Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Orby]

Denethor was done a little dirty. His character wasn't actually changed that much, it's just that we never got to see him before his descent into despair, for which Sauron was partly to blame due to the visions that Sauron fed to him through the palantir.

Eowyn came across way too sappy in the film compared to how she is in the books.

Gimli, Merry and Pippin all became comic relief.

Oh shit forgot about Denethor.

I was gonna mention Merry and Pippin but in the books they had little personality, Gimli yea I agree they made him a bit of a bumbling fool at times. Eowyn I can believe too. :P

Its been like a while since I read the books, I've read LotR like only 3 times since I was a kid :P

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Witcher snd Ghostbusters did not do the same things. At all. I don't think this is comparable considering both handle diversity and representation' in very different ways.

The only way I see Witcher being comparable to that Ghostbusters is if Geralt was genderswapped and given Jasker's personality and Yennefer became a strikingly handsome dude with the intellect of a bicycle.

Not ghost busters and the Witcher, rings of power and the Witcher.

[Xath]

In fairness Christopher Tolkien did say that stuff like that ruined the trilogy (or "eviscerated the story" as he phrased it.)

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Licensing is complicated. The Fall of Numenor is mentioned in the appendices so they can use that in the series, they can use other published works as reference for that event. On top of that the Tolkien Estate can grant them permission to use anything on a case-by-case basis which is probably how we got that shot of Melkor poised to destroy the Two Trees.

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It's honestly impressive that you can quote parts of the policy and then lie about what it says.

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On the bright side a reboot of the LotR movies might do the books justice and get all the characters right.

Highly unlikely if anything especially with Amazon control it will stray much much farther from the books in the name of modernizing the story.

[InfiniteCharger]

I especially like when he talks about Middle Earth not being any representation of anything real but just "a different imagination", and that of course neither time nor space nor culture would make any sort of 'real-world' sense applied to Middle Earth.

But sure, it has to be all white people because reasons. Mmmmm-hmmmmm.

I rather enjoyed the parts where he mentions South Africa and how it contributed to his world building.

So much for “the books should reflect Tolkien’s world” and thus not have black people.

Middle Earth isn't all 'white people' to begin with. The problem is the main characters of the books and much of the extended lore are based on the northern and western peoples of Middle Earth, who were based on European mythology, history and culture. Which again, if you watch the video he said specifically a lot of the names are based on Norse, Welsh, Finnish and other European cultures. So what you really mean is the main heroes and characters of the books were "all white" people, which apparently causes problems for some folks.

You also obviously missed the whole first minute and a half where he said specifically that his story cannot fit into real world time, yet here we are with Amazon trying to "modernize" it. That fundamentally contradicts everything the man literally said, which means this argument is purely about people making up whatever they want and putting it into Tolkien vs actually caring about the lore.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Middle Earth isn't all 'white people' to begin with. The problem is the main characters of the books and much of the extended lore are based on the northern and western peoples of Middle Earth, who were based on European mythology, history and culture. Which again, if you watch the video he said specifically a lot of the names are based on Norse, Welsh, Finnish and other European cultures. So what you really mean is the main heroes and characters of the books were "all white" people, which apparently causes problems for some folks.

You also obviously missed the whole first minute and a half where he said specifically that his story cannot fit into real world time, yet here we are with Amazon trying to "modernize" it. That fundamentally contradicts everything the man literally said, which means this argument is purely about people making up whatever they want and putting it into Tolkien vs actually caring about the lore.

Yes middle earth isn’t all white and given Tolkien not describing skin tones of some of the races and directly referencing South Africa there is no reason to stick to a solely white cast.

But of course Your also absolutely right he did say the story can’t fit into the real world so we should really only cast real elfs hobbits and dwarfs to not contradict his own words and stick to the lore.

[Triceron]

Not ghost busters and the Witcher, rings of power and the Witcher.

Ghostbusters had reason to be complained about for doing things that even the Witcher did not go as far doing. Ghostbusters had an identity issue after race swapping the main cast and replacing character archetypes entirely. It didn't actually do its own thing or try to create something new, it was too hung up on trying to capture the spirit of the original in a 'what if they were genderswapped into sassy, independent women' way.

People aren't complaining about Witcher because the characters represent the same from the books and are generally played out the same way. Rings of Power is getting flak for how it's chosen to adapt characters, like what we've seen with Galadriel.

This is why diversity isn't really the only issue here. Rings of Power has an identity crisis overall with diversity being the least of its problems.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

People aren't complaining about Witcher because the characters represent the same from the books and are generally played out the same way.

