Black Elves? History of PoC in Europe
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- Опубліковано 10 бер 2022
- #dnd #blackelves #history #ringsofpower
Everyone seems to be up in arms about black elves! whenever People of Color are brought into any fantasy media, we get an avalanche of folks talking about how it is just SJWs and not realistic.
The truth is, there were Europe wasn't a monocromatic, mono-skin tone place. There was great diversity in Europe, even in the ancient world! this is the first in a two part series discussing the history of POC in european history, and later, european fantasy stories!
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Thank you to the following for providing those great voices!
Jeremy Cobb of “Three Black Halflings” podcast
Nala J. Wu @NalaWu on twitter
Amir “Prince” Hamzah “DimplesnDice” @dimplesndice on twitter
John Downey from the Outlaws & Old Ones podcast.
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Image:
Emperor Frederick II rules over a cosmopolitan empire (ca. 1230s) by Jeff Bowersox is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at blackcentraleurope.com/who-we....
sources:
The History of the Vikings - Gwyn Jones
Keita, Maghan. “Race: What the Bookstore Hid.” Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice. Eds. Celia Chazelle, Simon Doubleday, Felice Lifshitz, and Amy G. Remensnyder. New York: Routledge, 2012: 130-140.
Edwards, Paul. The Early African Presence in the British Isles: An Inaugural Lecture on the Occasion of the Establishment of the Chair in English and African Literature at Edinburgh University. Centre of African Studies, Edinburgh University, 1990. www.cas.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets... 30 May 2015.
Germany and the Black Diaspora: Points of Contact, 1250-1914 by Mischa Honeck, Martin Klimke and Anne Kuhlmann
Hitler's black victims : the historical experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi era by Clarence Lusane - Ігри
Your complaints about the Witcher Netflix series is that it deviated from the books by casting brown people and being "woke."
My complaints about the Witcher Netflix series is that the show deviated from the books by shortening Geralt and Filavandrel's conversation on the oppression of colonized peoples, that they didn't adapt the scene where Yarpen the dwarf gives a speech on the importance of striving for peaceful coexistence between races after opening up to Ciri about how his grandmother was killed in a pogrom, and that the show probably doesn't have the balls to adapt the parts of the books where the story just stops so that characters can give short monologues about how important reproductive choice and legalized abortion are.
We are not the same.
My problem with these things is rather, that this is lazy corporate-wokeness and representation, without any firm conviction but the lust for money. They are simply putting token PoC all over the place without regard of the story and believability, since they neither care for class, race, gender or economic issues nor the story they are adapting.
To me such things are possible symptoms of a generall disrespect for the source material and bad story telling. You can have a very diverse cast AND a good story, but if the story is good the creators usually carefully consider whom to cast for what role. Diverse cast can, depending on how it was done, have adverse or no effect to a story.
Or, in the case of Game of Thrones (Fantasy), House of Dragons (Fanstasy), The Expanse (SciFi) and Dune (SciFi) IMMENSELY enhance the world building and bring people deeper into the world, by reducing the suspension of disbelief and making the world richer. But it demands much more work by the director and his team to actually cast diverse people fitting to their role instead of simply "randomizing" the casting and not even acknoledge this in the writing in any shape or form. This type of "colorblind" casting itself is problematic, since it pretends that there is no race, gender or class (or intersectional for that matter) discrimination.
So... To me a black Elve in the LoR-Universe or the Witcher-Universe isn't a big problem, but it is a possible symptom for lazyness, which itself is a hint for bad writing in general. I do think that there can and should be black elves in general. In LoR? Less so, but also possible, if handled correctly (ie: grounded in the story and the lore and not simply put in there without ANY explanation). It could even be used to make the world more believeable by deepening and expanding the lore.
Racists, on the other hand, will obviously always complain, but I don't think that the majority of people complaining are racists (even though some of the loudest voices clearly seem to lean into that direction). This can be seen in other shows with good writing, where such complaints also come up but... the general public doesn't chime in, because the story is actually good, believeable and well written. The way the discussion is handled unfortunately is pushing people to align with such people, instead of demanding better writing and less lazy inclusion. There is a good video by Sarah Z on that topic of bad series and films used by Alt- and Far-right, look for "Sacrificial trash".
While I’m not sure about the rest of Europe, here in Sweden the word ”black” when talking about people has traditionally referred to people with black hair, which includes many southern Europeans. For that reason I’m usually cautious about taking historical referenses with that word and applying the more modern definition, i.e. dark-skinned Africans.
I’ve also tried to see if there’s any evidence for black Vikings or Scandinavians, but so far I’m leaning towards a strong ”maybe”, and in that case probably at most a small amount of slaves. Not likely anyone prominent. Would’ve been interesting, though.
Some parts of Europe use a more general "Dark" for darker than average skin or haircolor.
Edit; But of course diversity in Europe varies. South Italians would rarely have blonde hair, but Italians made up a lot of historical relevant people. And Moors had been important in Spain. So naturally there were differences between who was called what where.
Given the connections to the Eastern Roman Empire, and Norman presence in the Mediterranean you likely did have Vikings of African/North African/Moorish/Levantine descent. Not to a significant degree, but they did exist. People moved about.
@@nathanrohde3292 Just because something could have happened, just because of connections to connections to connections, doesn't it DID happen. It's most most irresponsible kind of pseudo kind of history fabrication like your baseless conjecture, that requires years of effort by true and honest historians to clean up later. There is literally ZERO evidence for negro or any kind of African, as Vikings or Norse. NONE. So, stop making crap up and spreading it around the internet.
Of course you're correct. I have a friend from Iceland whose dad was always referred to as "black." He's not negro but simply has dark hair. This is what Scandinavians (and most Europeans) mean when they've referred to other Europeans as "black." However, you can explain this over and over to afrocentrists, and they refuse to be dislodged from their modern non-contextual understanding of the word "black."
I've also studied extensively about the fantasy of negro Vikings (or even just negroes in Scandinavia during the Viking period) but haven't found even the slightest bit of evidence. So, I don't even suggest a "maybe." Until there's something conclusive (an Arabic coin found in Scandinavia, etc. wouldn't be considered conclusive evidence, for example), for me, it's still just a fantasy of usually Africentric people who want a new identity for themselves after watching the TV show, "Vikings" and thought Vikings were cool. Nothing more.
It was the same in Germany and still is the same in the Balkans.
When refering to specifically dark skinned people other terms were used, but also did not always mean the same and could be referring to simply "dark skinned" like an north-african/south-european, a bit darker like maybe an Gyspy or more like some Sub-Saharan people (who themselves again have various shades and can be lighter, darker or much darker skinned).
There certainly were PoC in Europe during medieval times, but Europe is big and it is always a matter of probability. Would you find somebody in Genua (commercial city in the mediteranean) in the 15th century? Probably.
Will you see some PoC during the same time in a rural bohemian town close to Vlašim plowing a field? Not impossible, but most probably not (and it would be a matter of curiosity for other people at the time and location and would lead to strange looks and questions). If you really want to add some PoC in a more historicaly grounded story you still can do it without breaking the suspension of disbelief, but then the setting, time or location has to be adapted.
A very informative video!
A work of fiction doesn't need to justify its diversity beyond "we are made in a diverse country, so our casting is diverse". It would probably be a different story if it was an entirely Polish production, like the Hexer TV series was, since the ethnic minorities in Poland are like, 1% Silesian, 0.2% German, 0.1% Ukrainian, etc.
Might be an interesting topic of its own - should media from countries that aren't ethnically diverse be ethnically diverse? Like I remember some article when Witcher 3 came up of someone bringing up that that game wasn't ethnically diverse, with some developer from the studio countering that "we are from Europe, for most of our history we didn't have skin colour to discriminate against, so we learned to hate each other for different reasons." or something to that effect, so for them ethnic diversity is people from various countries not continents.
