HBO Game of Thrones Inspired by the Moors.

[Winner]

Again, it's just something I read and found funny. I am not "bashing" Tolkien here, I am simply pointing out the differences between his and Martin's fantasy worlds, because someone dared suggest that GoT is inspired larger by LotR. It's not.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, sure, I agree with that. It's Tolkien's problem that he's considered the father of the fantasy genre, which means every novel that can be vaguely considered fantasy gets labeled as "the new Tolkien" etc.

On the other hand, LotR often gets lumped together with other fantasy universes that do copy it, but only do so very superficially. This often leads to wrong characterizations of elements of Tolkien's setting, like "can't do wrong elves". That Tolkien was no professional writer makes that worse: his characters seem to be mainly characterized by their appearance because he was much better at describing appearances than characterizing people by their actions.

 

[JohannaK]

I'm amazed that this thread can be still alive. To me, too things are clear.

First one: ASoIaF is based on the Middle Ages. Westeros is England/Europe, the Dothrakis are Mongols and the Free Cities are like Italian City-States.

Second: It hasn't much to do with any of Tolkien's works if it has something to do with any of them.

 

[Winner]

Which is what I said put on two lines of text. Your point is...?

 

[JohannaK]

That there is no point in continuing this thread as it was originally thought.

 

[holy king]

i find it rather improbable that soiaf is not inspired by tolkien.
at some point grrm must have read tolkien.

 

[Winner]

i find it rather improbable that soiaf is not inspired by tolkien.
at some point grrm must have read tolkien.

Well, sure, he's a self-admitted fan. That doesn't mean that ASoIaF is inspired by LotR* or other Tolkien's book, unless you want to stretch the meaning of "inspired". If you did, you could just as well say that any mystery/crime novel is inspired by Doyle or that any sci-fi novel is inspired by Wells or Verne.

Things like this are often said about fantasy literature because Tolkien is such a dominant and influential figure, undoubtedly a "father" of modern-day fantasy, but in case of ASoIaF, it's not true.

(* - fun fact, 'lotr' means a lowly scoundrel in Czech)

 

[Leoreth]

And Quentin Tarantino watched Sesame Street once, does that mean it influenced From Dusk Till Dawn?

Asoiaf doesn't really have anything in common with LotR except the quite generic label "fantasy". Plot, setting, and method of storytelling are vastly different, almost diametrically so. For most of the book it's even more accurately described as historical fiction or political thriller than as fantasy.

 

[holy king]

yeah, it's a fun read.
the thing is the overall arc is rather traditional fantasy/fairy tale.

father is killed, five children and their five wolves struggle through the world without him, and in the end the survivors will have to fight some great threat looming in the north. (may that threat be ultimately evil or not).
they're probably gonna ally with the dragonlady from the east and her three dragons along the way to do so.

that is ultimately what the series is about, the rest is just lovably gruesome filler.
skin flaying, brother frecking, getting roasted and eaten by dragons, feeding people their relatives as meat pies, and eating breasts off live women.
i love it.

furthermore, what i dont get is this whole "grrm is sooo brave, he dares to kill protagonists left and right and breaks with so many traditions" argument.
i mean how many protagonists of the iliad were still standing by the end of the trojan war?

soiaf is a fun variation of an epic, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[mitsho]

First, I do agree with your posts, but I do have two comments to specific points. Generally, when one discusses who-influenced-who, I do think it's pointless, since everything influences everything ;-) or not. But what the op does forget mainly is that the Books are first, and now comes the Television series (but the next book will of course be later than season 1,2,3,4? ;-)). So it's rather pointless to discuss the look of the series as they rely on the books as well as our modern viewing point. As my first point shows:

And of course the inevitable complaint about the supposed racism of this fantasy world I am really tired of such comments, especially if uttered by someone who doesn't even know the books and speaks of the HBO show as if it was not based on them. I suppose there are people who wouldn't stop at criticizing LotR films for not making Aragorn black for the sake of political correctness

Since Westeros is a functional analogue of Western Europe, why should there be any black people around? Were there many black people in medieval France, Germany, or England? No. There were probably none, except an occasional slave brought from overseas as a curiosity. In the books, the only black people in Westeros I know of are Jalabhar Xho, an exile prince from the Summer Isles who is a courtier in the royal court, and Chataya/Alayaya, whores in one of the luxurious brothels in King's Landing. Black-skinned people from the Summer Isles trade with Westeros, but that's about it.

