#jackson's racist elrond

[hollowwhisperings]

Jackson's casting Elrond as an Antagonist [Fantasy Racist] Father-in-Law for his film adaptions was like

like

look, okay, the entire Silmarillion CAN be reduced to "Elrond's Backstory": the dude is related to every Ruling House in Middle-Earth, bar one¹.

so PJ's mischaracterization of Elrond? it's... it's a Plot Hole. for the ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE SETTING.

the Elrond thing is, to me, a Microcosm of my Greater Issue with the Jackson Films as a whole. Tolkien's Works are Very White: he was a very white man. They're STILL more colourful than PJ's films.

Jackson didn't just add Elrond's Fantastic Racism to his adaptions: he added IRL Racism too.

The racism in Jackson's LOTR films is infuriating to me: any other fantasy setting that was THIS faithfully racist across the board? It would have been called out. LOUDLY. Rings of Power has addressed or been tagged to account for all the same controversies that Jackson was never held accountable for, not in LOTR and not in his Hobbit films either. It's exhausting to personally point out how Jackson whitewashed his productions, not to mention the other ways he screwed marginalized groups over. Remember when Jackson & the NZ government collab'd to kill film crew rights? on the country's Labour Day? it's even called The Hobbit Law!

Jackson's Adaptions of LOTR and The Hobbit were "faithful" to Tolkien in many of the worst ways. They set Precedents that subsequent adaptions (TROP) have struggled to combat.

Obligatory Afternote

Weta Workshop's screen test shots for female dwarves influenced & popularized our fandom's mythos for "dwarrowdams".

The Hobbit films reinvigorated fan discussions on gender, sexuality and how fluid they are as spectrums. They also prompted fans to readress the Antisemitism & Racism that Tolkien employed throughout his depictions of the khazad.

The films did not do those things alone, fans of the films did: the good found in the Jackson films exists alongside their racism.

Footnote

¹Elrond has no family ties to the Line of Durin nor any hobbit chieftains (the Tooks, for instance), not unless he stood-in as "kin" to Bilbo, Frodo, Sam &/or Gimli during their afterlives in Valinor.

Easterlings, the Haradrim & the other [Racially Stereotyped] Fantasy Humans in the Legendarium live beyond "Middle-Earth".

They are, very technically, denizens of "Farther Earth" or perhaps "South-" or "Eastern Earth".

It's also pretty probable that the Line of Elros (Elrond's In-Laws & Esteemed Niblings) interwed with Haradrim rulership early on, whilst Elrond was still an "Uncle" or "Great-Uncle" to Numenor's Kings.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I'm rereading The Hobbit for the first time since childhood, and let me tell you, pop culture has completely warped everything we know about the genre. First of all, there are no assholes in this story. Nobody is a jerk, nobody is sarcastic or quippy. Bilbo's a bit passive aggressive at times, but that's because he's a stuffy, emotionally repressed, Victorian dandy who is torn between the "mind your own business" lifestyle of the Bagginses and the "adventure is calling" lifestyle of the Tooks. And the elves! My god, what Peter Jackson has done to the elves. The adjective most used to describe them in their debut chapter is merry. They are merry folk who sing and laugh and play instruments in the trees, not stoic racists with resting Vulcan face. Elrond is described as noble, strong, wise, venerable, and kind, in that order. The dwarves are mostly interchangeable just by the sheer number of them, but the narration makes it clear that they're all consummate professionals with differing skills. Kili and Fili are young and still wet behind the ears, Oin and Gloin are particularly good at making fires on stormy nights, Dori and Nori are more hobbity in their appetites; the only brooding one is Thorin, and that's because he's a king-in-exile who acts like he's more important than everyone, as kings often do. Pop culture treats dwarves like half-pint pirate barbarians or something, all "axe first, ask questions later."

I've never read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I have little memory of any of the movies (I saw them on VHS, not DVD, once in like 2011 or 2012), but I have a feeling that every single one of the characters will be more well-spoken and well-rounded on the page than on the screen.

[nate-fraust]

On Rings, Dragons, and Consistency

NOTE: this post was originally written on August 24, 2022, a week before the premiere of Amazon Prime's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power", as the first of a four-part series of university assignments.

---

On February 10 of 2022, Vanity Fair released an article titled “Amazon’s Lord of the Rings Series Rises: Inside The Rings of Power”. The article informed readers of the broad strokes of the series while also covering some of the troubles and controversies surrounding the production - of particular note, the sudden breaking of ties between the creative team and individuals like Peter Jackson, the writer, producer, and director of the acclaimed Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and prominent Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey. In addition (and of particular interest to this post) people connected to the series, like showrunner Patrick McKay or executive producer Lindsey Weber, were quoted as saying the following:

“can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now”,

“But really, does it feel like Middle-earth if you don’t have hobbits or something like hobbits in it?”, and

“it only felt natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s world would reflect what the world actually looks like”.

Finally, the noting of a “reflexive attack” from “trolls” that occurred when the cast of the series was revealed to be “multicultural” – that is to say, some of the cast being people of color – is also of import.  

These four points are just some of the reasons why some fans of Tolkien’s works are concerned – to put it lightly. While it may indeed be that some Tolkien fans are racist at worst or are at least gatekeeping, it is probable that most of them are simply highly critical of the creative liberties taken by the showrunners of The Rings of Power that go against the established legendarium of Middle-earth and the spirit of Tolkien’s work.  

It has been well-documented that Tolkien was seeking to create a mythology for either Europe as a whole or his homeland of England. The wide range of Northern and Central European mythologies that he drew from to create Middle-earth lends credence to this fact.  Now, it is not impossible that the peoples of pre-Christian Scandinavia and Britain had contact with people from North Africa – indeed, the nature of intercontinental trade in ancient Europe, as well as the prevalence of some form of slavery in most cultures of that time period, makes it likely that a small percentage of the population was indeed “black”, and that over time mixed-race individuals (or at least those with an African ancestor) would have made up a potentially notable percentage of Europe’s societal classes. However, the distinction that Tolkien made in “The Lord of the Rings” is important, in that, while he is never quite explicit in the general skin tone of his more fantastical beings, like elves or dwarves, he does use terminology that suggests a particular tone for the elves of “The Lord of the Rings”. Those words are “fair/fair of skin”, “pale”, and “white”. 

