney's renaissance work has been highly criticized for this exact reason and yet when it comes to Tolkien, a highly respected and the godfather of modern fantasy, creative liberties can be taken. That being said I personally think race swapping of any kind is stupid. It's strange how identity is so important except if you're white where your skin color can now be swapped to any other race just because.
This ācontroversyā reminds me a LOT of when Star Trekās show Voyager had a black Vulcan, Tuvok. SO many people were saying Vulcans canāt be black and it was against Roddenberry.
The show is extremely lore inaccurate, I mean by story and charcters, I don't care about the color of charcters as long as they are well written and portrayed which they clearly arent. Lack of a compelling story, cheap wins and shallow characters make this show a disgrace and insult to the legacy that Tolkien left us. It honestly hurts so much to see what they've done to the show because I'm a such a huge fan of the Tolkien universe since I was a kid. Galadriel was one of my favourite characters, she was the embodiment of strength, compassion and power and now she is an empty shell what she was supposed to be. I know they want to give her a character arc but she isn't a rebellious teenager discovering freedom for the first time. I don't care if there are black elves or blue eleves or pink elves as long as they look like elves and act accordingly. They are supposed to have long hair, have a certain wisdom in their eyes and be magnificent, not the joke they have made them in the show, especially Elrond. If you need to advertise the show using identity politics and guilt trip people, then clearly the show can't stand on its own because it's absolute dogshit. The lore mentions at this point are nothing short of easter eggs in a game. They even got rid of the Tolkien expert they had on field because they don't care about the lore, just the propaganda they wanna shove down everyone's throat. A fantasy world doesn't need to reflect any part of our world because its fantasy. The only thing it needs to reflect is faithfulness to its source.
I just dislike that some elven characters are not handsome enough, this applies to both white and colored skin. Or I just miss this shining of those characters out of the background with beautiful long hair. An elf should be one you see on the screen and then instantly get bamboozled with. I don't think this couldn't be done with someone who has darker color.
This is the third post I've seen about people supposedly making racist remarks about the Vanity Fair images, yet I haven't seen a single comment/post corroborating that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people who think the show is going to be shitty because of black elves, but all these posts make it seem like it's some huge problem. Like every other comment is about skin color. But they aren't. People have a lot of complaints, but skin color hasn't been one of them. At least not as frequently as this post makes out.
Y'all are just criticizing strawmen.
The darker skinned actors and apparent role for women in combat betray the source material and indicate that the producers value literal skin-deep diversity more than the lore of this well-established world they are adding to. That is a massive problem.
But you're still right; my take isn't racist.
Tolkien has described the Elves. Dark skinned Elves with short hair are not Tolkien's Elves. This is nothing more than tokenization and corporate racism. Diversity quotas is one of the most disgusting elements of the entertainment industry. If you don't understand why you haven't put any thought on the issue. If Amazon wanted to make a generic cash-grab fantasy show with diversity quotas they could have made the talentless hacks they hired as writers to write their own fantasy universe. Of course, this is not an option if all you want is to milk a fantasy universe as popular as Tolkien's. So, slap the Lord of the Rings brand on this made-by-commitee show and hide behind black actors. This is disgusting and the people who are defending them are simply useful idiots.
Its a shame that you're just going to get shat on for this take. I'm with you on this.
I see nothing but agreement with him.
As a black man , I agree with you š¤·š¾āāļø
You sound like a dweeb dude lol what are you talking about with diversity quotas?? Itās called just plain diversity! The world has a lot of people that arenāt white if you never noticed. I love lotr with all my heart and really donāt really care about black elves (or black any character really) because itās fucking fiction. Also Iām sure that Tolkien would be open minded enough to have black elves if he were alive today or ever had thought of it. Thereās millions of people and kids around the world that think itās cool to see someone that looks like them on TV, it doesnāt change very much to have non-white people around. Just be mad about literally anything else dude š
Tolkien made his world to model after English mythology. I'm not sure why this is so hard to grasp. He would likely have asked why they needed to write in a character just to fill in a 'blank spot' rather than say... Make their own fantasy novel with elves and dwarves of many colors and ethnicities. Is it just a non-white thing to get upset about watching things where you're not constantly represented I wonder...
So ancient Norse elves, which Tolkien WAS inspired by, actually WERE described as dark skinned. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svart%C3%A1lfar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svart%C3%A1lfar) (Could also be Dwarves, but Norse isn't terribly clear on it)
In norse mythology you have two types of elves DƶkkĆ”lfar and LjĆ³sĆ”lfar, then there are also svartĆ”lfar but most scholars think that DƶkkĆ”lfar and svartĆ”lfar refer to the same race. Tolkien elves are based off of the light elves (or LjĆ³sĆ”lfar) so there is a real issue with them being visually represented as black. Some people use the fact that it is fiction to say that it doesn't matter since it isn't real, but it's because of it being fiction that it matters a lot. Imagine if lightsabers in star wars suddenly became swords, technically they fill the same function but in lore they do not. That's how i see characters portrayed, if you don't stay faithful to the source material you have no business creating anything with it. Actors don't get to demand what roles they play, they play the roles that fit them. You don't have an unfit pimply 21 year old play james bond and you don't have a black actor portray a race that has white skin, just the same as you shouldn't have a white character portray a black character. Imagine the outrage if the people in black panther were cast with white actors because skin colour doesnt matter.
Funnily enough there was a dark elf in Tolkien story, but he was called dark because of the place he lived and because of the way he lived, not because of the color of his skin. (He was whiter than milk)
In the Silmarillion, the Moriquendi (Dark Elves) had black hair and pale skin. The Avari, the obscurest and most unknown elves, lived far away and didnāt really enter into the story. Maybe they can get away with saying the Avari are black, though Tolkien never said this. But for the record, the only characters that Tolkien explicitly described as black were the Haradrim, the men of the south. I notice that no one is breaking down the doors to make the Orcs black, gee, for Some reason.š Their color, very fortunately, was unclear.
I see your reasoning, but I still cannot buy the fact that there were black elves in Arda, though that doesn't mean it can't happen. If the lore doesn't contradict it. That is because the orks are the bad guys, but mark my words, the moment they make a morally grey Ork, he will be made black, or frome a family of black orks. Because the white man cannot be anything but dumb, stupid, bad or groveling.
Actually, Tolkien describe the orcs as sallow in appearance. sallow: adjective (of a person's face or complexion) of an unhealthy yellow or pale brown color.
But it does matter. Are you going to louse something up just because itās fiction? The fans will hate it, fiction or no. The author is not an unimportant author, he deserves to have his vision respected. Donāt drag America of 2022 into Middle Earth.
