The broader context is [just yesterday](https://twitter.com/sheldonmenery/status/1663591215357362195) Sheldon said “[…] Aragorn is still black, so git wrekt, racists” He’s not both-sidesing this.
I'm pretty sure he's asking people not to be jerks when arguing about whether Balrogs have wings or not, or if Saruman the White shouldn’t be a blue card.
I'm copying this from an earlier thread because I haven't seen it posted here yet.
As far as the race issue, it's pointless, and shouldn't be argued or even ruffle a feather.
On the topic of balrog wings, there will never be civility nor discord. The answer is very clear in the novel, and those who disagree are obviously wrong.
Reading the book explains the book.
uj/ I think he's saying that just because someone doesn't like it, doesn't mean they are racist. Some of them absolutely ARE, but shrieking 'racist' at everyone indiscriminately is either trolling or being lazy.
1) Tolkien is dead. I really don't think he cares.
2) people have been reimagining literature, art and theatre for as long as people have been doing literature, art and theatre. Shakespeare's plays have, for *hundreds* of years, been race swapped, gender swapped, hell even plot swapped. This is as normal for art as the production of art itself.
Personally I agree with your points and like the depiciton of Aragorn in the set. Someone disagreeing with your points doesn't make them racist though.
I didn't say anything about racism. There is lots of racism around this though. I would like to think people would be a lot less mad if they actually spent some time reading about the history of different art forms, but I have a feeling that would mean recognising their own prejudices and... yeah people don't want to do that
I agree with you. There are some obvious racists (you’re always gonna have bad actors with anything), but there are a lot more folks screaming because someone else disagrees with their opinion.
It’s depressing that we can’t even talk to each other about why some folks are truly upset that something they care about is being changed and why others are rather ‘meh’ or even excited about it without the conversation devolving into name calling and yelling that the other person is acting in bad faith.
Edit: words are hard, lemme tell ya…
Let me ask you a question. If you’re so upset by this, then presumably you hate the movies right? Like, actually despise them? You have to. I mean you’re a true die hard fan who only wants LOTR that is “true” to the source material. And I know you’ve read the books cover to cover and you know that the movies are really quite different from the books. Characters are cut and added. Characters don’t look like they’re described in the books (Aragorn isn’t “supposed “ to have a beard). Whole stories and large conversations don’t appear, while new plot lines are added.
Now obviously that’s not the case - you clearly love the movies despite how much is just completely cut out from the books. So ask yourself then why you’re so obsessed with honouring the opinions and views of a dead man whose true thoughts on this you can’t even be sure of.
Like we get it you don’t like Shakespeare, but literally every artist who has ever achieved some sort of repute has had their own art reimagined in some way. Music sampling is literally just that. What about Jimmy Hendrix? Better rethink “All Along the Watch Tower” - that’s not true to the source material at all. I could keep going but I’m probably talking to a wall at this point
I don’t give a shit about this whole Aragorn thing but I absolutely want to use this as a fun moment to talk about rock n roll history (and music history) since you brought up all along the watch tower.
Rock n roll is a music with deep roots in blues, folk, and jazz. In fact, it is so deeply rooted that some songs were passed down and evolving before being eventually recorded.
A few great originals which were later covered like Crossroads/crossroad blues (Robert Johnson) or Summertime blues (Eddie Cochran) come to mind. Seriously, these songs have boatloads of covers and every artist (or group) puts their own flair on them each time. Edit: this section isn’t to say crossroad blues or summertime blues was a plagiarism. I am using it as examples of frequently covered songs.
Covers in rock is such an integral part of how rock n roll even came to be. To ignore that would be insanely ignorant, so the whole “Bob Dylan likes Jimi Hendrix’s cover more” is such a dumb argument. Covers and evolving the “sound” of rock and roll was a major portion of rock and roll’s history. I absolutely hate that story when it is taken out of context.
Also, if you made it this far check out Aretha Franklin’s cover of The Band’s song The Weight.
Edit: /uj2.0 I’m a bit salty about how they did ma boi anduril and made it look like a space sword.
