hear me out: all-female remake of lord of the rings
hear me out: all-female racially diverse remake of lord of the rings
Isn’t 2 humans, an Elf, 4 Hobbits, a Dwarf and a celestial being in a corporeal form already racially diverse?
Well, at least in how most high fantasy uses the word “race.”
No.
If every fantasy race is imagined as entirely white it absolutely does not count as racial diversity. The implications of a world where every race (or every race that matters) is white are quite the opposite, in fact, and point to conscious or unconscious white supremacy.
feel free to re-imagine the characters as any race you want, but please understand that, in context, tolkien’s characters (almost) all being canonically white does not “point to conscious or unconscious white supremacy”
you see, tolkien’s mythology was intentionally written as stories for the english people. they had no mythology of their own – all of “their” stories had originated from other cultures. middle earth originated as an alternate history of europe (especially england) as it may have been told from an ancient english mythological perspective.
as the professor himself wrote:
“I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own … Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story… which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country.”
“I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world… The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary.”
people from europe, are, of course, mostly white, so it naturally follows that the people living in an alternate history of europe would be white – as well as the fantasy creatures borne out of european mythology. including a lot of non-europeans in it would make no more sense than native american mythologies featuring white people, or japanese mythologies featuring black people, and so on.
basically, middle earth = europe, southern areas = africa, and eastern areas = asia. there are poc in tolkien’s arda but most (not all) come from places outside middle earth, which makes sense when you put it in a real world context.
diversity in fantasy is great, but please do not assume that everything that does not meet your criteria of diversity is automatically racist. thank you
When I die, they’re going to be doing the autopsy and find out that the cause of death is a bleeding stomach ulcer that, upon close inspection, actually is text that reads out the commentary directly above my own here.
“which makes sense when you put it in a real world context”
The degree to which pre-modern Britain included people of African origin within its population continues to be a topic of considerableinterest and some controversy. Previous posts on this site have discussed a variety of textual, linguistic, archaeological and isotopic
evidence for people from the Mediterranean and/or Africa in the British
Isles from the Late Bronze Age through to the eleventh century AD.
However, the focus in these posts has been on individual sites, events
or periods, rather than the question of the potential proportion of
people from Africa present in pre-modern Britain per se and how
this may have varied over time. The aim of the following post is thus to
briefly ponder whether an overview of the increasingly substantial
British corpus of oxygen isotope evidence drawn from pre-modern
archaeological human teeth has anything interesting to tell us with
regard to this question.
The following post offers a map and brief discussion of the Islamic gold
coins of the later eleventh and twelfth centuries that have been found
in England and their context. Whilst clearly rare finds, there are now
ten coins of this period known, all but one of which are thought to most
probably have their origins in Spain. Moreover, these coins are
considered to be the survivals of a potentially substantial body of this
material present in England at that time.
The aim of the following post is to offer a draft look at an interesting
Arabic account of early medieval Britain that appears to have its
origins in the late ninth century. Despite being rarely mentioned by
British historians concerned with this era, this account has a number of
points of interest, most especially the fact that it may contain the
earliest reference yet encountered to there having been seven kingdoms
(the ‘Heptarchy’) in pre-Viking England and the fact that its text
implies that Britain was still considered to be somehow under Byzantine
lordship at that time.
The following short note is based on a narrative preserved in the eleventh-century Fragmentary Annals of Ireland that
tells of a Viking raid on Morocco in the 860s. This raid is said to
have led to the taking of ‘a great host’ of North African captives by
the Vikings, who then carried them back to Ireland, where they
reportedly remained a distinct group—’the black men’—for some
considerable period of time after their arrival.
Edwards, Paul, and James Walvin. “Africans in Britain, 1500-1800.“ The African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays. Edited by Martin L. Kilson and Robert I. Rotberg. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976: 173-204.
I reached out the the SCA Garb group on Facebook for more information about the Irish Overdress and a little bit of an SCA History lesson.
