From my latest article at Lorehaven Amazon ‘Rings of Power’ Promos Threaten to Burn Middle-Earth in the Fires of Industry:
The Lord of the Rings is an important cultural artifact. Like most cultural artifacts and symbols, it emerged from a specific context. Understanding the historical settings and influences of cultural byproducts often brings richness and clarity to their structure or message.
However, colonizing Middle-earth for the sake of diversity is an abdication of the author’s creative vision. The push for diversity threatens to rip creative contexts from the very icons we claim to honor. Globalization gives us unprecedented access to numerous cultural artifacts, but inevitably strips cultures and their commodities from their contexts. Populating Middle-earth with Botswanan dwarves or Arabic elves may please Equality and Diversity Officers everywhere, but it ignores the story’s historical roots (both literally and figuratively).
You can read the entire piece HERE.
Isn’t seizing Tolkien’s opera an act of cultural appropriation? These cultural leftist hypocrites have violated their own sacrosanct standards.
The double standard is built into the woke left’s disseminators–it’s all in Rules for Radicals, etc., and the political engagement manuals They _know_ it’s a double standard, but they get away with it because conservatives believe in rules for everyone, and conservatives like to lose “honorably.” Woke leftists will win by any means necessary, and they have lots of government $$$ to throw around.
Thanks for the great article Mr. Duran. I went to LoreHaven and read the entire thing, but decided to come back here and thank you personally. I so badly wanted “The Rings of Power” to be great, and was dismayed at the systematic deconstruction of Tolkien lore, episode by episode. To say nothing of the weak writing or wooden characters. It was truly disappointing. And now they’ve made a Season 2. With Tom Bombadil, a character I longed to see in the Peter Jackson movies. Here we go again….
Anyway, I wrote my own article reflecting on the whole debacle which I humbly submit for your critique should you have the time. Thanks for the article and the great books!