"You cannot interbreed with the octopus people" Thats not what the hentai showed me.

Can we just take a moment to acknowledge that table set up

Parasite (the oscar winning Korean movie) was described as diverse despite the fact every cast member is Korean. Maybe what people want is quality entertainment from a variety of backgrounds instead of each story having to meet an arbitrary and phoney diversity quota.

I love how George takes a few seconds to answer a question. Makes us eager to listen to what he has to say.

The problem with "diversity" in movies is that it's only skin deep. People will toss in one black guy, maybe sprinkle a Mexican or an Asian here, then call it diverse. Skin color isn't what makes us diverse; cultures are. I would LOVE to see a movie tackle and genuinely show an affection towards multiple cultures, as I'm always interested in learning more about the world. But Hollywood doesn't care about that. The only thing that matters to them is: "Okay, so we have a black guy, a jew, a Russian, a Korean. Anything else?" "How about a Mexican?" "Brilliant idea, Bob!"

One of the best examples of diversity in my mind is Avatar the last Airbender series. Not only is each nation unique in culture and identity, the people of the world don’t all fall under a set stereotype for their nation. In each character their national origin isn’t the end all be all of their characterization or personality.

Everytime I see the thumbnail of these videos I think its a Joe Rogan podcast lmao

"not any more than we can impregnate wombats here on Earth" Challenge accepted

Things must always make sense within the context of the story. Diversity for diversity’s sake is just one dimensional and insulting to the audience’s intelligence.

There is alot of diversity. You can have similar skin color and tone and be vastly different ethnicity.

Honestly, I think a Fantasy series based on the world and mythology of medieval Africa or Asia would be really cool, unique and interesting to see and read about. More diversity in that regard is needed. But there can’t be any white people in those stories, except as traders maybe, because it wouldn’t fit, just as random black people in Westeros would be completely out of place. Or, you could try a whole mesh of cultures and peoples, just don’t expect it to be as coherent as one based on one or the other. But if your idea is to have a world of European origins, you can’t throw racial minorities in just because. They need to have an actual thematic and lore based reason to be there beyond appealing to modern journalists so they’ll write articles about your book that no one in the general public will ever want to read.

Diversity in nowadays movies is all about quotas of representation, when it should be about really going deep in diverse cultural contexts. That would be a 1000 times more interesting.

Star Trek treated race fundamentally differently than most overtly and deliberately diverse science fiction today. In the world of Star Trek, differences between races among humans were about as interesting and meaningful as differences in eye color is for us. Race didn't really matter to them, as you might expect of a humanity that managed to traverse the stars. Conversely, much science fiction that attempts to be diverse ends up looking silly when you have humans in the 26th century having the same racial hangups as we do in 2020. It's hamfisted and it makes a piece of work age poorly. It's like if Jules Verne made a whole series where the human race of the future was preoccupied with making hot air balloons bigger and faster because people really cared about balloon travel in his day.

Have you noticed that when he gets asked a deep question he first goes to the people he admires and who’s shoulders he stands on, instead of his own opinion, it shows he doesn’t think of himself as an all knowing guru just an old dude who can right kick ass fantasy novels

I've been watchinga TON of GRRM interviews and this woman is the best interviewer I've seen so far. Plus that table is amazing

I am a Latin American female. When I was growing up, if I picked up say, an English book, I expected mostly English characters. When I picked up a South American novel, I expected South American characters. In a Swedish children's book there would be Swedish characters. In a Costa Rican one, Costa Rican characters. Same thing with movies and TV shows. This diversity stuff never entered the equation. Now there are black and Asian Norse gods. That may be politically correct, but it's untrue.

0:32 Synchronized Drinking.

"Brazil was the power of the 23rd century" How to write a futuristic dystopia.

As a Black person, I hate diversity in anything when it's forced. When there was diversity in old mediums, it was just there, it wasn't force fed to you or put into the foreground. I respect his response because it comes from a creator that respects art over politics.

