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cannoli-reader · 5 years

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A Thought or two on the race of the Wheel of Time casting.

So “The Wheel of Time” has cast a group of people to play the characters born to Two Rivers families, Nynaeve, Perrin, Egwene & Mat. And there have been concerns. And there have been people making knee-jerk assumptions that these concerns are entirely founded in racism. And hey, maybe there are some. But I don’t think all of them necessarily are.

First of all, some personal context. I am not really a SJW or much concerned about race issues in general. I am white, of entirely European ancestry, but I haven’t the slightest bit of “white guilt”. “Get Out” did not make me the least bit uncomfortable because I had absolutely no comprehension of the white characters. I understand that “representation matters” in media, but it matters to white people as well, which is why ‘Hollywood’ which is not a monlithic entity, mostly casts white people. I don’t care if there are not enough black people or too many white people in any given movie. We can have Scotsmen playing Lithuanian-Russians or try to pass off their burr as a brogue. We can have Terry Molloy, Stanley Kowalski and Vito Corleone, members of immigrant communities from very different parts of Europe, played by the same man.

That said, while I think adaptations have a degree of responsibility to be faithful to the original work or to the historical time period, I don’t care that Michael Jordan and Reg E Cathay and Jessica Alba were cast as members of a family that is white in the picture books in which the Fantastic Four originated or that black paratroopers were in “Overlord”. I would not approve of T’Challa being played by a white person, because that IS important to his character. And insisting on casting a woman of color as Cleopatra in the name of historical accuracy instantly destroys my respect for you.

What we know about the appearance of the Two Rivers people is that they seem to be about average height for their part of the world. Nynaeve & Egwene are short by modern standards (for a white or black North American), while Perrin is tall and Mat above average. They have somewhat darker complexions than the very Nordic-looking Aiel and possibly Andorans, but on the other hand, no character ever uses Two Rivers folk as a touchstone for dark skins, the way they do the Sea Folk or Tairens. Even Domani are often mentioned as having coppery colored skins, with Two Rivers people using the terminology the same as lighter-skinned people, suggesting that they too, are lighter-skinned than the Domani. When Elaida points out that Rand’s natural skin tone is unusually light for a Two Rivers native, she pushes up his sleeve to show the untanned skin, which to me suggests that Two Rivers people are not much, if at all, darker than a very pale person tans. So people do have a point that the actors for Perrin and Nynaeve, at least, if not also Egwene, are darker than they are portrayed in the books.

To which I say, “So what?” The important thing is that Rand is clearly different from the others. That is probably even easier to convey visually if they use actors from different races, so Rand clearly stands out. It might have been more interesting to make Rand the person of color, but then you’ll turn all the stuff into racial issues, and we don’t need that in discussions of the show. Seriously, that was one of the more tedious parts of reveling in all the on-line criticism of Season 8 of Game of Thrones, which I prefer to think of as HBO’s six-part documentary, alternatively titled “Cannoli Was Right All Along.” They didn’t kill off the Dothraki because they are racists, they killed off the Dothraki, to the extent that they did, because they long ago jettisoned everything else in service to spectacle. Which brings me to the point that TV writers can’t be trusted and there are lots of other concerns in what they are going to do, beyond letting some black folks get full of themselves because Nynaeve would make Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman and Rey hide under the bed when she’s annoyed at them.

One of the problems in “Game of Thrones” was that a lot of adaptational choices were not thought through, long term, nor were the implications. Like how Daenerys crowd-surfing on her freed slaves would look, compared to her riding her horse through a cheering crowd. Or how abandoning a lot of the world building meant some things made very little sense. If you read the books, between the lines, you know that the Dance of the Dragons (a war in-universe, not the book title) pretty much put paid to the idea of a woman inheriting the Iron Throne. But on the show, all we heard about that is that Stannis thinks the name is stupid. In the books, he has definite opinions, including that the losing female contender was a traitor for attempting to claim the crown over her younger half-brother. But this sort of world-building would justify the characters’ stated preference for Jon’s gender over Daenerys in Season 8. Going by the show alone, that makes no sense, because most of the nobles left at this point are women, and very few of the male lords would have reason to favor Jon over Dany, or else they were opponents of Dany for other reasons, like their die-hard support of Sansa, who was pro-Jon. The show’s worldbuilding undercut their own point of conflict, but they tried to fall back on book worldbuilding they had never serviced and made deliberate choices to omit characters or storypoints that would have supported that detail.

