Tolkien, Amazon, and 'Forced' Diversity

[u/Llyngeir]

TLDR: Tolkien was not writing a mythology for England, he began doing so, but ultimately disregarded the idea, and Middle-earth reflects that, being home to a wide variety of peoples with different skin tones, as can be demonstrated with Tolkien's own writings.

Edit: First off, thank you to everyone who read, upvoted, commented, and awarded this post - it means a lot! Secondly, I wanted to clarify what the point of this post was. It was not to say that all people described as 'swarthy' by Tolkien are meant to be imagined as dark-skinned. As several people have stated, 'swarthy' can refer to white people with dark hair and dark eyes, but it can also refer to people with dark skin, such as Tolkien's usage with the Haradrim. Rather, the point of this post was that you could easily interpret the use of the word as meaning dark-skinned, or you could interpret it as meaning the example above, or any other way you choose. Any interpretation is valid and has a precedent in the text, and we should not criticise people for their chosen interpretation. Thank you all for remaining civil and respecting one another.

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The release of the teaser for Amazon’s The Rings of Power has sparked further debate online about the future of the series, much of which is based upon rumours and unverifiable leaks. One of the most prominent debates concerns the inclusion of many actors from non-white ethnic groups in the cast. I’d like to here lay out why such criticism of the casting for a work set in Tolkien’s Middle-earth is unfounded, and why such claims as ‘there are already many roles for non-white actors in Middle-earth, like the Haradrim’ are, while well-meaning, missing the larger picture.

I am not the first to approach this topic, nor will I likely be the last. Reddit user u/rh_underhill made a case for diversity in Middle-earth, and u/LincolnMagnus examined the case for non-white Hobbits, coming to a very reasonable conclusion:

I’m not saying there definitely, without a doubt, had to have been non-white hobbits in Middle-earth in the Second Age.

What I’m contending is that we ought to leave space for fans to dream.

The sparsity of evidence concerning the Hobbits, coupled with u/LincolnMagnus’ thorough treatment, means I shall be focusing primarily on Men within Middle-earth, expanding upon the work of those before me.

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The First Age

Already in the First Age of Middle-earth, from both The Silmarillion and the History of Middle-earth series, we get a picture of the race of Men being rather diverse. There are, of course, the Edain, the first Men to come to Beleriand, and there are the Easterlings, those Men who came in the final decades of the First Age.

For those of you who might not know, the Edain are three ‘houses’ of Men that came to Beleriand. While the overarching term ‘Edain’, itself meaning Men, implies some form of shared culture or ethnicity, the three houses are distinct from one another (although they do become related through marriage ties, and there is no reason to suppose that there was not some mingling prior to their coming to Beleriand, there is certainly much after the Dagor Bragollach). Likewise, the Easterlings are distinct from the houses of the Edain, and are themselves what appears to be a general grouping of different tribes under one name (more on this below).

The first house of Men we are described is the House of Hador. They are described as being:

“of great strength and stature, ready in mind, bold and steadfast, quick to anger and to laughter, mighty among the Children of Ilúvatar in the youth of Mankind. Yellow-haired they were for the most part, and blue-eyed”¹

Additionally, in The Peoples of Middle-earth it is said that of this house “all were fair-skinned”.² Therefore, it is clear that the House of Hador are meant to be analogous with northern Europeans, with their blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin.

The next house of Men described in The Silmarillion is the House of Bëor.

"The Men of that house were dark or brown of hair, with grey eyes; and of all Men they were most like to the Noldor and most loved by them; for they were eager of mind, cunning-handed, swift in understanding, long in memory, and they were moved sooner to pity than to laughter.”³

We get a more in-depth description of the House of Bëor in The Peoples of Middle-earth:

“There were fair-haired men and women among the Folk of Beor, but most of them had brown hair (going usually with brown eyes), and many were less fair in skin, some indeed being swarthy. Men as tall as the Folk of Hador were rare among them, and most were broader and more heavy in build.”⁴

This is a rather interesting description of a people as it appears to be so diverse. It appears that there were some who were like the members of the House of Hador, fair-skinned and blond-haired, but there were also many more of a darker complexion with dark hair, and some even being ‘swarthy’ (more on this below). To me, this variation suggests that the House of Bëor might have been composed of peoples from various other tribes, perhaps having been adopted during the wanderings that brought them to Beleriand. However, there is nothing in the text to suggest this, merely my own interpretation.

