[OB] Eye Color of Children of Darkeyed Knight Radiant

[Dreamstorm]

So, in Wit's epilogue in WoK, he notes there is a good reason for the ligheyed/darkeyed dichotomy.  This suggests to me that this is because the Knight Radiants were the ancestors of lighteyes, and as Knights Radiant were the upper class in Alethela, their decedents remained the upper class post-Recreance.  (I can't find a specific WoB to support this, so if this premise is wrong, let me know.)  It appears that eye color usually breeds true - two darkeyes have darkeyed children, two lighteyes have lighteyed children, a darkeye and a lighteye have heterochromatic children.  (The latter doesn't appear to occur 100% of the time (see the end of this WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/148-torcom-the-way-of-kings-re-read-interview/#e2782 - except below), but seems to be the most common outcome.)

We also know that not all Knights Radiant were lighteyed and a Knight Radiant only maintains his/her light eye color when holding a Sprenblade and for a couple hours afterward.  So, what color eyes would these darkeyed Knights Radiant have if they had a child with a lighteyed mate - lighteyed or heterochromatic?  Do the actual genes change so that your Knight Radiant passes on eye color as though he/she is lighteyed?  That would seem to be what Hoid is suggesting, but that seems a little odd as Kaladin's default state is darkeyed.  Would it matter if the child was conceived when said Knight Radiant was in lighteyed or darkeyed form?  There may be something definitive on this, but I couldn't find it, so if anyone has any information that would be greatly appreciated!

Quote

Isilel

Or, and another thing—what happens if a lighteyed child is born to darkeyes or even slaves? Which should happen often enough, given that male nobles seem rather promiscuous. Anyway, are such people automatically of tenth dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

The situation is very much taken into account in these sorts of cases. Normally—if there is such a thing as normal with this—one question that's going to come up is are they heterochromatic. Because you can end up with one eye of each color, both eyes light, or both eyes dark. That's going to influence it a lot, what happens here. Do you have any heirs? Was your child born lighteyed? This sort of thing is treated the same way that a lot of societies treated illegitimate children. The question of, do I need this person as an heir? Are they born darkeyed? Can I shuffle them off somewhere? Set them up, declare them to be this certain rank. Are you high enough rank to do that? Are you tenth dahn yourself? What happens with all of these things? There's no single answer to that. The most common thing that's probably going to happen is that they are born heterochromatic. Then you're in this weird place where you're probably declared to be tenth dahn, but you may have way more power and authority than that if one parent is of a very high dahn, just as a bastard child in a royal line would be treated in our world.

 

[thegatorgirl00]

Keep in mind that Kaladin, our darkeyed KR, is only at the third ideal. It's possible that as he progresses his eyes change more, with a permanent change at the fifth ideal when the bond is at its strongest. 

[Willow]

1 hour ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

Keep in mind that Kaladin, our darkeyed KR, is only at the third ideal. It's possible that as he progresses his eyes change more, with a permanent change at the fifth ideal when the bond is at its strongest.

I had the same feeling, that his eye colour is a representation of his bond with Syl, and as that grows stronger, his eyes will stay light for longer and longer. As Captain Ico says, at the 5th ideal, it will be very hard to break their bond, and Kaladin's eye colour will probably be permanent.

[Dreamstorm]

1 hour ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

Keep in mind that Kaladin, our darkeyed KR, is only at the third ideal. It's possible that as he progresses his eyes change more, with a permanent change at the fifth ideal when the bond is at its strongest. 

Yeah, all of our darkeyed Radiants (there's more than just Kaladin) are level three or less (the only ones above that are Shallan and possibly Jasnah), but (i) it seems as though it is often hard to progress beyond three (e.g. that library note about the windrunner not wanted to say his fourth oath), so our gene pool to reproduce lighteyes seems like it would be not the largest and (ii) in any given Radiant population, there would be a mixture of levels, and I imagine a mixture of relationships (level 2 with level 3, level 3 with level 5, etc.), and if not all Radiants bred true for lighteyes, I'd imagine we'd have far more heterochromatic individuals.  If Hoid is saying Radiants led to lighteyes (which I don't believe we know for certain), I imagine all Radiants would pass along the lighteyed gene, and possibly even that the lighteyed Radiant gene would dominate any non-Radiant dark-eyed gene.  Otherwise I don't know why we'd have such a large and consistent (i.e. non-heterochromatic) lighteyed population.

[Ailvara]

We need to add to the mix also descendants of the people who claimed Shardblades post-Recreance.