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Old 05-07-2003, 08:24 PM   #17
Legolas
A Northern Soul
 
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Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Valinor
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Legolas has just left Hobbiton.
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If you're going to talk about genetic trends you'd have to know his mothers hair colour too. Sorry I'm a bit too science oriented, I think.
Not what I said.

I said if you're going to bank on him following a genetic trend, the only possibility we're given is blonde, his father's hair colour. His father had blonde hair, so it's a *possible* genetic trend. If the elven genome in Tolkien's Middle-earth is the same as ours, blonde hair is recessive and we limit the possibilities of his mothers hair to blonde or brown, Legolas could have either 100% chance (mother's hair being blonde), 50% chance (mother's hair being brown but carrying the recessive blonde trait), or 0% chance (mother's hair is brown without carrying the recessive blonde trait). Then again, Legolas' mother could have had silver hair or, though much less likely, red hair. This is all rather complicated and is based on many assumptions - that's why I kept my initial response concise. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

The main point was that simply living in a community of brown haired people (though it doesn't say anywhere that all of them had brown hair) does not make you and your family have brown hair, and that the only genetic possibility we had to base Legolas' hair colour on was Thranduil's blonde hair.

[ May 07, 2003: Message edited by: Legolas ]
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