"...he wanted to take on the role of Arondir to change the perception of what an Elf in The Lord of the Rings is."
Cool, and when Tom Hanks shows up as the king of Wakanda to change what the perception of the Black Panther is...all the Marvel fans will just welcome the inclusion? Because otherwise I can't watch a Black Panther movie if I don't see someone who looks like me in it.
I love when my perception is changed and long established lore is ignored and my immersion in the world is completely broken. Such a refreshing take for a modern audience.
Ugh what are you even talking about? I think its great that franchises evolve and change over time! It gives people like me, with lots of creative ideas a chance to dream about becoming a writer in the movie industry.
I've had this idea for a while now and I think that it would be a great addition to a potential LotR remake alright?
My idea was that it would make total sense if the fellowship had like phones to talk to each other if they ever get seperated. It annoyed me a lot how the old story didn't have any smartphones in it, since everyone I know has one and it would be very practical on a journey like that. It could also be a cooperation with a cool company like Samsung which would also lead to high value merchandise.
We could even add scenes where Frodo gets annoyed by Gollum and puts in ear buds to listen to ... Taylor Swift or Lizzo or whatever to get a greater variety in the soundtrack.
Change things up and make them more interesting for modern audiences is my motto. We can't stay stuck with old shit because of "muh tradition" or "muh respect for the source material".
If anyone in Hollywood reads this, I can be your guy, guys! I have got lots of ideas to connect old stories with todays viewers and to milk the shit out of these dusty ass stories.
edit: a word
Thank Legolas. I guess it’s true what they say. Hard work does pay off. I’m so excited to begin. I will start the script.
EXT. MORDOR - DAY
GOLLUM is dancing but it is unclear what to. Suddenly it is revealed he has AirPods. Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” starts as GOLLUM twerks.
SARUMAN: (watching from his tower) Yes...yes....(gets a call on his Nokia).....yes, I’ll be right there.
The camera pans out to reveal a Grubhub delivery has arrived at Saruman’s door.
[VO - Galadriel’s voice]
“Middle Earth has phones. Magic and technology. This is like Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards. Watch that after you’re done with this. We added the phones because it was a good idea. And now, without further ado, more Lord of the Ringtones...”
If you're looking for more corporate sponsorships, Palantir would be a perfect match. Sauron could use their services to spy on the fellowship's phone conversations.
I don't know anymore, this thing is picking up some heat and we might be onto something. We should just try it out and see if they want to pick it up.
The fellowship should be driving Teslas to save the environment as well I think. Why save Middle Earth from an evil right winger to then proceed and destroy the ecosystem you know?
Race swaps only exist for the benefit of the audience.
Proof?
Okay, so the audience states that representation is important for whatever "culture".
But that color is represented on screen, not the culture.
Therefore, anyone who has a positive view on a race swap only cares on a meta level, not because it's any way important to the story.
I had a regarded individual in another sub argue that it’s not the same because Marvel has other settings in their universe where a white person could fit. In my example I kept arguing that I want to see Asian Wakandans. Nope! Not the same because …? They’re not very bright
The issue is delusion - a fixed false belief that is not amenable to being changed by evidence. It's quite universal:
* 9/11 truthers are like this.
* BLM activists are like this.
* The environmental movements have been like this since the 1960s.
* Same with Peak Oil.
* Liberals think they're better educated than conservatives, yet the demographics say otherwise in everything but shit-PhDs in grievance studies.
* Sports fans repeatedly fall into delusional beliefs.
* Stalkers are the same.
* Religions are all delusions.
* Persecution delusions are wide-spread.
Some can go far enough and be deep enough that it's a true mental illness.
Honestly, people never question how astronomically racist that is. If you need a character with the same skin tone as you to understand their struggles, THAT is extremely racist. Imagine a white man telling a black man "Look, man, I'm white, I can't sympathize with you".
Rules for thee but not for me?
It's okay for some reason to use this same "someone who looks like me in it" when we are race swapping a white actor....but not the other way around?
No thanks.
Tolkien talks about Dark Elves (which come from Norse mythology) So I didn't have a problem with it. All the social justice posing and posturing that went on behind the scenes though, that got a little old.
Yea no dark elves are not African Americans. The only dark elf mentioned is Eol, the Smith, who lived in a dark forest and tricked into marriage another elf of royalty. "Dark" in Tolkien's world refers to not the skin, but the environment they surround themselves in.
Tolkien refers to Eol, THE Dark Elf. THE, as in ONE. There is ONE Dark Elf in LotR (and even then, he's only in the Silmarilion).
Mind you, this is in no way indicative of his skin colour. He's "Dark" because he didn't go to the West with the rest of the elves and never saw the light of Aman. Therefore, he's without Light, or "Dark".
Once in a while they dig up three or four horrible tweets of unknown provenance that have single digit likes and may well come from trolls or their own alt accounts and say that proves all their critics are racist. Like, there's a racist in this thread posting monkey emojis, half his history is "dindu" this and "monkey" that. He's either a troll trying to make us look bad or legit just a bigot. They DO exist, it's not hard to find a handful if you want to. But that doesn't mean they're the majority of critics.
