Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Specialka]

I mean, it should also be noted that Tolkein was great friends with C.S. Lewis, who definitely did have some racial issues. The Chronicles of Narnia were littered with blonde-haired blue-eyed Narnians and "high" cultures who worshipped Aslan (the true god), while turban-wearing, desert-dwelling brown folks with literally curly-toed shoes worshipped Tash (the false god).

These men were products of their time. Tolkein may be better than Lewis, but his dwarves are "tropes" of Jewish people, just as his hobbits are, in his mind, "tropes" of good-hearted English people. And he probably did mean for Rohan and Gondor to mirror western Europeans, while the Harad and the southron and eastern folks were dark-skinned and, weird coincidence, evil.

So as I see it, there's two possibilities in adapting his work:
1) Either you acknowledge the man's shortcomings as a man of his time and cast it as he probably envisioned it, leading to a very white cast of good guys fighting a very dark-skinned cast (in re: human forces, at least) of evil, or
2) you say "race shouldn't really matter to who these characters are because good and evil is a character's choice, and not delineated by how you look or where you come from," and adapt it from there, kindly whitewashing the very deliberate choices of a man who lived in the early to mid 20th century.

Like, these are the same issues in comics. The first superheroes were white men because white men wrote them in a time when people of color and women were considered quite literally inferior and second-class citizens. Even if those comic writers didn't believe it themselves, that was the time, and their art reflected it. So the question when adapting it always should be: is the race of this character important to the central narrative of this story? If not, cast whoever you want that you think will act the part as you want.

Art is a reflection of the time it was created in. But art isn't static and set in stone. It evolves and changes with the time.

Great. Make your own setting then.

[Veggie50]

If they are in it for the money then they would stick to the source material that is already popular. Again, this nonsense argument that if I write a story about all white people doing something, it is inherently racist or wrong is false. If that is the case then Shakespeare is racist. If that is the case then Homer is racist. And of course, that means Tolkien is racist. And that is because they had the gall to write stories that are timeless and admired around the world without the diversity that you claim is needed. But don't worry you are going to tell us how you cant just write your own diverse story. Nope. That isn't enough. You have to "fix" Homer or Shakespeare or Tolkien or whoever else because of course, their work is below par according to "modern" standards.

You know right there that is some pure bull crap.

I have no problem with diversity. But altering and twisting someone else's work to include it, just for the sake of including it, is just derivative, unoriginal and pandering, especially when the original was already popular as is. You want a high fantasy world with all diverse creatures then fine, make one. But this argument that Tolkien's world must have that is false because no writer is obliged to create a fictional world in the image YOU think it should look like. That is like saying they are supposed to be writing YOUR story for you. No, they are only required to tell the stories they want to tell and if that doesn't suit you (as in the case of these studios) then make your own and stop trying to pretend that you are honoring Tolkien or whoever else you are riding the coattails of. But they cant or don't want to do that so all they can do is make up new definitions of what is an adaptation is or what is required for "modern" day people or any other numerous nonsense arguments.

I wholely agree that there isn’t a must to get different ethnic groups into the lotr series.

I also wholely agree that there isn’t a must to keep different ethnic groups out of the lotr series.

[Shadowferal]

Need to get to know of the "southern" peoples and see them in a better light.

[UnifiedDivide]

Art is a reflection of the time it was created in. But art isn't static and set in stone. It evolves and changes with the time.

Most important part of your whole post, imo. But it seems to be something that some people will just never understand. Especially those that insist these things should be gatekept even harder than they already are.

Things change, they adapt to the times. Hence "adaptation."

[Shadowferal]

Art is a reflection of the time it was created in. But art isn't static and set in stone. It evolves and changes with the time.

But try remaking Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" and see how far that goes.

Such things always reflects back to the original.

[Rocksteady 87]

I mean, it should also be noted that Tolkein was great friends with C.S. Lewis, who definitely did have some racial issues. The Chronicles of Narnia were littered with blonde-haired blue-eyed Narnians and "high" cultures who worshipped Aslan (the true god), while turban-wearing, desert-dwelling brown folks with literally curly-toed shoes worshipped Tash (the false god).

These men were products of their time. Tolkein may be better than Lewis, but his dwarves are "tropes" of Jewish people, just as his hobbits are, in his mind, "tropes" of good-hearted English people. And he probably did mean for Rohan and Gondor to mirror western Europeans, while the Harad and the southron and eastern folks were dark-skinned and, weird coincidence, evil.

So as I see it, there's two possibilities in adapting his work:
1) Either you acknowledge the man's shortcomings as a man of his time and cast it as he probably envisioned it, leading to a very white cast of good guys fighting a very dark-skinned cast (in re: human forces, at least) of evil, or
2) you say "race shouldn't really matter to who these characters are because good and evil is a character's choice, and not delineated by how you look or where you come from," and adapt it from there, kindly whitewashing the very deliberate choices of a man who lived in the early to mid 20th century.

Like, these are the same issues in comics. The first superheroes were white men because white men wrote them in a time when people of color and women were considered quite literally inferior and second-class citizens. Even if those comic writers didn't believe it themselves, that was the time, and their art reflected it. So the question when adapting it always should be: is the race of this character important to the central narrative of this story? If not, cast whoever you want that you think will act the part as you want.

