Hairy confusion

[Guest Fire Lord]

We all know R.J.’s love of describing characters to the bone. I want to know whether you don’t find it strange that he has never mentioned Rand’s exact hair color.

I mean, I’ve checked in the books, and in most descriptions Rand is said to have dark reddish hair, or simply hair with a reddish tinge to it. I can’t remember seeing anywhere it says reddish blond or reddish brown hair, and IMO it could be either. Anyone has? Tell me.

Yet in most of the pictures of him I’ve seen he has reddish blond hair. But hey, then again I can’t trust the artists, I mean, Perrin is supposed to be very large and with shaggy brown curls, but on the covers―if that’s him, that is―he looks nothing like that. Still, in Rand’s hair case, one artist could have been wrong, but not all of them, I would think.

We assume―I assume―that reddish blond is the most likely possibility, given that most Aiel are either red-haired or yellow-haired or something in between. But there is a certain Aiel chief with light brown hair, that’s why I’m not excluding brown.

In the Great Hunt, Rand rides a big bay he calls Red. I checked in a dictionary to be sure, and it says that a bay is a horse of a dark brown color. Rand remarks that the bay is almost the color of his hair. How can that be, if he has reddish blond hair? Are there horses with a red-yellow or red pelt? I’ve seen a few with reddish brown ones, and I would tolerate extending dark brown to reddish brown but not more. Unless it’s the norm. On the other hand, if Red has a reddish brown pelt, I would imagine our hero with more or less reddish brown hair as well. So, what is it exactly? And what does dark reddish mean anyway?

Maybe it’s in the books and I haven’t seen it, or there is another logical explanation I’m missing. If that’s so, please excuse my sleepy rambling, but hey, even in my dreams I’m posting on Dragonmount.

[Guest Fire Lord]

I lifted the document from Word and posted it without knowing that some of those symbols will turn out like that, so just forgive me for that and ignore it.

Any views to my questions?

[Zardi]

Er, I don't know how much more specific it could get than "dark reddish," to be honest. We know it isn't pure red, because then the description would read "dark red" instead of reddish. We know it isn't reddish blonde, because then it wouldn't be described as dark. The only option left is reddish brown. As for the Aiel bit you pointed out, well...Rand is only half Aiel anyway.

 

By the way, if you're talking about the US covers, the same artist did every one.

[Guest Karana Majin]

Well, bay is a broad term. My horse is a sorrel and his coat is light reddish brown. Maybe RJ didn't understand his horse colors? Because bay is usually pretty dark.

 

http://home.earthlink.net/~gruns/chester.jpg

 

Also, if you look up horse colors bay in wikipedia, you will see the full range.

 

I think Rand must have very dark brown reddish hair, which does seem unusual, because Tigraine was a light red blonde like Elayne, and she was the non-Aiel parent.

[Alaksuleiel]

though there is always rom for throwbacks :)

i had blond hair as a child (now it's brown), and Mara has blonde, looks like it's going to stay blond as she's 6 and mine had changed by age 3.

Ell

[Thor]

Maybe the environment caused Rand to mutate? Maybe Emond's field's environment changed his hair colour, must be something in those springs. :lol:

[Alaksuleiel]

or maybe cos tigraine was his mother and andoran he has darker hair hair as a legacy from an ancester.

Ell

[Guest Karana Majin]

Hmm... do you people understand how genetics works? True blond and red hair is recessive. There cannot be a "throwback" to an earlier ancestor, because if you are a recessive phenotype, you simply do not have the genes necessary for dark hair.

 

However, all that being said, hair color is an issue that could be dictated by codominance, polygenic issues, or multiple alleles. But, it's pretty much accepted that light blond hair that does NOT change in adolescence (as all the Aiel, and Morgase, and Elayne, and Tigraine all seem to have) is truly a recessive phenotype. So, two people with that phenotype could NOT produce a darkhaired, or throwback child.

 

I'm guessing it's just a mistake. Maybe RJ didn't want Rand to be TOO out of place in the Two Rivers, besides his height and his light eyes and he didn't really think about the genetics of it all? Or do we even know for certain sure that Tigraine was a light colored blonde? (I feel like we do, but I can't pinpoint a quote)

[Alaksuleiel]

http://www.dragonmount.com/character.php?id=1785

found this tigraine bio :)

Ell

[Thor]

I'm pretty sure then it is due to the environment affecting Rand's hair colour. (I think there is some basis for that as far as genetics go.)

[Kaznen]

I always thought Rand's hair, eye, and skin color were typical Aiel. He got most of his facail features from his mother but got the physical size and coloring from his father, that's how I always saw it.

[Zardi]

Do we know Janduin's hair color? If it was a dark red (and there are Aiel with dark red hair), then that's enough to explain Rand having reddish-brown hair.

 

I also found this: http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=39

He tries to explain the genetics of hair color, and the theory that it is additive rather than dominant/recessive. The couple who wrote in to him both have dark blonde hair: their son is blonde, but their daughter has dark brown hair.

 

This says something similar: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=776421

 

So...if two blonde parents can produce a dark-haired child in the real world, then Rand could have reddish-brown hair even if Janduin's was a lighter red.

[Kaznen]

Also, in genetics, physical traits are not determined by one set of DNA code but serval. That goes with waht Zardi said. And that is why some people have dark blond hair and light blond hair. Same goes with brown hair. And there are those, like me :D, who were blond when they were little and dark haired when they got older.

 

Back to Rand. In the early books people, like Gawain, Mat, and Perrin, talked about how Rand looked like a typical Aiel. Eliada even hinted at it in tWotW.

 

And by how Aiel tell each other apart, I'm guessing that Rand looks like somebody from the Tardaad(?) clan. That would have been his clan if he was born in the waste.

[Wonga]

I was born with red/blonde hair and had it most of my life but recently I started cutting my hair short and it is now a very dark blonde- so maybe it's just environmental factors.