A Game of Thrones concern

[yendi]

So, I haven't read the series (although I've listened to most of the first book as an audiobook). And I often forget characters given how bloody huge the world is.

But something still bothered me this week.



So, as far as I can tell, this is the first episode that's featured a black character (the pirate hired by Stanis's man).

And within two minutes, that character has established that the only thing he wants is to "fuck the blonde queen." Granted, he says that he's not going to rape her, but only because he's so confident that she'll just fall into bed with him (something that could only happen, in theory, after his ships have helped destroy her kingdom). Because, you know, conquering her kingdom and destroying her family and killing all of her protectors and then asking her for sex would totally not be coercive at all.

Am I missing something? Have there been a slate of black characters on the series (not POC -- the Dothraki have their own set of issues, but have been pretty thoroughly developed) that I've somehow missed, ones who have provided us with enough range to ignore the stereotype?

Comments

[matt_doyle]

In a word? No. At least not in the books. We see very few black characters and almost are all heavily exoticized and stereotyped.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Do we even know the race? Beyond Dotrhaki being a different race. Not sure if he makes it explicit for everyone.

[matt_doyle]

Yes. There are explicit descriptions of characters from the Summer Islands as ebony-skinned.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Summer_Islands

Salladhor Saan, however, is Lyseni, who are typically blonde and blue-eyed.