God, look at my posts in the old thread. One about the Venture Brothers season premiere (aww) and one about how Danaerys can't get here and burn Westeros to the ground soon enough. Lots of rough stuff in hindsight.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
Here's an impactful series of essays, https://acoup.blog/category/collections/that-dothraki-horde/, that I read recently that takes a critical look at GRRM's statement of the Dothraki being an “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures”. There are four parts total and it's pretty lengthy (so set aside plenty of time to read).
The main takeaway is that the Dothraki horde are an amalgamation of stereotypes that have little resemblance to steppe and plain cultures.
I think the hard part for me after reading this is and watching the HBO series left such a sour taste in my mouth that this didn't help (I've also read the books). I think it's problematic because there seems to be this belief that GRRM created a realistic world that just so happens to have magic in it (though I may be projecting here). I think about the articles a lot and how they impact my view of GoT's particularly given the broader conversations about race happening in the US (where I'm located).
The website has some nice essays on other topics as well with a large focus on military history.
ASOIAF's Dothraki are as accurate as any of the other cultures and ideas in the book in comparison to the historical things they take inspiration from. That's just the nature of literature's loose association with what we know of actual history.
Here's an impactful series of essays, https://acoup.blog/category/collections/that-dothraki-horde/, that I read recently that takes a critical look at GRRM's statement of the Dothraki being an “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures”. There are four parts total and it's pretty lengthy (so set aside plenty of time to read).
The main takeaway is that the Dothraki horde are an amalgamation of stereotypes that have little resemblance to steppe and plain cultures.
I think the hard part for me after reading this is and watching the HBO series left such a sour taste in my mouth that this didn't help (I've also read the books). I think it's problematic because there seems to be this belief that GRRM created a realistic world that just so happens to have magic in it (though I may be projecting here). I think about the articles a lot and how they impact my view of GoT's particularly given the broader conversations about race happening in the US (where I'm located).
The website has some nice essays on other topics as well with a large focus on military history.
ASOIAF's Dothraki are as accurate as any of the other cultures and ideas in the book in comparison to the historical things they take inspiration from. That's just the nature of literature's loose association with what we know of actual history.
Or you could read the articles and see that GRRM essentially takes all of the racist tropes for those people. We know a lot of actual history for steppe and plains cultures and a bit of research would have allowed the Dothraki to be an actual society instead of what we got. And it's one thing for the people of Westeros to hold these ideas, but then we have chapters describing the Dothraki culture.
The Dothraki are treated far more poorly than most other cultures presented in the book.
Here's an impactful series of essays, https://acoup.blog/category/collections/that-dothraki-horde/, that I read recently that takes a critical look at GRRM's statement of the Dothraki being an “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures”. There are four parts total and it's pretty lengthy (so set aside plenty of time to read).
The main takeaway is that the Dothraki horde are an amalgamation of stereotypes that have little resemblance to steppe and plain cultures.
I think the hard part for me after reading this is and watching the HBO series left such a sour taste in my mouth that this didn't help (I've also read the books). I think it's problematic because there seems to be this belief that GRRM created a realistic world that just so happens to have magic in it (though I may be projecting here). I think about the articles a lot and how they impact my view of GoT's particularly given the broader conversations about race happening in the US (where I'm located).
The website has some nice essays on other topics as well with a large focus on military history.
ASOIAF's Dothraki are as accurate as any of the other cultures and ideas in the book in comparison to the historical things they take inspiration from. That's just the nature of literature's loose association with what we know of actual history.
Or you could read the articles and see that GRRM essentially takes all of the racist tropes for those people. We know a lot of actual history for steppe and plains cultures and a bit of research would have allowed the Dothraki to be an actual society instead of what we got. And it's one thing for the people of Westeros to hold these ideas, but then we have chapters describing the Dothraki culture.
The Dothraki are treated far more poorly than most other cultures presented in the book.
I did. That's what my reply is in reference to, the thing that you linked. The author makes far too much of the statement they base the entire thing on and considers far too little the way in which this is how the books treat all the things it vaguely seems based on. The whole "ASOIAF is so much like real history" thing is a projection of fans onto the series itself that has never held up to real scrutiny. All fantasy (and sci-fi and anything really) does.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
They are Tolkien's invention and are pretty much every swarthy invading horseman from the east threatening the peaceful peoples of the west.
Why yes, they are a problematic racial stereotype when you examine them closer. How did you guess?
I disagree. Whether it was by design or happy accident, Tolkien's orcs don't dress or talk like any of the peoples you mention, nor do they share cultural practices, cuisine, etc. They don't even ride horses, hell most of them don't ride at all (warg riders are a rarity). They fill the narrative role of the stereotype without associating it with any actual ethnic group.
That some adaptations of his work, and many other fantasy genre works make the unfortunate step of adding back in things that make their orcs like huns, goths, or mongols is on them, not on Tolkien.
All the cultures in ASoIaF that aren't vaguely-Western-European are pretty much conglomerations of mostly-negative stereotypes about one real-world region or another. Meereen, Dorn, even the Iron Isles.
PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Here's an impactful series of essays, https://acoup.blog/category/collections/that-dothraki-horde/, that I read recently that takes a critical look at GRRM's statement of the Dothraki being an “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures”. There are four parts total and it's pretty lengthy (so set aside plenty of time to read).
The main takeaway is that the Dothraki horde are an amalgamation of stereotypes that have little resemblance to steppe and plain cultures.
