"The Diversity of "The Rings of Power"" Transcript
26 Sep 2022
Middle Earth: More Woke Than You Think
Elves Are Gay (Thumbnail)
The Rings of Power
Script
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Sep 26, 2022
First published.
Dec 07, 2023
Privated post-callout.
May 8, 2024Channel deleted
Sep 26, 2022
Sep 27, 2022
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Middle Earth has always been pretty woke, despite what you might have heard.
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This video was sponsored by Wren
00:00 Introduction
05:50 Part One - Sue Me
12:39 Part Two - Fake History
22:41 Part Three - Global Shire
30:59 Part Four - Fairies & Unicorns
37:22 Part Five - Frustrated Fairy Noises
#ringsofpower #lotr #lordoftherings
This video is brought to you by Wren. While the plot of The Rings of Power was kept a
mystery leading up to its release, and some might argue is still a mystery, it was clear that if it
did not focus on the Silmerillian, then it would flush out what sparse history existed within
Tolkien’s works that were not proper novels. The show ended up being a loose adaptation
of the Second Age of Middle Earth, the least explored in the books. The first
dark lord, Morgoth — a figure similar to Satan, as an angel who betrayed a higher
power and was then cast out — has been definitively defeated. His lieutenant,
Sauron, however, is unaccounted for. The Second Age was, as Tolkein wrote,
about 3500 years; during this time, Sauron mustered forces in secret, and forged the
Rings of Power which he would then use to control the power structures of Men and Dwarves — and
then planned to make a stand against the Elves. The final confrontation with Sauron was depicted
in the prologue to Lord of the Rings movies, where we see Isildor and Elrond leading
a coalition Men and Elves against him. For the sake of expediency and dramatic
tension, this period of time has been condensed considerably in Rings of Power. Despite
this, both the Tolkein estate (Tolkein’s family) and the Tolkien society (Lord of the Rings
Loremasters on salary) gave the show their stamp of approval. And they’re really big sticklers
about adhering to Tolkein’s writing BY THE LETTER. They actually pulled strings at Amazon to
guarantee that Peter Jackson couldn’t be involved in the production in any way whatsoever.
They didn’t like the changes he made to the film adaptations, you see. Because… you need to
change things… when adapting something to film Regardless, somehow The Rings of
Power got their gold star. And yet there is a DISCOURSE on the internet
— as there are with all things. But a contingent of fans are outraged that the
show is, ‘apparently,’ completely unfaithful to Tolkein’s creative intentions. But not
for the narrative reasons you might think. For those who know better than the
flesh and blood of the creator himself, apparently Galadriel has no right to be a warrior,
and there were no black people in Middle Earth. They claim that Amazon’s ‘wokifying’ The Lord of
the Rings to appeal to a woke-liberal agenda or something. That they’re throwing in ‘forced
diversity’ to appeal to a larger audience, and/or that the woke gestapo censorship
board will have them all taken away and taken to woke-prison if they don’t
make the lead character a girlboss. And, they claim — they who are blessed with
understanding the artistic vision of a man who has been dead since the 70s, that Rings of Power’s
decision to make Galadriel a primary character, and their inclusion of black actors, is
in staunch violation of Tolkein’s work. That this is making Lord of the Rings ‘woke.’ I’m sorry to be the one to inform you,
but based on a contemporary definition of ‘woke’ — Lord of the Rings was ALWAYS
kinda woke. The Lord of the Rings is brazenly anti-war, pro-racial-cohabilitation,
collectivist, anti-industry, and pro-nature. In fact these themes are so explicit in the text
that Tolkein himself was nearly laughed out of his academic position at Oxford — and not just
because he wrote a fairy tale for grown-ups — but because it was just sooOOOooo soft. So much of
it was dedicated to men learning how to talk about their FEELINGS. And protecting forests.
