Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Syegfryed]

The point kinda still stands. Just changing peoples ethnicity around like its a new shirt cheapenes things as a whole.

To me, if they do this they had better commit to it. Dont let it be token. They are exploring, till this point, unexplored parts of middle earth. Dont make it the Princess who just happens to be black when no one else is. Have her whole ass kingdom of dwarves be black. Give them an identity. Dont make it that "Oh it just happens that one in every hundred dwarf births are black".

Making an entire tribe/clan of dwarves, or at least majority, being black/brown-skinned would be a good thing to do

[DarkAmbient]

Generally speaking I don't like it when established fantasy universes or folklore are altered to reflect modern real world demographics or politics. The result is almost always an immersion-breaking incongruity. It's worse when it's done to folklore, because it's a form of cultural whitewashing or re-writing of history. Represent those worlds and cultures properly or just leave them alone. Doing otherwise shows a complete disregard for the integrity of the author's work and for the universe or culture being depicted. There's plenty of room for new fantasy that ticks all the modern boxes.

[Veggie50]

What a ridiculous post, you are aware that in the setting the elves are created by Illuvatar, this settings god, and that the entire history of the world was determined before middle earth was even created, obviously Illuvatar knew there would be light eventually and would have designed the eyes so they would work in both conditions. All Elves share their origins with the first 144 that awoke under the stars, and they all long to return west. These are key story elements.

The dwarves were formed deep under a mountain by Aule, later given live by Illuvatar because only he could grant the flame of life. Dwarves were all born under ground and they live under ground, but you are saying one getting dark skin would not imply anything at all?

Yes it's fantasy, but it has to make logical sense like everything else. Because once one part is seen to be fake, everything feels fake.

Also, of course race affects you, it affects how people react to you, that can be both in a positive and a negative way. If you travel to Sri Lanka as a Chinese for instance, people will often comment on how fair your skin is, in China, people are amazed by blue eyes, it doesn't have to be something negative, but if you look different from everyone else, it will affect you.
The same goes for if you are tall or short, big or small, and many other immutable characteristics, they all affect how people look at you.
That in turn will affect you, there is nothing racist about being amazed or intrigued by someone different from yourself, and when you go back
to when travel was actually difficult, of course people would be amazed if they saw a person of a different skin color if it wasn't along
some trade route where it was more common.
Or are you telling me, that if you saw a real life night elf for the first time tomorrow, you'd just go about your day, you wouldn't want to have
an extra look, and the elf in question wouldn't be affected by everyone looking? Remember, they don't have the internet, good education or
access to public libraries, to them a person with dark skin might be nearly as alien as a night elf would be to you

Right… so it makes sense that illuvatar preprogrammed elven eyes to be able to fully function in dark and light, but it is impossible for aule to sprinkle in a recessive dark skin gene :P

All I’m saying is you have a VERY particular idea of what “makes sense” and what doesn’t. Sorry, not everyones gonna agree on that. My point goes beyond what can be explained in lore though.

Do I think the show improves with a multicultural cast? No, not really.
Do I think the show is shit because some characters I would have pictured as white are dark skinned? No, not really.

Mountains out of molehills.

[Wilian]

"She was proud, strong, and self-willed, as were all the descendants of Finwë save Finarfin; and like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage. Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget. From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fëanor."

Brash and angry.

But she is nearing 5000. Maybe it is middle-age crisis?

[Toppy]

Making an entire tribe/clan of dwarves, or at least majority, being black/brown-skinned would be a good thing to do

My problem is and always will be that its tokenism and marketting.

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Honestly i could not give less of a shit.
Some works of ficiton have been writtenin a time where there simply only white people have been used. And in the end NOTHING litterally NOTHING changes if a dwarf is black instead of white. Do i say it changes nothing on lore? No. It obviously does. But this change has no impact on anything else. UNLESS they start taking about black and white racism on the show... that would be shit.

I agree though on the beard stuff... the female dwarfes should have beards. And i don't think the sister was a neccesary additon.

