Do you ever imagine a character looking completely different from how they're officially meant to look?

[EmperorAllspice]

This might just stem from me being awful at imagining things, but I sometimes tend to imagine a character a certain way then get blown away by how wrong it seems when I see how a character is "meant" to look.

 

Like, for me the worst is Egwene and Mat. In my head Egwene has shoulder length, curly kinda light brown hair. And MAt has relatively long and wild hair. Galad as well. I honestly don't know how this happens or if it's just me or whatever.

 

Anyone else have an imagining of a character that looks drastically different from how they're officially meant to look?

[MasterAblar]

Not that I can think of, but I've never really been able to picture Nyneave. She's kind of just a faceless blob with a braid in my mind.

[mb]

I generally go by what the covers show; and also by the illustrations in the guide & the starscape editions.

If the character does not appear in those, then Encyclopaedia's page of the respective character.

[Cosmic Champion]

As soon as I started reading these books I went to the WoT-Wikia and DevaintART sites, and ended up going by John Seamas Gallagher's pics mostly. Mostly.

 

Online drawings of Perrin seemed the hardest to reference, as most of them appeared to either have him look like a middle aged lumberjack with a thick beard, or something totally waaay off his book description. So it took me awhile to shake those images of him off, and try to really picture him as Robert Jordan describes him. Long shaggy curly hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

 

 

 

[dawnflower8]

Usually I imagine characters the way they are actually described. But here are some problems I have with how other people imagine them:

 

Perrin: Perrin is around 18-22. He should not look 40. But he does in 90% of fanarts. This is the one I have the biggest problem with. People do this with other characters also, but it seems to be the worst with Perrin. Moiraine, Rand, and Nynaeve also seem to frequently look too old.

Mat: A lot of times I see Mat drawn with a beard. In Towers of Midnight, Mat clearly says that he hates having a beard the one time he didn't shave to disguise himself. 

Tuon: The worst problem I see in other people's drawings is when she looks Asian. Tuon is not Asian. Also, her head is decribed as being shaved. When you shave your head, it is not going to be shiny and bald and look like all your hair fell out. I imagine it too look more like a buzz. Her hair should also not be short and curly. 

[Kermit the Frog]

The Aiel for sure. I never imagine them with red hair (although I do picture Rand with it). I always picture them dark haired and tanned.

[damandred]

The opposite than Kermit for me, i picture Rand tanned with blond hair, though i know he has red hair it takes a conscious effect to picture him with it.

[jack of shadows]

@damandred,

a blond rand?interesting.lol.

using michael whelan's rand as a reference point,the only thing

i change is his hair,i imagine it longer.fuller and darker,the same way

kayla woodside depicted his hair.

[damandred]

@damandred,

a blond rand?interesting.lol.

using michael whelan's rand as a reference point,the only thing

i change is his hair,i imagine it longer.fuller and darker,the same way

kayla woodside depicted him.

Yeah i think its because of a old LoC? Cover were hes depicted with maybe strawberry blond hair, more blond than strawberry anyway and that image stuck.

[jack of shadows]

@damandred,

i guess you were referring to the fires of heaven cover,the light

is on rand face and his hair looks blond.

[dawnflower8]

I know someone who pictures Mat as blond and always draws him that way, even though she knows that's incorrect.

[buckeyebull64]

Since Perrin had no beard until book 4, it took until about Malden before I didnt have to force myself to remember it.

the hardest one to picture was always Fain.  It was hard to remember that he couldnt look TOO much like gollum or the people he manipulated wouldnt have let him near them

[dawnflower8]

I never pictured Fain looking like Gollum, for some reason. I didn't even make a connection between the two until someone online brought it up.

[Cosmic Champion]

Since Perrin had no beard until book 4, it took until about Malden before I didnt have to force myself to remember it.

the hardest one to picture was always Fain.  It was hard to remember that he couldnt look TOO much like gollum or the people he manipulated wouldnt have let him near them

.

Actually the ONLY pic of Perrin that I like is the beardless one of him from tEotW(by Seamus), which seems to catch his moodiness fittingly, along with his youthful look.

 

 

 

 

 

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I never pictured Fain looking like Gollum, for some reason. I didn't even make a connection between the two until someone online brought it up.

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I caught that as soon as it was mentioned that he had followed our heroes through Moria the Ways. However, since I am a HUGE Tolkien fan that should be no surprise there. The many Tolkien homages in the first few books made it difficult for me to really embrace them.

 

_____________________

 

Also, get a load of the Super Girls on this sites banner.  Nynaeve looks like a complete sexpot! Actually they all are hotties! Hubba hubba!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[randsc]

I had a mental picture of Mat as blond, and of Moirane as 

 

Usually I imagine characters the way they are actually described. But here are some problems I have with how other people imagine them:

 

Perrin: Perrin is around 18-22. He should not look 40. But he does in 90% of fanarts. This is the one I have the biggest problem with. People do this with other characters also, but it seems to be the worst with Perrin. Moiraine, Rand, and Nynaeve also seem to frequently look too old.

Mat: A lot of times I see Mat drawn with a beard. In Towers of Midnight, Mat clearly says that he hates having a beard the one time he didn't shave to disguise himself. 

Tuon: The worst problem I see in other people's drawings is when she looks Asian. Tuon is not Asian. Also, her head is decribed as being shaved. When you shave your head, it is not going to be shiny and bald and look like all your hair fell out. I imagine it too look more like a buzz. Her hair should also not be short and curly. 

