Hair colours of Narnian characters

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Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by Ajnos » Sat Aug 05, 2017 4:21 pm

I think I may have started a thread on this years ago on the old forum. But the question came up again on the Summer Challenge so I thought I'd move over the discussion to a separate thread. I'll copy over the relevant comments from the SC thread and feel free to add comments on to that.

The discussion was around the hair colours Lewis describes in the books but feel free to add to it what you think of movie hair colours, Pauline Baynes drawings or any other pictures/depictions you may have come across.
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by Ajnos » Sat Aug 05, 2017 4:41 pm

hobbit_of_narnia wrote:Does it ever actually give any description of the Pevensie boys' hair colors? Because for some reason I thought it did at the end of LWW, but I guess not...
Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:Regarding the boys' hair: No, their hair colours are not mentioned. I would have remembered if my mental images were confirmed or denied at any point (despite the illustrations, I've always seen Peter as blonde and Edmund as black-haired; the movies' casting just made me that much happier). (What is it with Lewis taking so long to get to important details like hair colour? I went all of PC thinking Caspian was brown-haired, all of LWW (and, generally, still to this day) thinking Lucy is a brunette, and the whole series thinking Digory also had brown hair. And then, boom, turns out all three of them are blonde?!)
hobbit_of_narnia wrote:@Ariel: Digory was blonde??????????? :o I knew about Lucy and Caspian, but what on earth, I've always pictured Digory with brown hair too!
Ajnos wrote:Oh, and you won't believe it; I was looking for something else today, and found my spreadsheet with the hair colours. I'll try get it in a form I can share.
Swanwhite wrote:Digory blonde?! what no. I need a page number. I don't believe it. I know about Lucy and Caspian having golden hair, but Digory?
Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:Page 168 of my edition of LB (also known as nearly-the-end-of-chapter-twelve): "[Peter] brought [Tirian] next to a man whose golden beard flowed over his breast and whose face was full of wisdom. 'And this,' he said, 'is the Lord Digory who was with [Lady Polly] on that day."
I mean, technically, he could have had a beard of a different colour, 'cause that can happen, but I've not seen it happen myself.
hobbit_of_narnia wrote:@Ariel (about Digory's hair color): ............... :shock: You are completely right. I'd forgotten about that. What. On. Earth. Over a decade of me imagining him as brown-haired needs to be undone now. Come on, Difory. First Faramir, now you??
Ajnos wrote:Here's the list I found. I haven't checked or edited anything so there may be mistakes:

On the beard-colour thing. I know quite a few men with brown hair and red (or redder) beards. There seems to be something that makes the redness show through more in the beards. Never met a man with a golden beard and different coloured hair, though.

Digory: Golden (beard)/White, TLB Ch. 12; LWW Ch. 1
Uncle Andrew: Grey, MN Ch. 1
Lucy: Golden/Fair, LWW Ch. 17; TLB Ch. 4
Susan: Black, LWW Ch. 17 (Shown as light in some pics: eg HHB, pp. 83)
Tumnus: Curly hair, red skin, HHB Ch. 4
Shasta: Fair, HHB Ch. 14
Caspian: Golden, VDT Ch. 1
Trumpkin: Red like a fox, PC Ch. 5
Nikabrik: Black hair & beard, PC Ch. 5
Reep: very dark, almost black, VDT Ch. 1
R.Daughter: Yellow, VDT Ch. 13
Puddleglum: Greeny Grey, SC Ch. 5
Prunaprismia: Red, PC Ch. 4.
Dr. Cornelius Silvery beard, balding in pic PC Ch. 4
Rillian: Fair (my ref. For this is wrong – it says HHB! He must have been blond cause both his parents were and the blond gene is recessive)
Aravis: Dark implied (by “fair barbarians of the North”), HHB Ch. 1
Roonwit: Golden beard, chestnut flanks, TLB Ch. 2
Edmund: In HHB he is described as the “leader of the fair-haired men”, HHB Ch. 4
Swanwhite wrote:gasp.

Well I suppose I must concede.

