Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Adamas102]

Tolkien's work is not generic fantasy because of all the work he put into establishing the back story, languages, cultures, races and history of Middle Earth. That is the complete opposite of "generic" fantasy. Do you even know what that term means?

Have you forgotten where you are? This is a WoW forum. Extensive and in depth fictional histories with hosts of races and even made up languages are extremely common across fantasy settings in book series, video games, table top RPG’s, collectible card games, shows, and movies nowadays. It’s pretty much expected.

Tolkien’s depictions of dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, etc have all pretty much become the generic versions that people think of. Being synonymous with “generic high fantasy” is a strength of Tolkien’s legacy.

[Triceron]

Have you forgotten where you are? This is a WoW forum. Extensive and in depth fictional histories with hosts of races and even made up languages are extremely common across fantasy settings in book series, video games, table top RPG’s, collectible card games, shows, and movies nowadays. It’s pretty much expected.

Tolkien’s depictions of dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, etc have all pretty much become the generic versions that people think of. Being synonymous with “generic high fantasy” is a strength of Tolkien’s legacy.

That's the oddest explanation I've ever heard.

Tolkien paved the way for modern fantasy. So no, it wasn't generic, because it was the benchmark that opened up an entire new genre. Generic fantasy would be used to describe copy-cats of Tolkien's work without building a strong self identity for themselves.

It'd be odd to call something like Isaac Asimov's work as 'Generic robot Sci Fi' or Lovecraft's work as 'Generic cosmic Horror'.

[s_bushido]

Tolkien’s depictions of dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, etc have all pretty much become the generic versions that people think of. Being synonymous with “generic high fantasy” is a strength of Tolkien’s legacy.

The only reason I can see for someone trying to argue otherwise is that they want to use "generic fantasy" as an insult.

[Xath]

It isn't true for every time. I even did a casual skip through the episode and saw plenty of cases where Orcs were armed. You are over exaggerating because of your dislike for the show.

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If people stop liking something just because it is more inclusive or shows diversity then that is one them. It is still a brainless take because "woke" is used for anything that shows women as powerful, non-normal skin tones, etc. The presence of black people on Rings of Power literally has no impact on the quality of the show. That is something that is labeled "woke". It is just a silly insult and it is even sillier to defend the use of it.

Again identity politics are used as shields for bad writing. Bad writing is exacerbated by casting based on race and gender instead of ability. This is on display in both Rings of Power and Rafe of Time. It's the height of arrogance to think you can improve on the work of writers who have sold millions and to use those properties to push your own politics. Adapt the work stop trying to push your shitty fanfic level writing while putting a veneer of the property over it. Hell there are fanfic writers who would do a much better job than these hacks. Webtoons are a great example of adaptations most of them are based on web novels or light novels and a each episode usually works out to about a third to half a chapter yet somehow they manage to actually adapt the work they are coming from without the artist massively changing the author's work.

[rhorle]

It's the height of arrogance to think you can improve on the work of writers who have sold millions and to use those properties to push your own politics.

This shows how silly the "woke" arguments in in regards to Rings of Power are. A black dwarf changes nothing about the story. A black elf changes nothing about the story.

[Xath]

This shows how silly the "woke" arguments in in regards to Rings of Power are. A black dwarf changes nothing about the story. A black elf changes nothing about the story.

You ignored the rest as usual. The black dwarf and black elf are used to deflect criticisms about the garbage tier writing as racism. That's the issue at hand the writing is trash and heavily diverges from the parts of the second age we know about instead of expanding upon them.

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This thread alone broke 100 pages month before the show was out due to people hating on the show without seeing any bad writing or how the show was amateurish, there is absolutely an anti fanbase and has been one since they said they were casting outside of just white people.

Trailers looked bad, "armor" looked cosplay level had next to no weathering done. Managed to look both brand new and cheap which was an accomplishment. The significant info post was the "super fans" trailer that was lauding the casting instead of talking about the story. They confirmed there were massively compressing thousands of years of history instead of focusing on a specific time period per season for example. The next major piece of content was the interview talking about how excited they were for girl orcs again very little about actual storylines being focused on. Following that post release we have seen what they did the tradgedy of Tar-Míriel aka it doesn't exist. Not only is she apparently able to order the armory but she is in fact the ruling monarch as her father is dying. Should be fairly entertaining to see how she outwits Ar-Pharazôn because I can't see this so called writing staff actually following through on her history that showcases the downfall of man.

This story shouldn't be having a positive tilt it's the story of the downfall of Numenor and the rise of Sauron.

[rhorle]

You ignored the rest as usual. The black dwarf and black elf are used to deflect criticisms about the garbage tier writing as racism. That's the issue at hand the writing is trash and heavily diverges from the parts of the second age we know about instead of expanding upon them.

