A Song Of Ice And Fire

Nobody has asked him yet, and I hope that the question is presented in the right environment and context since otherwise the more overzealous online people would go after him. The answer I think, as with not having a Dothraki/Essosi POV, would be that it's not part of the story he's telling and that's fair. And obviously it emphasizes that ASOIAF is just one approach to deconstructing Tolkien with quasi-historical fiction and not the final one. And there's a story waiting to be told about an european fantasy that tackles stuff like this.

I think the Rhoynish migration to Dorne is kind of a riff of Jewish diaspora, with Nymeria as a Moses-like leader to a new Promised Land. The Valyrians crushing the Rhoyne is, well I wont say its analogous at all, but you can maybe see it as an equivalent to the Fall of Jerusalem and in Dorne you have Orphans of the Greenblood lamenting for their lost home, while Nymeria became the emblem of ideal assimilation, in that she brought Rhoynish customs into Dorne (gender equality) but transformed and triumphed. The Rhoynish also taught the Andals metalwork which you can see as a nod to the Jewish origins of Christianity. But this is again not exact. It's undeniably true that Dornish people face racist discrimination across Westeros the way that other people don't. Like wildlings aren't discriminated upon racially, they are discriminated for social/ethnic reasons, while Dornishfolk, especially Salty and Sandy Dornish are seen as "different" even if they have the same religion and class...so that's pretty close to classic antisemitism but again not exact, since you don't have Rhoynish ghettoes and communities across Westeros.

Which would be legitimate if tackled well. After all having period heroes who don't have prejudices of its time is one of the reasons Hollywood History tropes exist. The kind of people who had some kind of enlightened sentiments in the olden days are historically seen as villains and politically speaking had to be villains of some kind or other in the general corruption that passed for normalcy in European history. Like Pedro the Cruel, was a Castilian King who was labelled "the Cruel" because he punished anti-Jewish rioters.

Well Ned Stark does have prejudices. He doesn't lose sleep over Mycah's death. He's also quite paternalistic over Arya's wishes to be an independent adventurer, seeing her future in arranged marriage. Even Tyrion is quite a nasty guy, despite his own sympathies he's a bit of a sexist, tends to have a Working-Class People Are Morons attitude, makes fun of the Mountain Clans egalitarianism and basically sees slaves in Essos as too weak or unlucky to liberate themselves. He's a kind of elitist himself, who invites sympathy because of his complicated position where "If I were born a peasant I'd be left out in the cold, but alas I was born a Lannister of Casterly Rock."

Tywin would probably direct pogroms since Edward Longshanks, his historical inspiration, was a professed anti-semite, which by the way, of all the things invented by Mel Gibson (another professed anti-semite) for his fictitious crimes in Braveheart is absolutely true.

Not getting a POV is fine, not getting acknowledgment is another.

edited 27th Aug '16 2:25:57 PM by JulianLapostat

At least personally, as a Jew, I've somewhat identified the Braavosi with Judaism for applicability reasons. What with their being formerly slaves. And I'll admit that since Braavos is one of the best places to live in the setting, I'd like to identify with a positively presented group. Part of it also is because the Faceless God appeals to me because Judaism doesn't see G-d as having a face/specific human form. And like the idea that the Faceless God might be another form of the Stranger (or maybe vice versa?), who is hated/feared in Westeros sort of speaks to me in terms of how Christians refer to the G-d of the Old Testament in a somewhat negative light, which I'd tend to reject.

Also, the Norvoshi warrior priests, of which Hotah is one kind of remind me of Nazirites, but the beards also brings to mind Greek/Russian Orthodox priests and the trope about Russians being strong. It's also possible Hotah is somewhat inspired by the Varangian Guard. Their religion/society does kind of remind me of Orthodox/Old Testament era Judaism. Not a nice place to live though really.

That Dornish idea is interesting. I think for a parallel to really work though, you'd have to have a group that's a minority in Essos and also has a population in Westeros.

