Did you guys like the new Lord of the Rings show?

Off-Topic Movies, TV and Entertainment
344

Please reread the articles I posted.

They were Harfoots when they became known to the wider world which I assume was in the second age.

Regardless, they were Harfoots long before the whole Hobbit/Shire thing.

So they are the ancestors of the Hobbits in the Shire.

The hobbits did not become Harfoots at the end of the third age as you asserted in your post with: Harfoots are not ancestral Hobbits - they are one of three “strains” of Hobbits that existed at the end of the Third Age.

That is wrong.

According the articles I posted, which uses info straight from Tolkien’s pen, the Harfoots, Stoors and Fallohides were already separate tribes at their introduction in the lore and then became all one Hobbit tribe during the third age. Not the only way around.

Which was my original point.

The only reason I am arguing this particular point is because when their hobbity-looking selves showed up on-screen as Harfoots, I immediately went internet surfing to find out what the heck was going on and don’t want anyone else thinking it is some weird screw-up like I did when it is not.

345

You should probably look up the definition of “fair-skinned”, it is not racist, it is an adjective used to describe people who have a specific skin type. Being “racist” would require the word / definition to imply that someone who is not “fair-skinned” is somehow inferior, or less human, which it does not.

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346

I’ve read the articles. I don’t disagree with them. I’m saying the ancient Hobbits would not have been referred to as “Harfoots” (or “Stoors,” or “Fallohides”), and they would not have used Shire-style naming conventions. If you understand the importance Tolkien placed on languages and their change over time, then you know why.

As for the Hobbits being all one big happy culturally homogenized tribe in the Third Age, the division between Harfoot, Fallohide, and Stoor is still apparent. Yes, they mixed quite a bit - hence the relatedness between Bilbo, Frodo, Merry, and Pippin - but the physical and cultural differences persisted, as did their separate naming conventions.

Here’s a snippet from Tolkien’s Pen (specifically, the Prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring: “The Hobbits of that quarter, the Eastfarthing, were rather large and heavy-legged, and they wore dwarf-boots in muddy weather. But they were well known to be Stoors in a large part of their blood, as indeed was shown by the down that many grew on their chins. No Harfoot or Fallohide had any trace of a beard. Indeed, the folk of the Marish, and of Buckland, east of the River … came for the most part later into the Shire … and they still had many peculiar names and strange words not found elsewhere in the Shire.”

My guess is that Farmer Maggot was Stoorish, and recognizably so.

Also from Tolkien’s Pen come the names of the immediate relatives the Hobbits in the Appendices to The Return of the King. The Tooks, who had Fallohide ancestry, have names like Paladin, Aldagrim, and Hildigrim - high-sounding, and to my ears, somewhat Latinized Germanic. Merry’s family feature names like Saradoc, Rorimac, and Gorbadoc - supposedly vaguely “Celtic,” according to the wiki below. I’ve already mentioned how the names in Sam’s family follow an Old English style.

 https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Stoorish

However, I will stand corrected on one point - names like Bilbo, Frodo, etc., seem to follow a Fallohide naming scheme, more related to Marcho and Blanco (both Fallohides) than Gerontius or Isengrim. Makes me wonder if there was a social distinction attached to the two types of names.

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And yet Tolkien did.

You can talk about naming conventions until you are blue in the face but it was with the designations Harfoots, Stoors and Fallohides that they were introduced into the lore for the pre-shire era by Tolkien himself.

So they did not become Harfoots, Stoors and Fallohides at the end of the third era as you asserted. They were already Harfoots, Stoors and Fallowhides before they even crossed into Arnor according to Tolkien.

So you are still wrong, you are just trying to change the conversation because you just don’t want to admit that, despite all the evidence from Tolkien’s own pen.

I have established the lore with quotes, links and the source for anyone who might be confused as I was, which was my purpose, and I am done.

348

So is Beyoncé fair skinned or not? Because nothing anywhere says white.

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Actually, not everyone was racist in the 50s, although it was sort of the norm.

The Hobbit was written in England in 1937, I wasn’t born in 1937 and was only ever in England for a few weeks in the 90s. Tolken borrowed a lot from Norse myth (Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Nori, Dori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and Gandolf are all names from the Poetic Edda) and Norse myth had both light and dark elves, but Tolkien did describe them as “fair” with blue or grey eyes and silver, golden, or dark hair.

That aside, mythological races are regularly reimagined without anybody getting upset about it. While skin color seems to upset a few viewers for whatever reason, how is size done in each movie/show/book on the subject?

The lore says that Hobbits are the smallest race, Orcs are sometimes taller than hobbits but shorter than Men, Dwarves are generally a bit taller than orcs but still short compared to Men, Elves are by far the tallest race, not counting Ents and such, even the women of the Elvish race are taller than Men. Note how Legolas towers over Boromir and Aragorn in the LotR movies (not); where was the outrage?

350

Right, so now we’re all just nit picking what “fair” means as that’s the only real description Tolkien has provided for skin of the elves.