I didn't ignore anything. I highlighted the important part of your statement that shows it is all about racism with the excuse of "it is arrogance to think you can improve on the writer". A black actor or actress does nothing to change the writing. If you switch their casting to white actors or actresses the writing will still be bad. The show diverging from canon of the second age (which if you go by just JRR published stuff is very little) would be the same with skin tone accurate castings.

If you switch Tolkien's characters to different skin-tones nothing about his story changes. Frodo being black wouldn't change anything at all. This is why "woke" is silly in the context of this show.

[Xath]

I didn't ignore anything. I highlighted the important part of your statement that shows it is all about racism with the excuse of "it is arrogance to think you can improve on the writer". A black actor or actress does nothing to change the writing. If you switch their casting to white actors or actresses the writing will still be bad. The show diverging from canon of the second age (which if you go by just JRR published stuff is very little) would be the same with skin tone accurate castings.

If you switch Tolkien's characters to different skin-tones nothing about his story changes. Frodo being black wouldn't change anything at all. This is why "woke" is silly in the context of this show.

Your level of speaking matches that of your avatar.

[Triceron]

If you switch Tolkien's characters to different skin-tones nothing about his story changes. Frodo being black wouldn't change anything at all. This is why "woke" is silly in the context of this show.

If the argument is that it doesn't change anything, then the change can also be argued to be unnecessary.

And I'd say my personal criticism of Arondir is that the character isn't necessary at all to Rings of Power's story. Being clear here, it's n\othing about the actor or their portrayal. The Arondir character literally exists because of Amazon wanting a Black Elf character of significance, without giving it to a role as important as say Galadriel or Elrond or any other notable Elf. They inserted this character into the show for the sake of diversity, and it's kind of telling. I could say the same of Disa, where she's here because they want to make a statement more than anything. I enjoy the character a lot, and she's a fantastic addition to the show and I want to see more of her. But I'm not gonna pretend she's there because the actress won the part against all other actresses regardless of skintone or whatnot; this stuff is pre-planned and they wanted a Black Dwarf and found someone who could fit a Black Dwarf role. This shit doesn't happen by accident.

It's similar to the reasoning they added Tauriel to the Hobbit. There weren't many strong female characters in the Hobbit like there were in LOTR with Arwen, Galadriel and Eowyn, so they created one for the Hobbit so it wouldn't be such a sausage-fest. Problem is her character ended up being unnecessary and frankly quite one-note, and didn't do anything for the story overall. I feel the same way I do about Arondir being in Rings of Power as I did Tauriel, their existence in these adaptations literally being because of boobs or skin color.

[s_bushido]

Again identity politics are used as shields for bad writing. Bad writing is exacerbated by casting based on race and gender instead of ability.

It's a bit hilarious that most of this bullshit dried up the instant the show actually came out, and it was demonstrated that the casting of actors of the "wrong" skin color ended up having no impact on its story or quality.

But you just keep on banging that drum. Maybe one day it will work out for you.

More likely that the world will simply keep on spinning, and studios will continue to cast whoever the hell they want and happily ignore the petulant whining of racist fucks.

[rhorle]

If the argument is that it doesn't change anything, then the change can also be argued to be unnecessary.

Of course the change isn't necessary. It baffles me how much people try and make an issue out of skin-tone when it impacts nothing of the story. Arondir doesn't exist because of forced diversity. If he was a white person then his story wouldn't have to change. It isn't forced diversity and you managed to critique the arc in the past without being racist. So why start now?

[Triceron]

Of course the change isn't necessary. It baffles me how much people try and make an issue out of skin-tone when it impacts nothing of the story. Arondir doesn't exist because of forced diversity. If he was a white person then his story wouldn't have to change. You really didn't have to be racist just to call Arondir an unessacary story arc. You did it in the past with out making it about race so why start now?

Yes but you're arguing as though the Arondir character is even necessary to begin with.

Think of it this way - if Tauriel was a dude Elf, would they even need to exist in the Hobbit? What purpose would there be to have yet another dude Elf? They already brought Legolas back into it. Tauriel's existence is literally because they wanted a strong female character badass. And we can argue that 'well it could have been a dude elf and it wouldn't change anything' and that'd be true too, but it'd also be pointless since the whole reason the character exists is literally because they wanted gender diversity.

Arondir's character isn't necessary for the story at all. Like, if you literally edit this character out of Rings of Power's 6 episodes that we have right now, all the events would still happen with literally no change to any of the major or significant events. You don't even have to argue that it doesn't change if you swap the actor, the entire role has no importance to the main arc other than to be the Southland human's love interest.