That Tolkien could be so direct in his text does not bode well for “The Rings of Power''. However, we could give them the benefit of the doubt. Take, for instance, the character of Arondir. Played by Ismael Cruz Córdova, an actor of Puerto Rican descent and darker skin, Arondir is a Silvan elf. Most of the elves left in Middle-earth by the time of “The Lord of the Rings'' and “The Hobbit'' are Silvan, and the existence of “dark” or “swarthy” men like the Haradrim or the Easterlings, combined with the reality of half-elven characters like Elrond, makes it entirely possible that someone like Arondir could exist. However, Elrond, another elvish character in “The Rings of Power'', possesses Noldor and Teleri ancestry rather than Silvan, and is noted in the legendarium as possessing a “kinship of [...] blood” with the Heirs of Isildur - that is to say, descendants of Númenóreans. As Aragorn, the last Heir of Isildur, is clearly human, Elrond must therefore be half-elven.

Why, then, has the marketing for “The Rings of Power'' not been explicit in the status of Arondir as “half-elven”? Is it not reasonable to assume that Silvan elves would be more comfortable with being with humans, due to their long cohabitation of Middle-earth, and so the number of Silvan half-elves would be greater than those of the Noldor or Teleri? According to the marketing department, at least: no. 

Let us, instead, contrast this decision of inclusion with the casting of Steve Toussaint, a black British Barbadian, as Corlys “The Sea Snake'' Velaryon in the HBO television series “House of the Dragon”, based off of the book “Fire and Blood” by George R.R. Martin. Much as with the casting of darker-skinned actors like Córdova in roles that don’t seem to fit the lore of the series being adapted, some people looked unfavorably on the casting of Toussaint and other actors with African ancestry in the roles of members of House Velaryon, a Westerosi noble house descended from Valyrians who escaped the Doom of their homeland years before Aegon the First of House Targaryen stepped foot on the lands of the Seven Kingdoms, three hundred years before the start of the series. Valyrians, though not explicitly fair-skinned, are typically depicted as such, as seen in the members of House Targaryen, who, in keeping with the Valyrian tradition of intragenerational incest, maintain fair skins, purple irises, and silver-blond hair. However, even as the world and stories set out by George R.R. Martin in his “A Song of Ice and Fire” series and the numerous companion novels and books state that Velaryons of the Second and Third  Centuries A.C., or After the Conquest, possess features reminiscent of their royal cousins, it is also clear that their house is involved in trade with various different peoples and cultures, like the people of Essos or the Summer Islands – people with darker skin tones than the average Westerosi – as evidenced by the wealth gained by the aforementioned “Sea Snake''. 

Thus, much as it is possible for Arondir to be darker than one would expect a Silvan elf to be due to their strong ties to the realms of Man and the resulting likelihood of a greater percentage of Silvan half-elves, so too can the famed “Sea Snake'' have both the dark skin of a Summer Islander and the hair of a Valyrian. However, it is much more likely that the latter is the reality of the story over the former, due to how it is consistent with the backstory set in place by Martin. The Velaryons likely traded with people from the Summer Islands and Essos; ergo, it is likely that Corlys’ father, be that Corwyn Velaryon or one of Lord Daemon’s other sons, married a Summer Islander or Essosi woman of some significance in order to bear someone of his son’s skin tone.

What is the point of these comparisons, and why the seeming animosity toward “The Rings of Power”, you may ask? To put it simply, the point is this: in lieu of modern sensibilities of ‘representation for its own sake’ and the previous statements from the people involved in “The Rings of Power'' leaving me uneasy as to the spirit with which they will portray Tolkien’s stories, I intend to write a series of comparative reviews covering the two shows. However, these reviews will not be written in regards to how well the series are shot, composed, or written; rather, they will be looking at how each adaptation does justice to - or ill against - their respective source materials and the lore and intentions placed therein.

[anghraine]

#I am an equal opportunity hater#or not quite because I thought Fellowship was wonderful#but after that PJ seemed to think he could do no wrong#and TTT and RotK are full of various silly and tone deaf things that I hated#at least they didn't write my favourite elf out of some of his most important history however (via @galadhir)

In the interests of full disclosure, I have no problem with people hating ROP if they aren't 1) racist or misogynistic about it (including by minimizing these elements of Tolkien fandom at large), 2) raging hypocrites wrt ROP vs the Jackson films, and 3) don't make their hatred our problem through inappropriate tagging, irrelevant rants in ROP fans' comments, etc.

Meanwhile, my personal opinion on FOTR the film is that ... okay, it's still very racist, and fairly meh with regard to gender as well. I do think it's the best structured and paced of the Jackson films, and the trilogy's best adaptation of Tolkien's writing as well (especially considering that the FOTR section of LOTR the book is highly episodic and unevenly paced, with a bunch of very minor characters who rarely or never appear again).

However, speaking of the film as an adaptation often held up as faithful, esp by contrast to ROP—I will say that I think fandom perceptions of the "faithfulness" of adaptations such as these are strongly impacted by our own personal fannish priorities. This seems to be ... rarely acknowledged in fidelity discourse.

[Long ramble that you're under no obligation to read, but just illustrating the impact of having different faves and priorities than much of the fandom when it comes to perceptions of fidelity and FOTR vs ROP.]

I don't know who the favorite Elf in question is, but I am personally not super into Elves apart from really loving a few specific faves like Galadriel and Aredhel, and also deeply hating a few of them I won't mention here. Mostly, I just care much more about Second and Third Age Númenóreans (whose cultural existence is barely acknowledged by any of the films) and about peredhil (and am far more annoyed with Elrond's whole "Men are weak!!" thing in FOTR than any Elves in anything. kind as summer whomst). I don't think peredhil and Dúnedain are less significant to the Second or Third Ages than Elves, honestly, but caring more about them does affect what "faithful to Tolkien's vision" looks like to me.

(Hobbits matter more to LOTR in particular than any of these people, I just care less about them. I don't think film!FOTR does great wrt Frodo's or Merry's characterizations, though, if I'm being frank.)

So it's like ... it's not always difficult to get people to acknowledge that Númenor, its legacy, Gondor, and the Dúnadan and peredhel characters are handled quite differently in the films than in the books, including in FOTR. Most people just don't think it matters. But to me, someone who is a Tolkien fan mainly because of Númenor and Gondor, whose favorite Tolkien characters are book Faramir and book Denethor, and who really likes Tolkien's Isildur, the idea of any of the Jackson films being considered faithful when it comes to my own faves is kind of laughable.

For me, the films made it quite difficult to find decent conversations about faves like Isildur until ROP recuperated him. The vast bulk of Isildur content for 20 years was movie-based jokes, memes, takes, etc that had very little bearing on the character Tolkien wrote.

