Quote Originally Posted by Chen View Post
The only problem with Nilfgaard being racially black is the epithet used for them in the games/books (where they are not black) is "The Black Ones" ("the Blacks" if you translate literally from Polish). It would change the connotation of the epithet and imply a racism in the Northern Kingdoms which isn't the actual case. They're only called that because of their black plate armor and the black feathers they used to decorate it.
So if they were cauasian and were called the "White Ones" because they had white armour, it would also be impliying racism?

Could Sauron (or any other Dark Lord) never be played by a black guy?

I think that disqulifying any group of one ethnicity from being presented as a group named after a colour because it happens to be vaguely similar to the Western world's incorrect human-skin colour terminology is a bit... Stupid. Especially in something which is an adaption of an already existing thing.

I think there comes a point where giving more regard to incorrect human colour terminolgy (humans are not actually white or black, they are off-pink to brown1) over actual colour terminology - in ANY direction - is itself as problematic as the thing it is trying to not be. I would go as far as to say by underlining that, it inherently makes it okay to make that divide between people, which is wrong, I feel as an equalist.

A spade is sometimes just a spade - and I think that sometimes, that needs to be re-iterated.



It might, at this point, be worth asking what - if anything - the lore calls various skin-colours and assuming it is not exactly the same as in English (since the native language is Polish - I don't know whather it's the same or not).



But a), this is skating close to board rules and b) I have the feeling that we may be giving it far more consideration that the show is likely to have, if what people are saying is true.



1Am I fairly sure if correct colour terminology was globally enforced, the sillyness-sounding of it would debunk a lot of problems - "off-pink supremacists" doesn't sound like anything other than a bad joke, does it?