Philotic Web

Has anybody else noticed that Hair is never mentioned in the Ender books? A person's hair is a very powerful symbol in many cultures, yet it's never mentioned (aside from Ender noting that one Salamander was hairier than the rest, and Peter joking about the number of pubic hairs that he and Val have).

Do you guys think I'm crazy to think of this, and how do you think of the character's hair? Or do you not?

you sick bastard!

j/k

In SotG it mentions that one of the kids has Bean's black hair--what with the African ancestry and all. Still, as OSC doesn't give very many physical descriptions, I tend to give characteristics to the characters that, as I read later in the books, aren't right (e.g. I see a brown-haired European Bean with almost no hint of African in him).

There was also a description of Val early in EG, how her hair was a halo around her head, or something.

I don't think it's all that odd, since OSC barely gives any physical descriptions in general.

well most characters are a microcosm of their cultures so you can assume that hair color is consistant. as far as the wiggins go, i thought eg mentioned that ender had brown hair that got lighter when he was at the lake, peter had brown hair but a bit darker and i thought val was blonde

Welcome to PWeb Peter Wiggin! Have some gyoza!

The way you envision all three Wiggins is the same as me. Of course, you should know what color your own hair is...

Actually I just finished reading Giants again and thought the same thing about Bean having black hair. I'm almost postitive though, that they definitly state Old Valentine from the later Ender books has gray hair.

But I envision the Wiggins the way Peter mentioned them.

Also I know they do mention that Valentine has blonde hair, Bean has black, Petra has lightbrown hair, and other than that it's pretty much slapped in our faces that the Riberao kids have black hair.

As for Ender and Peter, I assume they do have brown hair, given their heritage mostly, light to dark brown hair. But you know what they say about people who assume.

I think Ender was supposed to be blonde or light brown, but I always gave him dark brown/black hair in my mind and salt 'n pepper gray hair when he's older in the later books.

And I totally had Bean pictured as a blonde white kid. I had Mazer as white too. I read New Zealand and automatically assumed he was of European descent. I gave him a scruffy long hair and whiskers look. Kinda like me, or the video game version of me anyways.



Another thing to consider is that after a few hundred years of interracial mingling, the current racial norms might not be normal anymore. The screwball races from Clarke's 3001 come to mind.