Isildur's a very minor character in LOTR (less minor in UT!), but this has a major impact on more central characters as well. FOTR the movie uses their altered Isildur lore to directly invert Aragorn's motives including his feelings about Isildur and his legacy and Aragorn's own heritage as a mortal man. Book Aragorn is deeply proud of Isildur, and freely acknowledges that he himself is nowhere near as cool or impressive as Isildur was. All three films also excise almost everything to do with Númenor's legacy during LOTR, which has greater consequences in TTT and ROTK, but does affect characters like Aragorn and Boromir in FOTR.

Personally, I like book Aragorn's active ambition, and regard it as pretty essential to who he is as a person. It's a quality that modern heroes are often not allowed to have, much less embrace, but I find it interesting and compelling. I like his personal and familial pride as himself and heir of Isildur that sometimes slips into a bit of obnoxious arrogance that humanizes him. I like his love of Gondor in the book, even though he's not from there and only lived there for a few years. I like his strangeness as a Númenórean throwback, not only his virtue and heroism. These are all really different in the films, even FOTR (movie Aragorn's insecurity and extreme lack of ambition are fundamental to his film arc, in fact).

Boromir's film arc is interesting but shaky IMO, in terms of adaptation. Sometimes effort is made to give him additional sympathetic moments to grant his fall more weight, and this generally works pretty well. On the flip side, sometimes the film also works against this and tries to make him way more blatantly suspicious and morally dubious, which I find rather tedious.

The ultimate resolution for his character in the movie is for him to accept Aragorn as a beloved rightful king. Meanwhile, the final note for book Boromir is his desperate love for his people. I'd argue that for Tolkien, Boromir's arc is not that much about Aragorn at all; it's much more about military heroism as a cultural concept, the strain of existential war, and even nationalism. So it makes sense that his last words in the book reflect different priorities than the films do, but it is different.

I can see why the filmmakers would want to consolidate Aragorn's and Boromir's arcs the way FOTR does, especially in a sort of big budget action-adventure Hollywood type film with a large cast. But I just cannot see the handling of the Dúnedain in any of the Jackson films as all that seriously engaged with what Tolkien was doing with them as an idea.

I feel like the Jackson films mostly do not care about the Dúnedain in general and especially don't care about Gondorian Dúnedain as a concept. They might not seem like a big deal to others, but I think they were absolutely a big deal to Tolkien. This doesn't have to matter to everyone, but it does matter to me because they're my faves and essential to my understanding of Tolkien.

So I don't expect everyone to care about something like book Aragorn being ambitious and having a musical number about how very badly he wants to be king of Gondor. But he's one of the main characters of FOTR and his motives are so drastically changed that, to me, the idea of propping up the films' handling of Aragorn and his people and Gondor as super faithful vs ROP's expansive treatment of Númenor with callouts to even little canon details like the oiolairë bough feels very strange.

thatinsufferableb-st-rd said:

@anghraine so i have read the books multiple times and am an avid fan of the movies. I enjoy both for what they are. I think the main difference is that Peter Jackson was very open about what they chose to cut and why from anything I've ever seen. They even have Sam give a nod to the book readers by saying "by rights we shouldn't even be here". No I'm not happy about what they did with Faramir and Glorfindel got jipped, and I would have lover to have seen Elronds sons but at the end of the day there were acknowledgments of what and why. Rings of Power to me has always come off as hiding from any criticism by using the shield of "well if you don't like it it's because you don't like POCs in it". To which I genuinely could not give a fuck less, like there are so many branches of elves that went different ways so that could make sense within what Tolkein established. But don't hide behind that when your writing is just "Sauron is evil. We know. And we know she knows. But we have to make it seem like she's the only one who Has A Clue so we must all try to shoo her off to make a plotline"

@lesbiansforboromir has already correctly and politely pointed out that you are doing the very thing we were criticizing in that post—intruding on ROP fan discussion to unfavorably contrast the show to the Peter Jackson films, while also applying a degree of scrutiny to ROP that the Jackson films are rarely subject to in a remotely comparable way and could not bear. Frankly, @lesbiansforboromir is nicer and more restrained than I am about this, but you chose to tag me as well, so I'll also respond.

We (lesbiansforboromir and I) were talking about being excited about costuming in S2 of ROP and disliking the fandom meltdowns over ROP's costuming looking (somewhat) different from the films' aesthetic. Since it had already come up in their discussion, I added that I'm not convinced by the anti-ROP contingent framing their seething hatred of the costuming and design as just caring so much about fidelity to Tolkien's vision. I pointed out that Tolkien fandom broadly cares far more about their preferred, film-influenced aesthetics than Tolkien's actual descriptions and gave some specific examples of this.

There's been a lot of talk, for instance, about how the universally long, flowing hair for Elves preferred by the fandom and used in the films is actually totally canon according to Tolkien even if it's rarely mentioned in LOTR proper. This is inaccurate. Galadriel's brother Aegnor is typically depicted in the fandom/film-preferred style rather than per Tolkien's description of his hair as "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames" (indeed, in general neither Aegnor nor anyone else is ever depicted this way, and this description rarely shows up in the lists of "no it's about ethics in adaptation" Tolkien hair quotes).

Tolkien repeatedly describes Elvish, peredhel, and Dúnadan women as wearing their hair bound up in braided coiffures with jeweled hair pieces/nets rather than loose and flowing à la the films and the fandom. Nobody cares, any more than they care about Tolkien's description of Arwen's clothing as soft, grey, and noticeably devoid of ornamentation apart from a belt and netted cap (i.e. the opposite of her highly elaborate film costuming and typically loose, unbound, uncovered hair in the films and most illustrations).

Meanwhile, my fave Faramir's hair is nowhere near long enough in the films or most art to mingle with Éowyn's as Tolkien describes. It's usually also depicted as blond, reddish, or brown rather than black as in the book; in Tolkien's LOTR, all described Gondorians have dark or black hair, with the only difference in coloring being that some Gondorians are dark-skinned and some are pale. Again, almost nobody in the fandom cares about this when they're going on about costume design and casting to reflect Tolkien's vision, and male Gondorians are overwhelmingly depicted with short or shoulder-length hair in the films and in Tolkien illustrations.

Popular depictions of Gondor, including the Gondor of the films, very rarely reflect Tolkien's description of Gondor's aesthetic as similar to ancient Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and the Roman Empire. Film Gondor has, at most, extremely vague allusions to Byzantine architecture amidst the general and deliberate westernization of Gondor's design—as just one example among many, Tolkien's explicitly Egyptian-based design for the royal crown of Gondor is converted to a generically western European-style crown in the films and overwhelmingly in the fandom.

