about the fanart

[discorat she/her]

This might be, over the top and ''its not that deep'', but i've noticed a few things in stormlight archive fanart.

Firstly, most of the mains except Shallan are tan, and people still draw them as white, thats _fine_. That's okay. 

But when I see everyone else drawn as pale/white but the parshendi drawn as a black person with red spots on their skin, i don't know, it sits wrong with me? Since the parshendi have pale, black and red marbles on their skin, I've never imagined them as even having the texture of something human looking. And people often forget the pale marbles and just draw them as mainly black.

Is this just me overreacting? I know its just fanart, but Sandersons books are the only books I've read with actual written diversity that isn't written for a plot, they just are brown, black or white. And then if people like to imagine Alethi as white or pale, thats okay, but the parshendis marbled skin is so often brought up  (Shallans pale skin and red hair might be brought up a little more often)

 

Also i'm not judging anyones drawings or anything- I think every drawing of stormlight archive is pretty and i probably shouldn't complain like i am. Im just wondering if others have noticed the same thing. (There are very good 'accurate' (?) drawings of the parshendi too, i saw a really cool one the other day)

[manukos he/him]

uhhh from what i have seen and from a quick google search , most of the fanart seems to draw the Alethi brown (with a few exceptions of bleaching ofcourse ) 

even if it was as extensive as you said thogh , i dont think it would be a problem . fanart is amde by fans to pay tribute to a character that they love or at least affected them emotionaly , if by imagining him white they are able to relate better and get more out of the story  then what is the problem.....(ok this is kinda messed up ... i see your point)

in the very important pieces of fanart, like those for the coppermind and such the mods try to use accurate depictions
 but for most of the fan creations i dont think that we can (or should) do anything about it . but still from what i've seen the majority of the fanart seems to get the racial traits right

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

When it comes to characters being drawn as white, I would assume it is because of two things. The first is that some people imagine others to like they do themselves. So some white people might imagine the characters to be white because that is normal for them. And also, the majority of the characters in other famous fantasy works are white, and that probably works as an influence too.

The second is that some official artwork depicts the characters as white too (Michael Whelans WoR cover). That enforces the idea of the characters being white.

Personally, I think it's okay for people to imagine the characters like they want to. I prefer fanart that resembles the book, but that is just me. 

Also, english is not my native language, so I never understood what marbled skin was, and I have trouble picturing the Parshendi because of this.

 

[Storming Radiant he/him]

8 minutes ago, winter devotion said:

because melanin is needed to not die to death because of the giant red sun.

I thought they had the ashmounts for that...

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

1 hour ago, winter devotion said:

Because whitewashing. Basically every official description calls most Scadrial dwellers tanned or olive skinned because melanin is needed to not die to death because of the giant red sun. Sorry, I get irritated easily, whitewashing novel characters is one of my biggest pet peeves ever.

There aren't that many Scadrial skin color descriptions though (except for the Terris). The only one I can think of straight off is Demoux in WoK. And again, the official artwork portray the Scadrians as caucasian. 

[CosmereQuestioner]

If you research you would find that most fan artwork reflects the features of the artist, except in specific cases where a bigger deal is made of their characteristics.

[Calderis he/him]

@Discofrish people seem to have missed your actual issue. 

I agree that the depiction of the Parshendi as African with altered skin is offensive. 

The idea of making the antagonistic group an analog of a culture seen as "other" is always a problem. 

If I remember correctly, Resident Evil 4 received a lot of criticism for just that, as you were wandering around killing hordes of what appeared to be middle easterners. 

[maxal she/her]

On 7/14/2017 at 2:38 AM, Discofrish said:

This might be, over the top and ''its not that deep'', but i've noticed a few things in stormlight archive fanart.

Firstly, most of the mains except Shallan are tan, and people still draw them as white, thats _fine_. That's okay. 

But when I see everyone else drawn as pale/white but the parshendi drawn as a black person with red spots on their skin, i don't know, it sits wrong with me? Since the parshendi have pale, black and red marbles on their skin, I've never imagined them as even having the texture of something human looking. And people often forget the pale marbles and just draw them as mainly black.

Is this just me overreacting? I know its just fanart, but Sandersons books are the only books I've read with actual written diversity that isn't written for a plot, they just are brown, black or white. And then if people like to imagine Alethi as white or pale, thats okay, but the parshendis marbled skin is so often brought up  (Shallans pale skin and red hair might be brought up a little more often)

 

Also i'm not judging anyones drawings or anything- I think every drawing of stormlight archive is pretty and i probably shouldn't complain like i am. Im just wondering if others have noticed the same thing. (There are very good 'accurate' (?) drawings of the parshendi too, i saw a really cool one the other day)

The problem is Alethi's skin color is rather non-descriptive within the books. It is said to be "tanned", but Sadeas has a red face and this other brightlord has a sunburn which indicates skin tones which allows those to happen. Ask 10 people how dark they think "tan skin" is and you will get 10 different answers: some of would put Alethi as near black while others put then as near white with a small tan. Technically, all representations are valid as unless Brandon gives us the precise RGB composition of Alethi skin color, it will remain a matter of personal interpretation. There is also this chibi chart which Brandon did approve of: it had Alethi as medium skinned in terms of color, so neither dark nor white, paler than some fanart, darker than others. 