And dismantling industry in lieu of pastoralism. YECH. We want REAL, books, John. Like… a 265,000-word
book about a guy who goes on a walk in Ireland while his wife cheats on him. Not 575,000
words about why protecting the natural world is important. But it actually is important, which
brings me to the sponsor of this video, Wren. Wren.co is a website that makes it easy
to calculate and offset your own carbon footprint. By answering a few questions
you can find out your carbon impact, and how to reduce it. You can then make
a monthly contribution to offset your carbon footprint by funding carbon
reduction projects around the world. The climate crisis affects all of
us. Personally, being asthmatic, I’m extremely sensitive to very
high or very low temperatures, so the extreme variance in temperatures
over the last few years has made living with breathing difficulties all that much more
difficult. But we can actually help to slow down, if not reverse these climate changes. And Wren is
a simple and effective way to make a difference. Wren has multiple projects running but their
tree planting initiative is one that I actually really believe in. It helps remove CO2 from the
air, and regulates the planet's temperatures. And would definitely be something that Tolkien
and the elves of Middle Earth would get behind. The climate crisis is the most nefarious and
wide-reaching fight we have on our hands today, with the most catastrophic circumstances. It
will take a lot to end the climate crisis, but you can start today by
learning more at wren.co. The first 100 people who sign up
using the link in the description, will have 10 extra trees planted in their name! Can I just say how awesome it is that my first
sponsor is one I actually believe in? Feels good. Okay, now before we set sail to Middle
Earth, don’t forget to like and subscribe, we’re trying to hit 250,000 subscribers by
the end of the year and then we’re going to release something really awesome. I
can’t talk about it just yet but it’s worth hitting that button and
ringing that bell. I promise. NOW onto our feature presentation. Oddly, the biggest sticking point when
it comes to the discourse around Rings of Power seems to be the
whole… Woman with a sword thing. Galadriel as a warrior, clad in armor, taking
up the sword against evil. Apparently it’s just not very ‘realistic…’ She, like any other fictional woman
who’s even halfway capable of doing anything, is dismissed as a ‘Mary Sue.’ “Oh she didn’t have to WORK for her abilities!” “She’s just good at things because
‘they’ needed woke points from women.” “She doesn’t deserve her skills!” And so on and so forth. This argument is dumb and I can’t believe
that when you have your Luke Skywalkers, John Wicks, Peter Parkers, and…
every character Dwane Johnson has ever played — that we still
need to have this discussion. Legolas from the movies. He walks on fresh
snow, surfs down the trunk of a Mumakil, and he’s just the best at everything.
And that’s perfectly fine, apparently. The Maries and Garies of Sue-dom
DO exist. The chosen ones, the special stars, the underdogs,
the diamonds in the rough, the— “I’m just an orphan from the South side Chicago!” It’s a thing. And it doesn’t see gender,
race, or age. So we just have to deal with it. But when you’re entering the
realm of functionally immortal people, Isn’t that the point where we stop giving a crap
about how characters developed their skills? We’re dealing with a race of eternally young
and beautiful people whose Elf eyes see in telescopic vision and who can catch arrows in
mid air. But the specialist person of a group of already special people having a vagina
is where you wanna draw your suspension of disbelief? I won’t argue with you if you
actively make the decision to choose stupid. Old adage: “Never argue with an idiot. Other people won’t be able to
tell the two of you apart.” If you don’t wanna deal with
plot armor, by all means, there’s another fantasy television
series that’s far too squeamish to actually admit it’s a fantasy series.
And there’s no women warriors over there. Part of the problem I’m sure is that
Galadriel doesn’t LOOK like how, apparently, a woman warrior SHOULD look.
Nevermind that aside from Brianne of Tarth, Lady warriors don’t really have enough of
a hold in fiction to really have a ‘look.’ Maybe the problem is that Galadriel isn’t
really ‘trying’ to be pretty. Neither does she wear seductive eye liner, nor does she don
the classic breast-emphasizing, rib-shattering breastplate usually put on female knights. And
yet, I feel that if she did actually go out of her way to look pretty and do those things, she would
be dismissed as being pointlessly sexualized. The ire, at the core, is not about the
depiction, but the fact that she’s there IN GENERAL. That she has a role beyond the
one she had in Jackson’s film adaptations which was to look mystical and pat
our gallant heroes on the head when they needed a pep talk. Which, to be fair,
was most of what she did in the book too. But if your only exposure to Tolkein was the
films and the body text of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit — then yes, you may be under
the impression that this is how Tolkein depicted the bearer of the Elven ring Nenya, and women in
general. But if you go through the appendices, the histories of Middle Earth, and the
Silmarillion, you realize that’s not quite true. Specifically with Galadriel — there is a
reason they chose her to carry the central plot of Rings of Power. In the appendices of
The Lord of the Rings it blatantly describes Galadriel as leading armies of Elves against
Sauron in the north. While our main heroes are fighting to protect Minas Tirath, Galaderial
is acting as the general of an Elven army, wasting Sauron’s forces. She is not just a woman