You also mentioned the diversity of Western Europe, but Poland is often categorised as Eastern Europe (east of Berlin Wall at least, although centre of Europe if you look geographically). Probably more diversity there would come from Asia (like the Mongol invasion, or fighting Tatars semi-regularly, etc.).
I mean they don't have to justify it -- but their world isn't going to make much sense if they choose not to.
Plus it just deprives them of a good opportunity to invest their fictional world with the kind of richness and variety that our real world has, which is a shame.
Even using history that is less turbulent, the trade routes across euroasia that traditionally has been called the silk road, was actually a vast network of people trading all across the continent. So presumably there wouldve been merchants of all kinds of ethnic backgrounds all over the place. In graves in sweden there have been graves that predates the viking expansions (years 900-1100) found with small tokens and jewelry from india and china. Either those tokens flew to sweden with african swallows carrying coconuts or people brought them here. A indian merchant selling to a persian merchant selling to a ethiopian selling to a roman selling to a gallic selling to a goth selling to a…. and so on and on until the tokens ended up in a grave outside Uppsala in sweden.
This reminds me that King Arthur was supposed to have at least two knights who hailed from Africa, Maurice and Farafiz (who I almost certainly spelled wrong).
AKA Arthurian Mythology is Too White
@@anitanielsen1061 Actually it's "Arthurian Mythology isn't as white as folks care to remember".
A subtle distinction but indicative of the general whitewashing that only accelerated in the 19th and 20th centuries with public education and mass-market media..
@@Vespuchian Yeah, that😅
Don’t forget Palamedes either
An interesting book on Arthurian history by Edwin Pace "Arthur and the Fall of Roman Britain" postulates that the stories of King Arthur may have had their initial basis in a late Roman figure called Riothamus, or the Proud Tyrant (the arch-villan in Gilda's history). This figure was either a former Roman officer or the direct descendant of one. Its a convoluted tale and in bad need of a visual timeline or some editing, but it makes for a fun read.
Went to Catholic School and never heard anything about St. Augustine being from Africa, thanks as always for the great videos
My Catholic elementary school was named after St. Maurice himself. I remember seeing the fresco depicting him in the hallway, but I had no idea he was black.
Yes, in very small numbers, plus they where usually considered "others" and erased or assimilated in a few short generations.
For the "black" people in the sources, there is also a lot of "red" ones, and they very definitely were not native americans; it usually refer to the hair color or some other more moral/cultural trait.
Nobody said they came in huge numbers. You didn't refute or deny anything in the video. In fact your point about their erasure is something scholars emphasize, not hide. Nobody who likely just had black hair is mentioned in the video, except for one person who is explicitly mentioned to say that the evidence is not strong enough, as you're saying. All the other examples are of people who were explicitly, unquestionably dark-skinned, as evidenced by very unambiguous textual descriptions, including of actual parts of sub-Saharan Africa, or actual artwork depicting them.
Thankyou for this thoughtful and detailed video! 💖
Every historical reference pointed out in the video is noted in context as being outliers and exceptions to the general population.
There is no dispute that individuals and small populations moved around but it is silly to see historical figures ethnicity changed or treating ancient cultures as havingbthe ethnic diversity of modern urban centers.
In fantasy stories geography, cultures and the setting's history should matter when it comes to the melanin content of the inhabitants.
I'm not saying that stories should be monochromatic, but put some thought into the why and go less heavy handed on the allegories and the changes wouldn't be so controversial.
Actually the changes would always be controversial because right-wing crybabies like you will flip out and say disgusting stuff in response, like clockwork. Let's be real, this will always happen, no matter how careful or minimal or well-thought-out the implementation is; this is all the modern right does these days is whinge about "wokeness". NPC-like.
Who is changing the entire cast's race? It's STILL vast majority white and you people STILL complain, it's genuinely amazing. You never complain about the hundreds of media products that have nothing to do with history that have almost 100% white casts; I see this freaking everywhere, all the time, even to this day, in the supposed era of "wokeness". But you guys don't seem to care in that case. Make Jesus or Cleopatra blonde-haired and blue-eyed, you hypocrites don't bat an eye.
In fantasy stories written by some Polish dude in freaking 1990 (!!!!), actually, race doesn't matter at all. Believe it or not, those ancient Poles in 1990 knew what black people were, and may have even seen some! Hard to know since it was such ancient times.
No one is saying that in Medieval Europe EVERYONE was black; this is a hilarious strawman you guys seem to love bringing up for seemingly no reason, other than being desperate and cornered on how wrong your original claim is. The fact is there were enough black people in Europe, often enough and in enough places, for their inclusion in historical media to be plausible. That was the only argument. And in fantasy, where dragons and wizards are standard fare, you can bet your ancient runic tablets that they are still plausible.
@@HuckleberryHim You're delusional and clearly have some kind of personal bias. There is NO evidence for any kind of black presence in Europe during the Middle Ages, with the exception of what amounted to an extreme few in number (as either slaves or similar or as part of the Muslim conquest of Spain, of which actual negroes were likely in the extreme minority), and certainly not enough to justify any kind of inclusion in European history or heritage or culture.
So, the idea of a black elf (even if fantasy) or black Viking is OUT OF PLACE. It doesn't matter if it's a legend or fantasy story. If you insert a negro, it makes the story all about the fact that the movie makers just forced a POC for political or social reasons. Even though fantasy has a lot of fictional elements, our reasoning just can't deal with WHAT THE ---- IS A SUB SAHARAN NEGRO DOING IN NORTHERN EUROPE LEGEND. This should be obvious. How would blacks feel if a movie were made depicting an ancient story or legend that certainly would have involved only negroes, if a main character were a blond Nordic European? How about this, what if someone made movie about the African pigmy tribe in the 1800's and, just for fun, the pigmy king was an Eskimo. It would be absurd and you know it.
People be like: my fantasy involves only white people. No, you're weird!
Well, this is why I kinda wish they had Fantasy Sicily.
A case where French Vikings conquered an Arabic island populated with Greek speakers and Sicilian indigenous people.
It was hilarious when they praise Baldur's Gate even if it would have been called "SJW" for having two Arabic-half Elves characters.
Honestly I'm like: I'm sick to death of white people fantasy--could we do a show set in a non-historical all NON white people world? Could we do that?
@@robertblank5206 yeah, some amazing fantasy novels from all over the world are out there, if people are looking for inspiration fantasy is wide and vast and full of cool stuff.
I guess you forgot Earthsea.
However thanks to horrible Sci Fi (one where everyone became white and turned into generic fantasy but with ocean) and just as mediocre Ghibli adaptation (despite in a medium where they can do non white color and a studio that does fantasy good, no thanks to Miyazaki’s son), it did ruined Ursula Le Guin’s taste in adapting her work.
@@powerist209 never read wizard of Earthsea. Heard only good things tho
I always say, "If you can't fathom a world with dragons in it also have black paladins, you may want to check yourself" but I think an even greater indictment is how almost every medieval fantasy game seems to have an Oriental adventures expansion without anyone decrying verisimilitude, but no one seems to do a fantasy Africa as it's own thing or an expansion. Like, these people realize it's much easier to get to Africa from Europe than East Asia right? And Africa has had an entwined history with Europe since before the Romans. Egyptian grain was a key part of the Roman Economy and they were considered some of the most learned people of the time. But, every fantasy world builder seems to want to act like Africa is about as close to Europe as the moon, it's a trip.
It's not the same. Asians had a much bigger presence in Europe than Africans. Countless Asian peoples conquered, raided and settled in Europe. Also the Silk Road was a big factor too. If you were walking around in Eastern Europe for example, it was very likely to find people with Asian features.
@@anotherhistoryenthusiast5874 Depend on which Asian. Chinese and Japanese expies are common because the intended audience and by extension the creators only know Kung Fu and Samurai (or Korea but only through Hwa-Cha and Tae Kwan Do; more so in 80's).
