The fantasy genre using some problematic stereotypes is nothing new, but usually the fantasy elements help undercut that. If the Dothraki were a bunch of centaurs, they’d be a lot more obviously fantasy and not meant to be realistic. Nobody mistakes Tolkien’s Orks and Dwarves for real-world cultures.

The problem is that because A Song of Ice and Fire presents itself as more authentic, the stereotypes hit a lot harder.

 

Sorry, but Martin's understanding of medieval European history is laughably amateur, at best, and I'm a fucking amateur. An actual, genuine, Martin quote:

Martin's a Wikipedia-level skimming of "Feudalism" "horse people," "Arranged marriages" and so on, with a 1990s American viewpoint and understanding of basically all of it. (IE, fucking none.)

The problem is that a Song of Ice and Fire continues to be sold and billed as "history as it really was," despite being nowhere near such a thing.

 

When they say history as it was...are they referring to complexity? Or the moral quandaries of living in such a time? Like I can get the argument Game of Thrones is less sanitized than most fantasy novels.

 

I’ve never really understood the sentiment that most fantasy is sanitized in the first place. It’s not like Game of Thrones was the first fantasy novel to point out that a lot of nobles were power hungry or sadistic assholes. Pointing out that serfdom sucks and birthright succession doesn’t always produce good leaders isn’t exactly a novel critique.

The biggest thing that made Game of Thrones stand out was Martin’s “actions have consequences” writing style and willingness to kill off major characters. As much as the Red Wedding was played up as shocking, it was a very logical consequence of everything Rob was doing. He snubbed Walder Frey, who we’re frequently shown is an incredibly petty and ambitious man, and left himself weak and exposed when he knew the Boltons were ... well, the Bolton’s. And then Rob died, instead of somehow finding a way to survive or pull off a victory.

Martin’s POV hopping style also worked well for adding complexity to the entire cast. The reader’s view of Jaime changes completely once we see the world from his eyes. It does a lot to add complexity to the story.

 

There's genuinely people who will argue that ASoIaF is almost entirely accurate in its depiction of culture and society, and that only the events are dramatised (and even then they like to claim its heavily based on real events rather than simply inspired by them).

 

This is the same type of thing that The Witcher went through as well, if I recall correctly. People just automatically assuming there wasn't going to be a black dude for 100 miles in medieval Poland, so why put one in the book/show? Or that Vikings never saw people with brown skin, another utterly ridiculous assumption driven by nothing but people wanting everything to be "Accurate" - i.e. "white as fuck, like the true confederate flag."

 

All of those are fair points. When stereotypes were mentioned, I was thinking more along the lines of the bits we hear about Yi-Ti or Sothoryos being similar to the wild ideas Europeans used to have about Sub-Saharan Africa and China before there was a ton of contact between them. I hadn't thought of the Dothraki, and you're definitely right that we probably should have gotten a more complex view of them through Danaerys' eyes after all this time. Come to think of it, I think there's been more effort put into examining Ghiscari civilization over the past few books, despite how important the Dothraki are supposed to be to Danaerys' overall plot.

Note that I never said he actually knew a lot about it, just that he probably knows more about it than any other branch of world history. Honestly, with him being a historical amateur unwilling to do a deep intellectual dive into real historical studies, it makes even more sense that he would stick with what he (sort of) knows rather than branching out into something totally unfamiliar.

Okay, so how many black people were there in Medieval Poland? Because I would bet good money that for the vast majority of the Medieval period, the answer was "zero." I don't understand why so many people have such a problem with the simple fact that Medieval World =/= Modern America. Seeing someone with really dark skin in Europe was stunningly rare until the last four centuries or so, just as seeing a light-skinned European in Sub-Saharan Africa was. Outside of travelling merchants, people just didn't get around that much or that quickly before more advanced seafaring technology and economies of scale made it possible in the late "Age of Discovery."

Did Vikings see brown skinned people? Sure, once Scandinavian traders, pirates and mercenaries started roaming the Mediterranean in large numbers somewhere around the 11th Century, encounters with darker-skinned peoples became commonplace for them. But the Norse (and a few other cultures like the Arabs) were largely an exception to the rule, and even they were very ethnically isolated for pretty much all of their history before (and after) that period.

Wanting something that presents itself as historically accurate (in the case of your Witcher example being in Poland) to actually be a little bit accurate doesn't make you a neo-Confederate racist piece of shit, just like how wanting more diversity doesn't make you a "kill all the whiteys" Black Power psychopath. So maybe knock it off with the over-the-top accusations of racism. You're not changing anyone's mind that way. In fact, that way of thinking and engaging with others often has the opposite effect, driving people closer to the ideologies you oppose.

