Now defend that the historical inaccuracy is a demeaning stereotype.
Even telling a story about the actual Huns and how they were great at war but also they lost some wars wouldn't be demeaning. You might not have heard, but war is generally horrible for everyone involved.
[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect
Let's grant that premise! You are correct!
What does that have to do with the Dothraki, a fictional nation?
Remember, the bailey is "The Dothraki is a demeaning stereotype"
The motte is "The Dothraki is historically inaccurate." or "The Sioux have endured demeaning stereotypes." These are both true and uncontroversial.
The essayist even seems to take umbrage that the Dothraki armor looks nothing like Sioux buckskin! Would he take umbrage if they looked alike? You betcha he would.
The truth is, GRRM's throwaway comment notwithstanding, the Dothraki serve an analogous role to ASOIF narrative as the Huns, Vikings, Kazakhs, Barbary pirates and Mongol raiders did to European history. Are you and the essayist seriously arguing that these ancient peoples are somehow demeaned by the freaking Dothraki?
Most historians, and enthusiasts of history like myself, would not take umbrage; instead, they would effuse praise for bucking stereotype and actually doing their research into how these cultures would have dressed. I'll point out that the author actually has a lot of praise for CK3 for getting its history details right.
> The truth is, GRRM's throwaway comment notwithstanding, the Dothraki serve an analogous role to ASOIF narrative as the Huns, Vikings, Kazakhs, Barbary pirates and Mongol raiders did to European history. Are you and the essayist seriously arguing that these ancient peoples are somehow demeaned by the freaking Dothraki?
I think your first sentence is unwitting justification of the second sentence. Your understanding of the aforementioned cultures [1] appears to be limited to their raiding effects on "civilized" societies, ignoring other aspects of their society as at best uninteresting and at worst nonexistent. That steppe cultures are reduced in popular history to such a degree is perhaps understandable, but if you're taking a position of trying to assert historical accuracy, perpetuating popular history myths is pretty tasteless.
[1] Although interesting that you chose to qualify only Barbary and Mongol with pirates and raiders, leaving no qualification for the Huns, Vikings, and Kazakhs. Am I to take away that you believe that the Huns, Vikings, and Kazakhs consist solely of entities predating on settled societies, and that you believe that the Berbers and Mongols had richer cultures with only a subset of these people consisting of such entities? Or should I infer that you are listing known predatory groups, and know the "Barbary pirates" only by that name and not their culture grouping (admittedly, this makes "Mongol raiders" harder to explain)?
If you project wild surmise and lofty architectures of tenuous illogical connection onto the smallest throwaway detail like the essayist does, then by all means.
I really wish you people would focus. The bailey is GRRM causes harm by creating the Dothraki, a demeaning stereotype. That is the entire point of the thread. All the rest is distraction, intended or not.
I would love to hear how the Dothraki are inaccurate. That with a heaping stinky dollop of "GRRM creates demeaning stereotypes because I say so" is no go.
And with that, my interlocutors, I'm signing off. Feel free to have the last word. I'll read it, but likely won't respond.
And asserting that it is historically accurate, or at least more historically accurate than typical fictional portrayals. That is one of the key issues Devereaux has here.