The fight for J.R.R. Tolkien’s legacy is heating up as an influential fan site says the devout Catholic author was always “woke” ahead of Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings” series.
The One Ring — reportedly the first website to receive an official synopsis of Amazon’s show — found itself embroiled in controversy after an extended rant about “toxicity” within the fandom and the inability to entirely ban individuals from Twitter.
“We used to be able to ban in the era of message boards and [chat rooms], but in the era of social media the platforms can’t keep toxicity out of our community,” a moderator wrote to more than 120,000 Twitter followers on Wednesday. “Whatever toxic arguments are being said now about LOTR fandom & adaptations is the same trash that said Ian McKellen was the worst affront to Tolkien’s legacy ever.
“If you still think [gay actor] Ian McKellen is the worst & that Catholic Tolkien would have never approved, I beg you to read more of Tolkien’s books and letters. He was woke, stood against hate, embraced all cultures in life & fiction. It’s why his books are translated in every language.”
Jonathan Trent, founder of the entertainment website Bounding into Comics, was perplexed at the suggestion that any meaningful backlash against Mr. McKellen’s role as “Gandalf” occurred prior to Peter Jackson’s beloved movies or that Mr. Tolkien could be considered “woke.”
“One has to wonder what kind of definition of woke The One Ring is using because Tolkien is probably the furthest from woke one can get being a devout Catholic,” Mr. Trent said on YouTube.
If you still think Ian McKellen is the worst & that Catholic Tolkien would have never approved, I beg you to read more of Tolkien’s books and letters. He was woke, stood against hate, embraced all cultures in life & fiction. It’s why his books are translated in every language.
— TheOneRing.net (@theoneringnet) June 2, 2021
The controversy appears linked to a Change.org petition titled “Keep Nudity Out of the LOTR Series,” which more than 32,000 people signed after reports of “intimacy coaches” hired for the Amazon project. Its season budget tallied over $465 million.
Coverage of the various “red flags” on the popular YouTube channel Nerdotic — Amazon says it is writing for a “global audience,” for example — tallied nearly 300,000 views since May 24.
“It’s time to consider that Amazon’s Lord of the Rings could be a massive billion-dollar disaster,” wrote host Gary Buechler, who has also been criticized by The One Ring. “First off, this story represents everything Hollywood hates right now. How can you make a faithful [rendition] of anything Tolkien in the current entertainment industry? Amazon keeps planting red flag after red flag and they seem insistent on repeating the mistakes of their fellow repurposes. Hope I’m wrong, but it doesn’t look good.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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