Also, come to think of it, the Lamb Men are probably sort of based on Judaism and/or Christianity, but the less said about them the better.

edited 27th Aug '16 2:29:54 PM by Hodor2

Well the Red Lamb has an attitude that shuns the pacifism of his community, and yearning for the Great Shepherd, in favor of active engagement, which kind of echoes the cultural identity views of 20th Century Jews growing up in shtetls and ghettoes, where many chose for some kind of secular engagement, i.e. Communism, Zionism, Liberal/SD, Business/Arts.

Braavos is essentially a romanticized take on America. You have Moonsingers leading them by boat to a Promised Land, i.e. the Mayflower and the Pilgrims. They arrive and they become capitalist and a multicultural democracy at the same time, that doesn't practise slavery. Needless to say it didn't work out this way in real history in both Renaissance Venice (which was a slave-trading entrepot), Renaissance Amsterdam (slave trading entrepot) and America. Proto-Capitalism generated the great number of inherited wealth that came from slave trading.

The Braavosi are a sort of melting pot scenario, except with less integration - so if it's a riff on anything it's sort of Rome without the empire, or the UK and US (again, without the empires). I don't think the Braavosi, in general, can be readily associated with any real-world identity; you'd have to pick one of the groups within Braavos and try that. Well, or pick a very mixed identity.

As a Finn I sort of identify with the North and the Wildlings. I'm not quite sure which group would be closer. There's no clear match, and - and here's the point - nor should there be; Martin isn't creating a mirror image of the real world. He's creating a fantasy world with real-life concepts used where convenient. I don't believe he's trying to create accurate depictions of individual cultures in out world.

I don't think this sort of search for clear parallels is very fruitful, anyway. As I said earlier (a post or two back) Martin seems to pick specific elements, rather than entire cultures, and mix those to create his fictional cultures. Rather than looking at any particular culture, then, it might be more reasonable to think of general patterns that apply to multiple cultures, and see where Martin has used those.

Then you would get stuff like people looking to fulfill a prophesy (be it a promised land or something else), people who are spread out, people who establish partially segregated pockets of their own culture wherever they go, people who use a different language within their group than outside it, people who have a very close connection to their history compared to others, and so on.

You could associate any of those features with multiple real-life cultures, and you'll find them in one or more cultures of Planetos. My guess would be that there wouldn't be a whole lot of correlation between the real-life associations between the groups exhibiting a particular trait, compared to those between real-life groups with that same trait.

So if you look for cultures that have had to migrate you'll find something interesting, but if you're looking for a particular real world culture that had to migrate you probably won't find it. Same with anything else: if you're looking for a culture obsessed with restoring past glory, you'll find something interesting, but you won't find any particular real-world culture with that aspect.

Look, I just want for there to some Dark Lord of evil at the end, leading the Others, because we have yet to see GRRM deconstruct that.

We already have deconstructions of the Dark Lord. So many in fact:

You have Stannis Baratheon who is the only character across the books openly described as a "Dark Lord". He is referred to as such in the song at Joffrey's Wedding, "Lord Renly's Ride". Stannis has all the surface trappings of the Dark Lord, lives in a volcanic island with spooky architecture, allies with shady types like "Ser Davos", "Melisandre", "Salladhor Saan", he has this new foreign religion and set of beliefs and he even allies with the Orcs, "Wildlings", wanting to let them through to his lands.

Then Euron Greyjoy is also a take on the Dark Lord. Only there his relationship with the Orcs "Ironborn" is not as simple as it first seems. He sees them as chumps and is out to exploit them by feeding on their inferiority complex.

Then Aerys II Targaryen, the Mad King is the classic Evil Overlord archetype. A take on what happens to a guy who doesn't follow the advise of the evil overlord list. No Final Battle between hero and villain, no grand comeuppance, just an ignominious death and defeat by former lackeys who parlay this late act switch for plum positions in the new government. And of course killing the Big Bad doesn't lead to a Golden Age, or at least not for long. No Conflict Killer, rather seeds for newer conflicts come into being.

Then Lady Stoneheart is the Darth Vader Clone...and also a rare female example of that trope. The main difference is that as per current alignment, she should preferably be having a "Republican March" since she's presently anti-monachical and leading populist La Résistance.

You realize your entire post there basically boils down to "if he had not done the things he did no one would remember him." My point was that once Robespierre had done what he did, there was no chance of him fading into obscurity.