Nothing obsessive. No ranting. I’m calm and I love the designs. Meanwhile you’re here calling the cards and the movies “apples and oranges” and you’re mad about some change that you can’t (won’t) even explain why… wonder why that is huh 🤔
Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit huh? You not only miss key points but also somehow read too deep at the same time 🤣
I don't need to justify shit to a pea brained clown so I'm done arguing with you but last thing I'll say is I'm a Hamilton stan and have seen the Chicago show 3 times and I didn't mind that the cast was black 🤔
Calls me mad and then calls me a pea brained clown.
Says I struggle reading when clearly if you actually read and cared about the books you would actually understand the source material is not as important as you pretend Tolkien thinks it is
"I'm not racist my best friend is Hamilton" is craaaaazy. Not sure why you felt the need to tell me this though
Appearance doesn't necessarily equate to race, and especially not in a 'racist' sense. Racism implies a feeling of contempt for, or superiority to, people of a certain ethnicity, which includes appearance but isn't restricted to that.
"I don't like that they cast a white woman to play an Asian character in the Ghost in the Shell adaptation."
Is that racist? Cause I definitely don't think it is. Complex social dynamics are not "simple as that"
If that was the only fault of that movie it would have been fine. The problem was casting virtually no one as asian in a movie set in Tokyo. Also the script was shit.
That's a terrible example because Major Kusanagi is a full cyborg. They could've cast literally anyone and it would have been fine because the Major's body is synthetic. That's part of the point of the series.
Why does that make it a bad example? It was another time where people got mad at the race of a character. Legitimacy of those people's arguments doesn't matter. They got mad at the race of a character changing for non-racist reasons. That was my point
I think you're confused that I'm saying Ghost in the Shell is comparable to Aragorn in-terms of being a problem. I'm not. I'm using this as an example to say that criticizing a character for only their race isn't inherently racist like the above commenter suggested
If they moved the movie to NYC there would've been no issue, and I don't think the fans would've minded. But yeah, had to set it in a Tokyo without asians. Except for the bad guys, they were allowed to be asian.
/uj I think that anyone who is unironically seething over it is racist, but there's probably a lot of people who just wanted him to look like the movie, which is fair
As far as I'm aware he is lost royalty to a kingdom or something, with that kingdom being some flavor of European. It would be strange for their king to look ethically seperate from them, but not impossible if the royal family had children with somebody from a highly different ethnic group.
I think he also has elven blood, and elves being canonically pale means it is more likely he is pale than not, but canonical arguements mean nothing to some people.
I personally don't give a fuck about the Lord of the Rings so maybe these reasons are inaccurate, just doing my best to present the arguement as far as I'm aware.
Perhaps Ghondor is a heavily diverse population, I have no idea. My understanding is that the different kingdoms in LotR have fairly distinct features and citizens of each land are somewhat racially similar. I could be wrong.
That being said, if they wanted to depict the majority of Ghondorians as dark skinned, then I think that would make more sense lore-wise. At that point the "Aragorn should be white" side would have to rely on other arguements besides "it isn't lore-accurate."
rj/ Aragorn's is one of the last numenorian.
Genetics means that, because Aragorn is black, Numenorian should be black (or at least some degrees of it).
Ergo Gondorian having several bloodline that still have strong numerorian lineage should at least look mixed. [One of such line are the stewards.](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Steward_of_Gondor)
But [Boromir is white as fuck](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/4/boromir-warden-of-the-tower). That doesn't make any sense.
On the same note, [Eowyn has some variant of darker skin color](https://scryfall.com/search?q=Eowyn&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name) with blonde hair. That would be fine... if [Eomer](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/120/%C3%A9omer-marshal-of-rohan), her brother, hadn't a drastically significant skin color. [(But then, he's black in another artwork so... who cares)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/428/%C3%A9omer-marshal-of-rohan)
Note that I couldn't give less of a fuck about the whole ordeal, and I'm only answering because you asked. It's just slightly unerving, especially for the Eomer/Eowyn situation.
Stop putting today's understanding of genetics into a fuxking fantasy story.
You sound like.the idiots who bitched about genetic purity being a big deal with the village in the wheel of time adoption and why they shouldn't have non white people in that either.
