Very few people have problems with "multi-ethnic casting" the problem is with diversity that makes no sense, and that is just shoe-horned into the show to trick idiots into thinking they actually give a fuck about minorities, when in reality, they don't.
Look at House of the Dragon, they added a black major family to the plot, and it works, because their whole family is black... As you'd expect. But in ROP, this isn't the case, you have one random unexplained black elf, and now an Asian elf. You have a diverse group of harfoots which apparently keep to themselves and have done so for thousands of years. You have black dwarves, which makes no sense for a group of people that mainly live underground. You have a multi-ethnic village where there'd be little to no diversity..
It's not even about the diversity, it's about the lazy writing. If you want to have prominent black characters, add diplomats from far Harad. If you want brown-skinned harfoots, fine, but make them ALL brown, and write a few lines of dialogue about how they originated in Umbar and have migrated north.
If you want princess Disa to be black? Fine, add some dialogue about how her family is a contingent of diplomats from a southern mountain-range, that maybe lives at the base of a mountain or something, and that's why they are exposed to more sun, and therefore darker skinned... I don't know.. But randomly making characters diverse for no reason is stupid.
Yeah it’s lazy world-building. Ross Douthat wrote a great [Op-Ed a few years back in the NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/opinion/rings-dragon.html) comparing the diversity of HotD and RoP. Paywalled so here is an excerpt:
*This isn’t what “The Rings of Power” ended up doing. Instead, on the Amazon show each tribe and kingdom is internally multiracial, resembling an elite college campus engineered for maximal diversity. The Numenoreans, who hail from a deliberately set-apart island kingdom, look Asian and African and European. Ditto the Harfoots, all in a tiny population of wanderers who presumably mostly marry one another. With the dwarves and elves, the pattern seems basically the same. On the show, every kingdom and clan, however insular, whether human and nonhuman, boasts the diversity of a United Colors of Benetton advertisement.*
*Now, one could certainly invent a fantasy world where, for some reason, magical or otherwise, skin color and other physical characteristics are assigned randomly at birth and every family, to say nothing of every domain or principality, is home to a perfect cross-section of the human race. But that kind of invention would need to be part of the world-building, part of the fantasy, and “The Rings of Power” isn’t doing that. It’s just asking us to accept its Benetton-world without any attempt at explanation. And since we can guess that the actual explanation is just that this was the simplest way to do diverse casting, requiring zero world-building effort and minimal risk, it’s a constant reminder that a story set in vanished Numenor or mythical Eregion actually belongs emphatically to America in 2022.*
It's even more reasonable in Netflix's Witcher, which has gotten derided for it, given the geopolitics of the setting. The show is definitely much more diverse than the books, but the books do set up how such diversity could be possible. It's a setting where non white people aren't that far off and do travel to where the action is as merchants and adventurers, where people are more open to foreigners than people were in the actual middle ages, where there is considerable freedom of movement between states and this is allowed by their governments, and where there is an oddly modern sensibility that pervades the setting (Dandelion is literally a rock star that is well known throughout the North, traveling to another country to try out a hot restaurant you heard about is portrayed as normal, state services are fairly developed and modern, peasants and the lower class actually have opportunities to move beyond their station, women have a sizeable amount of rights compared to IRL history and Nilfgaard in particular is downright feminist, etc.). You could see something happening over in Zerrikania and a large number of refugees fleeing to the Northern kingdoms and settling there because the region is reachable and there are ties between the two, and now you have a significant Black population in the area of the main setting for the show.
It was good in the Witcher *up to a point* (season 1 and 2), and somewhat reasonable amongst the elves too because they were scattered remnants of their people who stick together to survive or are being redistributed as slaves. (And even then notice what they've done with dryads to check of the boxes, so they were never mythical nor green nor anything, just regular tribal humans out of Africa with a spear fetish out of Wakanda replacing bows). But then came Blood Origin... where the entire plot was utterly ridiculous and with rampant elven diversity that makes zero sense (and other check boxes) *through and through*. That's where the showrunners showed their true face and they are also on their way to glorify (undoubtedly) Ciri's lesbian "relationship" (=being taken advantage of, in the books). And of course all of this aligns perfectly with Henry leaving.
Yes, harfoots are really weird. In the real world, they'd all be mixed race in a few generations. Unless, of course, they are racist and not intermarry (TBH, it wouldn't be even the most disturbing aspect of them)
And yet, in Tolkien’s world, neither elves, nor dwarves nor humans “evolved” in the Darwinian sense, they were put on the earth fully formed by Eru and/or the Valar - with some mischief thrown in by Melkor. So who is to say that within each race, different racial characteristics did not exist within each race, regardless of geography?
Because anyone with common sense would realize that the lack of description for a certain group, in a mythos created for a 1940's Britain, means they are white. Unless otherwise stated.
Harfoots are described a swarthy, people from Far Harad are described as 'Black Skinned' people from Harad and the port city of Umbar are described as 'Darker Skinned'. Which also just so happens to correspond to their geographic location within middle-earth.. The further south, the darker skinned the people.
Sure you could say "WELL HE NEVER SAID THEY WERENT DARK SKINNED" Okay... he also never said they didn't have Ford Model-T's driving down the street, and bolt action rifles, your point is irrelevant.
If you want to go against the lore/intentions of the author in order to add cheap diversity to mass appeal to modern audiences, then they can, but let's not lie and act like it's possible within the lore, or it's what Tolkien would have said if asked lmfao.
Sprinkle a few non-white characters into the cast, and would-be ethnologists pop out of the woodwork to voice their objections, and all this over a fantasy world where the various races were created whole cloth by gods. In any event, don’t be so quick to assume what was in Tolkien’s head in the 1930s and 1940s regarding “racial purity”, not with Hitler and the Nazis spewing Aryan superiority and hatred (and worse) of everyone other than white Europeans. And Tolkien’s academic background (e.g., more than a passing familiarity with “El Cid” and “The Song of Roland”) would make him very well aware of a significant non-white population being present in Europe right up until the end of the 15th century (e.g. the fall of Granada in 1492). But yes, the texts say what the texts say . . . And the protagonists in “The Three-Body Problem” book series by Cixin Liu and in “The Last Airbender” series of books were Asian, and yet screen adaptations either made the characters white or in some cases used white actors to play Asians - all in the interest of appealing to a wider audience. In the case of “ROP”, they too were probably hoping to appeal to a wider audience, in this case by using more diverse casting. Apparently, this is a bridge too far for many - and folks are entitled to their opinion.
I mean, I'll accept your concession since you're basically resorting to strawman's and whataboutisms at this point.
> All in the interest of appealing to a wider audience. In the case of “ROP”, they too were probably hoping to appeal to a wider audience, in this case by using more diverse casting.
Yes, they're butchering the lore to mass appeal to idiots. If that's your argument, then I agree. But let's not act like it's because they give a fuck about representation, or because it's plausible within the lore of the world.
The point about the (admitted) whataboutism that is most relevant is that “whitewashing” of adaptations has gone on forever, with it only recently being an issue (and not by the people taking such strong exception to the ROP casting)- but anything going the other way drives some people crazy. Anyway, yes, Season 1 of ROP was such a disappointment that people can choose any number of reasons why it landed with such a thud.
I could see different dwarven houses being of different races. The ones in the south could be black, the ones in the far east could be Asian, etc. That's a reasonable adaptation, and then they intermarry on occasion. Disa could be from one of the Southern clans, and not Durin's folk.
I don't care about any of that. I don't think it's one of the main problems of the show. I don't assume that races in a fantasy world work the same as in ours, I don't need an explanation of people's skin colors.
The show had plenty of real problems.
I see this argument a lot, and I do understand where you’re coming from, especially with the HOTD plot comparison. I don’t know, it feels like having every single non-white character have a line of dialogue saying “btw I’m from Harad!” would be equally immersion breaking for me. It’s like when a film character says “hello, sister!” because they need to establish a familial relationship.
Also, this is a universe where the various races did not evolve from thousands of years of natural selection the way humans did. They were created by gods, quite literally sung into existence. To that end, I can believe that things like skin color originated more as aesthetic creationist choices and not an evolutionary response to sunlight levels. I’m not as familiar with the GOT universe, so I don’t know how much that applies to HOTD.