Like Turkic, Central Asian, and Steppe Nomads are rare in Fantasy except Easterling (only because Tolkien is Germanic Myth Researcher and those often include Huns and Alans who either displaced or integrated the Germanic Tribes) or Kurgans (at least GW know that there are different nomadic groups with Hungs being Mongols and Kurgans being Turkic, even Ungols can be latter except as "good guys" to the point of a waiter of Ungol origin retorting an ignorant visitor about not finding differences between Kurgans and Ungols) and most go for Mongol-expies at best. Probably Western European view only cared about those who punched through Elbe River (even though Magyars, Avars, Pecheneks, and Cumans did shape Eastern European History; or care that Roman Empire still exists in Eastern Mediterranean and have to deal with them).
@@anotherhistoryenthusiast5874 did you even watch the video? Africans affected Europe more than East Asians did, by far. the Silk Road was a very indirect contact with the Chinese and other East Asians. it had to go through the Middle-East and Africa before it got to Europe.
@@twi3031 By Asian I mean "Asian looking". Central Asians played a very big role. They looked like East Asians to a degree.
@@anotherhistoryenthusiast5874 doesn't change the fact that Africans were more prominent in Europe than Asians. including Middle Eastern/Central Asians. I'm not trying to discount the very real presence Central Asians had in Europe of course. more trying to remind you that Africans (both North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans) were at least as common in Europe itself as any Arab, Turk, Hun, Goth, or Ungal. certainly more than any Chinese, Korean, or Japanese (who were so mysterious to the medieval Europeans that they became the subject of rumours and superstitions).
OK, you're pushing things a bit here. You've gone from one internment of a possible African (North African? East African? Sub-Saharran African? Acculturated Roman?) in Roman Britain to African communities - plural. That's a leap. And a pretty big one. Where there Africans in Roman Britain, yes absolutely, but communities? That's a stretch (would black people have even separated out into their own communities in the Roman Empire?) that so far is not backed up by the evidence. And surnames in the UK post-date the Migration Era by quite a bit, so the link to one family would date the African genomic component to long /after/ the Roman period - and given Occam's razor it's probably more likely that the component was added during the period where the British were heavily involved in the slave trade. This doesn't discount the possibility of Africans in Roman Britain (Virgil mentions an African slave/wife of a Roman farmer - that Africans would also get to Britain is hardly beyond the bounds of reason) but in and of itself - not really evidence. If you really want to deal with Roman ties you're probably better looking at the Red Sea/Horn of Africa trade that was a staple of Roman maritime endeavor from the late 1st Century B.C.E. Which would also help your argument about the mixing/moving of people in the Ancient world as it would also show the /direct/ trade links Rome had with places as far away as India and Sri Lanka and as far south in Africa as modern Tanzania. In fact Indian slaves became something of a status thing in the Roman world for a while. Africa? If there were Indians in the Roman Empire, and there were, there absolutely were Africans. And not just the diplomats from Meroe who met with Augustus shortly after he came to the purple. In Syria.
When you get to ancient literary sources you hit the problem of what they /meant/ when they described people. When they called someone "black" did they mean it as we understand the term, or some other way? We still don't really know what the Romans meant when describing the Picts - were they really blue, painted or tattooed? Another example - the Medieval Irish spoke of "white" and "black" Vikings (Finngaill and Dubgaill respectively) but this was a differentiation not of skin colour but of group affiliation, historically rendered "Norwegian" or "Danish." Even today American in particular will refer to "Black Irish" but what they mean is pretty much dark hair and not much else. Phil Lynott, late lead singer of Thin Lizzy, is not on their mind. Words are tricky buggers in your own language, they get even worse when the language they're from is extinct. And even when you see a painting, did they actually paint a black person from life, or put them in for some other reason? You're dealing with completely different cultures with completely different world-views and completely different uses of language and symbolism - translation may not be direct.
With court life, again, yes, there were definitely what we would call black people there - but it's difficult to extrapolate from a couple of courtly examples, especially wealthy ones, to paint a picture true across all of Europe. Courts varied in wealth and prestige, and also in trade links. And btw - the television series "Bones" is a fiction - archaeologists have enough problems sexing skeletons, identifying race, a MUCH finer differentiation, from a mere skull is just....NO!
I'm not disputing your general thesis - a Europe with multiple populations - it's been accepted for decades at this point (Gwynn Jones was writing back in the 1960's - he's not current - history and archaeology books get out of date too) and there's images from all over (you missed out images from Medieval fechtbuchs btw), although I suspect the raw numbers are probably lower than some would claim. I'm just saying you have to be far more careful with the evidence than literary theorists (the various X-Studies) ever seem to be, to not give an inaccurate view. Just one last thing to bolster your point about people moving - King Tutankhamun of Egypt (1341 BCE - 1323 BCE) was found to possess the R1b clade - a haplogroup that arose on the Pontic Steppe in Eurasia and began spreading out around 3000 B.C.E. : Proto-Indo-European. We've been moving about for at least 80,000 years, no reason to believe that's ever changed.
Sorry for another long post - a lot to cover.
Good points. I knew about the language issue. the entire aside about Gwynn Jones is because of the issue with the use of the word "black" and how it didn't apply to any reference to skin color. And i used that as an example because it was being referenced by norwegian history sites as evidence of Black (in the modern sense) Vikings. It wouldn't have used it except to track down that lead. it is complicated by the evolving idea of race as it pertained to medieval folks as opposed to the modern understanding.
Also, i am not claiming that POC were any sort of majority. Simply to show that they exist.
to your first point, most of the african precence we are looking at are Moorish, which would generally have referred to north africans. Not sub-saharan groups, though. I do mention the roman presence in the horn of africa in a different comment somewhere under this video.
On the bones issue, the bones weren't the evidence of her african heritage. it was the items she was buried with. i apologize if that was unclear in my explanation.
Thanks for the comment. I have no problem being proven wrong if the evidence is there. i appreciate it!
Thanks for the Video. Wanted to argue about that recently but only knew about the romans and Huns. This will help ^^
LegalKimchi doesn't miss
It took me a while to get used to Tuvox, but black elves aren't new
This is amazing!
“Being a viking isnt a culture it’s a job”
actually, it's both a culture and a way of life, that was specific to Norse people. In other words, someone from southern Europe who raided or settled other areas wasn't a Viking, even if he had the same basic lifestyle.
Is a Moorish man " black"? Like Sub-Saharan? Or more like North African? Just like Europe, not all Africa is the same.
I lol'd when you pulled out your eReader at the beginning of the video because I got the same cover for similar reasons (wanting to seem more pretentious as I read my pulp urban fantasy)
Excellent video
Just a note, the Xiangnyu are most likely a confederacy of turkic peoples, Mongolian peoples and Indo-european peoples (the eastern descendants of the Yamnaya migration). So not exclusively east-asian. And actually not even an ethnicity.
Yeah Central Asia has a very complex genetic history
We have to keep in mind that having a "Hofmoor" and black guards in various European courts and depictions of Saint Maurice and other Moors like Caspar in churches and folklore do not point to a sizeable black population in these regions, otherwise it wouldn't have been "fancy" to have them in the first place. Southern Iberia and Sicily did have noticeable minorities just like the thalassocracies like Venice and Genoa. There always were some PoC in Europe, from traders to legionairies to refugees and honestly "white" in the US-understanding is idiotic since it pretty much encompasses the vastly different peoples from Algeria to Iceland and from Ireland to the Ural into a single arbitrary drawer.
BUT we all have to agree that it's exceptionally stupid to give a subterranean race PoC in RoP...
Can you provide primary documentation for information in this video?
reminds me about how in D&D and other fantasy roleplaying games, everything is fine with races and cultures from al over mixing in any given fictional city or village the PCs wander into. but when a player wants to create a PC who's black or asian or mixed culture human, to say nothing of an elf or dwarf or looks like themself at least a little bit, suddenly the DM or other players get up in arms and claim that such cultural mixing never occurred -- while actively portraying a cosmopolitan setting to be explored. and how dare I point it out to them. XD
What a richer place the world becomes when we see that throughout history we have interacted, intermingled, and exchanged with each other. Thank you for this video, and all the work behind the scenes to make it good and honest.