Art is a reflection of the time it was created in. But art isn't static and set in stone. It evolves and changes with the time.

I've said it before but apparently it bears repeating: While it's under the umbrella of "fantasy," Tolkien's works are tentatively an alternate history of the world.

If you want to claim it's quasi-racist ("he's a product of his time") that he effectively made all of the foreigners of the story evil, that's one thing. But to say it's because he had the peoples of a specific region of a specific world all look the way the peoples of a specific region of a specific world looked like, that's ridiculous. Again, I don't understand how people like you lose your shit at the idea of John Wayne playing Genghis Kahn or state that Wakanda has to be in Africa with African people. It's literally the same thing. Literally literally.

His stories take place millennia upon millennia before the Romans, Norse, and others brought slaves from other parts of the world into the region. Areas were largely isiolated with limited breeding stock; everyone should look mostly the same, especially within local areas. But no, it's a melting pot of real-world races that make absolutely no sense.

Clutching your pearls and acting outraged at the idea that people -- a lot of people, only a tiny fraction of them being the racist douchenozzle types -- are scratching their heads and wondering why there's so much diversity in the show is absurd. It's a very reasonable and sensible question to be asking, but you people just keep coming up with the most ridiculous excuses, all while acting like you're riding the highest of horses regarding how 'enlightened' you believe yourselves to be.

There's a huge difference between asking those questions and screaming your bloody head off about how you're not going to watch the show and refuse to have anything to do with it because you're a racist twat. The former doesn't make you the latter, anymore than you asking why John Wayne is playing Genghis Kahn.

[Acidz]

I mean, it should also be noted that Tolkein was great friends with C.S. Lewis, who definitely did have some racial issues. The Chronicles of Narnia were littered with blonde-haired blue-eyed Narnians and "high" cultures who worshipped Aslan (the true god), while turban-wearing, desert-dwelling brown folks with literally curly-toed shoes worshipped Tash (the false god).

These men were products of their time. Tolkein may be better than Lewis, but his dwarves are "tropes" of Jewish people, just as his hobbits are, in his mind, "tropes" of good-hearted English people. And he probably did mean for Rohan and Gondor to mirror western Europeans, while the Harad and the southron and eastern folks were dark-skinned and, weird coincidence, evil.

So as I see it, there's two possibilities in adapting his work:
1) Either you acknowledge the man's shortcomings as a man of his time and cast it as he probably envisioned it, leading to a very white cast of good guys fighting a very dark-skinned cast (in re: human forces, at least) of evil, or
2) you say "race shouldn't really matter to who these characters are because good and evil is a character's choice, and not delineated by how you look or where you come from," and adapt it from there, kindly whitewashing the very deliberate choices of a man who lived in the early to mid 20th century.

Like, these are the same issues in comics. The first superheroes were white men because white men wrote them in a time when people of color and women were considered quite literally inferior and second-class citizens. Even if those comic writers didn't believe it themselves, that was the time, and their art reflected it. So the question when adapting it always should be: is the race of this character important to the central narrative of this story? If not, cast whoever you want that you think will act the part as you want.

Art is a reflection of the time it was created in. But art isn't static and set in stone. It evolves and changes with the time.

Do we have to change Leonardo da Vinci's works too, because he didn't depict any black people and lgbtiq+ folk???

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Do we have to change Leonardo da Vinci's works too, because he didn't depict any black people and lgbtiq+ folk???

You do know that people have been adapting and changing Leonardo da Vinci's works for a long long time right? The the vitruvian man for example has uncountable variations at this point as well as being used in other media like fallout4 or westworld.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Do we have to change Leonardo da Vinci's works too, because he didn't depict any black people and lgbtiq+ folk???

Are you quite sure about that?

[eschatological]

Imagine thinking DaVinci, one of the gayest painters to ever paint, never painting a queer painting.

And so much art is derived from his work. He invented a style, and people have iterated on his style over and over again. You can draw a straight line from DaVinci's Mona Lisa to Van Gogh's self portrait......and even though they're very different pieces, the influence and inspiration is there. Imagine thinking individual artists operate in a vacuum of their own creation.

But if you're asking about more literal re-paintings - that has been done, over and over again as well. The Masters (the commercially successful ones, at least) all had workshops of people painting their own paintings, reproducing their works with slight variations. Half of art authentication is trying to figure out whether one of the Masters actually painted a painting with his signature on it. On some of them we'll never know, because the students were quite literal in their adaptation to the point that it simply was a copy of the original, and added nothing.

[InfiniteCharger]

Sorry, what? We've literally had people say "they're just changing it for the money", and then had you say "no, if it was just for the money they wouldn't change anything".

That's... in this thread. Black and white. Nothing "in your head" about it, those are conflicting statements.

So, again: are they doing it just for the money or not?

Again, the conflict is in your head, because you can't understand that Lord of the Rings is one of the best selling books of all time.
Obviously they bought the rights to adapt the 2nd age because they want to make money.
You are confusing how much money they "could" make versus how much money they "will" make.
And all of that boils down to how many people like their adaptation.
So yes, they want to make money, but just because they want to make money doesn't mean they will make money.
And my argument, is that spending a billion dollars, just to change the story that Tolkien wrote is not a formula for success.

That depends on how you got there. Did you have a good REASON for it, or was it just "idk man, black people just don't, like, fit"?

