HBO’S House of the Dragon has been a success, but it hasn’t been a stranger to controversy due to its choice of casting.
Specifically, actor Steve Toussaint, who plays Corlys Velaryon in the series, received racist abuse online because the Velaryons are described as having white skin in the books but reimagined as Black nobles with long silver dreadlocks in the series.
The controversy has bled out to the book world, and creator George R. R. Martin is caught right in the middle of the heated crossfire, with fans calling for a boycott of his upcoming book The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Volume One due to allegedly racist comments made by its co-authors.
The co-authors are married couple and Westeros superfans Linda Antonsson and Elio M. García Jr., who has also contributed previously to the A Song of Ice and Fire series.
Critics have taken issue with Antonsson’s blog posts, some dating to more than a decade ago, to more recent ones about Toussaint’s character, where she wrote: “There are no Black Valyrians and there should not be any in the show.”
Antonsson told Variety that people have “cherry-picked statements stripped of context.” She also stated it bothers her to be “labeled a racist” when she says her focus “has been solely on the world building.” She added that she has no issue with inclusive casting but strongly believes “diversity should not trump story.”
Antonsson claims that her gripes with House of the Dragon go beyond the show’s casting decisions, and extend to other aspects of the plot that deviate from Martin’s original writing.
As for Martin, who declined to comment, Antonsson says he is “very much aware” of the arguments she and her husband have online with fans. She adds that while Martin “doesn’t see the point in engaging with people” on social media, “he has not suggested we should stop sharing our opinions.”
Ironically, Antonsson is in favour of boycotting writers with whom she disagrees. She only hopes the fans were doing it “because of our actual opinions rather than those they project on us.”
