Critical Miss: Lord of the Wrongs

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Actually, the last panel was drawn well.

Yes, good comic.

 

[Giest4life]

I'll laugh once I take it all in.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Am I a terrible person for laughing at that Balrog joke? I know it was obvious but... I lol'd
And that British guy is awesome!

 

[therandombear]

There are already British orks though

 

[Baalthazaq]

Samwise was originally black... read the book... seriously people...

I did read the book and I don't remember this, but I doubt it came up that often.

I request a quote for proof.

Yep part of the reason why I didn't like it as it wasn't true to the history it was trying to tell which further proves my point on this whole "Staying true" to the source.

Samwise wasn't black in the book but it did state his skin was darker than the average hobbit then again he was a gardener so he probably got a tan.

Not Sam specifically, but the Harfoots as a race (of which sam is one) are described as darker skinned. Not just "darker than the average hobbit".

The Lord of the Rings, completed in 1948 (15 years pre-civil rights act, and started 10 years before that), had the darker skinned Hobbit Samwise Gamgee (Gamgee translated: Cotton-wool), who did all the hard labour, walks around calling Frodo Master Frodo, who marries Rose Cotton, in a world he sets, if I'm not mistaken 300 years earlier. There's a HELL of a lot of other stuff you can draw parallels to.

But seriously, is there any description of how MUCH darker they were exactly? No.
Therefore, could you have made Samwise black? 100% yes, and if anything many more things click into place when you do. Seriously, reread lord of the rings now. Does it make more sense or less sense?

Is it likely Tolkien had this in mind?
Does Tolkien often expand and develop stereotypes to get his characters?

This isn't a criticism of Tolkien, it's a description of a world that existed here in the same timeframe.

 

[bimbley]

Here's another great idea! lets take a race that lives in a country with a similar climate to England and throw the occasional black person in! Oh wait that makes no sense as that race wouldn't of evolved the skin pigment because the sun isn't that strong in the setting they're in.

Be a good chap and point me to the exact point where Tolkein explains that his invented universe is subject to the processes of evolution, would you? I seem to be under the impression that The Silmarillion, (sp?) and Unfinished Tales set out a very specific creationist history.

On a more general note:
God what a ridiculous argument, I hadn't heard anything about it until this comic. Reminds me of the whole ignorant backlash at the idea of a black James Bond before Daniel Craig was confirmed. What the hell does it matter? Are people literally incapable of seeing that there is more to a character than their skin colour? Characters in films never look how I've imagined them from the book, and it doesn't matter for shit. When you play a character you're giving a personal performance based on and inspired by the original. There is no right or wrong way to cast a hobbit, there are just interpretations.

-Bimbley

 

[Gingerman]

You know what? I really do give up.

If you cant see why Asian/black Hobbits make no sense geographically never mind the fact that middle earth is based on Nordic/ Anglo-Saxon mythology then fine you continue on with your PC positive racist outlook on life.

Now I perhaps I may should of stated this at the start but I dont care if there is a Asian casted as an extra as no one really pays attention to extras, my fear is when they start changing main characters just to avoid seeming racist.

I know there is more to a character than their skin colour but their skin colour is still a part of their character, the comic book character Steel is black and he should never be casted by a white man because its a part of his character just as being white is a part of Batmans and spiderman.

If I was born black my personality would be different, just in the same way if I was born a woman. Our skin colour partly defines who we are, its not a big factor but still a factor none the less

Now Superman? yeah sure make him black cause he's a alien he can be what ever colour we want him to be but he's one of the few characters we can do that to as he's one of the few cases in which colour is not a factor

Now I'm going to ignore this thread as I fear the amount of ignorance coming from the posts might start to effect me.

 

[Soylent Dave]

Here's another great idea! lets take a race that lives in a country with a similar climate to England and throw the occasional black person in! Oh wait that makes no sense as that race wouldn't of evolved the skin pigment because the sun isn't that strong in the setting they're in.