Stop trying to tell me what was in my head when I wrote my dam book. I wanted to write a story about 3 white men in the woods. That's the reason pure and simple. This is not a story about 3 black people or 3 "men" of whatever background. It is very specific. The point being that I am not obliged to follow any mandates to include a certain kind of "diversity" in my stories. If you want to write a story about "diverse" men in the woods, then write your own book and call it something else.

I specifically said my problem is with an exclusionary casting process; you can't just gloss over the core part of my argument and jump straight to the end result.

You cant cast someone without a story and characters. And the casting has to follow the background of the characters from the story. Stop making up absolutely irrelevant and illogical nonsense. According to you, casting supersedes what is in the actual story and the actual characters defined along with it. No it does not. Casting does not supersede or override what the original author wrote or intended these characters to be. Stop making up nonsense.

So what are they, then, TEXT-ACCURATE interpretations?

What's your problem here, exactly? That people are doing diverse Shakespeare productions, or that they're "pretending to be liberal interpretations" (whatever that means)? And how does one even do that, pretend to be a liberal interpretation? As opposed to what, actually being a conservative interpretation?

Why are you going on about this? Romeo and Juliet are about a white couple in Medieval Italy. Obviously if you are being true to Shakespeare, the actor and actress playing them would be white. Stop trying to sit here and pretend that you are so color blind that you cannot see the difference between a literal adaptation of Romeo and Juliet versus something paying homage to the story while taking it in a new direction.

Amazon Rings of Power came out claiming that they were "writing the story Tolkien Never wrote".
The point here is that this is NOT the story Tolkien never wrote. It is completely made up by Amazon and only inspired by Tolkien and does not fit into the lore that Tolkien wrote. Period. You can't have it both ways. There is no conflict here except in your head where you think setting LOTR in the Jungles of the Amazon is perfectly fine and can still be called Tolkien if it has "good writing and casting". You aren't making any sense. That is not Tolkien at all.

How about you stop writing and START READING. Like, what I said.

I gave you a very specific example of the source material specifically being written to have 3 white men in it.
Stop trying to make up excuses how this can be changed to have 3 "diverse" men and still be true to the original work.
If you change it 3 diverse men then it is not true to the original work. That is what you have been debating me about is it not?
Stop sitting here acting like you don't understand the point because it goes against your made up "but equity in casting" argument.
Casting has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I've mentioned several times now that this is a backwards approach, and that it's not about "this can't have all white people!" but that it's about "is there a REASON you want to exclude non-white people?". If you wrote something in a way that HAS a good narrative reason, that's fine. The problem lies SOLELY with those stories that DO NOT have a good narrative reason to be excluding non-white people.

Now read that again, and then one more time, so you don't screw it up AGAIN.

Dude. Stop trying to paraphrase your way out of this. If it is a story about 3 white people then that is the story. There is no other way to tell that story but to hire 3 white actors for those roles and yes that means not hiring non white people. You again are insinuating that a story about all white people is racist because you can't hire any non white people to be in it. Which again is you trying to tell me what kind of stories I can and cannot write and who I can and cannot put in them. Who are you or anybody else to tell me or any other author what I am supposed to write about? If you want "diverse" stories then write your own then. There is nothing theoretical or abstract about this. A story about 3 white men is narrative reason. And there is nothing racist about it.

How many Africans or Asians were in Norse mythology?
How many elves, fairies and other creatures in Norse mythology are very pale or light skinned?
How many dark skinned people are in Snow White?

Tolkien made a story that is supposed to be a mythology for England. How many dark skinned people were in England 2,000 years ago?
Why shouldn't a story set there be mostly white? There were no airplanes back then. There was no fast sea travel back then.
People "from all over the world" weren't in England back then.

It is not backwards or racist to write a story about that setting with all or mostly white people as Europeans in that setting.
Just like it is not backwards or racist to have all black people in a story based on the mythology of central Africa.

You just keep trying to squirm your way around this and really what you are saying is that writing something about a fantasy world based on ancient Europe with all or mostly white people is racist. That is basically all you are saying. According to you, a story cant be written about all white people from ancient Europe for some reason. There is nothing wrong with that.

But that is absolutely what you keep going on about as if it is "limiting opportunities". No it isn't.
Every story does not have to include everybody.

Oh I get you, alright.

BUT AGAIN: it's not about diversity "being required". It's about "is there a good narrative reason to EXCLUDE PEOPLE?".

Now read THAT again, too. And one more time for good luck. It'll sink in eventually.

The story and lore is the narrative and they don't have to include diversity. Like I said and keep saying.
You keep going round and round in circles about this. DEI mandates have absolutely nothing to do with "narrative".
DEI mandates will change the narrative to include diversity where it does not exist because it is a mandate.
So you are again being dishonest because this is not simply about the source material as is being open to interpretation.
This is about corporations mandating a certain amount of diversity and therefore changing the source material to include it.
That is what is happening in Rings of Power. You keep trying to argue this theoretical nonsense and ignoring the facts.
Tar Miriel was explicitly written as a white woman. There is no "narrative" justification for her not to be white, if this is an "adaptation".

You are just arguing just to argue with abstract rhetoric and ignoring the facts specific to Tolkien.

That's not my argument. My argument is that if there's not a good narrative reason to be excluding certain races from the casting, then THAT is racist.

