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Well, in Tolkien's case it was meant to be proto European mythology. It would also look out of place to place a lot of European or Asian characters in a proto A

Well, in Tolkien's case it was meant to be proto European mythology. It would also look out of place to place a lot of European or Asian characters in a proto African mythology story. I don't think it's racist to have a story set in a place where peoples of a particular race are all that habitate there. The modern world is just that, modern. A medieval fantasy world has to play by those rules, in its own sort of ways. They're still walking and riding on horses, and magic is exceedingly rare in Tolkien's world. People don't just travel about.

Maursault 4y ago
> Well, in Tolkien's case it was meant to be proto European mythology. Unsupportable. Tolkien was only concerned with giving England a distinct history. He probably didn't care about Europe and hated everything French. Almost everyone assumes Middle-Earth is Europe. Try holding Tolkien's famous map of Middle-Earth up to a mirror to see that it is really strikingly similar to North America, too similar to be a coincidence. In fact, he got a lot of his Hobbit surnames from actual family surnames in, iirc, Kentucky; Baggins included.
- wsgeorge 4y ago
  > Unsupportable I'd say it's more of a nitpick. You're right, he was more concerned about an English mythology rather than a European one. But I'm not sure where you're going by bringing up North America...
  - Maursault 4y ago
    I thought OP was saying that Middle-Earth was Europe. Apparently, that wasn't his argument. But I wasn't going further than what I said: view Tolkien's map of Middle-Earth in a mirror and you will recognize the coastline and mountain ranges of North America. It is not exact, but it is too similar to be a coincidence. Tolkien did not randomly draw Middle-Earth in that shape, he used a mirror image of North America as a starting point to create the map of Middle-Earth.
  - astrange 4y ago
    If it's an English mythology it should be fine to have English actors in it, like Idris Elba, John Boyega, and Roadman Shaq.
sudosysgen 4y ago
Actually, European and Asian characters are definitely going to be relevant to a lot of African mythologies. The Middle East and Europe were right there and there was a lot of interactions. The same goes for early europe. Plenty of people from either. There were Roman emperors who were indigenous to (Northern) Africa.
- shadilay 4y ago
  The north africans of roman times have almost nothing in common with the modern arab north africans. The Carthaginians in north africa during roman times were more similar to modern Portuguese. https://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/05/ancient-dna-study-finds-phoenician-from-carthage-had-european-ancestry/111426 https://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/05/ancient-dna-study-find...
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    You are completely and utterly wrong. That DNA was sampled by a Phoenician settler into North Africa of the Phoenician ruling class or Carthage. The vast minority of North Africans at that time had predominant Phoenician ancestry or lived in Phoenician culture. North Africans are and always were the same people genetically. The North African emperors I am referring to specifically had Berber, not Punic or Phoenician ancestry. Which is still the dominant ancestry in North Africa today, and the Berber culture and language still lives on today. Unfortunately it seems you are not knowledgeable of the history either of late Rome, of Carthage or of (North) Africa in general, and the authors of that website either did an incredibly poor job at it or are as well.
- nec4b 4y ago
  >>There were Roman emperors who were indigenous to (Northern) Africa. They were decedents of Roman people living there and not sub Saharan Africans.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Rome was a multiethnic empire. I don't see what being Roman or not has to do with ethnicity. The Roman people living there being ethically Berber, that is, African. The name Africa itself probably coming from the Afri Berber tribe. They were both Roman people and also ethnically African. And Berber tribes despite not being from subsaharan Africa did, through thousands of years of contact, have significant ethnic and cultural admixture with various subsaharan African peoples. Not that North Africa is less African than subsaharan Africa.

Maursault 4y ago

> Well, in Tolkien's case it was meant to be proto European mythology. Unsupportable. Tolkien was only concerned with giving England a distinct history. He probably didn't care about Europe and hated everything French. Almost everyone assumes Middle-Earth is Europe. Try holding Tolkien's famous map of Middle-Earth up to a mirror to see that it is really strikingly similar to North America, too similar to be a coincidence. In fact, he got a lot of his Hobbit surnames from actual family surnames in, iirc, Kentucky; Baggins included.

wsgeorge 4y ago
> Unsupportable I'd say it's more of a nitpick. You're right, he was more concerned about an English mythology rather than a European one. But I'm not sure where you're going by bringing up North America...
- Maursault 4y ago
  I thought OP was saying that Middle-Earth was Europe. Apparently, that wasn't his argument. But I wasn't going further than what I said: view Tolkien's map of Middle-Earth in a mirror and you will recognize the coastline and mountain ranges of North America. It is not exact, but it is too similar to be a coincidence. Tolkien did not randomly draw Middle-Earth in that shape, he used a mirror image of North America as a starting point to create the map of Middle-Earth.
- astrange 4y ago
  If it's an English mythology it should be fine to have English actors in it, like Idris Elba, John Boyega, and Roadman Shaq.

sudosysgen 4y ago

Actually, European and Asian characters are definitely going to be relevant to a lot of African mythologies. The Middle East and Europe were right there and there was a lot of interactions. The same goes for early europe. Plenty of people from either. There were Roman emperors who were indigenous to (Northern) Africa.

shadilay 4y ago
The north africans of roman times have almost nothing in common with the modern arab north africans. The Carthaginians in north africa during roman times were more similar to modern Portuguese. https://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/05/ancient-dna-study-finds-phoenician-from-carthage-had-european-ancestry/111426 https://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/05/ancient-dna-study-find...
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  You are completely and utterly wrong. That DNA was sampled by a Phoenician settler into North Africa of the Phoenician ruling class or Carthage. The vast minority of North Africans at that time had predominant Phoenician ancestry or lived in Phoenician culture. North Africans are and always were the same people genetically. The North African emperors I am referring to specifically had Berber, not Punic or Phoenician ancestry. Which is still the dominant ancestry in North Africa today, and the Berber culture and language still lives on today. Unfortunately it seems you are not knowledgeable of the history either of late Rome, of Carthage or of (North) Africa in general, and the authors of that website either did an incredibly poor job at it or are as well.
nec4b 4y ago
>>There were Roman emperors who were indigenous to (Northern) Africa. They were decedents of Roman people living there and not sub Saharan Africans.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  Rome was a multiethnic empire. I don't see what being Roman or not has to do with ethnicity. The Roman people living there being ethically Berber, that is, African. The name Africa itself probably coming from the Afri Berber tribe. They were both Roman people and also ethnically African. And Berber tribes despite not being from subsaharan Africa did, through thousands of years of contact, have significant ethnic and cultural admixture with various subsaharan African peoples. Not that North Africa is less African than subsaharan Africa.