There is also the fact Alethi do not care about each other's skin colors which is why it has been non-descriptive within the books. For instance, many fanart depicts Adolin as being darker skinned than Kaladin when he canonically is one of the paler skinned Alethi due to his white mother. Adolin probably looks more like your typical blond headed blue eyed boy with a slight permanent golden tan. One of my work colleague is a mix in between Indian and white: this is exactly how he looks. He is not white, but he is not dark skinned either, he just looks tanned all year around. My personal tan makes me darker than him at summer time. You can't say the guy is white, but you can't really say which ethnicity he is either, which is exactly how I picture Adolin. Very highly mixed, not really Alethi, not really Riran, but slowly falling more on the Riran side than the Alethi side just as my colleague falls more onto the white side than the Indian side.

All of these are reasons why fanart tend to fluctuate greatly in between the artists. 

This being said, I recently read the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne. While I do have some critics to offer towards the story, it does include a very high diversity, much higher than SA. Most characters are PoC, including the main protagonists. You have white characters too: it is quite an interesting mix and the descriptive make it very obvious. I thought it was one aspect of the story which was well done: implementing diversity in an intelligent and satisfying way.

[kiapet]

I've actually seen a lot of fanartists draw pure Alethi characters (like Kaladin, Dalinar, Jasnah, ect.) with tan skin and epicanthic folds, and others will actively point out whitewashing where they see it. Granted, that may be partially due to the sites on which I see fanart, but this actually seems like a pretty decent fandom at minimalizing the automatic assumption of whiteness.

[Andy92]

On July 14, 2017 at 7:33 AM, winter devotion said:

Because whitewashing. Basically every official description calls most Scadrial dwellers tanned or olive skinned because melanin is needed to not die to death because of the giant red sun. Sorry, I get irritated easily, whitewashing novel characters is one of my biggest pet peeves ever.

But at the same time, Tor's official artwork shows Vin and Elend as both being white on the HoA cover. And Brandon liked the idea of Ellen Page playing Vin if a Mistborn movie was made back when the books were written...so I always imagined those characters as being white too. 

[Vissy]

The fanart I've seen is mostly from @Botanica(xu) and she draws the Alethi characters as tan, so I don't really know what fanart you've seen. But I recommend checking her out.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Rob Lucci

[The One Who Connects he/him]

You should also check out Sheep, the arguable "other half" of fanart back in the day.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

17 hours ago, winter devotion said:

I could've sworn she wasn't described that way. Maybe my science knowledge of why people in hot climates (like scadrial is described to be) tend to be black is just bothering me like so much. So much. Sigh. Nitpicks aside

Well, this could probably be easily explained by the fact that the people of Scadrial used to not be in such hot climates before Rashek's Ascension. Plus, the ash and what Rashek did while ascended probably protect people from getting too dark becuase of UV rays. Plus, it was only a 1,000 years with a hotter climate-that is nowhere near enough time for an entire species to become super dark like the equivalents on our planet (Africans would be the example for this). They'd probably be more like the Native Americans, but probably a bit lighter considering they hadn't been affected by it for that long.

And back in topic, I'm white, so I tend to imagine characters as white unless I'm told otherwise. It's just how imagine things. Im not trying to be racist while I'm reading the book, it's just easier for me to connect that way. Of course, doesn't mean I'd connect any less to any non-white characters, I just wouldn't think of them as white.

[Vissy]

19 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

You should also check out Sheep, the arguable "other half" of fanart back in the day.

Sheep is always a fun artist, his fanart is both funny and expert!

[discorat she/her]

On 7/14/2017 at 1:33 PM, winter devotion said:

Because whitewashing. Basically every official description calls most Scadrial dwellers tanned or olive skinned because melanin is needed to not die to death because of the giant red sun. Sorry, I get irritated easily, whitewashing novel characters is one of my biggest pet peeves ever.

 

No its fine, i feel the same way! But I believe brandon sanderson once mentioned altho being south asian? (?) But then asia is so diverse- there are pale asians too.

 

On 7/14/2017 at 6:38 PM, Calderis said:

@Discofrish people seem to have missed your actual issue. 

I agree that the depiction of the Parshendi as African with altered skin is offensive. 

The idea of making the antagonistic group an analog of a culture seen as "other" is always a problem. 

If I remember correctly, Resident Evil 4 received a lot of criticism for just that, as you were wandering around killing hordes of what appeared to be middle easterners. 

 

Thank you! No one mentioned how the parshendi have been drawn. I believe this is why Brandon has been careful mentioning that the parshendi is pale/black/red and that its actually BLACK and not brown. 

Things like that in movies/books etc is problematic because it inserts stereotypes in peoples head even if they dont realise it - if you repeatedly see middle easterns in TV depicted as evil some people are going to believe that too. 

On 7/16/2017 at 10:08 AM, Rob Lucci said:

The fanart I've seen is mostly from @Botanica(xu) and she draws the Alethi characters as tan, so I don't really know what fanart you've seen. But I recommend checking her out.

Ive seen her fanart! I love it! Im happy there are stormlight archive fanart like that, with diversity. 

On 7/17/2017 at 3:13 AM, StrikerEZ said:

And back in topic, I'm white, so I tend to imagine characters as white unless I'm told otherwise. It's just how imagine things. Im not trying to be racist while I'm reading the book, it's just easier for me to connect that way. Of course, doesn't mean I'd connect any less to any non-white characters, I just wouldn't think of them as white.

Thats completely fine to me tbh, my biggest issue is literally making everyone white and then draw the parshendi black