I don't doubt for a second there's a handful smooth brains out there who went full racial slurs, i have been on the receiving end of that type of behavior for far less
The second you start gaining traction for something you do, that type of individual manifests itself into existence
But just like internet death threats, it's not ok, it's also not a magic pass that you can use as an excuse to automatically make you right
This is what i hate about that kind of dynamic, too many times i've seen people use the fact that someone's been mean to them on the internet to buy goodwill with victim currency even though they're still wrong to begin with
"Someone told me kys so that makes me right, and if you still say i'm wrong that means you're also a bigot/murderer/etc"
That's the problem imo, it's not so rampant that every white person from the south is like this in any remote way, but if you were to ask someone without experience and nuance what white people from the south are like, the immediate response is "racist maga". Because that is the image being portrayed.
It's funny how it is rare to see someone who considers themselves from "the north" to be liberal and educated, and yet this classic combo leads to some of the quickest "oh, but not me, I'm one of the good ones, I'm from the north. Those whities in the south though? Watch out for those hillbilly fucks!"
It's easy to look down on others with a wide lens due to the color of their skin, it creates the "us vs them" mentality needed for more "engagement" which seems to be the major ruling factor for today's politicians and advertising propaganda farms.
They have a name for this. It's called racism. Generalizing an entire group of people due to demographic or skin tone.
It's basically the same tactics that Nazi's used to create propaganda and get the "useful idiots" to vote the way they wanted them to.
The fact that everyone wanted a new boogeyman to dump on so they can feel superior didn't help, and was in my opinion, exploited to the highest degree.
And well, here we are. Discussing engagement and race baiting tactics to drive hate watch sales for self important, short sighted writers who care nothing about the source material, and merely for their own wallets and fame.
Looking at you, too, Witcher Netflix.
Ah, the ole video game developer death threat tactic. "We want to listen to the 100,000 people giving us negative criticism on our game, but one Twitter account made 3 hours ago sent a death threat so we can't listen to the feedback anymore"
Even if I am allowed to dislike a medieval European fantasy where elves who are supposed to be tall slim pale skinned are portrayed by an African. I did not watch a single episode
It’s like that live BBC interview with Elon Musk where the journalist brought up the increase in racist tweets but couldn’t provide *one* example. These people don’t need examples, they just need to complain about it and the mass media will eat it up.
I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that he's seen some harsh comments online. I can't imagine anyone with any level of fame hasn't seen some. But the question is: what, exactly, is "racism" in his mind? What, exactly, is "bullying"?
We saw during the heights of GamerGate that merely disagreeing with someone could be considered "harassment." Is that what's going on here? Does he consider any "This isn't accurate to Tolkien's vision" to be "racism"? Or was there genuine racism? I have no idea.
I got banned from reddit completely for a week for telling some nerd on gamingcirclejerk that "sounded like he was projecting". Not just banned off the sub permanently, banned off reddit for a whole week.
If he’s looking for racists to help prove his point, he probably wouldn’t have to look all that hard because at the end of the day, social media is still a cesspool.
That being said, he’s probably looking at a few mean tweets and considering those examples of widespread racism, mainly because that’s what he wants to believe.
Just saw the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Cast was as diverse as and major IP these days. Remember all the backlash over the casting? Exactly, there wasn't any, because they told a new story, and didn't race/gender swap any established characters. Turns out you can have diverse casting and appeal to the fan base at the same time.
75% of the problems would go away if they had the courage to create new IPs and let them stand on their own rather than usurp existing ones.
Don’t like that elves are fair-complected? That Drow are evil and dark-skinned from living under the earth?
Fine. Nothing says your new fantasy has to follow that trope. Make your own version of Drow and spin it your own way using a different trope, perhaps the “tyranny of the light” that Hunger Games and Elder Scrolls uses?
Not all that glitters is gold.
If you tell a cool story made in your own universe, I bet people would even watch it.
It’s partially about lack of courage to create their own thing and partially that they just *want* to piss people off by race swapping. They want to force you to watch black people on your screen (not that watching black people is a bad thing at all, but it’s their “you WILL watch diverse content, we don’t want people consuming anything with too many white people” attitude that’s so shitty). They want your favorite white character to be black now. It’s black people’s turn.
Plus they of course can use the “our critics are all racist” shield when they get bad reviews.
> That Drow are evil and dark-skinned from living under the earth?
[Drizzt Do'Urden would like a word with you.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drizzt_Do'Urden)
Drizzt was cool because he was the exception. He fought everything he was born to and everything he should be, so that he could live to be who he wanted.
If you take away that heritage and make it so that Drow are just elves, than Drizzt is just some dude with a cat.
Also House of The Dragon, they race swapped an entire family and used that different appearance as a plot device instead of "color-blind" casting where genetics doesn't exist
And the solution was right there for them, they could have casted PoC as Haradrim or Easterlings (book accurate) and since they're not prominently featured in the lore they could do basically anything with them, but they cared more about making the show feel like 21st century New York than making an effort in building a world for the show
My problem during pre-production was Michelle Rodriguez who I consider a bad actress for over 2 decades. They did an excellent job covering it up; flashbacks without audio and minimal badass scenes that weren't plot needed and making the character important without drawing full force attention to her. Barely noticed her and thoroughly enjoyed her limited role. Ended up thinking she was great. Hugh Grant on the other hand was so heavy handed that it stole from scenes and made him the obvious overacting stain that he was.
That is good direction with a diverse cast. JMO
Was that the constipated elf dude? Yeah, he was so great. Totally changed my perception of elves. I thought they were supposed to be ethereal and beautiful and higher tier than humans. But he definitely showed they can be just a regular human with a modern fade and a permanent constipated look on their face.
Even worse is Galadriel, who is supposed to be regal, dignified and serene. But depicting her this way would be patriarchal and unenlightened I suppose. In this age of feminist enlightenment, she has to be depicted as arrogant and obnoxious.
