Amazon goes insane: LOTR prequel series incoming

[Evie]

Christopher Tolkien had very strong negative feelings about adaptations, change to the essence of his father's content (we're not talking wokery - we're talking focusing on the action (as Jackson did) over the sweeping philosophical and historical narrative which CT believed was the essence of LOTR)), and absolutely hated the Jackson films.

Despite the nonsense spewed by usual suspects, "wokery" had nothing to do with it; CT was against adaptation long before any wokery.

The rights to the Lord already being out there (including appendices rights) for movies already being out there, they knew they couldn't protect that, so tried to make the best deal for tv rights (and retained a fair amount of input in the process), but the Silm and other materials for which they still hold all the rights...yeah, they're likely to death grip that.

 

[Plotinus]

The simple answer is that Tolkien himself sold the rights to The Hobbit and LOTR. His estate has been far more reluctant to sell rights than he was, so they have guarded the rights to all the posthumous writings ferociously. Arguably they won’t go out of copyright until 2090 (70 years after Christopher Tolkien’s death, since he edited them), so I wouldn’t hold my breath for any adaptations of the Silmarillion any time soon.

 

[r16]

so , essentially you are telling us the Black Elves exist and Sauron would be a such nice guy if he was given some flesh ? Like also be careful about if you are going to say "racist" ...

edit: uh , a different post in between .

 

[Plotinus]

Sauron did pretend to be nice in the Second Age. And it doesn’t matter what colour elves are.

The “anti-woke” gatekeepers who fancy themselves as such Tolkien purists don’t understand the whole point of Tolkien’s work, which is that it is meant to be *mythology*. That means that people can tell and retell it as they see fit, because that’s how mythology works, as Tolkien himself knew perfectly well and indicated throughout his works. If people want to reinterpret his stories and settings with non-white characters they’re perfectly entitled to do so.

So yes, all the hair-pulling about black elves has nothing to do with any real concern for Tolkien and everything to do with white fragility. I notice, for example, that these people never complain about dwarves being portrayed as European, even though Tolkien gave them a Semitic language!

 

[r16]

am an Orc . Despising all the orcs and Mordor stuff currently in vogue .

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't care about black elves, but that's because the entire world of Tolkien means nothing to me. I can easily imagine people caring if it is dear to them, though.
I don't see the value in changing stuff for reasons that have literally nothing to do with the story you are adapting, and everything to do with statements you personally wish to make.

I would certainly think it was nothing but idiotic, if someone (for whatever reason) made Joseph K. to be specifically Greek. It wouldn't be inclusive or meaningfully pro-Greek to me, just dumb and anti-Kafka. And that's even when the setting for The Trial isn't specified (and one at least can infer it's not in Austria-Hungary, unless -eg- in Trieste, since someone in the story has a yacht).

 

[Takhisis]

His estate has been far more reluctant to sell rights than he was

Not least because, not only did they engage in ‘free adaptation’ of the ‘base material’ to create new ‘content’, but also New Line Cinema just bought the rights off somebody else and the Tolkien estate never got to see any of that money.

Sauron did pretend to be nice in the Second Age.

Oh yes! Annatar, the gift-giver!

A stereotypical portrayal of the Devil, which reminds me of Arya's Igra s ognyom.

And it doesn’t matter what colour elves are.

The “anti-woke” gatekeepers who fancy themselves as such Tolkien purists don’t understand the whole point of Tolkien’s work, which is that it is meant to be *mythology*. That means that people can tell and retell it as they see fit, because that’s how mythology works, as Tolkien himself knew perfectly well and indicated throughout his works. If people want to reinterpret his stories and settings with non-white characters they’re perfectly entitled to do so.

So yes, all the hair-pulling about black elves has nothing to do with any real concern for Tolkien and everything to do with white fragility. I notice, for example, that these people never complain about dwarves being portrayed as European, even though Tolkien gave them a Semitic language!

