People of Hair Color: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
A [[Heroic Fantasy]] trope. Also found in [[Hollywood History]].
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As in many historical eras, many fantasy writers divide their humans up into finer ethnic categories than are common nowadays. One of the commonest is [[Monochrome Casting|races that would all be called white]] nowadays but, in the work, are categorized by their hair color, of which blond and dark are the most common. These hair colors are often depicted as remarkably uniform throughout the different populations.
There is a certain amount of [[Truth in Television]] here. Before widespread genetic diversity, with people [[If You Know What I Mean|meeting]] and mixing between different countries or continents, the traits of a single tribe or village or other group of people were often common across the entire population. One group of people, who haven't been mixing with outsiders, will generally share the same general appearance. It's part of why, for instance, there are two main stereotypical depictions of Irish people, the 'black' Irish, like [[Colin Farrell]], and the 'red' Irish, like [[Colm Meaney]] (Miles O'Brien from ''[[Star Trek]]''), or how people from countries such as China, Japan, and Korea have black hair and dark eyes.
And
In all too many works, however, the races are absolutely uniform, living in an ethnic [[Patchwork Map]]. Even at the borders, [[Halfbreed
The prevalence of [[Medieval European Fantasy]] makes the subdivisions of whites plausible, but other ethnic subdivisions are known, and, sometimes, a blond race will contrast with a dark-haired race that is clearly not white. Often, the mere presence of whites and blacks in the same area will not preclude their regarding themselves as more finely divided than that—which is also [[Truth in Television]].
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', the Ishbalans have grey hair and red eyes, as well as dark skin. Other races in the series tend also to have a common hair and/or eye colour, but not quite to the same extent as the Ishbalans.
** Xingese are all shown to have black hair and black/grey eyes, while those with Xerxes blood have blonde hair and gold eyes.▼
* Played with in ''[[Kemono no Souja Erin]]''. There is a tribe called the Mist People, with green eyes and green hair. Unfortunately, they are associated with black magic. Interestingly, their unusual hair color is actually never brought up and it is their eyes that function as a stigma. Also Je, the First Shin Oh of Ryoza, and her people were known for their golden eyes and blond hair.▼
* In ''[[Naruto]]'' members of the Uzumaki clan are said to have red hair. Main character is only known Uzumaki with blond hair and blue eyes.▼
== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[J. R. R.
** In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', the Riders of Rohan from the North tend to be blond, while the people of Gondor were chiefly dark-haired. Given the hierarchy he describes, this peculiarly puts blondness at the top and the bottom, among the good peoples at least (the blond Vanyarin Elves are almost sickeningly angelic, while the Rohirrim are supposedly lesser) and dark-haired peoples in the middle (the Noldor are troubled and rebellious, but still Elves and therefore more awesome than any human, while the Numenorians of Gondor and Arnor are "superior"—whatever that means—to the Rohirrim).
*** In this case, "superior" means "being friends with the [[Our Elves Are Different|Elves]]". Benefits included long lifespan and some ability to do things we'd call magic.
** Tolkien went further. The "swarthy" Eastern and Southron races were generally enemies of the "fair" races.
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* In [[Andre Norton]]'s ''[[Witch World]]'', the Old Race of Estcarp (and formerly also of Karsten) are uniformly black-haired and pale skinned; their allies, the sea-going Sulcar, are blond. The people of High Hallack across the sea, whose ancestors came through a [[Cool Gate]], are pale-skinned but usually have brown or blond hair, occasionally with a reddish tint.
* In Joy Chant's ''Red Moon Black Mountain'', the races are divided by appearance, including an [[Planet of Hats|entire race]] of [[Dumb Blonde]]s.
* [[Ursula K. Le Guin
* Jennifer Robertson's ''Sword Dancer'' books have the sun-baked, semi-nomadic Southron race who live in the desert and the blond, fair-skinned Northerners who live in the mountains. Later, she expanded it to include a sort of dark-Caucasian islander race.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' universe, the barbarians of the north are divided into the Aesir, who are blond, the Vanir, who have red hair, and the Cimmerians, who have dark hair. Howard had a whole essay on the various human races of Hyboria and how they got to be where they are in the story in question, "[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Hyborian_Age The Hyborian Age]". The racial descriptions given there are characterized by the very best racial science of his day.
