Winter Is Coming with Fire and Blood

How can you say that the dornish are not actually POC? How dare you point out that GRRM himself has said he used mostly Spain as an inspiration for Dorne? How dare you challenge the people who believe having any melanin automatically means you're not white? How dare you point out that xenophobia and racism are not the same?

Next you'll quote the chapter that literally describes the stony dornishmen as descendants of the First Men and the Andals, with blond and brown hair and skin that freckles or burns in the sun (just like the north of Spain, that had more contact with the Celts than the rest of the country and was less affected by the Moorish).

The audacity.

I’M SORRY I HAVE A MIND OF MY OWN AND CAN THINK FOR MYSELF WITHOUT RELYING ON METAS OKAY THIS IS NOT A PHSAE, FANDOM MOM

I love how Martells fans used that interview where GRRM said Dorne was based on Moorish Spain and Palestine and then fancast the Martells as Indians or Turks in their edits lmaooo last time I checked, South Asians and Turks weren't Amazigh or Arabs. North Africans, West Asians and South Asians are not interchangeable. Maybe a lot of Martells stans are satisfied by looking at all of us and yelling “brown people!” and it makes them feel like a beacon for diversity, but we each have our own beautiful, incredibly diverse and unique cultures.

All of this 👏👏👏 GRRM also threw Wales into that wild mix of Palestine and Moorish Spain and then realized how ridiculous all of that sounded and ended his reply with ‘Or you could say that Dorne is just Dorne’. Why would Martell stans bother trying to find Arabian period drama if Bollywood and Muhtesem yuzyil are right there? Easier to pretend that Deepika is the epitome of Elia than spend hours searching for these specific fancasts. Good thing GRRM called them ‘Mediterranean’ so we don’t have to 🤷🏻‍♀️ I mean everyone is free to fancast whoever they want, as always, the problem begins once the cult of the sun starts claiming that Dorne represents ‘brown people’. It doesn’t and we all know that. If I wanted representation of my life in my culture/religion or I wanted to learn more about other cultures I would turn my attention to the books or films created by the people of my ethnicity/other ethnicities because an old white American man could never understand what it means to be a ‘brown’ person

did grrm say in any interviews that the dornish were based on Palestinians or the moorish? I’ve always wondered where people got that quoted

“Based on Palestine” he’s talking about THE LAND, “a hot dry country like Spain or Palestine”, he doesn’t talk about using Palestinian culture or even worse Islam as the source of inspiration for Dorne. “Wales mixed with Spain and Palestine” by the end of the sentence GRRM realizes how utterly ridiculous it sounds, slapping together three countries that have nothing in common with each other, backtracks and says “Dorne is Dorne”. One time he was clear about how he perceives Dornish was when was answering some questions regarding Pedro’s casting. He clearly says “Mediterranean” as in “Italian, Greek, Spanish” and then adds that in his mind “Mediterranean” doesn’t include North Africa, Egypt is Middle East which again has nothing to do with Dorne, let alone India, ffs. All in all, Dorne is GRRM’s personal orientalist dream (“Spicy dornish food and spicy dornish women”, “Sexy portrait of princess Arianne”) and in no way I’m gonna pretend those characters represent my eastern “brown” culture or Islam.

just remembered how every time there’s a martell/dorne week hosted by their so-called stans they change races like one week the dornish/martells are brown the other week black which is going too far btw and the list goes on 😐🤡😐🤡 also its weird how some of these so-called dornish/martell stans only focus on one dornish house like the other dornish houses aren’t any less cool

house dayne or go home 💅🏻💅🏻 there are many cool dornish houses, it’s just i always prefer those who have ties to magic, like targs, starks, reeds, blackwoods and daynes in this case. i just want an entire fire and blood kind of book on them magical star king and queens :(((

lmao yeah, the “brown” martells’ ethnicity depends on which period drama with “pretty eastern aesthetics” they’ve discovered this time: one week the martells are indian, another week they are arab, when turkish channels drop new bomb series they become turks... representation, y’all