The og Predator had a diverse cast but they did spin around that they only created good characters and a good story

When i listen to him speak i feel like i should be taking notes

Quality body language mirroring at the end of that first question. Did she even drink? lol all love though. Love the set and interview.

taking a sip before start explainig, what a genius

Fever Dream is brilliant. First of his books I read after asoiaf. It was actualy reading it that I first thought that maybe asoiaf is indeed a post apocalyptic series and not a purely fantasy one. Then of course I found that I was far from the first one to think so...

Racial Diversity in fiction is great when it makes sense. Done properly it can enrich a world and make it feel more loved in. When done improperly it can come off as jarring (Recent Dr. Who), Pandering (ST:D/Picard) or simply pointless (Netflix Witcher).

His pauses are powerful.

Her assertion that tv has grown less diverse than 1960s Trek is patently ridiculous.

These people don't want diversity, they're far weirder than that. They want different-looking people to be culturally homogenous, as seen a lot of the time in the modern day (i.e., people from lots of different backgrounds living in western countries and adopting the native culture). Look at the wheel of time show, or the rings of power, or anything else. It's filled with groups of people consisting of lots of ethnicities that all share the same culture. These people are not particularly interested in diversity in the way that we are (because different cultures / species are just plain cool), they're interested in lots of different ethnicities living together and displaying no behavioural differences. I have absolutely no idea why they think this is cooler than exploring multiple cultures through foreign / exotic characters

(4:18) Vulcans don't have two hearts, their hearts are one the right side, where a human's liver would be. Time Lords are the ones with two hearts.

Diversity is great. It can make a story more complex, make certain characters stand out or give them different motivations, and it will appeal to a wider audience. However diversity for diversity's sake will have the opposite effect, it will downgrade stories by making people or places seem out of place. A story in a Medieval European setting, or Viking-age Scandinavia, will have primarily white characters who will not be openly gay or transgender, that's just not historically accurate to our world's versions of those times. But on the other hand, it remains Fantasy so the writer can do whatever the fuck he wants, as long as it's written fittingly into the story.

Why does the thumbnail make it look like he's on the Joe Rogan podcast

lol when she purposefully matched his drinking, yeah girl you got him

He mentioned the wild card series which is my fave series of all time. Such amazing books. Shame nobody asks him about that.

Someone ask him about elden ring

BSG did "diversity" best. Race wasn't what made people "diverse", but rather the culture they came from depending on their colony of origin. Capricans were as culturally different from natives of Arelon, as people from Scorpia were from Geminese, Sagitarians, etc, etc. What united them was the threat of extermination by the Cylons.

Martin has a great take on Star Trek here. It can be said that, like a lot of people, Roddenberry was inspired by Universalism or the idea that the Nation State is not the end product of human development. Star Trek also captures the old motif of exploring an unknown. Like Homer's stories, Odysseus sails through unknown islands in the Aegean and Mediterranean, discovering strange people, scary monsters, and sexy women. Similar with Jason and the Argonauts. Roddenberry has transplanted that into the sci-fi setting, so instead of Aegean islands teaming with who-knows-what, we have Captain Kirk and Star Trek.

This man is such a genius. If I get to meet him just once in my life I’ll be happy

Uhura was more than the comm officer; back in two separate episodes of season 1, she was actually at the helm flying the ship! Back in 1960s!! Check it out!!! Those scenes might only be on the dvd/blu ray edits, though . . . .

Most of the comments in this video seem like they just read the title and came to answer the question themselves without ever watching the video

Creepy synchronous sip 0:32

They drank from there mugs at the exact same time after the question lol

I love him

Considered answers that make sense. If you had to choose two terms to describe George, two could surely be “realistic” and “sensible”.

People, ALL people. And All cultures are unique and amazing.

I'd wait a whole life for the final books, 'cause I'm sure it gonna be awesome. Mastery and perfeccion take its time to be done

When it comes to diversity in Sci-Fi compared to diversity in Fantasy, there’s one thing that needs to be taken into account: historical precedence. Sci-Fi can get away with being as diverse as it wants due to the fact that it’s futuristic and can make up it’s own history. Fantasies like ASOIAF or Lord of the Rings or even simple Disney stories are all tied to history, and the periods in which people really lived. It wouldn’t make sense to see a white guy in Moana, or an African in Mulan, or a Persian in Snow White. Just as accuracy to the technology and values of the historical period are important, the people we see to reflect those beliefs are just as important.

