The Peoples of Middle-earth - a short guide

The Fellowship of the Ring by Kasiopea (see here gallery)

Everyone will find themselves in Middle-earth. The world of Middle-earth was very ethnically diverse. It is a logical world, constructed by a logical mind. 

 

In Tolkien's world there are no better or worse human races, peoples more and less worthy. Physical anthropology is similar to what we know from our world - the closer to the equator, the darker the skin; the closer to the North Pole, the fairer. In the world of Arda, in the creation of Tolkien, the evil demonic presence in the north, east and south has subjected the local peoples to a system of oppression. Easterlings or Haradrim form the army of Sauron, but that does not mean that they are inferior and less valuable peoples than the tribes of the West. It's like in our history of the 20th century - the Germans under the orders of Hitler or the Russians under the orders of Stalin did a lot of evil - but they did not automatically become non-human, people of a lower order.

 

This is my little guide to who should play whom in the Middle-earth movies. If you do not agree, feel free to discuss. I am happy to complete this list. Maybe my modest text will be useful during discussions about the choices of producers of the series Rings of Power, which will premiere on September 2, 2022 on the Prime channel.

Interesting descriptions of the appearance of various types of people of Middle-earth can be found in Tolkien's "Dwarves and Men" in The History of Middle-earth, vol. XII. Most important is to find the place of the action. Tolkien in his letter No. 294 (1967) wrote (and repetead it in other places): 

The action of the story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean.

In Tolkien's letter No. 183:

I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. ... The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary. The essentials of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of N.W. Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if a little glorified by enchantment of distance in time.

In Tolkien's letter No. 211:  

...if it were 'history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or 'cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire, for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region...I hope the, evidently long but undefined gap in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for 'literary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known as 'pre-history'. I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'.

My proposition is:

• Elves
  Actors with a northern appearance, light-eyed, dark-haired, less often fair-haired, and no beards.
  

• Númenor:
  actors from Western Europe, especially of French, Irish, Italian, maybe even Greek origin + actors with a northern appearance (see Elves) - important: Dúnedain have no beards!
  

• Gondor, Hobbits (Harfoots):
  actors from Western Europe, especially of French, Irish, Italian and maybe even Greek origin - important: Dúnedain have no beards!

• Arnor, The Hobbits (Fallohides):
  actors with a northern appearance (see Elves) - important: Dúnedain have no beards!
• Rhovanion, Rohirrim, Dwarves, Hobbits (Stoors)
  actors with ancestry in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe
  
• Easterlings, some Dwarves from the East:
  actors from various Asian countries
  

• Near Harad:
  actors from the Middle East, actors of Arab origin
  

• Far Harad:
  actors of African descent

J. R. R. Tolkien in Appendix F in The Lord of the Rings wrote about Elves (the Eldar): 

They were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard.

Some quotes about the Atani (Men) appearance from Tolkien's "Of Dwarves and Men" (HoMe XII):

Folk of Hador: 

"flaxen or golden hair, blue-grey eyes" etc. also: "few among them (...) dark hair, thought all were fair-skinned". 

Folk of Beor:  

"most (...) brown hair (going usually with brown eyes)", "less fair in skin, some indeed swarthy" (HoMe XII, p. 307-308).

"Beren the Renowned had hair of a golden brown and grey eyes; he was taller then most of his kin (...)" (HoMe XII, p. 326)

About the "African" peoples of Far Harad (The Return of the King):

"(...) and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues."

About Hobbits (from Prologue in The Lord of the Rings):

Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides. The Stoors were broader, heavier in build; their feet and hands were larger; and they preferred flat lands and riversides. The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others; they were lovers of trees and of woodlands.

The Harfoots "browner of skin" means the complexion of modern Greeks or Portuguese, not Africans etc. If Samwise Gamgee (mostly a Harfoot) was really brown or black, this description from The Two Towers would look different:

Sam, eager to see more, went now and joined the guards. He scrambled a little way up into one of the larger of the bay-trees. For a moment he caught a glimpse of swarthy men in red running down the slope some way off with green-clad warriors leaping after them, hewing them down as they fled. 

These Haradrim looked like point "Near Harad" above.