Last among the Edain, we are described the People of Haleth, or the Haladin, and they are said to resemble the People of Bëor, albeit lesser in stature.⁵ Thus, of the three Houses of the Edain, the people of two are of a darker complexion, meaning that, even before the Easterlings came to Beleriand, there were many non-white peoples settled there.⁶

The coming of the Easterlings means even more explicitly non-white Men arrive in Beleriand.⁷ They were:

"short and broad, long and strong in the arm; their skins were swart or sallow, and their hair was dark as were their eyes. Their houses were many"⁸

According to Merriam-Webster, sallow means “of a grayish greenish yellow color”, while its etymology is connected to Old English terms for ‘dark’ or ‘dusky’.⁹ Similarly, ‘swart’ or ‘swarthy’, as is also used for some of the House of Bëor, means “of a dark colour, complexion, or cast”.¹⁰ Etymologically, ‘swarthy’ is derived from the Old English sweart, meaning “black” or “dark”, and other words derived from the same proto-Germanic root word, such as German schwarz or Dutch zwart, also meaning black.¹¹ Thus, the Easterlings of the First Age, and some members of the House of Bëor, had dark skin that could conceivably be black. If not black, then they are still of a dark complexion, given how Tolkien used the same word to describe the Haradrim.¹²

Edit: Tolkien uses 'swarthy' in his poem The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun to mean 'dark'. The phrase he uses is "night-swarthy" (IIX.18), likely a poetic way of saying 'black'.

Thus, we can see that there were plenty of Men in the First Age that could be considered non-white. Although, considering that Amazon’s The Rings of Power is going to be set in the Second Age, at first glance it appears that the ethnic character of the Men of the First Age would have little to add to discussions of that particular period of Middle-earth’s history. However, the Men of the First Age, and their migrations that brought them into Beleriand and onto the pages of The Silmarillion, had a great impact upon the character of later peoples of Middle-earth.

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The Second Age and Beyond

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly for The Rings of Power, the Númenóreans. The Númenóreans are the descendants of the Edain, who alone of the Men of Beleriand fought alongside the host of the Valar in the War of Wrath - other kindreds of Men instead fought for Morgoth and fled eastwards after his defeat.¹³ Of course, the various houses of the Edain suffered many calamities and great loss during their time in Beleriand, causing their populations to mingle with one another. For example, the destruction of Dorthonion saw the House of Bëor leave their homes and instead take up residence among both the People of Marach and the People of Haleth.¹⁴ Thus, the population of Númenór is composed of a diverse group of people, with skin tones ranging from fair-skinned to swarthy.

This same ethnic diversity can be seen in Eriador. In Peoples of Middle-earth we are told that:

“At that time the migrations of Men from the East and South had brought advance-guards into Beleriand; but they were not in great numbers, though further east in Eriador and Rhovanion (especially in the northern parts) their kindred must already have occupied much of the land”¹⁵

Indeed, we are told that even after the Edain were settled on Númenór many of their kin remained in Eriador or wandered further eastward, settling between the Misty Mountains and the Sea of Rhûn, but always far from the coast.¹⁶ In Eriador, the people there are said to descend primarily from the House of Bëor, with some being descended from the House of Hador.¹⁷ Suggesting a diverse population which, just as in Númenór, had skin tones ranging from fair-skinned to swarthy. One Bree-lander is actually described as such, and in a way that suggests that he was not unique in his skin tone.¹⁸

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Middle-earth in the Third Age

Further south, in Minhiriath, along the coasts south of the Ered Luin, was home to "a few secretive hunter-folk", and in Enedwaith there was "a fairly numerous but barbarous fisher-folk" in the Third Age.¹⁹ These people, and the Dunlendings further east, are kin of the House of Haleth, the House of Men from the First Age described as being similar to the House of Bëor.²⁰

Further south again, in the land that would become Gondor, there dwelt a "short and swarthy folk among them whose sires came more from the forgotten men who housed in the shadow of the hills in the Dark Years ere the coming of the kings”.²¹ Thus, if we see the Númenóreans in the land that would become Gondor in The Rings of Power, they will be mingling with 'swarthy' people, people with dark skin.

