Game Of Thrones - No Diversity?

[[deleted user]]

I was actually turned off from the show because of the lack of ethnic people. Granted the show/book series is supposed to mimic the English Wars of the Roses, but that's no reason to make everyone Caucasian, especially because it's a fantasy.

[CheeseAssasin]

I know that a few black/biracial actors have been cast for this season, Lucian Msamati (Salladhor Saan) , Nonso Anozie (I don't remember who he is playing) and another male actor who appears black or biracial and will share scenes with Dany.

I wonder if the black female characters Chataya and her daughter will be left out of the show in favor of Roz (the hardest working prostitute in Westeros.)

ETA: Now that I think about it, I can't remember is Chataya is in book 2 or not. They all blend together in my head.

[TinaNoir]

Ashley wrote: "I was actually turned off from the show because of the lack of ethnic people. Granted the show/book series is supposed to mimic the English Wars of the Roses, but that's no reason to make everyone ..."

I am the opposite. My opinion is that in speculative fiction, especially, the author's vision of his place and peoples is his vision. When world-building they have no obligation to think about diversity. It would be nice if they did, and it would make their world more convincing, but I don't feel they need to, necessarily.

I do, however, find it completely unacceptable in SF/ futuristic novels especially involving earth and humans for a world to have no diversity, that makes no realistic sense -- unless there was some comet that killed off all the brown people in the year 3012 or something.

That said, as mentioned above there are folks of color in the series. I believe the Dornish are darker hued as are the Summer Isles folk and several of them do make an appearance in later books.

The first book concentrates really just on the Starks, Lannisters and Daenerys. The second book expands a bit to dead ex-king Robert's family with his brothers declaring themselves king, but it is still confined largely to Westeros.

But by the third book the world expands a bit and we see a lot more types of people.

[CheeseAssasin]

"But by the third book the world expands a bit and we see a lot more types of people. "

..and by the fourth book Martin just stops caring and just turns the series into sh*t.

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

I agree with Tina. I haven't read the books yet, so I can't speak for them. As far as the show and what I've seen so far, it doesn't bother me because that is the world that GRRM created. It's not a realistic world in our sense and so far, he seems to be modeling his world on a European type setting in the past. If this was supposed to be real life/modern day and a metropolitan area, or based on the real world in the future, then my lack of diversity alarm goes off.

I'm actually quite fond of Jon Snow and Tyrion. I thought Khal Drago was okay.

[L'Poni]

I became a BIG FAN of the show after seeing an episode sometime in February. I was upset that Daenerys wasn't african/some-brown-type because you don't see black people with DRAGONS and have impressive storylines like her's. Anyway, GoT is a good show (wish it didnt have all that sex) and I would love it if they had more diversity. I also wished Khal Drogo looked better.

It's good that shows like Merlin touch on diversity. GoT could learn from it. A black Guenivere was truly surprising.

[The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears]

Nipaporn wrote: "It's good that shows like Merlin touch on diversity. GoT could learn from it. A black Guenivere was truly surprising..."

LOL, don't tell the angry hordes of fangirls that. Most of them absolutely HATE the character of Guinevere because she's black.

[L'Poni]

Vixenne wrote: "Nipaporn wrote: "It's good that shows like Merlin touch on diversity. GoT could learn from it. A black Guenivere was truly surprising..."

LOL, don't tell the angry hordes of fangirls that. Most..."

WHAT?? Really? Wh...what? I see a ton of Guemivere fan art! I didn't know the fan girls hated her! This world needs to grow up. It's people like them that make directors not want to cast black actors.

[L'Poni]

Vixenne wrote: "Nipaporn wrote: "It's good that shows like Merlin touch on diversity. GoT could learn from it. A black Guenivere was truly surprising..."

LOL, don't tell the angry hordes of fangirls that. Most..."

WHAT?? Really? Wh...what? I see a ton of Guemivere fan art! I didn't know the fan girls hated her! This world needs to grow up. It's people like them that make directors not want to cast black actors.

