I'm a little irritated by how resistant the GoT/ASOIAF community has been towards Spanish/Hispanic casting of Dorne, despite the fact that GRRM himself has acknowledged Dorne is based on Spain. The overwhelming majority seem to push an Indian cast but it's the Ghiscari culture that he wrote as being based on Indian (hence the Tokar.) Fancasting is all well and good and certainly not limited to the "intended" race but it almost feels like animosity in some cases and it's disheartening.
I understand what you’re saying, and I think it’s just the lack of representation in fantasy series for darker people of colour that prompts so many fancasts to have South Asian casting, which I’m all for. There are no hard and fast rules for casting the Martells/any Dornish character. I’m sorry you feel like it’s animosity because I completely understand representation is really important :( /hug/
(Also ancient history nerd sidenote: Ghiscari can be compared to Carthage which was a great Empire in what is now modern day Tunisia in northern Africa; Carthage itself was a colony of Phoenicia which is modern-day Lebanon; see the Fantasy Counterpart Culture link near the bottom; is there a source of Martin saying Ghis is based on India?)
Personally, I read the Martells as Middle Eastern, but when I was exposed to tumblr and then Martell fancasting, i really loved the idea that they’re not just either one of those three categories, but that they could be a mix, hence why in my set I had a whole plethora of actresses from different or mixed backgrounds.
I’d like to think there’s major amalgamations going on in Dorne, especially when you have Nymeria and her people migrating from across the Narrow Sea.
So you could still say that the earlier population of Dorne was ‘Spain’/Hispanic (also GRRM says it’s based on Moorish Spain, aka when the Muslims had control over Spain, so I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that there was mixing going on :p), who then later mixed with Nymeria and her people who could be viewed as Middle Eastern and/or Indian/South Asian.
see the trope ‘Fantasy Counterpart Culture' (re: Rhoyne and Dorne subheadings in this folder)
We also can’t ignore how diverse Dorne is because of the migration and the trade/mingling with other peoples around their land. (Let’s ignore the racist implications that Dornish people are licentious and hot-headed, ‘cos wow, stereotype much GRRM? But alas, what can I expect from a white man)
You have three ‘categories’ of Dornish people (but we can headcanon that there are dozens because in real life, diversity isn’t that narrow)
Salty Dornish: ‘lithe and dark with smooth olive skin and long black hair’. (I absolutely abhor the use of ‘olive' as a skin descriptor, but it allows the reader to think: 'this character is clearly foreign' since white is obviously the default in fantasy books. I mean if we look at real life counterparts, you have so many different types of people to choose from, from Mediterranean (re: Greeks or Middle Easterners) to lighter South Asians or mixes of all of them!
Sandy Dornish: ‘faces burned brown by the Sun […] even darker than the Salty Dornish’. This makes it clear, but you can still choose to view Dorne as Spain, then this means the south of it would be Morocco and the rest of Africa. Alternately, we can also fancast darker South Asians.
Stony Dornish: ‘Resemble other people of the Seven Kingdoms […] brown-haired or blond with faces that are freckled or burned by the sun instead of browned’. Now here’s where we run into some problems because some people look at this and think it’s ok to fancast white people and that’s just. No. Have you guys ever seen Spanish or Turkish people?? Or even outright Middle Easterners that should look ‘dark’—I’m thinking off the top of my head: I am Lebanese with dark hair and features, but one of my best friends who is also Lebanese, is fair with light brown hair and green eyes.
The fact of the matter remains that there are a great many number of non-white people with light eyes or skin or hair, doesn’t mean they’re white you know? So in the end, when you’re fancasting the Martells or any Dornish character, I feel like you can’t ever go wrong (UNLESS YOU CAST A WHITE PERSON DON’T FUCKIN DO IT) so go and be free my dear and cast to your heart’s content.