If there IS a good reason, then it's fine.

Read it again. Twice. Because gods know you seem to need to.

So what was the "narrative" justification for changing Tar Miriel from a white woman to a black woman?

Lets stick to that.

Holy hell, that nearly gave me a stroke. Not sure I can tolerate this much bad logic, please think of my blood pressure.

Did I not explain, in an entire paragraph no less, how I'm not looking at the AUTHOR but at the CASTING of an ADAPTATION?

I'm pretty sure I did. *goes back to look* Yes, yes I did.

Because you are saying that the author is racist for not explicitly including diversity and trying to pretend that casting supersedes the author.
Again, how does casting justify making Tar Miriel a black woman when the author and the narrative of the source materiel said she was white.
You keep trying to duck and dodge this but if the story is 3 white men or "Tar Miriel the fair with blonde hair" then how is there any other "narrative" that is going to make them black or otherwise "diverse" without going against the source material. You just keep making up nonsense and going in circles with your make pretend narrative argument. The source material is the narrative. There is no other narrative that is relevant unless you are making up a different narrative for the purposes of including diversity that was not present in the source material. You keep trying to whine and moan about casting as if it that somehow "needs to include" diversity, but that logically implies that the source material "needs to include" diversity in the narrative. Which means that if the original author didn't include it, then by all common sense, they are racist because they are excluding non white actors. There is no other way to say it. Try as you may to make up this narrative nonsense that somehow avoids that logical conclusion.

Because - and this may shock you, as you've never read it before - if there is no GOOD NARRATIVE REASON to exclude non-white actors from the casting, that is, by definition, racist.

If it's written so there IS a good narrative reason, that's very different.

The source material is the narrative. The story is about 3 white men in the woods. There should be no non whites casted for this story, just like no dolphins, sea creatures or desert animals as they don't live in the forest. That narrative doesn't include non white people. Period. And there is nothing racist about it.

I wouldn't phrase it like that, but sure, in broad terms; with the important exception of - drumroll! - a good narrative reason to do otherwise.

Being accurate to the source material is a red herring. ALL adaptations deviate from the source in SOME way. That's a self-evident truth borne out of the necessities of adaptation. It's purely about finding good reasons for what to change and what not to change.

There is no drumroll required. Amazon is deliberately changing the narrative by making up a new story to include diversity in casting.
That is the point. You just keep avoiding it. The source material is the narrative. If Amazon made up their own story and narrative then they are not being true to the source material AND doing so to justify diverse casting. That is exactly the crux of the issue.

Sorry, not clear here - I claim that WHAT is required, exactly? Not excluding people based on skin color from acting roles unless there's a good narrative reason? Yes, I do claim that. And that's a universal claim, it's not specific to Tolkien.

Also: "nobody is complaining" about what? I said nobody goes around calling Tolkien a racist just because he didn't write diversity to 21st century standards. That doesn't mean an ADAPTATION should behave the same way. Those are entirely separate things.

The source material is the narrative. There is no other narrative. If the story is about 3 white men in the woods there is no narrative reason not to cast 3 white men.

If the source material says Tar Miriel was a white woman, there is no narrative justification to cast her otherwise.

You keep running away from this because it exposes your dishonesty on this point specific to Tolkien. Tar Miriel in Tolkiens narrative was a white woman who had no interaction with Galadriel and was not a queen. That is the narrative in the source material. What Amazon has done was to create a new narrative, which has absolutely nothing to do with Tolkien in order to justify this casting and story about Galadriel and Tar Miriel as warrior queens.

There was no narrative reason for any of this within Tolkien's actual work. This is a new made up narrative totally different from Tolkien is the point.

Only if you're doing it despite a good narrative reason. If her being white has some specific relevance to the plot, if it's made into a narrative element in and of itself - then we have a conversation. If it's just a cosmetic description and changing it doesn't change anything about the actual narrative, then skin color shouldn't matter; because it clearly doesn't in the story.

Because, again: truth to the source is never perfect. Every adaptation deviates in some way. Always will. So why is skin color important, when so many other details are not? If the text says she has grey eyes but the actress has blue eyes; if the text says her hair went to her shoulders and the actress' hair only goes to her neck; are THOSE deal-breakers too? Assuming the eyes or hair play no narrative role of course. And if not... why is skin color any different?

You are contradicting yourself and exposed your anti white bias. If the story says she was white, there is no reason to change it.
But according to you that isn't good enough. According to you there has to be some "separate" narrative justification for casting a white woman.
According to you the source material saying specifically this was a white woman from a long line of white Kings and Queens isn't enough.
Man you just hate hiring white actors don't you?

BAD BAD BAD language.

"Going against" is not the same as "differing from".

If it is not the same as the source material then effectively it is going against it. That is a factual statement.
If the source material says specifically that Galadriel was not a warrior going around leading armies, then Amazon putting it into the show is going against that. You keep trying to word smith your way out of the fact that everything you are saying is ultimately pointless and irrelevant.
Amazon made this change because they felt women needed more of a prominent role as warriors. Tolkien did not write that.
Therefore, they went against him. And that is absolutely the point. You keep losing this argument but trying to turn it into a win.
You aren't winning because these people are deliberately changing Tolkien to suit their agenda. There is no debate about that.

That's a VERY different discussion. Until we actually see how it turns out, we can't really comment on it.

