Discussion about the Discussion about RoP

[elengil]

I will not deny that this is little more than a rant. So... if you want to talk about what I wrote that's fine (though I will admit up front I'm not really all that interested in a debate on it) but if you want to engage in a rant yourself, or just have an actual discussion, feel free. I just kind of wanted a place to vent my thoughts.




It has been interesting to watch the discussion around the discussion of RoP from a perspective of already loathing the show but not for the reason many people seem to be loathing it.


Actor race is the first and most noticeable that cropped up early. Of all the ill-feelings I have toward the production, this doesn't even register except to be irritated at how slight the representation actually is.

I have long since passed the point of wanting to have any argument over whether Tolkien ever 'envisioned' particular colors for particular characters. I don't care what Tolkien envisioned in that regard. I honestly don't. Nothing about his world to me hinges in the slightest on the shade of someone's skin. Dwarves in all the colors of the earth feels far more realistic to me as the creations of Aulë in secret of his own thoughts. Humans come in the full spectrum of skin color, why should not all the other races do the same? There are white humans and brown humans and black humans. I cannot see the slightest justification for saying there cannot likewise be white elves and brown elves and black elves, white dwarves and brown dwarves and black hobbits.

And it strikes me that the reason many people (I will not attempt to say most or all, just... many) take issue with it is they still see the world as being fundamentally divided so that a black man and a white man are as distinct from one another as an elf and a hobbit. They somehow conflate human skin color as being a marker of fundamental difference which seems to make them view the casting choice of a black elf as "wrong" to the sources as if they had cast a person with dwarfism in the role of a giant and the creators just said "that's why it's called acting."

Yes, I understand, if you cast a 4'-2" person as an Elf that does very much break the aesthetic of the world. Elves are tall. I get it. Dwarves and hobbits are short (of course, nobody complained about casting 'human height' people to play those parts). To me that does not even begin to approach the problematic way people continue to see race as if they are, indeed, different races rather than just different colored people. It's as if they see a white Dwarf as a 'Dwarf' but a black Dwarf as a 'Black Dwarf'. (Though honestly I kind of equate this to the broader problematic fantasy genre that took Dark Elves and made them fundamentally different creatures from Elves.)




Another is the hair. I dislike the short-haired elves shown not because I fundamentally disagree that elves can or should have short hair, but because the way they've done the hair just looks bad. The short styles don't appear to be specific aesthetic choices for the characters imbued with meaning (i.e. I cut off my hair lest a balrog drag me over a cliff ala Glorfindel. Safety First.) Rather, what I hate is that the choice seems more the tired gender roles of "men have short hair" as a default (same with the 'where the hell are the female Dwarf beards?!')

But what I hate even more is that people are hating on the short hair because it's short.

I actually think they could have pulled off short-haired elves to great effect as being notably distinct as a choice for the character - Celebrimbor cut his hair because long hair around a forge is dangerous? Sure! I will buy that! Celebrimbor is *a male* therefore has short hair? WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? But there is so much nuance that seems to get lost in the discussion that it just gets distilled down to people saying "short hair = bad!"

It also irritates me that there was such a glorious opportunity for elaborate hairstyles and braids for the one black Elf who instead got the "a week after being shaved bald" look. Which just seems to tie back into my first point which is the show is not actually diverse, it's playing at being diverse while not embracing any real diversity. And more than just race - we have three named characters in the Silm alone who lost a hand, let alone others who were disabled either through war or just because life was hard. Let's see some disabilities and scars and such. Let's see people who look like they've actually fought in a 500 year war and almost didn't live.

But back to the hair - I'm not even sure what's worse: short-haired male-only Elves, or Galadriel who is clearly too much of a badass warrior to care about the state of her dirty ragged absolutely not the shining golden please-give-me-just-one-strand-of-it hair that inspired the Silmarils. If Galadriel is going to be a badass, let her have *her* hair cut short (recognizing how very wrong it would be for the character, but if they're going the way they're going, might as well go all-in on it).




