Ben's Padawan Braid?

What happened to it? Does he still have it?

I only ask because Traviss introduced it in Bloodlines and Allston confirmed it wasn't a continuity error by discussing it explicitly in Exile, but then in Sacrifice there's no mention of it.

Which wouldn't be at all strange if it weren't for the fact that Ben's hair does get discussed, specifically in terms of it being memorable as it's red. If he has to dye his hair brown so avoid being remembered, surely a padawan braid - a really unusual hairsyle specifically associated with Jedi - ought to be an issue? Even if most people have no idea the braid is associated with male, human Jedi padawans, it's still pretty darned memorable.

And you'd think if Ben got rid of it, either due to the necessity of the mission or due to disillusionment with Jacen, that would be worthy of a mention, considering the significance it seems to have to Ben? And considering we got a good paragraph of how simply dyeing his hair made him feel?

Ah well. Perhaps Inferno will answer my burning (hur hur) question. If my copy ever arrives...

 

Ben getting a buzz cut and Padawan braid made me irrationally angry, so I really hope he hasn't cut his hair since Exile and that it's getting shaggy again.

 

i know that, at one point, some of what looked like early art work for fury came out and it looked like ben may still have had his braid, but, on the offical one, its either gone or you cant tell

 

Cool - any chance of a link? I think I missed that...

 

If Fury's cover is anything to go by, he hasn't got shaggy hair again. Talking of him dying his hair, is it mentioned that he returns it to its previous flame red colour or could that be an explanation to Fury's cover not showing him in all his red headed glory?

The fate of the braid however remains unclear, it may (or may not) play a pivotol role in Inferno however.

 

Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, yes, Sacrifice says that he washes out the dye and returns to being a redhead.

I really don't know why they chose the lighting they did in Sacrifice, but I think it's the blue lighting that's unredding his hair rather than an actual change in colour. Take a blue LED and shine it on something red and it really does come out looking kind of dark brownish.

But still it looks wrong which is a shame because I like his features otherwise.

 

It is correct, the dye goes of in Sacrifice. And he would have probably washed his hair a couple of times before Fury...

That still doesn't explain the braid, which is something I have been wondering myself ever since I read the part about Gejjen's assassination.

 

Okay thanks

Yep I agree, while Fury's cover is far from a bad book cover, especially for Star Wars, it could have been so much better. I guess i feel that about Revelation's as well.

Could he have pinned up his braid, or otherwise hidden it without disposing of it? Maybe he just unbraided it and looked silly(ier?) for a while?

 

Interesting note about the hair dye... did it bother anyone that Ben uses hair dye that is applied in a very Earthy way and yet when Corran dyed his hair in I, Jedi it was through use of pills that caused his hair to change color biologically or whatever?

 

And in The Crystal Star Leia uses "colour crawlers" or something - buglike things that colour her hair as they crawl down it. Very Vong, in retrospect. Also it's been so long since my reading of that book, I may be misremembering, but I'm fairly certain I'm correct.

 

Different dyes available for different uses; Corran needed it for a long time, while Ben needed it to wash out after a day or so.

 

I'm not even sure how taking a pill to change hair color would actually work, because, you see, once the growing hair has extended past the hair follicle, no internal bodily processes can act on it. There's no vascular system in the shaft of a human hair. How could the dye possibly get to the tip of the hair?

It can't. Taking a pill to change hair color would at most give you different colored 'roots' that probably would not be noticable for at least two weeks. And that would have to be a very, very long acting agent that's lingering in your body for a long, long time if only one pill is required.

So for Corran to change his hair color by this method, he'd have to shave his head. Then in a month, he'd have 1/2 to 1 inch of the new color of hair. That's the usual rate of growth. The color of that hair wouldn't change once it grew out of the follicle so he'd have to cut it off to change back to his normal color.

Entirely possible, but not very fast to achieve and likely require daily doses of the pill... unless the pill contained agents that changed the genetic expression of the melanin producing cells in the hair follicle. Then reversing the change becomes another nightmare.

Leia's 'worms' and Ben's old fashion temporary rinse are far more practical.

 

Corran also put a dying agent on his hair.

 

Because he's worth it.