Timeline for Dark-skinned elves in J. R. R. Tolkien's works
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
27 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 23, 2022 at 5:33 | comment | added | David Roberts | To follow up on DJClayworth's comment about 'fair', Aredhel, the White Lady of the Noldor, is so called because she is "pale", not "fair". | |
| Sep 13, 2022 at 18:03 | comment | added | Crazymoomin | @Shamshiel Sometimes even "black" was used in a way we'd never use it today. Quite famously Black Agnes, who anyone nowadays would never describe as anything but white, was supposedly named for her dark complexion, but dark is a really relative term here, she was darker than the average Scot, but not black like an African or even tan like a Southern European. | |
| Sep 9, 2022 at 19:55 | comment | added | Shamshiel | @Blueriver: Lovecraft’s conceptions were also not anything like ours; Lovecraft is obsessed with all sorts of fine ethnic distinctions we would totally overlook today in favor of the white/Black racial dichotomy, to the point where he didn’t understand how Italians could be considered human. Of course, American vs British does also make a difference here - our modern ideas are centered in American experience. Tolkien does write about Men that he clearly intends to be Black in LotR, I am just saying “swarthy” or “dark” does not automatically mean that in pre-2000 writing. | |
| Sep 9, 2022 at 15:32 | comment | added | GuilleOjeda | @Shamshiel why wouldn't he think about that? Lovecraft was contemporary to Tolkien and he definitely thought about that. Genuine question, I've never studied either country's history. I'm not trying to prove Tolkien racist though, just curious about this particular aspect, especially since there were comments about Men being dark-skinned | |
| Sep 9, 2022 at 13:46 | comment | added | gnasher729 | ... particular notice of it. In a movie today, having a black actor playing him, at least in a country where being black is considered normal and doesn't attract attention, would be no real problem. | |
| Sep 9, 2022 at 13:45 | comment | added | gnasher729 | I was in an internet discussion once where some American guy started by confusing Martin Luther King and Martin Luther (and everyone making comments about Martin Luther that would be totally inappropriate for Martin Luther King). Then I figured out: In a film, Martin Luther King would have to be played by a black actor, because otherwise the whole story doesn't make any sense. But Martin Luther... back in 1500, a black priest in Germany would have been about as likely as a blue or green priest in the USA today. But then his skin colour was completely irrelevant, except that nobody took any... | |
| Sep 9, 2022 at 12:03 | comment | added | Shamshiel | @Tristan: I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about exactly what he meant by that, but before our time most people spent much more time outdoors, so ability to tan and actual average sun exposure would have contributed a lot to perception of complexion. IME Swedes usually can tan really well while some British people cannot at all. Maybe he meant that. Either way the point is people generally used to have a much finer sense of ethnic differences than our very broad white/black. They would have never imagined “dark” automatically meant “Black.” | |
| Sep 9, 2022 at 9:45 | comment | added | Tristan | @Shamshiel the inclusion of Swedes in that Benjamin Franklin quote seems pretty weird seeing as they (typically) have lighter skin than most English people | |
| Sep 9, 2022 at 1:04 | comment | added | Shamshiel | @Valorum: yes, exactly. Even people described as “swarthy” are not necessarily therefore Black: here’s Benjamin Franklin: “ And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted,”. People are wanting to project 21st century racial theories back onto Tolkien’s early 20th worldview and it just doesn’t work. White/Black as identities weren’t something he would have thought about. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 21:04 | history | edited | Ian Thompson | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 8, 2022 at 18:08 | comment | added | Valorum | @DarrelHoffman - I believe the implication is that said hobbits were dark-skinned like a Spaniard, not dark-skinned like an African | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 17:58 | comment | added | Darrel Hoffman | There is, however, canonical support for dark-skinned Hobbits. In particular, the Harfoots were described as being dark of skin, and they are the particular variety of Hobbit depicted in Rings of Power (though I think that's for legal reasons because they were not allowed use of the word "Hobbit" in the series?), so that sort of adds up, although only some of them are dark-skinned, not all of them as originally implied. We also don't see any bearded female dwarves, so that's another discrepancy. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 16:08 | comment | added | DJClayworth | "fair" doesn't just mean light-skinned. Apart from blonde-haired, it can also mean "beautiful". | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 12:54 | comment | added | Crazymoomin | @IanThompson There's not a lot of quotations, but from what I can gather JRRT went to a lot of effort to describe the origin of the elves. The dwarves, somewhat less so. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 12:23 | comment | added | Ian Thompson | @Crazymoomin --- Did those fans suggest any quotes from JRRT that could be used to support (or contradict) the answers here? At the moment we have just a few fragments of text, at least one of which contains an error. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 11:33 | comment | added | Crazymoomin | Based on my conversations with Tolkien fans, the opinion on lore-friendly dark skinned elves seems to range from "difficult, but not impossible" to "impossible". For dwarves it's more positive, most seem to agree it's possible, but whether they would be randomly interspersed with white dwarves or should be a separate group of dwarves from anther part of the world is debated. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 11:10 | comment | added | Ian Thompson | @Tristan --- nice find. I checked the description of Eol, but forgot about Maeglin. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 10:57 | comment | added | Tristan | although the number of Noldor described as fair or pale skinned would seem to argue against this (or at least suggest that dark skin was not ubiquitous amongst them) | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 10:56 | comment | added | Tristan | In the book of lost tales pt 2 Maeglin is described as "Less fair was he than most of this goodly folk, swart and of none too kindly mood, so that he won small love, and whispers there were that he had Orc’s blood in his veins, but I know not how this could be true" (emphasis mine). In the Silmarilion it's also stated that "he resembled in face and form rather his kindred of the Noldor", together this could be taken as evidence that the Noldor typically had darker skin than other elves | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 9:33 | comment | added | Ian Thompson | @jo1storm --- Where are the general statements about the Noldor's skin tone? I didn't find these. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 9:30 | comment | added | jo1storm | Also, there is difference in writing between fair skinned and pale skinned. You can have fair skin (clear, unblemished) without it being pale skinned. Noldor elves were specifically described as both fair skinned and pale skinned. But nothing is said about elves, like wood elves. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 9:26 | history | edited | Ian Thompson | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 8, 2022 at 8:50 | comment | added | OrangeDog | @MarkOlson in your own words "JRRT gives no indication". | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 8:05 | comment | added | Ian Thompson | @MarkOlson --- We could accept a statement that all elves are fair-skinned as proof in this case. I can't find any such statement. Variations in skin tone definitely did exist, as Ar-Feiniel is described as 'pale' so she must have been paler than (most) other elves. | |
| Sep 8, 2022 at 1:55 | comment | added | Mark Olson | They do, actually give indication: Every elf who is described is described in a way consistant with fair skin. (E.g., A blond elf who is dark skinned being described simply as "blond" would be odd, and Tolkien was a careful writer.) While we can be sure there wwe light skinned elves from Tolkien's descriptions, if there were dark-skinned elves, JRRT gives no indication of this. But there's no proving a negative. | |
| Sep 7, 2022 at 21:41 | history | edited | Ian Thompson | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 7, 2022 at 21:20 | history | answered | Ian Thompson | CC BY-SA 4.0 |