And i was talking about outrage culture because ever since the casting call for a intimacy director was shown people screamed left and right about SJWs destroyed the show... never thinking about the current landscape and intimicy director are even taken in if people only kiss now.
You cannot mention this show without someone coming in from the side screaming from the top of their lungs " REEEEEEE black dwarfes REEEEE!"

Also this only happens in the internet. I have not met one person IRL that actually has a problem with it or says somethign because they no it would just come of wuite weird focusing so hard on skincolor.

Would you be fine if it was a piece of literature based on African folklore that decided to make the characters white?


Its just tokenism. Its a marketting ploy. And its going to work as it has so many times before.

[Shadowferal]

I'm not buying into the "elven ambition" shtick. That's was Númenor's downfall. Elves revered the Valar and such ambition would seem distasteful. The closest to that sort of feeling is reflected in their skills and crafts. The best smiths...the best warriors, and the ego that came with it.

[Rennadrel]

What are you basing this off of so far? We don't really know anything about the characters yet, except what Tolkien himself established - Elven women were not frail in the Silmarillion, as an example.

The fact that Amazon also produced that abortion adaptation of The Wheel of Time. Not to mention all the other products out there that check the diversity boxes but offer nothing else as far as interesting characters and story. Or just the blatant retconning of existing characters like they've done with Galadrial, or a myriad of other characters in recent years (looking at you, Disney Star Wars!). The trailer looks awful, and I have no doubts that this is going to be abysmal just like WoT was because the "creators" involved have zero experience or anywhere near the level of creative talent as Tolkien. Not to mention the already obvious disregard being put forth of his universe is well beyond anything Peter Jackson did, and at least he attempted to be faithful to the source material as much as possible while taking enough creative liberties to produce entertaining films that don't drag on.

[Veggie50]

I'm not buying into the "elven ambition" shtick. That's was Númenor's downfall. Elves revered the Valar and such ambition would seem distasteful. The closest to that sort of feeling is reflected in their skills and crafts. The best smiths...the best warriors, and the ego that came with it.

I dunno… admittedly, its been some years since I last read the silmarillion, but I seem to recall the different elven factions having some radically different motivations.

Granted, I never read anything about jealousy of the valar, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it played some part somewhere too

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The fact that Amazon also produced that abortion adaptation of The Wheel of Time. Not to mention all the other products out there that check the diversity boxes but offer nothing else as far as interesting characters and story. Or just the blatant retconning of existing characters like they've done with Galadrial, or a myriad of other characters in recent years (looking at you, Disney Star Wars!). The trailer looks awful, and I have no doubts that this is going to be abysmal just like WoT was because the "creators" involved have zero experience or anywhere near the level of creative talent as Tolkien. Not to mention the already obvious disregard being put forth of his universe is well beyond anything Peter Jackson did, and at least he attempted to be faithful to the source material as much as possible while taking enough creative liberties to produce entertaining films that don't drag on.

Wait… did I miss a trailer drop? Or are you referring to the title reveal? Because that practical effect metal pouring blew me away

[Rennadrel]

My problem is and always will be that its tokenism and marketting.

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Would you be fine if it was a piece of literature based on African folklore that decided to make the characters white?


Its just tokenism. Its a marketting ploy. And its going to work as it has so many times before.

Nah, it won't work because people are seeing past the tokenism, not to mention the obvious cultural colonialism being attempted by Hollywood to insult the works of dead writers. On the upside, none of this garbage will ever be canon.

[Khaza-R]

"She was proud, strong, and self-willed, as were all the descendants of Finwë save Finarfin; and like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage. Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget. From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fëanor."

Brash and angry.

But she is nearing 5000. Maybe it is middle-age crisis?

Yeah. She should at least be among the oldest elves in Middle Earth at that point? I'll reserve my judgement until we see more but that part of the interview was concerning since it seems just be a blatant mischaracterization.

[Shadowferal]

I dunno… admittedly, its been some years since I last read the silmarillion, but I seem to recall the different elven factions having some radically different motivations.

Two big ones;
The Oath of Feanor, which was based on returning the simarils;
And then we have Beren (mortal man) knocking boots with Luthien (immortal elf). And daddy (Thingol) is very much opposed and appalled.