Well I don't know how informed you are about the French Revolution and historiography, so I don't want to talk at cross-purposes. See entries in Dated History for further details, or for that matter the nice Maximilien Robespierre quotes page. To put it shortly, as Francois Furet and Richard Cobb and others noted, Robespierre was actually fairly marginal for most of the revolution, uninvolved in the Storming of the Bastille, the August 10 Insurrection, the Champs de Mars gathering that led to a massacre of the people by Marquis De La Fayette's troops. Even the Reign of Terror was largely started by Danton who invented the Revolutionary Tribunals and sat on the first Commitee, and as far as the Parisian mobs go, Marat was their main man, while Robespierre was the guy who shut down the sections and put a cap on their shenanigans.

His biggest involvement was the trial of the king and the call for execution which was undoubtedly crucial. For most of the Revolution, he supported fairly marginal and unpopular positions like abolition of the death penalty, abolition of slavery (which finally passed during the Terror but in rather fortuitous circumstances), general anti-racism, expansion of franchise, the right of priests to marry. And of course the position that nearly cost him his career, his opposition to the 1792 war. That Robespierre became the embodiment of the Terror and its excesses mostly came down to the fact that he was far better known than other Committee members and the representants-du-mission. That he became the embodiment of the Revolution itself as he has internationally is a pure accident since he wasn't really part of most of the key actions of the event. People compare him to Lenin but Lenin planned the October Revolution and organized and chose the Bolsheviks, Robespierre did nothing of that sort.

GRRM is willing to focus on the effects of oppression, including ableism (but also misogyny and classism), so it is noticeable we don't really see any ethnic or religious minorities in Westeros. We do see ethnic conflict, as seen in with the North vs the Wildlings, or the hatred or distrust of the Dornish, but that is a case of one group from one place fighting a group from another place. But there are no oppressed ethnicities that are oppressed throughout all of Westeros. Nor are there really any oppressed religions; some followers of the Faith or the Drowned God don't like and persecute other religions, but those religions have a place where they are the majority.

Edit: If they were present in Westeros, I like to think we'd see greater focus on them then the groups from Essos.

edited 27th Aug '16 7:29:46 PM by SilentColossus

There is the issue that Martin can only devote page time to so many things. He's already got a lot of plot threads running simultaneously. Introducing an oppressed ethnic group within Westeros would take up even more pages than we already have.

Plus it would set up yet another plot when there are only two books left, plus there hasn't been any discrimination between ethnic groups ever seen before.

I think we're discussing a hypothetical world where the books included this group from the start. The series can only reasonably handle so many plot threads though. They're a bit overstuffed as is.

edited 27th Aug '16 8:43:40 PM by Kostya

Indeed. It is just notable that the series has various forms of oppression shown and prominent, this in particular is not present.

Yeah, the only sort of racism we see is that North Korea-like superiority complex that Slaver's Bay has.

Isn't there racism against the Summer Islanders too?

Nothing specific. Like Xalabhar Jho in King's Landing is treated fairly, maybe as a little exotic but just like any noble and dignitary.

The Dornish are discriminated against by Reachmen, seen as oversexed and dishonorable, and this is reflected in the views of both Arys Oakheart and other characters. Likewise, Aerys II the Mad King made cracks that his own granddaughter Rhaenys "Smelled Dornish" (daughter of Elia Martell and Rhaegar).

This is a little weird because the Dornish are not the only regularly invading noble. The Stormlanders invade and conquer in Pre-Aegon times as well. The Ironborn are disliked for rational reasons for their frequent raiding and violation of sovereignty even after peace agreements. But the Dornish are "othered" in a way that no other Seven Kingdoms is.

The worldbook gives a brief description of three different "types" of Dornish people. To me that looked like the maesters doing some mix of cultural anthropology and sort of racial categorisation of people. I don't see people outside of Dorne remarking much (if at all) on any differences between Dornish people, except in the case of the Daynes with their Valyrian-like looks, so maybe those regional differences - if they're real to begin with - are only notable to other Dornish people.

