Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Nurasu]

once again proving you lack the education needed to understand what was being said, and lack the critical reading and comprehension skills necessary to understand the point, if you can't understand something, the correct response is to ask for clarity and help with that lack of understanding, instead all you have done is berate me for no reason, but carry on, i'm sure it's making you look great.

Why don't you clarify why a Hansel and Gretel adaptation about two African American children should include crack houses and drug mules? I'm sure your answer will make you look great.

[rogoth]

This is an awful lot of text just to project, while also saying very little.

IIRC, the text of your post said people gave it a pass as nothing more than a bit of artistic license, it was disregarded. I.E. it isn't an issue in this case, for whatever reason. I didn't need to twist any words in your post.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was amazing, btw.

interesting edit being made to your original posting of this, that aside, you still missed the entire point of the comparison, and you are showing and have shown a clear lack of mental acuity to be able to compartmentalise things, you're very clearly unable to detach concepts and must always label things and put them into predetermined boxes, you are showing you clearly lack the fundamental ability to disassociate things, i suggest trying again when you have learned this skill.

as to hansel and gretel: witch hunters, i too enjoyed it, but i'm not sure what that has to do with the comment i made and extreme stereotype comparison i made to highlight my point, in that particular movie all characters were white actors playing the roles assigned to them, the only change was that instead of being taken in by the witch and eaten, the kids escaped, became killers of the supernatural and turned the concept around, nothing of the actual characters themselves was fundamentally changed, unlike with this clownshow where everything so far is very bad fan fiction writing, terrible casting based on fundamentally flawed reasoning, and yet here we are seeing people defend this dross because it's 'brave' 'empowering' 'activist supporting' bullshit.

[SirDjord]

Tolkien was very positively writing a Northern European mythology, drawing on assorted myths and legends from North-West Europe. Obviously the characters (should) reflect that. Trying to force "the message" instead of focusing on the actual story and lore is very distburing. We have an obligation to the author and his amazing work to present his world the way he created it and not forcing politics and modern values upon it.

[rogoth]

Why don't you clarify why a Hansel and Gretel adaptation about two African American children should include crack houses and drug mules? I'm sure your answer will make you look great.

are you really this dense?, are you seriously asking this question with a straight face thinking it's the point of the example given?, i'm astounded at how stupid this question is, not only does this have nothing whatsoever to do with the point i was making, it's so far removed from the point as to be irrelevant, but here you are hung up on the extreme stereotype i used to emphasise a point, a point i might add you have failed to grasp at every turn so far, is your comprehension ability this poor you cant grasp the concept?

[Nurasu]

are you really this dense?, are you seriously asking this question with a straight face thinking it's the point of the example given?, i'm astounded at how stupid this question is, not only does this have nothing whatsoever to do with the point i was making, it's so far removed from the point as to be irrelevant, but here you are hung up on the extreme stereotype i used to emphasise a point, a point i might add you have failed to grasp at every turn so far, is your comprehension ability this poor you cant grasp the concept?

I don't think it was your point at all. I just think it's telling that's where your brain went when trying to conjure up a story about black children.

[rogoth]

Tolkien was very positively writing a Northern European mythology, drawing on assorted myths and legends from North-West Europe. Obviously the characters (should) reflect that. Trying to force "the message" instead of focusing on the actual story and lore is very distburing. We have an obligation to the author and his amazing work to present his world the way he created it and not forcing politics and modern values upon it.

steady on now, this kinda talk makes you sound like a racist, because respecting the original works is only a smokescreen you hide behind to cover for your closeted racist tendencies /s.

[rogoth]

I don't think it was your point at all. I just think it's telling that's where your brain went when trying to conjure up a story about black children.

would you have preferred i had said that instead of a witches cottage they found a KFC and ate fried chicken until they burst?, is that a more palatable stereotype to use for you?, or how you give me one that works to use an extreme for emphasis, please enlighten me as the example i gave was one of the first things that showed up when i search for 'african american stereotypes' in order to make that post.

[Nurasu]

would you have preferred i had said that instead of a witches cottage they found a KFC and ate fried chicken until they burst?, is that a more palatable stereotype to use for you?, or how you give me one that works to use an extreme for emphasis, please enlighten me as the example i gave was one of the first things that showed up when i search for 'african american stereotypes' in order to make that post.