You haven’t actually gone to the Witcher thread on here have you?

Before launch people had all the same complaints about race swapping characters and not following the books and games and how it was going to cause the show to flop. Those complaints obviously died down a bit after the people making them were proven wrong by the show being a hit but they were still around even for season two.

The only difference between ROP and the Witcher is people weren’t complaining about fighting woman and people were saying that the author of the books should be ignored and that he didn’t matter and the games were more important because he said casting blacks people was A-okay.

[InfiniteCharger]

Yes middle earth isn’t all white and given Tolkien not describing skin tones of some of the races and directly referencing South Africa there is no reason to stick to a solely white cast.

But of course Your also absolutely right he did say the story can’t fit into the real world so we should really only cast real elfs hobbits and dwarfs to not contradict his own words and stick to the lore.

How on earth does him living in South Africa have anything to do with it? He left when he was 3 years old as he says in the video.
In fact, it was the English country side that influenced the idea of hobbits as rustic English country folk, based on a mental picture of how it would be like to grow up there. Not to mention that the Dwarves he suggested would be most like Jewish people. How do yo get South Africans from any of that?

Not to mention the Southern most parts of Middle Earth were never mentioned or covered in any of Tolkiens work to my knowledge, meaning anything similar to "South Africa" literally isn't described at all even geographically. Meaning the idea that he intended people from that far South being involved in any of the stories he wrote is impossible.

"A Map of Middle-earth" is the name of two colour posters by different artists, published in 1965 and 1970 by the American and British publishers of J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Lord of the Rings. Both posters were based on Tolkien's maps and work by his son Christopher to depict the fictional Middle-earth. Neither of these maps cover the whole continent of Middle-earth; instead they portray the north-western part of the continent, where the story of The Lord of the Rings takes place. The poster map by Pauline Baynes has been described as "iconic".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Map_of_Middle-earth

[Lorgar Aurelian]

How on earth does him living in South Africa have anything to do with it? He left when he was 3 years old as he says in the video.
In fact, it was the English country side that influenced the idea of hobbits as rustic English country folk, based on a mental picture of how it would be like to grow up there. Not to mention that the Dwarves he suggested would be most like Jewish people. How do yo get South Africans from any of that? And even with that, these fictional populations are not to be an allegory for anything in real life as he said numerous times.

As he says in the interview, when you grow up all in one play it all mixes together and isn’t all that notable but when you have a sudden shift in place memory’s are super imposed on each other and are more vivid. So when people say adaptations should reflect Tolkien’s world and thus only have who’re people Tolkien's own views conflict with that as his world and memory’s weren’t as black and white as some would think.

And not related to the South Africa bit but yes he says dwarfs were based off of historical Jews, which notably weren’t (and aren’t) all white.

But again as you said the populations are not to be an allegory for anything in real life, so why fuss over rather only white people are cast or not? We obviously shouldn’t settle for less then lore accurate casting of real elfs dwarfs and hobbits.

[Triceron]

You haven’t actually gone to the Witcher thread on here have you?

Before launch people had all the same complaints about race swapping characters and not following the books and games and how it was going to cause the show to flop. Those complaints obviously died down a bit after the people making them were proven wrong by the show being a hit but they were still around even for season two.

The only difference between ROP and the Witcher is people weren’t complaining about fighting woman and people were saying that the author of the books should be ignored and that he didn’t matter and the games were more important because he said casting blacks people was A-okay.

The Witcher and RoP and Ghostbusters are all different movies/shows. You can't really take ones complaints and apply them the others as though they're the same complaints.

Take any competitive game for example. Every competitive video game will have people in the forums complaining about balance in one form or another. On the surface, you could take that as being 'the same complaints', but it'd be quite an ignorant assumption to apply to different games. Every game has their own balance issues, and even if some of the general complaints may be similar, they all have different reasons for being complained about. And none of the arguments work across different games; gameplay balance complaints for World of Warcraft aren't going to be comparable to balance complaints for any other game other than WoW.

Diversity complaints are no different here; they are case specific to the shows being talked about. Even if the complaints seem to repeat the same rhetoric. As I said, you used an example of Ghostbusters, but honestly the diversity complaints in that movie are not about race at all, considering we're looking at the same ethnicities that were portrayed in the original Ghostbusters. And overall, none of its criticisms can be compared to that of Rings of Power or Witcher. It's really naive to assume that just because you're hearing the same repeated rhetoric that the arguments must be the same.

