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ROP hotness discourse!
I was searching f_fa for stuff on Númenor and instead found a nonny earnestly arguing that the Númenórean men in Rings of Power being hotter than Elvish men apart from Arondir is a serious problem of sexism.
Like, it's one thing to be a purist nitpicker (I am a purist nitpicker about many things!) and to be bothered by breaking the lore. I mean, IMO, it's actually a very minor breaking of lore as far as Tolkien's writings (rather than Silm fandom vibes) go. Tolkien fandom tends to downplay the weirdness of Númenóreans as Tolkien wrote them, where they're essentially a bridge between Elves and other Men—he wrote that they were barely distinguishable from Elves in appearance and in powers of mind. If you actually care about ROP being ~true to Tolkien's vision~ or whatever, you'd want Númenórean and Elvish characters to look more like each other than like anyone else (and, personally, I think visually associating Númenóreans and Elves could lay some important groundwork for the ultimate Númenórean resentment of being "denied" Elvish immortality—their very similarities are what feeds Númenórean bitterness over their mortality!). But I've yet to see anyone complaining about ROP who thinks the problem with (debatably) more attractive Númenórean men is that Elves should look like them. Instead it's about how Elves should be drastically and distinctly more beautiful than any and all Men (Túrin Turambar whomst, I guess).
How one group of male characters being cast with more conventionally attractive actors than a different group of male characters = sexism is beyond me. Elf stanning is serious business, I guess.
(Note: I do think there actually is sexism and racism in ROP's casting, in that the female actors, and actors of color, are largely stunning while the white male roles go to just about anyone. That's markedly superior to the endlessly glorified PJ films' casting, but the pattern is still worth discussing! The comparative hotness of Númenórean and Elvish men has fuck-all to do with it, though.)
Like, it's one thing to be a purist nitpicker (I am a purist nitpicker about many things!) and to be bothered by breaking the lore. I mean, IMO, it's actually a very minor breaking of lore as far as Tolkien's writings (rather than Silm fandom vibes) go. Tolkien fandom tends to downplay the weirdness of Númenóreans as Tolkien wrote them, where they're essentially a bridge between Elves and other Men—he wrote that they were barely distinguishable from Elves in appearance and in powers of mind. If you actually care about ROP being ~true to Tolkien's vision~ or whatever, you'd want Númenórean and Elvish characters to look more like each other than like anyone else (and, personally, I think visually associating Númenóreans and Elves could lay some important groundwork for the ultimate Númenórean resentment of being "denied" Elvish immortality—their very similarities are what feeds Númenórean bitterness over their mortality!). But I've yet to see anyone complaining about ROP who thinks the problem with (debatably) more attractive Númenórean men is that Elves should look like them. Instead it's about how Elves should be drastically and distinctly more beautiful than any and all Men (Túrin Turambar whomst, I guess).
How one group of male characters being cast with more conventionally attractive actors than a different group of male characters = sexism is beyond me. Elf stanning is serious business, I guess.
(Note: I do think there actually is sexism and racism in ROP's casting, in that the female actors, and actors of color, are largely stunning while the white male roles go to just about anyone. That's markedly superior to the endlessly glorified PJ films' casting, but the pattern is still worth discussing! The comparative hotness of Númenórean and Elvish men has fuck-all to do with it, though.)