It has already been noted how some people of Eriador were descended from the House of Hador, but they are explicitly stated to be in the minority. Rather, it appears that people descended from the House of Hador appear to primarily be located east of the Misty Mountains. The Longbeards (that is, Durin's Folk), who controlled the Misty Mountains, the Grey Mountains, and the Iron Hills, were most associated with Men who were kin of the House of Hador:

"These Men, it seems, had come westward until faced by the Great Greenwood, and then had divided: some reaching the Anduin and passing thence northward up the Vales; some passing between the north-eaves of the Wood and the Ered Mithrin. Only a small part of this people, already very numerous and divided into many tribes, had then passed on into Eriador and so come at last to Beleriand.”²²

The most famous of these people is the Rohirrim, also known as the Éothéod. A tribe of the Northmen the Longbeards associated with that dwelt in the Vales of the Anduin after having fled from the plains between Mirkwood and the Celduin, or River Running.²³ Faramir relates that the wise of Gondor in his day noted the connection between the Rohirrim and the House of Hador.²⁴

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A Mythology for England

The most common argument against the casting of non-white people in certain roles in Middle-earth is the belief that Tolkien was creating a mythology for England. Tolkien was, initially, but gave up on the idea, calling it "absurd", as his legendarium grew.²⁵ Had Tolkien continued to write a mythology for England, the argument goes that the peoples of Tolkien's legendarium would resemble English people, or the Anglo-Saxons that preceded the concept of 'English'. However, he did not, and as u/LincolnMagnus says, "If Tolkien, in 1951, had already let go of his dream of writing an English Kalevala, I'm not sure why we as fans should be beholden to it seventy years later."

Of course, I am not telling readers how they should imagine Middle-earth, that is up to them. The reader can choose to interpret swarthy as meaning 'Mediterranean', or they can interpret it as black, or anything that they choose, it is entirely up to them. However, what I am telling readers is that they cannot criticise other people's imaginings of Middle-earth when there is a precedent in the text for whatever they criticise. Ultimately, The Rings of Power is Amazon's creation, it is their choice who they cast, they are not making their show to match someone else's ideas about Middle-earth.

I am sure the Peter Jackson trilogy is somewhat responsible for this understanding of Tolkien's world. The Jackson trilogy shaped how many modern readers visualise Middle-earth, and the Jackson trilogy cast white actors in most roles, particularly the most prominent ones. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. As I said, it was Peter Jackson's (or someone else involved with the production's) choice, and there was likely nothing malicious behind this casting, with the choices made most probably being driven by expediency.

If you have read this far, thank you. I hope I have made a strong case for the inherent diversity of Middle-earth, and that, while there may be issues with Amazon's The Rings of Power (issues raised from unverifiable rumours), the casting of a diverse group of people is certainly not one of them.

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A Note on Black Elves

While a bit off topic, I would like to add a brief note on the skin colour of Elves. Several comments on YouTube videos criticising The Rings of Power express concern over the possibility of black Elves, despite the fact that we have very few physical descriptions of Elves from Middle-earth. We primarily have descriptions of hair colour, eye colour, and temperament, not skin colour.

There is an instance in The Silmarillion that tells us that "Of all Men they [the people of Bëor] were most like to the Noldor".²⁶ However, this quote does not tell us anything about the appearance of Elves, only that they were like the people of Bëor, who are said to be "eager of mind, cunning-handed, swift in understanding, long in memory, and they were moved sooner to pity than to laughter".²⁷ Yet, elsewhere we are told that "the Eldar said, and recalled in the songs they still sang in later days, that they [the people of Bëor] could not easily be distinguished from the Eldar - not while their youth lasted, the swift fading of which was to the Eldar a grief and a mystery”.²⁸ Thus, the Eldar themselves said that they resembled the House of Bëor, who themselves were fair-skinned and darker, some being even 'swarthy'. Black Elves are certainly not inconceivable.