And there's also the fact that diversity arguments will never be black-and-white. It's always going to be subjective. It's a matter of taste. We're talking about modern adaptations that are taking creative liberties to modernize ethnic representations where they were not originally (or fictionally) meant to be represented as being multicultural. There will always be a point of contention when race swapping or gender swapping in an adaptation. And the arguments are not all the same even if it comes from the same crowd. And I get that there will be some people who WILL be making the same arguments across the board, but let's not pretend that all complaints over diversity are one and the same and that somehow these issues are unified whatsoever. Just as with my example above with gameplay balance, everyone will have their own idea of what 'Balance' means, and would be complaining about or asking parity for their own ideal concept of how the game should play. No different here when subjectively talking about TV shows that adapt existing source material.

Cuz let's face it, we could be talking about a movie like the more recent Magnificent Seven which diversified the ethnicity of all the main characters. Is this a good or bad thing? Is this right or wrong? Absurd or acceptable? It's up to individuals to decide what their preferences are, and there's no blanket argument for or against this type of adaptation. There is no right and wrong when it comes to subjective preferences, even if some people choose to associate certain points of view as being 'racist' or 'woke'.

I'm making an argument based on principle here. Even if I don't agree with people who complain a game as being imbalanced when I think the balance is fine, I wouldn't discredit their opinions on the basis of them complaining 'the same problems as on every other competitive gaming forum'. People are entitled to their own opinions.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The Witcher and RoP and Ghostbusters are all different movies/shows. You can't really take ones complaints and apply them the others as though they're the same complaints.

The Witcher literally got the exact same complaints you can go read the thread your self and see them.

you used an example of Ghostbusters

No I didn’t, I said it was silly that people are still using a 6 year old movie as an example when we have the Witcher which is much more recent and much more analogous as it got the exact same race based complaints.

[Triceron]

The Witcher literally got the exact same complaints you can go read the thread your self and see them.

No I didn’t, I said it was silly that people are still using a 6 year old movie as an example when we have the Witcher which is much more recent and much more analogous as it got the exact same race based complaints.

We also have complaints in Wheel of Time and other shows.

And yes, I've read them, and no they're not all 'the same complaints'. The complaints are always context sensitive.

The Witcher doesn't have the same fictional setting as any other show. It's not Middle Earth. It is its own setting. And if people have a problem with the diversification of the cast, then they're free to have those opinions. They're not somehow analogous to Rings of Power just because they're similar complaints. The Witcher is still a different setting with different characters that people have specific expectations for how they should be represented. I'm not as well versed with the Witcher universe as I am with Middle Earth, but I don't think there are mentions of any Black ethnicities at all. Middle Earth does have Black ethnicities, and so there are expectations from some fans that if we have Black characters they should be representing the ethnicities that already exist in the mythology. Whereas in the Witcher, I don't even know if that's the case if there are Black ethnicities represented in the universe at all, and it may be literally seen as inserting multiculturalism where it literally does not fictionally exist within its own universe. As far as I am aware, there are no black people at all in the Witcher novels.

I want to make this point clear because we're conflaiting two typical arguments into one.
1- The original source material presents certain locations as being monoethnic (or dominant), and an adaptation should respect the original presentation of fiction
2- Diversity should be expected for any modern adaptation, regardless of what the original source chose to originally depict

These are two arguments, not one. And although they seem mutually exclusive to each other, they are not. I've illustrated in posts earlier here that there are many ways to adapt diversity into a fictional setting that still respects #1. You could create new ethnic characters based on the different ethnicities that already exist in the fictional worlds. An example is having a wandering Haradrim/Southron/Easterling character who becomes one of the good guys. Or in the case of the Witcher, literally create new locations where new ethnicities and cultures derive from, and retrofit that back into the narrative as being foreigners to the land.

Instead, many modern adaptations are merely casting ethnic actors into white-culture oriented roles. They are literally being retrofit into cultures they are not originally sourced from. Elves were never meant to be presented as polyethic, so there will always be a point of contention when adapted in this way. It's diversity for the sake of diversity, rather than building it into the fictional universe and narrative. These type of adaptations will always be contentious because it doesn't respect the presentation of the original fiction. Elven culture is not a multicultural melting pot of many different ethnicities.


And I would say anyone using Ghostbusters as a point of comparison would be just as negligent.

