Why is Embracer Group Allowing Wizards of the Coast to Desecrate Tolkien’s Lore by Race-Swapping Aragon, Gandalf, and Other Beloved Characters?

In the wake of Embracer Group’s 2022 purchase of Middle-earth Enterprises, the worst fears of millions of worldwide Tolkien fans have come true. Hasbro-owned Wizards of the Coast has race-swapped Aragorn, Gandalf, and other beloved Lord of the Rings characters in their upcoming Magic: The Gathering tradable card game called The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth.

What is Race Swapping?

Race swapping is an outward manifestation of representation theory which states that in order to address alleged historical discrimination of non-whites in white nations, society must make an effort to proportionally represent these races as they appear in the general population in hiring and all walks of life. Race swapping is a visual form of representation and it is practiced in the field of entertainment for symbolic purposes. It has a high strategic value and is of relatively low cost for studios because it produces powerful virtue-signaling messaging that can innoculate these businesses from scrutiny from pressure groups and their accomplices in the media and in government.

Race-swapping is only practiced in “progressive” white Christian countries such as America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Europe. In practice, whites are the only race that is swapped and they are almost always swapped with blacks. Race-swapping, especially in TV commercials and corporate websites, far exceeds that particular race’s actual proportion in the population. The proponents of race-swapping are mostly progressive-minded, atheist, self-loathing, white city dwellers.

The most egregious kind of race swapping involves the replacement of white historical and mythological figures with blacks. Not only is this cultural appropriation, but it is also a vindictive act of revenge meant to erase the contributions that white people have made throughout time.

Aragorn, Eowyn, and Gandalf are Casualties of Race Swapping

Aragorn described as white in the novels, is now a straight-outta Wakanda black. Gandalf the wizard, looks like a slap-happy Asian kung-fu master. White female heroine Eowyn is now a blond-haired Danys Targaryenesque negress. Rumors abound that the nordic looking, elven queen and ring-bearer Galadriel has been race-swapped too.

How could this happen? Who is responsible?

Meet the Disgracer Group

Middle-earth Enterprises — formerly owned by The Saul Zaentz Company and now owned by Swedish-based Embracer Group — controls the licensing rights to Tolkien’s Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings novels. The krona stops with Embracer Group and CEO Lars Wingerfor as they are 100% responsible for allowing this travesty to happen.

Under new ownership, Middle-earth Enterprises (MEE) has wasted no time in revealing its true colors and has threatened a small waste disposal company in Brighton, England for using the harmless name: Lord of the Bins.

Here’s what one person on Instagram said about MEE:

It hasn’t been even a year since the purchase and by allowing this sacrilege to happen, Embracer Group is quickly proving to be unworthy stewards of J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe. Race-swapping Aragorn and Gandalf make as about as much sense as swapping white Luke Skywalker for a black and Obi-Wan Kenobi as an Asian or having Tom Hanks play Martin Luther King Jr. in a biopic.

The Unfortunate Purchase of Middle-earth Enterprises by Embracer Group

Years from now, historians will note that the purchase of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit IP by Embracer Group from The Saul Zaentz Company was instrumental in the destruction of the IP.

From the official press release of the purchase of MEE by Embracer Group’s Lars Wingefors takes the stage:

“I am truly excited to have The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, one of the world’s most epic fantasy franchises join the Embracer family, opening up more transmedia opportunities including synergies across our global group. I am thrilled to see what lies in the future for this IP with Freemode and Asmodee as a start within the group. Going forward, we also look forward to collaborating with both existing and new external licensees of our increasingly stronger IP portfolio,” says Lars Wingefors, Founder and Group CEO of Embracer Group.

Notice there is not one single mention of the importance of Tolkien’s mythos to the world. Also, notice there is not one mention of how they will be faithful stewards of Tolkien and be reverential to his magnificent universe. There’s no mention of keeping faith with millions of Tolkien fans either. All we see here is talk about money and more money. This shallow, boilerplate press release exists only for the prurient enjoyment of their soulless shareholders.

