Enkidu was a Wild Man.

noamineo wrote on May 2^nd, 2023 at 4:11pm:

I'm sure that would be WotC and SSG's view.   

SSG is going totally woke!  The latest update to LOTRO allows you to make a trans character, DDO is sure to follow.

I mean, it's a fantasy game...

OG_Gamer wrote on May 6^th, 2023 at 2:49am:


Can I switch genders at any time then? Or is it something at character creation?

Final question can u link the details I don't do lotro forums am a casual.

How intrusive is this shit gonna be to the rest of the players? Because of its as bad as bud light's recent "celebration" i will definitely be jumping ship.

Edrein wrote on May 7^th, 2023 at 9:40am:


I would say more like 1 "feels represented" for every 10 or 20 shitclowns.

THe majority of the trans population already feels plenty "represented" just by being able to play as their preferred gender

Edrein wrote on May 7^th, 2023 at 9:40am:


I think its primarily the reader's fault for assuming everyone in the Tolkienverse is white. And the casting director's fault for casting them that way.

There's an oft-overlooked concept in writing called "the law of conservation of detail" that says if something's not important to the plot, you don't include it. Meaning that if 3 of the 13 dwarves in the fellowship are black and 2 of them are Jewish, but it doesn't come up in the plot ever, then you don't include it. They're still black and/or Jewish, it just wasn't relevant to the story about slaying a dragon.

This same concept holds true for a lot of fantasy(and really just fiction in general). The writer's not going to take the time to painstakingly describe every incidental single character's ethnicity. If you read Tolkien(or any book that didn't explicitly say so) and assumed every character was white, that makes you the racist.


This of course brings us to the annoying "woke" shit going on that has me not watching most new movies and TV. According to the Law of Conservation of Detail, we can assume there's plenty of gay or trans characters out there, but because their gay or trans-ness was not incidental to the plot, it simply doesn't come up. So all the woke-ass shitheads are cramming gay and trans subplots into every single thing in order to jam this down our throats.

And its not that I'm offended, I'm just not interested.

Either they're doing something important to the plot and screaming "I'm GAY!" to make a statement(in which case why bother? You're just wasting screen time); or their gayness is somehow intrinsic to the plot, in which case the story has now become queer-fiction. Not being part of the target demographic for queer-fiction, I don't have any interest.

Either way, I don't need it.

Edrein wrote on May 7^th, 2023 at 3:58pm:


The only problem with this logic is that even in ancient times people of other ethnicities than "white" did indeed exist in wester Europe. They were certainly less common. But, for example, the vikings made it all the way down to Africa and brought back slaves(thus starting the trend). Scottland traded with China as early as 3,000 years ago. And the Roman empire brought back folks from all over the damned place.

Yes, these people were minorities, but you could find the occasional black guy wandering around 9th-century London.

Edrein wrote on May 7^th, 2023 at 3:58pm:


With Tolkein specifically I suspect it goes a little further than "it wasn't important enough to mention" and strays into "it didn't occur to him that anyone would notice or care". Given the circles he traveled in he would most certainly been aware of racial diversity in ancient Europe. But he wasn't trying to write a story about racial diversity, he was trying to write about a grand adventure involving a dragon, gold, and a magic ring. If you think about it, skin color doesn't change the plot any. A black Bilbo would do all the exact same things as white Bilbo, because he is a god-damn hobbit and not an "african-shirenies".

noamineo wrote on May 7^th, 2023 at 5:28pm:


Yeah. You try to sell the Pygmy Bilbo version and see how people would chew you up. 

McDude wrote on May 8^th, 2023 at 12:46am:


Yes, Enkidu is suddenly problematic. He wasn't problematic ~2 decades ago, and he wasn't problematic for the other 4,000 years of the story's history.

But today he's problematic because "wokeness" or whatever fucking bullshit.

Shunned wrote on May 8^th, 2023 at 2:56pm:


I know, right? Also let's not forget Drow are the bad guys in many adventures, and according to that one episode of Community Drow are black.

Ergo drow = racist.

So why do we still have Drow?

noamineo wrote on May 8^th, 2023 at 8:17pm:


The best part of this is the fact that Wizards are trying to reinvent the Drow with new drow subcultures/backgrounds/locations outside of the Underdark to give them more 'woke' options.

So far we've been given two out of the three new ones mentioned in the new Drizzt books.

Please welcome our new drow from Chult, which have an Aztec flavoring. AKA: Spearchuckers.

And their friends in the great white north beyond the Spine of the World the Avendrow; which wear parkas and drink wine mixed with blood. AKA: Eskimos?

So drow aren't just black anymore! Drow are replacements for any brown people, especially if they're tribalistic in origin!