Quote from The Great Lobachevsky »I don't recall at the moment where, but it is specified that Tom is one of the Maiar, on the same order as Mairon/Sauron and the Istari. Thing is, he's an unusually powerful Maia, due to his bond with the land he inhabits.
This is never established. Tolkien's own words paint Tom as something like the incarnation of the countryside his youth mixed with other influences, but in regards to his presence in LotR he is firmly established as an enigma & adventure to lend mystery to the world at large. The closest we ever get to a straight answer about what Tom is in story comes from Goldberry who answers
"He is."
Without any clarification on where the emphasis lies in the statement. Is she saying "He is"? Or "He is"? Or both?
It's also worth noting that Tom's statements about things like being Eldest and present before Morgoth can be taken absolutely literally - he existed in a published form before hobbits, rings, silmarils, or the rest.
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Before this discussion, it never even crossed my mind that I would ever need to see latinos in Innistrad in order to feel immersed in Innistrad. Same with Ravnica, Kamigawa, etc. Lorwyn is my favorite plane and there's not even any humans there. Similarly, my heart has lain in Middle Earth my whole life and there's absolutely nothing in there that I could even apply or associate with America, North or South. The fact that apparently more and more people need to see their own ethnicity and culture populating literary and artistic works in order for them to feel like they can immerse themselves in them is to me actually a symptom of a large cultural problem.
Okay. Now I'll stop.
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I got a no politics warning so I'll just try to answer this particular address to my post. From his letter #45:
How does this apply to Aragorn? Well, he clearly embodied Tolkien's ideas expressed in this extract, an ideal ruler, a leader of men par excellence, the true king who was to bring about an era of reconciliation betweent the human and the divine. Basically the "king" aspect or avatar of that noble northern spirit (much like Gandalf was the angelic/divine and Frodo the everyman). Now it's true that Tolkien was not a "nordicist" and much less a supremacist of any kind, as much as some people to this day still try to make the public believe (with good success; see what his own British government had to say about his works a few days ago). Regardless of that, Black Aragorn, black Galadriel, mixed race Éowyn, etc, just doesn't feel like Tolkien. It's just a deviation from what Tolkien tried to portray. It's purposely changing part of what the book was talking about, and for no other reason than marketing (how many black employees and artists does Wizards actually give work to again?). Obviously many of its themes and ideas are not linked to any specific real-world group of people and can be appreciated by anyone (and I hope they are for centuries to come!), but the visual appearance of the characters is what gave the story its cultural origin/flavor. Heck, Wizards are experts at this: we have a Greek plane, an East Asian plane, a pre-Columbian/American conquest plane, various other European themed planes, Indian, ancient Egyptian, etc, and for the most part the people inhabiting those planes, as well as the cultural aesthetic, artistic designs, etc, look like they come from the places and periods they are based on. And guess what, that is cool. It gives each world a unique feel. Well, Middle Earth is the OG of precisely that. Every Magic plane is essentially a smaller excercise of what Tolkien was among the first to do.
Now if you don't mind the swaps, that's great, more power to you, clearly Wizards doesn't either. But there's a lot of people who enjoy Middle Earth as a world inspired by a certain cultural identity and aesthetic even if they don't belong to it (I'm latino), and it sucks to be instantly treated as a bigot (not by you, speaking in general) if you don't like it when they change said flavor.
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But, again, face tattoo syndrome. Do something intentionally and evidently controversial, meant to be provocative, but if anyone notices or mentions it, they are bigots, r-ists, etc. It's foolproof marketing.
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There's a long stretch between "Tolkien, whose wish was to rescue and paint the spirit of Northern Europe in a good light (especially during the Nazi regime, as he himself said) wasn't super detailed about his character's appearance" and "Black Aragorn totally makes sense"
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Yes, some people who care both for Magic the Gathering (THE Trading Card Game par excellence) and Lord of the Rings (one of the last, if not the last true and exemplar modern product of a particularly European -specifically Germanic and Norse- sensibility and heritage), care that their favorite game represents their most beloved cultural product well.
When it comes to Tolkien, I think people should realize that a big section of the fans don't just see his works as "generic fantasy world". They see a manifestation of a culture they identify with. Just like the Japanese would see Ruruoni Kenshin or other Samurai/Yokai/etc stories. Everyone is entitled to feel pride for their culture. Does that mean that nobody else can enjoy Samurai anime or LOTR? Of course not, but that doesn't mean people are obligated to take well the inclusion of external ethnicities (for commercial reasons, at that) in your traditional/mythological/historical setting. Case in point: Dragon Ball Evolution. Heck, even Rings of Power to an extent.