Fantasy's Race Problem Is Nothing New, but It's Also Worse than Ever

Fantasy fandom is long overdue for a reckoning in how it contends with race.

If you want to arouse an outcry in a given fantasy fandom–whether it be The Lord of the Rings or The Wheel of Time or Game of Thrones–your surest best is to cast a person of color in a role that is traditionally understood to be White. Or, if you really want to get them going, fill a European-inspired fantasy world with more than one person of color. The outrage and backlash will be swift, terrible, and vitriolic. 

One need look no further than the recent outrage surrounding the release of character posters for the forthcoming Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. As soon as it became clear that several major characters were going to be portrayed by people of color–including a Dwarf queen–Twitter lit up with a litany of complaints. The outcry was so intense that TheOneRing.net, one of the foremost Tolkien sites, had to issue a formal statement decrying such behavior, along with a longer letter several days later.

Unfortunately, this kind of vitriol from the fantasy community–and, loath though I am to say it, the Tolkien group in particular–isn’t surprising. One need look no further than the toxic responses that greeted Amazon’s other flagship fantasy series The Wheel of Time to see how reluctant many fantasy fans are to admit that maybe, just maybe, not every character portrayed as White in a book has to be played by a White actor in an adaptation. While there is certainly a very passionate group that loves the Amazon series, there are also far too many who continue to complain that the series conceded too much to the “woke” crowd and thus betrayed Robert Jordan’s original vision. (This reaction against “wokeness” is itself nothing new. As many have noted, Peter Jackson’s films were criticized for their “political correctness” even before they were released, often by book fans who were deeply offended that female characters like Arwen were going to be given a larger role than they were in the novel). 

However, it has to be said that some branches of the Tolkien fandom take the cake when it comes to deeply-held racist beliefs. This isn’t terribly surprising. Much as I love The Lord of the Rings, there’s no question that it betrays the racial sentiments of its author and its time. Almost without exception the heroes are White and their enemies–the Haradrim and Easterlings in particular–are described in deeply racist ways (some of them are even compared to trolls). Yes, there is the moment when Sam wonders whether one of the slain Haradrim was really that different than he was himself, but that’s not enough to make up for the novel’s other shortcomings in this regard. Does this mean I can’t love and enjoy Tolkien’s work? Absolutely not. However, it does mean that I have to be okay with taking it to task for its failings. 

By this point, it’s clear that the creators of The War of the Rings: The Rings of Power have taken a few lessons from Peter Jackson’s adaptation, which largely kept the novel’s racial prejudices intact. Now, we have Elves and Dwarves and even Harfoots (this story’s version of Hobbits) played by actors of color. We’re even going to have a Black Dwarven queen! To me, at least, this is all, in a word, awesome, but unfortunately it isn’t for many fans of the books. 

What’s especially distressing, however, is the terms with which these malcontents often express themselves. Usually, they use the books as a shield, protesting that they’re not racist; they just want to see a series hew closer to the books that they’ve loved, often for years. Almost never do they pause to wonder why it is that they would take exception to the issue of race when, presumably, they’re willing and able to give a pass to some of the other changes made in the process of adaptation. 

The unfortunate reality, however, is that there is and has always been a very toxic segment of fantasy culture that is deeply invested in Whiteness and Eurocentrism. This is hardly surprising, given fantasy’s own generic origins in the works of Tolkien and others, many of whom mined the histories and mythologies of Europe to construct their own secondary worlds. For such people, any attempt to recast or include people of color in this universe is seen as nothing more than an assault on their heritage and their culture, and they respond accordingly. Tolkien and his works are like talismans to such people, and they will see no changes made that would fundamentally challenge their own racial assumptions about either this world or the secondary one of Middle-earth.

For those of us who remain fans of Tolkien and fantasy more generally, all of this is both deeply saddening and infuriating. On the one hand, this is something of a golden age for fantasy, and there have been many new voices of color whose works have received well-deserved praise and accolades. On the other, as the responses to the teaser for The Rings of Power make clear, there is still a lot of work to do in the fandom regarding race. It is up to each and every one of us to not only call out such behavior when it arises, but also to make it clear that there is no room in either the Tolkien or fantasy fandoms for these kinds of toxic attitudes. 

One of the best things about fantasy is that it has the ability to allow us to imagine worlds that might be, worlds that aren’t limited by the prejudices and shortcomings of our own. Tolkien knew this better than most, which is one of the reasons that The Lord of the Rings remains one of the most popular books ever written. Rather than condemning Amazon’s venture for including those who have been historically marginalized, I choose instead to celebrate it as an indication of how much more radically inclusive fantasy is becoming. 

Hopefully, others will do the same.