Maybe the integration of the Rhoynar, and the ideas and practices they brought with them, among the Dornish is what sets them apart more than anything else. There's also the fact that they remained independent for a long time after the Targaryens united the Seven Kingdoms, but I suppose the Dornish were already "other" before then. In any case, the other regions would have become more similar and connected to each other during that time, setting them further apart from Dorne.

The Wildlings do get their share of racist prejudice from the people of Westeros. Remember, racism is a broad term that can refer to discrimination on the basis of culture, so it doesn't have to be about colour or other genetic features.

Going off of The World of Ice and Fire it seems like the Rhoynar are the main reason for the Dornish being viewed differently. Nymeria and her people settled almost exclusively in Dorne and brought a lot of unusual cultural practices with them. It's somewhat similar to how the North is viewed differently because they're predominantly First Men instead of Andals.

edit: Going beyond the divisions of the Seven Kingdoms Westeros can be divided into four different groups:

1. The First Men of the North.
2. The First Men of the Iron Islands.
3. The Andals from the Riverlands, Reach, Crownlands, Stormlands, Vale, and Westerlands.
4. The Dornish who are a mix of Andals and Rhoynar.

edited 28th Aug '16 9:40:25 AM by Kostya

Yeah, but the Dornish aren't looked down on by the Reachmen specifically for being Dornish, they're looked down on for constantly invading the Reach back before Aegon came.

" Like Xalabhar Jho in King's Landing is treated fairly, maybe as a little exotic but just like any noble and dignitary."

Well Cersei make some coment, but Cersei is....Cersei.

and yeah im surprise how little religous persecution it is in the books, in fact the religious aspect showing latter since...weird, at least a little bit

But every other kingdom invaded each other back then. The Lannister Kings invaded the Reach, the Stormland Kings were doing it, and the Riverlands history is a chronicle of one foreign invader after another until Aegon I gave them some real form of autonomy. Why are the Dornish singled out for being appreciably worse than Durrandons and Lannisters? It's because they don't like being invaded by people who they consider equal. This is common in history, where people make disproportionate their suffering under one particular foreign influence outside of a larger context than others, mostly to justify racist persecution.

Geopolitically, I think it's because the Dornish came off as Karma Houdini, since their terrain never seemed to be invaded whereas the Reach could give as good as it got back to the Lannisters and Durrandons. So the Dornish were isolated by terrain and victory. Still, the Dornish face racism from areas like the Westerlands, Riverlands and even the North and Vale, despite them having no beef or contact with the Dornish. Joffrey's "How many Dornishmen" joke and that song "The Dornishmen's Wife" are part of that.

Well there was religious persecution back in the days of the Andal invasion. It was as much of a crusade against "infidels" with those that worshipped the heart trees and the old gods as it was a conquest by a new people.

However, you do see some religious conflict between the Seven and Rh'llor, though it seems the Red Priests are the main instigator, what with the "burning septs and people" stuff. The Seven seem to be fairly benevolent.

The Seven are not benevolent at all to Rhillorites. As Steven Attewell points out in his analysis of DAVOS I in ACOK,

If you re-read ACOK from ADWD's Melisandre POV in mind, it's Maester Creesen who is the fanatic, not Melisandre. Even Davos decided in ASOS without evidence and consideration to rush into Dragonstone and try and kill Melisandre and irrationally blamed her for Stannis' defeat. We buy into those POV uncritically at first, but on re-reading you have Melisandre's perspective and you see that these guys Creesen and Davos are hardly without sin, a point the show totally neglected in their atrocious misreading.

As Attewell argues further,

Rhillorism is a young religion in need of some moderation, much like the Old Gods (which practised Human Sacrifice in its early years) and the Faith of the Seven (that were intolerant godswood burners in its early days).

You know, I can totally imagine Littlefinger getting one of his whores to cosplay/roleplay as Catelyn for his pleasure. Don't tell me he hasn't done this in canon

I bet Jeyne Poole knows. I am sure that Littlefinger extorted information about Sansa from her during the time he made her into a prostitute. But whether he himself personally raped her, as opposed to by proxy, is hard to tell.

I think Littlefinger generally avoids sex for pleasure because to him its tied to his expectations with Cat/Sansa. He had a relationship with Lysa Arryn and that hurt him badly but nothing else.