Social Amazon's LOTR Got Tokenized

Given that Middle Earth is a pastiche of actual earth, where the Southern and Eastern races are represented as evil and savage, you understand why they had to make changes. Race is central to Tolkiens work, it follows a very precise and thought out logic and it's from where morality is mainly drawn. Black hobbits actually doesn't make any sense in the universe it's set in. "Swarthy" is basically a marker for evil. In our hyperpolitical climate it's clear why that type of binary use of race can't be used. Good might be capable of evil acts in Tolkiens work but Evil is not capable of good.
 
as long as the really bad guys still have cockney accents im ok with it.

Haha Tolkien stated that he "translated" (made) the orcs speech as cockney as they speak a debased version of Westron, which he translated to his own accent of Received Pronunciation/standard English (Cambridge/Oxford English). Spoken by the wizards, numenorians and hobbits (who learnt it from rangers or something).

Cockneys supposedly speaking a debased version of RP "shine ya shoes guvna", notice the non rhotic pronunciation of Governor (with the ending or sound pronounced as an ah not er like it is in rhotic accents like American or regional British/Irish/Scottish etc). Americans will claim Middle English (Shakespearean) sounded more American than standard English due to this rhotic non rhotic shift but that ignores the fact the vast majority of English accents that weren't upper class London accents (or poor Londoner's doing a haphazard attempt) didn't shift to Received pronunciation, with Middle English sounding to the modern ear closest to West Country (Hollywood pirate accent). Which is fairly accurate as the golden age of piracy occurred before the rhotic non rhotic shift and included many West Country sailors in their ranks (treasure island starts off in the West Country at the admiral Benbow inn).
 
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It doesn’t bother me at all whether they add races to middle earth so long as it is good. I hate when they change the race of historical or change the canon of a character for the purposes of being woke-example, Superman.

But the whee of time(Amazon’s fantasy series) was my favorite of the last few years, so I have faith this will turn out good.
 
Is this something I'm supposed to get triggered by?
Not exactly.

Basically, whenever a poc is added to a film, "woke" people instantly receive the blessing "Aura Of Wokeness" for up to 2d10 days. The blessing grants you small, daily, joy-joy benefits, like 50% shorter lines at Starbucks, for example.

On the other hand, if you're anti-woke, you are cursed for 2d10 days with an uncontrollable urge to buy ammo, post memes, and cover your car with edgy bumper stickers.

If you're neither of those things, you're useless to us. Kindly leave.
 
If they were to go make a Chushingura movie and make the 47 Ronin all be Mexicans and Black and it takes place in Russia then you might have a fucking point.


meh, it's a story about sword fighting bums, who gives a shit.
 
Given that Middle Earth is a pastiche of actual earth, where the Southern and Eastern races are represented as evil and savage, you understand why they had to make changes. Race is central to Tolkiens work, it follows a very precise and thought out logic and it's from where morality is mainly drawn. Black hobbits actually doesn't make any sense in the universe it's set in. "Swarthy" is basically a marker for evil. In our hyperpolitical climate it's clear why that type of binary use of race can't be used. Good might be capable of evil acts in Tolkiens work but Evil is not capable of good.


It is fantasy dumb dumb. Wizards and all seeing giant magic eyeballs don't actually exist.
 
If the casting is good and show is good then no one will care but if it's garbage people will blame the wokeness. I have no hope for this one after watching the WoT dumpster fire though.
WoT are amongst my favourite books, so I haven’t dared watched the TV show yet.
 
Imagine being adult and spending your time watching cartoons and this kind of garbage lmao

Fucking nerds, I swear
 
This is the issue -

Remember Rogue One? Its widely considered to be Disney's best Star Wars movie. It had a very 'diverse' cast of rebel characters that went on a suicide mission at the end. The ending of it ties directly into the Original Trilogy, where practically everyone's white.


This new Amazon series is a prequel to The Hobbit, set with many 'diverse' characters. Soooo... what happens to them all in the canon that leads to The Hobbit and TLOU's characters all being white?

The smooth-brain response to this question is "You're just a smooth-brain racist that doesn't like actors not being white!" To which I would say "I don't like racial checklists in castings. Studios should be respectful of the original source material (yes, this series is based on Tolkien's writings) description of characters and races, or else they become 'Tokenized' characters. If they want to have diverse castings in fantasy shows, great, go make a whole new fantasy series based on books with diverse characters, or not based on any books at all. I'll happily watch it with no complaints regarding the castings if their performances don't suck."

