He said "Crimea River."
What's the big idea here? Yes, things like coding are important, but surely we don't just want a bunch of highly skilled ignoramuses. Knowledge of earth science, geopolitics and history are so important for society.
I know there's plenty of discontent about the last episode on this sub right now and so I was hesitant to post this, but it's important to me and frustrating that few are picking up on it.
Arya and Sandor should have arrived in King's Landing weeks ago. In the first book, it took Robert's entourage a month to travel from KL to Winterfell. Seems reasonable that the Northern host as portrayed as almost all foot, along with their baggage train would take similar time.
In season 7 Jon says that the Dothraki could reach King's Landing in about a week if they traveled fast enough. Seems reasonable that Arya and Sandor on horse, and with a mission could make similar time. Keep in mind that Arya and Sandor left Winterfell before Jon or Daenerys.
Instead we see that Arya and Sandor must make their way through the Northern lines on reaching King's Landing.
This is important because myself and others were debating how the show writers were going to nerf Arya after Episodes 3 and 4. There was no good reason why she didn't just ride directly to King's Landing (as it seemed she was doing) and anti-climatically kill Cersei with everything we know about her abilities. I even speculated that Jaqen H'ghar would show back up and somehow stop Arya from stealing from the Many Faced God again.
Instead the show runners just bend geography and travel time again to make the duo show up, like a spaghetti western, just a tiny bit too late to kill the bad guy (or woman). I know that this isn't as obvious or dramatic as Euron's teleporting fleet, Vary's regional airfare across the Narrow Sea, or Gendry's marathon, but it had huge implications for dumbing down of the plot and world building, and I thought it just need added to the list of inconsistencies. It also is the first example (that I know of) where we have a control example of another party taking the same route about the same time. The defense of "well they just traveled off screen" doesn't work here.
Some of you warned me after episode 3. I should have known better to speculate, rationalize and theorize about plot implications. Nothing seems worth spending too much time thinking about now.
There is no such thing as a "violent" or "peaceful" race. Humans are humans and will behave alarmingly similar no matter what color skin you have. All sorts of people have been colonizing other civilizations for millennia. The results are similar. The colonizers are at the top of society, while the natives are second-class citizens.
There are examples of particularly nasty invasions and occupations. On the flip side, there are some distinctively enlightened and peaceful ones. These are distributed evenly across people of all races capable of conquest at a given time.
The reason that certain continents have overwhelmingly been conquered is a function of geographic challenges and advantages.
Kenya please stop!
I wish to speak of this in relation to the Netflix series and their casting choices, out of most arguments I see people regurgitating in needless flame wars, I cannot comprehend why more folks do not think of this rather straightforward one.
My main criticism is the inconsistency resulted by the casting choices of Triss and Fringilla, to give a very simple analogy this would be like casting King Arthur as a black man, this could be a really amazing actor who does a great job in every aspect, however this cannot solve the inherent issue at hand. That issue is that even though Arthur is a legendary figure, and that one may argue taking liberties in their imagination, those liberties must have logical boundaries, I do not believe it would be possible for you to find anyone of dark complexion in dark age Britain, in fact, if a Breton would see a black person they would probably be fascinated and think they were seeing a new species (even the Romans were perplexed at the sight of many Celts, who had things such as very pale skin, blonde and red hair, things the Romans did not possess, nor had they seen any humans possessing them before!), why? Because there was simply little if any links/communication between these two locations (Britain and Africa).
In fantasy settings, authors tend to mirror the correlation between geography and ethnicity in their world building. This is clearly seen in The Witcher but also in other major works such as LotR (e.g. Haradrim being men of the south who hail from deserts and have swarthy complexions). We even see this in the game TW3 itself, if you play Hearts of Stone you will encounter the Ofiri, men of the far south who hail from tropical climates and have dark skin, this seems quite in line with how humans in the real world are! We also have the Zerrikanians as well, perhaps most easily paralleled to the aforementioned Haradrim, people who are south of the Northern Realms (but not as south as the Ofiri) and so, they are swarthy/tanned and even the visual aspects that we know of, associated with their culture, resemble the Middle East.
In conclusion, I refer back to the Arthur example, making any Northerner like Triss black is essentially the same as casting an 8th Century woman from Scandinavia as black, it is simply not feasible. In the case of Fringilla being a Nilfgaardian, heck it would've been an attempt to favour accuracy if they cast an actress of Italian/Spanish/Greek ethnicity, as Nilfgaard (again referring to the
... keep reading on reddit β‘
From the feared hordes of the Scythians and the Huns, to the powerful and cosmopolitan Mongol Empire. From the Russian Tsardom and Soviet Union, or the rule of the Qing Dynasty, to the modern day. The people and land of Central Asia has left a profound and fascinating impact on our human history and in worldbuilding. Whether it's often seen devastating hordes like the Dothraki of Game of Thrones, or the full breadth seen in works like Elizabeth Bear's Eternal Sky.
So, how have you incorporated or been inspired by this part of the world?
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Do you work with classic hordes, what are your thoughts on this trope and how does that affect how you use it?
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Do you take inspiration from the Pax Mongolica, or the conflict between remaining nomads or becoming sedentary imperialists?
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Do you work with influences from Tengriism, or the unique forms of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism of the Steppe?
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Do you utilise icons such as Horse Archery, or the Silver Tree? How do you make them yours?
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Do you work with 20th century history, from civil wars to communism, or perhaps to the modern day and beyond?
I am particularly interested in closer cultural inspiration, and I'd love to see you discuss not just straight lore but also the way you've utilised this inspiration. This is a good way to make it easy for others to respond. If you're only writing lore please try be more brief, focus on the most interesting parts and allow people to respond for more. I am particularly interested in writers from the Steppe and you work with your own culture and history, as we of course primarily only see writers from the West.
If you comment please do upvote the thread (it gets you more attention!) and seek out other comments where you can compare and contrast your work. The best way I find to get feedback on my writing is always to go to others and compare my work to theirs, rather than hoping someone comes to me.
For example, mine is when I was pen pals with some kid in Colorado, and I lived in NH, and I was in first grade, and I, thinking that Colorado was entirely in the Great Plains, wrote a letter bragging about the size and scale of the mountains in NH. I am still embarrassed by the return letter to this day.
I was randomly thinking about it and something clicked: absolutely zero mention of winter or cold weather in the Book of Mormon once they get to the Americas. They do mention the heat though. This doesn't make sense top me because I feel like Nephi, being from the middle east, would mention the frigid cold climate and how they wouldn't have been prepared for it. Possibly losing limbs or members of their group to the cold like the pioneers. Maybe even talking about having to slay beast for warmer clothes or shelter. Nope. None of that.
Could they just not have mentioned the weather? Sure, but they do mention the heat (Alma 51:33) which is why I'd assume they'd also mention the cold and the trials that came with it.
Idk, just some of my thoughts. Let me know what you think
Like, in Croatia, we single out Slavonia, Dalmatia and Istria, and refer to everything else as Central Croatia (thereβs a ton of subregions too but these are the basic big ones).
Either political geography (e.g. national borders) or natural geography (e.g. caves and rivers and stuff).
https://www.imgur.com/yyIj8EK
Here is an image of Kobe and Gianna being painted in a basketball court in a place called Tenement in Manila, Philippines, as a memorial to both.
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