George Martin Addresses "White Savior" Accusations Against GoT's Most Controversial Scene
Game of Thrones has always had its fair share of controversies, but surprisingly, most of them were kept inside its world.
However, as one might expect, a show of such scale and popularity had zero chances to completely avoid upsetting some people — and it most definitely did.
We're not even talking about all the graphic content that the show basically consists of: this is too obvious…
Almost just as obvious as not watching a series like Game of Thrones if you're not ready for the said graphic content.
But this is beside the point.
You see, when Daenerys Targaryen is on her quest of liberating the slaves of the Slaver's Bay, specifically after she does it Yunkai, there's a scene that caused many accusations towards both the showrunners and George Martin himself.
Take a look at this picture. Can you see what the issue here is?
Yeap.
For this scene, the writers were accused of using the "white savior" trope, and the reasons are pretty clear: a whole lot of people of color praising their liberator, a white woman who is crowd surfing on their hands.
The number of furious posts and even media articles about this scene was insane after the season 3 finale.
However, the explanation for this controversy was pretty casual and practical.
It came from George Martin, who rather patiently explained why such accusations both towards him as the books' author and the showrunners as the people responsible for shooting this scene were incompetent.
First of all, he reminded the audience that in his books, slavery in Slaver's Bay did not have a racial context whatsoever. It was based on Roman Empire-ish slavery, when no matter the color of your skin, if your people were defeated or captured, they became slaves.
The Romans had slaves from Africa as well as the British Isles, and they saw no difference: it was about them being defeated, not different. The same goes for the Slaver's Bay slaves.
Second of all, when it comes to shooting a show, practicality is above all, GRRM said. For this scene, many extras were required to make up a massive crowd, and Yunkai scenes were shot in Morocco.
Obviously, a bunch of local people signed up as extras. "When you audition for extras in Morocco, Moroccans show up," said GRRM, making the audience laugh.
So no one ever implied Daenerys to be the "white savior".
In the books, she never was; and in the show, there was not enough budget allocated to start flying people from Ireland, the US, or Japan to Morocco. As simple as that.