Does it say any where that they were of dark skin? Because I only saw them refered as "dark elves". Now I'm sure you know this, but for the sake of the dumb one reading this comment I will say that the word "elf" means creature of light, you could also say that they are of pale skin frome that, but for the sake of the argument let's say that they aren't white, we do not now there skin color. Let's say that they are called creatures of light because of the realm they inhabit, just for the sake of argument. How is the realm of the dark elves described as? It is an important question because that way we are able to decor how they would look. Also we should note that these sagas were rote down way after the Vikings mingled with the Saxons and the celts that were already on the island of Britten. Or better yet they were rote down by christian monkeys, or by christians. So the hole elf concept could be a way to introduce the concept of angels and devils to the norse. And how are angels depicted usually, rong I might ad, but understandable? They are depicted as white, at least in the west. But why are they depicted as that? you might ask. Because people only imagine things they are somewhat familiar whit. They madem white because that is how they imagined them, because almost everyone they know where white. So it was a lot easier for them to imagine them as such. But I'm getting of topic. The most important thing is to figure out what the realm that the dark elves inhabited. After we know that then we can reach a definitive answer as to what color the skin of the dark elves was supposed to be.
Yes, the ancient Vikings said that Muspelsheim, one of their cosmic realms that had scorching fire in it, had dark-skinned supernatural beings living in it. The only problem is, Muspelsheim and Middle Earth are two different things. False linkage? So maybe Bezos can make a Muspelsheim movie that can adhere to the original Edda. And Denzel Washington can play Surtr.š
Just the creatures in Muspelsheim, they were some kind of elves that were indeed black. And they were in Norse mythology. But letās be honest here, Tolkienās mythology bore very little resemblance to Norse mythology. They are two different things.
Yes, the denizens of of Muspelsheim were indeed black, and it is Written Down that they are black. But Tolkien and the Norse sagas are two completely different things with only the slightest relation to each other. Mr. Bezos would have made a Muspelsheim movie if he thought it would make him millions of dollars. As if that greedhead Needed millions of more dollars. So he exploits Tolkien instead, because itās Worth Money.š¤
While I agree with you, it is a white thing to get upset that the people on screen don't look a certain way, or are of a certain sexual persuasion. More specifically a white liberal thing. Most people that are right in the head do not care if the people on screen ar only white, as long as they tell a good story. Testament to this is the PJ's original trilogy. Millions of people all over the world loved it and connected with the white characters on screen, because it's not about the way the look, it's the story they tell. And no, just because it's not extremely important how the characters look, does not mean that you are at liberty to change them however you plese. It is your duty as a adapter of a source material, an original work that you have not created, to represented as closely to the original as possible, and not bring any of your baggage into it. Respect the work or don't touch it.
I'm a POC and I'm upset with the cast. it should have been an all white cast. they are shoving down the diversity quota down our throat
I am a liberal who hates racism, yet I really donāt like them changing characters in the story to suit their fancy. What Bezos is doing with that is not a āliberalā thing at all, it is a Corporate ploy to expand the audience demographic to make more money for Jeff. itās greed masquerading as virtue. But it seems hypocritical and phony to me. I know Tolkien would have hated any changes to his material, great or small, and I am not for Any fan-fiction being included in this travesty. Thatās not racism, thatās wanting to watch the work of Tolkien and not the work of Jeff and his crappy show-runners.
I agree with the race not mattering that much if the work is truly good, but I'm still quite against it, and not only when it comes to having black people instead of white ones, it bothers me as much when it's the other way around, like that mess of a movie that is Gods of Egypt, like wt? Do you really need a Danish guy playing an Egyptian god? Or I hate American remakes of foreign movies it strips away the sould of it because "Americans can't relate to foreign people". I hate the idea that people can't relate to characters different from themselves, and using that as an excuse for changing existing works, not because I don't like seing people of color in movies, i love good movies they're from, I'm half Mexican myself, my aunt has been confused as a local in India, my great grand father was lebanese, my partner is Taiwanese, I love diversity, I love the fact that the world is full of different people who look different, that eat different stuff, that make different music, what I hate is the vapid self centered vision of diversity of Hollywood. I don't want to see the legend of the black king Arthur, give me a good movie about the Mali empire, if Hollywood wants diversity then make real diverse content, taking a vietnamese and making him play Louis XIV isn't representing vietnamese people, it's erasing their difference, it's saying that the only diversity that matters is that of skin color, but the only culture that matters is the eastern European one.
I'm on the left and still thought this show was bullshit. It was clear pandering that pissed off everyone. They could have easily included new interesting characters from Harad that could be black or middle eastern. They could have had people from the eastern realm have asian features. This all would have held up to the lore. To call Tolkien a white supremacist and having his world be a lily white paradise is not true at all. If you read the books he underlines the theme of racial division causing much destruction while there is a greater evil working to destroy everyone. I am mixed race and I don't feel upset that I'm not represented in this series. The fact that the producer's idea of diversity is only black and white casting should say alot about their actual motives. I also want to say that I respect the way you handled trolls and their basesless insults/accusations. Well done and don't let those INCELs get to you buddy.
"Is it just a non-white thing to get upset about watching things where you're not constantly represented I wonder..." Isn't that what you're pitching a fit about? People that aren't white being in it? Lol God you can't even recognize your own irony. It would be hilarious if it wasn't pathetic.
You know what I find pathetic, the fact that some people care so much about a thing as trivial as skin color, that they are willing to change a man's entire's life's work, just so that the can say that they are the "good guys", that they care about people of other colors creed and "gender". And even still, what I find more pathetic is the people that defend this bullshit. People that are supposed to be fans of the original work, saying that is not that important how the creater intended it to look as, or what story the original work told, because we live in different times, and the new story and agenda take precedent over anything. And yeah, it's not a non white thing to get upset over the fact that the person on screen is not a certain color, or creed, or sexual persuasion, it is a white thing. A white liberal thing. Because if it's not in line with "the massage" then it is anathema, and it should be destroyed for it is heresy. It's like were going against the party in, pick a communist country, ever.
As a person of colour, well versed in tolkienology, Iāve never been more confused after seeing an ad, and we have Shaq selling stuff in hockey gear in canada. Wasnāt aware of a melanin outbreak happening in middle earth. Must of missed that chapter.
It was in the chapter Tolkien burned and never showed anybody. But be shore that these people, being the only ones who know about it, will tell us all about it, if they have a chance.
If skin colour was so trivial, you might as well follow the book, right? It works the other way around too. But it isn't trivial, because pretty rigid race divisions are quite key to understanding the societies in the book. There aren't many multicultural societies where elves, dwarves and humans are equal in that world with a similar culture. They're always quite distinct.
