TaylorSwiftFan
Member
I am not white either and the diversity in the first episode made no sense. Someone else already posted about it. It’s obvious that this is diversity at the expense of good world building and story telling.
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Wheel of Time
- Thread starter AJUMP23
- Start date
BadBurger
Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
The diversity of the casting didn't bother me. For example, out of all them I think the guy playing Lan has done the best in capturing his character's mannerisms and devotion to protecting Moiraine from the first book - and the actor is very clearly Asian (guessing Korean from his appearance).
I just don't like how any of the others are portraying their characters. I was sort of afraid that Rosamund Pike would play Moiraine too melodramatically - and I was not only correct in my fears, but she chews on the scenery the entire time as well. The actor for Rand may actually look the part, but if you had showed me his segments while removing all mentions of names and places and asked "This is the main character for one of the fantasy books you love most, guess who it is", it definitely would have taken me a while to finally guess Rand al'Thor.
Juxtapose this to quality casting for fantasy adaptations, like in Game of Thrones. If you read just the first book and nothing else, the second any of the main characters appear on screen and start acting you know who they are. Often before they even open their mouths. The Witcher has a very diverse cast, and each and every one of them does a genuinely good job at portraying their characters. If the same theoretical question above was asked of me regarding Anya Chalorta as Yennefer, I most definitely would have guessed correctly right away - even though she's clearly a PoC unlike her fictional counterpart.
So yea. I was afraid to even mention that I disliked the casting on social media because I knew what people would immediately claim. It took less than 30 seconds (no bullshit) for two separate people to suggest I was racist for not liking the casting when I replied to the official Amazon Prime account about it. I had to mute that conversation right away.
I just don't like how any of the others are portraying their characters. I was sort of afraid that Rosamund Pike would play Moiraine too melodramatically - and I was not only correct in my fears, but she chews on the scenery the entire time as well. The actor for Rand may actually look the part, but if you had showed me his segments while removing all mentions of names and places and asked "This is the main character for one of the fantasy books you love most, guess who it is", it definitely would have taken me a while to finally guess Rand al'Thor.
Juxtapose this to quality casting for fantasy adaptations, like in Game of Thrones. If you read just the first book and nothing else, the second any of the main characters appear on screen and start acting you know who they are. Often before they even open their mouths. The Witcher has a very diverse cast, and each and every one of them does a genuinely good job at portraying their characters. If the same theoretical question above was asked of me regarding Anya Chalorta as Yennefer, I most definitely would have guessed correctly right away - even though she's clearly a PoC unlike her fictional counterpart.
So yea. I was afraid to even mention that I disliked the casting on social media because I knew what people would immediately claim. It took less than 30 seconds (no bullshit) for two separate people to suggest I was racist for not liking the casting when I replied to the official Amazon Prime account about it. I had to mute that conversation right away.
Having recently rewatched Witcher season 1 and reread most of the books, I think they nailed almost all of the casting except for Triss and Fringella. Triss seems too subdued, though we'll see how she does in S2. Fringella was totally changed, don't see how they do the Lodge storyline now, nor her and Geralt. She is just a moustache twirling villain now (as well as Cahir apparently).
I have fears Witcher S2 will pull an Altered Carbon like plummet but hopefully not.
I have fears Witcher S2 will pull an Altered Carbon like plummet but hopefully not.
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
Even my leftist girlfriend pointed out how they had seemingly every shade of person in the first episode. Took her out of it. Impressions after the first episode: It's okay. Nothing special. Seems very generic fantasy.
LordOfChaos
Member
The first book was generic fantasy tbh. It followed the LoTR archetype, stranger takes innocent kids away on an adventure yada yada. It's after the end of the first one (which is where the first season ends afaik) that it gets REALLY different.
See what you think after episode 4...
TaylorSwiftFan
Member
Btw, people bringing the Witcher - I thought it was bad as well but more for the editing, sets and storytelling. I just couldn’t make sense of what was happening and I didn’t care for any of the characters either. The sets and costumes as usual look cheap. 20 years after still nothing comes close to LotR.
ymoc
Member
I probably live like an hour drive away from where they shot the first episode. I've been picking mushrooms in these woods for years. Mind you, this country has a 99,99% white population. Imagine my immersion breaker when i see a black girl picking herbs and flowers in these woods. How this weird mix of real life and fiction clashes for me. I couldn't take the show very seriously after that.
