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joannalannister · 6 years

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Another ask, this time regarding dorne - I was under the impression that the people, in regards to skin tone and appearance, were based of the Spanish? If so, why does the majority of fan art seem to draw them (and lots of fan castings) with an Indian/middle eastern appearance? I noticed that they also have typically Indian clothing (sari and veil) and jewellery - is this true for their intext descriptions?

Hi. So this is a controversial subject, not least of which because GRRM has said in extra-textual comments that he imagined the Martells as “Greek, Spanish, Italian, Portugese”. I think this is a situation where “Death of the author” applies, because I think GRRM’s is obviously wrong here.

I think there is significant evidence in the text that Dornish people, if they existed in the real world, would not be European.

My friend @lyannas has written extensively on this topic, and I highly recommend her posts:

“Dorne’s Not White”

“Dorne is more similar to MENA than India“

These posts on @asoiafuniversity are also good:

POC fans and Western fantasy

A collection of official ASOIAF artwork that portray the Dornish as non-European (this addition by @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly is good too)

The Case for Dorne being Nonwhite

“I’m worried about Oberyn Martell”

Dornish clothing

These posts go through many textual descriptions, so I will leave the quotes to them. I also recommend going through these tags on @asoiafuniversity, because I only linked some highlights above. If you want more, I suggest you look through:

#dorne (there are 14 pages there, go aaaaall the way)

#dornish racism

#racism

Also, many people fancasted Alexander Siddig (who was born in Sudan) as their dream fancast for Doran Martell, loooooong before the show casted him. So that casting / fancast has influenced the way fandom thinks about the Martells.

I’m aware of this comment by GRRM:

In the case of Dorne, yes, Wales was definitely an influence, for all the reasons you cite. But there’s also some distinctly unWelsh elements down there. South of the wall of mountains you have a hot, dry country more like Spain or Palestine than the cool green valleys of Wales, with most of the settlements along the seacoast and in few great river basins. And you also have the flavor given the culture by the great Rhoynar influx led by Nymeria. I suppose the closest real life equivilent to that would be the Moorish influence in parts of Spain. So you could say Dorne is Wales mixed with Spain and Palestine with some entirely imaginary influences mixed in. Or you could just say it’s Dorne….

and I think @lyannas does a good job addressing the “Spain” part in the links I gave above.

(When I think of sandy deserts and armies being engulfed by sand storms, I do not think of southern europe, even if that is what GRRM thinks of.)

Regarding Wales, I’ve talked before about this with my friend @girlwholovesherwords, who is my expert on Wales, and she explained to me that Wales historically had strong female inheritance laws, similar to Dornish female inheritance laws, so I think GRRM’s comment about Wales had more to do with legal traditions than skin tone. (A lot of people like to take GRRM’s Wales comment and use it to whitewash the Dornish, but those people are obviously wrong, when the text describes the Dornish as brown-skinned.)

(@ Gemma, I thought you made a post about this? But I can’t find it? idk if you would like to share your thoughts again if you see this?)

So anyways I think there’s a very strong case to be made that Dornish people most resemble Palestinians, or at least people from the Middle East.

Why do some people imagine the Dornish as southeast Asian rather than Middle Eastern?

Well, for one thing, GRRM told Janina Gavankar, who has Indian ancestry, that she looks like Nymeria Sand. (GRRM fancast Apollonia Kotero, who has Mexican ancestry, as Arianne Martell, so GRRM is kind of … all over the place … with Dorne, and someone needs to tell GRRM that pocs aren’t interchangeable.)

The official art of Sunspear was based on the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque, which is in Brunei (southeast asia), while the domed architecture of Sunspear has been compared to Mughal architecture.

The Dornish paint their silk - painted silk is a tradition that originated in east Asia. “Silk painting in India touched great heights during Mughal rule in 17th – 19th centuries.”