It's not that you're racist, it's just that you sound racist, because it's hard to come up with many other reasons to try and explain your thought process on this other than an ad hominem.
It's like you don't understand that what exists in the movie world is going to be a direct reflection of what exists in real life.

That's why this "make your new/own _____" is really dumb.
In your world, Lando was the last black guy in the Star WArs universe, so there couldn't be anymore black people in future Star War installments. You literally can apply this to the majority of movies and TV and use it to say that there shouldn't be any other people of color or gender or sexuality in them because these people weren't there in the 70's when the story was made.
Lol Like, you have to have some understanding of reality and know that people of color didn't exist in these stories because they were intentionally left out. So your argument is to keep the exclusion up because that's how it started?
 
It's not that you're racist, it's just that you sound racist, because it's hard to come up with many other reasons to try and explain your thought process on this other than an ad hominem.

Its funny you said 'ad hominem' at the end here, because the definition of ad hominem is attacking the person making an argument rather than the argument itself.

It's like you don't understand that what exists in the movie world is going to be a direct reflection of what exists in real life

Actually no, fiction doesn't have to be a direct reflection of real life, and vice-versa.

In real life there's :eek::eek::eek::eek:phile cultists that sacrifice babies to satan. That doesn't mean there needs to be :eek::eek::eek::eek:phile cultists sacrificing babies to satan in the new Neverending Story remake.

That's why this "make your new/own _____" is really dumb.
In your world, Lando was the last black guy in the Star WArs universe, so there couldn't be anymore black people in future Star War installments.

*Sign* No, there's numerous 'POC' characters in the Star Wars EU books and comic books that was approved and authorized by George Lucas, but Disney de-canconized it. But Disney left the OT canon, and created sequel trilogy and Rogue One, which are filled with POC characters.

As for 'Create you own ____ is stupid' why is it again? No one was complaining of the lack of white people in Black Panther. Why not a fantasy series filled with various ethnic races? I'd watch that.



You literally can apply this to the majority of movies and TV and use it to say that there shouldn't be any other people of color or gender or sexuality in them because these people weren't there in the 70's when the story was made.

No, my point is there shouldn't be diversity quotas for adapting long-established fantasy series, against the lore.

As for sexuality, oh sure, that's exactly the LoTR needs, gay elves, bisexual dwarves, and transexual hobbits. Because fiction must be reflective of real life....

...although LGBTQ+ community represents less than 1% of the world's population, but must represent FAR more than that amongst movies and TV characters.

Lol Like, you have to have some understanding of reality and know that people of color didn't exist in these stories because they were intentionally left out. So your argument is to keep the exclusion up because that's how it started?

Funny you say 'exclusion' as if they're not welcome. Was white people 'excluded' from Black Panther roles? Studios adapting fantasy series should be finding the best actors for roles, rather than making checkmarks on diversity checklists.

Should Black Panther have a nearly all black cast? Yes, because that's the lore.

In this situation its in the contracts with Tolkien's family to stay true to the descriptions of characters in Tolkien's source material. So, what does Amazon do? They created their OWN NEW DIVERSITY CHARACTERS. Got to admit that's a clever loophole, but everybody knows the bullshit they're trying to pull.
 
@SmilinDesperado

Well summarized by Razorfist.


that onering posting is retarded.
i'll quote myself concerning that whole "oh tolkien would have been on our side" bullshit - libtards today imagine Tolkien, a white conservative catholic monarchist who supported the fascist side of the Spanish civil war, would somehow be on their side in this and wouldn't oppose everything they stand for. insanity.

and 2. toxicity comes first and foremost from these hacks that are desperate to wedge "diversity" into any section of human activity. their intention is not to create, but to destroy. people watch fantasy for escapism, not to see an exact replica of the current political zeitgeist. you have to be a delirious narcissist to imagine projecting yourself into every work is somehow legitimate. they ruined Star Wars with it, now it's LoTR time. they won't stop until everything is mediocre and beige, just just themselves.
 
not sure I follow?