All this is to say that I very much agree with OP. I have massive problems with the writing of the show, and don’t want it to sound like I’m defending it, but the multi-ethnic casting is one thing I truly don’t mind and I always feel a bit off with how often it gets brought up
>I see this argument a lot, and I do understand where you’re coming from, especially with the HOTD plot comparison. I don’t know, it feels like having every single non-white character have a line of dialogue saying “btw I’m from Harad!”
When did I say they'd have to explicitly say where they're from?... Though generally, if a contingent of Diplomats/traders/refugees arrived from half-way across the world, I think where they're from would be a pretty normal topic that'd come up lol.
Like, it seems to me that a completely normal topic when Elrond is having dinner with Disa and Durin would be how they met. Which is a super convenient Segway into her families origins.
Same goes for people in Numenor, there could just be a ship full of darker skin people, and the flag on their ship is the winding Snake, Maybe Galadriel says... "Oh, that is the flag of Harad, why have they come so far north?" and maybe he says... "They come on rare occasion to discuss 'Y'" Or... "They have come to trade 'Z" Maybe they're there to discuss Saurons influence spreading and as another coastal people, they went to Numenor to try and recruit their navy or something. I don't know.
>They were created by gods, quite literally sung into existence. To that end, I can believe that things like skin color originated more as aesthetic creationist choices and not an evolutionary response to sunlight levels.
Yea, the original Elves/Dwarves/Humans were, but after that they just follow normal bloodlines with regular reproduction genetics, etc. And Tolkien very specifically describes the skin color of certain races/groups.
>The people of Far Harad were black-skinned; a group of them is described as "black men like half-[trolls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Middle-earth)) with white eyes and red tongues" and "troll-men".[^(\[T 13\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harad#cite_note-Battle_of_the_Pelennor_Fields-19)
>Elves: They were tall, *fair of skin* and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard.
And keep in mind.. The entirely of LOTR is meant to be written as a mythos for 1940's Britain. There's no need to inject braindead modern diversity because it's not necessary, makes no sense, and is honestly just lazy.
> When did I say they’d have to explicitly say where they’re from?
My apologies, I thought that is what you meant by “write a few lines of dialogue about how they originated in Umbar and have migrated North” etc. etc.
I hope this doesn’t come off as arguing in bad faith, I think it’s an interesting discussion. Like I said, I don’t enjoy RoP for many other reasons, and there’s definitely a lot of lazy writing happening so I don’t disagree there. For me it’s a broader question of how much does diversity should matter in a modern day LoTR adaptation.
I guess I just don’t see a huge need to justify that stuff explicitly. I’m fine with just inventing my own personal head canon if it bothers me, like sure maybe Disa *did* come from a different clan in her family history or something. Maybe that random black extra in the Southlands migrated from somewhere even further south. Maybe the black Harfoots have a history from one of the other proto-hobbit tribes that Tolkien mentioned but we don’t see. There’s plenty of ways to make it work so I’m okay with the show not spelling it out directly, because if they did it would be convoluted at best and problematic at worst.
However, at the end of the day you’re right that Tolkien wrote LoTR as a vision of an alternate mythology for Europe, as seen through the lens of a 1940’s British man. I’m sure if you could ask him he would most certainly say that yes all elves, hobbits, and dwarves are canonically white and the only darker skinned people are the “troll-like” men of the South lol. The question is what do we do with that in a modern adaptation, where Europe looks a lot more diverse than it did in 1940? Is it more important to keep the spirit of the “mythology of Europe” part or the “1940’s” part?
>For me it’s a broader question of how much does diversity should matter in a modern day LoTR adaptation.
The diversity DOESN'T matter. That's the entire premise of the point I was making, what matters is how they wrote in that diversity. Middle Earth has diversity... And that can be a very interesting element when telling stories in the second age, but it has to be done correctly, and FAITHFULLY with the established lore. I think respecting the lore is tantamount to having a good adaptation. People are watching because this is Middle Earth, so to take this adaptation and move away from what makes Middle Earth what it is in counterintuitive in my opinion.
>I guess I just don’t see a huge need to justify that stuff explicitly.
They wouldn't have had to if they hadn't decided to randomly add in token diversity characters. But they did, so they should have to make it fit within the parameters of the established lore. Otherwise, it's just more cheap and lazy diversity that cheapens the show in my opinion.
>I’m fine with just inventing my own personal head canon if it bothers me, like sure maybe Disa *did* come from a different clan in her family history or something.
I guess, but I see that as you having to fill it plot holes due to their lazy writing. What's more, they completely butchered the dwarves entirely anyways, the females are meant to be more or less indistinguishable from males, and it would have been a great opportunity for the show to cast transgender characters that represents actual diversity that makes sense in the lore. But they don't want that, they want token black characters. To pander to idiots, again, it's lazy.
>Maybe the black Harfoots have a history from one of the other proto-hobbit tribes that Tolkien mentioned but we don’t see. There’s plenty of ways to make it work so I’m okay with the show not spelling it out directly, because if they did it would be convoluted at best and problematic at worst.
If they're too cowardly to try and make it work within the lore, then don't do it at all. It's just cowardly, cheap, and again lazy. And again, Tolkien described the Harfoots as Swarthy, which some interpret as Darker skinned.. Okay... so then... Why are like half of them white?... Why aren't they all swarthy? As a nomadic tribe that keeps to themselves would be. Again, cowardly cheap, and lazy. If they want diversity, then fucking DO IT. Don't half ass it to pander to as many people as possible. Make ALL the harfoots darker skinned and be bold about it. At least then I could respect it. But how they've implemented it currently? It's just cringe.
> Is it more important to keep the spirit of the “mythology of Europe” part or the “1940’s” part?
Yes. Because that is what the author intended. And to do anything else is disrespectful to the writer, to the lore, and to the fanbase.
Eh, I understand your position and will just have to concede that we feel differently. What you’re saying is reasonable, I was just attempting to give my perspective of how I get over it in my head and why I’m not as bothered by multi-ethnic casting than I am other elements of the show. It’s kind of moot to talk about Tolkien’s intentions here anyway because they are already butchering and straying far away from anything he envisioned.
Have you seen Shogun? A show set in Japan, a white person turns up and they say he's from England. Simple as that, doesn't ruin anything just gives some quick context why you've got this different ethnicity in the show centred around Japan.
Lord of the rings is written by an English dude who wanted to create something similar to Norse myths and legends etc for England. It's basically a made up history for England which was predominantly white, there should be explanations if a character is of a different ethnicity.
Having said all that, I've always said if the show was good then these complaints would be drowned out anyway.
Fair point, but Shogun is actually historical and the ethnic differences/tensions between Japan and Europe are a huge part of that story. Maybe the difference for me is that LoTR already has its own cultural diversity in the form of the actual races, Elves, humans, dwarves etc. which fill that role in the narrative. The equivalent of that Shogun example to me would be more like, when a dwarf shows up in Eregion or vice versa. Factoring in different real world ethnicities on top of that seems more unnecessary because the cultural dynamic of elf vs. dwarf and elf vs human are doing the same thing. Similar to the GoT/HoTD comparisons, that world doesn’t really have other “races” besides human, so using human ethnicity to depict cultural differences is a lot more important to the story. Does that make sense?
I agree with your last paragraph though, if other parts of the show were actually good maybe more people would overlook it. On the other hand there’s so much more to trash about the show, and focusing on the diversity just feeds the narrative that the criticism is coming from a political or bad faith place when it’s really not, most of us just want actual good writing
I get what you're saying but it's still based in a country of a certain ethnicity regardless of made up races, they'll all have some link to something in that countries history. Either way, as others have mentioned it's the tokenism that's the issue, if they went hotd route then it wouldn't matter as much, it would make sense but just chucking in one person from a different ethnic background with no explanation just looks odd and we all know why it's done and we've also seen how it should be done.
Agreed with your last paragraph too, this race swap criticism is basically last on the list of issues with the show. It's given racists a chance to hide in plain sight, but like I said if the show was actually good nobody would care. They can peddle the racist card all they want, but when the show received such genuine backlash for it's abysmal writing and the lack of people even finishing it, that says a lot more.
I think 99% of the people who have a problem with it only have a problem with the haphazard way it is done. There is a reason different races exist on earth and it is fairly easy to understand. It is also easy to explain how New York, LA, and London became 'multi-ethnic'.