Were the original Hansel and Gretel racist stereotypes for Danish people? I didn't realize racist stereotypes were a requirement for a faithful adaptation to that story. I'm guessing that just has to do with your own internal thought processes.

Edit: Oops, I missed the part where Google made you do it; my bad!

[rogoth]

Jesus Christ...

Again, for the first paragraph, you don't actually say anything beyond "you're just too stupid to get it, derp!" Which is odd, considering you just complained to someone that they only berated you. Your argument just appears empty.

As for the second, as other posts were talking about Hansel & Gretel, I just threw in a quick comment about how I enjoyed that movie lol Literally nothing more to it, yet you still turned into a lengthy paragraph about how changing the entire story of Hansel & Gretel is fine, and how amazingly bad RoP apparently is (you haven't seen it yet, ofc) because you've attached these particular words to it.

Go touch grass.

no that's your interpretation, what i actually said was that you can't seem to see things in a vacuum and look at things as individual concepts as you need to make sure everything has a neat little label attached to it, i think you understood perfectly fine what i was saying and are just being obtuse about things to get a rise.

i have seen the promotional materials released to date, and based on that i have come to the conclusion it's badly written fan fiction taking a galaxy sized dump on the grave of the author of the original works in order to self insert 'activists' into the cast, in order to insert gender politics into something that doesn't exist within the source material, and that the showrunners for this project can't keep their story straight, first it was a 'faithful adaptation', then it was 'a reflection of what our world is like today', then it became a 'based on the works by' project, which is it then?, tell me because i'd love to know.

[Nurasu]

first it was a 'faithful adaptation', then it was 'a reflection of what our world is like today', then it became a 'based on the works by' project, which is it then?, tell me because i'd love to know.

None of these are mutually exclusive.

[rogoth]

Were the original Hansel and Gretel racist stereotypes for Danish people? I didn't realize racist stereotypes were a requirement for a faithful adaptation to that story. I'm guessing that just has to do with your own internal thought processes.

Edit: Oops, I missed the part where Google made you do it; my bad!

i'm done responding to your asinine responses that show you do not have the ability to understand what's being said, and cannot see five feet in front of your face without being engulfed in faux outrage over something that is irrelevant.

[Nurasu]

i'm done responding to your asinine responses that show you do not have the ability to understand what's being said, and cannot see five feet in front of your face without being engulfed in faux outrage over something that is irrelevant.

I don't think it's irrelevant though - I think it's the basis for why you're so uncomfortable with minorities being portrayed in RoP.

Also, I didn't mean to detract from your and Biomega's conversation, so feel free to go back and address his counterpoints! Apparently he has better reading comprehension than I do!

[Biomega]

Tolkien was very positively writing a Northern European mythology, drawing on assorted myths and legends from North-West Europe. Obviously the characters (should) reflect that.

Why?

And what he wrote was his own mythology INSPIRED by a lot of Northern-European mythological material, which doesn't mean that it always and forever has to reflect the exact makeup of Northern Europe at the exact time that mythology was conceived.

And besides, this is an adaptation. Adaptations change things all the time. What matters is the writing, and how well it works in the end; faithfulness to the adaptation is just one metric among many, and not even the most important one.

Trying to force "the message" instead of focusing on the actual story and lore is very distburing.

This is a different matter.

I agree that diversity (or "message", as you put it) is not a substitute for good writing. Can't be, shouldn't be. But it also isn't mutually exclusive with good writing, either. The story doesn't magically become good because it has a diverse cast, and it ALSO doesn't magically become bad because it has a diverse cast. Those are separate things that need to be evaluated differently, despite their occasional connection points.

[SirDjord]

Why?

And what he wrote was his own mythology INSPIRED by a lot of Northern-European mythological material, which doesn't mean that it always and forever has to reflect the exact makeup of Northern Europe at the exact time that mythology was conceived.

And besides, this is an adaptation. Adaptations change things all the time. What matters is the writing, and how well it works in the end; faithfulness to the adaptation is just one metric among many, and not even the most important one.


This is a different matter.

I agree that diversity (or "message", as you put it) is not a substitute for good writing. Can't be, shouldn't be. But it also isn't mutually exclusive with good writing, either. The story doesn't magically become good because it has a diverse cast, and it ALSO doesn't magically become bad because it has a diverse cast. Those are separate things that need to be evaluated differently, despite their occasional connection points.