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

I would think they are American. I think the Brits are used to having a lot more blacks on tv than Americans are.

[L'Poni]

Lady Danielle "The Book Huntress" wrote: "I would think they are American. I think the Brits are used to having a lot more blacks on tv than Americans are."

You have a point. In all the shows I've seen from Britain (Children of Men, Merlin, Bend it like Beckham, EUReKA, Being Human, Nightschool and a few others) they have a lot more black characters than American shows and in British shows, the black characters don't get killed off like mice that got hit with the Plague. Nightschool, which is written by Svetlana Chmakova, is especially wonderful when it comes to the black characters. The same goes for Soulfire by Michael Turner (I've never seen black faeries before!) and my series The Society On Da Run (african americans with DRAGONS!! Finally!).

[TinaNoir]

I am convinced that the fandom that hates Gwen is an intersect between those who have a problem with her being black and those who have slash fantasies of Arthur and Merlin that she is getting in the way of. Truthfully, I think the slashies outnumber the racists.

[L'Poni]

Deva wrote: "Is that Nightschool a graphic novel?"

Yup, Nightscool is a manga by Sveltania Chmakova. I read it in Yen Press magazine. There's 4 books in the series and I think it may have ended:

Here's the other two books I was talking about:

The books you suggested sounds really interesting! I'm excited to read it when I find it.

[L'Poni]

Tina wrote: "I am convinced that the fandom that hates Gwen is an intersect between those who have a problem with her being black and those who have slash fantasies of Arthur and Merlin that she is getting in t..."

I think you are right, it is the Slashers that hate Guenivere. I used to write slashies for the Code Geass series and hated the character C.C, so I'm pretty sure it's the slashies that hate Gwen. I **used to** know how they feel.

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

Slashers can be very ugly towards female characters in a fandom because they view them as being in the way of their supercouples. I'm not saying all slashers, by the way. My sister is very active in some fandoms with fan fiction writers, and she tells me about some of the drama, and I've also seen it in some fandoms I follow.

[L'Poni]

Lady Danielle "The Book Huntress" wrote: "Slashers can be very ugly towards female characters in a fandom because they view them as being in the way of their supercouples. I'm not saying all slashers, by the way. My sister is very active i..."

It makes me wonder why fan fic writers don't get over it. They could write their own parallel world where the characters they hate don't exist, that's what I had to do for Code Geass until I learned to love the characters I hate.

[The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears]

I used to write LoTR (Lord of the Rings) slash and that fandom was comprised of mostly older women/men so there was a lot less drama and genderfail, but oh man, the J-Rock fandom is a freaking nightmare!

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

Exactly, Nipaporn. The way I look at it, isn't that the advantage of Fan Fiction? You can rewrite the history of that fandom according to your own specifications.

Vixenne, I think some fandoms are less problematic than others.

[Jhenn]

I don't know where I've been, but I just started watching GoT. In fact, I just finished the first episode of season one. And I actually enjoyed it despite the few characters of color being shown as "barbarians". I tried to understand that those scenes were supposed to depict how foreign everything was to Dany (i.e. the forced marriage and beginning a new life in a place where she is ignorant of the customs, language, etc). But, it still irritated me that the Dothraki came across as the "scary brown people".
I had a huge problem with Dany's wedding night, as well, since I've read that it was totally different in the book.

The show definitely has issues, but I think I'll stick it out since I've discovered that there are characters of color that are introduced later on in the series.

[The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears]

Jheanelle wrote: "But, it still irritated me that the Dothraki came across as the "scary brown people"..."

I might have thought that way as well if I hadn't read the books already. What I came to realize is the real barbarians were supposedly the civilized people of Westros. They seemed to spend a lot more time killing each other for no other reason than power. The few nobles such as Ned who had some decency ended up getting whacked.

[L'Poni]

Vixenne wrote: "Jheanelle wrote: "But, it still irritated me that the Dothraki came across as the "scary brown people"..."

