MTG Fans Responded to LotR Set’s Aragorn. Magic: The Gathering fans discussing representation in the Lord of the Rings set’s depiction of Aragorn as backlash emerges online.

Magic: The Gathering’s new Lord of the Rings set garnered backlash over its depiction of Aragorn as a Black man. Shortly following Wizards of the Coast’s (WotC) reveal of its upcoming Lord of the Rings set, some fans of the TCG went on social media to express outrage over making one of Middle-earth’s most iconic characters a Black man. Most tried to argue that their anger was justified due to Tolkien’s Norse basis for the world, while others claimed WotC had “tokenized” Aragorn.

Woke #MTGLOTR made
Aragorn a Black man…
Choosing wokeness over the actual fucking Lore of the iP.
So now you’ve pissed off the very Fanbase you’re trying to sell this Overpriced Crap to…
New Magic belongs in a LandFill
God forbid we have a
White guy next to a White girl.

They actually tokenized Aragorn.

Aragorn isn’t the only character in MTG’s Tales of Middle-earth set to be depicted as a POC, something unheard of in the famous films of the early 2000s. The backlash extended to WotC’s designs for Galadriel and Eowyn, who are also Black. Its depiction of mixed-race couples, such as Aragorn and Arwen, also received flak from the same group.