Of course I imagined him as golden haired in that scene, but I suppose I subconsciously concluded that it was just something that happened to him when he went to Aslan's country. I might continue to hold that as a personal head canon.
Ajnos wrote:I noticed that no one is brown haired in that list (except Roonwit's chestnut flanks). Either Lewis didn't like brown haired characters or thought their hair colour didn't need describing. Although I'm also curious as to whether "fair" always means "blond" as I imagined it or if it can mean light brown (terms liske these are always relative and I imagine can change over time and from place to place). I think I'm going to move the hair colour discussions over to their own thread, but feel free to keep discussing LWW stuff in this thread or sharing any late reflections.
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by Ariel.of.Narnia » Sat Aug 05, 2017 6:32 pm

Ohh yeah, I forgot about Edmund being the leader of the fair-headed men....

Also, Tumnus' legs, at any rate, were black.

Despite the fact that I blame Lewis for taking too long to inform me of the hair colours of Lucy, Caspian, and Digory, he did provide an early description of Prunaprismia that I just haven't come to accept for some reason. I just can't see her with red hair....

So I have to ask: has anyone run into any issues in describing the characters in fanfics because of the books, movies, and/or personal images of them? I know I have. I've managed to avoid Lucy's hair colour thus far, but I did write a fic about Caspian and Liliandil. Now, when I first read PC, I saw Caspian as brown-haired, but then had no issues accepting him as blonde in VDT. And then the movies happened and he was back to brown (and a darker brown than I'd envisioned, at that!). To make matters worse, that fic was bookverse, but inspired by the movie. In the end, the fic featured a blonde Caspian, though the cover is a pic of Ben Barnes.
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by jesusgirl4ever » Mon Aug 07, 2017 11:10 am

Well, not really...even when I write in movieverse, Lu and Caspian are decidedly blond(e?). ;) Haven't written much with any of the other characters with debate surrounding them, so...
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by hobbit_of_narnia » Mon Aug 07, 2017 4:37 pm

Blonde Lucy I never had a problem with, thanks to the old LWW cartoon. (Question though...how on earth did BBC get both Pevensie girls' hair colors wrong???)

Does it ever describe Tirian's hair color? Because maybe it's just the illustrations that give me the mental image of him being golden-blonde, but I can't remember if it's mentioned in the books; and he's not on Ajjie's list. :?

Both Lewis and Tolkien don't give a whole lot of description as to the physical appearance of many characters, and when they do it tends to be slipped in unobtrusively so it's easy to miss.
The tricky thing I've noticed about Tolkien is when a character is described as "fair", he often doesn't specify if it means light-haired, light-complexioned, or beautiful/handsome ("Boromir the fair", for example, has jet-black hair). I'm trying to remember if Lewis does that much, too, because that could be part of what throws my mental images off.
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by jesusgirl4ever » Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:49 pm

After a quick glance, it doesn't appear to specify; however, it does say he has blue eyes, and those tend to go with blond hair. So, likely but not certain that his hair is blond.
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by Ariel.of.Narnia » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:26 am

Unless Tirian's hair colour is given after his introductory paragraphs, it doesn't appear as though it's described. I've always envisioned him as blonde myself, possibly in part due to his lineage from Caspian and Rilian (though they're really too far removed to actually affect Tirian's hair colour).
(@Ajjie: reference for Rilian is SC page 157.)
I'm really not sure how much the illustrations have done much to influence how I see characters. I mean, Polly (light), Digory (dark), Jill (light), and Tirian (light) are how I've imagined the characters. On the other hand, Peter (dark), Edmund (light), and Eustace (dark) are /not/ what I ever imagined, even though illustrations come plenty early enough to make their mark on my mind.
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by Ajnos » Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:02 pm

Thanks Ariel. I actually think the contadictions have left me at a point where I don't have clear idea of anyone's hair colour anymore. Except obvious ones like Caspian and Prunaprismia.

I checked the TLB ebook and can't find a hair colour for Tirian. Maybe he has ginger hair with his blue eyes ;)

I did notice the phrase "fair-haired men of Narnia" which is also used in HHB to contrast with thr Calormenes. That suggests that "fair" isn't limited to blond. Unless Lewis just wanted everyone in Narnia to be blond (except Susan?)
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by hobbit_of_narnia » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:18 pm

Redhead Tirian! Now there's a thought! :lol:
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Re: Hair colours of Narnian characters

Post by Ariel.of.Narnia » Wed Aug 09, 2017 12:17 am

Ginger Tirian. That's a strange thought, and yet I'm not wholly opposed to it either....
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