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Posts tagged legend of korra

drevinci:

nohorizons:

drevinci:

How are Kotarra and Sokka so tan for being born and raised in the South Pole? I mean, they’re the darkest people I’ve seen so far in the series but you’d think they  would be paler than everyone else. o_o

This actually makes me want to cry.

They are not tan. 

They are essentially the Inuit of the Avatar world.

It is not a tan it is the colour of their race. 

Lol race has no color, yes, a certain pigmentation can be inherited but that pigmentation would be altered by sunlight after prolonged exposure/non-exposure to the sun. Should they live in the South Pole, it would make logical sense for their skin tones to have adapted to a lighter hue.

Just saying…
 

And my bad if the name’s spelled wrong. wiki’d it 

Um, no.  Kotara, Sokka, Korra, and the rest of the South Pole water-benders are essentially based off of the Inuit peoples, who do have a pigmented complexion.

And your point about sun exposure makes no biological sense.  One’s skin color is determined by an array of over a dozen genes, and yes, sun exposure (or the lack therefore) may tint it towards slightly lighter or darker hues, but not to any significant extent. Some light skinned people can’t tan and some dark skinned people can’t get lighter. So on an individual basis, no, the water tribes should not be light skinned simply because they live in polar regions.  

Now back to biology.  Your point about skin lightening due to low sun levels in far northern (or far southern) regions is correct, but on a much larger scale of population and time.  Because sunlight is necessary for Vitamin D production, having a lighter skin tone in areas with little sunlight is evolutionarily favorable because one has less sun-blocking melanin. For an entire population to undergo that kind of signficant change, that requires thousands upon thousands of years of evolutionary progress, and the chances of the necessary mutations occuring in the right people and places, and at the right times, is slim to none.

You also have to take into account the fact that sunlight isn’t the only determining factor here.  The people in question could be getting their Vitamin D from some other source (biological or physical), nullifying the evolutionary favorability of a change in skin color. There could be a plethora of environmental factors, visible and invisible, that keep them relatively dark skinned.  

Looking at the various people and cultures of the world, this high sunlight=dark skinned/ low sun= light skinned duality you’re purporting functions only the broadest of senses and falls apart pretty quickly.  Pigmentation is much more complex than that.

Feel free to correct me on my bullshit.