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So far as its diversity goes, the big change “House of the Dragon” makes to its source material comes with the character Lord Corlys Velaryon, aka The Sea Snake. A legendary seafarer, Lord Velaryon amassed a massive fortune thanks to the famous nine voyages he took from Westeros to Essos as a younger man. While he’s depicted as being white in George R.R. Martin’s 2018 novel “Fire & Blood,” the show cast Black actor Steve Toussaint (“Judge Dredd,” “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”) to bring the character to life.
Sadly, as is common occurrence with high-fantasy TV series or, these days, any franchise project that tries to be more inclusive with its casting choices, Toussaint’s casting led to the actor suffering racist attacks and insults on social media. Speaking to THR, the actor noted:
“I didn’t realize [the casting] was a big deal until I was racially abused on social media. Yeah, that s**t happened. I was just like, ‘Oh wow,’ and then I thought: ‘OK, so this means a lot to some people, but I can’t allow that to bother me.'”
Adding to that, Toussaint noted the importance of casting any TV show or film to “reflect a world,” be it based in a real-world setting or a fantasy one:
“I loved ‘Game of Thrones,’ but my only caveat was, ‘Where’s everybody else in this world? Because it’s a diverse world Martin has created if you look [beyond Westeros], and I think this show comes closer to that.”
Hopefully, hiring Toussaint will prove to be but one of many steps “House of the Dragon” takes to better reflect the diversity of its world and, tangentially, our own. We’ll see if that’s the case when it arrives on August 21, 2022.
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