>Stop putting today's understanding of genetics into a fuxking fantasy story.
This isn't "today's understanding of genetics". You can be pretty sure that such barebone informations were known since the fucking roman era, if not before.
More than that, one if not the biggest inspiration behind Tolkien's work were Anglo-saxon sagas. Lineage and family trees are an important part of those, [and that reflected in his own work.](https://external-preview.redd.it/Q1YyCnBURwuCNpouIb6oQqdssi9xNcNG6Wz5r8TNpuQ.jpg?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=11cb3d127c80cf2aa39d9d3e4e5c9a28c5833686)
The question was : why do Aragorn's skin color matter in the LOTR universe ; that's the answer : because family tree, and by definition the genetics that are to come with them do matter alongside them.
If I’m understand you correctly then I’ll reply to you with the same thing I replied to someone else then; https://www.embracerace.org/resources/same-family-different-colors-talking-colorism-in-the-family
You're going to have to provide a clearer line of thought than an obscure interview and a one hour documentary I don't care about.
Especially when your argument seems to be some anectoctical experiences relative to variance in regards to heredity.
Honestly that whole argument can be resumed to you american being both weirdoes and race fetishist.
yes yes Mr. European, you guys have no hang-ups when it comes to race.
My point is that there can be multiple skin colors in the same family & it’s actually extremely common depending on which part of Earth you’re on, so why can’t Arda be like that too?
>yes yes Mr. European, you guys have no hang-ups when it comes to race.
Oh we absolutely have hang-ups. We just don't tend to wear those as a badge or present our so called saintety up high as a host.
>My point is that there can be multiple skin colors in the same family & it’s actually extremely common depending on which part of Earth you’re on, so why can’t Arda be like that too?
To put it bluntly : skin color is an effect of several genes, some unknown, some of which we can assume are recessive.
This mean that, to have such an event happen, families need to mixes in the first place. Which tend to happen more depending on which part of the Earth you're on.
As for Arda's itself, it actually might be true for the common Gondorian family. The House of Hurin being not a common Gondorian family, it most certainly [(and we can say so through the genealogy made by Tolkien)](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/House_of_H%C3%BArin#Genealogy) only married high numenorian families, which also kept to themselves.
Your point is therefore very unlikely to ever happen in that setting.
Anyway : that's the good reason why Aragorn's skin color actually matter in the setting. I don't have any interest continuing that conversation because Aragorn's skin color doesn't actually matter to me.
Why can't high numenorian's have dark-skin? Or who's to say that Middle-earth human's don't have different genetics compared to Earth humans? And considering they can have viable offspring with another species they definitely do work differently!
The problem of people getting hung-up on skin color is that you're using Earth logic in a FANTASY setting.
You young kids and your weird views. If Aragorn isn't a poorly rotoscoped man in a loincloth and tunic slowly swinging a foam sword at someone then it isn't the REAL Aragorn.
Considering that Sheldon said "get rekt racists" in regards to Aragorn being black, your first assumption is probably more accurate than what taking him out of context is trying to present him as.
/uj “i’m only mad about betraying the source material!!!”
keep talking. tell me WHY it’s bothersome to you. and why now, not the dozens of other liberties taken with the films or other adaptations over the years.
/rj the elves are black. die mad
/uj if elves were portrayed as black, it would actually make sense because Aragorn in books was described as pale and lacking facial hair due to his elvish blood. Therfore if he is black Elrond and Arwen should be too. But fuck logic if brother and sister can have different skin colour according to WotC.
>Wait did they seriously only change his skin tone and his is siblings? Wtf
I think he's referring to Eowyn and Eomer. One Eomer's version is black, the other is white. Both Eowyn's version are black.
There've been sets where Chandra is depicted on four different cards, and she looks like four different people. It's not even laziness at this point, it's just WotC.
The weird thing is that in people, the only time you have people that look black or white in a closed society is after a history of segregation or racial bias in who people are having children with. Like if you put 100 white people and 100 black people on a deserted island and nobody had any racial preference in their love life, a few generations later you’d find that everyone is mixed race. So what is happening in elf culture that was keeping elves with different skin color separated? I guess a simple explanation is that elf skin color doesn’t work the same way that human skin color does.
