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I do not find the casting of the Velaryons to be much of a diversion from what you describe. Valyria, a region with a mediterranean climate, somehow managed to produce and maintain consistently an overwhelming percentage of white albinos mixed with the odd 100% black person. This makes the Strong Boys story point farcial, three children, all white as snow? In a way it's worse than RoP and Wheel of Time and the other shows that cast randomly until certain demographic percentages are met and pay the setting exactly no mind, House of the Dragon wants you to believe that Valyrians can be any race so long as they have white hair and then make a point of identifying Criston Cole as being dornish based on his skin tone.
It's authorial fiat within the ASOIAF universe that human genetics there don't work the way they work on earth; because people kept calling out that Ned's "discovery" in GoT that Cersei's children were bastards because of the blonde hair was retarded and explaining recessive genes to GRRM at conventions. So GRRM just ragequit and said the whole thing works differently, that in Westeros your paternal family "type" will always predominate over another or something like that, because magic or whatever.
I prefer the idea that Ned's discovery was based on his own misunderstanding of genetics, and while he was factually correct, his evidence was total bunk.
So there's a lot of precedent for the setting just ignoring ordinary genetics in favor of bespoke solutions. Maybe where they are, that's just how it works. I mean if we're going to apply science to that setting, the seasons are a much bigger and more glaring problem with absolutely no workable solution within the text.
I wouldn't call that rage quitting. I'd say this is the correct response. Why would a world that has dragons, walking dead people, tree people and so on follow earthen genetics? Do people in that world even have DNA? The way the story is presented it very much "feels" like Ned's discovery (actually Jon Arryn's) is correct and for the reasons he stated.
It would also be plausible that families have some kind of "magic". How else is one line able to manage to hold a position of power for thousands of years? Do we have an analog to that in our world?
But that argument equally undermines the original complaint that it doesn't make sense for Valyrians to all have platinum blonde hair but different skin colors. Maybe the definitely blood-magic evil sacrifice thing that makes valyrians what they are doesn't impact skin color, who knows?
The Virgin Fantasy TV Show Watcher: This show is literally unwatchable, they didn't provide an adequate explanation for why this character is black. I can't even pay attention to the dragons, the whole time I'm just thinking why is he black? Unwatchable travesty. Worst episode ever.
The Chad Opera Afficianado: I just saw Carmen, the young soldier and the bullfighter were sung by fat Italian men in their late 40s, the gypsy woman so beautiful that she destroys multiple men's lives was sung by a Swedish soprano who looked like a chainsaw statue got a hold of Frosty's old silk hat. I've never been more affected by anything in my life, my heart bleeds, love is a treacherous bird!
The answer is that if shows just inserted Black characters without making a big thing about inclusion, they'd probably face less backlash. What makes it stand out is that the showrunners make it known that they're doing this for diversity reasons, and once the viewer knows this it takes them out of the setting. Perhaps I can suspend disbelief that Rodolfo the starving artist looks like this because I know he's cast for his voice, not for political reasons.
We shouldn't use the show to make assumptions about the book. The show could be using an entirely different rule set (or, more likely, not caring about the story or any underlying consistency at all).
The Seed is Strong incident is exactly identical in each.
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