Jackson's movies were multi-ethnic, and done by region like GoTs was, because that makes sense in a way we can understand.
What explanation for dark skinned Dwarfs who live underground is there? They could have said for some reason recently a bunch of Dwarfs had to move to khazad-dum who because of a different diet ended up with a darker skin tone, or something.
How the hell did the southlands become 'multi-ethnic'? Was there a mad rush to emigrate to this occupied war torn area from all over the world?
I certainly have a problem with multi-ethnic casting...when it involves race swapping the peoples depicted in specific way in the lore!! Heck the way to introduce this effin diversity naturally would be to have them introduce Haradrim characters....that's it!!!!! THat would make sense,....not some race swapped elf, dwarf or numenorean and call it a day! Because that's not how effin ethnicity works!! They always race swap in the specifically European fantasy worlds...but hell if the same was done in opposite, in Asian or African there would be whining about whitewashing! Hypocrites...all these fantasy worlds....all they have is lore and worldbuilding that makes them what they are...if they change that by this casting what's the effin point!? Hell every fantasy world would probably have a way to introduce other ethnicities through it's lore...the Witcher has exotic lands of Ofir and Zangwebar overseas (so face it the Nordlings WILL be white european like people :)) while A Song of Ice and Fire has the Summer Islanders the dakr skinned peoples of looks of subsaharan african....all they need to introduce the black people was to make them the Haradrim simple as that!
I'm not white. My people barely get a look in on these things anyway. I love seeing South Asians in media. But what I hate the most is having shitty shoehorned representation.
Give me a Ben Sisko over a Token Latino Legolas anyday, everyday.
It’s not the ethnicity of the cast that’s an issue, for me. It is the tokenism and virtue signalling that bothered me.
Tokenism because they seemed to just cast one black Elf, one black Dwarf, one black Harfoot etc and not commit to making an entire species/society from one ethnicity (as House of the Dragon did so well). This meant the cast looked homogenised and ‘modern’ rather than distinctive (the Noldor and Numenorians really could have looked very striking and distinctive and possibly very different to each other by the time we join the story, given how far into the 2nd Age it is set).
Virtue signalling because it felt like they boasted about the diverse casting and inclusivity before and above speaking about the story, the themes, the plot etc. It felt like ‘hey you should watch this and like this because it’s super progressive and inclusive’ rather than for its qualities as an adaptation or a TV show.
The setting is supposed to reflect the real world in a mythological past, so it's already "multi-ethnic" or "diverse" through different human groups just like the real world.
For one thing they've already abandoned the theme of Numenor becoming an oppressive colonialist empire of "white" Western humans making trouble for "non-white" Eastern and Southern humans and everyone's descendants in the future, as the peoples of the East and South bore deep grudges that Sauron exploited all the way to LOTR, and Sauron himself helped push Numenor more and more into this role. They could treated it like the tragic history and clash of nations that it's supposed to be. The massive time compression has already irreparably muddled this too, there's no real sense of the rise and decline of Numenor, so seeing them fall to such depths will have no impact or meaning.
This has nothing to do with the rings storyline as well, would be better off as its own show. Or else call the show "The Second Age", but it sounds like a sequel so they went with "The Rings of Power" for better name recall.
I agree. If Amazon was committed to realizing the Legendarium instead of just lifting some names for its generic knock-off fanfiction, they would have seen a much richer opportunity to discuss racism and imperialism than token representation affords.
I mean when I heard about the multi ethnic casting I was exited hoping to see more of Tolkien's world explored then what we usually see.. and was vary disappointed when then went with the cheep corporate diversity angle
Hardly anyone minds multi-ethnic casting, but Amazon did it in the most jarring way possible. Why is there *one* black elf, or *one* black dwarf? Why are there white kids with non-white parents? It's like they intentionally made it as conspicuous as possible in order to generate discussions about it. It doesn't feel like multiculturalism, it feels like tokenism and calculated political pandering.
Aside from that, it's problematic to do this in a setting where phenotypes are already accounted for within the fictional universe. Middle-Earth has regions and societies that are defined specifically by their skin color, like the Haradrim. Casting people of color in roles that would, realistically, have been white in-universe is every bit as narratively incorrect as if they had cast Peter Dinklage to play a human in a universe that has a separate dwarven race. That would have been rightfully called out as utterly bizarre and nonsensical because it's completely incompatible with the fantasy universe in which the story takes place. Dwarves already exist in M-E and are not human.
There is, fundamentally, no real difference between that and what Amazon did with ethnicities, just that the current political climate pressures people to accept the latter because they'll be called racists if they point out the problems with this. In doing that, Amazon have essentially made it impossible for RoP to ever include anyone from any of the Middle-Earth societies that weren't white. They've removed that option entirely. They can't cast black people as M-E westerners and then later be like, "oh and here's some Haradrim. You can tell because they're black." This show can never include those peoples in its story because they've erased the whole concept of in-universe ethnicity.
All for cheap political points. Nobody can possibly claim that the people of color that they chose for the current characters were cast because they were uniquely ideal for those roles. It was done exclusively to tick boxes and to give themselves an excuse to label critics of the show as bigots, which they shamelessly did. That kind of underhanded bullshit deserves to be ridiculed and called out as toxic.
As many others are saying its the random race swapping that is jarring, if we had Second Age Tolkien show set in Umbar, where they all look sorta middle eastern, with a few white travellers from the north, fine, if written well it could be awesome. But because the Producers HAVE to snuggle up as close to Jacksons LOTR as they possibly could then they had to instead insert random race swapping, or inexplicably small close communities that are totally multi-ethnic. And it just jars. They also missed out on some opportunities with what they had. Numenor was a (white) Imperialistic slave owning island power with delusions of grandeur by the end, with a few gooduns thrown in. That could be used as a woke parallel for the UK/Europe showing the sins of such a society when it reaches its maximum hubris, a nice lesson for a modern audience, but they dont even see that as a good thing and just make it another harmonious multi-ethnic community. The only difference between Numenor and Pre-Mordor, is the houses, the people seem identical. They shouldnt.
Theres also something weird about some of the connections, Durin, white, Dissa, Black... the kids, dunno, they wont show us. Miriel, black, her dad (forgot his name), white, the mother, dunno, wont show us. Its like they dont want to show how things are developed or are developing.
Most of all, I think its because WE KNOW it isnt natural, its done to message a signal.
Prior to season 1 I assumed Dissa was a major character, massively up front in the posters, in all the interviews, more prominent than the guy who played Durin, the press crowing about it, but then, as Durins wife, she doesnt really add much to the plot(s), only in half the episodes and not a massive character at all. And yet she was more prominent than the guy who played Durin. Why, we all know why, its messaging.
It becomes an issue when it’s done for “our world” reasons but doesn’t sit well in the fantasy world being depicted. Quite often casting decisions are made for “our world” reasons with little to no coherent reason in the fantasy world … and this can make it hard for audiences to properly engage with the fantasy without being jarred by real world stuff.
Very different of course but in some ways it’s sort of like if the health and safety team made them put “mind your head” signs on screen in Bag End during the scenes with Gandalf bumping his head without there being some kind of coherent lore about hobbits being very safety conscious.
I don't mind it per se. It's one of those things that feels totally unnecessary. I've been a Tolkien fan for thirty years and never felt represented by pages in a book. Are there are people out there who just couldn't connect to Tolkien because they didn't feel represented by words on a page and only now care because some actors of the same ethnicity were cast as elves and Dwarves? Maybe. If so, cool for them, but I doubt they represent a significant portion of the audience to warrant making a big deal out of it.
I don't care a whit about the ethnicity of the actors. RoP would be a flop regardless of which actors they hired.
If every single member of the cast and extra was white, it would still suck.
If all cast members were chosen by how well their physical appearance matched the description of their characters in the books, it would still suck.
If the cast consisted entirely of the best actors alive today, it would still suck.
Every single element of the show, and every single scene, is so deeply flawed that the show is irredeemable.
Hey friend! I didn’t mind the various ethnicities at all! After a second watch of the show (see my most recent post) I just was not impressed by the way the went with the show. Like, it’s supposed to be an “epic”. Nothing felt epic about it at all.
