Fellowship of the Fans

Dwarves - Is a POC Dwarf possible? (9/7/2022)

So, Tolkien never from what I remember described the Dwarves as fair of skin as he did the Elves. However, as I pointed out in Elves – POC Elf – Is it Possible? we have the issue of Tolkien always writing what he intended to say, and he definitely intended for Middle Earth to be a mythology to replace British mythology, which the people of Britain—well, it doesn't have the minority population the United States has.

I'm talking about the fact while the United States is 50% white, Britian is 90% white, and Black people represent around 20% of the population in the United States and only 2% in Britian.

We've also got the issue of not needing pigment underground, although I think D&D shows that a mythology cold still have dark skinned characters down there, but it should be remembered that the Dark Elves and the Dark Dwarves aren't dark skinned because they're Black, but because they're corrupted from the existing Elves and Dwarves who were white.

So...

Yeah.

Of course, Disa could have come from a Dwarf group from the South where they didn't live underground, but the problem is—the show never bothers to explain her background in the first two episodes that were supposed to be about introducing us to the characters, so she's race swapped just like that one character from House of Dragons is. Which, that didn't result in House of Dragons getting bombed, though fans have pointed out his daughter talking about blood purity in the second episode felt a little odd because of the race swapping as it pushed willing suspense of disbelief, but it is still making the viewer suspend their disbelief even if they don't point it out.

Yet, because the rest of the show was good, they put the rest behind.

Me, my actual concerns with Disa being played by a Black actress actually has to do with what does this mean for Durin's line.

But, effectively, we've 17 named Dwarf characters from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and her being there means 14 of those characters now have Black ancestry, and if the goal is to eventually reboot The Hobbit--

Well, this is 80% of the Dwarfs when the United States population is only as I said 20% and Britian only 2%. Yet, in a reboot they'd likely follow throw to "readdress the balance" as the actress has been saying, and then we'd have a narrative about Blacks being unfairly imprisoned by the white Elves and a white Elf (Legolas) being unfairly prejudiced towards a Black Dwarf (Gimli).

Which wasn't a part of Tolkien's narrative, nor is it needed as Tolkien's narrative already handles race issues without dealing with slavery. Which makese sense given the fact Britian ended slavery much sooner than the United States did, nor did they have to go to war for this to happen. And given the 2% population, there weren't as many as there were in the United States.

Instead, Tolkien would have been drawn to what happened during WWI and WWII, but should we really be framing every single racist action around Black people when there are other people who've faced facism? Being prejudiced against because of ones race isn't a uniquely Black thing.