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All this anger at the Ring of Power Amazon series...

...is a load of old bollox. It's pretty damn good tbh though they had to suspend the review section because half of the internet is upset by the sight of black hobbits and elves. Of all the reasons to criticise Amazon and Bezos (exploiting workers, banning unions etc) this is really not the hill to die on.

If you can suspend disbelief enough to think that elves exist, then you can believe that some of them could be non-white! It's hardly a betrayal of Tolkien's original vision when the author himself actually described hobbits as being black. Peter Jackson's hobbits are soy-boy pale white. The whole point of rebooting things is to do a modern interpretation of past work. If that includes people who don't look like me, then fine.

Unlike Jackson's interpretation (his LOTR is still great btw) they also have consistency in accents. In the original movies: the hobbits had a mixture of RP English, cornish and east of Scotland dialects. When you think about it, this makes zero sense. They have now decided that all Hobbits should be Irish (fair nuff), that Dwarves are Scottish (obvs) and that Elves are haughty southern English people. Oh yeah, and the poor lower-class humans are from Yorkshire (apart from the hot one!)

The Orcs still talk and act like 1950s cockneys, much to the mild annoyance of my London friends. Now all of this does really play into British Isles stereotypes in a big way so I guess that is maybe not perfect. Oh wait... hmm... I don't actually care!

I hope the writers respond to the criticism by writing a scene with two male dragons f***ing each other that causes a mass nervous breakdown of orcs wearing MAGA hats!
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LordShadowfire · 46-50, M
I'm fully convinced Tolkien would have been fine with darker colored elves. He never said they were all pale white European looking people.
Burnley123 · 41-45, M
@LordShadowfire Warhammer has a lot to answer for. 😂

I just find the accent thing funny. Somewhere in the American psyche, this really plays out.

Elves (posh English). Old-money prestige. Manners, honour ant eccentricity. Also arrogant.
Dwarves (Scottish) Salt of the earth. Honourable in a blokey kind of way. Like a drink, macho and hold grudges.
Halflings (Irish) Innocent simple country folk.
Orcs (East London working class) are Criminal, sneaky bastards. Low class and manners.
Poor humans (Yorkshire) also salt of the earth but really dumb and backwards.

We have these stereotypes here. Obviously its all exaggerated but somehow the Americans are also aware of them on some level.