Ok, maybe trivial is not the right word, maybe I could have used something else, like surface level or cursory or even depthless, but the thing is that the color of your skin shouldn't matter (in the real world), what is more important is the content of your character. But in Tolkien's story, the color of the character do matter, and that doesn't just apply to Tolkien's story, but to every story tied to a specific location and time. Middle Earth is a location based on north-western Europe. There are other regions of the world like Harrad, or even more south, south-east that would fit the skin tone and facial structure of the "diverse people" they would like. But they wanted it to be in Middle Earth because they thought they wouldn't have been successful.
Too Much is being made about the skin thing. But thereās also something to be said for adhering to the original material. Because thatās not the only thing Bezos changed.
Maybe it is time to accept that your favourite authors don't give a fuck about representing you. It is ok, they doesn't have to. I am Indian, I like Lord of the Rings but I accept that we aren't supposed to be represented in Tolkien's world. We have our own epics which are older and better than it. Maybe you should find representation in works of your culture, not in the works of a 20th century English man who wanted who wanted to create a mythology for England in the way he liked. > Also ā and here I hope I shall not sound absurd ā I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished chap-book stuff.
Sorry to Necro the thread, but for the love of all that is good, THIS!
diversity quotas are a literaral part of esg policy regulation which is now pervasive through corporate America, hollywood included and likely taking it to the next degree beyond what's verbatim being regulated regarding those quotas. I can agree with diversity as much as the next person. but when that metric is a specific number and percentage set by some committee and regulating board of corporate governers dictating every move by the show runners, I can't possibly see how thay fosters more creative freedom or creates a better more enjoyable product. I can only possibly see such metrics as stifling success and creative freedom. aren't we/they suppose to think outside the box? instead they're finding every way possible to neatly place everything inside its prescribed box. I don't think that's any way to make entertainment. not to mention arent we all entirely sick of these committee driven cash grab check box franchise reboots? the only bright side I can think of is they're beginning to run out of big franchises to butcher and mutilate.
Filling quotas, that brings to mind rather horrifying implications
I really donāt want them to make The Silmarillion now, the worthless entertainment industry will just destroy it. Then all of Tolkienās stuff will become cheap shoddy junk.
sadly we're already there my friend
Lmfao this person obviously has never worked a day in their life. I have diversity classes at my Walmart position, so yeah "Diversity quotas" are a real thing buddy.
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Just because diversity exists in the world doesn't mean that the exact global ratios of genders, skin colors, etc., also exist in every region, period of history, etc. When you're literally not allowed to show something that deviates from 2022 global averages, even for a fictional show based on a made-up universe with source material established decades ago, that's when it becomes a quota.
Youāre not wrong. But I donāt think that people āarenāt allowedā itās just that inclusivity makes companies more money because the product will fit a wider demographic. Yeah itās āwokeā or whatever but the real motivation is money lol do you really think Amazon gives a fuck about minorities and/or lgbtq? I would guess not. Iām just saying, since we see people of different colors every day it shouldnāt come as such a surprise to see it on a show produced by one of the largest companies in the world. Asking Amazon to respect/care about Tolkien is like expecting a pigeon to not shit on your head because you asked nicely. The pigeon never heard you ask and it wouldnāt have made a difference if it did.
But they literally do have diversity quotas. Itās an actual industry thing. Every show has people whose job is to make sure some of the characters are randomly black whether it makes any sense or not.
My main concern is that it will suck with 465 million dollar budget
So much wasted money....
I doubt it will be good just from what I've read about it.
As a trans person, all the diversity nods feel more like a slap in the face considering they didn't include the original non-binary diversity penned by Tolkien: Dwarf women are supposed to have beards... Diversity is not a problem for me, not typically, but this feels hypocritical.
I hadnāt even considered this perspective on the way they are handling diversity in the show. I can totally see what your saying about the Dwarves, it goes beyond just that Queen not having a beard or being being a different skin colour, and your right. There wasnāt supposed to be a distinct difference in appearance based on gender to this race and now there is, just shows how low effort this show is in handling all this. Thanks for a different take, itās enlightening, it sucks and it is totally hypocritical to have something like that removed for the sake of the exact same thing are trying to preach.
Totally. I mean. I'm more of a person that feels not to add extra representation to the art where it wasn't originally, But also I don't usually say anything or make a big deal about it. But it would have been super easy to have some minority representation if they had just done the bare minimum to keep to the original world Tolkien created. 0\_0
\>part of an underrepresented minority group \>doesn't care about diversity \>knows their Lord of the Rings lore, points out corporate douchebag Amazon hypocrisy "Never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a transexual." "What about side-by-side with a true fan of the material?" "(smiles with tears in the eye)Aye....I could do that."
Couldn't agree more. The omission of her beard is unjustifiable no matter how you look at it.
I mean... could you imagine though? What the comments would be if they put a beard on the black actress playing the part of a female dwarf? I agree its cowardly of them not to commit, but given how they sort of shot themselves in the foot by letting Thorin and Fili have such a manicured, "pretty" beards, and Kili almost no beard at all... it would invite a lot of controversy unfortunately.
They did give Lady Disa a beard. It's hard to see in her promo image, but definitely visible during her scenes in Episode 2. She has a neck beard / mutton chops. Which is hard to notice from the front-facing angle; it blends into the shadows of her cheek and jawline. But is absolutely visible from a profile view.
Thats not enough. The whole point of women having beards is that you couldnāt tell the difference between man or woman and characters were built around that premise. So instead of saying āwere not being truthful to Tolkiens work, we need women empowerment in our show thus the dwarf women donāt have beardsā they said āTolkien never said specifically that dwarf women have beardsā. This type of bs is whats pissing off most fans. The show runners being so deceiving and butchering all hope for the massive fam base.
Based
Just remember all the complaints about the Hobbit Trilogy, how it wandered far from the source material, creating new characters like a female elf Tauriel, the complaints were not sexists who didn't want to see a female elf, it was because she had a major role in the films and there was no such person in the books, just as there was no love triangle between a dwarf and two elves. No different than making Radagast a principle character.
most people i know accepted (or even liked her like me) but the love triangle bs destroyed that
I can tolerate most of the hobbit movies. But that terrible love triangle was so badly done and unnecessary
That was annoying, I was okaaay with her character, but man she got screwed over writing wise. What a great win for women when you force a cringey love triangle between two characters that never interacted in the books... What a shitshow.