The Shire does not have a climate like Great Britain. It's sunny and pleasant all year-round (most years) and they regularly have ample harvests.

Whereas Britain is one of the rainiest countries in Europe, and one of the most Northerly, so it's bloody freezing for half of the year. The Shire might well be an idyllic version of England - but that idyllic version of England is much sunnier.

AND the hobbits migrated there anyway, so the climate of the Shire has exactly bugger all to do with their ethnicity...

As a Tolkien scholar, the notion of black and asian hobbits repulses me. It is not a matter of racism, but a matter of simple logic.

...and multiple other posts along these lines, self-proclaimed 'Tolkien scholars' and otherwise.

Anyone who actually is a Tolkien scholar - or has read the bit of the book where he describes hobbits, which is a bit below the required standard for 'scholarly' but it is a bit dry - will know that Tolkien describes as being multiracial.

The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless

Compare with

The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others

That's an unequivocal description, by Tolkien - who, let's not forget invented hobbits - that Halflings are multiracial (there's a third group, the Stoors, which he doesn't specify the skin tone of - but he refers to others as 'darker' or 'fairer' than them, so it's not a stretch to think they're probably 'somewhere in the middle')

He then goes on to say

[The Harfoots] were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous.

That'd be the dark-skinned ones, for those keeping track.

-

He describes Hobbits of the Shire thus :

[They had] thick curling hair [on] their heads, which was commonly brown.
[...] Their faces were [...] broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked...

The only bit of that which you can infer as "so they're white" is 'red-cheeked' - but white people don't have a monopoly on red cheeks; it's just more obvious the paler you are.

Not too mention that white humans don't generally have 'thick, curly, brown hair' - not unless there's some non-white ancestry involved in the not-all-that-distant past. But that's conjecture as well, because we're talking about hobbits, and they can have curly hair just because.
-

In summary then, Tolkien describes Hobbits of the Shire as having :

1. Thick, brown, curly hair
2. Made up of the three ethnic groups, one of which has 'browner' skin and one of which has 'fairer' skin
3. The 'browner' ethnic group is the most populous.

So let's stop pretending that hobbits are white because Tolkien said so.
You think hobbits are white because you are white; and a reader tends to assign his own ethnicity to a character when it isn't made explicit.

If the idea of black and asian hobbits 'repulses' you, that's not because you've studied any Tolkien. It's probably because you're more than a bit racist.

*All Tolkien quotes are from The Lord of the Rings Prologue 1 (Concerning Hobbits)

 

[bdcjacko]

This comic tries to hard to deliver not very funny punch lines.

 

[bdcjacko]

Here's another great idea! lets take a race that lives in a country with a similar climate to England and throw the occasional black person in! Oh wait that makes no sense as that race wouldn't of evolved the skin pigment because the sun isn't that strong in the setting they're in.

The Shire does not have a climate like Great Britain. It's sunny and pleasant all year-round (most years) and they regularly have ample harvests.

Whereas Britain is one of the rainiest countries in Europe, and one of the most Northerly, so it's bloody freezing for half of the year. The Shire might well be an idyllic version of England - but that idyllic version of England is much sunnier.

AND the hobbits migrated there anyway, so the climate of the Shire has exactly bugger all to do with their ethnicity...

As a Tolkien scholar, the notion of black and asian hobbits repulses me. It is not a matter of racism, but a matter of simple logic.

...and multiple other posts along these lines, self-proclaimed 'Tolkien scholars' and otherwise.

Anyone who actually is a Tolkien scholar - or has read the bit of the book where he describes hobbits, which is a bit below the required standard for 'scholarly' but it is a bit dry - will know that Tolkien describes as being multiracial.

The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless

Compare with

The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others

That's an unequivocal description, by Tolkien - who, let's not forget invented hobbits - that Halflings are multiracial (there's a third group, the Stoors, which he doesn't specify the skin tone of - but he refers to others as 'darker' or 'fairer' than them, so it's not a stretch to think they're probably 'somewhere in the middle')

He then goes on to say

[The Harfoots] were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous.