Which brings me to the third part of the broad discussion I've seen about the show which is calling out Amazon. And I mostly agree with this group. Amazon is a horrible company, their work practices are so bad that they are actually worried about running out of potential employees soon. Their business model (especially in terms of the recent uproar over authors being charged more than they received in royalties when their ebooks are returned) and the like seems to actively harm people rather than even just passively not care about them. Their disregard for human rights in other countries has caused me to stop buying anything from them - I will pay more from another company rather than give them a cent, and I am quite happy to shun this production - even if I thought it was going to be great - rather than support them.

For as much as I wouldn't care if Tolkien rose from the grave to say his elves were all meant to be white, I very much do care that Amazon as a company seems to embody everything about the modern world Tolkien would abhor. While I accept that Tolkien carried with him many biases (as we all do) - some of which he began to address later in his life - I do not believe for an instant that he would have supported the level of bias people attempt to impose upon his works so much as he would have hated the machine that had gotten its claws into his world.





This doesn't even get to the "what is this? because it isn't Middle-earth" reviews I've seen regarding the various trailers and promotionals that I also agree with. I get the most generic fantasy show vibes from everything I've seen, nothing that makes me excited in the least. I guess that really doesn't fall under my rant because I very much agree with it, but I will own that it is part of the discussion so will drop this paragraph in.


(what's really bad about all of this is while I've not taken dramatic steps to avoid RoP discussions, I've certainly made no attempt to actually seek them out, meaning this is pure 'in the wild' exposure!)

/rant

[RoseMorninStar]

I have avoided most of the conjecture discussions because, while I thoroughly understand the desire to have a conversation at length about all the intricacies of a mythology we deeply enjoy and care about, it seems the discussions have been overwhelmingly negative and somewhat toxic for some of the reasons you have mentioned, elengil. Especially race. I (intentionally) haven't been following closely enough to comment on hair styles.

From an artists point of view I am slightly distressed at the lack of room for interpretation ESPECIALLY as it involves a different artistic medium. What works in a book doesn't always work in a different format for a myriad of reasons. (I understand disappointment.. I was pretty upset about the character changes of Faramir). Time and place also make a difference. I suspect that if Tolkien were writing today, his mythology would likely be at least slightly different as his influences would be different than they were +/-100 years ago. Art forms change and adapt. They reflect the times we live in. They always have.

[Frelga]

So far, the screeching from people I despise has been more entertaining than anything I've seen from the show creators. Sadly, it also means that I'm never setting foot on TORC again.

Is there space for earnest discussion of whether Tolkien envisioned an all-white world when he wrote in 19-whatever? Absolutely. Does that have to constrain the TV show filmed in 20-right-now? I don't think so. We can do better than "good guys have pale skin" trope.

Is there, nevertheless, a room for thoughtful discussion about how a truly diverse Middle-earth may be envisioned? Absolutely.

[Eldy]

I can believe there are people who object to the casting of actors of color strictly on Lore fidelity grounds—though I don't agree with them that Lore fidelity should be solely determinative of casting decisions—but in my experience reading and participating in ROP discussions since 2017, both on Tolkien-specific sites and elsewhere online, it is more common for people to object because they see this series as a microcosm of larger societal trends which confuse or upset them. It has remarkably little to do with Tolkien in such cases, and the staunchest self-appointed defenders of "true" (read: white) Tolkien consistently display little knowledge of the legendarium beyond the Big Three works, and have repeatedly lashed out at the Tolkien studies community for refusing to toe the reactionary party line. I can understand why the ultra-purists dislike being lumped in with these people, though I'm not overflowing with sympathy these days. I've found the easiest shorthand for distinguishing between the two camps is their stance on the Peter Jackson movies. The people whose opposition to ROP is grounded in reactionary politics tend to point to the Jackson movies as an example of a faithful adaptation that Amazon should emulate (because it came close to having an all-white cast, or seemed to, since the many Maori stuntmen and extras who worked on the films are not obvious as such), whereas the old-school purists dismantled the arguments for PJ's purported fidelity twenty years ago.