in a fancy dress. She is a military leader. We know Galadriel actively fought in those
battles, so why not battles in the past? The Rings of Power DOES take place in the Second
Age, where information on all characters is relatively sparse — at least before the Rise of
Sauron and the forging of the Rings. There is a limited amount of information about what Galadriel
was doing — some real broad strokes kinda stuff. If Tolkein had some never-published biographical
information that specifically says that Galadriel did not do these things (and there IS a
lot of hidden writing that his estate is gradually publishing), then they would not
give the series their blessing. As they did. But the more you realize that this whole Galadriel
business is wacko the more you see that this is a problem in genre fiction as a whole (particularly
those which lean into action and adventure). It’s okay to INCLUDE women, but there are very strict
guidelines for how they ought to be included. Namely… if a woman’s role isn’t
exclusively to assist men, then she’s a Mary Sue. She needs to help
funnel all the attention to a male co-lead, because that’s where HER attention
needs to be primarily directed. And it’s one thing to say: “I don’t
identify with this central characters, therefore I have no interest in this media,”
and just disengaging. But the problem is a lot of men — especially white men — seem
to adopt this OUTRAGE that something that was never promised to be FOR them is being
taken away FROM them. Like any space that is given to anyone else is a space that
is taken away from them on principle. It seems that ‘inclusion’ — to this
audience — stops there. Including people. There’s no discussion about
how these people would like to BE included. And forget about any media
that is made specifically FOR them. After all, when Legolas is a bad ass, it’s because ‘reasons.’ When Galadriel
is a bad ass, it’s ‘woke garbage.’ And by all means if you just didn’t know that all
the weird fictional history that Tolkien included in footnotes was actually meant to be taken
seriously, then that’s fine. But then again, if you don’t know the nitty-gritty details
about something, do some research first before acting like you do. These are things I
know, and I’m far from being a Tolkien scholar. But there’s a reason for why, when people are
confronted with Galadriel’s canonical martial and marshaling skills, they go silent. Or
they ignore the counterpoint all together. It’s because the reality of the lore does not
align with how they have been conditioned to approach fantasy tropes in general. And this is an
unfortunate state of Fantasy in this day and age. While recently, we have been making
strides to diversify the genre; for the longest time it was very white and very
masculine. And even though Lord of the Rings is almost entirely responsible for fathering the
modern fantasy genre, it seems ‘The Fellowship’ was the only thing that was really emulated.
And neither the pretty gay, traumatized country boys nor the powerful women doing stuff
on the sidelines ever really translated. And so their arguments shift away from Galadriel
specifically. These people have already decided Rings of Power is bad because it challenges
their privilege, so they need to pivot. They wouldn’t want to look sexist next to
their very white girlfriends, now would they. So suddenly the black Elf or the black
Dwarf or the black Harfoot (progenitor of Hobbits) are proof POSITIVE that
the creators at Amazon Prime have maliciously exploited the source content
to perpetuate their woke liberal agenda. (Imagine Amazon being woke…) Because, they claim, Tolkein would
never write anything of the sort. Galadriel’s role in the fight against capital-E
Evil is front and center of ‘The Discourse,’ but it’s kind of a nothing-topic. Galadriel led armies
in the War of the Ring. Elves have generations to master martial abilities. There is sufficient
enough evidence in Tolkein’s extensive writings to justify an adaptation that includes her leading
the fight against darkness in the Second Age. Though there’s no textual evidence that she did
so, this is an adaptation. And though we love the Peter Jackson trilogy (I consider the three movies
as one to be my favorite movie of all time), Jackson made plenty of changes that we just
forgive now. Such as Arwen: Warrior Princess. But the more sinister issue from what I can
see is the ever-prevalent and yet quiet racism regarding the discourse of black characters.
I feel as if the reason this line of complaint is being allowed to run its course is mostly
due to the fact that Twitter is so overused to a discussion about what skin colors
should or should not be allowed in fantasy that collectively everyone's just ignoring the
haters in the hopes that they’ll just go away. Though I am, at least somewhat,
concerned that this is going to result in an emboldening of these bigoted
ideals. Especially because, at a glance, the arguments seem valid. They say: “There can’t
be any characters of color in Middle Earth because Tolkein (a British man born into colonized South
Africa) was only writing about white characters.” And supporters of this argument often cite
authenticity to the source material for WHY all the characters MUST be white to
remain faithful to Tolkein’s vision. However, as Tolkien is, more or less, the
grandfather of modern Fantasy fiction, I feel like it’s important to address these arguments
in the context of the Lord of the Rings. And also how characters of color are not NECESSARILY
excluded from Tolkein’s world building — at worst, they’re not incompatible. I generally avoid going too deep into
discussions around race because I’m pretty white, and I certainly benefit from white privileges.