Anyone know the name of the series George mentioned where Brazil is the world's superpower? I'd kill to read that!

this was a very enjoyable video i learned a lot and i am glad writers are very smart

What’s series is he referring too where Brazil is the super power ?

yes DARK FANTASY! now you are feeling me George i can totally see him playing a Dwarf in a Middle earth movie

Fiction writers of the future please just focus on a good story. Divirsity for its own sake sucks...

Not to be a huge nerd, but Vulcans and Humans are of the same mother race so they can have children as easily as a donkey and a horse could

The problem of crossbreeding between Vulcans and Humans was fixed in TNG when they explain the origin of every "human-like" species in the ST Universe.

I figured that George was based on this, I just felt it in my spirit. He's clearly a very empathetic person who sees human being as complicated people and doesn't focus on arbitrary skin deep aspects like race or gender when he crafts his characters.

If I could ask GRRM any question, I'd ask how the experience differed between adapting his work for a big fantasy show like Game Of Thrones compared to his sci-fi horror Nightflyers.

Who wrote a book on brazil being the power of the 23rd century? I couldn't understand the name

The Expanse handles that very well I think

Hey Terran, I know that word.

“How is this going to help us sell more movie tickets” “Movie tickets?”

_Starship Troopers_ was very racially diverse. Rico himself was Filipino, and was in a class that included (presumably, it's generally not mentioned) African-Americans (Breckinridge), Heinrich and Meyer Bitte (German, mentioned) and Shujumi (Japanese).

The interviewer lady is pretty cool

Am I the only one kinda weirded out at 35 seconds in when she finishes the first question, she takes a sip in sync with him while also unmovingly looking directly at him? I think she's a synth

0:31 Did...did she mimic his movements on purpose. That was weirdly synchronized

The problem is people demand diversity where it isn’t appropriate. Westeros and the story of GoT is based on the British isles and the war of the roses. Big news flash, hundreds of years ago Britton was about 99.8% white. It’s strange how diversity is only demanded when we’re talking about the history, heritage and culture of historically white nations in this case ethnically English, Scottish and Welsh (all white). Maybe don’t disrespect somebody else’s heritage and history by demanding you be represented despite the fact it makes no historical sense and attempting to suggest there is no such thing as English identity, only “England is multicultural” No, the English are a distinct group with our own heritage, history and culture.

Hoping to find out if anyone knows what book he was talking about that takes place in Brazil

4:30 "The Next Generation" solved that problem in-universe by having the episode "The Chase" explain that all humanoid life forms in the universe had the same ancestors that roamed the galaxy millions of years ago and left their DNA on various planets. So they share most of the same DNA which enables them to couple.

He missedTNG episode where we all come from a common ancestor

I really liked Nightflyers, I wish they made more of that series. It was one of if not the best sci-fi shows I've seen in the last 5-10 years. They should ask him about that.

wait that moment at 0:34 where the host drinks in unison with him xDDDD

What irks me is this tendency to hold people accountable who actually make the effort to write their own stories. It's easy to comment on those who try something. GOT is as diverse as one could get ito of its genre and timing in its fictional history. Let's respect differences but not enforce it onto everything that is or was relevant. Let's inspire new stories and authors to do what they see fit - instead of making it what we want it to be. Creative freedom should not be dictated by current political relevance, but only by what the creator intended. Respect the work in its form - there are way too many couch political commentators that don't inspire any change of what could become the next relevant book series or show. Appreciate great work and create your own if you disagree. And even if you do create something else with all the correct political decisions of this age, there'll be people who dislike it. There are too many tough crowds out there who don't inspire the change they want to see, but instead would rather piss on those who do. Getting so tired of it.

The problem with the racial diversity chat is literally easten cinema, african cinema and asian cinema. NONE of them prioritise diversity so why should we? Of course having a POC character is nothing to complain about. But I am SICK of these discussions.

