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The Essosi peoples' skin color and racism


Panos Targaryen

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Uhh Morocco, like Egypt or Iran has plenty of people who'd pass for white. The idea that D&D could only find darker skinned extras is laughable.

Well, they might not just have considered the effort of doing so worthwhile. King's Landing in the show, at least in season 1, doesn't look like it is described in the book either. It looks almost like a Middle Eastern city, and is built of stone rather than wattle and daub. This is because of where it was recorded.

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Well, they might not just have considered the effort of doing so worthwhile. King's Landing in the show, at least in season 1, doesn't look like it is described in the book either. It looks almost like a Middle Eastern city, and is built of stone rather than wattle and daub. This is because of where it was recorded.

The crowd scenes at Kings Landing always remind me of the Life of Brian.

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We see Essos through the eyes of outsiders, rather than its inhabitants. Thus, it comes over as alien and weird. And, it's aristocrats are fabulously rich, and outrageously decadent.

However, the Shavepate, Green Grace, Missandei, Illyrio, Varys, Grey Worm, are all well-drawn Essosi characters.

I think this is very important.

Some critics of 'colonialism' and 'racism' in the text take a very simplistic view of what's going on. Dany is just as much a deconstruction of the White Savior as a a White Savior played straight. Sure, she goes and frees those poor helpless brown people, but we also see this is a disaster. She has no knowledge of or respect for the culture, along with hilariously arrogant perceived superiority ("I am the blood of the dragon!"). The consequences of her conquest are death, rebellion, and disease. Are we really supposed to believe, without reservation, that Dany should have done this?

Now, the Mhysa scene is awkward because it is a bunch of brown people worshipping a white savior. But the text as a whole doesn't really support that.

The issue brought up by the OP isn't as simple as 'Essosi being white is bad' and 'Essosi being poc is bad.' It's about the portrayal. People saying these things don't just want to criticize everything, they want nuanced portrayals of Essosi poc as real people, as much as the Westerosi are complex and nuanced.

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I think this is very important.

Some critics of 'colonialism' and 'racism' in the text take a very simplistic view of what's going on. Dany is just as much a deconstruction of the White Savior as a a White Savior played straight. Sure, she goes and frees those poor helpless brown people, but we also see this is a disaster. She has no knowledge of or respect for the culture, along with hilariously arrogant perceived superiority ("I am the blood of the dragon!"). The consequences of her conquest are death, rebellion, and disease. Are we really supposed to believe, without reservation, that Dany should have done this?

Now, the Mhysa scene is awkward because it is a bunch of brown people worshipping a white savior. But the text as a whole doesn't really support that.

The issue brought up by the OP isn't as simple as 'Essosi being white is bad' and 'Essosi being poc is bad.' It's about the portrayal. People saying these things don't just want to criticize everything, they want nuanced portrayals of Essosi poc as real people, as much as the Westerosi are complex and nuanced.

We have endless debates on this forum whether Dany is a liberator to the inhabitants of Slavers Bay, or a plague to them. That fact alone demonstrates that the author is not depicting her as their White Saviour,

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As has been pointed out several times racism is quite a recent thing. In Ancient Rome you could end up a slave whether you were a Briton, a Gaul, a Persian, Italian or a Carthaginian. Race was not a factor. Also at least one emperor came from north Africa.



When I saw that shot with Dany and the slaves I wondered if people might blow this out of all bounds of sense. It didn't strike me as racist at all. I imagine this being more of an American issue where racism and slavery are more relevant?


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When I saw that shot with Dany and the slaves I wondered if people might blow this out of all bounds of sense. It didn't strike me as racist at all. I imagine this being more of an American issue where racism and slavery are more relevant?

My objection to the scene was that it reminded me of a team-building video, or one of those awful adverts for utility companies.

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Here is a great writeup about the whole Mhysa issue. I thought I should share it here.

I wonder if slavery has different connotations for a US audience, on the one hand, and a British or European audience on the other. When I think of slavery (being based in the UK) I'm as likely to think of the Romans and Middle East, as I am to think of the Transatlantic slave trade.

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More likely, actually, for me, as a European. The closest thing my country has had to slavery was the thrall system, which was very much indifferent to the color of one's skin, just as traditional slavery was.



Naturally, in a "medieval"-type setting, such as what GRRM has created, when slavery is mentioned, my first inclination is not the chattel slavery of the american 18th and 19th centuries, but rather that of Europe in the centuries leading up to the fall of the Roman empire.



If the books were depicting a society which bore a closer resemblance to the american 18th century one, then perhaps things would be different.


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My objection to the scene was that it reminded me of a team-building video, or one of those awful adverts for utility companies.

oh, I didn't like the scene much either, felt a bit cheesy. But I didn't think it was racist.