Next up is Marty Glick from The Saul Zaentz company:

“We at the Zaentz Company have had the honor over the past half century of stewarding the Tolkien rights so that Lord of the Rings and Hobbit fans worldwide could enjoy award winning epic films, challenging video games, first rate theatre and merchandise of every variety. We could not be more thrilled that it is Embracer now taking up the responsibility and we are confident their group will take it to new heights and dimensions while maintaining homage to the spirit of these great literary works,“ says Marty Glick, COO of The Saul Zaentz Company.

Let’s be honest here. Glick is not a Tolkien scholar, he is a lawyer. He’s been the COO of the Saul Zaentz Company since 2020. Using the word “we” is preposterous, presumptuous, and reeks of stolen valor because, at the time of the press release, he had only been with the company for a whopping two years. Glick’s words are not very reassuring and frankly disappointing. While he mentions the faithful stewardship of the company in the past, there is no mention that he expects Embracer to be faithful to Tolkien nor does he mention that he expects them to be striving for fidelity to Tolkien’s works. Instead, he utters a feeble “homage to the spirit” phrase which is open to interpretation. Since words are a lawyer’s bread and butter, this ambiguity is willful and deliberate.

The Saul Zaentz Company’s Culpability in this Catastrophe

The current management at the Saul Zaentz Company should have put strict conditions on Embracer Group’s use of Tolkien’s lore to prevent race swapping from happening. By failing to do this, they betrayed their deceased founder Sael Zaentz who was a dutiful steward of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit IP.

Enabled by Embracer Group, Hasbro’s lack of faithfulness to Tolkien’s lore is a purposeful malicious poke in the eye of millions of fans and makes a complete mockery of the lifetime of work that professor Tolkien spent creating his universe.

Tolkien despised Walt Disney and was extremely upset by the possibility that his work would be Disneyfied and disemboweled by rapacious global conglomerates and given Embracer Group’s betrayal, and now we know he was absolutely right to be worried.

Moral Exhibitionists of the Coast

Greater Seattle-based Wizards of the Coast is notorious for pandering to neo-Marxist “woke” idealogy. WOTC jumped on the George Floyd BLM and ANTIFA bandwagon in the following tweets:

#BlackLivesMatter

— Dungeons & Dragons (@Wizards_DnD) June 2, 2020

Given their notorious track record of injecting identity politics and Marxist ideology into their products, they should never have been allowed to obtain the rights to Lord of the Rings IP in the first place. Allowing them to be a part of the Tolkien universe makes about as much sense as putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.

Of course, anyone that rightfully protests this insanity and defends the honor of Tolkien is labeled as a racist.

The Hubris of Diversity Loving Adam Styborski

In the summer of 2022, Bounding into Comics reported on the proposed race swapping in their new card set and quoted WoTC Content Manger, Adam Styborski. I have added my editorializing in response:

Bounding into Comics: “The folks at Middle-earth Enterprises take their roles as stewards very seriously, and every decision about characters has been made with deep reverence to the original,” wrote Wizards content manager Adam Styborski. “With that in mind, together we set out to make a set that follows two guiding principles: diversity and originality.”

False. If MEE allowed WotC to race swap Aragorn and Eowyn into blacks, then they are not taking their roles as stewards seriously. Allowing this to happen is not “deep reverence” for Tolkien’s books, it is a disgraceful desecration. The imposition of racial diversity on Western civilization is not a virtue, it is a divisive and demonic Marxist idealogy that should be soundly rejected by everyone.

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Bounding into Comics: Of the first goal, Styborski explained, “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.”

False. The War of the Ring and the quest of the Fellowship of the Ring were not about finding strength in their diversity. The races of Middle-earth had no political agenda. They simply banded together to fight evil to ensure their survival and their right to be left alone. Period.

Tolkien’s works were translated into 50+ different languages and were beloved by hundreds of millions of people around the world who were comprised of different races, ethnicities, and cultures. The Lord of Rings does not need to be “made fresh” in order to appeal to more people. The Lord of the Rings is perfect and timeless exactly the way it is — just as Tolkien intended it to be. The hubris of Wizards of the Coast thinking that they can improve on Tolkien’s masterpiece is mind-boggling.