The Hobbit was a shitty, obvious and just horrendously low-quality cash grab, that strayed wildly from the original work - to the extent that it isn't actually consistent either with the book series or the cinematic universe it was meant to add to. They stretched a children's book out into three slow, stupid movies to which they couldn't add enough filler to maintain much pace. And the filler they did add, was often cheap SFX side-shows that added nothing to the story or the characters (many of whom were underdeveloped, because the book already had too many characters, and the movie felt the need to add more).

This Netflix show just doesn't give a shit about the source material. And it's treating Tolkien's work like the Star Wars franchise treated fan fiction: completely ignoring it and casting it aside. It's one thing doing that to fan fiction, it's another doing it to Tolkien.
So, they basically just slapped blackface on the corpse of Tolkien to try and protect themselves from criticism over their treatment of his work and to earn the acclaim their talent doesn't deserve.
 
As for sexuality, oh sure, that's exactly the LoTR needs, gay elves, bisexual dwarves, and transexual hobbits. Because fiction must be reflective of real life....

...although LGBTQ+ community represents less than 1% of the world's population, but must represent FAR more than that amongst movies and TV characters.



Funny you say 'exclusion' as if they're not welcome. Was white people 'excluded' from Black Panther roles? Studios adapting fantasy series should be finding the best actors for roles, rather than making checkmarks on diversity checklists.


In this situation its in the contracts with Tolkien's family to stay true to the descriptions of characters in Tolkien's source material. So, what does Amazon do? They created their OWN NEW DIVERSITY CHARACTERS. Got to admit that's a clever loophole, but everybody knows the bullshit they're trying to pull.
Its funny you said 'ad hominem' at the end here, because the definition of ad hominem is attacking the person making an argument rather than the argument itself.
I know. My point was that that was what I was trying not to do. So, I'm not calling you a racist, but it is hard to make sense of your argument in any other way.

Actually no, fiction doesn't have to be a direct reflection of real life, and vice-versa.

In real life there's :eek::eek::eek::eek:phile cultists that sacrifice babies to satan. That doesn't mean there needs to be :eek::eek::eek::eek:phile cultists sacrificing babies to satan in the new Neverending Story remake.

Wut????
That's not what I'm saying. I"m talking about the conditions in society and Hollywood...not that :eek::eek::eek::eek:phile cultists need to have equal representation in film.
There were less non-white straight men in Hollywood in the past, and in many cases, intentionally so. There are much more people from every walk in life in Hollywood, so that reality will be reflected in film.

*Sign* No, there's numerous 'POC' characters in the Star Wars EU books and comic books that was approved and authorized by George Lucas, but Disney de-canconized it. But Disney left the OT canon, and created sequel trilogy and Rogue One, which are filled with POC characters.

Who cares about what's in the books and comics? What percentage of the population knows or cares about that? lol Like, are you really worried about keeping racial continuity from comics and books to movies in a movie that has Wookies and light sabers???????
As far as from what I've seen in the movies...since I've never read a Star Wars book, Lando is the only black dude in the universe.

As for 'Create you own ____ is stupid' why is it again? No one was complaining of the lack of white people in Black Panther. Why not a fantasy series filled with various ethnic races? I'd watch that.

Because it isn't reality. Why would studios invest the time and money in unproven projects and characters when they have mega franchises like Star Wars , Lord of the Rings, or James Bond? Why would they waste their time on some knock off version of black Superman when they can just retell the story to update it to the times ? They're trying to sell tickets.
Your example of the Black Panther is terrible. It's a movie based in a fictional AFRICAN country. How else would that possibly work? How could the king of a fictional African nation be white?
Why would every elf, dwarf, and human in Lord of the Rings have to be white?

No, my point is there shouldn't be diversity quotas for adapting long-established fantasy series, against the lore.

The problem with this argument, is that every time a new character comes up it is painted as a "diversity quota". So there basically can only be white people in any franchise that started with white people.

Should Black Panther have a nearly all black cast? Yes, because that's the lore.
It's not just the lore....it's AFRICA.
lol Is Tolkien's world based on the Earth that we know? Were his stories about a world where all the coloreds got wiped out? What relevance to the story does it have that everyone needs to be white?????

What is the point of movies and stories to you? Isn't it to tell stories?????? Unless your movie is about particular races , genders, etc, why does it matter if an elf has brown skin or white?
 
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