 

On the surface, it’s not wrong to point out that Middle Ages Europe wasn’t as diverse as modern Europe. However, it’s the sort of argument that attracts a less than great fellow travelers.

Not to mention that fantasy settings don’t have to perfectly mirror real-world demographics, and it’s not that hard to justify building some diversity into the worldbuilding process. If you want black people in Westeros, just have a big Summer Islander invasion at some point in the setting’s history, or expand on the idea of people on the wrong side of a civil war fleeing to Westeros for refuge, or have significant trade ties between Westeros and the Summer Isles.

 

See, that's a good idea that actually enhances the worldbuilding rather than confusing it. Maybe there was a small civil war in the Summer Isles and the losing side's nobles were exiled and turned to mercenary work, only to wind up receiving Westerosi lordships for service to the crown in one of the Blackfyre Rebellions (or some earlier conflict)? There are a number of ways that could work without directly contradicting much of the pre-existing lore. Plus if it's just a few noble houses in one particular region of Westeros, it would still fit with the way most Westerosi have pretty much zero experience with exotic foreigners in the lore.

Huh, I kind of like that idea. That could actually be the basis for a pretty cool series in and of itself, focused on the fortunes of those transplanted Houses on a foreign continent that doesn't quite know what to make of them.

 

That literally happens in the book. In Robert Court there is an exiled Nobel from the Summer isles.

 

Well sure, but he was just a hanger-on trying to lobby support to go retake his home. I'm talking about a hypothetical older group that actually establishes themselves in Westeros. I think that could be a cool story, dealing with issues of assimilation and anti-foreign sentiment, as well as the mixed attitudes of the other noble houses about the whole thing. If we're using the European model, Westeros is pre-racism (since racism as we understand it today didn't really exist until the 16th-17th century), but there's still a lot of prejudice against anyone foreign-born, and I think it could be cool to see how that plays out.

 

Ah right. That is kinda like the origin of the Rhoyna people that joined with Dorn after fleeing from Essos.

I think... there was talk about that actually being a possible series awhile back.

 

Not sure what you mean. There wasn't going to be a black person for 100 miles in medieval Poland.

Americans shouldn't force their issues into places where they do not belong.

 

Its well established that the idea of Europe being solely populated by white people throughout the medieval period is incorrect. It can't be denied that white people were in the substantial majority, of course, but to say its not accurate to say that racial minorities didn't exist within Europe. There's plenty of evidence in art of non-white people through the middle ages, and there's also plenty of other evidence such as DNA testing and parish records showing that black people lived in England throughout the middle ages. Not in substantial numbers, but also more than the stereotype of a pure white Europe supposes.

 

No one's saying there weren't racial minorities in medieval Europe. They're saying that what racial minorities were present were generally small groups of traders/travelers on a trade route (and so generally only really found in the big cities that did lots of trade or on the roads between them), and not large, established enclaves with significant presence in the broader society.

There were definitely a non-negligible amount of arabs, blacks, and asians (in that order) in medieval Europe, but they rarely made up more than a few percent of the population of any major city. And if you go more than 30 miles from the nearest trade hub, you'd almost never see any of them.

 

I guess 10 people among a million must be represented in a fictional universe.

They didn't even make that large a fraction. Even London in the 18th century wouldn't have > 1% minorities.

Back to the topic, I wonder how this series will be paced. Apparently the first season will focus heavily on Viserys' reign.

I am curious to see what they will do with Laena Velaryon, a character who died well before the war began. Fans are speculating that one of the scenes currently being filmed depicts her funeral.

 

If thats not what they're saying then fair enough, but I interpreted this

to mean that Othalan genuinely thinks that there were no black people in medieval Poland.

Given that this whole conversation started with your objection to having a single black character...

 

That wasn't the objection. The point was that there is no need for representation of a group in that society, because that group as good as doesn't exist in that specific society. The making of a Velaryon into a black person is for real-world reasons, and does not reflect the reality of either Westeros or the Velaryon family.

 

I mean, for all intents and purposes, they may as well not have. Medieval Poland was overwhelmingly a mix of Poles, Germans, Jews, and random Slavs, with the occasional dozen or so arabs or whatever other non-white group that wandered into Krakow looking to hawk their wares.

Like, I'd imagine at least a decent chunk of the population of Krakow had seen a non-white person before, but for 90+% of Poles, exposure to non-white races would mostly be second-hand.

That was kinda my point; yes, other races existed and were known in Europe, but you weren't exactly seeing a lot of them, and once you got outside of city centers (and this was before industrialization and the ensuing urbanization, so the overwhelming majority of the population lived outside of city centers), you basically didn't see any.