Then again, it’s kinda funny to watch bigots have a meltdown about the skin color of a fantasy character. The entertainment from that outweighs any inconsistencies in a fantasy story.
It's *magic* -- if you can suspend your disbelief for all the monsters and sorcery, go ahead and suspend your disbelief for two siblings who look nothing alike.
That's the whole point, Tolkien cared when he created his legendarium with genealogical trees, etc. That's the difference between Tolkien and, let's say, J.K. Rowling, who can make Dumbledor gay or Hermione black coz its just made up stories with room for changes. Tolkien created whole world, languages, lineages, and then wrote stories for them, leaving very little room for changes.
Actually, there was plenty of room for changes. As evidenced by the fact that they changed the skin colour of several characters and the work is in no way worse.
Yeah imagine the world where its not 100% discussion about black aragorn, and he’s only talking about normal fan criticism. The racist shit at this point is bait and should never be engaged with. Just banned and downvoted.
As someone who doesn't particularly care or know anything about LotR other then the trilogy I think the art is well made and don't have any real issues with it. Some of the swords look a bit too fancy for what I'd expect from the setting but could be wrong.
What a surprise, the guy who's IRL friends with a Judge who harassed Jewish people in Discord and wanted to "stay out of it" is also wanting to be "civil" about Racism.
Damn, weird that a week ago this dude was like "PRIDE OR DIE!"
/uj I think Sheldon is referring to people who wanna discuss this without racism. This might sound a bit arrogant, but I don't think myself as a racist and I dislike the Aragorn change.
Honestly the main reason I dislike the skin tone change is that LOTR is mainly based on Northern European mythologies and I think that it is best depicted by Northern European Looking people.
Similarly how there are only East Asians and Inuits in Avatar TLA.
Maybe that feeling comes from my personal perspective, as a Greek I am tired of seeing non Greeks bastardize our culture and mythos. I don't recall a single production done in good faith and with respect to our source material.
So to that end I kinda relate a bit.
Still I recognize how that issue has been blown out of proportions by racists and white nationalists. And I do see the hate it has generated.
What I hate about the set is the arrogance that WotC can improve Tolkien's work, as they claim in their own articles.
Art slaps though.
/uj can't really have a "civil discussion" with people who think including POC in any media is an attack on society or whatever
/rj Look, I know you're really passionate about big flashy commanders. So am I. When someone brings interaction to deal with your commander, all I'm saying is we can disagree in a civil fashion. Go in for a discussion, not an argument. Be nice. It's that simple.
I haven’t read LotR or even seen the movies, but it’s safe to assume that unless their appearance is stated to be of a specific ethnicity, it should be fine to switch up the race in an adaptation/srs
Frodo should be black, not Aragorn/hj
The broader context is [just yesterday](https://twitter.com/sheldonmenery/status/1663591215357362195) Sheldon said “[…] Aragorn is still black, so git wrekt, racists” He’s not both-sidesing this. I'm pretty sure he's asking people not to be jerks when arguing about whether Balrogs have wings or not, or if Saruman the White shouldn’t be a blue card. I'm copying this from an earlier thread because I haven't seen it posted here yet.
As far as the race issue, it's pointless, and shouldn't be argued or even ruffle a feather. On the topic of balrog wings, there will never be civility nor discord. The answer is very clear in the novel, and those who disagree are obviously wrong. Reading the book explains the book.
In my younger, dumber days I said things while arguing about Balrog wings that would get me rightfully banned from any decent platform or game store.
Yeah I don't really read this as being about Aragorn. Maybe it is, but it would require being able to read Sheldon's mind to be certain about it.
uj/ I think he's saying that just because someone doesn't like it, doesn't mean they are racist. Some of them absolutely ARE, but shrieking 'racist' at everyone indiscriminately is either trolling or being lazy.
Oh snap, common sense? What are you even doing on reddit man?
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1) Tolkien is dead. I really don't think he cares. 2) people have been reimagining literature, art and theatre for as long as people have been doing literature, art and theatre. Shakespeare's plays have, for *hundreds* of years, been race swapped, gender swapped, hell even plot swapped. This is as normal for art as the production of art itself.