We (humans) have... Middle Earth Elves... Don't. They practically didn't mix with other races and they only did so twice, and only with humans. But, that would be a good way to explain Arondir. He could be an Half-Elf. Not an Elf though.
In Toril? Be my guest. Elves can be both Dark and Fair.
@@joaobranco2164 Luckily the imaginations of those making the show are not limited by your opinion.
Good video, good points.
Fantastic video, showing a good breadth of examples of POC living in Medieval Europe, and also why that history has been sadly obfuscated! This really helps show why these people don't even have a leg to stand on when they draw from the historical accuracy excuse. We've always been here, folks.
Also as someone of Spanish, Sephardic, Muslim and other vastly mixed heritage who lives in the UK, I relate so hard to the "my ancestors colonised/rebelled against my ancestors etc etc" feel lol
Also popular conscious ignoring Byzantines, Sicily (both Emirate and Norman eras), and Mediterranean area except on Arabs or Italy City States, they are pretty much contradiction of stereotypical assumptions about medieval age and pretty cosmopolitan.
Not just medieval, but as the ancient graves show, PoC were significant part of the European Iron Age and Bronze Age population as well and diversity is not a new phenomenon. And in some places, PoC has been more common in the past than it is now. In Sweden, there was a deceased person on display in a museum and one professor said about the bones that their morphology suggested that the Iron Age deceased person in question was possibly of African origin that revokes the old belief that all Iron Age Nordics were white.
Getting to this a little late, but this is so good! And as an e-reader-using essayist, I understand your pain 😬
Solid video!
"people mixed".. well I sure love a long night of heavy mixing
Again. Fantastic.
So much effort in these videos, an incredible Job!
I thought I heard Jeremy Cobb's voice! XD, I'm apparently very informed
Really dope video looking forward to part two!
Great research but I'd like to make a note: what you've shown is that PoC existed in Medieval Europe, not that they were everywhere and as common as they are nowadays. There are few and far between cases in all of the medieval period, an extremely large period of time.
The most one sees them in history are the Moors and PoC in trade port cities, the majority of Europeans would not see any PoC for their entire life.
Not trying to say that there were none, since that's just plain false, but I've seen some people talk about how "Africans were more prominent in Europe than Asians" citing this video as their source and that's just as inaccurate as saying there were none.
Most interesting video! Much respect, and please come to Brazil.
Well spoken as always! And the humor never missed. Can't wait to see the next topic you tackle!
Well, this provides an interesting context to my German mother's last name, Moorman.... I'd be interested to see if she has African DNA markers. I cannot test myself for this as I got an influx via my father. My family made multiracial pairings something of a tradition, evidentially possibly both sides of my family!
Hi there! You mentioned enjoying reactions to your video's where your idea's are challenged in a constructive manner so I would like to offer some nuance. I agree with your points about the past being more diverse than generally believed! Especially in light of racist backlash against more diverse casting.
However you rather uncritically praised the 'medieval POC' tumblr blog. I'm a medievalist publishing scholar (feel free to google to see my credentials), and in medievalist circles the blog is contentious. While the effort is a noble and necessary one, the blog rather unilaterally equates artistic representation of POC in 'medieval' art (the blog doesn't exactly adhere to periodisation sometimes including up to 17th century art) with the physical presence of POC within the communities that produced the artworks. Many of the artworks feature religious or mythological scenes with traditionally dark skinned individuals. Like Saint Maurice, mentioned in your video, or quite often the adoration of the magi.
However, these scenes are often rife with stereotypes and tropes which don't exactly suggest familiarity with the cultures that are being represented. Balthazar, the dark skinned magi especially often is surrounded by Panthers, elephants, wears a leopard skin and ostrich feathers. He becomes this archetypal representation of 'the east' of 'the exotic' of that which is unfamiliar. Just because a medieval artist reproduced a near stereotypical depiction of a black figure in a traditionally black role doesn't automatically mean that he ever encountered a dark skinned person in his daily life or that they were present in his village.
The presence of POC in medieval Europe needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Where in seafaring port cities their presence is an absolute given, in isolated mountain villages it probably wasn't the case. There are annals and personal histories where people describe seeing a dark skinned person for the first time in their lives and this being a monumental event for them.
As always reality isn't as easy as 'add POC and stir well'. We need to take in account when and where we add which groups ... if historical accuracy is the aim. But, contrary to Europe, Middle Earth doesn't exist. So there isn't exactly a history to accurately adhere to. There's no excuse to not cast fictional universes diversely.
Hope to see a reaction from you! But I completely understand if you can't.
Ty
Good video
Fantastic research and presentation as always! Terrific video!
I am curious. What is your take on the original Oriental Adventures game setting?
there are a lot of issues with Oriental Adventures. However, i don't think that it was done with malice. being an older guy, i actually have a lot of fond memories of playing with OA.
I would like more supplements of various cultures around the world, but from creators from those cultures to ensure we get respectful, accurate representations, while also giving opportunities to folks who don't always get a chance in ttrpg writing.
@@LegalKimchiRight, because the race of the creator means anything if proper research was done going into the creation.
POC groups were extremely rare in Medieval Europe. Of course, we can be disingenuous and refer to the Mors in Spain or the population of Sicily. In general, POC communities did not exist. We can factually assume that traders and rarely mercenaries were the only exception to that rule. Historians mostly agree on that. Anyone can feel free to disagree, but this is not consensus. The conversation usually derails into whether this was good or not, but this is not to point up for discussion.
Also said Europe also ignore Eastern Roman Empire that survived beyond 4th century along with medieval Eastern Europe.
They had Avars (who shared same stock as Huns), Slavs, Finno-Urgic, and even Vikings (even being a major source of tension with Ukraine and Russia that often include "true Nordic settlers" due to their role in the foundation of Kiev and Moscow in these respective countries...even Vladimir got legitimacy from Constantinople by delivering him a contingent of warriors who would become permanent Royal Guard unit and conversion to Orthodox Christianity) settling next to multi ethnic Greek speaking Roman Empire and also interact with Arabic Muslim Empire in the south who also had access to Africa.
10:11- Since you brought up Frederick and Holy Roman Empire, people also ignore Sicily--Which HRE owned through inheritance from Norman rulers--where it was cosmopolitan (mostly due to Byzantines losing it to Arabs and Berbers who were then taken by Normans with Roger II having Arabic tutors and have an Orthodox mural to appeal to Greek Christian locals and then Hohenstaufen of Germanic Kingdoms got it through inheritance).
Opps! I forgot to comment on this - Great video! I know very little of this type of history so really appreciated you talking about this.
Also: Sorry to be so late to your channel in general. Been meaning to stop by for a while!
Engagement for the engagement god!
17:06 I appreciate that you're trying, but I believe you keep mispronouncing "Moops"
🙃 Ignore the Seinfeld reference, I couldn't fight it lol. This video was amazing!🙌
Damn it, you beat me to it five months ago LOL 😅
Excellent video!
On the topic of Vikings I wanted to add that it is really difficult to find good sources there as the Norse didn't have a written tradition. We just don't have written own culture sources from that time, only from outside sources (e.g. the travel journals of Ahmad ibn Fadlan and Ahmad ibn Rustah describing the Rus / Volga Vikings). Even the Edda was written down after the Vikings were active, when Scandinavia was already completely Christianised.
Thanks for saying this. I was about to myself. In fact it is likely that a lot of the culture of the Norsemen is lost to history because is this fact.
Curious then, what european or white people lived in africa?
I am going to assume you are asking earnestly, so many folks ask questions on my videos without actually caring about the answer. If you look through northern africa, a lot! the trade and travel there is a long catalogue of people of european descent being in africa.The most famous of which would probably be Cleopatra (who was of greek descent). Phoenecians established themselves in northern africa, establishing Carthage. Carthage itself explored lots of western africa. Hanno the Navigator is a famous example of Carthaginian explorers of west africa. Romans had trading posts in what is modern day Tanzania, under the horn of Africa. There's more examples, but i haven't done a deep dive into that.