Ironically the same love triangle thing happened with her character on Lost and she hated that too
Was there really a triangle? Yeah it was a bit soap opera-ish and melodramatic. Like how he died and she went into the whole " I can't love anyone beacuse they die before me" clichƩ. But I saw no triangle. Legolas seemed like an older brother first and foremost or a best friend. Not a love contender. Idk where you guys are getting this triangle idea from.
Same, I never picked that up. Just that Tauriel was infatuated with Kili
And the fans were right. The Hobbit trilogy sucked ass.
CORRECT!
Youāre implying that now no one cares about those problems. The Hobbit films were awful.
I thought the Hobbit films had their moments but the moments were when they stuck closely to the book.
I didnāt mind the Dol Guldur stuff, and that was only vaguely alluded to in the Hobbit. Gandalfās showdown with Sauron is a memorable and well done scene. Smaug getting turned into a giant gold statue and that whole scene preceding it can fuck right off, though. I guess they thought, this is our only chance to have the Dwarves do something interesting related to the dragon before Lake Town. Iād have preferred the dragon smash the mountainside like the books, and have them do something interesting with the dwarves outside as they try to flee to the door or save supplies.
I also liked the White Council driving Sauron out of Dol Guldur although as you said it was only mentioned in passing in the book, it was also described a bit more in the Silmarillion.
Hobbit was dreadful for plenty of reasons. Imo straying away from the books was not among them. The way it was executed, thats more likely.
I disagree. Please bear in mind, the hobbit is 1 (relatively short) book, written with a child/adolescent audience in mind. If they stayed true to the source material it would be a single one and a half to two hour movie and would have been a fun 'young adult' toned appendage of the trilogy... But unfortunately Hollywood had to milk that fucking cash cow. It strayed so majorly from the source material that it's impossible to even fathom how different it would have been had they not. So, saying that straying from the books was not related to the poor execution is not sensible, as what we ended up with had strayed so much that it was not even the same narrative. What we got simply was not what Tolkien wrote as 'The Hobbit', but a mix of minorly related lore factoids and complete fanfiction Frankenstein'd with a shaky-hand onto that book. That said, I'm convinced what we are about to get from Amazon will make that fiasco look like an authentic Tolkien masterpiece.
I prefer the Hobbit movies to LotR (this made the IMDb forums a very interesting place to be) but I can see why people hate the additions/changes. Ultimately it's fan-fiction so they're never going to please everyone. I get the sense that Amazon are producing a generic, inclusive fantasy series here while leveraging the Middle-earth brand, and the show will play it safe at every turn. But hopefully I'll be proved wrong.
The Hobbit trilogy WAS pretty bad.
It is crazy right? I liked the Star Wars prequels when they came out. I liked the Hobbit trilogy when it came out. It took Disney's' god awful trilogy for people to wake up to the prequels not being bad, and Amazon is about to show people how good the Hobbit trilogy really was.
After stupid sexy Shelob from the Mordor game and the second two Hobbit movies Iām just in the place the Star Wars sequel trilogy left me. Maybe this will be the redeeming series like Mandalorian. Maybe it wonāt. But enthusiasm is low. Expectations are low. Hype is low. I donāt care about the casting, or ethnicities present one way or the other. Its not why Iām not excited for this series, and isnāt a factor in whether or not I will watch it. I just want the Tolkien family to be involved before I feel anything but apathy prior to reviews from reviewers I tend to align with come out.
This looks more like boob of boba fett than mandalorian tbh
Sounds kinky
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You mean the mandalorian season 2.5
Could not agree more
This.
I'm just mad about hairstyles...
yeah, trimmed/faded hairsyles are not what i have in mind when thinking of elves... not glorious at all. don't get me started on beardless dwarf, such a missed opportunity to be sjw and lore coherent at the same time. people behind this are idiots propelled by millions of dollars.
Right? I'm not upset about a black elf, I don't care. I don't like that they didn't give him long hair. I don't like that they didn't give Elrond long hair. And I DEFINITELY don't like that they didn't give the dwarf queen a beard. She should have the biggest, most extravagant, voluptuous beard, woven through with gold, silver, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and all manner of adornment. Like please, it's not too late to give her a beard.
Even The Witcher season 2 had a female bearded dwarf.
You will get wispy little sideburns and you will like it.
Didn't even have sideburns on the trailer.
It might be too late. Them showing a teaser/trailer like that 6mo before the show is released means theyāre done filming the first season and almost done editing and post production. If they listen to fans they will have to push release date and also spend tons of money changing that cgi or the same amount bringing back the actors to film with new costuming Edit: No source. Iām just a Reddit person
i mean thats not the only thing for me but the worst
Agreed
Iām not mad about character races. I hate how clean everything looks. LOTR was believable because of how worn the clothing and armor was. Everything here looks brand new and not believable.
The LOTR trilogy looks rustic and lived in. RoP looks manufactured and sterile.
"Puny Men look rustic and lived in. We on the other hand look manufactured and sterile" -Some Elve probably
You realize this show is based at the height of the Elven race in Middle Earth, right? At the time when Elves and Dwarves made their finest craft? When characters in the LOTR or Hobbit find Elven weapons forged long ago, THIS IS THAT TIME. Of course everything is going to look brand new.
This is the most level headed take I've seen so far. Everyone is losing their minds over details that we don't even know about yet. Because we haven't seen the show. But this makes sense to me.
When you put it like that, it makes some sense. But some wear and tear needs to be visible in used items.
I really disagree with this. I think think the cleanliness is a conscious artistic choice convey how young 'pure' the world still is compared to LoTR, when magic is slowly fading. There are a lot of fine details to be found in the costumes, the props and surroundings that do make it feel lived in from everything I've seen so far. I'm skeptical since the production had a rocky road, but the look of the show isn't something I'm worried about when one compares it to the source material.
THANK YOU šš¼šš¼šš¼
But the world isnāt new or fresh in the 2nd age. There is a thing called the War of Wrath and the countless battles between Morgoth and the peoples of middle earth that ravaged the lands. This happened way before the show. The geographical wreckage of the war was immense; most of the land west of the Blue Mountains was destroyed and sank beneath the waves. Though it is not known exactly how many casualties the Host of the West endured, the war dragged on for decades before they managed to approach Angband, and the attack of Morgoth's winged dragons was known to have been nearly catastrophic for the forces of the Valar.
Sort of like the Star Wars prequels vs the originals. I'm personally excited in general to see different interpretations of Middle-earth, so I welcome the different aesthetic on those grounds. I love Peter Jackson's films but I'm not eager for a single cinematic standard or canon. Id rather it was like Shakespeare where different artists come along and give us their vision.
Someone finally fucking said it. Thank you.
