Game of Thrones Author Comments on Lack of Racial Diversity in Series

[Redd the Sock]

Inb4
Anecdotal examples of a few notable non-Caucasians in medieval Europe

Yeah because Westeros is so true to medieval Europe.

Dragons? Fine.
People coming back from the dead? Makes sense.
More people of colour in important roles? Don't be so unrealistic.

It must make sense in the context of the story! Dragons make sense in the context of the story! Undead make sense in the context of the story! A black knight in Winterfell or Casterly Rock? How would that make sense? That would be just as retarded as the black guy nordic portal god in Thor. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! And if you DO make something like that, then at the very least it has to be explained, and not just add the racial diversity for the sake of the political correctness BS.

I...

Are you serious?

I'm going to pretend that you're joking.

It's funny how including someone "for the sake of it" only ever comes up in relation to the inclusion of minorities.

We get an answer, but he issue gets pressed like people are trying to get a different answer. "come on, admit you didn't think about it. Admit you're a racist / sexist / homophobe you fucking bigot."

No one here has said that.

Whatever, you people can continue to get your knickers in a twist about "political correctness" if you want, feel free to hide behind the claim that you're defending artistic integrity and realism.

I'll never understand why the potential inclusion of minorities in narratives gets so many people worked up.

Then please explain to me what I'm missing and how you are not asking someone to re-analyze what they are creating because you have an issue with it.

I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying people go about it without thinking about how accusatory they can become, or even the question itself is. "I don't like something an author has done, and once he explains himself, I'll dismiss the answer and tell him how poor a reason it is because I think it's wrong."

 

[Michael Kirley]

Simple: there is absolutely no reason for GRRM to add or remove POC characters from his books. Diversity is not an obligation in a fictional world. It's not something that can be or should be demanded.

 

[Sanderpower]

I'd actually really like to see more POV people of different cultures outside of Westeros. One of the neat things the POV system can do is show events from the perspective of different people of different cultures. We get alot of that from the different individual areas in Westeros but not a lot from places outside of it.

It doesn't matter that in the real world a lot of black people were slaves. How does that have any relevance to the fictional world of Game of Thrones where dragons and ice zombies exist? Dark skinned people being the "stock people" for slaves isn't exactly an encouraging thing to see in a series.

Were the Unsullied black? I always made them out to be more Middle-Eastern (since most of the Africa analogue seems to be the Summer Isles). May be wrong though.

It doesn't matter that in the real world a lot of black people were slaves. How does that have any relevance to the fictional world of Game of Thrones where dragons and ice zombies exist? Dark skinned people being the "stock people" for slaves isn't exactly an encouraging thing to see in a series.

But it doesn't make it any less accurate. I'm sorry that Game of Thrones couldn't fit your ideal, where all the slaves were white people, or maybe that there weren't any saves at all, thus cutting out a major plot point that easily fills at least a third of the show.

I never said that all white people were slaves or there shouldn't be slaves at all. You're making a very huge assumption right there. I'm saying why do most of the slaves need to be black/dark skinned and why do all the black/dark skinned characters in the show have to be servants or criminals? It looks odd, and the justification you give it doesn't make any sense. Why can't there be more diverse dark skinned characters?

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

White Guy Defense Force.. they.. yeah it was a thing

The White Guy Defense Force makes me embarrassed to be a white guy. Also, as a white guy, I hate being surrounded by a sea of white guys in movies, on TV, in video games, etc. I don't see how ethnic diversity is anything but a positive, unless you are racist.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

We get an answer, but he issue gets pressed like people are trying to get a different answer. "come on, admit you didn't think about it. Admit you're a racist / sexist / homophobe you fucking bigot."

That says more about you that people asking for diversity.

 

[Remus]

I'd actually really like to see more POV people of different cultures outside of Westeros. One of the neat things the POV system can do is show events from the perspective of different people of different cultures. We get alot of that from the different individual areas in Westeros but not a lot from places outside of it.

It doesn't matter that in the real world a lot of black people were slaves. How does that have any relevance to the fictional world of Game of Thrones where dragons and ice zombies exist? Dark skinned people being the "stock people" for slaves isn't exactly an encouraging thing to see in a series.

Were the Unsullied black? I always made them out to be more Middle-Eastern (since most of the Africa analogue seems to be the Summer Isles). May be wrong though.

It doesn't matter that in the real world a lot of black people were slaves. How does that have any relevance to the fictional world of Game of Thrones where dragons and ice zombies exist? Dark skinned people being the "stock people" for slaves isn't exactly an encouraging thing to see in a series.

But it doesn't make it any less accurate. I'm sorry that Game of Thrones couldn't fit your ideal, where all the slaves were white people, or maybe that there weren't any saves at all, thus cutting out a major plot point that easily fills at least a third of the show.