Excellent video. Also loved the voices.
Love that it's lagavulin :D
amazing video. this is a criminally underrated channel. this should have a million views
Thank you for the video. I'm going to share it with my gaming group.
This is why I love your content *academic sources*
Excellent video my guy. Class act as always. I don't envy you your mailbox right now, I'm sure
This video is a great resource, thank you!!!
To be more precise, black HALF Elves.
They did state that pure blood elves aren’t born since the century before show time and most non white Elves are mixed race (Frinjilla and crossbow elves).
Same with Forgotten Realms’ Baldurs Gate where two Half Elves are Arabic coded (one due to having an Arab human father, and other came from Multi ethnic Tethyr due to changing hands between Arabic and European neighbors)…though Sun Elves are fickle since some lore stated them to include “swarthy or tan skinned” with art either being blonde European look or blonde tanned look.
One question that keep bugging me being multiethnicity being attributed to humans with Elves and others being "mono racial" (though FR did have varieties, even if Sun Elves being inconsistent on either tan skinned blonde, fair skinned blonde, or both).
Really? Is this a thing? Because if you tell me (or a lot of other Tolkien fans) that the black elf character in the show is the half-elf son of an elf and human from a POC region of Middle Earth we'll all go from hating it to loving it.
I hope that's what they're going with. That's a fun idea. I hope they go into the non-elven side of his cultural identity. Anything to throw a spotlight on some part of Middle Earth that isn't Numenor/Gondor/the Shire.
Look, I meant other topic of “why fantasy seems to make human as only diverse one and non white non humans are half humans”.
Also I was talking Half Elf as in Witcher Context since Netflix seems to code non-white as "half elves" (Crossbow Elf, Yennefer, and maybe Elf kid that Cintra Princess met), plus the show stated that Pure Elf aren't born for a century before the show's time.
I *love* Mars (the music and planet, not the candy)
It depends on wether the representation is realistic or not. Since you referred real history I would go into that. For sure Europe had other than "white" people and they themselves are very diverse no question. You can tell that Eastern Europeans look different from Western Europeans, Southeners from Northmen and Celts from Germanics. The argument is not about POC being present in Europe. It's about wether they are represented realistically, or they are overrepresented. Becouse percentagevise we are still talking about a very small portion. That's exactly why they are mentioned in sources. Lief Erikson the Norse explorer had a companion, they called him Turk. Probably he was Turkic from the steppes. If it had been common to see people like him in Scandinavia, don't you think they would had named him something other than his origin? The fact that they referred to him by his origin, meant that he was unique in that context. The same goes for Mauritius. If black men had been common there, why have they identified him by skin color as his main feature?
It's no problem when certain minorities are shown in Europe inspired media. But when every 3th caracter is POC and every other caracter acts like if it was normal, that is falsification of history. It's overrepresentation. The problem with Hollywood is, that they are trying to represent the current US society in their films and not that of the author or the historical place.
Robin Hood with Mel Gibson is a good example of how POC can be represented fairly in European settings. It is explained how he got there and people are usually not looking down on him, but they notice he is from a different culture.
Yes, there were white samurai, but could you imagine a white shogun? Of course not, becouse even tough they existed, they were outliers and probably could not have ever became shogun. The same goes for POC in Europe.
Then there's Feirefiz--"half black" knight (as in Star Trek and Naruto's half black half white face in description)--and Moriaen the Moor from Arthurian mythos for Fantasy.
That or being lesser known knights didn't help (I mean Lancelot and Arthur are famous enough to be "common knowledge", but rest of the knights are forgettable for most audience)
Still wondering about him being "Jupiter worshipping pagan" since North Africans were still Christian (and Romans but no one cared about Vandals and later Eastern Roman rulers) and Muslim after Arabic Invasion.
It’s always funny how no one has to justify why a character has to be white and yet you have to have a freaking novel at the ready in order to explain why a character can be black.
That's not true. Twitter freaked the fuck out over there being white extras in background scenes of the live action Aladdin remake. Which is hilarious considering Aladdin is set in the middle east during the time of the Ottoman Empire, which was one of the most racially diverse empires in history and covered most of the middle east, north africa, and southeastern europe. Not to mention how common it was for women from the balkans and the caucuses to be sold into sexual slavery in harems, and young boys from the Balkans were kidnapped to become soldiers under the system of devshirme, meaning there were white people all over the middle east at the time lol. People would also lose their minds if a white person was cast in Mulan, despite the fact that european diplomats and merchants and explorers and missionaries have been travelling to China for thousands of years. There's a double standard these days where anything set in historical europe has to be made diverse, but anything set in historical asia or africa has to be racially homogenous, regardless of historical accuracy. Bridgerton is a perfect example of this, during the late 18th century the population of London was only 1% black and this was the most diverse city in the whole of Europe at the time. Yet the show would have you believe it was 20%
This is such an excellent video. I've seen a lot of these individual examples written off as oddities, but together they paint an interesting and complex picture.
The reality is that europe wasn't 100% white like some people think it was, but that doesn't mean it was diverse either. It was more like 98% white. These examples are interesting, but they're very few and far between. There are many historians who've dedicated their entire careers to trying to find examples of POC in historical europe, and this is pretty much the extent of what they've found. Southern europe has a lot because of Al-Andalus, but as for Northern europe the examples are very rare and scattered
Great video, though I don't think that it's super relevant to fictional creatures. When it comes to adapting a work of fiction I feel that it should be accurate to the author's descriptions. I completely agree that we need better representation of the full spectrum of wonderful variations found in humankind and I look forward to new and exciting stories with casts of characters that are anything but the disproportionately represented straight white males, but I don't think that we should try to correct what our modern sensibilities perceive as flaws in older works. We need to accept that the people who created these works of fiction had their biases and/or simply chose to create those fictional worlds and the creatures that inhabit them the way they did. This being said, I don't know that Tolkien specifically said that elves all had white skin no matter which part of the world they came from so it may be perfectly fine to assume that an elf who is from a land where humans have dark skin tones would also have dark skin.
This was my problem with The Wheel of Time, the diverse cast didn't make sense in the world. I think the problem is with how diversity is implemented , creators just skip over established lore without thinking of story implications
@@meredithandfriends Depends on which is being held up for the big reveal...
*Spoiler*
It took until later when it was revealed that Wheel of Time being post-apocalyptic Future Earth after combination of bad experiments and magic caused the "Breaking Of the World" with many "magical items" being teleporters and sci-fi tropes (except magic, which is one of the sore point of adaptation since it is gender-based or at least basing on that assumptions in-universe).
You may see a hood ornament of Mercedes Benz in a museum if the show continued. Or half of Big Bad Evil Guys working in mundane occupation during that time.
OR Seanchan Empire who are multi-ethnic, at least from cover arts.
Why exactly should it be in line with the authors depictions? What harm does it do to the work? It isnt erasing the existing work. Also why is staying true as far as casting goes more important than combating white supremacist side effects such as all white majority white casts?
@@vicharris4096 I guess it's just a matter of if you want to get authentic experiences or not. In my mind, it's akin to going to the theatre to see a given play and only finding out once you're there that it's a modern reinterpretation of the classic you signed-up for. The new one may very well be more effective at getting a modern audience to experience the story similarly as it would have impacted the people who saw it back in the day and may have many other merits, but that's not the point: one is the original and the other is a new creation, and I think that it's only fair to the viewers to acknowledge that and to market it as such.
@@CoachAlexandreChamberland Are you saying that PoC are so different from white people you would compare having PoC play typically white roles roles to a modern interpretation even if everything else was the same?
Also why doesnt the fact that a bunch of stuff is primarily white because of racism of the time and not because it was pertinent to the story?
Also it should be plainly obvious that a creation from the original work is something new.
