Fellowship of the Fans

Elves - Where's The Dreads? - It's a Hair Thing (9/6/2022)

So--

I'm supposed to be super jived about our Black Elf. (Yes, he's Black because he's a Black Puerto Rican, and insisting those calling him a Black Elf is wrong is erasing part of this actor's heritage, thank you very much, but apparently we're racists.)

And--

I'm not jived.

I mean, it probably doesn't help that I've had Elves of color before in ElfQuest and Dragon Prince, which with how much of a big deal they're making out of "Oh, look, we finally have an Elf of color" I'm left wondering how much they know about the fantasy genre, but then again--

As I pointed out in Galadriel – Mage Class vs. Warrior Class the cast and crew along with their supporters don't understand that our issue with her being a warrior isn't that she's a strong woman, it's that they changed her D&D class and are effectively saying her original class isn't strong when it actually is.

So it wouldn't surprise me that they're making a big deal over something that actually isn't new—we even got female Elves of color in ElfQuest and Dragon Prince, yet this is supposed to be a redressing of the balance, to be more inclusive, to be a bunch of firsts that they're not. And yeah, first Elf of color in Middle Earth, though whether they fit in the way they did—I'm leaving that for another essay.

No, in this one I want to voice my disappointment at not having awesome dreads or an awesome Afro on our Elf of color, which if I'm right observing our Black Elf, his hair would indeed be awesome dreads or even an awesome Afro if it were longer--

Oh.

Maybe, just maybe that's why they didn't make Elves hair long as it is in canon.

By this I mean they felt that having a Black Elf with awesome dreads or an awesome Afro would, you know, make the audience possibly not feel like they were in Middle Earth and that something was off.

Yet to me, well the short hair cuts are more of something I'd expect of Elves from say Shannara which is a post-modern work that takes place after a major apocalypse happened. Of course, Shannara did in fact get an adaption that didn't stick to the story with the writer of the series, Terry Brooks being on board that didn't go over well with all fans, and—I got to admit that even though I enjoyed Shannara, it wasn't what even I'd hoped for.

So, I do actually want a Black Elf to have that dreads and that awesome Afro, and I don't understand how we could get dreads for a race swapped character in House of the Dragon and not get dreads or an Afro on our Black Elf? And, no, I'm not watching anything Game of Thrones for the simple fact it's too dark for me, yet I know about the fact they cared enough to give their race swapped character dreads and I know that despite having the same trepidation because they played up the diversity card that it's not getting "review bombed" like Rings of Power supposidly is.

But this is what I mean by giving us diversity, only for that diversity to lack substance. If I'm going to have a Black Elf, or an Elf of color, I want those racial traits to be celebrated in how they are depicted, rather than having a fade. And yes, the fade is seen in a lot of modern styles for Black men, but—um, Middle Earth is not a modern setting. As such the hair style is completely in appropriate, particularly since the tools to do the fade, or a lot of the short hair cuts wouldn't exist.

And to me forgoing long hair because they didn't think dreads or an Afro would look right makes we question their confidence in the choices they make, or if it's not a lack of confidence it is proof that diversity for them is a check box, because if they cared about diversity we wouldn't be left wondering why our Black Elf doesn't have dreads, or an Afro. And I'm not sure why this ended up happening if they knew and understood that Black people are often shamed for having their hair styled in dreads or an Afro.

So avoiding giving our Black Elf dreads or Afro—it has actual negative connotations, that having dreads or an Afro is a bad thing.

Of course, it may sadly come down to where all the budget went, which is a.) in the visuals for the scenery and b.) promoting the work as diverse, yet the latter becomes really weird to me when they took the time to give Disa an hair style that makes sense for being a Black Dwarf, but not the Elves let alone our Black Elf.

And so, I here by issuue a challenge to anyone writing stories about Arondir. Give him some dreads, or an Afro! Personally, I prefer dreads for an Elf, and an Afro for a Dwarf which in turn would reflect cultural differences between Elves and Dwarves.