He also described the Haradrim as being dark-skinned, and Bill Ferny as “swarthy.”
For that matter, Hobbits in general are said to have “nut-colored” skin. Which could mean a lot of things, but probably not WASP. And the Rohirrim, proxy for the Anglo-Saxons, are paler than almost everyone else in the books, meaning that almost everyone else is darker than them.
As usual, my annoyances in things like this are the way creative decisions like this are heralded by the showrunners who seem more concerned with representation and signaling such then telling a good story.
“We want the story to reflect the world today” Whose world? Yours? Cause in my experience, Hollywood peeps populate a very small and isolated ‘world’. “Tolkein is for everyone”…and? Its always been that way.
Just tell your story and STFU about it. Stop patting yourself on the back about it. You spent a KABILLION dollars on this. You push this as ‘Middle-Earth Riverdale’ and you’re gonna lose a kabillion dollars. Yes, Riverdale is on its sixth season. It also didnt cost a kabillion dollars.
Bad enough the usual suspects are already putting out articles, “Criticism=Racist trolls”.
Tolkien fans might not believe it, but it is possible to tell good stories with non-white characters. I don’t see how the mere existence of them means the show won’t be able to tell a good story.
Nothing of the sort. It’s the characters and plot hints given in the VF article that lead me to think that the shown won’t be telling a good story. The casting is irrelevant to that.
Speaking of which, “Whats up with that?? Whats UP with thhhhaaat”
In Jackson’s LOTR I was familiar with every single major actor except Billy Boyd before the show aired. Even the deleted Mouth of Sauron.
This show? I know who Lenny Henry is.
You’re wrong in three ways.
First, this is marketing. It’s literally their job to get people to notice the product. They’re going to push every angle they think will get them more sales.
Second, representation matters, and signaling is a good thing. It’s an innate part of our species.
Third, “representation and signaling” is not in opposition to “telling a good story”.
Pleo, I appreciate your opinion and your thought given in the matter.
Thank you, I appreciate your contributions as well.
Probably because the budget is already gargantuan enough without adding a couple of $15 million-per-episode actors.
Good to see they’ve merged this franchise with the Elder Scrolls one… (pic 6)
Wearing gigantic moose antlers on your back while hunting seems wildly impractical.
Perhaps they’re hunting gigantic moose? 
Don’t know how Discourse managed to fuck that up, this was actually supposed to be a reply to Roderick_Femm’s post, not jsc’s one:
Maybe they’re not there for the hunting?
You mean they’re wearing the antlers because they’re horny?
These LOTR traditionalists… what’s wrong with having Gigantic Moose of the Valar? What else would Oromë ride?
Really? Because one of the noteworthy things about it was that Viggo and Orlando were NOT big name stars prior to the movie.
Viggo I knew from The Prophecy…I forgot about Orlando. I didnt know him and Dominic also as Lost was after LOTR and not before.
A møøse once bit my huntsman-god… No realli!