It always felt like the entire cast was just picked randomly from a street in London. Got a nice mix of white, black, brown in every location of the show so far. This could really work for a different kind of show, but for this setting it just feels really unorganic (is that even a word?).
It totally breaks my immersion.
Doom85
Member
Trollocs, magic, all acceptable shit. A black girl picking flowers in the woods? Now that’s just ridiculous!
I guess Lord of the Rings movies were also shit because I’m going to guess the cast were not speaking the accent people in New Zealand do where they shot the movies. 0/10, Mr. Jackson.
Like, I really can’t understand why people get so hung up on this in FANTASY.
ymoc
Member
Nice try twisting my meanings.
To add, yah it is my issue to have a immersion breaking reaction from a casting decision. It's shaped by my experiences and perceptions. It cant be helped. It feels weird seeing stuff like that. Im not trying to offend anyone. But i dont want you to paint this as something it is not. Can you understand my point of view?
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Doom85
Member
You’re claiming you just “know” the diversity is unorganic in a setting that doesn’t exist in our recorded history because it doesn’t exist in reality.
This is like someone saying the Krogan feel out of place in the Mass Effect universe “just because”. Again, not our reality, so what the hell does this even mean?
To be clear, if someone said white people felt out of place in WOT, that would be equally ridiculous.
Seriously, WOT is not our reality. How about we focus on the storytelling instead of trivial details? It sucks that it seems we have to carefully place POC in a fantasy cast lest certain people get triggered by it for some weird reason.
Imagine if I was DM’ing D&D and a player brought everything to a halt to question me about where the people in the small village they’re in got their shoes from if the extremely few shops/services don’t provide shoe making. Am I at fault for overlooking such a small detail? Or should I calmly ask the player to not focus on stuff irrelevant to the narrative I worked on and let’s get back to solving the murder that went down in the inn during the night?
I hope most people who appreciate good storytelling and not those who treat shit like CinemaSins as gospel who nitpick every fucking thing imaginable (half the time getting it wrong anyway) would agree the latter option is the right choice for any DM who respects his good players’ time and less so the player focused on random bullshit.
Seriously though, I respect your right to get hung up on something on this. Please respect my right to give you a look that makes it very clear I’m facepalming on the inside.
I_D
Member
His/her examples were poor, but you also took the words to hyperbolic levels.
The Wheel of Time series (as well as damn near every other major fantasy series) has a pretty significant focus on racial differences, and national/cultural differences.
That's why Game of Thrones features various accents across families and groups of people (Not to mention all sorts of cultural, fighting, architectural, clothing, etc. differences.), in addition to consistency of skin color, hair color, religion, and so forth.
That's why Mistborn features clear differences between the classes of magic. It's why there are significant, plot-relevant, descriptions of differences between territories.
That's why The Lord of the Rings series features clear, numerously-mentioned differences between races and cities.
Mixing up races, genders, religions, heights, etc. between all of the various "isolated" groups kind of defeats some of the purpose.
Not all of the purpose, mind you, but some of it.
But, understand, that differences are a pretty significant part of the plot in this storyline. There are plenty of stories out there which can easily get away with a hugely diverse cast, but it would be tougher in this show (if they want to be accurate to the text).
That's why your Krogan example doesn't work: The Krogan race is already built into the Mass Effect Universe.
A more comparative (though not perfect) example would be something like having John Marston team up with a black guy, a Polish guy, a lesbian with pink hair, a one-eyed Spanish guy who fights with daggers, and so forth.
Does it make a difference to the overall plot? Of course not. But does it add diversity for no reason, and is not very accurate to the "source" material? You bet your ass, it is.
Thus far...
Rand is supposed to stand out A LOT from the rest of his town. That is no longer the case in the show.
The Seanchan are supposed to stand out A LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT from the rest of the people on the continent. We'll see how that goes.
The Aiel are supposed to all look damn near identical to one another, yet totally different from everybody else on the continent. Based on some spoiler-ific information we currently have, that does not seem to be the case. We'll see how they look, compared to one another.