You can't compare shows like Star Trek and Game of Thrones in terms of "Diversity" one is set hundreds of years in the future where the other is set in a "Medieval" era. In a future setting, of course there is going to be more mixed and diverse arrange of characters because you have advanced technology, more intermingled society's, space travel etc.. Whereas in a Medieval setting the populations are typically going to be homogenous, owing to the lack of widespread travel options (the only way to get across vast oceans is by ship and most people wouldn't be able to afford it) So they would typically stay where they are born. Yes, there will be some characters here and there that would have travelled to other places (Like Jalabhar Xho, Chataya and her daughter Alayaya to give some examples from Game of Thrones) But by and large most people will tend to stay where they are born. I'm honestly so sick of this modern day view of "Diversity". Yes you should have a vast amount of cultures and peoples of different skin type, hair color, eye color etc. not because you NEED to have them for diversity's sake, but because it adds to the world building. A vast world with multiple continents and different biomes on those continents are going to breed different people just like in the real world. But modern day writers are so idiotic and lazy that they will just randomly throw in diversity with absolutely no world building and no explanation simply to check off diversity quotas, you need look no further than The Witcher Netflix show...

Wombat's George? you have just created a Wombat furry craze.....thanks?

HE SAID OCTOBER! Jkjk

0:32 coincidental synchronised drinking

Plot twist: Black Phanter will be played by Jackie Chen in Wakanda Forever

There is no hunger for diversity in sci-fi and fantasy. There is a push for it but every franchise that panders to it dies. There is a hunger for solid story telling and likable characters.

My current favorite example of a fictional world that handles this quite well is Dragon Prince. They had the freedom to imagine a magical world of their choosing and chose to imagine one where people aren't continuously shitty to each other on the basis of skin colour, or gender or sexual orientation. Instead, they find more interesting reasons to be shitty to one another, like cycles of war and revenge, conflicting duties and desires, etc.

I LISTENED TO YOUR SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY GEORGE I SEE YOU BRO

Someone know which book series he is talking abt in 2:41?

Indeed; Star Trek is really just the “ideal” USA in space - a utopian, post-apocalyptic Earth should be an inherently diverse place with all the best of each culture....Not merely just one “idealized” monoculture

The thing is if story is based of off European folk lore and myths then why would there be Africans in it for example. If we tried to cast white peoples in literature made from African mythology we would be called out on it.

2.45, what book was that

"it's okay, you can stay at the table" we made the table.

Fans are hungry for sci-fi or fiction not for forced diversity ;). We want quality entertainment not forced agendas ;).

George R. R. Martin ASMR

Art is under no particular obligation to be diverse or anything else. Most fiction has to narrow down its' purpose and deal with a fairly singular premise. You can make diversity itself your premise or core theme if you like - but then the story is about THAT and you should say something meaningful about it and treat issues with an appropriate degree of insight and nuance and deal with the ambivalences and issues of it on a level that is not merely about being politically correct. Political correctness is superficial. It is about externalities. It is about the supposedly right words and images. Not about reality or truly imagined and imaginative worlds. Political correctiness is a fixed image, making a truth claim. It is not dynamic. It tries to establish a new status quo, but does not ask an open existential question. It doesn not lend any credit to the audiences own ability to make up their minds. It tells them how to behave. But art is NOT just some vaguely entertaining and aesthic platform that can be used to sugar the pill you spout a little bit of this and a little bof that. Art is not some opiniated personal speech. Certainly most good art is not preachy or overtly didactic, but demonstrates it's truths rather than simply hurling statements, postulates and private personal preferences about the world about. Art is about questioning and destabilizing the status quo. It is not a communications campaign or a vehicle for some fixed message to imprint in the receivers brain as conceptualised by the sender, it is not about making a sale or suppressing opposition. Political correctness is, from a point of view of discourse analysis, an inherently populist or even totalitarion mode of discourse, that wants to justify it's own hegemonyic reductions of complexity and the number of possible subject positions it enables, by postulating that it knows the whole truth or at least the most important truth and certainly understands what is best for you and everyone else better than you do. Which is why it is fundamentally annoying: it's the arrogance of the teacher who wields a tool of power but cannot legitimize his own presence, because he is fundamentally disinterested in the people he is adressed and judgmental about any deviations from the norm. It is not critical or sceptical. It is not investigating anything. Which is why it's static, boring and tends to give rise to false drama, monotonous melodrama and attempted humor that is really just aggression wth a thinly upbeat veneer. Usually all it has to offer is "perfect people doing the right things they only way they really ought to be done only hampered by wily evil and regressive people". Now where are the stakes in that? where is the room for transformation? Where is the drama? Where is the open, democratic space for reflection offered to an audience. It reflects a childs black and white view of the world. Unable to integrate the two no gray areas are explored and no true moral development can take place - because the bad may never be owned or enabled by anyone but bad people. It is the gestalt of the authoritarian parent who forces a selective lie about clarity and simplicity at the cost of true complexity, real wisdom and true empathy and compassion. It is fundamentally un-democratic and disinterested in critical discourse. Much like the long standing human traditions of genicide, it endeavours defines a problem on its own undisputed terms, in order to pave the way for some final solution to win out universally once and for all and establish an imagined utopia. And imagined is all it could be - seeing as it is not in the world but attempted injected into the arts as if it was a representation more or less directly interchangeable with that which it denotes and not simply a presentation defined by its own wilfully or unconsciously unreflected biases.

