I have no evidence, but I would totally guess that Elli learned to bang her head against walls from Miles. As a character point, it's too Milesian not to have happened that way.
Barrayar's ethnic make-up is pretty solidly European, so the general whiteness of the (long-isolated) population has a reason. The rest of the galaxy doesn't have that excuse. I'd expect Jackson's Whole, Beta, Hegan Hub, and so on, to have a mix of human colors although very few are mentioned until late in the series.
Good point about Cetagandan (Ghem, at least) being assumed white or white-ish for a large part of the series. I could see this as both Barrayar and the Gham including some brownish, olive, etc., colors (think, Southern-European and Middle-Eastern), but the big-deal ethnic marker on Barrayar is language instead, so nothing else is seen by the characters. Well, maybe.
I would frankly expect a range of exquisitely beautiful skin tones in the Haut constellations, but again, very little is mentioned explicitly.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2016-09-18 05:24 pm (UTC)Barrayar's ethnic make-up is pretty solidly European, so the general whiteness of the (long-isolated) population has a reason. The rest of the galaxy doesn't have that excuse. I'd expect Jackson's Whole, Beta, Hegan Hub, and so on, to have a mix of human colors although very few are mentioned until late in the series.
Good point about Cetagandan (Ghem, at least) being assumed white or white-ish for a large part of the series. I could see this as both Barrayar and the Gham including some brownish, olive, etc., colors (think, Southern-European and Middle-Eastern), but the big-deal ethnic marker on Barrayar is language instead, so nothing else is seen by the characters. Well, maybe.
I would frankly expect a range of exquisitely beautiful skin tones in the Haut constellations, but again, very little is mentioned explicitly.