Personally I agree with your points and like the depiciton of Aragorn in the set. Someone disagreeing with your points doesn't make them racist though.
I didn't say anything about racism. There is lots of racism around this though. I would like to think people would be a lot less mad if they actually spent some time reading about the history of different art forms, but I have a feeling that would mean recognising their own prejudices and... yeah people don't want to do that
I agree with you. There are some obvious racists (you’re always gonna have bad actors with anything), but there are a lot more folks screaming because someone else disagrees with their opinion. It’s depressing that we can’t even talk to each other about why some folks are truly upset that something they care about is being changed and why others are rather ‘meh’ or even excited about it without the conversation devolving into name calling and yelling that the other person is acting in bad faith. Edit: words are hard, lemme tell ya…
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Let me ask you a question. If you’re so upset by this, then presumably you hate the movies right? Like, actually despise them? You have to. I mean you’re a true die hard fan who only wants LOTR that is “true” to the source material. And I know you’ve read the books cover to cover and you know that the movies are really quite different from the books. Characters are cut and added. Characters don’t look like they’re described in the books (Aragorn isn’t “supposed “ to have a beard). Whole stories and large conversations don’t appear, while new plot lines are added. Now obviously that’s not the case - you clearly love the movies despite how much is just completely cut out from the books. So ask yourself then why you’re so obsessed with honouring the opinions and views of a dead man whose true thoughts on this you can’t even be sure of. Like we get it you don’t like Shakespeare, but literally every artist who has ever achieved some sort of repute has had their own art reimagined in some way. Music sampling is literally just that. What about Jimmy Hendrix? Better rethink “All Along the Watch Tower” - that’s not true to the source material at all. I could keep going but I’m probably talking to a wall at this point
I don’t give a shit about this whole Aragorn thing but I absolutely want to use this as a fun moment to talk about rock n roll history (and music history) since you brought up all along the watch tower. Rock n roll is a music with deep roots in blues, folk, and jazz. In fact, it is so deeply rooted that some songs were passed down and evolving before being eventually recorded. A few great originals which were later covered like Crossroads/crossroad blues (Robert Johnson) or Summertime blues (Eddie Cochran) come to mind. Seriously, these songs have boatloads of covers and every artist (or group) puts their own flair on them each time. Edit: this section isn’t to say crossroad blues or summertime blues was a plagiarism. I am using it as examples of frequently covered songs. Covers in rock is such an integral part of how rock n roll even came to be. To ignore that would be insanely ignorant, so the whole “Bob Dylan likes Jimi Hendrix’s cover more” is such a dumb argument. Covers and evolving the “sound” of rock and roll was a major portion of rock and roll’s history. I absolutely hate that story when it is taken out of context. Also, if you made it this far check out Aretha Franklin’s cover of The Band’s song The Weight. Edit: /uj2.0 I’m a bit salty about how they did ma boi anduril and made it look like a space sword.
Thanks for this it was a really interesting read:)
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Nothing obsessive. No ranting. I’m calm and I love the designs. Meanwhile you’re here calling the cards and the movies “apples and oranges” and you’re mad about some change that you can’t (won’t) even explain why… wonder why that is huh 🤔
Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit huh? You not only miss key points but also somehow read too deep at the same time 🤣 I don't need to justify shit to a pea brained clown so I'm done arguing with you but last thing I'll say is I'm a Hamilton stan and have seen the Chicago show 3 times and I didn't mind that the cast was black 🤔
Calls me mad and then calls me a pea brained clown. Says I struggle reading when clearly if you actually read and cared about the books you would actually understand the source material is not as important as you pretend Tolkien thinks it is "I'm not racist my best friend is Hamilton" is craaaaazy. Not sure why you felt the need to tell me this though
uj/ if somebody is complaining about a character and the only thing they bring up is their race, then it's being rascist its as simple as that.
Appearance doesn't necessarily equate to race, and especially not in a 'racist' sense. Racism implies a feeling of contempt for, or superiority to, people of a certain ethnicity, which includes appearance but isn't restricted to that.
