glorfindely:

diversehighfantasy:

goseiwonder:

fihli:

fihli:

hear me out: all-female remake of lord of the rings

hear me out: all-female racially diverse remake of lord of the rings

Isn’t 2 humans, an Elf, 4 Hobbits, a Dwarf and a celestial being in a corporeal form already racially diverse?

Well, at least in how most high fantasy uses the word “race.”

No.

If every fantasy race is imagined as entirely white it absolutely does not count as racial diversity. The implications of a world where every race (or every race that matters) is white are quite the opposite, in fact, and point to conscious or unconscious white supremacy.

feel free to re-imagine the characters as any race you want, but please understand that, in context, tolkien’s characters (almost) all being canonically white does not “point to conscious or unconscious white supremacy”

you see, tolkien’s mythology was intentionally written as stories for the english people. they had no mythology of their own – all of “their” stories had originated from other cultures. middle earth originated as an alternate history of europe (especially england) as it may have been told from an ancient english mythological perspective. 

as the professor himself wrote:

“I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own … Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story… which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country.”

“I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world… The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary.”

people from europe, are, of course, mostly white, so it naturally follows that the people living in an alternate history of europe would be white – as well as the fantasy creatures borne out of european mythology. including a lot of non-europeans in it would make no more sense than native american mythologies featuring white people, or japanese mythologies featuring black people, and so on.

basically, middle earth = europe, southern areas = africa, and eastern areas = asia. there are poc in tolkien’s arda but most (not all) come from places outside middle earth, which makes sense when you put it in a real world context. 

diversity in fantasy is great, but please do not assume that everything that does not meet your criteria of diversity is automatically racist. thank you