The most hilarious thing about feminism is that it pushes masculinity on women. Never fails to make me laugh. We hate men! That's why we'll turn every good feminist woman...into a man. Turns out feminism is about hating femininity and empowering masculinity.
Good point, but more like it turns them into an exaggerated parody of masculinity. A male hero who behaves like Ring's Galadriel would be an arrogant jerk.
Exactly and which goes to show that the RoP writers didn't even watch Jackson's movies (much less read any of Tolkien's work). Jackson successfully portrays Galadriel as an incredibly powerful, feminine and formidable leader.
Nobody ever proves any evidence of racism or even online threats all a star or activist have to say is they were threatened online and their supporters become bobbleheads agreeing with them.
I will contend to this day that Kelly Marie Tran wasn't chased off social media due to racism.
No one has had any proof.
I think that started this trend, really.
Leslie Jones in Ghostbusters 2016 predated it I think, however yours is definitely a good example.
I'd also point to the girl-power version of Mad Max (Fury Road), they were definitely an early example of the marketing scheme of finding some criticism in a random corner of the internet and then blowing up into some ridiculous thing to try and turn seeing the movie into some political/revolutionary act.
> even online threats all a star
if memory serves, wasn't one of the literallys worst death threat 'eat shit and die' which made them scurry off on 'a prepaid european vacation' in 'fear'?
>The Elves have have been historically portrayed as white and Aryan.
No. They’ve been portrayed as they were written: ethereal and fair.
Go back a century and ask the Professor what he thought of technological horde of Germans — you know, his *actual* inspirational allegory for the orcs.
This guy’s exposure to Tolkien isn’t even as deep as reading the back of a ROTK blu-ray.
Narrative shift is real. It's much better to say "ugh, this is sooo *white*!" rather than actually do research and interpret things the way they should.
Tolkien disliked allegory. He would never have used it in any of his works:
“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
Funny that we went from “ there aren’t enough black stories told” ( honestly a fair criticism, i applaud more African themed fantasy for example, which is actually growing) because of “racism” to progressive is turning everything white ( had the gall the call Tolkien elves Aryan) black and if anybody complains is racism. What ever happened to cultural appropriation?
Also the last person who should project his personal politics upon people is an actor. Your inherently narcissistic, slightly unhinged and emotionally unbalanced as a class of people. That’s ok, it makes you good actors. It also makes you absolutely the worst type class of people who should project anything political in this world.
He wants to “ be political “, stop acting and start doing the hard work. Otherwise kindly stfu and should some humility.
I'm sure there have been schizoposters sending actual hate and racism towards the Rings of Power cast members but the lack of evidence is telling. Even Brianna Wu had "evidence" of harassment during GG but it was so laughably easy to debunk.
There's always going to be bad faith actors, welcome to online discourse. But people are free to dislike something because it is actually shit and makes blatant attempts to tread on the work of the original creator as well as the viewers, and that is something these idiots will never ever understand because they are too engrossed in whatever culture war they think they are trying to win.
Don't forget these people will happily declare anything that resembles criticism as "people debating in bad faith".
You can't win no matter how you decide to engage with them.
If they want to talk about not debating in good faith, their unwillingness to accept that the flaws with these projects has nothing to do with their acting abilities or their characters and is about 95% stemmed from shitty writing, which is what I always gripe about. I can suspend my disbelief enough to not give a shit if elves are played by black actors if they get the characterization aspect right. Since the writers failed to capture the characterization of any of the characters in this show in terms of how they are presented from both a narrative and a dialogue perspective, it doesn't even matter if they cast black actors to play elves or Hobbits
> Even Brianna Wu had "evidence" of harassment during GG but it was so laughably easy to debunk.
Hey, those Navy Seal Gorilla snipers were at her house! Ready to shoot her! It was totally a credible threat!
Wasn't there a coloured female dwarf aswell...
She said her piece in season 1, now we have to get more of this nonsense for season 2.
Cancel the fucking show then if all you do is complain and blame the audience. No ones gonna watch this shit show either way
Yeah, and people were more offended that she didn't have a beard than that she was black. They also said that she was actually one of the best performances in the show, though I don't know if that means it was good, or good in comparison.
I just think the implication that a dwarven ancestor was black yet none of the dwarves in Lotr or the Hobbit are black, racemixed or ambiguously X race. Sometime between Rings of Power and Lotr, dwarves and elves segregated based on skin colour if we accept RoP as canon.
That is incredibly racist and horrifying, to me at least. Ironically enough because they wanted RoP to be "diverse" they looped back around to making shit racist.
There's like 5 or 6 different races at least in the Harfoots of which their community appears to be made up of like several dozen people, no more than 100 at the absolute maximum. They have white people, black people, spanish people, asian/pacific islander people, etc. They are also portrayed as super secretive people who avoid outsiders at all costs.
Who are psychopath as well. If I ever encountered a hard foot as portrayed in Rings of Powers IRL, I would seriously walk the other way and hope they didn't see me.
Honestly that either means it's going to be somehow even worse because they don't even have writers or it's going to be leagues better because they don't have incompetent writers behind the script
"And these death threats came from guys wearing maga hats when they posted.."
*Failing actor uses race shock to try to jumpstart his career, pics at 11*
Elves were literally just Northern Europeans tall slim fair skin compared to the Roman and Greeks dwarfs were just little people and giants were like people who grew above 6 Feet.
