RedCheese wrote: ↑1 year ago
toctheyounger wrote: ↑1 year ago
Yeah I don't see the flavor fail there either. Unless we're talking Aragorn's color, and look....let's just not go there. There's not no reason for the extra melanin, as a ranger he's seen a lot of sun and the men of Numenor were well colored in general. We don't need to go any deeper.
Otherwise, card does what Arwen and Aragorn should.
I'm a big fan of the Lord of Rings, so an adaptation that isn't respecting the depiction of certain characters kinda bothers me because theres no logical reason to change a character when breaks logic in world in how it was potrayed.
So playing devil's advocate a little here....I get it. I'm not about to shout it from the rooftops as a travesty, but here goes.
I'm a huge fan too. I will say I'm not about to bandstand about this, and I can totally look the other way. It's not that critical to me, I don't feel affronted on behalf of my fellow fans, and Tolkien's books will always be the
only canon. Even the films, as truly amazing as they are to still be the best fantasy films on offer almost 30 years after their making, aren't a perfect depiction of the original story. And I'm from New Zealand, I'm real proud of that %$#%. We did a LotR honeymoon, my son went to Hobbiton for his first two birthdays (can recommend if you're a Tolkien nerd btw). We're all up in it.
I don't have issue with Aragorn being more highly tanned, or even black necessarily. Looking into it a little bit deeper as to why, though, it is a little stupid and more than a bit disingenuous. WotC basically decided that they wanted a more modern take on LotR and that's why he's black. That's it. If there were some sort of in story reasoning for it I'd be cool with that. But if they're going from source material he is described as pale.
Now, representation matters, I'm never going to say it doesn't. But to change it for no conceivable reason other than to seem more woke seems a bit arbitrary and virtue signally. Especially when Tolkien was vehemently not a racist person in any way: you gotta see the letter he wrote to the Nazi party when they approached him back in the day, he knew racism was a fallacy and wasn't afraid to tell them so. When it came to The Hobbit, he was at one point approached by someone who indicated to him that the dwarves as portrayed in the book showed traditionally semitic features and asked if that was intentional or derogatory. In an effort to both dispel anyone of the illusion that his writing could ever be conceived of as allegory or the man himself as even an incidental racist, he literally wrote Gimli, Son of Gloin as a valiant, gentle hearted warrior that bridged the schism between dwarf and elf and eschewed gold and riches over friendship.
It just seems a bit silly to make the story more woke, because it doesn't really need to be. Tolkien despised allegory, the story just is what it is. There's no racism, nothing to walk back. Anything you see in it you're bringing to the table, not JRR.
That said, I don't really truly care. The books are canon, I'm not racist, neither is Tolkien, Aragorn can be whatever color he likes, go off king. It's just a weird move for WotC to make. I'm more annoyed by that than the actual color of his skin.
That's all I'll say about it myself. I don't wanna get flagged for this, I don't want the trolls to come out of whatever woodworks might be about, I'm not gonna double down. I'm sure there's probably more canonical arguments to be made for him to be portrayed as pale too, but end of the day if this only pisses off the alt right racists they can die mad and I'd be just as happy either way.
I think if anything this just irks me as yet another way WotC is trying to feed us the line that they're a virtuous company that care about us when I don't think that's the case at all. One one hand they give us a black Aragorn, on the other hand they have whales chasing literally a single copy worldwide, ever, of The One Ring written in the Black Speech. The latter grosses me out as a consumer, the former just isn't quite canon. I'm alright with Aragorn, WotC gonna WotC.
Please forgive if any of this offends, I know race is a sensitive topic, and I'm pretty sure I've been as plain and polite as I can be about a touchy issue. If what's here upsets anyone please jump in my DM's for a full apology.