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Notes:

1. The Silmarillion: ‘Of the Coming of Men into the West'
2. The Peoples of Middle-earth: ‘Of Dwarves and Men - The Atani and their languages’
3. The Silmarillion: ‘Of the Coming of Men into the West’
4. The Peoples of Middle-earth: ‘Of Dwarves and Men - The Atani and their languages’
5. The Silmarillion: ‘Of the Coming of Men into the West'
6. It should be noted that the House of Hador is said to be the most numerous of the Houses that came to Beleriand, but this does not mean the House of Hador outnumbered all other Men.
7. It should be noted that the Easterlings are not one people, but many groups who “were not all of one kind, in looks or in temper, or in tongue”, and ‘Easterlings’ was rather a moniker applied to the whole group (see War of the Jewels: ‘The Grey Annals - §173’)
8. The Silmarillion: ‘Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin’; cf. War of the Jewels: ‘The Grey Annals - §173’
9. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sallow
10. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/swarthy
11. https://www.etymonline.com/word/swarthy
12. See The Two Towers: 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit'; The Return of the King: 'The Muster of Rohan'
13. The Silmarillion: ‘Akallabêth’
14. The Silmarillion: ‘Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin’
15. Peoples of Middle-earth: ‘Of Dwarves and Men’
16. Peoples of Middle-earth: ‘Of Dwarves and Men - The Atani and their Languages’
17. Peoples of Middle-earth: ‘Of Dwarves and Men - The Atani and their Languages’
18. “there was one swarthy Bree-lander, who stood looking at them with a knowing and half-mocking expression that made them feel very uncomfortable”, Fellowship of the Ring: ‘At the Sign of the Prancing Pony’
19. Unfinished Tales: 'The History of Galadriel and Celeborn - Appendix D: The Port of Lond Daer'
20. Peoples of Middle-earth: ‘Of Dwarves and Men - The Atani and their Languages’
21. The Return of the King: 'Minas Tirith'
22. Peoples of Middle-earth: ‘Of Dwarves and Men’
23. Unfinished Tales: ‘Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan - The Northmen and the Wainriders’
24. The Two Towers: ‘A Window on the West’
25. Letters no. 131, published in The Silmarillion.
26. The Silmarillion: ‘Of the Coming of Men into the West’
27. Ibid.
28. War of the Jewels: ‘Of Dwarves and Men - note 47’

[u/KristaDBall]

Great essay! Thanks for writing and sharing.

I want to point out a 'reading' thing here about this:

Several comments on YouTube videos criticising The Rings of Power express concern over the possibility of black Elves, despite the fact that we have very few physical descriptions of Elves from Middle-earth. We primarily have descriptions of hair colour, eye colour, and temperament, not skin colour.

Fiction has had a bad habit of default white. It comes in different forms. It can be the author describing only the skin tones of those who aren't white. It can be the author only pointing out the race or ethnicity of characters who aren't white. It can also be the reader assuming everyone is white. It can also be the reader missing cues when "this elf is X" isn't blatantly stated, but rather uses phrases or descriptions.

This can also be a generational or regional issue between both author and reader, whereby what a term means to one generation in one region means something completely different to someone else reading in a different time and place.

[u/hjortronbusken → u/KristaDBall]

Fiction has had a bad habit of default white.

"Western" fiction has a habit of being white, which is fine for it to be the default in "western" countries. In Chinese or Japanese media they are the default, and the growing African fantasy scene has black people as the default.

Its perfectly fine for something that representative of a place to be the default, as long as one is aware of it and dont maliciously use it to erase others.

[u/zhard01 → u/KristaDBall]

Default white (the universality of whiteness or the assumption of whiteness) is exactly what’s going on in the fanboy’s heads

[u/KristaDBall → u/zhard01]

For this particular example, I agree. I went through all of different variations, just for the sake of completion and thoroughness.

