[Phellim]

There's nothing unusual about having grey eyes to me - my dad has grey eyes with flecks of brown and green. Everyone else in my family has blue eyes, and brown is very common, so I find clear green eyes to be the most out of the ordinary.

[The Hound's Dad]

Blue and gray eyes are way overused, in my opinion. Practically all of David Gemmell's heroes are blue-eyed (Helikaon, Skilgannon ... okay maybe that's it :o). Seriously, it's always bright, bright blue eyes, or brooding gray.

Tenaka has violet eyes. The Rigante heroes have one green and one tawny gold, Serbitar the Albino has red eyes which turn green with medication, etc.
Maybe you've only read three or four Gemmell books in your life and are basing your opinion of Gemmell's entire career on them.:D

[KatG]

The Aiel are red and blonde headed but have brown skin. They adapted. :)Jordan likes to take cultures, including racially connected cultures and mix them up. Which is why the Aiel also do incorporate Amerindian cultural aspects, the Tinkers have things in common with the Jews, the Vatican is run by women, etc. It's actually one of the things I really like about his series, and Scott Bakker's series as well.

I think, as the fantasy fan base rapidly expands, as we are starting to get more non-white, non-European writers into the category market and not just the non-category market, and as the large group of authors searches for material, that the Nordic-Celtic body types are going to be less prevalent. They already are much less frequent in contemporary fantasy.