I wonder why people in this fandon go and really think dorne is non white and based in muslim countries when the characters from dorne are always drinking alcohol

literally lmao my entire family tree cares about my virginity more than i do, where's my keeping-myself-for-my-non-existent-husband representation, george

as a palestinian i hate how grrm grouped us together with the spicy whites in that one interview, my people and culture have nothing to do with those siesta and pizza people wtf

omg, i'm so sorry to hear it!! no, but the way he just randomly threw cultures and lands such as wales, palestine, spain and moors which has nothing to do with each other to describe dorne just screams orientalism and the fandom gladly accepts it without even questioning it. i love how by the end of the sentence grrm himself realized he said something weird and ended it as 'or you can say dorne is just dorne'. yeah. that's what it is. a fictional land that doesn't represent real people of the middle east, india or whoever they decide would be a cute fancast next week

I know that dorne is based mostly on Spain, Italy and Greece. But as a Greek person I never felt how its any sort of representention Imao. Like my country is one of the most sexist in Europe with the christianity purity bs . I don't know many women like Arianne and If they are like her, they are getting a huge backlash from media unfortanately. Also not mention the whole oversexualization with them, which just scream Orientalism in me.

this is why i'm convinced we should never equate any fictional made up lands to real countries, cultures and nations: if you want decent representation read the books written by the authors of certain origins set in certain parts of the world, there are so many of them. again i'm all for fancasting whoever you want as any character but for the love of god stop harassing people over not accepting your 'poc martells' headcanons

This might be an ignorant question so I apologize in advance, but why does the house that experiences the most racism, Martell, have to be the token poc house while the only major houses who experience less or no racism get to be white?

hmmm, tbh i'm not even sure we should use the term 'racism' when speaking of people of westeros, i think more appropriate term would 'ethinicy' and in my opinion what the martells experience is xenophobia rather than 'racism'. i don't think that in asoiaf race works the same way as in real world. it's literally fantasy races: humans, children of the forest, giants, etc. rhoynar, first men and andals are all ethnic group of human race (in westeros). that's... what fantasy is, you know, lotr, dragon age and all that. so yeah, if the fandom considers the martells poc, then please go ahead and treat the starks the same way because:

or just start calling it what it is: xenophobia.

What I don't understand from asoiaf fandom is how they try to change the fact that the martells are a white family and that dorne is majority white. I can understand wanting more representation, but martin established dorne as spain and spain, even during the al-andalus ages, was majority white. They seem so be using the imagination of martell and dorne as poc just to look 'woke' which is horrible

my question is what exactly makes the dornishmen "poc"? their 'olive' skin? it doesn't work like that: my father has brown skin while i'm white, my nieces who are all related have different skin tones to the point of strangers on the streets asking their brown-skinned mother whether she's their nanny, etc, etc, etc.

xenophobic remarks? their different customs? well, let's see what is written in the world of ice and fire:

so are the "savages" starks poc now too? should elia stans finally let go of the "rhaegar left his poor poc wife for white lyanna" argument? is that actually a "poc on poc" situation??

"So you could say Dorne is Wales mixed with Spain and Palestine" grrm realizes how ridiculous this sounds and the next thing he says it's "dorne is dorne". that’s how i see it too: i will never equate this fictional land to any real country and its culture, ESPECIALLY not mix them all together.

besides grrm literally says he imagines them as mediterranean yet the fandom has collectively decided the dornisheman are indian. or persian. or arabic. or turkish. depends on their mood i guess. i'm all for fancasting whoever you want as whatever you want but holy shit stop jumping on people and saying they "whitewash dornishmen", it's called FANCASTS for a reason. attacking real non-white people defending fictional characters you deemed brown?? huh?? like shut the fuck up, stanning the martells won't make your white ass seem woke if you act like a piece of shit towards other people

(shotout to the "sexy portrait of princess arianne", doesn't sound like orientalism at all, huh!)