There is no "shame in showing an African face" because there are practically no African faces in the setting. Complaining about that is as pointless as complaining that there are no Eskimos in Indonesia and no Aboriginals in the Arctic.

This might be a slight spoiler here, related to the above, so no story or plot spoilers, not even names, but better safe than sorry.

Spoiler :

If you take a look at the casting of season 2, you will see that the television producers decided to make some characters black. Minor ones for sure, but why? It's a modern show and they wanted to have some more diversity to upgrade the recognition factor. It's also political correctness (gone wrong?) and maybe it's just random (they didn't care). There's no way for sure to know what was the main reason but it shows that it's a topic that the modern society is interested in. Does it change the tone of the show? maybe a little, but the rest remains to be seen.

Other shows that do this in a way more extreme fashion are Merlin and Spartacus. Merlin has black knights and a exotic looking Gwendoline, but it's a rather light-hearted show and to a big part directed at kids. So why not show a bit of variety there, it's educational. (since the true facts on medieval life and the Arthus saga will not be in there in any case, it doesn't matter that this is factually wrong ). With Spartacus, I guess, it's mostly budget question (Polynesian actors are more common in New Zealand than Hollywood ).

But that brings me to my second point, namely that TV is a different medium than books:

BTW, I am a bit disappointed by the appearance of the main characters in HBO's GoT. Martin reiterates throughout the book that the great houses usually have sets of distinct physical traits that distinguish them. Lannisters are all blond and green eyed; Cersei and Jaime are supposed to have hair "of woven gold". Targaryens have silver hair and purple eyes, Baratheons black hair and blue eyes, Tullys are auburn haired, Starks traditionally have dark brown hair and grey eyes, etc. They don't really adhere to it that much in the TV version, which is a shame. Also, they make some characters look too good - I realize it's hard to fully capture the looks of some of the characters, but as good as Dinklage is as Tyrion, he's supposed to be much uglier (later he also gets some pretty nasty scars and other wounds, so I am looking forward how they deal with that).

1) TV series are a visual medium, so what GRRM describes needs to also look good on screen which is not always easy. They tried to give the Targaryen purple eyes (lenses), but they said it just didn't look good enough. But they gave Dany the white hair wig and they made the hair of Jaime's actor look lighter. So there's just a range of what you can do to bring the actor's look and the author's imagination together.

2) Actor's Abilities > Visual Appearance. It's better that they picked Dinklage as Tyrion because he can act very well. Besides how many actors/people do exist that fit the description? TV is a visual medium, but visual also relates to the actors mimics, intonation and manners. For example a post on westeros proposed Kim Kardashian as Arianne, and she would certainly have the looks for it. But the rest? ;-)

In the end it's always both, and I would think that adhering strictly to the overdrawn features of a fantasy world (everyone in a family looks totally alike, Lannisters do not have blond hair, but golden, etc. ...) would make the point of it being fantasy stronger, while I guess, the creators want to emphasize more the drama side of the books as that appeals to a larger audience. So more of a realistic look wanted. And also

3) Hollywood Ugly =/= Ugly Ugly . People want to watch beautiful people on screen, the other ones we can see on the bus daily... ;-)

 

[Leoreth]

yeah, it's a fun read.
the thing is the overall arc is rather traditional fantasy/fairy tale.

father is killed, five children and their five wolves struggle through the world without him, and in the end the survivors will have to fight some great threat looming in the north. (may that threat be ultimately evil or not).
they're probably gonna ally with the dragonlady from the east and her three dragons along the way to do so.

that is ultimately what the series is about, the rest is just lovably gruesome filler.
skin flaying, brother frecking, getting roasted and eaten by dragons, feeding people their relatives as meat pies, and eating breasts off live women.
i love it.

This is still to be seen, although it's pretty likely. But still, everything going on in the South is more than "filler". It makes up roughly 80% of the plot, and most of it has absolutely no bearing on the rather standard fantasy plot of defeating the world-threatening power in the north. If Martin only wanted to do that story, he would've made Jon and Daenerys the only PoV characters and have anything else in the South that influences the wall happen offscreen. It doesn't change much, since he has to find ways to have the Wall affected by southern politics all the time anyway.

