You contradict yourself, like you said it is not real and therefore it does not have to reflect reality in any specific way.
The point here is whether or not show like this need to change the source material in order to inject something that was not there previously.
It is not a simple discussion, but in the case of Lord of the Rings, the issue is that the author intended his work to stay as he wrote it.
And having a whole bunch of studios making changes to it and reinterpreting it and rebooting it is just not what he wanted.
Diversity here is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of trying to justify changes to his work and going against his wishes.
It is basically trying to turn this into an argument of morality which is purely pathetic and silly.
If the work is immoral or problematic then don't adapt it. Adapt something that is more fitting those 'moral' standards.
But that doesn't work when this is one of the best selling books of all time and a huge mega corporation wants to cash in on it.
They don't care about what he wrote. They only care about the name and being able to gain profits on using the name no matter if it is garbage or not.
Also George RR Martin is alive and helping make HOD while Tolkien is dead. Both HOD and ROP are supposed to be direct prequels to books and other previous adaptations. One is a literal canon prequel and the other is not.