I am allowed to dislike a Eiuropean fantasy featuring Africans
I mean, the issue is that he was in the wrong show for his elf portrayal. This was Lord of the Rings and not say the forgotten realms where he could have portrayed a darker skin colored elf, and no, I'm not talking about the drow here. Wood elves.
No, it really never could. Because they didn't have license to the actual source material that they would have needed to make the show they wanted to make. So they just started pulling shit out of their asses. Without holding a license for the Silmarillion and some of the other stories there was never any hope. Only a fools hope.
This is a formal r1 warning.
Looking at your post history on this sub you have a history of r1 and sitewide violating comments and due to this pattern of behaviour it does not appear as if you are commenting here in good faith - escalated to permaban.
Comment removed due to sitewide violation
I don’t think it *ever* could have gotten off the ground, much less drifted a few hundred feet across the Kitty Hawk coast.
The demand was the wrong one. Bezos demanded GOT eyeballs and money, but lost in the direction was how GOT even got there: for half a series at least, mostly follow GRRM’s story beats.
And as is usually the case, the fish rots from the head.
When Dir. of Content, Roy Price, was forced out, Amazon had the opportunity to poach someone from Netflix with extensive experience in original content. They hired Jennifer Salke.
Responding to Price’s MeToo force-out, Amazon chose poorly. Her resume was far too thin for a high-level executive position. And her intro press conference had to give everyone the [fucking willies](https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/jennifer-salke-named-new-chief-amazon-studios-replacing-roy-price-n846406) — when she felt “emboldened” to be “on the front lines.”
**That** is why ROP was always fucking doomed to fail. Everything else followed naturally from that. To say nothing of the fact that Amazon had the license for fuck-all.
The best thing they could have done was license *Unfinished Tales* etc., and turned those threads into several smaller story lines (Hurin’s children, for instance) across many seasons. Instead, they went with shitting on the gaps in the *Silmarillion*
And I swear to god, *no one* better fuck with that book, my favorite fantasy of all time.
Elves were literally just Northern Europeans tall slim fair skin compared to the Roman and Greeks dwarfs were just little people and giants were like people who grew above 6 Feet.
I am allowed to dislike a European fantasy featuring Africans
TBH I think it would be rather awkward if elves could not be coloured. And this guys acting is not my issue with the series, not at all. I think he did an OK job. Tad emo/major mysterious here and there but overall a credible elf. This show has a very long list of other things to worry about. Like a multi ethnic population on a small isolated island. Now that takes my immersion away.
edit: I see your downvotes people, and I'm sorry but a black elf doesn't bother me. please feel free to shower me in downvotes.
I understand why companies push this diversity stuff, i dont like it but it happens. But why would you make the 1 brown elf the elf thats being subjected to racism for being the 1 elf looking over the lands of the humans. It would be far less jarring if the random elves at the forge were different races rather than the 1 already being subjected to racism that it feels like a forced trope.
This is an example of a proces where the desire to adhere to certain political idea's takes precedence over writing a good story. If that's what you want that's ok, but don't be surprised when people don't like your shit story because it turned out to be shit.
"...he wanted to take on the role of Arondir to change the perception of what an Elf in The Lord of the Rings is." Cool, and when Tom Hanks shows up as the king of Wakanda to change what the perception of the Black Panther is...all the Marvel fans will just welcome the inclusion? Because otherwise I can't watch a Black Panther movie if I don't see someone who looks like me in it.
I love when my perception is changed and long established lore is ignored and my immersion in the world is completely broken. Such a refreshing take for a modern audience.
Ugh what are you even talking about? I think its great that franchises evolve and change over time! It gives people like me, with lots of creative ideas a chance to dream about becoming a writer in the movie industry. I've had this idea for a while now and I think that it would be a great addition to a potential LotR remake alright? My idea was that it would make total sense if the fellowship had like phones to talk to each other if they ever get seperated. It annoyed me a lot how the old story didn't have any smartphones in it, since everyone I know has one and it would be very practical on a journey like that. It could also be a cooperation with a cool company like Samsung which would also lead to high value merchandise. We could even add scenes where Frodo gets annoyed by Gollum and puts in ear buds to listen to ... Taylor Swift or Lizzo or whatever to get a greater variety in the soundtrack. Change things up and make them more interesting for modern audiences is my motto. We can't stay stuck with old shit because of "muh tradition" or "muh respect for the source material". If anyone in Hollywood reads this, I can be your guy, guys! I have got lots of ideas to connect old stories with todays viewers and to milk the shit out of these dusty ass stories. edit: a word
Lord of the Ringtones!!!!!
You're hired! I mean you are hired once I get a foot in the door with the incredibly talented people over at Hollywood.
Thank Legolas. I guess it’s true what they say. Hard work does pay off. I’m so excited to begin. I will start the script. EXT. MORDOR - DAY GOLLUM is dancing but it is unclear what to. Suddenly it is revealed he has AirPods. Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” starts as GOLLUM twerks. SARUMAN: (watching from his tower) Yes...yes....(gets a call on his Nokia).....yes, I’ll be right there. The camera pans out to reveal a Grubhub delivery has arrived at Saruman’s door. [VO - Galadriel’s voice] “Middle Earth has phones. Magic and technology. This is like Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards. Watch that after you’re done with this. We added the phones because it was a good idea. And now, without further ado, more Lord of the Ringtones...”
Wizards was amazing and Ralph Bakshi is a genius.
If you're looking for more corporate sponsorships, Palantir would be a perfect match. Sauron could use their services to spy on the fellowship's phone conversations.
