Haters who want to use JRR Tolkien to make reactionary statements are messing with the wrong ringer-blogger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was big news last Friday night, when the first two episodes of the Rings of Power aired on Amazon Prime. With a production budget of over a billion dollars, it\u2019s the most expensive television franchise in history. And it leverages Peter Jackson\u2019s films, which won the most Academy Awards (yup), and sources material from the Appendix of the most beloved novel of the 20th<\/sup> century (yup yup).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expectations were high. And most reviewers were pleased if not delighted by what they saw; Rotten Tomatoes\u2019 aggregate of critics\u2019 reviews gives it an 84%. But at the same time, individual viewers slammed Amazon\u2019s own rating site with so many negative reviews that Amazon literally had to take the page down. A further look across numerous ratings services reveals that voting is now completely split, with half of the people giving it 4 or 5 stars, and the other half slamming it with a 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s why: Rings got \u2018Review Bombed.\u2019 It seems there\u2019s a sizeable group of people out there who are so offended by it they feel obligated to trash it online. And there are some theories going around why: 1. A major female character \u2013 Galadriel the elf \u2013 has been given an active military role as \u201cCommander of the North.\u201d 2. Some proto-hobbits called Harfoots are portrayed as magical hunter-gatherers who speak in Irish accents. 3. One of the major characters, an elf called Arondir, is black, or more specifically, he is played by a Puerto Rican actor named Ismael Cruz Cordova.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OK, let\u2019s take these one at a time. First, Tolkien critics often allege that his women-folk just sit around looking pretty. However, I would point out that the singular most beautiful creature to ever walk Middle Earth was also the one who used her magic powers to enter Thangorodrim, lull Morgoth to sleep, and retrieve one of the three silmarils, which eventually caused his destruction and saved the entire world. Thanks Luthien! As for Galadriel, you of course remember she made the impossible crossing of the Grinding Ice, so she\u2019s got plenty of northern experience. And finally, in the Rings movies, when Peter Jackson transformed Arwen from eye-candy into elf-warrior, nobody seemed to have a problem. Gorgeous elf soldiers? Cool!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concerning hobbits: Tolkien himself described the Harfoots as primordial. As for magical abilities, he wrote that hobbits could \u201cvanish in twinkling.\u201d And as for the accents, well, most of the negative reviews have been coming from the largest market \u2013 the United States \u2013 and we Americans can\u2019t tell the difference between Irish and Yorkshire. And finally \u2013 again, in the movies \u2013 Peter Jackson took some license with Frodo Baggins having pointy ears, and nobody seemed to mind. Yup, as long as it is simple, honest and earthy, we all accept that it\u2019s a hobbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, about black characters. Some contend that Tolkien was a racist – Gandalf was \u201cwhite\u201d, Sauron was \u201cblack\u201d, etc. But of course you remember that the first non-hobbit character in the book is Tom Bombadil, who has dark brown skin, is so old as to be pre-racial, and who saved Frodo\u2019s life. And then there\u2019s Ghan-buri-ghan, chieftain of Druadan Forest, who helped the Rohirrim make it on time to the Battle of Pelennor Fields, without which we\u2019d all be speaking in Mordor Tongue. Meanwhile, in the new series, nobody seems to mind the addition of a black female dwarf, when in Tolkien\u2019s works there is only one passing reference to a singular dwarf woman and we don\u2019t know what she looked like. So, OK, dwarves can be black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which leaves us with hate for the Black Elf. To address that, let\u2019s go back to the very beginning. As I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll all recall, after awakening at Cuivienen, elves became sundered, with the \u201cEldar\u201d following the call of the Valar to Aman, and the \u201cAvari\u201d proving unwilling. We know nothing else about the Avari, other than that they were looked down on by the Eldar (hmm) and were known as the \u201cWild Elves\u201d and the \u201cDark Elves\u201d (double hmm).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Subsequently, the Eldar split again, with the Umanyar crossing Belegaer to Valinor, and the Umanyar remaining in Middle Earth. The Umanyar then split again, with the Sindar crossing the Misty Mountains into Beleriand but the Nandor staying behind in the East. Of these Nandor all we know is that they lived in wild places, and were sometimes known as \u201cGreen Elves\u201d or \u201cWood Elves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gandalf\u2019s beard! That\u2019s a lot of elves we know nothing about. Who\u2019s to say what they all looked like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for Tolkien being a racist, I remind you that he lost all but one of his boyhood friends in World War 1, and his sons served in World War 2. Maybe that\u2019s why it galled him when folks suggested he was inspired by Richard Wagner, an anti-semite and Hitler\u2019s favorite composer. The very last thing Tolkien intended was that his elves be seen as racially pure Nazi supermen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What he did intend was the central theme of his book, which is the power of goodness and acceptance of others. Humble hobbits shake mighty towers. Dwarves and elves find common ground and become friends. Elves and men intermarry, and incredible things happen. And everyone \u2013 be they Ents, Hobbits, Elves, Wizards, Dwarves or Men \u2013 can learn from and help each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Tolkien stands for anything, it\u2019s the word he chose for the title of the first book: Fellowship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you think that elves can only be white, you\u2019re entitled to your opinion. But if you\u2019re so woke-phobic that you need to publicly back-fill your own racism into a story about helping one another, you\u2019re not just a hater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are an orc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Haters who want to use JRR Tolkien to make reactionary statements are messing with the wrong ringer-blogger. There was big news last Friday night, when the first two episodes of the Rings of Power aired on Amazon Prime. 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