I see very little that supports that “fair” only refers to white skin and see very little reason why someone like Beyonce can’t be considered fair skinned. And most definitely why the outrage on skin color when there is so much else wrong?

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Yes she would be considered “fair”, since fair can apply to non-white people.

This is from “skincaregeeks dot com” (from a quick Google Search):

"What is the difference between fair and white skin?

Fair skin tone is associated with white skin in general. Light skin tone is a similar pale skin tone but has undertones of yellow or beige. For non-Caucasians or mixed Caucasians, fair skin can refer to someone who has very light tan skin. It is as close to white without actually being white."

352

So why you mad that this dude’s an elf?

353

You do realize that in Tolkien’s time that he meant elves would be fair as in “white”. Elves are based on European myths from a time when the people who came up with those myths had never seen anyone who did not look similar to themselves.

I know Amazon just wants to remake it to appeal to everyone, but old-school Tolkien fans, so enjoy your show that is loosely based on Tolkien’s story, it is not for me.

354

So again… we’re back to a racist definition from a man that existed during a time of heightened racism. There is no reason to stick with this notion, especially since he did not explicitly say that elves are white.

Time to move on. That actor’s skin color has no bearing on whether this show is good or not. The questionable writing and Galadriel’s non-sensical plot does. I’m giving it the season but it’s very low on my weekly priorities with so many other shows out.

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Well, apparently we agree on most of the issues I brought up, just not the dark-er skinned elf (and dwarf too, but I was always a fan of elves more than fantasy dwarves).

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No, she’s not.

She’s not even light-skinned compared to the full range of skin colors, more of medium.

And yes, fair-skinned equals white, not just a light shade of golden or brown, typically found in people of nordic/english/irish descent, with a strawberry and cream or peaches and cream complexion.

Just like fair-haired equals blond.

And before you think I am one of the people who have a problem with race colors in the show, I did, I was wrong, I have done penance and you can read the full story of my journey to enlightenment here:
. Did you guys like the new Lord of the Rings show? - #301 by Silverleigh-drakthul

357

So, you did criticize the elves being as short as the men in the Lord of the Rings movies as much as you would now criticize elves with dark skin in the current program? Or is skin color somehow more important than other changes?

I’m really not trying to be insulting but think about what you’re bothering to argue here; with as much as the series trashes the lore, even noting cosmetic choices for the mythical races seems to miss the point if it is actually the lore you care about.

358

No, from the beginning I said the skin color of elves was the least of the problems that I have with Rings of Power. I also never stated that I had a problem with anyone non-white in fantasy, for example I like the Velaryons in House of the Dragon, their characters make sense and do not seem like they were just forced into the show just for the sake of representation.

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Pre-Shrie era, sure. But Tolkien never wrote about Second Age Hobbits. If he had, I’m reasonably sure he would have called the Hobbit “breeds” (his term, not mine) something other than Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides.

I would like to ask you to show where, exactly, I said they became anything at the end of the Third Age. My contention, yet again, is that the terms Harfoot, Stoor, and Fallohide likely could not even have existed in the Second Age, because the language those early Hobbits used would have been very different. As an eminent master of Hobbit lore, I’m sure you know that Hobbits borrowed the languages of those around them - but we don’t know what those languages were in the Second Age, because Tolkien never described or defined them.

If you are truly “done,” then I thank you for the links, quotes, etc., and I hope the links, quotes, etc. that I provided were of some interest to you.

360

Dude… talk about inclusion in Tolkien’s books, if there were some of the human race, now the purpose that ISMAEL CRUZ like a BLACK ELF in a character that was not, unfortunately he will not have the same achievement that Will Smith did as James West and Agent J, as Jamie Fox as Django.

On the contrary, it is only there because it is the political agenda of TOKENISM in that decade, it is only the black token that only serves to exist from the mandatory agenda imposed by the new rules of the US governments in the name of forced incursion and diversity, WITHOUT SENSE…

put into a series and in that it will remain as represented without any entertainment use on which any entertainment series should be based and yes, there are people who will end up being like Stan Marsh knowing that Token is Tolkien looking for that to be the right thing to do exist like this, and no more.

And that as another thing I would have preferred the opposite of epic fantasy and Nordic legends like a DArk Elf, not Black, Dark in the sense that the evil and dark magical forces of that magical kingdom were influenced.

and worst of all, they put the cultural inappropriateness of any culture as tolerable as if there were no problems, all hypocrisy in vain to do the same as the vandals who themselves have fought to defend the cultures that others have stolen.

361

What exactly are you talking about?
How did the government get into this conversation?
You aren’t making sense.

362

like the new LotR serie of Amazon? hmm…

363

Only watched the 1st episode so far. Not that excited about the cast - none of them really look or sound right. The Elrond and Galadriel characters are both a bit off putting rather than charismatic, but I’m hoping they’ll grow on me. Story line is OK except the elf-human ‘love thingy’ and the Harfoots feel too contrived. Graphics are pretty solid.