![]() The books do not give any racial breakdown on how many of the slaves are “white” and how many of the slaves are “not white”. For example, Dany sees “white” (Qartheen and Lysene) Unsullied, brown (Dothraki or Lhazareen), and black (Summer Islander) Unsullied. The Unsullied are composed of soldiers from countless different cities and cultures. Plenty of non-Ghiscari slaves live in Slaver’s Bay, after all. Thus we understand quite clearly from the books that just because a slave is living in a certain city, be it Astapor or Pentos, does not mean that they are indigenous to that city’s culture. They reach out to touch her and call out to her, but they also call out to her in many different tongues, not just Ghiscari or Valyrian. When the freedmen declare Daenerys as “Mhysa”, she is not lifted up by a crowd of them, facing the sky while sitting on their backs. We learn that the slave trade spans the entire continent and is not exclusive to the Dothraki or to Slaver’s Bay, which is why the elite of the continent despise Daenerys so much. Lhazareen (who are mostly enslaved in the series, not slavers themselves).Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen (the foundations of “Old Ghis”).In the books, we see slavers AND slaves from the following cities/cultures: Thus a racial disconnect between the Ghiscari slavers from the books and the Ghiscari slaves from the books is created by the show, with the slavers being deliberately cast as white Europeans and the slaves being portrayed by North African extras. However, the Ghiscari slaves were portrayed by Moroccan extras. The main Ghiscari slavers were played by mostly white actors ( Dan Hildebrand for Kraznys Mo Nakloz, George Georgiou for ‘Razdal mo Eraz’, who took the place of “Grazdan mo Eraz” from the books, and Enzo Cilenti for Yezzan zo Qagaz. ![]() Here is what I think: the show pockmarked her with the white savior criticism. I do not think that when all five of the currently published novels came out that people had such heavy handed critical racial critiques of her storyline. While it is true that Daenerys is the character who interacts with the most people of color, I do not think this situation was always the case in the fandom. The go-to critique most of them have for the racism in ASOIAF is “Daenerys Targaryen xyz….”. Hating Daenerys, or being openly uncomfortable with her/hostile about her, or being dismissive of her storyline “from a Doylist perspective”, has become the fandom’s main representation of critiquing GRRM’s racial and orientalist biases in his writing. ![]() I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, actually, and I’ve realized that it’s not just Martell stans - it’s every “progressive” asoiaf stan in the “intellectual” or, I guess “snobbish book loyalist” part of the fandom. ![]()
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