Ysanne Isard's eyes

[Peregrin Toker]

DISCLAIMER:
Not to be an idiot, but I've never read the X-Wing trilogy, which might harbour an explanation for this, but...

Why is Isard's left eye red instead of blue?? Is it some sort of birth defect, does she suffer from some bizarre eye disease, or did she just use contact lenses to achieve this appearance??

[Luke Starkiller]

I don't recall there ever being an explanation, it simply is. I would guess it is natural though, a birth defect. Is that even possible though? It would indicate that the genetic makeup of her eyes are different and that seems well...absurd.

[Kuja]

Never explained, although there are hints that they are natually that way.

Isard's not the only one with multicolored eyes. Gariel Capistan, from Truce at Bakura, has one gray eye and one green.

[Peregrin Toker]

Isard's not the only one with multicolored eyes. Gariel Capistan, from Truce at Bakura, has one gray eye and one green.

That's more explainable, as both of Gariel's eye colours occur in real life. (although not on the same person!!)

However, it might be possible that the SW galaxy is home to some eye diseases which causes affected eyes to become red.

[Patrick Ogaard]

In normal humans, the combination of two eye colors, usually one blue and one brown, is rare but it exists. (It's also a fairly common feature of some breeds of sled dogs.) Alexander the Great was rumored to have two different color eyes.

The one red eye, combined with a blue counterpart, would be most easily explained by some minor genetic/developmental glitch that prevented the formation of pigments in the red eye. Thus, the unpigmented eye would often look pink or red, though sometimes very pale blue, depending on the light conditions.

If that is the case, though, that would mean that the lady is color blind on one side and can not properly focus on objects using her red eye. Someone like that would make an absolutely terrible marksman.

[Luke Starkiller]

A question from the Biology ignorant here: How does a lack of pigment in the iris make her colourblind?

[Patrick Ogaard]

A question from the Biology ignorant here: How does a lack of pigment in the iris make her colourblind?

Color vision depends on pigments in the cones in the retina. The eyes of people with extreme albinism lack those pigments, and thus only the cones, responsible for seeing in black and white, work properly. For maximum visual acuity, the human eye has only cones and no rods in that portion of the retina that is in sharpest focus. The eye of someone with total color blindness has a visual hole right in the center.

For example, a completely color blind person trying to catch a baseball would naturally try to focus on the ball, at which point the ball disappears and the brain edits in a piece of the surrounding scenery to plug the visual hole. End result: the catcher misses or gets beaned.

Partial albinism would also explain the white streak of hair that I seem to recall seeing in an illustration. It's not inherently goofier than the fact that some women entirely lack sweat glands and others are missing sweat glands over various portions of their bodies.

[Kuja]

The one red eye, combined with a blue counterpart, would be most easily explained by some minor genetic/developmental glitch that prevented the formation of pigments in the red eye. Thus, the unpigmented eye would often look pink or red, though sometimes very pale blue, depending on the light conditions.

If that is the case, though, that would mean that the lady is color blind on one side and can not properly focus on objects using her red eye. Someone like that would make an absolutely terrible marksman.

I doubt this is the case. Her red eye is describes as "molten red, with firey gold highlights." Not much like an albino red eye.

Partial albinism would also explain the white streak of hair that I seem to recall seeing in an illustration.

Her sidelocks are white, but I have the feeling they're dyed. They're too even to be natural.

[Patrick Ogaard]

The one red eye, combined with a blue counterpart, would be most easily explained by some minor genetic/developmental glitch that prevented the formation of pigments in the red eye. Thus, the unpigmented eye would often look pink or red, though sometimes very pale blue, depending on the light conditions.

If that is the case, though, that would mean that the lady is color blind on one side and can not properly focus on objects using her red eye. Someone like that would make an absolutely terrible marksman.

I doubt this is the case. Her red eye is describes as "molten red, with firey gold highlights." Not much like an albino red eye.

Partial albinism would also explain the white streak of hair that I seem to recall seeing in an illustration.

Her sidelocks are white, but I have the feeling they're dyed. They're too even to be natural.

No problem. Partial albinism is just one possible explanation, and if it does not fit all the facts presented it's time to look for a different answer.