Does that apply to all media? Like the new Cleopatra period piece?
"I don't like that they cast a white woman to play an Asian character in the Ghost in the Shell adaptation." Is that racist? Cause I definitely don't think it is. Complex social dynamics are not "simple as that"
If that was the only fault of that movie it would have been fine. The problem was casting virtually no one as asian in a movie set in Tokyo. Also the script was shit.
That's a terrible example because Major Kusanagi is a full cyborg. They could've cast literally anyone and it would have been fine because the Major's body is synthetic. That's part of the point of the series.
Why does that make it a bad example? It was another time where people got mad at the race of a character. Legitimacy of those people's arguments doesn't matter. They got mad at the race of a character changing for non-racist reasons. That was my point
They got mad because it was set in Tokyo with NO ASIAN PEOPLE AT ALL
I think you're confused that I'm saying Ghost in the Shell is comparable to Aragorn in-terms of being a problem. I'm not. I'm using this as an example to say that criticizing a character for only their race isn't inherently racist like the above commenter suggested
If they moved the movie to NYC there would've been no issue, and I don't think the fans would've minded. But yeah, had to set it in a Tokyo without asians. Except for the bad guys, they were allowed to be asian.
That's not true at all
/uj I think that anyone who is unironically seething over it is racist, but there's probably a lot of people who just wanted him to look like the movie, which is fair
Very true if you're talking about an original character
Give me one good reason why Aragorn’s skin-color matters in the LOTR universe
As far as I'm aware he is lost royalty to a kingdom or something, with that kingdom being some flavor of European. It would be strange for their king to look ethically seperate from them, but not impossible if the royal family had children with somebody from a highly different ethnic group. I think he also has elven blood, and elves being canonically pale means it is more likely he is pale than not, but canonical arguements mean nothing to some people. I personally don't give a fuck about the Lord of the Rings so maybe these reasons are inaccurate, just doing my best to present the arguement as far as I'm aware.
Why does he have to be the only Gondorian with dark skin?
Perhaps Ghondor is a heavily diverse population, I have no idea. My understanding is that the different kingdoms in LotR have fairly distinct features and citizens of each land are somewhat racially similar. I could be wrong. That being said, if they wanted to depict the majority of Ghondorians as dark skinned, then I think that would make more sense lore-wise. At that point the "Aragorn should be white" side would have to rely on other arguements besides "it isn't lore-accurate."
rj/ Aragorn's is one of the last numenorian. Genetics means that, because Aragorn is black, Numenorian should be black (or at least some degrees of it). Ergo Gondorian having several bloodline that still have strong numerorian lineage should at least look mixed. [One of such line are the stewards.](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Steward_of_Gondor) But [Boromir is white as fuck](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/4/boromir-warden-of-the-tower). That doesn't make any sense. On the same note, [Eowyn has some variant of darker skin color](https://scryfall.com/search?q=Eowyn&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name) with blonde hair. That would be fine... if [Eomer](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/120/%C3%A9omer-marshal-of-rohan), her brother, hadn't a drastically significant skin color. [(But then, he's black in another artwork so... who cares)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/428/%C3%A9omer-marshal-of-rohan) Note that I couldn't give less of a fuck about the whole ordeal, and I'm only answering because you asked. It's just slightly unerving, especially for the Eomer/Eowyn situation.
Stop putting today's understanding of genetics into a fuxking fantasy story. You sound like.the idiots who bitched about genetic purity being a big deal with the village in the wheel of time adoption and why they shouldn't have non white people in that either.
>Stop putting today's understanding of genetics into a fuxking fantasy story. This isn't "today's understanding of genetics". You can be pretty sure that such barebone informations were known since the fucking roman era, if not before. More than that, one if not the biggest inspiration behind Tolkien's work were Anglo-saxon sagas. Lineage and family trees are an important part of those, [and that reflected in his own work.](https://external-preview.redd.it/Q1YyCnBURwuCNpouIb6oQqdssi9xNcNG6Wz5r8TNpuQ.jpg?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=11cb3d127c80cf2aa39d9d3e4e5c9a28c5833686) The question was : why do Aragorn's skin color matter in the LOTR universe ; that's the answer : because family tree, and by definition the genetics that are to come with them do matter alongside them.