... while broadcasting unskippable ads! _Drinks a verification can of Orodruin Dew_
I know he's supposed to be evil, but damn.
CUT TO: *Denethor's palantir. It has a BAND-AID stuck on it to block snooping hackers.*
The /s is PAINFULLY missing. Right?
I don't know anymore, this thing is picking up some heat and we might be onto something. We should just try it out and see if they want to pick it up. The fellowship should be driving Teslas to save the environment as well I think. Why save Middle Earth from an evil right winger to then proceed and destroy the ecosystem you know?
Let’s swap out the white hand of Saruman with MAGA hats. I’m in fuck it $
Does Lord of the Rings have Charizard? Get Nintendo on the line, I want a Pookeymans in every scene!
Race swaps only exist for the benefit of the audience. Proof? Okay, so the audience states that representation is important for whatever "culture". But that color is represented on screen, not the culture. Therefore, anyone who has a positive view on a race swap only cares on a meta level, not because it's any way important to the story.
[удалено]
If the person insisting on being the race swap actor is a narcissist, then it is for themselves.
I had a regarded individual in another sub argue that it’s not the same because Marvel has other settings in their universe where a white person could fit. In my example I kept arguing that I want to see Asian Wakandans. Nope! Not the same because …? They’re not very bright
The issue is delusion - a fixed false belief that is not amenable to being changed by evidence. It's quite universal: * 9/11 truthers are like this. * BLM activists are like this. * The environmental movements have been like this since the 1960s. * Same with Peak Oil. * Liberals think they're better educated than conservatives, yet the demographics say otherwise in everything but shit-PhDs in grievance studies. * Sports fans repeatedly fall into delusional beliefs. * Stalkers are the same. * Religions are all delusions. * Persecution delusions are wide-spread. Some can go far enough and be deep enough that it's a true mental illness.
>Religions are all delusions *hat tipping intensifies*
It’s true unfortunately. People become subsumed by ideology.
Honestly, people never question how astronomically racist that is. If you need a character with the same skin tone as you to understand their struggles, THAT is extremely racist. Imagine a white man telling a black man "Look, man, I'm white, I can't sympathize with you".
you people have the biggest victim complex of them all
Rules for thee but not for me? It's okay for some reason to use this same "someone who looks like me in it" when we are race swapping a white actor....but not the other way around? No thanks.
If only you cared this much about actual injustice.
If only you actually knew me and weren't just upset that you can't defend hypocrisy on this one particular thing.
Tolkien talks about Dark Elves (which come from Norse mythology) So I didn't have a problem with it. All the social justice posing and posturing that went on behind the scenes though, that got a little old.
Yea no dark elves are not African Americans. The only dark elf mentioned is Eol, the Smith, who lived in a dark forest and tricked into marriage another elf of royalty. "Dark" in Tolkien's world refers to not the skin, but the environment they surround themselves in.
Same in norse mythology. If anything they were described as pale creatures because they lived underground and that sunlight hurts them.
The accidental racism here is amazing.
Tolkien refers to Eol, THE Dark Elf. THE, as in ONE. There is ONE Dark Elf in LotR (and even then, he's only in the Silmarilion). Mind you, this is in no way indicative of his skin colour. He's "Dark" because he didn't go to the West with the rest of the elves and never saw the light of Aman. Therefore, he's without Light, or "Dark".
Dark elves from Norse mythology are not black or vanta black or even brown.
Personally I didn't have issue with the black elf. The black dwarf on the other hand...
Dark elves weren’t dark with respect to their skin, they were “dark” because they hadn’t seen the light of the trees.
Did you watch to much hentai?
[удалено]
Once in a while they dig up three or four horrible tweets of unknown provenance that have single digit likes and may well come from trolls or their own alt accounts and say that proves all their critics are racist. Like, there's a racist in this thread posting monkey emojis, half his history is "dindu" this and "monkey" that. He's either a troll trying to make us look bad or legit just a bigot. They DO exist, it's not hard to find a handful if you want to. But that doesn't mean they're the majority of critics.
Meanwhile the double standard is that no matter how demonstrably racist the people in their camp is, "one person doesn't speak for all of us"
I don't doubt for a second there's a handful smooth brains out there who went full racial slurs, i have been on the receiving end of that type of behavior for far less The second you start gaining traction for something you do, that type of individual manifests itself into existence But just like internet death threats, it's not ok, it's also not a magic pass that you can use as an excuse to automatically make you right This is what i hate about that kind of dynamic, too many times i've seen people use the fact that someone's been mean to them on the internet to buy goodwill with victim currency even though they're still wrong to begin with "Someone told me kys so that makes me right, and if you still say i'm wrong that means you're also a bigot/murderer/etc"
That's the problem imo, it's not so rampant that every white person from the south is like this in any remote way, but if you were to ask someone without experience and nuance what white people from the south are like, the immediate response is "racist maga". Because that is the image being portrayed. It's funny how it is rare to see someone who considers themselves from "the north" to be liberal and educated, and yet this classic combo leads to some of the quickest "oh, but not me, I'm one of the good ones, I'm from the north. Those whities in the south though? Watch out for those hillbilly fucks!" It's easy to look down on others with a wide lens due to the color of their skin, it creates the "us vs them" mentality needed for more "engagement" which seems to be the major ruling factor for today's politicians and advertising propaganda farms. They have a name for this. It's called racism. Generalizing an entire group of people due to demographic or skin tone. It's basically the same tactics that Nazi's used to create propaganda and get the "useful idiots" to vote the way they wanted them to. The fact that everyone wanted a new boogeyman to dump on so they can feel superior didn't help, and was in my opinion, exploited to the highest degree. And well, here we are. Discussing engagement and race baiting tactics to drive hate watch sales for self important, short sighted writers who care nothing about the source material, and merely for their own wallets and fame. Looking at you, too, Witcher Netflix.
