Re to my question regarding the one sided Dothraki. One sided and bland were ,in retrospect, poor word choices. George filled his novels with complex people, no one being either 100% good(white) or evil(black), but somewhere in between (grey) – Except for the Mountain&Co and the Dothraki. GRRM constructed the Dothraki people as a society with absolutely no redeeming qualities, just a see of barbaric brown faces. Watered down Orientalism at its best or worst, IMO not up to George’s high standards

Decided to throw this anon up because a bunch of people have asked me about it and I wanted to explain what I thought again, although I would recommend people read my Dany chapter essays first. I think there’s a lot more cultural complexity to the Dothraki than some people think:

• From the beginning of Dany’s chapters, we can see an element of cultural adaptability and flexibility in the fact that the Dothraki own property in Pentos where they live in opulent surroundings, wear fine silk clothing, etc. and then when they leave Pentos they put their Dothraki clothing back on.
• When Dany is learning the ways of the Dothraki as she travels east with the khalasar, we learn a lot about how their world shapes the way the Dothraki see things. The Dothraki don’t believe in privacy because they share close quarters among the khalasar; they have an honor system built on the surveillance of the individual by the whole of the khalasar, and that these relationships of honor are the coin of political power as opposed to inheritance.
• When Dany arrives in Vaes Dothrak, we see how the Dothraki act as a vital part of a continental economic system, we see Vaes Dothrak as a place where many cultures come together but also as an expression of the Dothraki ideology of Manifest Destiny.

And so on and so forth.