I think the hard part for me after reading this is and watching the HBO series left such a sour taste in my mouth that this didn't help (I've also read the books). I think it's problematic because there seems to be this belief that GRRM created a realistic world that just so happens to have magic in it (though I may be projecting here). I think about the articles a lot and how they impact my view of GoT's particularly given the broader conversations about race happening in the US (where I'm located).
The website has some nice essays on other topics as well with a large focus on military history.
I don't disagree with you about the handling of the Dothraki, but as to your overall concern about people looking to ASoIaF/GoT as 'realistic', I really don't think people mean that its depictions of the cultures are realistic. I think they are just talking about the overall cynicism and grimness of the series, it's deliberate aversion to portraying any kind of nobility or monarchy in a positive light, being more realistic than they are used to in fantasy works.
All the cultures in ASoIaF that aren't vaguely-Western-European are pretty much conglomerations of mostly-negative stereotypes about one real-world region or another. Meereen, Dorn, even the Iron Isles.
The Westerosi cultures are mostly the worst parts of mediaeval Europe.
Only the Wildlings and Northerners (Scottish and Northern England) seem not-horrible.
They are Tolkien's invention and are pretty much every swarthy invading horseman from the east threatening the peaceful peoples of the west.
Why yes, they are a problematic racial stereotype when you examine them closer. How did you guess?
They talk with cockney accents. They aren't a direct analogue of swarthy eastern invaders. There's actual humans to be that in LOTR.
That is the movies, which was made 60 years after the Hobbit came out.
The books and the rest of the Legendarium clearly has them as a eastern invader stand in. Its one of the problems Tolkien had with writing them. He didn't want to create an always evil race and he didn't want to play into the racist stereotypes. Its just that the rest of his works kind of piegonhole them into that, because the peoples they are based on had such a reputation in western culture. Its part of the reason he made them debased elves tormented into evil in the Silmarilion. Tolkien being a devout catholic who refused to believe in satan having the power to create life or creatures without soul being permanently evil.
LOTR is heavily based on previous mythological epics like the Kalevala and Beowulf. In many such works and the Medieval poetry that followed such invaders where a common trope.
The fact that wolves ride huge wolves is a evil fantasy take on the small fast horses used by Huns and Mongols. Their desire for plunder rather than stand up battles is a response to such horse tribes highly mobile warfare. Same with the scruffy dark look, instead of the shining armor/heraldry of medieval knights.
Then you have Dungeons and Dragons and that is a whole other take...
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
I actually stopped watching the show when it passed the books, and somehow the ending hasn't been spoiled for me years later cause no one seems to have given a shit enough to talk about the ending other than that it is supposed to be very disappointing!
You're probably the happiest person in this thread!
The speed with which GOT went from "talking about every episode" to "completely falling off of the pop culture landscape" was craaaaazy
It really was.
Like even in the final season people were talking about each episode and then the finale came and almost overnight everyone went "That... that's how this shit ends?" and then the entire thing was memory holed.
Part of that is no doubt due to the speed of modern pop culture churn, but yeah, you expect at least a few diehards to stick with it.
Instead it goes from "biggest thing" to even the people who liked the ending going "Okay, that was nice, what else can we watch now?"
It's crazy especially compared to the berserk frothing over the game of thrones Scotch
Wait, what? That stuff was popular?
The entire state of NH liquor store system sold out of all the different houses within like 1 week. People were buying the Scotch, drinking it and then selling the container online for the same price as the Scotch when they bought it.
That is fucking WILD. That shit sat on the shelves for months out here in Minnesota. I had no idea.
Here is the thing, they did a second batch after the first batch went off. The second batch came in after the finale and those sat on the shelves for months out here in NH. That's probably the batch you saw. The first batch was right before the start of the last season.
If you are of the mind that the Orcs are not eastern invaders and do not have a racist origin. What do you think they represent? Saying Nazi Germany isn't it, because they where famously called the Huns and old stereotypes where repurposed to fit them.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
They are Tolkien's invention and are pretty much every swarthy invading horseman from the east threatening the peaceful peoples of the west.
Why yes, they are a problematic racial stereotype when you examine them closer. How did you guess?
They talk with cockney accents. They aren't a direct analogue of swarthy eastern invaders. There's actual humans to be that in LOTR.
That is the movies, which was made 60 years after the Hobbit came out.
The books and the rest of the Legendarium clearly has them as a eastern invader stand in. Its one of the problems Tolkien had with writing them. He didn't want to create an always evil race and he didn't want to play into the racist stereotypes. Its just that the rest of his works kind of piegonhole them into that, because the peoples they are based on had such a reputation in western culture. Its part of the reason he made them debased elves tormented into evil in the Silmarilion. Tolkien being a devout catholic who refused to believe in satan having the power to create life or creatures without soul being permanently evil.
LOTR is heavily based on previous mythological epics like the Kalevala and Beowulf. In many such works and the Medieval poetry that followed such invaders where a common trope.
The fact that wolves ride huge wolves is a evil fantasy take on the small fast horses used by Huns and Mongols. Their desire for plunder rather than stand up battles is a response to such horse tribes highly mobile warfare. Same with the scruffy dark look, instead of the shining armor/heraldry of medieval knights.
Then you have Dungeons and Dragons and that is a whole other take...
They have cockney accents in the books. That's where it comes from.
They aren't direct stand ins for eastern invaders. They aren't direct stand ins for anything. Tolkien explicitly hated trying to read the books as allegory.
