whereasi-thehobgoblin:some thoughtsMy answer is HERE (X)SOURCES people, SOURCES. Saying generic stuf
whereasi-thehobgoblin:some thoughtsMy answer is HERE (X)SOURCES people, SOURCES. Saying generic stuff never helps your narrative. Xanthos not only means beautiful but blond, and wasn’t used to describe characters of African descent because it would also mean they had light colors. Greeks had other words to say that someone is beautiful. Surely they wouldn’t use “xanthos” to describe a Black man. And yes, Greeks had a notion of race and 98% of them were Caucasian and light skinned, as their art has shown us. LINK for a full sited article. I will take this chance to answer to @whereasi-thehobgoblin The show is crappy in terms of showing the story (Agamemnon rapes a woman who looks like Ifigeneia, Achilles goes to almost rape Helen again). Believe me, I have found MANY stupid things in the show and I agree with some things you said. Especially the “Most Hollywood adaptations of Greek myths make it seem as though the creators didn’t even read the summary on the back of the book they used as their source.“and “In terms of relating the story of The Iliad for a modern audience, Achilles’ skin color will likely rank lowest in the list of inaccuracies this adaptation will contain.”However, my blog focuses on Greek representation and that’s why I will focus on the skin tone part. There were poc in ancient Greece, but a national hero, written by a Greek and admired by Greeks for generations is natural to look like the ideal Greek of geometric to classical age - and that is no man with African origins. I imagine you agree with this. Here is where you are mistaken: “the ancient Greeks were not exactly what we’d call white, especially not by American or Northern European standards (they’d match closer with the ethnicities of Romani, Turkish, and even Arab peoples). “Seljuk Turks have Mongolian roots. They were mixed with Greeks (through rape and other violent tactics) who lived in the Minor Asia for millennia when they came there, and that’s why in our days they look more Mediterannean. Also, they are mostly hella white. Maybe travel there or see a Turkish show, or a documentary or… anything. You don’t seem to be educated.Romani people are darker than we are. You can definitely see the differences between us and them. They are of Indian origin.We match with the Arabs of North Africa and not any other Arabic people, because we are Mediterannean and the Arabs of North Africa are… Mediterannean too! I know, shock! And many of those Arabs “pass“ for whites. Oh I hate the American terms…Hercules wasn’t described as a Black man. If you have those sources, give me the ancient text to read and analyze it. Here (Link) is an article that will answer better about the skin tone debate. Please read it till the end if you want to counter it. You say “it simply seems ridiculous to me to demand pinpoint accuracy to a detail of a character’s appearance which only comes up in passing and likely isn’t noticed by many readers“. No, usually people imagine Greek heroes like Greeks, like Mediterannean people, maybe slightly more tanned than we are today. Why is it so hard to imagine that someone would respect our culture and the way our ancestors depicted their gods and heroes in art? Also, be aware that European and American people have a tendency to cut modern Greeks of their roots, despite of us still talking the language of our ancestors (to a 70% percentage) and having almost the same phenotype (our skin tone may have become lighter). One example is that they tried to push the Erasmian pronunciation as the correct one, despite a Dutch man made it in 16th century, not consulting the Greeks of that era who had a continuous tradition of writing and speaking. -- source link