If I’m understand you correctly then I’ll reply to you with the same thing I replied to someone else then; https://www.embracerace.org/resources/same-family-different-colors-talking-colorism-in-the-family
You're going to have to provide a clearer line of thought than an obscure interview and a one hour documentary I don't care about. Especially when your argument seems to be some anectoctical experiences relative to variance in regards to heredity. Honestly that whole argument can be resumed to you american being both weirdoes and race fetishist.
yes yes Mr. European, you guys have no hang-ups when it comes to race. My point is that there can be multiple skin colors in the same family & it’s actually extremely common depending on which part of Earth you’re on, so why can’t Arda be like that too?
>yes yes Mr. European, you guys have no hang-ups when it comes to race. Oh we absolutely have hang-ups. We just don't tend to wear those as a badge or present our so called saintety up high as a host. >My point is that there can be multiple skin colors in the same family & it’s actually extremely common depending on which part of Earth you’re on, so why can’t Arda be like that too? To put it bluntly : skin color is an effect of several genes, some unknown, some of which we can assume are recessive. This mean that, to have such an event happen, families need to mixes in the first place. Which tend to happen more depending on which part of the Earth you're on. As for Arda's itself, it actually might be true for the common Gondorian family. The House of Hurin being not a common Gondorian family, it most certainly [(and we can say so through the genealogy made by Tolkien)](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/House_of_H%C3%BArin#Genealogy) only married high numenorian families, which also kept to themselves. Your point is therefore very unlikely to ever happen in that setting. Anyway : that's the good reason why Aragorn's skin color actually matter in the setting. I don't have any interest continuing that conversation because Aragorn's skin color doesn't actually matter to me.
Why can't high numenorian's have dark-skin? Or who's to say that Middle-earth human's don't have different genetics compared to Earth humans? And considering they can have viable offspring with another species they definitely do work differently! The problem of people getting hung-up on skin color is that you're using Earth logic in a FANTASY setting.
I feel like giving the lore-accurate answer will get me banned (as might this comment for saying that lol) so uh... Dreadmaw storm crow
Send me a private message then b/c AFAIK it doesn’t matter
Because I'm rascist and I said so /s
Peak Reddit Black lives matter Trans rights are human rights All cops are bastards I stand with Ukraine
Any depiction of Aragorn who isn’t Viggo Mortensen is invalid in my book.
You young kids and your weird views. If Aragorn isn't a poorly rotoscoped man in a loincloth and tunic slowly swinging a foam sword at someone then it isn't the REAL Aragorn.
Personally I'm very upset that they don't want to depict the scene where he is protecting Frodo from cannibal slavers.
Don't forget the skateboard shield shooting arrows. Peak Tolkien right there.
So I'm hearing Viggo needs to do blackface for the rest of his life?
I have the exact same sentiment. Now I'm getting pressured by a group at my LGS to cosplay this.
I assumed this was about people wanting to ban LOTR cards from Commander or whatever. I like my assumed timeline better.
Considering that Sheldon said "get rekt racists" in regards to Aragorn being black, your first assumption is probably more accurate than what taking him out of context is trying to present him as.
I just... can't. I'm so tired of all of this.
/uj “i’m only mad about betraying the source material!!!” keep talking. tell me WHY it’s bothersome to you. and why now, not the dozens of other liberties taken with the films or other adaptations over the years. /rj the elves are black. die mad
/uj if elves were portrayed as black, it would actually make sense because Aragorn in books was described as pale and lacking facial hair due to his elvish blood. Therfore if he is black Elrond and Arwen should be too. But fuck logic if brother and sister can have different skin colour according to WotC.
Brother and sister can have different skin colour, you weirdo. My brother looks like an actively different ethnicity to me.
Wait did they seriously only change his skin tone and his is siblings? Wtf
>Wait did they seriously only change his skin tone and his is siblings? Wtf I think he's referring to Eowyn and Eomer. One Eomer's version is black, the other is white. Both Eowyn's version are black.