I thought the silly accent for orcs thing was from Games Workshop. I don't remember all that much from when I read the Lord of the Rings last, so I could be completely wrong about that.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Yeah, Tolkien was pretty adamant that his works were not an allegory for anything in particular, especially not the international politics of his day.
I thought the silly accent for orcs thing was from Games Workshop. I don't remember all that much from when I read the Lord of the Rings last, so I could be completely wrong about that.
No, the LOTR orcs are definitely characterized as cockneys. But they are described as having yellow skin and slanted eyes. So both classist and racist, LOL.
If you are of the mind that the Orcs are not eastern invaders and do not have a racist origin. What do you think they represent? Saying Nazi Germany isn't it, because they where famously called the Huns and old stereotypes where repurposed to fit them.
Melkor's desire for Dominion over Arda.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
God, look at my posts in the old thread. One about the Venture Brothers season premiere (aww) and one about how Danaerys can't get here and burn Westeros to the ground soon enough. Lots of rough stuff in hindsight.
Same. Although, I wished Arya to Assassin's Creed in to House Frey and do some damage... which she more than does.
Yeah, Tolkien was pretty adamant that his works were not an allegory for anything in particular, especially not the international politics of his day.
What an author intends and what they write are two very different things.
For example, I've read a lot of books that were shit. I'm pretty sure most of those authors didn't intend to write shit. Yet! Shit I read.
yeah, while I wouldn't go so far as "Tolkien was a secret racist and was trying to sneak racist ideology into people through his literature", I personally regard his "my books are not political or related to current events at all" statements in the same way I do those Ubisoft game splashscreens that say "This game is totally nonpolitical and any references to current political movements, people, or events are purely coincidental".
Mr. Tolkien admitted that while he did not consciously write allegory, there is some applicability of his works to the real world, as ideas come from experience. Which is pretty much correct, as an allegory must technically be deliberate.
He never said his works were apolitical, just that the choices he made in the story were not guided by some purposeful extradenotative agenda. It actually requires a lot of cunning work to create true allegory; you can't just stumble into it.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Yeah I'm not saying that his intent or statements preclude allegory, just confirming that this is something he has said.
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Grudgeblessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered Userregular
I thought the silly accent for orcs thing was from Games Workshop. I don't remember all that much from when I read the Lord of the Rings last, so I could be completely wrong about that.
Yeah, Orcs (or especially Orks) from GW are basically football (soccer for you yanks) hooligans. Peter Jackson may have been influenced by that.
Tolkien, being an English professor, gave the Orcs a "rough" dialect to show that they were crude beasts, but as far as I remember it's not really specifically cockney (i.e. no slang etc.), merely uneducated and not very articulate.
Here's an impactful series of essays, https://acoup.blog/category/collections/that-dothraki-horde/, that I read recently that takes a critical look at GRRM's statement of the Dothraki being an “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures”. There are four parts total and it's pretty lengthy (so set aside plenty of time to read).
The main takeaway is that the Dothraki horde are an amalgamation of stereotypes that have little resemblance to steppe and plain cultures.
I think the hard part for me after reading this is and watching the HBO series left such a sour taste in my mouth that this didn't help (I've also read the books). I think it's problematic because there seems to be this belief that GRRM created a realistic world that just so happens to have magic in it (though I may be projecting here). I think about the articles a lot and how they impact my view of GoT's particularly given the broader conversations about race happening in the US (where I'm located).
The website has some nice essays on other topics as well with a large focus on military history.
ASOIAF's Dothraki are as accurate as any of the other cultures and ideas in the book in comparison to the historical things they take inspiration from. That's just the nature of literature's loose association with what we know of actual history.
Or you could read the articles and see that GRRM essentially takes all of the racist tropes for those people. We know a lot of actual history for steppe and plains cultures and a bit of research would have allowed the Dothraki to be an actual society instead of what we got. And it's one thing for the people of Westeros to hold these ideas, but then we have chapters describing the Dothraki culture.
The Dothraki are treated far more poorly than most other cultures presented in the book.
I did. That's what my reply is in reference to, the thing that you linked. The author makes far too much of the statement they base the entire thing on and considers far too little the way in which this is how the books treat all the things it vaguely seems based on. The whole "ASOIAF is so much like real history" thing is a projection of fans onto the series itself that has never held up to real scrutiny. All fantasy (and sci-fi and anything really) does.
First I apologize for my tone in my previous reply.
I still think the Dothraki got the short end of the stick. I know that all of the various groups in ASOIAF are loosely based on actual cultures, but it's fantasy as you said and it's hard to make that hold up to scrutiny.
But most of the groups in the book/show have actual cultures (and has been mentioned in this thread, particularly those based on Western European cultures). GRRM is the one who said however that the Dothraki were based on steppe and plain cultures. The Dothraki have horses and live on the plains. That's the extent of basing them on real world sources. If the view of the Dothraki only came from POV characters that lived in Westeros then I think it makes sense to characterize them as terrible savages, but he included POV chapters from people directly connected to the Dothraki. There was an opportunity there to do more and better.
I think it's fair to say that not all cultures received equal treatment in ASOIAF and that some of these fall into the category of racist tropes. I think it's also fair to be critical of the author when he makes a statement about the origins of a group in a book and then pointing out all of the different ways the author fell short (knowing that there is never going to be a perfect characterization).
I look at this writing and the shows depiction and I think about how it may feed into people's beliefs about non-western cultures and being uncivilized. I recognize that some of this is likely projection and bias on my part, but when I think of the last 4-5 years in the US, I don't give people much credit for being able to differentiate fantasy from reality.