Is it the same as Tolkien wrote it? Nope. But every adaptation differs in some way (I'm sure you've heard it before). Whether or not these changes make for good writing we will have to see in the finished product. And judge them based on whether they're good writing or not; not based on how accurate they are to the source.

Dude. You keep losing and then trying to save face. The fact is that you have been proven wrong. There was no narrative in Tolkien about Tar Miriel as white. There was no reason to cast any other kind of actress. Amazon changed the whole entire narrative of the 2nd Age in order to have Tar Miriel be riding into battle along side Galadriel. Her skin color is part of all of that. None of that is what Tolkien wrote and people who are rejecting it are rejecting it as not being true to Tolkien, because it isn't. Period. Whether it may be good or not doesn't change the fact that it is not Tolkien. Also, Tolkien's work was already excellent to begin with. Amazon isn't Tolkien and people aren't going to watch this show to see Amazon's made up narrative. They want to see Tolkien because it is being advertised as being "true" to Tolkien when it is not. This isn't theoretical or abstract.

And apparently you've also never heard this adage, which just shows you don't... well, know a lot about all this. Are you sure you should be talking about race problems if you've never even heard of NIMBY?

Because it isn't relevant to the fact that Amazon is deliberately changing Tolkiens work in substantial ways to craft "a new narrative".
Fine. But that isn't Tolkien. All your points are irrelevant to that. If they have a new narrative then stop calling it Tolkien.

See above for repeated clarifications on what I'm actually saying, with instructions to carefully read them three times to make sure you don't say nonsense like this again next time.

Tolkien is high fantasy. Amazon is changing Tolkiens work to include more diversity in that High fantasy. These are all factual statements.

Never said anything of the kind, and I'd kindly direct you to look above and follow the instructions. They seem to be sorely needed.

Did you not talk about excluding non whites from casting for roles? Stop being dishonest. That is what you are talking about.
Otherwise why are you here having this long back and forth with me about this show?

OOOOOH IRONYGASM! Geez, boyo, that was a BIG one. Whew.


Depends entirely on what you mean by "honoring Tolkien", which is a very vague statement (and far from anything I'd ever say, just to be clear). Is it accurate to the source? No. Does that matter? Also no. For reasons explained above.

It doesn't depend. It is fairly well understood what "honoring Tolkien" means. You because you don't mind substantial changes to Tolkien's lore as "honoring Tolkien" doesn't mean everybody else does. So yes, if they are calling this show an "adaptation" of Tolkien but making substantial changes to what he wrote, then it is not an "adaptation". You can keep spinning around in circles on this all you want. This isn't about your subjective opinion about whether or not the show will be good or not. Tolkien's work already is one of the best selling stories of all time. It is already popular as objective fact. Making substantial changes to it aren't required to make it popular.

That's a bold statement. We don't know what Tolkien wanted - we DO know he planned to make Galadriel more of a centerpiece and flesh her out as more of a woman warrior. He said so. He just never got to write it into stories before he died. But that was what he WANTED. Tolkien's works kept changing and evolving all the time; we have no idea what he "wanted" or not for most characters. We know he didn't write stories like those, but that doesn't really matter; I think I've explained why.

It is not a bold statement. We know what he wrote and we have specific examples of them going against what he wrote.
He did not write that Galadriel was a warrior in the 2nd age alongside Tar Miriel.
So this is not about making up new stories to cover things he did not write. It is about changing substantially what he did write.
You are so desperate to defend these changes to the extreme of denying that they are changes is the problem.
They are not what Tolkien wrote and nobody can argue that this "changed narrative" is supposed to be as popular as the original work.
That is going to be decided on the merits of the show itself, which is fine, but it is no longer Tolkien at that point, but something different.

As to whether or not to call it an "adaptation" or something like "inspired by" or "derivative of" or whatever... Don't really care, because that's just terminological quibbling. Call it whatever you like. I use adaptation as a methodological descriptor, not as a label - if you want to use another word, doesn't bother me. I attach no significance or epistemological value to it, beyond its mechanical-descriptive usage. The quality of the product is what interests me, not the nomenclature.

Again, you keep changing the goal posts. "Adaptation" is very well defined. If it is not a literal "adaptation" then don't call it one. We have been over this. You aren't changing the definition of what is an adaptation. You have made it very clear that you personally are OK with all of these changes, but stop pretending that these aren't substantial changes to what Tolkien wrote, because they are. And just because you are OK with it doesn't mean everybody else is supposed to be. People who were quite happy as fans of the original work are not required to like this "new and original" version of that work. It isn't the same thing at all. You are pushing this line of thinking that just as long as it has the name Tolkien in it, existing fans of Tolkien should just accept it and treat it as literally the same as what Tolkien wrote, when that is absolutely not how it works.

There are MANY other ways to say it, preferably ones that actually engage with what I ACTUALLY WROTE instead of some hare-brained confabulation that's effectively just there to mask your discomfort with your own biases.

If you are the one talking about excluding actors of different races in the casting, then you are calling the original author racist for not having characters of different racial backgrounds. That is literally what you are saying. Otherwise, stop pretending that somehow it is wrong to cast white people in roles for characters written as white. If you have a problem with that, then you are literally claiming that the author is racist for not including enough non white people in their work. I already gave the example of Tar Miriel. She is explicitly written as a white woman. There is no other excuse for changing her to a black woman other than to promote diversity as part of Amazon's DEI policies. You can sit here and argue that this isn't true but Amazon themselves have said this and so have the actresses and actors.

