Quote:
Originally Posted by Aganzir
However there seem to be a lot of grey eyes - a lot more than I'm used to seeing in my daily life. Is it a (partly) British thing, or is Middle-earth special?
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I don't think it's a UK thing in particular, though lighter coloured eyes are more common in the North, possibly due to heritage, though grey eyes might be mistaken for blue quite often. And heritage can be misleading too, as the genetics of eye colour are quite complicated - my parents are both blue-eyed, each with a blue eyed and a brown eyed parent, and managed to produce one blue eyed and two green eyed children. I've also produced a green eyed child. Hair colour is much easier to trace genetically!
In general, paler eyes are more of a 'northern' thing though, as there's less melanin in the forward parts of the eye. Either Tolkien was trying to make his favoured Elves (and Rangers) seem 'northern' or he simply had a preference for that eye colour!