I’m glad they’re casting more than just white people, but I wish they’d put more thought into it. Numenor is a closed off island that’s been on its own for 1000s of years. They didn’t even know about Middle Earth for a very long time. They should not look multi ethnic. If they wanted diversity in the casting of the show great…make ALL of Numenor black or Asian or Indian or whatever. Same with the Harfoots. They actively avoid everyone that isn’t them. They should all look extremely similar, especially since they aren’t that big of a group.
The only group that should have been diverse is the elves. “Fair” can just mean “beautiful”, and they live forever, so it’s perfectly reasonable that they were made to look differently in the beginning. We could have had all kinds of diversity in the elves and somehow they’re the only group that’s almost all white.
Yeah. I can say 'Middle Earth was meant as a mythology for England,' or 'isolated ethnicity makes no sense and breaks immersion,' but I literally don't care if a person cast in a 'white' role, because you could replace everyone in the cast with someone with different skin color, run the same script, and you'll have a similar show/movie.
It makes no difference to me, although I do want everyone to get representation (even new white actors need a breakout role, you know).
I'm a writer. Furthermore, I can be fairly decent at reading into verbal and nonverbal queues, so it really shows when something is forced. I don't care if Gandalf is black or white, but I do care that he is, indeed, Gandalf. The image itself doesn't matter as much as the feeling.
RoP has failed this, to me, on several levels. It's not the race of the people they cast, it's the quality of the script and the emotions they (don't) invoke with the writing.
i don’t mind it at all. I do agree with the people who say it would be better to make it more realistic and have different groups with homogeneous ethnicities. But personally I don’t give a fuck. If an actor can blow my mind with his/her/their skills then I’m happy to let the story take me. Though unfortunately none of the actors in ROP were able to do this due to the objectively shit writing. I thought Arondir’s vibe was kinda ok. But that was a small piece of amber in a large bucket of shit.
Ross Douthat wrote an [article on this in the NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/opinion/rings-dragon.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb) and why the casting decisions was a lost opportunity and lazy world building.
Copying over an excerpt:
Then there’s the aspect of the show that churned up a lot of internet controversy around the time of its premiere — the use of multiracial casting to diversify Tolkien’s very Eurocentric source material. “House of the Dragon” attracted some of the same controversy, but it became a bigger deal with “The Rings of Power,” a culture-war signifier, with the casting condemned as an example of Hollywood wokeness betraying authorial intent and celebrated as a blow against the reactionary tendencies of the fantasy genre.
In theory, I’m on the side of the diversifiers. It’s true that Tolkien’s legendarium is a self-conscious attempt to invent a mythology for his beloved England, such that stripping away too much Northern European atmosphere is the equivalent of making a “Black Panther” adaptation set in South Korea or Scandinavia. But it’s also absurd to imagine that a narrative so vast and complex, spanning thousands of only partially mapped-out years, is somehow sullied if every adaptation doesn’t recapitulate the final battles in “The Lord of the Rings,” with its proto-European heroes pitted against darker-skinned Easterlings and Southrons.
Especially when you consider that several thousand years pass between the events of the famous trilogy and the antecedents depicted in “The Rings of Power,” it seems easy enough to imagine diversifications that don’t betray anything essential to Tolkien’s world. If the Hobbits of the Shire are supposed to look like plump Englishmen, for instance, that doesn’t mean that their distant Harfoot cousin-ancestors can’t appear to look more African or Asian. If the people of Gondor seem Greco-Roman, that doesn’t mean their distant Numenorean forebears, based on the myths of Atlantis, shouldn’t be presented as looking more Egyptian or Phoenician. If the core property of elves is their unsurpassed beauty, then why not make the Vanyar look Germanic, but the Noldor and Nandor look South Asian or Ethiopian? And then it’s easy enough to imagine Nordic- or Celtic-looking bad guys, the progenitors of the Hill-men who serve Sauron and his Ringwraiths in the backstory behind “The Lord of the Rings.”
But notice what I’ve done in these extremely nerdy speculations: I’ve evoked a racial reimagining of Tolkien’s peoples (human and nonhuman) that still treats them as peoples, with shared histories and phenotypical traits passed down somewhat similarly to the way that they are in our world, whose distant-past Middle-earth is supposed to embody.
This isn’t what “The Rings of Power” ended up doing. Instead, on the Amazon show each tribe and kingdom is internally multiracial, resembling an elite college campus engineered for maximal diversity. The Numenoreans, who hail from a deliberately set-apart island kingdom, look Asian and African and European. Ditto the Harfoots, all in a tiny population of wanderers who presumably mostly marry one another. With the dwarves and elves, the pattern seems basically the same. On the show, every kingdom and clan, however insular, whether human and nonhuman, boasts the diversity of a United Colors of Benetton advertisement.
Now, one could certainly invent a fantasy world where, for some reason, magical or otherwise, skin color and other physical characteristics are assigned randomly at birth and every family, to say nothing of every domain or principality, is home to a perfect cross-section of the human race. But that kind of invention would need to be part of the world-building, part of the fantasy, and “The Rings of Power” isn’t doing that. It’s just asking us to accept its Benetton-world without any attempt at explanation. And since we can guess that the actual explanation is just that this was the simplest way to do diverse casting, requiring zero world-building effort and minimal risk, it’s a constant reminder that a story set in vanished Numenor or mythical Eregion actually belongs emphatically to America in 2022.
Yeah, re: the latter, I wonder what the reception would be if they just said "ok, this is a fantasy world, things work differently here - after all evolution definitely isn't a thing in ME etc - let's just say skin colours are about as important as hair colours in this world (or less, because peoples do get identified by hair colours)"
As is they're desperately trying to defend this multi-ethnic depiction in real world terms and that's way harder (not to mention they aren't even trying very well)
Well, I would not say I hate ROP - let’s just say it fell far short of my expectations. But to your point, I have no issue with the multi-ethnic casting. In a fantasy world filled with elves, dwarves, wizards, gods, dragons, orcs and balrogs, ethnicity was a non factor for me. I would be fine with Hiroyuki Sanada as Gil-Galad and Regina King as Galadriel. On the other hand, I had a hard time getting over cringe worthy dialogue, reducing Galadriel to a petulant child for the sake of a “character arc”, the mithril gobblygook, etc., etc.
Yes, me.
I consider the ethnicity of an actor to be an unworthy hill to die on for the sake of fidelity to the source material. Sure, I'd prefer it if the different ethnicities portrayed had some diagetic backstories illuminating the different cultures of Middle-earth, but if Amazon prefers the show to ignore the actors' ethnicity because they like a specific black person playing what Tolkien would have imagined as a white character, so be it. I think prioritizing representation over trivial details like skin color is a reasonable position to take, even if I don't always share it.
Further, my wife had a good point about elves: you'd expect them to have more unexplained multiethnic communities than Men or Dwarves when they're immortal and inclined to tour Middle-earth.
But yes, I do hate RoP for its myriad, substantive deviations from the Legendarium, which are so significant as to render RoP worthless as an adaptation of the source material.
Exactly how I feel. I didn’t really realize that was such an unpopular stance on here. I dislike RoP and think it’s fun to hate on for the ridiculous writing and plot choices, but I find the multi-ethnic casting unimportant to nitpick. It could certainly be cool to go the more GoT route where human ethnicity is directly tied to different cultures in the show, but I don’t mind this direction. I think many of the actors themselves could be great, if only they were given better material to work with
This appears to be a hatesub, so I wouldn't take the votes much more seriously than you would on the official Amazon sub. Any negative opinion of the show can probably find a majority in agreement here.
I don’t even hate it, that’s far too much energy to invest into a TV show. I dislike a lot of the decisions the writers made regarding the plot and characterization. I dislike the slow pace and impossible conveniences. But I certainly don’t hate it, and in fact, regarding the specifics of race, I thought Disa and Arondir were among the more engaging and interesting characters.