You know, I had a screed about the difficulties of keeping armies in the field during the War of the Roses, but decide to not bore you.
What I think ASOIAF needs is something akin to the Magna Carta; Namely the smallfolk and lesser bannermen deciding that they want a say in how the seven Kingdoms are run. I mean half the problems in the book come from the fact that power is held in the Iron Throne and few powerful magnates with zero accountability. Robert spending his days whoring and not ruling is how they got in this mess in the first place. Rob Stark executing one of his own bannermen without anything resembling a trial beyond; he who passes the sentence, wields the sword bullshit. Littlefinger borrowing millions from the Iron Bank and nobody noticing.
Part of what makes the show so bad is that it ends with the same system, only with different people in charge. Bran isn't going to live forever,though probably longer than most. What is going to happen to Westoros once all the good people on his Small council are dead? You need a large council, like a permanent Kingsmoot from the Iron Isles.
It could even be Dany's breaking point, she is Queen by divine/dragon right, who are these peasants to demand she share power?
For a political story, you need a political ending.
I was absolutely certain we were gonna get a 'the more things stay the same' type of ending: Dany the unpopular ruler of a fractious kingdom, the night king defeated by perhaps not destroyed, the north superficially friendly but politically separatist, several lower houses jockeying for standing, etc. It seemed like both the easiest ending to write and also the truest to the themes (yeah yeah, book reports) of the show. Some incremental progress winds up getting made in some areas but on the whole westeros is westeros.
it seems like such a simple 'way out' of the problem of concluding the political story that I'm still amazed they didn't take it; give the characters we like some closure perhaps (and kill jon, ffs), but on the whole it's the great game of thrones and most people are shit
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Here's an impactful series of essays, https://acoup.blog/category/collections/that-dothraki-horde/, that I read recently that takes a critical look at GRRM's statement of the Dothraki being an “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures”. There are four parts total and it's pretty lengthy (so set aside plenty of time to read).
The main takeaway is that the Dothraki horde are an amalgamation of stereotypes that have little resemblance to steppe and plain cultures.
I think the hard part for me after reading this is and watching the HBO series left such a sour taste in my mouth that this didn't help (I've also read the books). I think it's problematic because there seems to be this belief that GRRM created a realistic world that just so happens to have magic in it (though I may be projecting here). I think about the articles a lot and how they impact my view of GoT's particularly given the broader conversations about race happening in the US (where I'm located).
The website has some nice essays on other topics as well with a large focus on military history.
ASOIAF's Dothraki are as accurate as any of the other cultures and ideas in the book in comparison to the historical things they take inspiration from. That's just the nature of literature's loose association with what we know of actual history.
Or you could read the articles and see that GRRM essentially takes all of the racist tropes for those people. We know a lot of actual history for steppe and plains cultures and a bit of research would have allowed the Dothraki to be an actual society instead of what we got. And it's one thing for the people of Westeros to hold these ideas, but then we have chapters describing the Dothraki culture.
The Dothraki are treated far more poorly than most other cultures presented in the book.
I did. That's what my reply is in reference to, the thing that you linked. The author makes far too much of the statement they base the entire thing on and considers far too little the way in which this is how the books treat all the things it vaguely seems based on. The whole "ASOIAF is so much like real history" thing is a projection of fans onto the series itself that has never held up to real scrutiny. All fantasy (and sci-fi and anything really) does.
First I apologize for my tone in my previous reply.
I still think the Dothraki got the short end of the stick. I know that all of the various groups in ASOIAF are loosely based on actual cultures, but it's fantasy as you said and it's hard to make that hold up to scrutiny.
But most of the groups in the book/show have actual cultures (and has been mentioned in this thread, particularly those based on Western European cultures). GRRM is the one who said however that the Dothraki were based on steppe and plain cultures. The Dothraki have horses and live on the plains. That's the extent of basing them on real world sources. If the view of the Dothraki only came from POV characters that lived in Westeros then I think it makes sense to characterize them as terrible savages, but he included POV chapters from people directly connected to the Dothraki. There was an opportunity there to do more and better.
I think it's fair to say that not all cultures received equal treatment in ASOIAF and that some of these fall into the category of racist tropes. I think it's also fair to be critical of the author when he makes a statement about the origins of a group in a book and then pointing out all of the different ways the author fell short (knowing that there is never going to be a perfect characterization).
I look at this writing and the shows depiction and I think about how it may feed into people's beliefs about non-western cultures and being uncivilized. I recognize that some of this is likely projection and bias on my part, but when I think of the last 4-5 years in the US, I don't give people much credit for being able to differentiate fantasy from reality.
Again, I think you are making far too much of a statement you are even pulling out of context. He's basically just saying they are loosely based on the idea of horse nomads. And this isn't, as he obliquely points out in that reply, unique to the Dothraki in that respect. It's all very loosely inspired by history or, in some cases, just pure fantasy. And if you really wanna look at it as some sort of representation of real world cultures anyway, the Iron Islanders are right there getting similar treatment.
Like the author of the piece of you linked, I think you are trying to single out this single part of a single statement and hold it up as some sort of very strong claim he's making. But he's just not making that claim and the ways in which ASOIAF is just not very analogous to history are many and extent well beyond the Dothraki. Well beyond the series itself frankly.
