Rings of Power (Spoilers inside)

[Tom]

And if they were all "browner of skin" that would work just fine; randomly dropping different ethnicities into pre-industrial societies (mythical or not) is just stupid; there's no in-universe logic to it. Do it because it makes sense, not because it makes you look virtuous with your friends in Soho House.

They're a wandering tribe composed of the remnants of different tribes. That's why some are black, some are white, and some are shades inbetween.

But again, who gives a fuck? It's not history, it's a story. Let them tell it how they like. I'm amazed people care about skin colour in a fantasy story. I got more annoyed about the over-use of music in the series.

 

[DaGaffer]

They're a wandering tribe composed of the remnants of different tribes. That's why some are black, some are white, and some are shades inbetween.

But again, who gives a fuck? It's not history, it's a story. Let them tell it how they like. I'm amazed people care about skin colour in a fantasy story. I got more annoyed about the over-use of music in the series.

World building is a fairly important part of any fantasy story, and this is bad world building; why not just give everyone mobile phones, it's just a fantasy story?

The truth is they didn't have the balls to do it right, so they half-arsed it.

 

[Scouse]

It's not just world-building - it's THE world building story - including the full invention of mythology and complete languages to support his world. No other human has so perfectly realised such a detailed world in literature.

But fine. Fuck with it. It's "just" fantasy.

 

[dysfunction]

Regardless of whether it fits in with the books or not the characters themselves are just carboard cut-outs. They have no substance to them. Their dialogue is piss poor, they have no redeeming qualities. No character development arcs. If someone dies the audience doesnt care because we are not invested in any of the characters. And the story is utter crap. It's predictable, unintelligent sloppy garbage.

I mean Lenny of "not the hobbits" gets badly injured, carries on as normal, then eventually dies but seems completely oblivious to his injuries.

It's all just a really weird, badly made story.

 

[Gwadien]

Regardless of whether it fits in with the books or not the characters themselves are just carboard cut-outs. They have no substance to them. Their dialogue is piss poor, they have no redeeming qualities. No character development arcs. If someone dies the audience doesnt care because we are not invested in any of the characters. And the story is utter crap. It's predictable, unintelligent sloppy garbage.

I mean Lenny of "not the hobbits" gets badly injured, carries on as normal, then eventually dies but seems completely oblivious to his injuries.

It's all just a really weird, badly made story.

No? he gets injured in a fight and then everyone is aware of the severity of his wounds after the fight.

Like 99% of films/tv series.

 

[Scouse]

Agree with @dysfunction - he got mortally wounded and then carried on so normally my o/h turned to me and said "isn't he hurt??"

For me, nothing made me laugh "bullshit" so hard was when the put-upon humans went up to the tower to force the orcs army into fighting in a single small corridor before somehow magically teleporting themselves *behind* the army.

The whole thing was full of the sort of low-level basic shit that anyone barely competent would have gone "hang on a minute - we can't do that".

 

[Aoami]

It's not just 'skin colour' per say... it's continuity as well. How many Black Elves/Dwarves did you see in LOTR/The Hobbit trilogy?

I get it, people want diversity, sure, go for it but things that have been written for decades should be left well alone.

This is the problem with Amazon and Netflix adapting things, its just woke woke woke woke woke and fuck the source material. Lets cast none white people for bonus points among the minority woke crowd that probably don't even watch the fucking series in the first place.

What is it with nerds and being racist?

 

[Raven]

What is it with nerds and being racist?

Hey, I'm a nerd and I quite like a bit of dwarf porn.

 

[BloodOmen]

What is it with nerds and being racist?

It's nothing to do with being racist, it's about not sticking to the source material. Imagine the outrage if they recast Black Panther as a white guy.

 

[Gwadien]

It's nothing to do with being racist, it's about not sticking to the source material. Imagine the outrage if they recast Black Panther as a white guy.

Oh jeez.

 

[Aoami]

That's such a pathetic argument. I'm not a child so I haven't seen any of the marvel films, but as far as I am aware Black Panthers skin colour is intrinsic to the story. Skin colour is in no way intrinsic to various races in Middle Earth.

It's like saying - my delivery drivers have always been white, now they're black and I'm upset about that. Which would be racist right?

 

[Aoami]

Hey, I'm a nerd and I quite like a bit of dwarf porn.

Look, you won't ever hear me shitting on dwarf porn. Let that be the end of the matter.

 

[BloodOmen]

Look, I've said what I wanted to say. It's not racist to respect lore material.

You can side with the producers and their interpretation of Tolkien's work but Tolkien himself never once in all of his works mentioned a black dwarf - not. a. single. time. And yet it was exactly that reason Amazon producers claimed it was "Open to interpretation"

People sharp forget that Dwarves were Sculpted in Middle Earth, they didn't come to be like other races + spend the vast majority of time underground out of the sun.