It's hardly inconceivable that a race of humans could have developed somewhere in the Star Wars galaxy, a race that finds exotic, divergent eye coloration to be sexy enough to give those with that feature a major reproductive advantage. Isard would then be a member of that race or at least have the feature as part of her genetic heritage, possibly from a distant ancestor centuries dead.

The Star Wars galaxy probably has thousands of human-populated worlds that were isolated for millenia, long enough to develop distinctive racial types. Some of those features would survive and occasionally crop up again even after centuries of assimilation into general galactic society.

[Peregrin Toker]

Her sidelocks are white, but I have the feeling they're dyed. They're too even to be natural.

I believe the same, as I know a girl who has dark brown hair but has artificially bleached a streak of it.

[Dalton]

I would think it'd be achieved through contact lenses, if not for one thing: (major spoiler):

I think it was in Isard's Revenge where we find out she has a clone - identical, as I recall, right down to the eyes...

I don't know, though. Perhaps a little bit of alien DNA, genetic tweaking or exotic disease did it to her - but I'm under heavy impression that it's genetic.

[Boba Fett]

In normal humans, the combination of two eye colors, usually one blue and one brown, is rare but it exists. (It's also a fairly common feature of some breeds of sled dogs.) Alexander the Great was rumored to have two different color eyes.

The one red eye, combined with a blue counterpart, would be most easily explained by some minor genetic/developmental glitch that prevented the formation of pigments in the red eye. Thus, the unpigmented eye would often look pink or red, though sometimes very pale blue, depending on the light conditions.

If that is the case, though, that would mean that the lady is color blind on one side and can not properly focus on objects using her red eye. Someone like that would make an absolutely terrible marksman.

That's true!

Back in my school the coach has one brown and one blueish-green eye.

That was strange to look at...

[Peregrin Toker]

I don't know, though. Perhaps a little bit of alien DNA, genetic tweaking or exotic disease did it to her - but I'm under heavy impression that it's genetic.

The alien DNA sounds unlikely - almost as weird as when I mentioned human-Kaminoan crossbreeds.

I now settle that it's probably some sort of genetic defect.

[Bartman]

Her sidelocks are white, but I have the feeling they're dyed. They're too even to be natural.

I believe the same, as I know a girl who has dark brown hair but has artificially bleached a streak of it.

Not necessarily. My brother has a patch of scalp where his hair only grows shock white. The rest of his is dark brown. Because of its location it left a single sharply deliniated stripe down the side of his hair. So it is possible, however unlikely, for it to be natural.

[Lord Pounder]

Maybe something she did to herself cosmeticaly that was done via DNA manipulation what stayed when she was cloned.

[TrekWarsie]

I think that some form of radioactivity caused Isard's one eye to be red. I don't think that they say this directly, but I do remember mention of it being radioactively bloodshot or something like that.

[Peregrin Toker]

Maybe something she did to herself cosmeticaly that was done via DNA manipulation what stayed when she was cloned.

Would that really be worth it??

[Lord Pounder]

Maybe something she did to herself cosmeticaly that was done via DNA manipulation what stayed when she was cloned.

Would that really be worth it??

She was a headcase and madly in love with the Emperor. Maybe it was something he asker her to do.

[Batman]

Dalton- since cloning in SW seems to include mind as well as body sometimes (as in this case-same memories, same personality), shouldn't whatever
reason Isard had for wearing contact lense(s) apply to the clone too?

[Peregrin Toker]

Dalton- since cloning in SW seems to include mind as well as body sometimes (as in this case-same memories, same personality), shouldn't whatever
reason Isard had for wearing contact lense(s) apply to the clone too?

Perhaps, although it sounds a little odd that even the contact lense preferences of the original would be in a clone.

[Stormbringer]

Why is Isard's left eye red instead of blue?? Is it some sort of birth defect, does she suffer from some bizarre eye disease, or did she just use contact lenses to achieve this appearance??

It's most likely some minor genetic mutation. In galaxy that's produced much more remarkable mutations, and indeed very disticntive sub-species (I can't think of the proper term right now) like the Chiss, a red eye and some white locks in her hair are nothing.