[Anduril]

My academic background is in history and journalism. Furthermore, my country is plagued by historical denialism/negationism and distortion, weaponized by a select few elites in recent years for their benefit, and the result is that we're being currently screwed over politically. So representing the details accurately is kind of a sensitive thing for me. I soured on (heh) the PJ movies like a few years after ROTK came out and haven't rewatched them in years, never watched any extended versions and skipped the Hobbit ones too. I'd rather read the books and watch the cartoons to stop the movies from dominating my mental picture. So this whole show is kind of a massive monkey's paw wish, the kind of thing I'd have wished for but the execution and effects are regrettable. What could have been just a breath of fresh air and a bit of escapism from my daily troubles is just kind of a reminder.

So as a student of history, "true or feigned", I have to ask: why couldn't they have approached the material as history first and foremost? Instead of denying and changing the known facts, which is negationism and distortion, why not expand the scope of study? We were taught about European and American-centric perspectives and how it's important to find and work with one's own national and cultural perspectives. To keep it short, I maintain that the best way to show that Middle-earth isn't all-white (because it never was) would have been to expand on the stories of the Men of the East and South, expand as much as one wants. There's nothing wrong in preferring that things be depicted more accurately to the sources. What is unfortunate is that everything has been overshadowed by politics, people are quick to see agendas behind every corner and spout buzzwords like they can't express their own thoughts otherwise. I try to keep my head above that kind of water, to correct people if necessary. But I must say the show-associated people have played a part in fanning the flames themselves, both with the creative decisions in the show itself and the publicity campaign. Look, I can well sympathize with their aims, but I just find their approach to be overall short-sighted, not constructive, unnecessarily alienating and antagonistic to the existing fans, etc. There are ways to achieve those aims that they don't seem to be interested in. As another series puts it, they're doing the easy thing over the far more correct thing. And when it comes down to it, I don't owe the show people any support while I do feel I'm indebted to the author.

[elengil]

it is more common for people to object because they see this series as a microcosm of larger societal trends which confuse or upset them.

Yes, and I used to be more sympathetic before we had literal Nazis in our government. I have done my share being ignorant of history and modern prejudices, but I am still furious over how people can still hold those prejudices! (I recognize you generally hold to how you were raised absent something pushing you out of that bubble, but it's infuriating. I know I'm preaching to the choir here)

It is frustrating to see the same arguments about 'true to the source' that always get trotted out when an actor of color gets cast (*even when* the source is either non-specific or specifically not a white character) while every single character ever that was not originally white but is cast as white is just "well that's why it's called acting!" by those same 'purist' people.

Or the 'it's just not realistic' argument... in a fantasy show... with elves and dragons and magic... but brown skin is what isn't 'realistic'

[Snowdog]

I can believe there are people who object to the casting of actors of color strictly on Lore fidelity grounds—though I don't agree with them that Lore fidelity should be solely determinative of casting decisions—but in my experience reading and participating in ROP discussions since 2017, both on Tolkien-specific sites and elsewhere online, it is more common for people to object because they see this series as a microcosm of larger societal trends which confuse or upset them. It has remarkably little to do with Tolkien in such cases, and the staunchest self-appointed defenders of "true" (read: white) Tolkien consistently display little knowledge of the legendarium beyond the Big Three works, and have repeatedly lashed out at the Tolkien studies community for refusing to toe the reactionary party line. I can understand why the ultra-purists dislike being lumped in with these people, though I'm not overflowing with sympathy these days. I've found the easiest shorthand for distinguishing between the two camps is their stance on the Peter Jackson movies. The people whose opposition to ROP is grounded in reactionary politics tend to point to the Jackson movies as an example of a faithful adaptation that Amazon should emulate (because it came close to having an all-white cast, or seemed to, since the many Maori stuntmen and extras who worked on the films are not obvious as such), whereas the old-school purists dismantled the arguments for PJ's purported fidelity twenty years ago.