[Dellis0991]

After reading some of the comments I'm a bit confused on if Harad survived after the 3rd age because I was under the impression that Aragorn sent ambassadors to Harad and they maintained a peace in the 4th age. Also didn't King Falastur of Gondor had a high born Haradrim wife from Harad in the 3rd age?. I think I need to go reread some parts...

[Coniferous]

"She was proud, strong, and self-willed, as were all the descendants of Finwë save Finarfin; and like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage. Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget. From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fëanor."

Brash and angry.

But she is nearing 5000. Maybe it is middle-age crisis?

Also the “fighting for the future” while Elrond is “politically ambitious” seems they might be leaning into the “men bad women good” trope that destroyed WoT.

It’s the whole “we have to create conflict to keep things interesting” idea that is so stupid in the context of fantasy, and appeared all over late GoT as well. My favorite example was when Jaime started randomly yelling at Cersei that they needed allies, and Cersei, instead of saying, “I agree, I got the Ironborn” just smiled and then deus ex Greyjoy sailed into the harbor.

To be fair, LotR had its fair share of it too, with Gandalf telling Theoden to “ride out and meet” the orcs in battle with his like 200 soldiers… a moronic idea that was just introduced because “story needs conflict”.

In this series I assume the rational goes: “we have to create conflict, and the female has to be good, so we’ll give the bad qualities to the male.”

[Grimbold21]

... skin color often IS a strong part of peoples personal identity. Its not racism to say that, if anything its racism to say its not. Like one of those people who say "I dont see race" which is more often than not code for "I'm tottally a racist"

Ah this is the latest exercise in "there's no way you can win".

"I don't see race" = that's racism, you are invalidating the problematic experience of an entire community.
"I understand and sympathize with your experiences" = That's racist, you can never truly understand the experience of a minority.

Here's the ironic bit though. That entire racial identity? It's primarily built around what other people think of it.

What's the endgoal there? That one cant truly understand and merely step aside? How about no.

[Shadowferal]

[DarkAmbient]

Every future show set in a fictional setting will have black people in it from now on.

And of course there is nothing wrong with that if the show is based in a world where those people exist.

[Shadowferal]

The source material was/is popular for reasons. Changing that material means it has no more reason to be popular.

[Nyel]

These recently released pictures just make me cringe. Nothing screams Middle Earth or Lord of the Rings "resemblance" to me. And that black Dwarf princess or black Elf... just no. I'm all for diversity where it fits and makes sense, but this is pure political agenda setting and it reeks.

This is as bad as making Triss black although she's clearly described as a pale red haired woman. It's just bs.

[Frontenac]

I'm not buying into the "elven ambition" shtick. That's was Númenor's downfall. Elves revered the Valar and such ambition would seem distasteful. The closest to that sort of feeling is reflected in their skills and crafts. The best smiths...the best warriors, and the ego that came with it.

Númenor's downfall was more about their fear of death. Elves are not perfect. The Noldor did not choose to go to Middle Earth only for revenge against Morgoth and get the Silmarils back. They were already rebellious when he killed Finwë and stole the Jewels. The Noldor were angry at the Valar because they believed Morgoth's lies that the Valar brought them to Aman only to give all Middle Earth to Men. Finwë's murder, the theft of the Silmarils and the death of the Two Trees were only the trigger event that caused them to leave. Many Noldor, including Galadriel, followed Fëanor because they wanted to rule over kingdoms of their own, far from the autority of the Valar. And that's what she did. During the Second Age, she ruled over her own fiefdom in Lindon, then moved East to found Eregion, then she crossed the Misty Mountains where Celeborn and her were chosen as leader of the sylvan Elves of Lothlórien. It's really only in the Third Age that the Noldor became aloof, reclusive and weary of Middle Earth. When we read the Silmarillion, we see Elves that are very proud, driven and sometimes even petty, far from the quasi-angelic beings we see in Peter Jackson's movies.

And why did you post a picture (one of my favorite from the Silmarillion) of Ulmo and Tuor?

[Dhrizzle]

The source material was/is popular for reasons. Changing that material means it has no more reason to be popular.

I don't think LotR and the the rest of Tolkien's work was only popular because black people were excluded.