History Main / ImplausibleHairColor

* In ''[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Game of Thrones]]'', the three children of King Robert Baratheon all have blond hair, even though Robert is dark-haired and every other child ever born to a Baratheon and Lannister (all of the Lannisters are blond, including Robert's wife Cersei) has had dark hair. [[spoiler:The children are later revealed to actually be the offspring of the queen's brother Jaime. Cersei hated her husband and hardly ever slept with him, but had carried on a sexual relationship with her twin from childhood.]]

* Red or blond hair is more common than many Westerners think among South and Central Asian peoples, like the Kalash, Nuristanis, Tajiks, [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/29126736@N08/2842452790 Uyghurs]], [[http://pastmist.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/blond-mongol-girl.jpg and Mongols]] (UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan himself was said to have been a SignificantGreenEyedRedhead). Light-coloured hair also naturally occurs in Middle Eastern and North African populations, like the Kurds and Berbers. It's worth noting that similar to the South Pacific case, non-European Eurasian blondness is more common among the young.

[[caption-width-right:299:Leaked cast photo from ''Anime/TurnAGundam'''s Netflix adaptation.]]

This is especially commonplace in animation, graphical works, print, and text and less common in live action. In real life, it usually requires finding a rare and expensive animal, or due to how film works, ''multiple'' rare and/or expensive animals. In animation, comics, picture books, video games, and literature this might be due to ArtisticLicenseBiology, with the artist not realizing just how rare or improbable the animal coloration is. In other words, this trope is easier to use in animation, graphical works, print, and text, whether

** Near's hair is snow-white. There's no particular reason to believe he's Japanese, but it's not substantially more plausible for a Westerner. Fan theory states that he's albino, which could theoretically make him Japanese, but this raises the question of why his eyes aren't red (although Real Life albinos eyes aren't always "red").

* Lincoln Loud of ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' has white hair, while his sisters have either brown or blonde hair (except Lucy, who has black hair, though given her {{goth}} personality, it's probably dyed and one episode implied she's naturally blonde). Lincoln's case is a bit of FridgeBrilliance when you consider the stress he goes through. Several episodes note that not even Lincoln knows where he inherited his white hair from.

* ''Franchise/DeadOrAlive'': Kasumi is a natural redhead, and Ayane has [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair purple hair]].

* ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'', the redheaded ronin from 19th century Japan. Though redheads ''are'' known to exist naturally in Japan, they're still incredibly rare. This is lampshaded in the first episode where one of the characters identifies Kenshin as the Battosai because of his red hair and the scar on his cheek.

Some types of implausible colorations, such as green eyes, red hair, and ivory skintones in humans, and truly white fur with pale or pink skin in horses, are far more common in fiction than in real life. Some overlap with AnimalGenderBender, like male calico cats, and some overlap with TypicalCartoonAnimalColors, like brown gorillas.

Some characters have hair colors that are possible, but very uncommon for the setting. The show is otherwise realistic, but the writers don't want all the characters to have the same hair colors.

This trope shows up mostly in East Asian works, where hair colors other than black or dark brown are rarest, but is by no means limited to that part of the world. A [[DarkSkinnedBlond black character with blonde hair]] would be a good example.

When hair colors become humanly impossible, we have YouGottaHaveBlueHair.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': On the world of Remnant, people honour the memory of a terrible global war that sought to suppress individuality and artistic expression by naming children after colour associations and letting people express their personalities through clothing styles, hair dyes, and other forms of artistic expression. As a result, a number of characters have hair colours that may or may not be natural, but which are nevertheless unusual, sometimes in hue, sometimes due to ambiguous ethnicity, where any unnatural tints are entirely down to hair dye used on natural hair colour. Note that characters with impossible hair colours are found under the YouGottaHaveBlueHair trope.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': On the world of Remnant, people honour the memory of a terrible global war that sought to suppress individuality and artistic expression by naming children after colour associations and letting people express their personalities through clothing styles, hair dyes, and other forms of artistic expression. As a result, a number of characters have hair colours that may or may not be natural, but which are nevertheless unusual, sometimes in hue, sometimes due to ambiguous ethnicity. Note that characters with impossible hair colours are found under the YouGottaHaveBlueHair trope.

* WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}: On the world of Remnant, people honour the memory of a terrible global war that sought to suppress individuality and artistic expression by naming children after colour associations and letting people express their personalities through clothing styles, hair dyes, and other forms of artistic expression. As a result, a number of characters have hair colours that may or may not be natural, but which are nevertheless unusual, sometimes in hue, sometimes due to ambiguous ethnicity. Note that characters with impossible hair colours are found under the YouGottaHaveBlueHair trope.

** Cardin Winchester from Team CRDL has hair that is the orange side of chestnut.
** Roman Torchwick has orange hair similar in shade to a pumpkin.
** Penny Polendina and Nora Valkyrie both have red hair that looks more orange than red. In both cases, the hair is indicated to be natural, given Penny's [[RobotGirl true nature]] and the fact that Nora has a flashback to a time when she was an abandoned street urchin.