[InfiniteCharger]

As he says in the interview, when you grow up all in one play it all mixes together and isn’t all that notable but when you have a sudden shift in place memory’s are super imposed on each other and are more vivid. So when people say adaptations should reflect Tolkien’s world and thus only have who’re people Tolkien's own views conflict with that as his world and memory’s weren’t as black and white as some would think.

And not related to the South Africa bit but yes he says dwarfs were based off of historical Jews, which notably weren’t (and aren’t) all white.

But again as you said the populations are not to be an allegory for anything in real life, so why fuss over rather only white people are cast or not? We obviously shouldn’t settle for less then lore accurate casting of real elfs dwarfs and hobbits.

Tolkien wrote Middle Earth as having different variations of populations in different regions. There is nothing to suggest that North Western Middle Earth was intended to reflect the entire diversity of Middle Earth as a "melting pot" of all groups and cultures. That was never something that came across in his work and the fact that he spent so much time describing the geography and various cultures and ethnic groups across suggests other wise. So you aren't arguing that this is what Tolkien literally intended, as opposed to whether or not any specific "type" of diversity can be justified in an adaptation of his work. Two completely different and separate things.

And the ultimate point here is Amazon can do what they want but what they do has no bearing on what other studios may do with the same characters or settings if they get the rights. These other studios are under no obligation to follow Amazons ideas as the rights come from the Tolkien estate. At that point, these things become less about Tolkien and more about each studio and their interpretations and adding their own spin on it. They don't have to follow Amazons interpretation of Galadriel, they don't have to follow Amazons compressed timeline, they don't have to follow Amazon's made up characters and they don't have to follow any specific casting choices either. All of this is exactly what Tolkien did not want his work turned into, as a cheap cash grab.

And ironically, all the hype aside, this is not the definitive live action adaptation of Tolkien's second age. It is Amazon's made up story of the second age and as such has little actual bearing on what Tolkien's story of the Middle Age actually was about.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

And yes, I've read them, and no they're not all 'the same complaints'. The complaints are always context sensitive.

Ya I’m gonna have to press X to doudt given that you already posted this.

People aren't complaining about Witcher because the characters represent the same from the books and are generally played out the same way. Rings of Power is getting flak for how it's chosen to adapt characters, like what we've seen with Galadriel.

[Triceron]

Ya I’m gonna have to press X to doudt given that you already posted this.

And?

It doesn't change the point that they're different arguments applied to different shows.

Are the complaints over Yennefer comparable to that of Galadriel? You asked if I've been to the thread and read the complaints, and I've seen many different complaints for many different reasons. It's not like the complaints are somehow universal.

If you want to be specific, then be specific. Otherwise, feel free to keep doubting.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Tolkien wrote Middle Earth as having different variations of populations in different regions. There is nothing to suggest that North Western Middle Earth was intended to reflect the entire diversity of Middle Earth as a "melting pot" of all groups and cultures. That was never something that came across in his work and the fact that he spent so much time describing the geography and various cultures and ethnic groups across suggests other wise. So you aren't arguing that this is what Tolkien literally intended, as opposed to whether or not any specific "type" of diversity can be justified in an adaptation of his work.

Of course I’m not arguing what Tolkien literally intended as there is no way for You or Me to know where he was pulling from when he didn’t mention it, for all we know when referring to Dwarfs being based on Jews he only had brown Jews in mind and they were never suppose to be white given that he never once mentioned there skin tones, there is literally no way to tell what he would have wanted so it’s all left up to Interruption.

Nor do we have any way of knowing if he would give a toss one way or another if elf’s hobbits or any other none human race/characters were portrayed by none white actors given that as you said they aren’t suppose to line up with real life groups and he rarely mentioned there skin tones and never gives such a divide as he did the humans in the setting.

[Triceron]

Of course I’m not arguing what Tolkien literally intended as there is no way for You or Me to know where he was pulling from when he didn’t mention it, for all we know when referring to Dwarfs being based on Jews he only had brown Jews in mind and they were never suppose to be white given that he never once mentioned there skin tones, there is literally no way to tell what he would have wanted so it’s all left up to Interruption.

That would be quite a twist of interpretation to imply that though.

I could make the same argument that we don't know if Tolkien intended to Dwarves to be Blue skinned because he wasn't specific, but we know from the overall narrative that this wouldn't be the case because if they were blue skinned, he would make the effort of going out of his way to describe them being blue. And narratively speaking, the Hobbits would make mention of skin tones that so wildly differ from their own.