There are specific descriptions of hair-colour in the books. The Noldor, the Teleri and the Vanyar each have their specific hair-colours (black, gray and gold) and specifically Galádriel is blonde and Lúthien (like Tolkien's wife) was dark-haired and gray-eyed. The rest of the elves (and humans) are mostly not described, except for some of the men from Harad and Rhûn, specifically, being described as slant-eyed and other vaguely Orientalist stereotypes (same for some descriptions of the corrupted-deformed Orcs).
The first Men to enter Beleriand are not described tacitly but the later arrivals are described as the Swarthy Men, so by contrast the Dúnedain would be white.
Also, the Rohirrim/Northmen speak what is effectively Old English and have a very Germanic horse cult what do the names of Hengist and Horsa mean? .

Dwarves being repurposed as mini-Scotsvikings is quite annoying, in light of Tolkien actually being a fan of the Jews and notedly rejecting anything Gaelic. Nobody seems to complain about the racist portrayal of the Drúadain who are totally not primitive Irish, but in the spirit of merry-old-England most adaptations just leave them out altogether.

 

[Plotinus]

Not least because, not only did they engage in ‘free adaptation’ of the ‘base material’ to create new ‘content’, but also New Line Cinema just bought the rights off somebody else and the Tolkien estate never got to see any of that money.

I know, they’re the only works for which *Tolkien himself* made any money from the rights! Personally I don’t see why anybody’s “estate” should have any rights to works that they didn’t produce themselves, but what do I know?

 

[Ajidica]

The rights regarding various Lord of the Rings properties can get a bit messy, such as rights to materials based on the books vs materials based on the movies. I suspect that may play a role in it. Amazon could buy the rights to a TV adaptation of LotR and the Hobbit, but Silmarillion rights were more expensive and Amazon lawyers/writers decided they didn't really need the Silmarillion to tell the story they wanted.

Actually, they are explicitly speakers of an old West Germanic tongue if you check their vocabulary. They are even called the Northmen.

Ehhhh, it gets messy. The people from who the Northmen descended, Rhovanion, when Tolkien gave us their names, had a very strong Gothic heritage.
Tolkien also had some odd ideas about language and ethnography in Scandinavia, associating the Geats with the Goths, and the Jutes with the Geats based off the 'Fight and Finnsburgh' in Beowulf.
It was an idea he had kicking around in his head since his youth, letting him in effect make Beowulf a truly English legend. Because as is, Beowulf, the closest thing there is to an English national myth, is about a rather obscure Norse tribe that was wiped out a generation or two after the death of Beowulf and largely forgotten in early Norse sagas. By linking the Goths to the Geats to the Jutes to the English, Tolkien was able to claim Beowulf as English. Since the link between Goths to English has very little evidence for it, Tolkien did what he always did and 'corrected'* things in his books so there was such a connection between his 'Goths' (Rhovanion) and his 'English' (Rohirrim and Hobbits).

https://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1258&context=journaloftolkienresearch#:~:text=Jutes%2C%20on%20the%20continent%2C%20were,%2C%E2%80%9D%20(FH%205).

*Like how he made Smaug speak to address what he felt were failings of Beowulf's and Sigurd's dragon.

The first Men to enter Beleriand are not described tacitly but the later arrivals are described as the Swarthy Men, so by contrast the Dúnedain would be white.

All we really know about the Easterlings is that they are described as "swarthy and short", traveling in wagons and chariots, while fighting on foot with great axes, and there are 'Variags of Khand' who fight on horse with bows.
Reading 'swarthy' as 'not white skinned' is a big assumption, given how many characters in the various Norse sagas - including what today we would consider lily white icelandics - are described as 'swarthy' in their complexion.

 

[Evie]

And how he wrote the Ents attacking Isengard because he felt cheated that Birnham wood didn't actually walk to Dunsinane.

As to "Good Sauron": "Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganisation and rehabilitation of the ruin of Middle Earth, he becomes a reincarnation of Evil..." - JRR Tolkien, Letter 131, on Sauron after the fall of Morgoth, and again: "But at the beginning of the Second Age, he...was not indeed wholly Evil." (Letter 153)

(And then when the fair motives didn't work, he still didn't jump straight to Dark Lord mode ; he deceived the Elves instead, and only after all the Rings had been made did he become Sauron, Lord of the Rings, the Dark Lord.)

