YI TI

[Padraig O'Sullivan]

I am just wondering but are the people of Yi Ti based on the Chinese.

Could someone please confirm.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

I and many other people on the forum assumes so but we will likely not know for sure until the worldbook comes out.

[Game Of Thrones]

I am just wondering but are the people of Yi Ti based on the Chinese.

Could someone please confirm.

Linguistically it seems so.

Politically no. China was almost always an absolute monarchy, Yi Ti isn't. But India was almost never an absolute monarchy and it was generally fragmented, like Yi Ti. But really, princes being sworn to the god-emperor but really running their own kingdoms seems like early 16th-century Japan more than India or China.

Geographically no. China is not covered in jungles. Much of India is.

Culturally maybe. The monkey tail hats could be queue.

Location-no. Qarth feels like Persia, and India is next to Persia, not China.

Biologically no. China does not have basilisks or animals resembling basilisks. Nor do they have saffron or rare spices, that's India.

Physically no. People with bright eyes are European.

So though there is no exact correlation, Yi Ti seems much more like India than China, with Asshai possibly being China.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

Well... Yes. Elio and Linda confirmed it in their youtube channel.

(I kinda fangirled when I learned this so I dont really know how will i hold myself when book comes out.)

[Steelborn]

Well... Yes. Elio and Linda confirmed it in their youtube channel.

(I kinda fangirled when I learned this so I dont really know how will i hold myself when book comes out.)

They did? Like culturally?

[Mrs.Grumpy]

They did? Like culturally?

Elio and Linda said its inspried by Imperial China and people with East Asian look lives in Yi Ti.

[Game Of Thrones]

Elio and Linda said its inspried by Imperial China and people with East Asian look lives in Yi Ti.

I guess GRRM misunderstood the Imperial Chinese political system or confused Imperial China with Japan in the Sengoku period, then.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

Chinese emperors were regarded as gods too. Hence "Lord of Ten Thousand Years", "Son of Heaven" etc.

[Game Of Thrones]

Chinese emperors were regarded as gods too. Hence "Lord of Ten Thousand Years", "Son of Heaven" etc.

But ever since Shi Huangdi China was almost always an absolute monarchy, with the emperor or the regent or some eunuch or concubine in charge ruling the government. Yi Ti is apparently not.

And also, by 1300 (assuming that's the state of development Planetos is in right now) nobody considered the emperor a god. Just a relic of the Zhou Dynasty like "tzar" or "kaiser".

[The Dragon Demands]

I did a writeup on this with sourced quotes: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Yi_Ti

Yes, Elyo and Lynda have said that Yi Ti is basically inspired by Imperial China, and if anyone in the "Westeros to Essos racial spectrum" appears Far East Asian, it is Yi Ti.

On this blog, while GRRM did not say word for word "Yi Ti is inspired by China" they way they did, he did answer someone's question about "Where are all of the Far East Asian people?" by saying "There weren't many Chinese people in Yorkist England" and that World of Ice and Fire would reveal more about Yi Ti.

Note that I specify "Far East Asian":

While few would disagree that M. Night Bialystock's live-action "The Last Airbender" is officially one of the worst movies ever made (it swept the Razzies, and it went far, far beyond "bad movie" to "once in a generation delusional director who has no idea how "cameras", "action scenes", "exposition", or "editing" work)....one of the director's many absurd decisions was to change the races of the major characters. It's an Asian- inspired world, with Four Nations for the four elements: Fire Nation is basically Japanese (bits of Mayan influence), the Earth Kingdom is basically China, the Water Tribes who live at the poles are basically Inuits, and the Air Nomads are basically Tibetan Monks. Now I say "basically" because a plot point is that the Earth Kingdom, like ancient China, is the largest nation and very diverse, with many sub-groups and sub-kingdoms. So exactly one character, once, in the Earth Kingdom was portrayed as South Asian/Hindu (he was a religious guru who helps the main character).

Shyamalan, being a crazy person....first, decided to cast White/European people in all major roles. All. In a TV cartoon universe in which European people simply don't exist. He also applied this inconsistently....long story, but basically they start in the Southern Water Tribe, Part 1 ends with them arriving at the North Pole with the Northern Water Tribe, and a minor plot point is that the two main characters (brother and sister Sokka and Katara) have a grandmother who is actually from the Northern tribe but left decades ago. There is no ethnic difference between the two groups. I have no idea if this was a half-assed afterthought or if he really thought this "fixed it", but Shyamalan decided that the Northern Water Tribe look like Europeans, the Southern Tribe look like Inuits....and thus made his movie versions of Sokka and Katara white/European, allegedly to "hint" that they have Northern Tribe ancestry. Utterly baffling is that.....the two tribes are related, I mean they branched off from each other centuries ago. But they're not just "affiliations" - they're two tribes the split off from each other in ancient times. How the heck can they look like two separate races?!

But here's the crazier thing: I think Shyamalan just had a toddler-like case of "look, shiny object!" and because Slumdog Millionaire was big the year he happened, just happened to be casting, he said "wouldn't the male lead from Slumdog Millionaire be great as the male lead Fire Nation character?".....then he cast the rest of the Fire Nation characters as "South Asian" (Hindu) people, to "match" the male lead Zuko.....or whatever. The result being that the "heroes" all ended up played by white people and the villainous nation is the only one played by dark-skinned people? (what's more insulting is that this honestly never occurred to him when he was doing it).

