Steve Toussaint, a Black actor who plays a wealthy naval commander in the current “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” spoke to this debate recently when he revealed he’s been criticized by White fans for being cast in the HBO series. Critics say the fantasy and science fiction world has long normalized the notion that only White men can be the hero and in charge.

This clash is part of a larger debate about including non-White, LGBTQ and other nontraditional characters in fantasy and science-fiction stories. “This is simply being sensible, courteous and empathetic.” “It’s not being woke to say no, that’s not acceptable anymore,” Coren says. Some fans are even questioning if Tolkien was a racist.Īctors Markella Kavenagh (Elanor 'Nori' Brandyfoot), Sara Zwangobani (Marigold Brandyfoot), Dylan Smith (Largo Brandyfoot), and Megan Richards (Poppy Proudfellow) play Harfoots, proto-Hobbit characters. Middle-earth fans and scholars like Morse have clashed in online forums and dueling op-eds over this question: Does casting non-White actors enhance the new series, or is it a betrayal of Tolkien’s original vision?Īnd because “Lord of the Rings” fans are notoriously opinionated about all things Middle-earth, the debate can get heated. Yet some of the biggest battles surrounding the Amazon Studios series have erupted offscreen. The makers of “The Rings of Power,” which premiered Friday, promise viewers plenty of epic battles. “You’re effectively making propaganda, or art meant to fit a message, not a message to fit the art.” “If you focus on introducing modern political sentiments, such as the leftist obsession with identity issues that only go skin deep, then you’re no longer focusing on building a good story,” says Morse, who wrote an impassioned essay about his misgivings. He says it’s an attempt to embed “social justice politics” into Tolkien’s world. He says “The Rings of Power” producers have cast non-White actors in a story based on European culture and who look wildly different from how Tolkien originally described them.

Morse is deputy managing editor of RedState, a conservative news site. They are trying to “woke-ify” Amazon’s new series, “ The Lord of the Rings: “The Rings of Power.” Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” the “Lord of the Rings” series and watched extended editions of Peter Jackson’s ring trilogy so often that “I can almost quote them all line for line.”īut Morse is dreading a new addition to the Middle-earth canon that he says “perverts and corrupts” Tolkien’s mythical medieval universe because TV showrunners have committed this storytelling crime:

The new shadow tolkien