I don’t really get the “not pissing off China” argument. China doesn’t deny the existence of Tibetans as they are one of the 55 recognized minority groups in China. There is a substantial ethnic Tibetan population in Sichuan province for example.

Or the insanity around Rue from Hunger Games. Some people had an ever loving freak out when a black actress was cast, because they had failed to notice she was black in the books.

I haven’t seen the film, but from everything I have seen and read they didn’t do anything to Swinton’s character to make her “Celtic” beyond having a line of dialog that mentions it.

Um, didn’t you people have a revolution so you wouldn’t have to bend a knee to anybody?

Because if it was disease, it could spread.

Yes, by why was it dying? Drought? Disease?

I thought that eucalyptus trees have a tendency to explode when they catch fire...

Why do the children of St Jude’s have to lose? The people who were bidding on this could surely afford to just donate directly...

Which just reinforces my view that the “Celtic” was minimal window dressing. There does not seem to have been any thought put into how being “Celtic” would change the character at all.

Yes, but if it is meant to imply she was originally from the British Isles in the pre Roman period, she never would have called herself that.

Which doesn’t seem very convincing to me, especially given that the people we now call the Celts never actually called themselves that.

Yeah, I noticed.

A cherry-picked picture of Baron Mordo does not negate the fact that character’s established backstory is as the son a of Transylvanian boyar who was given the rank of Baron by the Austrio-Hungarian Empire.

Nope. Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo was established to be Transylvanian in Strange Tales #115 back in 1963.

Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo is Asian?

From Swindon’s own email:

I haven’t seen Doctor Strange, so maybe I am missing something, but Swindon keeps maintaining that her version of the Ancient One is Celtic. Beyond the fact that Swindon is white, what other cultural markers are there that her character is a Celt? Her costuming sure doesn’t read as Celt to me. I think it feels East…

But changing a white character into a black one is not the same as changing an Asian character into a white one.

Also, as I recall, the backbencher tried to start the debate while Harper was out of town, adding to the deniability factor.

I lurked a Sandy Hook Truther Facebook page recently, and it was so head desk inducing. Some of them go as far as to claim that Sandy Hook Elementary school wasn’t even a real school.