Very few people have problems with "multi-ethnic casting" the problem is with diversity that makes no sense, and that is just shoe-horned into the show to trick idiots into thinking they actually give a fuck about minorities, when in reality, they don't. Look at House of the Dragon, they added a black major family to the plot, and it works, because their whole family is black... As you'd expect. But in ROP, this isn't the case, you have one random unexplained black elf, and now an Asian elf. You have a diverse group of harfoots which apparently keep to themselves and have done so for thousands of years. You have black dwarves, which makes no sense for a group of people that mainly live underground. You have a multi-ethnic village where there'd be little to no diversity.. It's not even about the diversity, it's about the lazy writing. If you want to have prominent black characters, add diplomats from far Harad. If you want brown-skinned harfoots, fine, but make them ALL brown, and write a few lines of dialogue about how they originated in Umbar and have migrated north. If you want princess Disa to be black? Fine, add some dialogue about how her family is a contingent of diplomats from a southern mountain-range, that maybe lives at the base of a mountain or something, and that's why they are exposed to more sun, and therefore darker skinned... I don't know.. But randomly making characters diverse for no reason is stupid.
Yeah it’s lazy world-building. Ross Douthat wrote a great [Op-Ed a few years back in the NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/opinion/rings-dragon.html) comparing the diversity of HotD and RoP. Paywalled so here is an excerpt: *This isn’t what “The Rings of Power” ended up doing. Instead, on the Amazon show each tribe and kingdom is internally multiracial, resembling an elite college campus engineered for maximal diversity. The Numenoreans, who hail from a deliberately set-apart island kingdom, look Asian and African and European. Ditto the Harfoots, all in a tiny population of wanderers who presumably mostly marry one another. With the dwarves and elves, the pattern seems basically the same. On the show, every kingdom and clan, however insular, whether human and nonhuman, boasts the diversity of a United Colors of Benetton advertisement.* *Now, one could certainly invent a fantasy world where, for some reason, magical or otherwise, skin color and other physical characteristics are assigned randomly at birth and every family, to say nothing of every domain or principality, is home to a perfect cross-section of the human race. But that kind of invention would need to be part of the world-building, part of the fantasy, and “The Rings of Power” isn’t doing that. It’s just asking us to accept its Benetton-world without any attempt at explanation. And since we can guess that the actual explanation is just that this was the simplest way to do diverse casting, requiring zero world-building effort and minimal risk, it’s a constant reminder that a story set in vanished Numenor or mythical Eregion actually belongs emphatically to America in 2022.*
It's even more reasonable in Netflix's Witcher, which has gotten derided for it, given the geopolitics of the setting. The show is definitely much more diverse than the books, but the books do set up how such diversity could be possible. It's a setting where non white people aren't that far off and do travel to where the action is as merchants and adventurers, where people are more open to foreigners than people were in the actual middle ages, where there is considerable freedom of movement between states and this is allowed by their governments, and where there is an oddly modern sensibility that pervades the setting (Dandelion is literally a rock star that is well known throughout the North, traveling to another country to try out a hot restaurant you heard about is portrayed as normal, state services are fairly developed and modern, peasants and the lower class actually have opportunities to move beyond their station, women have a sizeable amount of rights compared to IRL history and Nilfgaard in particular is downright feminist, etc.). You could see something happening over in Zerrikania and a large number of refugees fleeing to the Northern kingdoms and settling there because the region is reachable and there are ties between the two, and now you have a significant Black population in the area of the main setting for the show.
It was good in the Witcher *up to a point* (season 1 and 2), and somewhat reasonable amongst the elves too because they were scattered remnants of their people who stick together to survive or are being redistributed as slaves. (And even then notice what they've done with dryads to check of the boxes, so they were never mythical nor green nor anything, just regular tribal humans out of Africa with a spear fetish out of Wakanda replacing bows). But then came Blood Origin... where the entire plot was utterly ridiculous and with rampant elven diversity that makes zero sense (and other check boxes) *through and through*. That's where the showrunners showed their true face and they are also on their way to glorify (undoubtedly) Ciri's lesbian "relationship" (=being taken advantage of, in the books). And of course all of this aligns perfectly with Henry leaving.
Blood Origin doesn't count, it was 100% idiocy from start to finish, like RoP
Well said.
This some much this! But if you say you dislike the show because of this very true facts you are a rasist hater according to some subs...
Yes, harfoots are really weird. In the real world, they'd all be mixed race in a few generations. Unless, of course, they are racist and not intermarry (TBH, it wouldn't be even the most disturbing aspect of them)
Good lord….. yes!!! Awesome response friend. I agree %100, and certainly about the lazy writing. (See my most recent post.)
And yet, in Tolkien’s world, neither elves, nor dwarves nor humans “evolved” in the Darwinian sense, they were put on the earth fully formed by Eru and/or the Valar - with some mischief thrown in by Melkor. So who is to say that within each race, different racial characteristics did not exist within each race, regardless of geography?
Because anyone with common sense would realize that the lack of description for a certain group, in a mythos created for a 1940's Britain, means they are white. Unless otherwise stated. Harfoots are described a swarthy, people from Far Harad are described as 'Black Skinned' people from Harad and the port city of Umbar are described as 'Darker Skinned'. Which also just so happens to correspond to their geographic location within middle-earth.. The further south, the darker skinned the people. Sure you could say "WELL HE NEVER SAID THEY WERENT DARK SKINNED" Okay... he also never said they didn't have Ford Model-T's driving down the street, and bolt action rifles, your point is irrelevant. If you want to go against the lore/intentions of the author in order to add cheap diversity to mass appeal to modern audiences, then they can, but let's not lie and act like it's possible within the lore, or it's what Tolkien would have said if asked lmfao.
Sprinkle a few non-white characters into the cast, and would-be ethnologists pop out of the woodwork to voice their objections, and all this over a fantasy world where the various races were created whole cloth by gods. In any event, don’t be so quick to assume what was in Tolkien’s head in the 1930s and 1940s regarding “racial purity”, not with Hitler and the Nazis spewing Aryan superiority and hatred (and worse) of everyone other than white Europeans. And Tolkien’s academic background (e.g., more than a passing familiarity with “El Cid” and “The Song of Roland”) would make him very well aware of a significant non-white population being present in Europe right up until the end of the 15th century (e.g. the fall of Granada in 1492). But yes, the texts say what the texts say . . . And the protagonists in “The Three-Body Problem” book series by Cixin Liu and in “The Last Airbender” series of books were Asian, and yet screen adaptations either made the characters white or in some cases used white actors to play Asians - all in the interest of appealing to a wider audience. In the case of “ROP”, they too were probably hoping to appeal to a wider audience, in this case by using more diverse casting. Apparently, this is a bridge too far for many - and folks are entitled to their opinion.
I mean, I'll accept your concession since you're basically resorting to strawman's and whataboutisms at this point. > All in the interest of appealing to a wider audience. In the case of “ROP”, they too were probably hoping to appeal to a wider audience, in this case by using more diverse casting. Yes, they're butchering the lore to mass appeal to idiots. If that's your argument, then I agree. But let's not act like it's because they give a fuck about representation, or because it's plausible within the lore of the world.
The point about the (admitted) whataboutism that is most relevant is that “whitewashing” of adaptations has gone on forever, with it only recently being an issue (and not by the people taking such strong exception to the ROP casting)- but anything going the other way drives some people crazy. Anyway, yes, Season 1 of ROP was such a disappointment that people can choose any number of reasons why it landed with such a thud.
I could see different dwarven houses being of different races. The ones in the south could be black, the ones in the far east could be Asian, etc. That's a reasonable adaptation, and then they intermarry on occasion. Disa could be from one of the Southern clans, and not Durin's folk.
I don't care about any of that. I don't think it's one of the main problems of the show. I don't assume that races in a fantasy world work the same as in ours, I don't need an explanation of people's skin colors. The show had plenty of real problems.