As I mentioned before, the show specifically mentioned "The Old Blood" and how prevalent it is in Two Rivers. But then that same town is full of obviously-unrelated people. It doesn't actually affect the plot, but it does add a level of campiness, or a feeling of overlooked details.
Now, if we're being honest, it's entirely possible to ignore all of these differences and get on with the storyline. I will be supremely surprised if the show does not take this route.
In the text, however, these differences are a significant part of the plot. These various nations are supposed to be recognizably-different. It's how all kinds of various plot points are set up, and it explains why certain characters are suspicious/friendly.
I don't really have any issue with diversity in books/shows/etc., but it does get annoying when original source material is changed for no reason. ESPECIALLY in a show like this!
All the creators had to do was wait a few more episodes, and then they could include every damn race/gender/religion/culture in all of history, and it all would have made perfect sense in the lore!
It's also annoying when sexuality/gender/sex/religion/etc. is specifically mentioned, but then never expanded upon, and is clearly just some random 'inclusion' bit; but that's a topic for another day, as it does not seem to currently be an issue in WoT. Hopefully we don't have to see how that goes.
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TaylorSwiftFan
Member
Imagine that in that village there is a guy in a suit and talking on a cellphone. Should be fine, right? Because it’s just fantasy, right?
If you create something that’s impossible in the real world, people will buy into it as long as it follows its own rules. Like Trollocs or magic - those are things that do not exist in our world and are believable in WoT’s world. However, take something that exists in the real world, like a remote, rural village, it’s harder to make us believe it because we’ll compare it to the real world. I don’t think we’ll find many rural, remote villages throughout history, especially in older days that would have had that many ethnicities concentrated in such a small area.
BadBurger
Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
Well if you recall the flashback scenes from the short stories set early on, like when Triss first encounters Ciri during her early training, she was probably the least prideful and forceful of the sorceresses we'd had been introduced to at that point. But she dials it up as time goes on and she is forced to assume more responsibility.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I see this argument all the time "it's fantasy!". However, there is a counter argument to be made.
Fantasy worlds are fantastic places filled with magic and monsters, but they're also based on real life history, mythology and legend. Tolkien based his Middle-earth stories on Nordic legends, but also wanted to create a mythology for the English. This is why his stories have almost all white characters, because it's based on a fantasy version of Northern Europe.
Same goes for other fantasy series. Take Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James. Fantastic book that has wrongly been given the title of the African Game of Thrones (that does the book no justice as it's nothing like ASOIAF). The book is set in a mythical version of Africa and is based on African mythology and folklore. I hear Michael B Jordan will be adapting this book into a series, but will it have a mixed race cast of white, brown, black etc? Probably not. The cast will be majority to all black to match the authors setting and the characters. Is that bad, because after all, it is a just fantasy book? Surly Tracker could be played by a white actor? No. If a white actor is cast as Tracker then for me, that would be hugely immersion breaking and not be inline the world created by the books.
How about City of Brass? A series set in a fantasy Middle East. Again, another fantastic book for those people who want something different to the usual European set fantasy fare and another book being adapted to TV by Netflix. How about the casting for that?
I'm not trying to be difficult here. I'm honestly interested about this issue and I'm happy to have a rational discussion over it.
Ballthyrm
Member
IDKFA
Haven't you heard, cultural appropriation is only something white people can do.As for the "it's fantasy!" , I totally agree with you, I will go one step further and take an argument I've heard.
All stories are Fantasy, the most ancient Tale we know of is Fantasy, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The most common way stories have been transmited throughout the centuries have been fantasy stories, be it Japanese folktale, Icelandic Sagas, European Fairy Tales, etc.
Non-Fiction and other modern genres are the exception, not the rule.
So the book snob who don't read fantasy, they are the ones who are reading a sub-genre.
Books should first and foremost obey their own logic. And they should only betray it when it serves the story.
Here the cast being multi cultural doesn't serve any purpose and it doesn't serve the story. So of course people are going to complain.
If they wanted more black characters on screen just make them all black, that's fine, maybe they should have done that.
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DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
All these arguments about the "race" of the actors portraying the characters and nothing being said about the actual story.