When I was first reading ASOIAF, before I became involved in the online fandom, I personally associated Dorne with southeast asia / India for various reasons:

Dornish subcontinent // Indian subcontinent

Dorne becoming part of the Targaryen empire (elitist/racist white people) // India becoming part of the British Empire (elitist/racist white people)

Dornish desire for independence // Indian desire for independence

(Obviously Palestine also has a history of British occupation, I’m just saying that it was India I thought of while reading, rather than Palestine.)

In India, the British made arbitrary distinctions based on colorism // In Dorne, Daeron I arbitrarily divided the Dornish based on skin color (“salty Dornish” and “stony Dornish” and “sandy Dornish”)

Martell princes retaining royal status under Targ rule // Indian princes under British rule

the Ganges as a sacred river of great cultural and life-sustaining significance made me think of both “Mother Rhoyne” in Essos from which the Rhoynar came, and now the Greenblood which the Orphans go up and down in their boats

When someone asks me to think of a snake, the first one that comes to my mind is Kaa from the animated Jungle Book, this is just who I am, ok, that snake scared me as a child. I know that Kaa is a python and Oberyn called himself a viper, I know these things, I’m just explaining how my mind works

Dornish deserts // Indian deserts

Important agricultural products as exports (British really like drinking tea from India // Westeros really like drinking Dornish wine)

food cooked with lots of spices

I’m not saying these are the best associations, I’m not saying these are even all that accurate. I’m only saying that these were the associations I brought to the text as a reader, and these are the associations that shaped my imagination of Dorne as drawing a lot of inspiration from India. In the words of Ursula Le Guin,

As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music.

Your reading experience depends on what you bring with you to the text and that shapes how you imagine it, how you create the world inside the book.

So whatever associations and backgrounds and personal experiences readers are bringing to the text, the important thing to keep in mind is that the Dornish aren’t white people, especially when the text describes the Dornish as dark-skinned and “brown” skinned.

I don’t necessarily think it’s wrong if some people want to imagine the Martells as Moroccan, and other people want to imagine them as Palestinian, and other people want to imagine them as Egyptian, and other people want to imagine them as Indian, and still other people want to imagine them as Chilean. (Pedro Pascal was a wonderful Oberyn Martell.) Different people are bringing different things to the text, and they’re “creating” the world of ASOIAF in different ways, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

The other thing to keep in mind is that making quality gifs / graphics / fanart is hard and poc are unfortunately very underrepresented in Western media. Photoshoppers might imagine something really amazing, but not be able to execute it very well, because they’re limited by the movies and tv shows that are already out there. (Fanartists have more flexibility, but they still often need references.) Photoshopping difficulties aren’t an excuse for whitewashing, but it does explain why, for example, gifs/graphics/fanart of Elia often depict her in a saree when she should probably be wearing a more medieval style gown, if we’re going by how GRRM describes Dornish clothing. (The closest thing to a saree in ASOIAF is probably the Ghiscari tokar.)

Finally, I’m white, so my thoughts here might not be the most valuable ones to have in this discussion. I’ve tried to give as many links as possible to poc discussing this topic, but you might want to ask a poc directly what their thoughts are. @lyannas is always very eloquent and insightful, so you might want to send more questions about this to her.

EDIT #1 - Yes, I am aware that medieval Spain was not necessarily white and there was a significant Moorish influence (including people from North Africa) in medieval Spain. That’s why I linked to lyannas’ posts above discussing this issue (did y’all click on all my links??), and that’s why I specifically mentioned Moroccan and Egyptian up above. This ask was in the context of fancasting, ie what ethnicity/race of actors alive today should be fancasted as Dornish.

EDIT #2 - @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly also recommended this post of hers.

@nobodysuspectsthebutterfly replied to your post:

[wales is] only a reference to their guerilla warfare, not their ethnicity

also, for further Wales influence on Dorne: www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Asshai.com_Forum_Chat

Thanks!

#i received your other asks but i have not gotten to them yet #liashara-river #replies #/#//#dorne #grrm #dornish racism #house martell #lannister thoughts

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