After his response to the “Mhysa," scene, I didn’t have high hopes. In fact, even before that I figured he would do what many authors do and throw fans of colour under the bus and he certainly has. I’m going to be completely honest about how I feel; the response was cowardly and grossly ignorant, and I think I’ve lost all the respect and faith I had in GRRM as an author. He’s getting paid and he doesn’t care.
For anyone curious, here’s the most frustrating part:
I do know that David and Dan and HBO do favor having a racially and ethnically diverse cast on the series. It is true that we’ve lost several black characters who appear in the novels (Chataya and Alayaya, Jalabhar Xho, Strong Belwas), but to balance that, characters like Salladhor Saan and Xaro Xhoan Daxos, both white in the books, have been played by black actors. Missandei as well, though in the books the Naathi are golden-skinned, not white.
As for the Dornishmen, well, though by and large I reject one to one analogies, I’ve always pictured the “salty Dornish” as being more Mediterranean than African in appearance; Greek, Spanish, Italian, Portugese, etc. Dark hair and eyes, olive skin. Pedro Pascal is Chilean. (Check out Amok’s version of the Red Viper, that’s how I saw him. Or Magali Villenueve’s beautiful and sexy portrait of Princess Arianne).
The creators do not favour having a racially and ethnically diverse cast on this show. There has not been a racially and ethnically diverse cast on this show. Repeat these statements until they stick. When only 1% of your speaking characters are people of colour, and they’re all playing savages or slaves, or are nonexistent in the credits and the narrative, or have been killed off, you do not get to claim racial and ethnic diversity. 99% of your characters are white when they do not have to be.
It’s true that they’ve erased several black characters from the books, but they’ve also lost several other characters who might not read as black, but do read as people of other ethnicities. The difference between Chataya, Alayaya, Jalabhar Xho (who is hardly present in the books in the first place) is that they had agency and power in the story, and weren’t portrayed as enslaved until some great white saviour came and rescued them from their plight.
Salladhor Saan, who has had about five scenes total, does not balance out the diversity of the cast when 99% of your characters are white. Xaro Xhoan Daxos existed for one season and was portrayed as a betrayer who met his death at Dany’s hands. Xaro is still alive in the books, but for some reason he’s been killed in the show—gee, I wonder why? A dead black character and a pirate who’s in about an episode each series and has a few measly lines? This is what counts as diversity to people? Did everyone fail math and statistics in high school? Even someone like me, who is absolutely shite at math knows that these odds aren’t favourable for people of colour at all. Can we really compare the representation of Xaro to someone like Jaime Lannister? Are we really going to pretend as if either of these black male characters are equally represented as the plethora of dynamic white characters? I’m going to need people to stop pretending that table scraps and tokenism equates to real diversity; just be honest with me because I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of it.
The point about Missandei being golden skinned is moot. Is Missandei supposed to look like this?
Missandei is canonically a person of colour. The issues with this show aren’t just about the black characters. The actress who plays her is mixed race and I would say that she’s “golden skinned." If anything, her skin colour matches Missandei’s description better than her age does.
I don’t know where people get the idea that there are only two options—black or white—when it comes to diversity. People are stuck in this mentality that when fans argue for representation for diverse characters, it means that they want more black people on the show. Firstly, black people don’t all look the same and aren’t from the same ethnic background. Secondly, there isn’t only a black and white dichotomy in real life and there are other people of colour who exist in the world. There are Asian people, mixed race people, Arabs, Latinos of all different ethnicities etc. None of these people have had proper representation on this show.
GRRM is an author who researched all this rich European history to develop characters like Catelyn Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister and all the major Houses in ASOIAF. He built his world intricately. He borrowed influences from several cultures. He even appropriated influences from cultures belonging to people of colour and inserted them into the narrative; but he couldn’t be bothered to actually portray the Dothraki as more than just savages. He based Khal Drogo on Ghenghis Khan, but couldn’t be bothered to portray the Dothraki as advanced as the actual Mongols were? Ghenghis Khan abolished torture, promoted freedom of religion, created an advanced tax system, created an advanced trading system, was progressive in so many ways and the fictional portrayal that we got was a grunting, half-naked, savage warlord who ripped people’s tongues out and raped a beautiful white woman.
In GRRM’s own words, the closest equivalent is the “MOORISH" influence of Spain.
In the case of Dorne, yes, Wales was definitely an influence, for all the reasons you cite. But there’s also some distinctly unWelsh elements down there. South of the wall of mountains you have a hot, dry country more like Spain or Palestine than the cool green valleys of Wales, with most of the settlements along the seacoast and in few great river basins. And you also have the flavor given the culture by the great Rhoynar influx led by Nymeria. I suppose the closest real life equivalent to that would be the Moorish influence in parts of Spain. So you could say Dorne is Wales mixed with Spain and Palestine with some entirely imaginary influences mixed in. Or you could just say it’s Dorne…
These are his words.The defenses for the Martells being people of colour are based on what GRRM wrote and what he said. He even cited real people of colour as appearing as these characters.
If people are going to cite Moorish Spain as an influence for their story, then they should probably acknowledge that historically, Moors were African Arabs. If you’re going to take the culture and then discard the people who fit the description from your narrative, then you have a problem. You’re picking and choosing what you want—you’re stealing from a culture, but you don’t want to see our faces; our ideas are good enough, but not the colour of our skin. There are other fantasy narratives out there that use Moorish Spain as an influence, and guess what? The people represented are African Arabs.
When I say African Arabs, I don’t mean dark skinned black people from South Africa, but apparently that’s what some people think we mean? There are 54 very large countries on the African continent. Do people think a continent that is this massive in size is homogenous in terms of its people?
Do people realise the amount of influence that Africa has had on the entire world, especially the Mediterranean? There are countries in Africa that are more ethnically diverse than most of the world. Africa itself is perhaps the most ethnically diverse place on the planet, and we’re going to treat an entire continent as a monolith? Are we going to pretend that there aren’t African countries in the Mediterranean? Are we going to pretend that those brown slaves exulting Daenerys in the “Mhysa" scene don’t look like people from the Mediterranean region?
"I’ve always pictured the salty Dornish as being Mediterranean than African in appearance," is an incongruous, dishonest, and uneducated statement and I’m surprised it’s coming from an author who is so celebrated for his knowledge of history. There is no one African look. There is no one Mediterranean look. People who live in Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, all along the Mediterranean in North Africa ARE Mediterranean. These people are clearly represented in the fanart that GRRM himself uses in his statement as proof of how the Martells look. Pedro Pascal doesn’t look like either of the people represented in those fanarts.
Mediterranean is not a euphemism for dark skinned white people and African is not a euphemism for black as teak Summer Islanders.
At the end of the day GRRM is just another author in a long line of authors who created a white Eurocentric fantasy world; an author who believe that dragons and zombies are more realistic to have in his narrative than people of colour; an author who unfortunately treats people of colour as monoliths instead of individuals like his white characters, and who doesn’t care about his fans who aren’t white.