Oh, and please, don't remind me of the breast-eating incident. Please don't.

furthermore, what i dont get is this whole "grrm is sooo brave, he dares to kill protagonists left and right and breaks with so many traditions" argument.
i mean how many protagonists of the iliad were still standing by the end of the trojan war?

soiaf is a fun variation of an epic, nothing more, nothing less.

Yeah, the protagonist killing is seriously exaggerated everywhere. I mean, the first time he did it was pretty effective because it didn't only affect one PoV character, but also one that very much looked like the guy we'd follow and root for for all of the story. Anyway, what's playing the more important part here is that every one of his characters is characterized so damn well. Most authors don't put much effort in fleshing out characters that they know will die later (I mean, who cares for every Star Trek redshirt that dies?), but Martin does. That's where the strength of his character deaths comes from, not the number of times they happen.

Plus, he does break with many traditions. Fantasy was pretty much dominated by High Fantasy settings that all had the whole "Romanticized Middle Ages" and clear-cut good/evil things going on. He did a lot to subvert this expectation, so that the gritty "everyone against everyone" take on fantasy worlds seems to be the new standard these days.

This might be a slight spoiler here, related to the above, so no story or plot spoilers, not even names, but better safe than sorry.

Spoiler :

If you take a look at the casting of season 2, you will see that the television producers decided to make some characters black. Minor ones for sure, but why? It's a modern show and they wanted to have some more diversity to upgrade the recognition factor. It's also political correctness (gone wrong?) and maybe it's just random (they didn't care). There's no way for sure to know what was the main reason but it shows that it's a topic that the modern society is interested in. Does it change the tone of the show? maybe a little, but the rest remains to be seen.

I usually don't follow the casting process, could you elaborate which characters are affected? Would save me the time of googling the names and then looking for pictures to see who got the "race lift". Put them in spoilers if you think that's necessary.

1) TV series are a visual medium, so what GRRM describes needs to also look good on screen which is not always easy. They tried to give the Targaryen purple eyes (lenses), but they said it just didn't look good enough. But they gave Dany the white hair wig and they made the hair of Jaime's actor look lighter. So there's just a range of what you can do to bring the actor's look and the author's imagination together.

2) Actor's Abilities > Visual Appearance. It's better that they picked Dinklage as Tyrion because he can act very well. Besides how many actors/people do exist that fit the description? TV is a visual medium, but visual also relates to the actors mimics, intonation and manners. For example a post on westeros proposed Kim Kardashian as Arianne, and she would certainly have the looks for it. But the rest? ;-)

I agree. I can't even really understand Winner's criticism of that issue. Of course everyone who read the books before watching the series had their own ideas of how the characters look, and often the casting proved very different from my personal imagination. But still I could almost always say "this is character X". The only exception in my opinion is Renly there, but whatever.

 

[Leifmk]

I usually don't follow the casting process, could you elaborate which characters are affected? Would save me the time of googling the names and then looking for pictures to see who got the "race lift". Put them in spoilers if you think that's necessary.

Certain members of the outside-Westeros supporting cast. It's not a big deal.

 

[mitsho]

This site has all the cast pics for the new season (general pics of the internet, not from the show). As you see, it's mainly

Spoiler :

Xaro Xaro Dhaos (sp?) who's described in the books as "white as milk" and Salladhor Saan, who as a pirate seems to be a bit of a stereotype. In the books, he's also white and from Myr.

Oh and also Renly got a revamp as you can see in the new teaser:

Link to video.
and this behind the scene "making Renly's armour":

Link to video.

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks.

Spoiler :

I can live with those two, but I'm not sure if this kind of casting has an adverse effect to what they're trying to accomplish. If they're really motivated by the desire to have more racial diversity, it might leave a sour aftertaste to only cast the stereotyped mercenary pirate guy and the weird gluttonous foreign merchant as black. Don't know.

 

[Leifmk]

On the other hand, if they were looking to cast some proper nice-guy roles with black actors... well, there aren't too damn many proper nice-guy roles to choose from in this series.

 

[Leoreth]

Yes. You can only lose with "affirmative action" casting in general, in my opinion.

 

[Lord of Elves]

OP: Fantasy setting heavily influenced by actual history is heavily influenced by actual history.