 

 

Perrin is often drawn as looking too old, but that is a hazard of drawing someone with a beard.  I have to give people a pass on Moiraine because I have no idea how I would draw, "Ageless."

 

Tuon is not Asian, she is clearly described as Black.  The portion of her head that is not shaved should probably be depicted as short and curly.  When she is growing it out as a disguise her hair is described as a, "tight cap of curls."  The shaved portion would indeed be shiny and bald; we have descriptions of Seanchan characters having their heads shaved with a razor daily, and no reason to think that anything like a set of clippers that could produce a buzz-cut exists.

[Top Hat Zebra]

All the time. 

 

Every time I see a picture of Rand that makes him look like Clark Kent, my mind simply blocks it out. 

 

I never imagine Thom how I see him pictured, and I definitely didn't imagine Noal as he was pictured on the cover. Also, for some reason, I can never think of Ogier as human-ish. I always imagine them looking more animalistic, like furry men with heads somewhat like bulls.  But still distinct from Trollocs, without any of the disturbing corruptions, or too-human eyes. 

[EmperorAllspice]

Also, a more minor random example. I imagine Rand with his hair worked into a shoulder length ponytail

[Diana Petrescu]

I have a very hard time reconciling the fact that Aiel (and implicitly Rand) are basically desert-vikings in terms of appearance. You evolve in a desert like environment, you get dark skin and dark hair/eyes. You don't grow into a ginger! I don't know, maybe DNA/evolution doesn't work the same way in Jordan-verse. I try to ignore it as much as possible. 

[michellem]

Usually I imagine characters the way they are actually described. But here are some problems I have with how other people imagine them:

 

Perrin: Perrin is around 18-22. He should not look 40. But he does in 90% of fanarts. This is the one I have the biggest problem with. People do this with other characters also, but it seems to be the worst with Perrin. Moiraine, Rand, and Nynaeve also seem to frequently look too old.

Mat: A lot of times I see Mat drawn with a beard. In Towers of Midnight, Mat clearly says that he hates having a beard the one time he didn't shave to disguise himself. 

Tuon: The worst problem I see in other people's drawings is when she looks Asian. Tuon is not Asian. Also, her head is decribed as being shaved. When you shave your head, it is not going to be shiny and bald and look like all your hair fell out. I imagine it too look more like a buzz. Her hair should also not be short and curly. 

 

A freshly shaved head is indeed shiny and glossy, and Tuon is described as having hers shaved anew every morning if I don't remembe wrong. And she has short curly hair after Mat kidnaps her, because he wants her to grow it out to hide her better.

 

 

 

I picture Moiraine with strikingly blue eyes, for some reason. It always throws me off to remember she has dark brown eyes.

 

 

 

And this isn't exactly what the OP asked, but it bothers me how big the boys are drawn sometimes. I know Rand and Perrin are muscular, but the size most drawings make Perrin... He looks bigger than the Rock, wich I really doubt is what RJ ment. I imagine Matt as a quite normal-buildt guy, Rand a bit slimmer than Alexander Skarsgaard, and Perrin a bit bigger, but since he's not as tall as Rand, he kinda looks "wider" if that makes sense.

[dawnflower8]

I don't like it when people make Rand look like a weightlifter. (Example - Crown of Swords cover) I get that Perrin should be muscular - he's a blacksmith - but where would Rand get his muscles from?

 

I imagine Rand as being normal-built, Mat as skinny, and Perrin as muscular but NOT like a professional wrestler.

[gatorgirl86]

I would have to agree that perrin does not look like I imagined.  I keep looking for something that would fit him as I imagined and haven't seen it....

[mb]

I have a very hard time reconciling the fact that Aiel (and implicitly Rand) are basically desert-vikings in terms of appearance. You evolve in a desert like environment, you get dark skin and dark hair/eyes. You don't grow into a ginger! I don't know, maybe DNA/evolution doesn't work the same way in Jordan-verse. I try to ignore it as much as possible. 

A considerable amount of Aiel seemed to have visited Rhuidean before the main series.  Rhuidean was covered in fog/mist up to the time of Shadow Rising.

Rand had some wetlander blood through his mother.

[randsc]

 

I have a very hard time reconciling the fact that Aiel (and implicitly Rand) are basically desert-vikings in terms of appearance. You evolve in a desert like environment, you get dark skin and dark hair/eyes. You don't grow into a ginger! I don't know, maybe DNA/evolution doesn't work the same way in Jordan-verse. I try to ignore it as much as possible. 

A considerable amount of Aiel seemed to have visited Rhuidean before the main series.  Rhuidean was covered in fog/mist up to the time of Shadow Rising.

Rand had some wetlander blood through his mother.

 

The Aiel have also only lived in the waste for an eyeblink, in evolutionary time.  

[Elsalvador]

I always envisage Mat as totally different and in fact almost identical-of-appearance to a friend of mine called Mat - against my best suspended-disbelief judgement!

[mb]

 

 

I have a very hard time reconciling the fact that Aiel (and implicitly Rand) are basically desert-vikings in terms of appearance. You evolve in a desert like environment, you get dark skin and dark hair/eyes. You don't grow into a ginger! I don't know, maybe DNA/evolution doesn't work the same way in Jordan-verse. I try to ignore it as much as possible. 

A considerable amount of Aiel seemed to have visited Rhuidean before the main series.  Rhuidean was covered in fog/mist up to the time of Shadow Rising.

Rand had some wetlander blood through his mother.

 

The Aiel have also only lived in the waste for an eyeblink, in evolutionary time.  

 

From my understanding, genetic changes (if any) would be common after several generations.