Visions of Tolkien's World

If you're active in the geekosphere, you may know about the upcoming Magic: the Gathering set based on The Lord of the Rings. What I take away from this is that the way Wizards of the Coast handles the lore of its two flagship properties is almost diametrically opposed, with D&D so locked down with the lore of just one setting out of the infinite potential of the creativity of DMs the world over, while the folks over at MTG embrace the opportunity to cross over with everything they can get their hands on, no matter how fitting - but that's not the subject of this post.

It do be like this though.

You may have heard the controversy over the set depicting Aragorn (and a few other characters, but he's
the most visible) as a black man. You can weigh in on whether or not it's fitting of the lore, or whether or not it's representative of tokenism, all you want. Actually, don't, I don't want my comments section to turn into a minefield. But that isn't what I'm here to talk about either. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about Aragorn being black. But it does excite me. What I do care about is how this represents a rare exploration into the potential for more diverse depictions of Middle-Earth and of Tolkien's stories than what we're used to.

I, of course, refer to the fact that they're not making everything look like the movies.

...what? What did you think I was talking about?

All jokes aside, I welcome the fact that the artists over at Wizards are putting their own spin on Tolkien's world. If you take a look at Tolkien art, you'll notice a very noticeable shift around the early 2000s, right when the Peter Jackson movies hit theaters and became smash hits. After this, everyone uses the movies as their template of what Middle-Earth is "supposed" to look like. Color palettes are drab and mostly shades of brown. Elves wear gold armor with elaborate, leaf-like designs. The Uruk-Hai use equipment with an industrial, almost brutalist feel. Hobbits have curly hair and dreamy boy-band looks. There's lots of open plains. Aragorn looks like Viggo Mortensen.

Which of these is concept art from the movies?
Trick question: none of them are.

Before this, though? There was no established "look" for Middle-Earth. Every artist was free to intepret the world in their own way, and we saw some really creative interpretations. Take a look:

There's of course the famous art of the Hildebrandt Brothers, which defined Tolkien in the eyes of many before the movies thanks to their popular series of calendars.

The genesis of pig-faced orcs?

Give Gimli his hat back.

Or how about the work of Ted Nasmith, whose lush, detailed landscapes paint the sort of vistas I can only hope to portray as a DM?

Famed Conan illustrator Frank Frazetta did a lesser-known series of Tolkien artwork that brings a pulp feel to the story.

Not sure how effective Eowyn's disguise is, though

The Rankin-Bass adaptation of The Hobbit probably comes the closest to my childhood mental image of Gollum.

And their depiction of the elves of Mirkwood can't be farther from Jackson's.

Foreign editions bring their own interpretations to the table, like this Finnish version of Gollum.

And this Russian Gandalf has a folksy, almost medieval-tapestry feel.

Would anyone today portray Boromir as a Viking, as seen in the Ralph Bakshi film?

What about a flippin' samurai? Because that's what the Finnish television series Hobbits did.

Hell, even the art straight from Tolkien himself seems refreshingly different to modern eyes.

I'm glad that Wizards is willing to experiment and go against the grain, not because I'm any fan of identity politics, but because a world where we only have one flavor of Middle-Earth is boring. Or one flavor of anything, really. As popular as the Jackson movies are, they're just one of a handful of adaptations, and one of even more personal interpretations of what was described in the text. And artists shouldn't be afraid, consciously or unconsciously, to share their visions because they're not the definitive look - they shouldn't even believe there is a definitive look to begin with. There should always be room for creativity, and the popularity of adaptations that came before shouldn't stifle that.

It's the same reason why, when running published modules, I never show my players any illustrations. The world and the characters is theirs and theirs alone to imagine, and I don't want to color that with any other interpretation. The players' mental image probably doesn't look anything like what's in my head. And that's a good thing.