** Blonde Hair Colour: Arslan has dark skin but very pale blonde hair.
** White hair colour (not age-related): Weiss is a teenager who was born with snow-white hair. It's inherited from her mother's side of the family, as her mother, sister and brother all have snow-white hair as well.
** Grey hair colour (not age-related):
*** Mercury Black is connected to silver, metallic and grey colour themes. His hair and eyes are a matching metallic grey in colour.
*** Sky Lark from Team CRDL has a metallic theme to his appearance, his hair is a steel grey in colour, with a bluish tint to it.
*** Gwen Darcy from Team NDGO has charcoal grey hair that's so dark it looks very nearly black in certain lighting.

[[folder: Webcomics]]

** Lian, the daughter of the Asian supervillain Cheshire and the white superhero Red Arrow, was originally introduced in the comics as a white-looking ginger like her father. She was later changed into looking more like her mother. In ''Young Justice'', Lian keeps her revised design however she has her original red hair. As her mother is biracial in ''Young Justice'', it's not exactly impossible for Lian to turn out a redhead,

* Tamaki, Renge, and Honey from ''Manga/OuranHighSchoolHostClub'' all have blond hair, and the Hitachiin twins are both redheads. Tamaki and Renge are half-French, which is used as kind of a justification seeing as Tamaki inherited his blonde hair from his mother. Except that blonde hair is a recessive trait and France has very little natural blondes anyway.

* Tamaki, Renge, and Honey from ''Manga/OuranHighSchoolHostClub'' all have blond hair, and the Hitachiin twins are both redheads. Tamaki and Renge are half-French. They, at least, have a reasonable explanation.

[[folder: Film -- Live Action]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

* Red or blond hair is more common than many Westerners think among South and Central Asian peoples, like the Kalash, Nuristanis, Tajiks, Uyghurs, [[http://pastmist.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/blond-mongol-girl.jpg and Mongols]] (UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan himself was said to have been a SignificantGreenEyedRedhead). Light-coloured hair also naturally occurs in Middle Eastern and North African populations, like the Kurds and Berbers. It's worth noting that similar to the South Pacific case, non-European Eurasian blondness is more common among the young.

** Usagi herself counts for this, since her Earth parents have black hair and blue hair, yet she and her brother are blonds.

* Everyone in ''Manga/{{Life}}'' has black hair except for Hatori and Manami, who are blondes. This is never explained but considering that Hatori is a [[JapaneseDelinquents delinquent]] and Manami is a fashionable popular girl they both probably bleached their hair. The LiveActionAdaptation [[AdaptationDyeJob darkens their hair]].

* Characters in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' had mostly normal hair colors for Japanese characters, with the ones who [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair didn't]] having dark hair in colors similar to black. Lorelei and Misty stand out with their red hair. Future ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games give characters whatever hair colors they please.

* Hinata from ''Manga/{{Haikyuu}}'' has bright red hair and stands out amongst the predominantly brunette and raven haired cast. Unlike other characters in the series his hair seems natural, as his little sister has the same tone.

* Characters ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' had mostly normal hair colors for Japanese characters, with the ones who [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair didn't]] having dark hair in colors similar to black. Lorelei and Misty stand out with their red hair. Future ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games give characters whatever hair colors they please.

* Current Asian culture and beauty norms are heavily influenced by the West, so it's not uncommon for Asian girls to dye their hair. This is especially true of certain alternative subcultures like the Japanese Ganguro trend. There are also a small number of East Asians (especially Koreans) with natural light brown, dark blond, or reddish hair.
* Red or blond hair is more common than many Westerners think among South and Central Asian peoples, like the Kalash, Nuristanis, Tajiks, Uyghurs, [[http://pastmist.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/blond-mongol-girl.jpg and Mongols]] (UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan himself was said to have red hair and green eyes). Light-colored hair also naturally occurs in Middle Eastern and North African populations, like the Kurds and Berbers. It's worth noting that similar to the South Pacific case, non-European Eurasian blondness is more common among the young.

* Violet Parr from ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' has long raven black hair while both her father and younger brother have blonde hair and her mother has auburn hair. Because dark genes are dominant she should have had brown hair at the darkest. However, considering her gloomy personality, it is possible that she wanted to dye it black. The Parrs/Incredibles have hereditary superpowers. It's also possible that genetics aren't quite the same for them, and Violet's hair is natural.

* In ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'', Queen Elsa has platinum blonde hair, but her sister Princess Anna and her father Agdar have strawberry blonde hair and her mother Idunn is a brunette. Justified since Elsa's hair color is presumably the [[LockedIntoStrangeness result]] of her [[AnIcePerson having ice powers]].

* Qiu Tong from ''Webcomic/TheirStory'' stands out as the only blond amongst a cast of brown and black haired characters. According to flashbacks it it is likely natural, unless she began bleaching it at a young age.

* Lincoln Loud of ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' has white hair, while his sisters have either brown or blonde hair (except Lucy, who has black hair, though given her {{goth}} personality, it's probably dyed). Lincoln's case is a bit of FridgeBrilliance when you consider the stress he goes through.

* Rin from ''Manga/BunnyDrop'' is the only character with blonde hair. Not even her parents have blonde hair. [[spoiler:Considering the reveal late in the series that Rin is not biologically Daikichi's grandfathers daughter, it could be considered {{foreshadowing}}. She might be [[PhenotypeStereotype biracial]].]]

* Inverted in ''Fanfic/{{Transcendence}}''. Ichigo's naturally orange hair stands out on Earth, but it fits in easily enough on a world like Azeroth. In fact, given that he's a sixteen year old boy with powers rivaling that of the world's demigods, his hair is often seen as one the few normal things about him.