I am reluctant to discuss issues around racism in media because my opinions are observational
— not lived experiences. And yes, even instances of what some may decry as ‘forced inclusion’ are
important because visible representation is good regardless of what a creator may have intended.
Forced whiteness happens far more often, with the vast majority of historical fiction between
Greece and Egypt being cast with white actors. However, I DO want to provide
not only canonical evidence, but historical fact for why this
inclusion is not only possible, but faithful to history and probably
Tolkein’s writings themselves. In Middle Earth, there are indeed faraway lands
which do indeed host people of color. There’s a kind of distant oriental-coded desert land with
dark skinned people. Which I feel is where a lot of these expectations come from. Reading into
the argumentative structures of fantasy-purists, people of color are permitted in Eurocentric
fantasy… but they MUST feel exotic to the plot.
THIS is the context in which some
fantasy-purists seem to accept characters of color — if at all. (At least
from what I’ve observed.) And naturally, this permissible ‘othering’ process does not
require (in fact, it discourages) accurate portrayals of the ethnic cultures from which
it draws inspiration. Accuracy requires nuance, which requires a subplot that will take attention
away from the epic romance — or what HAVE you. The result being this orientalist mosaic
of visual and purely aesthetic cues pulled from a number of cultures from a number of
eras. Whether or not it’s done in good faith, I’m sure, is up to a case-by-case
basis. The thing is though, in high fantasy specifically, this is
less problematic and just… kinda… lazy. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of
understanding from a lot of writers about what different fantasy ‘races’ are supposed
to be other than “These ones are like 18th century Persians, these ones are like 16th
century Chinese, these ones are African.” You know, the ONE African culture. Given the care and effort many writers put
into creating their cultural range of Elves, Dwarves, and cat people, you’d think
they’d be more than willing to research actual history for their tokenistic non-white
foreigners. At least, to his credit perhaps, Tolkein made absolutely no attempt to include
these foreign cultures beyond throwaway mentions. Because in Tolkein, the use of multiple races —
elves and dwarves and humans specifically — was always MEANT to represent different races and
cultures. With no shortage of racial tension between Legolas and Gimli, it’s abundantly
clear that the entire point of The Lord of the Rings is various races coming together to
fight against the forces of capital-D Darkness. Tolkien himself served in the first World
War, where the British Empire called upon the provinces to send their best men to fight. He
saw a myriad of various cultures coming together to fight a problem that was… admittedly…
primarily a ‘British’ problem. The issues arising from internal European political
issues would have likely gone unnoticed in, say, India or Hong Kong — were
it not for British colonialism. Suffice to say, Tolkein wrote his racial subtext
to carry his observations. When different cultures put aside their prejudice and work together
— things are GOOD. When they do the opposite, things are BAD. When people are allowed to
be different things are GOOD. When people are homogenized into an ethnostate,
such as with Orcs, things are BAD. Racial tensions in The Hobbit’s Battle of Five
armies bear a resemblance to World War 1 or a mindless resource war. There was no reason for any
of these nations to go to war aside from greed. However, we can see The Lord of The Rings as a
reflection of his thoughts on World War Two — with the ominous and obvious evil of fascism REQUIRING
the world to go to war. Even the Ents and Eagles, which usually stay removed from the
conflicts of man, do their part. In order to halt the advance of Evil, Elves
and Dwarves needed to appreciate the other. Legolas and Gimli join the fellowship in
spite of their mutual distrust toward each other . But over the course of three books
of shared trauma, there’s so much camaraderie between them that they sail off into the
west together, like good heterosexual bros. The use of races in modern fantasy and — in
science fiction, the use of aliens — has, since Tolkein, been meant to be
a stand-in for racial diversity. Most people in England at the peak of colonialism
wouldn’t SEE the negative consequences of Imperial expansion, so it would have been a tough sell
to convince them that maybe it’s better to let other cultures thrive independently,
and develop cooperative partnerships, rather than force them to yield to British
Authority. For most of these people, all they knew was ‘The British Way’ — the
baseline of British Propaganda was all they had. Using various races from Nordic mythology offered
Tolkein a way to have this discussion without having the messaging instantly dismissed.