READ, girl. This is a discussion about LITERATURE. It's not too much to ask you actually read and parse what people are writing, is it?

I am not a girl so stop calling me out of my gender.

[rogoth]

Streaming is a global phenomenon and these services are in almost every country around the world, yet they don't hire and promote that many artists and creators from all over the world to make new content. In their minds, they still believe that European centered stories and programs, including those from the Americas, are the gold standard for entertainment for everyone around the world. Therefore including non Europeans in those stories, when they literally shouldn't be there, is just pushing European culture and history as the default for everyone and not really about promoting diversity. Sure, I can go watch Korean fantasy shows on streaming or Chinese fantasy shows where diversity isn't a prerequisite, but those shows are mostly just licensed from those countries not truly created by the streaming services in house.

Therefore, given that, adapting a fictional story set in an a world based on African culture and history is not a priority. Because they know that most of their money comes from European and American audiences and would rather take the lazy route of randomly including black folks in European stories to get a wider audience. That means they don't see the need to adapt any of the numerous stories, myths and legends based in Africa or even Native American ones because they feel it is too niche, for the cost. Because in reality the idea that somebody needs to see themselves in these stories based on their skin color or other attributes is something mostly made up by the executives, social justice degree employees and leftist academics. That has never been true in real life, but that is why they put so much effort into marketing this stuff a certain way to make it seem more important than it really is. For them, being able to change Tolkien then becomes the holy grail of such made up "achievements" as if it is special and important to anyone but themselves that they changed characters for this reason. It is only important to them because it represents a very lofty achievement in European fantasy literature and therefore as part of indoctrinating everyone into seeing European culture as the pinnacle of creativity, they need to inject these things into it. Not to mention it is simply lazy because they know Tolkien is already popular so they can spend less time and effort than actually creating something new and diverse from scratch. Which results in this idea that you only to see yourself in European culture and history no matter if your history and culture is not from Europe. And that is as offensive in many ways as what they claim to be "fighting" against.

there's no such thing as 'european culture', what you consider to be 'european culture' is just anglo/germanic medieval settings, with maybe a hint of franco influence here and there, if you're talking about the entire european continent then you need to get yourself checked, you have a VAST and DIVERSE history, not to mention hundreds of different cultures over time all meshed and mingled together to create the society we have today, i suggest you check your ignorance and educate yourself before making any further comments using false and incorrect terminology.

[eschatological]

Shakespeare originally had all his female parts played by men on stage. Is that "the artist's vision" which we can't deviate from?

Or is that a product of the time Shakespeare lived in, when women were second class citizens and not allowed to be involved in the arts? Hamlet and Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet have been played by people of all walks of life for literally more than a hundred years at this point.

Your main argument against diversity is that these authors lived in times that weren't diverse, and in fact, very oppressive of people of color/women, and thus, their work through all of time cannot be diverse. To believe that, you have to basically say that the environment which these works were created don't matter, or, worse yet, that they were good, and to change them is to defy that environment in which they were created.

The example is perhaps more clear elsewhere. H.P. Lovecraft was a vile racist. But because his brand of vile racism was socially acceptable at the time, his work gained traction and noteriety. You're arguing that his racist depictions should be untouched and unaltered, that the story somehow depends on them (they do not), and to deviate from them is a faithless adaptation. I'm arguing that the themes of his work *are* worthy of adaptation IN SPITE OF the racism, which should be excised out. Meanwhile, works where the racism is the point, like The Birth of a Nation, can be relegated to the history books.

You remind me of people who take the Bible literally. The type who say women can't be priests because Jesus's 12 Apostles were men, ignoring 1) the political cobbling together of the New Testament to fit the Roman Empire's needs in the 3rd century, 2) apocryphal gospels which showed Jesus having some very close female apostles, and, most importantly, 3) the context: that Jesus would have been an unmarried Jewish man and to have close traveling companions (who would sleep and eat together in the same place) of the opposite sex would be highly abnormal and culturally taboo.

[Hansworst]

Imagine thinking DaVinci, one of the gayest painters to ever paint, never painting a queer painting.

And so much art is derived from his work. He invented a style, and people have iterated on his style over and over again. You can draw a straight line from DaVinci's Mona Lisa to Van Gogh's self portrait......and even though they're very different pieces, the influence and inspiration is there. Imagine thinking individual artists operate in a vacuum of their own creation.

But if you're asking about more literal re-paintings - that has been done, over and over again as well. The Masters (the commercially successful ones, at least) all had workshops of people painting their own paintings, reproducing their works with slight variations. Half of art authentication is trying to figure out whether one of the Masters actually painted a painting with his signature on it. On some of them we'll never know, because the students were quite literal in their adaptation to the point that it simply was a copy of the original, and added nothing.

Funny thing, there are scholars that say the Mona Lisa is a self portrait by Da Vinci.

- - - Updated - - -

But try remaking Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" and see how far that goes.

Such things always reflects back to the original.

Like this?

[Rocksteady 87]

Shakespeare originally had all his female parts played by men on stage. Is that "the artist's vision" which we can't deviate from?

