[Tsundoku]

Those ladies better have really healthy scalps with strong hair follicles.

And lots of antihistamines.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 15 August 2019 - 07:31 AM

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 15 August 2019 - 05:39 AM, said:

The "visual" element amuses me with people's complaints. Putting aside the horrible overtones that are going on for a moment (which whilst inevitable are still disappointing) - it's amazing how quickly people forget that, for example, Emilia Clarke is not a violet-eyed platinum blonde, and John Rhys Davies is not in fact Gimli-sized in real life (quite the opposite in fact). As far as I recall, neither fact spoiled either adaption they featured in.

This.

I always subscribe to the "play/musical" aesthetic. To me it doesn't matter what skin colour or ethnicity the actor is...they are playing the part. If they play that part well, I'm down.

And honestly, these types of changes/interpretations of character can be SO beyond rewarding in the long run.

Example: When crafting a new Marvel Ultimate comic universe in 2002, British artist Bryan Hitch decided to draw the perennially white Nick Fury (once played live action by David Hasselhoff) not only as a POC, but based him on Samuel L. Jackson as a model. And lo and behold 7 years later Jackson himself was actually cast by Jon Favreau to play the role in IRON MAN. Now I don't think ANYONE (regular people anyways) knows about white Nick Fury anymore. He's a POC now as a default. That's important. The same thing is true of Valkyrie, and Heimdal...classically whiter than white "norse" allegories have become default POC characters, and that's fantastic. Out of the same Ultimate Universe changes spun Miles Morales, a young POC Spider-man...who now not only holds a place of honour beside Peter Parker's Spider-Man (I think most people know that there is more than one Spidey now), but is beloved and just starred in an award-winning, audience adored animated film. I expect him to show up in the Phase 4 MCU as well.

Actors are playing roles, not ethnicities or skin-colours, especially in "fantasy" worlds.

[Abyss]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 15 August 2019 - 05:39 AM, said:

The "visual" element amuses me with people's complaints. Putting aside the horrible overtones that are going on for a moment (which whilst inevitable are still disappointing) - it's amazing how quickly people forget that, for example, Emilia Clarke is not a violet-eyed platinum blonde, and John Rhys Davies is not in fact Gimli-sized in real life (quite the opposite in fact). As far as I recall, neither fact spoiled either adaption they featured in.

I still chuckle at the outcry over the Rue character casting in the HUNGER GAMES movie, when the character was POC in the damn book and Katniss and others were described with 'olive-skin'.


The WoT adaptation isn't going to rise or fall on the ethnicity of its cast.

Their acting abilities and the script they're working with, otoh...

[Tsundoku]

Abyss, on 15 August 2019 - 04:04 PM, said:

Their acting abilities and the script they're working with, otoh...

Yeah I'm hoping it's more GOT (last 2 seasons notwithstanding) et al than Legend of the Stinker or How to Train Your Vagnomes or whatever it was supposed to be ...

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 16 August 2019 - 09:23 AM

[Cause]

Blend, on 14 August 2019 - 08:45 PM, said:

I mostly agree with you here - they'd better not slap a red wig on that Rand actor and make him look ridiculous. Otherwise, the guy's kind of like, standard teenage hearthrob, which, realistically, should be fine for a Rand character as long as the kid can at least kind of act.

I'm not sure anyone will be bale to act the part of Rand right once he is on the cusp of madness/greatness. Gonna be hard for anyone to pull off.

I don't know any of the cast, the only part that strikes me as odd is that they so completely run the gamut of dark to light. When they should all look the same bar rand. That said I doubt its in the budget and realm of human possibility to hire only red headed 7ft Irishmen to play Aiel characters anyway so the whole reveal of Rands heritage will probably need to be slightly adjusted anyway.

I cant recall of the top of my head which ethnicities there are where in the books. I think some of them didn't really correspond to real world equivalents. The aiel are Irishmen (at least the very pale redheaded kind) who live in the dessert. I believe Tuon and Semiherage were black but I don't believe the majority of Seanchan were. Andor I'm pretty sure was Caucasian. The saldeans I think had asian eyes but were not necessarily Asian as I recall.

[Tsundoku]

I always thought Sea Folk were black but with incongruous Hagrid (or some western English) accents. Couldn't tell you why, probably some throwaway line in an early book that stuck with me.