Although it could make a good juxtaposition to the city under siege suffering from the pale mare at the end of another season...

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how about you explain to me why i should be satisfied with either of those options for representation (or lack thereof)? both critiques of representation are completely valid. either people of color fit in the neat pigeon hole white supremacist society has put them in OR they are not to be seen at all. what if, instead of defending weak & offensive character portrayals, you open your eyes to the blatant imbalance here. maybe take a look at this & see how little representation we actually get: http://annenberg.usc.edu/sitecore/shell/Applications/~/media/PDFs/RaceEthnicity.ashx

no one is asking for poc to be portrayed as "the perfect beacons" of society, but some that don't adhere to same tired & offensive stereotypes would be nice.

If you want to see blacks watch something from BET or Nollywood if you want to see Arabs watch a Egyptian movie if you want to see Mexicans watch a Mexican show but if you watch movies made by the whites then you are going to see mainly white people

By the way I would not say sultry and wanton is a Arab cliche

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If you want to see blacks watch something from BET or Nollywood if you want to see Arabs watch a Egyptian movie if you want to see Mexicans watch a Mexican show but if you watch movies made by the whites then you are going to see mainly white people

By the way I would not say sultry and wanton is a Arab cliche

Yes, bellydancing and odalisques are an European stereotype. Cripes there's so much racism in your post, you could make a whole chapter of the Klan solo.

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Yes, bellydancing and odalisques are an European stereotype. Cripes there's so much racism in your post, you could make a whole chapter of the Klan solo.

Why are you equating said posters racism with the KKK?

As in, why are you despite a lack of knowledge, associating this racist post with a historically white racist group?

Seems casual racism to me.

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One could argue that the Northern obsession with the ''blood of the First Men'' is every bit as xenophobic as anything seen on Essos. But since it's usually presented by sympathetic characters, nobody hardly mentions it.


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Yes, bellydancing and odalisques are an European stereotype. Cripes there's so much racism in your post, you could make a whole chapter of the Klan solo.

Thinking that Turk harems are a arab thing is a European stereotype I guess or whatever it is called when you think all muslims are arabs and I cant think of anything more racist than calling a sacred and noble custom from the middle east debauched Keep it up and you could be the new EDL leader

watch out for those muslamic ray guns

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We see Essos through the eyes of outsiders, rather than its inhabitants. Thus, it comes over as alien and weird. And, it's aristocrats are fabulously rich, and outrageously decadent.

However, the Shavepate, Green Grace, Missandei, Illyrio, Varys, Grey Worm, are all well-drawn Essosi characters.

I agree the culture shock of our Westerosi narrators seeing people devouring boiled puppy fetus plays into their perception of the Essosi people.

The issue is that even through biased eyes, the cultures and customs of most of Essos(the Free Cities less so) don't make much sense. Its not like the Wildlings not being able to comprehend a political marriage or the Westerosi not being able to conceive a place where blood and birth order aren't the basis of society. Its a world where having a 5-to-1 slave too freeman ratio makes sense. A world where no one really cares that there are multiple barbarian hordes roving the continent, crushing cities and taking slaves. A world where it makes sense to elect a leader only to kill them once a crisis arises.

And most of the Essosi characters listed here are such in name only. Varys has interacted with one Essosi for less than two pages total. Illyrio also rarely interacts with any Essosi, though he is a source of exposition on the culture so I'll grant you that. Missandei isn't truly Essosi, she's from Naath which is closer to Sothoros. Even then, she and Grey Worm(him especially) don't have much to there characters apart from serving Dany. The Shavepate and Green Grace are both pretty interesting; we don't know either's true motives yet however. Many people are convinced the Green Grace is the Harpy, and the Shavepate's latching on to Dany and his power moves after her departure seem(to me at least) to be the actions of an opportunist. If these theories turn out to be true than they are merely the most cunning of there Essosi peers.

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Thinking that Turk harems are a arab thing is a European stereotype I guess or whatever it is called when you think all muslims are arabs and I cant think of anything more racist than calling a sacred and noble custom from the middle east debauched Keep it up and you could be the new EDL leader

watch out for those muslamic ray guns

Do you have any familiarity with Orientalism? The 18th/19th and even into the 20th C European view of those from the Maghreb, to the Levant, to what's now Turkey tended to fetishize these various cultures to a pretty reductive stereotype, such that they were typically portrayed as wanton, sultry, effeminate, weak, and so forth (it may also help to remember that the Ottoman Empire covered the majority of these regions for centuries, and only dissolved in the 1920s, so it was kind of "1 Empire" at the time these stereotypes were drawn). I remember seeing a map once from the 19th C that portrayed each country as a stereotype where the Western countries were all some variation of national animals and the like, while the Mid East was represented as a suggestive odalisque. That's what WK is referring to-- it's a centuries-old stereotype, not one she made up.

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