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upper echelon community okay today i'm
going to talk about the lord of the
rings because i am a massive lord of the
rings fan and the recent discourse
regarding the rings of power amazon's
new billion dollar series in the tolkien
universe has been troubling irritating
and completely uncalled for not that i
really need to prove my credentials here
per se but for context i've been a lord
of the rings fans since about 2001 i
would say it's been about 20 years that
i appreciated the lore and as one little
example these are the risk and stratego
games that i have for lord of the rings
which i have been playing since i was a
child and i've played so much and so
often the boxes have basically fallen
apart multiple times and that's just one
angle of my enthusiasm for this
franchise i wouldn't exactly consider
myself a lore expert really but i do
know a pretty extensive amount about the
world i've enjoyed practically any bits
of thematic media i can get my hands on
and for me the initial announcement for
the rings of power brought a great deal
of excitement that excitement is waning
not because amazon lacks the budget or
the resources to make something great
not because of the creative choices so
far which do seem a bit strange more on
that later on but because the discourse
here is rapidly turning toxic fans of
the lore are decrying the creative
decisions thus far as woke and immersion
breaking while media and supporters of
the new material are accusing anyone who
disagrees with them of being racist
bigoted hateful losers it's a shitty
situation and honestly it's effectively
killing my anticipation for the show on
a number of different levels okay before
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the channel let's start with the root
cause of it all early february 2022
vanity fair releases an article about
the upcoming rings of power series and
also includes a spread of pictures with
character profiles and behind the scenes
action these character profiles are
where the real criticism was born
because two of the profiles showcased
minority actors playing the role of a
female dwarf and an elven male this is
where the criticism began which
ultimately sparked a vitriolic war
between self-proclaimed fans of the
universe and newly interested parties
who claimed to seek a better world of
social inclusion there are many
criticisms to be made regarding these
pictures however some of the more
prominent claims center on ethnicity
beards haircuts and traditional lore
fans are concerned that amazon is not
intending to make a faithful depiction
of this popular subject matter fans are
concerned that amazon is intending to
bludgeon them with comments against
donald trump contemporary political
themes racial equity language and
basically use the series in a dual
capacity where it isn't just a story
about fantasy worlds and mystical times
it is a commentary on modern day social
issues after seeing these screenshots
yes i'm a little concerned i wouldn't be
surprised if that's exactly what it
turns into but for today i want to
discuss the real problem which is media
interpretation and response for starters
the female dwarf with dark skin has no
beard this is a pretty cut and dry
mistake if you are familiar with the
lord of the rings anthology female
dwarves period have beards as referenced
in numerous different tolken works as
well as hollywood adaptations by itself
i wouldn't say there's any sort of
monumental significance there but it is
the first step in a series of choices
that has caused a rift between people
that understand and appreciate the
existing lore and people who simply
don't care about that second when it
comes to her skin color things get even
more divisive if i say that's a good
thing we should see more representation
on the screen for this series it will
get rejected by anyone who has even a
rudimentary understanding of this world
tolkien designed the lord of the rings
with inspiration from english scottish
and northern european folklore he
attempted successfully i might add to
stay true to historical myths and
legends from those areas furthermore
dwarves spend a large amount of time
underground dwarfs are not in a position
where pigmentation has a utilitarian
purpose here and thus a dark-skinned
female dwarf with no beard is quite
obviously an intentional choice meant to
diverge from the almost everything
tolkien based the initial universe on
the executive producer for this show
lindsey weber in an article by vanity
fair said quote it felt only natural to
us that an adaptation of tolkien's work
would reflect what the world actually
looks like end quote this is where the
fear is born that the rings of power
will intentionally alter numerous
different aspects of the established
lore deliberately to change racial
characteristics and reshape the universe
to be more like our modern society this
is not being well received nor should it
be fresh intellectual property can be
designed however hollywood wants but
when you're dealing with something long
established and wildly successful the
freedom to make these kinds of
alterations just doesn't really exist
you can do it anyway but the only result
is backlash and that predictable
backlash is not because of racism or
prejudice it is because you are
knowingly changing things in a popular
universe that do not need to be and
should not be changed here's the biggest
problem even that simple sentence right
there do not need to be and should not
be changed is apparently grounds for an
accusation of racism rejecting an
arbitrary and modern vision for this
series designed to push a social or
political agenda ignoring the reality of
the initial subject matter is apparently
a bigoted response but the truth of the
matter is that it isn't a bigoted
response it's a realistic one to explain
this i need to look at one of the other
controversial characters named erondir
aeron dear is a sylvan elf who again has
dark skin the complaints here are that
elves do not have dark skin and the
original work from tolkien largely
supports that claim the etymology of the
word elf even directly cites a germanic
origin meaning white being and every
single existing reference to elves
aligns with that understanding however
in the interest of explaining why this
entire controversy should not even be
happening i want to delve into the lore
of the universe and explain why a
dark-skinned elf might actually be
possible setting aside the ridiculous
modern haircut that he has which is not
indicative of anything an elf would ever
be seen with because it is purely a
modern design and it has no place in
this show we can look at the timeline
for middle earth middle earth is broken
down into various different
chronological periods such as the years
of the trees the years of the lamp and
the first second or third ages the rings
of power takes place in the second age a
roughly 3 500 year period of time and
erendier is a sylvan elf sylvan elves
are descended from the talari and are a
subgroup of nandor elves going back to
their roots a group of tolari actually
became the nandor after leaving together
at the river anduin during the great
march which was a large-scale journey