Sauron should be either trying to be good, or pretending to be good, in the Early Second Age. Not because it's woke, but because it's what Tolkien wrote.

As for Black Elves: I never said there were no woke changes. I said Christopher Tolkien and the Estate opposition to adaptations had nothing to do with woke changes.

Which, you know, is evident from the fact that CT hated the Peter Jackson's movies (long before any black elves) and the Estate refused any involvement with that one, but the Estate is from everything we've been told actually working with with the creators of Rings of Power (has black elves), and even reportedly open to granting them special permission to mention certain names that would otherwise be part of the Silmarillion rights (ie, names that describe people or places whose existence is known or can be inferred from Lord of the Rings, but where the names are only in the Silmarillion or UT).

One might think that the Estate isn't actually that bothered by Black Elves.

(And on the Silmarillion rights, it could actually be even worse - because CT acknowledges Guy Gavriel Kay as co-editor in multiple places. If he counts...well, he's still alive and in his sixties, so it could be a long time before the "after death" countdown begins.)

 

[r16]

not having watched them but having read stuff , would Tolkien or Tolkiens "accept" Galadriel while already being married and all , already being godlike and whatever , paragon of virtue and stuff as it was in the last century would ever consider going to bed with someone else ? Would anyone ACTUALLY consider to ask ? Or is it some dig at current losers who can't get laid while competing with like over achievers ? Oh yeah , ı know it raises a lot of ire in places , but is it part and parcel of some grand plan ? Which indeed got the generally quite racist members of the echo chamber ı follow for news like over active ... And what was the black elf guy doing ; whomever he might be ? Begging some human woman for stuff but ı didn't have the mood to follow it then . Yeah , ı know enough about black men and white women , some inside "joke" that stumped the Disney triology of Star Wars from the beginning . Yeah , we will wait until the day when it is discovered that there are no Black Elves as well .

 

[Evie]

As a wise man once said, "The wise speak only of what they know, Grima son of Gamold."

If you haven't watched and are only basing your comment on what you yourself call the "quite racist members of the echo chamber I follow for new" (your exact words, not mine), you may wish to consider that you have, uh, pretty terrible sources.

For one thing, while there was an on-screen romantic chemistry between Halbrand and Galadriel, there's zero indication ever given that Galadriel actually considered acting on it. The closest they go is a couple piece of dialogue where Sauron-as-Halbrand make grandstanding declaration about how badly he needs her, which a)doesn't say anything about Galadriel's feelings or intentions, and b)the second time he tries it, she tells him hell no in no uncertain terms. So the idea that the show had Galadriel cheating or considering cheating on Celeborn is something that exists only in the imagination of some viewers - not something that's ever indicated in any meaningful way on the show.

For another, Tolkien did write about at least one Elf who remarried. It's kind of an important plot point, actually. So let's not make him into a dogmatic religious fundamentalist shoving hardcore purity religion down every throat.

(He would certainly have a problem with sex shown or discussed on screen, because he wasn't a big fan of sex, but, well, the show doesn't have that).

And why wouldn't someone beg for help if they badly needed help and the other party was hesitating on whether or not to give it? I have no idea what point you're trying to make here.

 

[r16]

good to know that this is not a yet another thing that says if one gets laid in any way down or upto being gay , there would be like no problems . ı have done quite well by knowing nothing as well .

 

[Plotinus]

I would certainly think it was nothing but idiotic, if someone (for whatever reason) made Joseph K. to be specifically Greek. It wouldn't be inclusive or meaningfully pro-Greek to me, just dumb and anti-Kafka. And that's even when the setting for The Trial isn't specified (and one at least can infer it's not in Austria-Hungary, unless -eg- in Trieste, since someone in the story has a yacht).

Your analogy isn’t appropriate, and there are three reasons for this.

First, no existing characters had their ethnicity changed. The producers created new characters with diverse ethnicity.