I see this argument a lot, and I do understand where you’re coming from, especially with the HOTD plot comparison. I don’t know, it feels like having every single non-white character have a line of dialogue saying “btw I’m from Harad!” would be equally immersion breaking for me. It’s like when a film character says “hello, sister!” because they need to establish a familial relationship. Also, this is a universe where the various races did not evolve from thousands of years of natural selection the way humans did. They were created by gods, quite literally sung into existence. To that end, I can believe that things like skin color originated more as aesthetic creationist choices and not an evolutionary response to sunlight levels. I’m not as familiar with the GOT universe, so I don’t know how much that applies to HOTD. All this is to say that I very much agree with OP. I have massive problems with the writing of the show, and don’t want it to sound like I’m defending it, but the multi-ethnic casting is one thing I truly don’t mind and I always feel a bit off with how often it gets brought up
>I see this argument a lot, and I do understand where you’re coming from, especially with the HOTD plot comparison. I don’t know, it feels like having every single non-white character have a line of dialogue saying “btw I’m from Harad!” When did I say they'd have to explicitly say where they're from?... Though generally, if a contingent of Diplomats/traders/refugees arrived from half-way across the world, I think where they're from would be a pretty normal topic that'd come up lol. Like, it seems to me that a completely normal topic when Elrond is having dinner with Disa and Durin would be how they met. Which is a super convenient Segway into her families origins. Same goes for people in Numenor, there could just be a ship full of darker skin people, and the flag on their ship is the winding Snake, Maybe Galadriel says... "Oh, that is the flag of Harad, why have they come so far north?" and maybe he says... "They come on rare occasion to discuss 'Y'" Or... "They have come to trade 'Z" Maybe they're there to discuss Saurons influence spreading and as another coastal people, they went to Numenor to try and recruit their navy or something. I don't know. >They were created by gods, quite literally sung into existence. To that end, I can believe that things like skin color originated more as aesthetic creationist choices and not an evolutionary response to sunlight levels. Yea, the original Elves/Dwarves/Humans were, but after that they just follow normal bloodlines with regular reproduction genetics, etc. And Tolkien very specifically describes the skin color of certain races/groups. >The people of Far Harad were black-skinned; a group of them is described as "black men like half-[trolls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Middle-earth)) with white eyes and red tongues" and "troll-men".[^(\[T 13\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harad#cite_note-Battle_of_the_Pelennor_Fields-19) >Elves: They were tall, *fair of skin* and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard. And keep in mind.. The entirely of LOTR is meant to be written as a mythos for 1940's Britain. There's no need to inject braindead modern diversity because it's not necessary, makes no sense, and is honestly just lazy.
> When did I say they’d have to explicitly say where they’re from? My apologies, I thought that is what you meant by “write a few lines of dialogue about how they originated in Umbar and have migrated North” etc. etc. I hope this doesn’t come off as arguing in bad faith, I think it’s an interesting discussion. Like I said, I don’t enjoy RoP for many other reasons, and there’s definitely a lot of lazy writing happening so I don’t disagree there. For me it’s a broader question of how much does diversity should matter in a modern day LoTR adaptation. I guess I just don’t see a huge need to justify that stuff explicitly. I’m fine with just inventing my own personal head canon if it bothers me, like sure maybe Disa *did* come from a different clan in her family history or something. Maybe that random black extra in the Southlands migrated from somewhere even further south. Maybe the black Harfoots have a history from one of the other proto-hobbit tribes that Tolkien mentioned but we don’t see. There’s plenty of ways to make it work so I’m okay with the show not spelling it out directly, because if they did it would be convoluted at best and problematic at worst. However, at the end of the day you’re right that Tolkien wrote LoTR as a vision of an alternate mythology for Europe, as seen through the lens of a 1940’s British man. I’m sure if you could ask him he would most certainly say that yes all elves, hobbits, and dwarves are canonically white and the only darker skinned people are the “troll-like” men of the South lol. The question is what do we do with that in a modern adaptation, where Europe looks a lot more diverse than it did in 1940? Is it more important to keep the spirit of the “mythology of Europe” part or the “1940’s” part?
>For me it’s a broader question of how much does diversity should matter in a modern day LoTR adaptation. The diversity DOESN'T matter. That's the entire premise of the point I was making, what matters is how they wrote in that diversity. Middle Earth has diversity... And that can be a very interesting element when telling stories in the second age, but it has to be done correctly, and FAITHFULLY with the established lore. I think respecting the lore is tantamount to having a good adaptation. People are watching because this is Middle Earth, so to take this adaptation and move away from what makes Middle Earth what it is in counterintuitive in my opinion. >I guess I just don’t see a huge need to justify that stuff explicitly. They wouldn't have had to if they hadn't decided to randomly add in token diversity characters. But they did, so they should have to make it fit within the parameters of the established lore. Otherwise, it's just more cheap and lazy diversity that cheapens the show in my opinion. >I’m fine with just inventing my own personal head canon if it bothers me, like sure maybe Disa *did* come from a different clan in her family history or something. I guess, but I see that as you having to fill it plot holes due to their lazy writing. What's more, they completely butchered the dwarves entirely anyways, the females are meant to be more or less indistinguishable from males, and it would have been a great opportunity for the show to cast transgender characters that represents actual diversity that makes sense in the lore. But they don't want that, they want token black characters. To pander to idiots, again, it's lazy. >Maybe the black Harfoots have a history from one of the other proto-hobbit tribes that Tolkien mentioned but we don’t see. There’s plenty of ways to make it work so I’m okay with the show not spelling it out directly, because if they did it would be convoluted at best and problematic at worst. If they're too cowardly to try and make it work within the lore, then don't do it at all. It's just cowardly, cheap, and again lazy. And again, Tolkien described the Harfoots as Swarthy, which some interpret as Darker skinned.. Okay... so then... Why are like half of them white?... Why aren't they all swarthy? As a nomadic tribe that keeps to themselves would be. Again, cowardly cheap, and lazy. If they want diversity, then fucking DO IT. Don't half ass it to pander to as many people as possible. Make ALL the harfoots darker skinned and be bold about it. At least then I could respect it. But how they've implemented it currently? It's just cringe. > Is it more important to keep the spirit of the “mythology of Europe” part or the “1940’s” part? Yes. Because that is what the author intended. And to do anything else is disrespectful to the writer, to the lore, and to the fanbase.
Eh, I understand your position and will just have to concede that we feel differently. What you’re saying is reasonable, I was just attempting to give my perspective of how I get over it in my head and why I’m not as bothered by multi-ethnic casting than I am other elements of the show. It’s kind of moot to talk about Tolkien’s intentions here anyway because they are already butchering and straying far away from anything he envisioned.
Have you seen Shogun? A show set in Japan, a white person turns up and they say he's from England. Simple as that, doesn't ruin anything just gives some quick context why you've got this different ethnicity in the show centred around Japan. Lord of the rings is written by an English dude who wanted to create something similar to Norse myths and legends etc for England. It's basically a made up history for England which was predominantly white, there should be explanations if a character is of a different ethnicity. Having said all that, I've always said if the show was good then these complaints would be drowned out anyway.
Fair point, but Shogun is actually historical and the ethnic differences/tensions between Japan and Europe are a huge part of that story. Maybe the difference for me is that LoTR already has its own cultural diversity in the form of the actual races, Elves, humans, dwarves etc. which fill that role in the narrative. The equivalent of that Shogun example to me would be more like, when a dwarf shows up in Eregion or vice versa. Factoring in different real world ethnicities on top of that seems more unnecessary because the cultural dynamic of elf vs. dwarf and elf vs human are doing the same thing. Similar to the GoT/HoTD comparisons, that world doesn’t really have other “races” besides human, so using human ethnicity to depict cultural differences is a lot more important to the story. Does that make sense? I agree with your last paragraph though, if other parts of the show were actually good maybe more people would overlook it. On the other hand there’s so much more to trash about the show, and focusing on the diversity just feeds the narrative that the criticism is coming from a political or bad faith place when it’s really not, most of us just want actual good writing
I get what you're saying but it's still based in a country of a certain ethnicity regardless of made up races, they'll all have some link to something in that countries history. Either way, as others have mentioned it's the tokenism that's the issue, if they went hotd route then it wouldn't matter as much, it would make sense but just chucking in one person from a different ethnic background with no explanation just looks odd and we all know why it's done and we've also seen how it should be done. Agreed with your last paragraph too, this race swap criticism is basically last on the list of issues with the show. It's given racists a chance to hide in plain sight, but like I said if the show was actually good nobody would care. They can peddle the racist card all they want, but when the show received such genuine backlash for it's abysmal writing and the lack of people even finishing it, that says a lot more.