Here's an impactful series of essays, https://acoup.blog/category/collections/that-dothraki-horde/, that I read recently that takes a critical look at GRRM's statement of the Dothraki being an “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures”. There are four parts total and it's pretty lengthy (so set aside plenty of time to read).
The main takeaway is that the Dothraki horde are an amalgamation of stereotypes that have little resemblance to steppe and plain cultures.
I think the hard part for me after reading this is and watching the HBO series left such a sour taste in my mouth that this didn't help (I've also read the books). I think it's problematic because there seems to be this belief that GRRM created a realistic world that just so happens to have magic in it (though I may be projecting here). I think about the articles a lot and how they impact my view of GoT's particularly given the broader conversations about race happening in the US (where I'm located).
The website has some nice essays on other topics as well with a large focus on military history.
ASOIAF's Dothraki are as accurate as any of the other cultures and ideas in the book in comparison to the historical things they take inspiration from. That's just the nature of literature's loose association with what we know of actual history.
Or you could read the articles and see that GRRM essentially takes all of the racist tropes for those people. We know a lot of actual history for steppe and plains cultures and a bit of research would have allowed the Dothraki to be an actual society instead of what we got. And it's one thing for the people of Westeros to hold these ideas, but then we have chapters describing the Dothraki culture.
The Dothraki are treated far more poorly than most other cultures presented in the book.
I did. That's what my reply is in reference to, the thing that you linked. The author makes far too much of the statement they base the entire thing on and considers far too little the way in which this is how the books treat all the things it vaguely seems based on. The whole "ASOIAF is so much like real history" thing is a projection of fans onto the series itself that has never held up to real scrutiny. All fantasy (and sci-fi and anything really) does.
First I apologize for my tone in my previous reply.
I still think the Dothraki got the short end of the stick. I know that all of the various groups in ASOIAF are loosely based on actual cultures, but it's fantasy as you said and it's hard to make that hold up to scrutiny.
But most of the groups in the book/show have actual cultures (and has been mentioned in this thread, particularly those based on Western European cultures). GRRM is the one who said however that the Dothraki were based on steppe and plain cultures. The Dothraki have horses and live on the plains. That's the extent of basing them on real world sources. If the view of the Dothraki only came from POV characters that lived in Westeros then I think it makes sense to characterize them as terrible savages, but he included POV chapters from people directly connected to the Dothraki. There was an opportunity there to do more and better.
I think it's fair to say that not all cultures received equal treatment in ASOIAF and that some of these fall into the category of racist tropes. I think it's also fair to be critical of the author when he makes a statement about the origins of a group in a book and then pointing out all of the different ways the author fell short (knowing that there is never going to be a perfect characterization).
I look at this writing and the shows depiction and I think about how it may feed into people's beliefs about non-western cultures and being uncivilized. I recognize that some of this is likely projection and bias on my part, but when I think of the last 4-5 years in the US, I don't give people much credit for being able to differentiate fantasy from reality.
Again, I think you are making far too much of a statement you are even pulling out of context. He's basically just saying they are loosely based on the idea of horse nomads. And this isn't, as he obliquely points out in that reply, unique to the Dothraki in that respect. It's all very loosely inspired by history or, in some cases, just pure fantasy. And if you really wanna look at it as some sort of representation of real world cultures anyway, the Iron Islanders are right there getting similar treatment.
Like the author of the piece of you linked, I think you are trying to single out this single part of a single statement and hold it up as some sort of very strong claim he's making. But he's just not making that claim and the ways in which ASOIAF is just not very analogous to history are many and extent well beyond the Dothraki. Well beyond the series itself frankly.
I don't think I'm missing the forest for the trees here. I looked up the full quote to make sure I wasn't taking it out of context or that I was attributing something to GRRM that he didn't say.
And cool, the Iron Islanders aren't particularly well written either, I don't think that pulls away from the points made on the Dothraki. If we want to "what about?" another group we can, but that still doesn't change the other statements being made.
Words have consequences and we can't just say, "well, but fantasy" to try and pretend they don't. 300 is historical fantasy and it's seems to have created a notion that Spartans were the biggest most badass warriors in all of history for many people.
The Dothraki are horse nomads in the sense that they are nomads that ride horses. GRRM is the one who then went on to say that they are an amalgamation of different real world cultures.
And again, GRRM is the one that decided to do POV chapters that have the Dothraki viewed as these one dimensional savages in Westeros and then have POV chapters of those in the Dothraki hordes that continue to paint them as one dimensional savages.
You know, I had a screed about the difficulties of keeping armies in the field during the War of the Roses, but decide to not bore you.
What I think ASOIAF needs is something akin to the Magna Carta; Namely the smallfolk and lesser bannermen deciding that they want a say in how the seven Kingdoms are run. I mean half the problems in the book come from the fact that power is held in the Iron Throne and few powerful magnates with zero accountability. Robert spending his days whoring and not ruling is how they got in this mess in the first place. Rob Stark executing one of his own bannermen without anything resembling a trial beyond; he who passes the sentence, wields the sword bullshit. Littlefinger borrowing millions from the Iron Bank and nobody noticing.
Part of what makes the show so bad is that it ends with the same system, only with different people in charge. Bran isn't going to live forever,though probably longer than most. What is going to happen to Westoros once all the good people on his Small council are dead? You need a large council, like a permanent Kingsmoot from the Iron Isles.
It could even be Dany's breaking point, she is Queen by divine/dragon right, who are these peasants to demand she share power?
For a political story, you need a political ending.