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Bounding into Comics: In terms of the second, he clarified that “The goal of this set is to express the story and setting of The Lord of the Rings in cards for Magic: The Gathering,” noting that while “countless prior efforts have painted vivid pictures of this world, our goal is a modern take on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, lovingly crafted for a new generation of players and fans.”

WOTC’s goal is divisive, self-serving, and misguided. If they truly cared about Tolkien, his legacy, and the fans they would have been respectful and faithful to his lore. But they think they know better than Tolkien. The brilliant Oxford professor absolutely despised the deleterious effects of the industrial revolution and the heresy of modernism in all its forms and those beliefs were evident in his books and spoken to the hearts of millions of people who were seeking temporary refuge from the modern world. What Wizards of the Coast has done is the reckless disfigurement of Tolkien’s world. It’s equivalent to facial plastic surgery gone wrong when it was never needed in the first place.

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Introducing Wokester Ken Troop VP and Franchise Leader, Magic: the Gathering

Sanctimonious goblins like VP and Franchise Leader Ken Troop believe engage in race-swapping as a way to show their moral superiority to others. They believe that they occupy the high moral ground by race-swapping characters from a beloved franchise and then taking credit for it by making pious pronouncements about “truth.” Spare me the noxious drivel.

Behold the desperation of philosopher Ken Troop celebrating the earth-shattering news that one flamboyant LARPing digital communist (check the hammer and sickle logo on his profile) black on TikTok is weeping with joy that Aragorn is “black.” While crocodile tears of joy stream down his cheeks for a fictional character, mothers of color cry tears of sorrow for the loved ones they have to bury in wake of the unrelenting black-on-black violence that erupts on a daily basis in America’s urban cities.

Here’s a screenshot from his Facebook page where the Ebony “TikTok” Warrior brags about making “YT people” (white people) feel uncomfortable but doesn’t have the balls to say “white people.” This is the kind of sick and depraved person that Wizards of the Coast is using as a poster boy for their race-swapping shenanigans:

Here’s more audacious moral posturing coming from a person infected with the woke mind virus…

PRO TIP: the Lord of the Rings was always for everyone and was doing fine before you came along. Middle-earth was perfect just as Tolkien created it. How dare a dilettante like you try to latch on to the coattails of a great man with your virtue-signaling prattle about “joy and community.”

Who the hell do you think you are?

What I Learned about Proper Intellectual Property Stewardship Working Under the Supervision of Lucasfilm

During the first part of my career as a video game designer, I was fortunate enough to work on a game that was based on Lucasfilm’s intellectual property. The Marin county studio cared deeply about the integrity of its lore and went to meticulous lengths to ensure that the video games we made did not deviate in any way, shape or form from the official canon of their IP. I know this because every month, representatives from Lucasfilm would play our builds and send us feedback and comments. We would then proceed to address any lore issues that they brought up. Everything in our game had to have the approval of Lucasfilm.

Embracer Group has not demonstrated any semblance of proper stewardship over The Lord of the Rings IP that they own. This is evident as they have given Hasbro the green light to desecrate Tolkien’s lore by implementing the odious practice of race-swapping. This self-indulgent effrontery will only needlessly anger Lord of the Rings fans who will heap well-deserved derision upon Embracer.

Conclusion

Many years ago a conservative American black named Shelby Steele wrote a book called White Guilt in which he exposed how many whites have been brainwashed into feeling guilty for the “sins” of their forefathers and how blacks were convinced to embrace victimhood. This collective guilt has manifested itself in the unintended consequences of failed government policies such as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s the Great Society which sent a staggering total of $22 trillion dollars of welfare money into the black community and marginalized the role of black men which has caused millions of black to be raised without fathers. Without fathers as role models, they ended up turning to criminal gangs to fill the vacuum. Today American cities are fighting record murder rates all because of out-of-control black-on-black violence. This is the murderous legacy of misplaced compassion.

