i hate it when asoiaf fans try to deny the racism against dornish people in canon.
“race is a social construct!” YES! “race doesn’t exist in the asoiaf world like it does in reality…” uhhh say that to alleras when leo tyrell described his mom as “a monkey from the summer isles.” how people stereotype dornishmen as small and dark with beady eyes. how tyrion complained of how dornish smelled. it’s been established canonically how most westerosi characters viewed non-white people and foreigners.
sure, some of dornish are white and white-passing, but that doesn’t erase the fact that they are mostly brown and black people??? just like how africa, middle east, asia, latin america and many oppressed regions are? GRRM has written MANY, MANY times how much the rest of westeros “other”s them. we’ve seen them reduce dorne as a land of sex and hedonism, which parallels to how the western world viewed (and many still view) asia and the middle east. they see them as “less civilized.”
when myriah martell became daeron’s wife, the kingdoms were quick to shit on her because she brought dornish people to her court. when elia married rhaegar, people thought she was unworthy to marry the beloved, handsome, white prince because of her health and her dornishness.
don’t get me started on the whole “elia would have been okay being cheated on! dornish are okay with extramarital affairs and bastards!” like do you guys not hear yourself??? this hyper-sexualization is literally a classic racist trope.
and i’m certain grrm intended to write it this way to show that racism, in fact, exists in westerosi life and dominates in their politics, just as in real life. he’s even said before he considered giving targaryens dark skin: “I’d had dark-skinned dragonlords invade and conquer and dominate a largely white Westeros.” so him making dorne, a largely non-white population, being the only one to resist conquest and the only kingdom to join westeros on their own terms, is very much intended.
too many fucking fans reduce our arguments to us “pulling the race card.” well guess what? BECAUSE IT MATTERS. just as racism is embedded in our society, everything about how this fandom and characters view dorne go back to race and racism. just because you can’t admit to yourself that you’re upholding white supremacy ideals doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
YOU CANNOT DENY THAT RACE AND CULTURE ARE IMPORTANT ELEMENTS IN ASOIAF.
DORNE BEST KINGDOM! MARTELL BEST HOUSE! IDC IDC! WHO ELSE IN WESTEROS SAID FUCK YOU TO THEIR COLONIZERS AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE?
(i can say more on the matter but i will just get more heated and end up writing a 10 page essay. when i tell you the law student in me comes alive when i have to defend dorne-)