What the fuck does that have to do with it? That's not even remotely relatable to this.

Your main argument against diversity is that these authors lived in times that weren't diverse, and in fact, very oppressive of people of color/women, and thus, their work through all of time cannot be diverse. To believe that, you have to basically say that the environment which these works were created don't matter, or, worse yet, that they were good, and to change them is to defy that environment in which they were created.

Wrong.

The main argument is that the story -- an alternative history of the Earth -- takes place in a region of the world notably lacking any sort of diversity due to numerous reasons.

But I'm sure you'd be totally fine with T'challa being a Chinese woman ruling over Wakanda, whose population has huge swatches of Caucasians, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans and other Aboriginals, and so on. Because that's literally what's going on here. The sad part is it makes even more sense for Wakanda due to how easy it is for people to travel across the world now, amongst other reasons. But I'm sure you'd lose your shit if they tried doing that in a Black Panther movie.

It'd be one thing if, say, all the dwarves on the show were portrayed by black actors. That'd be far more believable within the context of the story than a wide diversity of people. "So why is one of them black, especially a noble, while no one else is?" "I 'unno, shut up racist, it's magic. Something something Shakespeare something something DaVinci." Those are the dumbest arguments, yet it's the only thing you people seem to offer up to anyone pointing out how it doesn't make a lick of sense within the context of the story and when/where it's set.

[Biomega]

Again, the conflict is in your head

No, the conflict is in two contradictory statements, as outlined above.

Answer the question asked, not some other racist tangent you want to get out.

Stop trying to tell me what was in my head when I wrote my dam book.

I'm not telling you what you wrote, I'M ASKING YOU WHAT YOU WROTE, you illiterate snot noodle.

Are you just incapable of correctly parsing the most banal statements?

You cant cast someone without a story and characters. And the casting has to follow the background of the characters from the story.

To what extent? To practically anyone, it doesn't matter if a character is 6'1" but the actor is 6'2". Yet somehow skin color differences matter? Where do you draw the line between what is CLEARLY not a problem to deviate on, and what is?

You're throwing out vague statements like "background", but that's never going to be 100% accurate to the books; so where do you deviate, by how much, and why?

Casting does not supersede or override what the original author wrote or intended these characters to be. Stop making up nonsense.

The only spouting nonsense here is you, because no casting in the history of the world has been absolutely 100% accurate to the source material. Period. You're retreating into an illusory argument that holds no merit, neither logically nor practically.

And how do you know what an author INTENDED for a character to be, in the absence of direct statements? Clearly it can't just be 100% text accuracy, because that's NEVER fulfilled. So how do you get this information, then? How do you decide what can and can't be changed?

Why are you going on about this? Romeo and Juliet are about a white couple in Medieval Italy. Obviously if you are being true to Shakespeare, the actor and actress playing them would be white.

And if being true to the source was the goal or of any interest, that'd be relevant. But that's not the goal, and it can't be, for reasons I've explained 50 times now and you just keep ignoring because you have no answer.

Also: you've never seen West Side Story, have you. Not to mention that Romeo and Juliet IS ALREADY AN ADAPTATION based on earlier material (like "Pyramus and Thisbe" by Ovid). You didn't know that, either. Because you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

Amazon Rings of Power came out claiming that they were "writing the story Tolkien Never wrote".

Then take them to task for that. Call it a bullshit statement, I'm fine with that.

But it has NOTHING to do with the fact that you don't want black people in it. And stop trying to pretend it does.

I gave you a very specific example of the source material specifically being written to have 3 white men in it.

And I have said, MANY TIMES, that IF YOU HAVE A GOOD NARRATIVE REASON for a specific skin color, then I am ENTIRELY FINE with casting for that skin color. And that I have a problem ONLY for those stories where there IS NO GOOD REASON to restrict casting.

I've written this out a half dozen times, with detailed instructions to read and re-read. And you're STILL refusing to acknowledge it.

So at this point let's clarify: are you just incapable of having an honest conversation engaging with what people ARE ACTUALLY AND REPEATEDLY SAYING, or are you aware of it, but ignoring it intentionally because you know it completely deflates your entire standpoint?

Just let me know, please. Almost every paragraph you wrote has the same response from me: that is not what I'm saying, I've explained it twenty times now and asked you to carefully read it, and the next paragraph you AGAIN go on with the same shit.

How about this: write it out. Acknowledge what my point is. Repeat it back to me. Then I don't have to re-write the same fucking thing to every one of your inane responses that have this massive blind spot to the actual argument.

And if you don't want to do that, then we all know that you're just unwilling to honestly engage with the discussion, and if you're just a dishonest interlocutor only interested in spewing incoherent racist tirades, just go away and do it somewhere else.

Because you are saying that the author is racist for not explicitly including diversity

Okay, quote me where I said this. In any way.

You're just lying to my face now.

QUOTE WHERE I SAID THIS.

[Orby]

there's no such thing as 'european culture', what you consider to be 'european culture' is just anglo/germanic medieval settings, with maybe a hint of franco influence here and there, if you're talking about the entire european continent then you need to get yourself checked, you have a VAST and DIVERSE history, not to mention hundreds of different cultures over time all meshed and mingled together to create the society we have today, i suggest you check your ignorance and educate yourself before making any further comments using false and incorrect terminology.