I can see them setting him up for bigger importance in the future, so I won't argue his existence is going to be important. He's a POV character after all. But I'm making a point that it's quite contrived how his character fits the narrative we see so far, and honestly it's kind of a waste of time. I have similar feelings towards the Harfoots being introduced in retrospect, since their only real reason to exist is because of a Hobbit (race) connection, otherwise their connection to the story so far is also quite loose and unrelated to the main plot. We could literally follow the entire Stranger plot without Harfoots at all, and that's all depending on where they're actually going with the Stranger.

Like up until this point, what is the story really about? It's about Sauron's return and the eventual creation of the Rings of Power. Galadriel and Halbrand are important, Elrond and Durin are important, the Numenoreans are important, the Southlanders and shaping of Mordor are important. And while we don't fully know yet, the Stranger will be important as well somehow. How do Arondir and the Harfoots really fit into this? They're very supplementary to the whole thing, like just being there along for the ride. Well, they exist because of familiarity and diversity reasons more than actual plot reasons, really.

[rhorle]

Yes but you're arguing as though the Arondir character is even necessary to begin with.

The Story as Rings of Power is telling it requires a character in that role. Of course they could have written a different story. That still doesn't mean the story arc is written just to force diversity. It would be the same story arc with a "canon skin tone" character. This is why it is silly for you to equate to race.

It is also silly for you to claim the show would play out the same without Arondir. Adar would have had the sword sooner and marched right up to the tower unopposed. The villagers would have been killed or converted. Mt.Doom would have exploded while the Numenorians were still at sea. Everything about the story Rings of Power is telling would be changed.

[Triceron]

The Story as Rings of Power is telling it requires a character in that role. Of course they could have written a different story. That still doesn't mean the story arc is written just to force diversity. It would be the same story arc with a "canon skin tone" character. This is why it is silly for you to equate to race.

Again, I'm arguing that the entire role is unnecessary to Rings of Power's story. And your argument that it's necessary for the story it's telling is no different than if I said Tauriel is unnecessary to the Hobbit. Sure, you could also say she's important to the Hobbit adaptation that they want to tell - it doesn't mean they made her relevant to the actual story they ended up telling. You could literally edit her out entirely, and the story still plays through fine. And we do have versions of this that work without her character in the story - the original Novel, and the Maple Films cut that edits the trilogy down to a single movie.

It is also silly for you to claim the show would play out the same without Arondir. Adar would have had the sword sooner and marched right up to the tower unopposed. The villagers would have been killed or converted. Mt.Doom would have exploded while the Numenorians were still at sea. Everything about the story Rings of Power is telling would be changed.

If you're going to argue that Galadriel would have been stuck out at sea if not for Arondir, then you first need to acknowledge how long it actually takes for Galadriel to get from Numenor to the Southlands, and you can't. No one has any frame of reference how long it actually took Galadriel and the Numenoreans to get to the Southlands; it implemented teleportation shenanigans and did not show any progression of their travel whatsoever. There's no frame of reference to show us if Arondir had not been there, Galadriel wouldn't have made it in time. Time progression isn't something the show does a good job of establishing.

She simply appears when the show deemed it convenient, that's all. I don't think it's a strong argument to say the events wouldn't play out had Arondir not been there any more than you could say Mt. Doom wouldn't explode if Adar didn't get the hilt from Theo. The story HAS to have Mt. Doom explode, how it goes about doing it can be done in any fashion the writers want. It could even be from Galadriel handing it to the Southlander dude, not knowing he's secretly working under Adar. It isn't really an argument to say that Theo had to be the one to give it to him, and not an argument to say 'this is the story the show had to tell' because there's a million ways to edit footage to tell a completely different story.

I think you underestimate the power of editing.

[Adamas102]

That's the oddest explanation I've ever heard.

Tolkien paved the way for modern fantasy. So no, it wasn't generic, because it was the benchmark that opened up an entire new genre. Generic fantasy would be used to describe copy-cats of Tolkien's work without building a strong self identity for themselves.

I never said it WAS generic. It BECAME generic.

Tolkien pioneered many of these things, but they are almost all now common qualities of fantasy fiction. Tolkien did it first (in most cases) and he did it well, but in doing so his works pretty much became just the baseline.

On top of that, the initial post I was responding to was coming from the perspective of visuals. What most people expect when someone says “looks like Tolkien” is “looks like the Peter Jackson trilogy”, and in that respect RoP looks as much like Tolkien as it does generic fantasy.

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The only reason I can see for someone trying to argue otherwise is that they want to use "generic fantasy" as an insult.

Yeah, pretty much.

[rhorle]

Again, I'm arguing that the entire role is unnecessary to Rings of Power's story.

It is necessary for the story they chose to tell. It isn't necessary that the character be black. It changes nothing that a character is black.

I didn't say Galadriel would be stuck out at sea. I said they would be sailing to middle earth when Mt.Doom erupts. It didn't implement teleportation shenanigans. They talk about the path they will take to get there. If Arondir had not been there then the entire story would have to change. Everything he does wouldn't happen and thus there would be no one to resist Adar and the Orcs. We know Galadriel wouldn't have made it in time because it is the resistance Arondir organizes that delays the Orcs. Lol.