Not necessarily, yet we have an obligation to present his work in the light of how and when it was written. When its based upon old Norse sagas (Gandalf is taken from Odin) that should reflect the world and characters the way he intended them. If you disapprove of his work then thats to bad its his intellectual property. If you want to create a world where Richard III has pink hair and indulges in homosexual acitivity then do it, noone is stopping you.

Just have to go back a month to the Kenobi show where the message and women empowerment is way more important than telling a compeling and good written story.

The fear that this will be another "message" and "inclusive" show where the storytelling has taken a backseat seems unfortunately to be justified.

[Nerovar]

So point out where Tolkien talked about the skin colors of dwarves or elves, and how they're different because of where they're located.

I'm happy to be shown references.

After a quick search, I only found a clear description about the Elves but I'm sure I can dig deeper if it isn't abundantly clear by this point.

"They [the Quendi] were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who are now gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin."

There's also the very obvious fact that no Elf is ever described as anything but fair-skinned.

There's SOME references to different HUMANS, although with them, too, it's very hard to tell where/if Tolkien is talking about skin color and not something else. Just like him describing elves as "fair" does not have to refer to their complexion, as it can (and most likely does) simply mean "beautiful to behold" rather than "light-skinned". And even where he IS talking about skin color, one group being primarily one skin color would not automatically mean all OTHER groups of humans are ALSO just one skin color.

It's really not that hard unless you try your hardest to engage in motivated reasoning.

Easterlings being used synonymously with "Swarthy Men" isn't ambiguous. The Men of Far Haraad being described like racist caricatures from colonial time isn't ambiguous.

The description of the men of the west isn't really ambiguous either.

"The Folk of Hador were ever the greatest in Number of the Atani [...] For the most part they were tall people, with flaxen or golden hair and blue-grey eyes, but there were not few among them that had dark hair, though all were fair-skinned. [...] There were fair-haired men and women among the Folk of Beor, but most of them had brown hair (going usually with brown eyes), and many were less fair in skin, some indeed being swarthy. [...] But these differences in body and mind became less marked as their short generations passed, for the two peoples became much mingled by intermarriage and by the disasters of the War."

Skin color wasn't what Tolkien was interested in, it's as simple as that. His narrative revolves around different forms of categorization, and those are preserved even if you have a black dwarf or an Asian-looking elf.

Some of his work might be preserved, some of it might be lost. I'm not the authority on the matter. I don't know what was personally important to Tolkien (and neither do you). I can only assume that the things he wrote were there for a reason and respect that decision.

You and me both. Mostly because 90% of it isn't an argument, it's just "I don't want black people in my fantasy, because they don't belong in there for... uh... reasons that aren't racist I promise I swear I really do".

It's especially tiresome since people have spent literal decades telling us why Tolkien's work is on the same level of racism as the Turner Diaries and now you have to endure talking to people who want to gaslight us into believing that Tolkien intended Middle Earth to look like downtown New York so we don't criticize Amazon's billion dollar shitshow.

That's a complete misrepresentation of the argument. It's not about a fictional setting reflecting "what the world actually looks like". It's about removing selection criteria for which there is no good, relevant narrative or artistic justification. What you're suggesting is getting that process entirely backwards.

You're the one who has it backwards. Demanding fidelity to a text doesn't require any further justification. Pushing changes that break with established facts does. The justification given by the showrunners was making Tolkien's fictional world reflect "what the world [meaning our modern world] actually looks like" presumably to appeal to new audiences, right historic injustices, yadda yadda yadda.

[s_bushido]

right, lets take this to an extreme, are you familiar with the fairy tale of hansel and gretel by hans christian andersen?

based on his writing the characters of hansel and gretel are portrayed as being your children, one male, one female, both of them are white, both of them are stereotypical of the region of where the author was from (denmark), meaning that they would have been fairly pale and likely blonde haired with blue or brown eyes.

200 years later, lets take this fairy tale and 'have it depict what our modern day looks like' instead of stereotypically scandinavian children, they have been race swapped into african american children, because we all know that black people outside of the USA wouldn't work, and instead of finding a witches cabin made of sweets, they find a crack house and become mules for the druglord (again taking the example to an extreme), how do you think people would react to this change?

"I'm not racist, I just associate black people with crack houses."

