That’s the whole point of the Tolkien joke.
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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I thought the point of the Tolkien joke was that everyone knew he was called Tolkien except for Stan, so why did Cartman where a shirt that said “Token’s Life Matters” if he knew his name was Tolkien?
Because Tolkien is a retcon
His name is actually Token
You racist
Prior to the airing of the episode where Stan and Randy discover that the character is named after JRR Tolkien, the character's name was, in fact, Token for any concerns of the show.
Over time, Tolkien's role evolved beyond being the "token black character" trope he was written to make fun of. When the writers chose to reveal his new name, the insistence that everyone always knew it to be Tolkien was some playful gaslighting of the audience on part of the writers.
Any case where the character's name is spelled out on screen prior to this episode, it will be spelled "token". This even applies to when the character signs their own name as "token" in S9E3 for his contract with the super talent agency. On top of this, even though they went back and replaced most subtitles where his name is spoken, they seem to have missed some(at least on Max).
Well yeah I knew that already but it doesn’t answer my question
The episode with "tokens life matters" aired more than half a decade before they changed his name to Tolkien.
It’s been this way for a long time, but if you watch the show in subtitles, in all seasons they changed his name from Token to Tolkien in the subtitles
As can be seen, his name actually WAS Token, until they changed it and started pretending otherwise. Retcon 101.