First of all, the proper name for the “Irish overdress” is a Shinrone gown, which dates from the 16th century. Reconstructing History has a pattern [link].
Some of the bits of the history lesson are quoted below. I have removed names, since the group is closed.
“’Irish Overdress’ was a RenFaire misinterpretation of some of Lucas De Heere’s prints of Irish Women which was adopted and stuck because there was so little to go on and so little research into Irish clothing. The Shinrone gown has some similarities in appearance but is of a much more complicated construction.”
One such print by Lucas De Heere.
Shinrone gown
Lady Sorcha Dhocair inghean Ui Ruairc’s packed on Irish women’s garb: [link]
A note on drawstrings and pleated sleeves as relates to the leine: [link]
The Honourable Baroness Ceara Shionnach of Burbage House’s information on Irish clothing: [link]
I feel it is important to mention that the “history lesson” part of the discussion included points that one should wear what makes one comfortable, how the SCA culture has changed in regard to authenticity, and not scary new people away. If you want to throw together some garb that can do double duty at RenFaires and SCA, or if you’re trying to stock your Gold Key with something quick and easy, then the “Irish Overdress” that’s available in commercial patterns easily found at your local craft store will work. If you want to portray a 16th century Irish woman, maybe do some more research.
This is Meshal haQadmoni, a book of animal fables written between 1281-1284 by Yitzhaq ben Shlomo ibn Sahula, a Sephardi writer, poet, and Qabbalist from Guadalajara (although this copy was clearly written in Germany at a later date). There’s an English translation of Meshal haQadmoni but it’s unfortunately not online… The first one is labelled “The Bear beheads the Fox,” the second on that page is “The Lion and his friends celebrate, eating and drinking,” etc.
What a fun manuscript! I wonder if anyone has done a study of the iconography?
If you’re writing Medieval historical lit or pseudo-medieval fantasy and need a way to name your Jewish side-characters (we were there!) here’s a site that could be of some assistance. This is about the Iberian peninsula, but people travel… and the past thousand years have seen a lot of us being kicked out of various countries so even if your setting isn’t Spain or Portugal, these may still be useful.
[EDIT: Herald buddy says – “there ARE corollaries to the rules so we need to judge items on a case by case basis to take all of them into account.”]
I can certainly look at your idea and give you some advice. I can also reach out to the SCA Heraldry Chat Facebook group and get thoughts/input from them.
Let me know what you’d like to do. I’m happy to lend a hand.
<3, Your Friendly Neighborhood SCA Reference Librarian (Who isn’t a herald but knows some pretty awesome ones)
I’m working on creating a vector database that houses every common heraldic element uniform to the standard SCA device blank, as a free resource to anyone looking to build their own device.
(Eventually I would like to code a flash ‘game’ sort of thing where you can actually build a device by picking your tincture/ordinary/charges with SCA rules built in so that it won’t allow you to build devices that break any rules.)
((For further example of this, to make my device, I would click the ‘Base, blue’, the ‘Per Pale, red, right side’, then the ‘Cresset, gold, center’. Each element is on a transparent background, so they get layered on top of whatever element is chosen previous))
But for now, I’m just creating the vector database, so I would like to ask you all for your help.
What is your device blazon?
What charges would you like to see included?
Or, two squirrels rampant addorsed and a portcullis sable.
Orsines Presenting a Gift to Alexander and the Execution of Orsines, about 1470-1475, Master of the Jardin de vertueuse consolation. The J. Paul Getty Museum.
The Virgin and Child with the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, about 1504-1505, Unknown. The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Canon Table Page, 1256, T’oros Roslin. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Gift of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia
Tupac Inca Yupanqui, completed in 1616, Unknown. The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Illuminated manuscripts were products of encounter, exchange, and exploration in the Middle Ages.
Interested in the Global Middle Ages? This weekend, April 16 and 17, come by our free interdisciplinary symposium that examines artists, patrons, and audiences as agents who desired real, imagined, or exotic representations and narratives about the world and its peoples.
