Ran

Best Short Story bugged me. Well-written, but navel-gazing, self-congratulatory "Ooh, we are awesome because we love SFF" fiction is of course going to appeal to a crowd of SFF lovers. It's preaching to the choir and feels cheap as a winner.

That's exactly right, and was the intention -- Vaemond's cousins are the five who actually went before Viserys and argued their rights, and had their tongues removed. Vaemond's wife and sons were unharmed.

I didn't say skin color. But it's quite obvious he imagines the Two Rivers as being identifably Caucasian. I take something different from that. He apparently specified "young" or "old" versions as appropriate, which is obviously for appearance reasons rather than personality reasons. He's definitely matching something about the visual impression of those actors at those periods of time to those characters in his notes. All the Two Rivers actors, and the majority of the characters, are to him modelled after, or perhaps have suggested to him, a bunch of white actors for some reason... That's right. Based on RJ's notes and other indications, I would have expected a lot of Mediterranean/Southern European/Latino actors for the Two Rivers, but apparently not. But then I admit I've taken against Judkins ever since he claimed he'd fix Faile.

I think the visual models concern facial structure, the gaze, etc. Possibly also something about manner or carriage. He obviously wasn't setting hair or eye color with Affleck as Rand. Or Sophia Loren for Aviendha I suppose

Of course it's not how genetics work, but it's how Jordan wanted it to work to get those clear cultural demarcations. As we see in his personal visual models for the characters. If you don't want to adapt an author's work as they envisioned it, at the very least maintain the rules for how things work. It's a very backhanded kind of compliment to the author otherwise. "We love it, except..."

Aren't the Emond's Fielders in general the descendants of Mantheren? Joey Crows, Why does it matter what skin color any figure, historical or fictional, has in a drama? Why was Selma cast with black actors and not, say, Asian actors? Or better yet, Hispanic or Middle-eastern actors, given the political climate the last years.... (There are, of course, plenty of spaces where the remove from the historic allows for interesting _commentary_ on race, as with Hamilton.) The answer, really, is worldbuilding. Our world is "built" naturally, fictional worlds area built artificially. Jordan put a lot of effort into it. I don't understand why anyone wants to adapt a work of fantasy with heavy degrees of worldbuilding, and then one of the early things they do is throw that worldbuilding out of the window by introducing inconsistencies. The Emond's Fielders as presented are an ecletic bunch you'd see in a cosmopolitan city, not the isolated backwater that Emond's Fields is supposed to be. They should all be one type (not the three we presently have in the casting, Rand aside) because that was part of the world Jordan built. Make them all black, all Asian, all Native American, whatever. But be consistent. I no longer buy the idea that "Oh, these were simply the very best actors we got." I mean, I'm sure they were, _but_ I don't buy that they were _so much better_ than the 2nd best actorsthat they just had to cast them and throw the world-building out the window. (And for that matter, I'll wager that casting sides for the roles made it explicit they were set on a multiethnic Emond's Field cast; Judkins shared a note for casting about how the cast should reflect a post-racial future, which sounds all right because WoT has distinct races but no racism that I can recall, but Jordan also wanted very distinctive boundaries between different cultures and distinctive appearances between them to delineate many of them. It's what he wanted. Judkins doesn't seem to care very much.)

The main thing the Reddit thread baffled me by is all the people who said the casting exactly fit their images of the characters, and that they understood the Emond's Fielders to be black. Hmm! People read in different ways, I suppose. Jordan's notes on actors and celebrities who sort of provided a visual touchstone for characters is actually really interesting in this regards. A young Cher as Faile? A young Sophia Loren as Aviendha? Young Ben Affleck as Rand? Neat. Omar Sharif as Demandred -- presumably from the Doctor Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia days -- is a particularly good one, as I can just visualize it. For my part, I'd have made the Caemlyn bunch black, including the royals (there's precedent!), the Emond's Fielders white, the Aiel black, and have Rand stand out that way given his "mother" came from Caemyln. Maybe they'll explain Mat and the Cauthons by claiming they're recent arrivals from elsewhere, but right now the casting feels disjointed for no good reason.

@Lil Red Head We've signed plenty of books, so that is not weird! But if you want Linda's signature, best bring it to Worldcon, as Linda can't attend Titancon.

Raventree was taken back in ACoK. Robb not going after it in AGoT when his goal was to relieve Riverrun before the Lannisters knew what was happening doesn't seem so strange.

Yep, we're not going to clarify beyond what's there, and the information shouldn't be used for the wiki at all.

Raventree and Stone Hedge can be on opposite sides of the river while their domain boundaries can extend across the river in both directions. They kind of have to, what with centuries of feuding and warfare. So, nothing contradicting that they are on opposite sides of the river from the above quotes.

Thanks, folk. Passing this on. If screenshots or links are something you can grab, do share them here (or PM them); the more data, the faster these are dealt with.

I've never run a karaoke event before, but I'm willing to give it a go if needed. Sort of have some things going on (e.g. tourism) that will take me away from the con for a bit, on Thursday and Friday, but if there's a volunteer desk I can drop by when free and see what needs doing.

Decided to double check things from past discussions with George and Anne over various projects. The only super-explicit thing we have from George is that in 2004he imagined that Stone Hedge and Raventree were on opposite sides of the Red Fork. Map positioning has followed that. As you say, the evidence for Stone Hedge being south of the Red Fork is very strong, whereas Raventree Hall is more circumstancial, and its unique situation as being largely denuded of defenders (as well as its lord) may have made it a very easy thing for Tywin to grab with just a small detachment crossing the river, as you say.

To me, a lot of it -- even the framing of colonialism in Tolkien -- is that Tolkien opposed morally bad things because they were morally bad for the perpetrator, and that this was first and foremost in his mind if the perpetrator was otherwise a "good" person (evil people had other, larger problems which made him more immediately concerned for their victims rather than for them). Attanar really did have a genuine turn to good... but then began to think that if he ran things, it would all be better, and the urge to dominate grew out of that. Galadriel's rejection of the One Ring when Frodo offered it was a personal rejection of vanity and hubris. Feanor's greatness was also his downfall, because of his hubris. So in colonialism, yes, it was bad for the men of Middle-earth that the Númenóreans went from desiring to help the men of Middle-earth to wanting to dominate them,.. but it was really bad for the Númenóreans to become so prideful and desirious of domination. It's like Tolkien's remark on social hierarchy, that it "may" be "damn bad" for you to tip your cap to the squire... but it "is damn good" for you to do so; the squire may end up letting it get to their head, may take mistaken pride in an accident of birth (but then again, maybe they won't, and will understand and respect the gesture), but knowing your place and being humble is always good. Tolkien's vision of moral action was generally very personal. Societies did not do good or ill, but rather individuals do, and the societies are shaped by how men treat one another.