I was absolutely certain we were gonna get a 'the more things stay the same' type of ending: Dany the unpopular ruler of a fractious kingdom, the night king defeated by perhaps not destroyed, the north superficially friendly but politically separatist, several lower houses jockeying for standing, etc. It seemed like both the easiest ending to write and also the truest to the themes (yeah yeah, book reports) of the show. Some incremental progress winds up getting made in some areas but on the whole westeros is westeros.
it seems like such a simple 'way out' of the problem of concluding the political story that I'm still amazed they didn't take it; give the characters we like some closure perhaps (and kill jon, ffs), but on the whole it's the great game of thrones and most people are shit
They needed to do a Stunning Twist (TM) though.
And they didn't even do that right - they had half of one (Bran is an alien god-king who usurps the throne via magic mind control) but they tried to spin it as a sappy "Underdog comes out on top" story, instead of horror.
Sometimes the hardest ending to write is the obvious one. But TV serial writers who try to avoid the endings the fans have guessed tend to come up with terrible endings, as the only possible endings which the fans haven't guessed tend to be stupid. Breaking Bad wrote a good ending because it did the obvious one - it didn't try to have a stunning twist where Gus Fring came back from the dead or Hank Schrader turned out to be the ultimate bad. It had the courage to go where it was always going.
I agree that the Dothraki are heavily based on racist stereotypes, but it’s kind of odd, because I think Martin is actually somewhat sympathetic to the Dothraki even as presented. At the least I think he wanted to present both their culture and Westeros culture as comparably brutal.
There’s rape and pillage in basically every one of his societies. Robert is compared to the Dothraki. Women (some, not most) have roughly as much (and possibly more) input on societal decisions through the Dosh Khaleen (no idea if that’s right, but the Khal widows) as women in Westeros (high-born ladies and septas are basically it here). And both cultures have their exceptions: Dany’s blood riders choose her over their own culture, Drogo is a violent brute, but hardly a simple one: he’s gentle and even ask for consent on their wedding night, and attempts to meet Dany part way when she challenges his or other Dothraki decisions on occasion. There’s an endless list of Westeros folks who are equally or more pointlessly cruel than any Dothraki we’ve met.
It’s not a justification by any means, but I do think Martin was trying to avoid both the old stereotypes of brutal and noble “savages”. It’s just a weird result when his approach was, “Well, let’s keep the racist trappings, but be clear that these are complex human beings just like everywhere else.”
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Martin writes from the POV of people. People are racist. Who knew.
...It’s just a weird result when his approach was, “Well, let’s keep the racist trappings, but be clear that these are complex human beings just like everywhere else.”
I think this is definitely part of where my issues come in. There are these individual examples of complex individuals such as Drogo being able to be kind, but that's against a backdrop of all the other Khals being pretty one dimensional. I think there is some white savior written in there as well with Dany, but I don't think that was intentional and I can definitely see that being projection on my part.
If the show writers had gone with any of the more obvious endings and it'd come out that Martin had given them some other ending the internet rage would have burned hotter than dragon fire. People gave them a lot of shit for the ending we got, but if they'd just made one up whole-cloth? Even if it had been a good ending it would have gotten mountains of shit once Martin mentioned in an interview that he had a completely different ending in mind for the books.
One of the many racist stereotypes in play in ASoIaF is the Dothraki as the Noble Savages. They're presented as violent brutes but also more in touch with nature and more true to their ideals than their civilized neighbors. So yeah, their leader is a murderer and child rapist...but he's also actually really kind once you get to know their ways!
...It’s just a weird result when his approach was, “Well, let’s keep the racist trappings, but be clear that these are complex human beings just like everywhere else.”
I think this is definitely part of where my issues come in. There are these individual examples of complex individuals such as Drogo being able to be kind, but that's against a backdrop of all the other Khals being pretty one dimensional. I think there is some white savior written in there as well with Dany, but I don't think that was intentional and I can definitely see that being projection on my part.
Dany certainly didn't save the Dothraki. If she and her brother hadn't shown up they'd have continued living as they did before. She conquered them, destroyed their way of life, and repurposed them to fulfill her own desires.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I also want to know what history you guys have been reading where what we would today consider to be child rape and murder and genocide are not endemic to all cultures, particularly those in power.
I also want to know what history you guys have been reading where what we would today consider to be child rape and murder and genocide are not endemic to all cultures, particularly those in power.
Average age of marriage during the 15th century (war of the roses) was ~25. Most general beliefs about the medieval period are based on false assumptions and stereotypes from ~contemporary literature rather than contemporaneous. Not actual history or stories from the time.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I also want to know what history you guys have been reading where what we would today consider to be child rape and murder and genocide are not endemic to all cultures, particularly those in power.
Average age of marriage during the 15th century (war of the roses) was ~25. Most general beliefs about the medieval period are based on false assumptions and stereotypes from ~contemporary literature rather than contemporaneous. Not actual history or stories from the time.
That's moving the goalposts and I suspect you know that. Otherwise you wouldn't have been so specific with your reference in terms of time and location.
I also want to know what history you guys have been reading where what we would today consider to be child rape and murder and genocide are not endemic to all cultures, particularly those in power.
Average age of marriage during the 15th century (war of the roses) was ~25. Most general beliefs about the medieval period are based on false assumptions and stereotypes from ~contemporary literature rather than contemporaneous. Not actual history or stories from the time.
That's moving the goalposts and I suspect you know that.
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ASOIAF's Dothraki are as accurate as any of the other cultures and ideas in the book in comparison to the historical things they take inspiration from. That's just the nature of literature's loose association with what we know of actual history.
