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A furious dispute has erupted among fans of The Lord of the Rings over a decision to make the fictional character Aragorn black in a new collectible card game. The new Aragorn will feature on a collectible card which will make up part of a series of Lord of the Rings-themed cards by Magic: The Gathering. Artwork featuring the character was unveiled in a tweet on Monday from an account run by the franchise, which was released in 1993 and is now a subsidiary of Hasbro.

Mortensen Defends Bush Criticism The Lord Of The Rings star Viggo Mortensen refuses to apologize for his recent attack on President George W. Bush - maintaining the political leader is a "beast." The outspoken actor hit out at Bush after his controversial handling of Hurricane Katrina, but also disagrees with the President's Iraq policies, gossip site The Scoop reports. He fumes, "I'm not anti-Bush; I'm anti-Bush behavior. In other words, I'm against cheating, greed, cruelty, racism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism, treason, and the seemingly limitless capacity for hypocrisy shown by Bush and his administration. Cindy Sheehan (peace activist whose son was...

I need help with LOTR. Two friends and I were discussing the books and movies last weekend. Friend 1 observed that the relationship between Frodo and Sam (in the movies) had homosexual overtones. Friend 2 retorted that the relationship is based on the master/servant relationship of old England and that Friend 1 was looking at it through American eyes, where rugged individualism is more prized. I--caught in the middle--had to admit that I thought that Sean Astin overplayed Sam at times but was great overall. So, was Friend 1 right about the gay overtones, or was Friend 2's explanation correct?...

Michael Moore's searing examination of the Aragorn administration's actions in the wake of the tragic events at Helms Deep. With his characteristic humor and dogged commitment to uncovering - or if necessary fabricating - the facts, Moore considers the reign of the son of Arathorn and where it has led us. He looks at how - and why - Aragorn and his inner circle avoided pursuing the Saruman connection to Helms Deep, despite the fact that 9 out of every 10 Orcs that attacked the castle were actually Uruk-hai who were spawned in and financed by Isengard.

<p>LOS ANGELES — Viggo Mortensen (search) was never supposed to be the man who would be king.</p> <p>When director Peter Jackson (search) started filming "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy in October 1999, he had another actor cast as the warrior Aragorn, a reluctant hero whose courage and royal bloodline help defeat the ancient evil of Sauron.</p>

Much ado about Arwen: Elven Princess[ This article was published well before the first LOTR movie came out, so the beginning is a bit dated, but it quickly moves to the good stuff - JR ]Amazingly I find that people are still reeling in shock over the revelations from New Zealand concerning Elrond's only daughter. Liv Tyler has been photographed with pointed ears (hey, no one expected Tolkien Elves to show up on film). Liv Tyler has been photographed carrying a hobbit-dummy on horseback (okay, rescuing Frodo from the Nazgul is a bit of a stretch). Liv Tyler has been...

Ranger For Hire: Have Horse, Will Travel  Recently people on The White Council: Discussion and FAQs for fans of Tolkien and the Inklings have been wondering where, exactly, Aragorn and his Rangers might have lived. The lifestyle and community of the Rangers is virtually a complete mystery, but these dedicated wanderers managed to watch over Eriador for more than a thousand years after the Fall of Arnor in the Third Age year 1975. Well, technically, the Rangers didn't appear before 1979, the year when Aranarth, the elder son of Arvedui, last King of Arnor, decided not to re-establish his kingdom.The...

Of thegns and kings and rangers and things  Maybe only once have I ever seen anyone on the Internet ask how many Rangers would have been guarding Sarn Ford the day the Nazgul showed up. And then no one was able to provide a satisfactory answer. It's a tough question because, so far as we know, J.R.R. Tolkien himself never tried to answer it. And in trying to answer that question for ourselves, we quickly get drawn into digressions and tangents.Any attempt to figure out how many Rangers were stationed there inevitably gets bound up in an effort to calculate...

By this sword, I rule!  Robert E. Howard fans should recognize the echo of a Kull story in the sentence, "By this sword, I rule." Howard liked to write about strong, brooding warriors. They might be men in the wild west of America, boxers in the ring, or naive barbarians thundering through the halls of civilizations so ancient even the citizens had forgotten their distant origins.In some ways, Aragorn was a barbarian, at least from a Gondorian perspective. Although raised by Elrond in an Eldarin household, Aragorn was no city boy. And both his father and grandfather had been killed...