I stumbled across this post the other day, and even though it’s really neat, I noticed a couple errors in the math and the image is way too small to read. So I completely remade it because I’m a giant nerd (and the OP’s blog has been deleted so I have no way of getting in touch with them). I mean, normally I wouldn’t care enough to do something like this, but bloodlines are very important in Tolkienverse which makes me, in turn, very interested in the exact breakdowns.
Also because—ever since I read Silm—I’ve wanted to know exactly how ‘elven’ Elrond actually is because I knew for sure it wasn’t literally half. It turns out Elrond is 56.25% elf, 37.5% human, and 6.25% maiar. The more you know.
Okay, I’ve gotten several messages lately regarding my racism posts that basically argue that “it wasn’t racist for Tolkien to make everyone white since it’s supposed to be Europe.” Unfortunately, the only thing this tells me is that you haven’t actually read my first post on racism, since I presented about eight pages of research highlighting how many people in Middle Earth actually weren’t described as white. Maybe you didn’t have time to read it, I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I made this little map that basically sums it all up (but if you want to check the research behind this map, definitely go read the original post.)
Now presenting, in its full, complete, and downloadable glory, the Racism and Middle Earth series! This six part guide to Tolkien and Racism collects relevant tidbits from Tolkien’s own writings (from the most familiar to the most obscure) in order to highlight what the most problematic and the most potential-ridden parts of Middle Earth are, and outlines how we, as fans, can make Middle Earth a better place for characters of all ethnicities.
I get that people are looking for more fantasy with more diversity. I AM SORRY but Middle Earth is another world with their own races and they have their own developed…
Rhun is a large place. Triple the size of Eriador, with a populace as diverse as it’s landscapes. Due to it’s almost unthinkable size, different cultures have sprung up with vastly different looks, tastes, ideals, and even languages. Some had cities grander than even Minas…
Please, use it every which way you see fit! I would be honored.
Thanks. I laid down some headcanons ages ago as to the makeup of the Sea of Rhun – which I have named Oszrahank in my story, based off of some previous created maps. Here’s what I got – I suspect the Tagath can fit in nicely as a settled people around the Sea!! Idk if you’re even interested but #yolo
[in the previous paragraphs above I’m talking about basically some of the inter Clan relationships the nomadic Easterling people have blah blah blah, so this is their relationship with settled communities]
The Clans of nomadic
steppe Easterlings pay tribute to some of the key cities along the
waterways [in Rhun] as they are specific trading points for them to get goods
from outside the steppe. The settled Easterlings make a difference
between them and the tribal Clans, viewing them as a separate
indigenous people, ones who have a lot of military power in the area
and who act as a barrier between the cities and the rest of Western Middle-Earth. One of the cities heavily populated by
people that are descendants from the nomads is the city of Oszrahank by the Sea of Rhun, which
sprawls on all sides, bringing men of Rhovanion and the semi-settled
Easterling population together. It is a centre for some of the
Central Easterling cattle trade, with large cattle markets, and also
a space for them to sell wares and obtain food they cannot get
themselves through agriculture. This are has a large guard presence
of Rhovani men (men who are also linked to Dalish men) due to the
history of conflicts; but there is a strong split in culture between
the Eastern and Western shores, with Oszrahank in the middle of the
fork. The vinyards effectively belong to the Easterling populations,
but a great number of Rhovani people work in them and live side by
side with the Easterlings; a lot of intermarriage has gone on over
the centuries as the Easterling population colonised the area. The
overseer of the the capital city is Rhovani, and she oversees timber
production from the wood of the area, ensuring most importantly that the cultivation of
the land is maintained in accordance with Easterling/Wainrider Common
Law of the Earth: that timber production is kept to adequate levels around the
Sea, and does not damage the land.
It was with the
guidance from the Central Clans of Easterling people that crops are
grown, as the fertile fields around Rhun feed the Central and
Southern Clans – they buy in bulk to store in houses around the
steppes. Seafood, wine, tobacco, salt, spices, and other vegetables
like tomatoes are traded with the Clans in return for cheeses,
metalwork, hides, textiles, and livestock. Some roads have been created
in the area, such as the one leading up from Hildorien and Southern
Rhun to Oszrahank, an ancient road that has been maintained by the
pastoral Clans through the Ages, and has been a means of linking the
Southern Clans with those over the mountain behind the Orocarni,
before water transport was utilised and the areas around were more
populated.
Locally produced gin and a rich variety of cheeses are enjoyed as pub foods around the area that have a culture originating in Oszrahank, and is now enjoyed in Dalish taverns. It is served
with a selection of breads, usually with lots of grain and seeds in
them, particularly pumpkin seed. The day for the Easterling people of Oszrahank usually begins with a dark coffee, lentils and dark bread. Lentils are also grown
around Oszrahank, as well as forms of root vegetable like potato and
sweet potato.
Other trades of
Oszrahank include coffee, lemons and citrus, spice, rum, opium and
medicine that is shipped to hospitals in Dale, mahogany, ores and
gold from the Orocarni. The SoR is a major port before it reaches
Dale, and so many of the houses and buildings there are rich, and the
area is multicultural and bustling, with their own system of currency
and barter.
Just FYI – one of the most prominent Central Easterling Clans is the Banyuk; these people also inhabit Oszrahank, and move both north and south of the Sea of Rhun. The Central Easterling Clan has had a culture of not being receptive to Sauron’s demands, living by their own hand more than anything else.
I get that people are looking for more fantasy with more diversity. I AM SORRY but Middle Earth is another world with their own races and they have their own developed history with racial problems with Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits, the Dunadiain, Wizards, and Orcs. The universe itself was creating in Tolkien’s back in
1937. There were much different standards in that time. You wont find racial diverse Hobbits in most cases because Hobbits are their own race and have their own commings and goings. I’m sorry. It’s how Tolkien created it. Middle Earth itself is it’s whole other world that is not our own.
