[Jakovasaurus]

Here we go..... someone is going to take a couple month's break now. ...... *dramatic pause.

[Illuyankas]

Hey, if he pulls out Internet Discussion Tactic Number 5 used by actual racists it's his own fault.

[QuickTidal]

I'm wondering how much of the second half of ASOS and what (if any) of AFFC and ADWD will show up in Season 4.

Will we see Tyrion's leaving for Pentos, and the subsequent meeting with Ilyrio?

Rumour has it Arya won't go to Braavos at all, thus not requiring the need for a new shooting location...and instead will run back into Jaquen and be trained under him as a Faceless man in Westeros....thus maybe she'll stay with The Hound longer than she did in the books?

I'm quite curious how Dany's story will play out...they can't just have her sitting and twiddling her thumbs the way she is for most of ADWD...so perhaps they;ll throw a battle or two in to spice things up?

Oh, and I want to know when The Viper of Dorn is going to be introduced.....have they cast anyone yet? For any of the Dornish?

[Illuyankas]

Hahaha I googled to see and found nothing but confirmation they started casting back in May and a fan pick list that included Alexander Siddig with a filmography without DS9, I mean really now.

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Hold on. So I'm suggesting that the guys getting worked up about too many 'coloured people' lifting up a white girl need to relax a bit -- that is the heart of the problem here being discussed here -- and I'm the one that's the 'real racist'?

You're making a mountain out of a mole hill, in my opinion, and fussing over nothing.

[Terez]

Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast, on 12 June 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

Are we seriously finding racist issues with that final scene? Like...really?

It bothered me too, quite a bit. It wouldn't have been so bad if, as mentioned before, the slaves weren't portrayed as infantile, and Dany wasn't so hyper-Aryan.

Quote

And yet no one thinks that the term 'coloured' is a little politically incorrect, these days?

It is in the US and apparently in the UK too. Maybe not so much in other places. Where is blackzoid from?

[polishgenius]

Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast, on 12 June 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

Perhaps attempting to get foreign Shae to leave the country is racist as well?

Well that's just fucking stupid.

[QuickTidal]

Okay, I did my best to steer the thread back on topic and avoid the fight that was/is brewing....no avail.

Have at it all.

[blackzoid]

Terez, on 12 June 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

Where is blackzoid from?

Ireland
I can easily use "darker-skinned" or "non-white skined" instead.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 12 June 2013 - 04:48 PM

[Terez]

Well then, you (apparently) have no excuse. Unless there are vast such cultural differences within the isles (OMG forgive me I said UK...I know Ireland is not in the UK; I just woke up). It's been politically incorrect in the US since the civil rights revolution in the 60s-70s, just because the word was associated with segregation. "Negro" is also un-PC. "Black and brown people" is acceptable, for whatever reason; people have been trying to PCify "African-American" etc. but then what are you supposed to do for people like stone monkey? Best just to say (if it happens to be relevant) that he is a black/brown person and be done with it.

This post has been edited by Terez: 12 June 2013 - 04:47 PM

[blackzoid]

That is new to me. "Coloured" is something that I would have previously classified as been at the same level of inappropiateness as "black" and "brown". Though to be honest, all those definitions are incorrect anyway. I should have just used "Darker skinned" to begin with.
Mea culpa.

[Illuyankas]

Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast, on 12 June 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

Hold on. So I'm suggesting that the guys getting worked up about too many 'coloured people' lifting up a white girl need to relax a bit -- that is the heart of the problem here being discussed here -- and I'm the one that's the 'real racist'?

You're making a mountain out of a mole hill, in my opinion, and fussing over nothing.

I'm going to do something different here and tone back what I said, cause you don't seem to know the context of your line here:

Quote

Perhaps what you should be asking yourself is why are you concerned with the colour of their skin?

Which is infamously used as a disingenous and dishonest tactic in discussions about racism, by racists, to change topics and throw irrelevant suspicion upon the other party when questioning racist decisions and events. I've seen what you've written elsewhere almost word for word in posts by National Front avatar-using people (for a given definition of people). Unjerking my knee here, I would prefer you not to use that phrase again.

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Brown is probably a bit iffy too, even if it is descriptively accurate.

But QT is probably right, we're a bit off topic now. I was essentially bullied into carrying on the debate lest I be labelled a Real Racist but I have no real wish to start a fight here. I do accept that people have a problem with that scene but, then again, I'm also very laid back in nature and I feel that it is possible to be too politically correct.

On topic; Oberyn being one, what other new characters are still to be introduced that we don't know the casting for, yet?

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Illuyankas, on 12 June 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast, on 12 June 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

Hold on. So I'm suggesting that the guys getting worked up about too many 'coloured people' lifting up a white girl need to relax a bit -- that is the heart of the problem here being discussed here -- and I'm the one that's the 'real racist'?

You're making a mountain out of a mole hill, in my opinion, and fussing over nothing.

I'm going to do something different here and tone back what I said, cause you don't seem to know the context of your line here:

Quote

Perhaps what you should be asking yourself is why are you concerned with the colour of their skin?

Which is infamously used as a disingenous and dishonest tactic in discussions about racism, by racists, to change topics and throw irrelevant suspicion upon the other party when questioning racist decisions and events. I've seen what you've written elsewhere almost word for word in posts by National Front avatar-using people (for a given definition of people). Unjerking my knee here, I would prefer you not to use that phrase again.