I always saw Seanchan as Asian/Caucasian mixes, depending on caste and how closely they were descended from Luther Paendrag or whatever his name was.

Mostly though - thanks to his love of infinitesimally detailed descriptions - I saw the races and nations as clothing.

I cast "Summon Terez".

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 16 August 2019 - 09:47 AM

[Terez]

I haven't been glued to the discussions like I would have been back in the day, but I did jump in a bit more today because I saw some people arguing that RJ said in multiple interviews/signing reports that the Andorans were supposed to be English in ethnicity. And apparently not even the hardcore fans felt confident enough that they could prove that negative. I built the interview database, though, at least as far as research and data entry go - the only person who really helped me with that was my roommate - so I was pretty confident he'd never said that. He only said their accents were British/English. Anyway, I did some searches to verify that and chimed in, and I also dropped a bunch of quotes from the books. These two explicitly say the Two Rivers folk have dark skin, in RJ's first book, and his last:

TEOTW 40 said:

Elaida had put down her knitting, Rand realized, and was studying him. She rose from her stool and slowly came down from the dais to stand before him. "From the Two Rivers?" she said. She reached a hand toward his head; he pulled away from her touch, and she let her hand drop. "With that red in his hair, and gray eyes? Two Rivers people are dark of hair and eye, and they seldom have such height." Her hand darted out to push back his coat sleeve, exposing lighter skin the sun had not reached so often. "Or such skin."

TEOTW 29 said:

Tam was on the slope, now, and more Two Rivers men were pouring out of the fog with longbows in hand. Some tried to mingle with the men who had followed Perrin, to reunite with brothers, sons, nephews, friends, but Tam chivvied them away, trotting his black gelding up and down as he arranged them in three ever-expanding ranks to either side of the horsemen. Perrin spotted Hu Barran and his equally lanky brother Tad, the stablemen from the Winespring Inn, and square-faced Bar Dowtry, only a few years older than he himself was, who was making a name for himself as a cabinetmaker, and skinny Thad Torfinn, who seldom left his farm except to come into Emond's Field. Oren Dautry. lean and tall, stood between Jon Ayellin. who was hulking and bald, and Kev Barstere, who finally had gotten out from under his mother's thumb if he was here. There were Marwins and al'-Dais, al'Seens and Coles. Thanes and al'Caars and Crawes, men from every family he knew, men he did not recognize, from down to Deven Ride or up to Watch Hill or Taren Ferry, all grim-faced and burdened with pairs of bristling quivers and extra sheaves of arrows. And among them stood others, men with coppery skins, men with transparent veils across the lower half of their faces, fair-skinned men who just did not have the look of the Two Rivers.

There are a lot of generalized quotes about Two Rivers people being darker than the average Andoran, and Andorans being darker than the average Cairhienin, etc. I think it was headcanon for most people that African features were limited to Shara (Africa) and Seanchan (American melting pot), while Randland is some kind of rigid European parallel with plenty of dark-skinned races but nothing African. So it's a bit of a headcanon shift, but nothing too extreme.

There are a lot of quotes supporting diversity in skin color in the Two Rivers and in Andor, but I think skin-color diversity is not really what the controversy is about. It's about other African features, like facial features and hair texture, and also Aboriginal Australian features, which in the case of Madeleine Madden (Egwene) strike me as being closer to Indian than African stereotypes. Barney Harris (Mat) has a Mesopotamian look which seems a bit whitewashed in some of his headshots. It's a lot more obvious in his candid shots.

[Tsundoku]

Holy shit it worked!

Thanks Tezza.

I cast "Summon Winning Lotto Numbers" ...

[Cause]

Terez, on 16 August 2019 - 10:07 AM, said:

I haven't been glued to the discussions like I would have been back in the day, but I did jump in a bit more today because I saw some people arguing that RJ said in multiple interviews/signing reports that the Andorans were supposed to be English in ethnicity. And apparently not even the hardcore fans felt confident enough that they could prove that negative. I built the interview database, though, at least as far as research and data entry go - the only person who really helped me with that was my roommate - so I was pretty confident he'd never said that. He only said their accents were British/English. Anyway, I did some searches to verify that and chimed in, and I also dropped a bunch of quotes from the books. These two explicitly say the Two Rivers folk have dark skin, in RJ's first book, and his last:

TEOTW 40 said:

Elaida had put down her knitting, Rand realized, and was studying him. She rose from her stool and slowly came down from the dais to stand before him. "From the Two Rivers?" she said. She reached a hand toward his head; he pulled away from her touch, and she let her hand drop. "With that red in his hair, and gray eyes? Two Rivers people are dark of hair and eye, and they seldom have such height." Her hand darted out to push back his coat sleeve, exposing lighter skin the sun had not reached so often. "Or such skin."

