(Spoiler) Why Lyse have so bright skin ?

Most Ala Mhigan's have dark skin stone.
Her Father have dark skin tone same as raubahn.
So why is she so white ?
Her skin color is more alligned with someone who was born in snowy areas then in desert like zones.
Futhermore her skin is very soft then any other npc in the game.
It looks strange.
She is brigther then Estinien, and this guy was born and raised in ishgard.
Another thing i do not get why Gaius is suppose to be dark skined.
Wasn't the empire suppose to north originated and if so you should be white/bright skin and freaking dark skinned.
It makes no sense.
Thanks for input,
Cheers,

how does the empire being in the north relate to a bright skin color?
In case of Lyse we don't know her mother afaik and don't know the genetic rules of the hyur race. bright skin, blonde hair could be a dominating factor

There are pale Ala Mhigans, like Fordola for instance.

There's also nothing indicating Curtis was genetically dark skinned; he might have a severe tan. And at the very least, we know nothing about Lyse's mother, who might have been similarly pale; even if Curtis was dark-skinned genetically, it's still fully possible to pass on pale-skinned and blonde genes since they're recessive.

As for Gaius, it's rather reductive to say that just because Garlemald is in the north, all Garleans must be pale. We know that the Garleans were driven north, not that they're native to present day Garlemald; it's possible that there are plenty of dark skinned Garleans from when they still lived in the south of Ilsabard.

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Originally Posted by RenewalXVII

There are pale Ala Mhigans, like Fordola for instance.

There's also nothing indicating Curtis was genetically dark skinned; he might have a severe tan. And at the very least, we know nothing about Lyse's mother, who might have been similarly pale; even if Curtis was dark-skinned genetically, it's still fully possible to pass on pale-skinned and blonde genes since they're recessive.

As for Gaius, it's rather reductive to say that just because Garlemald is in the north, all Garleans must be pale. We know that the Garleans were driven north, not that they're native to present day Garlemald; it's possible that there are plenty of dark skinned Garleans from when they still lived in the south of Ilsabard.

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That what i understood from the story that they were drived in the past to the north and they sit there for a long time until they discovered magitek technology. After long time in snowy, frozen climat you should be bright skin and blond hair like Zenos. Fordola skin isn't white, she is tan. When playing through heavensward i haven't found any dark skined ishgardian so i kinda hard for me to imagine that ala amigo is so hot and lyse have very white skin.

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Originally Posted by Starkbeaumont

how does the empire being in the north relate to a bright skin color?
In case of Lyse we don't know her mother afaik and don't know the genetic rules of the hyur race. bright skin, blonde hair could be a dominating factor

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The same as most of ul'dah have darker skinned then in other regions.

https://media.giphy.com/media/RLHP0SjHQQjIc/giphy.gif

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Originally Posted by Kenarashi

That what i understood from the story that they were drived in the past to the north and they sit there for a long time until they discovered magitek technology. After long time in snowy, frozen climat you should be bright skin and blond hair like Zenos. Fordola skin isn't white, she is tan. When playing through heavensward i haven't found any dark skined ishgardian so i kinda hard for me to imagine that ala amigo is so hot and lyse have very white skin.

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The Garleans came north only a few centuries ago. That's nowhere near enough time to develop significant genetic differences like that from climate alone, especially in a modernized civilization where there's much less selection pressure.

It's quite possible Lyse wasn't originally planned to be Ala Mhigan, and her character design was already locked in at the point they decided to change that.

She's also spent a long time away from the country - first in Sharlayan, then mostly in Gridania.

Also, Minfilia is Ala Mhigan as well, and she's not quite as pale as Lyse but she's not dark either.

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Originally Posted by Kenarashi

When playing through heavensward i haven't found any dark skined ishgardian so i kinda hard for me to imagine that ala amigo is so hot and lyse have very white skin.

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Look again. From the MSQ we meet Grinnaux and Charibert, and it also seems to be a family trait of House Durendaire, most prominently Jannequinard from the AST quests. (Also their ancestor in our Echo-vision of Haldrath's knights, so it's not something recent.)

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Originally Posted by Iscah

It's quite possible Lyse wasn't originally planned to be Ala Mhigan, and her character design was already locked in at the point they decided to change that.

Also, Minfilia is Ala Mhigan as well, and she's not quite as pale as Lyse but she's not dark either.

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The ala mhigan thing was planned but they hadn't created highlander female yet in v1, so they used the midlander model for yda and minfilia.

How do you know how soft her skin is? xD

I mean I'm sure it's lovely, and I'm sure the same could be said about most Midlander females, but I can't recall any other NPC alluding to it.

As for her complexion, I can't even pretend to know how genes work. On this planet, she would definitely be from or have strong Nordic roots for her skin to be that light, and her hair and eyes to be the shade they are naturally. The likelihood that she would have at least one dark complected parent would be really small. We really don't know if Eorzea abides by the same rules to my knowledge, but between Ala Mhigo and Thanalan, she would either be really tan, or lobster red.

Now if you are talking simply why was she designed that way, that would be a question for the character designer back in ARR and HW (not sure if the same person is still on board) Character designers often have a goal in mind when they transfer their character conceptions to paper. With Lyse, they wanted to make everyone think DNC was coming in SB.

I'm kidding! I'm kidding!

There are light skinned highlanders, simple as that really. As for gaius, garleans used to be divided into various tribes until they united under a republic, simply put we don't know enough about them to have a clear cut input on genetic traits. Another example is how most garleans we have seen are quite large in build yet on the prima vista we see several midlander sized garleans as well as the female npc in gaius group (forgot her name).

White people, some anyway, have this amazing thing that happens to them when they spend a long enough time in the sun... they tan. The longer you spend tanning, and the more you tan, the longer your skin will stay that way, until it finally goes past a certain point where it's considered, "sun damaged." When you spend enough of your life this way, as you age your skin stays tan and even darkens. Raubahn and Ilberd and other Ala Mhigans like them are older, close to their 50s, and have lived in the desert for most of their lives taking in that hot sun for days on end. Also some Ala Mhigans are just black or some sort of ethnicity/skin color that doesn't really come into play in the way it does in our world.

Lyse is young. She is in her mid 20s. She left the deserts of Ala Mhigo sometime after the Garlean occupation, as a young child, age 5. Grew up in Sharlayan. Then stayed in Eorzea in the Black Shroud, a forest that in some places blots out the sun with its canopy. She wears clothes that cover most of her body, particularly her face. She likely has rarely had a sunburn, let alone received lifelong high intensity sun exposure. Other Ala Mhigans like her include: Minfilia, Fordola, Widargelt, Erik the Alchemist from MNK quests, and a few others. SE plays pretty fast and loose with skin color, so I wouldn't put too much importance on it making sense. We as players get to make way less sense in character creation, making super porcelain seeker of the sun miqotes for instance.

As for Gaius, his darker hues likely arise from him spending a significant amount of time traversing The Burn, as well as being a dirty hobo for so long. Though there's also the idea that he's living on borrowed time at the power of that Elezen sorcerer who works along side him. This may have affected his pigmentation. Course this grouping goes to show that they don't put much thought into tans or skin color, since the lancer girl with him is paler than Lyse, despite traveling in the same circles. /shrug

By the Twelve, you can't just ask people why they're white.