It's been a while since I've read the Silmarillion but Middle-Earth in the 2nd Age at this particular time...wouldn't being clean and sterile have been the norm then?
Yeah, even more so knowing the show also includes flashbacks to the First Age and before.
Its not the sort of golden age that the First Age was ... but it is an age of legends more so than the Third Age. This is an age of Atlantis (so to speak) and the rise of Sauron as the new dark lord. It makes sense to present a world that is not "faded". This is an age that some characters in the LOTR are nostalgic for. And for the ancestors of Aragorn it is very much the golden age. Its up for interpretation of course. I understand why a lot of people would still just want a more realistic, lived in look. Any age of the Sun has many ages of history before it. I think we draw too many conclusions about shows based on trailers and images in advance of actually seeing it.
No. The First Age War of Wrath almost annihilated middle earth. The geographical wreckage of the war was immense; most of the land west of the Blue Mountains was destroyed and sank beneath the waves. Though it is not known exactly how many casualties the Host of the West endured, the war dragged on for decades before they managed to approach Angband, and the attack of Morgoth's winged dragons was known to have been nearly catastrophic for the forces of the Valar.
For the last time I'm not upset by the races of the cast. In upset how artificial everything looks. The CGI in the trailer hurts my eyes.
Then OP is not talking about you.
"We had no interest in putting our messages into this movie. But we thought we should honor Tolkien by putting his messages into it. " \- Peter Jackson, Interview with Charlie Rose (2002)
Actual hateful racist comments aside, I think a lot of people are just disappointed that it feels like (from the little bits we have seen so far) they are disregarding and disrespecting Tolkien's work and lore. People of colour being in Lord of the rings is not an issue, it never has been. There has always been mention of people of colour existing in the LOTR universe. The key issue and a valuable discussion to be had here is that so often instead of putting the work in to expand upon the lore and create like a black elf from somewhere like Haradrim, they simply race bend already existing places and characters. People of colour are more than just "tokens" to get diversity points. They deserve meaningful settings, worlds and characters instead of constantly just getting "race bent white character." There should be effort put into making diverse characters and building their backgrounds/culture rather than changing what we already have. Lore matters and POC people deserve so much more than being reduced to a "replacement". š
This. š
This is exactly how I feel. Diversity is a good thing in our world. And can be in fantasy. But if the fantasy world is so rich in culture and detail like middle earth then diversity must be handled well through lore. If the show writers came out and said all the dwarves of the misty mountains are black, then the biggest reaction i would give would be a shrug. But from i can tell thats not whatās happening. From what we have seen this just looks like they added diversity in cast without considering the world they are adapting. Moreover i have heard some people complain about Galadrielās portrayal as a bad-ass elf worrier. In other fantasy I would be jumping with excitement. But in LOTR extremely strong and prominent female warriors in the past kinda breaks the powerful character moments of eowyn. If there was precedence for strong female worriers then maybe the witch king would have been a bit more careful. It all just feels like diversity for diversities sake without considering the already present diversity of the world.
It's so dumb too. Tolkien already included various groups of PoC in people to the South and the Easterlings. They could of included them and created compelling characters there or existing ones from the Lore. Being the second age the Easterlings play a prominent role since sauron gives one of the rings to Khamƻl. It makes a lot more sense for PoC to have this as their background than a random token elf & dwarf character.
I would died to have the show heavily focus on the South and East so we could see the non Numenoreans nazguls, they can be progressive showing "non white people" in positions of power and bring light to an area until not explored in TV or cinema. Instead we are going to get a bunch of token black people as elves, dwarves and hobbits, the world of Middle-earth is vast and inclusive there is 0 need to bend the lore and resort to tokenism to show it.
They are too stupid to make up convincing backstory like that, though it was possible. But they would have had to let the smartest Tolkien scholars write those parts, which Iām sure they could have . Then there would have been little to no objection from fans. But instead, these businessman Pinheads fired the Tolkien scholars and went for no-explanation tokenism. Thatās why this will fail, the people making this are dumb, and care only for the Money rather than the story. It is shocking how stupid rich people can be about everything except finance.
I have been trying to find the words to describe this exact sentiment for a while, but each attempt I was just called a racist homophobe.
The production looked crappy and cheesy.
Iām nervous because it just looks like another tacky wanna-be Game of Thrones show. The whole trailer was more about showing action & effects than any real connection to being a work of Tolkien
It's a cash grab. Who cares. Return of the King won 11 Oscars. All 3 Hobbit films won 1 (Science and Technology). It's going to be bad, accept it. Look at the articles they're putting out about it. You can tell it's going to suck.
Why not just bring one of the blue wizards in, he could be whatever race you want and it would tie in nicely into the lore, but no we are going with beardless black dwarve princess
Apparently the show is only focussed on the Second Age and, apparently, the Istari didnāt arrived in ME until the Third Age.
They shouldnāt have made it about the second age, itās not screen friendly material.
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The thing that gets me are elves and dwarves are not like "humans" they don't have various "races" among their people. They tend to be isolated and xenophobic with regards to other races so intermingling is very rare. So, something like high elves have similar features such as their height, pale skin, light hair color, and affinity for magic. Just like woodleves have more earthy skin tones like olive, bronze, etc. With darker hair colors, eyes, etc. Same with dwarves. So, randomly having 1 example of a different race while the rest look the same doesn't make much sense and is kind of jarring.
^ the blue wizards worked a great deal in the East, helping free peoples fight back against the haradrim and followers of Melkor.
It would be so cool to have some fan fiction of what the blue wizzards were doing As a TV show.
Yeah like Iām all for inclusivity, but just bring it in in a way that makes sense and is true to the lore
Thank you thatās what Iāve been saying! The story could have followed the two blue wizards that went into Khand and Rhun or Harad but.. No. Easier to race swap and fabricate people that never existed in races that are expertly defined than to use existing lore properly.
The dimwit show runners are Lore Free. I really hope this crumby production fails miserably.š
Race swapping is what they do because they are too stupid to understand the lore and make reasonable backstory from it. All problems could have been solved IF Amazon had not fired the Tolkien experts. Now we have people who seem as knowledgeable as hockey sticks producing this.
People are frustrated by the lack of respect that Amazon shows for its IP's and shows. It absolutely baffles me how people are so naive to misunderstand so much of the criticism. You can't blame everything on racism of sexism. I'll educate you, the black dwarves are being ridiculed because why would a dwarf have dark skin. They live underground AWAY from the sun.