We can't impregnate wombats? challenge accepted

I actually like racial diversity in fantasy and sci fi. It helps for World building.

Brazil was the dominant power in the novel? That really requires a lot of imagination...

The comparison used in the question is iffy. Star Trek depicts a cross section of an evolved (post-war, post-discrimination) human culture heading out on a shared journey into the unknown. It's a specific trait of that story. But to automatically expect any specific standard of diversity in another type of story seems a bit ridiculous. An individual story has only one responsibility: to reflect the vision of the individual artist. Period. That is art, it has no other obligation. The responsibility for diversity rests with the society, the industry, the field itself. So there should be diverse access to getting stories published, to getting them adapted, to employment in technical and acting jobs in filmed adaptations. That's the real world, where in/equity has a meaning. In an artist's imagination, it has no inherent value or meaning. Diversity in art should be about the diversity of artists and the cumulative diversity of their unique individual stories - never should diversity, or any comparable criteria, be expected of the individual works themselves.

If there aren't enough seats at the table get more chairs and/or a bigger table. No one needs to lose a seat. That table could seat six easy, probably eight. At least, without the context of social distancing.

See purple hair:

usually ppl write things based on what they r familiar with. so yeah, white writers will have mostly whites in their story. like where r all the whites or blacks or hispanics in crazy rich asians? those who grow up around a bunch of ppl from different races is more likely to write a story with more diversity involved. like i aint gon bitch about a black writer who writes a story involving blacks only. but since we r going there, id really like to see more half white, half asian ppl in (science) fiction cuz u know, i feel super under represented and all that

Good interview George. So when is Winds of Winter coming to a store shelf here me?

"We're not going to be able to breed with the Octopus people of Vega" GRRM underestimates human horny

Great interview. Thanks for posting. Really made me think. It's so funny to me when people say things about how they like diversity, when its done properly. Practically every example of diversity in popular sci-fi and fantasy is attacked, by attackers who leaves themselves the out of, "I'm not opposed to diversity, I just don't like it when it's improperly done". In the modern context, if ST:TOS came out today, it would be attacked for being "too woke" and an example of diversity not done properly lol

"I hope there's still some room for an old White guy like me." 😁😁😊😊 That was great, self-aware, and humble.

Having all sorts of characters from different backgrounds is a good thing, but it also has to make sense. If you're writing a story about the Vietnam War, and there's a Jamaican guy in the Vietcong...Well, that would just be stupid, wouldn't it? Unless of course there's some fascinating backstory about how a Jamaican guy becomes part of the Vietcong.

On a "World" scale then no Star Trek was not diverse at all. Diversity is just another way to short people on what is rightfully theirs. If there was no profit to be made then we would not be talking about it right now.