[Lisheo]

I imagined Tays looking more like an arab than anything actually, whereas I see Kellanved being literally jet black, and the Andii being a sort of blue-black.
Hey, what if Traveller is Tayschrenn lol...?

[Silencer]

Actually the Kellanved-Andii should be the other way around, Lisheo.

I think.

[Zanth13]

Aptorian;278865 said:

It's strange but I actually don't atribute skin color to any of the characters. I think of them all as white, even the andii...

My imagination is a racist.

mine too, until I started reading this message board...(edit except for the Andii they have always been orca whale black to me)

now my imagination is a little more politcally correct...

~SE has a dream that one day little blue boys and little blue girls will be able to play in the warrens with little gray boys and little gray girls

[Imperial Historian]

@ Dancer Interestingly of the four characters you have picked out as white, tatersail and dujek are the only two are actually ref'd as such, tatersail with "her round, ghostly pale face" (GotM, US HC, p.206), and dujek is reffed as tanned, which doesn't definitively class him as caucasian...

Dancer's face is generally hidden, and nok is never directly reffed, unless you've got a quote saying otherwise

In fact running through the characters I couldn't definitively place a skin colour on the majority of them... the only characters I'm pretty sure are white are the liosan, letherii and andarist, and those mentioned above

I'd be interested to see how many characters we can find definitive quotes on which label them as white...

[Hume]

What about the Letheri?
They whities..?

I always figured 7 Cities ranged from Arabian to Persian to Central Asian to Even African colour. Kalam was always a Black but Quick was a little more Arab colour in my head.
Then Genebackis people I figured as whities too. The Segulah I figured to be of about central american skin colour too. With a slight tan.

But two Which flipped me, I'd forgotten or didn't read close enough that Duiker and Tay's were black.

And the Wickans? Were they blue or something..

[Dancer+]

Imperial Historian;279558 said:

@ Dancer Interestingly of the four characters you have picked out as white, tatersail and dujek are the only two are actually ref'd as such, tatersail with "her round, ghostly pale face" (GotM, US HC, p.206), and dujek is reffed as tanned, which doesn't definitively class him as caucasian...

Dancer's face is generally hidden, and nok is never directly reffed, unless you've got a quote saying otherwise

In fact running through the characters I couldn't definitively place a skin colour on the majority of them... the only characters I'm pretty sure are white are the liosan, letherii and andarist, and those mentioned above

I'd be interested to see how many characters we can find definitive quotes on which label them as white...

It is interesting, it's so difficult to definitely pinpoint someone's colour. Do we know what the climate of Genabackis is like? If Dujek is tanned then I agree that it definitely doesn't classify him as caucasian. I do have a quote however.

"His hairy chalk-white calves were visible between the sharkskin straps of the Napan sandals." (GotM mmpb p65)

I seem to remember at somepoint that Dancer is described as pale just like Tattersail - definitely one to look for in rereads. I think it was in HoC for reference but I've only read that book once or maybe twice through so don't hold me to that.

Andarist is white? I thought Andarist was totally black - hair and skin. Rake was black with Silver hair and Ruin was an albino. There was some irony that the more white the brothers became the more out of control they were - the less controlled and the more deeper drunk of Tiam. I believed Rake was middling between Ruin and Andarist so I derive Andarist was entirely black.

As for Nok I think Kud might be onto the right tact - I thought Nok was the only real Napan that stayed loyal to Laseen but I don't have a quote at the current moment to back that up.

[Imperial Historian]

Quote

Andarist is white?

By andarist I of course meant ruin, got the andii brothers confused there for a mo...

Good catch on dujek.

As for Nok being Napan.. I don't think so Ameron was reffed as half-napan in HoC p297, but Nok is raised as an example of a non-napan.

As far as I recall the people who we definitely know are pale skinned are the letherii and people from li heng/quon.

I'd always pictured quon tali as mostly SE asian, with some darker skinned variants, but actually looking at quotes its a bit of a hodge podge, whites in quon city and li heng, very dark dal honese seemingly right next door, seti and various other dark skinned tribes scattered around, ikto kan seems to be SE asian, and then the napans who are blue, all in a very small geographical area.

Seven cities look to be arab to african, Genebackis I don't have a clue what people look like, but crokus could walk round seven cities without comment, but the range of skin types in seven cities means that doesn't help to much, but I'd guess he wasn't white as that would have stood out.

[Mentalist]

well, they also all wear Telabas in 7C that hide the skin colour... plus, 7C has seen an influx of all sorts of ppl so, I don't expect thaem to be much surprised at most things...