Maybe it's because I LIKE the diversity of the characters skin colors (notice that THEY don't give a frak because in their world, they're humans... Not black and white and mixed and Indian and etc) and I'm not thinking that hard about Two Rivers being isolated or anything in relation to the characters not all being the same skin color.
Anyway... I wonder if Mat is actually going to exhibit any powers (without that knife) like the others have.
Maybe it's because I LIKE the diversity of the characters skin colors (notice that THEY don't give a frak because in their world, they're humans... Not black and white and mixed and Indian and etc) and I'm not thinking that hard about Two Rivers being isolated or anything in relation to the characters not all being the same skin color.
Anyway... I wonder if Mat is actually going to exhibit any powers (without that knife) like the others have.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
As for the "it's fantasy!" , I totally agree with you, I will go one step further and take an argument I've heard.
All stories are Fantasy, the most ancient Tale we know of is Fantasy, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The most common way stories have been transmited throughout the centuries have been fantasy stories, be it Japanese folktale, Icelandic Sagas, European Fairy Tales, etc.
Non-Fiction and other modern genres are the exception, not the rule.
So the book snob who don't read fantasy, they are the ones who are reading a sub-genre.
Books should first and foremost obey their own logic. And they should only betray it when it serves the story.
Here the cast being multi cultural doesn't serve any purpose and it doesn't serve the story. So of course people are going to complain.
If they wanted more black characters on screen just make them all black, that's fine, maybe they should have done that.
We'll probably be having the same debates when Amazon's Middle-earth series comes out next year.
By all accounts, that is going to far more racially diverse than Wheel of Time, so it'll be interesting to see how they handle that in the world setting.
Wildebeest
Member
I guess this is by far the most "interesting" aspect of TV drama production for some people, but it bores me to tears.
That character finding the knife had a sort of magical/fated aspect to it. I guess all the village characters will show some magical ability, but I think it is pretty obvious which one is being set up as the main "hero" character. It is about as obscure as Game of Thrones when John Snow was sent to the wall. If they are seriously going to spend time teasing us with some "who is the dragon" stuff, then just do the obvious anyway, it would get old fast.
I don't see how Middle-Earth can be anything but a disappointment, really, just given the expectations.
Color wheel casting is to be expected I'm sure, but hopefully they choose better ways to demonstrate it than WoT did. Arcane is a good example, the city is kind of a central hub for traveller's, folks of divergent races have reasons for being there. It works in that context.
WoT, much like Shadow and Bobe, kept the ethnic/racial story beats but didn't reinforce it with the casting. THAT is the problem here, not a lack of while folk.
Though I am curious how a more ethnically derived story (if/when they ever stop plundering the same old northern European IPs) will be treated WRT casting "diversity". Encanto, wherever it was supposed to be set, had a diverse color palate as well, though no Asians or ME folks (which are pretty typical groups to exclude). Certainly few of the Asian shows seem to give a shit, though that is probably due to a total inability to find many non-natives that speak the language to even cast.
Color wheel casting is to be expected I'm sure, but hopefully they choose better ways to demonstrate it than WoT did. Arcane is a good example, the city is kind of a central hub for traveller's, folks of divergent races have reasons for being there. It works in that context.
WoT, much like Shadow and Bobe, kept the ethnic/racial story beats but didn't reinforce it with the casting. THAT is the problem here, not a lack of while folk.
Though I am curious how a more ethnically derived story (if/when they ever stop plundering the same old northern European IPs) will be treated WRT casting "diversity". Encanto, wherever it was supposed to be set, had a diverse color palate as well, though no Asians or ME folks (which are pretty typical groups to exclude). Certainly few of the Asian shows seem to give a shit, though that is probably due to a total inability to find many non-natives that speak the language to even cast.
Doom85
Member
The thing with Wheel of Time is that the setting is meant to be Earth in the far, far, FAR future. I never felt like the areas in the books were meant to specifically resemble any of our current or past countries or cultures because it’s so far removed in time from us. And also, there’s a TON more to a culture than skin tone in response to what another poster said. So even the other cultures like the Aiel will stand out because of unique customs, laws, clothing, food, etc. If the show has even 25% of the detail from the books this will be made very clear as Robert Jordan was very into developing so many areas in these aspects.