Your unjerking is appreciated. I can assure you that I'm not attempting to cover up my own racism but it's a fair point and I won't try that one again.

[Agraba]

One of my biggest disappointments this season was that they skipped a lot of white walker action, particularly the attack on the Fist where the NW people were staying. I know that technically it was "offscreen" in the book, as Samwell's chapter covered only the aftermath. But his recollection of the event was so vivid and descriptive that it felt like reading the event first hand. (It's kinda funny because, when you think about it, Sam has read so many books that it's fitting that his PoV would have the expertise of describing the events just as well as GRRM would.) So I considered it as one of the scenes in the book, and one of the most awesome scenes at that.

[QuickTidal]

Agraba, on 12 June 2013 - 05:35 PM, said:

One of my biggest disappointments this season was that they skipped a lot of white walker action, particularly the attack on the Fist where the NW people were staying. I know that technically it was "offscreen" in the book, as Samwell's chapter covered only the aftermath. But his recollection of the event was so vivid and descriptive that it felt like reading the event first hand. (It's kinda funny because, when you think about it, Sam has read so many books that it's fitting that his PoV would have the expertise of describing the events just as well as GRRM would.) So I considered it as one of the scenes in the book, and one of the most awesome scenes at that.

I think the main reason this was "avoided" was down to funds. They gets millions to make this show, but every last ounce of it goes into the practical nature of the sets, clothes ect....It's why Dany's Dragon's get shown only fleetingly. So a whole selection of White Walkers attacking the Fist would have cost an arm and a leg and the budget likely couldn't handle it without other stuff suffering. Aside from that, the effects work is damn near top notch, so they must be paying a premium on it.

I'll admit I'd also have liked to have seen the scene live and in colour, but I get why we didn't get it.

One expects MUCH more unavoidable Walker action will happen in the TWOW and/or ADOS so the budget is probably going to get thrown on that down the line in a future season.

[worry]

One of the bigger problems with the "reading too much into it" argument is that GRRM deliberately injected the trope into his novel so that he could mess with it later, and at face value the show either misread or deliberately glossed over it, which resulted in a disappointing (and tbh, personally, a viscerally disgusting) final scene. And while I think there were budgetary/hiring extras concerns for sure, that cannot be the only arbiter of whether the scene should have existed as-is. The visual itself wasn't worth it, and in fact, was a major turn-off, and when you add the context of the trope it's just that much worse. I hope the showrunners were either intending to already, or will understand through feedback (or subsequent readings of the pertinent books), that it was a scene that should be reconciled.

Besides that, discussing the issue isn't "off topic" by any stretch...it was the final scene of the season, and should be discussed in both the context of the season, the show, and the source books. Nobody who doesn't want to join that particular conversation has to (and it's a message board, people can drop in and out of conversations at will without disrupting other strands of thought), but issue-wise it is part and parcel to Martin's work just as much as any other power structure he explores.

Regarding the White Walkers issue, I do see QT's point on budget, but on the other hand, the vast majority of the WW army is actually human zombies, so that shouldn't have been a budget buster. Perhaps as Mance's army makes their way to the wall we'll get more of that kind of stuff...IIRC from the books, the wildling army does take plenty of attrition around the edges, especially stragglers, pretty much constantly.

[Werthead]

Myself and Elio ('Ran' from Westeros.org) discussing what's going to be in Season 4 on io9.

MAJOR SPOILERS from the fourth and fifth novels, obviously.

worry, on 12 June 2013 - 09:02 AM, said:

That Dany scene was definitely majorly majorly problematic, compounded by the visuals but just skeevy all the way through. In the books, there's much less of that great white savior thing in part because there's seemingly no racial underpinning to the slave trade, it's more Roman-style in Slaver's Bay or cross-tribal in the rest of Essos that we've seen (and even on the show we've had Doreah, plus Varys and Melisandre's pasts)...and it's not like A Storm of Swords didn't introduce the trope, but GRRM did eventually play with it a bunch, particularly in ADWD. I imagine part of the issue is getting extras in the location they were filming, but that's not a good enough excuse really. The show's gonna have to address this issue in just as serious a way as the books did, or that scene is gonna remain a big sour note.

In the books there isn't such a big divide: the Targaryens are (if three centuries removed) from Valyria, which is only just across the bay from Meereen, and the people of southern Essos aren't automatically 'coloured' (the Qartheen are quite pale; the Valyrians are European-looking with silver/white hair etc; the Ghiscari are more like Greek or Italian than Middle-Eastern or African etc). But the TV show did inadvertently take on that aspect, which is unfortunate. It was also, I think, to some extent unavoidable. They filmed those scenes in Morocco and they clearly couldn't ship in hundreds of extras especially to film that scene.

[Studlock]

But they could have filmed the scene differently. I don't think the scene was filmed with any malice but I am quite confused on how, after seeing that scene, that any of the showrunners didn't think it would be seen as problematic.

On the show however, I really hope more of the budget goes to supernatural goodness. I feel like the last episode suffered from not having a big supernatural revival like the ending of the first and second season.

[worry]

Yah I wonder if/when they are gonna introduce the Children of the Forest. Maybe between Hound and ship, Arya will run into that little old lady? It'd be a shame to leave them out entirely, if they're doing some supernatural world-building.