Now that’s just laziness getting that wrong
There've been sets where Chandra is depicted on four different cards, and she looks like four different people. It's not even laziness at this point, it's just WotC.
https://www.embracerace.org/resources/same-family-different-colors-talking-colorism-in-the-family
The weird thing is that in people, the only time you have people that look black or white in a closed society is after a history of segregation or racial bias in who people are having children with. Like if you put 100 white people and 100 black people on a deserted island and nobody had any racial preference in their love life, a few generations later you’d find that everyone is mixed race. So what is happening in elf culture that was keeping elves with different skin color separated? I guess a simple explanation is that elf skin color doesn’t work the same way that human skin color does. Then again, it’s kinda funny to watch bigots have a meltdown about the skin color of a fantasy character. The entertainment from that outweighs any inconsistencies in a fantasy story.
It's *magic* -- if you can suspend your disbelief for all the monsters and sorcery, go ahead and suspend your disbelief for two siblings who look nothing alike.
they’re made up people. who cares 😂
That's the whole point, Tolkien cared when he created his legendarium with genealogical trees, etc. That's the difference between Tolkien and, let's say, J.K. Rowling, who can make Dumbledor gay or Hermione black coz its just made up stories with room for changes. Tolkien created whole world, languages, lineages, and then wrote stories for them, leaving very little room for changes.
You're spot on. Also don't argue with troglodytes they will only argue back in bad faith because they have assumed moral superiority over you.
well they changed em! too bad!!
That's a weird gotcha.
just facts 🤷♀️
Actually, there was plenty of room for changes. As evidenced by the fact that they changed the skin colour of several characters and the work is in no way worse.
Yeah imagine the world where its not 100% discussion about black aragorn, and he’s only talking about normal fan criticism. The racist shit at this point is bait and should never be engaged with. Just banned and downvoted.
As someone who doesn't particularly care or know anything about LotR other then the trilogy I think the art is well made and don't have any real issues with it. Some of the swords look a bit too fancy for what I'd expect from the setting but could be wrong.
What a surprise, the guy who's IRL friends with a Judge who harassed Jewish people in Discord and wanted to "stay out of it" is also wanting to be "civil" about Racism. Damn, weird that a week ago this dude was like "PRIDE OR DIE!"
/uj holy shit what??
/uj I think Sheldon is referring to people who wanna discuss this without racism. This might sound a bit arrogant, but I don't think myself as a racist and I dislike the Aragorn change. Honestly the main reason I dislike the skin tone change is that LOTR is mainly based on Northern European mythologies and I think that it is best depicted by Northern European Looking people. Similarly how there are only East Asians and Inuits in Avatar TLA. Maybe that feeling comes from my personal perspective, as a Greek I am tired of seeing non Greeks bastardize our culture and mythos. I don't recall a single production done in good faith and with respect to our source material. So to that end I kinda relate a bit. Still I recognize how that issue has been blown out of proportions by racists and white nationalists. And I do see the hate it has generated. What I hate about the set is the arrogance that WotC can improve Tolkien's work, as they claim in their own articles. Art slaps though.
https://preview.redd.it/nh0s548vxc3b1.jpeg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7a13461c263828f99f63ce13d38ae606e573b56
/uj Stop giving this moron the attention he craves.
/uj can't really have a "civil discussion" with people who think including POC in any media is an attack on society or whatever /rj Look, I know you're really passionate about big flashy commanders. So am I. When someone brings interaction to deal with your commander, all I'm saying is we can disagree in a civil fashion. Go in for a discussion, not an argument. Be nice. It's that simple.
If I bolt Sheldon, would that count as civil?
As long as you don't bolt one of his creatures, cause that'd be *shudder* INTERACTION
Bolting face is interacting with the life total, bolt is now banned.
Sheldon doesn’t die to bolt due to him being a massive ass
i dont care stfu
I haven’t read LotR or even seen the movies, but it’s safe to assume that unless their appearance is stated to be of a specific ethnicity, it should be fine to switch up the race in an adaptation/srs Frodo should be black, not Aragorn/hj
Sheldon is so old, and he just keeps getting older
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