The Amazon LOTR series stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little into the woke religion, and it will fail, to the ruin of all...
"Diversity" in the traditional sense of the word isn't a bad thing.
In Lord of the Rings, for example, there is a wide array of various civilizations with various actual races like dwarves, elves, goblins, hobbits, orcs, ents, and men.
There's strong diversity of culture and thought across these various races and their civilizations.
When GameSpot says Peter Jackson's series had a "lack of diversity," however, they're probably talking about skin color and sex.
"We need more transgender elves of color," says one weirdo on Twitter.
"It is LITERAL VIOLENCE not to represent the plight of non-binary orcs in their struggle against the white supremacy of Gondor," says the same weirdo logged into a different account.
Yes, it was so racist of Jackson to not obsess about sexuality and ensure every skin tone in the rainbow was depicted in a world based specifically on European mythology...
As for "strong female characters": Lord of the Rings has some of the most powerful female characters in literary history.
Or did GameSpot forget about Éowyn?
How about Galadriel?
Arwen?
(And yeah, you hardcore fans, I know that in the book Arwen didn't rescue the hobbits from the the Black Riders at the Fords of Bruinen, but it shows how Jackson specifically tried to include more female characters in the action!)
What about the tragic love story of Lúthien and Beren in the First Age, where Lúthien rescued Beren from Sauron so they could steal a Silmaril from Melkor and be wed?
Okay, okay, I got a bit too nerdy on that last example...
The point remains: For an Oxford professor of linguistics writing ballads about a fantastical medieval world, Tolkien went out of his way to include some pretty strong female characters.
And he didn't just adorn them as #girlpower action heroes to replace men. Instead, he highlighted the unique strengths of their femininity as mothers, sisters, and true loves. They were women who could fight and were also worth fighting for.
So call me a bit worried when I see things like this...
...combined with tweets like the above.
Are we coming close to another Babylon Bee prophesy being fulfilled?
The Bee seems to think so...
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