et tu, Aragorn?

So how much race-swapping is too much race-swapping? Chinese-American comedian Jimmy O. Yang once did a stand-up routine in which he roasted "The Great Wall," a movie about China that starred... Matt Damon. People complain about whitewashing* all the time then, hypocritically, they turn around and praise something like making Aragorn, of Lord of the Rings fame, black. (To clarify: this is not something happening in "The Rings of Power": it's happening in a game that's allegedly based on the world of JRR Tolkien.) 

Am I horrified to see a black character in fiction? Not at all. All I'm saying is: don't fuck with the canon. Aragorn is one of the Dúnedain, people of the West (Westernesse) descended from the Númenóreans. Aragorn himself is a Ranger of the North, so culturally, all signs point toward Western Europe and Scandinavia: white people, y'all. Switch out Aragorn's race, and you have to change the canon to match: Aragorn will now have to come from hotter climes, which in turn means his people must come from elsewhere. See how messing with one detail unravels the whole tapestry? What's so hard about just respecting the canon? I'll tell you: because today's woke snowflakes can't stand the idea of anything Western or Eurocentric being good. No: to these people, the only thing good is brown. Don't see any racism in that? Then let's make a movie about Eskimo legends, but with African leads. Or a historical drama about internecine Buddhist rivalry in Japan in which our hero is played by Idris Elba.

I'm hearing rumors that GRR Martin has gone woke himself, and that that's why he's tolerating the race-swapping in his new "House of the Dragon" series.** His change in attitude is also going to affect how he ends his A Song of Ice and Fire series, which is sad news for sure. GRR Martin becomes yet another entry in the book of How to Alienate Your Fan Base.

Back to Idris Elba for a sec: I'd heard murmurings that Elba was being considered to play a black James Bond. I'm actually okay with that, so you might wonder whether my attitude is self-consistent. First: Tolkien's works are revered by a large subset of the world's readership, and this is why we speak of canon at all. By contrast, how many people have even read the complete works of Ian Fleming these days? I certainly haven't, and I can guarantee that the number of Flemingites is vanishingly small. Second: the movies have already toyed with the notion that the moniker "James Bond" is more of a title or label that is applied to successive agents, which means we're already not sticking to Fleming's own description of Bond. There was a huge freakout when Daniel Craig—a blond dude!—took over the role of Bond, but where is that freakout now? Gone. And why? Because the change doesn't destroy any canon. So if Bond can be blond, then why can't he be black? And/or female? 

Elba also took on the role of Heimdall, all-seeing guardian of the Bifröst Bridge. Was I scandalized? Again, no: Marvel Comics had already pulled and twisted the Norse legends almost beyond all recognition, so, fuck it—why not? Why not make Heimdall black? Heimdall, here, is a comic-book character, not the Heimdall of actual Norse legend. I'm discerning enough to make that distinction. But neither of these situations is analogous to what's going on with Tolkien, and that's the essential point.

__________

*I know whitewashing isn't exactly the same as race-swapping, but it's in the same ballpark, for God's sakes.

**What's painful is that Martin actually included one or more black races in his fantasy universe: if you've read the A Song of Ice and Fire series, you're aware that there's a place called The Summer Isles from which the dark-skinned race (or races) comes. I would rather see folks from the Summer Isles plausibly worked into "House of the Dragon" than what's going on now, i.e., black Valyrians, surnamed Velaryon in the show. (Valyrians are supposed to be pale, with almost albino-blond hair. Well, not anymore!) Not that I care about this as much as I care about the damage to Tolkien: Martin is still alive, and if he's given his permission for such liberties to be taken, then I guess that's "canon" now.