TEOTW 29 said:

Tam was on the slope, now, and more Two Rivers men were pouring out of the fog with longbows in hand. Some tried to mingle with the men who had followed Perrin, to reunite with brothers, sons, nephews, friends, but Tam chivvied them away, trotting his black gelding up and down as he arranged them in three ever-expanding ranks to either side of the horsemen. Perrin spotted Hu Barran and his equally lanky brother Tad, the stablemen from the Winespring Inn, and square-faced Bar Dowtry, only a few years older than he himself was, who was making a name for himself as a cabinetmaker, and skinny Thad Torfinn, who seldom left his farm except to come into Emond's Field. Oren Dautry. lean and tall, stood between Jon Ayellin. who was hulking and bald, and Kev Barstere, who finally had gotten out from under his mother's thumb if he was here. There were Marwins and al'-Dais, al'Seens and Coles. Thanes and al'Caars and Crawes, men from every family he knew, men he did not recognize, from down to Deven Ride or up to Watch Hill or Taren Ferry, all grim-faced and burdened with pairs of bristling quivers and extra sheaves of arrows. And among them stood others, men with coppery skins, men with transparent veils across the lower half of their faces, fair-skinned men who just did not have the look of the Two Rivers.

There are a lot of generalized quotes about Two Rivers people being darker than the average Andoran, and Andorans being darker than the average Cairhienin, etc. I think it was headcanon for most people that African features were limited to Shara (Africa) and Seanchan (American melting pot), while Randland is some kind of rigid European parallel with plenty of dark-skinned races but nothing African. So it's a bit of a headcanon shift, but nothing too extreme.

There are a lot of quotes supporting diversity in skin color in the Two Rivers and in Andor, but I think skin-color diversity is not really what the controversy is about. It's about other African features, like facial features and hair texture, and also Aboriginal Australian features, which in the case of Madeleine Madden (Egwene) strike me as being closer to Indian than African stereotypes. Barney Harris (Mat) has a Mesopotamian look which seems a bit whitewashed in some of his headshots. It's a lot more obvious in his candid shots.

The two rivers were black this whole time, I need to go rethink my life! I'm not sure how to interrupt those quotes though. The Aiel are extremely pale, not being as pale as them doesn't mean your not Caucasian. Elaida also needs to look at Rands untanned skin to point out the difference. Once we met greater Andor which is undoubtedly 'British' so to speak the idea of all Andor being Caucasian was definitely cemented for me.

As said above whether by design or accident you tend to start thinking of the nations by their often one obvious cultural trait. Taraboners and their veil, Aes Sedai by their bitchiness, Cairhenian shave the front half of their heads, Seanchan shave half their heads. The men from Shienar have a metallic kinda silvery skin.

You can put anything a veil and teach us that means taraboner. Anyone taking a bath in plate armor is probably from the borderlands.

The culture of the places affects our thoughts on them, I always got an Indian, middle eastern vibe from shara (so pictured Arabic features) but I couldn't say what the people who come from their are supposed to look like according to a book description if my life depended on it. I skimmed most of the last book when they finally showed up.

This post has been edited by Cause: 16 August 2019 - 10:51 AM

[Terez]

Cause, on 16 August 2019 - 10:49 AM, said:

The two rivers were black this whole time, I need to go rethink my life! I'm not sure how to interrupt those quotes though. The Aiel are extremely pale, not being as pale as them doesn't mean your not Caucasian.

I didn't say it did. In fact I said it would require a headcanon shift, but it's not that extreme so it's not anything we can't deal with as a fandom.

Cause, on 16 August 2019 - 10:49 AM, said:

Elaida also needs to look at Rands untanned skin to point out the difference.

She wouldn't have pushed back his sleeve if she didn't notice his skin was different already.

