So someone said they wanted the cast of a TV show they were making to reflect how people look in society and you took that as license to apply completely irrelevant bollocks to Tolkien's work as well as inventing a load of shit about Eru Illuvatar, and we're supposed to take you even remotely seriously?
To be fair, Eru has never had a physical description, and all art depictions of him are simply interpretations. Adaptations.
And if we're talking about him as a shape-shifting or formless entity who creates beings 'in his form', then we have a basis for a canonical explanation for why Black Elves could exist. He's literally formless, and simply created the Elves as he wills it.
Is the creation of Black skinned Elves canon to what we know in Simlarillion and LOTR? No, it is not. But neither is this whole explanation of what Eru actually looks like, or his roots in judeao-christian depictions of god. These aren't canonical to the actual Lord of the Rings universe, therefore can not be used to rule out why Black Elves shouldn't exist in a particular telling of stories during that period of time, in that particular place in Middle-Earth, to that race of Elves.
Either way, it's debating non-canon Rings of Power using non-canon reasons for why they shouldn't exist.
Last edited by Triceron; 2022-02-15 at 08:43 PM.
Swarthy is simply a dark complexion, not different physical appearance; this means that a descendant of the Numenoreans wouldn't look like a black person from the US; they'd only have darker skin complexion and dark hair, boarder face perhaps too. The Haradrim are one of the few groups whom the actor would match. If this actor is a descendant of the Numenoreans and if we assume that his dark skin is seemingly the only trait that he inherited from his ancient lineage, then the future representation of Numenoreans would mean they would most likely look like fair-skinned Africans with blonde hair. They could've at least picked a very tall black actor in that case.
I appreciate your creative explanation. Part of being a fan is creating reasoning to make it fit together and that is the message I'm getting from you. I find myself in the same position when it comes to works of fiction that I'm into. I simply find the chances that a person with real life African physical appearance finds himself in the environment the show's creators are putting the one from the trailer into is practically next to impossible.
This is why I brought up the Haradrim. It would please lore purists and it would please those seeking representation of real life races in popular fiction. For some reason it's getting more and more popular to put the fictionally improbable into works of fiction; I believe these discussions drive the marketing and is the real reason behind these choices.
Last edited by Magnagarde; 2022-02-15 at 09:02 PM.
It certainly could be the reason, but I also think there's something to be said for being able to see yourself in the media you're consuming. Developing more intricate stories for the Haradrim probably would have been the better way to do that; in the absence of that though, I think there's room to introduce a few interesting, diverse characters in the existing framework of what they're already doing. We'll see how the writing goes from there, though; that's the key element.
For now, but I sure there are others like myself that will stop watching (I doubt I watch this) as they bastardize lore just to insert some message from the producers instead of staying true to the author/book. The worst part is they had a window with the Haradrim to get the same end result without messing around lore (though battle warrior Galadrial is still a faceplam, along with short haired elves and the lack of Celebron).
Then do it logically, forcefully shoe horning in shit like they have presented just turns me off, instead of doing a more lore based development of the Haradrim. To me this tells me the producers care more about THEIR message than the product/lore they are adapting, which I as a consumer want to see a faithful adaptation, as it is what I enjoyed, not whatever bullshit message Hollywood is trying to peddle to me this week.
Despite being non-canon, I think that Middle Earth: Shadow of War handled this with more care and attention. Baranor and his story were great.
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I absolutely agree with your take. I'm in favour of faithful adaptations of the original sources just like you. Real life messages and representation should have no place in works of fiction because that simply defies the definition behind the work's nature. I think the same of historic dramas and works of entertainment based on historically accurate characters, events and well-known historic facts. I wouldn't want a white emperor of Mali or a black Napoleon either.
I don't want solutions. I want to be mad. - PoorlyDrawnlines
are you genuinely this dense or is it an act?, i'll state it again, the EXECUTIVE PRODUCER stated they wanted this show to 'reflect what the world is like', which means by extension that ANY AND ALL real world logic and arguements can be applied to their show, and as such EVERYTHING they have presented fails to pass even the most basic tests of scrutiny based on 'real world logic', ERGO it shouldn't have even been passed to begin production to begin with yet here we are.
That's possibly one of the stupidest lines of reasoning I've ever read and it seems like an excuse for you either not knowing or not caring about what is in the Legendarium. They wanted a diverse cast therefore Illuvatar is an old man and elves are no longer magical? That's not gonna fly no matter how many words you randomly capitalise.
Shadow of Mordor and, especially, Shadow of War are complete canon defilements that make no sense at all within Tolkien's universe. I doubt the series will reach their level of total ridiculousness.
But, they were also pretty in-your-face and unapologetic about it. It was a game about Orc genocide through and through and so you might more easily accept shit like Celebrimbor's ghost possessing some random Ranger, dominating Orcs, forging a Ring of Power (!), Shelob actually being an altruistic sexy spider lady (!!), humans helped by powerful tree-spirits fighting a Balrog, Orcs using necromancy, Helm Hammerhand and Isildur being Ringwaiths (!!!) Talion turning into a superpowered WoW Death Knight as he resists the call of the Ring for years (!!!!) and assorted fuckery. It's all in the name of a fun game so I just kinda rolled with it, personally.
