![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm currently working through a series of college lectures about the history of real pirates (for reasons) and, unsurprisingly, actual history is not nearly as white as Hollywood and western publishing industries would have you believe. This has got me thinking about the casting in House of the Dragon due to the recent ~discourse~ around it and That Other Fantasy Show I Shall Not Mention, as well as the extremely white casting of Game of Thrones by contrast.
It's fascinating to me that the "HiStORiCaL aCcUrAcY" arguments are always trotted out to defend extreme onscreen violence perpetrated on female bodies, irregardless of how accurate any of that violence can be said to be, or an author's defaulting to misogyny as world-building. "Well, that's just the way things were." The way things were WHEN, exactly? Westeros is not a real place, it has never really existed and neither have dragons (sadly), so to which real history can one possibly be referring? The "history" of Westeros is a completely fabricated fiction, which takes inspiration from real history at the author's sole discretion. There's nothing that says this fantasy world must include misogyny; that's a choice made by the author.
And I'm not saying it's a wrong choice. So far, HOTD is doing interesting, productive things in its exploration of the patriarchy and the ways in which it negatively impacts people of all genders. But Westeros does not include misogyny because it's "historically accurate." Misogyny is included because George R.R. Martin decided it would be.
And people are perfectly fine with accepting that...right up until it's about the author/showrunner deciding to include, say, people of color. Flimsy 'HiStORiCaL aCcUrAcY" arguments come out again, but when counterarguments using actual real history are employed, suddenly accuracy is no longer so important. Now it's "consistency" or whatever else.
And it's not that consistency can't or shouldn't be a concern. As much as I'm thrilled every time I see an Asian person, or any other person of color onscreen, there's a pesky voice in the back of my head asking, "If there are people of color in Westeros now, why are they all gone 200 years later?" Answering that question has possibly unintentionally distressing implications.
But I doubt any of the naysayers are actually concerned with that.
To bring this back around: Pirates.
My other favorite Westerosi House is the Greyjoys. On GOT, House Greyjoy is...very white. Despite the fact that in the books the ironborn, and Greyjoys specifically, are described as having black hair and eyes, and Theon in particular is said to be "dark featured." Beyond just the physical, the ironborn can also be argued to be racially coded, and the Seven Kingdoms rather sketchy annexation of the Iron Islands is suspicious to say the least. The Iron Islands, even more than Dorne which is eventually brought into "the fold," maintain a culture separate from the mainland, continually assert that the Iron Throne does not and cannot command them, and still frequently raid and pillage the mainland up until the "modern day" in GoT. One of the titular five kings that make up the War of the Five Kings is a Greyjoy.
So, why in the heck are they all white, with light hair and eyes to boot? I suspect the answer is somethingsomething historical accuracy somethingsomething, which, despite "historical accuracy" not being a valid argument, if we are going to reference actual history...a good number of pirates weren't white. Not to mention, there are entire pirating traditions that are exclusively not white (the course I'm taking, although very white-centered, still frequently makes mention of, for instance, Chinese pirates and how their codes differed from western pirates). White Europeans do not have any sort of sole claim on historical seafaring piracy, and even if they did, it doesn't follow that they should in a made-up fantasy world.
This leaves me to wonder what HOTD is going to do with the Greyjoys, since the ironborn take the Dance of the Dragons as an opportunity to do quite a bit of piracy off the coast of Lannisport, in possible later seasons. At the very least, the ironborn should be more racially mixed, given their tradition of taking salt wives from whomever they despoil. This is, of course, assuming HOTD will include the Greyjoys, which it may not for streamlining reasons, since their involvement in the events of the Dance are peripheral.
SIDE NOTE: Also, I just think all the stink about HOTD including POC is hilarious since there are still barely any characters of color in the actual main cast. House Velaryon is really the only major exception. AND YET. This mostly serves to underline for me just how racially gatekept and whitewashed fantasy is as a genre, if even the slightest shift in that paradigm can cause such upset.
It's fascinating to me that the "HiStORiCaL aCcUrAcY" arguments are always trotted out to defend extreme onscreen violence perpetrated on female bodies, irregardless of how accurate any of that violence can be said to be, or an author's defaulting to misogyny as world-building. "Well, that's just the way things were." The way things were WHEN, exactly? Westeros is not a real place, it has never really existed and neither have dragons (sadly), so to which real history can one possibly be referring? The "history" of Westeros is a completely fabricated fiction, which takes inspiration from real history at the author's sole discretion. There's nothing that says this fantasy world must include misogyny; that's a choice made by the author.
And I'm not saying it's a wrong choice. So far, HOTD is doing interesting, productive things in its exploration of the patriarchy and the ways in which it negatively impacts people of all genders. But Westeros does not include misogyny because it's "historically accurate." Misogyny is included because George R.R. Martin decided it would be.
And people are perfectly fine with accepting that...right up until it's about the author/showrunner deciding to include, say, people of color. Flimsy 'HiStORiCaL aCcUrAcY" arguments come out again, but when counterarguments using actual real history are employed, suddenly accuracy is no longer so important. Now it's "consistency" or whatever else.
And it's not that consistency can't or shouldn't be a concern. As much as I'm thrilled every time I see an Asian person, or any other person of color onscreen, there's a pesky voice in the back of my head asking, "If there are people of color in Westeros now, why are they all gone 200 years later?" Answering that question has possibly unintentionally distressing implications.
But I doubt any of the naysayers are actually concerned with that.
To bring this back around: Pirates.
My other favorite Westerosi House is the Greyjoys. On GOT, House Greyjoy is...very white. Despite the fact that in the books the ironborn, and Greyjoys specifically, are described as having black hair and eyes, and Theon in particular is said to be "dark featured." Beyond just the physical, the ironborn can also be argued to be racially coded, and the Seven Kingdoms rather sketchy annexation of the Iron Islands is suspicious to say the least. The Iron Islands, even more than Dorne which is eventually brought into "the fold," maintain a culture separate from the mainland, continually assert that the Iron Throne does not and cannot command them, and still frequently raid and pillage the mainland up until the "modern day" in GoT. One of the titular five kings that make up the War of the Five Kings is a Greyjoy.
So, why in the heck are they all white, with light hair and eyes to boot? I suspect the answer is somethingsomething historical accuracy somethingsomething, which, despite "historical accuracy" not being a valid argument, if we are going to reference actual history...a good number of pirates weren't white. Not to mention, there are entire pirating traditions that are exclusively not white (the course I'm taking, although very white-centered, still frequently makes mention of, for instance, Chinese pirates and how their codes differed from western pirates). White Europeans do not have any sort of sole claim on historical seafaring piracy, and even if they did, it doesn't follow that they should in a made-up fantasy world.
This leaves me to wonder what HOTD is going to do with the Greyjoys, since the ironborn take the Dance of the Dragons as an opportunity to do quite a bit of piracy off the coast of Lannisport, in possible later seasons. At the very least, the ironborn should be more racially mixed, given their tradition of taking salt wives from whomever they despoil. This is, of course, assuming HOTD will include the Greyjoys, which it may not for streamlining reasons, since their involvement in the events of the Dance are peripheral.
SIDE NOTE: Also, I just think all the stink about HOTD including POC is hilarious since there are still barely any characters of color in the actual main cast. House Velaryon is really the only major exception. AND YET. This mostly serves to underline for me just how racially gatekept and whitewashed fantasy is as a genre, if even the slightest shift in that paradigm can cause such upset.