I then pointed out that it's been very noticeable that ROP haters tend to have a powerful double standard wrt fidelity when it comes to the Jackson films. For over 20 years, most film fans have been constitutionally incapable of tolerating even slight criticism of the films without jumping in to defend their greatness and condescendingly explain the most basic elements of adaptation. (Yes, we know film is not the same as text, we know changes are part of adaptation, we all know that, we all know that a word-for-word adaptation would suck and never be made, this is not new information and does not make the PJ films' every choice a good one.) Yet most film LOTR fans who vocally despise ROP display none of the charity towards ROP that they demand for the films (demand even from someone like Christopher Tolkien, a dead man the entire fandom is deeply indebted to, whose dislike of the films still leads to regular attacks on his character from Jackson film stans).

This hypercritical yet hyperdefensive tendency in the fandom is neatly illustrated by the fact that you responded to a conversation about the double standards in evaluations of ROP's costuming vs the films' to go on about how ROP is objectively bad for reasons entirely unrelated to costuming, how you're totally not racist (something nobody was talking about), and to quote you directly, "Like the show was just Bad." Truly, an incisive critique. Meanwhile, your concessions with regard to the Jackson films are mainly about extremely minor and defensible omissions like removing Glorfindel and the sons of Elrond rather than the serious and fundamental problems that lesbiansforboromir and I have with them, or even the ways they do pretty much the exact same things you're lambasting ROP for.

I mean, if we're going to talk about action hero Elves in ROP vs the Jackson films, what about the action hero-ification of Legolas in the films? He was described by Tolkien himself as the Fellowship member who accomplished the least, so super badass battle-skateboarding Legolas hardly represents fidelity to Tolkien's vision. Why should that get a pass while film-stanning ROP haters seethe about ROP!Galadriel being too special, even though Tolkien described her as one of the most special Elves to ever live and specifically as remarkably athletic and insightful?

Meanwhile, film Gimli is reduced to comic relief, the only dwarves taken seriously are conventionally hot ones in The Hobbit films, and Frodo's expressions of strength and fortitude are consistently removed to glorify other characters. Film Gondorians were deliberately designed to seem like useless tin soldiers (which they are in the films, as well as whiter and blonder than Tolkien wrote them) rather than the physically imposing and highly effective fighting force of the book. ROP imagining Elvish rituals upon approaching Valinor that aren't based in Tolkien canon but don't directly conflict with it is absolutely trivial compared to the films' handling of Denethor and Faramir.

The point is not that you, personally, are not allowed to like the films or dislike ROP despite all this. Many people do love the films, including most of my followers. They do have their strengths, though they are extremely racist and few film fans will acknowledge this without soft-pedaling it in some way (esp, since you brought it up, given the context of the truly unhinged degree of racism that has accompanied much of the broader discourse around ROP).

The point is that film fans who hate ROP are constantly showing up in our conversations to be "well actually ROP is just objectively bad, unlike the films, because the show has failings that are also in the films but it's totally different there because of the contents of Peter Jackson's soul" or whatever. The point is the absolutely glaring and obnoxiously hypocritical double standard of defensiveness about the films and obsessive nitpicking of ROP that leads to ROP haters continually going on rants to ROP fans that are unwelcome, uninvited, and usually (as in this case) irrelevant to what was even being discussed.

[lesbiansforboromir]

but why do you care if there’s people who “don’t think the show has a right to exist”? some criticisms are legitimate, and some are not, but it’s not like it’s only happened to this show in specific. it’s most likely going to be successful even if it sucks, people throwing a tantrum about it is not going to change it. and yeah, tolkien’s writings shouldn’t be treated as borderline religious texts, but i don’t think you’re going to convince people who really feel this way otherwise. and people have a right to be upset that their favorite characters are being portrayed in a way they feel don’t do them justice, as you have admitted. so i don’t see your point.  

Let me try again then, yes people are allowed to be angry about changes in the show, just as I still am about all the glaring changes the Jackson trilogy made.

Do you think it would be appropriate for me to go around claiming that the PJ trilogy was an abomination and an atrocity and was sinning against Tolkien because of that? That all the production was soulless and heartless? That the production team all hated Tolkien and are betraying his legacy and disrespecting his work? That it doesn't have a right to exist? I mean I could, and many people did in the day too! But my issue has never been that people dislike things, it is specifically;

Treating tolkien like a religious text is not just a small opinion held by a few people, it's the culture of the fandom at large.

It drives this very puritanical language and attitude in tolkien fandom spaces that is used for all criticism of adaptation and engagement in the text, whether that be changing someone's favourite character or not making it look how they want it to look or it being made by a megacorporation or the fact that it has non-white actors in it, the exact same tolkien-is-pure-how-dare-you-do-this-to-him rhetoric is used for all of those topics, with the same level of vitriol as well.

Thereby creating this atmosphere for the racist opinions to flourish in, where their agendas can be easily slipped into wide fandom spaces without much challenge, which is the situation in all of the fandom spaces I occupy right now.

The point is, people can adapt Tolkien however they like. Some people will hate it, some people will love it, and changing characters etc should not be treated with the same moral outrage as the Amazon company itself. And absolutely none of the aspects of the show should be portrayed as some kind of act of sin against Tolkien's text, because it's literally just a story, he's literally just a guy and deciding Elrond was politically ambitious in his early life is just an interpretation, which everyone is allowed to have.

[ramoth13]

A Few Small Thoughts On Amazon's "Rings of Power"

Mae g'ovannen, mellon.

I have seen a LOT of people on tumblr and the internet as a whole genuinely furious, irate, upset, aggravated, and even downright hostile at the new amazon show that is soon to be. And I get it, Amazon is only in it for the money, that part is hard to argue. They saw the success of other fantasy shows like GoT and The Witcher and wanted in on that action.

Yet, I think it would be a huge disservice to the creators of the show (not the Amazon overlords) to dismiss this as horrible from the start. Lest we forget that originally, Peter Jackson's the Lord of the Rings was set to be a Harvey Weinstein production (his name is still in the credits, because he wouldn't sell the rights unless they kept his slimy name in the credits) who wanted all three films to be a SINGLE film, have at least one hobbit die, and have over 4/5ths of the story cut or changed. Thankfully New Line Cinemas stepped in and saved the day, but it was the creators (Jackson and Co.) that fought to keep the story true. My point is, we cannot judge a creator by their benefactor, especially before the actual piece is released. The Tolkien scholars and creator fans (who grew up and loved watching the Lord of the Rings too) attached to this project are dedicated to seeing this done right. Amazon is paying for the show, the people working on the show are not the people paying for it to be made. Again, I point to the scholars that they have on staff to make sure its done as faithfully as possible. Amazon is literally contractually obliged not to change the story. Add to it? Yes. Change it? No.