Did I get it right?

 

[Leoreth]

Basically yes, although the OP picks not-so-obvious inspirations over author-confirmed inspirations with no apparent reason.

 

[Yeekim]

Yes. You can only lose with "affirmative action" casting in general, in my opinion.

Agreed, but I don't think those characters were turned black for "affirmative action" reasons.
I believe it was done because the chosen actors performed awesomely at casting and because the race of Xaro and Salladhor does not matter one tiny bit. They are from far-away, fictional places in a fictional world. They are "foreigners" and casting black actors helps at conveying that, if anything.

You see, I have much trust in the series.

EDIT: I also found black actors in "Merlin" to be distracting (although Gwen is nice to look at) - until someone demonstrated that some black people definitely lived in that Roman province - and so wouldn't be too out of place at all in Arthurian tales.

 

[Winner]

This might be a slight spoiler here, related to the above, so no story or plot spoilers, not even names, but better safe than sorry.

Spoiler :

If you take a look at the casting of season 2, you will see that the television producers decided to make some characters black. Minor ones for sure, but why? It's a modern show and they wanted to have some more diversity to upgrade the recognition factor. It's also political correctness (gone wrong?) and maybe it's just random (they didn't care). There's no way for sure to know what was the main reason but it shows that it's a topic that the modern society is interested in. Does it change the tone of the show? maybe a little, but the rest remains to be seen.

If it's limited to characters in Essos, I don't have a problem with it. Westerosi characters need to be white and European looking though. And I don't think it has anything to do with what "modern (American?) society is interested in", it's about covering arses in case some moron with too much time on his hands starts complaining in some magazine that HBO is racist because there are not enough black people in the cast.

But that brings me to my second point, namely that TV is a different medium than books:

1) TV series are a visual medium, so what GRRM describes needs to also look good on screen which is not always easy. They tried to give the Targaryen purple eyes (lenses), but they said it just didn't look good enough. But they gave Dany the white hair wig and they made the hair of Jaime's actor look lighter. So there's just a range of what you can do to bring the actor's look and the author's imagination together.

I understand that there are limits of what can be done on screen, but sometimes I feel they could have tried a bit more to comply with the books.

2) Actor's Abilities > Visual Appearance. It's better that they picked Dinklage as Tyrion because he can act very well. Besides how many actors/people do exist that fit the description? TV is a visual medium, but visual also relates to the actors mimics, intonation and manners. For example a post on westeros proposed Kim Kardashian as Arianne, and she would certainly have the looks for it. But the rest? ;-)

In the end it's always both, and I would think that adhering strictly to the overdrawn features of a fantasy world (everyone in a family looks totally alike, Lannisters do not have blond hair, but golden, etc. ...) would make the point of it being fantasy stronger, while I guess, the creators want to emphasize more the drama side of the books as that appeals to a larger audience. So more of a realistic look wanted. And also

I'll give you that. In any case, I have managed to keep the two quite separate - when I read the books or listen to the audio recordings, I have my own imaginary version of how the characters and places look like. When I watch the TV version, I set it aside so that it doesn't interfere

3) Hollywood Ugly =/= Ugly Ugly . People want to watch beautiful people on screen, the other ones we can see on the bus daily... ;-)

Bugger that. There can't be beauty without ugliness. Contrasting the two would add to the series, IMO. This applies also to all the savage brutality depicted in the series (all the slaughtering of peasants).

I agree. I can't even really understand Winner's criticism of that issue. Of course everyone who read the books before watching the series had their own ideas of how the characters look, and often the casting proved very different from my personal imagination. But still I could almost always say "this is character X". The only exception in my opinion is Renly there, but whatever.

Well, in GoT the "dynastic looks" of at least one character play a rather important role. I was a bit surprised they didn't try to accentuate that.

yeah, it's a fun read.
the thing is the overall arc is rather traditional fantasy/fairy tale.

father is killed, five children and their five wolves struggle through the world without him, and in the end the survivors will have to fight some great threat looming in the north. (may that threat be ultimately evil or not).
they're probably gonna ally with the dragonlady from the east and her three dragons along the way to do so.

I think that what happened to Starks is just a part of the main plot. There is a notion on the net that eventually Jon and Daenerys will get together (ice and fire, and all that) to save Westeros from whatever is coming with the winter.