At this point I can’t see how the particulars of the Two Rivers’ ethnicity would affect the story, but I also thought cutting fAegon from “Game of Thrones” was a good idea when Season 5 rolled around. To the extent that it is an issue in the story, the Two Rivers district of western Andor was once the heartland of a legendary nation called Manetheren. When the nation was betrayed by their allies, the army fought alone to hold the ford of one of those eponymous rivers for far longer than anyone had thought possible, with civilians taking up arms to join them in hopes of preserving some fraction of the population. In the end they all died fighting, but the enemy force was wiped out as a result of their defense, and so the few survivors who had got out came back, rebuilt their homes and said “We’re only leaving this country feet first.” But they lacked the human capital or resources to rebuild the nation and have been reduced to a rural farming community centered around a trio of villages. There is a fourth village, called Taren Ferry, at the river crossing that is the only known way in or out of the Two Rivers, but they don’t have much to do with the rest of the area, and are looked at askance by the proper Two Rivers folk.

It is also established in the text that the Taren Ferry people are the only ones to interbreed with outsiders or to have much intercourse with them at all. The people living deeper in the Two Rivers are an isolated culture and breeding population. Itinerant enterainers, merchants buying their crops and peddlers selling goods they cannot make themselves are their only contact with the outside world, and at one point a character actually scoffs at the idea of marrying one of them. Rand is physically unique because his father, nearly equally uniquely, left the Two Rivers as a young man and came home with a wife from somewhere else and their baby.

Because the Two Rivers people have only been reproducing among themselves for two thousand years, certain characteristics are reinforced in their genetics. This is revealed when one of them, in a moment of stress, facing the same enemy that destroyed Manetheren, starts shouting in the language Manetheren spoke, using phrases specific to Manetheren. This is later diagnosed as a kind of racial memory emerging, and strongly suggests that the character is a descendant of strong geneological connections to the last king of Manetheren. A second character feels a sort of recognition, suggesting a lesser degree of this Old Blood as it is called in the books. The other two native Two Rivers people don’t feel it.

Now here’s the two fold problem with the casting. The problem is not Marcus Rutherford and Zoe Robins, it is Barney Harris. They should ALL be the same race. They’re isolated and have had very very few reproductive encounters with outsiders. Mat Cauthon should not be played by a clearly white actor if the rest of the Two Rivers is something else.

But the really funny bit comes with the implications of the casting with regard to the Old Blood.

Because these are the two people who are not the purest royal-blooded Two Rivers folk:

and

while this is the one with maybe a hint of the blood of the legendary hero-king:

and THIS is the pure-blooded descendant of ancient royalty:

Ooops. Gonna be fun when the people whose major problem with Missandei’s death is that a black woman didn’t have get to be in the last two episodes, watch the scene where Rosamund Pike tells THAT GUY, up there, how special his bloodline is.

But maybe they just rolled with the casting choices because they are going to skip the Old Blood issue. Okay. But like I said above, you never know what’s going to bite you in the butt seven or eight seasons down the road. But the cynical part of me is greatly amused at the implications of the apparent mixed race heritage of the Two River people, and what it suggests about who the nobles and who the commoners were in the glory days of Manetheren. On the other hand, you get the suggestion that the barriers between lords and commoners came down as they fought side by side to save their land and then worked side by side to make their community survive and we got people intermarrying without regard to the old social divisions.

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keywestlou · 5 years

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BABY BOOMER THOUGHTS

For some reason I cannot understand, I am into baby boomers this morning.

Baby boomers are those that were born between 1946 and 1964. Some have already reached retirement age. Those that were 65 in 2011.

Baby boomers make up 29 percent of the population. Seventy six million of them.

There is a blog called “Baby Boomer Bullshit.” A recent interesting post: “How do you frighten this new generation? Put them in a room with a rotary phone, an analog watch, and a TV with no remote (add rabbit ears for fun). Then leave directions for use in cursive.”

I recently read a purported baby boomer comment: “Kids don’t even know how to write cursive.” I thought, so what? Some grandparents can’t even turn on a laptop.

Never made it to Goombay last night. Hopefully tonight.

I discovered around 5 that Syracuse was playing Pitt ;last night and not this afternoon. Obviously, Syracuse football won out.