They are Tolkien's invention and are pretty much every swarthy invading horseman from the east threatening the peaceful peoples of the west.
Why yes, they are a problematic racial stereotype when you examine them closer. How did you guess?
They talk with cockney accents. They aren't a direct analogue of swarthy eastern invaders. There's actual humans to be that in LOTR.
Or you could read the articles and see that GRRM essentially takes all of the racist tropes for those people. We know a lot of actual history for steppe and plains cultures and a bit of research would have allowed the Dothraki to be an actual society instead of what we got. And it's one thing for the people of Westeros to hold these ideas, but then we have chapters describing the Dothraki culture.
The Dothraki are treated far more poorly than most other cultures presented in the book.
Magic Online - Bertro
I did. That's what my reply is in reference to, the thing that you linked. The author makes far too much of the statement they base the entire thing on and considers far too little the way in which this is how the books treat all the things it vaguely seems based on. The whole "ASOIAF is so much like real history" thing is a projection of fans onto the series itself that has never held up to real scrutiny. All fantasy (and sci-fi and anything really) does.
I disagree. Whether it was by design or happy accident, Tolkien's orcs don't dress or talk like any of the peoples you mention, nor do they share cultural practices, cuisine, etc. They don't even ride horses, hell most of them don't ride at all (warg riders are a rarity). They fill the narrative role of the stereotype without associating it with any actual ethnic group.
That some adaptations of his work, and many other fantasy genre works make the unfortunate step of adding back in things that make their orcs like huns, goths, or mongols is on them, not on Tolkien.
I don't disagree with you about the handling of the Dothraki, but as to your overall concern about people looking to ASoIaF/GoT as 'realistic', I really don't think people mean that its depictions of the cultures are realistic. I think they are just talking about the overall cynicism and grimness of the series, it's deliberate aversion to portraying any kind of nobility or monarchy in a positive light, being more realistic than they are used to in fantasy works.
The Westerosi cultures are mostly the worst parts of mediaeval Europe.
Only the Wildlings and Northerners (Scottish and Northern England) seem not-horrible.
That is the movies, which was made 60 years after the Hobbit came out.
The books and the rest of the Legendarium clearly has them as a eastern invader stand in. Its one of the problems Tolkien had with writing them. He didn't want to create an always evil race and he didn't want to play into the racist stereotypes. Its just that the rest of his works kind of piegonhole them into that, because the peoples they are based on had such a reputation in western culture. Its part of the reason he made them debased elves tormented into evil in the Silmarilion. Tolkien being a devout catholic who refused to believe in satan having the power to create life or creatures without soul being permanently evil.
LOTR is heavily based on previous mythological epics like the Kalevala and Beowulf. In many such works and the Medieval poetry that followed such invaders where a common trope.
The fact that wolves ride huge wolves is a evil fantasy take on the small fast horses used by Huns and Mongols. Their desire for plunder rather than stand up battles is a response to such horse tribes highly mobile warfare. Same with the scruffy dark look, instead of the shining armor/heraldry of medieval knights.
Then you have Dungeons and Dragons and that is a whole other take...
Here is the thing, they did a second batch after the first batch went off. The second batch came in after the finale and those sat on the shelves for months out here in NH. That's probably the batch you saw. The first batch was right before the start of the last season.
They have cockney accents in the books. That's where it comes from.
They aren't direct stand ins for eastern invaders. They aren't direct stand ins for anything. Tolkien explicitly hated trying to read the books as allegory.
No, the LOTR orcs are definitely characterized as cockneys. But they are described as having yellow skin and slanted eyes. So both classist and racist, LOL.
Melkor's desire for Dominion over Arda.
Same. Although, I wished Arya to Assassin's Creed in to House Frey and do some damage... which she more than does.
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What an author intends and what they write are two very different things.
For example, I've read a lot of books that were shit. I'm pretty sure most of those authors didn't intend to write shit. Yet! Shit I read.
But enough about my posts
yeah, while I wouldn't go so far as "Tolkien was a secret racist and was trying to sneak racist ideology into people through his literature", I personally regard his "my books are not political or related to current events at all" statements in the same way I do those Ubisoft game splashscreens that say "This game is totally nonpolitical and any references to current political movements, people, or events are purely coincidental".
He never said his works were apolitical, just that the choices he made in the story were not guided by some purposeful extradenotative agenda. It actually requires a lot of cunning work to create true allegory; you can't just stumble into it.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Yeah, Orcs (or especially Orks) from GW are basically football (soccer for you yanks) hooligans. Peter Jackson may have been influenced by that.
Tolkien, being an English professor, gave the Orcs a "rough" dialect to show that they were crude beasts, but as far as I remember it's not really specifically cockney (i.e. no slang etc.), merely uneducated and not very articulate.
First I apologize for my tone in my previous reply.
I still think the Dothraki got the short end of the stick. I know that all of the various groups in ASOIAF are loosely based on actual cultures, but it's fantasy as you said and it's hard to make that hold up to scrutiny.
But most of the groups in the book/show have actual cultures (and has been mentioned in this thread, particularly those based on Western European cultures). GRRM is the one who said however that the Dothraki were based on steppe and plain cultures. The Dothraki have horses and live on the plains. That's the extent of basing them on real world sources. If the view of the Dothraki only came from POV characters that lived in Westeros then I think it makes sense to characterize them as terrible savages, but he included POV chapters from people directly connected to the Dothraki. There was an opportunity there to do more and better.
