As a surprising addendum to my article pointing out that the famous fantasy author George R. R. Martin is jewish; (1) there has been a bit of a jew-related brouhaha over the new illustrated edition of his book ‘A Feast for Crows’.
As Shahana Yasmin explains in the ‘Independent’:
‘George RR Martin’s publisher denied accusations that some of the artwork in the new illustrated edition of A Feast for Crows was created using AI.
Penguin Random House released the 20th anniversary edition of the fourth instalment in Martin’s beloved epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire earlier this month, featuring illustrations by artist Jeffery R McDonald.
It was touted as a premium collector’s edition but immediately invited backlash, with fans pointing out what they believed to be tell-tale signs of AI-generated art like odd background details, repetitive textures and anomalous anatomy.
In a statement posted on social media as well as on Martin’s own blog, Not a Blog, a spokesperson for the publisher denied the allegations and claimed “no AI was used”.
“My name is Raya Golden and I manage the art direction and licensing development here at Fevre River working closely with GRRM as his schedule will allow. But I alone am responsible for approving all the licensed art that accompanies our SOI&F book driven materials,” the statement read. “Recently, there have been accusations floating around that the Penguin Random House’s illustrated edition of A Feast For Crows was produced using AI generative art.”
“To our knowledge and as presented by the artist who completed the work in question there was NO such programming used. While he is a digital multimedia artist and relies on digital programming to complete his work, he has expressed unequivocally that no AI was used, and we believe him,” the statement added. “The official word from our office is, of course, that we DO NOT, never have and will not willingly work with AI generative artists in any way shape or form.”’ (2)
Now normally I wouldn’t be too interested in this since corporate greed and corner-cutting – usually related to cost-cutting and profit-maximizing - is nothing particularly new nor that interesting, but the fact that the person in charge of this illustrated edition of ‘A Feast for Crows’ – and George R. R. Martin’s full-time ‘Art Director’ – (3) was/is named Raya Golden did interest me.
The reason why is fairly simple: Golden is a fairly common jewish surname. (4)
It is also an English and less often an Irish surname, (5) but the fact that this Raya Golden comes from New York City – a heavily jewish city – and frankly looks like she just emigrated from a shtetl makes it almost certain that she is jewish. (6)
This being said Golden’s outright denial that any kind of A.I. was used in the artwork for ‘A Feast of Crows’ is ludicrous since having looked at the offending images anyone – including a non-artist who is familiar with how A.I. images tend to look like myself – can clearly see that A.I. generation/generative software was used to create them as they are themselves often generic, illogical and contain little to no reference to Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ characters or storyline (with which I am also extremely familiar).
Indeed, fans of ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ have noted – as Yasmin points out – those problems included:
The ‘“lack of banners and heraldry throughout”, illustration of Lady Stoneheart closely resembling a fan’s artwork and the existence of a “Christian cross”.
“Other people have noticed weird hands and feet and clothing not being consistent, among other things,” the fan wrote.’ (7)
While other fans of the series have since noted the sheer stupidity of Golden’s desperate claim that ‘no A.I. generated art was used’ in ‘A Feast for Crows’ given how bloody obvious it is that was the case. (8)
The truth is simply out there for all to see: the jewish ‘art director’ for a famous jewish fantasy author openly lied to said author’s (non-jewish) fans about trying to sell them crappy A.I. generated art at a significant premium after getting caught doing so.
This is otherwise known as false advertising and/or a form of fraud.
Schopenhauer’s dictum that jews are the ‘people of the lie’ has been proven yet again.
References
(1) On this see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/is-george-r-r-martin-jewish
(2) https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/george-rr-martin-ai-game-of-thrones-feast-for-crows-b2863485.html
(3) https://www.linkedin.com/in/rayagoldensunshine/
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_(name)
(5) https://www.ancestry.co.uk/last-name-meaning/golden?srsltid=AfmBOopDMLhPEyl53KmH_CX0C9yok7RRa6AhozQozhP8i3k8U0wddYwG
(6) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2191821/raya-golden/
(7) https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/george-rr-martin-ai-game-of-thrones-feast-for-crows-b2863485.html; the original Reddit thread is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1oq8d5c/it_really_looks_ai_was_used_in_the_20th/
(8) https://www.reddit.com/r/HouseOfTheDragon/comments/1ottv4x/george_rr_martins_team_accused_of_using_ai/?rdt=36363