Characters You Picture Wrong

[Draginon he/him]

Have you ever had characters where, despite the descriptions, you just imagine wrong?

Heres some from Mistborn: I keep picturing Kelsier as looking similar to Bryon from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. I also picture both Ham and Dockson as being black even though there's nothing really suggesting it. For some reason I see Breeze as being fat instead of chubby.

[CaptainRyan he/him]

I think I routinely get these things wrong. I am a quick reader and I think part of that comes from not stopping to really envision most descriptions - I just file away the info without really imagining it. So, when I see fan art that matches the actual character I usually pretty surprised. 

Once I get to my third or fourth reread I like to stop and imagine things. Or, even better, when I save up enough cash to afford the Graphic Audio versions of the books I do a better job of imagining things while the book is being read.

[Draginon he/him]

46 minutes ago, CaptainRyan said:

I think I routinely get these things wrong. I am a quick reader and I think part of that comes from not stopping to really envision most descriptions - I just file away the info without really imagining it. So, when I see fan art that matches the actual character I usually pretty surprised. 

Once I get to my third or fourth reread I like to stop and imagine things. Or, even better, when I save up enough cash to afford the Graphic Audio versions of the books I do a better job of imagining things while the book is being read.

I know what you mean. When I saw fan art for the WOT Two Rivers crew I was taken aback by how tanned they were but it made sense since they were from a farming community. Sometimes the movie version overwrites the book version for me as well, like Miss Coulter from His Dark Materials who I just can't imagine as having black hair at all and even Pullman himself says he prefers her as a blonde.

[The Invested Beard]

I always picture Taln as Mitsurugi from the Soul Caliber games. I have to conciously readjust every time I think of him. I think maybe if I just associated that image with Zahel I'd be better off?

[Nashan’Elin he/him]

For some reason, I never pictured Kelsier as blond. I have no clue why, though. 

[Rebecca she/her]

The fanart of Sazed does not look like what I imagined him as. I guess I just thought he had little lighter skin? And Seuseborn. The fanart of him always confuses me too.

[Khyrindor he/him]

Kelsier is George Clooney to me, only. I blame Ocean's Eleven. It kinda works though, if you let Kelsier be 20 years old with grey/black hair instead of blond. There isn't really much to say he can't be that old, is there?

[Yezrien]

I've always pictured Dalinar much bigger than he's probably supposed to be. Fanart usually depicts him as an average-sized man, but in my mind he's huge and burly. I think it's because the very first description of Dalinar, from the WoK prologue, described him as "powerfully built" or something like that. That was the only visual cue I had to go on, so imagined him being huge. Like World of Warcraft's version of the average human male.

[+Extesian he/him]

Gawx! I failed to realize he was dark skinned.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

2 hours ago, Extesian said:

Gawx! I failed to realize he was dark skinned.

totally didn't imagine his mouth hanging open as he looked at everything

 

[Lightflame he/him]

To me, Elend is blond and Kelsier has brown hair, not the other way around.

[Modal Seoul he/him]

I cannot imagine Kelsier with blond hair, neither can I imagine Breeze as chubby. I've always imagined him as a Tom Hiddleston kind of guy.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

I am most likely imagining Axies as more smurfy (smurfy=blue) than he really is. 

[Shadowmancer he/him]

I forgot that David was black for, like, the entire Reckoners series. I'm kind of ashamed, actually.

[Mestiv he/him]

4 hours ago, Shadowmancer said:

I forgot that David was black for, like, the entire Reckoners series. I'm kind of ashamed, actually.

He was? 

[Shadowmancer he/him]

7 hours ago, Mestiv said:

He was? 

According to the picture on Coppermind. I'll have to dig for the quote, but I think it's mentioned in the books.

[Sunbird she/her]

Re: David and Reckoners, I find that odd. The Steelhunt collectible cards show David as white. I also recall in either Firefight or Calamity David commenting on the weird looks received by a few of the Reckoners traveling together as a mixed-race group including Mizzy. Not that it really matters, I just don't think there's concrete evidence in the books that he's black.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

I always imagined David as Logan Lerman.

[Steeldancer he/him]

Loving the little Oathbringer policy literally hanging over the threads. And our heads.

[Ammanas]

25 minutes ago, Steeldancer said:

Loving the little Oathbringer policy literally hanging over the threads. And our heads.

Sounds like the start to a great book, "Chaos hovered over our heads like the fist of a angry God"

[Dunkum he/him]

I do this constantly, even in places where I know I am wrong, I still do it: despite knowing that pretty much all the main characters in The Wizard of Earthsea have complexions similar to Native Americans, I always picture them as white in my head. 

[SilverTiger she/her]

I always picture Kelsier with grey eyes. Steel grey.

Jasnah is another. I picture all of the other SA characters as pacific islander types, but Jasnah always has white skin in my head. It's so weird, especially she's the only one. The others are all more or less accurate in my head.

[CarolaDavar she/her]

On 9/20/2017 at 10:50 PM, Ookla the Indivergable said:

Gawx! I failed to realize he was dark skinned.

Oh storms, Gawx has dark skin?

On 11/5/2017 at 9:17 PM, Shadowmancer said:

I forgot that David was black for, like, the entire Reckoners series. I'm kind of ashamed, actually.

Oh, I guess I didn't realize that either

Also, it mentions the Shallan often wears her hair in a bunch of braids. But I can only ever imagine her with free flowing hair.

Also no matter how many times Kaladin has a beard, I can never picture that either. I generally just forget

[Mestiv he/him]

23 hours ago, Ookla the Lightweaver said:

Also no matter how many times Kaladin has a beard, I can never picture that either. I generally just forget

I'd blame all the fanart and that he used to get a shave from Rock regularly.

[CarolaDavar she/her]

16 minutes ago, Ookla the Codebringer said:

I'd blame all the fanart and that he used to get a shave from Rock regularly.

Not to mention the front cover of WoR