Does Anyone Care? (Cosmere RPG)

[GreyLord]

Re: Sanderson on diversity.

Henry Cavill expresssed interest in playing Kaladin in the Stormlight series to Sanderson directly, who reminded Cavill that Kal was Asian. Not a small thing to turn down a Hollywood A-lister for your movie.

Note, I've only listened to the audio books by Graphic Audio. I had no idea he was supposed to be Asian.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Note, I've only listened to the audio books by Graphic Audio. I had no idea he was supposed to be Asian.

I mean, but presumably you do know he's described as having relatively darker skin than we'd consider "white"? And dark hair and initially dark eyes? Or is this one of these "Rue"-type situations where some part of the audience hears "tan skin" or "brown skin" and just thinks he's a white with a tan rather than that's his natural tone? Notably fan art gets it right as usual (the same is true of Wheel of Time - a lot of fan art showed the characters as darker than white-skinned, because in the books, notably Rand is paler than the rest, and the first city they come to, the author explicitly calls out everyone but Rand as being in the middle skin-tone range, neither pale or nor very dark).

I think what Sanderson is indicating here specifically is, based on Kal's description, he'd probably be played by a South Asian actor (Bollywood and similar have a near-infinite supply of handsome South Asian dudes, and Britain doesn't exactly have a shortage either), rather than East Asian, which may be what you're thinking (though I could be mistaken). Though another potential objection re: Cavill would be that canonically Kal is like 6'6" and Cavill is 6'1" on a good day (which means he's shorter than me lol and I don't think I'm hugely tall). Presumably that latter would be sorted out by just casting everyone like 6" shorter than they are in the books because it'd be pretty hard to find people as tall as they are in that.

I think most of the characters in Stormlight have skin tones which means few, if any, "white" actors could play them, apart from Shallan and Szeth (and Szeth, I get the vibe that he'd be played by an East Asian actor for some reason, but maybe that's just me).

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, but presumably you do know he's described as having relatively darker skin than we'd consider "white"? And dark hair and initially dark eyes? Or is this one of these "Rue"-type situations where some part of the audience hears "tan skin" or "brown skin" and just thinks he's a white with a tan rather than that's his natural tone? Notably fan art gets it right as usual (the same is true of Wheel of Time - a lot of fan art showed the characters as darker than white-skinned, because in the books, notably Rand is paler than the rest, and the first city they come to, the author explicitly calls out everyone but Rand as being in the middle skin-tone range, neither pale or nor very dark).

I think what Sanderson is indicating here specifically is, based on Kal's description, he'd probably be played by a South Asian actor (Bollywood and similar have a near-infinite supply of handsome South Asian dudes, and Britain doesn't exactly have a shortage either), rather than East Asian, which may be what you're thinking (though I could be mistaken). Though another potential objection re: Cavill would be that canonically Kal is like 6'6" and Cavill is 6'1" on a good day (which means he's shorter than me lol and I don't think I'm hugely tall). Presumably that latter would be sorted out by just casting everyone like 6" shorter than they are in the books because it'd be pretty hard to find people as tall as they are in that.

I think most of the characters in Stormlight have skin tones which means few, if any, "white" actors could play them, apart from Shallan and Szeth (and Szeth, I get the vibe that he'd be played by an East Asian actor for some reason, but maybe that's just me).

Szeth is, in fact, the token Caucasian-coded character in the series: the mysterious and exotic land of Shinovar is European-coded, the rest of Roshar where the action mainly occurs is very much not.

Some art fromt he Welcome to Roshar book for an example:

And in fact, Kaladin is East Asian, maybe Southeastern, the Alethi are very firmly East Asian as a whole:

Shallan is actually impossible to cast exactly as written, because she is explicitly a mix of features that don't naturally occur: she is a natural red-read with light eye color, but her other features are also East Asian including a copper skintone (the fan art is better than the covers on that front):

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Shallan is actually impossible to cast exactly as written, because she is explicitly a mix of features that don't naturally occur: she is a natural red-read with light eye color, but her other features are also East Asian including a copper skintone (the fan art is better than the covers on that front)

That's not actually completely impossible, it's just incredibly rare. I went to school with a kid whose mother was Japanese, and whose father was Welsh, and he had precisely and exactly those features aside from a "copper" skin tone (but I wonder what your source is for that - she's consistently described as "pale" in everywhere I could check, and directly compared to the Shin skin-tone-wise and in all the fan art and indeed in the art piece above which is presumably approved by the man himself she's pale). But good luck finding an actor with those features, he was very unusual-looking (his hair was really true auburn-red too, quite deep, not ginger)!

Szeth is, in fact, the token Caucasian-coded character in the series: the mysterious and exotic land of Shinovar is European-coded, the rest of Roshar where the action mainly occurs is very much not.

OH YEAH! I'd forgotten that that Szeth has this very peculiar description which it took me a while to realize meant the other characters had epicanthic folds in general, but the author was trying to work around outright saying that, because it sounds so race-science-y as a term.

Probably just have to be animated, which would likely suit it better anyway.

 

[Parmandur]

That's not actually completely impossible, it's just incredibly rare. I went to school with a kid whose mother was Japanese, and whose father was Welsh, and he had precisely and exactly those features aside from a "copper" skin tone (but I wonder what your source is for that - she's consistently described as "pale" in everywhere I could check, and directly compared to the Shin skin-tone-wise and in all the fan art and indeed in the art piece above which is presumably approved by the man himself she's pale). But good luck finding an actor with those features, he was very unusual-looking (his hair was really true auburn-red too, quite deep, not ginger)!

For sure, my brother-in-law is part Philipino, but mostly Irish and Norwegian, and he has brown hair with red hints but mainly Pacific Islander features.

It does seem I misremembed about skin tone, but she is both firmly Ginger but also firmly East Asian in features, which is at least striking. A lot of people in Stormlight are unusual-on-Earth mixtures like that, Adolin is Blonde but is also firmly East Asian.

OH YEAH! I'd forgotten that that Szeth has this very peculiar description which it took me a while to realize meant the other characters had epicanthic folds in general, but the author was trying to work around outright saying that, because it sounds so race-science-y as a term.

The Shin are also "short" compared to everyone else, and by "short" I mean normal Earth proportions instead of the hulking Roshar standard. Hence why everyone calls them "childlike".

Probably just have to be animated, which would likely suit it better anyway.

I can think of few books more primed to be adapted as long-form Anime. I think Wheel of Time would have been better animated, but Stormlight really seems to ask for it.

 

[Cergorach]

But good luck finding an actor with those features, he was very unusual-looking (his hair was really true auburn-red too, quite deep, not ginger)!

Well, painting hair or using a wig is very common, and accepted. Painting faces certainly less so... So long as the skintone and body structure matches, eyes can be fixed with lenses, and hair color with paint/dye/wig, and I've seen a lot more natural (extreme) coloring instead of the stark flat red/blue/pink/purple paints/wigs you see most people wear...