Will it be perfect? Hell no, how could it be? This is the most magical history in all of history, it can't be perfect. But we shouldn't make this out to be anything more than what it truly is. This will simply be an adaptation, an interpretation. This doesn't change anything at all about the book(s) itself.

Now, I can hear the people already saying "Well but what about the fannon and headcannons? We've had these stories for years and now people will view these stories all through the lens of the new show?" I can sympathize, truly. But liking something different, and demanding it never changes are two different things. We cannot expect new fans to adhere to headcannons because we've been fans longer than they have. If there are new fans, I'm glad of it, The Silmarillion deserves so much more love than it's gotten. And for those still holding out against the show because it's different than the fan communities headcannons, I would say to do what Neil Gaiman did. He found that the movies were replacing what was the Lord of the Rings in his head, and so he stopped watching them (not because he didn't like it, but he wanted to keep his headcannon alive in his head). No one is forcing anyone to watch this.

And as far as forcing anyone to do anything, this is not a message trying to engage with those racist ideologues that bemoan any changes perceived of racial divergences in the narratives. I will not waste more time explaining why that thought process helps no one. In essence, the anger at someone portraying an elf in middle-earth as black is small-minded and unimaginative, and I'll say no more about it.

And as far as unimaginative, I think the anger towards Elrond's hair is somewhat interesting. As we have seen in trailers, only two elves have short hair. Elrond is quite literally the youngest elf we have ever seen on screen. Young children have short hair. These elves are young. Notice who didn't have short hair? The Calequendi, Galadriel. My hope is that this is an intentional kind of specialized attention and small detail work that will be seen throughout the whole show, but we will have to wait and see.

Speaking of, lastly, I do not intend to convince anyone that this show will be good. In fact, I see many ways it could go horribly wrong. Yet, assuming it will be bad is to engage with some good ole self-fulfilling prophecy. Going into a show, movie, book, art in general, and expecting it to be bad will make focusing on the things we don't like about that art far more likely. I'm not saying you shouldn't be wary, but I am suggesting that if you go into it looking for new things you like, rather than things you don't, will automatically improve your experience. I cannot take credit for this idea, Tolkien Professor Corey Olson helped me to start doing this and I'm so glad he did. This isn't to say you can't dislike something, rather, it is to say that by changing your perspective from negatively engaged to positively curious is to find more enjoyment in general, and especially in new things. Do whatever you like though, again, no one is forcing anything on anyone.

My main point in this is not that you should like it (I have my own reservations) or that it's going to meet our expectations and be better than the Lord of the Rings movies. I highly doubt that's even possible anyway. But rather, I hope that as a community we give it a chance to be something new worth considering. Once it's out, it you hate it, then so be it. Fair enough. But let's not hang the accused before the trial. Let's see what it can show us. I think the show's creators and Tolkien are owed that much, regardless of Amazon's involvement. No, in SPITE of Amazon's involvement.

Genuinely hopeful,

~ Ramoth13

[councilofelrond]

Hey I hope you don't mind me sending you this, but in regards to this post https://councilofelrond.tumblr.com/post/690537055047008256/you-know-what-if-no-one-else-is-going-to-say-it-i

I really wish people would learn/re-learn the difference between representation and tokenism. Because what Amazon is doing isn't representation. It's at best tokenism! And I remember a time when putting representation into something wasn't applauded when it was so blatantly nothing but tokenism.

Would I like to celebrate TAR (thank you very much) Miriel being a woc? I guess, but she's also the WORST character to do that with! Not only because of what you pointed out, but because of how she was victimized by Ar-Pharazon. But yay representation, amirite? This isn't just helping push an extremely harmful narrative at all.

Also, Ar-Pharazon and Tar-Miriel are supposed to be cousins, so why not make them both poc? There's definitely all of those same issues with making Tar-Miriel poc, but if it was anything other than tokenism they'd both be poc and allow for there to be both good and evil who are represented by that.

And if they're trying so hard to distance themselves from the aesthetic of the Peter Jackson films why not go all out and make Elrond or Galadriel poc? Or even Celebrimbor (although that also goes back to the same issues as making Tar-Miriel poc).

It's just a mess. They're just tokenizing us, and it makes me unbelievably angry

SAY IT LOUDER ANON THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR BEING RIGHT

This reeks of like, 1970s TV shows and the ✨one black guy✨ they’d have just to prove they weren’t racist.

AND YES, that’s EXACTLY the problem with TAR-Míriel (yeah we saw you hack off her title Amazon stfu) being a woc! I for one am not looking forward to see yet ANOTHER woc made constantly miserable on screen. It’s 2022, you’d think we’d be better at writing poc into things but no.

YES, Galadriel and Elrond could definitely be poc!! If Amazon really cared, they WOULD be!!! (I personally imagine Galadriel, for example as black partially because of the fact she wears braids in the books and partially because I love all art where she is depicted as such.) I think honestly a lot of the issues of the more problematic/tragic characters being poc can be solved by having other poc on the side of good, having happy endings, or being like…you know…ELROND. Actual Elrond, not the blond imposter.

Anon I thank you for saying this—you’ve put into words a lot of what I was feeling. Tokenism is NOT representation.

[thelittlebambigirl]

Ok, but expressing distaste for the obvious trainwreck that is The Rings of Power, and being accused of "racism" as if race or skin color was the only argument at all?? Bitch what?? Have you heard us mention the elves with short hair? The dirty, not at all ethereal presence of Galadriel, that looks like a runaway teenager? The stupidity of proclaiming the 'young' appearance of ELROND and GALADRIEL, when you know, it doesn't freaking matter because they don't freaking age? They're elves, Your Majesty, they are always young and beautiful. We also despise the lack of beard or oh, I am so sorry, the sorry excuse of a 'beard' that a so called dwarf princess has?... Have you seen us calling out the glossy, cheap appearance of the CGI, the effects, and direction that shows in just a minute of trailer?... A HOBBIT, out of all things, embued in the trailer? Their """"Tolkien scholar""""" being in fact an 'officer' of inclusivity, and a PhD researcher (not someone with a PhD), shutting down the very people they were supposed to appease, simply because they point out inconsistencies and everything that goes against lore?... You noticed us calling out that too, or you just want a reason to call other people racist? People that are supposed to be your fellow fans, that is. A lot of black people are speaking out too against this nonsensical adding of characters, that are nothing but tokens. The people that put them there don't care about them, it's very clear... You had the south and the east of the Middle Earth, as fertile ground to explore, and somehow these people decide to make a black character, from a race Tolkien called like, the fairiest of folk (as in, you know, pale skin). We all know Tolkien wanted to create a mythology that embodied the mythology of his homeland. And don't come at me with "England/the British Isles also have people of color!", then why didn't Tolkien mention them himself? Oh he did-- they were living in the south, and probably in the east.