I never said that all white people were slaves or there shouldn't be slaves at all. You're making a very huge assumption right there. I'm saying why do most of the slaves need to be black/dark skinned and why do all the black/dark skinned characters in the show have to be servants or criminals? It looks odd, and the justification you give it doesn't make any sense. Why can't there be more diverse dark skinned characters?

Context. Again, it has to make sense within the context of the story. It makes sense that the 3 "free" dark-skinned characters, in a medieval setting, are 1. A freed slave, now a general of an army, 2. Again freed slave, now a teacher/cultural advisor, and 3. A pirate. You are the one making huge assumptions as to the type of setting George R.R. Martin is presenting us with. This is not a modern or postmodern idealized equal society. This world is a society that is cruel, often unjust, where the most barbaric tribes are separated from the most civilized by a giant wall or an ocean.

I would just like to point out as to prior posts, EGYPT is not a part of EUROPE. So using that as a reference as to the nationalities present therein at the time of the War of the Roses, an event wholly taking place in ENGLAND is a falsehood. Again, present me with a historical record of Egyptians, Libyans, Afghanis, Prussians within the noble houses fighting during this period and I'll consider myself corrected. Until then, the namedropping just doesn't help your argument. Martin is not going to rewrite his books for the sake of being PC and I suspect that we'd be having this exact same argument if HBO started including diverse characters purely for the sake of diversity. Read it, don't read it, watch it, don't watch it, I don't care. There's still millions of us out there that will gladly.

 

[DugMachine]

Aren't the people of Dorne POC? At least that's always the vibe I got from them, sort of middle-easternesque. Black people aren't the only POC to my knowledge. Or is it because there are no POC Lords?

 

[Remus]

Aren't the people of Dorne POC? At least that's always the vibe I got from them, sort of middle-easternesque. Black people aren't the only POC to my knowledge. Or is it because there are no POC Lords?

That was the impression I got too, light clothes, thick accent, not really dark, but very tan with dark hair, chiseled features. Pretty much the atypical Persian as presented in media.

 

[tzimize]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK racial diversity. He's not writing a politically and socially correct story, he is writing HIS FANTASY STORY. Why the holiest of hell should anyone care how many black, hispanic, japanese or ANYTHING ELSE people there are? Are really other races/ethnicities or whatever the hell the term is so fucking insecure that they cant bear to watch white people?

I dont complain when black people are cast in anything because I want there to be more white people. Why the hell should anyone else complain that there are too many white people? How about just seeing us all as PEOPLE...isnt that the point? We dont need reverse racism, we need zero racism.

 

[Lethos]

Aren't the people of Dorne POC? At least that's always the vibe I got from them, sort of middle-easternesque. Black people aren't the only POC to my knowledge. Or is it because there are no POC Lords?

Pretty sure they're supposed to represent the Spanish. Don't quote me on that though.

 

[Tiamat666]

I...

Are you serious?

I'm going to pretend that you're joking.

It's funny how including someone "for the sake of it" only ever comes up in relation to the inclusion of minorities.

Yes, sorry, I'm totally joking and you are absolutely right. If I ever make a movie about Zulus I will definitively include a blonde, blue eyed dude with a spear as the best friend of the warrior-hero, an Indian guy as the wise man, an Asian as the smart Zulu underdog and a native American as the wife of the chieftain Shaka. So we can have all the racial diversity in there.

 

[wadark]

As something of an amateur writer myself, as well as someone who is supportive of diversity, I think I can say pretty conclusively that its actually somewhat detrimental to the cause to force creative individuals or groups to be beholden to a certain set of 'diversity requirements. The question is where does it stop in terms of how many people/groups get to claim inclusion.

Does your show/book/movie/etc. have to have:
A black character
An asian character
A middle-eastern character
A gay character
A trans character

Do you have to include a male and female of all of these for it to count?

It smacks of a similar question asked at a World of Warcraft panel at Blizzcon a few years ago, asking if more LGBT were to be included in WoW. Ultimately, I think its counter productive sometimes, because it helps no one to have token characters (South Park created an entire character NAMED Token to satirize this), who exist only to tick off that check box.

The short version is, if you want to see more characters of color, or whatever demographic you think needs more representation, then be the change you want to see. Write your own story (and I dont say that cruelly or mockingly, I'm being genuine) and make it happen.

 

[Nikolaz72]

What's with people claiming the coloured have no positions of power? I mean... Dorne is full of pretty brown people and they are pretty powerful. The Free Cities show plenty of non-servant masters who clearly aren't white. Then theres Daenarys who in her harmy (Harem/Army)has a darkskinned eunuch serving as one of her generals, sure he was initially a warrior but still.