The intention being that a reader of The Lord of the Rings would take away from the
plot: the values of cultural cooperation. But contrast this with older fantasy
stories and myths. In Nordic mythology, the racial objective was for all races to conform
to the authority of the coalition between the Asir and Vanir. Specifically the immigrant,
warlike Asir, who were held as the highest race. Odin: “Oh shit.” Among Tolkein’s contemporaries, take C.S. Lewis
as an example of the state of Racial analogies in fantasy. The ‘good races’ of Narnia are
those who conform to Jesus-Lion's vague albeit totalitarian arbitrary values and laws. The
‘Bad Ones’ are those who follow the White Witch, the Devil analogy, or are allied with Lewis’
flavor of demonized orientalist culture. (And yes… it’s not a coincidence that Lewis’
god-jesus figure is a Lion — which is the symbol of the British Empire itself. Funny since
there were certainly no lions on the island of Britain. But his argument was that British
Imperial values were inherently civilized, and that other cultures would
benefit from British rule.) Tolkien himself — and this may come as a surprise
to some — actually opposed British expansionism. In letters he wrote: “I know nothing about British
or American imperialism in the Far East that does not fill
me with regret and disgust.” “I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones.” Industrialism is actually one of the main reasons
that Tolkien strongly opposed expansion — he felt that the two go hand in hand and — surprise
— Tolkein was a certified tree-hugger. He created the Ents as a child when he saw a
production of MacBeth and was aggressively disappointed that there were no actual walking
trees as the three witches had promised. On top of the fact that Tolkien seemed to
earnestly want human cultures to function cooperatively, he also longed for a respect
toward nature. His favoritism and clear dedication towards crafting Elven culture is reflected in
this. The elves’ primary cultural motif is a strong connection to nature, almost functioning
as stewards for groves and forests. Also that they most strongly oppose Sauron in this regard,
who has NO love for the natural life of Mordor, which, it is alluded to, and even shown in Rings
of Power to have once been a lush, verdant land. Many Dwarves even met their end
by over-mining inside of Morea, stripping the world of its resources and awakening
the sleeping Balrog deep within the depths. And humans rest somewhere between the
three — some are staunch guardians of land; some relentlessly hoard wealth, and
seek power for power’s sake. The significance of a Hobbit bearing the
ring is because Hobbits have a strong resistance to The Ring’s whispers of power.
Culturally, Hobbits crave the simple life: neither wealth nor recognition, but family,
community, and an honest life. This is how Bilbo was able to wear the ring for decades
before BEGINNING to succumb to its darkness. Whereas Gandalf (wizards in Middle earth
are kinda like Angels) was so aware of how susceptible he was to the promise of
ultimate power that he wouldn’t even touch it. This kind of Hobbit-esque community and closeness
to the land is exactly how Tolkein felt people ought to live. He himself, a professor at Oxford, had disdain for living in and around the
college — instead, preferring the countryside. And he was hugging trees BEFORE
this whole Global Warming thing. However, in spite of this, that isn’t to
say he was without flaw. He WAS after all, a white British citizen who, regardless of his
displeasure at expansionism, did benefit from British Imperial status — whether he knew it or
not. Regardless of how culture-conscious one may consider themselves, especially in eras where the
exchange of information and ideology is not fluid, there are naturally going to be areas where
propaganda forms the basis of one’s ideologies. Though the Orcs were actually derived from the
brutish types of the Oxford Rugby Club (hence the acronym for describing creatures who, in The
Hobbit, were simply ‘goblins’), he later described their physical appearance as resembling “the
least lovely mongol-types.” Tolkein, after all, was developing these opinions in a post-WW2
European Allied front. His perception of East Asian people as a whole probably was coloured
to a significant degree by wartime propaganda. …Still kinda nasty though. Tolkein also lived in the early half of the
20th century, where there was no corrective discourse to lean people away from thinking like
that. Despite having many culturally progressive viewpoints, very few individuals are invulnerable
to cultural attitudes of their day and age. No ‘but.’ Tolkein said some racist crap. He likely held
racist sentiments in spite of writing content about the benefits of races working
together. This does not excuse him; he and his work need to be fit into the context
of the cultural zeitgeist of post-war Europe. What was ‘progressive’ in the context of THEN
does not need to mean it is progressive today. But what it SHOULD do is inspire us to realize
how much further we need to be than THAT. I am often annoyed about how other white
people will use ‘everybody was racist back then’ as a way — not to frame systems of
privilege and oppression as they existed during peak colonialism — but as a defense
to shield cultural and political figures from criticism. This is often used to
venerate figures like Joseph Conrad. “Oh… Heart of Darkness isn’t ACTUALLY racist, because it was relatively LESS racist
than other writers’ work at the time.” Our scholars seem to be reluctant to admit that
some of the most influential figures perpetuated racist ideologies, and will go through a battery