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* In [[The Death Gate Cycle]] the difference between the Sartan and the Patryn is that one kind has bicolor hair with black on the top and white at the bottom while the other has bicolor hair with white on the top and black at the bottom. Babies and elder have solid-colored hair, with one race being born with white hair that gradually turns black and the other with black hair that gradually turns white.
== [[
* In ''[[
** In ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S6/E01 The Dominators|The Dominators]]'', the dark-haired Dominators and the [[Hair of Gold]] Dulcians.▼
▲** Xingese are all shown to have black hair and black/grey eyes, while those with Xerxes blood have blonde hair and gold eyes.
▲* Played with in ''[[Kemono no Souja Erin]]''. There is a tribe called the Mist People, with green eyes and green hair. Unfortunately, they are associated with black magic. Interestingly, their unusual hair color is actually never brought up and it is their eyes that function as a stigma. Also Je, the First Shin Oh of Ryoza, and her people were known for their golden eyes and blond hair.
== [[Music]] ==▼
▲* In [[Naruto]] members of the Uzumaki clan are said to have red hair. Main character is only known Uzumaki with blond hair and blue eyes.
* A [[Vocaloid]] song series titled ''The Story of Evil'' makes several mentions of the Green Country, the people's defining aspect being thick green hair. Became a point of [[Fantastic Racism]] in "Daughter of White": the singer is a social outcast due to having white hair instead of green, and {{spoiler|survives the Green Country's massacre because the Princess of Evil ordered that everyone with green hair be executed}}.▼
== [[Mythology]] ==
* Long-after-the-fact depictions of the Saxons and the Normans after the conquest make the Saxons blond and the Normans dark-haired. [[Robin Hood]] is typically blond, when Maid Marian is a Norman, as in ''[[The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)|The Adventures of Robin Hood]]'', she is dark-haired.
▲** In ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S6/E01 The Dominators|The Dominators]]'', the dark-haired Dominators and the [[Hair of Gold]] Dulcians.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* [[
** The ''Kingdoms of Kalamar'' setting had several distinct ethnicities, ''not'' all of which looked European.
* The [[Mystara]] setting's ''Dawn of the Empires'' boxed set explored this trope a good deal, with humans from different regions of imperial Thyatis and Alphatia having distinctive ethnic phenotypes, as well as cultural quirks. Those ancient Alphatians who immigrated from another world included both pale-skinned and copper-skinned ethnic stock, with intolerant subgoups within each of these choosing to remain "pure" and not marry the other; the majority of Alphatians, however, consider ethnic bigotry secondary to anti-Muggle [[Fantastic Racism]].
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Wake the Sleepers]]'', [http://wakethesleepers.com/comics/57 fair hair marks out a distinctive race.]
* In ''[[The Meek]]'', the Carissi people uniformly have blond hair, the Pasori have dark hair, and the Santri have a wider range but tend towards brownish-red.
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* The [http://nine.frenchboys.net/ Serendipity] [https://web.archive.org/web/20120208202256/http://nine.frenchboys.net/eth.php ethnicity generator] works on a similar principle, where the generated ethnicity has one hair color (or a narrow range) and one (or at most two) eye colors, in addition to skin tone and quirks of physique. A milder version of this trope.
▲== Music ==
▲* A [[Vocaloid]] song series titled ''The Story of Evil'' makes several mentions of the Green Country, the people's defining aspect being thick green hair. Became a point of [[Fantastic Racism]] in "Daughter of White": the singer is a social outcast due to having white hair instead of green, and {{spoiler|survives the Green Country's massacre because the Princess of Evil ordered that everyone with green hair be executed}}.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Hair Colors]]▼
[[Category:Just for Pun]]
▲[[Category:Hair Colors]]
[[Category:Race Tropes]]
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