Well said! I agree for the most part. It has bene my experience, primarily on Tolkien Forums and on some facebook groups, that the 'ultra-purist' gatekeepers diss on Simon Tolkien and the Tolkien Estate, and that only they can define a 'true Tolkien fan', etc. has pretty much painted themselves into a corner with me and I can't take them seriously.

Then there are what I call 'PJ Purists' who seem to think that the 2001-2003 movies are 'canon'. I have the most fun with these clowns as I was firmly in the 'PJ stuffed up the book story' camp back then, and still hold to that. Some guy says that Rings of Power is 'purely fanfic', to which I answered, '...like Peter Jacksons fanfic of Lord of the Rings?' He then went on to write paragraphs on how Peter Jackson's depiction of Lord of the Rings was "extremely accurate" etc. I simply told him it was clear he hadn't read the book before he saw the PJ movies...

And then what I call the 'woke BS' crowd. Been my experience that those who tend to use that term are if not blatantly racist, are indirectly. Granted Amazon sux, but I find it overly humorous when these sorts on Tolkien Forums claim they 'are being suppressed' in discussions because the site does not allow political discussion. They claim that it can't be helped when talking about Amazon, etc. I find it rather humorous, and am happy for them to identify themselves as such because I have little time for those sorts. Is that extreme of me to assume such things of them? Maybe, but I'm not going to slice it any thinner to accommodate them.

All-in-all, i started out back in '17 when this series came up really pessimistic about it. Once I settled with myself that it was not going to be any close representation of what Tolkien wrote, but merely 'based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien as they say in the trailer, my outlook improved, and has done so incrementally with each bit that comes out. I dont think it will be any worse than the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings, and somewhat better than PJ's Hobbit crap.

[Eldy]

I've never had an account on The Tolkien Forums, but it's one of many sites where I've intermittently lurked over the years, and it's been depressing even from a distance seeing the state of recent discourse there. I applaud your tenacity in actually engaging with them!

I was an anti-PJ purist when I was younger, and I still hold some of the same positions I did then, though they've become much less important to me. But I deeply resented the co-opting of the purist label during the release of the Hobbit films, since the most vitriolic self-identified purists of that era tended to be people who considered PJ's LOTR to be a great adaptation—i.e., exactly the sort who, a few years earlier, turned their ire on people like me for daring to criticize the first trilogy. I haven't seen many of the new breed use the term purist lately—perhaps because they think primarily in culture war terms—but it's been a somewhat familiar experience.

I have a lot of residual opinions on purism based on my time in the trenches on the LOTR Plaza, but they will have to wait for another time, since I need to go back to gritting my teeth and trying to sleep despite the people across the hall.

[Stranger Wings]

I’ve found that the most vitriolic commentary seems to be coming from Peter Jackson LOTR fans who claim to speak from a place of Tolkien purism, but when prodded, clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that they have little to no clue about Tolkien’s works, with many not even having read LOTR or the Hobbit. These people see Jackson’s white, long-haired elven epic as the definitive interpretation of Tolkien, and erroneously claim that it was THE most Tolkien-faithful adaptation possible. I have been yelled at by such fools, who go absolutely silent when I respond with information drawn from the Silmarillion or HoME that challenge their half-baked yet vociferously delivered assertions.

As a critic of PJ’s LOTR and Hobbit (I actually think R&B’s Hobbit captures Tolkien’s tone much better than PJ does), I’ve found this dynamic immensely frustrating.

But I’ve learned to ignore the trolls and orcs that claim to speak for Tolkien. That has led to an improvement in my mental and physical health.

[Snowdog]

I've never had an account on The Tolkien Forums, but it's one of many sites where I've intermittently lurked over the years, and it's been depressing even from a distance seeing the state of recent discourse there. I applaud your tenacity in actually engaging with them!