Second, as a white Greek man you are not subject to the negative social forces facing non-white people. As a Greek you can hardly complain about voices like yours being marginalised - Greek literature is at the very beginning of the traditional western canon. In literary terms, you speak from a position of utmost privilege. Your imagined reaction to the changing of a story to include somebody like you is therefore completely irrelevant to how (say) a black woman should react to the changing of a story to include somebody like her. Your experience of the world is not like hers, and the inclusion of people like her is an attempt to put right an injustice that you have not suffered. Neither you nor I know what that is like. We are not the intended audience for such changes.

Third, as I said before, Tolkien wrote his stories with the explicit intention of making a mythology for the English. The very nature of mythology is to be reinterpreted afresh by every generation to be made relevant to that generation. Nobody complains when people retell (say) the Arthurian legends and add their own spin; nobody complains, for example, that T.H. White made Merlyn into a pacifist in a way that he never was in Mallory, because they recognise that adjusting the character to be newly relevant is a legitimate thing to do. Tolkien - himself a rewriter of Arthurian myth - knew this perfectly well. Hence you find reworkings of myths in his works: the story of Numenor is explicitly a retelling of Atlantis, but with a very different moral; Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug is a reworking of the thief’s encounter with the dragon in Beowulf; and Eriol, the main character in the Book of Lost Tales, is the father of Hengist and Horsa, tying the whole thing explicitly into existing Anglo-Saxon mythology and pseudo-history. Nobody complains about Tolkien rewriting Plato, so why get het up about people rewriting Tolkien?

Tolkien’s works are meant to be a mythology for the English people. The English are more diverse today than they were when Tolkien conceived his stories. It’s entirely appropriate to rework his mythology to be relevant to the English as they are today. This isn’t a consideration that applies to Kafka, who wrote in entirely different genres.

 

[Kyriakos]

Your analogy isn’t appropriate, and there are three reasons for this.

First, no existing characters had their ethnicity changed. The producers created new characters with diverse ethnicity.

Second, as a white Greek man you are not subject to the negative social forces facing non-white people. As a Greek you can hardly complain about voices like yours being marginalised - Greek literature is at the very beginning of the traditional western canon. In literary terms, you speak from a position of utmost privilege. Your imagined reaction to the changing of a story to include somebody like you is therefore completely irrelevant to how (say) a black woman should react to the changing of a story to include somebody like her. Your experience of the world is not like hers, and the inclusion of people like her is an attempt to put right an injustice that you have not suffered. Neither you nor I know what that is like. We are not the intended audience for such changes.

Third, as I said before, Tolkien wrote his stories with the explicit intention of making a mythology for the English. The very nature of mythology is to be reinterpreted afresh by every generation to be made relevant to that generation. Nobody complains when people retell (say) the Arthurian legends and add their own spin; nobody complains, for example, that T.H. White made Merlyn into a pacifist in a way that he never was in Mallory, because they recognise that adjusting the character to be newly relevant is a legitimate thing to do. Tolkien - himself a rewriter of Arthurian myth - knew this perfectly well. Hence you find reworkings of myths in his works: the story of Numenor is explicitly a retelling of Atlantis, but with a very different moral; Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug is a reworking of the thief’s encounter with the dragon in Beowulf; and Eriol, the main character in the Book of Lost Tales, is the father of Hengist and Horsa, tying the whole thing explicitly into existing Anglo-Saxon mythology and pseudo-history. Nobody complains about Tolkien rewriting Plato, so why get het up about people rewriting Tolkien?

Tolkien’s works are meant to be a mythology for the English people. The English are more diverse today than they were when Tolkien conceived his stories. It’s entirely appropriate to rework his mythology to be relevant to the English as they are today. This isn’t a consideration that applies to Kafka, who wrote in entirely different genres.

I don't have issues with trying to help marginalized people. However I am of the view that art should not be altered for purely political reason.
And while the new (black) elf may be an entirely original character, you certainly can think of many cases where existent characters (in whatever lore) were changed in this way - so that specific trait in the Amazon tv series isn't imo important to the implicit focus of the (itself a tangent in the) discussion, despite us talking here about that series.
Maybe you are right, that people who were/are marginalized, do gain something from such alterations. If so, I fully agree they serve a purpose, which is overall positive (that is, regardless of other negatives they may have). Personally I do indeed struggle with imagining how simply changing a character (or more) to black, substantially helps black people - but I am not saying it under no circumstances can help, just wonder if the degree and frequency of such an outcome is really significant.

