Lord of the Rings TV series gets multi-season order at Amazon

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

I rather take exception to that.

You take exception? I rather take exception to the claim that seeing any non-white characters in a story that spans thousands of miles of fictional terrain, and runs from the Arctic to nearly the equator, is "arbitrarily sploodged in Diversity Ketchup", "more pumpkin spice product", and "an entirely political superimposition". I take exception to the insistence that every Good character in Tolkien must be white, because... well, because they must be, right? Tolkien would never have imagined that the Good races could include non-white people, right? Because...?

"Racism" is not a political term. It is a matter of fundamental ethics. Treating people who look different as lesser or unwanted, especially when you have social or political power over them (which answers most-to-all of your "scare-quoted" questions at the end, by the way), is wrong. Excluding them from things - yes, including playing characters in an adaptation of Tolkien - for no more reason than that you're comfortable with the way things are is wrong.

And I firmly believe Tolkien would agree with me.

Originally Posted by Appendix A

For the high men of Gondor already looked askance at the Northmen among them; and it was a thing unheard of before that the heir to the crown, or any son of the King, should wed one of lesser and alien race. There was already rebellion in the southern provinces when King Valacar grew old. His queen had been a fair and noble lady, but short-lived according to the fate of lesser Men, and the Dúnedain feared that her descendants would prove the same and fall from the majesty of the Kings of Men. Also they were unwilling to accept as lord her son, who though he was now called Eldacar, had been born in an alien country and was named in his youth Vinitharya, a name of his mother's people.

Therefore when Eldacar succeeded his father there was war in Gondor.

When Gondorian nobles objected to immigrant Northmen playing Beren on stage, I bet you it was on "aesthetic" grounds.

hS