I registered on Tolkien Forums when TORc crashed under the load when Fellowship of the Ring premiered in December 2001. always dabbled on the edges of the place. One good thing I can say about it is someone actually renovated the forum software and kept all the old threads and discussions from back in the day. Unfortunately their Rings of Power Updates thread has become a cesspool of haters posting the various youtube garbage.

I’ve learned to ignore the trolls and orcs that claim to speak for Tolkien. That has led to an improvement in my mental and physical health.

Yes, it is somewhat necessary. Once I stepped back from the moshpit, I have felt better about the series.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[OT]For all the craziness of Jackson's Hobbit films, I still disagree that R&B version captures the tone of the book better. Despite the superficial cutesy kids story in the book, at heart it has a tremendous amount of depth that is almost completely removed by the cartoon (with the sole exception that Thorin's death scene is well done).[/OT]

[Stranger Wings]

[OT]For all the craziness of Jackson's Hobbit films, I still disagree that R&B version captures the tone of the book better. Despite the superficial cutesy kids story in the book, at heart it has a tremendous amount of depth that is almost completely removed by the cartoon (with the sole exception that Thorin's death scene is well done).[/OT]

The difference is that I don't think the tone of the R&B cartoon is superficial or cutesy. Leaving the look of Bilbo and some of the dwarves aside, there's something about the visual style (that flat, storybook, almost medieval illuminated manuscript look to the landscapes, in particular - almost Japanese woodblock sometimes) and the aural style (I get real feeling from the music and songs) strikes me as having a subtle depth to it that PJ's films don't capture very consistently - and that certainly better capture the tone of the Hobbit book than the trilogy does. There are elements of PJ's films that I think perfectly capture Tolkien (much in Rohan, for example, and bits and bobs in Bag End, Gondor and Mordor), but overall, I find his style far too puerile and heavy-handed to feel much like Tolkien to me. Call me a "tone purist" vs. a "literal purist." For me, the tone is very important. And I think R&B understood the tone of the Hobbit, while PJ took Tolkien's themes and narrative and adapted it to the kind of loud, action-adventure tone that's his.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I couldn't disagree more about the R&B cartoon music and visuals. Particularly the music. But I'm sure we have had this conversation before, and this is certainly not the place to continue it.

To bring the conversation back on topic, while I agree that some of the vitriolic commentary about RoP is coming from Peter Jackson LOTR fans, but to me the vast majority is coming from people who think that failing to follow Tolkien's own racist tendencies is a paramount to not following Tolkien at all. Period, end stop.

[Stranger Wings]

To bring the conversation back on topic, while I agree that some of the vitriolic commentary about RoP is coming from Peter Jackson LOTR fans, but to me the vast majority is coming from people who think that failing to follow Tolkien's own racist tendencies is a paramount to not following Tolkien at all. Period, end stop.

I agree with that. But I'm finding that most of the loudest, racist commentary online is coming from people who only know the films, and make claims about Tolkien's world and works that simply aren't true.

[Eldy]

I think I get what Voronwë means, and certainly I have seen plenty of people say or imply that an adaptation not reflecting Tolkien's personal views in every way means it can never be described as faithful (a small subset of Christian Tolkien readers have advanced a similar argument for decades), but in practice, most of the people I've seen making this claim in the context of ROP know very little about Tolkien's views anyway. Shout out to the person who said that depicting the negative consequences of colonialism in a story about Númenor would be an unacceptable intrusion of non-Tolkienian ideology. :V

Yes, it is somewhat necessary. Once I stepped back from the moshpit, I have felt better about the series.

I've left a lot of sites in order to get away from toxic ROP discourse, and it's been really good for me even though I still miss some people who I no longer have any forums in common with.

[Stranger Wings]

Having been absent from Tolkien messageboards for ten years, but having been a member of TORC since
the late 90s(?)), I was saddened to see that TORC seems to have become…an orc pit, for lack of a better term. And I don’t think Tolkien would have been pleased with that discourse - especially that of those who claim to speak for him.