Every country has a culture and a history to that culture. Its what defines every place you go to. If you think every European country is the same, then you havent travelled much. There is a big difference to how all countries have been built and have evolved. From our myths and folklore to our art, to our films our music, literature, and even our philosophy. I am British and as much as I love some of the things that define British culture trust me, we have a culture. And its most a imperial awful culture but its a culture that we are rooted in. Like our examples some cultures are not always good in hindsight. To throw away European culture as just all one encompassing mesh is pretty naïve. Italy is a great home of culture I suggest paying that visit.

[InfiniteCharger]

Shakespeare originally had all his female parts played by men on stage. Is that "the artist's vision" which we can't deviate from?

Or is that a product of the time Shakespeare lived in, when women were second class citizens and not allowed to be involved in the arts? Hamlet and Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet have been played by people of all walks of life for literally more than a hundred years at this point.

Your main argument against diversity is that these authors lived in times that weren't diverse, and in fact, very oppressive of people of color/women, and thus, their work through all of time cannot be diverse. To believe that, you have to basically say that the environment which these works were created don't matter, or, worse yet, that they were good, and to change them is to defy that environment in which they were created.

The example is perhaps more clear elsewhere. H.P. Lovecraft was a vile racist. But because his brand of vile racism was socially acceptable at the time, his work gained traction and noteriety. You're arguing that his racist depictions should be untouched and unaltered, that the story somehow depends on them (they do not), and to deviate from them is a faithless adaptation. I'm arguing that the themes of his work *are* worthy of adaptation IN SPITE OF the racism, which should be excised out. Meanwhile, works where the racism is the point, like The Birth of a Nation, can be relegated to the history books.

You remind me of people who take the Bible literally. The type who say women can't be priests because Jesus's 12 Apostles were men, ignoring 1) the political cobbling together of the New Testament to fit the Roman Empire's needs in the 3rd century, 2) apocryphal gospels which showed Jesus having some very close female apostles, and, most importantly, 3) the context: that Jesus would have been an unmarried Jewish man and to have close traveling companions (who would sleep and eat together in the same place) of the opposite sex would be highly abnormal and culturally taboo.

We know the history of European expansionism and colonialism over the last 500 years.
That doesn't mean ancient Europe was as "diverse" as modern Europe.
To suggest that because of that history of colonization we should pretend ancient Europe was always diverse is ridiculous.
Actually to even be more honest, why would any group that was subject to injustice want to be part of European culture in that case?
Who is making the argument that changing these stories is somehow "repayment" for the wrongs of the past.
Last I checked it was executives at these companies making up these talking points and most of them are white.

Doesn't mean that there cant be diverse stories based in a European setting as fiction.
But to argue that all fiction based on European history and mythology MUST include diversity is a problem.

It takes talent and creativity to define a world and all the different cultures, conflicts and controversies.
That includes defining the different customs, mannerisms, languages, traditions, styles of fighting, costume and so forth.
Tolkien did that and is admired for that which is how you now have D&D based games like WOW which are all directly influenced by Tolkien.
All of these games have diversity baked in, but that includes a lot of world building in defining all these "races" their customs and traditions.
So it is not like there isn't plenty of diversity in high fantasy already. It is just that Tolkien himself wrote a very specific story.
And that story had specific characters, cultures and customs. There were no night elves, void elves, night borne and so forth.
All of that kind of diversity came later, but exists in the greater genre of high fantasy.

This obsession with Tolkien is basically more or less trying to attach his prestige to a set of diversity mandates from studios.
Otherwise they would just make a new high fantasy story and do whatever they want with it.


In European mythology elves were often depicted as pale, angelic like ethereal beings or sometimes like fairies and gnomes.
And outside of high fantasy, they are most often seen associated with Christmas and Santa Claus.

[Nurasu]

takes place in a region of the world notably lacking any sort of diversity due to numerous reasons.

Notably usually means someone noted it, which in this case didn't happen.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

What the fuck does that have to do with it? That's not even remotely relatable to this.


Wrong.

The main argument is that the story -- an alternative history of the Earth -- takes place in a region of the world notably lacking any sort of diversity due to numerous reasons.

But I'm sure you'd be totally fine with T'challa being a Chinese woman ruling over Wakanda, whose population has huge swatches of Caucasians, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans and other Aboriginals, and so on. Because that's literally what's going on here. The sad part is it makes even more sense for Wakanda due to how easy it is for people to travel across the world now, amongst other reasons. But I'm sure you'd lose your shit if they tried doing that in a Black Panther movie.

It'd be one thing if, say, all the dwarves on the show were portrayed by black actors. That'd be far more believable within the context of the story than a wide diversity of people. "So why is one of them black, especially a noble, while no one else is?" "I 'unno, shut up racist, it's magic. Something something Shakespeare something something DaVinci." Those are the dumbest arguments, yet it's the only thing you people seem to offer up to anyone pointing out how it doesn't make a lick of sense within the context of the story and when/where it's set.

The whole “same world alternative history” thing makes me wonder, if the the birth of man was in the first age and said age ended 500 years later according to the wiki, surely men should all be various shades of black as there is no where near enough time in the first/second age for them to have all turned white or other shades.

It very much seems like a have your cake and eat it to scenario where we should abide by it being the same world and thus limit who would be where but also ignore that by the same merit there shouldn’t even be white people at all.