Ask a group of Tolkien fans what is canon and you’ll end up with an argument, weeks of Twitter beef, and countless articles written up on the subject by writers like me. So, here is said article.

JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in his lifetime. That’s the grand summation of his Middle-earth published writings. The latter includes exhaustive appendices - that’s what Amazon has the rights to for The Rings of Power - but no other Rings-related works were published in his lifetime. However, he was working on The Silmarillion until his death, which was subsequently published posthumously. He also wrote copious numbers of notes, which his son Christopher painstakingly gathered up and translated (Tolkien Sr’s handwriting is almost indecipherable). These notes, scribbled in margins or written as letters to fans, have all since been published in the 16 volume series The History of Middle-earth, expanded novelisations of the events of The Silmarillion, and books such as The Letters of JRR Tolkien. But how much of this is canon?

Related: If You’re Going To Be Mad About The Rings Of Power, At Least Get Your Quotes Right

I would personally argue that only The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion are canon, but the rest was still mostly written by JRR Tolkien, so what gives? The ‘friendly’ discussions, often based around or alluding to the people of colour cast in The Rings of Power since the trailer’s release a couple of weeks ago, have once again spiked due to Tolkien’s description of Aragorn.

via screenrant.com

Tolkien rarely described his characters in great detail. He was a master of doing just enough for you to draw an outline, but leaving the rest of the canvas empty for the reader to apply the paint of their own imagination. Thus, many people were surprised when a letter emerged onto the internet this week in which Tolkien confirmed that Aragorn has no beard. First dwarf women with no beards and now this? (That was a joke, I’ll come to them later.)

I always imagined Aragorn with a beard. And, judging by the reception that the information in this letter received, so did most people. But in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien never describes Aragorn as having a beard. He doesn’t describe him as beardless either, but if the author imagined the heir of Númenor as being clean shaven, then surely that’s canon?

If there’s one thing fans of any book love more than arguing, it’s doing research, and one keen reader on Reddit found confirmation of beardless Aragorn in The Nature of Middle-earth. “Men normally had them [beards] when full-grown, hence Eomer, Theoden and all others named,” Tolkien writes. “But not Denethor, Boromir, Faramir, Aragorn, Isildur, or other Numenorean chieftans.”

Does Aragorn Have A Beard And Other Questions Of Tolkien’s Canon
Aragorn in The Return of the King (2003) and The Lord of the Rings (1978)
Does Aragorn Have A Beard And Other Questions Of Tolkien’s Canon

So why do we imagine Aragorn with a beard? It could be the phenomenon that the Tolkien Professor Corey Olsen, of Signum University, calls the Jacksonian Knee-Jerk Effect, in which we inadvertently defer to the Jackson, Walsh, & Boyens trilogy as canon due to its cultural significance. Where did you get the idea that all elves have long hair? The films. That Aragorn has a beard? Well it’s not in the Ralph Bakshi film, and it’s not in the books, so…

I’m not saying that Aragorn definitely doesn’t have a beard - you know what I take as canon already, and The Nature of Middle-earth is not included. It was only specified in a notation and a letter to a fan, and if you imagined him with a beard too, then that’s fine. But publishing so many of Tolkien’s scribbles and faintest ideas comes with its own problems, too.

Now, female dwarfs. Many people complained about Amazon’s new character Disa, played by Sophia Nomvete, not having a beard. Many complained about her because she’s the first Black dwarf in a Tolkien adaptation. Many complained about both. I’ve written about how perceptions of race in Middle-earth gives away your own prejudices before, but on the beards I can forgive you: even Tolkien himself changed his mind.

Does The Lord Of The Rings The Rings Of Power Superbowl Trailer Show Sauron And The Blue Wizards
Does The Lord Of The Rings The Rings Of Power Superbowl Trailer Show Sauron And The Blue Wizards

In War of the Jewels (History of Middle-earth Volume XI), the elf Pengolod accounts that dwarf women have beards. In Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien notes that dwarf women are “indistinguishable” from dwarf men to outsiders - many people also take this to mean they have beards. In The Nature of Middle-earth, chapter Beards, however, he writes that “all male dwarves had them [beards].”

There’s a lot to unpack in these contradictions, but the most important thing is who - in-universe - is writing the statements. The first is written by an elf, not a dwarf. The second by Tolkien in an appendix, but he makes it clear that it is outsiders - men, elves, and other non-dwarf races - who make the “foolish” assumption that dwarf men and women look the same. And the third is again Tolkien, confirming that dwarf women don’t have beards.

It’s likely that Tolkien did originally imagine dwarf women having beards. I’ve listed these quotes in chronological order of when they were written - not published - and it’s clear he has revised that original idea. Many even believe his second quote, saying that many have the “foolish opinion” that there are no dwarf women, is poking fun at himself for his earlier drafts. Whether that’s the case or not is impossible to know, but he certainly changed and adapted his canon as he continued writing stories in Middle-earth.

lord of the rings rings of power
lord of the rings rings of power

You can choose what you want to believe. My Aragorn still has a beard, and no adaptation or letter from Tolkien will change the man that I imagined when I first read the books. Similarly, the Rings of Power adaptation can’t harm any of Tolkien’s writings or your imaginings that came from them, it’s simply another take. You might like it, you might not. But many problems of canon arise from the fact that so much of Tolkien’s work has been published, and the majority of it is early drafts or unfinished thoughts. Christopher did a great job collating, curating, and annotating, but having access to so much of JRR’s thought process can get confusing.

At the end of the day, every fan has a different interpretation of Tolkien’s canon, and every adaptation will expand upon different parts. I’d much prefer it if The Rings of Power didn’t contradict any writing in The Silmarillion, which it doesn’t have the rights to adapt, but if it does then it’s not overwriting the old canon, it’s not a new canon, it’s just an adaptation. The books are still there, untarnished, and yet still imperfect and contradictory in themselves. Besides, Tolkien wrote about Númenor having flying ships, and somehow I don’t think they’re going to make an appearance.

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