[Hume]

Just remember SE purposely created an egalitarian world where as the whole concept of superior inferior race does not exits (apart from the Tiste Liosan).
So why whould the 7 cities comment on Crokus' skin colour?

[Optimus Prime]

Lisheo;279255 said:

I imagined Tays looking more like an arab than anything actually, whereas I see Kellanved being literally jet black, and the Andii being a sort of blue-black.
Hey, what if Traveller is Tayschrenn lol...?

I've always thought of the Andii as JET BLACK skin....like the true nature of black...while all the other "black" skinned characters were variations of the same race on our own world...some really dark...some more brown...others lighter..

I seem to remember Kalam as being described as very dark....

[Dancer+]

I agree with Xander above. Andii have Jet black skin, it shows through in the Anomander Rake picture by Komarck.

I'm interested what colour the Daru are - are there any hints throughout? Most of the cast in GotM are Daru. It's odd how there is so much genetic variation in a small geographic area, perhaps that is how the world would have been without the huge disaster which reduced our gene pool considerably.

[Kurt Montandon]

Dancer is described by Lostara Yil as having a "pale face" when he shows himself to her in HoC, in Aren.

As well, when someone is described as "tanned," that rather strongly implies being pale to start with. So characters so described are more likely to be caucasian, not less. As well, the Falari are described a few times as having pale skin, which would make sense with the red hair ...

[Raraku]

Well in GOTM Kruppe and Murillo and Crokus r caucaisian but Rallick Nom is dark skinned. Cant remember Baruk's colour or any other i ll look up some quotes

[Warqueen]

Aptorian;278857 said:

Duiker was black?

yea...I didn't get that at all...Duiker??...and they left out the green and the gold people...the point is it does not matter the color of your skin...only the intent of your heart.

[Thelomen Toblerone]

How do you all imagine the characters sounding? Do you think of the 7C arab like people as speaking with an Arab accent, the pale ginger Falris as sounding Irish or Scottish, or do they all talk in your own dialect?

[Dancer+]

I just wanted to confirm that Nok is definitely a Napan as I expected.

[Rath'Thrash]

Thelomen Toblerone;286731 said:

How do you all imagine the characters sounding? Do you think of the 7C arab like people as speaking with an Arab accent, the pale ginger Falris as sounding Irish or Scottish, or do they all talk in your own dialect?

I definitely got a feeling that 7C was supposed to be a very strongly Arab-esque continent from the descriptions of the people, clothing, geography, etc. etc.
Whenever i read dialogue between Malazans I can't help but picture them speaking in American accents:p When I read their battle tactics, favored weapons, army divisions (i.e Legions) and their uniforms I can't help but think of ancient Romans... And then there's the Genabackan cities of DarhujiSTAN, capuSTAN, G'Danisban...
I don't think SE intented to give every human race (or place) in his world attributes of various human races in the real world. Not set in stone, at any rate. However, giving the major peoples of the world certain familiar characteristics helps distinguish and set the various human races apart. I think he just threw in little things here and there to help the reader familiarize a bit. Or maybe he just did it for the hell of it. Who knows?

[dolfanuk]

wow i missed duiker and dassem being black. hmm my bad.

also tay, ok so my imagination is defo a little racist, but at least i aint only one, i think it's because most modern fantasy characters are white.

quote all the black characters you want but the majority are white and i think it's influenced our imagination a bit.

to be honest even the blue people i see white, as blue is strange and jhags are orange to me not green lol

[Kayasmus]

I think Dolfanuk touched on a good point. I'm half black and white and honestly have alot of problems picturing black characters in fantasy or scifi novels. If it's a thriller or a literary book then I don't have a problem, but I've been so overexposed to predominantley white characters featuring in books that I need an author to say out right that someone is black for me to picture them like that. Even when I read dark skinned I stop and think, wait, does he mean really tanned? I finished NoK today and I was also pleasantley surprised that Kellanved was black because it was totally unexpected.

I lived in a country where less than 1% of the population were not black and it was still difficult to picture black faces. I could be wrong, but Africans don't feature in the roots of fantasy, neither do Asians, so I can *understand* why they are all absent and I greatly appreciate us and them being included. We live in a world that is mixing colour and culture more and more often, so our literature should reflect that as well.

[Excellence]

Yeah . . . Erikson writes a lot of dark skinned characters. Only beef burger I ahve with that is that he calls them "black man" right to your face. That sounds rude to me, but who cares. Owing to his background of cultural research, he has epicanthic people too. Many of his names like Raraku are real world names, actually. The Quon Talians are slightly asian, I think.

Thing is, writers will always tell you someone is dark skinned. They don't think to tell you someone is white skinned. Ah well.