And then, cherry on top, one gets accused of doing the same thing "we" did 20+ years ago with Peter Jackson's trilogy"-- are we the same people? Really? It's such a baffling assumption. Did I complain back in the day? I don't think so! I couldn't write, I certainly could not write posts in forums! When the last movie of the trilogy came out, I was five! And many of us, you see, are in this situation, anyone from the late 90's to the start of the 2000's. And even if some of the people complained back in the day, well, almost, if not all of them certainly changed their minds afterwards. It's not impossible to recognise some mistakes were made with the trilogy, and still value it for what it is: one of the best adaptations we are going to get. And you'll remember it before the end!

[the-dragonfire-system]

BROTHERS OF GONDOR INFO 3

Here it is the third and final part of the main characters in Brothers of Gondor. Fair warning this goes a bit crazy and brings in three characters that weren't in the Peter Jackson movies but hey this is my fanfiction so fuck it. Here we go!!

Sauron Dark Lord of Mordor

Sauron's voice is heard each time Frodo puts on the ring

Sauron is aromantic

Sauron's voice is also heard tempting people, like Boromir when he reaches for and holds the ring and Erymir when she carries the ring

Sauron also invades dreams, taunting Aragon, Gandalf and Sam, torturing Smeagol and Saruman and tempting Frodo

Sauron is a very cunning and malevolent force rather than a massive brute. He's cruel and sinister and a scheming word master

Sauron even uses a form of possession battling Aragorn using the body of a Ringwraith

Sauron's new voice will be smoother, darker and more human, not a raspy voice

Sauron will be voiced by Jeremy Irons AKA Scar

Yes I just turned one of disney's best villains into one of fantast's best villains

Saruman the White

Saruman initially joins Sauron for power

Like all wizards, Saruman uses They/Them pronouns

They'll manipulate fellow wizard Radagast the Brown to help them capture Gandalf

When Saruman fails however Sauron tortures them

Saruman is terrified of Sauron by the end

Their fate will be different (NO SPOILERS)

I have plans for them 😈

Denethor steward of Gondor

Denethor is a broken man

I intend to give you flashbacks of him being a noble steward who has sunk low

However he still isn't likeable

He's borderline racist to the elves and dwarves (which we see in a movie scene from Two Towers extended)

He doesn't approve of his daughter being a warrior

He also dislikes her being lesbian but only because he wants grandchildren. Denethor is many things but not a homophobe

Denethor dies differently. Again, no spoilers

Elrond of Rivendell

Not much changes about Elrond

Elrond uses fae/faer pronouns

Fae is there at Helm's Deep with faer daughter

Elrond doesn't try to break up Aragorn and Arwen

Elrond leads some elves on a frontal melee attack

Elrond journeys back to Rivendell with Dwalin

Elrond then moves to The Grey Havens

Galadriel of Lothlorien

Again not much changes

Galadriel travels to Rivendell to watch over it in Elrond's absence

Galadriel is asexual and lesbian

Galadriel doesn't try to break up Aragorn and Arwen

Her visions and projections help Frodo in Shelob's lair

Galadriel greets Elrond and Dwalin at Rivendell

Galadriel leaves for The Grey Havens

Théoden king of Rohan

Théoden also isn't one that changes much

He's very accepting of his niece and nephew both being gay

He defends them from anyone who dares to attack them for their sexuality

Théoden himself is pansexual and has something of a flirtatious relationship with Legolas

Théoden is also highly supportive of the shieldmaiden group and encourages women of Rohan to fight

His death will be different

Radagast the Brown

Radagast in the books is the one to be told by Saruman to send Gandalf to Orthanc

Like all wizards, Radagast uses They/Them pronouns

That is the role they start with in this AU

Radagast brings the eagles to save Gandalf

They will then give Aragorn a way to summon him in case The Fellowship need them

Radagast is summoned in Fanghorn Forest and guides the group through it

They then leave to gather the other two wizards

Pallando the Blue

Pallando uses the face claim of the late and great Sir John Hurt cos fuck it he's always epic

Like all wizards, Pallando uses They/Them pronouns

Pallando is a blue wizard, the only one who remained blue, the other having died and been reborn like Gandalf

Pallando's magic is focused on healing and renewal

Pallando is found and recruited by Radagast

They arrive with Alatar at Helm's Deep

Pallando continues to aid the heroes until the heroes win

Pallando leaves with Gandalf and party to The Grey Havens

Alatar the Red

Alatar uses the faceclaim of Sir Patrick Stewart

Like all wizards, Alatar uses They/Them pronouns

Alatar is a highly aggressive wizard

Alatar uses a sword and a staff

Alatar's magic is highly combat based

Alatar is recruited by Radagast

They arrive at Helm's Deep

Alatar aids the heroes until Sauron is defeated

Alatar leaves for The Grey Havens

And THAT my friends is all the 28 main players in this INSANE adventure AU. Hope you enjoyed these little character break downs. I'm fucking exhausted cos it's 6:25am as of typing this and I have got 3 hours sleep

Tag list!- @monsterlovingftm @lieutenantn @dragon-baron @allourstarsareshinning @flynnisavampire @agenderandhellaanxious @starryeyedrogue @rogue-barnes-durin--mainblog

[caitlinsfandomthoughts]

A film fan’s reaction to reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time.

I’ve been a big fan of the Peter Jackson films (extended versions - nerd that I am) since I was about 11 and I think I know all of the big changes made in the adaptation: Arwen, Faramir, Aragorn falling off a cliff. I did read the first book around the same age (in the first of many waves of my lotr obsession) but I only really remembered Saruman of ‘Many Colours’.

However I have always wanted to properly know the book version of the story so finally started listening to an amazing full audio book reading by Steven Red Fox Garnett which I highly recommend:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwLvFU2onc7cPIEBee-_xMw

………………………………………………………………………………….

And here are my silly reactions and occasional analysis of the differences between book and film that I didn’t know about.  

The Fellowship of the Ring part three, one, two, four, five, six

Many Meetings:

Frodo thinks he’s better but Gandalf can see that Frodo’s arm is transparent, not fully in the mortal world? Is this permanent? A metaphor for his ultimate depression/ptsd, I know the wound itself serves as that. Gandalf lies and says Frodo looks well. My poor sweet baby innocent Frodo.

Frodo knew Sam was by his side most of time rather than checking out Rivendell like he said <3

No Sam! Don’t wait on your master! Embrace being treated as an equal! Thank god he didn’t do it.

Glorfindel is sitting next to Elrond and this is enough for me to ship them.