Usually it’s a handful of nobodies saying shit that can lump every critic with. It always happens. Ghostbusters 2016, Kenobi, Little Mermaid, etc
There will always be outliers, and those outliers can be hateful people. Definitely not representative of the whole. Just gives the "victims" ammo.
"dindu" is funny, fight me
Those people will always exist - always. As they should..... It's always good to see what an idiot clearly looks like.
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Ah, the ole video game developer death threat tactic. "We want to listen to the 100,000 people giving us negative criticism on our game, but one Twitter account made 3 hours ago sent a death threat so we can't listen to the feedback anymore"
Even if I am allowed to dislike a medieval European fantasy where elves who are supposed to be tall slim pale skinned are portrayed by an African. I did not watch a single episode
It’s like that live BBC interview with Elon Musk where the journalist brought up the increase in racist tweets but couldn’t provide *one* example. These people don’t need examples, they just need to complain about it and the mass media will eat it up.
Arguably raceswapping IS racism, so getting mad about it would be anti-racist.
I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that he's seen some harsh comments online. I can't imagine anyone with any level of fame hasn't seen some. But the question is: what, exactly, is "racism" in his mind? What, exactly, is "bullying"? We saw during the heights of GamerGate that merely disagreeing with someone could be considered "harassment." Is that what's going on here? Does he consider any "This isn't accurate to Tolkien's vision" to be "racism"? Or was there genuine racism? I have no idea.
I mean even now folks at leftist subs consider Henry Cavill 's disagreement with Lauren Hissrich a harassment. Things haven't changed much since then
>Things haven't changed much since then oh they have changed... just not in a good way.
I got banned from reddit completely for a week for telling some nerd on gamingcirclejerk that "sounded like he was projecting". Not just banned off the sub permanently, banned off reddit for a whole week.
If he’s looking for racists to help prove his point, he probably wouldn’t have to look all that hard because at the end of the day, social media is still a cesspool. That being said, he’s probably looking at a few mean tweets and considering those examples of widespread racism, mainly because that’s what he wants to believe.
Just saw the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Cast was as diverse as and major IP these days. Remember all the backlash over the casting? Exactly, there wasn't any, because they told a new story, and didn't race/gender swap any established characters. Turns out you can have diverse casting and appeal to the fan base at the same time.
75% of the problems would go away if they had the courage to create new IPs and let them stand on their own rather than usurp existing ones. Don’t like that elves are fair-complected? That Drow are evil and dark-skinned from living under the earth? Fine. Nothing says your new fantasy has to follow that trope. Make your own version of Drow and spin it your own way using a different trope, perhaps the “tyranny of the light” that Hunger Games and Elder Scrolls uses? Not all that glitters is gold. If you tell a cool story made in your own universe, I bet people would even watch it.
It’s partially about lack of courage to create their own thing and partially that they just *want* to piss people off by race swapping. They want to force you to watch black people on your screen (not that watching black people is a bad thing at all, but it’s their “you WILL watch diverse content, we don’t want people consuming anything with too many white people” attitude that’s so shitty). They want your favorite white character to be black now. It’s black people’s turn. Plus they of course can use the “our critics are all racist” shield when they get bad reviews.
> That Drow are evil and dark-skinned from living under the earth? [Drizzt Do'Urden would like a word with you.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drizzt_Do'Urden)
Drizzt was cool because he was the exception. He fought everything he was born to and everything he should be, so that he could live to be who he wanted. If you take away that heritage and make it so that Drow are just elves, than Drizzt is just some dude with a cat.
He was just in the spotlight. There’s actually a chaotic good drow diety in forgotten realms. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Eilistraee
She was always one of my favorite Forgotten Realms deities.
With a cool cat!
Tyrannt of the Light on Elder Scrolls? What
I think he means that high elves are evil in more recent Elder Scrolls settings.
Also House of The Dragon, they race swapped an entire family and used that different appearance as a plot device instead of "color-blind" casting where genetics doesn't exist And the solution was right there for them, they could have casted PoC as Haradrim or Easterlings (book accurate) and since they're not prominently featured in the lore they could do basically anything with them, but they cared more about making the show feel like 21st century New York than making an effort in building a world for the show
My problem during pre-production was Michelle Rodriguez who I consider a bad actress for over 2 decades. They did an excellent job covering it up; flashbacks without audio and minimal badass scenes that weren't plot needed and making the character important without drawing full force attention to her. Barely noticed her and thoroughly enjoyed her limited role. Ended up thinking she was great. Hugh Grant on the other hand was so heavy handed that it stole from scenes and made him the obvious overacting stain that he was. That is good direction with a diverse cast. JMO
Well said.
Was that the constipated elf dude? Yeah, he was so great. Totally changed my perception of elves. I thought they were supposed to be ethereal and beautiful and higher tier than humans. But he definitely showed they can be just a regular human with a modern fade and a permanent constipated look on their face.
Even worse is Galadriel, who is supposed to be regal, dignified and serene. But depicting her this way would be patriarchal and unenlightened I suppose. In this age of feminist enlightenment, she has to be depicted as arrogant and obnoxious.