[Biomega]

Not necessarily, yet we have an obligation to present his work in the light of how and when it was written.

That's an incredibly vague criterion that could mean all sorts of things, and ALSO is far from self-evident. Why do we have that obligation?

Just have to go back a month to the Kenobi show where the message and women empowerment is way more important than telling a compeling and good written story.

The fear that this will be another "message" and "inclusive" show where the storytelling has taken a backseat seems unfortunately to be justified.

You keep going back to this, which is not a point we're in disagreement on - but it's a DIFFERENT point.

Bad writing is bad, and diverse casting doesn't make bad writing good OR good writing bad. They're. Separate. Things.

After a quick search, I only found a clear description about the Elves but I'm sure I can dig deeper if it isn't abundantly clear by this point.

[...]

The description of the men of the west isn't really ambiguous either.

That's fair, I can accept those descriptions.

I don't know what was personally important to Tolkien (and neither do you). I can only assume that the things he wrote were there for a reason and the respect that decision.

Here's where we run into a bit of a problem, though. I agree neither of us knows what was or wasn't important to Tolkien directly (how could we), but we DO know indirectly by what he wrote about, and what he concerned himself with. Which was NOT about skin color at all, but about species (elf, dwarf, human, etc.) as well as about culture. That's the prime distinguisher of collective identity in practically his entire work, and while skin color clearly isn't absent (you've proved that sufficiently) it also isn't a main focus, and occurs only very sporadically.

The more important question then becomes not "what did Tolkien intend/consider important", but what do WE consider important - because we're interpreting his work in any adaptation, and we have to analyze what we're given based on certain criteria. And there really is practically nothing to suggest that skin color as a distinguisher is more important to the narrative he built than factors like species or culture (or even language). Which means that when creating an adaptation, we have to decide where to observe the source material, and where to deviate.

There is no question about that deviation, let's be clear - ANY adaptation WILL deviate in SOME way. It's purely a matter of deciding where and by how much. And given that there seems to be an overwhelming presence of species, language, and culture defining the relationships between the various collectives in Tolkien's works and only a vanishingly small amount of mention of skin color (let alone making it a direct driver of narrative as species, language, culture are in his works), wouldn't you say it's not unreasonable to largely disregard this characteristic in casting - considering we're disregarding all sorts of other details mentioned in passing, too.

It's especially tiresome since people have spent literal decades telling us why Tolkien's work is on the same level of racism as the Turner Diaries and now you have to endure talking to people who want to gaslight us into believing that Tolkien intended Middle Earth to look like downtown New York so we don't criticize Amazon's billion dollar shitshow.

Let's be clear: my argument at least has never been about "this is what Tolkien intended" - as you said earlier, we have no idea what his intentions were aside from a few stated ones he made in letters etc. (almost none of which are pertinent here, save for the whole Galadriel = OP woman warrior thing, which is a different matter). Author intention is more of a layman's approach anyway, scholarship tends to avoid it altogether and focus on the work itself.

Nor is my argument ever "I want things to look like New York/the US/whatever", which is equally preposterous, and backwards logic.

My argument is purely this: when selecting people involved in any form of cultural production, be very clear about which characteristics are ACTUALLY RELEVANT to the choice, and which are not. In the case of narratives, that means characteristics that are clearly and profoundly relevant to the narrative - and in 99.99% of cases, skin color is not that. There ARE cases where it is, and those need to be dealt with appropriately; but most of the time it's an ancillary side detail of no real narrative impact or relevance.

That's all. My goal is not "have 30% PoC actors" or whatever, it's simply saying "if the skin color doesn't matter to the narrative, disregard it for the casting". I don't care about author's intent or the history of the work unless it's relevant to the narrative - story comes above all else, for me. With some narratives the author's intent or the history ARE relevant, but, again, in the vast majority of cases they're simply not.

You're the one who has it backwards. Demanding fidelity to a text doesn't require any further justification. Pushing changes that break with established facts does.

That's a biased argument, though. There's plenty of changes NOBODY cares about, which means it's not about "fidelity to a text" - it's about SPECIFIC features that somehow are more important than others. If a character is described as 6'2" and you cast an actor that's 6'4" nobody will give a shit, and nobody will go "BUT MUH TEXTUAL FIDELIITTTTTY!" because it's very clearly a detail that's (most likely) completely irrelevant to the actual story. Yet somehow there's characteristics - like skin color - that are singled out from this and are MADE relevant despite the fact that they're equally meaningless to the narrative.