Frodo finally meets Bilbo again, it having been 17 YEARS! This is more emotionally charged for Frodo than in the film. Bilbo does his Nosferatu impression here! Almost the first thing he says to Frodo is Sooo you have the ring? Can I see it? Can I touch it? This was SAD! That it was so soon. Then there is quite a tone shift after that, Bilbo says sorry for this burden/everything like in the film but then they keep taking, and chat to Aragorn like it never happened.

Gloin!

Some elves are racist jerks to Bilbo (although his song did go on quite a lot).

The Council of Elrond:

Boromir! So far he is much like in the film. Doesn’t say ‘by the blood of our people are your lands kept safe’ but says words to that effect. Including something like ‘we get praise but no help’ which I thought was a pretty good critique, it made me think of performative activism. Aragorn kind of seems petty when he says well rangers protect the north, the north’s not safe either! Like yes but also Gondor is RIGHT NEXT to Mordor. You can see it when you look out from Minas Tirith. I think there’s probably more servants of Sauron there even though there are many elsewhere. It felt like a whataboutism. I think Boromir’s point still stands. Perhaps this is meant to be read as a flaw of Aragorn’s but I don’t think so.

Aragorn says again that the sword will be remade, and says that he will go to Minas Tirith. That’s pretty much all but saying he will become king. He seems so far to accept that fate and be less reluctant to do it than in the film. At this point in the film I felt Aragorn knew in the back of his mind that he would probably have to fulfil that destiny, but there was still a part of him fighting it, or hoping against it. He also had doubts, fears that he would fail like Isildor, fears to take up power. In the book Aragorn himself says the line ‘I am Isildor’s heir, not Isildor himself.’ In the film this was given to Arwen who tries to reassure him. While book Aragorn certainly has humility and isn’t proud of his royalness he seems more comfortable with his destiny, and I so far find that less interesting, like there may be less of an arc for him. But it is early days and a lot more may be revealed about him. I’m especially interested in his interactions with Boromir, which, I find is one of the more interesting aspects of the first film.

Bilbo wrote the Aragorn Poem! And says it’s not that good, but it’s my favourite one so far. I think we’re probably meant to have that reaction.

Radagast! It makes a bit more sense here as to why Gandalf would go see Saruman, despite already being suss about him, given that Radagast unwittingly sent him there. I’d like to think the moth in the film is a nod to Radagast.

Saruman of MANY COLOURS! This is almost the singular thing I remember from reading the first book as a kid. As awesome as it sounds I’m kinda glad they didn’t put it in the films since it would look like queer-coding a villain.

Saruman has some rhetoric about maintaining ‘order’ which is never a good sign. He also seems to think that he’ll be able to take power from Sauron after they join somehow which, my dude, is never gonna happen.

Gandalf has a line about how despair is only for those who know the future, and we do not, and honestly that helps me with climate grief.

Apart from Frodo and Sam, (and Merry and Pippin) Elrond picks the other companions.

Elrond is starting to see that Bilbo isn’t so unique among hobbits, that they may all have strength of character beyond what may initially seem to. This is nice, I like this theme.

[badskippy]

Chapters: 26/30 Fandom: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Dwalin/Ori, Dís/Canonical Husband, Thrain/Thrain's Canonical Wife, Bilbo Baggins/Nori - past relationship Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Dwalin, Ori (Tolkien), Dís (Tolkien), Thráin, Fundin, Thorin's Company, Gandalf, Elrond, Arwen, Frerin - mentioned, Sherlock Holmes - mentioned, Holmes and Watson - mentioned, Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Modern AU, Falling In Love, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Some LONG Chapters, Implied/Referenced Character Death, NOT THORIN'S, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Suicide Attempt, suicide ideation, graphic depictions of self harm, Misogyny, misognistic biogtry, Racist Language, Racism Series: Part 1 of No Ordinary Life Summary:

Bilbo and Ori have been best friends since they were ten years old and tragedy brought them together. Now, a new job, a sudden rainstorm, a chance meeting and budding romance with a burly, handsome stranger will not only alter their lives, but set in motion events that will change everyone around them, and reveal how lies, deceit and assumptions can leave deeper scars than the ones that can be seen.

-------------

I’m evil and I’m sorry .... I have been working on this chapter too long and it’s not quite there ... but I think my loyal readers deserve a treat!   So, I have posted the very beginning of the next chapter ... the fiinished chapter will be up soon.

[whetstonefires]

“The master of the house was an elf-friend--one of those people whose fathers came into the strange stories before the beginning of History, the wars of the evil goblins and the elves and the first men in the North. In those days of our tale there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors, and Elrond the master of the house was their chief.

He was as noble and fair of face as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer.”

I know, right? That’s from The Hobbit, so it’s the first description he got anywhere. He’s not even presented as an elf! I certainly didn’t think he was one, as a child. Just a really nice guy.

By Lord of the Rings the mythology of the setting was much better-developed, so what we get is:

“The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars. Venerable he seemed as a king crowned with many winters, and yet hale as a tried warrior in the fulness of his strength. He was the Lord of Rivendell and mighty among both Elves and Men.”

Okay, that’s closer! In the next paragraph Frodo figures out who Arwen is on the basis that she looks so much like her dad, but that’s too high a bar. Hugo Weaving’s looks are adequate. And I liked his performance! It was distinctive and gripping.

But the script did weird things to Elrond, and as a kid I remember being really, really baffled about it, and having the hardest time connecting the Elrond on screen to the one I knew.

Because even though Elrond comes across much more Elvish in the second introduction, and isn’t implied to be the leader of a whole ethnic group of peredhil--honestly it’s like Hobbit!Elrond got divided into Elrond and Aragorn for LotR, all Elrond’s ancestors are Aragorn’s too after all--his Half-Elven status is emphatically restated.

(Even though, as I’ve mentioned before, mathematically it works out to 25/32nds Elven, thanks Melian.)

Elrond identifies as part human. He puts it in his name! He may or may not be mad at his twin for going off and voluntarily dying but he’s never disavowed him, or Beren or Tuor or their houses.

So the fact that his role in Fellowship-the-movie was to infodump by trash-talking Men as a group and spice up Aragorn’s story by being a vaguely racist protective dad over Arwen to the point of guilt-tripping her into letting herself be bundled off to the Havens weirded me out, and I’m still not over it.

Especially after Jackson upped the ante for The Hobbit and replaced ‘staying in his house for two weeks that were too pleasant to be interesting to read about’ with ‘passive-aggressively served nothing but salad.’