of mental gymnastics to justify their defense. And again I’m not excusing Tolkein
either. Some of his beliefs were wrong. However, the text and theme of Tolkien's writing is in dismantling imperialism, racial cooperation,
and favoring pacifist pastoralism. That said, far be it from me to use messaging from a work
of fiction and assume it applies to the creator also. Rowling has done some serious psychic
damage to our cultural consciousness. Just because progressive sentiments CAN be read into
Tolkein, does not mean the man himself held them. (And yes there was like…plenty of
implicit racism in Rowling’s work… when you actually… read it back as an… adult…) The problem here is that, unlike Rowling,
Tolkien is dead. He neither has the ability to elaborate on a contemporary reading of
his work, nor does he have the ability to learn from mistakes and change his thinking —
if that is something he would be willing to do. Bear in mind that ‘the old person set
in their ways’ is a myth. Look at people like Jane Fonda and Bernie Sanders, who were
already pretty damn progressive in the 1960s, and have only gotten more accepting
as time went on. Fonda, in particular, has become a climate warrior in her later years, using her money to bring awareness and save the
planet for generations she’ll never live to see. I like to think that, provided
the opportunity to be corrected, Tolkein would have taken it. This is based
on the content of his writing, which does include an open-mindedness that is uncommon
of writing for his lifetime and earlier. And, also based on textual evidence, I do believe
that Tolkein never intended Middle Earth to be homogeneously ‘white.’ Even if it was
not on his mind while he was writing, I don’t think he would have been upset
by the inclusion of people of color. Of course… I never met the guy though. Whether or whether not that is optimism
on my part will never be known. And this is something I AM willing to be wrong
about, if evidence to the contrary arises. Probably something I should have led with is that
— in the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings, during a very gratuitous description of
Hobbit culture and appearance, Tolkein errantly describes (some of) the Hobbits
as having ‘brown skin.’ This, of course, varies depending on the various lineages
of Hobbits. Those descended from Harfoots, which are the hobbitty people we follow in
the Rings of Power, had the darkest skin. …It’s in the literal text. It’s right there. This is contrasting, of course, against the
Orcs — described as having ‘black’ skin, which some read as racial coding. But given that
he describes hobbits as having ‘brown’ skin, I’m inclined to believe he meant that the
black skin of the Orcs was more like… tar or oil. The bi-product of the increasingly
industrializing world he hated so much. And, like with women in roles typically
reserved for men (such as Aowen, slayer of the Witch King) this is a problem that
not only permeates the entire fantasy genre, but which is propagated by a loud minority
online who hate inclusion like this. Again — Tolkein — said some crap. But these
textual and subtextual messages in this very pivotal piece of the genre’s history should
embolden modern fantasy consumers to demand more inclusion, and highlight just how little
the ‘haters’ actually know about the genre. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say Tolkein did intend for an all-white,
completely homogenized depiction of Middle Earth. Just like references to tomatoes, a vegetable
that was not native to Europe, are not historically accurate, an all-white depiction
of medieval Europe is not accurate either. Contrary to Hollywood depictions, Europe was,
while far from the pinnacle of diversity, host to a wide range of peoples.
Owing to its prosperity in wool, the continent was based around an export
economy. There’s a wide range of travel logs from the more urbanized Middle East outlining
the culture of the villages and repurposed Roman forts that now served as the political and
economic hubs of this gentle, temperate land. Urban centers of Medieval and Renaissance
Europe would be home to a wide range of merchants, traders, diplomats, politicians,
artists, and travelers who were not white. Landed immigration is not an invention
of the 19th and 20th centuries. Human beings have migrated and intermixed
as long as trade has been a pivotal element of national survival. The greatest
cultures on the planet — then and now — are those that welcomed diversity, or at
least approached it with ambivalence. So in the event that Tolkein — or any other
creator — used medieval Europe as a setting and depicted a homogeneously white cast…
They’re just egregiously wrong. ESPECIALLY if they cite ‘historical accuracy’ as a
reason for why you think everything should be white-washed. In which case,
adapting these works of fiction to fit our current understanding of history is not only
‘correct’ — but it enriches the original creation. [Beloved all-white fantasy story] is BETTER
because we have corrected some of the author’s historic misunderstandings. Historical context
is added to the story, and the world in which this story takes place is richer because
it contains geo-political implications. Migration is part of human history. So are
strong women. So are feminine men. And it has always struck me that a genre like fantasy,
which in the very description requires the use of creation and imagination, is so limited
to white, straight men doing masculine things. A man with a sentient book of
spells fighting dragons with a sword forged out of mythical metals?