If the setting IS meant to be an actual current or past real setting but with magic and such added (Harry Potter, American Gods, etc.) then yes a very diverse cast can be jarring depending on the setting. If the BBC miniseries adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell had a ton of Asian actors playing the roles for example, that would have been confusing given most characters have specified ethnicities and some even have their race specified and this is in a specific time period in our real world so we know these characters are definitely not Asian.
But beyond that, I dunno, I think we need to be a little chill about it all. If a black actor had played Gandalf or Aragorn, would that really have been so disrespectful*? It’s not like Peter Jackson ever said, “this is how you must envision what the book characters look like from now on”, it’s just a personal interpretation that ensures they’re not excluding actors from any major roles due to their race/ethnicity barring an actual historical setting being used. I dunno, I just find it rude for a movie casting to exclude potentially talented actors from roles in a completely fictional setting over something (race and such) they have no control of.
*in case it wasn’t clear, this is a rhetorical question. It’s possible Tolkien would have had an issue with it, and it’s possible he would be fine with it if the actor gave a quality performance. Since he’s passed, there’s no way of knowing as I assume he never mentioned it so let’s not put words in his mouth as that would be presumptuous.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
There is so much more I want to say about this topic, but I don't want to derail this thread further. I think creating a thread to discuss this might result in it getting locked as well, so I'll just leave it there.
Thanks for replying. You made some interesting points.
Doom85
Member
LOTR and the Hobbit are supposed to be "found histories" of ancient Europe. Middle-Earth IS our world, just a pre-historic version of it. Same with the Conan stories, for example. So the racial composition of M-E really ought to jive with our current understanding of the racial composition of Europe circa-6000 BCE for example.
If there was a story set in a fantasy central Africa 3000 BCE would you expect ANY non-black characters unless they were explicitly mentioned to be travellers, immigrants, foreign slaves, or a closed familial group? No, you wouldn't. Same with a story set in a fantasy pre-Columbian South or Central America. Any non-indigenous folks would be vikings or viking-type analogues, ancient greeks, Babylonians or somesuch. If the "standard" now is color wheel casting then it should apply to everything, or at least not result in dogpiling on a project that doesn't adhere to it with too much of the "wrong color". When Wakanda looks like "the world" then I'll shut up and eat my crow.
TL;DR Diversity the IPs for a collective broadening on casting, not just use the same old settings with a diverse cast and call it a day.
Don't sweat the thread derail, this is what happens with weekly drop shows, we've just all forgotten what that was like
Come Friday it will be back on track for a few days.
I_D
Member
It's worth knowing ahead of time that the first book is very Hobbit-like, but the story will veer pretty sharply from standard Tolkien-esque fantasy after this season.
The Dragon gets reborn at the very beginning of the series, for example. It's not even close to some sort of climax to the story.
Who knows how well the show will do, but the book's characters all undergo some significant character-growth, and I would argue it's one of the better series out there at portraying such things. You are almost certainly wrong about the "hero," for example.
But that's a good thing! Hopefully it will keep viewers guessing, like the early seasons of GoT did.
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ymoc
Member
Well no, I was just saying how it felt to me personally. I'm not going to presume what others might feel. You can feel the opposite. It's completely legitimate. You are a product of your personality and your environment.
That was the point I was trying to make earlier. I might've used crude language, but sometimes I lack the necessary words as English is not my native language.
I was saying how I felt some diversity casts felt out of place in a setting that is from a location filmed literally less than 50km away from where I live. It clashes with my experiences. I always feel weird when there is an alpine location with a medieval village and it features ethnicities that are far different from their real world counterparts. I would equally feel weird seeing white people roaming some ancient chinese village. I don't really have a bias here. It's just what feels out of place to me and what doesn't.
To me fantasy can be either good or bad. It can be believable or far fetched. In this context I always draw some real world comparisons. I like my fiction grounded in some logical way. And please don't say how monsters or magic fits in this. That's a different aspect of fantasy. It's the fantastic part. The other half of the equation. Those can fit basically anywhere. But with real world counterparts I look for at least some authenticity. That's why I felt the cast distracting, since they feel like a cast perfectly fit for a contemporary metropolitan show.