 

[Plotinus]

It’s not *altering* art, though. Nobody has gone round adding new characters to every copy of “The Lord Of The Rings” that they can find. Tolkien’s work remains exactly it always was. This is the creation of *new* art that is inspired by Tolkien. If people don’t like it they’re under no obligation to watch it, and they can carry on reading the original works just as they always did (though I do wonder how many of the vocal critics ever really did read Tolkien anyway, given that they seem to have overlooked all his messages about humility and compassion). Just as, to use the example I gave before, Mallory remains exactly the same as before even though we now have White as well.

 

[Evie]

Much as a painting of a pipe is not a pipe, the adaptation of a work in a different medium is not the original work.

Arguably, even the translation of a work is not the original work.

It’s new work by a new creator that seeks to represent their vision or understanding of the original work. It may be good, it may not be good, it may be for you, it may not be for you, but the one thing it absolutely is, is it’s own separate creation, with its own vision.

Much of fandom tends to forget that

 

[Kyriakos]

Much as a painting of a pipe is not a pipe, the adaptation of a work in a different medium is not the original work.

Arguably, even the translation of a work is not the original work.

It’s new work by a new creator that seeks to represent their vision or understanding of the original work. It may be good, it may not be good, it may be for you, it may not be for you, but the one thing it absolutely is, is it’s own separate creation, with its own vision.

Much of fandom tends to forget that

I don't see how that is all - if it was, it wouldn't explain how ubiquitous this particular type of "creative change" (using black actors in those roles) has been in recent years. In other words: it can't realistically be said that all those people doing the adaptations had a theory of how to creatively change things that boiled down to this. It's far more logical to accept it's a political change - for better or worse.
In some cases it's even straightforward that there are official quota that media (iirc, the British ones) have to maintain regarding minority actors.

 

[Evie]

I think you're viewing this in too intellectual terms. The process of adaptation is not one of literary analysis, forming developed theory of how to change the story, but rather an organic creative process where the adaptor naturally inject their own perception of the world and the story into their retelling of it.

And while some people are very likely being armtwisted (or feeling armtwisted, at least) in being inclusive, a simple fact is that increasingly more people reject the notion of white (and male, and straight, and...) as the default, as could be easily done in days of segregation, redlining, and limited immigration. A modern creator is much more likely to have grown up in a diverse environment, and to consider
diversity, not uniformity, the natural default. Back then, asking "why should there be non-white characters here?" was the natural approach to character's racial identity; but today the natural question is increasingly "why shouldn't there be non-white characters?"

A lot of the change is just that: people who don't assume white as the default looking at older stories and wondering why the stories need to be all-white. And coming up short an answer, and abandoning the all-white aspect as a result.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think you're viewing this in too intellectual terms. The process of adaptation is not one of literary analysis, forming developed theory of how to change the story, but rather an organic creative process where the adaptor naturally inject their own perception of the world and the story into their retelling of it.

And while some people are very likely being armtwisted (or feeling armtwisted, at least) in being inclusive, a simple fact is that increasingly more people reject the notion of white (and male, and straight, and...) as the default, as could be easily done in days of segregation, redlining, and limited immigration. A modern creator is much more likely to have grown up in a diverse environment, and to consider
diversity, not uniformity, the natural default. Back then, asking "why should there be non-white characters here?" was the natural approach to character's racial identity; but today the natural question is increasingly "why shouldn't there be non-white characters?"

A lot of the change is just that: people who don't assume white as the default looking at older stories and wondering why the stories need to be all-white. And coming up short an answer, and abandoning the all-white aspect as a result.

I hear you, but I still (personally) don't find it likely that virtually all adaptors ( ) went for the same type of very specific change we are discussing, of their own accord/due to their own background. So it would appear to be more of an external decision, by definition more removed from the actual art of it all.
I think you generally agree (red part), although seem to be of the view that by large (?) majority, they would do it as own artistic expression, while I am more of the opinion those would be in a minority.