That the Hobbits and the overall narrative doesn't differentiate Dwarves in a major way from the Hobbits who percieve them informs us that they would have been a skin tone that Hobbits would consider familiar and normal. So we can gather that the Dwarves wouldn't have had a skin tone that was that much different from that of a Hobbit's expectations, otherwise it would have been worth noting as much as is described of any general feature that seemed outstanding to a Hobbit (thick beards, big noses, dark hair, broader physiques, etc).

IMO, brown skin would be quite exotic to the Hobbits. So even though we don't know the true skin color of Dwarves, it's reasonable to assume it would be white (or variation of) because of the lack of description.

Even Harfoots in the appendices are mentioned to be 'browner of skin' than the Hobbits, and if such a detail is recorded then I can't imagine Dwarves being omitted from having a similar detailing if they were meant to have darker skin tones than that of Hobbits.


Since Dwarves were the creation of Aulë from the stone of the earth, we could assume they came in all sorts of colors that stone comes in. But if such a detail were so important, one could question why this was never elaborated on, especially in the eyes of the narrators.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

And?

It doesn't change the point that they're different arguments applied to different shows.

Are the complaints over Yennefer comparable to that of Galadriel? You asked if I've been to the thread and read the complaints, and I've seen many different complaints for many different reasons. It's not like the complaints are somehow universal.

If you want to be specific, then be specific. Otherwise, feel free to keep doubting.

When you make silly statements like “People didn't complain about the Witcher because the characters represent the same way they did in the books” and “they didn’t get the same complaints” it tells me your lying when you say you read the thread as race swapping was one of the earliest complains the show got and likely the biggest of them as well.

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That would be quite a twist of interpretation to imply that though.

I could make the same argument that we don't know if Tolkien intended to Dwarves to be Blue skinned because he wasn't specific,

Sure point me to the historically blue skinned Jews that Tolkien could have used as a reference, I mean it’s not hard to point to brown Jews when he referred to them back when they were more warlike so it must be just as easy for blue ones right?

[Triceron]

Sure point me to the historically blue skinned Jews that Tolkien could have used as a reference, I mean it’s not hard to point to brown Jews when he referred to them back when they were more warlike so it must be just as easy for blue ones right?

Point me anywhere that the skin tone of Dwarves was meant to represent Jews in real life just the same.

Your argument is just as baseless and without merit. You're merely correlating the fact that the inspiration was Medieval Jews to any depiction you see fit, whereas the truth of the matter lies deeper than your personal interpretations.

I mean, you're literally trying to argue technicalities here. You might as well imply that Dwarves wear yamakas and spin dreidels during their festival of lights.

Tolkien's work was never meant to be a mirror of real life, so I'm not sure why you're holding the skin tone of Dwarves to a standard of reflecting that of the real life culture they are based on. We know skin color is not one of the things described in the novels. What we understand of what the skin tones could be is literally based on the fact it lacks a description, and contextualizing it in a narrative where physical details are usually denoted when they are considered worth noting, typically because of an exotic nature.

Like the whole depiction of long-eared Elves in fantasy derives from Tolkien's own fiction, yet is generally a creative liberty taken by fantasy artists who then run with the depiction, whereas the original source merely implies that Elven ears are merely slightly more pointed versions of Human ears. There is no specific depiction on how long an Elf's ears really are, whether they'd be crazy long like we see in Warcraft or in Anime fantasy depictions, or if they're just slightly pointed like we see in traditional Tolkien adaptations. There is no right or wrong answer there, and the commonly accepted Tolkien Elf is the one that doesn't take radical creative liberties with its interpretation. It doesn't mean Tolkien Elves can't be depicted with radically long ears, it just means it wouldn't be a commonly accepted interpretation of Tolkien's work.

Cuz let's be clear, while there is no right or wrong for depicting diverse skin tones for Dwarves, it will not be a commonly accepted interpretation of Tolkien's work. Just like no one commonly accepts long-eared Elves as being that of the Middle Earth variety, even though it very well could be. And for that matter, we could extend that to many other fantasy tropes that have derived from Tolkien's works as well that do not retroactively apply to Tolkien's own works, like bright green skinned Orcs and Goblins. There would be nothing wrong with having a Middle Earth adaptation with a bright green skinned goblin or orc, but it wouldn't be a commonly accepted interpretation of the original work.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Your argument is just as baseless and without merit.

Well no not as such as I’m referring to real possibility’s based on what Tolkien said while you aren’t, but your mostly there which is why I already said I’m not arguing what Tolkien literally intended as there is no way for me or any one else to actual know that given that he never gave out such info.