I think it's fair to say that not all cultures received equal treatment in ASOIAF and that some of these fall into the category of racist tropes. I think it's also fair to be critical of the author when he makes a statement about the origins of a group in a book and then pointing out all of the different ways the author fell short (knowing that there is never going to be a perfect characterization).
I look at this writing and the shows depiction and I think about how it may feed into people's beliefs about non-western cultures and being uncivilized. I recognize that some of this is likely projection and bias on my part, but when I think of the last 4-5 years in the US, I don't give people much credit for being able to differentiate fantasy from reality.
Magic Online - Bertro
I was absolutely certain we were gonna get a 'the more things stay the same' type of ending: Dany the unpopular ruler of a fractious kingdom, the night king defeated by perhaps not destroyed, the north superficially friendly but politically separatist, several lower houses jockeying for standing, etc. It seemed like both the easiest ending to write and also the truest to the themes (yeah yeah, book reports) of the show. Some incremental progress winds up getting made in some areas but on the whole westeros is westeros.
it seems like such a simple 'way out' of the problem of concluding the political story that I'm still amazed they didn't take it; give the characters we like some closure perhaps (and kill jon, ffs), but on the whole it's the great game of thrones and most people are shit
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Again, I think you are making far too much of a statement you are even pulling out of context. He's basically just saying they are loosely based on the idea of horse nomads. And this isn't, as he obliquely points out in that reply, unique to the Dothraki in that respect. It's all very loosely inspired by history or, in some cases, just pure fantasy. And if you really wanna look at it as some sort of representation of real world cultures anyway, the Iron Islanders are right there getting similar treatment.
Like the author of the piece of you linked, I think you are trying to single out this single part of a single statement and hold it up as some sort of very strong claim he's making. But he's just not making that claim and the ways in which ASOIAF is just not very analogous to history are many and extent well beyond the Dothraki. Well beyond the series itself frankly.
I don't think I'm missing the forest for the trees here. I looked up the full quote to make sure I wasn't taking it out of context or that I was attributing something to GRRM that he didn't say.
And cool, the Iron Islanders aren't particularly well written either, I don't think that pulls away from the points made on the Dothraki. If we want to "what about?" another group we can, but that still doesn't change the other statements being made.
Words have consequences and we can't just say, "well, but fantasy" to try and pretend they don't. 300 is historical fantasy and it's seems to have created a notion that Spartans were the biggest most badass warriors in all of history for many people.
The Dothraki are horse nomads in the sense that they are nomads that ride horses. GRRM is the one who then went on to say that they are an amalgamation of different real world cultures.
And again, GRRM is the one that decided to do POV chapters that have the Dothraki viewed as these one dimensional savages in Westeros and then have POV chapters of those in the Dothraki hordes that continue to paint them as one dimensional savages.
Magic Online - Bertro
They needed to do a Stunning Twist (TM) though.
And they didn't even do that right - they had half of one (Bran is an alien god-king who usurps the throne via magic mind control) but they tried to spin it as a sappy "Underdog comes out on top" story, instead of horror.
Sometimes the hardest ending to write is the obvious one. But TV serial writers who try to avoid the endings the fans have guessed tend to come up with terrible endings, as the only possible endings which the fans haven't guessed tend to be stupid. Breaking Bad wrote a good ending because it did the obvious one - it didn't try to have a stunning twist where Gus Fring came back from the dead or Hank Schrader turned out to be the ultimate bad. It had the courage to go where it was always going.
There’s rape and pillage in basically every one of his societies. Robert is compared to the Dothraki. Women (some, not most) have roughly as much (and possibly more) input on societal decisions through the Dosh Khaleen (no idea if that’s right, but the Khal widows) as women in Westeros (high-born ladies and septas are basically it here). And both cultures have their exceptions: Dany’s blood riders choose her over their own culture, Drogo is a violent brute, but hardly a simple one: he’s gentle and even ask for consent on their wedding night, and attempts to meet Dany part way when she challenges his or other Dothraki decisions on occasion. There’s an endless list of Westeros folks who are equally or more pointlessly cruel than any Dothraki we’ve met.
It’s not a justification by any means, but I do think Martin was trying to avoid both the old stereotypes of brutal and noble “savages”. It’s just a weird result when his approach was, “Well, let’s keep the racist trappings, but be clear that these are complex human beings just like everywhere else.”
I think this is definitely part of where my issues come in. There are these individual examples of complex individuals such as Drogo being able to be kind, but that's against a backdrop of all the other Khals being pretty one dimensional. I think there is some white savior written in there as well with Dany, but I don't think that was intentional and I can definitely see that being projection on my part.
Magic Online - Bertro
One of the many racist stereotypes in play in ASoIaF is the Dothraki as the Noble Savages. They're presented as violent brutes but also more in touch with nature and more true to their ideals than their civilized neighbors. So yeah, their leader is a murderer and child rapist...but he's also actually really kind once you get to know their ways!
Dany certainly didn't save the Dothraki. If she and her brother hadn't shown up they'd have continued living as they did before. She conquered them, destroyed their way of life, and repurposed them to fulfill her own desires.
Average age of marriage during the 15th century (war of the roses) was ~25. Most general beliefs about the medieval period are based on false assumptions and stereotypes from ~contemporary literature rather than contemporaneous. Not actual history or stories from the time.
That's moving the goalposts and I suspect you know that. Otherwise you wouldn't have been so specific with your reference in terms of time and location.
How?