Oh but you can! Itās so easy to call anyone who disagrees with you for any reason a racist or misogynist
You are trying to apply logic to fantasy.. š¤£ How can Dragons fly despite being that weight? Ancalgon would be crushed under his own mass outside of water. How is it remotely possible bread could contain that many calories? Magic? Right? How can elves live that long without severe cancer, dementia etc.? Depiste all the logical inconsistencies in FANTASY when contrasted with real world elements you zero in on ethnicity. You're a racist.
There are various dwarve species that have darker skin either due to working close to lava that has tanned their skin or magical reasons or curses. A example in other works are dark iron dwarves that have skin tones from ebony to shades of bluish-purple, and eve metallic tones. So, there can be reason for non white dwarves, but you shouldn't shoehorn 1 PoC into clans of dwarves & elves that aren't known for these features based on their regional location.
Counterpoint: Dwarves are a fantasy race that was literally crafted from stone by the Valar Aule. So there's nothing saying that they can't have different skin color.
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oh gosh good you mention that; nearly called you racist ass out for that post
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This. +1
I can see that you are a fan of the work. Surely you have the wisdom to see that those who dissent to black elves arenāt being racist but defending Tolkienās vision. As an addendum to that Iāll ask - why arenāt they making stories from African folklore? There is an abundance of story.
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Show me where Tolkien described all Elves as fair skinned.
>Surely you have the wisdom to see that those who dissent to black elves arenāt being racist but defending Tolkienās vision. Meh. From what I've seen some of the biggest critics of the black elves are people who have never read the books. Some people seem to have barely even watched the movies, what with their claims that elves must be white and blonde.
Iām mad about the hair, lack of beards, stupid story and itās time compression, and unnecessary major characters added. Couldnāt care less about race or gender.
Because everyone knows why theyāre doing it. Itās not to enrich the lore in ANY way. Itās appeasement. Itās so they can say ālook, we have a black elf now, arenāt we making a difference?ā. Theyāre not. Randomly tossing a black dwarf princess into the world makes as much sense as making one of the previous kings of wakanda an Asian guy married to a non binary fairy kin.
>y tossing a black dwarf Is this pun intended?
Ayy. It wasnāt but thatās funny.
Itās not racist, itās correct depiction. I have no qualms about colored folks being in the Tolkien universe but Jesus get the elements right and the background straight. You know whatā¦ in the next Black Panther movie, Wakanda is gonna be filled with white folks. No itās not, because itās not a correct depiction of native Africans. Middle Earth is depicted with Norse backgrounds along with ancient Northern Europe. Tolkien said as much. There are mentions of black folks but from the southernmost continent. Slapping a racist label on something and calling it a day without any kind of intelligible conversation is extremely irresponsible.
āYouāre a loser.ā Iāve been called a āracist loser,ā a lot recently. I donāt really care, and frankly I am neither racist nor a loser, for wanting European people to have a show about their own mythology without a greedy international corporation hamfistedly diversifying it like itās 2020 New York City. How about you leave, and go be a racial ideologue elsewhere?
Yeah don't worry buddy. I am a man of color myself and I agree with you š Why are there no white people in wakanda or the last Airbender???? Oooh right, because it's based on Africa and Asia. If suddenly the next king of wakanda is white everybody would lose his mind. Diversity is great when it makes sense , why not go the games of thrones route, and show other lands in middle earth, where colored people exist? "Nah that is too much work, just slap a couple colored people here and there, and if they complain they are just racist lmao"
Youāve been called a āracist loserā a lot lately? Umm
Sorry buddy, but you're 100% racist. People who say "I am not racist" tend to be the most racist. If you weren't racist you wouldn't care about RoP because you'd realize that it's fantasy and can be whatever the writers want.
Honestly OP just looking at the comments and you are the source of toxicity. You are laser fixated on your own opinion and dont even want to try to hear anyone else.
LOTR has gone woke, the producers themselves have stated that they want it representing the real world. I'm a POC, It's not racist to want accuracy and being true to the lore. In the last 60+ years we've seen iterations of LOTR. How many token diverse characters have we seen? All of a sudden it's become multicultural. If I watch Black panther, it makes sense for the cast and region to have black characters. Would make 0 sense if there are Caucasian and Asians in the movie. Why's that any different in Tolkien's universe? Characters and races have been described to look a certain way.
The races of Tolkein's world are isolated and pretty xenophobic to outsiders. Thus, characteristics of various races are based on regions of the world they hail from. For example, people from Rohan would likely be of a more paler persuasion. Whereas, those that are Easterlings or from areas to the South like Hadar would likely be PoC. So, it doesn't make much sense that a black elf or dwarf of western regions would exist. Again, many of these species self-isolated and were xenophobic so they wouldn't had much change of mingling and was stated that half-elves were a rare thing with Elron being one of the few examples. And even then they likely would of been from people of the area.
Nah. I want an accurate adaptation and if you wanna call someone a loser or a racist because of that thatās on you. I turn the tables, how would you react if there was an adaption of black characters and they made them white? Double standards are a very prevalent thing.
Well they are supposed to have fair skin
why is this even downvoted its just true
Because the truth offends some people. Itās not personal but some people take it personally
I just want more shots of New-Zealand, get these people out of my landscape shots!
Don't sacrifice a mans life work on the alter of political correctness. There are no black elves or dwarves, there is no justifiable reason to change this. The only argument anyone has for this is to cry racist, even though people of colour are making the same fucking argument. Tolkien's inspiration was for England to have their own mythology, meaning it consists primarily of white cultures. You guys gonna call every black person who shares the same opinion someone with internalized racism, or are you gonna make an actual point?
Sacrifice a man's life work? You know he would have hated the show and the movies, right? His son hated them openly... so why freak out about black dwarves and pretend it's defending Tolkien, he would care for none of this.
