Black Aragorn in ‘Lord of the Rings’ Sparks Outrage: ‘Hate This So Much’

The changing of a Lord of the Rings character’s race from white to black in a collectible card game has sparked controversy online.

New artwork portraying Aragorn, a human character in the J. R. R. Tolkien high fantasy, in Magic: The Gathering released on social media on Sunday was met with both praise and outrage, with one user reacting: “I hate this so much.”

Race-swapping characters have been the subject of controversy before. While advocates argue that such moves improve representation in popular works of fiction, critics argue that they are not true to the source material.

The issue of race-swapping characters is part of a wider debate about whether characters of minority groups should be played by actors who are not of those minorities. Some say minority actors—who have historically been overlooked—should be given those parts to improve representation in the arts, while others say actors should be able to portray any character well.

Though Aragorn has been portrayed as white in previous Lord of the Rings media, in the Magic: The Gathering artwork he is depicted as a black man with hair twists and a greying goatee beard.

“This is just race-baiting,” Thomas Crown tweeted in response. “A publicity stunt in the worst taste.”

“I find it hard to understand why would it be beneficial to take a ‘Numenorean’ (describes as fair-skinned) and turn it into another race,” Federico Martani, an Italian artist, wrote. “Isn’t it more empowering to have great characters that fit a ‘race’ and are proud of it, instead of taking well established ones and swap them?”

Aragorn is described in the books as of Numenorean descent, a fictitious group of people who were fair-skinned. However, in a letter, Tolkien wrote that Numenoreans were “best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms,” though it is debated whether he meant in cultural or ethnic terms.

“This is a lovely piece of artwork. And while I never imagined Aragorn as black, Tolkien might well have,” Matt Thrower, a gaming writer, said, citing Tolkien’s letter.

“Gamer bros and dudes are willing to believe in orcs, trolls, wizards, talking trees, giant f****** owls but a black man in their fantasy? Shock horror!” one Twitter user wrote.

Another responded: “There’s nothing wrong with a black guy in fantasy but there is something wrong with race swaps of established and clearly defined characters.”

Newsweek approached Hasbro, Magic: The Gathering’s parent company, via email for comment on Monday.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien describes Aragorn as having “a shaggy head of dark hair flecked with grey, and in a pale stern face a pair of keen grey eyes.”

When the race swap first came to light, one Reddit user noted that Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon culture and a philologist—someone who studies language—who “constructed Lord of the Rings from his studies of ancient Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic folklore,” which were based in the European tradition.

They also said “how wrong” it would be to make Black Panther, a Marvel character, white and claimed this was “an accurate analogy.” The user added that they were happy with race and gender swaps “when it is done well.”

According to Bounding Into Comics, Adam Styborski, a content manager for Wizards of the Coast, of which Magic: The Gathering is a subsidiary, said in 2022: “The Lord of the Rings is about the different peoples of Middle-earth coming together to fight Sauron, finding strength in their diversity. We want to make this appealing story fresh and relevant to an even wider audience.”

It is not the first time a character’s race has been swapped in popular culture. In the first Iron Man movie and subsequent Marvel films, Nick Fury was portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, despite being white in the comics.

Perhaps the most controversial race swap was the decision by J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, to cast the character of Hermione as black for the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

While Rowling said when the casting of Noma Dumezweni in the role was announced in 2015 that “white skin was never specified” for the character in the books, fans have pointed to instances in the books where Hermione is described as having a “white face” and is illustrated as such on various front covers.