I might have thought that way as well if I hadn't read the books already. What I came ..."

Please don't remind me about Ned. I never read the book and when they killed Ned I wanted to stop watching the show. I was rooting for him so much, now I have to root for his KIDS. Damn it, Ned, why did you have to think about HONOR???

Oh, if anyone is interested, I wrote a Game of Thrones flash story called The Harsh Reality of Winter and I daringly posted it to Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

It has a nice interracial premise and I tried to keep the medieval dialogue so it'll match the books. Tell me if I nailed it!

[TinaNoir]

Jheanelle wrote: "I don't know where I've been, but I just started watching GoT. In fact, I just finished the first episode of season one. And I actually enjoyed it despite the few characters of color being shown as..."

Oh man, I didn't get that at all. I am going to spoiler the some of this just in case.....it only refers to first season/book stuff, though.

I think it is pretty clear from the outset when you meet Cersei and Jaime and witness their incestuous relationship and realize they think nothing of throwing a young boy out of a high tower window, that we are really clearly to understand that the Lannisters ( minus Tyrion) are the real monsters. This is born out even more when you get an eye-ful of their evil spawn Joffrey.

OTOH, while I thought the Dothraki viewed as Barbarians by Daenerys' crazy brother, in reality the Dothraki had a very definable set of customs as horse-lords and were meant to be viewed as more honorable and actually more intelligent than Viserys realizes.

(view spoiler)[I think many people were as upset by Khal Drogo's demise as they were about Ned's. I think Ned's was more surprising because he was positioned as a main character and conventional wisdom is that you don't kill off your main character so early. (hide spoiler)]

[The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears]

@Tina: Exactly! I mean who decides who's a barbarian and who isn't? If you ask me, the Lannisters are far more barbaric than the Dothraki. The Dothraki have set customs that may not make sense to outsiders, but which have kept them strong as a people. The Lannisters simply love power and are willing to do whatever it takes to keep it.

[TinaNoir]

They just cast the part of Missandei with British bi-racial actress Nathalie Emmanuel. Missandei appears in the third book as a translator for Daenerys and by the time the fifth book is around she is a trusted member of Dany's retinue.

The third book is huge and I wonder if they can get it all in in just one season or if they are going to split it up. With the early casting if Missandei then I know that it at least gets to a really, really cool part with Daenerys and a group of warriors known as the 'The Unsullied.'

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

Cool!!

[Monique]

As a fantasy, why couldn't it include people of all colors? It has enough dragons and other other-worldy critters in it.

[Tamara]

exactly, Monique! anyway as of 2014 they have poc in the cast but they were all ex slaves.... UGH! I love how even in make believe this is still the only acceptable way for poc to be part of things. *eyeroll*

[TinaNoir]

I haven't been watching the show as much because by the 4th season it had veered too much away from books and wasn't quite giving me the same emotional high as the books did. I did watch the last episode of S4 because I was curious to see if they would get it right. I was mostly curious if they would introduce one character that shows up at the very end of the book. They didn't. So I am pretty ok with not keeping up with the show.

I am curious, though, how they will cast the Sand Snakes. They are the 4 really bad-ass daughters of the Viper and each has a different mother. One of them is black. If they don't cast her as a black (or at least biracial) there needs to be an outcry.

[Tamara]

same here, Tina!!

[Paganalexandria]

Sometimes I'm conflicted about which team I'm rooting for, Team Woman, or Team Black. In a way Game of Thrones puts me in the same space as Hillary vs. Obama did. In this case, for me, the role of women on this show trumps the lack of color. Cersei, Daenerys, Brienne, and Arya please me more than seeing random minor characters of color (most likely male). In most shows you're either going to get one or the other, and frankly I'd rather see women of any color in key power positions, not just eye candy, or victims waiting to happen.

[The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears]

I'm seriously Team Woman all the way. I love Arya and Brienne, though Cersei is cool just because ruthless women fascinate me.