Something rather silly about TATW....

[McCauley95]

Why are all the Silvan elves Blonde-haired, and all the High elves dark haired? It seems kind of ridiculous to me, nowhere, nowhere in any of Tolkeins books did he state that the different groups of elves could be differentiated by the singularity of their hair color. He did say the Numenoreans were generally dark haired and grey eyed, but never could I recall him describing High Elves as black haired and vaguely Oriental in appearance (as in this mod), or the Grey Elves as a bunch of Elf-Sweds (as in this mod).

*Elf-Swedes

[Jmonstra]

Not true, actually. Noldor tended to be dark haired and the Vanyar are described as being golden haired. Not sure about the Silvan's off the top of my head, but I would put money on Teleri/Avari etc having a tendency toward brown hair.

[Withwnar]

Probably because that's how they're shown in the movies: blondes everywhere. From memory the High Elves were blonde too, until the units were redone in 3.0.

[McCauley95]

Not true, actually. Noldor tended to be dark haired and the Vanyar are described as being golden haired. Not sure about the Silvan's off the top of my head, but I would put money on Teleri/Avari etc having a tendency toward brown hair.

But "High Elves" in the Third age weren't of pure Noldorin stock any longer, I believe. They mingled heavily with the Sindarin elves, or so I thought. And still there is the question of the Silvans.

Anyway, my main point is that in the Third Age, I believe the Elves of Middle-Earth probably had very muddled bloodlines, and that the differences in appearance between the Elven peoples in the First Age would not apply any longer.

[Jmonstra]

But "High Elves" in the Third age weren't of pure Noldorin stock any longer, I believe. They mingled heavily with the Sindarin elves, or so I thought. And still there is the question of the Silvans.

Not sure about that, but if they weren't Noldor then they couldn't very well be able to call themselves "High Elves."

I'm also fairly certain that they couldn't field a full army containing multiple units of Noldor spearmen/bowmen/swordsmen, but for the purposes of the game they can. The way that I understand the game's logic is that Eldarinwe units are composed of Noldor, hence their being quite hard to get and expensive to maintain in addition to taking a name that contains "Eldar."

[McCauley95]

I actually think that's exactly the reason for the name High Elves, they are Elves of high blood, but the are no longer truly Noldorin, at least by blood. I'd think there'd be only a small number of "pure" Noldorin elves in Rivendell, Lindon, etc. And so, I make my case that the basic infantry units, at least, of the HE should not all be dark haired, as they likely had much Grey elven blood, and the Silvan elves should not be fair haired in entirety, as we have no descriptions of their hair color to base that off.

Now though this seems a bit nit-picky, I'm just a lover of elves and am inclined to care more than is normal.

[Withwnar]

They are a mix of Noldor, Grey Elves and possibly others such as Green Elves. There is no official name that encompasses them so, yes, one was invented: High Elves. There was quite a discussion about it during the initial development. "Eldar" and "Noldor" were possible options but neither is strictly correct.

[Jmonstra]

I actually think that's exactly the reason for the name High Elves, they are Elves of high blood, but the are no longer truly Noldorin, at least by blood. I'd think there'd be only a small number of "pure" Noldorin elves in Rivendell, Lindon, etc. And so, I make my case that the basic infantry units, at least, of the HE should not all be dark haired, as they likely had much Grey elven blood, and the Silvan elves should not be fair haired in entirety, as we have no descriptions of their hair color to base that off.

As a recall, the High Elves is a term applied to Calaquendi, or Light Elves, those being elves of the kindreds who had travelled to Valinor and seen the light of the Two Trees. It doesn't really have anything to do with ancestry per se, since Thingol was a Sindarin elf who was counted among the Calaquendi since he had been to Valinor. However, at the time of the Third Age the only people left in Middle Earth who can claim such a title are the Noldor.

In any case, their basic infantry, as I recall, all have brown hair in addition to descriptions that specify that the units are not uniquely made up of Noldor.

[Withwnar]

the High Elves is a term applied to Calaquendi

Oops, that's right. "High Elves" wasn't an invented name. Still, no lore name fits the bill except maybe "Elves of Lindon" but that doesn't work either in vanilla TATW due to Imladris.

As for hair colour: there is too much blonde in the movies and, as a result, TATW. Louis Lux purposely made the new HE units non-blonde for lore reasons. If he went on to redo Silvans then I expect that he'd do the same thing there.

[Jmonstra]

Now though this seems a bit nit-picky, I'm just a lover of elves and am inclined to care more than is normal.

The Elves are also my favourites, so I share your enthusiasm

[Ngugi]

As for hair colour: there is too much blonde in the movies and, as a result, TATW. Louis Lux purposely made the new HE units non-blonde for lore reasons. If he went on to redo Silvans then I expect that he'd do the same thing there.

Correct, TATW's explicitly use the movies as aethetichal inspirations, and blond is made a trait of the Teleri in them, for the sake of thematic diversity to the Imladris Elves presumably (even if Teleri's royal line had silvery hair, and Thranduil had golden hair, while no others of his line are described AFAIK, including Legolas).

If the intention is to encourage a redesign put it as a suggestion here, as historically KK haven't read trough the forum but kept his eye on certain thread like this:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...estions/page80

[Mr. ZAP]

I thought it was the case that blonde hair in Elves was a trait exclusive (or nearly so) to the Vanyar and some of their interbred descendants, while most of the other elves had dark hair, with a few exceptions like Nerdanel and Maedhros having red hair and Celeborn and Miriel having silver hair, and so on. If we're trying to go for lore accuracy, the Silvans of MOS should probably have dark hair with silver and blonde for high tier units, the Lorien Elves should have dark with blonde for high tiers, and the High Elves should be more or less completely dark-haired. Blonde would be the least common hair color, by far.