The team is killing me! Lost 27-20.

I have to get over it and accept this is not going to be a good year. Hard to do. Hope springs eternal.

Syracuse’s problem is the offense. Our sophomore quarterback De Vito needs this year for seasoning. He should be good next year. I hope!

He went into last night’s game wearing extra rib padding. He didn’t last long.

The substitute quarterback was freshman Clayton Welch. Started with a bang! A 94 yard pass for a touchdown. Was I excited! That was it, however. Except for a 40 yard pass later in the game, he did not distinguish himself.

Syracuse’s season reminds me of the Brooklyn Dodger baseball team of old. They could not win a World Series. The comment each year was, “Wait till next year!”

As I shall be doing with Syracuse.

Key West has been home to many writers. Some great.

One was James Leo Herlihy. He was a resident of Key West 1956-1972.

Two of Herlihy’s most famous works were made into movies. Midnight Cowboy and All Fall Down.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of his death. October 20, 1993.

A lot of hurricanes this year. The latest is Nestor. Fortunately, it will not affect Key West in any way.

Nestor is coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. Winds northeasterly. Nestor expected to hit the U.S. somewhere around Georgia. Could even farther south over northern and central Florida.

Turkey’s President Erdogan is a proud man. He wears his feelings on his shirt sleeve.

Two weeks ago, many of the nations of the world conferred for 3 days at the United Nations. Everyone wanted to meet with Trump. Erdogan tried and was rebuffed several times. No meeting took place.

Erdogan considered the snub an insult. At the time, Trump probably gave it no thought.

Erdogan from a might perspective deserves respect. From no other perspective, however. Turkey has the second largest military force in NATO. Second only to the U.S. Additionally, Turkey has sitting at one of its air bases 50 U.S. nuclear bombs aimed at Russia. They have been there for years. Turkey objects not to there being there.

First, the U.N. snub. Then came the sunday night telephone call. Does not appear to have gone well. The bottom line is Trump apparently gave Erdogan permission to invade the Kurds in Syria. Or maybe Erdogan told Trump he was going to invade and he did not care what Trump said..

The next day Trump told the world in effect that he had given permission to Turkey to invade.

The following does not make sense, but appears to be the way it came down.

The following day Trump is firmly telling everyone that Ordogan better do everything correctly or the U.S. would “obliterate Turkey’s economy.”

The next step involves Trump sending a short letter to Erdogan. Trump in effect is telling Erdogan to go easy, back off. Refers to Erdogan, “Don’t be a tough guy…..Don’t be a fool.”

Trump has yet to learn diplomatic jargon. A President does not talk to another President that way.

Erdogan getting madder by the minute.

Trump sends Pence and Pompeo to Turkey to resolve what appears an unanticipated tension between Turkey and the U.S.

The media tells us things were strange at the beginning of the meeting. No one smiling. All stiff faced.

Pence had to suck up to Erdogan. He told him Trump “liked, respected and valued” Erdogan. He also conveyed the U.S.’s condolences to those killed and their families. It has been reported one Turkish general at the meeting was visibly moved.

What a mess! The whole thing! In 2 weeks, Trump has screwed up world power, demeaned the U.S., made an ass out of himself, etc.

The man has to go!

U.S. politics unquestionably a tough game.

This story involves Thomas Jefferson.

It was 1796. Jefferson was running against John Adams for President. Jefferson lost.

Historians believe a significant reason for the loss was Jefferson’s affair with the mulato Sally Hemings.

The Gazette of the United States was a well read newspaper. During the campaign, a writer named “Phocion” began writing essays. Twenty five between October 15 and November 24.

The October 19 essay specifically accused Jefferson of carrying on an affair with one of his indentured servants. Phocion lambasted Jefferson in each of his essays thereafter for what he perceived was Jefferson’s immoral conduct.

In reality, Phocion was Jefferson’s political enemy Alexander Hamilton.

Historians believe Sally Hemings was the half sister of Jefferson’s dead wife.

If I understand this time in U.S. history, Jefferson’s wife was long dead before the Sally affair began.

It should also be noted Jefferson had the reputation throughout his career of being a lady’s man.

Although Jefferson lost the 1796 election, he was elected President 4 years later.

Enjoy your day!

BABY BOOMER THOUGHTS was originally published on Key West Lou

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