Finally I dont think you answered my question why sticking to the racial source material is more important than combating racism in the space
When you recognize the voice actors for the grognards immediately hahahaha
Great work. I loved it.
Excellent work! Ever thought about workshop material for schools?
Thank you! That's not really my specialty (making workshop materials). I'd love to see it.
The fact that these conservatives think that Europe was all white and poc only came from one place makes me laugh people need to learn more about history 😂😂😂😂
Here’s a mind-boggler for you. If you watch DUMBO, THE ARISTOCATS, LADY AND THE TRAMP, PETER PAN, or even THE JUNGLE BOOK (the Classic animated versions that is - not the live-action remakes) you will have to sit through a disclaimer apologizing for the “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures” - and how the movie is included because “[r]ather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation”.
Of course - for SONG OF THE SOUTH, they don’t even bother with this disclaimer. For that one, they (apparently) chose the “remove this content” route instead.
And I am not disputing that all these movies _do_ _indeed_ have “negavite depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures”.
But here is the thing. Now try PINOCCHIO -- again, the classic animated version. Unlike with SONG OF THE SOUTH, this one is indeed included in Disney Plus -- and unlike the _other_ forementioned films, you won’t have to sit through any disclaimer.
So the question is -- do you (a) not know why this film _ought_ to have such a disclaimer or (b) not know why it _doesn’t_ have one? This very question points to the story of not _one_ but _two_ populations in Europe (one of which was _very_ negatively portrayed in that movie) that many people in progressive circles are aware that these groups have _somewhat_ been marginalized - but not the full _extent_ of this marginalization -- and _particularly_ are not aware that (a) neither of these groups are endigenous to Europe and (b) neither of those groups were _ever_ socially accepted as “white” nor are as universally white-passing as some people have been led to think.
Of course - I fully understand that the reason why you mentioned neither of these groups histories in your video could very well be brevity. You don’t want your video to be eight hours long - so you have to leave out some stuff including the stories of these groups (the Romani being the ones that are specifically maligned in PINOCCHIO, and Jews being the other group whose history also gets similarly brushed off by otherwise-progressive people).
The only reason why I suspected that you might _not_ be aware of this is because, frankly, a _lot_ of people are not -- including people whom (given what else they care about) you would expect _would_ know about this.
I don't think that anyone who's studied european history will disagree that there have been PoC's in europe as early as antiquity and the middle ages, especially not in the mediterrenean.
Any civilization that had an estensive trade network would have met, traded, served as mercenaries or soldiers and of course intermingled with people from different backgrounds. The Question is how common was it? Most likely it would have varied depending on what time period. The Sub-saharan population in for example Scandinavia would probably have been very low - most likely much, much lower than it is today (so less than 20% of the population if you look at modern day scandinavian countries - probably alot less than that in pre-medieval times). And the majority of those people most likely would have blended and mixed in with the native population after a couple of generations.
Empires such as the Roman empire would absolutely have had citizens of many ethnicities due to it's sheer size, and those people would have been able to move to other territories within the empire relatively easy.
So I believe you are right in many ways, but I'm not convinced that meeting PoC's in most parts of Europe would have been a very common thing except for perhaps in Italy or Spain or some other mediterrenean countries in the right time period.
However, when we're talking about mythological creatures or other fictional/fantasy races it get's alot more complicated. Anyone who knows anything about evolution would be able to tell you why humans have evolved different skin colours. We needed different levels of protection from the sun depending on where our ancestors lived. Therefor we would assume that Dwarves and Elves who only lived in north-western Middle-Earth according to Tolkien would have no need for dark skin (especially not Dwarves who almost exclusively live underground). In order for Black Dwarves to logically make sense they would have had to be a surface-dwelling peoples from Harad, right? So unless there were a clan of dark skinned surface-Dwarves living there who frequently migrate to the north we would not expect to see them in northern Middle-Earth.
Same goes for Elves, there should be a group of Elves living far to the south in that case who frequently move to the northern elven kingdoms.
Elves do not die of old age like the rest of the people of middle earth do, so unless they can change their complexion during their lifetimes this would be problematic aswell.
We can use the same logic for Hobbit-kind (Stoors, Harfoots and Fallohides). HOWEVER, according to the lore, Stoors were browner of skin than other Hobbits so if the showrunners wants to use PoC actors for them I would take no issue with it.
Then finally, what about Humans/the race of man in Middle-Earth? Well there already are people of all different shades, but of course they live in very different parts of the world. The "men of the west" - the people we are most familiar with (rohan, gondor, dale etc.) are based of european humans and they live in northern middle-earth. Then there are various different groups of people from Harad who were described by tolkien as dark-skinned. We also have the easterlings who have more of an oriental theme going on.
Remember that the maps of middle-earth we are used to seeing only depict the area where the story takes place (northern middle-earth) but there are continents to the south and east aswell that has not been mapped properly and humans live there aswell. There is also a continent to the west called Valinor, but humans and dwarves do not live there.
So whenever I see a dark skinned Human in middle-earth I would assume that their ancestors came from Harad or the East. I hope (but doubt) that the showrunners will bother creating a lore-friendly and suitable backstory for those characters.
When I see a dark skinned elf or dwarf I would love to see some kind of explenation to who they are and why a random dwarf is somehow very dark skinned when their entire race is known to the rest of the world as a cave-dwelling species that rarely leave their mountain strongholds.
I dont care how many PoC's they add to the show as long as they respect the lore and source material - and if they want to add their own bits of lore (since they're already doing plenty of that already) at least bother to create something that makes sense for the fans. I would be totally down to see a race of Dwarves or Elves that spend thousands of years far away in the deserts of Harad if it was done well.
I think later on....not all Huns were of Asiatic origin. You had Germanic folks who were part of the Hun horde/nation. They absorbed people.
If you count Romani Gypsies as POC (I do) then it's worth mentioning Romani Gypsies were living across Europe during the medieval period. See the book 'Gypsies A English History' for details.
Well, if you count history of conflict in Balkans, you can account for Vlad "Dracula" Tepes or other European monarchs in the region taking prisoners from Ottomans and they have South Asian expatriates living there.
Another fascinating example! In fact related peoples to the Romani, like the Dom, were established across the Middle East, North Africa, and Caucasia (since these are all essentially along the way to Europe from India, where they originated). The Jewish diaspora are almost a parallel history, with populations across Europe and the MENA.
Gerard Butler played Attila!!!!!! This is like John Wayne playing Genghis Khan but in 2001. Well, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. But I am anyway.
Or The Hound playing as one in BBC Attila the Hun.
Depends if you interpret Attila as part Germanic since Huns do integrate Germanic tribes that didn’t run towards Western Roman Empire.
But he would look like John Travolta in Battlefield Earth since Huns do perform elongated head on aristocracy.
Great points!
Something that extremely annoys me: when they say POC aren’t “realistic” to a medieval setting…and then do a setting in medieval Spain…
It’s like…wha?
And, I’m still working through the FF16 demo, but the very beginning they clearly have fictional Norse vs. fictional Iberia. But the Iberia soldiers are all dressed as Moors…which are African…but they were made light skin and covered up. But all the folks in charge are…White.
I’m a bit upset with Yoshi-P’s statement, but I give him a pass because he’s a Japanese game developer. I’m unsurprised that he would have false ideas of European and Christian history based off fantasy pop culture (D&D).
Edit: And the Byzantines were THE medieval and advanced setting.
Edit 2: Also, apparently POC are unauthentic, but smoking…something from the Americas…is NOT unauthentic? Just geez…
So much Japanese media constantly has white characters as the default, and yet nobody seems to bat an eye at that...
As always, extremely well said. Great work, Kimchi!
Late to the party, but I really enjoyed this!
thank you for taking the time to dismantle ignorance as well as whiteness 🙏 if only those trolls could be as woke as their medieval ancestors, as you said 💯
I'd like to recommend 'Blackmoores: Africans in Tudor England'. It's a decent book which talks about individual black people in the UK around Tudor times. My favourite was John Ogunby, known from baptism records. He kept his Yoruba name, honouring the God Ogun.