Whereas the series' changes could only possibly serve to make a better story- and if the story is poor and/or explicitly contradict canon, ain't no good gameplay to help sell the effect, you know.
It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia
The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.
looks fine, way too much green screen sure but other than that I'll watch it.
It seems like you're reaching. Why not just bite the bullet and accept that it's a change? I don't get it.
"The Men of [Beor's] house were dark or brown of hair with grey eyes; and of all Men they were most like to the Noldor"
And this is what Noldor look like:
"As Maeglin grew to full stature he resembled in face and form rather his kindred of the Noldor […] He was tall and black-haired; his eyes were dark, yet bright and keen as the eyes of the Noldor, and his skin was white."
I don't know about you but grey eyes are also typically associated with lighter complexion, no?
Also the word swarthy doesn't really mean much when it was widely used by "Anglo-Saxons" for a long time to describe mainland Europeans like Germans. It generally refers to the type of tanned skin you would get from a lot of sun exposure. Furthermore, the term is used like 3 times in the entire Silmarillion.
The only time we really see black people described it's so bewildering that they're compared to half-trolls and the whole thing reads like the description of a racist caricature. So it doesn't really give off the impression that this was a common sight.
The absolute state of Warcraft lore in 2021:
Kyrians: We need to keep chucking people into the Maw because it's our job.
Also Kyrians: Why is the Maw growing stronger despite all our efforts?
what information have i 'glossed over' as you put it, please provide me an example, and i haven't insulted anybody yet, at least not by the definitions of an 'insult' where i'm from, so if that's something you have concluded on your own that's on you, not me.
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correct, Amazon do not actually care about the legendarium, otherwise they wouldn't have signed off on this shitshow.
that's great, but quite frankly, who the fuck cares what they wanted, they didn't make the series, they didn't write the underlying stories, they have NO SAY whatsoever in what is or is not part of the story when they are ADAPTING a pre-existing work, sorry if that hurts your precious feelings, but that's just the way of things, if they wanted to push their agenda through the medium of a fantasy story, they should have made their own original work instead of highjacking a long standing well beloved work of fiction that has been credited as being the basis and progenitor of what modern fantasy is all about, and the hilarity of people comparing this to game of thrones, without Tolkein there wouldn't be a fucking game of thrones, so try again kiddo, 'that's not gonna fly' to coin a phrase.
they weren't 'randomly' done, they were done to mark EMPHASIS, heard of this word, it's where someone says or does something that is meant to be taken more seriously than the things surrounding it, i was attempting to make sure you got the message, but instead you either ignored or failed to comprehend what was written, and have since just gone on a tirade against me trying to bash me knowing full well it won't work and still you keep going.
I guess the problem is expectations and intent, when you have something saying it will be on pair with tolkien work and, a prequel to the movies and his story, you expect something faithful.
the game, as far as i know, was always supposed to be this weird alternate universe kind of thing, i remember reading something like about the first game with the dude with the sword
Game is also a small niche, for different publics, the uproar will be less, can't speak for everyone, but i always found those games shite, and people liked more about gameplay
I don't know why they decided to invent black dwarves out of nowhere, they can easily be inclusive of minorities by giving spotlight to the Easterlings and Haradrim, which they never got in the movies and it was one of the main complaints about the movies (that the "evil men" in Sauron's armies did not get spotlight they had in the books).
The Second Age is when Sauron manipulated and took control of the eastern men. Since the show is also depicting the creation of the Rings of Power and the rise of Sauron, they could have given a major role to Khamul too (Easterling king who was enslaved by Sauron and turned into a Nazgul).
This is the perfect opportunity to give the spotlight to those factions that were completely ignored in the movie trilogy.
There is also a story to be told here because a point is made that these men were not evi originally, they were corrupted by Sauron and forced to fight in his war.
In other words, they 100% made things harder for themselves. If they replaced that black woman with Khamul, no one would have complained.
Last edited by Varodoc; 2022-02-15 at 10:27 PM.
The Void. A force of infinite hunger. Its whispers have broken the will of dragons... and lured even the titans' own children into madness. Sages and scholars fear the Void. But we understand a truth they do not. That the Void is a power to be harnessed... to be bent by a will strong enough to command it. The Void has shaped us... changed us. But you will become its master. Wield the shadows as a weapon to save our world... and defend the Alliance!
From what little I know the movie's them self weren't faithful cutting characters out massively changing the tone of others and then everything surrounding the hobbit movies, why would you be expecting the show to one up them on faithfulness and not just accept that he even the best adaptations we already have (rotoscope) didn't achieve it.
All I ever wanted was the truth. Remember those words as you read the ones that follow. I never set out to topple my father's kingdom of lies from a sense of misplaced pride. I never wanted to bleed the species to its marrow, reaving half the galaxy clean of human life in this bitter crusade. I never desired any of this, though I know the reasons for which it must be done. But all I ever wanted was the truth.