honestly hadn't thought of the first men/native americans parallels before but you're right they're definitely there! personally my first impression was first men = celts, andals = saxons, ironborn = danes but that's v much from a british perspective.
i mean theres obvs a lot of inspiration from gaelic cultures for the first men (pre-andal reach is wales ill die on this hill) and i guess i would argue that the andal invasions are more similar to saxon settlement than european colonisation? as in, not nearly as genocidal, not coming in as a unified force or trying to create a unified state, those left in the andal/saxon controlled portion end up assimilating to the invaders' culture. oh and also im a bit obsessed with the whole mystery around the vanishing of brittonic languages in saxon britain and mayyy have elaborate headcanons on the andal replacing of the first men languages based on that.
oh and the whole ironborn/danes thing. well the viking parallels are obvious. and then the danelaw was my first thought when i read about ironborn controlled riverlands haha.
ah sorry just to be clear im not trying to say you're wrong!! i just find pre-targ westeros v fun and would love to hear more about your headcanons cause it sounds like they'd be p different to mine! i also don't know that much about different native american cultures - do u have thoughts on the inspirations for different first men regions? i mean obvs the north and wildlings you'd be looking at inuit cultures but do you have thoughts on the others? i also thought an interesting parallel to the north would be the saami altho im also pretty uneducated on them haha.
anyway i just really love worldbuilding fantasy cultures because of how it prompts me to find out more about various real world cultures - and it makes sense to take inspiration from multiple real world cultures. i mean one of the reasons i love tolkien's dwarves so much is they prompt the question 'what exactly would a fusion of old norse and jewish cultures + a few original bits such as a love of geology and craftsmanship even begin to look like'. (although i do also know it's important to remember that real world cultures are real and to be respectful of them, especially when they're not my own and especially when it's an oppressed culture)
anyway sorry for the essay in your inbox feel free to ignore i just love rambling on about this stuff! also in terms of your original point - yeah the people who whine about 'bla bla but they're meant to be white' are so dull. i mean 1) it's all made up anyway who cares 2) 'white' is either a post-colonial construction within a specific political, historical, and cultural context or just a description of skin colour. it means basically nothing from an in-universe fantasy perspective (obviously the choice of which characters are white and how they're written is important from an out-universe perspective grrm would it kill you to be normal about non-northwestern european cultures). also the valyrians aren't white they do not have pale skin just look at where valyria is located on a map. sometimes the author is wrong.
no worries i LOVE this ask i lovelovelove just talking and rambling about things im interested in and care about and i LOVELOVELOVE when people do it back!!
yeah personally i figured the northern first men were based on the picts since the wall is clearly inspired by hadrian's wall and the celtic influence is clear too. in the show the spiral motif they introduced reminded me of the celtic triskelion (though its more proto-indo-european than celtic) which tickled my brain!! YES ON THE REACH WALES THING because garth greenhand and their national founding myth is SOOO king arthur they have such a culture of chivalry plus there’s a bunch of arthurian-inspired names sprinkled throughout the reach (off the top of my head there’s agramore(agravain), gawen (gawain) and perceon(percival))
the ironborn danes is very much text and canon, they’re clearly vikings and i think GRRM has specfically said that. however i think sea-faring peoples can easily be identified as polynesian/pasifika.
for me there what the text presents which is that westeros is grea britain with medieval moorish spain taped to the bottom of it, and then there’s the more culturally interesting fanon in my head that still mostly fits into canon! since the concept of whiteness obvi doesnt exist like you said and genetics are hand waved there’s really nothing in the text that denies an indigenous north.
i personally see them as indigenous siberian (specifically yakut) since the first men allegedly travelled from the dothraki sea and many indigenous ethnic groups of siberia such as the yakut are north asian and turkic which fits into the way the dothraki are written. im not american so i dont know much about inuit and first nations american traditions but in my head i see the free folk as inuit!
i really agree with your last paragraph, i think the way fandom projects whiteness onto these characters is due to a majority northern american fanbase who aren’t doing it out of malice but more ignorance. take the example of dorne: theyre obviously based on medieval al-andalus spain, specifically after the umayyad conquest. this textually implies west asian middle eastern influence.
its a little funny how people cling to daeron targaryen’s racial classification guide when harassing artists over their depictions of characters because if anything that’s the literal whitest part of the text lol. his three categories (stony, salty and sandy) vary from ‘european’ pale skinned to olive-skinned to dark-skinned. whos to say that doesn’t fit a popular fanon dornish india, which famously has many ethnic groups of varying physical appearance? regardless of the fact this is fiction books where people can do what they want, there’s nothing textually that rejects a physically indian-looking dorne.
many characters aren’t described with pale skin. sansa, dany and cersei are a few i can think of but rarely are side characters described as such. there is a presumption from the reader and the author that these characters are white simply because that’s just the norm, right? but it’s not, nor is this series real-life. a lot of my headcanons are still based on the text but really that doesnt matter!! its fake books and we’re having fun and i can think of the characters however i want. and lastly, youre so right about valyria. i see them as east asian since theyre, well, from east essasia but i think its funny to argue with redditors by saying theyre egyptian since well thats obviously part of the inspiration!! what are you gonna do, argue with grrm???
idk your ask was really well presented and my answer is distinctly ramblings of a brain with no stoplights so apologies but your ask made me think lots thank you!!!!