during which the elves as a race
initially entered middle-earth mostly
the rest of the tulare eventually
reached belarian a very large portion of
land in west middle-earth the nandor
were eventually broken down into
separate factions if you will when
denethor led a group to boleriand later
known as the lycandy i think is how you
say it and the remaining group became
known as sylvan elves there is very
little existing lore on who the sylvan
elves were and what they did owing to
their secluded culture but if our goal
is to explain plausibility for a
dark-skinned elf we need to look towards
the tulare and the ly candy instead just
to recap elves are essentially one big
racial group on their journey into
middle earth they split apart and most
of them go to belarian the remaining
group splits again further down the line
and some go to belarian as well while
the sylvan elves remain behind all of
this happens in the years of the trees
before the first age i'm glossing over a
lot of details here and summarizing but
if i actually discuss the entire
timeline it would be like a three or
four hour video also in the years of the
trees morgoth attacks balerion with an
army that contains various different
creatures as well as easterlings also
known specifically as swarthy men
swarthy quite literally means
dark-skinned establishing that there
were dark-skinned men in that area of
the world even if they were part of a
hostile force at the time going even
further however at a later point
easterlings become encouraged to migrate
west for pillaging and raiding mostly
but many of them end up in valerian
during a period of time when they are
not completely hostile towards elves the
edayne men from the far east are in
valerian during the first age sharing
that land with the ly candy this is
where things get much more important at
the end of the first age balerion is
almost completely destroyed during the
war of wrath the war of wrath is an
attack by the dark lord morgoth and the
end result was that valerian sinks
almost completely into the sea this
creates an untold number of refugees
from a shared part of the world where
elves and easterlings were in some cases
living very near to each other remember
the sylvan elves well after valerian is
destroyed the sylvan elves are the ones
receiving many of these refugees during
the early years of the second age and
the resulting blend of cultures would
mean that it's entirely possible for
there to be cross-racial romances going
even further later in the second age the
sylvan elves were in large part being
ruled by sindar refugees specifically in
places like lothlorien or the woodland
realm meaning that descendants of
refugees were in positions of power this
makes it plausible that a lineage of
easterling elf origin could persist
additionally after the war of wrath
morgoth is pushed through the door of
night into the void thereby losing his
grip on the minds of easterling men who
comprise his army unless we subscribe to
the idea that elves were just whole
scale exterminating all the men who
fought against them every single time
there was a war or even a battle this
would mean that there were thousands of
years literally thousands of years where
easterlings were side by side with elves
in some capacity making it once again
plausible that a lineage of dark-skinned
elves began at that time one final aside
here we have an example of this being
possible because in the third age
aragorn and arwen a man and a female elf
famously have a child named eldarion
elves and men can conceive children
together there were easterlings also
described as swarthy men in the same
area as elves for thousands of years
refugees from that region eventually
held positions of power in more eastern
elvish lands aka it is entirely possible
that there were darker skinned elves
even if the original skin color of the
elves was much more fair that is an
example of how the discourse could be
going i just presented to the best of my
ability an argument on why this
dark-skinned elf can and possibly should
exist i don't have a similar argument
for the dwarven woman here i am drawing
a complete blank on that one but still
it's an example of how this controversy
could be going but that's not what we
get what we actually get is garbage like
this the lord of the rings the rings of
power has people of color get over it
this is an article with quotes like
quote before we get any further i want
to make this clear whether you're
trolling gatekeeping plain old racist or
all of the above you have no place in
this fandom end quote and that kind of
sentiment is a response to reservations
about accuracy and adherence to source
material this kind of media attack isn't
going to solve the problem it's going to
exacerbate the vitriol between two very
large groups as the reputation of a
billion dollar show hangs in the balance
the rings of power is set to be the most
expensive series ever created in history
and yet they are deliberately altering
source material and instead of getting a
plausible explanation of why certain
decisions get made which might actually
exist based on interpretations of
historical lore instead there are
accusations of racism bigotry and
prejudice because fans are concerned a
dark-skinned elf from everything i have
personally researched might very well
exist i can't say the same for a
dark-skinned dwarf i'm really not sure
on that one no idea how they would
explain it but instead of a rational
debate over source material
interpretation we get vitriolic
accusations which makes the entire thing
devolve into a of anger and
backlash that backlash is the fault of
the media and it's based on what seemed
to be deliberate decisions by the show's
production team to alter what the world
is actually based on purely as a way to
express some sort of social agenda from
the 21st century no matter how you
examine this the show is dead set on
controversy ignoring trivial but
immutably established realities like
dwarven women having beards which is
just a fact in favor of your own
interpretation when you are dealing with
a multi-decade and highly dedicated fan
base yeah you are begging to be
criticized and i don't exactly feel any
sympathy over it what's worse those
critics are then accused of racism and
bigotry and phobic and is whatever it is
by the media simply for stating
realities of the source material and the
truth is most of it doesn't even need to
happen it is possible to explore the
incredibly large pool of source material
at play here and craft some sort of
speculative explanation and maybe the
show actually does that but no that idea
is apparently too complicated for
journalistic outlets and writers like
ben sledge bottom line the discourse
surrounding the rings of power is
disheartening because it doesn't need to
happen and it makes me think that they
are going to use the show as a modern
political and social bludgeon when it is
probably possible to craft a narrative
that contains all the diversity that
they want without mindlessly altering
things and causing backlash it's a
pointless controversy that didn't need
to happen and the ones most responsible
are the media that's it if you want to
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[Music]
you