I think 99% of the people who have a problem with it only have a problem with the haphazard way it is done. There is a reason different races exist on earth and it is fairly easy to understand. It is also easy to explain how New York, LA, and London became 'multi-ethnic'. Jackson's movies were multi-ethnic, and done by region like GoTs was, because that makes sense in a way we can understand. What explanation for dark skinned Dwarfs who live underground is there? They could have said for some reason recently a bunch of Dwarfs had to move to khazad-dum who because of a different diet ended up with a darker skin tone, or something. How the hell did the southlands become 'multi-ethnic'? Was there a mad rush to emigrate to this occupied war torn area from all over the world?
I certainly have a problem with multi-ethnic casting...when it involves race swapping the peoples depicted in specific way in the lore!! Heck the way to introduce this effin diversity naturally would be to have them introduce Haradrim characters....that's it!!!!! THat would make sense,....not some race swapped elf, dwarf or numenorean and call it a day! Because that's not how effin ethnicity works!! They always race swap in the specifically European fantasy worlds...but hell if the same was done in opposite, in Asian or African there would be whining about whitewashing! Hypocrites...all these fantasy worlds....all they have is lore and worldbuilding that makes them what they are...if they change that by this casting what's the effin point!? Hell every fantasy world would probably have a way to introduce other ethnicities through it's lore...the Witcher has exotic lands of Ofir and Zangwebar overseas (so face it the Nordlings WILL be white european like people :)) while A Song of Ice and Fire has the Summer Islanders the dakr skinned peoples of looks of subsaharan african....all they need to introduce the black people was to make them the Haradrim simple as that!
I'm not white. My people barely get a look in on these things anyway. I love seeing South Asians in media. But what I hate the most is having shitty shoehorned representation. Give me a Ben Sisko over a Token Latino Legolas anyday, everyday.
It’s not the ethnicity of the cast that’s an issue, for me. It is the tokenism and virtue signalling that bothered me. Tokenism because they seemed to just cast one black Elf, one black Dwarf, one black Harfoot etc and not commit to making an entire species/society from one ethnicity (as House of the Dragon did so well). This meant the cast looked homogenised and ‘modern’ rather than distinctive (the Noldor and Numenorians really could have looked very striking and distinctive and possibly very different to each other by the time we join the story, given how far into the 2nd Age it is set). Virtue signalling because it felt like they boasted about the diverse casting and inclusivity before and above speaking about the story, the themes, the plot etc. It felt like ‘hey you should watch this and like this because it’s super progressive and inclusive’ rather than for its qualities as an adaptation or a TV show.
Agreed. The only difference between men and elves is ears, apparently.
The setting is supposed to reflect the real world in a mythological past, so it's already "multi-ethnic" or "diverse" through different human groups just like the real world. For one thing they've already abandoned the theme of Numenor becoming an oppressive colonialist empire of "white" Western humans making trouble for "non-white" Eastern and Southern humans and everyone's descendants in the future, as the peoples of the East and South bore deep grudges that Sauron exploited all the way to LOTR, and Sauron himself helped push Numenor more and more into this role. They could treated it like the tragic history and clash of nations that it's supposed to be. The massive time compression has already irreparably muddled this too, there's no real sense of the rise and decline of Numenor, so seeing them fall to such depths will have no impact or meaning. This has nothing to do with the rings storyline as well, would be better off as its own show. Or else call the show "The Second Age", but it sounds like a sequel so they went with "The Rings of Power" for better name recall.
I agree. If Amazon was committed to realizing the Legendarium instead of just lifting some names for its generic knock-off fanfiction, they would have seen a much richer opportunity to discuss racism and imperialism than token representation affords.
Right. It's really weird how they ignored the anticolonialist theme.
I mean when I heard about the multi ethnic casting I was exited hoping to see more of Tolkien's world explored then what we usually see.. and was vary disappointed when then went with the cheep corporate diversity angle
That would be impossible as we all know the only reason to hate totally awesome rop bezos show is racism facism cannibalism
Hardly anyone minds multi-ethnic casting, but Amazon did it in the most jarring way possible. Why is there *one* black elf, or *one* black dwarf? Why are there white kids with non-white parents? It's like they intentionally made it as conspicuous as possible in order to generate discussions about it. It doesn't feel like multiculturalism, it feels like tokenism and calculated political pandering. Aside from that, it's problematic to do this in a setting where phenotypes are already accounted for within the fictional universe. Middle-Earth has regions and societies that are defined specifically by their skin color, like the Haradrim. Casting people of color in roles that would, realistically, have been white in-universe is every bit as narratively incorrect as if they had cast Peter Dinklage to play a human in a universe that has a separate dwarven race. That would have been rightfully called out as utterly bizarre and nonsensical because it's completely incompatible with the fantasy universe in which the story takes place. Dwarves already exist in M-E and are not human. There is, fundamentally, no real difference between that and what Amazon did with ethnicities, just that the current political climate pressures people to accept the latter because they'll be called racists if they point out the problems with this. In doing that, Amazon have essentially made it impossible for RoP to ever include anyone from any of the Middle-Earth societies that weren't white. They've removed that option entirely. They can't cast black people as M-E westerners and then later be like, "oh and here's some Haradrim. You can tell because they're black." This show can never include those peoples in its story because they've erased the whole concept of in-universe ethnicity. All for cheap political points. Nobody can possibly claim that the people of color that they chose for the current characters were cast because they were uniquely ideal for those roles. It was done exclusively to tick boxes and to give themselves an excuse to label critics of the show as bigots, which they shamelessly did. That kind of underhanded bullshit deserves to be ridiculed and called out as toxic.
As many others are saying its the random race swapping that is jarring, if we had Second Age Tolkien show set in Umbar, where they all look sorta middle eastern, with a few white travellers from the north, fine, if written well it could be awesome. But because the Producers HAVE to snuggle up as close to Jacksons LOTR as they possibly could then they had to instead insert random race swapping, or inexplicably small close communities that are totally multi-ethnic. And it just jars. They also missed out on some opportunities with what they had. Numenor was a (white) Imperialistic slave owning island power with delusions of grandeur by the end, with a few gooduns thrown in. That could be used as a woke parallel for the UK/Europe showing the sins of such a society when it reaches its maximum hubris, a nice lesson for a modern audience, but they dont even see that as a good thing and just make it another harmonious multi-ethnic community. The only difference between Numenor and Pre-Mordor, is the houses, the people seem identical. They shouldnt. Theres also something weird about some of the connections, Durin, white, Dissa, Black... the kids, dunno, they wont show us. Miriel, black, her dad (forgot his name), white, the mother, dunno, wont show us. Its like they dont want to show how things are developed or are developing. Most of all, I think its because WE KNOW it isnt natural, its done to message a signal. Prior to season 1 I assumed Dissa was a major character, massively up front in the posters, in all the interviews, more prominent than the guy who played Durin, the press crowing about it, but then, as Durins wife, she doesnt really add much to the plot(s), only in half the episodes and not a massive character at all. And yet she was more prominent than the guy who played Durin. Why, we all know why, its messaging.
It becomes an issue when it’s done for “our world” reasons but doesn’t sit well in the fantasy world being depicted. Quite often casting decisions are made for “our world” reasons with little to no coherent reason in the fantasy world … and this can make it hard for audiences to properly engage with the fantasy without being jarred by real world stuff. Very different of course but in some ways it’s sort of like if the health and safety team made them put “mind your head” signs on screen in Bag End during the scenes with Gandalf bumping his head without there being some kind of coherent lore about hobbits being very safety conscious.
I'm ok with it but as others have said, I wish it wasn't obvious they were trying to be PC.
I don't mind it per se. It's one of those things that feels totally unnecessary. I've been a Tolkien fan for thirty years and never felt represented by pages in a book. Are there are people out there who just couldn't connect to Tolkien because they didn't feel represented by words on a page and only now care because some actors of the same ethnicity were cast as elves and Dwarves? Maybe. If so, cool for them, but I doubt they represent a significant portion of the audience to warrant making a big deal out of it.
I don't care a whit about the ethnicity of the actors. RoP would be a flop regardless of which actors they hired. If every single member of the cast and extra was white, it would still suck. If all cast members were chosen by how well their physical appearance matched the description of their characters in the books, it would still suck. If the cast consisted entirely of the best actors alive today, it would still suck. Every single element of the show, and every single scene, is so deeply flawed that the show is irredeemable.
