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It makes about as much sense as portraying Roland as a female, honestly.
Ignoring the obvious genealogical points—that Roland is a direct descendent of King Arthur; has "blue, bombardier eyes"—there are some very strong racial themes once Susannah enters the story, which are completely butchered by making him black. There's also the glaring fact that Roland is supposed to look like Stephen King's father, as there series crosses over into our reality in the final few books, and Roland actually meets Stephen King. This has several connotations, namely that King created him, and thus it follows that there's a piece of him inside of Roland. Sure, they can make Stephen King black as well, but it still resonates as a bizarre choice.
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OK, I can see where you’re coming from with some of those points and I’m not familiar enough with King’s books to say how much of an effect it would have on the larger story. But theoretically, do you think it’s impossible they could rewrite the racial themes to suit the character changes? And would it be impossible for
Stephen King’s father to be portrayed as black, or simply leave out the similarity?
And on a side note, would it matter in any real way if Roland was female? Or how about any leading male character in a story – most are white males but could easily be swapped out for women or other races.
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Somewhat related: One of the biggest rules that is ignored in Fantasy literature is not to add unnecessary races to the story unless they play an integral role. Many authors think they can make their world expansive and a special little snowflake by slipping in elves, and dwarves, and pixie people, but unless there's a reason for them to be there, it often reads as stale.
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I can see what you mean and I agree to an extent, but comparing women and ethnic groups to fantasy races doesn’t quite add up – for one thing, women and ethnic groups do make up a large proportion of humanity, and their inclusion in a story doesn’t have to be as a separate group as elves or dwarves would be; for another, you’re never going to have a cinema audience of elves or dwarves looking to see themselves represented in fiction, but real-world minority groups do get fed up of seeing white people all over fiction.