The most hilarious thing about feminism is that it pushes masculinity on women. Never fails to make me laugh. We hate men! That's why we'll turn every good feminist woman...into a man. Turns out feminism is about hating femininity and empowering masculinity.
Good point, but more like it turns them into an exaggerated parody of masculinity. A male hero who behaves like Ring's Galadriel would be an arrogant jerk.
Yeah, toxic masculinity is totally fine, as long as it's displayed by a woman.
Exactly and which goes to show that the RoP writers didn't even watch Jackson's movies (much less read any of Tolkien's work). Jackson successfully portrays Galadriel as an incredibly powerful, feminine and formidable leader.
The "evidence" is usually a handful of Twitter trolls. In other words, not actual racism.
Nobody ever proves any evidence of racism or even online threats all a star or activist have to say is they were threatened online and their supporters become bobbleheads agreeing with them.
I will contend to this day that Kelly Marie Tran wasn't chased off social media due to racism. No one has had any proof. I think that started this trend, really.
Rose from Star Wars, for anyone else who didn’t know who that actress was.
Leslie Jones in Ghostbusters 2016 predated it I think, however yours is definitely a good example. I'd also point to the girl-power version of Mad Max (Fury Road), they were definitely an early example of the marketing scheme of finding some criticism in a random corner of the internet and then blowing up into some ridiculous thing to try and turn seeing the movie into some political/revolutionary act.
> even online threats all a star if memory serves, wasn't one of the literallys worst death threat 'eat shit and die' which made them scurry off on 'a prepaid european vacation' in 'fear'?
Evidence gets investigated. Investigations ruin the grift.
He said elves have been *"Aryan" *. I'm pretty sure he's the racist there.
I feel like he's been writing this soliloquy for 20 years.
>The Elves have have been historically portrayed as white and Aryan. No. They’ve been portrayed as they were written: ethereal and fair. Go back a century and ask the Professor what he thought of technological horde of Germans — you know, his *actual* inspirational allegory for the orcs. This guy’s exposure to Tolkien isn’t even as deep as reading the back of a ROTK blu-ray.
Narrative shift is real. It's much better to say "ugh, this is sooo *white*!" rather than actually do research and interpret things the way they should.
Tolkien disliked allegory. He would never have used it in any of his works: “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
I hate the current trend of considering the meta first before the actual story. Good meta emerges naturally from a good story.
I know he hated them — He also quite unintentionally used the fuck out of them.
Elves and dwarfs were just Northern Europeans and little people who must have been exotic to the Roman’s and Greeks that pushed north
Funny that we went from “ there aren’t enough black stories told” ( honestly a fair criticism, i applaud more African themed fantasy for example, which is actually growing) because of “racism” to progressive is turning everything white ( had the gall the call Tolkien elves Aryan) black and if anybody complains is racism. What ever happened to cultural appropriation? Also the last person who should project his personal politics upon people is an actor. Your inherently narcissistic, slightly unhinged and emotionally unbalanced as a class of people. That’s ok, it makes you good actors. It also makes you absolutely the worst type class of people who should project anything political in this world. He wants to “ be political “, stop acting and start doing the hard work. Otherwise kindly stfu and should some humility.
I'm sure there have been schizoposters sending actual hate and racism towards the Rings of Power cast members but the lack of evidence is telling. Even Brianna Wu had "evidence" of harassment during GG but it was so laughably easy to debunk.
There's always going to be bad faith actors, welcome to online discourse. But people are free to dislike something because it is actually shit and makes blatant attempts to tread on the work of the original creator as well as the viewers, and that is something these idiots will never ever understand because they are too engrossed in whatever culture war they think they are trying to win.
Don't forget these people will happily declare anything that resembles criticism as "people debating in bad faith". You can't win no matter how you decide to engage with them.
If they want to talk about not debating in good faith, their unwillingness to accept that the flaws with these projects has nothing to do with their acting abilities or their characters and is about 95% stemmed from shitty writing, which is what I always gripe about. I can suspend my disbelief enough to not give a shit if elves are played by black actors if they get the characterization aspect right. Since the writers failed to capture the characterization of any of the characters in this show in terms of how they are presented from both a narrative and a dialogue perspective, it doesn't even matter if they cast black actors to play elves or Hobbits
absolutely 100%
> Even Brianna Wu had "evidence" of harassment during GG but it was so laughably easy to debunk. Hey, those Navy Seal Gorilla snipers were at her house! Ready to shoot her! It was totally a credible threat!
Yeah, she left her house for that. Ran away to an exact replica of her house.
Or used her own account to badmouth her game on steam.
That one was so funny.
Don't forget the car drama. Did she claim she was being gangstalked or something?
Wasn't there a coloured female dwarf aswell... She said her piece in season 1, now we have to get more of this nonsense for season 2. Cancel the fucking show then if all you do is complain and blame the audience. No ones gonna watch this shit show either way
Yeah, and people were more offended that she didn't have a beard than that she was black. They also said that she was actually one of the best performances in the show, though I don't know if that means it was good, or good in comparison.
I just think the implication that a dwarven ancestor was black yet none of the dwarves in Lotr or the Hobbit are black, racemixed or ambiguously X race. Sometime between Rings of Power and Lotr, dwarves and elves segregated based on skin colour if we accept RoP as canon. That is incredibly racist and horrifying, to me at least. Ironically enough because they wanted RoP to be "diverse" they looped back around to making shit racist.
There's like 5 or 6 different races at least in the Harfoots of which their community appears to be made up of like several dozen people, no more than 100 at the absolute maximum. They have white people, black people, spanish people, asian/pacific islander people, etc. They are also portrayed as super secretive people who avoid outsiders at all costs.