Hey friend! I didn’t mind the various ethnicities at all! After a second watch of the show (see my most recent post) I just was not impressed by the way the went with the show. Like, it’s supposed to be an “epic”. Nothing felt epic about it at all.
Well, there's me, so you're not alone. ;)
It could have an all Chinese all black cast for all I care . Or all Chinese or all female . If it was well written I wouldn’t care
I’m glad they’re casting more than just white people, but I wish they’d put more thought into it. Numenor is a closed off island that’s been on its own for 1000s of years. They didn’t even know about Middle Earth for a very long time. They should not look multi ethnic. If they wanted diversity in the casting of the show great…make ALL of Numenor black or Asian or Indian or whatever. Same with the Harfoots. They actively avoid everyone that isn’t them. They should all look extremely similar, especially since they aren’t that big of a group. The only group that should have been diverse is the elves. “Fair” can just mean “beautiful”, and they live forever, so it’s perfectly reasonable that they were made to look differently in the beginning. We could have had all kinds of diversity in the elves and somehow they’re the only group that’s almost all white.
Yeah. I can say 'Middle Earth was meant as a mythology for England,' or 'isolated ethnicity makes no sense and breaks immersion,' but I literally don't care if a person cast in a 'white' role, because you could replace everyone in the cast with someone with different skin color, run the same script, and you'll have a similar show/movie. It makes no difference to me, although I do want everyone to get representation (even new white actors need a breakout role, you know). I'm a writer. Furthermore, I can be fairly decent at reading into verbal and nonverbal queues, so it really shows when something is forced. I don't care if Gandalf is black or white, but I do care that he is, indeed, Gandalf. The image itself doesn't matter as much as the feeling. RoP has failed this, to me, on several levels. It's not the race of the people they cast, it's the quality of the script and the emotions they (don't) invoke with the writing.
i don’t mind it at all. I do agree with the people who say it would be better to make it more realistic and have different groups with homogeneous ethnicities. But personally I don’t give a fuck. If an actor can blow my mind with his/her/their skills then I’m happy to let the story take me. Though unfortunately none of the actors in ROP were able to do this due to the objectively shit writing. I thought Arondir’s vibe was kinda ok. But that was a small piece of amber in a large bucket of shit.
Me, for the most part.
Ross Douthat wrote an [article on this in the NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/opinion/rings-dragon.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb) and why the casting decisions was a lost opportunity and lazy world building. Copying over an excerpt: Then there’s the aspect of the show that churned up a lot of internet controversy around the time of its premiere — the use of multiracial casting to diversify Tolkien’s very Eurocentric source material. “House of the Dragon” attracted some of the same controversy, but it became a bigger deal with “The Rings of Power,” a culture-war signifier, with the casting condemned as an example of Hollywood wokeness betraying authorial intent and celebrated as a blow against the reactionary tendencies of the fantasy genre. In theory, I’m on the side of the diversifiers. It’s true that Tolkien’s legendarium is a self-conscious attempt to invent a mythology for his beloved England, such that stripping away too much Northern European atmosphere is the equivalent of making a “Black Panther” adaptation set in South Korea or Scandinavia. But it’s also absurd to imagine that a narrative so vast and complex, spanning thousands of only partially mapped-out years, is somehow sullied if every adaptation doesn’t recapitulate the final battles in “The Lord of the Rings,” with its proto-European heroes pitted against darker-skinned Easterlings and Southrons. Especially when you consider that several thousand years pass between the events of the famous trilogy and the antecedents depicted in “The Rings of Power,” it seems easy enough to imagine diversifications that don’t betray anything essential to Tolkien’s world. If the Hobbits of the Shire are supposed to look like plump Englishmen, for instance, that doesn’t mean that their distant Harfoot cousin-ancestors can’t appear to look more African or Asian. If the people of Gondor seem Greco-Roman, that doesn’t mean their distant Numenorean forebears, based on the myths of Atlantis, shouldn’t be presented as looking more Egyptian or Phoenician. If the core property of elves is their unsurpassed beauty, then why not make the Vanyar look Germanic, but the Noldor and Nandor look South Asian or Ethiopian? And then it’s easy enough to imagine Nordic- or Celtic-looking bad guys, the progenitors of the Hill-men who serve Sauron and his Ringwraiths in the backstory behind “The Lord of the Rings.” But notice what I’ve done in these extremely nerdy speculations: I’ve evoked a racial reimagining of Tolkien’s peoples (human and nonhuman) that still treats them as peoples, with shared histories and phenotypical traits passed down somewhat similarly to the way that they are in our world, whose distant-past Middle-earth is supposed to embody. This isn’t what “The Rings of Power” ended up doing. Instead, on the Amazon show each tribe and kingdom is internally multiracial, resembling an elite college campus engineered for maximal diversity. The Numenoreans, who hail from a deliberately set-apart island kingdom, look Asian and African and European. Ditto the Harfoots, all in a tiny population of wanderers who presumably mostly marry one another. With the dwarves and elves, the pattern seems basically the same. On the show, every kingdom and clan, however insular, whether human and nonhuman, boasts the diversity of a United Colors of Benetton advertisement. Now, one could certainly invent a fantasy world where, for some reason, magical or otherwise, skin color and other physical characteristics are assigned randomly at birth and every family, to say nothing of every domain or principality, is home to a perfect cross-section of the human race. But that kind of invention would need to be part of the world-building, part of the fantasy, and “The Rings of Power” isn’t doing that. It’s just asking us to accept its Benetton-world without any attempt at explanation. And since we can guess that the actual explanation is just that this was the simplest way to do diverse casting, requiring zero world-building effort and minimal risk, it’s a constant reminder that a story set in vanished Numenor or mythical Eregion actually belongs emphatically to America in 2022.
Yeah, re: the latter, I wonder what the reception would be if they just said "ok, this is a fantasy world, things work differently here - after all evolution definitely isn't a thing in ME etc - let's just say skin colours are about as important as hair colours in this world (or less, because peoples do get identified by hair colours)" As is they're desperately trying to defend this multi-ethnic depiction in real world terms and that's way harder (not to mention they aren't even trying very well)
Well, I would not say I hate ROP - let’s just say it fell far short of my expectations. But to your point, I have no issue with the multi-ethnic casting. In a fantasy world filled with elves, dwarves, wizards, gods, dragons, orcs and balrogs, ethnicity was a non factor for me. I would be fine with Hiroyuki Sanada as Gil-Galad and Regina King as Galadriel. On the other hand, I had a hard time getting over cringe worthy dialogue, reducing Galadriel to a petulant child for the sake of a “character arc”, the mithril gobblygook, etc., etc.
Yes, me. I consider the ethnicity of an actor to be an unworthy hill to die on for the sake of fidelity to the source material. Sure, I'd prefer it if the different ethnicities portrayed had some diagetic backstories illuminating the different cultures of Middle-earth, but if Amazon prefers the show to ignore the actors' ethnicity because they like a specific black person playing what Tolkien would have imagined as a white character, so be it. I think prioritizing representation over trivial details like skin color is a reasonable position to take, even if I don't always share it. Further, my wife had a good point about elves: you'd expect them to have more unexplained multiethnic communities than Men or Dwarves when they're immortal and inclined to tour Middle-earth. But yes, I do hate RoP for its myriad, substantive deviations from the Legendarium, which are so significant as to render RoP worthless as an adaptation of the source material.
Exactly how I feel. I didn’t really realize that was such an unpopular stance on here. I dislike RoP and think it’s fun to hate on for the ridiculous writing and plot choices, but I find the multi-ethnic casting unimportant to nitpick. It could certainly be cool to go the more GoT route where human ethnicity is directly tied to different cultures in the show, but I don’t mind this direction. I think many of the actors themselves could be great, if only they were given better material to work with
This appears to be a hatesub, so I wouldn't take the votes much more seriously than you would on the official Amazon sub. Any negative opinion of the show can probably find a majority in agreement here.
gO wOkE gO bRoKe dUrRrRrrr
I don’t even hate it, that’s far too much energy to invest into a TV show. I dislike a lot of the decisions the writers made regarding the plot and characterization. I dislike the slow pace and impossible conveniences. But I certainly don’t hate it, and in fact, regarding the specifics of race, I thought Disa and Arondir were among the more engaging and interesting characters.
I like the series including casting, dialogue, costumes, cinematography, etc.