That'd be the dark-skinned ones, for those keeping track.

-

He describes Hobbits of the Shire thus :

[They had] thick curling hair [on] their heads, which was commonly brown.
[...] Their faces were [...] broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked...

The only bit of that which you can infer as "so they're white" is 'red-cheeked' - but white people don't have a monopoly on red cheeks; it's just more obvious the paler you are.

Not too mention that white humans don't generally have 'thick, curly, brown hair' - not unless there's some non-white ancestry involved in the not-all-that-distant past. But that's conjecture as well, because we're talking about hobbits, and they can have curly hair just because.
-

In summary then, Tolkien describes Hobbits of the Shire as having :

1. Thick, brown, curly hair
2. Made up of the three ethnic groups, one of which has 'browner' skin and one of which has 'fairer' skin
3. The 'browner' ethnic group is the most populous.

So let's stop pretending that hobbits are white because Tolkien said so.
You think hobbits are white because you are white; and a reader tends to assign his own ethnicity to a character when it isn't made explicit.

If the idea of black and asian hobbits 'repulses' you, that's not because you've studied any Tolkien. It's probably because you're more than a bit racist.

*All Tolkien quotes are from The Lord of the Rings Prologue 1 (Concerning Hobbits)

browner of skin, doesn't mean they are black. Just tanner than the other super honky hobbits. And Tolkien never out and out say the were black, just browner skinned. So they could have been more Native American, Asian Indian, Middle Eastern, or maybe just Italian/Greek looking. Browner skinned compared to creamy white can mean almost anything.

 

[DataSnake]

My only concern about having different races of hobbits: if they were all white in the LotR movies and more racially diverse in the prequel, that raises some very unfortunate implications about what happened to all the non-white hobbits in the intervening time.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

Someone explain to me the female nazgul....cause I have no idea

 

[F-I-D-O]

the witch-king wouldn't have been so skeptical at the idea of a female warrior if he had been working with one since the Second Age. That would be like Aragorn suddenly forgetting that hobbits existed and asking Arwen what those four midgets were doing at his big celebration.

He wasn't so much skeptical, as he did say no MAN can defeat me. Then Eywen (SP) takes off her helmet, and the witch king seemed rather accepting. Until he died.
And that last sentence was HILARIOUS.
It's like giving the Mordor guard straight teeth...wouldn't seem right. However, I can deal with a black hobbit (I think you an even make them have darker skin tones in LOTRO, which is the more inclusive version of Tolkein's world). Then again, if they cast a female dwarf, there would be problems with the whole "All dwarfs/dwarves look masculine."
That being said, attempting to say that there is no one of a different ethnicity/attitude/gender in the entire fantasy world isn't realistic. That's like walking in a small store and seeing only people of one ethnicity and saying "And that's all there is in the world." Unless, there's only 9 of them. Or they are giant fire demons.

 

[Optimystic]

This is obviously a dig at the furor over Heimdall in Thor, so I think that should be in the comic's tags.

 

[BrotherRool]

I'm really not sure which side you're taking

 

[Alar]

I know there's a joke in there about the female Nazgul, but I just can't figure out what it is. Just the fact they were all men?

The fact that you wouldn't be able to tell, regardless.

 

[matrix3509]

snip

The problem is that the Harfoots are described as "browner of skin". Browner than what exactly? Browner than orcs? Browner than Haradrim? Of course not. What he means is browner than Fallohides. Which could mean any number of things.

Harfoots = Browner
Haradrim = Brown

So who the hell is darker than who? Its pretty obvious from the context of those quotes you so willfully removed them from.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

We are still talking about this?

Originally I agreed that dark skinned hobbits would be inauthentic, but you know there are dark skinned hobbits in the books right? They are called horfoots. Look it up.

OT: Funny comic though

 

[mexicola]

Female Nazgul so pretty.

Oh yeah, so hottt! Can you say rule 34?