House of the Dragon’ Showrunners Didn’t Want ‘Another Bunch of White People’ in ‘Game of Thrones’ Spinoff

IndieWire ^ | Jul 14, 2022 | Samantha Bergeson

[MinorityRepublican]

“House of the Dragon” is already righting a “Game of Thrones” misstep.

The upcoming spinoff prequel series has a more racially diverse cast, including an elite Black family comprising the House of Velaryon, a central ruling family with deep political ties in Westeros.

Co-showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik set out for a “reimagining” of George R.R. Martin’s original books when bringing them to the screen. The spinoff premieres August 21.

“It was very important for Miguel and I to create a show that was not another bunch of white people on the screen,” Condal told Entertainment Weekly. “We wanted to find a way to put diversity in the show, but we didn’t want to do it in a way that felt like it was an afterthought or, worse, tokenism.”

[AppyPappy]

Pit Dragons

[No name given]

Racist. That’s all I’m going to say.

[AppyPappy]

Why you hata?

[Lysandru]

Did this group of woke idiots actually read the novels? Truly dark-skinned folks are not native to Westeros.

[Dalberg-Acton]

Game of Thrones was an insult to anyone who watched any of it.

[Gaffer]

More myth, revisionist history and fantasy under the guise of diversity. Like EVERY new show and series

[Colo9250]

” not another bunch of white people on the screen”

Well if it is another bunch of black people on the screen I won’t be watching it, so go ahead and ruin it.

BTW, GOT was NOT a bunch of white people.

[Houserino]

This amazon lord of the rings show is going to bomb hard too. It’s all woke. Gets disastrous reviews for the trailer.

[fieldmarshaldj]

An ancient European-esque fantasy show and they don’t want Whitey in it. Got it.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’m waiting for the new Martin Luther King, Jr. sitcom set in the ‘60s starring Fred Savage as our favorite, wacky lady-loving civil rights icon. That’s a ratings winner right there.

[toddausauras]

Agree who wants to listen to a bunch of idiots whispering for an hour

[TexasFreeper2009]

actually, after reading this, it’s fine. They did it in a logical way.

They are basically making a splinter group of the sea people black.

[MinorityRepublican]

This amazon lord of the rings show is going to bomb hard too. It’s all woke.

Gonna pass. Hollywood's infected by the woke virus. It's pretty bad. They'll just have to get burned. Looks like this GOT prequel is gonna bomb so HBO and Amazon will lose a lot of money on their leading projects.

[TexasFreeper2009]

amazon shows are AWFUL

pure garbage. I have TRIED to watch them, but they are SO BAD.

[MinorityRepublican]

actually, after reading this, it’s fine. They did it in a logical way.

After the metoo movement and all this woke stuff, I predict that this GOT prequel is likely going to be disappointing.

[Houserino]

Oddly enough Amazon is still the best streaming service, cause of their variety mostly. All the self-created stuff is garbage but they have a good library, especially horror/thrillers. Also you get all the shipping benefits and discounts on music streaming. But they probably raised the sub rate for just this lord of the rings junk.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Well, the one continent was European, but the other, large one was not. And the one set of pretty large islands was specifically black.

So as long as they make black people from there, it's consistent with that world.

[Phoenix8]

True.

Reminds me of commercials, have you noticed the racial make up since…. about the start of COVID I’d guess?

Blacks make up 13% of the US population but I’d conservatively guess they make up about 50% of actors in commercials.

And it was like someone rang a bell. One day it was a normal mix and literally it changed the next. All this stuff is planned…only an idiot would say otherwise.

[Drew68]

Great. So HBO is going to do to Game of Thrones canon what Amazon did to Tolkien.

The original series did have plenty of non-white actors, but it worked because they put them in roles that made sense. Dothrakis were often swarthy, black roles were found in Qaarth, Latinos often played Dornishmen. It worked when you looked at Martin's fictional map.

Now were supposed to buy into black Targaryens?

Netflix wanted us to buy black Vikings.

I don't care if non-white actors are used in roles, for crying out loud, but, please, make it make sense. Don't just put them in rolls to satisfy racial quotas because it distracts from the narrative.