For a long time, fantasy, as a genre of fiction, mostly seemed populated by white people. There were exceptions — Ursula K. Le Guin broke the mold early with her Earthsea series — but whether you were talking about The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia or A Song of Ice and Fire, it was mostly white guys with swords.
Things have been changing recently, both on the publishing side and on the screen, where producers are more willing to highlight characters of color. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has gotten some intense backlash for featuring actors of color in important roles. There’s been some of that with House of the Dragon, as well, where the Velaryon family has been cast mostly with Black actors.
The Velaryons are an ancient family that hale from Old Valyria, which was destroyed a couple hundred years before the start of the show. When it came time to cast the series, showrunner Ryan Condal figured the Velaryons provided a good opportunity to cast Black actors, since they didn’t appear on Game of Thrones and we knew less about them. “And I said, ‘Well, you know, Valyria was this enormous continent, a very diverse and well-populated nation that fell into the sea, why couldn’t there have been a line of Black Velaryons in that in that story?’” he told TheWrap. “And then in in this particular time period, we’re not all that far removed from the Doom, it wouldn’t be unbelievable. And I think if you’re willing to take that first leap of suspension of disbelief, you really come to it feels integrated and intrinsic to the show in an organic way.”
Why did House of the Dragon get less backlash for casting actors of color than The Rings of Power?
House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power have both made efforts to include actors of color in the name of increasing diversity, which is laudable. I think it’s interesting that House of the Dragon has received less backlash. I imagine that comes down partly to bad luck, partly to people less satisfied with The Rings of Power in general, and partly to the House of the Dragon producers putting a fair amount of thought into how to integrate people of color into the established mythology.
“I think the reason that it’s been a successful choice, frankly – I mean, not everybody’s ever going to be happy – the reason it was successful is because it was thought out, it wasn’t just done perfunctorily or wasn’t just done to tick a box or to be seen as progressive or to be seen as somebody that’s covering all the bases or anything like that,” Condal said. “It’s 2022, it’s a different era than the shows used to be made in, we have an incredibly diverse audience that’s not only across America, but in multiple countries that speak all sorts of different languages, that represent all the colors under the sun. And it was really important to see some of that reflected up on screen. This is a fantasy world. I think if this was a historical fiction piece, it’d be a more nuanced discussion. But I think simply because of the fantasy world, if we believe in dragons, and shapeshifters and direwolves, we can believe everybody in the story is not white.”
There’s one more reason the House of the Dragon producers wanted to include actors of color, a practical one: there are a lot of dragon-riding nobles with white-blonde on this show, and having a way to distinguish between different families at a glance makes things less confusing. “There are so many Valerians in the show, having the Velaryon family, having the Sea Snake’s family, look different than the Targaryens is actually really helpful in the casting and in differentiating people on screen and remembering who’s from what house and maybe making it even clearer that Rhaenyra has children of questionable parentage,” Condal said.
"I think there are a lot of visual benefits that come along with it, and because Corlys [Velaryon] has such a rich and diverse family line himself, just simply making that one turn on him to cast Steve Toussaint, his entire family then becomes a diverse cast and it’s a really interesting way to populate the show with a bunch of different faces that you may or may not have seen in another high fantasy show or in the original series."
We’re nearing the end of the first season of House of the Dragon, and it’s been encouraging to see that, for the most parts, fans have accepted Corlys Velaryon, Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, and the other characters of color into their hearts along with everyone else.
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