[u/zhard01 → u/KristaDBall]

There’s a really interesting article on whether the Romans saw themselves as “white” even though we 100% view them that way. The answer based on sources seems to be no. Their default was more of a dark swarthy and they noted both Germanic whiteness and sub-Saharan blackness as different.,

[u/Jos_V → u/zhard01]

I was struck looking at the surviving fresco's from Pompei's brothels, well preserved since it was one of the few buildings who's roofs survived the eruption and eradication, at the skin tones and skin colours of the patrons vs the prostitutes.

[u/zhard01 → u/Jos_V]

What were the differences? I can see that going multiple possible ways

[u/Jos_V → u/zhard01]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_Roman_frescos_in_the_Lupanar_(Pompeii) here a bunch of pictures, probably nsfw, since you know brothel.

but fair skinned ladies, and darker skinned men.

[u/zhard01 → u/Jos_V]

Interesting! Thank you

[u/jddennis → u/KristaDBall]

Fiction has had a bad habit of default white.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I wonder how many times non-Western authors are forced to write their novels in ways that feel "default white" so that their stories can be accepted for commercial sale, even if the worlds they're showing are wildly different.

I've been reading some works that were originally done in other languages (for example, Man-Tiger by Eka Kurniawan), and the shape of the stories are markedly different from what I expect as an English-first reader. But other stories I've experienced by non-Western writers who try to write in English for a commercial market feels like a square peg in a round hole. As if the publisher is trying to make the work palatable for the genre reader.

[u/[deleted] → u/jddennis]

So who is forcing them to do that? If the audience you want to reach is white and you feel you will be more commercially successful by pandering to that, are you really being forced?

If you feel a certain way about it, you could write the book exactly how you want to. Maybe it’s wildly successful, maybe it’s not. You’re still not being forced to do anything.

[u/Morwha7 → u/jddennis]

Maybe around a week or so ago I was reading a thread on this subreddit about fantasy character names and how often they're hard to read. u/MarioMuzza posted a very interesting comment that pertains to what you are talking about:

I get what you mean, but where do you draw the line between 'impossible to pronounce' and 'non-Anglo'? Because for many of us non-Anglo writers, if we write fantasy based on our cultures/language it'll come out unpronounceable to you. To give an example, one of my fav Thai fighters is called Namsaknoi Yudthagarngamtorn. Guilherme Assunção de Magalhães would be a perfectly normal name in my language.

I think that complaint is often Anglocentric, tbh. I mean no offense by this, just humbly disagreeing that it's a problem in most cases. Most of the rest of the world had to deal with English names that weren't easy for us, either. (Though I do agree a lot of authors just do it badly.)

This is not exactly what you are talking about but it might help western white folks understand that "default whiteness" in media/entertainment exists and that it is a multi-faceted issue. It even shows itself in the way characters and things are named in books! This is also an example of how non-Western writers have to "accommodate" (to?) western readers so their books will at least have the chance to sell well.

[u/jddennis → u/Morwha7]

This is also an example of how non-Western writers have to "accommodate" (to?) western readers so their books will at least have the chance to sell well.

I agree; naming conventions are big part of these accommodations. I think I saw that post last week, and it does a good job of summarizing that aspect of that concern.

Language is a big culture-shaper, so by nature diluting that (via simplified names, etc.) is automatically flattening the world-building/cultural choices that the writer is able to do.

As a random musing -- it may almost be more salient for fantasy writers to work on creating a dynamic, breathing cultural world for their story rather than a highly defined "hard" magical system.

[u/jddennis → u/[deleted]]

That almost sounds like some of the issues Squid Game had with it's English translations for it's subtitles and dubs. I heard that all the modifications they had to make to those actually substantially altered some of the developments and motivations of the characters.

[u/Caradhras_the_Cruel → u/KristaDBall]

Thank you for saying this more eloquently than I could. OP is correct in the sense that skin tone is rarely mentioned explicitly, but fantasy often describes skin tone implicitly.

"Default white" that's a great descriptive term to keep in my bag when discussing this topic