Now saying/implying I'm racist because I'm not ok with that? fuck you quite frankly. If race really mattered to me that much in movies I'd be bitching and moaning a lot more over numerous movies, tv shows and other such adapted works.

I'm not going to apologize for loving source material and I'm sure as hell not going to "Get with the times" to suit the woke diversity quotas. There won't be another response to this so save your energy from hammering out a response.

 

[Aoami]

I genuinely think that anyone who uses the word woke that much must have an IQ lower than their age.

 

[Gwadien]

Look, I've said what I wanted to say. It's not racist to respect lore material.

You can side with the producers and their interpretation of Tolkien's work but Tolkien himself never once in all of his works mentioned a black dwarf - not. a. single. time. And yet it was exactly that reason Amazon producers claimed it was "Open to interpretation"

People sharp forget that Dwarves were Sculpted in Middle Earth, they didn't come to be like other races + spend the vast majority of time underground out of the sun.

Now saying/implying I'm racist because I'm not ok with that? fuck you quite frankly. If race really mattered to me that much in movies I'd be bitching and moaning a lot more over numerous movies, tv shows and other such adapted works.

I'm not going to apologize for loving source material and I'm sure as hell not going to "Get with the times" to suit the woke diversity quotas. There won't be another response to this so save your energy from hammering out a response.

Sorry, but the whole 'keeping it true to the lore' thing is absolute horse shit.

If you go onto youtube and look at the proper nerd lord of the rings channel, 0 of them talk about black elves, mainly because there's a million other issues that they consider to be way more important.

The only people that pick up on this kind of shit and claim it's 'because it's not based on the original/lore' are people that make videos for their anti-woke audience - see drunk film review person. They don't actually care about the lore.

 

[Tom]

You can side with the producers and their interpretation of Tolkien's work but Tolkien himself never once in all of his works mentioned a black dwarf - not. a. single. time. And yet it was exactly that reason Amazon producers claimed it was "Open to interpretation"

Did he describe them as white? I think not. Anyway, who gives a shit if modern writers impose their own views on a world created by a long-dead author? The original books are still there, unmodified. They haven't been "ruined", nothing has changed. You don't like the modern stories? Fine, so what. But it's curious that so many focus their thoughts on skin colour.

 

[Scouse]

Did he describe them as white? I think not. Anyway, who gives a shit if modern writers impose their own views on a world created by a long-dead author?

Fans do @Tom. As I pointed out previously - fans do. If you're telling a story based on that author's world, then attempting to be true to it isn't an unreasonable expectation.

If they dont' want to stay true to the source material then they could just make a different programme - but literally the whole point of Tolkein's world is it's Tolkein's world - so if you don't like it, then make another programme.

Anyway, this same argument has come back around in less than a page: "you're all racist".

Not at all - none of the "you're racist" group has addressed these points from last time - they've just said "you're racist" again:

Game of Thrones deals really well with a diverse cast - but white people live in the north, brown people come from the hot countries, swarthy easterners from swarthy eastern countries.

All sorts of people can and do get cast = diverse casting victory.

I mean. Why didn't they do that? Would have been dead easy, and resulted in a diverse cast, and stayed true to the original vision?

And, for the Tolkein angle:

Tolkien himself explicitly stated that he detested allegory - and the producers of this show have made it allegorical and [reflective of our time]

It's not racist to point this out or to hate what's been done. It's pretty obvious Tolkein would have hated it too.

... 🤷

Anyway - the race angle is 100% the least interesting part of the argument about RoP.

Despite my hopes for RoP by the end of the season it also turned out that Game of Thones 2 had a way better story and much more joined-up intelligent thinking than RoP. RoP is beset by really very basic storytelling mistakes - in terms of both how characters are represented (regardless of skin) and how the story itself is organised - that are pretty much unforgivable if "not shit" is the label you want attached.

If I'd have been eating when I watched it I'd have spit my dinner all over the telly when Elf-boy and Doctor-Girl teleported their whole village back through the entire army of Orcs walking single-file up a mountain to a less-defensible position. It's horrid - and so easy to spot before they went ahead and made it. "Hey, how do they get back to the village they left because they said they were going to be slaughtered if they stayed there?"

 

[BloodOmen]

Did he describe them as white? I think not. Anyway, who gives a shit if modern writers impose their own views on a world created by a long-dead author? The original books are still there, unmodified. They haven't been "ruined", nothing has changed. You don't like the modern stories? Fine, so what. But it's curious that so many focus their thoughts on skin colour.

Again, it's not just about skin colour, if it was I'd have brought up Lenny Henry as a hobbit as well. What you're basically saying is people can go back through any work of fiction and just replace characters how they want now? that's such a shit argument. True fans respect sticking to lore and source materials, I see nothing wrong with that. As for tolkien never specifically saying they were white either? his artistic vision spoke for itself - there is a reason Peter Jackson cast the entire cast (those outside of heavy makeup) of LOTR as white and peter jackson has spoke about it since then.