Perfectly fine. But swap the skin color or add mammary glands and suddenly it’s
‘inaccurate,’ ‘forced,’ or ‘political.’ So in spite of the fact that gender-inclusion and
racial diversity are done deals as far as history is concerned… what does that mean for US? Queer
people, who have struggled to justify our own visibility in history, and whose manifestation
of queerNESS has occupied a very wide range of identities and cultural conditions of
acceptance? Are we ALSO unimaginable? The Lovers of Modena is a culturally significant
archeological find excavated near Modena, Italy in 2009. Believed to be buried between
the 4th and 6th century BC — when life in pre-Roman Italy was locked in tribalism.
They are now on display in the city’s Museum. Interred side-by-side with
their hands clasped together, this is a strong cultural message that
even when life was nasty, brutish, and short — our ancestors believed that true love
transcended death. It’s a romantic sentiment. They are inseparable in death; it stands
to reason they were inseparable in life. However a few years ago, researchers from Bologna
confirmed that both skeletons had Y-chromosomes. Suddenly, the Lovers of Modena, a symbol of
eternal love, became the BROTHERS of Modena. I mean nearly everyone called BS on that so
it doesn’t really matter. Modern historians, allegedly, approach their study with a
degree of sobriety — history journalists, on the other hand, seem to believe
that they can only publish an article if it is palatable to a straight, cis audiences. Regardless in where the error in communication
lies, the fact remains, many people believe that ‘The Gays’ were invented in the 1800s, if not
the 1960s. That lesbians don’t actually exist because it’s perfectly normal for every girl
to have that one special GAL PAL. And trans people only started existing with Caytlin
Jenner or, worse, The Silence of the Lambs. I mean if gay people are as
imaginary as wizards and goblins, you’d think we’d be lining the pages of
fantasy books. Funny story about Unicorns is that they’re actually an ancient Greek
invention. Thing is, they never appeared in Greek myth because they ACTUALLY BELIEVED
they were real. (It’s likely they were derived from the stories of travelers told about
rhinoceroses from deep African explorations.) To history, we’re fairies.
To fantasy, we’re unicorns. But one thing that everyone seems to
agree on is that neither fairies nor unicorns ACTUALLY exist. They’re just things
that go into stories. But only SOME stories. I’m referencing this from a hypothetical
proposition in The Rings of Power — the fact that everyone’s reading Elrond
as gay. Or Bi. We know that he DOES have a daughter. Granted childbearing
doesn’t necessarily mean you have to love or be attracted to the co-parent. For
everything else, there’s a turkey baster. Anyway — I’m kinda like: you know it
would be REALLY cool if they actually made elves kinda bisexual. I guess if you’re
a collective of immortal tree-worshippers, just ONE gender is gonna get boring after
a while, so why not try it all out, right? But then I’m like… Oh damn. How is Twitter gonna explode if that DOES happen?
The WAVE of ‘definitely not homophobia’ that we’d see? And in spite of the fact that these
are immortal characters who do not exist in a post-christianized cycle of homophobia, and
instead are fashioned to resemble more celtic and nordic sensibilities, both cultures which found it
was perfectly acceptable for guys to platonically, well, you know — for some reason
these fantasy people with a fantasy culture and a fantasy language and
a fantasy religion are PREDICATED on puritanical christian values regarding
with whom it is acceptable to copulate. It doesn’t make the slightest sense to me why we haven’t just collectively decided that
elves are queer. Hashtag: OccupyElrond. And of course, when it comes
to fantasy these days, The Rings of Power is naturally going to compete with… House of the Dragon. A discussion about representation in fantasy
— especially of queer characters is going to draw a comparison to Game of Thrones and
its current spinoff series. Both of which have HAD queer characters. I say HAD because
they usually end up dead within a season. Can’t keep us around too long or else we might
start to stretch the suspension of disbelief. Nevermind that, yes, we have existed at all
points throughout history. And even sometimes —out— among the ruling classes where there
was a safety net of affluence to protect us. But if I am predicting a wave of controversy
over Gay Elrond, how did Game of Thrones escape that controversy with Oberon, Loras,
and Renly, and now Laenor and Joffrey? Well. They died. First off. Except Laenor, he’s alive for now. But the rest all
died kinda pointlessly. Yes. Even Renly. Because through dialogue we are TOLD
that he is most likely to succeed Robert Barathian for the Iron Throne,
and while he seems the most capable, the narrative was always FRAMED around Stanis
(the straight one) and his struggle against his brother. He was certainly not framed as a hero,
but the narrative was framed from his perspective. Yes, Renly was VISIBLE, but the bros could
cop out of that representation because there was always a more typically
masculine figure close at hand. And boobs. Lots of boobs. And there was never any incentive to get
invested in his character. And situations where his sexuality were addressed
were usually the back end of a joke. The same was abundantly true for Loras,
even though he held even LESS significance to the plot. What did he even do? People
just made fun of him for being pretty and boning boys. I think there were more lines
where other characters talked about him being queer than lines that he actually spoke.