[anghraine]

This is a belated reply, but:

irresistible-revolution replied to this post:

yep yep, the facetiousness and rhetorical games are truly maddening. i enjoy the pj movies a lot more than you do and they are deeply, deeply racist! pj specifically refused to let black actors try out for any of the elven parts. so it’s really fascinating how these movies are being upheld as paradigmatic against the diverse casting for ROP. there’s some deeply entrenched white supremacy that’s being troubled by the sight of black and brown elves specifically.

Yup. It's really noticeable that the nuclear rage is particularly disproportionate when it comes to characters or groups described as especially beautiful in the source material being played by Black and brown actors. As you say, it's marked for Elves especially (and detractors have been especially fixated on Arondir's hair—not just the open bigots).

You also see it with characters like Tar-Míriel; I've seen so many people heatedly arguing that the description of her beauty as superior to ivory, silver, and pearls = she is canonically pale-skinned = HOW DARE.

have also seen people complaining about the “scale” of the show as lacking grandeur, and about sauron looking “too ordinary” (again, the pj movies being used as implicit standard) instead of just…enjoying a different flavor of adaptation?

Yeah. There are legit criticisms to make, but a lot of the ones that are made seem based on the assumption that difference from the Jackson films is intrinsically inferior. If the aesthetic of a place or a people is at all different than the films, it must be for the worse, and/or less "faithful." And there's this willingness to approach the films with the maximum generosity possible (including where they're drastically at variance with Tolkien or with ... uh, decency) while approaching the show with an incredible degree of poor faith (that also leads to bad and frequently racist and/or xenophobic and/or misogynistic takes on the original material, too!).

insane insane. incidentally, someone told me ROP couldn’t get the rights to The Silmarillion and have hence had to create a lot of story to fill in the gaps, is that true?

Yes, basically. My understanding is that they couldn't actually get the rights to Silmarillion material directly, but could work with anything mentioned in LOTR (the main narrative or Appendices). There's actually a good bit of Silm stuff mentioned in LOTR in some form, like Gandalf talking about Fëanor's craftmanship, material embedded in various songs or explanations, etc, along with the quantity of background material in the Appendices.

But there's also plenty of stuff that's not there, and AFAIK they had to get special specific permission from the Tolkien Estate for basically anything not contained in LOTR. The ROP narrative is pretty clearly assembling its narrative from a mixture of LOTR details, extrapolations, and actual inventions, alongside a few isolated details from places like Unfinished Tales (there's a reference to a detail from "The Mariner's Wife" in the depiction of Númenor, for instance).

I think the end result is interesting, but unfortunately, it's also ... like, I've seen people complaining that it's problematic that ROP Elrond is more focused on his biological father, Eärendil, than his adoptive one, Maglor. That is, Maglor is his adoptive father according to popular fanon (even people who dislike Maglor will usually accept this characterization of their relationship). But Tolkien does not talk about Maglor in LOTR, so ROP couldn't have used him anyway without requesting a special exception that might or might not be granted.

...FWIW, Elrond does refer to his parents in LOTR, but he only mentions Eärendil and Elwing. Even outside LOTR, Tolkien doesn't specify that Maglor is the adoptive father of Elrond and Elros, only that he affectionately looks after them for awhile and the relationship becomes unexpectedly loving on all sides—there are a lot of ways to interpret that other than "adoptive dad" but fandom is very intent on shoving all relationships into clear-cut nuclear family frameworks.

And it just seems absurd to me that there's this whole idea that ROP had some obligation to bring in this very particular fanon reading of a line that isn't in LOTR, about a character who isn't mentioned in LOTR, who is not actually described as Elrond's father anyway, when Eärendil has a very long song about him in LOTR and is explicitly acknowledged by Elrond in the book. And that's pretty typical of a lot of ROP discourse, IMO.

[lesbiansforboromir]

Isn't Elrond already sorta racist toward humans in the TCU? I mean he was the one who was all "Men? Men are weak" and "I was there 3000 years ago when the strength of men failed Gandalf". Like he doesn't seem to terribly sold on humanity lol

All things he doesn't actually say in the books! Which is why I put it on the pessimistic bingo, I'm hoping the show doesnt go too much with jackson canon but they seem to be leaning that way in a few respects.

Also I can't for the life of me decipher TCU, misspelled the council of elrond? TCE?

[ao3feed-tolkien]

The Arkenstone's Curse

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/SMm5txG

by The_Obsidian_Rose

Asterin, with eyes of blooming lavender, was born to Mairon and Thealuil. Mairon, also known as Sauron was seen as an embodiment of evil. Thealuil, was the maiden of the North, queen of a small sect of elves slowly building an empire. Despite the height of her birth, as a mere infant, her mother was killed, her father thought to be defeated, and the elven kingdoms of Middle Earth took her in and raised her.

Years later, Gandalf the Gray - a dear friend and fatherly figure - asked Asterin to accompany a party of dwarves to reclaim their mountain home from a beast born of fire. Her task, she thought, would be simple - considering all her other travels. However, she was not prepared for the racist views of their king, or for the way he treated her. Although, perhaps, that was bound to change.

Words: 303, Chapters: 3/3, Language: English

Fandoms: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: F/M

Characters: Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins, Kíli (Tolkien), Fíli (Tolkien), Thranduil (Tolkien), Legolas Greenleaf, Tauriel (Hobbit Movies), Dwalin (Tolkien), Balin (Tolkien), Elrond, Mirkwood Elves, Gandalf | Mithrandir

Relationships: Thorin Oakenshield/Original Character(s)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/SMm5txG

[ao3feed-thehobbit]

The Arkenstone's Curse

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/0N59f6o

by The_Obsidian_Rose

Asterin, with eyes of blooming lavender, was born to Mairon and Thealuil. Mairon, also known as Sauron was seen as an embodiment of evil. Thealuil, was the maiden of the North, queen of a small sect of elves slowly building an empire. Despite the height of her birth, as a mere infant, her mother was killed, her father thought to be defeated, and the elven kingdoms of Middle Earth took her in and raised her.

Years later, Gandalf the Gray - a dear friend and fatherly figure - asked Asterin to accompany a party of dwarves to reclaim their mountain home from a beast born of fire. Her task, she thought, would be simple - considering all her other travels. However, she was not prepared for the racist views of their king, or for the way he treated her. Although, perhaps, that was bound to change.

Words: 303, Chapters: 3/3, Language: English

Fandoms: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: F/M

Characters: Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins, Kíli (Tolkien), Fíli (Tolkien), Thranduil (Tolkien), Legolas Greenleaf, Tauriel (Hobbit Movies), Dwalin (Tolkien), Balin (Tolkien), Elrond, Mirkwood Elves, Gandalf | Mithrandir

Relationships: Thorin Oakenshield/Original Character(s)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/0N59f6o