Game of Thrones is racist!

Gene Expression
By Razib Khan
Apr 2, 2012 3:01 AMNov 20, 2019 5:39 AM

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I wasn't going to post more today, in light of the April Fool's joke I played on you. But here's me going at it again. Lots of stuff I wouldn't normally stumble upon hits me via Pulse, and today I see this in Salon, Is “Game of Thrones” too white? - Fantasy fiction might have racial problems, but they're just a reflection of America's broader battles. Here's the problem I have, imagine this subhead: "Fantasy fiction might have class problems, but they're just a reflection of America's broader battles." You see, in epic fantasy fiction the class structure is a pyramid, with a few who have, and the vast majority who do not have (let's take urban fantasy and the like off the table for this discussion). But that's OK, it's a feature, not a bug. That's because epic fantasy is playing with the furniture of the past, and that furniture is riddled with a class system predicated on radical inequality. The author of the Salon piece concludes:

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