[Triceron]

I didn't say Galadriel would be stuck out at sea. I said they would be sailing to middle earth when Mt.Doom erupts. It didn't implement teleportation shenanigans. They talk about the path they will take to get there. If Arondir had not been there then the entire story would have to change. Everything he does wouldn't happen and thus there would be no one to resist Adar and the Orcs. We know Galadriel wouldn't have made it in time because it is the resistance Arondir organizes that delays the Orcs. Lol.

Just because they had a path and a map to go by doesn't tell the audience how long it takes for them to get there. We didn't even know if they would arrive at the village if not for the teaser/trailer footage literally leaking that out. Nothing in the show actually indicated how long it takes for Galadriel to get there or how important it would be for Arondir to stall the Orcs with the Watchtower thing. Hell, if Adar were a better commander he woulda sent a few scouts out to literally find out that the Watchtower was empty cept for a single Elf. But I guess that isn't the story they want to tell so let's not think about it?

The point is the writers intended for Adar to be stalled at the Watchtower, and it was done so in a contrived way that 'bought time' for Galadriel to get there. And even then she just got there without any sense of time progression. While watching the episode, did you know she was going to even be there in time for a big battle? I don't think anyone really did unless they watched teaser footage.

If Arondir had not been there then the entire story would have to change.

Only the details change. The major plot points aren't affected by his actions overall. It's not like Theo would have died if Arondir didn't save him in that one episode. It's not like the Village wouldn't burn if he'd escaped to the Watchtower. It's not like Galadriel wouldn't have made it there if he hadn't stalled Adar.

I mean at this point we're circling as if you would argue that Tauriel's scenes were important to the Hobbit because they had her saving the Dwarves from the Spiders of Mirkwood, or she had to be there to heal Kili's wound. Those entire scenes were unnecessary and unimportant to the story, that's the whole point.

The story of Rings of Power in this current first season is about establishing the creation of Mordor, and that will happen regardless of what Arondir actually did so far. Understand?

[rhorle]

The point is the writers intended for Adar to be stalled at the Watchtower, and it was done so in a contrived way that 'bought time' for Galadriel to get there.

So you admit the story would be different without the Arondir character present to delay Adar. Theo could have died if captured by the orcs and not saved. They wanted the sword and not Theo. The village could have burned if there was no resistance or an elf to plan it. Your arguments about teleportation clearly reveal that you would have complained about tunnels and trenches appearing out of no where. We never would have saw those without Arondir.

The creation of Mordor would be different if Arondir didn't exist. It is silly to think it would play out exactly the same with out him. Removing a main character changes a story. Skin tone however does not.

[Triceron]

So you admit the story would be different without the Arondir character present to delay Adar. Theo could have died if captured by the orcs and not saved. They wanted the sword and not Theo.

Theo has plot armor, so wouldn't have died. Same with his mom, and she literally walked off after having pipe-sized arrows yanked out and causing would-be massive blood loss. Had Arondir not been there, she woulda survived too.

The village could have burned if there was no resistance or an elf to plan it.

The village burns anyways.

Your arguments about teleportation clearly reveal that you would have complained about tunnels and trenches appearing out of no where. We never would have saw those without Arondir.

Nonsense. The show could have EASILY dedicated some Orc/Adar POV scenes peppered throughout the show. Why would our only look into the Orcs have to be through the POV of prisoners? There's no reason why they couldn't unveil this through a simple Orc-centric POV.

The creation of Mordor would be different if Arondir didn't exist. It is silly to think it would play out exactly the same with out him.

How did Mordor get created? Because Adar gets the sword. How Adar gets the sword could be told a million different ways that didn't involve Arondir at all, considering he wasn't even the one who gave it to Adar.

Removing a main character changes a story. Skin tone however does not.

Point is, the character literally exists because of his skintone, because otherwise his actual role in the story isn't even all that significant to the main plot. It's a very odd direction that this show has chosen honestly.

And I don't say this because I dislike the character or don't think the character fits the show or anything like that. I'm literally pointing out how the character feels shoehorned into the story so far, and hasn't really done anything that ties into the actual main plot that is actually necessary. IMO, he's there just for the sake of representation, like Tauriel was.

[rhorle]

How did Mordor get created? Because Adar gets the sword. How Adar gets the sword could be told a million different ways that didn't involve Arondir at all, considering he wasn't even the one who gave it to Adar.

Yet you said the character could be removed and the story wouldn't change. A million different ways is changing the story. The character is not present just because of skin tone as the arc would work the same if the character was white. Stop being racist. The skin tone choices of the show impact absolutely zero of the story.