Fellowship of the Fans

Hobbits - Nasty Hobbitsies (9/9/2022)

I was originally going to call this essay Hobbits – Survival of the Fittest Tribe, but then finally decided to go with Hobbits – Nasty Hobbits.

For a cast and crew which claim they stand by BIPOC they certainly don't stand by indigenous people, do they?

Okay, so for those who don't know, quite a few of the indigenous people of the Americas including inside the United States that were nomadic tribes and they don't leave their elders or the members of their tribe who do poorly. They care about their elders, those who are injured and/or ill let alone their children, particularly their orphans.

And there are people who like this?

This episode honestly makes Rings of Power's tweet about standing by BIPOC people—which as an actual person of color I don't like that term—sound really disingenous, because they don't actually care about minority groups beyond what they can do for their show, such as being pawns to win people in while also being a shield against criticism.

Yet there are some majorly racist things going on in the show, such as the Hobbits being a major misrepresentation of every nomadic tribal group out there while also managing to also malign the Irish—completely ignoring their past and the prejudices levied at them from the British that the only consolation is it's not the British doing this, but there's also the Americentrism running through this, because this diversity for virtue signally is definitely an American trend.

Oh! And they championed this show based on properly representing disabled people while having the Hobbits laugh at a Hobbit who died because of an allergic reaction to bee stings because, oh, he's an idiot.

And there are people who still like the Hobbits?

Okay. So I like Poppy. And I still like her dad despite both of them championing Nori who is a horrible person. In fact, I actually like Poppy and feel so bad for her having lost her family and being an orphan that is apparently only alive because Nori's father is the only Hobbit with a heart bigger than his feet, because Nori certainly doesn't have a heart bigger than her feet. Oh, correction. I'd say that Poppy does have a heart bigger than her feet despite her paranoia, yet having found out about her family just up and dying—I can't blame her.

I know Rings of Power wants us to believe that Nori is has as big of a heart as her father, but she willingly leads children into a dangerous position. She shirks her duty which is why her father is getting abandoned. And she really doesn't care that they may be left behind because of her father's injury, with her father saying Nori will find them a way out of it.

But does our Hobbit leader really deserve praise? I know that there are people who like the actor, but the character is just awful, being a leader that celebrates leaving the weak behind despite the fact the normal course of action in a nomadic tribe isn't to put the weak at the back, but at the front.

Yet, I shouldn't be surprised at this given the fact Galdriel did the same thing, and the writers somehow think there is nothing wrong with leaving someone behind in a snowstorm either, that it's their own fault for dying and maybe not the fact the strong exist to protect the weak, something the character Gaara from Naruto learned which was why he became the leader of his village. He goes from being a pychopath to being the protector.

Which, Naruto--

As much as I like that show, there is definitely issues. And until recently I've been at loss to think of a series which manages to contradict itself within the very next episode/next chapter and--

Well, this is it.

Naruto, we have as well a very unlikable character, but at least with Naruto they gave him some redeeming qualities and one can explain away him having a singular motivation to him being a preteen with definite attention span issues. What then is Galadriel's excuse? Actually, had Naruto been like Galadriel—he almost was if you read the one-shot that came before the series—I don't think the series would have been as sucessful, nor would it have been as sucessful if they didn't have Naruto as an underdog which Galdriel certainly isn't being portrayed as.

Back to the Hobbits—they're horrible!

And yes, I know that there are some nomadic tribes out there who do leave the weak behind, but there are rules regarding this and they actually respect those they have to leave behind. Actually, in contrast—I can't remember which tribe this is, but I read about a native tribe where they would absolutely not move if a single member could not move even if was detrimental to the whole.

So this—nope.

This is why I dislike diversity for the sake of virtual signaling.