Wildebeest
Member
One character has big "main character" energy, but if that plot runs its course, then all for the better. One thing I liked about the Malazan Book of the Fallen is that the "heroes journey" character from the first book turned out to be sort of peripheral by the end, but the character who was the main focus was still one who was there, right at the start.
TaylorSwiftFan
Member
It’s good for you that you can ignore what others (me included) see as legitimate issues that take you out of the experience. The moment you are taken out of the story, how hard can you pay attention to the story? The bad acting didn’t help. I also dropped the show after the first episode so tough to comment on the story.
GreenAlien
Member
Gandalf would have worked without a problem. He is not human, but a spirit/god who incarnated into a human form or something like that. Those wizards could come color matched to their titles, or be rainbow colored, it wouldn't matter. Basically, Gandalf has no ancestry.
Arargorn does have ancestry so, changing his race has effects beyond himself. You might want to turn elves black, since the first Dúnedain were half-elves or something, There is also the whole "True King of Gondor" thing, so you might want to adjust that population as well.. Well, I'm not a LotR expert, so no idea what would be required to make it make sense..
------
Now let's think about what would need to happen, for Two Rivers to be as divers as it is in the show... Did The Shadow curse interracial marriages? Perrin is just one in a long line of people killing their spouses reaching 3000 years back to the breaking of the world? Or was Two Rivers just super racist until recently, with no intermixing? Did people with the old blood, from all over the place, just randomly move to the Two Rivers in the last hundred years? "The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills" I guess..
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Yeah, the subtext here is that Two Rivers practices a lot of incest in order to support so many ethnicities across a few hundred people.
Or, as in real life small towns, each ethnicity mostly sticks to each other as groups of families intermingle only within their own groups. Usually a strong force of law or custom dictates this.
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TaylorSwiftFan
Member
I disagree about the gandalf bit. Imagine you need to send an angelic being in human form to ancient China to inspire and aid them. Would you send an American Indian? Or would you send a Chinese-looking person?
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Fuck it. I'm going to keep going with this series. I'll the read the books and compare both. Might end up being good in the end.
Interestingly, Amazon are going down this path for their Middle-earth show. However, it would appear they're going for a race blind casting rather than trying to explain it within the story.
British actor Lenny Henry has been confirmed to be playing a Hobbit. According to him, the Hobbits are a racially diverse group. Here is his quote.
“And what’s notable about this run of the book; its a prequel to the age that we’ve seen in the films and in the books. It’s about the early days of the Shire and Tolkien’s environment. It’s the early days of it, so we’re an indigenous population of Harfoots, we’re hobbits, but we’re called Harfoots. And we’re multi-cultural. We’re a tribe. We’re not a race. So there are black, Asian and brown, and even Maori types within it.”
Although it's not confirmed, if we're getting racially diverse hobbits, then surly we'd see racially diverse Dwarves and Elves as well. Would be a bit odd to only have the Hobbits as racially diverse.
Also, this series is set in the second age, but AFAIK, Hobbits didn't exist in the second age?
Interestingly, Amazon are going down this path for their Middle-earth show. However, it would appear they're going for a race blind casting rather than trying to explain it within the story.
British actor Lenny Henry has been confirmed to be playing a Hobbit. According to him, the Hobbits are a racially diverse group. Here is his quote.
“And what’s notable about this run of the book; its a prequel to the age that we’ve seen in the films and in the books. It’s about the early days of the Shire and Tolkien’s environment. It’s the early days of it, so we’re an indigenous population of Harfoots, we’re hobbits, but we’re called Harfoots. And we’re multi-cultural. We’re a tribe. We’re not a race. So there are black, Asian and brown, and even Maori types within it.”
Although it's not confirmed, if we're getting racially diverse hobbits, then surly we'd see racially diverse Dwarves and Elves as well. Would be a bit odd to only have the Hobbits as racially diverse.
Also, this series is set in the second age, but AFAIK, Hobbits didn't exist in the second age?
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Didn't grab me either. However, the wife loves it, so I'm going to give it another shot. I also didn't like the Witcher, but it grew on me as the series progressed.
TaylorSwiftFan
Member
There’s no record of when Hobbits first appeared. But I can already see this show being bad. Black, asian, moari hobbits? Harfoots are meant to have olive skin, like italians or greeks.