Probably an exaggeration… but maybe not. And again — Oberon. He befit ‘the foreigner’
trope I mentioned earlier. As a foreigner, there is license for him to have a different
cultural mindset. Again… there was an ‘out.’ Nobody was forcing anyone to identify
with the queers the way everyone was forced to identify with the
straights. Business as usual. But also keep in mind that all of
these homos died horrible, humiliating, painful deaths — pretty bad ones even for
Game of Thrones’ standards. Except the one gay brothel manager who betrayed Loras to the Faith
Militant. Who hated… gay people… for some reason. Once more we’re in a fantasy world with
a fantasy religion that inexplicably hates queerness for no other reason
than mirroring Christianized Europe… But we’re also living in a period of time
where it’s a struggle to convince people that we even exist TODAY, let alone when
the collective idea of the middle ages was a constant inquisition to root out
queers and women who liked plants. Which, given about 700 years of Europe’s Dark
Ages, was only true SOME of the time. If Elrond or another central Elf in Middle
Earth is queer, that may not technically break cannon with Tolkein’s writing, since he
never really wrote about anyone’s sexuality, but it does facilitate that they do not
die horrible deaths on account of their sexuality. Because we know Elrond lives a long,
long life, and then sails off into the west. And we can’t have that in
fantasy land, now can we? Honestly I’m at the point where I’d rather
have LESS, but more meaningful representation, then to get… THIS… and then look like
an asshole for complaining about it. Again… This is indicative of a mindset
where representation is a GIFT bestowed upon us by the hegemony — rather than
being either an ethical obligation, good business sense, or affording a platform
for people to make their own damn content. I’ve said it before: when your
base-level ‘want’ out of the media is to see someone who shares some of your life
experiences, and when many consider that an element of pushing a social agenda (‘being
political’), it just wears you down a lot. Sure, I would like to see gay characters
that push the envelope and challenge conventional thought processes, but I
also just like being able to point at the television screen because
something feels recognizable. I suppose you can say that I am preemptively
exhausted from this discussion. Like a legal case I am assembling a collection of evidence
and arguments to justify our existence in any piece of genre media. Especially because queerness
has played a pivotal role in the development not only of fantasy, but science fiction also.
As it goes for women. And people of color. It’s really unfortunate that in order to justify
our INCLUSION in this media, we, each of us, need to be a scholar. Meanwhile, those of
privilege are under no burden to justify their DOMINANCE of these genres. ‘This
is how things always have been’ is not only a bad argument because it does
not speak to the historic silencing of people who have developed these
genres, but it’s also just wrong. We’ve always been here in the real world. And yes, even in myths. Greek mythology is gayer
than the Falcon Studios back catalog. But society likes to pretend we’re no more real
than fairies and elves. And if we do get mentioned in media, we should be happy for the mention.
Our inclusion might take people out of the story, even if that story involves dragons and
dark lords. Suspension of disbelief can be stretched pretty far but it might snap at
two boys kissing and living happily ever after. But we do deserve better representation than being introduced in one episode
and killed off in the next. And Tolkien probably never intended
for us to show up in his books and stories. Maybe not even maliciously.
Again, writing in that day and age, an old straight man working at Oxford probably
never would have thought of us to begin with. When it comes to bigotry… is there a difference
between ignorance, negligence, or malice? And how do we qualify which of these
describes our forbearers’ problematic musings? Maybe we’ll show up in The Rings of Power
someday. It’s got 5 seasons… But Maybe not. But if we don’t we can take solace in the anger
of edge lords online getting butt hurt over strong women and characters of color finding their
way into a visual depiction of Middle Earth. And maybe The Rings of Power isn’t the best
show ever. But if we can all agree on one thing… It's not as bad as The Hobbit movies.
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