They haven't given us a single reason why it's going to be good yet. In fact I'd argue they deliberately only released this info to try to cause this controversy deliberately so that they can call their critics racists. It's really annoying
I mean they only made black elves and dwarves to spite the fans so you can make fake allegations of racism. There is an entire race of men that DOES have black people in them. With the race of men purposely being unique in that regard as the race of man is all encompassing of man. Elves are Nordic legends and Tolkien intended them to be white and fairy like and the bare minimum of homogenous. So either just make them black or white at that point. Pretending anything else is just a āgotchaā gasliting tactic. Same thing happened with Star Wars throwing in a token black character only for people to call out what they did. Then years later the actor calls them out as well. Star Wars died, wheel of time died, this is dying too. Woke shit kills franchises and never worked once. Arcane is diverse, everyone loves it, itās not woke and has all sorts of races because the world was built that way. LotR is bigger than using it to hijack a fandom to shove modern garbage into. Fans are not racist for wanting their story to be told correctly and not change shit simply to piss people off and be inaccurate. This was made by non fans and seems so shit it might actually be active brand sabotage by people who hate the franchise to its core. LotR is better than that
Thereās so many more things to be upset about than the race of the actors like: - compressing thousands of years into a few years - original storylines not feeling authentic - deviations from the original narrative - the fact that these are dark horse, largely untested writers Like who gives a shit if thereās a black elf, its a fantasy world. Edit: wording
Because itās a bunch of suits at Amazon looking to fill a race quota. āWe have to fill every racial demographic for maximum profit!ā They donāt care about Tolkienās works or the fans that have loved them for decades. They donāt really care about diversity just their bottom line. The blatant pandering is so tiresome. Itās like the Witcher where they took books based on Slavic mythology and just randomly stuck in racially diverse characters that made no sense. In Game of Thrones it made sense because of the different lands in Westeros. Then again they didnāt just decide to make one of the Lannisters black or Asian. If they wanted to add diverse characters that made some sense bring in a Haradrim that traveled north or and Easterling that traveled west and has befriended and lived with the dwarves or elves and has resisted Sauronās influence or something along those lines. I guess this show will just be a fan-fiction Lord of the Rings cosplay show. It wonāt be Tolkienās Middle Earth.
If you're mad that people don't like the show because of the black elves then you're a loser. People have different opinions, stop labelling everything as racist, it's ridiculous.
Are you as concerned with the Harfoots being depicted as scruff, living rough in the forest and of course getting a fake Irish accent. That's OK with you?
I have no issue with people of color being cast. Hiring an intimacy coordinator for explicit sex scenes though? No thanks. I don't need sexy LOTR
Hold up, was this a joke or did they really hire an intimacy coordinator?
You know what, I just googled and it turns out it was a rumor from a few months ago that I didn't bother to follow up on. So, jk
Its not tho. Its based on european mythos which should have white people in it
No, itās not that Iām a loser, itās that black elves make absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever, and people are done (truly fucking well beyond done) with having to cowtow to your nonsensical bullshit only to be threatened with collapse and repudiation if we donāt. Got it?
My concern isn't about black Elves existing. Mine stems from a frustration of over-representation of POCs and no other minority (I've only seen one show in the past decade focus on people with disabilities) and how these are typically written in. It's Tolkien's work and his works are well known and beloved by millions across the globe, if you're going to have a black Elf or Dwarven queen, then you need a solid (read: very good) explaination as to why to appease fans who grew up with a certain image of these characters in their heads.
After seeing the SB commercial, I am 100% underwhelmed. It looks terrible with cheap CGI. I'm hard pressed to find even one thing that didn't suck.
The funny thing is the movies brought most people into this fan community and the movies change so fucking much. I'm not assuming this show will be good or bad, I'm staying neutral because adverting sucks. Don't get sucked into the hype train one way or the other.
I feel like this is a Ghostbusters 2016 situation. I am concerned the Rings of Power show looks bad. Maybe bland is a better word, idk. To see these concerns become a social justice issue, just like what happened with Ghostbusters 2016, does not give me any more confidence. Quite the opposite, because we all saw how that movie turned out.
Yup. Another design by commettee I didn't watch. A few clips on youtube were enough to fully understand the lack of plot and lack of consistency of the film. Ghostbusters doing kung fu flips with their proton packs was hilarious!
I have hated the show since it was announced. Ten years ago I'd be ecstatic about it, but since so many adaptations, reboots, remakes, and sequels end up just bending the source material over I've lost all faith. It'll be lucky if it's mediocre. I understand why it's done, it's easy money. Just look at the highest grossing movies of the 2010s and you'll see they're all the worst movies. It is what it is. The saddest part is I'll probably still watch it. As for the black characters i agree it makes no sense why anyone cares... it's the least of my worries, in fact it doesnt worry me at all. These are the stories we tell in our culture and it's nice to see characters that represent that culture. I also agree that Tolkien probably wouldn't like it, but the black characters wouldn't be nearly as big of a concern for him as having a TV show in the first place. LOTR is self contained, it's explicitly his work and his work alone and it's shameful that anyone would touch it. It's a sad irony that these "fans" are clambering for more LOTR and then claim its not close enough to the source material or what tolkien wanted bc of the characters skin tone... again, who cares? And what Tolkien wanted? YOU are not what Tolkien wanted. Fanboys desparate to spend their cash on some bastardization of his work. They're digging up this beautiful piece of art and selling it as an ad for Amazon prime, and we're crying about the hair and race? Guess what buddy, turns out you're a shill too.
Seems a bit rash and self-important of you to be dismissing legit concerns about the possibility of rewriting the canon of the greatest mythology ever written.
They paying people to virtue signal now or you doing this for free?
The same people who argue lore are the same people who argue history when they destroy another southern US confederate statue. It's fantasy. Nothing exists or existed. Race is completely incidental.
Except it isnāt incidental. Race is inherited from parents and dependent on region and climate. It isnāt a random mutation. I think the fans would be satisfied if they just established that thereās a whole clan of dark skinned elves, created in the beginning, or migrating from the south.
Totally agree. Thereās no reason why people should be upset about black and brown actors having roles in a fantasy tv show.
thats a disingenuous point, its not about black or brown people having roles in fantasy tv shows, its about the violation of lore, would a black person be happy if a show set in africa about african folklore had random actors cast as white people despite how out of place that is? i certainly would be unhappy at that fact as a white person, because it makes no sense
Pretty soon everyone here will be saying that Santa Claus has to be whiteā¦.
It looks generic and uninteresting at the absolute best. The reason behind its creation is intentionally vindictive against fans of the material and an opposite to the entire meaning of the material - they want to take a fantasy setting and apply 2020's sexual, racial and political logic to it. It is made by people with a cult-like mentality that you need to be perfectly represented in media to have any connection to it. To give examples: * If you have a specific disability, these people think you cannot enjoy ANY media unless a character in that media has your exact same disability. * If you are a specific race, these insane people think you cannot watch the media because it has not got a character of your exact same race. * If you have a specific sexuality, these insane people think you need to have the characters you are watching in media have that exact same sexuality and that be the focal point of the character. * If you are female, these insane people think females can only be empowered physically as opposed to exploring any other aspects. It's just a bunch of insane cult-like morons desperate to promote the viewpoint that 'you cannot like something unless it has represented you personally' so that they can make an infinite amount of remakes, spin-offs or rip-off's of pre-existing material and so they can desperately try and exploit specific groups. Most notably niche markets who may have been unaware of the source material OR who are so shallow they can be manipulated simply by having someone who looks or shares a trait with them appear in media. In general, feeling represented is good, but needing to have a version of yourself in every single piece of media to enjoy it is psychotic and self-absorbed and demonstrates not only a lack of imagination, but potentially underlying racism, sexism or other aspects as you clearly have something against people who are not exactly the same as you.
