But remember Tolkien was an Edwardian and published the book 70 years ago. For any artist to hold fast to the Edwardian notions and post war values, which drove his thoughts and obsessions with detail, has now long past.

Any adaption is bound to reflect the changes since then, and one is that I doubt he would 'go there' on some of his distinctions if he was writing now.

I often think that what has saved Tolkien from getting torn down on the grounds of Racism and placing certain characteristics with good and evil is because his choices were, as you know better than me, driven by linguistic considerations.

The West is enlightened the East and South is proud and barbaric. Men were described as Swarthy. I have a feeling he would not have used those kind of mechanisms for differentiation today.

And just to remind ourselves how the real world has moved on Cate has recently said she was barely paid for Galadriel in the LOTR and much less than the men.

Please do not make assumptions about me because I am enjoying the show and you are not.

...by JRRT then making great deviations in characters, who are well described, is a financial risk and an audience acceptance risk.

The origin stories would have made the adaptation stronger for the audience to understand who these people are and where they came from....yes, there is a strong element of DEI as pronounced by Amazon. Yes, changing the lore is unfaithful to the world of Tolkien. The degree matters - film adaptations are expected to have some changes for continuity reasons etc.

Amazon - "Casting actors whose identity (gender, gender identity, nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability) aligns with the character they will be playing."

Are they violating their own standards?

The main question would be how well they adapted the works and respected the lore.

Would Chinese Galadriel swim the Pacific?
Would Ethiopian Mount Doom be created by a spear thrust into a termite mound?

However, could Hollywood tell the story of Shaka Zulu with only white actors? If not, why not?

This all comes down to $$$ in the end. Make a great production and the $$$ should follow....make a bad adaptation and it should fail.

And I'm not buying the line that "There is great financial risk if you turn off your audience with material based on an existing well loved text that differs substantially." So many people have done reinterpretations of Shakespeare's works, and many of those are deeply beloved to this day.

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That's reaching way down into the absurdly deep fruit basket for the cherry. Shakespeare and plays are a whole difference animal, usually free from any sort of expectation on adaptation, interpretation, or abstraction. So much so that one wouldn't recognize the popular movie or TV episode for it's Shakespearean source or reference.

Wheel of Time, anyone? Golden Compass?

So then is it fair to summarize that the main criticism here is that the diversity "for diversity sake" is what's grinding peoples gears here? Is it that the diversity is not explained, but we KNOW that it's the Amazon Diversity Policy that caused it and because that's just performative wokneness we can reject this diversity (without prejudice) because it's sacrificing lore for corporate dogma?

So then is it fair to summarize that the main criticism here is that the diversity "for diversity sake" is what's grinding peoples gears here? Is it that the diversity is not explained, but we KNOW that it's the Amazon Diversity Policy that caused it and because that's just performative wokneness we can reject this diversity (without prejudice) because it's sacrificing lore for corporate dogma?

I think I'm getting it.

My response would be that seems really reactionary and (as I've said hundreds of time before) like a heck of a lot of extrapolation.
I think it's more likely that fantasy shows like Wheel of Time or Rings of Power particularly lend themselves to diversity because the casts are large and the worlds are fictional. Fantasy fans who want incredibly immersive and plausible world-building will find few stories better than Tolkiens - but why that world building must be religiously followed in order to be faithful to Tolkien but seemingly can be cast aside when adapting Shakespeare or Wizard of Oz is kind of lost on me. I think we embrace Shakespearean stuff that's been wildly changed and adapted, as well as the big changes to Wizard of Oz (or Potter, or Percy Jackson, or Hunger Games or any of the rest of it) because we haven't felt the implied DEI initiatives behind them. People seem to feel really strongly that most of the changes to ROP are coming either from clumsy writing or blind allegiance to DEI initiatives.

I can see evidence for the clumsy writing but I'm not seeing any for the DEI. So far, none have been offered.

It seems like even four pages into this thread the only evidence of story made subservient to ideology seems to come from extrapolation and speculation. And not about the show or the plot or the cast - but about the showrunners and their motivations, machinations and perceived slander. A few clicks on youtube will make these claims seem OBVIOUS and BEYOND DOUBT - but go anywhere else - especially to the show itself - and those things become much harder to find. Is it groupthink? Is it manufactured outrage? Is it me? Am I missing something?

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I think it's the poor writing and adaptation, plus last season's more prevalent "fan-baiting" (look it up). The Amazon Policy is at the top of the org chart under which everything from writing, hiring and production is tainted, making DEI an easy target for those who tend to blame critic's "isms." The Message, if you will, chafes against people who want escapism done well - not agenda, politics, to be preached at or told how to think, or even the appearance or suspicion of it whether on the nose or implied. The poor writing of necessary invention is amplified because the Tolkien Estate won't give anyone a fair chance at a full and faithful adaptation with its severe and near-absolute license restriction. Everything I write here should be seen as understanding the latter as the ultimate fault, hovering over even the Amazon Policy.

It seems like even four pages into this thread the only evidence of story made subservient to ideology seems to come from extrapolation and speculation.

3) ... I would love to see the character bio book and what precisely they had in mind for Theo. The boy was marked and he had a relationship with the hilt of Sauron's sword which seems to have just disappeared...