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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   32429 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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So GRRM just ragequit and said the whole thing works differently, that in Westeros your paternal family "type" will always predominate over another or something like that, because magic or whatever.

I wouldn't call that rage quitting. I'd say this is the correct response. Why would a world that has dragons, walking dead people, tree people and so on follow earthen genetics? Do people in that world even have DNA? The way the story is presented it very much "feels" like Ned's discovery (actually Jon Arryn's) is correct and for the reasons he stated.

It would also be plausible that families have some kind of "magic". How else is one line able to manage to hold a position of power for thousands of years? Do we have an analog to that in our world?

Why would a world that has dragons, walking dead people, tree people and so on follow earthen genetics?

But that argument equally undermines the original complaint that it doesn't make sense for Valyrians to all have platinum blonde hair but different skin colors. Maybe the definitely blood-magic evil sacrifice thing that makes valyrians what they are doesn't impact skin color, who knows?

The Virgin Fantasy TV Show Watcher: This show is literally unwatchable, they didn't provide an adequate explanation for why this character is black. I can't even pay attention to the dragons, the whole time I'm just thinking why is he black? Unwatchable travesty. Worst episode ever.

The Chad Opera Afficianado: I just saw Carmen, the young soldier and the bullfighter were sung by fat Italian men in their late 40s, the gypsy woman so beautiful that she destroys multiple men's lives was sung by a Swedish soprano who looked like a chainsaw statue got a hold of Frosty's old silk hat. I've never been more affected by anything in my life, my heart bleeds, love is a treacherous bird!

The answer is that if shows just inserted Black characters without making a big thing about inclusion, they'd probably face less backlash. What makes it stand out is that the showrunners make it known that they're doing this for diversity reasons, and once the viewer knows this it takes them out of the setting. Perhaps I can suspend disbelief that Rodolfo the starving artist looks like this because I know he's cast for his voice, not for political reasons.

But that argument equally undermines the original complaint that it doesn't make sense for Valyrians to all have platinum blonde hair but different skin colors. Maybe the definitely blood-magic evil sacrifice thing that makes valyrians what they are doesn't impact skin color, who knows?

We shouldn't use the show to make assumptions about the book. The show could be using an entirely different rule set (or, more likely, not caring about the story or any underlying consistency at all).

The Seed is Strong incident is exactly identical in each.

I wouldn't call that rage quitting. I'd say this is the correct response. Why would a world that has dragons, walking dead people, tree people and so on follow earthen genetics?

For the same reason something like 90% of things on this world seem to work the way they did in medieval Europe?

And the response isn't correct, because he actually addressed it much better in the book. There's a line there, where were Ned thinks no one would suspect her, if Cersei gave Robert at least one child.

For the same reason something like 90% of things on this world seem to work the way they did in medieval Europe?

Actually this is counter to your point. The reason 90% of the things in ASoIaF work like the medieval Europe we know is because for the things he doesn't care about, he left them as they are (e.g. he didn't make a new gravity). But the things he did care about, he changed. For example, the people ride horses but some people ride dragons. This is generally how any fantasy story would be written because no one wants to read some text explaining every possible aspect of a universe because the author changed everything. Fantasy is like basically doing a "fork" of reality to save time and help prevent confusion (e.g. "how does gravity work in this universe again?")

This concept of a magical "biological seed" is pretty inherent to the plot. Incest doesn't work the same either. In our world you would expect centuries of inter-breeding to result in terrible deformities. What they get is beautiful people who are sometimes insane.

In the book Ned used the "biological seed" evidence first and from there uncovered the rest because it wasn't even particularly well hidden (everyone at court but the King seemed to know already).

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