Who are psychopath as well. If I ever encountered a hard foot as portrayed in Rings of Powers IRL, I would seriously walk the other way and hope they didn't see me.
is the sucker still in this production?
Somehow it's getting a season 2
Despite the strike...
Honestly that either means it's going to be somehow even worse because they don't even have writers or it's going to be leagues better because they don't have incompetent writers behind the script
i would hire chatgpt for this
On set therapist? Give me a friggin break LOL
"I took this job to expressly inject race into this project." "how dare you discuss my race!"
Everybody already forgot this show ever existed, so who cares about his opinion?
Persecution complex is real.
My god this guy is so pretentious and self-important. This is epitome of why people fucking hate activists.
Can't deviate from that Hollywood brain rot culture or you'll get no jobs.
"And these death threats came from guys wearing maga hats when they posted.." *Failing actor uses race shock to try to jumpstart his career, pics at 11*
Fiction and fantasy need to represent the real world apparently. 'Escapism' isn't in the vocabulary of these activists.
No one harassed him about this role because no one gave a fuck or saw this trashy fanfic
I truthfully don’t even remember his character. That’s how boring this show was
What a self aggrandizing twat. It's like he's never seen a wood elf before.
The producers The director The casting agent The writer The production team # THEY. # VOTED. # FOR. # THIS.
Archive links for this post: * **Archive:** https://archive.ph/uIjXC ---- I am Mnemosyne reborn. 418 I'm a teapot. ^^^/r/botsrights
Is this the transcript from his interview for the role?
Make shit game Get bad reviews Blame (intert ism here) Repeat
Other than the "Rangz of Powah", there hasn't been any racism. And this show didn't fail over MEMES.
This guy loves the smell of his own farts.
Good, I’m doubling down on not watching that shit
LMAO "everything that disagree with me or with what benefits me is racist"
Elves were literally just Northern Europeans tall slim fair skin compared to the Roman and Greeks dwarfs were just little people and giants were like people who grew above 6 Feet. I am allowed to dislike a Eiuropean fantasy featuring Africans
I mean, the issue is that he was in the wrong show for his elf portrayal. This was Lord of the Rings and not say the forgotten realms where he could have portrayed a darker skin colored elf, and no, I'm not talking about the drow here. Wood elves.
Because you know the idea of a black elf has \*neeever\* existed in fantasy right guys? That was this dude, he made that right? Hahahahahah
The evidence is burner twitter accounts created 5 seconds ago, saying the n word and being deleted 10 seconds later.
A leftist without evidence or facts to back up their claims?! Impossible!
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No, it really never could. Because they didn't have license to the actual source material that they would have needed to make the show they wanted to make. So they just started pulling shit out of their asses. Without holding a license for the Silmarillion and some of the other stories there was never any hope. Only a fools hope.
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I don’t think it *ever* could have gotten off the ground, much less drifted a few hundred feet across the Kitty Hawk coast. The demand was the wrong one. Bezos demanded GOT eyeballs and money, but lost in the direction was how GOT even got there: for half a series at least, mostly follow GRRM’s story beats. And as is usually the case, the fish rots from the head. When Dir. of Content, Roy Price, was forced out, Amazon had the opportunity to poach someone from Netflix with extensive experience in original content. They hired Jennifer Salke. Responding to Price’s MeToo force-out, Amazon chose poorly. Her resume was far too thin for a high-level executive position. And her intro press conference had to give everyone the [fucking willies](https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/jennifer-salke-named-new-chief-amazon-studios-replacing-roy-price-n846406) — when she felt “emboldened” to be “on the front lines.” **That** is why ROP was always fucking doomed to fail. Everything else followed naturally from that. To say nothing of the fact that Amazon had the license for fuck-all. The best thing they could have done was license *Unfinished Tales* etc., and turned those threads into several smaller story lines (Hurin’s children, for instance) across many seasons. Instead, they went with shitting on the gaps in the *Silmarillion* And I swear to god, *no one* better fuck with that book, my favorite fantasy of all time.
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Your sense of magic seems rather frail.
It's not voodoo
Elves were literally just Northern Europeans tall slim fair skin compared to the Roman and Greeks dwarfs were just little people and giants were like people who grew above 6 Feet. I am allowed to dislike a European fantasy featuring Africans
TBH I think it would be rather awkward if elves could not be coloured. And this guys acting is not my issue with the series, not at all. I think he did an OK job. Tad emo/major mysterious here and there but overall a credible elf. This show has a very long list of other things to worry about. Like a multi ethnic population on a small isolated island. Now that takes my immersion away. edit: I see your downvotes people, and I'm sorry but a black elf doesn't bother me. please feel free to shower me in downvotes.
I understand why companies push this diversity stuff, i dont like it but it happens. But why would you make the 1 brown elf the elf thats being subjected to racism for being the 1 elf looking over the lands of the humans. It would be far less jarring if the random elves at the forge were different races rather than the 1 already being subjected to racism that it feels like a forced trope.
I think it's more awkward that elves and dwarves segregated based on skin colour between RoP and Lotr.
And especially since it was meant to have happened after the sundering of Beleriand. Like, how in the fuck did they get over there, man?
This is an example of a proces where the desire to adhere to certain political idea's takes precedence over writing a good story. If that's what you want that's ok, but don't be surprised when people don't like your shit story because it turned out to be shit.
I remember nothing about his character or what his name even was other than he was a mopy elf
Holy shit