If you want to know more about the races in middle earth READ THE SILMARILLION!
You’re right, I’m 100% done too.
Done with you.
Because I dunno if you actually bothered to read The Silmarillion but like, NO WHERE IN THAT BOOK DOES IT DESCRIBE THE CHARACTERS SKIN COLOR. We could have elves of different races because gasp, there are different races of elves!!! Who is to say the Vanyar aren’t black after all.
And honestly there are brown hobbits (the harfoots) or did you fucking forgetting forget and where blinded by your racism. Fuck.
Also just because there were different standards in that time doesn’t mean that something wasn’t fucking racist jesus.
Dear God, I was really hoping to avoid this kind of discussion in my beloved fandom…
Vanyar, for what I know, were fair skinned and there were blondes among them. As for people, there were those who then betrayed Feanorians, and they were described as having darker skin.
But seriously – do we have to put real world’s racism into fictional world that had its own problems (AND, as it was pointed out, its own ways of racism)? What is wrong with accepting the book the way it is, even if it contains mostly sort of white characters? Or are you telling me that there is something wrong in feeling strong bond with character that has different skin color or different sex? Most of the characters I love are men, while I’m a woman, and I never felt it’s wrong.
As for Middle-Earth itself, I can imagine people with darker skn, those from East. But I cannot imagine black elves. And it’s not me being racist, it’s mostly looking where Tolkien got his inspirations. His elves come from celtic and nordic folklor, and seriously, how many Celts 1550 or so years ago were black/eastern? Tolkien got his inspirations from certain cultures, so it is quite understandable that the readers subconsciously (and I think correctly) see similarities between those two. If you read about Vikings, or when you read northen mythology, do you expect the gods to be black?
(and it bears adding, too; Please realise that, by not recognising that you yourself are blindly headcanoning the whiteness of all characters, you are perpetuating the invisibility of white privilege. White is also a race. You have a race. You are also a member of a race. Congrats, race is not something that “does not apply” to you bc you are white.
Yes, as much as I love him and his work, Tolkien failed people of colour *70 years ago*. Well done pointing that out. Do you actually intend to perpetuate that failure?
You are ascribing a race and a corresponding skin colour to fictional people. Why can’t others do likewise? Why can’t you share?
The fact that you cannot imagine a black elf does not make you ‘correct’. It only displays the limitations of your imagination.)
Why aren’t there more adorable little Dwarfling girls? Or Dwarflings that identify as girls? (because dain-mothafocka has written splendiferous Dwarf headcanons about gender and I just…
ARE YOU GONNA BE ON EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE tolkienfish ?
I dunno how exactly Smaug being the “last dragon” (what about the Withered Hearth?) has to do with this conversation at all, but oooookay.
And ‘super AU’? For wanting Hobbit girls that daydream about adventure? About Hobbits in general thinking of leaving the Shire?
So that makes the Hobbit and LotR super AUs, then? Huh.
This just in: Tooks are not Hobbits.
*raises eyebrows* Huh.
okay, I dislike getting into these sorts of arguments. But I would like to ask this person politely to stop pestering people for wanting to see themselves in Middle Earth, rather than yet another Standard Grim White Male Protagonist (tm – with optional manpain!!). The made-up fictional people in the made-up fictional world can be any colour. Yes, the dear professor likely didn’t intend for that, but unless you can ask him directly, please stop.
Yep, the vast vast majority of Hobbits stay at home, and frown on going out of the Shire. Guess what? It doesn’t stop their kids from listening avidly to Bilbo’s stories. Imagination is not limited by location, and that applies to little girl Hobbits too. Or perhaps they are not permitted to be imaginative and adventurous, bc reasons canon reasons blah?
(also, apparently the ‘remarkable’ Belladonna Took and her referenced but not detailed adventures are outliers and should not have been counted.)
Aaaaand you may wish to investigate this. And this. Smaug was not intended to be the last dragon. Only the last dragon with ‘fire hot enough’ (whatever that means). Finding both of those took ten seconds of googling, btw.
I have to mention as well – the Professor contradicted his own creation all the freakin’ time. Anyone who clings to the sword of ‘canon’ in Middle-Earth is gonna eventually come across a discrepancy. Beliiiiiieve me. (just look up Celeborn for a good example.)
Another person’s interpretation takes nothing from you. It is important to them. Don’t shoot it down. It appears uninformed at best; bigoted, racist and sexist at worst.
In the meanwhile, enjoy these canon descriptions of Aragorn (all from the chapter “From the Sign of the Prancing Pony”):
In those days no other Men had settled dwellings so far west, or within a hundred leagues of the Shire. But in the wild lands beyond Bree there were mysterious wanderers. The Bree-folk called them Rangers, and knew nothing of their origin. They were taller and darker than the Men of Bree and were believed to have strange powers of sight and hearing, and to understand the languages of beasts and birds.
(Gandalf’s letter delivered by Butterbur)
Dear Frodo, Bad news has reached me here. I must go off at once. You had better leave Bag End soon, and get out of the Shire before the end of July at latest. I will return as soon as I can; and I will follow you, if I find that you are gone. Leave a message for me here, if you pass through Bree. You can trust the landlord (Butterbur). You may meet a friend of mine on the Road: a Man, lean, dark, tall, by some called Strider. He knows our business and will help you. Make for Rivendell. There I hope we may meet again. If I do not come, Elrond will advise you. Yours in haste GANDALF.
Frodo lay down again, but for a long while he could still see the white flashes, and against them the tall dark figure of Strider, standing silent and watchful. At last he passed into uneasy sleep.
Aw Yiss 