[Snowdog]

Having been absent from Tolkien messageboards for ten years, but having been a member of TORC since
the late 90s(?)), I was saddened to see that TORC seems to have become…an orc pit, for lack of a better term. And I don’t think Tolkien would have been pleased with that discourse - especially that of those who claim to speak for him.

There isn't really much there on TORc anymore. I did take a nostalgia walk through the old archived board yesterday and looked at some of the old movie discussions (hard to read the HTML mess that posts had become).

On discussing the discussions, a good one popped up in the Rings of Power FB group yesterday ... a change.org petition to stop Harper Collins from selling Lord of the Rings (and other Tolkien books) with Rings of Power cover art. I simply commented ... 'I'm going out to buy a set today!'

[Anduril]

To bring the conversation back on topic, while I agree that some of the vitriolic commentary about RoP is coming from Peter Jackson LOTR fans, but to me the vast majority is coming from people who think that failing to follow Tolkien's own racist tendencies is a paramount to not following Tolkien at all. Period, end stop.

There's nothing wrong with making or keeping the European-derived mythological creatures and humans of the setting European-looking. If the goal is to portray the setting as less Eurocentric (as/though Eurocentrism is fundamentally baked into it), it's one thing to, say, downplay or remove the bit of "Eastern" aspects imposed on the goblins which were never there before, and another thing to just impose your own ideas on concepts which didn't contain them before either, throwing verisimilitude, the sense of real history etc. out of whack. A better approach than superficial casting decisions would be to show more truly diverse point of views, in this context focusing on the Men of the East and South, as I've said over and over. All they're doing with their casting decisions is ignoring the actual elements of the world and its storyline that the author himself put in, the angles they could have explored. Expand, not change.

[Stranger Wings]

To bring the conversation back on topic, while I agree that some of the vitriolic commentary about RoP is coming from Peter Jackson LOTR fans, but to me the vast majority is coming from people who think that failing to follow Tolkien's own racist tendencies is a paramount to not following Tolkien at all. Period, end stop.

There's nothing wrong with making or keeping the European-derived mythological creatures and humans of the setting European-looking. If the goal is to portray the setting as less Eurocentric (as/though Eurocentrism is fundamentally baked into it), it's one thing to, say, downplay or remove the bit of "Eastern" aspects imposed on the goblins which were never there before, and another thing to just impose your own ideas on concepts which didn't contain them before either, throwing verisimilitude, the sense of real history etc. out of whack. A better approach than superficial casting decisions would be to show more truly diverse point of views, in this context focusing on the Men of the East and South, as I've said over and over. All they're doing with their casting decisions is ignoring the actual elements of the world and its storyline that the author himself put in, the angles they could have explored. Expand, not change.

I don't think this is well-justified, however. Númenor, as written by Tolkien, had clear Mediterranean elements in it, and such societies in both ancient and dark age times were not lily white. Arabs ruled Sicily and much of Spain for many years, ancient Rome was a multi-cultural hub whose culture was hugely influenced by Eastern and African culture and religion, Byzantium was quite diverse, Eastern Mediterranean Greek, Arab and Semitic societies were full of brown people, and North Africa had Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Berbers, Arabs, Greeks, etc, during these periods of time that very generally correspond to Tolkien's mindscape. In this context, Míriel's racial characteristics make perfect sense to me.

The same with the dwarves, who all migrated from the far East. Disa is a perfectly plausible character as is.

As for Arondir? I don't see why elves of the far south might not have developed dark skin. If the far south generally corresponds to southern Italy or North Africa in Tolkien's imagination, then I can see Silvan elves in that region being darker.

My problem is that a lot of fans have a cartoon, oddly homogenized understanding of what Europeans looked like during the dark ages and early medieval period. Europe is a wide, diverse subcontinent, and has been since ancient times.

[Snowdog]

I read this article today and thought it summed up the whole 'discussion about the discussion about Rings of Power' quite well.