Cause, on 16 August 2019 - 10:49 AM, said:

Once we met greater Andor which is undoubtedly 'British' so to speak the idea of all Andor being Caucasian was definitely cemented for me.

Andor isn't British. They have British accents. The Aiel have Slavic accents, according to RJ, but (stereotypical) Irish coloring, Native American culture (to name one), etc. The WoT cultures are each drawn fro several cultures. Ishara was as dark as any of the Sea Folk. Modern-day Andorans are described as being "as dark as" other WoT ethnicities occasionally.

[QuickTidal]

Again, it doesn't remotely matter what the books canon say about the ethnicities and skin colour. This is a live action play of a high fantasy story. Anyone can play anyone.

Human civilization in WoT (as far as I can tell) is some 3400+ years old (it could be older, but the timeline of events jives with these numbers; anyone with more knowledge is welcome to correct that).

In 3400 years on one continent, not separated by anything worse than mountain ranges...the diversity of any given settlement or city is going to wildly change and grow in that time. 3400 odd years ago in our own history as a civilization (on disparate continents yet), Tutankhamen was just crowned king when Akhenaten died, and 'Ancient Classical Greece' (as we know it) was still a few hundred years away yet. Consider our melting pot now compared to then on most continents (including the Cradle of Civilization). It's night and day.

This should not even be an issue, and yet here it is again. I also personally don't really care what Jordan intended in his books to be frank. He's not here, and his widow (with seemingly a consulting credit) won't likely have much say either, not especially in casting.

The TV show will not be the books (in a lot of ways I think) and that's a good thing. They can and should be separate things.

[Maark Abbott]

No wonder the Aiel are so hardcore. They can squat for years.

[Abyss]

Tsundoku, on 16 August 2019 - 10:36 AM, said:

Holy shit it worked!

Thanks Tezza.

I cast "Summon Winning Lotto Numbers" ...

Summon Whiskey, dammit. And maybe Bacon.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 16 August 2019 - 02:30 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 16 August 2019 - 10:36 AM, said:

Holy shit it worked!

Thanks Tezza.

I cast "Summon Winning Lotto Numbers" ...

Summon Whiskey, dammit. And maybe Bacon.

Summon Butter Chicken Roti!

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 16 August 2019 - 03:20 PM, said:

Abyss, on 16 August 2019 - 02:30 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 16 August 2019 - 10:36 AM, said:

Holy shit it worked!

Thanks Tezza.

I cast "Summon Winning Lotto Numbers" ...

Summon Whiskey, dammit. And maybe Bacon.

Summon Butter Chicken Roti!

Summon Garlic Naan while you're at it, i have leftover Indian for lunch but am sadly lacking.

[acesn8s]

Abyss, on 16 August 2019 - 02:30 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 16 August 2019 - 10:36 AM, said:

Holy shit it worked!

Thanks Tezza.

I cast "Summon Winning Lotto Numbers" ...

Summon Whiskey, dammit. And maybe Bacon.

Noooo....

[tehol1769]

Pumped. Now just waiting on casting for Lan...

I cant remember where I saw it but someone made a good point, being that even if the cast announced didn't embody the looks perfectly in terms of size/skin/hair (tho thats easy to fix), they were probably cast for a reason, namely that they're better actors

It'll be interesting to see how the dice roll of unknowns goes for WoT.... went pretty much flawlessly for GoT (only bad one was Bran?) with a ton of breakout stars, so hopefully we get the same dynamic of great actors/actresses.

[Tsundoku]

Getting back to ethnicity, "darker than Andormen" or whatever could also mean something like black Irish.

I mean Elaida's evaluation could also be applied to a tall, pale as fuck ranga standing next to Colin Farrell.

So yeah, interpretation can vary wildly. That's part of the fun of it. Noone is 100% right. Makes it easier to cast as well when it's so broad.

As far as the Emond's field people having similar features ... well that depends on if the show is going to depict it as an out-of-the-way insular place, descended from the blood of Manetheren etc or not.

But Perrin needs to put some muscle on.

BTW I did summon winning Lotto numbers ... around $25 worth. Clearly I need to refine that spell a bit more.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 17 August 2019 - 12:31 PM

[amphibian]

This has been said before, but the casting matters much, much less than the assembly of writers and showrunners. Good actors can only boost a bad script so far.

[worry]

BREAKING: Billy Zane has been cast as Lan.