Batiman
Banned
You’re comparing ancient China with middle earth though. A made up world
Is it really so hard to understand the point he's making?
Not if you are being deliberately obtuse. Some folks will never grok this point, or will chose to die on the hill of color wheel casting,
It's really just a symptom of globalization. When the potential audience is the world, they feel like they gotta have a tiny slice of everyone in it. This is good for the budgets but kinda bad for the overall immersion of the show IMHO.
Bonfires Down
Member
At least that would be easier to accept. After all, hobbits are not real so they play by their own rules and I can somewhat buy them having diverse ethnicities. With humans, we have the real world as comparison and it becomes jarring when it goes against everything we know. Especially when we know why they’ve done it and it’s not because it makes sense for the WoT world. That said, there are several other more significant issues with the show and I’ve somewhat gotten used to the diverse casting already.
Wildebeest
Member
A huge part of Chinese culture is how they went west to India for spiritual teachings. It's not even a real world example. These ancient empires covered huge territories, and they mixed with very different types of people. It was very common in Rome and Greece, for example, for them to bring in worship of foreign gods, prophets, or whatever. Jesus probably being the most famous example.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
It is a made up world, but a made up world that was inspired by Northern European history, mythology and legend and created to be a mythology for the English.
So made up, but made up with real world inspirations in mind.
Tams
Member
I don't mind it (I've not read the books though), but it did hilariously stick out like a sore thumb though. They really were trying to tick all the diversity boxes there.
I think I don't mind it so much as it's clearly a Young Adults series in the same vein as Merlin or Doctor Who.
The choice of aesthetics was funny. They seem to have been trying to cross medieval England/Europe peasant village, with a bit of Vikings, and some seemingly Tibetan/Himalayan clothes. Then throw in a witch and a ronin. I'm not one to call appropriation though, so it hardly upset me. Just funny.
And Rosamund Pike is still fit as fuck. I'm still pissed off that she was a baddie in Die Another Day and not the Bond Girl.
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Has Pike EVER been the good guy? Now that I think about it, everything I've seen her in has her as the snake. Even Gone Girl doesn't really put her in a heroic light IMHO.
I kinda want a more focused tale just from Moraines POV. This jumping back and forth between plot lines gets old after a while, at least GOT started having just a few per ep. Then they can do Rand for a block of time, then Elayne, etc.
Doom85
Member
Funny you said that. When I first got into anime in the mid-2000’s, at one point I thought back to the WOT books I read and realized a good portion of the main female cast are essentially various flavors of tsundere. Definitely not a problem for me (and lots of other people with similar tastes, LOL) but I can see why it might turn off a few people.
The magic system also does have an eventual power scale like certain shonen anime that Jordan actually kept pretty consistent on who was at what level within the cast IIRC, but there are certain techniques and items that can help someone potentially defeat a stronger opponent so fights aren’t determined as soon as they begin.
Batiman
Banned
I understand what he’s saying but i disagree when it comes to Gandalf. He’s not human with no ancestry. He could take any form in middle earth and it would make complete sense. Why would it not? Making him look different might make even more sense
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But most humans had no idea what Gandalf was. If he looked radically different from the particular population he monitored it would hinder the mission. There were other wizards assigned to other parts of M-E that yes, probably looked a bit different.
In the early ages with the elves and Numendor I don't recall if he hid his origins so much, so his appearance was probably less relevant.
How do you blend in like an old geezer doing fireworks if you look radically different from eveyone else? Of course it matters what he looks like, and like stated above, if Middle Earth had been a version of Africa, Gandalf would and should be a black man. Ever been a tall white man in Japan? No? Try it, that's basically what happens when you don't try to blend in.
Shubh_C63
Member
This actually let me had good perspective. Because I really like brandon sanderson's magic system in books, they are well defined and logical things with a hint of mysticism. If Wot is anything like that I will stick with it a little bit longer.
My beef with Sanderson's magic systems is that they are very rigid and obvious. One character can generate EXACTLY 45 magic units of power so the other guy that can generate EXACTLY 46 units of magic power will always win. While I don't like a very loose "power level required by the plot/my rage" system either Sanderson is just too mechanistic for me.