So he altered the Fire Nation's "Japanese" aesthetic to being strongly "medieval India" aesthetic....because he said "they're both 'Asian'...." when India itself didn't have that much influence in the original cartoon's look.

So here's the weird part which brings in why I say "East Asian" and not just "Asian" for Yi Ti:

Shyamalan altered his film's pronounciation of basic, major character names, because "that's how *I* pronounce them*. This wasn't like A Song of Ice and Fire, mind you....this was a wildly popular children's cartoon show. It was already in audio-visual format.

Some of these had some vague sense but were still absurd: "Avatar" is pronounced "Av-at-ar" in the TV cartoon, even though the real-life term is pronounced closer to "of-at-ar" in its native language. So he used the "real life" pronunciation even though "av-at-ar" has entered common English usage.

But the other stuff was just bizarre....as I said, basically Earth Kingdom equals China and Fire Nation equals Japan, right? And Water Tribes are Inuits.

....he bizarrely mispronounced major character names because "that's how they're pronounced in the languages of southern India, Mughal languages".

.....let me stress this: these were MADE UP names: "Sokka" isn't a real word. It's pronounced "sock-uh" in the TV cartoon.

....he had the film characters pronounce it "Soh-kah"......"because that's how it's pronounced in South Indian Mughal" etc. etc.

And just....it was a total non-sequitor. WHY?!

His actual reasoning was "well, in REAL "Asian" languages, that grouping of letters would be pronounced differently....

....not realizing or accepting that "Asia" is a big continent with languages ranging from Chinese to Russian to Hindi to Arabic!

I mean, it's considered racist to say "Chinese and Japanese people are basically the same and interchangeable"....and this guy went so far as to say "Well, South Asian Indians and Chinese people are basically interchangeable"....WTF?

So from that day forth I specify "South Asian Indian", "East Asian" etc. It was a god damned nightmare living through Shyamalan's mockery of filmmaking.

[The Dragon Demands]

But ever since Shi Huangdi China was almost always an absolute monarchy, with the emperor or the regent or some eunuch or concubine in charge ruling the government. Yi Ti is apparently not.

And also, by 1300 (assuming that's the state of development Planetos is in right now) nobody considered the emperor a god. Just a relic of the Zhou Dynasty like "tzar" or "kaiser".

Yi Ti is said to have a string of divine god-emperors....though in practice, think like late Qing dynasty, the actual emperor these days holds very little real power and the subdivisions of Yi Ti, the strong provincial governors, are tiny independent fiefdoms in all but name.

Ah yes, we've been dealing with relics of the kaiser since nineteen dickety-two.

[The Dragon Demands]

I guess GRRM misunderstood the Imperial Chinese political system or confused Imperial China with Japan in the Sengoku period, then.

I think that's why he used the qualifier "inspired".

GRRM's "Old Mars" scifi collection is "what people think of Mars", with scantily clad alien princesses on an alien desert with hoverships and two meter tall four armed barbarians....stereotypical Martian stuff. It wasn't trying to be "actual Mars".

[The Dragon Demands]

Well... Yes. Elio and Linda confirmed it in their youtube channel.

(I kinda fangirled when I learned this so I dont really know how will i hold myself when book comes out.)

Fangirled? Why? (Btw are you from FatPinkCast or someone else?)

The exact quote: As Linda put it, "if anyone in the Westeros-Essos continuum looks East Asian, we're talking Yi Ti." Elio said Yi Ti was "definitely inspired by Imperial China,"

I made sure to do a writeup for it quickly because we're a wiki for the TV series...and apparently Nymeria Sand in the TV series has a mother from Yi Ti and takes after her in looks.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

I did a writeup on this with sourced quotes: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Yi_Ti

Yes, Elyo and Lynda have said that Yi Ti is basically inspired by Imperial China, and if anyone in the "Westeros to Essos racial spectrum" appears Far East Asian, it is Yi Ti.

On this blog, while GRRM did not say word for word "Yi Ti is inspired by China" they way they did, he did answer someone's question about "Where are all of the Far East Asian people?" by saying "There weren't many Chinese people in Yorkist England" and that World of Ice and Fire would reveal more about Yi Ti.

Note that I specify "Far East Asian":

So in GRRM's mind Yi Ti is China and Westeros is Yorkist England (suprise!!)

I agree everything about Avatar movie. I love Avatar and I still watch the show (lok). There is no single blonde character in the show which makes me happy (even though there's a redhead but its not her original hair color so...)

I fangirled because, oh well, I really like worldbuilding and it was a confirmation for a long-discussed "where is Far East Asian looking people in asoiaf?" question, so I'm happy to know Far Eastern people exists in asoiaf :leaving:

[Mrs.Grumpy]

But ever since Shi Huangdi China was almost always an absolute monarchy, with the emperor or the regent or some eunuch or concubine in charge ruling the government. Yi Ti is apparently not.

And also, by 1300 (assuming that's the state of development Planetos is in right now) nobody considered the emperor a god. Just a relic of the Zhou Dynasty like "tzar" or "kaiser".

Elio said "inspried" and it's not really important that no one considered the emperor a god in our world in that time. It's a different universe and no need to 1-1 matches.

[Game Of Thrones]

But we know very few things about Yi Ti and only the language suggests a Chinese inspiration. So it must be incredibly loosely based on China, then.