Edit: There was also a cool story about a brawl between a group of English and Spanish men. There were black men on both sides.
One of my favourite bits from that period is when a German trader tried to get a letter allowing him to force all "Blackamoores" from England. The government gave him the letter but they put a sting in its tail - he first had to get permission to expel each person from their masters - something the government knew would never happen. You just know there was some official laughing their head off at that one. He tried to get another letter but it never seems to have gotten beyond the draft stage.
A Nigerian in medieval England worshiping his native Yoruba god Ogun... and instead of this being a REAL, HISTORICALLY LEGITIMATE inspiration for the most badass fantasy worlds, it makes right-wing crybabies have a temper tantrum.
A well researched Video. I am on your side here.
Some Tolkien Fans made the all white medival argument and its stupid.
I read through a lot of comments, and there were these. The majority of Tolkien Fans whose comments i read were more about lore accuracy than about that. They did not like black elves, cause it is conflicting the lore. The same way they were more concerned about the female dwarf not having a beard than her skin color. I read from the same people that they would love to see storys from Rhun because it is underexplored. So why ate the same people that are troubled by black elves not troubled by that?
The answer is that as in every fandom there are racists, but the majority is not. Most of them are "lore-lawers" who want the lore to be respected. They have no problem with diveresity if it fits the lore. They only have a problem if forced diversity conflicts it.
I thought bearded dwarves are a joke, becoming an accepted canon by accident, and Hobbit popularized that conception.
When I see beardless dwarves, I thought it was going all Dragon Age where many Dwarves are clean shaven.
@@powerist209 nope the joke was in fact a reverence to the books...
It is even more drastict then shown in the hobbit. In the Hobbit dwarfen females are shown to have beards but are still clearly distinguishable as female. The books state that in fact they are so close in appearance to male dwafs to be indistinguishable for outsiders.
So even the NAMES (“Maurice”) have been whitewashed!
Love your work!
So many people have this very skewed concept of "Europe" that really has no basis in the history they are trying to claim, and put ridiculous emphasis on concepts of "race" not realising how modern and how poorly based in science these are.
If you go back to the classical era, the world of Ancient Greece and Rome was centred on the Mediterranean. Sure, their civilisations started on the northern shores of that sea, but africa and the levant were far closer and more integral to their world than Britain or Germany. And if the Romans and Greeks had their own concepts of "race", then we're fairly confident they didn't actually consider themselves in the same category as northern europeans.
Myself, I'm a Finn, which means that according to modern racial ideas I am white with all the absurd privileges that brings. But genetically, I belong to a highly isolated group that migrated from central asia and who are further removed from the typical anglo or celt than many north africans are.
Given that Tolkien famously used Finnish as the basis for one of his languages, I'm resolved to roll my eyes at anyone trying to gatekeep people of colour out of middle earth. They have far more historic presence in medieval western europe than we did; so if we can make it into the fantasy version, why not they?
Yennefer is half English so it's still okay
I'm sharing this just for the Naby Keita reference. #YNWA
Speaking as someone with a History degree here. The problem with this video is that it's responding to a strawman claim. I've never heard anyone seriously argue there were absolutely no black or POC people in medieval Europe in any more than a hyperbolic sense, just that there weren't many of them. The subjective variable in this discussion is what counts as "many". What do terms like "many", or "plenty", or "lots" mean in this context? The subjectivity here, and the hesitance to discuss actual numbers, allows pundits to imply to a layman audience something comparable to how these words would be used when describing demography in a modern society. To push for representation of more well documented POC groups in certain parts of Europe like Berbers, Tatars, and Roma is one thing, but in reality the mainstream interest is almost entirely concerned with black people specifically. On that subject, roughly how many black people were there in premodern Europe? Well its estimated that in the 18th century there were likely around several thousand black people in France, and less than a thousand in Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia. In the middle ages it would have been even fewer. The reality is that the actual estimable proportion of black people in all European countries before the mid-20th century was a small fraction of a percent, which can still be observed in the former Eastern Bloc countries which never experienced the mass immigration of the post-war era. Poland for example is still less than 0.013% black. So were there black people in medieval Europe? Yes, in the same way that there are black people in China or white people in Nigeria.
I would disagree with the sentiment that is is responding to a strawman claim. I've seen nearly every time that a piece of media has a POC in a european or even quasi european fantasy setting, people will discuss how the inclusion of that poc is just some sort of offensive in a "culture war." While i do view these comments as ridiculous, i do not assume anything about the comment's sincerity. you may assume it is "hyperbolic" and not "serious" but the repetition makes me think otherwise. additionally, there is an effect that can occur when enough people make a statement, even a hyperbolic one. not to put too fine a point on it, that is how some ridiculous racial stereotypes become, for many bigots, truth. in an age where a rumor about politicians in evil cults do things to children can cause death threats and shots being fired into a pizza restaurant, i don't take anything for granted.
additionally, i feel one must understand the context of the situation. you mention that "mainstream interest is almost entirely concerned with black people specifically." obviously there is a reason for that. This is part of a two part video, the second part being on representation in media. in that one, i dive into the significance of representation and how the attempt at representation can succeed or fail.
Tbh, I decided to paint all the Hobbits as POC the moment I read “their clever brown fingers”
Depends of the fantasy world you're in.
I'll consider only 2 for simplicity sake: Toril (Forgotten Realms) and Arda (Middle Earth)
Toril: There are dark elves, fair skinned elves, dark dwarves, fair skinned dwarves, dark gnomes, fair skinned gnomes and a multitude of other species properly documented in the latest version of "The Monstrous Compendium"... There...
Middle Earth: Elves are always fair skinned, dwarves are unspecified, we tend to think of them as fair skinned because they live most of their lives underground but, in true, their skin color, unlike the elves's was never specified. Humans are multicoloured but fairest skinned live up to the North (where most of the action occurs) brown live a bit to the South of that (Harad) and that's it. Just to mention the most numerous of the "good" races.
BTW... Elves skin tone is specified in pages 415 and 416 of LoTR, collectors edition, hard cover, last Appendix. In case someone misses the obvious: They lived under starlight for ages, then under artificial light for a lot of time and finally saw the sun. They live extremely long lives, have very few children, and the first generations of the elves are still alive when third age ends and they all return to Valinor, meaning there would be zero chance to diversify and adapt physically to the Sun. Elves were created, they are what they were at the creation since they practically did not multiply since Cuivienen and they were created pale... Under the starlight.
And no, they couldn´t be any color because Tolkien did say the skin tone. Accept the story as it is or create your own world or go to Toril, where, indeed, there are dark elves. Leave Middle Earth alone. Stop twisting things, you act like Morgoth and Sauron.
This is merely regarding Elves... As for humans we all know we all came from Africa and mixed along the way so, let us not mix real world with fantasy world.
End of story, end of arguments,
LOTR is not based on European history.
I have one issue with your presentation here. You claim that the Moors conquered and ruled Spain. That is not true. It was the Moops.
Wow. Felt like I just sat through an awesome history class. As for LOTR casting, I only hope it’s well acted and the story is beautifully told.
for my part, I do feel a little annoyed that that dwarven ringbearer woman, who was written to have at least some facial hair, has none. but that's a fairly minor complaint.
Excellent work!
But, it goes back even further...I can't wait until people start saying "Homer So Woke" and so forth! But it's true: the Greek Epic tradition (of which Homer's two poems are only a fraction) had a whole epic dedicated to Memnon, the son of the dawn goddess Eos and Tithonos, and Memnon was said to be an Ethiopian king (sometimes a Persian king, but most of the tradition said Ethiopian), and he was allied to the Trojans. It was Memnon's fight with Achilles that sealed the latter's fate, for it was prophesied that if he fought him, he would die, and that's what happened. Memnon is the greater hero, in certain ways, in his epic, and he was honored all over the Greek world after his death.