This cancerous collective guilt has found its way into almost every single form of entertainment as morally superior progressive white elites feel they must keep atoning for the sins of their fathers by casting non-whites into token black roles.

Diversity, inclusion, and equity policies are yet another manifestation of this guilt. Whites are being systematically erased and replaced as American corporations genuflect to globalist ESG dictates.

The moral panic caused by collective guilt is in overdrive now. By now, everyone has noticed that since the nationwide BLM and ANTIFA terrorist riots in 2020, white people are being race swapped with blacks in all kinds of media from TV commercials to corporate-owned websites. It’s routine to see categories being promoted such as “black-owned businesses” on Yelp, Etsy, Amazon, and most other Bay Area-based tech companies. This is the left’s idea of some kind of societal penance that every American must endure to atone for the failure of blacks to improve themselves, and every other transgression that has allegedly been perpetrated on the saintly, innocent, downtrodden, poor people of color. Thankfully there are a growing number of blacks who feel that race-swapping is demeaning and insulting and want nothing to do with it.

Undeterred, this coercive penance of forced blackness is foisted on all of us via the mediums of film, television, cable, video games, and even collectible card games like Magic the Gathering. Diversity, inclusion, and equity policies in government and in the private sector are just another manifestation of this.

Then combine all of this with the narcissism of millennial and zoomer creatives that want to change the world and view their careers as a sacred commission to bring stop racism and spread “joy and happiness” to all the so-called marginalized peoples of the world, and the result is quasi-religious sermons delivered with high-handed moral grandstanding in the guise of seemingly innocuous entertainment like Magic the Gathering collectible trading cards.

To finally answer the question I posed in the title of this article: Embracer Group is allowing this because they care nothing about Tolkien or his fans. They are simply greedy pigs who are in a hurry to cash in on someone else’s genius and life’s work. These people are as grasping, corrupt, and malevolent as Sauron the Dark Lord. If this disaster is any indication of what is to come, by the time Embracer Group is finished, the Tolkien IP beyond the original books will be unrecognizable and ultimately worthless.

A Lord of the Rings-themed Magic the Gathering trading card game faithful to the books would have been the perfect way to introduce millions of Tolkien fans to the hobby. I don’t play MTG but as a Tolkien fan, I had planned on purchasing the cards. Once I found out about the gratuitous race-swapping, I was crestfallen and promptly nixed the idea.

Being the contemptible little Marxist twits that they are, I thought that they would never stoop so low and dare to warp the works of Tolkien, but they did. We only have to look at what Amazon did to Middle-earth in their failed Rings of Power series to see what these self-righteous miscreants are capable of. Nothing is sacred to these cultural terrorists.

J.R.R. Tolkien would be horrified at what has been allowed to happen to his lore. Now that his faithful son Christopher Tolkien has passed away, the Tolkien Estate is controlled by the failed author and trust fund heir Simon Tolkien. Drunk with the immense power and wealth of the Tolkien Estate, Simon (who bears a significant amount of responsibility for the Amazon Studios Rings of Power debacle) is wallowing in undeserved wealth. Since Simon Tolkien has not publicly spoken out against what Embracer and Hasbro have done, we can safely assume he must support it.

An Oxford Professor, devout Roman Catholic, and soldier in the trenches in World War One, J.R.R. Tolkien was well acquainted with evil in all its forms. He left mankind this eternal wisdom about the nature of evil:

“Evil cannot create anything new, it can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made.” — J.R.R. Tolkien 

The irresponsible fools at Embracer, the incompetent drones at Hasbro, and the woke goblins that have infiltrated Wizard of the Coast should be deeply ashamed of themselves. They crossed a sacred line in the sand and completely blew it with this needless, self-indulgent catastrophe of woke virtue signaling. This wicked carnival of twisted sideshow characters deserves every iota of scorn and ridicule that is coming their way. I hope this preposterous farce of a product fails spectacularly. Anyone associated with this fiasco deserves to be held in eternal contempt for this hideous act of cultural vandalism.

–Wolfshead

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