That Dothraki Horde, Part I: Barbarian Couture

I wonder where the stereotype of scantily-clad leather-fetish armor for barbarians actually comes from, given its extreme prevalence in modern culture and complete absence in actual historical cultures. Some other ahistorical stereotypes are easy to understand [1], but I don&#x27;t see how both leather acquires an ahistorical importance and less armor becomes better-armored.<p>One point to call out that the author doesn&#x27;t emphasize is that steppe cultures (both in North America and Eurasia) were integral parts of vast trading networks. One of the noted features of pre-Columbian North America [2] was the extent and speed with which trade goods moved all along it. So steppe cultures would absolutely have access to all the fine luxuries of the &quot;civilized&quot; world. Indeed, it should be noted that marrying off royalty to steppe elites was a common strategy for keeping steppe raiding at bay. This is fairly evident to anyone who does even a modicum of research on steppe peoples, or ancient people in general (people trade! all the time!), so the notion that steppe people are inherently austere is clearly the mark of someone who does not believe in research.<p>[1] e.g., colorless white Greco-Roman temples: all the paint faded away, leaving the underlying white stone. When the Renaissance kicks off a shift in Greco-Roman historiography to putting them at the pinnacle of human civilization, the extant white ruins were taken as reflective of what they actually looked liked and became the archetypes of modern attempts to re-summit civilization&#x27;s pinnacle.<p>[2] Although it should be noted that the steppe cultures of the US--such as the Cheyenne, Apache, Sioux--don&#x27;t exist in their modern form before the introduction of the horse around about the 18th century, with the Siouan peoples not even living on the plains until pushed out there during migrations in the 17th century.

(Complete tangent) Can someone explain to me why HBO isn’t spending $100M to recut season 7-8 and maybe reshoot a few new dialogue scenes while the actors are all still available?<p>It seems to me in this day and age they could look at the 5 episodes with terrible IMDB scores, remaster them, and then ship it again, and everyone would forgive them and the show would make billions more because people could recommend it again.<p>I don’t understand from a business point of view why they are letting such a gold mine just collapse.

I don&#x27;t see realistic clothing working well for this sort of TV show. Suppose a male lead wore a wig, fine silken cloths, and high heels. That&#x27;s certainly something you may once have seen in Europe, but I&#x27;d assume it would come across as clownish rather than elegant.<p>There&#x27;s also some real danger of appearing to parody some culture, particularly with the Dothraki. You&#x27;re probably safest staying well in the realm of fantasy.

I read a 9th century book by an Arab trader visiting the Vikings (Ibn Fadlan). Based on his descriptions of the Vikings, their culture and sexual mores were very similar to that of the Dothraki in GoT.

This post angers some people. These people will explode next week as reading the Sparta and Fremen series will show.

Good post as always.<p>Interestingly, the books <i>also</i> debunk the Fremen mirage at several points. GRRM is quite keen on armour solving a lot of your problems in combat.

The font on this blog would seem appropriate for the style and subject matter, but it’s hard for me to read.

Conan was always railing against the softening effects of effete civilization in a way that I always envied, but found impractical: if I were to backhand an annoying, scheming cleric, for instance, I would not be able to shrug off the consequences as Conan could.<p>There seems to me a bit of <i>motte and bailey</i> going on with this essay.<p>The <i>motte</i>, unobjectionable part is that such representations are historically inaccurate, people may develop an inaccurate understanding of history and since &quot;it is a collection of unmitigated pedantry, after all&quot; let&#x27;s dig deep and nit-pick all the details. Great!<p>The <i>bailey</i>, less demonstrated part is that the Dothraki is a problematic, demeaning, poorly researched, badly written stereotype that deserves nothing but scorn. <i>&quot;We’re not here to ‘cancel’ ASOIF...&quot;</i> but let&#x27;s write a 3 part series wherein it <i>&quot;is going to become increasingly apparent that at least effective research was not done&quot;</i> where he will <i>&quot;... treat Martin’s words much more charitably than they probably deserve&quot;</i><p>The essay author makes a big deal out of this off-hand comment on GRRM&#x27;s blog: <i>&quot;The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures... Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes... seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy.&quot;</i><p>But the actual quote on his blog goes on, which contradicts the central thesis of the article:<p><i>&quot;... So any resemblance to Arabs or Turks is coincidental. Well, except to the extent that the Turks were also originally horsemen of the steppes, not unlike the Alans, Huns, and the rest.</i><p><i>In general, though, while I do draw inspiration from history, I try to avoid direct one-for-one transplants, whether of individuals or of entire cultures. Just as it not correct to say that Robert was Henry VIII or Edward IV, it would not be correct to say that the Dothraki are Mongols.&quot;</i>[1]<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;grrm.livejournal.com&#x2F;263800.html?thread=15364984#t15364984" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;grrm.livejournal.com&#x2F;263800.html?thread=15364984#t15...</a><p>Edit: switched <i>motte</i> and <i>bailey</i>

The author goes out of their way to suggest fans of GoT are uninformed&#x2F;gullible by believing the story is their best source of medieval culture (its fiction - who thinks there is any historic reality? There’s dragons and magic in it.) and that critique of their critique is childish (the grownups can read on....) - not a great way to start. I mean, is it reasonable to assume anyone who thinks GoT is in any way based in historic reality is even going to read the blog?<p>Then the blog goes into wild assumptions about the fictional lands climate and assumes the land the Dothraki roamed should somehow be similar in climate to Kings Landing and uses this to critique not only their clothing but the broader Freman myth that the ideal tough man can withstand harsh conditions like cold while being scantly clad in leather. Again, we know next to nothing about the climate they lived in or the planet they are on if it is even a planet like ours. Because it’s fantasy fiction. We can only assume the Dothraki know what clothing is best for them.<p>The article continues with the same pattern - assume people are misinformed and that they think GoT is based on historic realities and that GoT is responsible for continuing to push these false stereotypes.<p>So if the point here is that GoT is not anywhere near historically accurate then to that I say: it’s fantasy. It has dragons and magic. It’s not based in our reality or history even if inspired by it. They don’t even respect our physics in the way they make swords (the fires they make could never be hot enough to cast with) so how can we assume nearly anything else?<p>Yes, Martin claimed the Dothraki were based on his understanding of certain historic cultures and sure maybe his understanding is uninformed. But we don’t know specifically which parts informed his creation of the Dothraki and it’s a bit silly to pick the things you want to assume and pick that assumption apart.