 

[BloodOmen]

Again, it's not just about skin colour, if it was I'd have brought up Lenny Henry as a hobbit as well. What you're basically saying is people can go back through any work of fiction and just replace characters how they want now? that's such a shit argument. True fans respect sticking to lore and source materials, I see nothing wrong with that. As for tolkien never specifically saying they were white either? his artistic vision spoke for itself - there is a reason Peter Jackson cast the entire cast (those outside of heavy makeup) of LOTR as white and peter jackson has spoke about it since then.

^Main cast members*

 

[Tom]

Again, it's not just about skin colour, if it was I'd have brought up Lenny Henry as a hobbit as well. What you're basically saying is people can go back through any work of fiction and just replace characters how they want now? that's such a shit argument. True fans respect sticking to lore and source materials, I see nothing wrong with that. As for tolkien never specifically saying they were white either? his artistic vision spoke for itself - there is a reason Peter Jackson cast the entire cast (those outside of heavy makeup) of LOTR as white and peter jackson has spoke about it since then.

Who's been replaced in this series? And as I've mentioned before, Harfoots were described by Tolkien as having darker skin.

BTW, "true fans" is such gatekeeping bullshit. You're no more "true" a fan than anyone else who's read the books and enjoyed them. And I have read the books, and I've watched all the films, and this series, and enjoyed everything.

 

[Scouse]

TW, "true fans" is such gatekeeping bullshit. You're no more "true" a fan than anyone else who's read the books and enjoyed them. And I have read the books, and I've watched all the films, and this series, and enjoyed everythi

Care to respond to any of my points Tom?

Nobody blinked at the Harfoots btw.

 

[Aoami]

Who's been replaced in this series? And as I've mentioned before, Harfoots were described by Tolkien as having darker skin.

BTW, "true fans" is such gatekeeping bullshit. You're no more "true" a fan than anyone else who's read the books and enjoyed them. And I have read the books, and I've watched all the films, and this series, and enjoyed everything.

100% this. I've read the Lord of the Rings books I would say 15 times - am I not a true fan because I don't give a shit what skin colour a mythical beings skin is? Guess I'm just a woke idiot.

 

[Scouse]

You don't address the argument @Aoami. You just express your anger in that post.

Points have been raised - including how other series have addressed casting in a way that results in a diverse and inclusive cast. Maybe address them?

Edit: "I don't care" is absolutely a valid position to hold. But I don't think it's really your position or you wouldn't be quite so angry.

 

[BloodOmen]

100% this. I've read the Lord of the Rings books I would say 15 times - am I not a true fan because I don't give a shit what skin colour a mythical beings skin is? Guess I'm just a woke idiot.

No. You're simply someone that doesn't understand why people are outraged at work from a dead author being altered to suit woke needs.

I said woke again, I guess that means I'm stupid?

Absolutely zero problem with diversity - WHEN it makes sense. In this instance it doesn't make sense and I will not budge off that. Calling me racist then saying "BUT HE NEVER SAID THEY WERE WHITE EITHER!" just sounds idiotic and contradictory

What am I then? fucking Schrodinger's racist?

 

[Aoami]

No. You're simply someone that doesn't understand why people are outraged at work from a dead author being altered to suit woke needs.

I said woke again, I guess that means I'm stupid?

Absolutely zero problem with diversity - WHEN it makes sense. In this instance it doesn't make sense and I will not budge off that. Calling me racist then saying "BUT HE NEVER SAID THEY WERE WHITE EITHER!" just sounds idiotic and contradictory

What am I then? fucking Schrodinger's racist?

Nothing has been altered to "suit woke needs". A couple of black people were cast to play imaginary fairy tale creatures. If you are upset about that you need to get out a bit more and find something that actually matters to worry about.

And yes, constantly saying woke does make you a retard - sorry.

 

[BloodOmen]

Nothing has been altered to "suit woke needs". A couple of black people were cast to play imaginary fairy tale creatures. If you are upset about that you need to get out a bit more and find something that actually matters to worry about.

And yes, constantly saying woke does make you a retard - sorry.

Fuck me, anymore strawman and you could audition to be in the next wickerman remake.

 

[Aoami]

Where is the strawman? Did I miss the bit where Lord of the Rings was a documentary?

 

[georgie]

I really enjoyed it. Between this, Andor and The Peripheral I'm revelling in a little golden patch of TV atm.

 

[Scouse]

I'm quite enjoying the peripheral too actually

 

[Aoami]

I really enjoyed it. Between this, Andor and The Peripheral I'm revelling in a little golden patch of TV atm.

My pal who is a massive Star Wars nerd says Andor is the best thing since the original trilogy.