THAT is the problem. If it was as simple as "make it 100% text-accurate, period" we could easily go by objective criteria and make sure - but it's never that. Everyone accepts SOME things don't matter, yet others do, and the problem lies purely in who gets to decide which is which, and why.

[s_bushido]

That's a biased argument, though. There's plenty of changes NOBODY cares about, which means it's not about "fidelity to a text" - it's about SPECIFIC features that somehow are more important than others. If a character is described as 6'2" and you cast an actor that's 6'4" nobody will give a shit, and nobody will go "BUT MUH TEXTUAL FIDELIITTTTTY!" because it's very clearly a detail that's (most likely) completely irrelevant to the actual story. Yet somehow there's characteristics - like skin color - that are singled out from this and are MADE relevant despite the fact that they're equally meaningless to the narrative.

Case in point: Hugh Jackman is 6'3". Wolverine is canonically 5'3". No one cared. Logan is one of the most well-received superhero movies ever made. And I don't think the massive discrepancy in his height was ever cited as a reason for the poor quality of any of the X-Men movies where he played that character...including X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

[Xath]

Sure. So is hair color or eye color, and nobody gives a shit about those (save for the Joffrey Baratheons, as explained earlier). So why is skin color suddenly so special it's a deal breaker?


Stronger than the existence of dwarves, elves, and dragons?

You're saying you're fine with all the things in fantasy that make not a lick of (RL) sense, but suddenly a black person comes along and you're like hold it, this has gone too far? COME ON.


Yes, but who says that has to be about skin color? These are different species after all. Why would a BLACK dwarf suddenly be a problem, as opposed to just a dwarf?

Could it be that it's only a problem... FOR YOU? For reasons that have nothing to do with the actual setting/lore?


What rules?

The real-world rules of how skin color came to be, that are somehow more important than the real-world rules of physics and biology that no one has a lick of a problem with when it comes to the most quotidian elements of a fantasy setting?

This is the whole "dragons I can accept, but black people make no sense" bullshit all over again.


I don't condone simple cop-outs like that, but I have zero problems with diversity in casting on principle, where there are no real, relevant narrative obstacles. Tolkien barely if ever talks about skin color, and there's nothing that's in the way of having a diverse cast in that kind of narrative. It matters not one bit for the story, because it's about elves, dwarves, and humans, not about black elves or white dwarves or whatever. Never has been, never mattered.

This is a work of fiction, and an adaptation of a work of fiction. Realism is observed to some degree, and ignored to others. If you have no problem with a Germanic person playing Julius Caesar, you shouldn't have a problem with an African person playing him either. And if you do, I'd like to hear a reasonable explanation for why that's not just veiled racism.


I agree.

Where I don't agree is that "the universe" includes a strict skin color makeup that's not backed by profound and specific narrative reasoning.


I agree that there will likely be many things to criticize about the show, but if you want to call out bad writing, call out BAD WRITING; don't suddenly turn this around and go "the writing is bad because they cast black people!" which is ridiculously incorrect on a logical level, let alone the blatant racism that it implies.

Speak for yourself I get fairly irritated when details that don't need to be changed are changed. For example Hermione's Yule ball garb was changed from floaty periwinkle blue ROBES to a pink dress in the goblet movie and Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean was chanced to Magical Water Plants of the Highland Lochs because reasons. Yes this includes hair color. Eye colors I'm slightly more sympathetic to because people can have issue with contacts but hair and skin color are highly visible visual markers along with clothing styles.

[Biomega]

Speak for yourself I get fairly irritated when details that don't need to be changed are changed. For example Hermione's Yule ball garb was changed from floaty periwinkle blue ROBES to a pink dress in the goblet movie and Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean was chanced to Magical Water Plants of the Highland Lochs because reasons. Yes this includes hair color. Eye colors I'm slightly more sympathetic to because people can have issue with contacts but hair and skin color are highly visible visual markers along with clothing styles.

You're free to demand any level of fidelity you like, but objectively you cannot deny that there's ALWAYS going to be deviation, and it's purely about negotiating where and why. If the color of a dress or whatever is what breaks the deal for you, fair enough, but there's no way that'll ever be a level of detail realistically observed in adaptations of virtually any kind.