I mean you can complain that the kings and queens of Westeros at large aren't very racially diverse but, to be quite honest. Westeros and a lot of the conflicts and history in it was based around the rich history of medieval england. House Reyne being House Montfort, and Tywin inspired in part by Edward the First of England who killed the guy. Starks in general being Yorkists, Lannisters being Lancasters. Baratheons seems to have been inspired in part by the Tudors. What with the conflict between Lannisters and Everyoneelse being prevented through a marriage which created a coat of arms which was a mix of the Lion of Lannister and the Stag of Baratheons instead of the Red/White rose of the Tudors in the War of the roses.

Tyrells/Stannis seem pretty inspired by the French relations with England at the time. Allying sometimes but always being through marriage and pretty temporary things. You can bet your boots the Tyrells are going to turn on the Lannisters at some point, they likely already are. Through court backstabbing and the like.

Dorne seems pretty spaininspired. Though that may just be because Dorne is being filmed in Spain and they are getting the local actors to provide most of the faces to the thing.

The Free Cities/Braavos seems to be inspired by a weird mixture of the East-Roman Empire (Byzantium) the former roman colony city-states in North Africa and the Italian city-states of.. Italy. What with them being the remnants of the once great Roman Empire, being racially diverse merchant nations and having lots of banks.

Targaryans obviously being based on the Romans. Bringing civilization everywhere, mostly through fire and blood. Fire in this case meant to be taken quite literally as they, instead of tactics and technology had dragons. And Dragons beat, whatever it is the Westeros Kings had before the dragons arrived.

TLDR. What I'm getting at is that Westeros seems very much inspired from mostly England but furthermore mostly Europe, Western Europe in particular. There weren't exactly a whole lot of Africans/Asians around there, and if George was inspired to write from reading European history and mythology like certain others (Tolkien comes to mind) Then I'm not exactly suprised that his cast is mostly white. What with West/North European history and mythology mostly containing white people.

The U.S is very racially diverse and has been throughout the last hundreds of years. I suppose that could cause some people to be confused that a TV-Series/Book-Series doesn't feature a diverse cast and see it as deliberate racism.

 

[DEAD34345]

White Guy Defense Force.. they.. yeah it was a thing

The White Guy Defense Force makes me embarrassed to be a white guy. Also, as a white guy, I hate being surrounded by a sea of white guys in movies, on TV, in video games, etc. I don't see how ethnic diversity is anything but a positive, unless you are racist.

Ethnic diversity in real life? Sure, that's never a negative thing, as far as I'm aware.

We're talking about forced ethnic diversity in fiction though, and of course that can be a bad thing. Forcing fiction to conform to any specific quality whatsoever is a bad thing as far as I'm concerned, as all that it is doing is limiting the amount of stories that can be told. Fantasy stories can be good, but I would never demand that all stories must be fantasy because then I'd miss out on all the realistic stories, or Sci Fi stories or whatever. Happy, light hearted stories can be good, but I would never say it "really hurts" when a story is dark and miserable, because those can also be good. Ethnically diverse stories can be good, but there's nothing wrong with ethnically un-diverse stories either, and saying things like "must all black people in the series be servants, guards, or charlatans?" is... Well... Stupid.

Maybe all black people in the series must indeed be servants, guards or charlatans in this totally imaginary world[footnote]I wouldn't say they are in ASOIAF, but that doesn't really matter to the point I'm making.[/footnote]. Maybe this is important to the story he wants to tell. Maybe he just felt like making the world that way. Maybe it's based on a real life ethnically un-diverse setting. Maybe there's no reason at all. It doesn't really matter, inequality in a story does not create inequality in the real world, it's entirely harmless.

The person who was quoted in the OP is being entirely unreasonable as far as I'm concerned. It's fair to dislike parts of a story, and it's also fair to complain about that. If they had said "I think ASOIAF would be a better story if more of the cast was black." I'd have understood the opinion, even if I wouldn't have agreed necessarily. What they actually said though was that the lack of diversity "hurts", and "must all black people in the series be servants, guards, or charlatans?", as though the author was making some sort of attack on this person, or his race because of their lack of inclusion in the story. It's just ridiculous.

 

[Nurb]

This political correctness is getting as absurd as it was in the 90's, trying to force art into a mold of acceptibility and non-offensivene blandness.

Tokenism and checklisting is bad, stifles creativity, and not a responsibility of the art or artist.

It's funny that this is what gets him walking on egg shells though...
People are worried his age and health will leave the series unfinished: "Fuck them!"
People are anxious for the next book: "Fuck them!"
A few people demand answers on diversity: "Fu-... Uh, let me calmly explain."

Spoiler: Good thing Tolkien didn't write his books in this era

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

We're talking about forced....

Nope. Someone asked a question about the lack of diversity in the book and a bunch of... fill in the blanks ...freaked out about it. There was nothing about force involved.