Interestingly, in Snorri Sturlusson's Edda, in the prologue, he says that Thor (yes, THAT Thor!) was the son of one "Mennon," which is his rendering of Memnon, and that he was fostered among the Thracians. So, the Norse Thunder God Thor was the son of an Ethiopian. I'm sure that actual piece of lore--and people do quote Snorri like he's the "Norse Bible"!--would make people like the so-called "QAnon Shaman" shit himself! ;)
Is not Odin the father of Thor?
@@anotherhistoryenthusiast5874 Usually, yes; but not always. Read the Prologue of Snorri's Edda and you'll see plainly that it says otherwise on that occasion!
Fantastic video, but how can you forget about a glass of Lagavulin?
This is an excellent video.
In the case of the Rings of power, I was hyped for some diversity. After hearing much about what the actors and directors are saying, im very upset and think they are violating and butchering Tolkiens image. The movie is disrespectful to Tolkien in so many ways unrelated to race that I don't think race is people's main argument. That being said, this subject is wonderful to hear about, and super important.
You have a funny definition of “a lot” and “many” it’s not like POC weren’t around in Europe in the past but generally people meeting any POC was rare
In fantasy and even broader fiction I think anything goes unless the source material specifically states a characters race. When it comes to real historical representation I think these people should be portrayed by people of authentic race. Not to say exclude PoC out of European historical media but instead of simply race swapping a couple of characters and calling it a day, stories should be told that include these PoC that actually existed back then, just as you have proven they exist.
It's not just about race its also about culture. Tolkein explicitly based a lot of lord of the rings on medieval northern european cultures like celtic, norse and germanic. Now these cultures weren't 100% white, but that doesn't mean they were diverse either. They were like 99.9% white lol. So forcing diversity onto this doesn't make sense. Tolkein did write about several nonwhite cultures in Middle Earth too, like the Men of Harad, but they live in the south and most of the plot takes place in the northwest which is based on medieval northern europe
I'm 80 % Portuguese and 15 % west African ... and it is weird that part of me in slaved part of me then banged that part.
Now that the first season is over, I have a substantial and largely negative critique of the series, none of it is with the casting choices. It's all about the writing. the Harfoots are a caricature study of every stereotype of dirty, quaint, unsophisticated and largely ignorant Irish tinkers. For some reason every Dwarf has to be a gruff Scott, but more than that, the story really departed from lore and the strategic choices that were made landed flat.
There's almost no tension, the conflicts we are supposed to care about feel completely contrived. Arondir was the only character in this whole season who even got close to reaching my threshold for investing in the story. This is an example of poor writing---in part I blame the limits the limits that Amazon was operating under. They had a story to tell where they could not use anything from the Silmillrion or the book of Unfinished tales. That said, a much smarter choice would have been to use characters who aren't Elrond or Galadriel as main POVs. We know they make it to the gray havens at the end of the third age. A much smarter choice would have been to follow the example of HBO's Rome, where we were constantly encountering the great and powerful, but we see them as it impacts the characters we were truly invested in: Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo. You want Galadriel to be a great captain? Then give is a pov character of an elf under her command like a trusted runner. You want us to care about Elrond, Celebrimbor, and Durin? Give us an elven herald who works for Elrond and a dwarf who is a smith's apprentice who strike up an awkward friendship.
As for the cast---for me this is like a Shakespeare production. People of color should have every opportunity to try their hand at Shakespeare if they pass the auditions. Middle Earth is the same in so many respects. That said, even in fantasy, I would like to see more sophistication in casting choices. For instance, in the Wheel of Time series, we start in a village that is supposedly very isolated and has been for thousands of years, and yet the cast looks like they could have been plucked from any city in modern day America. Even if it was diverse to start with, after hundreds of generations of intermarriage in this small isolated area most people there would have looked like they were from the Middle East--Rand and his father, according to the story, are outsiders. In cities and big trading hubs, racial diversity makes a lot of sense. In isolated areas even in antiquity. IT makes much less sense in isolated areas.
For more historical dramas, again I think HBO did it right in Rome, and so many other productions get it so very wrong. What I would honestly like to see is a far more sophisticated approach to casting and diversity in context of the culture and the times, especially when the stories being retold are important stories to tell. What we got in Vikings Valhalla was just as bad if not worse than Genghis Khan being played by John Wayne. (An abomination of a film if there ever was one) What's worse, is that the actual stories of the original Viking Sagas are more interesting than their race and gender swapped namesakes in the commercial production of Vikings and Vikings Valhalla. For me, Rome set a bar by which all historical dramas should be judged, in both fidelity to historical facts, the culture and context in which the stories are placed. But this only applies to historical dramas.
You seem to have missed the point of most of the reason behind the negativity in the comments. I am ignoring the fact that there will always be the possibility of trolls and racists getting their bit in, I am taking the position of the honest fan of the genre/story being misrepresented. Tolkien did not have any black elves. Was that because of a sense of racism from him, not likely. It was most likely due to his inner vision of the story and that was what he saw. I am not going into speculation about 'could black elves exist', that is not relevant to this issue. Then lets talk about a black dwarf...I mean really? Why have some members of the human race developed deeply melanated complexions? Because they existed in areas that received huge amounts of sunlight, and they needed it to survive. Now tell me why an underground race would have the same skin tone development? We will ignore the fact that Tolkien made it clear by references by other characters, that female dwarves looked almost identical to male dwarves, so where is the beard, the rough skin? As for the Witcher, the author created the characters a certain way, with a certain appearance. If you are going to change the description of key characters, you are already deviating from canon. Why are these changes being made? That is what is meant by 'woke'.
These stories aren't based on historical precedents or standards, they are part of a narrative scripted by the author to achieve a specific image. If people want stories that reflect the reality in history, that could be fun...but that is not the purpose of either The Witcher nor Tolkien's works. My question is, are you unintentionally misrepresenting the context, or making a point of conflating an unrelated point? The comments have nothing to do with history of the world anywhere, so the long rambling point you make about there being multiethnic people in places that no one would expect, is fascinating...and completely beside the point. Though I am sure the stories surrounding them are worth making movies and stories about, that is not related to the negative comments about The Rings of Power, nor The Witcher.
see my video on Representaion
Well what have black people in the middle age with Tolkiens elfs to do? The thing we have a discription from Tolkien and there was no black skin elf discription. There was only humans who got a black skin as discription. Also elfs a part germanic and celtic mythologie who are developed befor the roman empire. So I don't got you point in context to Middel-earth.
Two part video. I go into a review of fiction and why it matters in the next video.
@@LegalKimchi But Tolkien did nor wrot it as fiction, he wrote it as mythologie for the language he developed and for the angle saxons. He wrote it because england lost so much mythologie through the ages.
Alright so a fraction of minorities were in Europe, I can get that, still doesn't justify swapping an established characters looks, that'll always have some type of backlash
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I may not be understanding this, but I find the video more relevant to historical drama's like Vikings and not fantasy works like LOTR.I think diversity is good and I don't care if there's black elves but does it make sense in the world? (maybe there is an explanation for it in the series). It seems they want to rewrite Tolkien's lore just to reflect current US demographics
Good question! I mention this in the video, but I'll be going into fictional depictions, their history, and why they matter in the next video.
Ironically, one of seasons in Vikings did cover Mediterranean area where it involved Arab and Byzantine war in Sicily.
I'm honestly at the point of my life that I don't really care so much about the race or ethnicity of somebody's casting ( Unless, of course, we're talking about actual historical figures and not fictional characters ), and care more about the quality of the story. The weird media zeitgeist surrounding Rings of Power saying they're writing a novel that Tolkien never had the opportunity and in some fringe elements painting him as much of a racist as Howard Philips Lovecraft is tiresome, though.
Fun fact though about the vikings and the Africans to your point though: The group they most commonly traded with were the Tuaregs of north western Africa, and because of word of mouth traveling to the Celts in Ireland, they were referred simply to as 'Duine Gorm' by the native Irish since the color Black was associated with the Devil.