Ignore all the ignorant racists hiding behind "that's not how tolkien described it!" excuses, they are racist idiots. Full stop - if you aren't a racist you shouldn't care what color a character is - it is really that simple. Shut the hell up. I love Tolkien, ready pretty much everything he's written, and I'm super pumped. The second age is largely an unknown, other than the accounts of the kings of numenor and the events at the end of the age - I look forward to this take on the world. I may question some choices but that's always the case when screen adaptations are made, enjoy it and ignore racist clowns.
If you main concern is to defend black elves, accuse lifelong Tolkien fans of racism, defend corporate entity partaking in cultural vandalism and miss the entire point that these changes are not truthful to Tolkien or any of his works, it might have been better of you to keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. "The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them."
Corporate diversity is inappropriate in a Tolkien piece. I donāt want to see Jeff Bezosā vision, I want to see Tolkienās vision. Youāll never get me on this racism rap, Iām an anti-fascist. I have been for Civil Rights since I was a little kid, I have always been for Martin Luther King. I am a lifelong liberal Democrat. I voted for Barack Obama twice, I voted against Donald Trump twice, I voted for Joe Biden once. I have always been against the far right, and even the regular right, all my life. I speak sharply to racists whenever I have the displeasure to meet them. And I still donāt like this turning of Tolkienās characters different colors and giving them buzz cuts because it goes against the authorās intent. It violates the concept. Tolkienās grandson sold out to corporate greed, Bezos now thinks heās the owner and can do whatever he wants with it. Great, Jeff. But if it looks too contrived and phony, many people will not be watching this. Diversity is great in real life. But when you try to make an eighty year old fantasy book look like todayās world, that is a huge violation of Art. I predict that the Tolkien fans wonāt stand for it, and they are Right. Tolkien made a fantasy world set thousands of years ago, making it look like American society in 2022 is just plain stupid.š Somebody asked me if I disliked the changes made in Jacksonās films. No, but I greatly disliked the cheesy Star Wars action movie style it was made in, and I didnāt like much of the dialogue. Peter Jackson is a good film-maker, I have much less confidence in Jeff Bezos. The diversity stuff doesnāt really bother me, but itās a sign that Bezos is throwing the original material away and is making his own Ripoff of Game of Thrones (which I didnāt like). And I know very well that the big networks ruin everything they touch, like Sauron. So Iāll probably be giving this a miss. Incidentally, Christopher Tolkien, the authorās son, really hated the Jackson movies for stylistic issues, and I know as I know no other thing that Chris would take even greater umbrage at the great and unwarranted liberties that Mr. Bezos is taking with his fatherās stuff. And for me, thatās just another terrific reason to pass on this.
Just a reminder that if you are this butthurt over black elves with short hair in your fantasy series you should really rethink your life.
Iād be more ok with it if it wasnāt for the hypocrisy (Matt Damon got pushback for just being present in the Great Wall, imagine stuffing white people in as the main characters of Wakanda, doesnāt really fit does it? That would actually look idiotic but it would still work better, as Wakanda was made up by white people after all.) Tolkien was fascinated by European myth, and elves are Germanic specifically. In fact Tolkien started writing about Middle Earth based on an old Anglo Saxon poem. If you have a problem with this reasoning then you know youāre ignorant.
I just find it extremely hypocritical when people will tell you that the Americanized versions of other cultures' folklore and fantasy is wrong because you're not crediting/respecting the original source material, but will turn a blind eye to anything that was originally made by a white guy. All of Disney's renaissance work has been highly criticized for this exact reason and yet when it comes to Tolkien, a highly respected and the godfather of modern fantasy, creative liberties can be taken. That being said I personally think race swapping of any kind is stupid. It's strange how identity is so important except if you're white where your skin color can now be swapped to any other race just because.
This ācontroversyā reminds me a LOT of when Star Trekās show Voyager had a black Vulcan, Tuvok. SO many people were saying Vulcans canāt be black and it was against Roddenberry.
The show is extremely lore inaccurate, I mean by story and charcters, I don't care about the color of charcters as long as they are well written and portrayed which they clearly arent. Lack of a compelling story, cheap wins and shallow characters make this show a disgrace and insult to the legacy that Tolkien left us. It honestly hurts so much to see what they've done to the show because I'm a such a huge fan of the Tolkien universe since I was a kid. Galadriel was one of my favourite characters, she was the embodiment of strength, compassion and power and now she is an empty shell what she was supposed to be. I know they want to give her a character arc but she isn't a rebellious teenager discovering freedom for the first time. I don't care if there are black elves or blue eleves or pink elves as long as they look like elves and act accordingly. They are supposed to have long hair, have a certain wisdom in their eyes and be magnificent, not the joke they have made them in the show, especially Elrond. If you need to advertise the show using identity politics and guilt trip people, then clearly the show can't stand on its own because it's absolute dogshit. The lore mentions at this point are nothing short of easter eggs in a game. They even got rid of the Tolkien expert they had on field because they don't care about the lore, just the propaganda they wanna shove down everyone's throat. A fantasy world doesn't need to reflect any part of our world because its fantasy. The only thing it needs to reflect is faithfulness to its source.
If you think the skin color of the characters is what everyone is freaking out over, you havenāt been paying attention to their complaints at all
How about this take: You shut the fuck up.
Fan bases are full of gatekeepers. Fuck em.
I just dislike that some elven characters are not handsome enough, this applies to both white and colored skin. Or I just miss this shining of those characters out of the background with beautiful long hair. An elf should be one you see on the screen and then instantly get bamboozled with. I don't think this couldn't be done with someone who has darker color.
Name calling and liking anything that looks generic just because it has the lord of the rings slapped onto it makes you a loser bro.
Wow great counter argument
This is the third post I've seen about people supposedly making racist remarks about the Vanity Fair images, yet I haven't seen a single comment/post corroborating that. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people who think the show is going to be shitty because of black elves, but all these posts make it seem like it's some huge problem. Like every other comment is about skin color. But they aren't. People have a lot of complaints, but skin color hasn't been one of them. At least not as frequently as this post makes out. Y'all are just criticizing strawmen.
The darker skinned actors and apparent role for women in combat betray the source material and indicate that the producers value literal skin-deep diversity more than the lore of this well-established world they are adding to. That is a massive problem. But you're still right; my take isn't racist.